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sydnikov · 1 year

Note

saw you were asking about requests and if that’s still the case: something hurt/comfort where the reader is comforting svech when he finds out he has have to surgery, and helping him through the recovery process.

either established relationship or a feelings realization maybe? whatever you’re most comfortable with.

In Five || A. Svechnikov

Author: Sydney / @sydnikov

Pairing: Andrei Svechnikov/Reader

Word Count: 6.7k

Warnings: Cursing (mild this time), sports injury (torn ACL/ligament), steamy kissing, bad proofreading, so much angst, but don’t worry there’s fluff at the end

A/N: I really tortured myself writing this. The emotions are still high, I hate the Bruins (sorry Bruins followers), and I hope you guys get all the feels as you read this. In all seriousness though, THANK YOU to whoever sent this in because it got me out of my writer’s block. (p.s. I’ve now opened requests to get me more inspired… so go submit stuff!!) anyways, I hope y’all enjoy 😁

It wasn’t bad. Not at first glance—at least that’s what you told yourself from the stands, clenching your fingers so hard they left nail indentations in the middle of your palms.

But you knew. You knew your best friend because you could read him like a book. Every twitch of the eye, a quirk of his lips, they all were a glimpse into his mind of what he was thinking. Andrei is your favorite book, and you just reached the chapter where everything starts to fall apart.

He was trying to hide it, the pain he was feeling from the quick stumble he took at center ice. It was just a small muscle pull, though, right? That’s what you thought, but then you saw him skate to the bench, favoring his right knee with the expression of one who knew he messed up.

Andrei played the rest of the game, but as you headed down to the locker room you couldn’t fight the feeling of dread steadily creeping up your heart.

“Hey,” you greeted a few of the girls leaning against the wall, waiting for their significant others to finish interviews. You were sort of an outcast in that manner, because Andrei wasn’t yours… No matter how much you wanted him to be. “Has he come out yet?” you asked.

The solemn shake of their heads gave you your answer, and you didn’t even bother trying to hide your worry when you leaned back against the wall with them, anxiously chewing your lip. The time came and went, seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to an hour of watching the other Hurricanes players come and go—none of them the man you wanted, no needed to see.

It was times like these where you questioned how you got here, waiting on Andrei like a girlfriend but being firmly stuck in the friend zone. He had never made you feel like anything less because of it, but you felt it aching in your very bones when he’d flash a smile to the girls at the bars you frequented, or when he’d ask you whether the blue shirt or the red shirt would look better on a date with the cute girl he met at a shopping mall.

It was funny, too, because you hadn’t met him any differently than he’s met the other girls he’s taken out. It was at a bar, actually, one in downtown Raleigh not too far of a drive from PNC Arena, and you were nursing a drink with a few friends from work when the place exploded in activity because players from the Carolina Hurricanes had just arrived.

You didn’t ask “who?” like one of your coworkers asked, because you loved hockey and went to a decent amount of games, and you could confidently answer which player had which number. In one game you’d even managed to snag glass seats, and that had been the best night of your life.

Never had you actually met any of the players, though. Odd, considering you had always made it a habit to go out at least once on the weekends, but one fateful Saturday night was when you finally were able to get a good look at the players outside of their hockey uniforms. You were content to merely watch them from a distance, but soon you realized they were just like any other regular bar patrons and soon lost interest in eyeing them a few tables back.

It was as you were ordering another drink that you caught from the corner of your eyes a body settling down on your right, too close to be convenient because there were other open seats far from you. You hadn’t been looking for a hookup that night, though, so you figured playing hard-to-get might ward off any men looking for a quick one-night stand.

“Hi,” the man suddenly spoke, accent too thick to be attributed to intoxication. A foreigner? You met his eyes, your gaze colliding with warm brown that reminded you of the hot chocolate you’d buy to keep your hands warm in the winter. “Drink not up to standards?” he said, leaning against the bar counter to get a better look at you.

Your brain had short-circuited, because wow this guy was good-looking, and it only took another minute of analyzing his features with your tipsy brain to realize you were talking to Andrei Svechnikov, or rather, he was talking to you.

“Not much of a drinker to begin with.” you had replied smoothly, shocking even yourself because talking to attractive men had never been a strong suit. “What about you? What do you drink?”

You and Andrei, who had later introduced himself and to which you responded with a cheeky quirk of your lips, “I know”, had hit it off immediately. You talked for hours that night, unable to shake the undeniable chemistry you had between you until one of your friends ran into you slurring her words and stumbling in place that signaled your outing time was up.

You exchanged numbers that night, and unbeknownst to either of you, your hearts were beating in tandem for days after, and brains spiraling with ‘what ifs’ and ‘I think they like me’. Unfortunately… It had never gone beyond that, because communication was hard to begin with for Andrei without the added challenge of having to speak English, and well–past relationships have made it a little hard for you to put your trust in people.

So, here you were. Confidently able to say that Andrei was one of your closest friends who you just so happened to be in love with, but knowing it would never go beyond that. You’d rather have Andrei in your life as a friend than not at all, right?

That’s what you told yourself when you finally heard the familiar sound of Andrei’s deep voice from the locker room, coming closer and closer as the distance between you decreased.

“No, no,” Andrei said, firmly, finally making his appearance. “No hospital. I feel fine.”

“Son, you’re favoring your knee. You need to go, now.” Head Coach Rod Brind’Amour marched in right behind the left winger. “I let you wait out the rest of the game, that’s what we agreed.”

Andrei remained in place, stubbornly glaring at the older man with the two looking like raging bulls getting ready to charge the other.

“‘Drei?” you finally found the courage to speak, hesitantly stepping forward and breaking the heated glare between the two men. You didn’t even notice until now that the athletic trainer was waiting behind them, phone held to his ear. “What’s going on?”

Immediately, the Russian’s eyes whipped towards you and he stepped back from Rod immediately. He said your name in slight confusion, even embarrassment at being caught in the metaphorical pissing match between him and his coach.

“I—” he licked his lips, struggling to find the words in English. “My knee. It is… Messed up.”

“Messed up?” you said. “What do you mean?”

That’s when Rod popped in. “He took a bit of a stumble on the ice, it didn’t look too serious at first but his knee is hurting.” He turned to glare at Andrei. “He can barely stand on it.”

Andrei clenched his jaw, attempting to shift his weight onto his right knee, but he could barely manage to stand before his face twisted up in pain and he had to use the wall to balance himself.

You stepped up to the Russian, worriedly wringing your hands together before stilling them to grab your stubborn friend's arm. “You’re too stubborn for your own good,” you smiled wryly, attempting to mask your worry with a small tease.

Andrei towered over you, but his size had always made you feel safe rather than scared, and that applied to now, roo. “I am fine, darling,” he murmured the pet name in Russian, his voice matching the softness of his eyes he could never hide when looking at you. Sometimes he’d speak in his native tongue in front of you because he knew you didn’t understand, and the scowl on your face afterward always made him laugh.

But, even though he was definitely not fine, he could barely take having to bother his teammates and coaches with his issues, nonetheless you. He didn't want you to see him so weak, at least not like this.

“My knee is just stiff. Sore.” he shot a look towards Rod, who up until this moment had been staring at the wall to give the two of you privacy. “It is not that bad, I am sure of it.”

“Then you’ll go to the hospital to get it checked out since it’s ‘not that bad’.” Rod deadpanned, finally breaking the bubble of tension that always seemed to surround you and Andrei when together.

“I agree with him, Andrei,” you said, placing another hand on his arm to gain his attention. “You need to get it looked at, at the very least.”

You gave him your best puppy eyes, peering up at him as he stood over you. You could see the hesitation on his face, knowing his protesting was mostly because he hated bothering others with his problems.

“If not for your career, do it for me?” you said, attempting to bring back his smile by poking him in the chest. “Please?”

A moment of silence, you staring at Andrei and Andrei staring at you…

“—fine.”

He agreed, but his knee was not fine as he said it was. It was bad because it wasn’t actually his knee that had been causing his pain, but rather a torn ligament connected to the knee that turned out to be the ACL in his right leg.

And Andrei was devastated. You weren’t allowed to be in the room with him while they checked him out because he needed an MRI, but Martin and Seth were and it was them who came up to you in the hallway, grim looks on their faces as they broke the news. You could hear the raised voices of both Andrei and Brind’Amour shouting from the room.

You couldn’t see Andrei’s face, but you felt your heart breaking for him anyways as the doctor probably told him how long his recovery would take, the physical therapy he would need to endure, and the amount of time he wouldn’t be able to play hockey for.

“Nine months,” Andrei said, angrily typing away on his phone to his brother, Evgeny, probably. “Maybe six if I am lucky.”

You remained silent, watching him from the kitchen counter at a loss for words. You had offered to drive Andrei home, unofficially taking on the role of caretaker since Martin lived with his girlfriend and Seth was, well… Seth.

Andrei was on the couch, dressed in an old Hurricanes hoodie with shorts, his right leg propped up on a stool wrapped in a temporary cast. His face was flushed, and his hair messy from all the times he had run his hands through it. You knew he was in pain, both mentally and physically, but it really was unfair how he still managed to look so attractive all throughout.

Leg cast and all included.

“Is that what the doctor said?” you asked, finally gaining the courage to speak as you crossed the room. You carefully sat on the couch next to him, not wanting to jostle his leg.

The Russian dropped his phone on his lap, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes before gazing at you with determination. “Yes. But I’m going to be better in five.”

You finally cracked a smile, there’s the ‘Drei you knew and loved, your first one since hearing the news and bringing him back to his house. Andrei couldn’t help but grin, feeling the fondness for you in his heart grow. You were so good to him, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to keep his feelings to himself while you stayed with him.

He wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t mind having you stay with him for the rest of the year, though. Andrei was selfish, and he was also possessive, so he liked having you to himself. He considered Martin and Seth and Sebastian his good friends, his teammates, his bros if you will, but you were his. His best friend, his best girl—you were the only one he wanted, and maybe this new living situation would give him the opportunity to finally tell you.

Andrei just hoped you felt the same. He wouldn’t be able to stand losing you because he couldn’t keep his heart under control.

“Well, you know I’ll be here to help you get through it.” You stated with conviction, reaching over to give his hand a squeeze and your heart beating all the while.

You held your unspoken promise, especially on the day of his surgery a little less than a week after his prognosis. It was an early surgery on a Thursday morning, and you even called off work so you could be at the hospital with him when he woke up.

You already knew most of your friends and family were wondering why you were putting so much effort into caring for someone who was just a friend, and if you were being honest you didn’t have much of an answer to give them. They had a point after all, right?

You and Andrei were just friends. That was it. You may be in love with him (now more than ever), and you definitely omitted that little detail during past conversations, but still. Friends move in with each other to help recover from big injuries all the time.

This time with Andrei was no different, and you had to repeat this mantra over and over again in your head as the anesthesia slowly wore off and his eyes were so soft and droopy, mumbling his words and his accent was thicker than ever and your heart was beating so fast it was going to jump out of your chest–

“Thank you for being here with me,” Andrei slurred, gazing up at you with those warm, half-lidded eyes.

You grabbed his hand, gently, lacing your fingers together and squeezing once. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

Andrei squeezed back once before losing consciousness, his eyes closing and his head lolling back against the pillow. “That’s normal, right?” You asked the nurse, who was busy writing on a clipboard. She only had to look up once to take in the situation before responding.

“Everyone responds to anesthesia differently. Your boyfriend is just one of many who has to sleep it off.”

You felt your stomach drop, your eyes widening only slightly at the nurse’s casual use of ‘boyfriend’. Of course, that’s what you and your best friend must have looked like to her, right? You, holding Andrei’s hand, and he gazing up at you like you hung the stars and the moon.

It was probably just the drugs in his system. Definitely.

Andrei was cleared to leave the hospital the next day, and you heard the news from the group chat you, Martin, and Seth were in. It was comically titled, ‘Andrei’s bobble-leg’, courtesy of Seth, of course, and it was essentially just the three of you coordinating who has Andrei duty on the days you weren’t able to be with him.

Unfortunately, the day he was able to go home was the day you had to be back at work, so Martin and Seth left their morning skate early to drive him home. And so, here you were now, finally off from work and driving down Capital Blvd road to Andrei’s home.

Martin, Seth, and surprisingly quite a few of the players were already there when you arrived. You knocked on the front door before letting yourself in, curiosity written all over your face as you walked closer to all the noise.

Happy shouts of your name rang across the room when you appeared in the doorway, and your face flushed red in embarrassment at all the eyes suddenly upon you. “Hey guys,” you said, eyes scanning around the room looking for the only man you really cared about.

Finally, you found him. Andrei was seated on his couch, leg safely propped up on the ottoman and wrapped in tight bandages and a brace. He had an Xbox controller in his hand, the video game he was previously playing on pause.

“How was work?” Sebastian asked from the right of Andrei, also holding a controller. There were several bags of chips laid out across the ottoman, and both men were currently snacking.

It was probably against their diet, but you weren’t going to be the one to tell them that, especially Andrei.

“Work,” you finally responded, rather dry. Most of the population, including you, unfortunately, were not lucky enough to play the sport they loved as their job.

A few chuckles and about an hour later, everyone began packing up to leave. Somehow, you had gravitated toward Andrei during this time of catching up with his teammates and ended up on the couch next to him, on his left. His arm was casually strewn across the back of the couch, fingertips playing with the ends of your hair and occasionally brushing against your neck, sending shivers up your spine.

You liked to pretend it was just you harboring feelings for him sometimes because it was less scary, but every day that fantasy was getting harder and harder to live… Especially when you would turn your head to catch a peek at his side profile, and he was already staring as if knowing the effect he had on you.

“How’s your leg feeling?” You asked once you heard the front door shut, signaling the exit of the last guest. It was silent other than the TV playing softly in the background, it having changed from Call of Duty to a rerun of Friends some time ago.

Andrei sighed, attempting to hide his emotional turmoil with a smile. Bringing his arm down from the back of the couch, he tentatively rested it on your shoulders, gauging your reaction before bringing you to his side. He’s been an affectionate person since you first met him, so you were used to the random hand-holding or hugs, but it still never failed to make you long for something more.

He patted his leg gently, careful not to disturb it from where it rested. “Hurts. But that is to be expected, no?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it can’t suck.” You said, your voice nothing more than a murmur. You rested your head against his shoulder, tugging at a loose string on one of your sleeves.

The hockey player didn’t respond, instead, he placed one of his big hands on your shoulder and squeezed, a sign he at least heard your attempt at reassurance. Time passed quickly like this; Friends continued playing, as did your position tucked into Andrei’s side.

You felt at peace, and while he didn’t say it with words you could tell the Russian beside you felt the same. Hopefully, the next few months of healing will just fly by.

And they did, at first. But even though the Carolina Hurricanes were missing one of their star players, the games must go on. His teammates went out on the ice, each and every one of them feeling Andrei’s absence keenly.

You felt it too, as the Boston Bruins scored their fourth and final goal of the night, winning the game in a shootout. The hope immediately dissipated within your chest and in rose frustration and disappointment to take its place, but you were sure that was nothing compared to what Andrei was feeling beside you.

The entirety of the game, your hand was wrapped in Andrei’s, his squeezing down when the Bruins scored their first goals in regulation and releasing to clap when we were finally able to tip the puck in. Then the team came back in the third period—you weren’t sure what Brind’Amour had said to the boys during the second intermission, but whatever he said had worked.

The Hurricanes had been controlling the puck in the Bruins’ zone, something they had failed to do in the first two periods. They were passing, aiming, shooting, scoring, first by Skjei in the corner of the net and then by Aho on a tight pass from Martinook that slipped right past Swayman’s shoulder.

It was looking so good because Andersen had finally gotten his head in the game and the defense had stepped up, but then we went past overtime scoreless, and then to the fateful shootout.

You had felt the anxiousness from every fan in the arena. If anyone was an avid Hurricanes watcher, including you, they knew shootouts had never been this hockey team’s strong suit.

Andrei’s frustration was palpable next to you. His left leg was bouncing up and down for the entirety, and you could see the muscles tensing and untensing in his right leg as if he had wanted to move. It only got worse when Brind’Amour sent Burns out first, something that had you, Andrei, and every single Hurricanes fan in the arena watching on in confusion.

“No, no,” you had heard the Russian mutter from next to you. “Why is he sending Brent? He needs to send Fishy, or Turbo—” the words then died in his mouth as Brent missed as everyone knew would happen, and sadly Teuvo, who went out next, did too.

Unfortunately for us, the Bruins had good goal-scorers. Coyle had slipped the puck past Andersen, as did DeBrusk, and then it was done. Game over. Just like that.

You finally turned to face the man next to you just as his head fell into his hands, tugging at his hair and messing up the gel you forced him to put on because no, Andrei, you can’t show up with bedhead. He was muttering words you couldn’t understand, most likely the creative Russian curses you heard him say on occasion.

If this game had been hard to watch for you, you couldn’t even begin to imagine how Andrei was feeling.

“‘Drei,” you said, tentatively. “Are you—”

“No. Don’t.” He snapped, rubbing at his eyes before unsteadily rising to stand. His right leg shook, but he refused the arm you held out and didn’t dare to look in your eyes to see what look they held. As he tried to reach for his crutches, his leg buckled from underneath him, and this time you ignored the hurt of him lashing out to put your arms around his back to steady him.

“Can we— Is it okay if…” he struggled to speak, his accent thick with emotion as he struggled to find the words. Andrei had never been good at communicating when upset, literally, because everything always came to him in Russian naturally, and this time was no different. “Leave? Can we leave?”

“What about—”

“No. No team. No reporters.” he said, digging his fingers into the back of his jersey you were wearing.

You softened, gently maneuvering your body so you could face him better. Now you were chest-to-chest, your arms still wrapped around his midsection to keep him steady. “What do you want then, Andrei?”

“Home,” he murmured. “Home. With you.” he wasn’t able to convey it right at this moment, but his heart was pounding as he said the words. To him, to anyone in his culture, this was the closest he could come to expressing his love without outright saying it.

He found he wasn’t scared about finally admitting this out loud, either, because you were his home. Everything about you was home because he wouldn’t dare let anyone else except his brother and mama see him so vulnerable.

Of course, you were oblivious. He normally found it cute, but right now he wanted to shake you because all he wanted right now was to hold you in his arms and kiss you as he found comfort in your presence.

“Okay,” you finally whispered, the double meaning of his words flying right over your head. But something emboldened you, gave you the courage to raise your hands to his shoulders so you could reach up and press a gentle kiss to his cheek, right next to the corner of his lips.

“Let’s go home, ‘kay?”

The ride home was silent, comforting even despite the rough loss the team took. By the time you finally managed to get to the car, the two of you were struggling to keep your eyes open and also keep your hands off each other. Andrei tangling your hands together, you gently leaning against his side…

It was all surface-level, neither wanting to speak the words out loud but yet not wanting to sacrifice the innocent, physical intimacy you found with each other. This was all racing through your mind the closer you got to Andrei’s house, and you were almost positive he was thinking the same.

Andrei, in fact, was actually contemplating the one-hundred different ways he was going to kiss you, if he ever gets to that stage with you. He was currently facing the window but left enough room at the corner of his eyes to take little peeks at you, only fuelling his determination to do something about the tension between you.

And, yeah, maybe he was hyperfixating on you to distract him from the fact his team lost and if he was down on the ice he knew he would have been able to fix it, been able to score. His emotions had skyrocketed since the game ended, and everything felt so much more intense than usual.

Maybe that was just the pain medication he was on, though…

After you finally arrived at Andrei’s house, it took a little bit over an hour to finally get yourselves ready for bed. The problem? Neither of you were ready for any sort of sleeping, and you both knew it.

Currently, Andrei was leaning back into the couch, his right leg once again propped up on the ottoman and a blanket haphazardly thrown over his lap. You were next to him, legs comfortably tucked underneath you with a few inches of space left between you and Andrei.

There was half a family-sized bag of Doritos in between you that he said was in his pantry, so you were both currently snacking on them while watching the NHL channel. It was quiet other than for the TV, for neither of you were speaking a word for fear of breaking the thick silence between you.

The tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife, and what made it even worse is that you didn’t think Andrei even noticed. He was wrapped up in his phone, most likely watching the game recap because his face was twisted up and his whole body seemed tense.

You shoved another Dorito in your mouth. Fuck. You were so, so screwed. You needed to get it together before you said something you regretted, especially since you had temporarily become his roommate.

Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore and spoke. “Andrei?” you said, hesitantly looking towards him.

“What?” he responded after a moment, not taking his eyes away from his phone.

Now you felt uncomfortable. Before, in the arena, he was looking at you like he loved you, but now he was snappy and tense and worse than normal because his team lost without him being able to play.

Picking at the skin around your nails, you attempted scooting down the couch before just giving up and moving to stand. “Nevermind,” you said with a mutter, feeling withdrawn and defeated. If he didn’t want to open up to you, fine, but you didn’t deserve to have him take out his frustration on you.

At least, not like this.

Andrei didn’t even respond, furthering your feelings of bitterness towards the man you had so many feelings for. Wrapping your hands in the long sleeves of his hoodie you were still wearing, you shuffled down the hallway and into the guest room you claimed as your own.

You could still hear the TV playing in the background, but that was the only sound in the otherwise silent house. You blinked the frustration from your eyes and crawled underneath the bed sheets, scrolling on your phone until you fell into a dreamless sleep.

Hours passed of restless tossing and turning, and then suddenly it was three in the morning and you were being woken up by countless knocks on your door.

“The fuck?” you muttered sleepily, crawling out of the cocoon of blankets you were in to answer your door. For whatever reason, your sleep-addled brain wasn’t able to comprehend that it was probably Andrei on the other side. “Andrei?” you said, confused as the Russian leaned against the wall.

He looked rather sheepish, slightly embarrassed. His hair was ruffled, and the TV was still playing so he probably fell asleep on the couch.

“Oh, shit,” you said, suddenly realizing that he was probably here because he needed help. Of course. That was all it was. “I’m such an idiot, sorry,” you breathed, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes as you stepped out of the room. “C’mon, I’ll help you get in bed.”

Andrei stopped you with a hand, opening and closing his mouth as he struggled to find words. “No, that is not it.” he finally settled on.

Okay, now you were curious. “Huh?”

“I am sorry.”

What?

“For what?” You asked, staring up at him wide-eyed. You were honestly too tired for a heavy conversation like this so you were struggling to keep up.

Andrei swallowed the lump in his throat. His leg was currently throbbing, but it was nothing compared to the throbbing in his heart as he looked at you. Your hair was all over the place in the most endearing way, and your eyes were droopy in a way that told him you were just sleeping.

“For not treating you right, for—” He cut himself off, sighing in frustration. Why was English so complicated? If only you understood English. “English is stupid.” he muttered, then released a big sigh and steeled his resolve.

Stepping closer, he brought the two of you chest-to-chest and brought his arms to cage you against the wall.

And you, you meanwhile, let out the most embarrassing noise possible when he suddenly got close, and then Andrei was everywhere and nowhere all at once. His body was trapping you in, and while your senses were on overdrive you strangely enough didn't feel like fleeing.

“Andrei?” You squeaked, sinking further into the wall if it was possible. Your eyes dropped, finding the center of his chest to firmly set your gaze. His eyes were so dark, intimidating, and swimming with an intention you were nervous to find out. “What are you doing?”

“Look at me, please?” A large hand smoothed against your skin, gently tilting your head up. Your eyes automatically locked with his, and the emotion on his face had you gasping. “There’s my girl,” He said.

Okay, yeah, your body was frozen, the breath leaving your lungs in a torrent of sharp breaths. This… This was new territory, for the both of you, and you couldn’t help but wonder how Andrei looked so calm while you looked like a startled deer—an unattractive one, at that.

He started speaking, heart thundering while the words poured from his throat like warm, melted butter. “I’m in love with you. You are my person, I knew from the very first moment I saw you in that bar so many months ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but tonight, having you next to me… You’ve always been next to me, and I’ve taken advantage of that. Darling, I want to make up for all the times I never kissed you senseless, and I want nothing more than to have you as mine, and I yours.”

Your favorite music, your favorite voice, words so filled with emotion and yet you couldn’t even understand him as he looked at you like you were his sun, and he a plant desperately seeking your warmth. Andrei had only spoken in Russian a handful of times in front of you – most being curses or quips exchanged with Pyotr – and never had he spoken so much of it.

You’d always thought Russian was rather harsh. The sharp whistles, clicks of the tongue, hissing of certain words; you admired anyone who could speak it, but it had never been an easy language to listen to you. But, when Andrei spoke Russian… It was soft, almost musical, and expressive to the point you felt like you could understand the very subject at hand if you thought about it. Maybe you were just biased, but you swore you fell more in love with him every time he spoke it.

“No words?” he said, a grin on his face that made you realize you’d maybe been silent for a little too long.

You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out. You were breathless— literally.

“I show you, then, what I said,” Andrei brushed his fingers against the side of your neck, almost fully grasping it as he gently brought you closer. You had no complaints, though. “Yes?”

He said your name again, looking at you with those warm eyes so full of depth they hypnotized you and had you nodding yes, almost instinctively.

Andrei sucked in a breath, tightening his grip on you only slightly as he slid his hand around the back of your head. Your lips were slightly parted, shiny and red from where you’d been biting them previously, and that cupid’s bow that always drove him crazy when you smiled was quirked upwards as if it was asking him to kiss you.

He waited a moment, stared into your eyes, his fingers merely a whisper of a touch against your cheek, and finally took the leap. The first touch of his lips was shy, testing, but then you whimpered with need and tugged at his shirt to bring him closer and Andrei had an internal moment of fuck it where he realized just how crazy he was for you. Pressing you into the wall, he nipped at your bottom lip and was granted entrance with a gasp drowned out by the sound of his own groan. He put every ounce of his passion and love and relief into this kiss as if trying to convince you to stay because this, this here? It was worth it—you were worth it. Fireworks, electricity, butterflies, and everything all at once was igniting in your gut and caused you to let out a pathetic whimper the moment your lips finally detached. He was clearly skilled at this, wholeheartedly controlling the moment as his lips left a trail of kisses down your neck, nipping at the skin that met your collarbone.

“‘Drei,” you gasped, clutching the hair right at his scalp – when did you move your arms around his neck? – as he sucked a mark under your jaw. “Hm?” he hummed, not stopping with his ministrations.

“What,” you said, throat dry and raspy as you tried to speak over the sound of your beating heart. “What did you say— oh,”

Andrei’s grin was almost feral as he drew the beautiful sound from your lips. “Found it,” he said, voice full of pride as he brushed his fingers against the newly-found sweet spot on your neck.

Finally, you couldn’t take it anymore and grabbed his head in between your hands, bringing his head to yours so you could press a quick, affectionate kiss to his lips before pulling back to gather your thoughts because you had a lot of them.

Andrei pouted the moment you pulled him away but respected your boundaries and merely rested his hands on your waist to keep you close. He said your name gently, his tone bordering on questioning. “Did I… Did I push too far?” he said.

“No, no, not at all,” you rushed to correct him, already having caught the guilt in his eyes. “I just want to know what you said earlier, before you— you know.” It felt almost taboo to say ‘before you kissed the life out of me’, not wanting to break this delicate balance you found yourself in.

The Russian hummed, already catching on to your bashfulness and deciding to tease you for it. “No, darling, I think you need to remind me,” he brought a hand up to loosely wrap around your neck, the contact keeping you grounded. “On what I did before what?”

“Andrei,” you said, immediately dropping eye contact as your face flushed red. “You’re being a tease,” you muttered.

He dipped his head, brushing your lips together as he spoke. You felt his breath against your skin and had the sudden desire to taste him again. “I can do this all night, but the question is can you?”

You gave up at that because the moment he spoke he drew back and you couldn’t stand the feeling of not having him close to you anymore. “Andrei,” you sucked in a breath. “What did you say before you kissed me? In Russian?”

“I love you,” Andrei didn’t miss a beat as he crept his other hand farther up your waist. “That is mostly what I said. And more.”

“More?” you squeaked out as he drew closer.

The hockey player hummed, then suddenly stepped back and grabbed your hand. “Much more,” he confirmed. “Now—bed?” Short, sweet, and to the point Andrei always was…

Just one of the many things you loved about him.

Twenty minutes later you lay in Andrei’s bed, swallowed in another one of his shirts, and curled into his chest. His arm was wrapped around your waist, stroking gentle circles into the skin exposed to the room. It was silent, null except for the steady hum of the air conditioning and the gentle breathing of two humans reveling in each other’s presence.

“I miss it,” he said, suddenly speaking up. You lifted your head only slightly from his chest, already missing the sound of his heartbeat lulling you to sleep. “Hockey. And I miss playing with my brothers.”

Brothers. Your heart broke at hearing the longing in his voice, because every single player on the team he played with was his family, in one way or another, and now he was being forced to watch them play the sport he had no chance of helping them win.

You couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain he was feeling.

“I know, Andrei,” was what you finally settled on. Your voice was soft, gentle, trying to convey your understanding with actions rather than words. You drew tiny circles on his chest, taking pride in the way goosebumps rose in your fingers’ wake. “I know.”

He tightened his grip on you, holding you closer to him as if he were afraid you’d disappear. “Will you be here?” he suddenly asked, frowning. Andrei knew he was being slightly irrational, feeling so vulnerable, but he really hadn’t felt secure in himself since first tearing his ACL.

What was his purpose in life, really, if not to play hockey and have you with him?

You hadn’t yet spoken, so he quickly clarified. “In the morning. And all the mornings after.”

A smile broke across your face as you buried your head into his chest. You felt the rumble of his chest as he chuckled, and then he shifted to where you were laying on top of his chest so he could see your face. “All the mornings, huh?” you asked, feeling bashful.

Andrei grinned, his tongue poking out from behind his teeth, knowing the effect he had on you. “Every one,” he replied. “If you will have me.”

“There’s nothing I want more.”

And you meant it, truly, with every fiber of your being. The next months were going to be rough, the ones where you’d have to be there for Andrei as he watched his team ultimately compete and fall through in the playoffs especially.

But you knew the two of you could do it. Andrei was nothing if not committed, even through all the arguments, tears, and emotional breakdowns, you were there for each other through the long haul.

And Andrei, meanwhile, after many difficult months down the road, had the biggest smile on his face as the doctors told him it was a miracle.

Because he had healed from his ACL injury in five.

fin

A/N: Before my medical professionals come at me, YES I KNOW acl injuries take up to a year to recover from almost all of the time, but for the sake of this fic just pls ignore that little fact 😭 in all seriousness though, I can’t wait till our favorite Russian gets to play again bc I miss him sm. As always, please leave likes, reblogs, and comments. Ily all <33

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luffyvace · 3 months

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Perona x male reader

This might be more accurate to pre time skip perona bc I’m watching impel down arc, hope you all don’t mind 💗

I just really like her and wanted to write for her since she’s underrated <3 (plus from the poll)

Idk how you and perona met or when but y’all together soo !! 🤷‍♀️

if your dumb/dense- (lol) like zoro or luffy she’s gonna go insane

she loves you..! but your just…..a bit slow..

no matter how through her instructions are you always somehow end up doing the opposite

she has to do a lot of things herself which triggers her because she considers herself a princess

she gets mad at you, but not mad like how should would to bearsy, more so a ‘you can’t do anything with out me 🤦‍♀️‘ typa mad

in fact she usually ends up helping YOU out

”I’m only doing this because I love you, you know??”

she says that while pouting all the time

but if you return the favor by helping her carry something heavy, giving her a kiss on the cheek, or just sincerely thanking her?

shes a blushing mess in denial 💝

if your smart !!

She finally has someone that gets her and is on her side!!

she makes you spend lots of time with her

picking out what outfit she should wear

watching the sunset

she does all sorts of romantic stuff with you <3

(zoro gets lost and crashes your dates 🙂)

if your on the slow side you, zoro and mihawk drive perona up a wall fr

shes the only female and her boyfriend isn’t even on her side?!🧍‍♀️

I mean you are, but it’s just not the same if you don’t get her

and if your intelligent you help her keep zoro under raps

and she makes you help defend her in arguments

LOL

perona likes to pick your outfits

dw she has a great taste in fashion, she’s very stylish

she puts you in black and your favorite color

so that you two are kinda matching

ngl she’s pretty sentimental

one moment she loves the crap out of you and the next she’s attacking you with hollows

ok I know that seems more moody or bipolar or smth but it’s just because she’s sensitive!

it’s more so that what you say affects her deeply because she loves you

so if you choose the wrong dress and you say it’s cuter than the one she was hoping you’d choose, she’s gonna think you think she’s ugly

(don’t ask me how that translates she’s overthinking it)

Your less prone to this if your average smarts or above

but again if your on the slow side, your love is gonna seem like push and pull

She makes you help her with everything, whatever she needs

and she’s kinda clingy, she always has to have you around

at least in the same room, if your not she looks for you

its not because she’s insecure or anything she just likes being in your presence

If she wants to reorganize a room? She’s instructing you and your doing the actual work

she wants the dishes done? Why didn’t you wash them??

(you make a point that she’s the one who used a crap ton trying to cook and she ends up helping you)

she’s fair for the most part though she may be a bit bossy..

perona’s love languages are quality time and physical touch

(lol physical touch is irony but anyway)

yeah I’ve pretty much been mentioning quality time throughout this whole thing

she basically just loves to be around you, doing anything with you whatever!

she doesn’t like to be bored though so you guys are gonna have to figure out fun things to do

playing hide and seek is always fun with her!

she’s really good at it but sometimes you feel like her devil fruit is cheating 😒

you’ve found her a couple times though!

she was proud of you but also kinda upset at the same time 😂

If she hears you getting close to her hiding spot she immediately moves

So it’s very rare you do win

and as a seeker she uses her hollows (sometimes zoro too, he does it begrudgingly though) to find you

she also goes through walls so yeah that helps, when she hears you she can get to you faster

If your a straw hat Kuma mighta sent you there for stealth training 😂😂

I feel if your highly intelligent you could outsmart her though, especially if you learn her way of thinking

with physical affection perona loves to cuddle, hug and give cheek kisses

NOT around zoro and mihawk though

she gets so embarrassed about it

pda does not amuse her so don’t try it

she doesn’t really like using her hollows on you but she just might

she loves to show you off despite that!

oddly enough

she constantly brags about your feats and accomplishments

she may as well be more proud than you!

Even if you haven’t done much she still prasies you

The ghost princess absolutely cherishes you!

anyway yeah she gives you a forehead kiss before you go to sleep

and she expects one back!

but wait til right before she falls asleep!

it’s more romantic that way 😍

(yes she wants it that specific way or she’s going to be pouty with you the next day)

if you don’t do it right she will ignore you

But she gives in first bc 1) she loves you too much 2) she gets bored 3) she likes your attention

she also does this thing where she holds onto your arm and floats

She secretly wants you to kabedon her

shell never tell you that..

(look it up if you don’t know what it is :P)

She reminds you of a cat when cuddling

she practically curls up into a ball on your lap

she gives you cheek kisses whenever you do her a favor or if she’s just feeling particularly happy

(for more dense m/n that’ll be if you did something smart or didn’t tick her off on accident today)

perona will also simp if you have abs/muscles

will avoid you for a bit if you catch her though

I mean she can go through walls so if your changing and she’s comes in..

OF COURSE SHE DOESN’T STAY FOR THE FULL THING SHE’S NOT A PERVERT IT’S JUST-

even if you don’t mind she doesn’t want you to catch her admiring you

she spies on you working out still, since that’s less suspicious

if you don’t have abs that’s all right

she romanticizes you anyways so no matter what you look like or what you do she absolutely adores you!

Your love life with perona is never dull!

she genuinely loves you ♡

These were a really good length! 💪 I’m getting back in my groove! 😼

I was originally not gonna do these but I’m glad I did they didn’t take very long and were fun to write! :) hope you enjoyed lovelies 💖

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quietmoonwitch · 3 months

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Complex Witch Stuff & Dealing with a Legitimate Curse

I won't write a very long post. (Edit: I guess the post was long after all—could have been even longer.) This is more of a status update. Someone with whom I talk fairly regularly on this platform wrote to me yesterday with, "Where've you been?" My short answer was, "I'll write a post about it."

My longer answer here is, "I live in a community where there are a number of experienced magical practitioners." Make that, "a number of unhinged experienced magical practitioners." And there are at least two or three I'd describe as "crazier than a loon." One of these crazies has laid down a serious curse on me. I have socially and magically verified it. And most of my energy for the past two weeks has gone towards mitigating its effects.

Most witches and sorcerers have 90% online magical personas (unless they're in IRL covens). So someone cursing them has to work through the lines of connection provided by the internet at best. But effective cursing is complex and a curse can work just fine at a distance (especially if it has a strong spiritual intelligence behind it and isn't just a burst of hateful energy). Apart from online, there are even fewer barriers to laying down work on someone.

I often regret exiting the broom closet and becoming known IRL, especially by these local suburban witches, many of whom have enough time, disposable income, and life-frustration to want to mess with others. It also doesn't help that I'm a guy who pretty much keeps to himself but who radiates a lot of "big energy," for lack of a less new age term. It makes me a target for bitter former coven witches.

I could write a long essay about the situation, but I said I'd keep it short. So this is what's up:

I've been in a local coven for a couple years (and have been practicing the craft for about two decades). My background is in traditional craft and folk work, but I've also studied ceremonial magic and been part of several serious IRL magical groups.

Recently, the coven broke up. One guy moved to France and fell out of communication with us. Another woman, who was obsessed with the (married) High Priest, had a breakdown. She decided to go back to her evangelical Christian denomination and reacquire Jesus as her personal savior. She also won't speak to any of us. "Whatever," I recently said to a mutual acquaintance, "I always thought she was a little nutty." Because she was and really didn't have much magic beyond all the seduction work she was putting in on the HP.

There were 13 of us. Most either drifted away or just stopped coming to meetings. The High Priestess and High Priest (married for 10 years and not trying to run a sex cult, despite the schemes of the various unhappy middle-aged ladies in our group) have an open-door policy and a few of us still show up fairly regularly to meditate and have something like a potluck plus discussion, which is largely what we did as a coven. In a sense, we're still a coven. We just stopped calling ourselves that.

Another suburban housewife, who was sort of going through a second adolescence, competing with the now-relapsed evangelical (mentioned in #2 above) for the HP's attention, got extremely pissed off at everyone (for reasons I had to discover through divination, no less). Let's call her "Angry Witch." AW cursed (a) the entire coven; (b) a close friend; and (c) me because she thought we'd banded together with Ye Relapsed Evangelical to help her get the High Priest away from his wife. That was some crazy, squirrly, irrational shit. But such is the foundation of many curses. Think: aged Mean Girl with enough power and knowledge to be a problem.

So AW put some fairly heavy curse work in and my friend got sick. I realized what was happening and got it off me. So did the High Priest and Priestess (I should say "former," but I like them and still think of them that way). Then we met and compared notes. All of the remaining members of the coven in contact with us were either ill, suffering from extreme runs of bad luck, or (in one case) in the hospital from a freak job site accident.

The HPs and I did a reversal. AW subsequently had a cancer scare, which then was found to be benign. How do we know? She flat-out accused us of sending the Big C in her direction. We hadn't. But we had worked a potent reversal. So if she sent something that nasty at us (she did), it made sense. She tried a few more nasty curse things. All was returned to her.

Finally, she went out and hired a conjure worker to do killing work on four of us. She didn't try to hide it and was feeling very smug. Right now, I am still dealing with the implications and repercussions of that.

Baby Witches of Ye #Witchblr, here are a few takeaways:

Covens can be wonderful, but they can also be like dysfunctional high school cliques full of adults going through a second puberty. Keep that in mind.

Give an emotionally unstable person a tiny bit of power and they will most likely use it for the worst reasons.

This is just a general observation (not a witch-specific one): when middle-aged people fall for someone to the point at which they're ready to burn their own marriage / domestic situation to the ground, they're already a bit out of their minds. When the person they're falling for happens to be happily married and content, you can add bitterness and jealousy to that. When they get rejected and humiliated and know how to work curses, well, guess what happens . . .

Curse work, when done right, can last for a really long time, can be lethal (not just a depressing pain in the ass), and can be hard to remove, especially if it's layered in multiple ways.

So I've been busy, I guess. Stay healthy, my friends, and remember: you don't know what other people know, how experienced in sorcery and the craft they may be. Even an idiot in other ways can lay down powerful work if they're experienced and angry enough. And there are more magical practitioners (and magical thinkers) in the world than society likes to acknowledge. Be respectful to everyone. And only come out of the broom closet to people you trust.

#witch #witchblr #cursed #witchcraft #witch community

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forestryfae · 5 months

Text

but yeah. basically ive been sleeping during the day a lot and it sucks. works not going as good as i wish it did. balancing work and homelife isnt easy, and homelife is lacking.

i have an important letter i need to send, gotta call teh dentist, im supposed to be taking meds for rosascea but im not allowed to keep the meds in my room and noone is helping me remember the medication (which is stupid as fuck cus when im late to work once or twice theyre IMMEDIATELY on my ass asking if i need someone to come wake me up. hello??) i also have to call whoever gave me my drivers license for practicing or else i might have to take the whole course again.

i also have to go home for 3 weeks and im not looking forward to that. and i need to go spend christmas with mom which like. free food ig. family will need christmas presents but like im broke and i just dont see why. they fucking suck. why am i wasting money on people who care so little about me that they treat me like absolute dogshit. no basic respect or common decendy, talking down to me and treating me like shit all the time, literally anything that can be criticized will be critizied, no respect for boundaries and throwing fucking temper tantrums if i get mad that they trampled over them, just doing whatever the fuck they want and expecting me to be okay with it. nothing is ever good enough but if you dont try youre a lazy brat with no willpower. mental illness exists but its never the root of the problem, its always you. also everyone around them are mindreaders and if you didnt predict what they wanted youre an asshole and you lack common sense.

and i have to spend the next three weeks dealing with this shit with no chance of escape cus they can just show up with no warning at my house. she doesnt care if i was asleep or busy, that just gives her an excuse to be bitchy about it. the world revolves around noone and dont think youre something special except for if youre her. fucking bitch.

but yeah ill be spending 3 weeks mostly trying not to go insane. i need to clean the kitchen, bathroom, hallway and bedroom. i need to go through all the stuff in the kitchen so i dont have a million things i never even touch in there, plus i gotta actually cook every day and i have to go shopping atleats once a week, which wont be easy. the bedroom is a emss so i really want to clear out as much of it as possible, especially w the writing desk i have. its enormous and swallows up the whole room, and i have just a bunch of stuff and garbage lying around that i dont know what to do with.

then theres the bathroom, which is easy enough, but the cats been pissing on some of my clothes on the floor in there since noone in my family understands the concept of closing doors and not letting the cats play in insulation. like the doors dont. magically open by themselves. they were left open. theres also a fuckton of laundry and cleaning off the dryingracks since moms been fucking with those again, and she absolutely has been messing up my sorting. i went through my clothes and decided on what i want to keep and what not and now i 100% guaranteed have to go through that stuff again.

and like. i also have to look at what i have and what i dont have. cus i got some plastic boxes that i was gonna put stuff i wnated to keep in and i never got around to it so i have to just hope i can find it in me to bother going through verything in the house and packing what i actually want i really want to ask the people at the thriftshop i work at if they want like 4 or 5 boxes, if not more when im done, of just garbage. but at the same time, i KNOW theyll clean everything before selling it but i dont want to touch any of it and i dont want it anywhere near me. im so tired of cleaning and bad vibes. im so tired of stuff just not working out.

also. have been considering moving my bedroom to the livingroom. like it just seems easier but at the same time i dont want people in there or people going through my shit when im not at home. idk. its more like a bandaid in an attempt to deal with a broken leg that isnt healing cus its not in acast or getting medical attention.

#talkies

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jade-harrington · 2 years

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Steve Harrington x female reader!

Dear Diary Computer Laptop Thingy,

Well. That was an incredible introduction. I am not doing that again.

First things first, this is sort of last minute hehe… I didn't want nor planned to start a diary in the first place, but my therapist is making me.

Yes. I have a therapist.

And for no reason whatsoever!

My mother decided to make me go see him because she's afraid that living with three guys in the house (my two brothers and my dad) will scar me in unfixable ways. She has a point, but I don't think seeing a therapist who's a man is going to lessen the scarring in anyway.

That's a fail on her part.

Anyways, my therapist's name is Robert Newby and he lives at the start of my neighborhood. I get free sessions because he's close friends with my parents, but that's not the point. I've been seeing him Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from 3:30 to 5:00 since the fourth grade.

In all honesty, I think I'd be better off if he wasn't my therapist. He's pretty cool and everything but he's not a very good therapist. He isn't very logical with his patients and a bit messed up in the head. But he's cool, so I guess it's alright.

I like to call him different names like: Uncle Bob, Uncle Bobby and the occasional Mr. Snickers (his favorite candy bar).

Anyways, he's the one who gave me the assignment to start a diary so I can learn from life or something. I don't remember much of what he said, considering the fact that he assigned it to me almost three years ago.

It was the summer before sixth grade and Uncle Bob. decided to give me a diary assignment. He mentioned something about 'learning life lessons as I go through life'.

I personally thought the idea was stupid.

So I didn't do it.

I was pretty sure I'd be a lot better off without it anyhow.

I was right.

But the reason why I'm stating it now, in the eighth grade, is because when Mr. Newby came to visit my parents today, he asked me how my diary was going and that he was going to flip through it (technically not read it) and ask me everything I learned and how my diary helped me at the end of this school year.

I thought he forgot about the darn thing! I did!

I felt bad about not doing it, since Uncle Rob is a good friend of mine, so I lied and told him it was great and I was learning a lot about life and junk.

So now I have to take up as much space as I can to make it looked like I actually cared about this assignment and make up stuff that I supposedly 'learned'.

I didn't want to waste $15 for an empty book at the bookstore, so I just started it on a document on my laptop. I got one of my friends to rig it to where you need to enter a password if you want to enter the document, just in case someone gets past the password wall that comes up when you turn my laptop on.

But the top reason why I got it rigged was so that certain people *cough* Caden *cough* don't use it against me.

Caden is my big brother. Only by a few minutes though!

Caden, me, and our brother, Dustin, are triplets.

NO. We are NOT the Hendersons .

The Hendersons are some people my therapist, Mr. Newby, wrote about in a Horror Series he randomly cooked up a few years ago.

The series is called Stranger Things.

It's not the most creative title in my opinion.

It's about boys who meets a girl in the forest and find out she has telepathy power and then they discover the upside down blah blah blah. The Hendersons are in there somewhere, i am not in it but my brother dustin is and my mom is too!

The End.

I'm Y/n Rockefeller.

I am not a Henderson.

Well, my grandmother on my mother's side's maiden name is Henderson so...oh, whatever!

Henderson or not, I'm not like the character (but my family does have a bit of money).

She's really into poetry, but I couldn't write a couplet to save my life! They always turn out like:

Hey I think you're cute,

Like my new pair of boots.

And that's my best work.

However, my brothers and I aren't the only ones who get pestered about it. Friends of ours that live across the street from us share the names with the main characters of the story, Robin, the oldest, and her twin brothers Steve and Duncan. Their real last name is actually the same as the show: Harrington.

Robin's 17 years old (soon to be eighteen) and she's a bit of a rebel. She's also really smart. Robins the one who rigged up my computer. She's really good with technology, building stuff out of random items, speaks many languages, that kind of stuff. She was born in the beginning of April.

Duncan and Steve (they are twins) are the same age as me: 17. Except they will be turning fourteen in November and I'll be fourteen in May. Duncan and I a very close, but Steve and I have a strange relationship. On a good day we can have a lot of fun together and everything, but other times, we could be arguing about the stupidest things.

Mr. Newby is the half-brother to Robin's, Steve's and Duncan’s dad.

I just felt like that little piece of information was needed.

I love how I'm describing people and leaving out the description of my family throughout the whole thing.

I'll start with my dad.

My dad is Darren Rockefeller. He's a lawyer for a living. He's very good, it's quite rare when he comes home with a lost case. My dad is also British. He came straight from London. He has an awesome accent that I wish I could share with him. But you can trace a small bit of it when I'm angry or upset or something. My dad is kind of weird. Sometimes, when it's his turn to cook, he blasts hits from the 80's on the radio and attempts to dance like Michael Jackson. It's a pretty funny sight. Although I wonder, sometimes, if Mr. Newby has rubbed off on him…

My mom is Jade Rockafeller and she's a doctor. My mom is from France. Her family used to be really poor (having five other siblings didn't help) but now she's filthy stinking wealthy and can do whatever she wants. Those were her words, not mine. My mom is weird too, but different from my dad. I can't really describe it. You got to live with her to know what I'm talking about.

My parents met in Pairs. It's kind of a cliché since Paris is the City of Love and all. They met in front of the Eiffel Tower. I can see how it was love at first sight. My dad looked like Greg Sulkin and my mother looked like a model in a red dress. I'm serious, I saw pictures. I wonder how they communicated since my dad didn't speak French and my mom didn't speak English.

Skipping ahead through their little love story, they got married and had triplets.

Caden is the oldest of us triplets. He's really into soccer and hates cheese with a burning passion. Caden and I used to be really close, but somewhere near the beginning of this school year, he's gotten into the habit of being a big jerk 24/7. He's nice to Dustin and everything but out of nowhere he started being a jerk to me.

Jerk.

Dustin is the baseball star of the family, and the family genius. But his smartness came to him in a strange way. We were in the first grade and our teacher was afraid she was going to have to hold him back because he failed at everything he did. I remember how he put on one math test: 1+1=7. I found it weird how he was stupid in school but when you talked to him he sounded all professional, like he actually knew what he was doing. One day when all of us were throwing around the baseball in the backyard, the baseball accidentally hit Dustin in the head, giving him a major concussion.

He was out of school for quite a bit. When he finally went back to school, the teacher ended up calling our parents, telling them that she believed Dustin was cheating because now he never got an answer wrong.

We couldn't believe it. He didn't sound as smart as he used to, yet he became a genius with a single blow to the head.

So if you talk to him now, you'd think he's an idiot, but he's really not.

The school people wanted him to skip about four grades, but my parents wanted the three of us to be together. Being only about six, I understand why my parents thought that. Although my dad said he would be okay with it now, since we're older, my mother still won't let him because she says we have to stay together. Geez, Mother, just because we're triplets doesn't mean we got to be around each other all the time. It's not like we're conjoined or something.

You know, I think I'm the only one in my family who isn't good at something. Dad's a lawyer, Mom's a doctor, brothers are athletes, but what am I?

Stuck in the middle, that's what.

I don't mean to be too hard on myself or anything, but it seems like everything I try I fail. And if I can't do anything now, what am I going to do in the future when I have to fend for myself?

I try not to worry about that too much, though, after all I'm only in the eighth grade. For all I know, I could become Queen of the World by the time I'm fourteen!

…

Okay, so the possibility is very slim, but you never know what can happen in life.

So...I guess that explains about everything.

For a starting off entry, I think I did quite well. It sure seems long enough. Hey, if I keep this up, maybe I won't have to type up entries the whole year!

'Night!

*Takes a bow* First chapter: Done! Now we have who knows how many more to go.

This chapter wasn't too good, but it'll get better after this one. :)

I don't really have much else to say...that's a first.

Well, I'm about to pass out.

Goodnight everyone! :D

"We were strangers starting out on a journey..."

~At The Beginning by Richard Marx and Donna Lewis

#steve harrington x reader #strangerthings #stranger things #stranger things x reader #steve harrington imagines #strangerthings4 #aesthetic #animals #autos #beauty #books & libraries #design #diy #fashion #stranger things imagines #steve harrington x reader fluff #steve harrington x y/n Henderson

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heraldtim · 2 years

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ADHD

So, as has happened every time I try to start a journal, diary, blog, whatever... I write one or two posts, and then I disappear for a long time. Here I am, back from the disappearing. I am trying quite deliberately to not disappear any more.

My bio-kids both have ADHD-- diagnosed and under treatment. (My step-kids probably have it too.) A couple of months ago, my 16-year-old said, "Dad, I think you have ADHD too," and he rattled off the many, many traits and habits I have which point in that direction. I think he was right.

I already had an appointment for neuro-psych testing planned, and we included ADHD stuff. That was 7 hours of tests which I took across two days this past week, and totally brain-frying. I don't have "official" results yet, but it seems clear that I'm checking all of the right boxes for ADHD. There are habits and traits that I've had since childhoood. There are some things that I see now were coping mechanisms for manifestations of ADHD. I was very outgoing up through kindergarten, but then I specifically became much more introverted, because my father would become angry if I was "acting out" or being too loud, or inappropriate in whatever other way he felt was applicable. I never had the "hyperactive" part of ADHD, because I was madly suppressing it for my own survival.

That was the 1980s. As I am rapidly learning, the medical profession's understanding of ADHD is alarmingly thin. Back then, it was just ADD, which is sort of ironic, because the definiting characteristic was: (mostly) boys who were out-of-control hyperactive. Until the mid 1990s (what??) many physicians still stated publicly that ADHD did not exist and was simply an excuse for poor parenting and bad behavior. Until the 90s? WTF???

Since my son "diagnosed" me, things have been incredibly difficult in ways that are almost comically typical ADHD manifestations. All the stuff with which ADHD patients often struggle over the course of their lives, I seem to have piling up on me in the last few weeks (in addition to recovering from surgery, and trying to homeschool one chronically ill child who is current sleepint 12-16 hours a day and only has half a brain the rest of the time).

Trying to rearrange my office-- rearranging furniture has always made me happy, and it turns out ADHD brains really like those kind of changes (as long as they are forewarned). Where did i put the power cord for this, that, and the other thing when I took them all off the desk to move it? Why won't the damned computer recognize this stupid monitor instead of that one? I should never have started this, the project is too big and I'm too week/crazy/disorganized/full-of-back-pain/depresed/etc. I literally had the old "I can't even do this simple thing. See how useless I am? Everyone would be better off if I were dead" thought this afternoon.

I am going to a massage-- it's a luxury that I'm going to have to quit, or at least cut down on, with a quarter of my income gone. I'm counting down the days until I no longer have to pay alimony. Unfortunately, that will be right about the time that my bio-kids turn 18, finish high school, and head out on their own (if they want to... I mean, I'm not going to kick them out, at least not immediately). So... I'll have the money to do all the things I always wanted to do with them, right when they leave me. That's another train of thought that's leading me to the "better off dead" station.

I really have been very non-depressed over the last few months. My therapist actually suggested we "discharge" me from her care, since I was doing so well. What changed? Why is everything suddenly so hard?

I will write more soon. I know this is just a rambling mess. The purpose is just to get all of the (crazy ADHD) thoughts out of my head and written down so my kids, and hopefully their kids and so on, can maybe find something useful or helpful in it. So maybe when I die, I can leave behind a little something.

#depression #adhd brain #dad stuff

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amadcap · 2 years

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What The Hell Are We Even Doing?

Here we are in 2019. We have somehow managed to not blow ourselves up or unleash some new AI overlords. No super disease has swept through humanity, wiping us out in an unstoppable wave of diarrhea and vomit. We started at the bottom of the ocean and now we’re here. Good on us.

I’ll start by stating the obvious. I am no social scientist nor do I have any sort of degree, diploma or authority on this or any subject. I am just a dude who thinks too much and choose to write it out instead of, I don’t know, have friends. Despite that, I am a human being who lives in the world. During that life, I have almost died in several, increasingly stupid ways, I have lived in my car, done some traveling but not really enough and most importantly, I have met a good number of other human beings. It was unavoidable, they’re everywhere these days. So whatever I say comes not as much from study but from just wallowing in the world around me and keeping my eyes and ears open. My life has in no way been exhaustive and is just one of about 7.5 billion experiences. Take it all with a giant bag of salt.

About 12,000 years ago humans started building places to live and stopped all their roaming around. They got together to build and farm and do whatever else they thought to do that long ago. As the kids say, but why though? What is the advantage of civilization over hunting and gathering? Well, no one really knows for sure but I think we can safely assume it wasn’t for the benefit of one person. When the prehistoric humans first started to settle I’m almost positive that Adam, Steve, Mary, Alice and Bob came to a nice looking valley and didn’t say,

“You know what Bob? We all decide we really like you. Why don’t we just stick around here for a while. We will do all the work and you just sit over there and chill. We’ll take care of you.”

I’m sure Bob was a great guy but it seems doubtful that the massive effort it took to start rebuilding the world didn’t happen for his sake. Who knows? Maybe the early citizens just really liked farming or maybe they thought they could do more and get farther in life together. Maybe they were just tired and the conversation went more like,

“Fuck, I am sick of walking. Let’s just rest here for a while. You know what? Let’s just rest here forever. Let the meat come to us. Or grow some corn. I don’t care. I just can’t walk another inch.”

Whatever the reason, they came to build settlements and settled down. I think this may be the only time we had it right. Everyone helping each other out and building cool stuff and inventing writing. It was good times except for all the disease and imminent death. Between the first homes 12,000 years ago and today we messed it up. Bob must have really impressed everyone and we started working for kings. We came up with religion and started dividing ourselves over our differences. Thus began this odd cycle we’ve trapped ourselves in. We make a bunch of progress, we get bored, and we go nuts killing each other. In fact, that’s probably the only thing we have continually progressed at, find new and inventive ways to end life.

So what is it we want? What is the goal of this grand experiment we have going? I don’t want to get all political on you (Who am I kidding? Of course I do.) but you may have guessed I lean pretty far to the left. I’m the kind of guy who makes Bernie Sanders look like a centrist. So this may just be me but, I’ve always felt the goal of it all is to make life easier and better for as many people as possible. I, like a lot of people in the western world, wake up almost every day to go to a job I don’t like to earn just enough money that, if nothing goes wrong, I can survive on. I do all this so my bosses boss can send his kids to expensive colleges and buy a yacht. Then I die. This is a dumb system. Not feeding, housing and educating everyone on the planet because, according to our made up system that is only a few hundred years old, some people can’t afford it, is also a dumb system. We don’t know why people started civilization but I can hazard a guess it wasn’t so most everyone could work themselves to death to allow a handful of billionaires to use the planet and the surrounding solar system as a playground.

You may feel I’m oversimplifying things, and I am but, I feel like any complications that arise from trying to do the most good for everyone could be solved if 8 billion minds were working on them. If you look through a history book for even just the highlights, it’s obvious the only time we move the needle is when we’re working together. Curing disease is a group effort but, so is genocide. So we gotta set our sights on something. It’s dangerous for us to be directionless. Humanity has a thousand problems that need to be solved. We could easily fix them if we just set this machine of civilization on them. If we could cut it out with our strange tribalism, if we could stop bothering with who talks to what invisible friend, if we could shut up about who is sleeping with who, that would be 8 billion people thinking up solutions to our problems and not just a handful of people looking for ways to profit off them.

That may sound like some sort of utopian dream and that’s because that is exactly what it is. Isn’t that the goal? If it isn’t the goal, what the hell is? It will probably never happen. People will always fight. There will always be bigger and harder problems. But I would rather those problems be in the pursuit of perfection rather than mere survival. I want problems like building a Dyson sphere, curing all disease, getting the fastest internet possible or exploring the oceans. I’ll take those over fighting to get enough to eat, killing over drinking water or making it in some post-apocalyptical hellscape any day. I must be crazy.

So is this the best we can do? Is working at least 40 hours a week for 40 years to benefit a handful of billionaires really the best we got? We worked ourselves up for 12,000 years and all we can muster is Donald Trump? One of my least favorite things that rolls mindlessly out of peoples mouths is, “That’s just the way things are.” or something similar. What they should say is, that’s the way things are right now. The world didn’t magically form like it is today. It took a lot of work and bloodshed and care to get it like this and if we don’t like it, then we keep working at it to make it better.

How do we make it better though? I’m not suggesting it’s all a wash and that we should throw it all out and start again. I don’t think we have another 12,000 years to do that even if it was a good idea. No, we’ve done some good work and come up with some smart systems. Humans just need to be better about two main things. First, we need to recognize when something isn’t working and drop the parts that don’t work. We keep what does make sense and just alter it so it does the job better and for more people. Good examples of this are capitalism and organized religion. At the time I’m sure they were great ideas and really pulled the human race forward. Religion gave us community and a sense of morals in a hard world. But we can get those things now without the mystic or the cult-like fanaticism. Superman taught me my moral code and he never told me he was sending anyone to hell. Capitalism brought us out of feudalism and made us an industrialized world. But now that we’re here it’s gone a bit haywire. The pursuit of profits trumps all reason and logic. Does that mean we go back? No, we just make something better and when that stops working we make something else. That’s what life is. A struggle of progress toward not perfection, just improvement.

I’m no hippie. I despise the line of thinking that tells people that positive vibes and optimism will solve all the worlds problems. It will take work and sacrifice and more work. But we can do whatever we set out to do. So universal income? Sure let’s try it. We (America) will have to work on universal healthcare first but we are slow learners I guess. There’s no more oil or plastic? Ok, we find another way. The only way we do that though is accepting that we can’t keep doing what we are doing. That means no finding a way to better use oil. Why split our attention like that? Plus, all that stuff is so 20th century. Keep up. Give us something new. One of the main problems we will have to overcome if we want to survive till the next century is our habit of deifying the systems we create. The economy is not like a tidal wave. A tidal wave comes and the best you can do is prepare for it. We invented the economy. If we don’t like what it does to the world at large, we can change it. If we are gonna get anywhere at all, we have to stop letting our creations control us.

The hardest part of all of this won’t be deciding what to keep and what to leave in the dust of history or all the work we have left to do. What will truly be difficult is getting past our selfish human nature. The problems we have to solve won’t go away overnight. It will take generations before the fruits of our labor show some results. I may be an anarchist but I realize throwing a brick through a Starbucks window isn’t going to instantly make a free and equal world. I know I’m never going to see that world in my lifetime unless the scientists solve the aging problem, which they won’t be able to do without a lot more people working on it together. It’s called a struggle for a reason. Planting seeds for trees that cast shade we won’t enjoy as I believe the old adage goes. All I can realistically hope to do is help push the world in a direction that could one day give birth to an ideal world. Reality v. The Ideal. That is the true struggle for us all.

That brings us to 2019. I know a lot of us feel lost and bored. There’s a general sense of inevitability about the tide of bullshit that comes at us every day. A lot of us feel helpless. But we are not. We have the means and resources to make things better and so at this point it’s just a choice. I think we’re making the wrong one. All we have to do are small things to drag the world toward a better place. Punch a Nazi, feed someone hungry, take to the streets or let someone vent to you. It may be a small thing but 8 billion small things add up. In the end, the thing that will save us is the same thing that can destroy us. Ourselves.

#writing #politics #opinion #left wing #anarchism

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gukyi · 4 years

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the love project | jjk

summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.

{college!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy word count: 12k warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!

These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur.

At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.

Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks.

Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all.

Your best friend would have to disagree.

“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”

“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”

“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”

He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.

Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode.

Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments.

But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.

“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”

Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did.

He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself.

“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half.

“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”

“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”

“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”

“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”

“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you.

“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”

Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.

There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off.

The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything.

So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong.

“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds.

It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you.

“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated.

“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.

“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”

“What do you have to do?”

Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”

You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly.

“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”

“Oh,” You say dumbly.

“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”

“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you.

Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”

“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”

“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years.

“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”

He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost.

Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about.

“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”

“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”

He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.

“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”

“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless.

“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”

“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.

You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together.

Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest.

Click.

“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?

From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”

“Well, how many do you have now?”

It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.

You wonder what the hell he sees in you.

“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement.

“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk.

Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows.

It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click.

He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why.

“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?

“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”

“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.

Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”

You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”

“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”

“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair.

“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”

Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems.

The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you.

When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.

“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.

“I never want to miss anything.”

“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?

“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”

At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship.

You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it.

Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio.

Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic.

This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since.

It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have.

“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows.

“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”

“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in.

You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.

“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”

“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once.

“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”

“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.

“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”

Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”

“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”

“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this.

You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right?

The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.

“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins.

“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing.

You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”

You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention.

“Y/N!”

You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind.

Another voice breaks you from your trance.

“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide.

The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes.

“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”

“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to.

Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you.

“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”

The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”

Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you.

“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”

“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”

“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you?

What do you not know?

By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.

This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?

Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.

You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence.

Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them?

Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.

Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.

So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.

An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met.

And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.

The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.

“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.

The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor.

“Whoa.”

“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook.

“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”

“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”

“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date.

“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”

“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”

“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this.

“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”

Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”

“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”

“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”

“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”

You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you.

“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”

“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief.

Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”

He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it.

Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it.

And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory.

Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away.

You wonder what he sees.

(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)

“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.

You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders.

“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”

Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door.

“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”

There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.

“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”

Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door.

For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left.

The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind.

You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet.

[November 7th, 8:48PM]

You: you still game for that movie?

[November 7th, 8:50PM]

Jungkook: you finished your date already?

You: is that a yes or a no

Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that

You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me You: i’m coming over

The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.

Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side.

But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet.

Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive.

“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist.

“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him.

“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them.

You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”

“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted.

“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”

Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing.

Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter.

“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”

“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”

To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash.

He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them.

“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.

Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him.

Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”

The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card.

“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black.

“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised.

Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure.

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body.

The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is.

“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you.

“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”

“I want to see it.”

“What? My project?”

“What else?”

“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”

You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”

“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”

“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?

“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown.

“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back.

You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further.

“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.

Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”

And that’s good enough for you.

You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.

You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.

“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”

“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”

“How do you know what feels right?”

Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him.

The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet.

So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?

Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment.

The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester.

Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there.

Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that.

Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?

Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right.

“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”

“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk.

Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room.

You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world.

As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well.

The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen.

There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written.

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.

What?

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page…

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

“Y/N?”

You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling.

“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed.

“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom.

“Uh—”

“Were you reading my computer screen?”

It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else.

“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head.

(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)

“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease.

“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart.

“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”

“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you.

“So you are hiding something?”

“That’s not the point, the point is that—”

“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”

“Because then you’d know!” Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving.

He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless.

“Jungkook—?”

“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”

“Know what? What would I know?”

Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”

The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating.

“You’re in love with me?” You ask him.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”

You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”

Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”

“And you are mine,” you remind him.

“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”

“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”

And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain.

You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing.

But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure.

He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth.

He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about.

By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out.

“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.

“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”

Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process.

You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world.

“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”

“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”

“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”

“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”

“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”

“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious.

It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side.

“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her.

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”

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

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #w: the love project #yes i am finishing this at 6am on the day its meant to be posted... MIND UR OWN BUSINESS

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tsvkishma · 3 years

Text

you wanna kiss me so bad, huh?

series: my hero academia / boku no hero academia

pairings: katsuki bakugo x reader

length: 5k words

warnings: swearing, mentions of making out (w/ a minor), breach of privacy??

tags: secret relationship, enemies to lovers, high school AU, reader-insert

summary: the mutual agreement between you and your bf to keep your relationship on the DL is about to be ruined when he makes the stupid mistake to leave his phone on the table for the whole class to see

author’s note: i’m so sorry! i really tried to make it gender neutral, but it was female leaning... i apologize! i’m still pretty new to writing dis homie so please be lenient when it comes to character accuracy lol. i also apologize for the messy, unstructured writing. also thank u to bae @izvkos for proofreading!

Just as you were getting ready to doze off, the school bell rang, startling you and making you jerk up from your comfortable position on the desk with your head in your arms. Some of your classmates got up to stretch, since it was the break time between classes. Unfortunately, it had only been the end of third period and you had a long school day to go through. You let out a low groan of disappointment. I guess I’ll have to keep myself awake just a little bit longer.

To be honest, you didn’t mean to stay up all night... it was just that you couldn’t help binge-watching your favorite show last night. You convinced yourself that you were only going to watch one episode before you went to sleep... then one lead to two... then three... and then before you knew it, the birds started chirping. But, hey! It wasn’t your fault that it was so addicting!

“Oi.”

You look up to see Bakugo peering over you with his hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face, “Tch, you don’t look so good today. Didn’t get enough sleep? How are you gonna be a pro hero with those bad habits of yours?”

You scoffed, “Oh, fuck off. Sorry I don’t go to sleep at 8 every night… grandpa.”

“Yeah, yeah. Make fun of me all you want, but who’s gonna be laughing when you fail your exams next week. I see you dozing off in class, you act like Aizawa-sensei doesn’t even notice,” Bakugo grunts.

You coo, “Awe, is blasty-boy watching me during class? I didn’t know you were this deeply in love with me! So cute.”

His face went red for a moment before his usual angry expression returned, “I DON’T HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU DAMMIT! I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR STUPID CRAP LIKE THAT!”

“Y/n! Stop teasing Bakugo like that! You know he can’t handle it...” Mina chimed in, joining the fun.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T HANDLE IT?! ” screamed Bakugo.

“Quiet down back there.,” threatened Cementoss as he entered the class to prepare his next lesson.

You and Mina were just laughing at your classmate screaming his head off, it was always an amusing sight if anything. Even though Bakugo denies having a crush on you, it wasn’t true. And you knew that. He had a fat crush on you, but it was more than that! He was your boyfriend.

You guys had kept your relationship on the down-low for about a month now, your relationship only became official about a week ago, but you guys had been going on dates prior. Bakugo wanted to keep your relationship a secret, you know, to protect his ego or whatever since there has always been a rivalry between the two of you and everyone in Class 1-A was painfully aware of it. He was too proud to let anyone know that he fell for someone he once vouched as his enemy.

There was always constant bickering between the two of you. Whether it be something minute or something that you would argue over for a couple of days. It’s not like the arguments were unintentional because they were started just to spite the other. Bickering would start about each other’s fighting technique in battle or even accusing the other of stealing their food from the shared fridge in the dorms.

The rest of your class was so sick and tired of the ongoing feud so one day, they set out a plan (led by Kaminari and Kirishima) to lock you two in a room just to sort out your differences. They set a date where they would trick you two into thinking that there was a class activity that everyone had to attend, but it would just be you two to show up and you would smash the beef between you two, and BOOM! Problem solved.

Just as the day came for the plan, something was weirdly off about you two. The morning of, you two both came into class at the same time and it was dead silent between you two. No bickering, no petty comments, and no evil stares. As more and more people were arriving, they would immediately notice the weird tension in the air. It was strangely quiet, not just because you and Bakugo were silent, but because everyone else was too. The thought of you guys not constantly at each other’s necks that morning sort of put off the rest of the class. It felt weird to talk over the dead silence when they were so used to your guys’ voices as ambiance while they were in conversation.

As the day went on, nothing changed and you guys were still silent and ignoring each other. Obviously, everyone was suspicious about what exactly happened between you two to make you ignore one another. There was no way that you guys were angry at each other because when you were, both of you made it clear by arguing and yelling loudly.

However, before anyone had the chance to ask why you guys were so quiet, Bakugo decided to approach you for the first time between class periods. At this point, the class was back to normal and having regular conversations with one another during break time, but all of their eyes were on you two, and their voices hushed to pay attention to the tense interaction shared between you two.

“Oi. Let’s talk,” said Bakugo bluntly.

You looked up at his crimson red eyes for a second before looking away as if his presence wasn’t even there. At this point, you didn’t know what to say to him, yet. This fired up Bakugo because within a second he started yelling again.

“HEY DUMBASS! YOU DON’T GET TO IGNORE ME LIKE THAT!” he screamed.

You turned to meet his glare annoyed, “Oh, shut the fuck up. I don’t owe you shit. Leave me alone.”

He tested, “The fuck did you say to me, idiot?!”

“Fuck off, dipshit, all you ever wanna do is yell! And might I add- you do it loudly. Are you such a fucking grandpa that you can’t even hear yourself speak? Can you ever jjust shut. the. fuck. UP!” you yelled back.

The arguing continued and the rest of Class 1-A continued with their previous conversations after seeing you guys back to normal. The tension between you guys soon left their minds as they continued with the rest of their day. Unbeknownst to them, the night before you two were arguing like usual in the kitchen area of the dorms before Bakugo made his first move on you.

The argument started with you getting angry at Bakugo for making a mess on the counter after spilling some of his water. It was late at night and no one else was around and you two happened to wake up around the same time to get a drink of water.

“You idiot, clean up your fucking mess. You spilled it all over the counter,” you said as you gestured to the spilled water.

“Tch. I didn’t spill shit. If it bothers you so much, why don’t you go clean it up yourself?” he groaned as he leaned against the counter.

Appalled, you grabbed the roll of paper towels and threw it at his head. He was caught off guard as the roll of paper hit his forehead. It fell and rolled out onto the floor. Now, he was truly annoyed.

“Fuck was that for, huh?!” he said staring at you, smoke practically coming out of his ears.

You laughed, “Just giving you a hand since it seemed like you were too fucking lazy to grab the paper towels yourself. Seems like the grandpa’s getting too old to do stuff for himself, boohoo.”

He growled, rage evident in his face. You laughed to yourself looking away from his face. The next thing you knew, he grabbed you by the shoulders and pushed you against the fridge behind you. You were pinned by his big, rough hands and he was closer to your face than usual, yet still enraged.

You tried to wiggle out of his grip, but it was useless, “Let go of me, idiot! You need to learn how to take a fucking joke.”

He didn’t respond, but he kept his eyes on your face. You tried moving away, but now his grip on your shoulders tightened, making your breath hitch.

“What the fuck is your problem? You want me to say sorry or something? Did the paper towel knock the fucking sense out of you? Let me go!” you argued.

“What happened to all your fucking hero training? Can’t get out of my grip, huh? How pathetic,” he growled in a low tone.

You felt his eyes piercing into your own and it was making you a little bit uncomfortable. He’s never been physical with you, even with the constant bickering between you guys. This was a side of him you’ve never seen.

You started, “Look, did I hurt your feelings or something? Did I hit you really hard on the head? There’s no point in holding me against the fridge. Plus, the handle is kind of hurting my back-”

“Shut up,” he stated plainly.

He looked away, avoiding eye contact with you. Okay.... suspicious much...

You tried moving once again, then he pulled you up from the fridge only to slam you back against it, but this time harder.

“Why can’t you just fucking stay still?!” he started yelling.

“Ow! Because you’re being a fucking weirdo! There’s something fucking wrong with you, it’s starting to creep me out! What the fuck are your intentions anyway, huh?!” you argued back.

His calmness fading, he yelled back, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! ALL YOU EVER DO IS GET ON MY FUCKING NERVES LIKE YOU KNOW EVERY FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD!”

His face was inching closer and closer to your face with each word pouring from his mouth. You smirked at this.

You laughed, teasing, “Oh, you wanna kiss me so bad, huh?”

He immediately froze after hearing that sentence spill from your mouth and avoided eye contact yet again. Oddly enough, he returned to his calmer self... If you didn’t know any better, it was obvious that that sentence held some truth with him.

“Look just-”

Before you could finish your sentence, his lips crashed onto yours. Your eyes shot wide open at the shock of the situation. Bakugo Katsuki fucking kissed you... Bakugo Katsuki. The Bakugo Katsuki who always argued with you. The Bakugo Katsuki who always got on your nerves. THAT Bakugo Katsuki.

Taking you away from your thoughts, he pulled away from the kiss. He examined your face for your reaction, but you were frozen in place with your eyes shot wide open. You didn’t know what to do, as if you were a computer and you were going through some code that you weren’t programmed to handle. He looked away and scoffed at himself, mumbling.

“Of course, she didn’t fucking like that, idiot...” he mumbled.

His grip on you loosened and his hands were brought to his side and he couldn’t bear to look at you in the face again. Breaking from your frozen state, you focused your eyes on him. He pulled his face away from your point of view and was scratching his neck in embarrassment and you could notice the light blush spread on his cheeks. You felt a little tug on your heart that you’ve never felt before when looking at him. At that moment, he was just so freaking cute.

Mentally telling yourself that you’re gonna regret this later, you grabbed his face in your hands and pulled him closer to you again. Your lips locked with his and you closed your eyes to bask in the moment. Only this time, Bakugo’s eyes were shot wide open, but only for a second. Relief soon spread across his face and his eyes rested on your waist, pulling you closer.

Both of you guys wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment forever, the rivalry between you two completely non-existent. As all good things must come to an end, you pulled away from him and your eyes made contact for a second before you both looked away, blushing. Realization soon hit you and you didn’t know what to do next.

“I-”

“Uh-”

You guys stuttered at the same time, making eye contact for a second before looking away. The atmosphere between the two of you was confusing. Before you could think of another thing to say, he spoke up first.

“Good night,” he said.

He walked away swiftly and turned the corner to the hallway towards his dorm. You stood for a few seconds not knowing what to think. You released the breath that you didn’t realize you were holding in and proceeded to walk towards your dorm room. Leaving the kitchen a bit of a mess for the night.

The next day it was Kaminari who was blamed for leaving the paper towel on the floor and some spilled water on the counter. Poor boy.

Now, the relationship that you had with ‘blasty-boy’ would probably seem complicated and confusing in the eyes of others, but you two were pretty content with where you guys were at. There was an unspoken agreement that you would keep your relationship under wraps. You knew how Bakugo always tried to upkeep his ego of being the best. You’ve always assumed that he didn’t want anyone to know he had a soft spot for you. And you didn’t necessarily mind not sharing your relationship out in the open, anyway. I mean, you guys only just made your relationship official, but it was a little hard to keep your mouth shut when you desperately wanted to gush about him with the other girls of Class 1-A.

Although, you guys have managed to maintain the rivalry between you guys in front of the others. It’s not like you guys were faking it, though. Only now, you guys saw it as fun, meaningless banter and meant nothing by it. The few times that you’ve got to spend with Bakugo alone were completely different from when you would be with him as a group.

On one of your more recent dates, he invited you to watch a movie in his dorm room and he was so adamant about keeping you close to him throughout the movie. At one point in the night, you tried to get up to use the restroom real quick and his arm around your waist pulled you back down, making you fall onto his lap and you stared up at him. He ignored you and stared at the laptop screen.

“Uh... I need to go pee. Let me go, please?” you smiled up at him.

He gave you a glance and reverted his stare to the screen again, “No.”

“What do you mean no? I drank so much water because the popcorn was too salty... come on. You want me to pee on you or something?” you joked.

He laughed, “So, what if I do?”

You sat up and his gaze finally met yours and his signature smirk was plastered on his face.

You grabbed one of his pillows and hit him with it, “Ew, you’re so fucking gross! I’m going.”

He laughed and finally allowed you to leave, but rest assured, he snuggled up with you when you came back.

Right now, you were hanging with the rest of your class in the common room. On Fridays, you guys all agreed to a movie night after a long week of classes. You were sitting with the rest of the girls, settled between Momo and Mina. The movie hasn’t started yet since everyone was starting to get comfortable and settled in. A few of your classmates were grabbing popcorn and other snacks in the kitchen while the rest of you guys were just chatting. Somehow, the conversation between the girls evolved into talking about relationships.

“Oh my god! There was this really cute guy that I accidentally bumped into at lunch and apparently he’s a third-year! I hope I bump into him again, he was seriously cute,” gushed Mina.

“That’s so cute, Mina! I wish I had, like, ANY romantic interactions. My life’s so boring...” groaned Ochaco.

“Same,” said Hagakure.

The rest of the girls sort of nodded in agreement, but you just sat there sipping your juice pouch loudly.

“Y/n? You’re awfully quiet,” teased Tsu as she nudged you with her elbow.

“Well, I mean-”

“What are you ladies talking about over here, huh?” said Denki as he and the other boys inched closer to the girls to join their conversation.

Momo spoke up, “Seems like Y/n over here has a crush!”

You covered your face in embarrassment, “No I do not! It’s... uh... look we’re just... talking?”

Kirishima teased, “Awe so who’s the lucky individual?”

“Yeah, I wanna know who captured our Y/n’s heart,” laughed Sero.

“It’s no one...” you said after trying to recover after digging yourself in a deeper hole.

“Hey, Bakugo. How do you feel about Y/n’s new crush, huh? Maybe your love for her isn’t reciprocated after all...” started Kaminari before Bakugo stood from his seat on the couch and grabbed his shirt to intimidate him.

He growled, “I don’t have a crush on Y/n. How many times do I have to tell you idiots that?!”

“You’re just jealous that Y/n’s significant other is probably hotter than you!” laughed Mina.

Visibly annoyed at the situation, Bakugo walks away rolling his eyes and mumbling, “Tch. Can’t believe I go to school with a bunch of idiots...”

“Awe, can’t take it anymore? Your love for me is so strong that it pains you to listen to this conversation, huh, Bakugo?” you teased.

“Shut up. I’m going to the bathroom,” he said plainly.

The rest of your classmates on the couch got a laugh in before the topic of your potential significant other died down into smaller topics within different people. Those who were in the kitchen preparing the snacks for everyone finally came back and everyone was finding their seats around the TV and your boyfriend had yet to come back.

You pulled out your phone to text him and right as you did, Iida turned off the lights.

“Yo, Y/n. Turn off your phone it’s too bright and the movie’s about to start,” nudged Mina.

You apologized, “Sorry. I’ll turn it off in a minute I just need to text someone.”

You pulled up your boyfriend’s text log and typed in a message for him:

yo blasty boy why arent u back from the bathroom the movies starting

...also i saved u a seat next to me so we can cuddle (lowkey of course hehe)

After sending those two messages, you put away your phone in your pocket. Everyone was concentrated on the movie and you set your attention on the TV screen until...

PING PING

A phone on the coffee table lit up brightly while making two loud notification pings. Everyone lost focus on the movie and looked over at the phone on the table. No doubt that it was your grandpa of a boyfriend’s phone pinging. Before you could do something, Kirishima grabbed it.

“Who the hell didn’t turn off their ringer? And why is it so damn loud..” laughed Sero.

Kirishima’s eyes scanned his phone for a quick second before his eyes widened and he covered his mouth in surprise.

“Holy shit! Bakugo has a girlfriend!” yelled Kirishima.

You couldn’t help but cover your face in your blanket... Bakugo was about to be so mad at you. Your secret would be out and honestly, you were glad, but you know that your boyfriend didn’t want anyone to find out anytime soon. At least, not like this.

Everyone turned to Kirishima, suddenly losing interest in the movie playing in front of them.

“Oh my god, you’re joking!” squealed Yaoyorozu.

Ojiro claimed, “There’s no way that Bakugo has a girlfriend. Not that hothead.”

“Bro, I’m not joking! And guess what... it’s someone in this room!” exclaimed Kirishima.

Everyone starts looking around the class, silently accusing their classmates of being the culprit.

“Look what they said: ‘also i saved u a seat next to me so we can cuddle‘! Someone better start speaking upppppp!” said Kaminari teasingly as he got the phone from the red-haired boy.

“So, who is it?” grinned Ochako.

Sero peeked at the phone in Kirishima’s hands, “There’s no name, it just says ‘dumbass’. That’s so like Bakugo.”

You sighed in relief. You didn’t know that Bakugo didn’t have your contact as your actual name.

“G-guys! I don’t think Kacchan would want us to go through his phone...” protested Midoriya.

“Midoriya is right! This is not respectful behavior, we should respect our classmate’s privacy,” Iida said matter-of-factly.

Kaminari replied, “Aw, come on you guys are no fun! It’s harmless, anyway! If it really is someone in our class, we were bound to find out! It’s inevitable!”

You grab the phone from him and said, “Wow, Kaminari, I didn’t know you had the vocabulary capacity for the word inevitable! Now, let me see this...”

Lo and behold, your messages were shown on the screen under the name ‘dumbass’. You tried to analyze the situation and how you could use this small sliver of anonymity to your advantage. You concluded that just trying to play off the situation would be the best thing to do-

“Woah, woah, woah. What’s that as Bakugo’s wallpaper?” said Mina as she slowly grabbed the phone from your hands.

Right then, a horror scene played out right in front of your eyes. As everyone was standing crowded around the phone (whether they agreed with peering through your boyfriend’s phone or not), they were looking at the brightly-lit device in the pink girl’s hands and she deleted the notifications to show his very-telling wallpaper… you could say there was a slight miscalculation in your plan as you failed to notice earlier that his wallpaper was the two of you... making out.

You couldn’t bear to look at what was on his phone as everyone let out their gasps. It was too embarrassing, everyone seeing such an intimate moment on your boyfriend’s phone. Bakugo had taken that picture on a whim one night when you two were having one of your movie nights. When he did that, you were shocked because there was no way that Bakugo took pictures of himself ever. Honestly, you were shocked to see that he knew how to take a selfie. Nonetheless, you peeked through your fingers at the phone in Mina’s hand just for a bit.

To your surprise, he set the wallpaper to LIVE MODE. Live mode...... Everyone was watching you guys make out in action like it was a fucking movie.

That motherfucker...

The silence of realization was then disrupted as the girls let out their squeals and the whole class was causing a commotion while the boys high-fived each other as if they won a competition or something. Everyone was up and moving, a strong contrast from them mere minutes ago when they were lounging around on the couch and floor. Sero was shaking your shoulders as you covered your face in your hands. Your face was heating up from all the embarrassment and you couldn’t bear to look at any of your classmates after what they just witnessed.

You didn’t know what to think. Half of you were completely embarrassed that your friends just saw you in an embarrassing scenario and half of you were angry at Bakugo because this was all his fault! Who the fuck puts such an intimate moment as their wallpaper?! Why not something cute? And of course, it had to be a live photo…

You finally peered through your hands again to see the scene in front of you. Mina was laughing so hard on the couch that she was on the verge of tears.

“I CAN’T BREATHE! NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD I EVER EXPECT THIS SHIT!” she cried.

Most of the boys were still jumping up and down like some monkeys due to the sheer excitement and energy in the room. Uraraka walked up to you and smiled widely while placing her hands firmly on your shoulders.

“Wow! Who would’ve thought that you and Bakugo were a thing! I honestly didn’t see that coming… sorry that we all had to find out that way. I was a little too absorbed in the excitement to consider how you felt,” said the round-faced girl.

With your face still red, you said, “Don’t worry about it… it was bound to happen soon enough, right? Although, now I’m a little embarrassed, but I guess I’m kind of relieved that I don’t have to put much effort into hiding our relationship anymore.”

Yaoyorozu chimed in, “Honestly, this is more entertaining than the movie we were just watching!”

You laughed along with the other girls who were nearby. On the other side of the room, the boys were making a train throughout the room and singing.

“Uh, y/n,” interrupted Asui, “Look.”

The man-of-the-hour walked in the room with his hands in his pockets with his usual grumpy expression. He stopped to examine the room and stared quietly at the energetic group of boys.

He scoffed, “What are you nerds doing? Why aren’t you guys watching the fucking movie, huh?”

He looked around the room until his eyes met yours and you quickly looked away, which caught his attention. Your mind was racing a mile a minute trying to think of an excuse. Your gaze averted to the ground, but you could hear his footsteps heading your way.

“Since when did your socks suddenly get so interesting that you can’t look me in the eyes?” teased Bakugo.

He brought his hand up to your chin and lifted your face to meet his gaze. His playful smirk instantly dropped once he saw your expression. Your eyes were borderline teary and seemed lost, like a sad puppy.

He whispered so that only you could hear, “Baby… what’s up?”

You wanted to give in to his touch at that very moment and run into his arms, but you resisted because you knew that it would be too selfish given how you just broke your guys’ agreement. You didn’t deserve to be in his embrace right now, he was seconds away from finding out that your guys’ secret came out accidentally all because you sent a random text. You pulled your face away from his grip and moved away from him.

“W-wait, what-” he started.

“HEYYYYYYYYYYY, BAKUBRO!” said Kaminari and he wrapped an arm around him (much to Bakugo’s dismay), “How come you didn’t tell your buddies that you had a soft side to you, huh?”

Bakugo grunted, “What the fuck are you going on about?”

Kirishima chimed, “You know, you shouldn’t leave your phone out in the open like that… it makes you vulnerable!”

Still confused he said, ”Did worms get in your brains? We’ve been only one day off from school and you start lacking common sense?”

To his surprise, you walk up with his phone in your hand while keeping eye contact, unlike earlier.

“Sherlock, I thought you would’ve connected the dots by now,” you sighed, with a tinge of sadness behind it, “Your wallpaper… really?”

You hold up the phone up to his face and his reaction was almost humorous to you. His eyes widened and his face was painted with a light tint of pink.

For the first time in your life, you witnessed your boyfriend at a loss for words. The rest of your class watched the whole interaction and some restrained laughs were let out and they were all back to square one, laughing like maniacs. You were about to join in and laugh with them when you realized again what the situation at hand was. You were scared of how Bakugo would react since this would be the first rift in your relationship and you didn’t want to have a genuine argument with him, especially with how angry he could get. Suddenly, you felt a pair of hands grasp yours and you look up to see your boyfriend smiling at you.

“I-”

Before you could say a single word, he hauls you on his shoulder, and you yelp in surprise. You don’t know how you ended up in this position, but now you’re dangling off of him and now you’re staring at the ground. (Also, his face was dangerously close to your ass, but you didn’t mention it.) He starts walking away and away from the commotion towards his dorm room. Before you can protest, he leans his head on your body causing you to freeze up. You could feel his warmth from his body heat against your shirt.

“You know… I’m not mad at you. I could never be mad at you,” he says quietly.

Your brain took time to process that sentence… was Bakugo actually not mad? Most importantly, who knew such sweet words could come out of his mouth? You couldn’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief and you relaxed a bit.

Wanting to tease him, you said, “Sorry, you were too quiet. Could you repeat that again?”

He groaned, “I said… I’m not mad at you, I could never be.”

You giggled, “I know. I heard you the first time, but I thought my ears were deceiving me… Katsuki Bakugo is saying something nice for once? Whatttt…”

He shook you a little, “Forget it. You didn’t hear anything.”

Raising yourself a little, you patted your boyfriend on the head, “Nope. Remembering that phrase forever and ever.”

“Whatever.”

You smiled, “Whatever!”

2K notes · View notes

lollypopsx · 3 years

Text

Flatmate!Harry: I’ll Make It Up To You - Part 3

Please like if it’s not too shabby, re-blog for anyone who you think may enjoy this and follow if you want to see more! Any suggestions are happily taken for future writing! I love you all! be safe and be kind x

Part 1 - Part 2

Word Count: 3.9K

Warnings: I think slight swearing, One sentence of smutty language.

A/N-The bold bits are a flashback!

—————————

You were spending your Wednesday afternoon doing housework and cleaning up your apartment. In the last two weeks, you had been helping Harry here and there with writing some songs, but you never wanted to take any credit for his work. You were just happy to help.

You’d both let the mess pile up a little bit, mainly paper thrown everywhere, scribbled with random lyrics and instrument chords. You had vowed to yourself that you weren’t going to write anymore or get yourself lost in your musical dream world, but Harry always seemed to manage to get you sucked in to help.

You pick up your phone to dial H, letting it ring a few times.

“Y/N? Are you okay? Everything fine?” Harry answers worriedly.

You couldn’t help but chuckle “Everything is fine, I just phoned to see if you needed any of that paper on the piano or if it can be thrown?”

“Erm, maybe just stick it in a pile in my room and I’ll go through and sort it later. What are you doing?”

“I’m cleaning our pigsty of an apartment Haz!” You laugh and smile.

“Look at you being a wife” He teases and chuckles.

“Shut up, or you’ll be my next victim! Do you want me to wash your bedding too?”

“Ohhh yes please! You’re an angel!”

“Someone’s got to be” You smile. “And your spare sheets are in the drawer under your bed?” You hold your phone to your ear with your shoulder as you pile the thrown papers together.

“Yeah I think I- Erm...a-actually I can put the sheets on when I’m home!” He says quickly. You were slightly taken back by the change in his tone. “Are you sure?”

“Y-yeah....yeah I...I forgot I’d bought some new ones a while ago and they’re...they’re still in my car” He fakes a chuckle, although you soon became oblivious to his cover story.

“Did you manage to get those silky black ones?!” You gasp.

“Y-yeah...yeah I did”...fuck. “I gotta go, Jeff’s pestering me to sign some stuff. I’ll see you later”

“Okie dokie, see you later. Text me when you’re leaving the studio and I’ll start dinner.”

“Thanks babe, laters” He sighs softly and hangs up. “I need to order black silk sheets on Amazon asap...” He groans.

“You still haven’t told her?!” Jeff sighs, his head shaking. “Harry you need to do it sooner or later...”

“I know but she might freak out!” Harry’s brows furrowed as he kicks the floor softly. “Right...let’s keep going” He sighs.

You cleaned the apartment top to toe, and you couldn’t help admit that you did feel much better. It felt cosier than before, and on this particular day, the sun was glowing, warming your skin through the window.

You promised yourself you wouldn’t do this. You promised yourself two weeks ago that you wouldn’t be doing this. You promised yourself that you wouldn’t put your mind back into your past and be sitting writing songs about old feelings and passed experiences. But here you were...

Using the back of the scraps of paper from Harry’s pile, you were spilling out every word that came to mind, like every feeling in your chest was finally released. Your fingers glided across the piano keys flawlessly with the words you had pieced together, falling perfectly from your mouth. The weight being lifted made you wish you had done this months ago.

—————————

“Come on babe, everyone’s already waiting for us at the party...your birthday party which me and all your friends have thrown for you and we’re late!” Your boyfriend Adam teased as he smiled, “You look great” He chuckles as he grabs his jacket.

“Okay, I’m ready! Let’s go. I can’t believe you guys all managed to book out Club 21 for me!” You grin as you followed him into the taxi towards the club.

“You dropped my hand while dancing, so I left you out there standing...crestfallen on the stage with...champagne problems

You had a cheap ring for it...my picture in your wallet...but my heart was glass and you dropped it...now I have champagne problems”

The music was pounding as you danced around happily with all your friends on the dance floor. You were having the best night of your life so far. Surrounded by all of yours and Adam’s best friends. You pant as you escape the crowded dance floor and head over to the bar, joining your friend Niall, and your best friend and flat mate Harry, who were both best friends too.

“Hello birthday girl!” Niall grins and hugs you tightly, kissing your cheek. “It’s not my birthday yet!” You laugh and hug him tightly, then hugging Harry. “Not for another...57 minutes” Harry smiles.

“Have you guys seen Adam? He said he’d get me a drink and I haven’t seen him since!” You say over the music. “I think he’s in the toilet...I’ll go find him. H can get you a drink” Niall pats your back and heads to the men’s toilets.

“Did you tell your family the real reason? Or did you keep it in?...Your mum had splashed out on the bottle...now no ones celebrating”

“Dom Pérignon, you brought it...but our friends never applauded...your hometown skeptics say it’s...champagne problems”

As Niall strolled into the toilets, he checked his hair in the mirror, noticing a pair of white trainers and red heels in the reflection, hidden behind a cubical door. He smirked and chuckled quietly until he heard “Ohhh fuck, Adam keep going” the female moaned softly. Surely not...there must be plenty of Adam’s in the club. “Mmm I haven’t been able to resist you since I arrived...fuck you’re so tight baby” Adam moaned. It was him. Niall felt the fury cause redness to his cheeks and it took all of his will power not the break the door down and beat Adam to a pulp. He knew where he needed to be most importantly.

His fists were clenched as he left and walked over to the bar “Y/N...” Niall couldn’t help the frown on his lips. You smile as you saw him come back “There you are, was he in there?”

“Y/N I need to tell you something...” Niall gulped. You couldn’t help but feel like his expression said every word you had been so scared to hear. And he never had to say a word, as you saw Adam stumbling out the men’s bathroom, with an unknown female following out 10 seconds later. You had no words, everything you wanted to say...to scream. You wanted to cry. You wanted to punch something.

“I’m going to fucking kill him” You heard a mutter from Harry. But you couldn’t react.

“Was it all for the money...or all for the show...I found out that you cheated so I had to go...I always thought I’d know the answer, ‘til you were on your knee and asked me”

You went to storm up to Adam but he was long gone. You had no clue where he had gone...was this it? Was that how he leaves us? As you turn back to Harry and Niall, their eyes were no longer on you, their dark, angry eyes watching up at the stage. Adam appeared with a wide grin on his face.

“Where’s Y/N?” He calls out. If you hadn’t of just seen him fall out the bathroom with another girl, you would never have believed he could do something so breaking. “Adam...what are you doing?” You mumble, feeling tears in your eyes. Harry and Niall stood close behind you.

“Come up here baby” Adam grins, but before you could even attempt to run away, you were being pulled up onto stage by two of your other friends, who clearly didn’t know what had just happened.

Was this it? Was he about to break up with you 45 minutes before your birthday...in front of all your friends? You couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing. But oh no, this was much worse.

"I was going to do this in 45 minutes...but unfortunately, one of our friends has to leave the celebrations early for work tomorrow...” Adam smiles brightly at you. You felt sick to your stomach. How could he have the audacity act like he hadn’t just cheated and broken your heart.

You were still in shock. Everything was happening so fast, that you didn’t focus until you realised Adam was on his knee. “Y/N Y/L/N...will you marry me?” He pulls out a small ring, that was clearly not going to fit you. It would definitely cut off your circulation!

The lights were bright in your eyes, as they reflected the tears threatening to spill. But they weren’t the happy tears you always dreamed you’d have at this moment. He pushed the ring up into your hand, silently begging you to take it. You don’t know why...but you held the ring in your hands loosely.

“H-how could you cheat on me...” You whisper, only loud enough for him to hear. You could see the guilt in his eyes as everyone was about to cheer, assuming you’d said yes...but the crowd quickly fell silent as you shook your head, you just wanted to run.

You rushed down the steps at the side of the stage and pushed through the crowd, your legs feeling like jelly as you crashed through the doors and ran...you just ran. The tears finally freed themselves as you let out heavy sobs.

You heard people shouting your name down the street but you couldn’t stop. You were scared to face whatever happened next. You ran and ran until you felt two arms grab you from behind “Hey...shhh c’mere it’s me” As soon as you heard Harry’s hushed tones, you stopped resisiting his grip. You turned into his chest and clutched his shirt, sobbing loudly as you wanted to fall into a pile there and then. His arms protectively tightened around you, his head resting ontop of yours.

“I got you...I’ve always got you. Niall’s getting the car and we’re taking you straight home”

“...I could of made such a lovely wife...what a shame you fucked up my head... they said “you’ll find the real thing instead...and he’ll patch up the pieces you’ve shred.... and he’ll...hold my hand while dancing...I’ll never leave him standing, crestfallen on the stage with Champagne Problems”

The journey home was painfully silent apart from your sobs. Harry held you closely as Niall drove. “I’ll pop round tomorrow ok...text me if you need anything” Niall says to Harry, pressing a kiss to your forehead before you get out the car. “Thanks Ni” You mumble. “Anytime princess” He gives you a sweet smile before driving home.

Harry gets you inside, you wipe your soaked cheeks with the back of your hand. You headed straight to the fridge intending to get some water, but instead you found two bottles of champagne which had been sat in the fridge since Christmas.

“Better late than never...” You mutter and take them to the sofa. You popped one open and took a large mouthful from the bottle. Harry brought in a hoodie of his for you, wrapping it around your arms as you suddenly burst into heavy sobs. “Why me?!” You scream into his chest.

“No you’re perfect...he doesn’t deserve you” He whispers, holding you close to him. “You don’t need him. You have me...and Niall”

You whimpered as you took swigs from your bottle very quickly. It tasted awful. But nothing tasted worse than heartbreak.

“Hey Y/N…happy birthday m’darling” he whispers “I’ll make sure you have the best day”

“A cheap ring in your pocket...her picture in your wallet...you won't remember all my...champagne problems

Have you forgotten all my champagne problems?

Now, his mum’s ring in his pocket...my picture in his wallet...he’ll never give me any...champagne problems

He helped to cure all of my champagne problems...”

The next morning, you woke with a heavy head. You found yourself quickly remembering the night before. You sat up slowly, feeling an arm tightly wrapped around your waist. You and Harry had fallen asleep on the sofa...you must have cried yourself to sleep after demolishing one and a half bottles of champagne.

“How are you feeling?” Harry whispers, his hand brushing your hair back gently. You stare at the ring on the table. “I...I don’t know. I never thought this would happen to me...I though this was it.” You mumble sadly. “I thought I was enough” You whisper silently. His heart broke and the ide that you felt you weren’t enough. “You will always be enough...” He frowns and holds you. Kissing your head. He’d never wished more than to have the ability to take someone’s pain away.

“Y-you...you won’t leave me too will you Harry?” You sniffle, your head resting on his chest.

“Never...I’ll never leave you” He mutters into your hair.

“What if I’m alone forever...what if I can’t heal from this?” You whimper

“You’ll find it. I know you thought you did...but you’ll find the real thing instead, and whoever it is will patch your heart up. And you won’t ever need to leave him” He whispers reassuringly.

—————————

You play around with the last two versions of the chorus, completely oblivious to Harry’s presence in the doorway until you heard a small shuffle from that direction

Your head snapped up “Jesus Harry! I didn’t know you would be home yet...You scared the life out of me! What’s wrong?” You frown as you run up to him, throwing your arms up around his shoulders, noticing his furrowed brow and the sad frown on his lips.

“I...that was so beautiful Y/N...and it just reminds me of how much he hurt you...a-and you...y-you’ve grown so much” He whispers softly, his arms tightly wrapping around you. “You never deserve to be treated like that...and I still hear you crying some nights, I just couldn’t face seeing you that way and...and I-I knew you’d kill me if I barged in...” He mutters, his eyes grazing the floor, as you let out a small laugh. “And you wrote a song again...I’m so fucking proud”

“It’s okay Harry...I’m okay now!” You whisper, holding his cheeks in your hands. “I just needed to do it. One final time, and that’s it now. I’m going to get a proper job and-”

“Y/N I need to talk to you.” Harry cuts you off. “I was planning on having this conversation with you in a much nicer setting...but I don’t think I can wait.”

This was it...you didn’t realise how much you had craved to hear those three words fall from Harry’s mouth after months of trying to convince yourself that you didn’t feel that way.

“I’ve got you a recording contract with me for the new album...I want you on it. It’s been sat under my bed for weeks ready to give to you but I was worried you’d say no-” Harry says nervously.

You almost didn’t realise what he’d said until it was too late and you already started speaking.

“Harry I love you too...I-” You gasp as your hand flies in front of your mouth. No. No. No no no. This was not happening! You had single handedly embarrassed the shit out of your self and ruined the rest of your life. You wanted the ground to swallow you whole and spit you out in Australia.

“W-what?” Harry froze, taken back by the sudden confession. He didn’t know what to say, but to say he was shocked was an understatement.

“What...” You tried to act natural. Wishing to take back the last 5 seconds. “Oh...that’s erm...that would be a good read...you can just slide it under my door and I’ll read it in 3-5 working days.” You mutter quickly. You didn’t slipping past him, to disappear into your bedroom.

“Y/N...wait!” His hand grabs your wrist “...you love me?” His gaze fell soft into yours. You thought of every excuse to get out of this situation, as scared as you was to admit it...it was out now.

“Y-yeah...” you whisper, staring into his eyes, praying to make some sense of how he felt towards you. You so badly wanted him to speak, but the silence hanging between the two of you was deafening. You needed to know.

“D-do...do you...Do you love me Harry?” Your voice croaked.

Of course he did...

“I-I don’t know...” You couldn’t help but feel your heart shatter some more, the sparkle in your eye slowly fading. And at that moment, you know you had ruined the best friendship of your life. You prepared yourself for Harry to leave the room, pack a bag and go to stay at Niall’s. But he just stood there, analysing your face intensely. You began to pull your hand away from his and run quickly.

“No...wait! Y/N I didn’t mean it like that I just...Well you always had Adam...and you’ve always been my best friend...and then when you guys split up, I...I was so angry because I knew I could never do that to you, and I wanted to change that so badly, but I never wanted to my feelings to get in the way of our friendship. I don’t ever want to loose you Y/N...I always thought I just wanted what I can’t have...until I knew I wanted to protect you for the rest of my life...I love you...I’ve always loved you Y/N, I just didn’t want to ruin anything...” He whispers, his bright eyes sparking as the warm sunset glow flooded your apartment.

“H-have I ruined it all....” You whimper softly, feeling your breath getting stuck in your throat.

“Never...” He whispers, one of his hands cupping your cheek, and the other locking into the side of your neck as you felt soft tears slipping down your cheeks. You had never been so terrified of losing someone. But that worry was soon washed away when you felt Harry’s soft pink lips press against yours. Sparks were flying through your blood as you wasted no time kissing him back with every ounce of passion until you couldn’t breath.

Neither of you wanted to beak the kiss...but Harry also didn’t want the pair of you to collapse. He pulled his lips away from yours, pressing his forehead against yours, the both of you panting heavily.

“I love you so fucking much” He whispers, tears filling his eyes.

—————————

- 3 Months Later -

"Y/N we need to get you downstairs, we don’t have time to get you mic’d up up here, Graham has already started the show, so we’ll mic you up in the wings” A runner knocked on your dressing room.

“Ok I’m ready lets go...” You get up from the chair and check yourself in the mirror quickly. You had a beautiful red dress on, the sleeves hung off the shoulders and there was a slit in the leg of the floor length material. You had sparkly silver heels on, which looked like diamonds when they caught the light. Your hair was curled in a half up, half down style, with your normal glamourous makeup.

Harry was in the wings waiting, speaking to a few other people as you were getting mic’d up. He was in a red suit, to match the colour of your dress, with a white shirt, his shoes just white this time. He glanced up with a wide grin. “There she is...mmm look at my beauty” He smirks happily and presses a kiss to your lips, holding your hips as a runner was hiding the wire in your dress.

“And you’re on in 3...2...1...”

“Please welcome Harry Styles and Y/N Y/L/N!”

Harry took your hand as you followed him onto the set of The Graham Norton Show, the crowd cheering happily as you are greeted with a hug and kiss on the cheek from Graham, returning happily, and sitting down beside Harry after he gave the same greeting.

“Hello hello and welcome! It’s an honour to have you both here tonight on my sofa...although you have both sort of blended in” He chuckles

“Yeah...we didn’t really think about that until we got changed...” Harry chuckles, his hand holding yours tightly as you smile, taking a sip of wine from your glass.

“So we have a lot to talk about tonight...but firstly...congratulations on your new album! It sounds incredible and I know I’m not the only one wondering this, but how did you find working together while being in a relationship? Because your relationship only came into public view after the album was released...Now you two have lived together for...4 years is that right?” Graham asks.

“Yeah so...actually we have been best friends and flat mates for years, we’ve always had such a heavy impact on each others lives but we always both sort of thought it was just friendship. Around a year ago now I went through a really difficult break up and Harry was there every step of the way. Since then I always knew I loved Harry but it wasn’t until just after we had written the first version of Fine Line that I found out he felt the same” Your eyes gleam just talking about it.

“So...you two wrote Fine Line together, was that the first song you wrote for the album?” He looks over at Harry

“Actually, I’d already written Watermelon Sugar, Golden and Adore You. Fine Line was next and I was writing it at home. Naturally every song I write, Y/N is one of the first to hear, whether it’s in the living room, or when she’s in the bath and I sit outside the door to play it. It’s always been that way, even before we got together.”

Graham nods and smiles “You can’t let the poor woman have a bath in peace!” He jokes and teases as you both laugh. “So did you decide to name the album Fine Line because it’s the first song you wrote together?”

“I know!” Harry chuckles “sort of...Fine Line actually came about after...well it was after a prank I tried to pull on Y/N which went horribly wrong, then she finally forgave me and I was talking to her in the kitchen about how I was struggling to write emotional songs at the time. And the words she said to me really stuck...that night I sat at the piano and tried to piece together our conversation in a song. Y/N came to help me and she just...she’s really the saving grace. So I think yeah...maybe that was one of the reasons we called in Fine Line.”

“That’s incredible...and Y/N you were actually going to give up music weren’t you? Thank god you didn’t” Graham smiles.

You blush softly “I was...I just as going through a rough time. I helped Harry with the song and then I said I would quit. Then a couple of weeks later, Harry declared his love for me after he’d told me he had a joint record deal contract for us, to include me in the album” you tease with a smirk.

Harry grins widely and laughs quietly “I think the details of that have been slightly twisted...” He teases as you blush.

“Well I can’t wait to hear that story later! Now are there going to be any more joint albums...?” Graham asks curiously.

“...” You both look between each other “Time will tell Graham” Harry winks.

“Well...we are goin to go to an ad break now, but stay tuned because you don’t want to miss the first ever live performance of Fine Line by Harry Styles and Y/N Y/L/N!”

The crowd cheer loudly as the cameras cut to an ad break.

“I’m not waffling too much right?...it is my first ever proper interview” You mumble slightly as Harry and Graham sat with you in conversation while you were having your makeup touched up.

“You’re doing great baby...everyone loves you. I told you I’d make it all up to you when I stole your clothes and you missed that audition...” He grins cheekily.

“Now that’s a story I definitely need to hear!” Graham laughs along with the audience

—————————

Tag List: @harryhoney-bee - @sunandherflores - @sad-capuccino @beachwood-cafe

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #one shot #hslot #flatmate!harry #roommate!harry #fine line #champagne problems #lollypopsx #fanfic #one direction imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n

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squishytenya · 3 years

Text

Izuku Cockwarming Headcanons

Pairing: izuku x gn!reader (afab)

Notes: I wrote this while eating a whole tub of betty crocker’s coffee icing, tagging @butterscotchbaku @dearsakusa @ivemadecoffeemywhore

Warnings: Dom!Izuku (kinda), mention of spanking, nickname puppy (no not Yagami), my shitty spelling

Okay just want to start this off with saying that I’m shit at writing this kinda stuff but here we go

Izuku isn’t small by any means so when you first get together there’s a lot of this just to get you used to how big he is and how it presses against you so nicely

As it goes on and you guys get more experience with one and other, he starts using cock warming for other reasons

The first and most common is when he’s come home from patrol or a fight and just wants the comfort of being inside you

Tries his best not to wake you up but eventually his dick starts rubbing against the inside of his trousers and he has no choice but to start leaving little kisses up and down your neck until you wake up

Will whisper in your ear asking if he can and ofc you say yes because who would pass that opportunity up

He’s so soft and gentle in these times, gently rocking inside you until he comes and then letting himself go limp behind you, the tight wet heat sending him to sleep

The second, and more common, occurrence is when he wants to hear you beg for him

Sometimes he’s just in the sort of mood to sit you on his lap and stretch you out nicely with his cock, only to lean over and finish up the paperwork from his latest mission

Whatever you did to deserve this is something you probably won’t be doing again because feeling him fill you up so nicely and not being able to do anything for what seems like hours drives you crazy

Every so often he adjusts you on his lap, whether to reach for a pen or something similar, and always makes sure that you grind onto his pelvic bone slightly before sitting back

Whether he knows he’s doing it (he does) or not, he always makes sure to lean back before you get enough stimulation to get off

Whenever you clench or whine or shift he gives you a swift slap to your inner thigh and threatens to not let you come if you’re not a ‘good little puppy’ for him

His balls and inner thighs are dripping by the time he’s done but he doesn’t mind, all the more reason to tease you

‘Look how wet you are for me hmm gorgeous? Not even fucked you yet and you’re making a mess’

He pulls you off and slides two fingers through your sensitive folds, only to lift them up to your mouth so you can taste yourself

These are the days he tends to rail you so hard you can’t walk the next morning and he definitely makes up for leaving you for so long without touching you

If there’s a mixture of sweat and his pretty baby’s cum on his paperwork then he doesn’t mind redoing it

Finally, one of his favourite things to do after sex is have a nice bath with you and give you a massage to make sure you aren’t too sore (you always are though)

Usually, he’s pretty worn out too but sometimes his fingers start wandering underwater and the next thing you know he’s spreading you open and pushing in for almost the fifth You whine a little because of how sensitive you are but he’s quick to hush you with a kiss time that night

and a promise

‘I won’t move pretty girl, just like being inside you’

He doesn’t move much, there’s just something comforting about being buried in your tight little cunt that he loves

Unless you want him to and then he isn’t opposed to pressing a thumb against your clit and grinding until you come all over him for the final time that night

Well I just tagged some of the best writers I know and am positively crapping my self so I really hope they and you guys like it

Remember reblogging helps content creators

#midoriya izuku x reader #Izuku midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #izuku smut #midoriya smut #deku x reader #deku smut #izuku midoriya smut #bnha smut #bnha x reader #izuku headcanons #deku headcanons #midoriya headcanons #bnha headcanons #izuku midoriya headcanons

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edna-skiffens · 3 years

Text

The Best Medicine

Summary: You are in the hospital, but you can never sleep in hospitals. Good thing you have a very attractive night shift nurse who is willing to help out.

Word Count: 4.5K

Warnings: hospitals, light med talk, bad medical writing, fluff

A/N: Please ignore the plot holes or the fact that this isn’t the most realistic and also I know this isn’t how discharge works at the hospital.. It’s called fiction for a reason, darling. Also, I left the reason the reader is in the hospital open ended bc some of us may have medical conditions/reasons that we can attach to this, but if not I tried to keep it vague enough on purpose so that you can imagine whatever. Also if you like Nurse!Tom and have requests for him lmk bc i’m happy to write for him.

Toss and turn. Toss and turn. The routine was getting old. This was your third night in the hospital and sleep just wasn’t coming to you.

Maybe it was the medicine they had you on. Maybe it was the constant symphony of sounds and people passing in the hallway. Maybe it was because you weren’t at home in your own bed.

Maybe it was just because you were in the hospital.

You couldn’t be sure. What you were sure of is that you weren’t falling asleep anytime soon.

Feeling another presence in the room, you looked from the ceiling to the doorway where you saw Tom, one of the night shift nurses, standing cautiously.

“I didn’t wake you did I?” He asked as he eased his way inside.

“Nope.”

“So no sleep again, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Sorry darling. Let’s go ahead and get these vitals over with.” He took your blood pressure, oxygen levels, temperature and wrote it down in your chart. Putting the clipboard back on its hook at the end of the bed, he looked up at your tired face. “Okay. So now about that sleep. What do you think will help?”

“Not being in the hospital.”

He chuckled lightly while walking back towards your bedside.

“I know. You hate it here. You’ve made that very clear and I try not to take too much offense to it.” You let out a slight laugh and held back the fact that he was the best part of this whole experience. He almost made it worth it. “I’m sorry we can’t give you any sleeping medication. Do you think it’ll help if I talk to you?”

“You mean tell me bedtime stories?” You couldn’t help but tease him at the adorable suggestion, though it sent a swarm of butterflies off in your stomach.

“I was thinking more like bore you ‘till you fell asleep. But whatever works.”

“You’re the nurse. If you think it’ll help.” You both sat there smirking at each other for a moment. Something unspoken floating in the air between you two.

“Well, I need to finish my round of vitals first. I’ll come check on you when I’m done and if you’re still up we’ll see about those stories.”

“I’ll be here.”

About fifteen or twenty minutes later you heard a light tap on your door followed by “Still awake?”

“Always.”

“You up for a chat?” Tom asked as he made his way to the stool then rolled slightly closer to your bed.

“Got nothing better to do.” You teased again.

“Okay. Well you should probably lay down.”

“Oh. It’s going to be that kind of story, huh?” His laugh was so beautiful and you were happy you were the cause of it.

“No.” He corrected in between laughs “The goal is to get you to sleep. So sitting up won’t help.”

“Right. Right.”

“Well.. anything in particular you’d like to talk about?”

“Why did you choose to become a nurse?”

“Ahhh. Good question. So I actually went to an art school.” You couldn’t help the brief expression of surprise that crossed your face. “I know. Shocking. I did training specifically in dance and gymnastics and I loved it.”

“Wait, so what happened?” You asked, turning on your side to face him more comfortably.

“Well one day we were rehearsing for a show and I fell. Ruined my knee. Had to do physical therapy for months. I tried to get back into it, but it just wasn’t the same. However, through that process I learned a lot about medicine and the health side of things. It really turned me on to it. And when my Plan A got a bit messed up I thought ‘hey, this could work’. So far it’s treated me pretty well.”

You smiled at Tom, admiring his passion for his career and the determination he had to keep pushing after his accident. You enjoyed hearing him talk about it too. If you didn’t know any better you would say it was helping you relax.

“My story that boring?”

“Obviously.”

“Your sarcasm has no end.”

“Oh… goodness.. you thought that was sarcasm?”

Tom only laughed and shook his head the way he often did with you.

You may just have been his patient and he may have just been your nurse, but you both bonded. He kept you company and gave you comfort. In return, you kept him entertained during the quiet night shifts.

“I’m not going to sleep. I'm just resting my eyes. But still listening.” You told him as you nestled further into the hospital bed, trying to find a position that would make it comfortable.

“Okay, darling.” He grinned at you.

“Tell me more. What kind of-” You had to stop to yawn, “What kind of art stuff did you do?”

“Oh. Well, I was in a few musicals. I really enjoyed dancing. I did ballet ever since I was young and I love the control I have over my body. The tricks I can do with gymnastics or the turns and leaps. I mean I can’t do them to that level anymore, but I try to stay active.” He glanced up and noticed you hadn’t moved, “Are you still with me?”

“Mhm.” You barely respond.

“Okay. Well it was a performing arts school so we really were trained in many areas. We had classes in acting, singing, dancing, all of it. It was a lot of fun and I met my best friends there.”

Tom began telling stories about his time at school. Before he knew it, he lost himself and track of time. He looked back at you, quiet and still.

“Y/N?” You were finally asleep. “Goodnight, darling.” He whispered as he gently made his exit.

Because Tom worked the night shift, you never saw him when you woke in the morning. Instead, Tanya, a sweet nurse that felt like a big sister, or Linda, Nurse Ratched in the flesh, came in for morning vitals and meds.

You counted down the days until your release. Life in the hospital was pretty uneventful with the limit on visitors and limited activity. There’s only so many sitcoms one can take in a given timespan. The only thing that you really looked forward to each night was when Tom clocked in.

“Hi Y/N.”

“Hi Tom.” You would smile at each other.

“How are we feeling today?”

“Better. Ready to get out of here.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you are feeling better and still ready to jailbreak.” He smiled while writing something down on your chart. “They should be bringing up your dinner tray soon and then I’ll bring by your evening meds after that.”

“Okay.”

“If you need me you know what to do.” He called to you before walking out the door.

You were disappointed when Shelley brought your evening meds by later. She was a nice enough nurse. She just wasn’t Tom.

You’d grown accustomed to mainly having him as your nurse during the evening shift. At first you weren’t sure if it was coincidence or on purpose, but after a few nights of staying up and talking, you grew closer to him. You saw less of the other nursing staff and more of Tom.

You tried not to build anything up in your head. You were sure everything he was doing was in his job description and a part of being a good nurse.

He would sneak you extra pudding cups from the cafeteria and bring you an extra heated blanket because you could never stay warm. If you needed a new IV, he held your hand to ease the anxiety. He kept you company and made you feel less alone in such a sterile and intimidating place. And when he noticed you had trouble sleeping he chose to sit with you to help you fall asleep. You couldn’t help the butterflies that built in your stomach.

It became a sort of routine. He checked on you during evening vitals, even if someone else was doing them, and you were always still awake. He would then come and sit with you and chat for a bit, telling you different stories until you eventually fell asleep.

Some nights when you were extra restless he would help you walk the halls.

“The doctors have to see you’re stable enough before you can be discharged. Plus, maybe it’ll tire you out.” He suggested.

He would help get your IV pole ready so you could walk with it. He helped you into your slippers and eased you out of bed after passing you your robe.

Walking the hall slowly, Tom knew he had to remain professional, yet he found a few excuses to graze his hand across your back to ‘steady you’ when you turned corners or he thought you were looking tired.

“It might take me a while to get back to my usual jogs in the park, huh?” You laughed in spite of yourself.

“You’ll get there. Baby steps.” He encouraged, as you turned around the Nurse’s Station. You missed the faces the other night shift nurses were giving you both, but Tom was sure to subtly flick them off. “So, do you like running?” He asked as you headed back towards your room.

Throughout your late nights together, he told you of his three younger brothers and his dog named Tessa. You spoke about what you would do when you were out of hospital. He talked about his friends and flatmates and the adventures they had. He told you many stories, but each morning when you woke up he was clocked out and the day shift nurses were there.

Tonight was your last night. You’re set to be discharged tomorrow and while you are ecstatic to go home, you’re going to miss one thing about this place.

“I bet you’re too excited to sleep tonight. I don’t know if my stories will even help.” Tom said as he sat down next to you.

You smiled up to him sweetly.

“What are you looking forward to the most once you get out of here?”

“Sleeping in my own bed.”

“Well that’s no surprise.” Tom laughed, a contagious sound making you giggle as well. “Isn’t there anything you’ll miss about this place?”

“Yeah.” He smiled “There’s one thing.”

“What’s that?” He asks.

“The pudding cups.”

“Ahh the pudding cups of course.” You giggled while fiddling with the IV line.

“They just don’t taste the same in the outside world.”

His smile grew wider as you giggled.

“No, but really. As much as I give this place grief and say I’m ready to get out of here - which I am,” You gave him a pointed look to which he held his hands up in mock surrender, fully believing you, “it hasn’t been too terribly awful I guess.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad we could make your stay not too terribly awful.. I guess.” He teased. “Do you have anything exciting to look forward to once you’re a free woman?”

“Nothing huge planned, really. The doctors did say to take it easy.”

“That’d be wise.”

“Yeah. I’ll just lay low for a while. My sister said she may try to come visit me though so that would be nice.”

“Oh that would be nice. She’s your older sister right?”

“Right. She moved away last year to be closer to her boyfriend.”

“Ah. Do you like him?”

“Sorry?”

“This boyfriend. Do you like him?”

“He’s alright, I suppose. He makes her happy.” Tom nodded along.

“And do you have a boyfriend that makes you happy?”

“N-No. No I don’t. Not at the moment.” You began fiddling with the IV cord again.

“No boyfriend or not a boyfriend that makes you happy?” He asked.

“Neither.”

“Well that’s a shame.” If the heart monitor was connected you would’ve been screwed. “I just mean someone needs to look after you once you get home. I hope this sister comes through for a visit. You’ve got to take it easy.”

“Oh I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be.” He smiled.

“How has your shift been tonight? Busy?” You asked, fighting back a yawn.

“A bit busier than usual. There was a slight emergency earlier which is why Shelley handed out meds tonight. Sorry I didn’t come around.”

“It’s alright. I know you have other patients.”

“Yeah, but none like you.” You were sure he said that to all of his patients. After all, you’ve heard similar lines ever since you went to the pediatrician as a child. But it still gave you butterflies.

“Are you getting sleepy?”

“A little. But it’s okay.” He gave you a pointed look but continued to talk anyway. “It’s the last night. One final request for storytime. Make it a good one.”

You thought for a moment before asking your question.

“Do you ever wish that life turned out differently? That you never had your accident and you could’ve followed your dreams to be a dancer?” You asked while turning on your side and getting more comfortable.

“Sometimes. At least, I used to. But I think I’ve accepted it now. And I really can’t see myself doing anything but this.” You nodded taking in his answer “I look at it this way. If it wasn’t for my injury then I never would’ve changed my career path and found my love for medicine. I never would have made so many of the friends I’ve made or the memories I’ve made. I never would have met you.” He finishes with a sweet smile.

“That’s a very positive way of looking at it.” You told him. “Be honest, are you a therapist during the day?” He laughed out loud.

“No. I’m not. I guess I’m a big believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’.” You nodded while covering a yawn.

“So I’ve been curious to ask you,” He began, “Do you usually have this much trouble sleeping? Because you can get help for that you know?” You smiled at him.

“What? I thought a night nurse talking to you was the cure?” Tom smirked and shook his head. “I’m kidding. No, I normally don’t. It’s just the stiff sheets and hospital sounds I think.”

“Darn hospital.” He rolled his eyes and joked. “So this time tomorrow you’ll be sound asleep in your own bed then?”

You knew it was meant to be a happy statement, but you were a little sad at the thought of not having any more late night chats with Tom.

“Yes. Thank God.” You forced a smile.

You felt another yawn coming and tried to hold it back. It was already past the usual time that you fell asleep.

Tom could tell you were exhausted so he launched into a story from nursing school, hoping to lull you to sleep.

You yawned your way through listening, trying to soak up every last moment with Tom. In the morning he wouldn’t be here. You’d leave and likely never see him again.

When he finished, your eyes were half open and he wondered how you were still awake. Or maybe why.

“Why are you fighting it? The point is to sleep. Give in.” He told you gently after another yawn.

You looked up at him, half asleep and rubbing your eyes, not finding the confidence to tell him the true reason you were trying to stay awake.

“I’m happy right now.”

He smiled down at you.

“I am too. But you need your sleep, darling.” You weren’t sure what to say and you didn��t have much energy left in you anyway. “How about this. I’ve probably been in here too long as it is. Let me go check in at the Nurse’s Station and then I’ll come back and check on you soon and see if you’re still awake okay?”

The thought that he was leaving gave you a sad feeling in your stomach. You tried to remind yourself that he was just your nurse. Nothing more.

“Okay.” You smiled at him, sleepily, while settling further into the bed.

He stood up and instead of walking towards the door he walked closer to you. He grabbed the thin, white hospital blanket and pulled it closer around your shoulders.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He whispered before he walked to the door.

“Tom?” You called out just before he opened it. He turned around with an expectant look, “Thanks for everything.”

Even though the room was dim you could see his smile.

“You’re welcome, Y/N. Get some sleep.”

You don’t remember much after that. You don’t know if Tom came back to check on you. You just remember falling asleep with a smile on your face.

When you woke up the following morning it felt like any other morning in the hospital.

The hallways were much louder. Beeps, chatter, and phones were constant. The lights were brighter.

But you were quickly reminded that it wasn’t any other morning. You were going home today.

The door creaked open and Tanya, one of your regular daytime nurses, poked her head in.

“Oh good you’re up.” She made her way inside and over to the gloves. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good. Thanks.” She gave you a smile, something hidden behind it.

“I’m sure.” She said quietly to herself. You gave her a questioning look. “Oh I just mean I’m sure you’re excited to get out of here.”

You nodded as she took your vitals one last time.

“Everything looks good. What do you say about getting this IV out?”

“I say that sounds amazing.”

She took it out and bandaged up your arm while informing you of how the morning would go.

“Dr. McCoy is making rounds now then he’ll be by soon to go over your discharge. You can get dressed whenever you’re ready. If you need help, buzz me. You’ll still have a breakfast tray come, but you don’t have to eat it.” She gave you a wink while taking off her gloves.

“Thanks Tanya.”

“Of course, sweetie. And in case I don’t see you before you go, you’ve been a wonderful patient. Take care of yourself.” You smiled at her as she left you to change into some leggings and a sweatshirt.

You were packing your remaining things into your bag when your doctor walked in.

“Y/N! How are we doing today?”

“We’re doing great because we’re going home.” You smiled while taking a seat to rest for a few minutes.

“I know you’re excited.” He laughed before explaining the conditions of your discharge. You had medicines to take, a follow up appointment, and strict instructions to rest for the next few weeks. After signing some forms he left you with a stack of papers. “Is someone coming to pick you up?”

“Yeah my neighbor should be here within an hour.”

“Sounds good. Don’t hesitate to call us or come back in if you have any trouble or questions.”

“Will do. Thanks.”

A few minutes after he left a nurse brought in your breakfast tray. There wasn’t much of a point for it but since your discharge wasn’t technically until 10:30 am you were still a patient during breakfast.

You took the pudding cup that you requested with every meal off the tray before sliding it away. Smiling to yourself, you tucked it away in your bag. All you had left to do was wait for 10:30.

Tanya came in to check on you again and told you to buzz the Nurse’s Station when you knew your ride was here. At 10:27 you had a text from your neighbor that they were out front in the pickup zone. So you hit the call button.

“Yes?” Linda, the scariest dayshift nurse, answered.

“Um hi. Tanya told me to buzz in when my ride was here so I could go down.”

“Okay we’ll be right in.”

Not even a minute later you heard your door open. Expecting to see Tanya or maybe even Linda you looked up.

An audible gasp left your lips when Tom stood in your doorway with a wheelchair.

“I hear someone needs a ride?” He smiled as he made his way closer to the bed.

“Tom. What are you still doing here?”

“I pulled a double.” You wanted to ask why, but decided against it. You were still in a little bit of shock from seeing him again. “If you’d rather I can go get Linda to walk you down?” He pointed back towards your door.

“No! No.. I’m just surprised s’all.”

“Well come on. I thought you’d be running out of this place once the clock hit 10:30.” Glancing up you saw it was now 10:34. Your neighbor is probably tired of waiting already.

You grabbed your discharge papers and reached for your bag when you heard, “I got it.” Smiling at him, you sat down in the wheelchair. Tom placed the bag around his shoulder and kicked the brakes off the chair. “Ready?” You nodded up at him.

He rolled you out of the room that felt so small for a final time. You passed the Nurse’s Station and waved bye to the staff. He turned by the elevators and when you looked up at him in question, he read your mind. Looked down at you he said, “We’re taking the staff elevators.”

When you made it there he hit the button, turning you around and backing you in once the doors opened. He hit the button for the Lobby and leaned up against the wall of the elevator, briefly glancing at you, as you rode down together.

“Well you made it. You’re a free woman.” He smiled shyly.

“Yippee.” He met your eyes for a moment before looking back to the floor. The dynamics felt different. It wasn’t like your late night talks together.

“Listen, Y/N.” Tom began as he stood up from the wall and faced you. He was about to continue when the elevator ding cut him off, signaling you had reached your destination.

Maybe that was what was different. You had reached your destination.

You had a fun time talking with Tom and entertaining each other when you were both up late at night. He was fun to get to know and you enjoyed having someone care for you. He was easy to banter with and certainly easy on the eyes. But your time at the hospital was up. You knew it would be eventually. You wanted it to be.

Tom was a nurse. He was just doing his job. He was helping take care of you. He was being nice. He was trying to make your stay more comfortable. There was nothing to read into.

Your time being his patient was up and your time with him was up.

You tried to remain realistic, but the sadness still crept up as he rolled you closer to the door.

Once outside, you saw your neighbor exit the car and wave you over. Tom steered in the direction and slowed before rolling to a stop and hitting the brake locks on the wheels.

“Hi, I’m Taylor.”

“Tom.” They shook hands as Tom passed off your bag for Taylor to put in the backseat.

“I’m sorry for the circumstances, but it really has been a pleasure having you as a patient and getting to know you, Y/N.” Tom admitted as he walked around to face you. He grabbed the papers from your lap. “Take care of yourself, okay?” You had shared many smiles with Tom, but this one felt sadder.

“I will. Thank you for everything, Tom. I mean it.” You reached up and squeezed his hand. He gave you a light squeeze back while smiling down at you. Taylor returned from the backseat of the car and Tom turned to them.

“These are her important papers about follow up appointments, medications, what to do at home, all of that so please make sure she doesn’t lose any of them.” He emphasized the point.

“Got it. Thanks.” Taylor held onto the stack while Tom turned back to you.

“If I can’t handle a few papers on my own, then maybe I shouldn’t be going home yet, Tom.” You laughed.

“I know, I just wanted to make sure they made it home with you.” He walked closer. “You ready to get in?”

“Yeah.” You nodded. He helped you up, supporting you just as a precaution. Once seated, you took a moment to catch your breath as you pulled the seatbelt down. He met your hand, taking it from you to buckle you in.

“You good?”

You nodded with a smile, “Just a little tired. No biggie.”

He looked you over before returning your smile, though his didn’t quite reach his eyes, “If you need us, call us. Otherwise go home and rest.”

This was it. This was goodbye.

“Thanks, Tom.”

“Goodbye, Y/N.”

He shut the door. He walked back to the wheelchair, released the brake locks and headed inside. He looked back only when your car was driving away.

“Here’s those papers that are so important.” Taylor handed you the stack after they got in.

“Thanks.”

“So how are you feeling?”

“Better. Thanks.” You felt them looking at you as they joined traffic.

“You sure? You sound like you feel awful.”

You try to remind yourself to forget the sweet and attractive nurse and start moving forward.

“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay.” You decide to distract yourself by reading through your discharge paperwork, when something caught your eye. On top was a sticky note with the hospital’s letterhead. You were sure it wasn’t there before. Looking closer it read,

Y/N,

In case you need someone to talk to when you can’t sleep.

555-5555

P. S. I have a connection to some pretty good pudding cups too.

Tom

The smile that grew on your face was undeniable. All the feelings you suppressed came flooding in. He wasn’t just being nice. He actually liked you.

One thing you knew for sure was that even though you would be in your own bed tonight, you still would be up, talking to a very special nurse.

Lmk if you want to be on my tag list

#tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland hc #tom holland blurb #tom holland one shot #tom holland headcanon #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom Holland #tom holland x y/n #nurse!tom #nurse!tom au #nurse!tom Holland #nurse!tom x patient!reader #sick!reader #edna skiffens writes #writing #my writing

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hermannsthumb · 3 years

Note

I have a fun prompt I've been thinking about I hope you have time for one day! When Newt and Hermann meet actually things go really really well and they even get together. It's just they bicker so much and have huge science-based arguments that everyone assumed they must have hated each other on sight.

sure thing! i had fun with this one

----

"So," Newt says. "I was talking to Tendo today."

Across the mess table, Hermann hums in feigned interest. Newt knows it's feigned 'cause Hermann doesn't stop either thing he's doing: using his left hand to wind noodles around a fork, and using his right hand to scribble away a series of lengthy equations on the back of a paper napkin. His full attention has been hopping between both for about ten minutes now—no room for Newt to slip in there. He's testing his limits enough as it. Half of the last equation ended up scratched into the tabletop, and the last time he lifted his fork to his mouth, it was empty. And then he swallowed anyway. Newt kinda loves the guy.

"Yeah," Newt says, deciding to continue like Hermann responded the way he was actually supposed to respond, which would've been something along the lines of what an utterly fascinating story, Newton, do tell me more. I love hearing you talk, Newton. How marvelously smart you are, Newton, and how melodic and breathtaking your voice is. Now watch me bite down on an empty fork again. "Kinda funny. He was asking how we met."

Hermann finally looks up at Newt suspiciously over the rims of his glasses, which are slipping slowly down his nose. He stills them with the tip of his index finger before they land in his dinner. "Why?"

"I don't know, man," Newt says. "He just was. It was like, small talk, you wouldn't get it. He dropped by the lab when you were out this morning to let me know that there was extra space if we wanted it. Like, lab space." Hermann resumes scratching an equation into the table absently. Newt rolls his eyes. "As in, we could have separate labs if we wanted now."

Hermann knits his eyebrows together. "Separate laboratories?"

When Newt and Hermann first started at the Hong Kong Shatterdome, the k-scientist team was pre-existing and significantly bigger, and anyone who joined on later—like, you know, them—basically got shoved in wherever they fit. For Newt and Hermann, that happened to be Laboratory Space D, Basement Level 1 (the only basement level), along with a former marine biologist who was killed on a research excursion a month later when a kaiju made unexpected landfall, like, right on top of their chosen shelter. Bad luck. Anyway, Newt's known about the existence of other Hong Kong Shatterdome lab spaces in the vague and absent sort of way that you would an urban legend, but (similarly so) he never thought he and Hermann would actually ever lay eyes on one. And then Tendo stopped by to dangle it in front of Newt on a stick.

"The other labs were being used as storage for ages after everyone else—" Newt searches for a word tasteful enough to encapsulate got stomped by a kaiju and wised up and decided to live out what are probably our last few days before the world ends with their families instead of alone in a military bunker. "—left. Anyway, Tendo told me they've been going through shit like crazy this month, I think to see if they can salvage any old tech, and that the other labs are basically totally emptied out now. We just have to ask and they're ours."

Hermann sets down both his pen and fork, twisting his mouth contemplatively. He finally loses the battle against gravity with his glasses, and they miss his plate by an inch, swinging back on their chain and bouncing harmlessly against his chest instead. Newt briefly wonders if getting a chain for his own glasses would save them from their frequent fatal falls into kaiju organ cavities and buckets of non-neutralized kaiju blood, but decides not even the money he'd save on replacement pairs would make a fashion faux pas like that worth it. "You know I don't much fancy the basement," Hermann says.

"Your joints," Newt agrees. The damp of the basement sets Hermann's joint pain off frequently, something Hermann talks about just as frequently. Newt's not really a fan of the basement either, though for different reasons—he would kill to get some windows and natural, non-fluorescent light in there. Sun lamps can only do so much. He's pretty sure he'd fucking glow if he stepped outside right now. Also, it's cold down here.

"And it might be nice to be closer to LOCCENT, in case of an emergency," Hermann continues. "And closer to—oh, hang on. What has this got to do with us?"

"Huh?"

"How we met," Hermann says. "You said, that Tendo asked—"

"Oh," Newt says. It's his turn to play coy. He stirs his chopsticks through his own dinner, accidentally flicking a piece of tofu to the table. It lands on top of Hermann's etched equations. Hermann scowls, because that's how their routine goes: Newt gets Hermann's stuff dirty, and Hermann gets mad. "Well. It was just that Tendo was like you can finally be out of each other's hair, how the hell did you guys get stuck together anyway when you obviously can't stand each other, that kind of stuff."

"Ah," Hermann says.

"And I said that it was because we knew each other before," Newt says, "and that we transferred here together. And that's when he asked."

"And what did you say?" Hermann says.

"That we used to correspond professionally," Newt says, "and met at a conference way back in 2017." He adds, with a grin, "Also professionally."

This was technically true. Newt and Hermann did write to each other, professionally, and they did meet at a conference, professionally, but what went down after a long and public shouting match in the events hall of a very nice hotel—in Hermann's room, five floors up in that very nice hotel—was not very professional. The events of the week that followed—spent, intermittently, between Hermann's hotel room, several coffee shops, a bench under a tree in Newt's favorite park, a rotation sushi restaurant, brushing knees shyly on the tram, and, finally, clasping hands on the staircase of Newt's apartment and gazing deeply into each other's eyes—weren't very professional, either, but Newt likes to think that they were very romantic. Rom-com level shit. Newt revealed none of this to Tendo, who referred to the 2017 conference as that Infamous Day for the rest of their conversation. "Well, it was professional," Hermann sniffs.

But he reaches across the table, and, very timidly, crosses his pinkie over top of Newt's. It's the most blatant form of PDA Hermann ever willingly engages Newt in. Newt thinks if he ever tried to touch two fingers at once in anywhere but the lab, or God forbid, hold his whole hand, Hermann's ears might start emitting steam like something out of a cartoon. "It might be nice," he says again.

Laboratory Space D, Basement Level 1, is unique—Newt knows—in that Newt and Hermann's quarters are connected to it directly. None of the other labs have that luxury (and Newt has a feeling it's because Lab Space D wasn't actually intended as a lab space). He remembers being told that when they were shoved into it. Yeah, you have the darkest and tiniest lab space on base, but your rooms are right there! When Newt wants to go to Hermann's room, or if he's in Hermann's room and needs a sweatshirt or something from his own, he just has to step the three feet between their two doors. Moving labs could throw a wrench in that—they might be asked to move quarters, too, and might be shuttled to opposite sides of the Shatterdome, and though they could just bite the bullet and request couple's quarters already, it's nice to have their own spaces when they need it. That would never work. And, well, besides—the lab, their lab, feels like home to them at this point. Newt shrugs.

"On the other hand," Hermann says, and he taps Newt's pinkie lightly, "I quite like how things are. I can live with the damp, really."

"We can get a dehumidifier," Newt offers.

Hermann nods, and he gives Newt the barest hint of a smile.

Their monthly delivery of lab supplies—whatever they can afford with their shoestring budget, which, these days, mostly means chalk, rubber gloves, and nice instant ramen—comes three weeks later. Newt wouldn't exactly call the Shatterdome delivery guy a friend, seeing as he has yet to divulge his name to Newt (and also Newt's pretty sure he has a thing for Hermann, since he always seems to wait until Hermann is in the lab to stroll by with his package trolley and always calls him Dr. Gottlieb with big stupid heart eyes, oh, Dr. Gottlieb, that new sweater looks soooo nice on you!, so anyway, that makes him Newt's rival by default), but he, at least, recognizes and acknowledges Newt at this point. That's more than Newt can say for most people on the base. After his usual greeting to the two of them (hey, Newt, oh, hellllooo, Dr. Gottlieb, did you do something new with your hair?), he starts to unload their packages, also like usual.

"I was surprised to see that you guys are still down here," he tells Newt, not like usual. "Tendo mentioned something about you getting your own labs."

"He did?" Newt says, meaning to frown, but grinning instead. It's kind of fun to be the subject of gossip. He pulls off his gloves and tosses them in the trash to help with their supplies—the dehumidifier he requested should be in there, and it's fancy and definitely on the bigger side.

"Yeah," their delivery guy continues. He hands Newt a fuckin' massive brick of a package. Hermann's stupid chalk. The amount that Hermann tears through in a month really is astounding: Newt has a private theory that Hermann is an undercover space alien from a planet where chalk constitutes all of the primary food groups, and he secretly sneaks out here and eats it in the dead of night when Newt is asleep. "Anyway, sorry I'm late," the delivery guy says, as Newt imagines Hermann crunching on a piece of chalk like a carrot stick, "I went to all the other labs first."

"No worries, dude," Newt says. "Sorry for the confusion."

He lugs the package over to Hermann's desk, and drops it down on the only spot not over-cluttered with papers and books. Hermann complains about Newt's messiness a lot for a guy who is just as bad, if not worse. "Need any now?" Newt asks Hermann.

Hermann, scribbling away at his chalkboard, grunts. Newt decides that's a no.

"Hard at work, Dr. Gottlieb?" the delivery guy says, practically fluttering his eyelashes.

Another grunt. Newt snorts.

"I thought you guys would've moved right away," the delivery guy (obviously disappointed at Hermann's lack of attention) tells Newt. "Tendo mentioned you've been stuck together for a while, ever since some sort of dramatic confrontation at a conference ten years ago." he adds eagerly, "Did you really get thrown out? I don't know how you haven't killed each other yet."

"It's taken a lot of hard work," Newt says. Yeah, the whole being-ejected-from-the-conference-and-barred-from-all-future-ones-forever thing is technically true too, but everyone there was too stuffy and serious for Newt's fun vibes anyway, so he thinks it's their loss. The most important part of the scientific breakthrough process, Newt frequently thinks, was having someone there to challenge you and push back at you. Sometimes loudly. And in public. In the conference hall of a very expensive hotel, in front of all of your scientific peers, some hotel security guards, and a poor graduate student who made the mistake of asking you and your penpal-colleague for your joint opinion on something and got caught in the crosshairs. Besides—out of everyone at that stupid conference, Newt and Hermann were the only ones snapped up by the PPDC, so it's doubly their loss. "And, yeah, we got thrown out. Me and Hermann fight a lot, but we always make up eventually. It's no big deal. It's, like, our thing."

"Make up?"

Newt waggles his eyebrows and doesn't elaborate. The making up part is the best part of arguing with Hermann, honestly, but he's not about to go giving private details about stuff like that to his rival.

By the time Hermann finally descends his ladder, three hours have passed, and Newt is frowning over an email he's just gotten from Shatterdome HR. Hermann will probably see it in a second when he checks his own email—it was sent to both of them, after all—but Newt waves him over to his desk anyway. "Look," he says.

He draws out the spare chair he keeps by his desk (for Hermann), and Hermann drops into it gratefully, propping his cane up against the arm. Then Hermann pushes his glasses up onto his nose and scans the email with a frown of his own. Newt reads it aloud for him anyway. "'Subject: Quarters Reassignment,'" he says. "Dear Drs. Geiszler and Gottlieb: It has recently come to our attention that you will be transferring to Laboratories A&B. Should you wish to transfer quarters as well, you will find the necessary paperwork..."

"By Jove," Hermann groans, and pulls his glasses off again, smudging a bit of chalk on his cheek, "can't they just leave us alone?"

Newt laughs. "I'll tell them we're not interested. Wait, listen to this bit at the end: Congratulations—this must be a relief! Guess they were getting your complaint forms after all, Hermann." Both Newt and Hermann had long-since assumed that any and all official complaint forms stamped with a k-sci lab return address are filed right into the garbage. It's never deterred Hermann from sending them in, though.

"Hmph," Hermann says.

Newt carefully rolls his shirtcuff back down to his wrist and uses it to rub off Hermann's chalk smudge. When it's gone, or at least, mostly gone, he brushes his fingers back through Hermann's short hair. Hermann's eyelids flutter shut, and as he leans into Newt's touch, his creased forehead smooths just a little. "Mm. You're lovely," he murmurs. "We really ought to tell them we're married. It's gone on long enough."

"I guess," Newt says. "But it's kind of funny, isn't it?"

#newmann #maria's fanfiction tag #Anonymous

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jaeminlore · 3 years

Text

Landslide | Mark Lee

summary: time makes you bolder. even children get older, and i’m getting older too.

words: 7.1k+

category: teacher!mark, single parent!reader, fem!presenting!reader, graham is the sweetest kid, mark is that teacher that lets kids pick earthworms during recess, friends to lovers, mark’s apartment is flooded so now he has to live in domestic bliss with his secret crush oh nooooo

warnings: talk of absent fathers

author note: it’s my birthday tomorrow so i wanted to give u all a present for supporting me for so long!! here’s to you <3 (cross-posted on /honklore)

Mark helps one of his kids press their palms onto the wall. When they release their palm, pink paint remains, making a sort of leaf to the tree branches painted onto the wall.

“Now write your name,” Mark advises another kid, whose orange paint had already dried.

“G-R-A-H-A-M,” the boy writes out with a large permanent marker. “Can I take a picture? For my mom?”

All the rest of the children begin to shout their agreements, also wanting to bring home a picture for their parents. Mark grabs his yellow Polaroid camera and takes a picture of each handprint.

He keeps all of the pictures in the chest pocket of his denim jacket. “Okay, guys— to the sink! Whoever has the cleanest hands gets to help me pass out snacks!”

“Why are we having snack time so early?” It’s Graham that asks, the little one always eager to be around Mark.

Mark ignores the boy’s paint covered hands poking at his clean jacket, and answers him as politely as he can. “Mr. Lee forgot his lesson plans today, so we’re going to watch a movie instead.”

“A movie?” Graham’s eyes widen.

“Yep,” Mark giggles. He crouches down to Graham’s level and whispers, “You wanna pick it?”

“Nature Nut!” Graham cheers almost immediately, causing Mark to wince.

Ah, yes, the wonderful little DVDs of a lonesome man teaching the watcher about bugs and weird types of slugs. Mark actually has the entire collection, and Graham happens to adore them just as much as Mark did when he was a kid.

“Alright, go wash your hands and I’ll get it started.”

It’s a little girl named Hana who cleans her hands the best, so she passes out organic fruit gummies to everyone while Mark puts in the DVD.

While they watch the video, Mark checks his text messages.

There’s one from Taeyong: “I’ve already got Haechan on the couch. Sorry, man. You can have the floor, but it’s not gonna be comfy :(“

Right. Mark forgot that Haechan lives in the same complex as him. His apartment is probably just as flooded as Mark’s is. Now if the landlord would just answer his calls and help him... maybe this situation wouldn’t be so stressful.

Mark didn’t forget his lesson plans; they’re just submerged in his bedroom with everything else Mark has left lying on his carpet. And maybe it’s his fault for not buying more storage bins, but a studio apartment can only hold so much stuff.

Serves Mark right for doing his lesson plans at home instead of at the school like most of his fellow kindergarten teachers.

He lets out a quiet sigh, careful not to disturb the children. He only has a short list of friends left to ask, and while he doesn’t think they’ll mind him asking, he really hates to put anyone in that position.

Besides, most of his friends have roommates or significant others and Mark doesn’t want to ruin their routine. He’d hate to intrude. And he could always sleep in his car for a few days, but the amount of stuff he had to pack because of the flooding has barred any chance of a good night’s sleep.

The video ends, and Mark gets the kids seated with coloring pages until their parents arrive.

One by one, he I.Ds the parents and tells the kids goodbye, helping them put on their coats and take home whatever library book they picked out earlier.

Finally, there’s only one kid left, and Mark is a bit embarrassed of his hyper-awareness to Graham. It’s not even his fault, really. Graham just has a beautiful mom, who happens to be Mark’s beautiful friend, and sometimes Mark gets eager to see you during pickup time.

Whatever. It’s no big deal.

The kindergartener already has his coat on. His curly brown hair is almost unruly as he continues to work on his coloring sheet.

Mark pulls at the hem of his sage sweater sleeves and wonders if his hair looks okay. Maybe he should invest in a little desk mirror; or maybe that’s vain.

“Hey, Mark! Sorry I’m late!” You rush in, holding on to your leather messenger bag. You fix your glasses before they fall off the bridge of your nose, and Mark is so focused on the movement that he almost forgets about your child.

Until said child is scolding his mother. “Mom! You have to call him Mr. Lee! It’s rude to call him Mark!”

“Your mom is an adult,” Mark reminds Graham (as soon as he finds his voice.) “Since she isn’t a student, it’s okay for her to call me Mark.”

Graham pinches his lips together, and then shrugs. “Fine. Mom, we watched Nature Nut today.” He runs up to you and wraps his arm around your middle. “Can we go to the park and look for slugs?”

“Sure,” you giggle. “But we need to get home soon, okay, Bud? I have to make dinner and then we have to clean up the mess we made last night.”

Graham turns to Mark and smiles naughtily, like the trickster he often is. “Mom said I could tear up her papers last night. She said it’s There-pee.”

“Ther-a-py,” you emphasize for the five-year-old.

Mark studies your face, and he can tell that you seem a little more stressed than usual. “Therapy, huh?”

You smile sheepishly. “Well, when your son catches you tearing up old love notes, you have to let him in on the fun, right?”

“You are a team,” Mark acknowledges. He wants to ask more; wants to dig into your heart and extract whatever is hurting you, but your son is standing between the two of you, waiting for him to say goodbye. Mark clears his throat and picks at his sweater again. “Anyways, uh, text me tonight? Let me know you two got home safe. And, I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” you breathe. You smile at him and then take Graham’s hand. “Thanks, Mark. I’ll text you.”

Mark spends the night at a motel down the road. He texts a few of his friends and hopes for good news in the morning, or at least a confirmation from his landlord.

When you text him, a little selfie of you and Graham, holding up what looks like microwaved s’mores, his heart grows fond, and he forgets about his own problems for a moment.

Life has never been very easy for you. From the get-go, you have always been destined to fail, growing up with an absent father and an overworked mother. With a dead-end dream like yours (writing, of all things), it’s no wonder you clung to what little breaths of freedom you had.

He was handsome and bold, with a carefree smile and brown eyes that mirrored the sun. The lead singer of a band, with a voice like chimes. And you fell just as hard as one of your many protagonists. Perhaps the mistake always lay in the fact that you put too much fantasy into reality. You have always romanticized the littlest things, and that comes back to bite you more often than not.

You never expected one: to get pregnant your senior year of high school, and two: have to go through it alone.

Of course, most people you come to love leave eventually. It’s something you have always remembered; something that sticks in the back of your brain like gum to the bottom of your child’s Spider-man skechers.

Graham is the only constant in your life. Though you’ve been blessed with a decent job editing for a webazine company, and you can work from home more often than not, Graham is the real thing that keeps you alive.

He’s the most precious boy, with brown curls and big brown eyes. He favors his father, and though that should deter you, it reminds you of innocent days, and it gives a new meaning to brown eyes. Graham is not his father, and he never was.

Graham certainly got his love of learning from you. Though he likes science more than writing, you adore how eager he is to always get to school. It helps that Mark is his teacher.

Mark’s been your friend since freshman year of highschool, when the two of you both took the same creative writing class the local university offered. Though the two of you had differing end goals, you often studied together and encouraged each other. He was there when you found out you were pregnant, and he was there when you found out you’d be raising your child alone.

Now life comes full circle, and you see him twice a day. You could go out on a limb and say he brightens up most mornings, but you would still give that slot to your son.

Mark is standing at the doorway now, greeting all of his students and helping them take off their book bags and coats. He’s wearing monochrome today: red pants, a red sweater, and red shoes.

Graham lights up almost immediately, and you are thankful today that you decided to dress Graham in his red t-shirt. “Mom! We match!”

“I know,” you grin, squeezing his hand.

Mark glances at Graham, and then you. His cheeks showcase that same pink hue they always do, and while it should clash with his red garments, it doesn’t. “Hey, Mark.”

“Hey,” he grins, cheeks full at the sight of you two.

Graham spreads his arms and waits for Mark to help him take off his jacket. “Do you see that we match, Mr. Lee?”

“Yo, that’s awesome, Little Man!” Mark gives Graham a fist bump that seems to appease him, and you wait for Graham to run to his friends before addressing Mark.

“How have you been?”

Mark sighs. He brushes his hair away from his eyes. “Okay. My- uh- my studio apartment flooded so I’m staying at a motel until my landlord can get me estimates on when I can come back home.”

“That sucks,” you frown. “You know, if you need a place to stay, I have a pullout couch in my office. And obviously, Graham wouldn’t mind.”

Mark pales. “Are you serious? I didn’t mean to suggest anything, Like I know you work from home and you need your office.”

“And you’ll be at school until three,” you say. “I’ll work then. C’mon, Mark. I don’t like knowing one of my friends has no place to stay.”

Mark bites his bottom lip and scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll drive over after I check out of the motel.”

“Great!” You smile. “I’ll order pizza.”

"Graham, clean your room," you say, struggling to push your desk against your office wall. "We're going to have a guest for a few weeks."

"Mom," Graham whines, "They aren't going to look in my room."

You begin to take the cushions out of the spare couch to start setting up the pull-out bed. "Mr. Lee is coming over, Graham. Don't you want to show him your collections?"

Graham's brown eyes grow wide. "Mr. Lee? You didn't tell me he was coming!"

"He's going to be staying with us for a little bit, okay? So I need you to be on your best behavior."

“Can I show him my worms?” Graham asks, alluding to the compost bin in the small backyard of your townhouse.

“Yes,” you say, thankful that he isn’t putting up much of a fight toward cleaning. You’re also thankful he isn’t asking any questions, as Graham always seems to have a few at the top of his tongue.

Graham cleans up his room quickly. You know for a fact that he’s just shoved all of his toys under his bed, but it’s enough until the weekend, when you’ll have more time to help him organize.

The little guy hoards rocks like no one’s business. You curse the day Mark decided to teach the kids about geodes.

“Wanna help me make up Mr. Lee’s room?” You half-yell, while grabbing spare bedding out of your linen closet.

Graham’s little footsteps are heard before he answers, and soon he’s at your hip with a quick, “He can have my Frozen pillowcase!”

You hesitate to tell Graham that his Frozen pillowcase is currently on one of your pillows, and you can’t give your guest a dirty pillowcase. “That one is in the wash, Buddy. Why don’t we give him your Spider-Man one?”

“So he matches my pajamas!” Graham is easily pleased, and he even takes one of his stuffed bears to add to Mark’s made-up bed. (“So he doesn’t get scared at night.”)

By the time the pizza arrives, Mark is just behind, so you keep Graham busy with a slice of cheese and a glass of diet pepsi (only half of a can, and only because it’s a special occasion) while the two of you bring in Mark’s stuff.

He surprisingly didn’t bring much, and when you ask about it, he grimaces. “My studio is pretty small so a lot of my stuff was on the ground and got mildewed. Other stuff was in bins so I just left it there. I only need clothes and my lesson plans, anyway.”

“Well, here’s the desk and bed. It’s not much, but there’s a lock on the door in case Graham ever gets too inquisitive — bless him — and curtains so the stupidly bright sun won’t wake you too early.”

“Those both sound like personal experiences, Y/n,” Mark teases. He takes off his jacket and throws it on the bed. “Yo! Spider-Man?”

“Graham picked it out,” you say. “He also relinquished one of his bears to keep you safe in the middle of the night. His words, not mine.”

“He’s so cute,” Mark mentions offhandedly. The fondness in his tone takes you back a bit. Not because the phrase isn’t true, it’s just that most people find your son annoying before they find him endearing. The change of tone is nice.

“He is,” you say. “And he’s dying to show you his room after we eat dinner.”

Mark gives you that same lopsided smile he often had in high school. Part of your brain shifts to his personal life, and you wonder why Mark himself isn’t in a romantic relationship. Not that he has to be, but the both of you are getting older, and Mark has always been one to express a fondness for having his own family one day. Maybe he just hasn’t found the right person.

It isn’t until Graham is peacefully in bed — after a very chaotic reading of Goodnight Moon by yours truly, and an argument that Mr. Lee cannot, in fact, sleep in the same room as him — that you actually have a chance to show Mark around the house.

“Here’s the guest bathroom. Graham almost always uses the bathroom in my room because he likes looking at the big tub. He will beg you to play with him, but if you’re busy don’t feel guilty telling him no. He knows what no means and he’s good about playing by himself.”

Mark giggles. “Okay. I don’t mind playing with him, though.“

You show him around the kitchen, where you left little spaces for him in the pantry. You show him the garbage bags and the T.V. settings and the list of compostable ingredients. “And also, please come and go as you please. Like, I completely understand that you’re here temporarily and you aren’t a babysitter or anything like that. I don’t expect you to be in charge of Graham any time outside of school.”

Mark blinks. “But if you ever need time away, you can ask me. I don’t mind babysitting.”

“I know,” you smile. “But Graham is my kid. I don’t need time away from him.”

You’re lying. Mark knows it. You’ve been in this single parenting thing for five years and you aren’t about to reach out for help now.

“Anyways, if you have any questions just ring me or ask me,” you say. “I’ve got to get to bed. Goodnight.”

“Thanks, Y/n.”

Mark thinks it’s sweet the way Graham insists on making his own breakfast.

You’re already up when Mark gets out of his (temporary) bedroom with his clothes tucked under his arm. You’re busy arguing with Graham. “You can’t fry your own omelette for the last time.”

Mark quirks an eyebrow at your exasperated face. You look stressed beyond belief, even though the day has just begun.

Mark tosses his clothes back in his room and walks into the kitchen. “Hey, Graham! Do you want to show me your rock collection?”

Graham spins on his sock-clad heels, eyes bright at the thought of seeing his teacher. “Mr. Lee! Yes! Let’s go!”

He grabs Mark’s hand with ease, leaving you room to finish making breakfast.

Graham’s room is fairly simple. The small wooden bed is covered in a green quilt, and beneath that, frozen-printed sheets that certainly don’t match. He has a tub of stuffed animals shoved against a small dresser.

Mark gets distracted by the framed picture on top of the dresser. It’s a picture of you and Graham’s father, a few months before you got pregnant. He’s smiling, and you’re holding up a peace sign. It makes Mark feel a bit sad, knowing that Graham’s dad never stayed around to see how wonderful he turned out to be. Then again, a lot of people in your life left as soon as they found out. In high school, no one wants to be friends with a teenage mother.

Mark reckons that if he had a family like this, he’d never take them for granted.

Graham pulls out a gemstone. It’s a murky green one that Mark has let him take home from class. “Do you remember this, Mr. Lee?”

Mark grins. “Yeah, bud. Thanks for keeping it so safe for me.”

Graham beams. He grabs Mark’s hand and pulls him towards his dresser. “Can we match? I want to look like you.”

Mark feels his heart swell. He wants to smother the young boy in affection, but he doesn’t want to cross a line. He’s your friend, sure, but he’s also Graham’s teacher. He can’t coddle Graham more than the other children. He already has a godchild to coddle. “I’m wearing yellow today. Do you have any yellow clothes?”

“Let’s look!” Graham yanks open one of the drawers and begins pulling out the articles of clothing one by one. “No, no, no... Here!” He finds a pair of yellow overalls, folded amongst the mess he made. “I’ll wear these!”

“Let’s clean up first, okay?” Mark grabs the overalls. “So it’s clean when you come home from school.”

Graham, looking like the last thing he’d ever want to do is disappoint Mark, begins to pick up each shirt with obvious intent. He tries to fold them, and does a somewhat decent job, so much so that Mark leaves it, thinking you’ll find it endearing rather than annoying.

He really loves that about you. He likes your patience with Graham. You’re so young, and in reality, he squashed so many early dreams of yours. No matter your lot in life, you never blamed your child. Mark thinks that’s why Graham is so open, so adaptable, so endearing.

He helps Graham get dressed and leaves him in his room so that he, himself, can get ready.

When he emerges from his shower, hair wet and clothed in yellow, he smells something amazing.

He doesn’t want to intrude on your morning with Graham. He already feels too indebted to you already.

“Have an omelet,” you say. Wisps of hair cover your face. You place a plate down in front of him.

Graham is already eating his omelet, slowly, while flipping through a picture book. He sounds out words he recognizes, but stays silent the rest of the time.

Mark takes out his phone and scrolls through his instagram feed just as your own phone begins to ring.

“Shit,” you curse, and then immediately apologize to Graham. You press the red button and tap anxiously on the tabletop.

“Everything okay?” Mark asks.

You run your hands over your hair and let them rest on the back of your neck. “Yeah is just—“

The phone rings again, and this time you pick it up. “What do you want? ... Why would you tell me that? ... Why should I care? ... Please stop contacting me, okay? Goodbye.”

You slam the phone down and leave the room. Mark watches you disappear down the hallway, sniffling.

“Mommy is upset,” Graham says. He looks at Mark, lip quivering. “At me?”

“No, Buddy! Of course not!” Mark reaches over the table to ruffle Graham’s curls. “Never at you.”

“When we tore up paper, she was crying.” Graham fiddles with his book page.

Mark wonders why your ex’s actions are being brought up five years later. Last he heard, you had fully healed from the breakup long before Graham’s first birthday. But now he’s about to be six, and you're suddenly upset?

He’ll have to ask you about it soon.

“Are you ready to go to school, Buddy?”

“Yeah!”

You cradle your face in your hands and try to ease the tears back in. You’ll never get this article proofread and sent if you can’t see the keys.

The door opens, and Graham runs in just in time for you to finish wiping your eyes. “Hey, kiddo! How was school?”

“Mr. Lee let us finger paint!” Graham holds up his palm, covered in dried paint, and grins brightly. “Can I have gogurt?”

“Yeah bud. Why don’t you put something on the T.V.? You can have your snack in the living room today.”

“Yes!” Graham takes blueberry gogurt out of the fridge and — after getting you to tear it open — runs into the living room. Sneakers and backpack still on.

Mark trails behind, clutching a messenger bag to his chest. “What’s going on?”

You sigh and close the laptop. The manuscript will have to wait. “Ben called. About a week ago. His girlfriend is pregnant. Called me to tell me he wasn’t going to leave her— like that would heal what he did to me. Then he called this morning to tell me they’re engaged.” You burst into tears then, and you feel so pathetic for doing this in front of your old schoolmate, that you hide your face behind your palms and allow your shoulders to shake. “Why weren’t we enough? Why wasn’t I enough?”

Mark scoots one of the chairs in front of you and sits, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Hey. Look at me.” With gentle hands, he grabs your wrists and pulls them away from your face. “It is not your fault he left.”

“But it has to be me in some way,” you retort. “He must not have loved me. Something, because now he’s going to raise her child after he left mine. Graham deserves a dad.”

Mark places his forehead against yours. The two of you used to do it all the time in school, mostly with immature giggles in the spaces between, but now it’s heavy with intention. “Graham has not felt even a little bit unloved in your care. You are all he needs, okay? You’re amazing.”

You nod, head still pressed to Mark’s. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry for getting too emotional, there.”

“Be as emotional as you want,” Mark says. “I’ll be here to balance you out.”

Your heart stutters at the words, like maybe they mean something more than he’s letting on. Of course it’s stupid to think Mark Lee would ever even consider you, but just the knowledge that he cares makes your soul feel a little lighter.

“I’m a mess,” you stutter, bringing your fist up to wipe at your nose.

“Nah,” Mark grins. He runs the pad of his thumb across your cheek and grins. “You’re alright.”

“It’s snowing!” Graham wakes Mark up by jumping on his chest.

Mark sucks in a breath, winded at the sudden weight, and grabs the boy, lifting him off of his chest and onto the mattress. “Hey, Buddy. Let’s not jump on sleeping people, okay?”

“Okay,” Graham says. He’s already lost interest in Mark, now crawling off of the bed to open the blinds. “Come look at the snow!”

“I see!” Mark rubs his tired eyes and checks his watch. “We might have a snow day, Graham.”

“Yes!” Graham pumps his fist into the air. “Let’s go tell mom!”

You’re sitting on your bed, chewing on a red licorice rope and flipping through a fashion magazine. You look up when Mark and Graham enter.

Mark likes seeing you like this: the domesticity of you in the morning, lazy and true. His chest sparks when he thinks this may be one of the only moments he can capture you like this, so he intends to commit the sight to memory.

“Did I hear snow day?” You grin at Mark, childlike wit in your own eyes — the same as your son’s.

“Looks like it.” Mark rolls up the sleeves of the sweater he slept in. “You want pancakes? I make some mean chocolate chip pancakes.”

You shift your gaze away from his arms and clear your throat. “Uh, yeah. Just let me get dressed and I’ll help—“

“No need,” Mark insists. “Enjoy your quiet time. Graham and I will make the most delicious pancakes you’ve ever tasted.”

“With lots of chocolate chips!” Graham shouts.

You give him a pointed look. “But not too many.”

Graham huffs. “But not too many,” he repeats.

Momentary splashes sound from your bathroom, followed by Graham screaming “It’s a dragon! Run for cover!”

Mark giggles from his place on the couch. He’s got mushroom-patterned socks on, and he’s tucked up into the cushions, nursing a can of Monster. “How does he still have so much energy?”

You sigh and pull your beanie down over your forehead. “You’d think a snow day would tire him out. Thanks for constantly carrying him up the hill, by the way. I know you’re a teacher, but sometimes I forget how good you are with kids.”

“I do have a godson,” Mark reminds you.

“But Mikey is a baby,” you say. You only know the baby’s name because of Mark’s constant snap stories about him.

“Most babies and kids want the same thing. Affection and attention.” Mark scoots over to the edge of the couch and pats the cushion.

You sit next to him. “I guess that’s true. You’re really good with Graham. He’s not this open to other adults.”

Mark is clearly blushing now; you can see his pink cheeks even in the light of the television. “He’s great in class, always helping the other kids.”

“He wants to impress you,” you say. You pop open a can of orange soda and take a sip. “He thinks you’re just the coolest guy.”

Mark laughs and shakes his head. “Didn’t you hear, Y/n? I’m handsome and cool.”

“Oh, of course,” you nudge his shin with our own sock-clad foot. “How could I forget? Mr. Ladies Man in high school.”

This makes Mark blush even harder, because he most certainly was not a ladies man in high school. In fact, he was a nerd in all senses of the word, part of the debate club with a few other boys. He had a few dates here and there, but nothing ever stuck.

“Shut up,” he mumbles. “My time is gonna come.”

“Hasn’t it already?” you ask before you can really process your own words. But of course he knows that he’s grown into his face, right?

Mark is positively handsome, eyes bright and lashes long. He’s so warm and comforting to you. He must be just as comforting to everyone else.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re handsome, Mark,” you say plainly.

“You mean that?”

“Of course I do,” you say. “Why would I lie?”

Mark opens his mouth, perhaps to call you out. To tell you you’ve been too honest, but he’s interrupted by your son.

“Mom! I’m ready to get out now!”

“I should go,” you say, still looking at his eyes.

“Yeah,” he says. His sweater has small spots on the shoulders where snow has fallen and since melted. He shivers.

“You should take a shower. You’ll catch a cold.”

“Okay,” he whispers. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

Haechan comes over the following Saturday night to hang out with Mark, and you’re surprised at how much he truly hasn’t changed since high school.

He’s still got infamously perfect eyebrows, and his voice is still high despite its blunt sarcasm. “Nice place.” He raises his brows as he looks around.

“Who are you?” Graham is sitting at the kitchen table, watching Minecraft playthroughs (kid-friendly ones you’ve watched through yourself) on your phone to entertain himself while you clean.

“I’m Haechan, Mark’s friend.”

“This is Mr. Lee’s friend from school,” you say, detailing your words so they’re easier for your son to digest.

Graham stares at him for a moment, not quite judging but not quite accepting either. “Okay. Do you want to see my rock collection?”

Haechan looks genuinely excited, and accepts before you can come up with an excuse for him. Graham tells Haechan to stay in the kitchen while he grabs all of his rocks.

“How have you been?” you ask the taller man. “Like, with the flooding and everything?”

“Well, I’m on a couch at Taeyong’s, which is good since he doesn’t charge rent. But that means I’m near Mikey, and that baby has some lungs.”

You laugh. “I remember when Graham was a baby. I was so young, and my mom told me it was my responsibility to wake up and take care of him whenever he cried in the middle of the night. I was so pissed at her for making me do that, but those were some of the best nights to bond with him.” You realize you’re rambling and shake your head. “Whatever. Baby screams are loud as hell.”

“You can say that again. I’ve been talking to my friend Johnny about taking his spare room and paying rent. I dunno how many more sleepless nights I can take.”

“Why would you need to pay rent if you’re just crashing?” You wipe down the kitchen table to keep yourself busy.

“Didn’t Mark tell you? Our landlord is in heaps of trouble because the pipes weren’t up to code and that’s why they busted. The damage is basically too expensive to fix, so we’ve got to find new places.”

You stop cleaning. “Mark didn’t tell me that.”

“Oh.” Haechan scratches his brow. “He probably didn’t want to worry you. He feels really bad that he’s stayed with you this long.”

“It’s only been a month or so,” you counter. “Besides, Mark’s a great housemate. He cleans and keeps Graham occupied. Plus, now I have someone to watch corny game shows with.”

Haechan grins. “Oh. Okay, I get it.”

“Get what?” Mark, finally out of the shower, steps into the kitchen and immediately tackles Haechan in an energized hug.

“Nothing!” Haechan’s voice cracks

You shoot Haechan a weird look, and change the subject. “Where are you guys going?”

“To play video games at Johnny’s.” Mark says, and the thrill in his voice makes you think of high school. Of the debate team bus rounding the corner. Of you standing there, waiting to congratulate him with a big hug and a frosty from Wendy’s.

You miss it. “Have fun, okay? I’m probably going to tuck in as soon as Graham does, so just let yourself in.”

“You’re leaving?” Graham comes in, and his arms are filled with smooth and rough stones and gems he’s both found by himself and bought at random general stores while traveling.

“Not before I see your rocks!” Haechan says with so much enthusiasm, you think he’s telling the truth.

Graham giggles and drops the rocks onto the ground. Of course, he wants your guest to sit on the floor and count rocks. You’re almost embarrassed.

“ ‘ Okay, Y/n?” Mark laughs at your expression. Then he places his arm on your shoulder, thumbs the skin of your upper arm.

And once again, it’s high school. It’s senior year graduation and Mark is the only one who congratulates you. It’s his comforting touch, him coming over in the middle of the night after you texted him a picture of your first sonogram. It’s that same comforting touch. That little “I’m here,” and it melts you on the inside, leaves you in the shell of an eighteen girl again. Scared, and worried, and a little less alone.

“Yeah,” you manage. “I’m okay.”

The television plays Cartoon Network reruns on a low hum. Mark is curled up in a blanket, nursing a bottle of water and thinking over Haechan’s words.

You’ve liked her since high school, dude.

Which is a complete lie. Seriously, Mark didn’t have a crush on you in high school. He would know if he had a crush on his best friend. You’ve been his friend since freshman year, and that’s all you’ve ever been.

Now in college, it was different. In college, Mark was alone in a dorm with Taeyong, and you were one of the only people from high school he stayed in contact with. In college, he would bring you your favorite snacks and drinks, and other things you would forget to buy because you were a part-time student and a full-time mom. In college, you would pull all-nighters with him, working on your exams while Graham was asleep, then using energy drinks to get through the next day.

Mark even remembers the time your mom caught the three of you fast asleep on your rug, with unopened monster cans and an empty milk bottle beside you.

Throughout your entire pregnancy he was warned not to stay friends with the pregnant girl — it’d be too much for him, he wouldn’t want to become the new father, and all kinds of other stuff people would mumble to him when you weren’t around.

But you never expected him to be anything other than your friend. You never asked him for the help he gave — though you thanked him always — and you never once assumed he’d take the role of Graham’s dad.

And now… now he finds himself wishing you would.

“Mr. Lee?” Graham creeps up without him even realizing.

Mark jumps, sets his water — and thoughts — aside. “Hey, Bud. It’s really late. What are you doing up?”

Graham sniffs, and Mark realizes that the boy is crying. “I had a nightmare.”

Mark holds out his arms before he can think, and lets the five-year-old crawl into his lap. He wraps them both in his blanket and turns the television up just a little more. “Was it scary?”

“You left.” Graham says, voice less watery, like he doesn’t know the weight of his words. He’s focused on the rerun of Adventure Time that’s playing. He’s not even remotely interested in his nightmare now, with his tears dried up, and his eyes drooping back towards slumber.

“I’m going to leave one day,” Mark says, because he thinks it’s important that Graham knows.

“You should stay with me and Mom,” Graham says. He yawns. “We like you so much!”

Mark’s heart stutters. He tries not to think about it.

When Graham’s bed is empty the next morning, you freak out. He’s always in his room in the morning. Even if he wakes up before you, he stays in and plays with his toys.

You’ve already got your phone out, and your mother’s number called, when you walk into the living room.

Relief floods your system. Mark and Graham are asleep on the couch, snuggled up serenely like they didn’t just cause you to have a premature heart attack.

You hang up before the call to your mom can go through and stand there, watching the two boys sleep. Graham has both his arms wrapped around Mark’s forearm. It’s such a sweet picture that you take out your phone and snap one.

The flash is on.

Mark scrunches his nose and winces. “What the–”

“Sorry!” You whisper. “You both looked so cute, I couldn’t help it.”

Mark smiles, still sleepy, and finally opens his eyes. He peers at you, copper brown under fluttering lashes and you’re almost intimidated into looking away. “He had a nightmare.”

“Oh?”

“About me leaving.”

“Oh.” You frown. “I’m really sorry about that. I keep telling him that you’re moving out soon, but I don’t think he fully understands.”

Graham stirs. You reach down and pick him up. Your knuckles brush across Mark’s warm, sweater-clad chest and you suddenly wish you could cuddle with him, too. You shake the thoughts away and focus on your drowsy son. “You’re staying at Grandma's for a few days, remember?”

Graham rubs his eyes and perks up. “And I’ll see her cat?”

“Yes,” you confirm. “But we’ve got to get you dressed because she’s coming in a few minutes.”

“Mark Lee!” Your mom’s voice embarrassingly rings through the apartment, and you realize Mark has taken it upon himself to open the door. “Y/n told me she had a temporary roommate but I never thought she would finally ask you!”

“Oh my gosh…” you mumble, buckling Graham’s overalls and hauling him up into your arms. “Mom! His apartment flooded so he’s staying here. Don’t be weird about it.”

“But he’s so handsome,” your mom coos. You’re concerned she might reach forward and pinch Mark’s already ruddy cheeks.

“Thanks,” Mark laughs. “But she’s right, I’m just squatting until I can find a new place.”

Your mom harrumphs. “Well, I don’t see why you can’t stay here forever. Y/n doesn’t even use that office room. And even if she did, the two of you could just share a room.”

“Mom!” You plunk Graham into her hands and grab his overnight bag. “You have to leave.”

“Did I say something wrong?” She sounds worried, but there’s an undisclosed mirth in her eyes that makes you think of your freshman year, when you did have a crush on Mark.

“You said everything wrong,” you say, kindly pushing her out. “Have a good time, Graham. I love you! As always, Mom, call if you need me to come get him.”

“Yeah, right!” She yells over her shoulder. Graham is already giggling, so you close the door with confidence.

You turn back to your roommate. “I’m sorry about that, Mark.”

“It’s fine.” He smiles, but it’s reserved. “But speaking of me finding a place… I know Haechan told you that I can’t go back to my own apartment. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

“It’s okay,” you say. You want to say “You can stay here as long as you want, and long as you’ll let me keep you,” but that would reveal too much, and you don’t want to lose the one good friend you have.

“And I was thinking I should move out soon anyway.” Mark pulls his sweater sleeves until they cover his hands. He’s hiding. He’s shielding himself the same way he did in junior year, when he got turned down by his crush to go to the prom. “I don’t think it’s good for Graham to get this attached to me if I’m just going to leave.”

“Oh,” Your sleeves are too short, but you want to shield yourself too. “Yeah, that’s… that’s probably a good idea.”

Mark stands there for a beat, like he’s waiting for you to say something more. Like he hasn’t just taken your heart and pushed it aside. Like this hurts a lot less than it actually does.

But any word out of your mouth would be tearful. It would be honest. It would ruin everything. “I’m going to go on a run.”

There’s a cricket outside that won’t stop chirping against your window. You blame it for your insomnia, choosing to ignore the anxiety of eventually losing Mark. It feels so horribly childish, since you’ll see him when you drop Graham off at school. And you’ll see him whenever the two of you go out for coffee on weekends.

But you won’t see him in the kitchen, reaching for the pancake mix so his shirt rises up and you can see the dimples in his back. You won’t see him humming along to the radio while he works on his lesson plans. You won’t feel his warmth when the two of you stay awake, nursing spiked lemonade and giggling at the commentary videos you find on YouTube.

He’ll just be Mark again. He won’t be home anymore.

Startled by the realization, you get out of your covers and rush to your door.

It opens before you can even reach for the doorknob, and there’s Mark in his pajamas, biting his lip and avoiding your eyes.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you say.

Mark confesses, “I love you.”

You open your arms and he dives in, face pressed into the space where your neck meets your shoulder. Warmth envelopes you and the scent of pine fills your nose.

Mark is timeless. Youthful glory and childish pride. He’s a pinch on the side and a push on the swings. Like a rock that actually skips on the first try. Like shoes that you can slip on when they’re still tied. And he’s here, in your arms, squeezing you like you’re something valuable enough to lose. He’s confessing love like you aren’t the worst possible candidate for his heart.

“I can’t offer you much,” you start, but Mark bumps his forehead against yours, boyish and playful — football fields and bright red lockers and secret notes on bathroom walls.

“I’ve known you for years, Y/n,” Mark’s voice is a low rumble. Copper eyes blinking at you like you’re something to second glance at. “I know what I’m getting into. I want you. I want Graham. I want everything this is, and everything we’ve been for the past month. I don’t want this to end.”

You close your eyes, because his are too honest. He’s open and vulnerable and gentle — a child on the first day of school, ready to make friends. You take a deep breath, try to remember what you were like on your first day. Rosy cheeks and shy glances. Knobby knees and a trusting heart. You reach out for whoever you once were — the Y/n with a heart open and willing to be loved. “I don’t want this to end either. I’m in love with you, Mark.”

His grin lights up your world in its entirety. Gold flecks in onyx black disappear as he smiles, too thrilled to keep his eyes open. And when he kisses you, warm lips against cold ones, you feel like a puzzle has just slotted into place.

It would only make sense that you would grow to love the boy you grew up with.

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