#as for my dad I wouldn’t say he’s crazy religious either but my parents got separated very early into my life | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lydias--stiles · 3 years

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“The simple act of being in love with you is enough for me.”

jiara | post-s2 | pining idiots | title: quote by Pacey from Dawson's Creek

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“Kie.”

“Hm?” The girl’s mop of curls obscured her face as she mumbled out some vowels, clearly still buzzed from the night before. An amused smile ticked up his lips and slapped her calf again. She sighed. “What?”

“Leggo,” he pushed, “we gotta get to Pope’s place.”

“Why?”

Even if everyone else would deny it, JJ swore Kie was as bad as he was: slow and fucking lethargic before eleven in the morning. Sure, she had better grades in school, but he wasn’t gonna give her more credit than that. Speaking of, “Helping him with that new scholarship, remember?”

The girl groaned and rolled over to face him, droopy eyes cracking open to scowl at him. She slept where he used to crash whenever his dad’s place became too much, but since the old man fucked off to Yucatán, he found peace in the quiet walls and cracked windows. Regardless, it was weird seeing her sprawled on this mattress, the boy almost able to envision himself beside her. A dangerous fantasy to linger on, so he pushed it aside and kept on trucking.

“C’mon, Kie.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered and sat upright. “How did you even get in the Château?”

JJ grinned and snagged a key chain from his shorts. “Spare key. Duh.”

She rolled her eyes, uttering, “John B’s stupid,” and then pushed him out the guest room, telling him she’d get ready. His mouth opened to make the joke if he couldn’t stay and watch, but the door slammed in his face and that was that.

Having a crush on Kiara was the freakiest thing ever. First of all, JJ and emotions didn’t mesh well — it only led to trouble, a perfect example being his dad and him with the most fucked up dynamic to boot. He preferred to not even think about the man, though one glance in the mirror often betrayed his mind and brought a rush of memories to the forefront, whether it was a shiner against his eye, or the fact that he resembled his father when he was young.

So yeah, he didn’t like anything ‘love’ related. It was stupid. It was more reckless than buying a jacuzzi or trying to steal a golden cross from a boat with dozens of armed men. Friendship, however, was easy. He told the Pogues just that: they were ‘it’ for him, he’d go through fire for them, through hell and fucking back.

But he didn’t think he’d actually die for them, which almost happened when he tried saving Kie on the Coastal Venture — to which she ended up saving him. (A vision illuminated by a golden sun, hovering over him. He’d never forget it.)

While he inspected the contents of the fridge, embarrassingly filled with only beer, eggs, milk and junk food, the door creaked open and revealed a dressed and less-wrecked Kiara. His gaze flicked up and down her frame, quick, and then averted it back to the fridge.

“You got no food, man.”

She chuckled. “I know. It’s not exactly The Wreck type of food…”

“You haven’t gone back?”

“Nope,” she replied, curt, and moved past him to shove a container of sausages aside to grab a bottle of almond milk. Even if she wasn’t with her parents, she still somehow kept up her ‘no dairy’ principles.

Also, Kiara was hella beautiful. He hadn’t let it register when she walked in, but it was true. Her soft-looking, shiny skin, sporting the prettiest smile in all of the OBX, and she was just hot. Especially when she propped herself on the kitchen counter, to which he settled beside her to not look at her legs.

“How many scholarships are there?” she asked. “Like, I’m obviously proud of him, but…”

“He told us last night,” JJ laughed. “You were that fucking high?”

She giggled, “Yeah! You were there, I was just on my ass.” And then, quieter, “And… I don’t know, I guess I’ve been kind of distracted.”

He perked up, surprised. Though the Pogues were family, openly talking about emotions when it wasn’t prompted by anything, remained rare. They were better at talking shit and smoking and napping on boats. Whatever, he took the bait.

“Why?”

She shook her head. “It’s stupid, JJ.”

“Kie, you’re talking to me,” he nudged her shoulder, “throw me a bone here. Is it Pope? You got the hots for our favourite nerd again?”

Taking a sip from the bottle, her brow quirked up as though that was the stupidest thing he ever said, and retorted with, “Why’re you always doing that?”

His hands raised instantly, defensive. “Doing what?”

“You’re always digging, like, when I was with Pope you got all weird.”

“I don’t dig.”

“You do.”

“I don’t. Kie, what’s up?” He kept it moving before she found the core of his problem, and bounced back to the original issue. “Before I start saying shit to Pope.”

She scoffed. “You're full of shit.”

“Oh, Kie,” he drawled with a smirk. “You can do better than that.”

Silence fell. He waited, fiddling with his fingers, and quietly hoped Pope wouldn't be too annoyed when they arrived late — then again, they were begrudgingly coined 'tortoise and tortoise' by the group anyway.

She placed the bottle back in the fridge and sent him a rueful smile, one he often saw her showing Sarah before they went aside and had a private talk. Their eyes locked and she finally spoke.

“Sometimes, I… I miss my parents. And it's like, I don't get how they don't just accept that I'm a Pogue, that I'm friends with you guys, you know? But I still miss them.” She looked down at her feet, crossing at the ankles like a little girl waiting to be reprimanded by the teacher. “I miss my dad's hugs.”

Instantly, his arm swung around her for a gentle side hug, a grateful smile pulling on her lips as she leaned into him. Both knew they should savour a moment like this, as hugging with a twitchy JJ and often irritated Kie happened once every blue moon.

Ignoring the guilty look in her eye — yeah, he didn't understand missing a paternal embrace, rather used to a blow in the stomach or a crude remark, but that didn't mean he lacked empathy — he resisted the urge to encourage her to reconnect with them. Knowing her, she'd just close up and glare at him for the rest of the day.

So no, he wasn't going to ask her. And no, she shouldn't feel guilty. P4L 'til the end, baby.

“Thanks, JJ,” she whispered.

He snickered and pushed her off. “You can't tell the guys I'm becoming soft, dude. Theyʼll give me so much shit for it.”

“They know you're soft,” she teased, “don't even try.”

“I'm tough,” he tried.

“Like Play-Doh.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled and motioned at the kitchen door. “Let's go, Carrera. Before John B and Sarah come back and act all married.”

Now that was fucking annoying. After John B and Sarah faked their death, they got married by a bandana strip and hadn't let that notion go after returning. Sure, there was that small blip when they were fighting the crazy religious chick, but that was old news.

John B made him swear he wouldn't tell a soul, but the guy waxed poetry about Sarah whenever they were drunk and alone. It was hilariously sad. Another man lost to a girl.

(“She wants a beach wedding,” JB sighed a couple nights ago. “Nice, right?”

“I– yeah, I really don't care about this, man.”)

JJ knew that when he got a girlfriend (Kiara unintentionally but also very intentionally crossed his mind), he'd act normal. No mushy shit. No poetry. Definitely no creepy Romeo and Juliet references thrown in as if that shouldn't freak the Pogues out. Their behaviour better not be infectious.

Expectedly, Pope's scowl reached them all the way from the car, Kie and JJ sharing a sheepish look before stepping out.

“Gee, guys,” the boy deadpanned, “thanks for making haste. Really appreciate it.”

JJ's wide grin hoped to salvage it. Slapping his friend on the shoulder, he pushed past him and yelled, “Kie was dead, dude!”

Pope grimaced. “Don't joke about that.”

He watched as Kie stopped beside Pope with an apologetic expression, telling him she overslept and was sorry and that he knew how JJ was — “Always joking.”

His chapped lips pursed, a familiar punch hitting his chest with him then pretending it didn't hurt. She always did this. Even if she claimed she didn't, she always took Pope's side. Relationship or not. JJ knew she didn't owe him her 'side', but it'd be a nice change of pace either way.

Whatever. This wasn't the JJ Pining For Kiara Show. Pope needed their help.

A state-wide scholarship competition gave Pope another shot at winning a huge chunk of money (no gold type of rich though) and getting his ass out of OBX, hopefully launching himself into some fancy college when he revealed to be of Denmark Tanny's lineage. Those hibrow assholes loved a good sob story.

All Pope had to do was score hella high on some test — easy — and impress the panel — not so easy — and he'd be the luckiest Pogue of all.

But that did mean Kie and him had to sit on his creaky bed with a freaky amount of flashcards while a stressed out Pope paced around his room. He was pretty sure the floor was eroding.

Also, he had no fucking clue what any of the flashcards meant. Did Pope's smarts really attracted Kie that much? Was it the brain? Brain over brawl? But where was the fun in that? JJ loved Pope to death, but the guy had to be fully medicated or high before his brain shut off and he acted carefree.

“Pope, do you even know what this all means?” Kie bemoaned, flipping the cards around.

“You got a dictionary somewhere?” added JJ, squinting at the word aberration. It sounded like some weird disease. He showed him the word.

Pope dismissed it. “It means: different from the norm.”

“Dude, why not write that then?”

“Because they want aberration.”

He didn't get it. “No one uses it though.”

“JJ, that's just the way it is,” Pope pressed.

“Guys, stop,” Kiara interrupted. “But honestly Pope, it's so, like, elitist. None of these questions are important to the world, or the well-being of the people.”

“Sorry, Kiara, but unfortunately not everyone cares that much,” he sighed. JJ could tell they were starting to annoy their friend, their tortoise bullshit bleeding through.

Her nose scrunched up, peeved. “Right. Because there's a planet B just waiting to be used by us. Duh.”

“Ooh,” JJ drawled, nudging her arm. “Are there donkeys shitting money?”

Kie laughed. “Yes. All beaches, clean air, no Kooks, and money-shitting donkeys.”

“Nah, I want it to be hella Kooky,” he joked, gesturing wildly. “I want a yacht and tell people someone else does my laundry, or something.”

“You don't even do your laundry anyway,” she bounced back with a roll of the eye. “I know you force John B.”

“He's already playing House with Sarah, might as well wash my underwear, too.”

Oh, man. He could do this all day. Talking shit with Kiara went as smooth as fishing for him. Each time he thought he one-upped her, she threw more on top and kept it going 'til neither knew what the point even was anymore. Sarah dubbed it as 'banter' which he believed was a rich way of saying 'talking smack.'

“I don't believe you even know how to do it,” she challenged.

JJ huffed and crossed his arms. “I can do it.”

A smirk bloomed on her lips as she kept jabbing. “It's kinda cute, how you need John B to be your mom.”

“I don't.”

“You literally said it five seconds ago.”

“Guys,” Pope groaned, followed by an exhausted sigh eerily similar to Heyward. “Can we get back to the flashcards?”

Kie and JJ were too far into their discussion though, jabbing at each other at rapid speed. Then she threw her cards at him and all bets were off. He yelled she should make a goal with her hands, to which he folded up a flashcard and shot it straight between her fingers.

And that was when Pope kicked them out. JJ presumed it was a victory they lasted as long as they did. Kie kept apologising over her shoulder, prompting Pope to ask Cleo for help instead.

For a beat, they were silent stepping out of his place and back into the car. JJ felt a stab of guilt for fucking up Pope's study time, but it was hard to dial his brain to school when his friends surrounded him. Just when he wanted to ask if she felt bad too, she went off about the climate — as usual.

“It's so dumb how there were no questions about the environment or human rights or, or anything like that! It's all science and lit, like, there's more to life than fucking chemistry formulas!”

“I skipped those cards. Didn't get them.”

“It's so fucked,” she hummed. “And I'm obviously glad that you drove to the Château to wake me up and all—”

“Yeah?”

“—but I really wish those questions would matter. We almost died, JJ!”

“No, shit,” he grumbled, quickly starting to lose his patience with the ranting girl. She didn't even realise what the fuck she was saying anymore — what she did to his heart, skipping like some elemtary school girl on the playground, when she slipped some nice words in.

“Died!” she pressed. “Why even care about stuff like that?”

“Fucks sake, Kie—”

“And I didn't want to say it, but did you see how many flashcards there were? How many trees were cut for that? It's like, hello, Quizlet exists!”

“Kie, shut up!” he yelled.

Her mouth fell slack, gobsmacked, gawking at him like his interruption was a slap in the face.

Gesturing wildly with one hand, he exclaimed, “You know, you can just go on and on and I hear you talking and it's like, yeah, we get it, Mother Earth needs to be saved, we're fucked, you don't gotta repeat it twenty-four seven.”

“What the hell, JJ!”

“You have an opinion about everything! A man gets tired!”

“A man?” She scoffed. “You're not even eighteen.”

“Point is you don't gotta act all preachy all the time.” He turned the corner, hands tightening around the steering wheel.

Kie scowled. “Where is this coming from? I'm not preachy, I'm educating you.”

Now that was just fucking with his head. Incredulous, he exclaimed, “You think I don't listen? Kie, I'm the only one that does. JB is on Planet Sarah all the damn time and Pope only did shit 'cause—"

"That!” she yelled, throwing her hands up with frustration. “That's what I mean! You're doing it again! You dig!”

“What?!”

“Every time you mention Pope and I, you dig. You needle!” Twisting in her seat, his gaze flickered to catch her disgruntled expression. “Why do you do that? It's so… sus.”

JJ laughed. “Sus?”

“You don't ask John B about Sarah.”

“'Cause they're fucking obvious.”

“Still,” she pressed. “Did I do something to piss you off? Is that it? Is it me constantly asking you to recycle and yet — shocker! — you never do?!”

“Fucking God,” he grumbled under his breath.

With frazzled thoughts and shaking hands, adrenaline coursed through him as he swerved to the side of the road and stopped the car. If he fought with Kie any longer to this degree of fuckery, they were gonna crash.

She frowned. “What're you doing?”

“You, Carrera, are driving me insane,” he deadpanned, matter-of-fact. Then he slammed the door open and stepped out, desperate to catch his breath.

In the back of his mind, he had an inkling as to why he was so keyed up. Kiara would call him a Neandethal, but fuck it, here was the truth: Kiara was hot as hell when she argued with him.

Following his lead, she got out, her sneakers stomping against the asphalt. The sun steeped low on the horizon, the light hitting the hood and reflecting onto her face; her curls shifting from dark brown to gold. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was so fucked. He almost missed the start of her spiel, too enthralled.

“I'm driving you insane? I'm always getting you out of trouble, because you never think things through! You never see the bigger picture!”

He rolled his eyes. “Bigger picture? The only thing I see, Kie, is you going on about nature. That easy.” And then, before he could stop himself, he spewed out, “And you don't have to do that.”

“What?”

“Getting me out of trouble,” he said, pursing his lips. “That's not your responsibility.”

“Right. Duh. Because after everything we've been through, I can't care about you,” she exclaimed, face twisting up in pure fury. She got in his space, shoving his shoulder, but when he didn't budge, it only seemed to anger her more.

JJ didn't know what was going on anymore. Why was she so mad? Even if she didn't want to admit it, he was telling the truth. Of course all the Pogues had each other's back, but Kiara doted over him more than was necessary. The constant checking of injuries, limiting his day drinking, all that. Like he was some child!

He leaned in and mumbled, “I can take care of myself.”

Kie smirked. “Then do your own laundry.”

It happened naturally. One second he stared at her furious eyes and thought about how much he loved arguing with her despite the bullshit, the next his fingers curled into her hair and pulled her in a fierce kiss.

At first, her hands laid frozen on his shoulders, surprised, but the moment he realised his impulsive decision was a mistake, they slid around his neck and kept him close.

JJ sighed in relief and deepened the kiss he'd been craving ever since they were fourteen and Kie went from gangly to statuesque. Her lips were warm and soft and her hands were soft and she hadn't let go and holy shit — he was kissing Kiara Carrera.

The kiss lessened when her mouth quirked into a smile, their grins pressing flush together, and JJ shivered from delight. Oh, man. He was gone.

“You drive me damn crazy, Kie,” he murmured, voice dropped to an undeniably soft tone.

She bit back her silly grin and whispered, “Good.”

Taking a deep breath, he tried focusing up, but all he could do was stare at her face. A shy hand grabbed hers.

He had to get it out of the way now, or else he'd kick himself later. “I'm… really into you. I'm– oh, fuck, uh–”

“Maybe we can talk about it not on the side of the road?” she suggested, amused.

JJ grinned, elated (What was the word he saw on the flashcards? Exalted!), and kissed her again, because he could.

On the ride back to the Château, he confessed to seeing her in a different light for years, while she couldn't really pinpoint a time or moment, that it just happened. It didn't matter, though he was in utter disbelief that he and Kie were having this conversation. No jokes, no BS, all seriousness. Tomorrow, he'd wake up and it wouldn't be some sick dream. Kie liked him back.

JJ was sure he'd doubt himself or overthink it in the future, but today, he'd bask in the certainty and the major ego boost.

“Okay, but did you ever legit like Pope then?”

A sheepish smile crawled up her cheeks as her gaze averted to the window. “I thought I did. But we have, like, no chemistry, so…” She shook her head. “I was confused.”

“That's okay,” he uttered. He couldn't give her shit for it. Even if he did torture himself with their short-lived relationship, he understood.

How would he react though? John B and Sarah wouldn't care, or Cleo, but Pope? He didn't want one of his brothers hating him. Being iced out by the guy fucking sucked, as it meant he was truly hurt and therefore meant JJ truly fucked up. He couldn't handle disappointing him.

Kie read his mind. “He'll be fine with it.”

“I dunno, man…”

“He will,” she repeated. “We're Pogues. We've all narrowly survived death. And besides…” She turned back to him with a secretive grin. “I think he has a thing for Cleo.”

Whoa. He did not see that coming. His brows shot up to his hairline, mentally kicking himself for being so focused on Kie that he didn't even notice the shift of interest between Pope and Cleo. They made sense, too. Know-it-all's, but well-meaning, and only speaking when needed.

If the idea didn't relief him of worries, he'd be concerned as to why they were all seamlessly coupled up like in some 90s sitcom Big John had on VHS.

“What a player,” he joked.

“Tell me about it.”

They arrived at the house, the Twinkie and Sarah's bike sprawled on the overgrown front lawn. JJ frowned. He had hoped to have some alone time with Kie, not to jump her bones and fulfill a regular dream of his, but to talk. To figure it out. He wanted to do this right. Because after everything, they deserved to have good things, to start on a high note — he deserved it.

Kie noticed it, too. Puckering her lips on contemplation, her gaze trailed from him to the rest of the property, ending on the trusty ol' hammock. She jabbed her thumb at it.

“Let's sit there.”

Normally, they laid on opposite ends on the hammock, if they even shared one to begin with. But now, she pressed herself right beside him and he felt like heaven dropped down on them in the best way possible. He suddenly understood what John B was lamenting about — the company, intimacy, the ease. Nerves rippled through his body like a summer storm, but he figured that was what it cost to lose one's mind over a girl.

He didn't know what to say, so Kiara spoke instead.

“I don't want us, the way we are around each other, to change, you know?” she said. “Like, I don't want you to think you have to act like some mellow ass boyfriend all of a sudden.”

He smirked. “Who said anything about boyfriend?”

“Bye.”

“Hey, wait,” he grinned, latching onto her arm before she pushed herself out. “C'mon, Kie.”

Her nose scrunched up. “I don't do this usually, okay?”

“You think I do?” he asked. His hand softly slid down to wrap around hers, to which she hooked their fingers together. Okay. Wow. It felt so damn nice that it propelled him to say, “I wanna be your boyfriend, Kie.”

The girl smiled and then surprised him by leaning in herself, pressing a gentle kiss on his chapped lips. It was overwhelming having her instigate it, his gut twisting up in excitement like when he was about to backflip from a boat, or cliff dive, or something similar like that.

He let go of her hand to cup her cheeks, only to whisper, “That's a yes, yeah? Gotta get a yes.”

“Yes, JJ,” she uttered back. “Here's to not fucking this up.”

“Cheers, baby.”

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#jiara #outer banks #obx #obx fanfiction #otp: cause i'll come #It's messy but in a cute way

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studiobeebo · 3 years

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~♡ Shio, Shoyu, Miso ♡~ [1/?]

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Female (she/her) Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 1.9K

Genre: y’all already know it’s just gonna be fluff

A/N: so i made a lil thing sorta based off this cute thing i saw on reddit. idk what i’m doing pls don’t ask.

reblogs are greatly appreciated as they are the main way to get my works around so please consider doing so if you like it! enjoy!

When you had first met Megumi, you honestly didn’t think much of him.

Now, that’s not to say you didn’t find him attractive, but a cute guy around your age coming into the shop with a few of his friends just really wasn’t something very noteworthy in your life. You had only been helping your parents around your family owned ramen shop for about a year or so, but that was long enough to know that the general demographic was people who wanted a tasty, warm meal without having to blow too much money. Needless to say, teenagers fit that demographic fairly well.

Your shop was well known in the area, but it was by no means fancy. In fact the building was a tad bit run down, you didn’t even have any decorations or anything hanging up on the walls and the entirety of it only seated maybe thirty people, so it was clear people didn’t frequent the place because of the ambiance. No, the reason you always seemed to have a steady stream of customers was that the food was simply so good that despite the lack of an enticing atmosphere or even many food options, people couldn’t help but be drawn to it. That mashed together with your friendly family and the decent prices made for a perfect little neighborhood place to eat. So again, when a group of three slightly noisy teenagers sat themselves down at one of the bar tables on the far side of the seating area, you didn’t really have any reason to bat an eye.

“Hey welcome guys!” You put on your usual cheery customer service voice as you filled their glasses with ice water, trying not to lean into any of their personal spaces. “Your options are salt, soy, or miso ramen, with or without beef and or pork. Do you need some time to think about it or do you think you’re ready to order now?”

Like you said, there weren’t many options.

“Oh, can I get soy?! Or maybe- hm, maybe I’ll have miso…”

“You’re tasteless, miso is the worst kind.”

“I bet you’ve never even tried it, Kugisaki!”

“They’re going to need a minute to think. That bit’s hard for them.”

The taller boy with dark hair and an apparently permanent scowl on his face groaned out in annoyance, his eyes only meeting yours for a moment before he turned to yell at the other two to lower their voices. You nodded with a smile, leaving them to decide and chuckling to yourself as you moved on to ask the customers at the other tables if they were doing ok.

“Ok! Excuse me- er....crap, what was her name again Fushiguro?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know, usually you remember to ask the important stuff like that!”

The not-so-subtle arguing was enough to catch your attention as you made your way back over to the trio, your smile being a bit more genuine this time around in response to their odd yet funny dynamic.

“It’s (Y/N), sorry about that guys! So, what can I get for ya?”

The three of them listed off their orders and after you repeated them back for confirmation, you gave them a quick thumbs up before going back to the kitchen to put their orders in with your dad. Within a moment of your absence, Itadori was turning to Fushiguro with that excited puppy look that adorned his face almost 24/7.

“She’s kind of pretty, don’t you think?”

Fushiguro’s eye twitched, but luckily Kugisaki was quick to butt in with an argument of ‘How come you’re only asking him what he thinks, huh?!’. It was a simple question, but what annoyed him was the added use of ‘kind of’. Itadori was extremely simple, so the thought that he only thought you were ‘kind of’ pretty irritated him because how could Fushiguro be here doing a double take just to get a better look at your features every time you spoke to them while Itadori just barely took note of it? It was uncharacteristic, but he couldn’t disagree. He could tell you definitely had a slight air of putting on a cheery showiness for the sake of good customer service, but either way, you were...cute, and he was insistent on leaving it at that without bothering to admit to it out loud.

“I hope you both know you’re paying for yourselves.” He interrupted, hoping their argument had moved on from their waitress so that he wouldn’t be asked about his thoughts on you again.

“Eh?! Since when were you so cheap!”

“Ok guys!”

The three of them jumped slightly at the sound of your voice, simultaneously turning to see you holding up a tray with three steaming bowls of ramen sat atop of it.

“Soy with beef, soy with pork..” You listed off while setting the bowls in front of the copper haired girl and the smiley boy respectively, “And miso with no topping.” You finished, eyes flicking up to meet the dark haired boys as you placed the final bowl in front of him. It was only for a moment, but you could have sworn your saw a speckle of pink dust his cheeks before he looked away from you with a short “Thanks.”.

“Mhm, no problem.” You hummed out, scanning your eyes around the restaurant to see if you were immediately needed elsewhere before deciding to continue and indulge your interest in the three, or more specifically, your interest in the cute boy with the black hair. “So... you guys are from that traditional religious high school, right?”

The pink haired one’s eyes lit up as he struggled to finish the noodles he was halfway through slurping up so that he could speak.

“Yeah, yeah! I guess our uniforms are a giveaway..”

You laughed, leaning your back against the empty seat that sat next to them at the bar. As if you needed any further confirmation, you could tell he was the energetic extrovert of the group.

“Yeah, you don’t really see many of them around. Though I’ve heard it’s kind of a hard school to get into.”

“Pfft, maybe for normal people, it was no sweat for us.” There was that copper haired girl again with a confident look on her face as she too stopped eating to interject, though you hardly took what she said in a bad way as she didn’t seem to mean any harm from it.

“That so? Guess I’ll have to call you guys next time I’m having trouble with my classes, I swear I can barely manage the workload I get.”

“Haha I feel that, I actually started school elsewhere but I just transferred a few months ago! Oh- I’m Itadori by the way! This is Kugisaki, and Fushiguro’s the sulking rude one!”

“Hey.” Fushiguro finally stopped his eavesdropping to join in, sending a glare Itadori’s way, but he just seemed to brush it off as if he’d been under his friends' scrutiny plenty of times before. After a moment though he turned back to you, though as much as he wanted to say something to you, he didn’t really know what to say. He wasn’t like Itadori or Kugisaki who could just strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere, but while he turned over his conversational options in his head, you pushed away from where you had previously been leaning and gave a sheepish, apologetic smile that easily brought his attention away from his thoughts.

“No no you’re good- Sorry, I should be leavin’ you guys to eat anyway. Just call me over when you’re ready to pay or if you need anything, alright?” You spoke, your words being directed more towards who you now knew as ‘Fushiguro’, however it was his two friends who responded with an affirmation before going back to their meals.

Once again you were off to tend to other tables and do the other tidbits of your job, though this time your head was filled with questions galore. Did Jujutsu Tech students come into town often, or was this some special outing? What grades were the three of them in? And most importantly, you wondered if they would ever be coming back? You weren’t one to get flustered or form crushes easily, but you had to admit you were a bit taken by Fushiguro. He was cute, sure, but he had a cool, mature air about him that could make anyone be left wanting to know more about him, especially because most of the conversation you did have was with his friends and not him. However once again your mental flow was interrupted by Itadori waving you over, barely waiting for you to make your way by their side to start speaking while the three of them handed over their respective payments.

“That was crazy good, (Y/N), we’ll have to come by some time again if that’s ok!”

“It’s not like she’s the one making it, Itadori.”

“You realize that a restaurant’s whole goal is to get people to come back, right? Of course it’s ‘ok’..”

Despite Fushiguro’s matter-of-fact statement, his eyes still shifted to yours as if he secretly wanted to know if you wanted them to come back as well and the smile you gave him in return only solidified the fact that he wanted to return either way. Though of course he boiled that down to ‘The service was good and so was the food’, but part of him knew that was bullshit.

“I’d love to see you guys around again!” You said, collecting up their empty bowls as you spoke. “I work most weekends and some days after class so you should try to stop in while I’m here.”

“Hell yeah!” Itadori exclaimed as the three of them got up from their seats one after the other, Kugisaki and Itadori saying their goodbye’s as they pardoned their way through the tables and other customers to leave, though Fushiguro stayed behind for a moment, a hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he spoke.

“...Sorry about them, it’s practically like wrangling preschoolers whenever we aren’t on du- er, in class.”

He knew the apology wasn’t necessary and that you didn’t seem all that bothered by either of his friends’ lively personalities, but he found himself feeling a bit...left out in the fact that he had yet to really speak to you. Why he even felt compelled to speak to you in the first place was a mystery, but he figured that was one question that didn’t really need an answer for right now.

“Oh, it’s no problem.” You laughed, giving another smile as you tried your hardest to not act as fidgety as you were feeling on the inside. “I mean- I’ve got friends like that too so I-“

“Excuse me?”

A polite voice cut you off halfway through your sentence and you turned to see an older woman waving you over, clearly not wanting to be rude but wanting your attention nevertheless.

“Sorry-“

“You’re fine!” You sputtered out, maybe a bit too excited as you slowly backed away from him, “I’ll see you around if you guys stop by again, huh, Fushiguro?”

His eyes widened slightly, a bit surprised by that hopeful tone to your voice before he nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips and a bit of slightly shameful excitement tugging at his heart.

“Yeah, we’ll- I’ll see you around.”

#im still soft for megumi #can you tell i dont outline or Ever Know Where I'm Going With My Words #haha a.d.d. gang wya #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #megumi fushiguro #megumi fushiguro x reader #also dont ask me when the next part will be #because I Never Know

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strawbeebo · 3 years

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~♡ Shio, Shoyu, Miso ♡~ [1/3]

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Fem! (She/Her) Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 1.9K

Genre: Fluff

PART 2 | PART 3

When you had first met Megumi, you honestly didn’t think much of him.

Like you said, there weren’t many options.

“Oh, can I get soy?! Or maybe- hm, maybe I’ll have miso…”

“You’re tasteless, miso is the worst kind.”

“I bet you’ve never even tried it, Kugisaki!”

“They’re going to need a minute to think. That bit’s hard for them.”

“Ok! Excuse me- er….crap, what was her name again Fushiguro?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I don’t know, usually you remember to ask the important stuff like that!”

“It’s (Y/N), sorry about that guys! So, what can I get for ya?”

“She’s kind of pretty, don’t you think?”

Fushiguro’s eye twitched, but luckily Kugisaki was quick to butt in with an argument of ‘How come you’re only asking him what he thinks, huh?!’. It was a simple question, but what annoyed him was the added use of ‘kind of’. Itadori was extremely simple, so the thought that he only thought you were ‘kind of’ pretty irritated him because how could Fushiguro be here doing a double take just to get a better look at your features every time you spoke to them while Itadori just barely took note of it? It was uncharacteristic, but he couldn’t disagree. He could tell you definitely had a slight air of putting on a cheery showiness for the sake of good customer service, but either way, you were…cute, and he was insistent on leaving it at that without bothering to admit to it out loud.

“I hope you both know you’re paying for yourselves.” He interrupted, hoping their argument had moved on from their waitress so that he wouldn’t be asked about his thoughts on you again.

“Eh?! Since when were you so cheap!”

“Ok guys!”

The three of them jumped slightly at the sound of your voice, simultaneously turning to see you holding up a tray with three steaming bowls of ramen sat atop of it.

“Mhm, no problem.” You hummed out, scanning your eyes around the restaurant to see if you were immediately needed elsewhere before deciding to continue and indulge your interest in the three, or more specifically, your interest in the cute boy with the black hair. “So… you guys are from that traditional religious high school, right?”

The pink haired one’s eyes lit up as he struggled to finish the noodles he was halfway through slurping up so that he could speak.

“Yeah, yeah! I guess our uniforms are a giveaway..”

You laughed, leaning your back against the empty seat that sat next to them at the bar. As if you needed any further confirmation, you could tell he was the energetic extrovert of the group.

“Yeah, you don’t really see many of them around. Though I’ve heard it’s kind of a hard school to get into.”

“That so? Guess I’ll have to call you guys next time I’m having trouble with my classes, I swear I can barely manage the workload I get.”

“Haha I feel that, I actually started school elsewhere but I just transferred a few months ago! Oh- I’m Itadori by the way! This is Kugisaki, and Fushiguro’s the sulking rude one!”

“Hey.” Fushiguro finally stopped his eavesdropping to join in, sending a glare Itadori’s way, but he just seemed to brush it off as if he’d been under his friends’ scrutiny plenty of times before. After a moment though he turned back to you, though as much as he wanted to say something to you, he didn’t really know what to say. He wasn’t like Itadori or Kugisaki who could just strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere, but while he turned over his conversational options in his head, you pushed away from where you had previously been leaning and gave a sheepish, apologetic smile that easily brought his attention away from his thoughts.

“That was crazy good, (Y/N), we’ll have to come by some time again if that’s ok!”

“It’s not like she’s the one making it, Itadori.”

“You realize that a restaurant’s whole goal is to get people to come back, right? Of course it’s ‘ok’..”

“…Sorry about them, it’s practically like wrangling preschoolers whenever we aren’t on du- er, in class.”

He knew the apology wasn’t necessary and that you didn’t seem all that bothered by either of his friends’ lively personalities, but he found himself feeling a bit…left out in the fact that he had yet to really speak to you. Why he even felt compelled to speak to you in the first place was a mystery, but he figured that was one question that didn’t really need an answer for right now.

“Oh, it’s no problem.” You laughed, giving another smile as you tried your hardest to not act as fidgety as you were feeling on the inside. “I mean- I’ve got friends like that too so I-“

“Excuse me?”

A polite voice cut you off halfway through your sentence and you turned to see an older woman waving you over, clearly not wanting to be rude but wanting your attention nevertheless.

“Sorry-“

“You’re fine!” You sputtered out, maybe a bit too excited as you slowly backed away from him, “I’ll see you around if you guys stop by again, huh, Fushiguro?”

“Yeah, we’ll- I’ll see you around.”

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #megumi fushiguro #megumi fushiguro x reader

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lifblogs · 3 years

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Fandom: Supernatural Rating: T Pairing: Destiel Word Count: 4832 Summary: Dean is a contestant on the dance show 5678, and this year he has to be paired up with a partner until either one of them gets kicked off. Dean's partner is Castiel, the hot ballroom dancer with the stick up his ass. WARNINGS: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Undiagnosed Eating Disorder, Homophobic Slur

read on ao3

5678. Dean had watched every season of the show, and after years of training in contemporary he’d made it through the auditions, made it through the rounds of disqualifiers, and now he was at the live show. He was living the dream, even if he was working himself to death every week trying to make that dream come true. For this season partners wouldn’t be switched every week to give him a range of dancers to test his mettle with. Nope, instead the network had decided it’d be more interesting for everyone to be paired off, and to gain “diversity points” they decided not all of the couples would be the typical male and female. Dean was kind of bummed. Some of the girls, mostly the ballroom girls, like Anna, and especially Jo, were super hot, and their bodies could move, but he’d been paired up with Castiel, the boy from some small town in the Midwest whose crazy religious parents decided his name needed to sound angelic. He looked like an angel. Smooth skin, blue, blue eyes, like crystals reflected in the light of the sun, dark hair that was always perfectly messy. Castiel was also a ballroom dancer, and he didn’t seem happy to be assigned Dean. He made this obvious because aside from just being a couple on the show, they were roommates. Castiel decided to always get in Dean’s personal space, to stare at him even when he asked him to stop, to give him weird looks when Dean made pop culture references, and he turned him down whenever he asked him to join him for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And it wasn’t like he was asking him on a date. He just didn’t want to eat alone.

Castiel started spending more time with Zach, and he adopted a rather gruff demeanor, correcting Dean on his dancing, putting him in his place. Yeah, Castiel was the better dancer—he’d had a few extra years of training. But so what? Dean could pick things up fast, which was what got him to the live shows to begin with.

But Castiel was good-looking, and the way he could move was something Dean had only dreamed about. He told stories with his body, painted pictures that transcended reality, and sometimes, just for a few mere moments, during their rehearsals, Dean would lose himself, forget the steps, and just move with him, be with him, and those were the moments where they were the best. Their choreographers noticed it, told them to work on that intimacy. Dean blushed when they brought it up, not sure what that meant. Friendship? Or something more?

They’d finished up for the day, so, Castiel rolled up his sweaty shirt and stuffed it into his bag, pulled on a new one, and hardly gave Dean a look before leaving the studio. Dean shrugged at the choreographers, stuffed his feet into his shoes, and hurried out after him.

“Hey, Cas, that was great!” Dean called to him, speaking over the noise of the crowded city street they found themselves on.

“You need to work on the hits,” Castiel responded gruffly, completely ignoring his compliment.

“What?” Dean asked, jogging a little to catch up, and avoiding people as he did so. “I got too much energy for you, my angel?” he joked.

“Not enough energy.”

“Dude, this isn’t hip-hop. It’s ballroom. I think I’ll be fine.”

“Yes, and ballroom isn’t contemporary. We don’t float around like a bunch of fairy princesses.”

Dean tried to ignore his deprecating comments, and laughed slyly, thinking of the way Castiel could move his hips.

“Oh, buddy, I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He shot him a disgruntled look.

Fuck, he looked good like that. Hair mussed, cheeks red, sweaty from a good few hours of creative athleticism. The bored part of Dean’s mind thought of other creative and athletic things they could be doing with their bodies.

It was a stereotype that a lot of dancers got down and dirty when they weren’t on the dance floor, which wasn’t true. Sure, he’d had a lot of girlfriends, and some boyfriends, but other dancers he’d known had gotten almost nothing. Like, Benny for instance. One girlfriend, and he’d only been with Dean a couple times.

“Oh, you know, just that… You know, forget it, never mind. Not important. So, you want to grab some dinner, listen to the song a little more?”

“Dean, that song is stuck in my head. I’ll be lucky if it leaves me after I die.”

“Okay, fair.”

“But dinner, come on. You, me, some burgers, a milkshake.”

“A milkshake?”

“Yeah, two straws?” he joked, wondering if Castiel would pick up on the fact that he was teasing him. “Choreographer said we gotta work on our intimacy.

“And I suppose you think that means we get in bed together,” Castiel responded bluntly.

Dean’s cheeks went red, and he stopped short. Castiel kept walking. It wasn’t long before he lost sight of him in the crowd.

“Hey, wait up!” he called, catching up to him. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“Look, you don’t like me, I get that, but—”

Castiel suddenly whirled on him, and Dean had to stop before he bumped into him. His partner was squinting at him, which Dean had taken a few days to learn meant he was confused.

“What do you mean I don’t like you?”

“Y-y-you correct my dancing, you get in my space, you stare at me, you don’t want to get food with me. I get it, but we need to win this.”

“Dean, I do like you.”

Dean pulled his head back, surprised.

“What?”

Castiel grabbed his arm, something that shouldn’t have startled Dean after all the touching they’d done during rehearsal, but it did.

“Come on.”

He walked them back to their room, hand on his arm, leading him the entire time, and Dean liked the way he was taking charge. It was nice to give in a bit. Though Dean was the taller of the two of them, if only by a couple inches, Castiel had been assigned the leading parts so far in their dances, so he supposed this behavior was natural for him. Besides, Castiel was not small. He was actually wider than Dean, and Dean was a big man. He was relieved neither of them had had to do lifts with each other yet, but he was sure Castiel had the arms for it.

They got inside the hotel lobby, and he pulled him aside to a secluded corner, next to a potted plant that kind of looked like a mini palm tree. Was it a fichus? Dean whacked at one of the leaves.

“I do like you,” he told him.

“What? No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’m just an assignment to you.”

“You are. You were. Look, I like you. I just… I didn’t really have any friends back home, so I don’t know how to do this, and…” He lowered his head, cheeks reddening “Have you been on Twitter?” he continued.

“Yeah, a bit. Why?”

Castiel pulled his phone out of his bag, tapped on it a few times, and then turned it around to show the screen to Dean.

Dean studied it for a few seconds, scrolling, looking at the blue hashtag that seemed everywhere before asking, bewildered, “What the hell is Destiel?”

“It’s us, Dean. The fans, they… They ship us.”

“Wait, you know what shipping is?” Dean asked, breaking out into a smile when he realized Castiel had used a pop culture term.

His partner rolled his eyes.

“Don’t look so surprised. I had to look it up. It… It looked like it had to do with me, so I wondered, and I spent last night doing, uh, research? The fans, they want us together.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So… So that makes things awkward, right?”

“We can be friends though?”

Dean looked at the gorgeous young man in front of him, the desperation in his eyes that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before, the kindness. Where had all this come from? Had it been there and Dean had been so wrapped up in himself, in winning, that he just hadn’t seen it before?

“Cas, is this real? You’re not just using me to win?”

“No, Dean. If I’m going to win, it’s because I’m the best dancer, not because I’m manipulative.”

“I don’t know, I feel like you could be pretty manipulative, I mean, with that hair, those eyes…”

“Dean.”

“Hmm?”

“Can we just be friends?”

“Friends, yeah,” he agreed, blushing once more when he realized what he’d been saying out loud. He hoped he could just lie that his cheeks were just flushed from their workout.

“So what is with you?” Dean asked as they rode the elevator up to their room. “You’re so in the moment, so tough. It’s hard to get through that.”

Castiel shrugged. “My dad was away a lot growing up, I didn’t have my mom.”

“Oh, did she leave?”

“I don’t know what happened to her. My dad never talked about her the times he was around. So I was raised by my big brothers, Michael, Luke, and Gabriel.”

Dean grinned at that. “More Biblical names?”

“Luke liked to tell me Dad was part of a cult,” he explained.

The elevator dinged, coming to a slow halt, and then the doors slid open. Dean and Castiel bumped shoulders trying to get out at the same time, but Castiel, still true to his gruff demeanor, pushed ahead and got out first, leaving Dean somewhat befuddled. Maybe Cas hadn’t noticed he’d acted in such a way. Dean tried to not let it bother him, and was instead trying to focus on the fact that this guy was finally opening up to him somewhat.

And he was definitely going to ignore the fact that he didn’t want to open up to him.

No need to tell him about all the nights his dad came home drunk, yelling at him, or the times his dad’s friends used him to put out their cigarettes, or the times his dad called him a faggot for being a dancer. Called Sam that too, even though Sammy wanted to be a lawyer. He hadn’t done as much to him though, especially since Dean had told Sam to keep things to himself to avoid getting hurt, and Sam had listened to him. He especially wasn’t going to tell him about the fire that killed their mom, and burned down their house, and left them moving from place to place, always being the new kids, never staying for too long. And then there were the times his dad would just up and leave, abandon him and his brother, sometimes without money or food, leaving Dean to do what he had to to take care of Sammy.

Dad never told Dean where he went, but he came back angry and drunk, and then they’d move again, so he suspected he’d gotten into trouble with the cops, or maybe some married woman. Sometimes he wondered if he had a sibling or two he didn’t know about.

“Was he?” Dean asked, realizing he hadn’t said anything about the whole “cult” comment.

Castiel shrugged.

“He was never around long enough for me to ask him. He’d kind of just drop in, tell us what to do, make sure we all knew Luke was his favorite, and then leave. That’s just how it was.”

“You have any guardians?”

“No. Michael was old enough by the time dad left. He hates Luke. Luke hates him too. Sometimes I swear those two are gonna kill each other.”

Castiel swiped his card in the lock, the light shone green, and he opened the door to their room. The nice thing about their room was that it was much bigger than an ordinary hotel room. They had plenty of space to move around, a slightly bigger TV, a microwave, a fridge, a coffee machine, a minibar, a table with two chairs, a stuffed chair and a lamp in the corner, and a window with a nice view over the city. The bathroom was pretty nice too. Dean enjoyed the water pressure in the shower. There was also a big dresser between the two beds, and a dresser that the TV was on. The beds were almost too soft for Dean to get used to.

“You’re joking,” Dean said, hoping he was right.

“Sure.”

His partner didn’t sound too convinced.

“First shower?” Castiel called, drawing an end to their conversation.

It was a question, but he always did this, so Dean just nodded, and let him have it.

He sunk down onto his bed, not caring that he was sweaty—besides, he figured he might have to be up all night getting those hits right. Dean did okay with their other song, which was a jazz routine, and Cas did too. That one wasn’t so bad. It was a story about two dudes, two roommates who wanted to get takeout but couldn’t agree on where to order from, and the props were numerous amounts of food menus that would get all over the stage by the end of the song. There was also a fake phone involved, with a power cord, and a little bit of tying up, with Dean being the one to get tied up. Go figure. Cas, always the one in charge. It made Dean want to slap him sometimes.

But the way he grew up. It sounded hard.

Maybe they weren’t so different.

~~~

“I’ll go.”

“Excuse me?”

Dean had just gotten out of the shower and was in a pair of shorts. It was hot outside given that the beginning of the live show wasn’t that long after summer break started up, and for some reason Castiel had steamed up the bathroom before Dean had gone in. He didn’t really feel like putting a shirt on at the moment, just wanted to lounge around until he cooled off. Castiel was sitting at the table, with his phone out, writing what looked like notes on the little pad of paper provided by the hotel.

“To dinner. I’ll get dinner with you.”

“As friends?”

“As friends.”

Dean sat down and ran a hand through his still-wet hair. “So uh… what ya thinking? Burgers?”

“No, I cut red meat out of my diet.”

“Pizza?”

“Too many carbs, and you can get bloated from dairy.”

Dean sighed, sitting back in his chair. “Come on, do you ever have fun?”

“I’m just trying to stay fit.”

Dean gestured down at his body. “Look at me, I’m fine, and I eat what I want.”

Castiel scrolled through his phone, frowned at what he found there, and then his lips turned down in a little pout. He placed it down on the table.

“Burgers?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Dude, you serious?”

Castiel rubbed at the table with one finger, and Dean couldn’t help but notice how beautiful his hands were. Well, he’d noticed before. He’d happened to watch Castiel’s audition over and over again, watched the strong hands that moved his partner Hanna, lifted her in the air, twirled her around, pulled her close, pushed her away, told her where to go.

Hanna hadn’t made it, and Dean could see why—her lines weren’t precise enough—but Cas? Wow.

“They’re kind of my favorite. It’s why I cut them out.”

“Oh, dude, now we have to go!”

“Great, grab a shirt.”

“Nah, I was thinking I should go out like this. The ladies love it.”

“But I won’t.”

Dean gave Castiel a knowing look, just to tease, not sure how serious he was being about this. “Come on, what’s not to love about this?”

“Dean.”

“What?”

“Shirt. Now.”

“Fine, but when we get to contemporary, your hands are gonna be all over this.”

Castiel frowned at him, but it wasn’t out of anger. His eyes were squinting in the way he did when he was confused, head tilting. It was… cute.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“If I would my bed would be a mess right now.”

A strange noise left Castiel, maybe a growl, and he covered it up by clearing his throat. In a few seconds Dean was nearly one-hundred percent sure he’d imagined it. Nearly.

~~~

Dinner with Castiel was… interesting. That was one way to put it. He ate a lot. Dean did too, of course. He always did, which he chalked up to the fact that he was a big dude who spent most of the day working out. It was made worse by the fact that they didn’t talk, both of them looking at their phones. Dean couldn’t help himself and was looking through that tag on Twitter that Castiel had shown him earlier. It was… somewhat terrible.

He placed his phone in his pocket, trying to ignore it, but he was starting to realize something.

“So what you said earlier, about me not getting the hits,” Dean began, “I was thinking of heading down to the studio to work on ‘em tonight.”

“You know you need me for that.”

Dean shrugged. “Figured I’d use a broom.”

“That only works in movies.”

“What? It was gonna be a sexy broom.”

Castiel wiped his mouth on his napkin, and placed it down with a sigh.

“Do you want my help?”

Now Dean was interested in his French fries, and he stuffed a few in his mouth.

He mumbled a response, not sure how he was supposed to explain to his partner that beneath all his joking he was actually nervous about Castiel being better with this dance than him, “No’ rea’y.”

“Dean, you’re not a ballroom dancer.”

“And?”

“And, do you want to get voted off?”

“Hmm, let me see…” Dean began, taking out his phone again. He opened up Twitter once more, and searched for the hashtag he was looking for. What he found was just as overwhelming as it had been a minute ago, some of it embarrassing, some of it cute, some of it a little too much, and some people needed to get banned from Twitter. “‘At 5678, OMG, Dean and Cass are the cutest! Hashtag Destiel, hashtag season fifteen winners,’” Dean read. “Ha, she spelled your name like ass.”

“Let me see that.”

Castiel grabbed the phone from him, and Dean tried to reach for it, but his partner had already drawn it back. He was hurriedly reading, scrolling with his thumb.

“’Castiel needs to bone Dean, hashtag Destiel’? ‘Cas and Dean equals hashtag Destiel’. ‘Hashtag Destiel for season fifteen winners’ ‘Hashtag Destiel…’ ‘Hashtag Destiel…’ ‘Hashtag Destiel…’ ‘Hashtag season fifteen winners. They do know there can only be one winner, right?”

Dean took his phone back, mouthed, thank you, rather pointedly, and scrolled to one of the Tweets he’d seen earlier, and then showed it to Cas.

He read: “’Hashtag Destiel, pull a hashtag Katniss and Peeta, hashtag Season fifteen winners.’ How would that even work?” he asked.

Dean shrugged, turning his phone around.

“Point is, they want us to go all Hunger Games, so I don’t think I’m getting voted off anytime soon.”

“But we’ve literally just started the show,” Castiel pointed out.

“I don’t know, Cas, people are crazy.”

To Dean’s surprise a small smile alit Cas’ face.

“What? What is it?”

“On Twitter,” he began to explain, “when they call me Cas I hate it, but when you say it… I really like it.”

For the first time in awhile, Dean had no response to that, and he lowered his face to try and hide his blush, especially since he was sure he could feel Castiel’s inquisitive eyes on him.

“Dean, are you sure you don’t want help tonight?”

“I just… when I joined I told myself I could do it all on my own, you know? And now I’m finding out that that ain’t so easy. Hell, you’re not so easy.” Castiel’s eyes were wide when Dean looked up, maybe slightly scandalized, and he realized his mistake. With a laugh that pushed aside some of his insecurities for the moment, he went on, “No, no, not like that. I’m keeping it PG here. For now.” He winked at the last words jokingly, before going on, “But seriously, I want to be your roommate, and your partner, and do the best I can, but… asking for help, especially from the guy who I thought didn’t like me at first—”

“I didn’t.”

“Great, yeah, that helps.”

“But I do now. Very much so.”

“Look, I’m just not used to asking for help. I always had to do everything on my, especially with looking out for my little brother. The partnering thing that we’re being asked to do, that’s new for me.”

Castiel’s hand reached out across the table, and for a moment Dean just stared dumbly at it. What, did he expect them to hold hands?

Cas cleared his throat after an awkward silence, and pulled his hand back.

“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

“Yeah, he’ll be starting his sophomore year in high school soon. Kid has barely hit his growth spurt yet. Growing up, I… I was the one really looking out for him. And I guess I really want to win so I could give him that prize money, make his life better.”

“That’s a beautiful reason for winning, Dean.”

“Eh, maybe the other one isn’t so beautiful. I also just want to prove to myself that I can do what I want to do, that I don’t have to be like…” He trailed off, realizing where this conversation was going.

“Like?” Castiel prompted.

Dean shook his head. “Never mind. Look, you done with your burger? Maybe… Maybe I could use a partner tonight.”

The warm smile that Cas gave him had affection Dean wasn’t used to blooming in his chest. “Of course, Dean.”

~~~

After paying they headed back to their room to grab their stuff, and then they went to the studio. A few of the other contestants were there, including Benny who was a jazz dancer, and his roommate Zach, a tap-dancer (Dean couldn’t roll his eyes hard enough at that). Zach’s partner Rowena, the ballerina was there as well. All of them were so focused that Dean and Cas didn’t bother saying hi. They just got their own room and set to work.

It was a bit easier to practice without the slight fear that cameras were going to show up at any minute to film some clips for the next episode. Though, they’d already had their time in front of the cameras of course, and then there were the interviews. If Dean relaxed enough he really began to feel like a celebrity. Though despite how fun it could be he still found it easy to stick to his purpose. Win for Sammy, and maybe win for himself along the way.

“Okay, okay…” Castiel called, grabbing Dean’s hips to stop him. “No, just… move with my hands. We can start slow.”

Focused, Dean did as Castiel said, letting his strong hands guide his hips left to right as they counted, and he paid attention to how far out he made them go.

“Good, so bring it up to the tempo, and keep it just like that.”

Feeling what he was supposed to be doing instead of just being told or shown really helped, and Dean found that he was soon really getting it.

They danced till they had the song beating in their blood, till they were sweating, and their bodies were sore.

While they sat on the floor, taking a water break, Dean pat Cas on the thigh, delighted and exuberant from their practice session so far. And it was good to have a partner who he knew had his back.

“You’re really good,” Castiel said. “I think what you want to do for your brother, it’s a really good thing, but you shouldn’t forget yourself.”

Dean slowly put his water bottle down, and found himself meeting his eyes, unable to tear his gaze away. Some kind of odd feeling was fluttering in his stomach, and he felt warm all over, and not just from the workout.

“This kind of show, you don’t just audition because you want money. You want to go through the experience, and really feel what it’s like to be a professional dancer, to do what you love. I can tell this is what you love. So don’t forget that.”

“Wow, Cas, uh… Wow.”

“What?”

“You can get pretty deep and sentimental, is all.”

“Perhaps one of us has to.”

“Or… or both of us could,” Dean ventured. Castiel was silent now, his full attention on Dean, not even drinking from his water bottle. “I do want this for myself. I do. And the reason is… well, my dad—he never went easy on me. Ever. I’m not sure he even likes me. It… it makes it difficult for me to like myself. I just want to show myself that I don’t have to be like him, that I can do something I enjoy and feel good about. I want to feel good about myself, Cas. But it’s hard, you know? It’s really, really hard. But when I dance, I forget all of that, even for those few minutes I’m up on stage.”

Castiel leaned his head back against the wall. “Sometimes I think I’m just doing this to make my dad proud, or to make myself useful to the family.”

“What was that you said about not forgetting yourself?”

Cas cracked a grin, and gave a gentle laugh, despite the pain etched onto his face.

“Wow, we’re both kind of a mess, aren’t we?”

Dean stood, and held out his hand, “I think that’s the best part.”

Castiel reached up for Dean, even that movement so graceful. When Dean pulled him up, Castiel surprised him by saying, “Hey, I’m a little sick of this dance for now. How about you show me some contemporary?”

“We really should work on ballroom.”

“We have the rest of the week. I know we’ll get it.”

Feeling excitement beginning to bloom in his chest, anticipation ready to burst, Dean went to get a song up. And he kept that feeling inside himself, willing it to spread to all his limbs. He would use that, use what he felt to put it into his body. With his body he could say things he never knew how to put into words.

A slight blush crept onto Dean’s face when the first line started, SYML singing, “Darling, please, take my hand.” With his hand held out, Castiel took it.

Castiel had done some training in contemporary, and he picked up the lesson easily. Before long, Dean was admiring Cas’ extensions even while he did his own work, and then they’d come together again, or push each other apart as the song dictated. They held each other, touched each other, all of Dean’s body understanding what all of Cas’ body was saying, and he was sure it was vice versa.

Time slowed, even as it rushed by in heated motions and achingly precise movements. The song became everything to Dean, and when Cas fumbled, he was right there to pull him close, or to come up from behind him, and hold out his arm or his leg for him, positioning it with the tempo.

When the next song began they still danced in Dean’s style, Cas clearly enjoying it, figuring things out as he went along. The next song was “Can’t Pretend” by Tom Odell, and when the chorus hit Dean was surprised to see Castiel positioned to beckon Dean into a controlled leap that Castiel would carry him through.

Dean wasn’t even nervous that they’d never done lifts before, even though it’d been something that had been itching at the back of his mind earlier in the day. Towards the end of the lift Cas’ arms shook, and he fumbled it, and Dean went down. He laughed, pulling Cas with him. Cas landed on top of him, his face so close to Dean’s as they laughed.

“Oh, feel our bodies grow / And our souls they play / Yeah, love, I hope you know / How much my heart depends / But I guess that’s love, I can’t pretend / I can’t pretend, oh…”

Feeling the music, the moment, laughing as he was trapped on the floor beneath Castiel, his body already starting to throb a bit from the fall, he kissed him.

And Cas kissed back.

“I guess that’s love, I can’t pretend / I can’t pretend, oh.”

For that moment, winning didn’t matter. Only what Dean wanted right here, and right now did, what Cas wanted, the music, the welcoming exhaustion in his muscles, the sweat glistening on their skin. For that moment, Dean was glad to have Cas as his partner. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

#au_gust #au_gust_2021 #spn #supernatural #destiel #destiel fanfiction #destiel au #spn fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #tw: implied/referenced child abuse #tw: undiagnosed eating disorder #tw: homophobic slur #fanfiction #writing #my writing

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Cherry wine || Single dad!Tsukishima

Hello, hello ! I here by present you with chapter 1 of cherry wine. I apologize for the last bit since it was a bit rushed but i do hope you will all enjoy it anyways. Also! Thank you so much for all the kind words and support you guys have given we really appreciate it :)

Masterlist

-Chapter 1-

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"..Wake up bud, there's cereal waiting for you on the counter."

The covers moved, a small groan coming from underneath them. A tuft of dirty, messy, blonde hair peeked through the top together with the nose of what seemed to be a stuffed meerkat. "Noo.." A voice grumbled, barely hearable due to the covers almost deafening the sounds coming from underneath.

It didn't take long before the curtains were shoved aside, the blinding sunlight shooting through and immediatly taking grasp of whatever it could find. Which also seemed to be the face of the 7 year old boy hiding from his father underneath the covers.

"Dad! Its too bright, i'm going blind!" The boy whined while pushing his stuffed animal into his face. He nuzzled his face into its fur and sighed, enjoying his last few seconds of comfort in bed. Monday mornings were the worst, a morning where his father wouldn't have any mercy with waking him up. Even if that meant tossing him over his shoulder or for his wiggly fingers to find their way onto his side while that very annoying smirk was present on his face.

Tsukishima stretched, letting his eyes get used to the morning sunlight before dragging his long legs to the small turtle enclosure that was placed on top of a drawer. He flicked on the light and immediately checked if the turtle, who went by the name of Mika, was still alive and good. Once he was greeted by the grumpy eyes of the drowsy turtle he reached for the small box of crickets and took out the last two, tossing them into the enclosure after having opened the top and closing it again afterwards.

He crossed his arms and looked at the hidden boy with a raised brow. "Kaoru Tsukishima. Your cereal will get soggy and i'm not making you a new bowl. So get out of bed or else i'll help you." He said, walking towards the bed and kneeling down, tugging at the sheets.

An mischief giggle errupted from under the blankets and a head poked out of the sheets. A pair of golden brown eyes peeked up at him and Tsukishima certainly didn't miss the big grin on the boy's face.

Kaoru was almost a carbon copy of his dad. He had his dad's dirty blonde hair, golden-brown eyes and his dad's interest in dinosaurs. It brought some sense of pride to Tsukishima, knowing that he did that. That a kid so smart, imaginative and nice was his son.

Had you told Tsukishima, 10 years ago when he was 16, that he'd father a boy at the last year of his college and take responsibility for him by raising him on his own. How he'd provide and do anything he did for his son and that every decision he made was for his son? He would've called you crazy, saying how he wouldn't be stupid enough to make the decision of doing such things without the right protection.

It was something that was true, Tsukishima had been dumb enough to not use the right precautions that one night. He was too busy thinking with his dick instead of his brain, too busy with his own desires instead of thinking of the consequences.

Though Tsukishima wasn't religious in any way or shape, he was god forever thankful that he wasn't a responsible person that one night.

"..I'm not leaving my bed" The boy said while giggling like crazy, knowing exactly what the outcomes could be. He had one of his arms tightly wrapped around his stuffed meerkat and pulled the blankets up, trying to hide his smile but Tsukishima's didn't miss how his eyes crinkled and how his eyes held nothing but joy.

The tall man dipped down, throwing Kaoru's sheets off the bed revealing the boy and grabbed his ankles. He stood up, taking a few steps back and dangled the boy upside down by his legs. Kaoru burst out in a fit of giggles, his arm dragging over the floor and his shirt slipping down his chest down to his head. His dad moved his legs on his shoulders, Kaoru now up side down dangling on his back as he took him down the hall, to the kitchen.

Tsukishima slowly lowered Kaoru, making sure he wouldn't just harshly fall onto the ground and hurt himself. The boy put his hands on the ground and his legs slipped down his father's back, landing on his fours. He jumped up, immediately letting his eyes scan the kitchen counter before grabbing his bowl of cereal. "Thanks"

Whilst climbing onto the stool next to the kitchen island, Tsukishima quickly put down a spoon before disappearing somewhere into bathroom only to return with a small pile of fresh clothes. He walked back into Kaoru's room and put the pile of clothes on top of his bed, making his bed before doing so.

"Eat up, brush your teeth and get dressed. After school we're gonna buy some more food for Mika, no buts. Now hurry up we're gonna be late"

Kaoru groaned and shoved a spoon full of colored dinosaur shaped cereal into his mouth. "Mnnyeah wyeah" The boy said with his mouth full, some droplets of milk going down his chin and onto his pyjamas.

Quickly finishing his breakfast, Kaoru hopped off of the stool and ran to his room. He quickly got rid of his pyjamas, leaving the discarded clothes somewhere on the ground for Tsukishima to once again clean it after him, and pulled his sweater over his head. The raccoon print on the front was a bit damaged after having been in the washing machine several times, but Kaoru loved it very much regardless of it.

Tsukishima was in the bathroom, splashing his face with water rubbing a towel rather harshly over it. He put his toothbrush back into the cup placed next to the mirror and spat out the remaining bits of toothpaste that was in his mouth.

There was a soft tug at his sleeve, the 7 year old boy signaling towards the cup that held the toothbrushes and Tsukishima handed him his dark blue toothbrush. "..thanks" Kaoru mumbled while putting a little dot of toothbrush on it before climbing onto the

Tsukishima left the bathroom and went to the hallway, sliding his feet into his shoes when he felt his phone buzz.

Turning off his phone again, Tsukishima could hear quick footsteps coming his way. He kneeled down, loosening Kaoru's shoes for him since Kaoru always managed to take the longest time getting them on.

"Kuroo's waiting for me, u can tie your shoes in the car just be careful u don't trip" He said while grabbing Kaoru's bag, checking to see if he put his lunch in.

Kaoru shoved his feet into his shoes and looked at Tsukishima with pleading eyes. "Can you carry me to the car~? Pretty pleaseee?" His son begged while looking at him with his hands folded. Kaoru was forcing puppy eyes,

A look most parents would think was adorable..

Tsukishima tilted his head and looked down at Kaoru, his eyes scanning over the body from the 7 year old. "Kaoru, can you do this?". He moved his foot up and down, kicking his leg in and out before looking back at Kaoru again who was looking at him with a confused look in his eyes.

Kaoru nodded and got up. He started copying Tsukishima's movement, moving his foot up and down, kicking his legs in and out and even wiggling around with it a little. "Yeah, of course.." The boy muttered, his eyes looking back up at Tsukishima.

..but Tsukishima absolutely hated it when Kaoru tried to bribe him with just a single look.

"Well then your legs work perfectly fine now get your butt to the car or else i'll leave you home alone and you can walk yourself to school." Tsukishima said with a smirk, looking down at his son with a devilish glint in his eyes. He unlocked the door and waited for Kaoru to catch up, who was currently groaning and rolling his eyes at his dad.

"Daaad!" Kaoru whined, leaning into his father while holding onto his arm while he locked the door again. He pressed his face into his arm and started making inaudible noises into his sleeve.

Tsukishima was still smirking, loving nothing more but to tease his son and get on his nerves sometimes. He reached into the pocket of his coat and grabbed his car keys, pushing a button so that the car would unlock. "Kaoruuu" He said in a similar high pitched whiney tone, something which made Kaoru puff his cheeks, only getting more and more annoyed by his father's behavior.

The two of them got into the car, Tsukishima making sure Kaoru was buckled up correctly, and they left their apartment complex on their way to school.

It wasn't too far away, a ten minute ride tops. The ride to school was always quiet, except for the music Tsukishima put on softly playing in the background. Kaoru wasn't exactly a morning person, though already having finished his morning routine the boy was still sleepy and when Tsukishima would look at him through the rear view mirror, he'd almost every time catch his son dozing off.

With the familiar building in sight, handsful of children screaming and running around. Parents kissing their kids goodbye, dropping them off and immediately leaving and of course the gossip moms who's husbands already left for work and were currently either talking about other children or the way other parents raise their children. Tsukishima knew they talked about him often, after all he wasn't very involved with the other parents there just with his son. He also knows he'd get judged for the fact he'd raise Kaoru without a 'mother figure' in his life was something he apparently 'needed'.

Tsukishima couldn't give the slightest fuck about what those women thought about them, but he had to admit that sometimes he wanted nothing more than to shove his foot up-

"Thanks for the ride, say hello to Kuroo for me!"

Kaoru unbuckled himself and leaned towards the front of the car, giving his dad half a hug due the fact that hugging like that didn't go as smooth, and Tsukishima ruffled his hair in response. "Hurry up, bud, you're gonna be late" His father said, looking at all the kids who hurried inside of the building.

The boy gasped and quickly grabbed his bag from the seat next to him. He threw the door open, it almost bouncing back shut from the force, and quickly jumped out of the car.

Tsukishima furrowed his brows and glared at Kaoru. "Oi, Kaoru careful with the-"

Without sparing a second of his attention to his dad, Kaoru swung around and threw the car door shut with big force. It was as if the boy tried to blast the car to the other side of the road just with his hand. They sound of the door colliding with the car made Tsukishima's ears buzz and he groaned.

"-door, Kaoru Tsukishima are you deaf?"

Kaoru had already ran inside of the building, not sparing a second glance back at his dad as he greeted his friends with a big smile.

Tsukishima groaned and rolled his eyes, starting his car again before taking off. "Little asshole" he muttered under his breath, turning his car around to go towards his work but not before making a stop along the way first.

The ride there didn't take long, after all Kuroo also didn't live too far away from the school Kaoru went to. In a way, it annoyed Tsukishima. After all Kuroo was a pain in his ass that he couldn't get rid off, yet it was better than having to drive for over half an hour just pick him up.

With the leaves twirling in the wind, around his car which slightly blinded his sight for a second, Tsukishima slowly stopped his car and looked up at the two story house whos curtains were all closed instead of 1 room which was probably Kuroo's.

After college, Kuroo had moved in with Kenma. Tsukishima didn't exactly really know Kenma, the two of them barely having anything in common except for the fact they both used to play volleybal and were associated with Kuroo. All he knew from Kuroo was that Kenma now was quite a famous twitch streamer and his working hours were ungodly which was most definitely why all the curtains were still closed except for Kuroo's room.

Right before Tsukishima could reach for his phone on his deskboard, the front door flew open and the raven haired man who's hair always looked messy walked out of the door with a smirk. He waved at Tsukishima, who only rolled his eyes at him and started his car again, and quickly locked his door before walking towards the car parked in front of his house.

"Took you long enough-"

"U wanna take public transport next time? Cause i'd be more than glad to go straight to work and let you ride the metro every morning if its a bother for you." Tsukishima said while turning his head towards Kuroo as he entered the car. There a digustingly sweet smile on his face, his eyes squinted and his voice was laced with a thick layer of sarcastic politeness. He slowly opened his eyes again and send a death glare Kuroo's way.

"In fact you could take the metro right no-"

"Okay, i get it! Geez, Mr dinosaur, chill your ass down. Who got on your nerve this morning?" Kuroo exclaimed while clicking his seatbelt shut. He shoved his brown leather bag, that over the years got quite some damage here and there, down in front of his legs and spread his legs his folded hands resting on his lap.

The car drove away from its previous parked spot and slowly sped up. The blonde male behind it gripped the wheel a little tighter and squinted his eyes as the rays of the sun started irritating them. "Think that's a question you already know the answer of" He answered, moving down the sun visor from the car.

Kuroo scoffed and shook his head. He rested his elbow against the door and supported his head with his hand. His hazel colored orbs scanned over the area, his eye falling onto two kids holding hands while walking to school.

"When's ya' next match? Cool if we hop on by?"

Sendai frogs.

Sendai frogs was a volleybal team, one Tsukishima had joined a few years ago. At first volleybal to him wasn't something he did for 'fun'. He never understood why his teammates got so overly excited about scoring just a single point or how they'd cry because they lost. If you told 16 year old him he'd be joining a somewhat 'proffesional' volleybal team for fun, he'd laugh at you and call you names.

Yet a lot had changed since then. He now enjoyed it more than anything else, feeling an extreme wave of pride wash over him everytime he'd block a good ball or score a point. The wave of pride became almost some sort of tsunami everytime he'd look at the bleacher's and see Kaoru wearing a kids-sized version of his shirt with green and yellow stripes painted on his cheeks while cheering him on.

Tsukishima tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and sighed. "Do whatever you want. Just google the next few matches it should be on there somewhere." He spoke, slowly halting the car when the light turned red.

Kuroo grabbed his phone out of the pocket of his coat, silently mumbling about how Tsukishima could show some more appreciation, and started typing away. His eyes slightly squinted as he let them run over the screen, trying to read the little letters at the bottom of the page.

Once the traffic light turned green again, the car took off and rode through a pile of dead leaves that laid on the pavement making them all shoot up into the air before they gently and gracefully whirled back onto the ground.

The ride there wasn't exactly long nor short. Both Tsukishima and Kuroo were blessed with the fact they were able to find a place to live in the same town as where their jobs were located. It was only about 15/20 minutes by car and about 30/35 minutes with public transport.

Sendai city museum.

It wasn't the biggest museum in japan, that was for sure, but it had one thing that interested Tsukishima a lot when he started looking around for an internship in his last year.

A fossil department. One with the most magnificent dinosaurs, his favorites and the fossils themselves were of great quality. Though, back then, Kaoru was only about 1/2 years old Tsukishima never forgot the way his big golden brown eyes would stare up at the mammoth that was 100 times his size back then. How he'd coo while making grabby hands towards the triceratops while trying to wiggle out of his father's safe embrace.

It was one of the first times Tsukishima took Kaoru somewhere, only being about 19/20 years old back then and still being kind of new to all of the changes Kaoru was going through. It was weird realizing the tiny baby he held in his hands before was becoming a human being with actual personality.

Probably one of his proudest memories, knowing his son might love dinosaurs as he did.

After he graduated it didn't take long before his old internship had offered him a job for he had worked really hard back at Sendai city museum as an intern and they wanted him really badly. An opportunity that opened many doors for him, for about 7 years later he was now head of the fossil department after working hard to achieve his goals.

It didn't take long before Tsukishima had learned about the fact that 2 years before he joined, a certain 'friend' of his got himself enrolled into the science department as a researcher.

So that is exactly how Tsukishima found himself dropping Kuroo off at the museum every morning for the last 6 years.

Closing the door behind him with a soft bang, he reached into his pocket and pressed the lock button on his carkeys. With the signal of the lights flashing for a moment and the familiar beep echoeing in his ears, the two men took it as their sign to walk towards the entrance of the museum.

The raven haired bedhead stuffed his hands into the pocket of his coats and stretched his shoulders, his eyes glancing at Tsukishima from the corner of his eye. "You've got that big opening on Friday, right?" He questioned, stopping in front of the automatic doors while waiting for them to open so they could enter and be welcomed by the warmth inside.

Once the doors slid aside, the two men made their way inside and Kuroo already started unbuttoning his coat. "..Nakamura mentioned something about it so i was just wondering. Heard it was a pretty big deal."

Tsukishima hummed and sighed, removing his hands from his jacket to take his glasses off his face now that the change of temperature was starting to make them get fogged up.

"Just a 'grand opening' for a new fossil i've been trying to get my hands on for some months now. Recently discovered somewhere in the US, you know why i left for two weeks? But yes, that is friday."

His eyes were slightly squinted, not wanting to run into anything or look over an object. His eyesight was quite poor so in many ways had he been glad to hear that so far, knock on wood, Kaoru hadn't inherited that gene.

Kuroo hummed, pursing his lips slightly while greeting the older woman who was sitting behind the welcoming desk. He started unwrapping his scarf from his neck and folded it, slowly coming to a stop once the two men had reached the spot where they parted ways.

"What time?"

Tsukishima sighed and pushed his glasses further up his nose for they started slipping off. He shrugged and turned around, his back turned towards Kuroo as he made his way towards his office. "Eight and i'm not picking your sorry ass up" He said, bag swung over his shoulder.

His footsteps echoed through the hallway, his eyes set on the large entrance at the end of the hall that read 'Jurrasic' in somewhat elegant yet adventurous way to catch the attention of both eldery but also of kids. He could hear Kuroo saying something, but for his own headache he decided not to pay attention to it as he entered the fossil display area.

With a triceratops on his right, his eyes settled upon the fossil on the other side of the room. A stegosaurus. Though, it by far wasn't Tsukishima's favorite dinosaur, it was his first ever project. To add to that, the fossil was on great shape too. It's back plater being in perfect condition, something which isn't very common with a stegosaurus fossil for the fact that it's back platers are so thin and fragile.

Even though it had been 6 years since it got here, Tsukishima always took a moment right before going into his office to admire it. Of course, he was very proud of all of the fossils and projects he did over the course of the last 7 years, but that stegosaurus being his first big fossil project brought a lot of pride with it.

In the middle of the hall was a big red curtain, circled around the fossil hidden behind it that reached all the way to the top of the high ceiling. So far, Tsukishima's tallest fossil. Surely, not the one with the best quality, but it was a new dinosaur and a tall one at that and that by itself had been enough to draw a lot of attention of the public.

"Ah, Tsukishima! Good to see you"

Tsukishima's eyebrows slightly rose as his eyes locked with the ones of his boss who was currently standing in the middle of his office.

It was strange, for Tsukishima barely saw his boss during his usual work day. There were many weeks where'd it go by without even seeing the man. After all the museum was quite big and his boss worked in an office on the third floor while Tsukishima worked on the first.

Perhaps, there was something urgent? After all, why else would he be waiting for him in his office? Only then did he notice the new desk lined up in front of his own, two cardboard boxes filled with computer material inside of it. Since he was the only person working in this specific office that would mean-

His boss clapped his hands together and smiled warmly. "There'll be a new person joining you today. Hope its not a problem she'll be in your office, i was hoping you'd be able to take her underneath your wing? She's still quite new to the job and worked at a museum in Miyagi before here before she moved." He started explaining, his hazel eyes settled upon Tsukishima's form as he moved to place his bag next to his desk. The man took one of his hands out of the pocket of his blazer and held it out towards the door, nodding towards the same direction.

In the 7 years Tsukishima worked at the museum, he had been completely alone in an office for 5 of them. The first two, he was under the wing of his mentor. An older man, around his 60s, who taught him all the ropes of this job. He was very kind and wise, Tsukishima admired him and was very grateful for all the knowledge he received from him. He retired two years later, leaving Tsukishima alone in the office they used to share. Surely, some people came and went, but around the time of last year Tsukishima became the head of the department after having put up 7 years of absolute great work and got his own office. Besides, there weren't many people working on this department for some reason.

"Oh! Sorry!"

In the door opening, Tsukishima was met my a pair of legs holding onto a cardboard box with a big pile of organisers balancing on top of it. He could see the slightest glimpse of (H/c) coloured hair sticking out of the top. A few papers fell down one of the high storage cabinets, probably because the woman had bumped into it with her sight being blocked.

Tsukishima watched as the pile of documents and organisers started tilting and quickly took a step forward, straightening them before taking them from her. He took a step back and looked down at the woman now standing in front of him.

She opened her mouth, about to thank him, but once she looked at his chest her eyes widened surprised by the fact Tsukishima was so extremely tall being 1,95 meter tall and all. Her eyes traveled up his body, stopping once they locked with his eyes.

"..thank you. Sorry i thought that if i piled it up it would be a bit faster instead of having to walk up and down to the entrance." The woman said with a small chuckle following afterwards.

He could notice she was a bit nervous, hiding it with a smile and some sort of awkward humor. There was just the slightest hint on pink dusting her cheeks. Not because of the fact he made her flustered, but because of the fact she suddenly felt like a very tiny mouse compared to the tall man of a giraffe looking down at her.

The man turned around and placed the pile on top of her desk, the woman following shortly afterwards and placing the box next to it before clenching and unclenching her hands to relief the cramps.

"I'm (Y/n) (L/n), thank you for having me here and nice to meet you" She said while holding out her hand. Tsukishima looked down at her hand for a moment before taking it, squeezing it as he shook her hand.

"Kei Tsukishima. Glad to have you here."

(Y/n) smiled at him and held his gaze for a moment, peering into his eyes for a moment before quickly removing her hand from his grip and look away not being able to hold eye contact before feeling intimidated.

Once again, their boss clapped his hands. The man walked towards the two of them, softly slapping a hand onto their shoulders and squeezing it. It was quite the friendly gesture, something he did often and Tsukishima had gotten used to it over time but he could see how (Y/n) slightly flinced at the sudden action.

The older man laughed warmly and sighed rather loudly. "Well then, now that's settled, Tsukishima why don't you show her around a bit yes? Just take today to show her around the hall, teach her all the basics and get to know each other a bit yeah?" He said, removing his hands from their shoulders only to rub them together as if wanting to rub off the germs.

Without even having waited for a response, the man walked towards the exit and closed the door behind them leaving the two new colleagues alone together in an empty room.

There was an awkward silence. From (Y/n)'s side it was not knowing what to say, not knowing what Tsukishima liked talking about or what type of humour or interests he had. Of course, talking about their job seemed like the most logic thing to do since they both liked it but maybe it was a bit too predictable and boring to begin with. All the thoughts and panic ran through her head, yet Tsukishima just didn't seem to notice the fact there was an awkward silence and didn't feel the need to fill up that silence.

He looked at the boxes, peering into them to look at all the cables and gadgets. "Do you need help, setting that up?"

The woman's head snapped to her right, snapping out of her thoughts and followed Tsukishima's eyes. She peered into the box and started rubbing the back of her neck, a crooked smile appearing on her face. "Oh, uhh. If you'd like to, i mean i'm pretty bad with setting up electronics. My..old roommate always did that for me." She said with a chuckle. She started unpacking the boxes, placing all of the equipments on the desk. Tsukishima followed after her, organizing all the cables.

"I'm not the best at setting stuff up either, but i can try to help." The blonde said while lifting the monitor out of the box and placing it down. He adjusted it slightly, making sure it was straight and not tilted all the way to the sides. "..Is this spot good?"

(Y/n) hummed and nodded as her hand unconciously fiddled with the side of her blazer, rolling a button between her fingers. Maybe she should of have figured out how to do this at home first, asking a friend or one of her parents to help her. That would've made a better impression then she currently was making, standing next to Tsukishima while watching him with big eyes while handing him all the things he asked for. Like a kid holding a flashlight for their dad.

With his back on the ground, Tsukishima started connecting some of the loose cables with a zip tie to make sure the bottom of her desk wouldn't be a tangled mess. His eyes were slightly squinted and his bottom lip was trapped between his teeth, something he often did while doing something physically he had to concentrate on such as putting together Ikea furniture.

His mother had commented on how Kaoru started doing it, saying how she'd always notice how he'd try and copy a lot of things Tsukishima did when Kaoru was a toddler and how he'd really focus on everything his father did. That phase was over, sadly because Kaoru's grandma was delighted with looking at the scene that Tsukishima himself never noticed, but it seemed that Kaoru had taken over the same expression whenever he coloured or build something with legos.

Tsukishima plugged the powerboard into the outlet and flicked on the power button. A sigh left his nose and he pushed himself up, clumsily shuffling out from underneath the desk. The space was tiny, way too tiny for Tsukishima's long body and that surely was confirmed when he bumped his head against the top of the wooden desk.

(Y/n) kneeled down, looking at Tsukishima with a worried expression. "Are you okay?" She asked after hearing the knock and seeing him rub the back of his head.

The man hummed and nodded his head, quickly getting up and plucking a little dust bunny off of his sleeve before throwing it into the trash. Tsukishima turned towards the computer and once he saw that all the lights that were supposed to be on were on he turned towards the woman standing behind him. "That should do it for now. I'll send you some codes via mail soon so that you can get access to Bicrosoft for stuff like word and excel."

He took the last empty cardboard box and folded it together, making sure not to rip it for Tsukishima wasn't sure if she wanted to keep them for something else. "I'll show you around after you're done setting everything down, after that you need to fill in some things to get your own ID card. To prove you work here. " He said while showing her the ID card that hung on his neck, secured with a dark blue neckstrap.

There was his picture on it, one taken in his usual work attire, in front of a white screen. The picture was already a bit old, it being from 3 years ago already, and was supposed to get replaced soon but so far neither Tsukishima or his boss really bothered about it. Next to his picture there was his full name, birthdate, profession/the department he worked at and his employee code.

The woman leaned a bit closer and examined the card, humming to herself before backing up again. Her eyes scanned over her desk that was now filled with a completely set up computer and a small smile made its way onto her face.

(Y/n) looked at Tsukishima and bowed her head slightly. "Thank you for setting it up. I think i'd still be here next Thursday if i had to it myself, i'd never be able to figure out which cord would go where." She said, once again with forced awkward humor and a smile. These jokes, trying to act 'relaxed' and 'fun' really weren't paying off at all. If it wasn't the awkward smile on Tsukishima's face it would be the fact that she didn't even find them funny herself.

With a second of silence gone by, the two of them started doing their own thing. As (Y/n) unpacked her stuff, placing down a plant and filling her drawers with paper and pens, Tsukishima was busy on his computer to try and already get the form for her ID ready.

The upcoming hour had been spend mostly in silence.

Once again, it was some sort of not noticing the awkwardness hanging in the air type of situation coming from Tsukishima. After all, he was just doing his thing and concentrated on the words he read on the screen and the things he typed. The man didn't notice how she bit her lip and fiddled with her blazer. He didn't even notice when she was done and stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say.

First days at work were always rather awkward, right? She'd be fine eventually..right?

Like his boss had already informed him, today wasn't exactly very productive.

Tsukishima spent all his time helping her, mostly with getting programs installed and telling her about how certain processes of things went. Like the process of getting a new fossil in, something the museum was currently in the middle of doing.

Though it had already been a few hours since the two of them met, they still hadn't really talked. Well, they had, but only work related things. There was no small talk or getting to know each other a bit better, something that Tsukishima later on realized he might should. After all, she was under his wing now and she had to feel comfortable.

God how he was bad at that.

"Why did you pick this over the museum in Miyagi?"

The two of them were currently standing in front of a pachycephalosaurus, als referred to 'Egg head' by Kaoru. They were in the middle of the tour, Tsukishima showing her around a bit and telling her about the history of where the fossils were from and how they got them.

The question seemed to have taken (Y/n) off guard for a moment, the eyes that once admired the fossil now slightly widening before snapping towards Tsukishima. He could see how she licked her lips, softly tugging her bottom lip before they tugged into a smile.

She chuckled and looked and moved her hands around, signalling at all the fossils around them. "I think this is enough of an answer, don't you think? I wanted to move somewhere else, so once i found the job application i knew i couldn't let this opportunity slip through my fingers."

Tsukishima slowly nodded his head. He looked around the hall, his eyes scanning over the variety of fossils, plastic dinosaurs and pictures. It was set up in a way so both children and adults could enjoy it, the choice of fake plants and placements of the dinos together making it look like as if you were walking around amongst them. It wasn't too over the top, after all people who wanted to admire the fossils also still had to enjoy walking around here without thinking it was too childish.

He inhaled deeply and looked back down at the woman standing in front of him, his golden brown eyes locking with her (e/c) ones. "I chose it for the same reason. Walking around here made me realize that something like this was really somewhere i could see myself walking around even when i'm old.."

There was a moment of silence before Tsukishima sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"..what made my decision final though, was the paycheck" He followed, not even meaning for it to sound like a joke and also not realizing it until he heard a laugh escape the woman's throat. For the first time that day, it being a genuine one.

A small half sidded grin made its way onto Tsukishima's face and he adverted his eyes to the red curtains that were currently hiding the new fossil from the public eye.

"I mean, that paycheck really did look good" (Y/n) said, an actual more relaxed smile present on her face. Though, it wasn't the funniest thing in the world, she felt more at ease. After all this was the first time today the two of them had an actual fun interaction.

She looked at Tsukishima for a moment and noticed how his eyes were looking at the other side of the room. Following his gaze, she now too noticed the curtains and barricaded area. When coming in today, she hadn't been very focused on the fossils around her since she had her attention on not dropping the boxes in her hand.

Tilting her head and squinting her eyes,the woman turned her body towards the new discovery. "What's behind that?" She asked him, adeberting his eyes back to him.

"A brachiosaurus. Discovered in the US, process took a few months but he's finally here." Tsukishima said while stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He hummed for a second before turning towards (Y/n). "The big reveal is gonna be Friday evening at 8. You should come, it'll be a good experience for you to see how these things go."

(Y/n)'s eyes widened and a small smile made its way onto her face. She switched her gaze between the currently hidden by the curtains brachiosaurus and Tsukishima. "Really? That would be wonderful, i'd be honored!" She exclaimed, her hands folding together. There was a spark in her eye, one of excitement. After all, its not every day you get to experience such a thing in your first week of working at a new place. "Could i see it now?"

The man opened his mouth to answer but quickly closed it again. A small smirk made its way onto his face and he tilted his head slightly. "I think it would be more interesting to wait until Friday, that way it will be a reveal for you too."

(Y/n)'s had raised her eyebrows at him and slightly squinted her eyes. "You-..I..That's a wonderful idea, Tsukishima! There's nothing i love more than a good surprise.." She exclaimed, a tone in her voice Tsukishima couldn't quite place but the twitch in her eyebrow said enough.

Softly snickering at her reaction, soft enough for her not to hear, the two of them completed their tour. Though they still didn't talk a lot apart from work related things, (Y/n) had now started asking him a bit more questions. About when he became interested in dinosaurs, where he went to college etc. Still, in a way, related to work yet subtly going off course to more personal stuff.

"Is this your son?"

Tsukishima looked up from the map he was holding in his hands and saw (Y/n) examining a framed picture he had on his desk. The only picture there, really. He looked back down at the map and nodded. "Yes, Kaoru." He said while signing his name at the bottom of the paper.

(Y/n) put the picture down on his desk and smiled. "He looks a lot like you. How old is he?"

"He just turned 7."

Her eyes slightly squinted and she pulled up her eyebrow, her head tilted as she looked at Tsukishima with a questioning look. "You're 26 right?"

Silence.

Great, not only are the judgemental karens at Kaoru's school there but he now apparently also has one at work. Not that he minded, he couldn't give less of a shit about it but it was annoying as hell.

Tsukishima sighed annoyed and closed the map with a loud bang. He turned around and shoved it into the office storage closet. "Yes i am 26 years old and yes i was 19 when Kaoru was born, no i do not regret it." He said, a very annoyed tone lacing his words.

Once again, there was a silence.

"I think its wonderful that you're a dad, my apologies if you thought i meant it in a judgemental way. Just curious, but i'll stop the questions if you feel uncomfortable-"

"Oh, no its okay. I'm used to people..Doesn't matter, my apologies" Tsukishima said, face palming internally. In this moment, there was nothing more he wanted to do than punch himself in the gut what a great way of responding to a new colleague who's just curious about his life.

(Y/n) only chuckled and shook her head. "Its okay, don't worry about it." She said, grabbing her coat from her desk chair one they put together that morning with a bit of a struggle. Their shift had already ended, after all they didn't have anything to do today except for introductions to each other and everything new to her.

The already slowly setting sun creeped its way through the blinds, landing on top of their desks and warming up Tsukishima's coat that was currently on top of his own. Tsukishima quickly closed them, closing everything up so they could leave, and he took his coat and bag from his desk. "If you close up, always make sure to close the blinds. Though it currently isn't the biggest problem, in the summer the sun shines onto the computer and can get them overheated and its not the nicest thing in the world" He said, turning off the light of the office as the two of them left the room.

"Noted. Once again, thank you very much for showing me around today and helping me with everything. I'm also very grateful for the fact i'm able to work under your wing." She said while slipping her arms through the sleeves of her coat. Her fingers made quick work of the buttons and belt and she quickly swung her bag over her shoulder afterwards.

Tsukishima shook his head and wrapped his scarf around his neck. "No need. I'd like to see what you've got up your sleeve" He said, the two of them exiting the fossil area only to end up in the big reception hall where right next to the front desk a raven haired man was talking to the old receptionist with grin.

It only took a few seconds until Kuroo had spotted them, quickly wishing the receptionist goodbye and jogged towards them. His eye fell onto the woman next to Tsukishima and his eyes immediately lit up. "Ah, Tsukishima, who might this be? Nice to meet you, i'm Kuroo i work as a researcher here." He said while holding out his hand, something (Y/n) gladly took with a smile.

"I'm (Y/n), nice to meet you too. I work with Tsukishima." She said, shaking his hand before retreating it back into her pocket. Right before she was about to say something else, her eyes fell onto the clock on the wall and immediately widened.

She quickly bowed her head before sprinting off. "I'm terribly sorry, i'm gonna miss my train! I'll see you tomorrow, goodbye!" She yelled, her bag swinging left and right next to her money as her coat swayed behind her. Within seconds, she was out of sight.

Kuroo grinned and nudged Tsukishima with his elbow, something which made the man wanna roll his eyes all the way back already knowing what was about to come. "She looks like a nice person and likes dinosa-"

Tsukishima's lips pulled into a sugary sweet smile and he closed his eyes. "Oh? You heard her didn't you, the train's leaving soon i'd hurry if i were yo-"

"Geez, geez, mr dinosaur! You really can't take a joke, huh?" Kuroo said, rolling his eyes and scoffing afterwards. He shook his head as the two of them left the building and sighed. "You know, you'd never actually leave me here, you're too nice for that" Kuroo said with a grin, waiting at the passenger's seat door as Tsukishima got into his car.

The blonde raised a brow and looked at Kuroo through the window, closing his door behind him while starting his car. The ravenette pulled at the doorhandle several times with no success and his eyes widened as Tsukishima drove the car out of the parking spot, without Kuroo in it.

"O-oi! Tsukishima i was kidding, please let me in man!"

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Taglist:

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#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima #tsukishima kei #haikyuu!!#tsukishima x y/n #tsukishima x you #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu fanfiction #cherry wine

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staygold-ponyboycurtis · 4 years

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The Funeral

The Curtis parents’ funeral, from Darry’s perspective. Enjoy :)

Frozen. That’s the word. That’s how I’ve felt for the past eight days, five hours, and fourteen minutes.

In some ways, I don’t think my brain can access the place where it keeps sadness and grief. Growing up like I did, you just don’t let your mind go there. You have to be brave. No crying. No weakness. I have to be strong for my brothers. I can’t let them know I’m suffering and want to fall apart every second of every day since this nightmare began. I have to let them know we’ll be okay. Even if I don’t quite believe it myself.

We got the phone call less than forty-eight hours after we learned mom and dad were gone. As if things couldn’t get harder for us. An apathetic voice on the other end explained to me that they’d be sending over a representative from the state of Oklahoma to assess our familial situation now that there were two minors living parentless in the home. We had less than a week to gather our bearings, then our fate would be decided by an asshole who knew nothing about us.

Before I could even process that my mom and dad were gone, I had the weight of the world dropped on my shoulders. A bitter realization that life as we knew it was about to change forever. Sodapop and Ponyboy couldn’t even mention the subject without anxiety burning through my body.

It seemed they had a million questions that I couldn’t answer. What would happen to them? What would I do to handle the situation? Could the courts really take them out of our home? They knew there was a chance that they’d be sent off to a boys’ home for orphaned kids and we’d never see each other again. I told them that was impossible. That there was no way in Hell I’d let that happen. I couldn’t lose my entire family in the span of a few weeks. I just didn’t know how I could stop it.

“They can’t just take us, can they, Darry?” Sodapop had asked. “Don’t we have any say?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “They’re going to do what they think is best for you two.”

“Bullshit. They don’t know what’s best for us.”

But today isn’t about that. Like everything else, I’ve trained my brain to ignore the pressing issues before us. Store them in a place where the truth can’t hurt me too badly. Today is about saying goodbye to mom and dad.

I stare at the two dark oak caskets sitting at the front of the altar. They’re closed. The harm caused by the accident was unfathomable. I had to identify their bodies at the city morgue. It was a task that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. When I saw the damage that was inflicted to my poor parents, I got sick all over the linoleum floors. That was the first and last time I’ve broken into tears this week.

I forbade my brothers from seeing our parents in their final state. They begged, but I couldn’t let their last memories of our mom and dad be such a gruesome sight. One that has haunted me every second of every single day since. I want Sodapop and Ponyboy’s memories of our parents to be warm, loving, and happy. Something to mend the heartbreak.

At the funeral home, my brothers asked if they could leave a few things with our parents before burying them. Ponyboy wrote two long letters, both a few pages long. He mulled over what to write for hours, sitting at the desk in his room crumpling up papers and getting frustrated with himself when he couldn’t get his thoughts out. He folded them up tightly and handed them to a man named John, who was in charge of everything. He give him strict instructions on who to give each letter to, seeming resistant to trust a stranger with what I imagined were intimate, emotional messages to our mom and dad. Sodapop handed over a photo of the three of us on Christmas last year, arms slung over each other’s shoulders and smiling, giddy with holiday spirit. He wanted mom to have it. It was her favorite picture.

I’m torn out of my daydream when Sodapop starts walking to the front of the church. The turnout is small, with just a few of my parents’ friends peppered throughout the pews. We’ve never had a big family, which is all too apparent at a time like this. Mom was an only child, and dad only had a younger brother who died in the Korean War over a decade ago. All we had was each other. Two-Bit, Johnny, and Steve sit together a few rows behind the three of us. Dallas sits by himself in the last row in the corner of the small church, his head down low. I nod at him when I catch his eye, letting him know how grateful my mother would be knowing that he came to say his final goodbyes.

I see Sodapop’s hands shaking as he situates himself in front of the podium. Neither mom nor dad had any funeral plans designated for us to follow, so we had to choose how to honor them. Two whole lifetimes summed up a few hours. Mom was always religious and enjoyed going to church, so I decided that she would want a formal service. Sodapop insisted that he wanted to speak. I decided I would, too. Ponyboy said that he wouldn’t be able to. He didn’t think he’d be strong enough. Though I told him that mom and dad would have liked him to share a few words in their honor, he implored me to not bring it up again.

“I don’t even know what I’d say, Dar,” Ponyboy had said quietly. “And I don’t think I could get through it without blubbering like a baby.”

I knew that Ponyboy, like me, would grieve our parents silently. These past few days, he hadn’t mentioned them at all. I saw him lose it when he saw dad’s old flannel draped over the couch the other day and again when he opened the fridge a few days ago and found a chocolate cake that mom had baked the day she died. I acted like I hadn’t noticed him rush into his room and close the door quickly, but pressed my ear to the door to make sure he was alright. I could hear him crying heavily in his room, trying to catch his breath in between sobs. But I knew that this was natural and necessary, and that I’d be less than comforting if I barged in on him.

“Hi, everyone,” Soda says in a small, defeated voice that is so unlike his usually charismatic demeanor. His voice quivers and I can see his eyes well up with tears before he’s even begun. I want to run up there and pull him into a tight hug, but I know that he needs to do this. He wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his dress shirt. “I’m sorry, I swore up and down that I wouldn’t cry.”

He looks at me and Pony for reassurance and continues, pausing to gain composure.

“My mom and dad were the best parents a kid could have. There’s nothing that my ma wouldn’t do for anyone. She always said that being our mom was her favorite thing to be. Well, being her son was my favorite thing to be. Mom and I were one and the same. It was like we had the same exact personality. We were the goofballs… the crazy ones in the crowd. She loved a good time and loved music, just like me.

She was funny, but not in the way most moms are. She could joke with the best of us, even our friends. And she always knew how to make you feel like you were the most important person in the world. Because when you were with her, you were. She knew how to make everyone feel special and cared about. Gosh, am I going to miss that about her… She was the best. There will never be another person like my ma."

I look over at Ponyboy, whose eyes are inquisitive and burning holes in the side of my head as we listen to Soda speak. His face is swollen from crying so much, the tip of his nose red. He gives me a look that says, Why aren’t you upset? Don’t you care? But I’m petrified. Frozen. There’s that word again. My face is stoic but my heart is cracking with pain and each memory Soda recalls is deepening the weak spots. I want to be a pillar of strength for my brothers. I don’t want to fall apart in front of them.

"When I think of my dad, I think of someone who wanted the best for us. The day of the accident, he was celebrating a promotion at work, which he worked hard to get. But he loved to goof off like mom, too. He loved to play football in the front yard with all of us. Nobody could hike a football like him, no matter that he was twice our age. And he loved sweets, like me. I would always sneak into the kitchen at midnight to grab a piece of whatever mom had baked that day, and dad would have already beaten me there. And, usually, had a plate out for me already. I used to love talking with him in the middle of the night, just dad and me.

Nobody worked harder than dad, either. He worked his whole life to make sure we never wanted for anything. He never wanted us to go without. I know now that that’s what makes a good man. I wish he could’ve lived to see it all pay off. And I wish I had gotten the chance to tell him that. I don’t know how we’re going to survive without them. I love them both. So much. And I hope they rest in peace. Thank you.”

He wipes his eyes again and makes his way back to our pew. When he sits, I squeeze his shoulder and wrap my arm around him. I feel his body tremble with tears and rub his back until he calms down.

The priest ushers me to come up and speak, and I hesitantly stand, adjusting my suit jacket. Making my way up to the podium, I look out to the forlorn faces in the crowd. I look at Sodapop and Ponyboy, whose faces are contorted with sadness. I swallow the dry lump in my throat.

“Thank you all for coming,” I say bleakly. “My mother and father would appreciate you all being here to support us and remember them today.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out a worn piece of paper that I’ve been hanging onto the past few days. I’ve been scribbling notes here and there about what I wanted to speak about. No matter what I would write, it never seemed sufficient to describe the enormity of what my parents meant to the three of us. I didn’t know where to begin.

“As you all know, we lost my parents over a week ago unexpectedly. There was no time for my brothers and I to say goodbye or tell them how much we loved them. We never got the chance to thank them for everything they’ve ever done for us or tell them how hard it would be to live the rest of our lives without them…” I trail off, feeling the sadness creep in.

I want to keep it formal. Just say the typical things everyone says when someone dies and get back to my seat as soon as possible. But I want Ponyboy and Sodapop to know that I’m hurting, too. And I want to honor my parents the best I can. So I continue.

“My mom always used to say to us, ‘If we always have each other, we having nothing to lose’… I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately,” I say. “Because now we’re separated. We’ve lost the two people we love most in the world. And I don’t really know how we’re going to go on. But then I’m reminded of so many things about our mom and dad and what they taught us. How to love each other and to stick together, no matter what. How to make a lot out of a little and to be grateful for what you do have rather than focus on what you don’t. And even if they’re gone now, I believe they’re looking down on us, right by our side like they’ve always been. So, really, we’re still all together. It just may look a little different now.” I look at my brothers again, who have small smiles on their faces.

“My mom was the nicest woman you would ever meet. She loved anybody who walked through our front door, no exceptions. She’s the reason why we have friends who became family,” I say, nodding to the gang in the pews. “And dad was the perfect example of a role model. He raised us to be strong, humble, and hard-working. He pushed us hard but loved us well. I’ll miss them both incredibly. We all will.”

I look at the two caskets below me and acknowledge that my parents are in them. A few feet away from me, but it feels like thousands of miles. I’m overcome with grief and I can’t stand it. I almost lose my composure when I feel the tears fill my eyes.

“That’s all I have...” I say. “Thank you all for coming.” I rush off the stage as the tears start coming. Ponyboy and Sodapop stand up from the pew and rush over to me as I make my way back to the pew, joining together for a hug. They push their faces into my chest and I put my face on the top of their heads, letting the tears fall.

I wish more than anything that we weren’t here right now. That life had some other plan for us. But, then, I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Everyone shuffles out of their pews and out of the church at the announcement of the priest, congregating by the front door. I don’t know how long we stand there hugging, weeping quietly on each other.

We pull away and look at each other, then chuckle a bit at how distraught we all look.

“I love you guys,” I say to them, sniffling. “We’ll be okay.... we’ll be okay.”

I love you all and your support of my writing lifts me up so much, you couldn’t even imagine. Thank you for enjoying my writing the way you do 🥺

#the outsiders #my writing #ponyboy curtis #sodapop curtis #darry curtis #curtis brothers #ponyboy #sodapop #ponyboy sodapop #steve randle #two bit mathews #two bit matthews #dallas winston #dally winston #the outsiders headcanons #the outsiders imagines

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no-idea-what-imdoing · 3 years

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Mostly out of context high school quotes part 3

Term 2 here we go

Also for refrence I live in a very conservative county and my school is open for all people within my county and even some from the next county over because we’re close by for them (it’s in the nw part near the county line) and a lot of underclassmen and middle schoolers are insanely conservative (jr-sr high school kinda sucks wouldn’t recommend)

I’m not gonna be like one of those Karen’s who think you have to wear a mask or they’ll die

I’m gonna shove my d*ck in your mouth shut up Michael

I like big balls

If that’s a coronavirus vaccine I’m gonna be taken out of school my parents are paranoid

-ITS INFLUENZA STEVEN ITS THE FLU

What’s 2+2

-Depends on who you are

[redacted last name 1], [redacted last name 2] y’all are crazy

-Yeehaw

You have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair

So we all got food poisoning from these potstickers from this Chinese place in Sarasota so my dad went back and ate those potstickers the next day after not being sick

Wait what are potstickers

-You’ve never had potstickers they’re so good 10/10 would recommend just not from this place in Sarasota

How do you get a girlfriend? Be a lesbian (said by a male)

You took an old man’s chair that’s a felony in Florida!

Garret you took mr [redacted]’s chair!

I’m so sorry I’m literally [r slur] I have two brain cells sometimes they rub together

Just because you live in a mansion doesn’t mean you can live in the White House (not about trump about a rich kid actually since a lot of the rich kids come to my school because the private school in my district is worse than the public ones which is weird…it’s also a religious (Baptist) school)

I don’t count California or New York as a state

-So you pretend the most populous city and most populous state don’t exist

-yes they are a cancer

If the students ever had a time to overthrow the administration now would be the perfect time to do it

How do people stand this all the time up north

At least we can drive down here New Yorkers don’t know how to drive

-Actually Florida has some of the worst drivers

-admin is quarantined-

For like a whole hour we had no administration the school was just anarchy

The President, Vice President, Secretary of State, all gone

I hate Splenda have you ever had tried to throw Splenda at someone it’s so light

*taking literacy test* (history teacher trying to prove how unfair voting laws were towards blacks and how the tests were designed to fail and how voter suppression occurred until the 60s+)

So are you all saying your illiterate

Entire class: YES

So glad that the soccer coach isn’t homophobic like the entire p-town girls soccer team is gay

It’s either a sex dungeon or a nursery (reading the yellow wallpaper)

Pleaseee can we watch Harry Potter

Fine. Goblet of Fire.

But that’s the worst one!

Excuse me?

What did you say?

I could create a bulleted list over why it’s the worst

*dumbledore impersonation* HARRY DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE

Marijuana good smoke

*in classroom* It means Ya gayer

*on meets over speaker* Actually I’m bi get it right

I am not used to having this much of my face exposed I feel weirdly naked I am going to put this back on (said by my English teacher during a mask break he’s a cool teacher)

That is all for semester one

#gen z #gen z quotes #high school #high school quotes #public school quotes #public school

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #392

“l.a. is where stars come to die”

Do you think there’s anything you did better when you were younger? I think I was a better writer, honestly. Like I've developed in some areas, like being less over-dramatic, but I just think my creativity in wording and such has dulled down. Who was the craziest teacher you’ve ever had? I've never had a "crazy" teacher, honestly. What’s the last thing you got paid to do? Take pictures. What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for someone else? How should I know? Ask either Jason or Sara. Have you ever wanted to model? No. Have you ever seen someone have a seizure? I THINK my sister? Teddy had seizures in his old age, too. What’s your favorite car? I don't have one, really. Do you know any HTML or CSS? If yes, how much? I know veeeeery little basics. LIke, I can change the color of shit and that's about it lmao. Do you tend to care about the lives of celebrities? Why or why not? Only celebrities I really really care about, like Mark. What do you think of the scene style? #aesthetic and I will ALWAYS be envious of the hair. Have you ever told an extremely inappropriate joke? Oh god, I remember one. What is the highest you have been up, other than in an airplane? On a certain faire ride, I wanna say. Is there any hope of you ever seeing your favorite band in concert? Ozzy does want to do another tour at some point, but he's fighting Parkinson's currently, so it's not guaranteed it will happen. Mom and I planned on going to his last one that was scheduled, but the diagnosis cancelled it. :( What is your favorite non-green vegetable? Uhhhhh I guess potatoes. What is your favorite non-traditional fruit? I don't think I've even had a non-traditional fruit. Just basic stuff. Have you ever had Swedish Fish? Yeah, I'm not a fan. What is your favorite origami shape? Birds, I guess. Do you usually take the stairs or the elevator? I pretty much always take an elevator if one's available because my legs can barely handle stairs at all. It's agonizing for me. Do you need a key card to get into the building you live in? No. What was the last takeout food you had? I had a burger from McDonald's a few days ago. Do you take the pickle off your burgers? No, I love pickles on burgers. Do you share a bed with anyone? Just my cat. If you’ve read or watched Harry Potter, which book/movie is your favorite? I haven't. What’s the last app you downloaded on your phone? I re-installed DragonVale. What do you know the most about? Meerkats, Markiplier, and Silent Hill, probably. What TV shows can you not stand? What's that stupid show on Adult Swim, Rooster Teeth or something like that? That shit was so dumb. Have you ever tasted your own tears? I mean not intentionally. Sometimes tears just fall down a spot where it happens. Are your legs hairy? I can almost guarantee to you that I probably have the hairiest legs of any woman you've ever met. Do you like Cheese-Itz? I love them! We don't really buy them though because both Mom and I can destroy a box of them. Have you ever built a sandcastle? I have. Did you ever watch Barney as a child? Yeah, I loved Barney, but not as much as my older sister. She literally "married" him, haha. Have you ever had a pet rabbit? No, but my older sis did as a kid. That poor thing died and Ashley didn't know for THREE DAYS. Mom took it out earlier and I guess she wanted to see how long it took Ash to notice? She didn't take great care of it, so. Are you wearing anything of any sentimental value? Describe? Yes, my friendship ring with Sara. To you, what is especially distracting? Tapping noises. When was the last time you did some major cleaning? MAJOR cleaning? Good question. How do you feel about people who neglect their pets? It sickens me. Have you ever contemplated cheating on anyone? Nope. When are you likely to lie? Probably when I don't want to seriously hurt someone. What is a personality type that you do not like? I hate people who think they know everything, are unwilling to acknowledge their flaws and work on them, feel they're better than others, are closed-minded, sexist, bigoted, racist... What is a personality type that you DO like? I am drawn to people who are empathetic and try to understand and consider more than just themselves, are caring and genuine, philosophical and think deeply, are calm, friendly, good listeners, and have a light sense of humor. Which of your friends is the least like you? In what way? I actually don't know. MAYBE Mini with her being extremely conservative to a frustrating degree and overwhelmingly religious. We diverge pretty strongly in beliefs that are important to me. How about the most like you? In what way? Sara! We have incredibly similar interests and morals, and we both are wild over animals. When was the last time you felt under-appreciated? I'm gonna be completely transparent here, even though it's uncomfortable to admit. I was very unhappy with the literally two interactions a poem I was really proud of got on dA. Like it was one I was trying to get published prior to just posting it there, so it was really disappointing to feel so overlooked when you worked hard on something you felt came out great. Does anyone take advantage of you or take you for granted? No. Are you taking anyone for granted? I sure as hell hope no one feels like I do. I definitely try to appreciate those I have to the utmost. What is one selfish thing that you do? I prioritize my alone time probably too much. How about something selfless? I'm pretty much always willing to listen to people's hardships and comfort them even if my own mental health is in poor condition. What do you like to do on your favorite holiday? Just be with family and really focus on how lucky I am to have them. What helps you fall asleep? I guess really paying attention to slowing my breathing, but that doesn't always work. It takes me at LEAST half an hour to fall asleep, so I struggle no matter what. Is there anyone you wish you were still friends with now? Megan. I really, really miss her. What is a fear you want to overcome? SOCIAL ANXIETY. UGH. What is something you do not like about yourself, with good reason? I'm lazy. What do you usually cry about? PTSD. Do you like pizza better on the second day? No. What do you like on your pancakes? Butter and normal syrup. Have you ever made up your own emoticon? I don't think so. How do you generally meet people? Online in one way or another. Have you ever seen a Broadway show in New York? No. Are you listening to music right now? Yeah, "God Hates Your Outfit" by Jeffree Star lmao. Look, it's catchy. Can anyone in your immediate family play the guitar? No. Have you ever wished to be an internet celebrity? How about a ‘real’ one? No. Like I've actually *loosely* considered trying to be a let's player with my love of games, but I don't even want to *risk* popularity; not that I think I'd get to that point, but still, I don't like the chance. Have you ever been kayaking? No. Do you still live with your parents? Yes. Do you believe you will never get over someone? I think Jason will always occupy at the very least a small corner of my mind. I just deal with loss so poorly in general, but that... that breakup was something. What do you order at Burger King? I don't like BK. Have you ever lived by yourself? No. Pretty sure I never could with my depression. What brand cell phone do you have? It's just a Tracfone, lol. Did you ever have a ‘security blanket’ when you were younger? Yes, my stuffed moose. What is your lucky charm? I don’t have one. Have you ever been in a wedding? Yeah, I was a bridesmaid in my sister's. Do you believe in yourself? ehhhhhh What time does your dad usually wake up in the morning? I don't live with him, so I can't say for sure. He's a mailman though, so he gets up early, I know. Who was the last person/people you were in a car with? Mom. What movie do you plan on watching next? I've been meaning to watch Jacob's Ladder for like... over a year, lmao. It served as an inspirational work for Silent Hill, and I know its reputation is brilliant, so I really want to see it. I just... don't really watch movies unless I'm in the theater. When something really scares you, what’s your immediate reaction? Gasp or go "what the fuck" or something along those lines. I can almost promise a curse word is coming out of my mouth, lol. Using song lyrics, say something to your most recent ex: I don't wanna get emotional digging through the songs that remind me of her, so pass, lol. You can only watch 4 TV shows for the rest of your life. What are they? Meerkat Manor, That '70s Show, maybe Pokemon even if I don't watch it anymore (it could be like a comfort show if I'm limited to four), aaaaand I think Ginga Densetsu Weed. Do you think it’s possible for a rap song to make you cry? ... Yes??? There are a couple that have for me. Does the idea of having a baby at your age scare you? I'm not having kids, sooo I don't have to worry about this. What band has the power to make you cry by splitting up? None. I'd be really upset if some did, but I wouldn't cry. Who is your favourite famous person who isn’t a singer, actor, or athlete? Well, I WOULD say Mark, but considering he's officially an actor now... guess not, haha. Uhhhh. Put him aside and I guess maybe Bindi Irwin. I'm not sure.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''god hates your outfit'' by jeffree star

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rolaana2 · 3 years

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Huge fucking vent (literally just talking to myself lol I don’t wanna cry anymore so I’ll write instead)

So it’s always been my dream to go to uni in the UK (preferably london). Mostly because I wanna be completely away from my family. I wanna do shit that would disappoint them. They’re religious asf and I wanna drink and smoke weed and do drugs and date around and hook up with people and live alone and barely eat and be bisexual without fear of persecution. But of course I tell my mom it’s bc of the quality of education and job opportunities and all of that (which is also true). But I’ve always wanted to study abroad. That’s been my dream ever since i started middle school.

My dads been against it from the beginning but he doesn’t even live in the same country so Idc what he says. My mom’s been supportive, until now. Now she’s forcing me to go back to my third world country and study there and stay with family and I finally gave in. I’m so sad I haven’t stopped crying. I can’t run away because I don’t have any money and the country I’m in rn doesn’t allow minors to work. Plus, I pay for a lot of my own shit already with a very limited allowance.

I’ve been telling everyone I’m studying abroad, and I’m running away if my parents say no, and everyone’s been like “woah that’s crazy but you can totally do it” and now I don’t think I can.

I mean, with the little amount I have saved, I can only afford a flight ticket. I can’t afford a visa, and even if I did get a visa, it would probably be a tourist/visit visa, not a student/resident. I won’t be able to afford uni, let alone a place to stay. It’s not realistic for me to run away.

When I say third world country, I might be exaggerating. I mean, it’s just an overpopulated, slightly below average country (economy wise) and education there is great and all, but idk.

I negotiated with my mom, I’d only be okay with living there if I get to stay in a dorm and I get a car, and she agreed. I’ll also get a job. She says I can travel when I finish undergrad.

Plus, the money I have saved rn is worth way more in my home country than in the UK. It’s about £4500 in my country, but £200GBP in the UK. Obviously I’d be more comfortable in my home country.

And even though I’m very distant from my family, they’re still super well off and with their support I could ACTUALLY afford to study AND have fun. The uni I’m planning on going to has study abroad programs too.

The people in the country are super fun and chill and friendly, there’s parties and weed and alcohol and everything. Being bisexual might be illegal and I’m not entirely sure how the people there might react to me being bi, or if there would be any bi women there in the first place, but I guess we’ll see. There’s international students there too.

Also, one concern I have is that the country’s food is literally ALL carbs and fats. Almond milk is £50 and I love almond milk. Healthy food & low cal food is super expensive, and isn’t available either. There’s no Walden farms, halo top, alpro, etc. But I know loads of uni students there are BIG on fitness and all have gym memberships and stuff.

I’m trying to make it seem cool and fun but I feel like a failure. Ive given up on my dreams and I’m just accepting it. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s definitely not ideal. I spent so long planning everything, I literally memorized the London map. I was counting on going to the UK, I couldn’t be around my family. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that one day I was leaving and wouldn’t have to talk to them as much, but now I’m not. Now they’re always gonna be around. Even my extended family, I’ve never felt like I was part of them. My cousins were so close and I was always an outsider. They all have married conservative parents and live in big fancy houses and went to fancy schools and I live w my single mom in an average apartment and go to a shitty school. Plus my mom’s the only one in the family that dresses the way she wants, got divorced, etc so they’ve formed their opinions. My dad was barely around. I only saw him in the summers, and mostly on weekends. My mom is a whole other story that I don’t like getting into and I’m completely traumatized and will probably have serious issues forever. I can’t even connect with the country itself. The culture, language, traditions, entertainment, all of it. They’d probably call me white washed and I don’t even live in a “white” country.

Im trying to be happy about it. I’m trying to be excited about it. But giving up like that feels so awful, and giving my parents the satisfaction of winning? I hate it. I mean, after everything they’ve done. After all the fights and arguments and days I’ve spent crying screaming and wishing I didn’t live there or wishing I had different parents. This was my only goal. My only goal was to study abroad, and now I don’t have that and I feel like such a huge fucking failure. My mom is ecstatic and she thinks I’m excited because I’m talking about it a lot and planning everything out, but I’m not.

Idk if I should be feeling defeated, or be realistic, get all the financial support I can from my parents, negotiate my independence, make the best of the situation, get a job and save up till I can travel and live alone after undergrad. I know it’s not the end of the world, and it’s just 4 years, but Idk anymore.

#ana #anarecix #anor3xia #ana advice #ed #anaaamiaaa #not pro ana just using the tag #anam*a

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onewfantaesy · 3 years

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Taemin is adjusting well :D does he ever get the courage to go visit his guardian angel parents in prison after a few years? Write them because he still loves them? Or is he advised by sooman and his therapist to completly block them out of his life?

Upside Down: The Letter

(tw abuse, kidnapping)

Taemin is advised by both his therapist and Sooman to not seek out any contact with the couple who kidnapped him, at least not so soon. It might do more harm than good right now, they told him.

They’re in jail for a long time, but not forever. Fifteen years. Taemin had been told that was a lenient sentencing. He didn’t think it sounded very lenient.

It wasn’t hard to find out how to contact them. A private browser and a few searches later, and he had mailing addresses for both of them, for the two separate prisons they were in. It still made his heart ache at the idea of his parents being in prison. Like criminals. They weren’t criminals.

He can’t go visit them. There was no way it would work. He’s a minor and the supposed victim and he would no doubt need Sooman to sign him in, not to mention how he would even get there?

So he decided to write a letter. The same one to both of them, pretty much.

Hi Mom,

It feels really weird writing you a letter and not being able to just talk to you. But a lot of people told me I can’t talk to you yet, so I can’t even try to call you and it sucks a lot. I want to visit you so so bad but I know no one will let me. I just want you to know I miss you a lot and I want to see you really bad, but for now all I can do is send you letters. It’s better than nothing I guess. I hope you’ll write me back.

This has been the absolute worst year of my entire life. Every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it got a million times worse.

The people they sent me to, my “parents,” were the worst. They were evil. Completely evil. Then they said I was actually fourteen not sixteen and they wouldn’t even let me go in the right grade at school, they would get all pissed whenever I said I wasnt supposed to be in first year, and they made me repeat it. I hated it. My new school was stupid and gross and everyone was stupid and gross.

I won’t tell you what else happened because I don’t want to make you upset. I ended up getting taken away from them after a few months. I was happy to be away from them. But I thought it would mean I would get to go back to you, but it didn’t, and it just made everything worse. But they’re not my parents. You and Dad are my parents. I just want you to know you’re still my parents. You’ll always be my parents, I don’t care what anyone else says. Everyone else says I have Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t even really know what Stockholm Syndrome is but I know I don’t have it.

Then I ended up at this group home. It was called a boys home or something. Like forty other teenage boys all in this one big gross house and there were four of us in each room and it was the worst. I’m never gonna complain about the SHINee dorm ever again.

Then I got sent to another new school and they still put me in first year and I hated it even more and no one would listen to me at all. And my roommates were crazy and evil.

But then Lee Sooman visited me and he promised everything would be okay. I thought he was gonna say he found a way for me to go back to you and Dad. But he said I had to wait. And to fight back if anyone hurt me.

So I fought back but then I got in a lot of trouble and so I ran away. I went to the company building. And then Sooman adopted me. He adopted both of us. And I hadn’t seen brother at all and I missed him so much but he’s here now. I still can’t believe Sooman adopted him too. He’s really nice. I think he’s a good dad.

And I still don’t really know what’s going and everyone still says I’m only fifteen and it all feels like a nightmare.

I miss you. I miss you so much. Please write me back because I miss you more than anything and I still feel like I’m in a nightmare.

I told everyone I think you and Dad are my guardian angels. Because you didn’t kidnap me, you saved me. Right? Because you love me.

I love you. Please write me back.

Love,

Taemin

Taemin includes both the address for the dorm and for home for them to write him back. And for weeks, Taemin checks both mailboxes religiously, to best anyone else to them, so no one will see if he gets a letter from a prison. It has to be a secret. It has to be a total secret.

But when he still hasn’t gotten any letters after three weeks, he loses hope. He gets frustrated and upset and angry, and he thinks he’s never going to hear from his parents ever again.

Until he comes home after school one day to find Sooman sitting at the kitchen table holding his head up, a letter in front of him. Just a single letter, still in the envelope. Unopened.

“Are you mad at me?” is the first thing out of Taemin’s mouth.

“No,” Sooman says immediately, and he sits up straight and motions for Taemin to come sit down with him.

So Taemin goes over, sits in the furthest end from Sooman as he can, and he keeps his backpack on his lap to hug close to him.

It’s a letter from his mom. Sitting there in the table. Staring at him.

“Can I open it?”

Sooman sighs and runs a hand over his face, but he pushes the letter over to Taemin.

“You can open it,” he says softly. “But I want you to read it here first. With me.”

“Out loud?”

“No, not if you don’t want,” Sooman says. “I just would like to be with you while you read it.”

Taemin tears into the envelope with eager fingers, rips the paper out, and unfolds it so fast he almost tears it in half.

And the first thing he does is run his fingers over his name written in his mom’s handwriting. Because it’s something so simple but he missed seeing it, reminds him that she still exists, that she’s still there and still thinking about him.

But not even halfway through the letter, he’s gripping the paper too tight and he’s got tears in his eyes. Because she’s telling him he’s wrong. The one person in the world who should be agreeing with him, who should think exactly the same as him. And she’s saying exactly what everyone else is.

Taemin, your father and I love you more than anything. We took you in because we love you. But we aren’t your guardian angels. And we never were.

What we did was wrong. We wanted to help you and we wanted you to be our child, but we did it the wrong way. And we will never regret taking you or your brother, because we will always love you, but that doesn’t make it right.

“She’s wrong,” he argues through fresh tears, shaking his head. “She’s wrong. They are my guardian angels, they are. I know it.”

He’s crying and his head is dipped low, the letter crinkling in his hands.

All Sooman does is move into the chair next to Taemin, and he puts a comforting arm around Taemin’s shoulders, squeezing his arm. Taemin tries reading the rest, tries to get through the end of the letter, but the tears are blurring his vision and the sobs he refuses to let out are wracking his entire body, and he just can’t.

“I think now,” Sooman says softly, letting Taemin turn into him, hugging him back, “you understand why we said it was too soon to try to contact them.”

“But why?” he asks, his voice muffled. “I don’t - I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either,” Sooman says. “They may not even understand.”

“I just - I can’t-” he stammers, “If they’re not my guardian angels, then - then what are they?”

Sooman is quiet. Doesn’t answer for a few minutes, just continues holding Taemin close. And Taemin is sure he’s going to get lectured or yelled at about how his guardian angel idea is stupid and childish and he’s been told before that it isn’t true so he needs to stop believing it.

Instead, Sooman’s voice is soft and reassuring as he tells Taemin, “They were your parents. And in many ways, they will always be your parents. Because I do truly believe they loved you. And they loved your brother. And they loved the family you all were together.”

It surprises Taemin, because it’s not really something Sooman has ever said, not really something anyone has said since all of this started.

“But I want you to know,” Sooman says, “that you have a family right here that loves you, too. And we all only want what’s best for you.”

Taemin nods, tears still falling from his eyes.

The letter is put away somewhere safe. Somewhere Taemin can read it again later. When he’s ready. And when the letter from his dad comes, Taemin asks Sooman to keep it with the letter from his mom.

“Just until I’m ready,” he says.

“Just until you’re ready,” Sooman agrees. “And you can tell me whenever that is.”

It helps. Taemin is glad to know they’re in a safe place, even if he doesnt know when he’ll be ready to finally read them.

#taemin #shinee #upside down au

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miss-lady-uhane · 3 years

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Off My Chest Pt.1

I don't see what's so hard about being in a relationship. You are born in to a group of relationships. Your parents, maybe siblings, aunts, uncles, or cousins?

Then immediately you're expected to create more relationships and this time it's with strangers. You're told at a you age to treat others how you want to be treated but who's to say that others will treat you the way you treat them. It's totally uncertain how a person will react to you since not everyone gets along even for the most simple of reasons.

When I was in elementary school I always had the weirdest time making friends and I think it's because no one else was going through what I was going through. At that time I was too young to connect those dots because I didn't even really know what I was going through. I always hung out with my cousin patsy when we weren't in school, mostly because my dad was working and she was also my only cousin who was my age. I think we got along well but we just had different views about things. We both grew up in a Jehovah Witness family, and by that I mean my grandparents were both heavily religious and had 13 kids where majority of them were also heavy in to the JW beliefs. The difference between us was that her dad didn't care about going to church and never let the rest of the family pressure him. My dad was always in the church as a young man but was also a troublemaker and actually was disfellowshiped which means no one in the JW congregation could talk to you because you've basically been banned and the only way to get that back is to do everything you're supposed to do in regards to being a good follower.

I don't exactly know how his obligations transferred to me but we always had to go to church until I was maybe 6-8? And I had to go alone. My older cousins would take me to bible study or come over and study the watch tower. At a young age I started to actually realize how hypocritical that was, why do I have to get dressed up and memorize the Bible when my dad just stays home every night? Boom. All at once I was a bad person even though I never did anything wrong.

As a kid I spent a lot of time with my dad who was really strict. My grandma got me a phone because he would refuse to answer her calls and that was both the best and worst gift. I could have some kind of social life and hang out with my friends but my dad would literally call me every 20 minutes and I'm not exaggerating. It got to the point where I would just turn my phone off even if I knew I would get in trouble.

The constant calling and over-protection along with my dad always being gone for work coupled with moving in to smaller and smaller housing situations started to change me inside. I started realizing that not everything was peachy-keen. My dads best friends who I would go over and hang out with their kids no longer wanted him around which meant I had less and less friends. I started to wonder why my dad was always so frantic and why these people he's known his whole life started to drift away from him. The final time we moved to Pa'anau village which was basically Kauai's section 8 housing changed everything. After a lot of drama and overhearing arguments I realized that we were poor. I was still to young to understand why that was but I wasn't really bothered by it because I still wore the same school uniform, I still saw my friends from school, I still went to the beach every day. The only thing that was different now was that my dad was unemployed because the union does massive layoffs all the time.

I was still in middle school at this time and things started to change a little, people wanted to come to my neck of the woods all the sudden and I could never think of an excuse to tell them why they couldn't. Because my dad is a hoarder? Because I live in the ghetto? Or what else? Because my dad refused to pick me up or drop me off because he was always asleep? I never questioned why my dad was the way he was. I always just thought he was sad and missed my mom. He would cry a lot and have nightmares where he would yell for her and I would go in and wake him up and he would just cry.

I learned a lot about growing up once we moved to pa'anau. I had to clean our apartment all the time or it would be a mess, I did my own laundry. I definitely got in a lot of trouble because of who I was hanging out with in the environment. Living there and going to school in the city really changed who I was as a person.

I never saw myself as a "hot girl" or let alone a "pretty island girl". When I was in chief was I remember being like wow I thought I was a tomboy before and now I don't even own a pair of short hollister jean shorts. Either way I made my own path, I had the typical "text" boyfriend that I never saw in my life. We'd look at each other after our friends would go tell them something we each sent them on a mission to relay. Never really cared for any of that because in reality I was still shooting my guy friends with airsoft guns on the weekends.

After a while I realized that I couldn't just hang out with my two guy friends (Curtis & Treydon) because they too were finding themselves in a whole new world. I started hanging out with girls.. I just always felt like I never fit in. Girls as a whole are hard to get close with because there is ALWAYS drama. I still managed to have a group of friends wether I was unsure of if they really liked me or not we all ate lunch and we all hung out every lunch and found each other in class.

In the 8th grade things started to go for a wild turn. I got in a lot of trouble since my after school friends were those in my neighborhood and most of the people who lived in Pa'anau Village have drug using parents or drug dealing parents. I ended up getting arrested for the first time when I was 11 years old. We were eating ice cream I. Old Koloa Town when one of our friends said hey that couple left their bag should we take it? I remember everyone being scared and not wanting to but before I knew it she grabbed it and everyone just started running so of course I ran. She started opening the bag once we got to a bush covered pond near by and I realized we fucked up. The bag had her cell phone, her engagement ring, wedding band, Movado watch, everything. When they caught us I didn't have anything in my possession but the only thing that linked me was a phone call to my cell phone from the stolen phone. That call was made by a friends boyfriend who thought it was funny.

I'm now an 11 year old on probation. Grounded for life, can't affiliate with those friends, not to mention that we all had a different version of what happened. After this I found out that not only those friends but also our mutual school friends also had it out for me. As some kind of joke while we were banned from seeing each other they made a fake MySpace page where they started flirting with all kinds of guys including my last friend left in the groups boyfriend.

At this point I pretty much gave up on everyone I knew. I didn't want to hang out with them and I knew that I could find better people to be with. 8th grade summer my cousin Levi who was for some reason two years older than me in the same grade invited me to hang out with his friends. They were all way older and looked at me crazy!

A 13 year old? Who brought her here. But I was a balmores and they knew my older cousins really well. This group wasn't easy to get in to but once again I found my way and stuck around.

This all leads me to what I wanna figure out. Why, do I consistently get shafted? My 9th grade year I met a boy, he was quiet and literally said nothing to me. We would pass at school and for the first time ever I was like wow who is that. Fast forward, I find out he's friends with my new older friends because he was a senior which would make sense why I never saw him before. We eventually had small interactions and then one day at a party we hooked up. Go figure. We danced and kissed and I was like holy shit I'm gonna get in so much trouble. After that he literally said nothing to me until months went by and it happened again and this time it went all the way. First of all as I'm writing this why the fuck would he be the one to choose? Fuckin guy didn't do anything. Anyway.

I'm 14 and I've lost my virginity to a senior who also lost his virginity to me. Everyone we knew found out and made fun of him for hooking up with such a young girl. Everyone was so mean to me and he never talked to me again not a single word. Later I find out he was too embarrassed, what a pussy.

Instead of being sad I got really mad and started partying more and being kind of a tease because I thought it was funny that guys would try to hook up with me and I could say no but a girl they knew for years would be trying to hook up with them and the guy wouldn't want to. My way of killing two birds with one stone, getting over a guy and pissing off girls who were being mean to me.

Eventually I had my first legit boyfriend and that was.. a first. Typical I threw away my whole world for him but it wasn't hard since we were in the same group, things continued pretty much as normal minus the fact that I always had a ride now.

A lot of things happened that would need an entire book to fill in order for me to explain my self enstated independence from my dad, moving in with a friend, moving in with my coupons, then ending up in Washington.

I spent the entire time in Washington flying back and forth to California partially to see my boyfriend and partially to stay with friends and party.

My boyfriend and I ended pretty bad. He had developed depression and became a legitimate alcoholic, was cheating on me with multiple girls who I was suspicious of, then finally he was a complete drunk monster and that was the end of that.

Once again I found my way. I stayed in Washington and completed high school where I also met a whole squad of female demons. But yet again I started dating someone I met at a party. I didn't know him at all just what I knew from parties and social media. I figured we would be good friends and have fun and it was one of those things where he just called me his girlfriend one day. This was the biggest mistake I could've ever made. This guy was abusive, mentally and physically. I've never dealt with anyone like that and found myself at my weakest point. He spat in my face, threw my belongings all over the place, cheated on me physically, cheated on me on social media, fought with me publicly and on social media. Ultimately he ended up hacking any kind of internet profile I owned and was trying to ruin my life and I had to go to his house get my stuff and tell his parents and threaten legal action. Worst person ever.

Then right before I move to college a friend of mine was really in to setting me up with someone and I told her sure but nothing official. I hung out with this guy and her a few times and started to like him just because he was a normal guy. Pretty basic, friends, family, a dog. Most of all worshipped the ground I walk on. Everything was pretty easy going he asked me to be his girlfriend and I didn't see why not so I said yes, we dated in Washington for 3 months. I moved to California and we were still together even though that wasn't the plan. While I was there the day before my first ever jiu jitsu tournament I get a call "Keanna I'm so sorry I should've never done that I feel so terrible" the voice was a girl but the number wasn't recognized. It was a friend of my boyfriend, she told me that they went to lunch and after went back to his place. I didn't care much about him hanging out with girls because he had a lot of girl friends and it just wasn't an issue. She said that she wanted to break up with her crazy boyfriend and she saw an opportunity (to cheat) and took it. They went back to his house after having a long talk about how they used to have feelings for each other. The stories after this don't really add up but what I gather is that they went up to his room to have sex or something and she started feeling guilty, because we were "friends" and told him she changed her mind to which he responded "can I touch your ass at least" and she pulled her pants down and he touched her ass. Doesn't make sense yeah? So anyway I'm not really trying to deal with this and I should've broken up with him but instead I call him and I said "what did you do?" He sounds confused so I ask again but this time louder. He panicks and says I don't know I don't know. He ended up telling me and flew down the weekend after because wanted to talk. While he was there I looked through his phone and saw some other conversations he was having and also saw that when we first were hanging out he had another option if I didn't go through. Another option who apparently was in his bed when they were making out and she got her period and bled on him she felt so inclined to apologize. After this I lost my shit and didn't trust him at all and I just wanted him to leave. He begged me to forgive him and promised nothing would ever happen again and like me, I go with it. We end up dating for a total of two years. After he said he wouldn't do anything he really didn't. I still let him do whatever he wanted if he wanted to go to Vegas with his friends or party or go to lunch with girls. I just didn't really care I guess, my friend told me "do what you want to do so I know what you'd rather do" so I kept that. Eventually I was tired of how dependent he was. I had to do everything for him aside from basic chores. I had to file papers for him (e.g work, school, gym) I felt like I was teaching him how to do things and I just got tired of it. I felt like everything was almost too good and too plain because I was carrying the relationship. I was better than him at everything. We broke up and he moved out which was a long process.

During that process I was working my first full time job, had a recently found new best friend, and was spending most of my time with someone from high school who didn't like me but we ended up liking our adult selfs. This person suggested that I start hanging out with a teammate, a guy I knew since the 6th grade, or at least knew who he was. She said she thought we would be cute together and people always made fun of us for being so close. Never in my mind did I think I would date him. I just didn't see him like that. We started hanging out and realized we have a lot more in common than we thought. Everything happened pretty fast and things were so different. For once I was open to the idea of having a "friends with benefits" because I knew this person for a while and knew he wasn't exactly the relationship type. I told him that this could work out as long as he didn't keep me in the dark and was honest with me. After 4 months of us being kind of exclusive kind of not he told me that he loved me more than anyone else and I felt the same way. We were officially official. I felt so close to him in ways I never felt with anyone else. Eventually we had our first issue. I had found out that he had been chatting with our old classmate who lived in a city near by, he was telling her all kinds of false nothings and she asked "aren't you dating Keanna?" To which he replied "ugh". I found out because we were sitting with each other that night and she messaged him, I said ew why are you talking to that girl? And he said they were talking because she lived near by. I messaged her "hey girl. Bryson told me you live in LA we should hang sometime" to which she responded something like "Keanna I'm so sorry I shouldn't have been talking to him I'm so sorry I did this to you" followed with screenshots of their conversation. I was hurt. I freaked out, he left, he came back and squeezed me tight after hours of us fighting and said he was sorry and it would never happen again. A few months go by and we're sort of living together mostly because I didn't want to hang out at his house anymore and my place was cuter. Every morning before he went to work he spent a huge amount of time in the bathroom and I was always kind of like wtf and I don't remember how I found this out but I found out that he was flirting with girls during those hours because some how one of the girls told me and sent me screenshots of their conversations. Once again I got mad and forgave him and months went by. I go away for thanksgiving break leaving him at our place/my place. I come back to beautiful flowers and more attention than I had before. He told me shortly after that break that he wasn't going to be hanging with his old friends because they were bad news and I was pretty surprised. I kind of agreed but I also think.. idk my friends are wild too. Either way things were good. One day he gets a FaceTime call and didn't want to answer it, I copied the number in to google and found a name of a girl I recognized from a while ago at my birthday. I was drunk and he let me send a Snapchat to a bunch of girls I told them "I will ruin your life" the only one who responded was this girl who said "I didn't even do anything" and I thought it was funny. I find out that while I was gone for thanksgiving he and his friend picked this girl up and her friend and brought them to my apartment and they stayed the night. They made a vlog about how they picked them up in my car and how they hung out at my place and slept so long that they missed their flight. The next morning there were videos of my boyfriend driving them back in my car. My heart stopped.

I've never felt so blind sided in my life. I hated him and I didn't want to see him again but somehow he convinced me that it was all a mistake and he already cut all these toxic people out of his life.

He suggested that we delete social media and I remember the exactly message "if you love me you'll do the same thing" and I was like wow, yeah let's do it. That was probably the most interesting time of my life. For once I didn't have social media and I had to answer to everyone as to why and tell them that I am okay and that I'm just taking time off. We ended up moving to LA to be closer to school. His friend moved in from Kauai and stayed only 6 months. Living in LA was an interesting change. We got to eat a lot and experience a different kind of the city.

Lots of little things happened while we were here, we fought a lot about social media. He would reactivate his Instagram without telling me which I felt like was kind of shady since we were doing this together and I didn't know there was that option on the table but I felt like life was better without it anyway. At one point I saw a call on his phone made from Snapchat to a random girl. I asked about it and it got no where but I became very suspicious. At this point my trust level was low as could be but I just thought that the goods were good and that bads were so stupid and avoidable. One day I just decided to look through his Venmo and the first name said "queenturtlee" I was like wtf kind of name is that so I look it up on google and see that it's connected to a Twitter account of a girl asking people to send her money. I reach out to her and ask why she's friends with my boyfriend to which she sends me screenshots of their conversations and once again I am frantic. I screenshot all of it and send it to him, we go through the apologies again. And yet again I believe that he was going to delete it. Half way through living in Palos Verdes, life at this point is a fucking rollercoaster. I haven't told anyone about anything thats happened I haven't opened up or really understand how I feel about it we just keep moving. One night after he was out with friends he was getting texts and calls from a Hawaii phone number which I thought was strange, I look it up on a google and I recognize the name. I start questioning it but I get deflected, it's nothing it's nothing. Once again we move on.

A few months go by and we're hit with an actual pandemic. We leave LA all together to go to Washington temporarily and it turned in to permanently after realizing that life in California just wasn't going to be sustainable. I graduated college virtually, we were living in my grandmas house for 3-4 months. Things were weird. We were managing to stay positive by doing all the things we possibly could to stay active and have a good summer.

Eventually we got our own place, moved all our belongings up, and got a puppy! Things were still locked down but at least we had all of our things and more importantly we had this little fluffy bear.

I've always struggled with birth control because I would get the worst symptoms so a friend told me about tracking ovulation and taking my basal body temperature in place of taking birth control. This method was risky but I felt like it was okay because she does it. One day I felt really sick and realized I didn't get my period, I took 5 pregnancy tests all faded positive negative. This led to me having to take a bunch of blood tests and ultrasounds to find out that I was exactly 3 weeks pregnant.

I wasn't ready and had no intention on having the baby but I had to wait until a fetus was visible to do anything about it. While I'm in this process I get a random message from a classmate I haven't talked to in years. They say "hey girl sorry to message you about this but I was at a family party and there were some girls talking about your boyfriend subscribing to her only fans" I immediately felt my heart drop lower than ever. The girl who was at the party messaged me, she told the girl with the only fans to message me and she did. She sent me everything and I remembered a time recently when I walked out late at night and saw him on Snapchat which is where the messages she showed me came from. So once again I confront him but this time it's different. I'm going through something that I never thought. I'm waiting weeks knowing I'm pregnant feeling nauseas, anxious, and scared. What am I supposed to do now.

After a huge fight, the solution was that he would delete it again and give me his password.

This was probably the worst it ever was. A couple nights I unlocked his phone and then got nervous and locked it again. I wanted to look but I was scared of what I would find. I couldn't sleep every night, I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know if I could trust him anymore. Everything was so good how was I going to deal with a breakup, a puppy separation, all after moving to a new state. I thought to myself, if I don't look now I'll never know. So I do. I find messages that date back to a year. I find all the extra messages that no one sent me, I find money trails sent to females for nudes or sexual messages. Worst of all I find the girl that I saw calling him a year before when he came home late that one night. He had been talking to this girl the entire time, telling her stories about things we were doing. Worst of all is that he wrote the words "I love you".

I completely lost my shit. I woke him up in a rage showing him all the things I saw asking him how he could do this to me.

I never wanted to see him again I felt like I was going to throw up. I was crying so much I felt like the world knew.

He went to his moms house and I tried to stay out or away as much as possible without telling my family anything. At this point it hurt so much. I love him so much, everything outside of social media is a dream so why would he risk that? I felt insecure. A few days before my surgery he told me that he wanted to be there for me and that he was a changed person and realized how fucked up he was but he didn't want me to go through it alone. I didn't want to go through it alone either, I couldn't stop thinking about what I saw and all the names I read. I felt alone and like I was looking at a stranger.

He came back and we slowly tried to figure out how to be normal again. Since then we've moved on far but I think he moves much faster or at least it seems like it. He is my best friend and someone I care about differently than I've ever before. We make a great team, we support each other and know each other on a deep level. We can be our selves with each other. We know each other more than I've ever known any of my friends.

Today, we are still together. He is still my best friend. Our little fluffy bear is now a semi-huge German shepherd who is the cutest and most well behaved 9 month old ever. We've established ourselves in Washington and he actually got a really good job doing what he went to school for. In regards to loyalty things have been going well so far. It's taken me a lot to get to where I am now, I feel like I lost myself for a long time. I'm trying to work on myself lately and trying to stay focused on things that really matter. Our life is pretty much picture perfect but we're still growing up.

Our most constant argument is always social media, but now it's all over the place. It's me being crazy, it's him being careless. A constant circle of misunderstanding each other and breaking each other down emotionally. Sometimes I wish there was a way to forget everything. I wish social media was as it were before, simple. I wish communication wasn't so aggressive and that there was an easier way to mediate instead of getting a therapist. I don't know I wish there was a way to make the pain go away. To not think about what's made me who I am today.

I think it's hard being in your 20s. Everyone is at different stages of life. They have different priorities. People who you grew up with are now spread across the world and you may go years without seeing someone you consider your close friend.

One thing that's hard for me now is not knowing what's next. I feel as if I've given all of the emotional gas I have and if anything else makes my heart drop I think I'll completely give up.

I wish it was easier to get over a fear but some people including myself need extra support. Unfortunately for my boyfriend, not only does he get to deal with what we've been through but he has to deal with all that I've been through.

I always feel like no one I know actually knew what I went through growing up. Boyfriends or best friends are usually the ones who get to know you best and so far only one person who's not my family knows so much about me. Life has shown me how easy it's been for people to leave me or treat me badly. I know that I am not a perfect person but I do know that I don't deserve half the things I experienced. I blame myself for being too forgiving, I blame the church for teaching me that trait, I blame my dad for making me go and making me think life was different than it was.

At this point I have no one to blame but myself for how things have gone. All I can hope is that all that I have now stays afloat and keeps growing in the positive direction that it has. I can't control everything even though I want to.

#self care #relationships #mental health #exercise #diet #friends #making friends #switching schools

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dorkylittleweirdo · 4 years

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crazy shit that happened during high school

freshman year:

my favorite teacher (pe coach) ended up being a pedophile. it’s kinda scary to think about bc like,, that was my favorite teacher and i trusted him and if he tried anything with me i don’t think i would’ve stopped him and just yikes. but yeah, it was a whole thing. once the school found out they got the police involved and he fled the state. they got him in the end but i mean,, i spent a lot of time in the secretary’s office crying about it bc i really trusted that dude and i was distraught over it. that might’ve been where my trust issues started??? fun stuff

my school shut down. like i mean,, bc it was a charter school and we had to get the charter renewed. but the board at my school wasn’t using their money the way they were supposed to. it was a whole thing, like the principal left that school year bc he knew what was happening, couldn’t stop them from doing it, and didn’t want to be part of it. so they had a lot of meetings that us kids were allowed to go to so we could see what was happening and all that. i only went to one and it was A Time bc the lady who was recording everything passed tf out and of course nobody was a doctor and my pipsqueak thirteen year old ass went “i know what to do” bc i Did so i had to help her which was a trip in and of itself. but anyways, the school’s charter got denied, and everyone had to transfer, but the district promised that we could go to any school we wanted, not just the one we would have to go to by zip code

sophomore year:

i ended up going to a private christian school. big fucking mistake. absolute disaster. nothing really happened that was crazy by their standards, but it was for me

so they have a house system. think of harry potter, it’s EXACTLY like that. we have points, we have competitions, we have all that extra stuff. it was such a time, like i don’t,, i don’t even know how to explain how fucking weird that shit was

i came out in the middle of class. the principal’s daughter was our sub and she goes “okay so everyone is gonna tell us something that nobody knows about them” so when it was my turn i go “so it’s not a secret and y’all should know this but clearly y’all don’t: i’m not straight”. silence. dead silence. we could hear the class next to us it was so quiet. some girl whispers “i knew it”. another girl leans over and whispers to my friend “i’m so sorry”. principal’s daughter gives me the most threatening, condescending smile i’ve ever seen and goes “thanks for sharing”. i had to come out to my mom that same day bc i told me friends and they panicked on my behalf bc when people found out that they were gay, the principal told their parents. and i was Not about to be outed by the principal. my mom has since told me that the principal never contacted her about it so i came out for nothing but i mean i really like being out so we’re good

so instead of prom, cult school has this thing called “the ball”. sophomores, juniors, and seniors are allowed to go bc there’s less than fifty people per grade so if sophomores don’t come, there’s not enough people. so i went bc my friends were all going and i was like “yeah why not might as well”. three dance lessons. three fucking dance lessons for this stupid ball that i didn’t dance once at. i literally had three panic attacks in the span of an hour at the second one, and then i had swim practice right after. fucking exhausted. felt like i ran five marathons by the time i got home. the last lesson i didn’t do any dancing, just vibed with my friend in the corner. so at the actual ball, same friend and i vibed at the tables the whole time. we went to the bathroom for like an hour and took mirror selfies and tried to make our asses look bigger bc we’re Like That

SO AFTER THE BALL, there was apparently a massive party and there was alcohol and stuff. so my friends and i were blissfully unaware bc nobody liked us bc who tf likes the school sinners. so we walked to get ice cream after in our fucking ballgowns and suits looking like All That. so the principal thought that it was one of us who hosted the party and we were like “??? what party?”. literally almost got in trouble bc the principal thought we were LYING. i told my mom and she takes No Shit, so when the principal called her demanding to know if i went to/hosted the party, she marched her ass down to the school and was like “i know y’all have something against mexicans and people who are different from y’all, but that’s no reason to blame my daughter for something that your so called “perfect” students did”. my mom got Heated, roasted the fuck out of the principal, then LEFT. principal never fucked with my mom after that

so there was a fire like across the street from the school. the fd told us to evacuate, but noooooo the school was like “god will protect us” i’m like “okay but i’m gay and apparently your god hates that so i think we’re gonna Perish”. the fucking POWER went out and they STILL wouldn’t let us go. my mom called to sign me out so i could go wherever the fuck i wanted in the school until my friend’s dad came to pick us up bc she couldn’t get there bc of the fire. so i vibed next door to my friends’ class and i was like “heeeeey god’s trying to kill the gays” and we laughed about that until my gay ass got saved lmaoooo

okay so this is the funniest memory i have. in chemistry once, our teacher took us outside and started digging a lil hole next to the school. and keep in mind, my chem teacher used to be a hardcore atheist druggie, like fucking meth and coke and shit. took a theology course and converted. so he’s really sweet and nice but he’s also Slightly mad scientist vibes. so anyways, he puts something in this little hole, lights it on fire. i forgot why he did it, but i was standing back with him and one of the exchange students and the three of us watch in Horror as the rest of the class makes a circle around the fire and start doing some weird dance and saying something. it wasn’t like a chant, idk what to call it, but they were like counting like “and one, and two, and three, and four” and then the dance would get more intense and they’d get louder. so eventually they were screaming and going apeshit and i looked at my teacher and he’s just,, watching them do this. i’m like “and i’m satan, huh?”. like these kids really trying to summon the devil but i’m the bad one bc i like girls

junior year:

so technically this was during the summer but i’m putting it here. they have like a house party after the school year ends. i made cookies. apparently they “looked weird” so nobody ate them, two of my soon to be teachers kept insulting them. i called my mom to pick me up, took my cookies with me, got back in the car in tears. had to have a whole conversation with the principal and those two teachers so they could apologize bc i wanted to leave the school after that. dw tho, i took my cookies to the guards at my summer camp and they appreciated the hell out of them bc they were Very Good Cookies

so my ap bio teacher was an enabler. i was his favorite bc i wasn’t a religious nut and it was very obvious that i believed in science and not whatever the hell this cult was doing with their creationist bs. also he was a parasitologist and i’m super into parasitology so he had fun talking about it to someone who both understood and was extremely interested in the topic. i rolled up to class one day like “hey so i’m gonna buy hissing cockroaches from amazon, if my parents find out and don’t let me keep them do you want them??” and he’s like “yeah”. i brought them to class a few times and everyone Hated it but my teacher was like ayyyyy. and everyone thought he was either and atheist or agnostic, so when some girl asked how he thought mary conceived jesus to see what he said, he looked at me like “y’all hear somethin/hel p” and i go “parthenogenesis” and he Went With It, talking about how it was theoretically possible in humans but we ignored the fact that the baby would’ve been a girl bc the class is dumb none of them have ever heard of parthenogenesis before jesus is the true trans icon we all need

my art teacher was my favorite and she knows that i’m gay. she’s the only teacher from my school that i’m still in contact with. so every big project we did, i made it gay. and i knew, and my friends knew, and she knew, but the rest of the class had no idea. i’m like presenting my project and the class would get sus and they’re like “so are those two really good friends” and i’m like “so she has a rainbow heart on her choker and she has a lesbian symbol on her shirt”. the class was still confused and my friend yells “they’re LESBIANS”. it was iconic

my brit lit teacher was bi. she never said it, but i know she was. always talked about how much she hated men, then was like “women are very very good”. no way this woman was straight. so we read dracula and it’s got that Subtext, so one time i leaned over to my friend bc he sat next to me and i go “the Homoerotic Subtext”. and i didn’t realize that the teacher was right in front of me until she tapped my desk and goes “it gets better”, told me a page number that i flipped to, and it was Even More Gay and i was like 😏. also she assigned me a gay poet for my poetry project and i talked about that for my whole presentation in front of the class and it was the biggest paragraph in my essay and i got 100% on it even tho i choked at the beginning. also i mentioned in passing that i liked sappho and she goes “ooh i love sappho” i’m like “ma’am please leave this cult and get you a gf”

senior year:

i left the cult finally. went to the one school i actually liked. i made friends who actually like me and they were patient and they were amazing and i love them all very much even if i’ll never tell them. my classmates were great, v friendly, i had a great time. however,

so many fires. school got cancelled like five times bc of how bad the fires were

the school shooting. i don’t think i need to go further into that, it’s pretty self explanatory

covid. again, don’t need to go further into that, v self explanatory

#school #high school #school stories

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lezliefaithwade · 4 years

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The Power of Poetry

When I was growing up, my father would often refer to my mother’s side of the family as though he were speaking in parenthesis. “Your mother’s sister…” or “Your mother’s aunt…” and to be fair, my mother did the same with my dad. Even as a child, the differences between their two worlds were shocking. My mother, nicknamed “Showboat” by my fraternal Grandmother, was both a breath of fresh air and shocking to the strong British stock my father heralded from. There was nothing capricious about the Wadley’s. My grandfather was a train engineer. My grandmother raised five boys during the Depression. They attended Anglican church regularly, played bridge, and ate their meals every night together around the dining room table. My mother’s family was another story. My paternal grandmother, after having already been widowed twice, lived in “sin” with an Italian cook who worked for my great-grandmother in her restaurant. She had flaming red hair, wore tight dresses, and loved a good time. I can’t ever remember a year my Nana wasn’t on a diet. I never saw her read a book, or cook a single meal – ever. I think she lived for trips to Florida where she and my grandfather would spend days at the pool and nights at the bar.

My parents were a kind of Romeo and Juliet, defying their parent’s wishes for the sake of love. One glance at their wedding pictures tells the whole story. A happy bride and groom stand with their arms entwined while decidedly unhappy in-laws, barely cracking a smile, are photographed outside of the church.

By the time my brother and I were born, we had become the branch on both sides of the family tree that didn’t really belong to either. We were the odd ones out. My mother’s family couldn’t figure out how Anglican children had penetrated their ranks, and my father’s family were apoplectic when they discovered that my brother and I had been enrolled in Catholic school. At Christmas as we opened our gifts inside the home my father grew up in, my grandmother could be heard to comment on the amount, the cost and the suitability of every item. By dinner time, my mother was counting the minutes until we would leave.

The disparity between the two families was never more evident than when my parents would ship us off to a relative when they were going through a particularly difficult rough patch. Most often a relative I didn’t know. Usually a childless female or lonely widow who at a party said in passing something like, “Lezlie is so precocious. I’d love to know what goes on in her mind.”

“Really?” my mother would ask and the next thing I knew I was at my cousin Cheryl’s or my Aunt Gwen’s.

Cheryl was an attractive woman with wispy blond hair and fine features. A staunch Catholic, she insisted I put a doily on my head then dragged me off to church where I became nauseous from heat and incense. Like many such relatives, Cheryl saw the weekend with me as an opportunity for indoctrination and spent hours reading bible stories about Jonah in the whale and Noah’s ark. Somewhere she missed the memo that I was already reading A Wrinkle in Time and had moved beyond the old Testament to Madeleine L’Engle. I came home insisting my parents never subject me to her good intentions again. Cheryl, now having proven my father’s point about how crazy my mother’s relatives were, would cause him to simply smile and say, “See, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Aunt Gwen was another story altogether. Universally considered “weird” by all my relatives, Gwen lived in a rather nice apartment in the Beaches. She wasn’t religious at all, but an alcoholic who kept her apartment dark and sombre. She’d serve me processes food, that I didn’t like, and once, when I was three, she took me to a funeral parlour. About a month later as my parents were driving past the establishment I blurted out, “I saw a man sleeping in there.” My mother just looked at my father and rolled her eyes. Over time they started keeping score against each other and the points were racking up.

By the time I was in Grade 5 my parent’s marriage was, not surprisingly, on rocky ground. It was probably even before that, but it was Grade 5 when I noticed it for the first time. Both sides of the family were poised for what seemed an inevitable split as I began a new school and a new classroom with my first male teacher, Mr. Koerner. Mr. Koerner didn’t like me. Or maybe to put it more accurately, he preferred the other girls in my class and most notably my best friend, Trinka. Trinka was beautiful, and poised and loved to colour code her notebooks. She cared about her clothes and her nails and had perfect posture. When she started a Greek Mythology card catalogue, she shot up in Mr. Koerner’s estimation as practically perfect. In terms of rank, there was Trinka, Anila, Diane, and then me. I was (before the term had even been coined) the “Duff”. I wore glasses, spilled food on my clothes, and was a decidedly bad influence on my best friend. When Trinka and I wrote a radio play about a murderer who chopped up his victims and flushed them down the toilet only to back up the entire city’s sewer system, it was my parents, not Trinka’s who got the call about how disturbing it was. My mother and father knew full well that I was influenced by Creepy Magazine (a series of comic books I loved reading) and thought nothing more of it.

Mr. Koerner did not like my mother, most notably because of two incidents that went all the way to the Superintendent of the school board. The first one occurred one morning when I mentioned in class that she had allowed me to watch the movie “Gypsy.” Never overly concerned with our ability to process movies, my parents frequently watched sophisticated films with my brother and me. They were always available for questions if there was something we didn’t understand and they never subjected us to anything we didn’t want to watch. So, when I happily explained the plot to my classroom one Monday morning during current events, Mr. Koerner was aghast. In front of my class-mates he publicly castigated my parents and humiliated me for what he deemed to be an inappropriate movie for a child of my age to watch (He clearly took issue with strippers). The second incident and probably much worse was the way he insinuated himself into my life when I got my first pair of contact lenses. I’d been wearing glasses since I was two, and by the time I got into grade 5 wearing contact lenses became a viable option…one recommended by my optometrist. Mr. Koerner was shocked the first day I arrived without my spectacles. He told me I was vain and blamed my mother for a decision he thought was not in my best interest. At this point my father got involved. He stormed down to the school and, as I understand it, scared the bejeezus out of Mr. Koerner. For the first time in a long while, my parents were getting along. At night I’d hear them as they shared their common dislike for the man my mother referred to as, “Larry”. I suddenly felt like I was in a version of Disney’s The Parent Trap. What began as me dreading school, turned into me hoping “Larry” would put his foot in his mouth yet again so my parents would come together as a team.

Mr. Koerner had, among his many idiosyncrasies, a penchant for keeping scrapbooks. They weren’t for public consumption, but rather books compiled of our work for his personal pleasure. One day for an assignment, I turned in the following poem:

They’ve all left now

Gone their separate ways

This house once filled with laughter

Must now face empty days

A cold breeze taps my shoulder

And I blink and turn around

I only hope I’ll have such love

For the new home that I’ve found.

Mr. Koerner gave me 90% for the poem with instructions to have it signed by a parent and then returned.

“Returned.” my mother said, “What for?”

“His scrapbook.” I replied between mouthfuls of mashed potatoes.

“What scrapbook?” my father asked.

“The one he keeps our stuff in.” I nonchalantly replied.

“For what purpose?” my father queried.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Beats me. He’s got tons of Trinka’s stuff in there is all I know.”

“Well,” said my mother, “He’s not getting this back.”

I choked. “What do you mean? Everyone has to return their work once it’s been signed.”

“Not this time.” My father chimed in. And that was that.

I loved that my parents were taking a stand as a united front. I did not like being the messenger.

The next day I turned up for school without the poem, hoping Mr. Koerner wouldn’t notice. At the end of the day he stopped me before I could sneak out.

“Lezlie, do you have your poem signed by your parents?”

“Oh, gee, I forgot it. I’ll bring it tomorrow,” I said and left for home.

The next day it was the same. And the day after that. By the end of the week Mr. Koerner was getting wise that something was up.

“Lezlie,” he asked, “What’s going on with the poem? I gave it to you to have signed and then returned. If you don’t bring it back, I’ll have to dock you your mark.”

When I told my parents that I was perilously close to losing my grade if they didn’t return the poem, they were furious.

“He knows what the mark is,” my mother exclaimed.

“Surely he’s recorded your grade already,” my father stated. “What the heck’s up?

In the meantime, my mother had copied the poem and sent it to every member of both her side and my father’s side of the family, selecting to tell them that I had written it and that my teacher was threatening to dock me my mark if I didn’t return it to him. Could they believe the injustice of it all?

For the first time that I can ever remember, there was a universal uproar from both sides. Even my cousin Cheryl and my Aunt Gwen called to tell my mother how unfair it all was. And the following week, when he threatened once more to dock me my grade, both my mother and my father went to the school to visit him. It was one of those pivotal moments when you know that things will either be better or worse for you, but will definitely not remain as they have been. An hour later when they returned, my father simply said, “Well, that’s that.” Apparently, my dad told Mr. Koerner that if he ever threatened me again about anything, he’d make it his mission in life to have him transferred. After that, my teacher pretty much ignored me and never asked for a single item of mine for his “scrapbook” ever again.

That year my parents seemed to be closer than ever and the day I found out I had Mr. Koerner for grade 6, I was secretly thrilled.

When my parent’s marriage did, in fact, dissolve a few years later, there was no villain left to unite them. Lines were drawn in the sand and sides were picked. Our weird family of four that had never really belonged to either side of the family, were now a family of three and even more conspicuously out of step.

Still, for two brief years I enjoyed the unification of my parents as they fought to protect me against a terrible teacher. And somehow throughout it all, I learned about the incredible power of the written word along with a new found love of poetry.

#poetry #teacher #family #student #growing up

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ghoulishboyhummel · 5 years

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worth a shot || self para

WHO: Aaron Hummel talking to Elizabeth Hummel’s tombstone. Mentions of Burt Hummel, Kurt Hummel ( @gleedalekurt ), Marley Rose ( @marleyrosens ), Blaine Anderson ( @northsideblaine ), and Sebastian Smythe ( @northsidesmythe ). Minor mentions of Charlotte Rose ( @serpentchar ), Alejandro Hart ( @hartdalemd ), Benji Karofsky ( @benjikarofsky ), and Franco Del Rio ( @southsidefranco )

WHEN: Tuesday, May 28

WHERE: Riverdale Cemetery

TRIGGERS: None, I think.

WARNINGS: Guys, Aaron cries and only swears once. It’s a big deal.

Aaron needed someone to talk to about...everything, but he needed someone completely detached from all of this and won’t get hung up on his feelings or anything.

So he drove to the cemetery and walked to his mother’s grave.

He hadn’t visited since the funeral, always too worried about what would happen in his head if he saw the tombstone with her name on it. But there were no other options and as they say, no time like the present. When he came upon the grave, he sat down in front of it, knowing he was probably going to be here for a bit.

“Hey, mom. It’s Aaron.” He started, laughing to himself when he thought about how ridiculous this whole idea was, but he stayed. “I don’t believe in any religious shi-stuff,” he doesn’t know why he corrected his language, Elizabeth can’t care how he speaks, but he did “But I can kind of get behind ghosts so I guess that’ll be my excuse for talking here.”

This was weird, but also strangely right, to do. Talk to his mom like she was really here and standing in front of him instead of six feet under.

“I’m 21, turning 22 this year. That’s cool, right? You haven’t seen me since I was 8...I’m sorry I never visited after the funeral. Even after I ran away and had full choice of my life, I chose to stay away from your grave.”

Aaron tapped his finger against his leg, “A lot has happened, mom. I know you only knew me for a year, but you were the best mother I could ask for and then you were just gone. I couldn’t get your pancakes on Saturdays anymore, I couldn’t make you sit through my dumb little videos anymore, everything changed with us when you died.” He took a steady breath while his mind drifted to the arguments he had with Burt, to running away, to everything that could have been avoided if she didn’t die. “Dad and I don’t get along, really at all now. He tried to pin attempted murder on me, can you believe that?” He paused to laugh, albeit, a little reluctantly, “But now he’s been arrested for being the town serial killer so, I guess that’s karma.”

“Kurt and I are working on it. After I ran away, I tried to pretend like I hated him. I joined the Ghoulies, you know, like the Serpents but with a cooler logo and a little more dangerous.” That time, Aaron actually did laugh, “But after some crazy fu-after some crazy stuff happened, we decided to give the brothers thing a shot again. We even live together. At least, we’ll go back to living together once I’m fully sober and done with withdrawal. I won’t lie, mom, I’ve had some pretty bad alcohol problems in the recent past. But I’m getting better now, Marley’s been a big help.”

His hands started doing their own thing to distract himself. “You remember the Rose’s, right? Charlie and Marley, twins a year older than me. Charlie and I are friends, she even joined one of the gangs after a whole bunch of things happened. Not the Ghoulies, unfortunately, but I guess the Serpents are okay to join for her. But Marley...I really like her. And she likes me too, I know because she told me ages ago. I’ve only known about my feelings for a couple of weeks. But I haven’t told her.” Even though he knew it was ridiculous, saying it out loud was worse.

“I’m sure it sounds dumb, but there are so many complications so I have a very good reason for not telling her. You know Blaine? He told her he loves her, like actually loves her, and kissed her. Then he kissed me a bit ago. And I don’t even know how to be a good person, let alone a good boyfriend. So, maybe I should just wait and let Marley fall for Blaine instead, or just let her feelings for me die out entirely.” That also sounded dumb, because there was no telling when his own feelings would die out. It took a long time for his crush on Jackson to go away.

“If you really can watch over me or whatever, then you probably already knew some of that. And I’m sorry for everything you’ve seen me do; running away, calling the cops on myself, being an alcoholic, breaking into the Hayward’s office, though I had legitimate reasons for that, and for being a dealer and gang leader.” Aaron felt some tears roll down his cheeks and he quickly wiped them away. “I’m sure I haven’t turned out the way you thought I would when you adopted me. But I’m not awful, right? I’m not a sociopath like that Benji kid thinks I am? I’m pretty sure I’m not, sociopaths don’t feel remorse or guilt for the things they do, and I do feel bad for everything I did to him and Franco. Having sex with Franco while they’re together was wrong, taking so long to apologize probably wasn’t the best move either. That means something, doesn’t it?”

He was silent for a bit, almost like he was waiting for a response, some assurance that he wasn’t a bad person. But obviously no response came.

“I miss you. I really miss you, mom. It’s not fair that I only got a year with you, I can’t help but think I wouldn’t be so...messed up, if you were still here. I’d probably be a lot nicer, I probably wouldn’t get into fights, definitely wouldn’t be a drug dealer, who knows? I might have even left town by now to take my filming elsewhere. But none of that happened. You died, and dad and I kept arguing, and I ran away.” This time, Aaron didn’t bother trying to wipe away the tears that were falling. “Sebastian, I’m kind of friends with him now, can you believe that?” He shook his head and continued, “Anyways, Sebastian told me that he always kind of wondered what it was like to have a mom that cared for her kids. Obviously being my sad orphan self, I could definitely relate. I guess I still do relate. Considering I don’t still have a mom that cared for her kids, I don’t...I don’t have a mom at all now.” He breathed, trying to keep his voice steady, though it was really hard to do so.

“I don’t blame you, obviously. Not your fault you died. I don’t even blame dad, though looking back, I’m sure I may have made it seem like that. I don’t think I can blame anyone. Death happens, that’s life. It sucks, you get over it, you move on. But I don’t think I’ve ever really “moved on” from anything.” He leaned back a bit in his criss-cross positioning, “I’m still really pissed at my birth parents for just leaving me. I’m pissed at this screwed up world for taking you away from us, I’m pissed at dad for...everything he’s done since becoming Sheriff. But most of all, I think I’m pissed at myself. I keep letting things affect me, I keep lying, I definitely have issues. What’s the line between outside circumstance and just me not trying hard enough to be a better person? Have I crossed it? Is it too late for me to try to be a better person?”

Now, he was kind of regretting doing this. The silence after his last couple of questions was deafening. “I suggested that Kurt should come here and talk to you, so if he hasn’t yet, I’m not trying to take away his big news when I mention that I don’t know how I feel about him being engaged.” Aaron let out a sigh, “I’m happy for him, obviously. He’s my older brother and I’m glad that Ale makes him happy. But I just wish he’d tell me for sure what his plans were. If he doesn’t want to live with me anymore and would rather live with Ale, I’m fine with that. Really. It’d be better for him to stay on the Northside with his great fiancé and do what he needs to do instead of kicking it back on the Southside with me. But it seems like everyone’s been so worried about if I’m going to have a breakdown or something if he leaves and I think that’s why he hasn’t told me for sure yet. If he wants to live with me still, awesome, if he doesn’t, that’s great too. I just want him to be happy.”

Aaron tilted his head to the side a little, “I don’t want people worrying about me. I get it, I went back to drinking and clearly I’m more upset about dad being arrested than I tell people but I’m fine now. Marley isn’t talking to me because I got mad and punched her dad, but I’m fine. It sucks that despite leading an entire gang now and having all these people who say they care about me, this is the loneliest I’ve felt in a while, but I’m fucking fine.” He knew that it was a lie, especially since it’s like a swearing filter had been turned on while here and he just said ‘fucking’, and after sighing again, he decided to tell the truth. Not like it matters here, right? “I’m not fine. This is all so messed up and I should be glad that I even have people that care about me despite the awful things I’ve done. I’m lucky Kurt’s given me so many chances, I’m lucky Marley isn’t going to be upset with me forever, I’m lucky I have so many amazing people in my life. I just don’t know why that isn’t enough for me yet, why I feel lonely and so self deprecating that it actually hurts sometimes when I have people telling me that I’m a good person.”

Checking the time, he sees that he’s been here for a little over an hour. Just crying and talking to his mother’s grave.

“I should go. Don’t want people worrying about where I am and all, they might think I’ve gone to a bar or something.” He moved to stand up and wiped away his tears. “I love you, mom. I don’t think that’s ever going to stop. And as much as I hate crying and talking about how I feel, this was nice. Maybe I’ll come visit more. And bring flowers, people do that, right?” Aaron pushed some of his hair back, “Okay, I’m gonna go. Bye, mom. Hope you’re having more fun than I am.”

#para #para: aaron hummel #para: worth a shot

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