#cooking up a wild post but unfortunately i have no idea how to word the witch segment of it

[tea-kettlezz]

Thinking about the idea of a healed Wounded Wild

I'm imagining most of her body has been replaced by tree bark. Her fingers are sharp, slim, and jagged. Her feet are more akin to something like deer hooves. Or maybe she can keep Witch's paws?? Idk but they're wood now

For her chest area I imagine her heart is still exposed. But she's not as hollow as she was by the end of her route, and her heart is better protected than it was before

She has twig-like branches growing from her and small, red flowers growing from her hair and the twigs. I also imagine the wood coming out of her head that are supposed to look like a crown end up actually taking more of a crown shape

Idk I love the idea of healed Wounded Wild so much. I love Wounded Wild in general tbh. Maybe when I actually get the motivation to I'll draw it

#slay the princess #the wild #cooking up a wild post but unfortunately i have no idea how to word the witch segment of it #bc to me wild from witch and wild from beast have VERY different connotations to them #anyway #lots of wild posting lately it seems so have more

[peskygirl13]

TWST Pokemon AU Part 4: Scarabia

It wasn’t until I started working on this that I realized that I used all three Unova starters 😅

The previous post (and my favorite post so far) can be found here

My masterlist with my other works can be found here

Also, it has come to my attention that some people have been unable to see my blog. I logged out of tumblr and searched up my account and it said I didn’t have any posts, which obviously isn’t true. 

If you can’t see my account or know someone who can’t see it, please let me know. Tumblr may just be glitching, but I just want to be on the safe side.

Kalim:

“Oshawott!!~ I have some more food for you!”

You loved Kalim, you really did, but his tendency to spoil your already somewhat spoiled Pokémon drove you nuts.

Your Oshawott was rather quirky, often wandering off and doing things by itself.

Back in your world, you had grown so used to Oshawott exiting its Pokéball by itself and wandering off that you didn’t really bat an eye at it.

It was hard to break that habit after arriving to Twisted Wonderland, which caused some problems.

After a few incidents with Oshawott walking unsupervised around the school, specifically a dorm full of wild beastmen, Crowley ordered you to never let Oshawott out of your sight.

It was hard enough trying to keep track of Grim, whom your beloved Pokémon didn’t get along with, but trying to keep track of Oshawott and Grim was near impossible. Especially since your quirky, carefree Pokémon just couldn’t seem to grasp the dangers of this new world and continued to wander off when you weren’t looking.

If you kept your eyes on Grim, Oshawott disappeared. If you kept your eyes on Oshawott, Grim disappeared. It was a ‘lose-lose’ situation.

During Crewel’s alchemy class, you were more focused on Grim (considering he was your lab partner) and Oshawott wandered off without you knowing.

The Pokémon made it to the mirror chamber and snuck through Scarabia’s mirror.

After classes, Kalim returned to the dorm by himself since Jamil had basketball practice. 

He was surprised to see an otter looking creature floating in Scarabia’s front fountain.

While you and Kalim hadn’t officially met yet, he recognized Oshawott from the entrance ceremony since you had ordered it to put out Grim’s flames.

Of course he got excited at the appearance of the otter Pokémon and quickly ran over to great the Pokémon.

Kalim’s shadow shaded Oshawott from Scarabia’s sun, making the Pokémon open its eyes to see who was interrupting its relaxation time, only to be met with Kalim’s sparkling ruby red eyes as he doted and cooed over Oshawott.

Now your Oshawott was cute, and the little bastard knew it. And, unfortunately for our resident sunshine boy, Oshawott could spot a sucker a mile away.

Jamil returned to the dorm later that he would have liked.

Basketball practice had been cut short when a frantic (Y/n) ran into the gym, asking Ace if he could help them and Deuce find Oshawott.

Floyd decided to join them since he was also fond of Oshawott and, somehow, Jamil got roped into helping them search too.

It was dinner time when Jamil returned to the dorm. They still hadn’t found Oshawott, but Jamil was more worried about the dorm.

He was already imagining the worst scenarios possible after leaving Kalim unsupervised for so long.

The only thing he hadn’t pictured was walking in on Kalim feeding Oshawott grapes, the little otter covered head to toe in jewelry.

One quick call later and a frustrated and annoyed (Y/n) arrived to Scarabia.

Picking up Oshawott, who futility tried to escape, you began shaking off all the jewelry it was decorated with. Afterwards, you irritably marched back to Ramshakle.

You kept a closer eye on Oshawott after that. But any time it managed to slip away, you would always find it in Scarabia with Kalim.

Jamil:

“At least you aren’t a bug type.”

You needed someone to watch your Snivy.

You had a meeting with Crowley to discuss how things were going with getting you home and work he needed you to do around the campus.

Your Snivy never seemed to be that found of Crowley (which was pretty understandable), so you tried to keep the two separated as much as possible.

You didn’t know how long the meeting was going to last and the Adeuce combo was busy and if you left it alone at Ramshakle with Grim, you were certain you’d come back to a bonfire with the dorm used as kindling. 

So Kalim, being a sweetheart, said that you could leave Snivy at Scarabia.

You agreed gratefully agreed and handed your precious grass snake Pokémon to the Scaracbia Dorm leader

Unknown to you, Kalim did this without telling Jamil. The poor vice dorm leader was surprised and annoyed when Kalim returned to the Dorm with a green snake walking beside him.

A stern but short scolding later, Kalim tried to play with Snivy with little success. 

You had warned the boy that your Snivy wasn’t really a ‘People-Pokémon’ and preferred to be alone, but, of course, the boy didn’t listen.

He constantly tried to hug the Pokémon, only for it to pick him up with vine whip and set him a few feet away. 

While annoyed by the boy, it didn’t want to hurt him.

Jamil spent most of his day watching Kalim chase after a snake monster that so clearly wanted to be left alone.

After a while, Jamil decided to step in and see if he could save the poor Pokémon before it snapped and actually attacked Kalim with it’s Vine Whip.

“Kalim, shouldn’t you feed it?”

“Huh? Oh! You’re right! Let’s see, (Y/n) said that its main diet included vegetables--”

“Let me take care of it. I need to start dinner anyway.”

“That’s a great idea! Here!”

Kalim picked up a disgruntled and slightly irritable Snivy and plopped it in Jamil’s arms.

“Snivy, Jamil is going to take care of you for now, ‘kay?”

“Snivy.” Your Pokémon was pretty indifferent.

After Kalim left, Jamil set Snivy down and headed to the kitchen with the grass snake Pokémon at his feet. The grass Pokémon seemed a bit relived that Kalim was gone, something that Jamil could feel deep in his soul.

A few hours later, you returned to Scarabia to pick up Snivy and were pleasantly surprised to find Jamil and your Pokemon cooking together.

“Wow, Jamil. I’m impressed at how fast Snivy warmed up to you.”

“Hmm?”

You explained to him that Snivy had a trainer before you that it decided to leave and that since then, Snivy had been pretty wary of people.

“Truth be told, I was worried about leaving Snivy here because I believed that Kalim may have been a bit too much for Snivy, but it looks like I was worried for nothing. I’m glad that Snivy is comfortable around Jamil,” You smiled, “You’re truly incredible.”

Jamil felt his cheeks flush a bit as you began rolling up your sleeves. 

“Now, can I help?”

Before Jamil respond, Snivy used Vine Whip to lift you up and set you by the door before wagging its vines in front of your face like a lecturing finger.

“Snivy! Snivy-vy Sni Vy.”

Jamil couldn’t understand a word it said, but it sounding similar to how he lectures to Kalim. You seemed to understand perfectly, however.

“Ok! Alright!” You snapped, annoyed, beginning to exit the kitchen while grumbling under your breath. 

“One curry mishap and anytime your in the kitchen you become a hazard to society!”

And yet another similarity Jamil could find between him and the Pokémon.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #pokemon #twst x pokemon #twisted wonderland x pokemon #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #kalim al asim x reader #kalim al asim #jamil viper x reader #jamil viper

[gukyi]

into the wilderness | pjm

summary: alright, so last summer’s camp was... disastrous. from the murky green showers to the wasps nests, it was all-around a bad time. but none of those things could be quite as catastrophic as the end-of-camp counselor campfire, when you told park jimin that you were in love with him. and if telling him was terrible, then seeing him again this summer, one year after your fruitless confession, just might be the death of you.

{camp counselor!au, unrequited love!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: park jimin x female reader genre: angst, fluff, comedy word count: 27k warnings: unrequited love, camp shenanigans, awkwardness, secondhand embarrassment/hurt, ot7 cameos a/n: hello and welcome to the one thing that guyi has wanted to write for literal years now but never go around to! finally i can cross camp counselor au off my list. anyway, it’s been over a year since i wrote for jimin so i hope that this monster 27k fic can make up for that !!! i swear the ending is happy. i swear. i promise.

Something about last summer sucked. 

Maybe it was the record six wasps’ nests you found around the cabin, leaving you with more bee stings than mosquito bites by the end of camp. Maybe it was that weird murky green color of the water in the showers and the sinks that didn’t go away until three weeks in, when you were already positive you had contracted some sort of pond disease from brushing your teeth. Maybe it was the lack of Namjoon, who had an internship and couldn’t come, therefore removing all sense of order and leaving you and the rest of the counselors in a state of chaos.

Or maybe it was the fact that, on the very last night, at the very last counselor campfire, you told Jimin that you loved him. 

Truth be told, you weren’t sure how badly it would go. But telling him was so much easier than keeping it hidden, than letting it drag on and on, this boulder sitting on your chest for the rest of time. You had spent the whole eight weeks of camp rationalizing it to yourself, so much so that by the time the last counselor campfire rolled around, you were convinced that it wouldn’t be that disastrous. 

There was no part of you that thought Jimin would reciprocate your feelings. No part of you that secretly hoped that maybe he felt the same, and that you could end the summer with more money in your bank account and a boyfriend on your arm. You knew he didn’t. Jimin was sweet, and thoughtful, and gentle, which is exactly why you fell in love with him, but he was like that to everyone. You didn’t think that telling him would suddenly make him fall in love with you.

You told him because people like Jimin deserve to know that somebody loves them. 

You told him because you thought that nothing would change. 

What you didn’t really expect to happen was this:

Your marshmallow is burnt beyond recognition, poking off of the edge of a stick like a sad piece of coal rather than a sweet treat. At this point, it’s even darker than the chocolate sitting on the graham cracker in your lap, waiting to be smushed together into the sugar-fest known as a s’more, so eloquently named because you will apparently always want some more. 

“Uh, hello? Earth to Y/N?”

Taehyung’s hand waves furiously in front of your face as he leans forward to make eye contact with you.

“Huh?” You ask, shaking yourself out of your thoughts. Your mind has been awfully cloudy these days, overcast like the weather around here. It’s a wonder you’re able to make your way through. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, an eyebrow raised. “Your marshmallow looks like what happens when I try to make scrambled eggs.”

“Your scrambled eggs look like that?” Seokjin interrupts, pointing accusingly at your charred marshmallow. You’ve seen Taehyung in the kitchen. It’s not that bad, is it? “Next year you should sign up for some of Yoongi’s cooking classes. The six-year-olds can cook better than you.”

“You’d have to pay me way more than the shit they’re giving us to get me to teach Taehyung how to cook,” grumbles Yoongi. 

“I’m fine,” you promise Taehyung as Yoongi and Seokjin launch into a tirade about raising minimum wage. “I just—” You glance at your marshmallow. You don’t even think the fish monster at the bottom of the pond would eat it. And he apparently eats people whose hearts have turned to stone. Like Seokjin, who swears that it had eaten the tip of his pinky finger. “—like my marshmallows really cooked.”

Taehyung looks skeptical but drops the subject nonetheless, turning back around so he can find a different conversation to barge his way into. You’re willing to put money on him finding some way to annoy Jungkook. 

Insecure about your apparent lack of marshmallow-roasting skills, you pull your stick away from the campfire, blowing on it until you decide that you’re willing to risk burning the tips of your fingers. You pluck the marshmallow from the skewer, hissing to yourself as you quickly plop it onto the graham cracker, squishing the whole thing together. 

The marshmallow is so burnt that it barely gives underneath the press of your fingers, bouncing back up like rubber. You frown at your s’more, which clearly should be renamed to something else because nothing about the thing in your hands makes you want some more. 

Next to you, Jimin laughs at your pitiful attempt at a classic campfire treat. 

“You want mine?” He asks with a smile, holding out a flawless s’more, the kind that they make in movies to perpetuate the illusion of perfection. You look up at him and in the light of the fire he glows, like a spark from the flames had created him right then and there, like he had been born with light in his eyes, a halo surrounding his body. 

You wonder if Jimin knows how beautiful he is. How beautiful he has always been, radiating kindness and joy and laughter. He must know, right? It must be impossible for him to notice how everyone falls in love with him. You certainly aren’t an exception. 

He holds out the s’more in his hands, laughing as he looks at you because there must be something endearing about being a shitty s’more maker, and you think, what’s the worst that can happen?

“I’m in love with you.”

The s’more drops to the ground, hitting the grass with a thud. 

Jimin’s eyes meet yours, and for once, they are unreadable. This tragic sort of confusion, like he can’t believe the words you’re saying to him. Like his mind refuses to accept them as true. 

He opens his mouth, but you answer for him. 

“It’s okay,” you assure quickly, reaching a hand out to rest on his own. The touch makes him look away, like your fingers are the flames of the campfire, burning him where they touch his skin. “I—I know you don’t feel the same.”

It’s not a secret. Not to him, and not to you. Jimin purses his lips because he feels guilty for not loving you back. Because he is so good, so kind, that he feels as though he has wronged you because he doesn’t love you the way you love him. Like it’s his fault. 

“Y/N—” He starts, but he does not finish. 

“You…” you interrupt, looking down at your feet. You can’t look at Jimin because looking at him hurts, and you can’t look anywhere else because Jimin is all you think about. All you ever think about. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He speaks, and it’s as if the words don’t belong to him. Don’t belong to anyone. 

“What are we supposed to do?” He asks. 

You shrug, resigning yourself to this. You knew that he wouldn’t feel the same. You didn’t know how terrible he would feel because of it. “Nothing,” you tell him. “I just thought you should know.

He nods, because he knows, and he nods, because he can’t do anything else. 

The fire crackles beside you, s’mores forgotten on the ground as your friends laugh and cheer, distant sounds that echo in your head like white noise. Jimin is all you can think of and right now you’re thinking about what happens next.

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe telling him wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

“Me too.”

Your busted-up sedan revs angrily as you rally up the mountain, shaking your head in an attempt to rid the memories of the campfire from your mind. Unfortunately, the nasty thing about memories is that the more you try to forget them, the more you seem to remember.

You sigh. Something about last summer sucked. 

Nothing about this summer makes you feel like it’ll suck any less.

The good thing about being thirty minutes late is that you’re still thirty minutes earlier than Taehyung, who does not have a single punctual bone in his body. You can count on one hand the amount of instances where he’s actually been on time, all of which are because you and the other counselors conspire to tell him that events are an hour earlier than they actually are just to make sure he doesn’t stroll in an hour late and improperly dressed. 

The bad thing about being thirty minutes late is that everyone besides Taehyung is already here, waiting for you. 

Your sedan crawls to the clearing at the top of the mountain, fighting against gravity and itself as it chugs up the last few feet, coming to a rough stop in the dirt, sunken in from countless tires tracking across it. 

Through your windshield, you can make out two figures with two clipboards, only one of which has something genuinely useful on it. 

“Y/N!” Hoseok cries out excitedly, splaying his arms out as if to hug the entire front of your car only to reveal the near-blank clipboard in his hand. All that’s on it is a neon green Post-it note with a caricature drawing of who you assume to be Yoongi, if the grouchy expression and chef’s hat are anything to go by. There’s no signature or name, but Hoseok’s art skills are on par with those of the campers you work with and Jungkook has a fun and quirky habit of vandalizing all drawable surfaces with pencil sketches of the counselors, so you take a wild guess as to who the artist is. 

You pop the door of your car open and step out into the sticky weather, warm and muggy despite the clouds above. It’s the same as when you step into your bathroom after your two roommates have showered, using up all the hot water and leaving a layer of fog on the mirrors for you to all play hangman on. Only, this steam never goes away. 

“Hoseok!” You cheer, letting the man wrap you up in a sweltering hug, your hands gently patting the top of his back so as not to come in contact with the dampness soaking through his thin cotton t-shirt. You haven’t seen each other for nearly a year, though, so you give in more than you usually would and relax into his hold. “You look good, I like the hair,” you compliment, two fingers coming up to twirl at his bright red locks, deep and vibrant like the cherries you pick. 

“Dyed it just so I could tell the kids I’m a superhero!” Hoseok grins. He’s already heading over to the back of your car to pop the trunk and pull out your duffel bags so that he can park your car in the garage at the other end of the campsite.

“Then who’s the villain?” You call, tossing him your keys.

“I guess that would be me.”

You whip around to find a platinum-blonde Namjoon standing happily before you, looking at least a little bit resigned as he grins at you. His hair is longer this year, like growing it out would somehow compensate for frying it with layer after layer of bleach. And with his silver-white hair and the fact that he is the only counselor any of the kids are genuinely afraid of disobeying, you suppose he would be the antagonist after all. 

“Namjoon, nice to see you again.” You go in for a hug even though Namjoon clearly had no plans on instigating one himself, because someone as hardworking and patient as Namjoon deserves a little platonic affection every one in a while. What, with everyone else constantly conspiring with the campers to oust him every summer. 

The truth is that all of you know that without Namjoon, this camp would be nothing but chaos in its purest form, with the counselors unable to wrangle the kids and the kids using that knowledge to their fullest advantage. Take last year, where everything seemed to go wrong because Namjoon had his stupid internship with a business firm and spent the entire summer drilling finances into his head instead of losing brain cells watching kids eat sand.  

If you had any dignity left you’d blame your rotten confession to Jimin on Namjoon’s absence as well. 

“Nice to see you, too, Y/N,” Namjoon says when you part, checking your name off of the list on his clipboard. “I feel like it’s been ages since I was here.” You can see red marks all over the page, blank only where the name Taehyung is written. 

Some things never change, you suppose. 

“Well, we definitely missed you last year,” You say with a chuckle, trying not to immediately associate your personal misjudgements with the lack of Namjoon, who you can hopefully keep from ever finding out what happened at last year’s end-of-camp counselor campfire. The problem is that Namjoon picks up on social cues and body language like a sociologist, so your only hope is pretending that the campfire never even happened. “Camp was pretty much a mess without you.” In more ways than one.

“Namjoon!” Someone calls. You and him both jerk around to the source of the sound when you see a figure barreling towards the both of you, face obscured in shadow. 

You almost don’t recognize him, with his pitch black hair and thick voice, like he has somehow become a new person in the nine months you’ve gone without seeing him. But the moment he comes into view, you know, and you can’t even pretend to not know, not with the way your heart freezes in place, mid-beat, like the sight of him has turned you to stone. Not with the way that Namjoon is right beside you, and how you don’t think you can bear explaining to him why you and Jimin aren’t as close as you used to be. Not with the way that Jimin looks as beautiful as he always has and always will be, no matter how many summers pass, this timeless portrait, this piece of art that’s come to life. 

There’s a part of you that’s shocked still at seeing him, like you had almost thought that after last summer at least one of you would bail on this shitty summer job, filled with mosquitoes and mud and wifi that only works in the room that doubles as the gymnasium and the mess hall. It’s the same part of you that wants to go back to pretending that nothing ever happened last summer. 

But Jimin is here, in front of you, eyes wide and out of breath and gorgeous, and pretending that last summer never happened is the same as pretending that you never fell in love with him at all.

“The water in the boys’ cabins sinks is green,” he says with a tense smile, making Namjoon nearly smack his clipboard into his forehead. 

“Ugh, seriously?” He asks, and you can’t tell if you’re thankful or hurt that Jimin’s failed to acknowledge you. “Fine,” he scribbles something down on the clipboard, this handwriting scrawl that only he can read, “I’ll figure out what to do with that later. In the meantime, just don’t drink it.”

“Seokjin’s already made lemonade with it, though—”

“Great,” Namjoon says, exasperated as he takes off towards the main cabin, where Seokjin is sitting on the balcony with his feet up on the railing with a glass of suspiciously murky lemonade in his hand, one that he’s offering up to Yoongi with a devilish grin on his face. 

His disappearance leaves only you and Jimin left standing at the entrance, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet in the hopes that one of you will either leave or spare the other the torture of a conversation. 

“Hey,” Jimin says quietly, trying to meet your eyes. 

You look away, pretending to smack an imaginary mosquito on your arm while an actual one bites your leg. “Hey, yourself.”

“It’s been a while.” The last time we saw each other you told me you loved me. 

“Yeah, it has.” I know.

“How are you doing?” Do you still love me, or was the distance and time enough?

“I’m alright. Same old, same old.” I never stopped. “How are you?” What about you? Did you stop seeing us as just friends?

“Doing well, thanks.” No. You’ll always be just a friend to me. Jimin sighs, looking up at the overcast sky with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, taking in the scenery before him. He exhales, long and heavy, before turning to you with a soft little smile, the kind of grin that almost makes you feel like forgetting might not be the best thing to do after all. “I just feel like this summer is a fresh start, you know? Like, I feel like there’s something different about being here this year.”

Maybe this summer, you can learn to move on from me, too. Because something’s gotta give. 

“I hope you’re right about that,” you tell him, because being around him hurts and being away from him makes you replay that night over and over, wondering what would have happened if you had just kept your stupid mouth shut. You open your mouth to say something, anything else, anything to break the ice that didn’t used to be there before, cut between the tension that has settled between the two of you, but your tongue is dry and your heart is sore just looking at him. 

Defeated, you walk over to where Hoseok’s left your duffel bags, hiking them onto your shoulders and heading towards the girls’ cabins, ready to end this conversation before it tears you in two. 

Jimin seems to flounder, standing awkwardly for a few moments as he watches you walk towards the cabins, skirting around him a few feet away because brushing by his side seemed too close for comfort. But then he says, “Hey, Y/N?” 

And it makes you stop dead in your tracks, unable to deny him an answer. 

You turn around to look at him, and he offers you a grin. 

“Are we good?”

Your love for me, will it affect our friendship?

You swallow.

It already has. It always has. From the very beginning, loving you was part of our friendship. I don’t know how to be friends with you without it. Even when you didn’t know it, I loved you. In a way, it was easier back then. Telling you was the one thing I shouldn’t have done. 

“Yeah, Jimin,” you tell him. “We’re good.”

The trek to your cabin from the main buildings of the camp is nothing if not familiar. Familiar in the way that the ground curves beneath your feet, leading you up to the top of a small hill where the building sits, looking out over the rest of the clearing. Familiar in how the scent of the woods that surround you fills up your senses, this fresh, airy feeling, like the very oxygen is smothering you. Familiar in how this place reeks of the memories of summers gone by, summers spent beneath the stars and by the campfire. 

Summer memories that make your heart burst with fondness and summer memories that… don’t. 

The fact is that it has always started and ended here. 

When you kick open the door to the cabin, there is only one other occupied bed. It belongs to Hazel, a counselor in her sophomore year in college who joined the crew last year and assumed that the Namjoon-less pandemonium that was camp last summer was just the norm. Hopefully she can take a much-needed break this year now that Namjoon’s back and she’s not the only one fruitlessly trying to cajole the campers into behaving. 

You beeline towards the bunk bed that has been your summer home for the past three years, the one shoved right up against the back right corner, giving you a perfect view of the entire cabin. The downside is that it’s the same corner that spiders seem to prefer as their location of choice for their webs, but better you, a stone-cold college student, than a terrified six-year-old. 

Plopping your duffel bags on top of the mattress, you let out another sigh. You wonder what it is about this summer that is so damn tiring, so exhausting that you can’t help but outwardly exhale every ten seconds, like merely being here is wearing you out, bit by bit. 

You’re looking forward to when the campers arrive tomorrow. Sleeping alone (well, nearly alone) in a cabin feels uncomfortably empty. Plus, you’re hoping that they’ll provide you with some sort of distraction so you don’t have any free time left to spend dwelling on the what-ifs and the should-have-dones. When there’s only a dozen of you, it’s much easier to run into him. 

The moment you collapse on your bed, a messy brown head of hair comes bounding out from the shared bathrooms in the center of the cabin. 

“Y/N!” Hazel cries out, launching herself across the room and into your arms for the tightest hug you’ve had in a long while. 

“Hey, Haze,” you greet in return, offering her a squeeze back. You didn’t often mix in your camp activities, with Hazel in charge of the nature walks and animal conservation activities while you hide in your air-conditioned arts and crafts room, but living together brought upon you a closeness you otherwise don’t share with anyone else. Plus, Hazel keeps a family-sized pack of Oreos and a gigantic jar of smooth peanut butter by her bunk at all times for emergencies. 

“I feel like it’s been so long!” She laments when she finally releases you, looking positively thrilled to be here right now. 

Not long enough, you think to yourself, though you don’t suppose any more time apart from Jimin would make seeing him again any easier. “Yeah, but the year goes by so quickly,” you agree half-heartedly. Too quickly. 

“I’m so excited for this year.” Hazel grins, clapping her hands together. “I have so much planned for all the nature walks and everything. I spent all of last week reading up on edible plants and berries found in this part of the country. I’m gonna teach all of the kids what they can eat in case they get stranded in the forest!”

“Fun,” you say with a hesitant nod. It’s not that you don’t trust Hazel to have done her research, it’s more that, knowing the campers and knowing the counselors, someone’s going to try and get lost in the woods around the camp, eating everything they can. Not to mention the fact that Hazel’s so innocent she’d probably reveal to someone like Seokjin or Jungkook which plants were poisonous without even realizing it. 

Camp last year was a mess, but at least nobody died. 

“Hey, aren’t you excited, too?” She asks, a hand on your shoulder as she notices your reluctance. “Apparently Namjoon’s a great leader so this year isn’t going to be as bad as last year.”

“Last year wasn’t bad just because Namjoon wasn’t here,” you comment vaguely. Hazel doesn’t need to know about all of the drama that goes down between the counselors. Hopefully she can get out of here without being dragged into something by one of you. 

“Well, this year is supposed to be better!” She cheers you on, determined to get you to feel as enthusiastic as she is. “No matter what did or did not happen last summer. Plus, you know that if anything bad happens I always have my secret stash, counselors only.” She winks. 

“Thanks, Haze,” you say, sighing again like it’s your job to be worn out by life. “I think I just need a bit of time to get back into the swing of things.”

“That’s the spirit!” She rallies. “I’m gonna head back to the main camp and see if there’s anything good to drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Stick to soda,” you advise, eyes wide at the thought of her downing anything that Seokjin’s had a sneaky hand in making. 

She doesn’t seem to notice your worry, already bounding towards the door, light on her feet. “I was feeling a Fanta anyway. See you at the camp counselor meeting if I don’t see you around beforehand!” She pulls open the heavy wooden door, half outside when she stops to turn back at you, wagging a finger in the air. “Remember, Y/N, leaves of three, let them be!” 

The door slams shut behind her, creating a cloud of dust in its wake. You watch helplessly as the particles dissipate into the air, as the silence that was once so comforting begins to terrorize you once more. 

You collapse back onto your bunk. If only last summer’s murky green water had poisoned you. Then maybe you’d finally have a good enough excuse for your utter lapse in judgement, and you wouldn’t be sighing so much.

There were no camp counselor meetings last year. There were only haphazard caucuses, irregular get-togethers where no one knew quite what was going on and there were no real announcements to be said, no real orders to be given. You had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone with genuine leadership skills working here. 

The problem last year was not getting everyone into the same room for thirty minutes. It was keeping everyone focused in that same room for thirty minutes, which was essentially impossible because, at your age, submitting to someone of authority is the very last thing you want to do. Especially when the consequences pretty much only amount to having to drink Seokjin’s murky green lemonade.

But like with everything else, Namjoon has, somehow, made the impossible possible. 

“Guys, guys, can we stop drawing on the board, please? I need that,” Namjoon begs as he walks into the room to find Jungkook and Taehyung with chalk in their hands and a chalkboard at their disposal. What they’ve accomplished so far is an expert drawing of Spongebob and Patrick with their faces missing, waiting to be filled in by one of the unlucky people in this room. 

“Okay, so who’s Patrick?” Taehyung asks the audience. 

“Hoseok!” shouts Seokjin.

“You!” shouts Hoseok. 

“Seokjin!” shouts Hazel, too, just because she likes being involved in things. 

Jungkook lets out a cackle at that. “Are you kidding?” He asks. “If anything…” He does a quick sketch on the board, hand flying across it so quickly you’re actually a little bit impressed, “Seokjin would be Plankton.” 

He steps away from the board to reveal a scarily-realistic drawing of Seokjin’s angry face on Plankton’s tiny, antennaed body, making everyone—even Namjoon, who usually tries to keep the roasting between counselors to a minimum—laugh. 

Seokjin scowls, and normally you would feel bad for him always being the butt of Jungkook’s endless jokes, but you can see a half-empty glass of green lemonade by Jungkook’s side, and you decide that he can hold his own just fine. 

“I think you guys would be Spongebob and Patrick,” Jimin pipes up from the back. You freeze, turning your head slightly just to see him sitting on the table pushed up against the wall. You hadn’t even noticed him. Or maybe you had, and your brain just decided to pretend that you hadn’t. 

Nevertheless, hearing his voice doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Jimin’s right,” Jungkook agrees, already beginning to fill in the blank space where Spongebob’s face would normally go with a caricature of his own. “I’d be Spongebob because I have a wider face than you, Tae.”

Taehyung doesn’t object, instead moving his hand to an empty spot on the board. “Yeah. Oh, and Namjoon’s Mr. Krabs, obviously,” Taehyung says, adding his own drawing of Mr. Krabs with Namjoon’s camp get-up on—cargo shorts, a short-sleeved flannel shirt, a baseball cap, and high-tops.

“I would not be—hey, give me that!” Namjoon shouts, indignant, before ripping the chalk from Jungkook’s hands as he cackles wickedly, clearly pleased with himself. Namjoon shoos the both of them away from the board before wiping it with the eraser, which has very obviously not been cleaned since last year, leaving a trail of pale yellow dust in its wake wherever Namjoon drags it across the chalkboard. “Chalkboard for official matters only.” He glares at Jungkook and Taehyung, who high-five each other. 

The chatter soon subsides as Namjoon writes down the meeting to-do list on the board in his same old scratchy handwriting. Namjoon’s one of those people that writes exclusively in capital letters, simply enlarging any letters that actually need to be capitalized. You’re almost one-hundred percent positive it’s to establish written dominance over the rest of the counselors. 

“Okay, first order of business,” Namjoon begins after coughing to get everyone’s attention. “It’s come to my attention that the entire cabin water system is green.”

“Hasn’t it always been—?” Hazel asks, innocent eyes wide in confusion. 

“I called the utilities people and they’re coming tomorrow to fix it, so in the meantime, do not drink the water. Showering and using the bathroom is fine. I would use water bottles for brushing your teeth, though,” Namjoon says, crossing off something on his clipboard as the rest of the counselors murmur in approval. 

“See, this is what happens when Namjoon’s here,” deadpans Yoongi, motioning up to him where he stands at the front of the room. “Shit gets done.”

“Okay, secondly, no swearing in front of the kids,” Namjoon says, adding that onto the board as a final reminder. “The fact that I have to tell you guys this multiple times every year is ridiculous.”

“Fuck you, I can do what I want!” Taehyung shouts, earning a chorus of fuck yeah’s. 

“You guys do know that I have the power to fire you, right?” Namjoon says pointedly, making Taehyung shut his trap. “Okay, moving on. Everyone’s been assigned to the same things that they were assigned to do last year, and if you weren’t here last year, then the year before that.” Namjoon receives some cheers and some groans in response to this, the former mostly from people who work indoors, and the latter mostly from people who don’t. 

“Seriously?” Seokjin whines. “I don’t think Yoongi has stepped foot out of the kitchens in literal years.”

“And I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much!” Yoongi counters. 

“Oh, shut up, at least you get to spend some time indoors teaching all of the kids how to play Hot Cross Buns on their guitars,” Taehyung counters. “I got more mosquito bites than freckles last summer.”

“My students have long advanced from Hot Cross Buns,” Seokjin says proudly and a little bit devilishly. “We’re working on something more technical now.”

“Like what?” Jungkook challenges.

“Okay, continuing…” Namjoon says loudly, eyeing Seokjin suspiciously. “If you’re new, you should have already received notification as to what activities you’re in charge of, but if you’re not sure, come and talk to me.”

“Oh, so Jimin’s still on first aid, then?” Taehyung asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “What do you think Y/N’s gonna do to get herself sent down to his tent? Glue her fingers together? Burn herself with a glue gun?”

“Shut up,” You mumble tensely, embarrassed that somehow you and Jimin’s relationship has turned into a counselor affair. 

Last summer, you had accidentally given yourself a palm full of splinters from the birdhouses that you had the campers paint to bring home with them, and the first aid tent is the only place that has bandages. Jimin was there, as he always is, and the two of you spent the evening plucking out all of the pieces of wood from your hand and patching it up with Band-aids that had Spiderman and Moana on them. Contrary to apparently popular belief, it was not on purpose, even though the hour of hand-holding was rather nice. 

“Or Jimin can just find some excuse to visit Y/N in the arts and crafts room,” Seokjin tacks on unhelpfully. “You know, last summer I don’t think I saw them eat lunch in the counselor room at all. They were always finding secret places in the woods.”

“Maybe we were just busy during lunch?” Jimin suggests, clearly equally uncomfortable. 

“Busy fucking, probably,” Taehyung mutters. 

“It’s none of your business,” you snap, because the last thing you want to be talking about right now is how wonderful your relationship with Jimin used to be, when all that’s left this summer are the burned remnants of it, the ashes of something that could have been. You don’t need a reminder of why you thought that you and Jimin would be alright, of why you thought that telling him wouldn’t be that bad. It was terrible, and now all you can do is pick up the pieces, patch together a friendship whose thread has come loose. 

“Alright, let’s keep going,” Namjoon says, picking up the weirdly tense atmosphere and doing his best to bring the attention back to him and the meeting at hand. “You guys should know that this year, Hoseok is thinking of adding in a counselor dance to the end-of-camp show…”

You look over at Jimin, who immediately turns away when he spots your gaze, making to pick at the rips in his jeans, doing anything and everything he can to avoid eye contact with you, and your shoulders sink. 

Jimin had asked you, “Are we good?”

And you had responded, “Yeah, Jimin, we are.”

And the two of you must have both known that was a lie. 

You turn back to face the front, focusing on how Hazel is rubbing your forearm and not asking questions, and you try to feel a little bit better. 

After the meeting, you and Hazel decide to spend the night holed up in your cabin eating from her Oreo stash instead of eating dinner with everyone else, half because it’s only the first day and already being around all of the other counselors is tiring, and half because you don’t think you can handle seeing Jimin any more today, but not before Namjoon stops you on the way out of the door. 

“Y/N,” he says, making you pause in your tracks. “Can we talk?”

“What about?” You ask, hoping to God that it’s not about everyone thinking you purposely injure yourself just so you can see Jimin at the first aid tent. 

“Just quickly, you and me,” Namjoon says casually, pulling you to the corner of the room, away from any windows so no one can see you two talking. “Did today’s meeting make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you lie like a liar. “What are you talking about?”

Namjoon’s too observant for his own good, you decide, when he frowns at you, clearly not buying whatever it is you’re trying to sell him. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” he says quietly. “But I know that something happened between you and Jimin.”

You open your mouth to object and tell him that you and Jimin are fine, but Namjoon raises his eyebrows at you, like he’s challenging you to tell him another lie. 

“Well…” you begin, resigning yourself to the truth. “Yeah. Last summer.”

Namjoon purses his lips, nodding in understanding. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“You’re not my mom, Namjoon,” you say with a smile, even though maybe telling someone about it might not be a half-bad idea after all. Plus, Namjoon’s your friend and the only one around here who’s any good at keeping secrets, so getting the words off of your chest could be good.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he reminds you, because he’s wonderful like that. 

“No, it’s alright…” you sigh. “I guess someone else has to know.” You close your eyes, willing the words to come up from your throat, willing them to not hurt you as they leave your lips. “Last summer at the campfire I told Jimin that I loved him.”

Namjoon doesn’t say a word. 

“And he doesn’t love me back, which is not the problem because he shouldn’t change how he feels about me just to make me feel better. It’s not his fault, and I’m not angry at him or anything. I knew that he didn’t love me back when I told him,” the words come up like bile, slowly and carefully before spilling out in front of you. “But I was an idiot, and I thought telling him would make me feel better, or something. And it didn’t, because now Jimin and I don’t know how to act around each other anymore, and everything sucks.”

Namjoon offers you a careful, hesitant smile. 

“So yeah. That’s what happened.”

“Sounds like you and Jimin should talk about it,” Namjoon suggests, and maybe he’s smart, and a good leader, and attends a prestigious college along the coast, and studies business and sociology, but that is the worst idea he has ever had. 

“No,” you immediately say, shaking your head. “It’s no big deal. Jimin and I are still friends.”

“Are you, though?” Namjoon asks. 

You sigh, reaching up to rub at your forehead. “Yeah, we are,” you insist, perhaps more to yourself than to Namjoon. He looks skeptical, but doesn’t ask any questions. “It doesn’t even matter. I made a mistake and now I’m gonna deal with the consequences.”

“I can try to get the rest of the boys to stop teasing you and Jimin. I know it must be weird for you both right now,” Namjoon offers, always wanting to help. You scoff. Weird would be the biggest understatement of the century. 

“Jimin and I can handle it,” you say, not wanting to disrupt the rest of the counselor dynamic just because you and Jimin are dealing with things right now. Besides, the teasing has always been in good fun, and you know the boys well enough to know that they aren’t doing it out of malicious intent. “But I appreciate your concern.”

“Just doing my job,” Namjoon says proudly. You stand there in silence for a few more seconds until he coughs awkwardly to fill up the space. “You can go now, by the way, Y/N. I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”

“I’m fine,” you promise, silently hoping that one day, when you talk to Namjoon, you won’t have to lie to him anymore. “Thanks for checking in.”

“I’ll always be here for you,” he says in that comforting way, that warm way that wraps around you like a mug of hot cocoa on a cold winter night. 

You crack open the door to find Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook tossing around a frisbee on the open lawn as Seokjin and Yoongi watch from a picnic bench, soda cans sitting next to them. Someone must have mentioned the green lemonade. Jungkook purposely tosses the frisbee too high for Jimin to reach, making him jump wildly in a fruitless attempt to grab it. He falls backwards onto the soft grass, laughing alongside Taehyung and Jungkook as Taehyung pulls him back up to his feet. 

You smile to yourself, the longing and the pain and the love settling deep within your heart, finding a home amongst the wishes and the dreams. Seeing him there, the widest smile on his face as he tosses around a frisbee with some of his best friends, letting the rays from the setting sun fill him up with joy, it reminds you why you fell in love with him. It reminds you why you’re still in love with him.

Something seizes up at your heart, clenching it between its fingers. That used to be you, the thing whispers. You used to make him laugh like that. 

You did. From the moment you met him, you let his laughter fill your senses, burned the sound of it into your brain. You used to be so close. You used to think that maybe, just maybe, Jimin might love you back. 

You should have never told him, it murmurs, grip growing tighter. Look at where it got you.

If I could turn back time and redo that night, I would, you fight back. 

But you can’t.

The wicked thing releases your heart, lets it drop to the floor. You don’t pick it up. 

Every year, you and the other counselors keep a scorecard on the chalkboard in the meeting room to see how quickly someone gets sent to the first aid tent, whether it be from stumbling over a twig or contracting poison ivy or drinking the green water. Last year, it took two hours and thirteen minutes. 

This summer, it happens barely an hour after all of the campers have arrived. 

You make a mental note to write down the time on the scorecard as you run over to help the poor boy off of the ground after slamming into a spruce tree while playing an early game of tag with his friends. The side of his cheek is imprinted with the texture of the tree bark, and he has some scrapes on his hands and knees from the fall. 

“Whoa, hey, you alright?” You ask, leaning down to help him up. “You gotta watch where you’re looking, okay? Don’t want you to get hurt.” 

The beauty about young children is that very little actually causes them great pain. If it weren’t for all of the overprotective counselors, the kids would probably run themselves into the cabin walls and trees for the entire duration of camp.

“I’m not hurt,” the young boy says, standing up proudly. “I’m fine. My mom says I have thick skin.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eli,” the boy tells you matter-of-factly. “That’s my cabin.” He points to the one to the west of the camp that Taehyung and Jungkook are in charge of. Why Namjoon continuously assigns them to the same cabin year after year is beyond you. Once, they convinced everybody in their cabin that Seokjin and Yoongi’s cabin was haunted, and the only solution was to out-scare the ghosts by yelling and screaming right outside. 

“Is this your first year at camp?”

“Yup,” Eli says, rocking back and forth on his feet. He is not at all fazed by the blood and broken skin on his hands and knees, nor the pieces of wood and bark sticking out of the side of his face. 

“Alright, Eli, even though you have thick skin, I have to take you to the first aid tent. Really quickly, okay? Just to make sure you aren’t gonna get an infection. Then you can go and tell all of your friends how thick your skin,” you say, already beginning to usher Eli towards the first aid tent.  

“I think I have the thickest skin out of everyone here,” Eli says, as if goading you on. 

“You know what? I have to agree with you,” you say. “I get hurt really easily. My mom always says that I need to be extra careful here.”

“I’m sick of listening to my mom,” Eli pouts, stomping on the ground as you lead him towards the first-aid tent. 

“Me too,” you agree. No point in telling him that he needs to yield to his parents when he probably won’t even remember this conversation by the time he wakes up tomorrow. Besides, it’s never too early to begin teaching kids about rebelling against authority figures. “But you won’t have to listen to everything I say, okay? We’re just gonna be really good friends.”

“Like with my babysitter,” Eli says. 

“Exactly,” you say, stopping right outside of the first-aid tent. You’re not even positive that anyone’s inside, especially since it’s barely been an hour since camp officially started. Hopefully, Jimin’s somewhere else so you can just patch Eli up yourself. 

The first aid tent is not so much a tent as it is a shed with a fabric entrance, two curtains attached to a rod above the entryway to provide some semblance of privacy since nobody in the camp is handy enough to actually install a working door. But calling it the first aid tent is better than calling it the first aid shack, which, in the wise words of Yoongi, makes it sound like “a hospital where people go to die.”

When you push open the curtain, the first thing you notice is Jungkook and Seokjin in the far left corner, each with ice packs and suspiciously identical markings on them. They’re both making desperate attempts to patch each other up, fighting with the gauze and bandages that are laid out on the table beside them, as if in a competition to see who can better take care of the other. 

Besides that, Jimin is lounging along the wall, leaning back against it as he gazes into nothing, deeply lost in thought. His eyes trace the lines of the shed, foot tapping to an imaginary beat, brows furrowed. You wonder what the hell it is that Jimin could possibly be thinking about so intently, what it is that is making him not even pay attention to the two overgrown children in the corner of his tent, attacking each other with first-aid materials. 

Watching him, you almost don’t want to disturb him. Almost want to grab one of the kits on the shelf by the doorway and pull Eli outside, partly because you don’t think Jimin absolutely needs to be present for you to clean Eli’s wounds and give him some Spiderman Band-aids, and partly because you don’t think you can bear having to say hello to him. 

Eventually, and only because Eli would start thinking it was weird you weren’t talking to each other (and not because a part of you just wants to hear his voice again), you take another step forward, coughing. 

“Wha— oh, hi,” Jimin says, the sound of your arrival breaking him out of his trance. He rubs at the nape of his neck, clearly trying to brush off any awkwardness. “How can I help you guys?” His voice is unrecognizable. 

“Eli here crashed into a tree while playing tag,” you say tensely, doing your best to look around the room, anywhere else, literally anywhere else, just so you don’t have to look at him. “I just brought him here to make sure he’s alright.”

“I’m fine,” Eli insists. 

“Well, Eli, we just have to double check that,” Jimin says comfortingly, reaching down to bring Eli over to one of the benches. He sits him down and kneels so that he can be at eye-level with him, and says, “Sometimes our bodies say that they’re alright even when they really aren’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jimin meets your gaze, looking at you like there’s nothing left that you can do, looking at you like there is so much that he wants to say but no way to tell you. 

You open your mouth, willing for the words to come out, but your throat is dry and your heart is pounding in your ears, a painful thud with every breath that you take. He must have known that what you said was a lie. He must have known what you were going to say when he asked, but he asked anyway, not to get the truth but to see where your relationship stands. 

As it seems, your relationship doesn’t seem to be standing at all. 

It lies in front of you, shattered into a million pieces like a broken mirror, cursed but still doing its job, still showing you this fragmented reflection of yourself. Mixed together like this, you can’t see where your friendship ends and your love began. Mixed together like this, it is impossible to repair. 

“Y/N—” Jimin begins. 

“I should go,” you say at the same time, making the two of you stop in your tracks once again. “Thanks for, uh, patching Eli up. Just make sure he gets to the mess hall in time for dinner.”

“I will,” Jimin says with a nod. There is so much that he wants to say but you don’t think you can bear listening to another word come out of his mouth, to another apology for not loving you back when it wasn’t even his fault to begin with. 

You ruined your friendship but Jimin seems to think that he is the one to blame. 

“I’ll see you at dinner?” Jimin asks. 

You look back at him, wanting so desperately to say yes, to pretend that everything is back to normal, to act like this is the beginning of last summer instead of this one, where you loved him and he didn’t know and everything was alright. But you can’t, because it’s not last summer. It’s this one, and you still love him but he knows now. He fucking knows and just thinking about it makes your heart shake in its cage, holding itself together but unable to stop itself from cracking from within.

Jimin must have known you wouldn’t have agreed. Why did he ask?

“Wait, Y/N, hold up!” 

You’re already halfway out of the makeshift door when you turn around to see Jungkook barrelling after you, leaving Seokjin in the dust as he joins you outside, pulling you away from the entrance instinctively. No one has ever been particularly good at keeping secrets here. 

“Can I help you, Jungkook?” You ask, blinking at him, trying to act as normal as possible. 

“Are you alright?” He leans in close, looking into your eyes, concern washed over his features. 

“Everybody seems to be asking me this,” you say, acting like you don’t know why. “I’m fine.”

Jungkook, for all of his wide-eyed innocence, for the way that he views the world as perfectly imperfect, doesn’t buy it. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says. “I don’t know what went down between you and Jimin.”

“Nothing happened,” you say, forcing a laugh just so you don’t sound miserable. 

“Whatever it is, I just want you to know that it doesn’t always have to be like this,” he says, reaching out to take your hand in his own, his calloused thumb rubbing soothingly against your skin. “But you should be honest with your feelings, don’t you think?”

“You and Namjoon both think that I don’t have a handle on this, when I do.” You don’t. And being honest with your feelings is what got you into this mess in the first place. 

“Come on, Y/N, you don’t think we haven’t noticed, have you?” He asks, soft and sad and desperate to get through to you. 

“It’s no big deal,” you insist. “Jimin and I are alright. We’ve always been alright.”

“If you say so…” says Jungkook, no less skeptical than he was when he initiated this conversation. 

“Are we done here?” You ask, already pulling your hand from his grasp so you can go back to your cabin and pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, resigned as he lets you go. “But you know I’ll always be here for you, right?”

“I know, Jungkook,” you promise, because he always has and he always will be. “Thanks for looking out for me.” You begin to scurry away from the first aid tent, praying that Jimin didn’t hear you and Jungkook and wishing that everything was the way that it used to be.

“Be honest!” Jungkook shouts when you’re a hundred feet away, rushing back towards your cabin. 

Jungkook wants you to be honest?

Telling Jimin that you love him ruined your life. It ruined camp, it ruined your friendship, and it ruined your future. Seeing him now makes your heart ache and your brain dizzy. Every night you replay that conversation in your head, over and over, wondering if there was something that you could have done differently, something that you could have changed so you wouldn’t have ended up like this. Jimin wants to be friends again but you don’t know how to do that without him feeling guilty for not loving you back. 

You want to be honest?

Jimin makes you feel like there is a fire beneath your skin that you can’t extinguish, the flames creeping towards your heart. 

The only solution, it seems, is to smother them. 

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is that he’s impossible to avoid. 

You peer into the mess hall to see if lunch that day is any good and you see him laughing at a table surrounded by elementary schoolers munching on hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You go hunting in the storage shed for some extra packs of popsicle sticks and find him cleaning out the old flower pots to use in the greenhouse. You lead your group of campers from the arts room to the lake and see him and Taehyung setting up the net for some friendly water polo, laughing as they try to tie each other up in the rope. 

It feels like you’re watching a movie unfold in real time, one where he is the star and you are nothing but a background character, the desperate loser who confessed to him in the beginning of the film just to develop his character arc, make him seem personable and relatable, then forgotten about until the end when you spot each other on the street and nod silently to each other, as if to say you’ve both inexplicably reached a peace between the two of you. 

Is that what the future holds for you? A wordless camp, an empty conversation? Will you simply go the rest of the summer without speaking, then nod to each other right before you leave? Will this be the last time you ever see each other?

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is knowing that just because you want things to be different doesn’t mean they will be. Just because you want Jimin to love you back doesn’t mean he will. Just because you want everything to go back to normal doesn’t mean they will. 

As it turns out, love confessions don’t always end in fireworks.

Park Jimin is impossible to avoid not only because he’s everywhere but also because he is everybody’s best friend, the campers’ favorite counselor and the counselors’ favorite companion. He is kind and thoughtful and electric. He is magnetic. He makes others laugh without even trying, he names the plants in the greenhouse after the people he loves, he stays behind after activities to clean up when no one else will. 

Falling in love with Jimin wasn’t you picking out your favorite traits of his, wasn’t you seeing him do one selfless thing and deciding that he could do no wrong. It was submerging yourself in the lake, little by little before you dive in headfirst. It was catching glimpses of his goodness until you were consumed by it. It was knowing that you prefer yourself when you’re around him.

Falling in love with Jimin was like the heat in summer—endless. 

If only falling out of love with him would be just as easy. 

The weather has been unusually nice today. There isn’t a cloud in the sky as the sun beats down on you, rays peeking through the tall branches and leaves of the spruce and oak trees that surround you, casting hazy shadows on the grass beneath your feet. It isn’t too muggy, isn’t too sticky and sweaty, this perfect medium between warm and hot, between dry and humid. It’s the sort of day that you romanticize every day of summer being, only to realize that summer actually consists of sweating through three different t-shirts and needing to eat your ice cream in ten seconds before it melts into a puddle on the concrete. 

Nonetheless, camp policy has always been that when it’s a beautiful day, the campers are going to spend every hour they’re awake outside, going on nature walks and playing capture the flag and eating watermelon on the splinter-y picnic benches. It’s nice, because it gives you a break from having to tell the kids not to touch the tips of the glue guns, but it also stinks, because it forces you to leave your sweet, air-conditioned paradise in favor of a mosquito-infested summer hell. 

Luckily, the kids have been washing off the summer heat in the cool water of the lake with the counselors that actually prefer being outside, playing volleyball in the shallows or canoeing out where it’s deeper. Sometimes, you wonder why Namjoon will let so few counselors supervise so many campers, and sometimes, you decide that it’s better them than you. 

You take a seat on the picnic bench by Yoongi, who is drinking notably clearer lemonade than in days past, so you assume that Namjoon got the water problem fixed like he promised. The two of you have never been outdoorsy people. Why you’ve been working at a summer camp for the last three years escapes you both. You and him lean back against the edge of the built-in table. From here, you have a perfect view of the lake, clear and blue and filled to the brim with rambunctious children, keeping at least somewhat of a watch over them so that Namjoon can’t shout at either of you for slacking off. 

“You know that Seokjin gave you murky water lemonade earlier, right?” You ask, just to make conversation. 

“I know,” Yoongi says, wholly unfazed. He takes another sip and sighs, feeling refreshed. Without batting an eyelash, he deadpans, “You know that you and Jimin aren’t going to get any better if you don’t talk to each other, right?”

“What are you talking about?” You scoff, playing dumb. 

“Just because all of those other idiots didn’t hear what went down between you and Jimin last summer doesn’t mean I didn’t,” Yoongi mutters monotonously. 

You jerk up, stick straight at his words, eyes wide as you glare at him. He heard you?

Yoongi laughs at your reaction, reclining back impossibly farther. “Relax, I haven’t told anyone. You know it’s none of my business.”

“Well,” you sputter out, “if it’s none of your business then why are you talking to me about it?”

Yoongi frowns. “Because you’re my friend, Y/N. And I hate seeing you like this,” he says, that soft lilt to his voice peeking through the rigid words spilling from his lips. “I feel like I don’t even know who you are anymore. A lot of the other counselors do.”

You purse your lips together, guilty. 

“Especially Jimin.”

“I just need time,” you say, trying to be honest for once in your life. Loving Jimin was never going to go away without a fight. 

“You need to talk to each other,” corrects Yoongi. 

“Talking is what got us into this mess,” you huff out, dejected. Yoongi heard it himself—your confession sent you and Jimin’s relationship down the garbage chute. 

“And talking is what’s going to get you out of it,” Yoongi tells you pointedly, truthfully, in that horrible way where you know that he’s right but refuse to accept it. “Promise me you’ll try?” He reaches out to place a hand atop yours, looking into your eyes with hopeful promise. “We want you back.”

“I’ll try,” you sigh out, because it’s never been worth fighting with Yoongi. Not when he cares so deeply. 

“Try what?”

You and Yoongi whip your heads around to find Jimin standing on the opposite side of the picnic bench, helping himself to a piece of sliced watermelon. 

“Try enjoying the outdoors more,” Yoongi covers for you instantly, making you breathe out a little sigh of relief. “We both hate when Namjoon makes it an outside day.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jimin says with a smile. The only reason Jimin doesn’t mind it is because he gets the best of both worlds—half the day spent inside the first-aid tent, the other spent inside the greenhouse by the woods. “There’s beauty in everything.”

Yoongi scrunches up his nose. “Like that?”

In the distance, you spot three things: Jungkook and Taehyung, laughing evilly as they run down along the rocky beach. The clothes clutched in their hands, crumpled up in their grasps while they hoot and holler. And Seokjin, hair sopping wet and half-naked, with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and ugly lime green water shoes on, chasing after them. 

“I’m out,” Yoongi says without missing a beat, grabbing his lemonade and dashing off to safety. Yoongi’s exit leaves you and Jimin standing there, stranded, frozen in place, as Jungkook and Taehyung rush by you, each grabbing a piece of watermelon on their way. Something falls from Jungkook’s hold as they pass you, and Jimin reaches down to pick it up. It’s one of Seokjin’s socks. 

“Give that back, Park Jimin!” Seokjin’s banshee screech rings in your ears. 

“Run,” Jimin says, and you don’t get another say in the matter before Jimin is grabbing your wrist and pulling you along with him, Seokjin’s angry caws echoing throughout the clearing. 

Even though Jimin didn’t even actually steal his clothes from the locker room by the lake, Seokjin has determined that anyone who runs from him is automatically guilty, thus lumping both you and him into a wild goose chase alongside Jungkook and Taehyung, who are almost always the guilty parties when it comes to practical jokes like this. For a few moments, it’s the four of you running across the open field with Seokjin hot on all of your heels, desperate to catch up to at least one of you despite being severely out-matched, both in athletic ability and footwear, and then suddenly Jimin is pulling you behind the shed as Jungkook and Taehyung make a sharp right, headed in the opposite direction. 

Crouched behind the shed, you and Jimin stop for a minute to catch your breath, chests heaving after doing more exercise in the last thirty seconds than you have in the last week alone. You’re pressed up against the back siding, and only after your heart rates finally slow down do you become faintly aware of Jimin’s hand still gripping your wrist, like he’s simply forgotten to let go. 

“You think we lost them?” He asks with a wicked grin, and it’s impossible to avoid his gaze when he’s so close like this, when there’s barely a foot of space between your bodies, when his fingertips still press against your skin. 

“I think so,” you heave out in response. 

“Better stay here for a bit longer just in case,” Jimin says, and it’s the flirty sort of thing that he would say if it were last year, the flirty sort of thing that he would say if you two were friends like you used to be, but you aren’t anymore, and now it feels like Jimin is trying too hard and you aren’t trying hard enough. 

“I… I mean,” you say, pulling your wrist out of his grasp, rubbing at where your skin sizzles from his touch. “We’re probably fine.”

“Are we?” He asks, and this is exactly why you shouldn’t try to talk to him, exactly why talking won’t erase the tension that has settled between you two, repair the cracks in what you are. You’re not fine, because everything changed when you told Jimin that you loved him, and you’ve never been good at adjusting. You’re not fine, because for the first time in your years-long relationship, loving him is getting in the way. 

“I hope we are,” you admit, more to yourself than anyone else. Oh, how you so desperately wish that things were back to normal. Oh, how it would be so easy if only things were just a little bit different. 

“Me too,” Jimin says, and he smiles and, oh, how it makes you feel real and true and whole. He stands back up and reaches an arm out to help you do the same. For once, it doesn’t feel like a Band-aid on top of a stab wound. It feels like a lifeline. 

You let Jimin help you back to your feet, and for some reason your heart feels just a little bit lighter. 

“You think we’re alright?” Jimin asks. 

“Yeah,” You respond with a nod. “I think we will be.”

One thing that Namjoon is big on is interdisciplinary recreation. This is half due to the fact that he attends a private liberal arts school on the east coast and half due to the fact that he doesn’t always trust some of the counselors when it comes to chaperoning a whole group of kids on their own. You aren’t going to name names, but they’re the same people that steal clothes for fun. 

He’s got a list up on one of those massive sheets of lined paper filled with suggestions for all sorts of things that combine two or more of the basic activities the camp offers, ranging from making handmade bird seed treats in the kitchen to put out on nature walks to dodgeball in canoes. Some of Namjoon’s ideas are a lot more feasible than others. 

Namjoon’s never been a pushy person. He’s repeatedly said that he purposely avoids telling people what to do within their activity sectors because he doesn’t want the counselors to think that he’s stepping all over them or doesn’t trust them to come up with their own entertainment. The list in the counselor meeting room is titled: ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS, bolded and circled, just so everyone knows that he isn’t forcing you to do anything (if you’re being honest, the emphasis on suggestions somewhat works against his whole niche). But sometimes, especially for someone whose greatest fear is stripping away others’ creative freedom, he can be rather insistent. 

Take, for example, the two stacks of plain flower pots left anonymously inside the arts and crafts room when you walk in to set up the activity for the day. You were originally going to have the younger kids color in their own guitars to hang up in the music room—an activity that was not on the activity suggestions list—and give the older ones some clay and let them go to town, but you suppose that decorating flower pots will be just as entertaining. At least you didn’t have to go hunting for the materials. 

The only problem with decorating flower pots is that, once the campers have painted streaks and polka dots and glued charms all over them, the flower pots have a rather specific place to go. A place that is part of a notable Park Jimin’s domain. 

A sneaky little feeling beneath your skin suspects that someone may have let it slip to Namjoon that you and Jimin could do with a bit of relationship repair. And Namjoon and Yoongi have been bunking in the same cabin for as long as you can remember. 

Sighing to yourself as you begin to set up the flowerpots on old newspapers spread out on the wooden tables, you decide that spending an hour with Jimin in the greenhouse (maybe even less if you can find an excuse to get yourself out of there!) couldn’t be any worse than being crouched down behind that cobwebbed old shed with his hand on your wrist and his eyes gazing into yours. At least you’ll have thirty campers to maintain the distance between the two of you. 

You suppose that you do have the easier of the two jobs. Arts and crafts is a rather simple activity to oversee, barring the occasional papercut or glue gun burn. Luckily, painting flower pots means that you will really only have to worry about the campers mod-podging their fingers together, and even then, the bathroom is just down the hall. Jimin, with his having to wrangle the kids to garden neatly and not hit each other with the trowels, is going to have it much harder. 

There’s a part of you that knows you’ll stick around. Not just to lessen the load of campers for him, but just so you can spend a little more time in the same room, breathing the same air, pretending that things are the way that they used to be. 

When you leave the arts and crafts room to hike the ten minutes to the greenhouse, followed by all of the campers dutifully carrying their brand new flowerpots in their hands, you feel like a young bird leaving the nest. Taught to fly little by little, but one day forced to face the real world and exist without the safety net you’ve called home for so long. The arts and crafts room hasn’t always been your favorite place in the camp, but this year it’s felt like you’ve been holding on particularly tight.

Jimin is already waiting happily in the greenhouse for your arrival, this stupid old gardening apron tied around his waist with a faded picture of a cartoon cactus on the front that says free hugs. He watches fondly as all of the kids shuffle into the greenhouse, the whole room just barely big enough to fit all of you, wide eyes peeking out from behind seed packets and green leaves. 

You stay in the back corner as Jimin gets to work, having all of the campers place their pots on the tables in front of them, bright plastic buckets of soil at the ends of their tables, flower seeds waiting to be planted. 

As much as Jimin is fantastic at patching kids up inside the first aid tent, the greenhouse is where he really belongs. The harsh rays of the sun are softened by the glass walls as they beam down on him, surrounding him with this warm yellow halo, painting him into the scenery behind him. Here, amongst the lush vegetables and flowers and ferns, Jimin doesn’t look like an underpaid camp counselor carrying the weight of thirty children on his back. He looks like this fairy in the woods, this forest sprite that has grown up amongst the trees and the moss and the wildflowers, who has learned to tend to the world’s greatest garden. He looks like someone whose mere presence makes the plants smile a little wider. 

Jimin’s like that with everyone. It should come as no surprise to you that the plants feel better when they’re around him, too. 

Jimin has always been so good with kids. More so than any of the other counselors, really, though they all try their best to be fun and friendly and gentle and stern all at once. But there’s something in Jimin’s nature that just makes him the best at it, something about the way he cares for them so deeply, something about the soft lines of his face that earns him their trust the fastest. He’s good with everything that camp throws at him, from frisbees to murky water to lake monsters, but nothing has ever seemed quite as right for him as his connection with the campers. 

The children don’t know how lucky they are to know someone like Jimin. Someone who believes wholeheartedly in the goodness of others, someone who will stop at nothing to fix what has been broken. 

You think about how lucky you are to love someone like Jimin every day of your life.

“Mr. Jimin?” A squeaky little voice pipes up. It’s a young girl named Zoe, whose flower pot is decorated with a painting of her entire family, a group of four stick figures with red shirts and purple dresses holding hands together, loopy smiles drawn onto their faces. 

“Just Jimin, alright?” Jimin corrects. 

“Are you sure these seeds are going to turn into flowers?” Zoe asks, looking skeptically at the packets in front of her. 

Jimin laughs, and it is as warm as the rays of the sun that stream through the glass walls. “I can’t promise that they will, Zoe.”

“Then why are we doing this?” She pouts. 

“Because,” Jimin says, pointing to the packets in front of the campers, “the only way that I can promise that these seeds will turn into flowers is if you guys can promise to love them. Because no matter how much sun they get, no matter how much you water them, they will only bloom if you really, really love them.”

“How do they know?” Another girl pipes up. 

“Flowers are just like us,” Jimin tells her gently. “They can feel when they’re loved, and they love us back by blooming for us.” He shuffles around the back of the greenhouse where he stands, fishing through the shelves lining the walls until he emerges with a rather large pot in his hands, placing it down on the table beside him with a thud. “Take this hydrangea, for example.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the blue flowers flashing before your eyes. 

You planted those together. Last summer. You and Jimin snuck out to the greenhouse while everyone else was eating potato salad for lunch and spent the hour listening to pop songs from the eighties and planting a baby hydrangea. 

They will bloom every year, Jimin said. 

So they’ll always remind us of us, you responded. 

It’s the first time that you and Jimin have looked at each other since you entered the greenhouse. He catches you off-guard, eyes wide as you stare back at him, suddenly feeling this gut-wrenching ache from deep within your belly. And Jimin—

God, Jimin looks like he’s tried everything under the sun and moon to keep that damn hydrangea from wilting. 

“They were planted early last summer. And they bloomed, right? But they look so sad,” Jimin explains, rallying himself and turning his gaze away from you. “And I gave them new soil and watered them regularly, but I’m still missing something.”

“Love!” Zoe shouts. 

“Right,” Jimin says with a tense nod, eyes flickering to yours once more. Your shoulders slump. “But I have a lot of love to give, so hopefully they’ll be alright soon. You guys just have to remember that love is the most important thing that you can give to your flowers. Just like you and me, the flowers need to know that there is someone who loves them.”

But you do know, you want to shout out to him. You’ve known this whole summer and you knew back at the campfire and you probably knew even before that. You’ve known for so long and still the flowers that we planted together are fucking wilting. Like they can’t even bear that this is what we’ve come to. What do you mean, they need to know that there is someone who loves them? You do. And I love you. You must know that, don’t you?

You feel the vines of a thorny rose wrap around your heart, clenching it tight. It’s been in bloom for a year now, thick red petals filling up the empty spaces between your bones, nectar swimming within your veins. And when you picked it, cut it off at its stem to place in Jimin’s hand, it grew only stronger, bloomed only harder.

Oh, if only that hydrangea knew how much you loved him. 

Afterwards, you stay back to help clean up. There’s soil all over the floor, buckets knocked over in the campers’ frenzy to go play games in the gym with Jungkook, discarded paper seed packets and trowels left littered across the tables. 

Jimin doesn’t put on any eighties music. Instead, you stand there in silence, brushing the leftover soil into dust pans and buckets, placing the gardening tools on the rack by the entrance. 

Even though you know flowers don’t wilt that fast, it feels like with every second that passes, the hydrangea is a moment closer to death. The color seems to fade every time you look at them, going from its vibrant pale blue to a sallow green, no longer able to tolerate being in the same room as the two of you. 

Your love doesn’t seem like it’s going to fix it this time. 

“I didn’t know that it was doing so badly,” you say, and the words don’t even feel like they belong to you when you hear them back, making Jimin stop dead where he stands. 

“What?” He asks. 

“The hydrangea.”

Jimin looks over at the pot on the table, and he sighs, helpless. “I’ve tried everything. It just doesn’t seem to be working with me this year.”

It’s no secret to the both of you why. 

“Hopefully you can figure something out,” you offer alongside a half smile. “I would hate to see them die after only a year in bloom.”

“Me too,” Jimin sighs. 

“How have you been?” You ask him, because you never really did get a real answer when you asked him that very first day. And because no matter what you do, you’ll always be curious about him. 

“Alright,” Jimin says, and it’s not a lie. “I’m looking forward to graduating next year.”

“Yeah, me too,” you say, even though you’re only looking forward to the not-being-in-college part of graduating. Not so much the being-chucked-into-the-real-world part. “How’s the major coming along?”

“Well, physics never gets any easier,” Jimin jokes, and even though it’s a little bit forced it makes the two of you both laugh, desperate to get back to the way that things used to be, step by step. “What about you? Still going for English?”

“With a side of business so that I don’t end up a broke poet,” you remind him. “But yeah.”

“Maybe you can write me into one of your stories,” Jimin suggests. 

Oh, but doesn’t he know already? He’s the main character in every single one. All of your poems are about him. He is your inspiration and your muse. He fills up each blank page all on his own. Doesn’t he know? 

“Maybe,” you agree, even though there has never been a ‘maybe’ when it comes to him.

You nearly drop the plastic bucket of soil on your toe when you hear his next question. 

“Have you, uh, been seeing anyone lately?” Jimin scratches at the nape of his neck, clearly nervous. Your heart sinks. Out of all of the possible questions he could ask you to keep this relatively casual conversation going, he chooses that one? 

You look up at him, wondering why on earth he’s asking you this when your love has already been laid out bare in front of him, every corner unfolded so he can read across the lines like a map, memorize the splotches of color. You look up at him and you are helpless, desperate for him to realize that even with thousands of miles and hundreds of days between you, for you, it has always been him.

You wonder if the only reason he’s asking is to see if you were starting to move on. 

“No,” you mutter lifelessly. “I haven’t.” And then, like a devilish whisper in your ear, “Have you?”

You almost expect him to say yes. You almost expect to hear him recount all of the fantastic dates he’s been on, all of the loving relationships he’s been in, but instead, he says, “Me neither.”

And that? That makes your heart stop dead in its tracks. 

“I tried to, you know,” Jimin says, and each word is a puncture wound inside of you. “But I just couldn’t. Nothing really stuck.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you tell him, because you are. Because Jimin deserves to love someone who will love him back. Someone that isn’t you, someone who hasn’t been hopelessly pining after him for a year. 

“No, it’s alright.” Jimin shrugs. “I’m kind of glad that nothing stuck.”

And if hearing the words “me neither,” leave his lips made your heart freeze up, then hearing these words set it aflame. You don’t respond, instead choosing to let the words etch themselves into your memory, carve themselves into your heart, give you hope, if only a droplet of it. Any is enough to have your heart beating a little faster.

“I miss this,” Jimin breathes out, and if you closed your eyes and pretended that you were somewhere else it would almost sound like a confession. You glance up at him, and he is so empty, clinging hopelessly onto the remnants of things past just like you, and you realize that being honest is really the only option you have left. “I miss doing stuff like this.” 

The with you goes unspoken, but it rings loud and clear in your ears anyway. 

“I miss it too,” you say, because Jimin must know already, doesn’t he? How if you could choose to go on loving him without him ever knowing, then you would do it in an instant? How loving him silently was painful but loving him like this, unbearable. “I feel like it’s been a long time.”

A long time since you both really spoke to each other. A long time since you were friends the way you used to be. A long time since you first began to love him.

“Can’t we go back?” Jimin asks, a foolish question. He should know better than to ask for something he already knows he can’t get. 

“You know we can’t,” you tell him. You’ve already tried.

“Then can we begin again?” He proposes, the two of you meeting in the middle of the greenhouse, right in front of the hydrangea. You hadn’t even realized you were barely three feet away from him until you were already there. “Please? I miss us, Y/N. Don’t you miss us, too?”

Gazing at Jimin, you feel your heart tremble. One thing that hasn’t changed is how weak you are to his touch, to his eyes, to the way that they make every part of you feel like jelly, feel like you’ll collapse without him to hold you up. You’ve never been able to say no to him. It’s one of the things you don’t think you’ll ever outgrow. 

“We can try,” you say, because being honest may be hard, and talking even harder, but now you would rather try to piece yourselves back together than spend the rest of the summer wondering what to do with the shattered remains on the floor, stepping around them instead of cleaning them up, repairing what has been broken. 

It’s like the words are music to Jimin’s ears, the way he lights up, grinning wide and real and true. He inhales and it feels like a breath of fresh air, like a brand new season has come to rest upon the two of you. It feels like relief. It feels like hope. It feels like new.

You hadn’t realized it before, but you’ve been dying to make him smile. 

Next to you, the hydrangea seems just a little bit brighter. 

It’s getting easier. 

No longer are you turning in the opposite direction whenever you see him hanging around the center of camp, praying that he hasn’t spotted you from where you stand. Nor are you making excuses about having to go help Namjoon with something or run back to your cabin whenever he shows up to spend time with you and the other counselors. 

And even though it’s still a little tense when you accidentally look up at the same time and meet eyes, even though it still feels like you two aren’t quite the same, it’s getting easier. 

You’ve even begun to eat lunch together again. 

It’s not exactly like it was before, not like when you would scurry off to the greenhouse or the shed or some other hidden place, spread out a picnic blanket and bask in each other’s company, laughing about anything and everything, but it’s better. It’s better than how it used to be, when you would always bring your lunch back to your cabin to eat in silence, drown yourself in your comforter and your thoughts, letting them pile on top of you, one by one. It’s better than how you used to pretend that you didn’t even know each other. 

Slowly, step by step, things have almost started to feel normal again. 

“You guys seem happier lately,” Taehyung commends mindlessly as he sits down across from you and Jimin, three pieces of meat lover’s pizza on the paper plate he sets on the tabletop. 

You and Jimin smile at each other. You suppose that you have been.

“Three, Tae?” The moment gone too soon, Jimin’s focus is immediately redirected to the behemoth meal in front of Taehyung. “Seriously? Aren’t you lactose intolerant?”

“The meat balances it out,” Taehyung says matter-of-factly, even though it definitely doesn’t. He takes an enormous bite out of one of the slices, eating nearly half the pizza in a single chomp. “But seriously, I mean it. You guys look a lot happier. Yoongi!”

Yoongi freezes in his tracks from where he’s walking by your table, spilling his open soda can all over his plate of pizza at Taehyung’s shout of his name. 

“Don’t you think that Jimin and Y/N seem happier?” Taehyung asks, motioning to the both of you. 

“I don’t know,” Yoongi says with a shrug, aloof as always. You chuckle to yourself, knowing fully well that it was him who got Namjoon to leave two stacks of flower pots in the arts and crafts room to give you an extra push towards talking with Jimin. Taehyung huffs, disappointed but not surprised that Yoongi contributed so little to the conversation, but he doesn’t notice how Yoongi gives you a smile and a thumbs up as he heads over to where Namjoon and Hoseok are sitting. 

“Well, I think you guys do,” Taehyung says pointedly. 

“Did we seem… unhappy to you?” Jimin asks, an eyebrow raised. 

“No,” says Taehyung. “I don’t know, you guys just seemed different. You know, I was talking with Jin and he and I were convinced that the two of you were dating last year and then broke up sometime before this summer because you guys were acting so weird earlier.”

“Really?” You ask, cracking an awkward smile just to keep the mood light because god, Taehyung really is a lot more observant than you give him credit for. “That’s so funny, honestly.” It’s not. “You know that we’re just friends, Tae.”

Next to you, Jimin is staring down his lunch like it’s insulted his family. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he opens his mouth to say something, anything, goddamnit, anything that will make you feel like you’re not the only one who wants you two to be friends again. Anything that will remind you that being friends is all you have left because he will never love you back. 

“You could have fooled me,” Taehyung acknowledges. “Seokjin was pretty convinced, too. We even had a bet going to see which one of you would admit it first.”

“You guys bet on us?” Jimin asks, a little horrified and a lot of something else, something that you can’t quite place. 

“Not with money!” Taehyung defends. “Marshmallows for the end-of-camp counselor campfire. But neither of you ever said anything so we ended up just dropping it and ate as many marshmallows as we wanted.”

Oh, if only Taehyung knew. Oh, if only he had heard you that night, heard you pour your heart out in front of that fire. Oh, if only he had noticed, noticed the warm yellow glow that made Jimin look like he had been bathed in candlelight, noticed those roasted marshmallows over the heat, noticed the words that replay in your head like a broken record. 

There’s a part of you that wants to know who Taehyung was betting on. A part of you that is wondering why on earth would either of them ever assume that Jimin would be the one to confess first when he has only ever seen you as a friend and you have always seen him as something more. Seen him as this dream come to life, seen him as the answer to all of your prayers. 

Jimin never would have confessed first. That hasn’t changed. 

“Thinking back, it was kind of stupid of us to bet on you guys when you hadn’t even confirmed anything,” Taehyung says with a sigh, pursing his lips together tightly. “I don’t know. I guess that Seokjin and I both really, really wanted you guys to get together.” He chuckles, but it isn’t funny anymore.

Believe me, Tae, you think to yourself. You guys weren’t the only ones.

“Eh,” Taehyung hums, shrugging to himself. He clearly isn’t as caught up about it as you and Jimin, who wonder every day how different things would be if you had just kept your damn mouth shut that night, if you had never loved him in the first place. “I guess I’m just glad to see you both smiling again.”

“Thanks, Tae,” you say, because even if Taehyung doesn’t know the whole story he’s still hit the nail on the head, and even if he can’t pick up the way that Jimin’s body has tensed up beside you, even if he doesn’t notice how normal feels like the furthest thing to describe the two of you right now, he has always wanted the both of you to be content.

“Makes me kinda sad to know you guys are just friends, even though I’m obviously not going to force you into anything.” Taehyung takes another bite of his pizza, the words just conversational to him even if they clearly aren’t to either of you.

Slowly, Jimin looks back up from his lunch, like he’s finally made up his mind. You meet Jimin’s eyes when he does, and for once you don’t dare jump into the swirling sea of his irises, for once you can hardly tell if the waves are calm or rough. For once, it feels like Jimin is looking at you the way you look at him—helplessly.

Taehyung smiles, looking fondly at the both of you. “You guys would have been cute together,” he says it because he means it. “You make each other so happy.”

He means that part, too.

The end-of-camp show is a longstanding tradition where all of the kids, divided by age group, celebrate the best part about summer and going to a sleepaway camp: being away from their parents. There are dance performances choreographed by the counselors (namely Hoseok, who has the most free time because his other job mainly consists of making sure Namjoon doesn’t lose his head), a guitar performance organized by Seokjin (who has promised not to rickroll everyone this year), and an art show setup by you to display all of the treasures that the campers have created. But your favorite part of the show is how, no matter how much time time is spent practicing and rehearsing, the performance will always end in chaos. The only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability. 

This year, as suggested by Hoseok and immediately implemented by Namjoon, the counselors are being roped into a performance of their own, one that is bound to be even more disastrous because even though you can all listen to directions, you are all also just as capable of purposely disobeying them. 

Part of you suspects that the only reason Hoseok even recommended that you all do this is because he enjoys watching the camp counselor collective crash and burn. Like there’s something cathartic about watching you go up in flames.

Nevertheless, you do it, because if not for yourselves then for Hoseok, and if not for him then for Namjoon, both of whom tirelessly to make sure that camp is a place where you and the other counselors can do the dumbest things without repercussions. If it weren’t for the two of them, camp would be a lot less fun.

Hoseok also just absolutely relishes in being in charge of something, something that involves dancing and singing and performing, which are his favorite things to do, and it would be cruel of all of you to deny Hoseok this opportunity, if only for a silly little camp performance. 

Hoseok manages to wrangle a time and space for rehearsal thanks to one of those magic scientists that perform cool things with chemicals, one that Namjoon has arranged to visit camp to give you and the other counselors a much-needed break from the endless excitement of children. 

And so, you all trickle into the empty counselor meeting room at three in the afternoon exactly, waiting to see what the hell Hoseok has come up with now. 

All of the tables, chairs, and other miscellaneous furniture has been pushed up against the walls, leaving just enough room for all of you to fit relatively comfortably, with Hoseok standing smack in the middle of the room, looking proud. 

“I’m scared,” Hazel admits to you as you pass by Hoseok to stand where the rest of the counselors have gathered. You sneak a peek at the clipboard in Hoseok’s hand, which isn’t empty this time, and is instead filled with sheets of paper that look like they belong in the hands of a sports coach, X’s and O’s and arrows littering the pages. 

“Don’t be,” you say, though the tremble of your voice is probably doing very little to calm her nerves. You end up grouped together with Jimin and Yoongi, who are both standing in silence, waiting for something to pull them out of their thoughts. “Hey,” you say softly, giving Jimin a nudge. 

“Hey,” Jimin responds, face lifting a little when he sees you. From behind him, Yoongi is eyeing the both of you, but he doesn’t seem very worried. Jimin laughs tensely. “I’m nervous about what Hoseok has in mind for us.”

You glance over to Hoseok as he talks animatedly with Namjoon, who looks a little bit in over his head. Namjoon must have known that Hoseok would spare no expense when it came to a counselor performance. 

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” you assure him with a squeeze to his wrist, making him smile weakly at you. 

“First Namjoon makes us sit outside, and then he makes us do exercise?” Yoongi huffs. “When will it end?”

“High time he got you out of the damn kitchens,” Jungkook mutters to himself, making all of the other counselors within earshot laugh. Yoongi turns around to give Jungkook half of a noogie before Hoseok claps to get everyone’s attention. 

“Alright, hi everyone!” Hoseok cheers. “Glad you all could make it.”

“Did we have a choice?” Seokjin asks. 

“Nope!” Hoseok grins. “Anyway, as you know, this year Namjoon and I have been thinking of doing a counselor performance at the end-of-camp show to show unity and entertain the kids, since they’re the ones who have been doing all of the work thus far to make the camp show a reality. And I, as your assistant head counselor and dance choreographer, get to set it up!”

“Oh, God,” Taehyung says. 

“It’s not going to be a super serious thing because this is camp and we’re literally performing for prepubescent children, so don’t worry!” He says, doing nothing to ease people’s worries. He turns around to face the chalkboard, and begins to magnet the pieces of paper from his clipboard onto it, page by page, as the rest of you stare on in horror. “But I have come up with a bit of a dance for us to perform…”

“Oh, God,” Seokjin repeats dramatically. 

“Anyway,” Hoseok says, clapping his hands together once more to redirect everyone’s attention from the mess on the board back to him. “It’ll be a bit of a partner dance for the first half, and then everyone gets about five seconds worth of a solo in the middle where you can do whatever you want—” when Hoseok spots Jungkook, Taehyung, and Seokjin already beginning to scheme, wicked smiles widening, he quickly adds, “—within reason, and then a big old group thing to finish it up. Does that sound good?”

“Whoop,” Yoongi deadpans.

“Great!” Hoseok says, fumbling for another piece of paper in the stack that he still has left on his clipboard. 

“God, a partner dance?” You ask awkwardly, feeling noticeably more worried than before. It’s not that you’re dreading having to dance, or even having to perform in front of a bunch of kids, it’s the idea of having to dance with someone else, a specific someone else in particular, that has your stomach doing flips. “Why did Hobi think that was a good idea?”

“It might be fun, don’t you think?” Jimin says, trying to keep the mood light. It’s clear he has no worries about the potential for being paired up with you, which might have been able to fly last year but this summer, you’re not so sure. You and Jimin just managed to start eating lunch together again without wanting to curl into a ball and hide. What’s going to happen if you have to dance with each other?

“I’m not a very good dancer,” you admit, a weak excuse for your real fear. 

“Then I’ll teach you,” Jimin says, and the words are hopeful and filled with light as he works so desperately to remind you that not all has been lost. That you can begin again. 

“Okay, partners,” Hoseok says, looking at his list. “Namjoon and Yoongi, Jungkook and Seokjin, Taehyung and Hazel, Maria and Ruby, Jia-yi and Quinn, and Jimin and Y/N.”

Shit. 

Yoongi, noticing your alarm, immediately interrupts, “Uh, is it possible for us to switch partners?”

“Why?” Hoseok asks innocently. 

And in that split second, that moment of pause, you look from the wide-eyed Yoongi to Jimin, who is gazing back at you like he’s finally got it right, like he’s finally been given an opportunity to fix what you had broken, to repair your relationship, brick by brick, if only for a stupid counselor performance. Jimin, who is smiling and smiling and smiling because you are finally eating lunch together and you are finally watering that damn hydrangea and you finally get to dance together, and everything in the world is slowly beginning to feel right, the dust is beginning to settle after a month’s worth of storms. 

You inhale, then you exhale, and you say, “I’m fine with my partner. I don’t think we need to switch, do we?”

And you swear, your heart feels lighter already. 

Jimin pops into the arts and crafts room more often these days. Sometimes he actually does it because he needs to drop something off, because a camper left something in the greenhouse or because Namjoon is making him, but most times, he does it just to say hi, just to charm all of the campers as they make collages out of old magazines or glue together fabric for no-sew pillows. 

And every time he does it, every time there is that familiar knock on the door, you nearly tumble over yourself from excitement. The best part about it is how normal it’s all beginning to feel, how familiar it is. You are almost back to where you used to be. 

Almost back to when you loved him, and he didn’t know, and everything was alright. 

Today, the kids are making cards for you to mail back home before the summer is done, before camp comes to a close and they return to their lives and you return to yours. Normally, you’d automatically send the letters back to the parents, but this time, you offer up an alternative. 

“These cards are going to be mailed back home to the people that you love,” you say, holding up your own as an example. It’s a basic one, yellow cardstock with daisies made out of construction paper glued onto it, but it serves as a good guideline for whatever the campers want to do with their own. “You just need to provide their address so that we can make sure it gets to the right person.”

“It doesn’t have to be our parents?” One boy asks.

“Nope,” you say with a smile, shaking your head. “You can send it to anyone you love. It’s just to let them know how you are, and that you miss them.”

“Who are you sending yours to?” A different girl, Rose, asks. 

“I’m not sure yet,” you say, because you don’t really need to let your parents know how you are when you text each other constantly, and all of your friends from back home can see all of the shenanigans you get up to on your social media, but a letter is no fun if only one person ever gets to read it. 

“You should send it to Jimin,” Rose suggests matter-of-factly, making you sputter out the water you were taking a sip of all over the table in front of you. 

“Jimin?” You repeat, forcing a smile. “I see Jimin all the time.”

“But you really like him, don’t you?” She asks, even though she obviously already knows the answer. Goddamn, kids pick up on everything. “I can tell.”

“Is that so?” You return, eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, me too!” The boy chirps up. “You always look so nervous whenever he comes to say hello. Like you don’t know what to say. That’s what my mom looks like whenever she comes home from a new date with a boy she really likes.”

You do? That is news to you. 

“It’s okay, though,” Rose interrupts. “I think that he really likes you too. Otherwise he wouldn’t just be popping in every other day to say hello!”

“Maybe he really likes seeing you guys, instead!” You offer, feeling your cheeks heating up at the thought that you and Jimin have laid yourselves out bare like a board book for everyone to read. 

“I don’t think so. He looks too happy when he sees you.” The girl shakes her head. “You should send your card to him, so he knows that you love him.”

Oh, he knows, that’s for sure, you think to yourself. There’s no way that Jimin hasn’t already realized that you still love him. That you have always loved him. Even the campers have it figured out, and they’re still in elementary school. But you think that the worst part of this, the worst part of all of these freakishly observant children verbally beating you up with reminders of your relationship with Jimin, is how they seem to think that Jimin likes you back. That Jimin sees you as something more. 

Because he didn’t, last year. And he didn’t, earlier this summer. And there is no way things have changed that much. 

“You guys should keep working on your cards,” you say, desperate for the subject to drop, desperate to talk about anything, literally anything, besides Jimin. “We want to send them by the end of the week so that the people you love will get them before camp’s over.”

“So you do like him!” The boy exclaims. 

“Cards, Oliver!” You reprimand him, earning a chorus of giggles, though there is no mistaking the way your body has tensed, the way your words are shaking. No mistaking how your heart trembles at the thought of Jimin, sweet, wonderful, beautiful Jimin, actually liking you back. 

It can’t be. 

You and Jimin have always just been friends. That’s all you’ll ever be. You swear. 

You swear.

“The hydrangea looks better,” you comment as you enter the greenhouse, eyes immediately darting towards the pot on the table at the front. In it, the hydrangea has blossomed fully, its petals a vibrant sky blue, basking in the faint glow of the sun as it streams into the greenhouse, peeking between the misty gray clouds, painting everything with a hazy yellow warmth. 

“It does, doesn’t it?” Jimin asks from where he’s wrestling with an enormous packet of soil, pausing his battle to turn and look at the blossom, smiling to himself. “I think we must have worked some sort of magic.”

“Or maybe it’s just your expert gardening skills,” you tease, hauling in some plants by the door that Jimin has been meaning to bring inside the greenhouse for days now. “I’m not in here enough to make any sort of noticeable difference.”

Jimin scoffs disbelievingly. “You’re in here almost as much as I am nowadays.”

“Just to help out,” you defend weakly, pouting to yourself. It’s not like you’ve completely abandoned your air-conditioned arts and crafts room to fool around in the balmy greenhouse, soil underneath your fingernails and seeds stuck to your clothes. You just prefer to spend your free time here. Nothing criminal about that.

Plus, Jimin sure doesn’t seem to mind. 

“And for that, I thank you,” says Jimin with a grin, the bag of soil finally beginning to cooperate with him. He hauls it over his shoulder to bring into the back room, where he keeps all of the bigger tools and plants that are too advanced for the campers, and you pretend not to ogle the way his biceps bulge as he carries the soil away, the bag easily fifty pounds or more. 

What? You didn’t fall in love with Jimin just because of his electric personality. 

“Besides, you come into the arts room so often that all the kids are starting to think you work there instead of here,” you remind him pointedly. He laughs, and the sound bounces off of the glass walls, filling up the room. 

Jimin comes out of the back room, a little bit of soil smudged onto his cheek from his gloves, and he’s smiling. “Maybe I just like seeing you.”

“Next time we do a craft I’ll make sure to prepare an extra one so you can do it with us,” you joke, ignoring the way his words warm you from the inside out, convincing yourself that this is what it was like last year, too, so Jimin doesn’t mean anything by it. 

Convincing yourself that Jimin has never loved you the way that you love him. 

“Am I going to be allowed to sit next to you?” He asks as he walks up to where you’re working, that same flirty lilt to his voice, that teasing tone that he always used to use on you, especially whenever it came down to spending time together. 

“Only if you’re good,” you chide in response, leaning over to pick up a flower pot just so you don’t have to see his damn face, so you don’t have to see the way his eyes glint in the sun as he toys with you, as he presses all of your buttons with ease.

Obviously, you had seriously miscalculated how far away he was, because by the time you’re standing up straight he’s right behind you, playfully pinching at your waist, the sensation sending an electric jolt through your veins. You jump and gasp at the feeling, nearly dropping the goddamn flower pot, body suddenly turning to jelly. Behind you, Jimin is in stitches. 

“I could have dropped this!” You scold him as he doubles over in laughter, giggling and giggling and giggling, so much so that you can’t even pretend to be angry at him, too endeared by his happiness, by his pure joy, to shout at him any more. 

“You’ve always been so ticklish, Y/N,” Jimin says between puffs of air, trying to catch his breath.

“I am not! You just surprised me!” You defend, even though Jimin’s right and he knows it. Your outrage leaves him in hysterics still, amused by the way you so easily fall right into his trap.

“Whatever you say,” he singsongs, helping you haul in the last of the flowerpots. “I think that’s the last of them.”

“Next time I show up, a whole different part of the greenhouse will need work,” you say with a sigh, because no matter how much you do, no matter how much you clean and reorganize, there will always be something left. 

“The work is never done,” Jimin says with a smile, having already resigned himself to this fate. “But I think it looks pretty good.”

And looking at the greenhouse, looking at the vibrant hues that fill the room, from the rich golden marigolds to the bright pink lilies, from the rich green leaves to the soft blue hydrangea, you have to agree. It’s no wonder why Jimin loves this place so much, spends so much time in it despite its severe lack of circulation and the absence of reliable shade. It’s because everything in here he has had a hand in making. Everything in here is here because of him. 

This place will never not remind you of him. 

“It’s getting late,” Jimin says, checking his watch. “You think they have dinner ready for us?”

“God, I hope so,” you say with a sigh. “I’m starving.”

“Then shall we feast?” He asks, holding his arm out for you to take. 

You wrap your arm around his own, and you grin. “We shall.”

Then the thunder cracks, and the sky begins to sob. 

You’re barely three feet out the door before you feel the wet splotches on your shoulders, cold drops on your skin, made thicker by the leaves above your head, forcing you to retreat back into the greenhouse. Thanks to the glass, the raindrops that hit the rooftop ring like mallets on a drum, booming and loud, echoing throughout the room. 

“Damn,” Jimin says, staring out at the once sunny clearing, now shrouded in a grey haze. “It was sunny two minutes ago.”

“It’s just a summer storm,” you assure, arm still wrapped up tight in his own. “They never last long.”

“Think we should wait it out?” He asks. 

“Whatever you want to do.”

Jimin grins, squeezing you tight. “How about this? Five minutes, and if it doesn’t stop, we make a run for it?”

You nod. “Five minutes.”

Five minutes pass and the rain has no intention of letting up, seemingly getting heavier as you count down the seconds, the light grey fog that has blanketed the clearing turning to an angry deep blue, thick and endless. The alarm on Jimin’s watch goes off, signifying your wait’s end, and you open your mouth to suggest that maybe you should wait here a little longer, but barely get the first letter out before Jimin is flinging open the door to the greenhouse and pulling you out into the rain. 

You shriek as the drops hit you, little pellets of water striking you like beads, soaking your clothes and your skin everything in between. Jimin looks back from where he’s running in front of you, one hand still wrapped around your wrist, and his hair is in strands and his shirt is sticking to his torso, and you don’t think that, in your three years of knowing him, you’ve ever seen him happier. He pulls you out into the rain and he looks like a shot from a movie scene, looks like the hero in a coming-of-age film, letting the rain wash away his worries and his insecurities, letting himself be reborn beneath the crying sky. 

And he stops, and you stop, and you stand there in the pouring rain just looking at each other, picturesque frames, moments in time, letting the water soak into your skin, letting it trickle down your cheeks, decorating your eyelashes. You feel his hand sink down to your own, feel your fingers intertwine. And he is smiling, God, he is smiling so fucking wide, smiling at you like there is no place he would rather be, smiling at you like you smile at him when you think he isn’t looking, like you are the reason he is filled with light. Jimin stands there in the rain with his hand on your wrist and droplets of rain dotting his skin, and he is brand new. And you watch him, watch the way it rains down upon him, and you wonder what the hell he is thinking. 

You wonder what on earth he sees when he looks at you. 

(Is it the same as what you see when you look at him?)

“Aren’t you cold?” You ask him, feeling like your voice is a distant melody, feeling like it’s coming from somewhere else. 

He shakes his head, and you can see the rain spraying from the ends of his hair, soaked strands framing his face. “Isn’t this wonderful?” He asks up to the sky, tilting his head up to let it rain down upon him, let the droplets drizzle down his cheeks. “Don’t you love it?”

“It’s nice,” you admit, because there’s something refreshing about being here, about being caught in the midst of a summer storm, washing away the dirt and sweat and worries. 

“It’s perfect,” Jimin corrects, voice trampled by the rain, thick and heavy. “I feel like this is just what I needed.”

“Needed for what?”

He looks back at you, looks at the way your bodies are still connected, at the way you’re standing barely a foot apart in the pouring rain, and he grins and says, “Just what I needed to know.”

You don’t have time to ask him what he needs to know, what he has been so desperate to learn, before he’s pulling you back into him and up onto the deck, wet footsteps on the wooden porch as you heave yourselves out of the rain and into the counselor meeting room, drenched from head to toe. 

“Oh my God, what the hell happened to you guys?” Seokjin asks, shocked when he spots the two of you, still holding hands. 

“Got caught in the rain,” you say sheepishly, still feeling out of breath. 

“In the rain?” Taehyung asks. “For how long?”

“Long enough,” Jimin answers this time, finally letting you go to run towards the back of the room. You watch helplessly as he does, your hand clenching around nothing, missing his touch. When he returns, he’s got a dry windbreaker in his hand, crumpled up from being in his backpack for so long. “Here, use this,” he says, placing it over your shoulders, pulling the collar tight at your front. 

“Thanks,” you say breathlessly, wondering what the hell Jimin is going to use to dry himself off, clothing so soaked not even a day in the sun could dry it. 

“That was fun,” Jimin says, fixing the windbreaker over your shoulders to make sure it’s covering as much of you as possible. “Who knew, right?”

“Right,” your voice trails off, too focused on the way his brows are furrowed as he tries to dry you off with a jacket made of fabric meant to repel water rather than absorb it, mouth pressed into a pout as he shuffles it around, drying off whatever he can. 

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” he says when he’s satisfied, gazing into your eyes, trying to get you to gaze back into his own. When you falter, he chuckles, this little huff of air dispelled from his lungs. “I’m gonna go bother Hoseok for something dry. Don’t stay in those clothes too long, or you’ll catch something.”

With that, he disappears into the other room, soggy footsteps leaving prints in his wake. You’re so busy watching his back disappear from view that you don’t even notice Namjoon coming up to you, a sage expression written all over his face. 

“What?” You challenge, not liking the way he looks so suspicious. 

“Nothing,” he says with a laugh and a shake of his head. “I just… don’t know if you really do have anything to worry about when it comes to him.” He nods his head in the direction of Jimin before vanishing, called over by Seokjin and Jungkook to complain to him about something, leaving you floundering in the doorway to the counselor’s room. 

Does Namjoon know something you don’t?

Are you missing something here?

Because as far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin are finally getting back to where you used to be. As far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin did these same things last year, worked in the greenhouse together, planted flowers together, ate lunch together (okay, maybe you didn’t stand in the pouring rain together), and you are positive Jimin didn’t love you back then. As far as you’re concerned, this isn’t different. This is normal. 

Outside, the rain has stopped, a rainbow hidden behind the trees the only reminder that it was ever there in the first place. 

Despite the fact that you will literally only be performing for a bunch of children, Jimin is insistent on teaching you how to dance. 

At least, that’s it looks like, when he asks you to meet him in the counselor’s room one day half an hour before the mandated practice that Hoseok’s arranged for the whole group of you while the all the campers are off on a nature hike with some of the local rangers from the reserve nearby. You don’t know why this couldn’t wait until during practice, when Hoseok puts on some upbeat dance music and lets everybody do what they want, which usually ends up in someone getting twirled (usually Seokjin), but you don’t really mind. Your other option was to lie around in your cabin waiting for the next social event. 

Jimin’s already inside by the time you arrive, this smooth, soft jazz playing from the little speaker that he brought with him, set up on a table at the front of the room. The furniture hasn’t been moved back to their original spots since the first practice, so anytime Namjoon calls a meeting everyone ends up sitting on the floor like a kindergarten class, but at least it makes dance practice easier. 

Even though he’s not really dancing, his body is still moving, absorbed in the music as it echoes around the room, hips swaying and head bobbing. He loses himself in the melody so easily, letting each and every note pluck along to the strings of his heart, this deep, mellow sound that fills him up like a wine glass, dulcet and sweet. 

“Hey,” you say softly from where you stand, watching him from the doorframe. 

Jimin jumps a little bit at the sound of your voice, almost embarrassed that he hadn’t spotted you sooner. “Hey,” he says in return, coming to a halt. “I didn’t, uh, see you there.”

“That was kind of the point,” you joke, walking into the room and joining him where he stands in the center. “Why did you want me down here?”

“You mean I need a reason to see you now?” Jimin teases in return, a little smirk playing along his lips. You frown, narrowing your eyes at him, unimpressed. He gives. “Alright, you got me. I promised you a dance lesson, didn’t I?”

“This isn’t the kind of music that Hoseok puts on, though,” you point out, even as Jimin intertwines his hand in your own and pulls you in close to him, the two of you stepping in time to the beat, not too slow but not too fast, either, this even, steady swing, the sort of thing an old bar would play during the evening rush. Jimin doesn’t pay your comment any attention, instead focusing on his hand on your side, your fingers laced together between your bodies. 

You have, admittedly, never been much of a musical person. You never go out to clubs because sweaty, drunk people just aren’t your style, you don’t ever dance, and you can barely keep a beat when you sing in the shower. Your body has always been stiff as stone despite your (and your friends’) best attempts to achieve otherwise, and as such, you had long resigned yourself to the fact that you do better with your mouth than with your feet. 

But still, Jimin rallies on, because you’re here, goddamnit, and even if you never dance again after this, at least you can say that you have. He moves you around the room in time with the honeyed melody, even daring to pull some advanced tactics like spinning you beneath his touch, hand held above your head as you twirl in place. And you try to let loose, try to lose yourself in the music like he does, but it’s hard when you have always been more of a wordsmith than a dancer.

What’s also not helping is how every bone in your body always seems to freeze up at his touch. 

“Relax, alright?” He says, guiding you across the old wooden floor, boards creaking beneath your feet. “It’s just me.”

That’s the problem, your brain supplies unhelpfully. 

“I told you that I wasn’t a very good dancer,” you say bashfully, unable to look Jimin in the eye when he is so close, when his body is practically pressed up against yours, when his fingertips leave burn marks where they press against his skin, sparks flying. 

It’s different than when it was raining, because when it was raining, even though you were close, there were other things for Jimin to look at besides you. He gazed up at the sky and thanked it for its tears, gazed around the clearing and surrounded himself in the navy blue haze, closed his eyes and felt the drops on his skin, felt them wash away his nightmares and replace them with dreams. 

It’s different now, because there is nothing impressive about the counselor room. Because the janky old tables and dirty windows aren’t something to be gazed at. Because Jimin’s focus is on you and only you, and it makes you feel like he’s staring right through you, like he’s gawking at your heart where it sits in its cage, trembling beneath his eyes. Jimin makes you want to board yourself up, wall yourself in, and reveal yourself bare all at once, like there is so much that he already knows but so much more that he could, if only things were just a little bit different. 

“You’re doing just fine,” Jimin promises, voice as soft as his steps, padding on the hardwood. You’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve circled the room, Jimin guiding you without reason or rhyme, just rhythm. He makes sure you’re always looking at him, reaches a hand out to tilt your chin back up if you dare glance away, keeping his steely gaze trained on you, determined to have you do the same. “Isn’t this nice?” He murmurs. 

“It is,” you agree. You don’t even have to think about your response, letting the words fall off your tongue, because even if you do feel tense, even if your bones are stiff, there is something about this that sets you at ease. 

And you stay like that, wrapped up in each other, swaying to the beat of this song, a beat that is strikingly similar to the drums of your hearts, and the moment feels as though it’s freezing. Feels as though the rest of the world is fading away, leaving only the two of you and the warm, rich tune that floats through the air, slowing down as time seems to come to a halt. 

“Do you still miss us?” You breathe, and you can see the words as they leave your lips, see them written out in puffs of smoke between you before they fade into nothingness. 

“No,” Jimin responds, equally as speechless. The word disappears quickly in front of you, replaced by his next ones, “because this is what I had been waiting for.”

The words stare down at you angrily, your eyes raking over them, line by line, letter by letter, hoping to imprint them into your skin and your brain and your heart, hoping to keep them locked up besides your love for you to replay, over and over, one of many memories that keep you up at night, that you flicker back to watch like an old film, reminiscing of who you used to be, what you used to do. 

They disappear far too quickly, and suddenly time begins again, and you get dizzy just from how much the rest of the world needs to catch up, whizzing by you in fast forward. Or maybe you’re just dizzy because Jimin has always made you feel this way, always left you gasping for air, weak in the knees, heart pounding. 

God, he makes your heart pound. He makes it drum in your ears like the Nutcracker, like thunder during a summer storm. 

“Don’t you want…” he asks, trailing off, eyes hazy and deep, absolutely unreadable. 

“Want what?” You respond, and you swear you aren’t doing it on purpose but you feel yourself leaning forward, closing the gap between you, inch by inch—

“Want to see me lift Seokjin up in the air?” Jungkook’s voice rings out into the room. “I can, you know, he weighs like two pou—whoa, alright.”

A hoard of people stop behind Jungkook as he stands in the doorway like a floundering fish, blinking at you and Jimin. His arrival does not give you enough time to part without things looking suspicious, without all of the damn counselors already making their assumptions, leaving the two of you separating awkwardly, smiling tensely. 

“What were you guys doing?” Taehyung asks, breaking the silence that has blanketed the room. 

“Practicing,” you say quickly, looking as far away from Jimin as possible. Not even you are buying into your excuse. 

“Sure thing,” Taehyung responds, eyebrows raised in understanding, already having formulated his own, likely more realistic answer. 

“Alright,” Hoseok says, appearing from behind the crowd with a clap of his hands. “I guess that means that Y/N and Jimin don’t need to be joining us today, off you guys go.” He gestures for the two of you to leave, but the only exit doubles as the entrance, which means the two of you are left to shuffle past a crowd of counselors, all of whom are staring at you as you pass them by. Jimin doesn’t reach out his hand, and you don’t make any attempts at changing that. 

You nearly suffocate on the way out, overwhelmed by the tension that has filled the atmosphere, leaving everyone helpless to it. 

Jimin goes in one direction and you go in the other, the both of you clearly too stupefied to say anything meaningful to each other, determined to spend the rest of the night apart in an effort to dispel the dozen rumors that you know have already begun to circle the camp. 

On your way back to your cabin, alone and lost in thought, you finish your conversation. 

“Do you want…” Jimin asks, voice trailing off. 

“Yes,” you say. “I want it all. I want you.”

You wonder if Jimin feels the same. 

There is something eerie about the camp late at night, when the only lights that shine are the dim yellow wall sconces outside of the cabin doors, when everyone is sound asleep in their bunks, when there is only the moon and its stars to keep you company, watch over you from their place in the universe. There’s something eerie about the quiet, not because you have a reason to feel unsettled but because you’re so used to camp being this lively, bustling place, filled with things to do and people to see. 

When you see it like this, empty and silent, it almost makes you think you aren’t even in the same place anymore. 

The one and only place that you go when you cannot sleep is the pier, extending out over the lake, the cool, clear lake, looking out into the midnight horizon, a perfect view of the stars and their reflections, cast over the water, twinkling endlessly. You take a seat on the edge, legs dangling over the water, and you stare out into the world, a cool breeze tickling your skin. 

You wonder what it is that’s keeping you awake tonight. What it is that is holding sleep just out of your grasp, your dreams suspended above your head. Camp ends in three days and for once you finally feel satisfied, feel as though you have done what you wanted and accomplished what you had hoped. The last few days of this summer are a far cry from those of last summer, where you were wearing yourself thin thinking about your confession, thinking about what you would say and when you would say it, and what you would do based on the fifteen thousand different things that Jimin could say in response, so hung up on telling him that you barely focused on anything else. 

But this summer, you and Jimin are finally starting to be alright again. And even though you don’t think you will ever move on from loving him, you have moved on from the fact that he will probably never love you back, moved on from your failed confession, and you are learning to be okay with what you have, even if it’s not what you want. 

The truth is that you and Jimin have never felt closer. Driven by your mutual desperation to be friends again, to return to the way that things were when you were together, when you were inseparable, you have been pulled together like moths to each other’s flames, like the thunder and the lightning. You can’t think of anything from this summer that you have wanted more than to be by his side again. But things are different from last summer, different because you and Jimin are not only friends but friends who have had to reckon with love, with its disastrous effects. 

So maybe that’s why you’re awake tonight. Because this summer feels inexplicably stranger than last summer, and you feel like you’re missing something. 

“I thought I’d be the only one still awake.”

You whip your head around at the voice to find Jimin standing at the other end of the pier, ink black hair hanging over his eyes, stars swimming in his irises. You can barely make out his face this late at night, when there is nothing to cast upon him a glow besides the moon and its lonely companions, but you will never mistake his soft, honeyed voice, never mistake the way his eyes sparkle and shine. He is grinning at you, warm and kind, as he slowly makes his way towards you, footsteps tapping along the worn wooden planks, until he sits down next to you, feet hovering above the water. 

“You and me both, I guess,” you feel yourself whisper, not daring to speak a decibel louder. 

“Lots on your mind?” He asks, looking out into the horizon. You sigh, too tired to respond. He understands anyway, just like he always does. “Mine too.”

You let the silence wash over you like a wave that bathes the shoreline, gazing out into a world that carries on no matter the time of day, no matter who watches over it. Like this, you and Jimin don’t need to explain yourselves to each other. Don’t need to force a conversation just for the sake of filling up the quiet night. Like this, your presence is enough, the knowledge that he is here beside you, staring out into the same sky, into the same moon and stars, is all that you need. 

Something has long gone unspoken between the two of you. Something that you can’t quite place. Jimin has had something to say for a long time but he lets his body do the talking, lets you fill in the gaps. But this time, it feels like the more you try to read between the lines the less you understand, and goddamnit you wish that he would just tell you, would just say it so you don’t have to keep wondering and wondering and wondering—

“I never did tell you,” Jimin says, breaking you out of your reverie.

“Tell me what?”

“Tell you what I was thinking, that night.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate any further for you to know what night he’s talking about. You stare down at the lake, at the way it seems to move into itself even though there is nothing to disturb it. 

“I guess I was just so shocked that you, you know, liked me like that, that I didn’t really focus on anything else. Didn’t think about why, or how, or when, or what to do. It existed separately from all of that,” he admits, breaths heavy. 

“You didn’t need to focus on that stuff,” you assure him softly. “It was my burden to hold. I was the one who chose to tell you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Does he know? Does he know that you never hated him for not loving you back? That you didn’t expect him to do anything about it? 

“I just felt so bad,” he says, and you hear the way the words prick at his tongue, leave burn marks along his lips. “Because I didn’t know what to do after that. I wanted to love you back so badly but I just couldn’t.”

And even though you already knew this, even though you were already well aware that Jimin has always only seen you as a friend, for some reason hearing him say it aloud still hurts, still pierces your heart, wounds that your love for him alone cannot fix. 

“It’s not your fault,” you promise him, because throughout all of this, no matter what, you have never, ever blamed him for not loving you back. “I didn’t expect anything. At all. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Don’t I, though?” Jimin asks, and God, he sounds so helpless, sounds like he’s tried everything under the sun to figure things out and still, nothing has felt right. “We had always been so close. I wondered why I couldn’t fall in love with you and the things that we did together when you could. I thought that I was doing something wrong. You deserved someone who would love you back, and I so desperately wanted to be that person.”

“You owed me nothing,” you declare. “You still don’t owe me a damn thing. All I wanted was for you to know.” And look where that got you.

“Knowing didn’t feel like enough,” Jimin divulges. “I wanted to do more for you than just acknowledge it. I replayed that night in my head, over and over, wondering what more I could have said to you.” He sighs, deep and slow and filled with weight, filled with a year’s worth of thoughts he never told anyone else. “You told me you loved me and it was all I could think about. Then and now.”

“You still think about it?” You wonder aloud, sad because Jimin doesn’t deserve to have this weight on his conscience when you are the one at fault, and hopeful because maybe, just maybe, your confession meant just as much to him as it did to you. 

“I can’t stop,” he confesses. And then he turns to you, turns to you in the glow of the moon, his eyes drowning in starlight, and he says, “Every time I look at you I think about how you love me.”

You don’t know what to say. You are too absorbed in the swirling sea of his irises, letting the warmth wash over you in waves, filling you up before emptying out again, shocks of cold before the heat races through you. Jimin is right there, right here, and he is gazing at you and you wonder. 

You wonder, what if. 

You wonder, what if he loved me back?

“Even when I was away from you I thought about it,” he chuckles to himself, amused at his own obsession. “I thought about you, that night, at the campfire. You were wearing this neon pink camp t-shirt and your marshmallow looked like coal and you had this warm orange glow on you, and I swear to God, that image is imprinted in my brain. I see it every time I close my eyes.”

You didn’t know that. 

“When I went on dates, I saw you instead. I would be sitting in a booth with some girl and she would be trying to talk to me about the menu and all I would see is you.” Jimin exhales, filling the pauses that he leaves between his sentences, eyes raking you up and down as if he’s trying to commit this scene to memory, as if this night on the pier is something worth remembering. “They knew, too. All of them told me that I should get over my ex before going on a brand new date.” 

Get over you? What about you was there to get over? Your love has always been one-sided. You have never known a world where it hasn’t.

“And I wouldn’t even try to explain to them that I didn’t have an ex to get over, and that you were the one who confessed to me, and that I didn’t love you like that,” he forces another laugh, like he doesn’t even believe the words he’s saying himself. “Then this summer rolled around, and I saw you arrive and I just can’t tell you in words how happy I was to see you. How looking at you just lifted my spirits.”

“I hardly recognized you at first,” you admit shyly. 

“I dyed my hair,” Jimin reminds you. That’s right. He had brown hair last summer. “And I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know how to without bringing up all the shit that happened last year, and things were awkward between us, and I guess…” he trails off, thinking for a moment. “I guess I just really, really wanted us to get back to the way things were, but I didn’t know how to. And I didn’t know what had changed.”

“Nothing changed,” you say, even though everything did. But loving Jimin has always been a constant in your life, a truth, and this summer was no different. “I wanted to go back to being friends with you, too.”

“I thought I wanted that, too.”

This time, you are the one who turns to look at him. What could he possibly mean by that? 

(Can it be?)

“At first, that’s all I wanted,” Jimin begins. “I wanted us to go back to being friends, I wanted us to eat lunch together and have it not be weird, I wanted us to spend time in the greenhouse and the arts and crafts room together, I wanted us to hang around the rest of the counselors without them noticing how different we were. But then I noticed that the hydrangea was wilting no matter what the fuck I did to keep it alive, and I realized that wanting our friendship back wasn’t enough for me anymore.”

You are frozen in place. You are locked into his gaze, body turning to stone, unable to even utter a single word. To breathe a single breath. And you look into his eyes, Jimin’s beautiful, ocean eyes, Jimin’s sparkling, ink eyes, and you pray. 

“And then Hobi partnered us up for the stupid camp counselor performance, and we got caught in the rain, and then we danced in the counselor meeting room and I just—” His chest heaves, words flounder. As if he has so much to say, as if the words are practically spilling off of his tongue, and yet they are still not enough. He closes his eyes. Pauses. Catches his breath. And then he asks, “If I asked you if you still loved me, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you breathe out. 

“If I asked you if you wanted me to love you back, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you whisper again. 

Jimin blinks.

“If I asked you if you wanted me to kiss you, would you say yes?”

You barely get out the first letter before Jimin is pulling you into him and pressing his fiery lips upon yours. His hand cradles your cheek, the other one splayed out on the wooden pier to keep his balance, dragging you into a messy, desperate kiss, one that sends sparks ricocheting throughout your body, turning your blood into liquid flames, that fills you up from the inside out. The feeling of his lips pressed upon yours makes your heart shake so wildly in its cage that it frees itself, growing a thousand times wider. The rose inside of you vanishes, finds itself replaced by a blooming, bright blue hydrangea, one that settles deeply within your soul. 

Your legs dangle off the pier as your arms wrap around Jimin’s body, curling around his torso in a futile effort to bring him closer than he already is, to feel the warmth of him press against you, sending jolts down your spine, into your bones. You feel yourself getting dizzy just at the feeling alone, kiss drunk, the rest of the world spinning like a goddamn teacup ride, but you cling onto him and you know that he will always be there to catch you if you fall. You know that he will always be there to steady you when you feel the world slipping out from beneath your feet. 

You have him, you have him, you have him. You have him, and he is right here, and he loves you like the sun loves the moon, and you love him like the waves love the shore.

When you part, you almost lose your balance and fall right off the damn pier. Jimin reaches out to grab you just in time, saving you from a watery grave (or just major embarrassment), and the two of you laugh, letting your voices fill the moonlit air, heads light, bodies blissed out. 

“Honestly, I was a little nervous you were going to say no,” he admits with a laugh. 

“Impossible,” you chide. “You know I’ve always loved you.”

No matter what, that will never change. 

“And now,” he says, pressing another kiss to your forehead, this one gentle and plush, “you know that I will always love you, too.”

It doesn’t feel like something long overdue. It doesn’t feel like something that you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for, something you have expected from the moment you told him. 

No. This feels like something new. 

This feels like your heart is in bloom. 

The end-of-camp show, no matter how much time and effort Namjoon puts into making it go smoothly, is a train wreck. But it is a train wreck in that wonderful way, in that way where you would be suspicious if things actually went according to plan, in that way where chaos and disarray reign supreme. Quite frankly, when it comes to the end-of-camp show, you never expect anything less. 

The truth is that the majority of the end-of-camp show performances are just for the counselor’s entertainment, an afternoon of fun to wrap up the end of camp, topped off by a fun meal (usually pizza) and a night around a bonfire, letting the heat warm your bodies from the inside out. Unless Jungkook and Taehyung pull some extremely ridiculous prank, the last official day of camp is usually everyone’s favorite, filled with snacks and music and laughter.

The performances by the campers go about as well as any performance by a bunch of elementary schoolers can go—that is to say, the kids remember the first five seconds of the choreography before they devolve into pandemonium, dancing as many weird, trendy dances as they can, and some you don’t even think have been invented yet. Nonetheless, Hoseok is proud, and beams at all of the campers as they scurry away from the center of the gymnasium once their dance is done, grabbing little snacks on the tables by the windows before settling in to watch the next stage. Hoseok does a good job of keeping the music current and upbeat so that nobody falls asleep, and gives the campers enough creative liberty so that it doesn’t feel too practiced. 

Lightly rehearsed, Hoseok likes to say. 

Absolute madness, Yoongi usually corrects.

After the dances, Seokjin and his hoard of campers with guitars the size of an overgrown ukelele make their way to center stage, and you and the other counselors bet on what stupid song he’s taught them all. He starts it off with everyone’s favorite and the most timeless of all tunes—Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star—before the musical highlight. 

(“It’s gonna be Fireflies,” Taehyung insists, so confident in his choice that he even wagers two of the homemade Rice Krispie Treats that Yoongi got all of the campers to make for today’s celebration. 

“It’s been too long since he rickrolled us,” Jungkook says, eyes narrowing suspiciously to Seokjin at the front of the room. “I’m just waiting for it.”

“Wonderwall, obviously,” Hoseok contributes, even though Seokjin got all of the campers from last year to play that. 

You and Jimin are both almost positive Seokjin has chosen to perform Let it Go, a song that will never truly escape you, but you keep your comments to yourselves. 

“I’m thinking Photograph,” Namjoon comments mindlessly, late to the conversation.

“The Nickelback song?” Yoongi says with a scoff. “Dude, we’re the only ones old enough to even know that song. No no, I think it’ll be Despacito.”

“If I have to hear Despacito one more time, I’m going to jump out of the f—” Taehyung stumbles on the syllable as Namjoon turns to glare at him, making Taehyung sputter for a replacement. “F… -reaking window. Watch me.”)

In the end, none of you guess correctly, because Seokjin has chosen to teach all of the campers how to play Country Road, Take Me Home, and honestly, none of you can even be mad about it because by the thirty second mark, you’re all singing along. There’s just something about that song that forces you to belt out the lyrics, something magical and irresistible. 

Afterwards, it is finally time for the counselor’s performance, which, if the camper’s excited screams are anything to go by, is apparently the peak of the afternoon. Hoseok puts on the same upbeat dance music and all of you go to town, following his choreography without any hitches before jumping into the solo section. Namjoon and Yoongi both attempt a trendy Internet dance and fail miserably, Taehyung and Hazel do a little tango that involves no accidents, and then it’s you and Jimin’s turn. 

The music isn’t really appropriate for the slow dance that Jimin taught you in the counselor meeting room, but he makes it work and you follow along, tracing his footsteps and laughing at the prickly sensation his hand on your waist sends shooting through you. You really have always been ticklish there. Hoseok only gives everyone thirty seconds before they’re booted off to the sideline, but thirty seconds is just enough time for Jimin to spin you once before pulling you into a kiss in front of dozens of campers and all of the counselors, whose hollers and hoots fill the gymnasium, bouncing off of the walls and ricocheting into your ears, when they watch you. It has your cheeks heating up something fierce, all embarrassed by Jimin’s big reveal, but the great big smile on his face makes it all worth it. He looks so happy to be here with you. He looks so goddamn happy to have you. 

It makes you feel like you can do anything. 

Ultimately, Jungkook and Seokjin get the greatest applause, because Jungkook lifts Seokjin into the air figure-skating style before Seokjin comes crashing down on him, and they land in a puddle on the gymnasium floor to the screams of all of the campers and counselors, who have never seen anything quite as artistically dramatic in their lives. 

Afterwards, you and Jimin retire to the snack tables alongside the rest of the counselors as the campers are free to roam the building, check out the art on display and eat as many ants on a log and homemade Rice Krispie Treats as they can get their grubby hands on. 

“Congrats, you guys,” Namjoon says, raising his dixie cup filled with lemonade. “It worked out after all.”

“I’m proud of you,” Yoongi murmurs to you, a soft smile gracing his features. 

“Love always prevails,” Jungkook declares, sighing happily, always a hopeless romantic at heart. You sure hope that one day, Jungkook will fall in love with someone who loves him back unconditionally, because he deserves it. 

“Which one of you confessed first?” Seokjin says, Taehyung nodding furiously behind you. You see that the bet is still on. 

“Me,” you say. 

“Me,” Jimin says. 

You both look at each other, eyebrows furrowed, clearly on separate wavelengths. 

Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Alright… which one of you said ‘I love you’ first?”

“That would be me,” you admit sheepishly, having a year’s headstart on Jimin when it comes to love confession. 

“I fucking knew it,” Seokjin says, palm out. Taehyung begrudgingly smacks five dollars into Seokjin’s hand, muttering to himself about how he was convinced that Jimin would tell you first. It makes you wonder, just a little bit, how long Jimin had known.

You open your mouth to defend yourself and your weak, weak heart, when you feel a tap on your side. Behind you is the same girl from the day that you were making cards to send back home to people you love, the one who absolutely grilled you about your feelings for Jimin. 

“Yes, Rose?” You ask happily. 

“So did you send it to him?” She questions. 

“Send what?”

“Your card. Did you send it to Mr. Jimin?” She elaborates, eyes wide in curiosity. You make a mental note to remind her to never stop being inquisitive. It will take her far. 

“No, I didn’t,” you say with a laugh, shaking your head. You look back at Jimin, where he’s laughing with Seokjin and Taehyung about their stupid bet on you, and you grin. He is so beautiful. It’s still hard to believe he’s yours. “Jimin doesn’t need a card to know that I love him.”

Not when he’s right here, and not when you know he loves you back. 

The counselor campfire is held on the day very last night that you spend together, after all of the campers have left the mountain, returning home, and you finally have the place to yourselves. Namjoon and Yoongi light it because everyone else has been banned from doing so after the Great Flame Incident two years ago, and then you all sit on the logs around the fire pit, reminiscing of the summer gone by, musing aloud about what the future holds. 

You and Jimin snuggle up together, and this night faintly reminds you of the one from last year in the way that Jimin still glows, warm and yellow, in the light of the fire, in the way he seems to make perfect s’mores no matter what, in the way that he laughs at everything that you say. But even with all of the similarities, nothing, literally nothing, could top how you feel right now, dancing on cloud nine with Jimin by your side. 

Never in your wildest dreams did you imagine you’d have him. Never in your wildest dreams did you think your confession would amount to anything more.

“You’re burning your marshmallow again,” Taehyung points out crudely, the side of your marshmallow already turning an ashy coal color. 

“Ah, fuck,” you mutter to yourself, yanking it away from the fire as you blow on it. 

“You’re never gonna learn, are you?” Jimin teases. He plucks his off of his stick, perfectly toasted, and holds it out for you. “Here, have mine.” You open wide and he pops it onto your tongue, the crisp, sweet flavor melting in your mouth as all of the other counselors groan, clearly wishing that they were somewhere other than here. Jimin’s fingers reach up to your chin, tilting your face towards him, before a thumb comes out to wipe away at the smudge on the side of your lip, a sticky white crumb that he pops into his mouth, earning another round of whines.

“Gross,” Seokjin says, nose scrunched up. “Just because you guys are in love now doesn’t mean you have to keep showing us. We get it.”

“Oh, just leave them alone,” Yoongi chides. “They’ve been pining after each other for so long, let them have this.”

“Thanks,” you murmur to Yoongi. You have a lot to thank him for. He has always been on your side, even when you weren’t. 

“Anytime,” he promises. 

“If they’re gonna be like this next year, then I don’t know how long I’m going to last,” Taehyung admits with a fond sigh, because no matter how much he pretends to be annoyed, you know that he’s happy for you. 

Namjoon sucks in a breath. “Uh, yeah, about next year…” he says, wringing his hands together. “I’m not going to be coming back.” You fall into silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire, the rustle of the wildlife in the woods. “I have another internship at a firm, and then I’m going to be going into the job market, so I don’t, uh, I don’t really see myself coming back here.”

“Me too,” Yoongi chirps up, earning a surprised look from everyone else. “I’ve just been given an offer to produce music for this small record company, but they’re located across the country, so I’ll be moving soon. I guess—well, I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you all.”

“Congrats,” you tell him, sad to hear he won’t be back but thrilled to know he’ll be doing something he truly loves instead. “Seriously, Yoongi. That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, man, that’s sick,” Jungkook pipes up. “When you’ve won your Grammy you have to remember to mention us.”

Yoongi chuckles to himself, small and quiet, but even in this orange light you can see the way his cheeks are turning cherry red, relishing in the praise. “I’ll miss you all,” he says. 

And slowly, one by one, you all begin to admit that even though you love it here, being a camp counselor had always been temporary, and it just wouldn’t be the same without everyone else here with you too. You and Jimin will be graduating this coming school year. So will Taehyung. Seokjin has a Master’s degree in acting that he wants to pursue. Even Jungkook, who is younger than all of you besides Hazel, has said that he plans to travel with his college lacrosse team next summer. 

“Damn,” Taehyung says when everyone is finished, as you all begin to count how many of you there will be left for next summer. “Who’s gonna do Namjoon’s job?”

“I already asked,” Namjoon says with a proud grin, “and Hazel said she is happy to take on the responsibility.”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Seokjin shouts, giving Hazel a massive hug, nearly crushing her in two. “Hell yeah, Haze! You are going to be kick ass at that. I’m proud of you!”

The rest of the counselors soon follow suit, congratulating Hazel and cheering for her future. It almost makes you want to come back, but you know that Hazel will be fine without you. As long as she still has her secret stash. 

“Nice work, Haze,” you tell her, earning a shy smile from her in response. “You’ve always been a leader.”

“I’m just nervous I won’t be as good as Namjoon,” she admits timidly, clearly a little overwhelmed at such an enthusiastic response. 

“You have nothing to worry about,” Namjoon assures her. “I know you’ll be fine. Plus, you won’t have all of these losers to worry about, so your workload will be much lighter.”

“Hey!” Seokjin, Taehyung, and Jungkook all shout at once. 

“Don’t get me started on the two of you,” Namjoon chides, eyes narrowed. “You’ve caused me more stress than my senior thesis.”

“Out of love,” Seokjin swears, Jungkook and Taehyung nodding enthusiastically next to him. Namjoon rolls his eyes, even though you know that he secretly loves the extra work that they give him. It keeps him young, in that old-timey kind of way. 

“Then I guess this is it, isn’t it?” Hazel asks, standing up and holding out a finished s’more, already taking on her newly-bestowed head counselor duties. “I suppose I’ll do the honors. Congrats to Y/N and Jimin for finally figuring their relationship out, congrats to Yoongi for getting into that record company, congrats to Namjoon for getting his internship, and congrats to everyone else for doing what they love, and for not letting their dreams be dreams. This summer feels sort of like the end of an era, in a way, don’t you think? I mean, lots of us are moving on to bigger and better things, celebrating the past and aspiring to become people that we hope will be admired in the future. And I guess that I just want you all to know that no matter who you become, no matter what you do, I’ll always be someone who admires you.”

If you were a little drunk or just a little more sentimental, Hazel’s words would almost bring tears to your eyes, but instead you just join everyone in cheers, standing up and clinking your s’mores together.

And in a way, it really does feel like the end of an era. No more summers on the mountain, no more late-night camp pranks, no more hydrangeas in the greenhouse. You’re moving on, not only from this part of your life but from your almost-fruitless quest for love, from the place that led you to fall so deeply for Jimin, the place that has housed every memory you have ever saved of him. You’re moving on to a world where Jimin is with you every step of the way, where you know that he will always be there for you, where you no longer have to fight yourself to keep from loving him, where you have to do everything you can to preserve an already-fragile friendship. 

No. Now, you can take your first step forward with Jimin by your side. 

“Cheers!” Everyone shouts. 

“Cheers,” Jimin says to you, pulling you in for a quick little kiss, and no matter how hot the campfire burns Jimin’s lips upon yours will always be what warms you from within. “Cheers to us.”

You grin against his lips, pressing back because you can never get enough, and you murmur, “Cheers to us.”

“Hey! Jungkook!” Seokjin shouts right as Jungkook hops into his car. “When we text you in the group chat you better fucking respond!”

“I will, I will!” Jungkook screams back, voice so loud you can hear it despite the fact that all of his windows are rolled up. 

“No, he won’t,” Yoongi deadpans as he passes you by, duffel bags hanging from his shoulders. “You know he won’t.”

“He never does,” you agree. Getting a text from him is almost as impossible as winning the lottery. “I’ll call you, alright? I know you don’t really like texting, either.”

“Talking is just easier,” he says with a nod. “I’m looking forward to it. Call me whenever you need me.”

“I will,” you promise, watching as Yoongi bids you one final goodbye before heading to his own ride. He plops his bags into the trunk of Namjoon’s car before getting into the passenger seat. Namjoon pushes his head out of the window to wave, smiling wildly at you as he starts the car. You grin, waving back, and watch him, Yoongi, and Jungkook, disappear down the mountain. 

“You’re next, right?” 

You whip around to find Jimin standing behind you, a frisbee in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He won’t be leaving for another couple of hours, when Taehyung’s finally ready to go. They live close to each other so they figured they’d save money by splitting an Uber, which will be waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain.

“Yeah, gotta get back before college starts,” you say, dropping your bags at your feet. “But we’ll see each other before then, right?”

Jimin and you attend universities on opposite sides of the country. Loving each other is the easy part. Staying in love is what will challenge you. 

“Of course,” he promises. “I’ll visit whenever I can. And I’ll come see you on all my breaks during the semester, too. You and Jungkook.”

“Good, you better,” you say, and you pull him in for a bruising hug because you know that this will be the last time for a while. Not a long while, but a while, and even if you have committed every slope of his figure, every inch of his face to memory, you still have to remember how warm he is when you hold him, how soft his lips are when they touch yours. Those things… those are new. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he assures you. “But I’ll miss you too.”

Several feet away, Hoseok honks the horn of your car to let you know that you’re all ready to go.

“I’ll call you when I’m home, okay?” You promise, pulling him in for another hug, one last time, feeling this strange desperation rush through you, like you won’t see him for weeks and this is all you’ll have left. “Isn’t it weird? You’re right here and I miss you already.”

“We’ll see each other again before you know it,” he says, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, quick kiss. No matter how many times he does it still sends sparks shooting through your veins, but you suppose that that’s just another thing you’ll have to remember. When you part, he notices your worry, eyes softening at the sight. “Hey,” he says, lifting your chin up so you look at him. “I love you.”

You crack a smile. “I love you, too.” 

It’s not a goodbye. 

It’s an until I see you again.

You grab your duffel bags and hike them over your shoulder, footsteps heavy and weighted as you slowly make your way towards your car. Every four steps or so, you turn back just to make sure that Jimin’s still there, and sure enough, he’s watching you, this lopsided, love-drunk smile lacing his features. 

You place your bags in the backseat of your car before heading to the driver’s side, hand on the handle as you look up one final time. 

There Jimin stands in the middle of the clearing, the warm afternoon sun bathing him in a halo. There he stands, beautiful, and kind, and lovely, and in love. And you are so in love. You wave. He waves back.

And you know that you two will be alright. 

You jump into your car and tug the door shut behind you, keys in the ignition, engine revving, and you sigh, content and feeling confident in life. You peer into the rearview mirror to see Taehyung running up to Jimin, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and waving goodbye to you. You lift your hand up in response, watch as they bid you farewell as you creep towards the slope down the mountain. 

As you drive down the mountain, you take a deep breath, inhaling the fresh summer air, and you smile. 

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

#jimin angst #bts angst #jimin fluff #bts fluff #bts fic #jimin fic #jimin x reader #bts x reader #jimin au #bts au #w: into the wilderness #UHH THATS THE FUCK RIGHT THATS WHAT I SAID !!!!!! #okay but also i havent felt as emotionally redeemed abt a climax scene in a long time #anyway i hope you all enjoy !! this is my baby so you BETTA TREAT IT THAT WAY

[biqherosix]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ keith with an s/o who is the princess of a humanoid race of aliens (i just love the idea of keith with a princess s/o)

wildflower - headcanons

fluff

(voltron legendary defender — romantic! keith kogane x fem! princess! reader)

you're just living the simple cottagecore life in the middle of a galactic war, and with your luck you manage to snag a boyfriend who's smack in the middle of it

cw / none

a/n — fun fact @alteasmoon is the reason the planet of flosferam exists so everyone say thank you moon. i’m so proud of the world i created and hopefully you love it too !! also this turned out super long, so prepare yourselves

before i get into the relationship itself (there isn't even much about the relationship bc i firmly believe any relationship with keith would be a slowburn so it's all minimal) i need to establish some world building facts and such (because i'm super proud of this idea the planet was made in like fifteen minutes how cool !!)

basically you are the princess of the planet flosferam (derived from the words flos feram meaning "wild flower" in latin; yes i am a flower nerd blame tewkesbury)

anyway so the dianthus (that's what the species is called, like how the galran species reign from daibazaal) people are very diverse actually

and a lot of the roles are reversed, most men spend their times in the kitchen with their cooking magic while women are trained to fight and such

many are dainty though and fashion icons

even with the gender norms, many find themselves breaking it and it's not frowned upon, they don't stop or criticize people for wanting the basics such as a family, to fight, etc.

they're basically raised all the same

and your culture is basically the cottagecore aesthetic in it of itself so that's pretty neat (tell me it's a cool planet ik it is)

anyway you meet the paladins when a allura collectively decides to arrive to your planet in hopes of having you join the voltron coalition

keith doesn't think it's a good idea because he's read up on your planet and it seems as though your people had been pretty stagnant when it came to the war (he doesn't know that y'all are actually elite warriors with generations of knowledge in the art of deception and poison- i mean potion making, but allura does ah stan platonic kallura y'all)

"i just don't think they'd bring anything useful to the coalition. i mean, why are they so quiet when there's a galactic war going on? if anything, i think it's best we move on." "but the cute girls?! come on keith just because you're lonely doesn't mean you can ruin our chances." "what chances?"

but with allura being allura, she gets her way (after that conversation between keith and lance), landing the castle of lions onto the luscious green planet with an abundance of clean waterfalls and it's such a sight (pidge is definitely embracing her nature side again thanks to this)

whispers of assumption run through the air, and the team just wanders around until they walk by a pretty unguarded stone castle with vines adorning the walls and purple flowers surrounding the area

keith hears one (1) rustle in the bushes and activates his bayard striking through the garden (rip to your flowers y'all)

it goes from zero to one hundred real quick when team voltron goes from admiring the view (cue your second in command / right hand woman rayla taking them all out despite being outnumbered and putting them in the dungeon bc they were sus and didn't fit in) to waking up in a dark dungeon with minimal light coming from the barred window and no bayards in their holsters

however, rayla didn't know that the bayards could be ✨ summoned ✨

which sucks for her since she didn't even get the chance to interrogate them

she left her watch post for one second to go get water and some snacks and they escaped

unfortunately, lance was too busy grumbling about how they weren't able to meet anyone that when they turned a corner, keith bumped into you

he ended up getting a pretty vine laced dagger held up to his neck from yours truly

reacting quickly, his bayard turns into his respective sword and lays that onto your neck and it's an intense game of who's going to make the first move

it looks like an unfair fight; there's six of them and one of you with no other guards in the halls bc you made sure they were to protect your people first and foremost

but when he meets your intense stare, there's just that fire in your eyes that makes his heart thump and grip the hilt of his sword a little tighter (he's not even paying attention to the paladins anymore, who already have their other weapons pointed on you; you don't back down, pressing the dagger closer despite allura's protests and calm words that you don't pay any mind to)

he's feeling too much emotion at once as his gaze trails down to the wrist holding the dagger; a tattoo of a vine full of purple looking alien tulips (meaning deep love and royalty, flower language for the win) and he's malfunctioning

keith is enamored with you bc let's be real it takes guts to do this to anyone, moreso with someone like keith

and it's not until rayla pulls out the crossbow from behind them that hunk screams out explaining how they're the paladins of voltron that the adrenaline rush fades

it shocks you, because you grew up hearing the folktale, but their advanced technology and attire make sense in the end

finally looking at allura's desperate expression and the familiar altean features the realization washes over

after apologizing immensely, you and rayla do your best to make it up to them, explaining the way y'all are so old fashioned it was just hard to accept at first but that most of flosferam were warriors and would be more than willing to join

allura actually begs you to join them on their journey the night before they're set to leave (she selfishly needs another princess around but also your knowledge in potion making could come up as a good backup when technology fails)

reluctantly after rayla says she can handle things around flosferam (please you trust her with your life and she would die for you, if she asked you to do something you'd do it. besties for life 😌✌🏽) you pack up your mini collection of essential potion supplies and a few clothes and make your way around the universe

initially, after that tense first impression keith wanted to avoid you but he was so entranced it was v v insane of him (he's pretty sure the first time he saw you in your space suit speckled with purple to represent your roots he had a stroke, not that he'd admit it to anyone because feelings? in this economy?)

honestly if it wasn't love at first sight for you, idk what it was folks, and i say that with great reluctance bc keith has a hard time processing what he's actually feeling

but you dance around these feelings for a while, mainly because of the focus on the war came first (then y'all get to earth and everything gets good but oop you didn’t get that from me)

though things started changing the day shiro disappeared

it was definitely a day you didn't like to reminisce (you still remember the ringing in your ears and the shattering of glass when the black lion opened for you to see it empty, preparing a potion for someone who didn't even exist at the moment)

you and keith got a lot closer after that

more like keith getting angry and you deescalating the situation which causes him to break — everytime; yet your patience never thinned (though the rest of the team's patience did; y'all are so slowburn it hurts their souls)

but then you two were silently attached at the hip doing your own thing; when y'all would eat there’s this form of communication only you two knew, maybe sometimes he'd sharpen his blade as you played around with your potions, or you'd casually drop by the training deck and fight him (there may have been lingering touches and longing glances from both parties)

and honestly you thought that was gonna be the most your relationship was gonna get to

but then keith becomes the black paladin? shiro comes back? keith is distancing himself for the blade of marmora? it's all a mess and then keith pushes himself further away and decides to get yeeted into a long term mission for the blades 👎🏽

and you truly feel the weight of your mf feelings for keith in the pit of your stomach

so when he announces his leave and says his goodbyes to the team, coran and shiro shoo everyone out of the room (much to pidge and hunk's protests) and the two of you are left to confront these feelings you've danced around

and because it's not a true keith kogane fic from moi without some angst things get more complicated when you mf kiss him and you're both left to overthink what it could mean

it isn't until you're even on earth that his bestie romelle gets you two to sort out your senses (because she's tiRED of you two just get together already) and it's thanks to her that you're together

okay but you and keith are such a cute couple, there's no doubt that once you're on earth he's out here wandering the garrison teaching you about all the advanced technology

sm forehead kisses and hand brushes and pinky holding !! lance is always so disgusted by your minimal affection but he wants what you have

there isn't much action between you two now that you're in a relationship (well it's exciting but there's a literal mf war going on so your label is official but you still have to work through things) but at least the transition from friends to lovers was such a breeze

but there was this one time you two were so worried about what's to come that you weaved tiny little flowers into tiny little braids at the bottom of his head (yk like hiccup in the httyd sequel) just talking, letting some feelings out, maybe even make out a bit

and y'all didn't even know you stayed up late so when you wake up late for a meeting with everyone you two switched pilot jackets (he's wearing your purple one whilst you're wearing the red one) with his hair still tangled in a floral mess from the night before and shiro can't stop smiling because it was such a precious innocent moment in a precedented time

that's how everyone knows keith is whipped and iverson just has to get them back on track lmao

omg also guess what?? season eight doesn't exist in this timeline so allura is alive and though there's no new altea

and now that the war is over yk y'all do your respective epilogue things and you go back to running a kingdom alongside your diplomatic advisor allura

the war brought y'all sm closer even if team voltron is scattered across the galaxy

because coming together on flosferam is the way to go so everyone can disconnect from the technology and just be free (everyone is still scared of rayla and i don't blame them; maybe not allura though she probs is like in love with her, take with that what you will, but it's up to y'all if you like them lmao)

but life is nice and you guess you're grateful for rayla being rayla or else you never would have met keith the way you did :)

#keith kogane imagine #keith kogane x reader #keith x reader #keith kogane #keith kogane vld #keith kogane voltron #voltron imagine #voltron x reader #voltron imagines #voltron #voltron legendary defender #vld #vld x reader #vld imagine #princess allura #voltron coran #pidge vld #hunk garret vld #lance mcclain #takashi shirogane #romelle voltron #romelle vld #daniza's fave characters are paying rent

[uglypastels]

Slide In // Frat!Tom

(a/n) I’ve never written this au before, in like a full fic i think, so i have no idea if this is good, but i had this idea in the middle of the night and yeah. I hope you guys enjoy. this may or may not have been inspired by a certain post @duskholland made about Tom and his mirror selfies <3 how amazing that he literally just posted one today lol

word count: 16.7k

warning: drinking, mention of drug use (weed), school, social anxiety, some smexy innuendos. i made some big last minute changes, so i hope its all coherent. 

DEEPFAVE: Liking a photo (or any post) from over a year ago.

It was a cloudy morning, and it was early. Really really early. Not even the birds felt up to it, it felt like. The campus was slowly awakening or going to sleep (depending on if you had been to last night’s Delta Kappa party, of course). 

It was cold, and the leaves fell off the branches with each huff of the morning breeze. The grass was wet from the previous night’s rain, and it soaked your ankles as you ran through the small grass field, in hopes to cut a bit off the distance to your lecture hall. 

It had not been your fault that you overslept. You had gone to bed early; your backpack was already packed for the next morning. It was supposed to be a relaxing morning, perfect for easing back into it after a week of sleeping in and celebrating the holidays. How could you have expected that your roommate would barge into your dorm at 2 am, still whoo-ing her drunk ass in the corridor with other wasted idiots? 

And it wasn’t like you were against all that partying and drinking. You would have gone yourself to the frat party, but it just didn’t sit right with you. A giant house full of intoxicated strangers- the anxiety running through you just thinking about it was making you shake. 

So, instead of “living a little”, as your older brother called it, you preferred to stay in bed most evenings, either watching Netflix or reading a book. Yet, still, you had been kept awake for so long last night that you slept through your alarm. What was supposed to be a calm morning turned out to be ten minutes of rushed panic. Eventually, you had decided to skip most of your morning routine, including breakfast, brushing your hair or even putting on a decent outfit. You ran out of your dorm, clutching on to your bag, phone and keys.

Your hair was reasonably alright. It was still in the braid you had made before going to bed, but a lot of hair had fallen out during your slumber. When you looked in the mirror though, you saw that it looked decent so you let it be. Not so much could have been said for your outfit. You kept on the same shirt in which you slept in, which was a slightly oversized grey graphic tee from a random indie concert you had been to ages ago. Unfortunately, it was so cold that you couldn’t just go outside in your shorts, so had to spend a precious minute slipping into a pair of sweatpants that were actually not as bum-looking as you had feared.

Luckily, the walk (or in this situation, run) to the lecture hall was short. So, you survived with only a thick sweater over your arms. 

And so, just like that, you were running through campus. The cold air was piercing your lungs as you inhaled deeply. Each breath started with this whistling sound, as you tried to ignore that pain, and ended in an exhale of a cloud of condensation. Maybe you weren’t in the best shape, but even this horrible experience would not make you sign up for the campus gym. No way. 

You could see the lecture hall doors, the wide wooden panelling already towering over you, and you slowed down. You were trying to catch your breath and composure. As always, the doors were heavy and to add to it, the wood could not handle the temperature, so it was even harder to open them. 

“Oh, let me,” you suddenly heard behind you, almost making you jump. The voice sounded familiar, but it wouldn’t click to a particular face just yet. 

“Thanks,” you breathed out as an arm extended from behind you, clad in a leather jacket, and pushed the door open with ease. You followed the arm up with your eyes and saw how it connected to an actual person. Yes, you definitely recognised him. But what was his name again? 

T- something starting with a T. 

He smiled at you politely, nodding the gesture for you to go inside. 

“Thanks,” you said again, before finally moving. 

“No problem,” he was walking behind you but quickly caught up to your side. You saw in his hand a Starbucks coffee, which almost made your mouth water. 

“Professor Dowling’s lecture, right?” he asked, before taking a sip. Your eyes unconsciously followed the movement as the need for caffeine was growing. 

“Uh, yeah. Yeah,” you shook your head, focusing on anything but the delicious rich smell that you could sense coming from the cup—dark roast. 

“Well, good to know I won’t be the only one late,” he chuckled. Troy? Was that his name? No. He didn’t look like a Troy. 

“We’re not that late,” you checked your phone and cursed internally, “only… nine minutes.” 

“Dowling doesn’t care if it’s nine minutes or nine hours. Late is late.” He took another sip. You had to look away before your stomach realised how empty it really was. 

“True, I guess. Well, it was nice knowing you.” You sighed as you had reached the second door leading to the lecture room. Ty raised an eyebrow. No, his name was definitely not Ty. What was it?!

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, Dowling is gonna kill us, isn’t he?” You explained, and he nodded in agreement. 

He was again the one to slowly and quietly opened the door, giving you insight into the room. You almost yelled out in excitement when you saw that the lights had been somewhat dimmed for a slideshow that the professor was giving. You have Tim (nope, not Tim) a knowing look and smile. You had been saved. Then, the two of you slipped into the room, letting the doors close themself. You saw a few people turn their heads as you walked by together, searching for a seat, but you didn’t think much of it. You would have looked too if someone dared to be late for one of Dowling’s lectures. 

Finally, you found an empty seat. Two, actually. It was in the back of the class, so you hoped that once the lights would go back on, Dowling wouldn’t immediately notice the addition of two more faces. The mystery guy, as you were too tired to think of more names and decided to give up, sat down next to you. He pulled out his laptop and turned it on, quickly putting it on the lowest setting of brightness. Just before he had opened it up, you noticed a few stickers. Between a few references from tv shows and movies, you saw the logo of Delta Kappa. You only recognised it because you had been seeing the logo on almost every notice board the last few days together with the campus-wide invitation for last night’s party. 

So he was a frat boy. 

You looked up to the side at him as you pulled out your laptop and notebook. The notebook was more for doodling than anything. But also to write down some more of the essential or just entertaining parts of the lecture, since you had come to realise that writing things down by hand helped you remember better. 

Your heart stopped beating for a second as you opened your laptop, praying that no embarrassing tabs were open or, even worse, you still had Spotify playing on full blast. But you could let yourself relax when the laptop just showed you your desktop. 

Right then, you could hear your stomach growl of hunger. 

“Here,” suddenly T, as you decided to call him for the time being, slid over his coffee to your small desk. You looked up at him in confusion. He had a cap on, so there was not much you could see in the dark shadow, but you saw his sincere smile. 

You thanked him before grabbing the cup. Since it was Starbucks, you hoped to learn his name finally. But instead, in black marker, was written “Holland”. Last name. Well, that was something.

_________________________________

“Thank you,” y/n said before grabbing the drink, taking a look at the name written on it, and taking a big sip of it, although she quickly pulled it away from her lips, her face distorted in a sour expression. 

“Sorry,” Tom apologised, “my hand had slipped when I was pouring in the sugar.” 

“Yeah, I can tell,” she whispered, still a bit disgusted, but it didn’t stop her from taking another large sip. “How can you drink this stuff?” 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” Tom grinned. 

Times weren’t exactly desperate, in his case. 

The party had been a massive success. Everyone seemed to have had a great time, and this time, not even at the cost of any of the frat house furniture. Sure, some people might have thrown up in the cooking pans, but that could be easily cleaned up by one of the pledges. 

It all ended around 2 am, which was fairly early, but it was, of course, a school night. Tom remembered to drink water before going to sleep and woke up with only a mild headache. A few painkillers solved that pretty quickly. He got up, stumbled a bit over the mess around the house and was on his way to class. 

He was sure he would have made it on time if it wasn’t for his usual appetite and need for coffee. Yes, he could have made it at home, but for some reason, the coffee from that machine always tasted like piss. And Tom did not want to find out why. So, it had almost become routine for him to stop by the Starbucks that was on the way from the house to the lecture halls. 

What he had not expected was the giant line of customers inside. More people had felt the need for coffee after a wild night of partying. He recognised some girls, still wearing the same dresses they wore to the party. A few guys who looked like they were on the verge of death were sipping their drinks in the corner of the room. The two baristas were running around behind the counter, trying to make the drinks as fast as possible. As fellow students, they knew that there were a lot of people rushing to get to class, at least. 

Tom had even looked at his phone, checking the time before he decided to step into the queue. He had majorly misjudged the time it would take the baristas to make the few drinks before it was his turn to order. In the meantime, people would walk up to him, also recognising him from the party, to tell Tom what a great time they had last night. 

Finally, he got his drink and made his way over to the second station and poured in some sugar. For that extra kick of energy, but also, secretly, because he could not stand the bitterness of coffee. Then, it was really time to leave the crowd. Tom never really minded people and was definitely what you call a “social butterfly”, but there was always a limit. And the limit on a Monday morning was minimal. Even smaller, if you are still trying to get rid of a hangover. 

He had just reached the main square of campus when he saw the big clock. He was already late, so it wouldn’t do much to run. Professor Dowling did not care for excuses or how late you were, even if it was a second. So he could as well just take his time. 

Others had different ideas apparently.

Tom watched as someone ran across the grass, clutching on to their backpack. She stopped at the same door that he was heading for, so he got to have a good look first. The first thing he saw was the back of her head. Hair made up in a braid that was falling apart. A large black sweater, probably her boyfriend’s, was covering most of her frame. 

She was trying to pull open the door that had the word PUSH on them, but Tom didn’t say anything. It was early, and by the looks of her, not that he was judging, she didn’t have a great morning. 

When they had made eye contact, he recognised her from the lectures but did not think he had ever heard her name being mentioned. Professor Dowling loved interacting with the class, no matter how large, and often called out people to answer his absurd questions. She had never put her hand up to answer. Tom was sure of it; he would have remembered her name. 

It interested him to see her pull out, not only a laptop but also a notebook. Did people even use those anymore? Even the dim light he could see the words scribbled on the cover. The decorative style did kind of make it hard to miss it. 

Property of y/f/n.

So that was her name. Tom couldn’t help but smile to himself. 

Having already missed the first ten minutes, he tried his best to focus on the words of the professor, but some things just couldn’t go unnoticed. 

By the look y/n was giving his coffee cup, he could tell that she had not had any herself and the sound of her empty stomach as they sat next to each other only confirmed his suspicion. So, it only felt like the right thing to do to give her some. And the smile he got in return definitely made it worth it. 

His attention was entirely gone by that point, as he watched her open her notebook. It was filled with little drawings. Some were more distinct than others. There were the classic five-petal flowers and the single mysterious eye with no other entity attached to it—also a few little scratchy tornadoes and random filigree. Patches of just lines and different patterns filled up the corners and extended out to the middle of the pages. Tom also definitely recognised a few attempts at bringing back the Super S in there. 

But what also filled up the page were little characters. She must have drawn them during the lectures around Halloween because he recognised a little witch, stylised to the perfect amount of cuteness. There was also a cauldron of bats flying off to the side. 

Tom could have looked at it for much longer and still find some more doodles in there, but unfortunately, she flipped the page. This one was blank. She took out a pen and started to doodle mindlessly.

First, a straight line, to which she attached little ovals. Lightly, but the lines got darker, the more she went over it. Then she made some more lighter lines across it. It made him chuckle when he recognised what it finally was—a piece of wheat. The way she stopped drawing for a second, Tom thought that she had not realised what she was drawing either. It was just a random coincidence where a few lines suddenly could make up an existing object. Then she continued. 

From time to time she’d stop to make a note somewhere in the middle of the page, something that professor Dowling said that made her giggle. It was adorable to hear. 

“Now, this,” Tom could hear the professor say from his little podium, the two little words shook everybody in the room awake because those they were code for IMPORTANT. As Dowling kept on talking, y/n closed her notebook and pulled her laptop closer to type. Tom had to pull himself together to focus on the actual lecture.

Then the sound of her stomach pulled him out of that. That was followed by the whisper of an angry “fuck”. Tom looked over to y/n again. She was trying to type something out, but her shaking fingers kept pressing the wrong buttons. She was crumbling apart from hunger. 

Crumbling… 

Suddenly, Tom remembered. He leaned down to look in his bag, hoping it was still there. It was.

“Hey,” he nudged her side, making her look up at him once more, with caution. He grabbed the small pack of Oreos and slid them over to her desk. She looked perplexed. Then she pushed the, slightly flat-looking, cookies back to Tom. He frowned. 

“I thought I’m not supposed to be taking candy from strangers.” She whispered. Tom chuckled and pushed the pack of four cookies back to her. 

“Well, good it’s not candy then. Eat. I can tell you’re starving.”

Y/n looked at the Oreos, not sure whether to take them or not, but her stomach answered for her.  She opened her mouth, but then she closed it again and turned away. Tom understood it. It would have been the fourth time she would have said: “thank you”. By now, he got the message. As she opened the packet of cookies, Tom went back to listening to the lecture. 

_________________________________

You hesitated before taking the cookies. Were they some kind of prank? You knew how frat guys loved to pull jokes on everyone, even if they were no better than middle school hijinks or cheesy April fools clichés. But the silver packet, except that it looked a bit flat, seemed to be untouched. Most likely because of getting squashed by something in his backpack. 

You opened it and were immediately hit with the delicious whiff of chocolate. You took out one cookie and didn’t bother with the usual way of splitting it open to eat the filling first. You needed food. Now. Even if it were just four broken Oreo cookies. It was better than nothing.

Obviously, you were still hungry and in need of a proper breakfast, but the small snack helped you hold out for the rest of the lecture. 

But now that your stomach was sorted for, you had another problem concentrating. Your new, still unnamed, friend tended to type very loudly. At first, you looked over in a bit of annoyance, which made you actually notice his hands. There was nothing special about them. They were naturally just hands, but the way he moved his fingers across the keyboard… it made you look back in that general direction a few times more.

Probably because of all these distractions, the usual hour and 45 minutes felt much shorter. Before you knew it, professor Dowling was saying his goodbyes and everyone around you started packing up their things.

Needing to get some food ASAP, you packed up your things and practically ran out of the room. Only as you were nearing the cafeteria did you realise that you had never said goodbye to your snack provider. 

Shit.

_________________________________

“Hey, so I was thinking-” Tom was going to suggest grabbing a bite for breakfast together, being somewhat hungry himself, but when he looked up y/n had already packed her things and was on her way to the stairs, following the other students out the door. 

Tom sank back down into his seat. 

“Any problems, Mr Holland?” Tom’s head shot forward to see professor Dowling looking up at him. When he looked around, he saw he was the only one who had not started packing up. 

“No, everything’s alright, sir,” Tom said before getting up with his laptop. “Great lecture. Learned a lot... and stuff.” 

“Good, good,” Dowling said. His glasses were slipping off his nose slightly, so he pushed them back up with his middle finger. “I did not expect you to have heard anything, by the way you and miss y/n were chatting.”

The professor’s words made Tom’s cheek burn up as he pushed the laptop back into its place in his bag. That man saw everything.Suddenly he felt as if he was in middle school again.

“Try to not make it a habit.” 

“No, sir,” Tom said.

Dowling just nodded, meaning the conversation had ended and giving Tom permission to sprint out of the room. 

He wasn’t sure why he was in such a hurry. Maybe he was hoping to find y/n waiting outside the doors. He didn’t even know why he wanted to see her there. He just did. He had this urge just to watch her doodle in that notebook of hers. There was something so endearing about it. 

Alas, no one was waiting for him outside that door. Or even in the proximity of it. There was no one but groups of students making their way from and to class. 

Then, Tom realised that she must have run off to the cafeteria. Still, he decided against going there. As much as he wanted to talk to y/n again, he didn’t want to come off stalkerish. Besides, they’d have another class tomorrow. He could speak to her then. 

“Ayo! Holland!” Tom looked over to a group of people he recognised to be his friends. They were gathered around one of the large windows that was open in the hallway. He waved to them before making his way over. 

“What’s up, man? You looked like a lost puppy.” Jacob said. 

“No nothing, I just zoned out a little, I guess.” Tom shook his head, clearing it off thoughts of y/n. 

“Well, we were thinking,” his best friend and fellow Delta Kappa resident, Harrison joined in on the conversation, “There is this new bar opening next week. The… something- shit, what’s it called again?” He looked over at the rest of the group. 

“The Sterling,” it was Zendaya that answered. She was sitting on the window sill with both legs in front of her, not living much space for anyone else to sit. She had something between her fingers, and Tom could not make out if it were a regular cigarette or a joint. (The smell insinuated at nicotine, so that answered for itself.) The fact that they were on campus did not make much difference to them. She took a drag and blew the smoke out, before handing it to Harrison. 

“So, Holland, you’re in?” 

“Yeah of course.” There’s nothing like the hysteria of drinking yourself sick in some new dingy place across campus. A new one would open up every few months because its predecessor would get shut down after too many accounts of selling alcohol to minors. It had almost become a game for younger students to see how quickly they can destroy a business. Tom and Harrison had been record holders for a while. Five weeks. Tom wasn’t exactly sure how anyone could tell they were the reason for The Six-Ball to close, but it didn’t matter. (“With a name like that, they deserve to shut down,” Harrison had joked before ordering two Long Island Iced Teas.)

Now that they were of the legal drinking age, of course, maybe it wasn’t as fun to go to those shitty holes in the wall, but with the right people, they made it a party every time. 

“Nice! So-” Jacob started talking about how he thought the night had to go, but Tom was already zoned out again. Between Zendaya and Harrison, he had the perfect view of the small grass field. Some people had sat down there with their friends to enjoy the midday, but most people still considered it too cold to sit outside. But what Tom was looking at was behind the grass field. It was the cafeteria doors. He saw that large sweater again. y/n walked out, holding something that looked like a sandwich. Tom smiled to himself. 

“What are you smiling about?” He got nudged in the ribs by someone. 

“Oh, you know, the uhm-” he had no idea what the rest of his friends had been talking about to include in his lie.

“I know,” Harrison said, lounging his arm across Tom’s shoulder to point in the same direction that Tom had been looking at. Tom froze up when he pointed straight at y/n with his finger. 

“Angela Pikowski.” 

“What?” It took Tom a second, but indeed, right in front of y/n, stood Angela with her own group of friends. She laughed at something, whipping her bottle bleached blonde hair across her shoulder. He understood too, how Harrison had caught her so quickly in his vision, for she had her jacket open and her shirt was pretty tight and low cut. How did that girl not catch pneumonia or some shit? 

“You ain't slick, bro.” Harrison patted him on the back. Tom, not wanting to get into it more than he needed, just grinned awkwardly. When he looked out into the square, Angela still stood there, but y/n was gone. 

_________________________________

The campus food was never that good, but it didn’t matter. The feelings of having actual food in your body felt so good that it might as well have been a five-course meal from a three-star Michelin restaurant. While, in reality, it was just a little bacon, egg and salad sub on stale bread. 

It did not matter. 

You enjoyed your breakfast as you walked down the path, back to your dorm. After that horrendous morning, and the pretty… interesting lecture, you were ready to lock yourself up in a room and do nothing but watch Netflix. And thankfully, due to having only one morning class, you could actually do it too.  

You said your polite “Hi”s and “Hello”s as you passed some other people you recognised from other classes. A bit hopefully, you were on the lookout for your (still nameless!) friend from the lecture. You really had to figure out what his name was. 

By the time you had reached your dorm building, your sandwich was gone. A part of you was still hungry, but you ignored that. You were probably just bored anyway. 

The dorm hall was basic in every way, from the carpeted grey floor to the plainly painted walls. But the inhabitants, of course, did try to give it some life. They hung up posters and banners, flags and lights. You reached the door that was decorated with a collage of different 80s glam rock artists and walked into your room. That college had been a little bonding experience with your roommate, Marie, during the very first week of Freshman year.

When you walked in, your eyes were immediately drawn to the lump on one of the beds. A groan erupted from underneath it when you switched on the light. 

“Ruuuude,” Marie yelled out. She came out from beneath the sheets. Her hair was bigger than ever, and you could see the mascara and eyeshadow stains under her eyes, and there was still some glitter on her. 

“You know, you should take off your make-up before going to sleep,” You said as you took off your sweater. 

“You know, you should put some on before leaving the house,” she said before diving back underneath her sheets. 

“Ouch,” you both laughed. But you couldn’t help but take a look in the mirror as you passed it. Maybe you could have used some concealer under your eyes, but it wasn’t that bad. Right? 

The room the two of you lived in maybe wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either. You were definitely one of the luckier people in the building. Your room, after all, had just enough space for the two beds, desks and closets to mirror each other on each side of the room. You also went the extra way to put up some extra shelving on your side above the bed, since one closet was not enough. 

“Didn’t you have class this morning as well?” you asked as you sat down on. You could hear something coming from Marie that resembled an “Mhm”. Not in the talking mood, got it. 

So, in quiet, you pulled out your laptop and searched for something that did not look mind-numbingly dumb to watch, eventually settling for a show you had probably watched five times out of pure overwhelming of choice. After a while of moving around in your bed, you found a comfortable position at last and turned the show on, ready for a day of uninterrupted laziness. 

_________________________________

Tom got home a bit later than he had hoped. After making plans for the next night, his friends were determined to go out for lunch as well. What he thought would be just a quick grab-and-go, turned out to be a full two-hour lunch where they talked about anything and nothing. 

He loved the company of people, but not on Mondays. Mondays were his day to do nothing except for going to class, and Tom felt like he had already done too much. 

When he did get back, people were still busy cleaning the aftermath of the party. It had gone a bit wilder than Tom remembered. Some jackass had decided to spray paint one of the upstairs hallways, and the colour was not easy to get off. Luckily, it had become almost a custom for all the house members to lock their doors during a party. For privacy sake firstly, but like anything at Delta Kappa, it turned a bit into a game. 

The first two unlock their door, either if the person was too tired to stay at the party or wanted to bring a guest into their room, was obliged to do something horrible. It was up to the rest of the house to decide what. Fortunately for Tom, he had not been the first to unlock his door that night. That luck fell on poor Billy.

Even if it came to be so, the rule didn’t make sense because no one could check who the first one was to open their door and even if- it was not an official Delta Kappa rule. That meant that, even if the person got caught to be the first, they could simply deny the dare. They would be known as Head Chicken, of course, but there were worse things in life. 

Tom moved up the stairs, saying hi to a few of his roommates, feeling very lucky as one of the senior members of the house, he did not have cleaning duty. Most of that was up to the pledges anyway. 

He remembered when he had to do all those tasks and shit to get into the house. It was so stupid; he didn’t even understand why he chose to be in a fraternity, in the first place. 

He did think the other guys had gone a bit softer on himself and Harrison since at the beginning of it all, they had been chosen by the sorority of Alpha Zeta Zeta as the favourites. Still, some unspeakable things had been done that year. 

But now that he lived in a giant house with some of his best friends, it all felt like it was a bit worth it. He had a great time at Delta Kappa. 

One of the best pros, by far, was that he had his own bedroom. Spacious for everything he needed plus a bit more. A large, unmade, bed waited for him when he opened the door. That, and the happy barks of Tessa. 

“Hello, darling,” he bent down to pet her as she jumped to his knees. Tessa was the official mascot of the fraternity, but she had very early on found a great liking to Tom. It only took her a few days to get settled in his room, and from then on, she wouldn’t sleep anywhere else. 

Tom moved up to his bed, and Tessa gladly joined him. She patted down a circle before lying down with her head on his chest, letting out a satisfied huff of air. Even if he wasn’t comfortable, Tom had no way out anymore. He was stuck. With nothing else to do, he took out his phone and went through his notifications.

Some texts from Harrison and Jacob, a missed call from that girl he made the mistake of giving her his number. People were getting Wi-fi again because he got at least twenty different Snapchat pictures and videos from the party. 

What else there was plenty of, were Instagram mentions and tags. He went through the photos, smiling. It really had been a great party. Then, something popped up in his mind. 

Property of: y/f/n 

y/f/n

Could it be that easy? He could just search for her and hope to find her account. He typed it in. Her first name was already enough to get plenty of results. As always the profile pictures were too small to really make out a true identity, so he made his way through the accounts. 

He only needed three tries, though. The picture already resembled her, so with hope, he clicked on the account. 

This account is private. Follow this account to see their photos and videos. 

Tom sighed. Not so easy after all. Then he saw the bio. It was a bit vague, just a few random emojis. But what interested him was the Followed by and the fifteen mutual followers that she had. It couldn’t be anyone else. 

For some unknown reason, his heart was beating in his throat as he clicked on the blue Follow button and watched it turn grey. Now it was just a matter of waiting until his request got accepted. Or maybe denied. Who knows. 

_________________________________

Watching a show for the fifth time got a bit boring. You could still laugh at the jokes, but at the same time, you could also almost flawlessly quote it as the scene went along. So, a few episodes in you took out your phone and started scrolling through various app feeds.

Marie had fallen back to sleep since you could hear her snore in her bed. And you were falling asleep slowly too. It was so warm in your room, and your bed was so soft and comfortable. Your eyes were getting heavier by the second. 

Then a notification popped up, brightening up the screen in your hand. Half-awake, you tried to read it. 

(your account): Tom Holland (@tomholland2013) has requested to follow you. 

Tom? Your mind took a moment to process. Then the face finally clicked to the name. Tom! His name was Tom! 

Without much further thought you accepted the request and before you even put your phone down, you fell asleep. 

_________________________________

Not to sound desperate, Tom waited for a good half hour before rechecking his phone. He clicked on the Instagram app and the search icon. Her account was still the last one from the recent searches he made. Tom clicked on the account and, to his unexplained surprise, he was greeted with a gallery of pictures. 

He had noticed earlier that the count on top of the page said 53 Posts. Interested, he clicked on the first one. It was a picture of a coffee cup. It wasn’t tagged, but Tom recognised it to be from that café Le Moulin. He saw the distinctive black windmill on the napkin that could not be missed. 

He scrolled down. 

It was a selfie from last summer. The filter slightly enhanced her bright smile on the picture, but Tom could tell it was more to show off the warm atmosphere of her holiday destination. The next photo was from the same holiday, he assumed, of her and a group of friends. He recognised the girls from campus. When he tapped the picture for the tags, he saw their names. @tiffani.btx @bonne_marie @lucywithnodiamonds 

He thought to have spotted that Marie chick at the party. She was French if he remembered correctly. She was definitely a wild one. Might have even grinded up against him during one of the better songs that were played. 

There were some more selfies, solo and with friends, sunsets and landscapes. The picture quality got worse as he scrolled down. It matched with the timeline. People should not be keeping up their pictures from seven years ago, especially not with all those fucked up filters they used back then. Tom was, of course, one of those people. 

He scrolled to the last picture; it was of a dog—one of the cutest little labrador puppies. 

Out of nowhere, Tessa barked in her sleep, making Tom jump up. This sudden movement, in its turn, woke the dog up completely. Tessa kept barking. 

“Right, I think it’s time for a walk, what do you think?” He patted Tessa on the head as she tried to lick his arm. Tom got up and was about to leave his room when he realised he almost forgot his phone. The screen hadn’t turned off yet, so he looked at the puppy again. But something was off this time. Something had changed. 

The little blank heart under the image- it was now pink. 

He accidentally liked her oldest picture. 

_________________________________

There were two types of naps. Those that made you feel amazing and refreshed by the time you got up. And those that made you feel like you had fallen asleep on a bed of rocks. You felt even worse than before when you woke up. Your head was throbbing, and your bra had pushed itself into every possible part of your chest, making it that much more uncomfortable. 

“What time is it?” you asked Marie, but she was still asleep. 

The light of your phone almost blinded you, so you quickly put down the brightness. It was around four o’clock. Meaning you had slept for a good three hours. 

Besides the time, you checked your notifications. There were not a lot of them. A few spam emails, a few texts in a group chat you never responded too and… a like on Instagram? 

tomholland2013 liked your photo. 1 h 

You had to think back to the moment before your nap to remember that he had in fact requested to follow you. And you had accepted it. 

You clicked on the notification, and it sent you to the liked picture. To your surprise, it was the picture of your family dog, Spot. Your family had picked the name even though he was a completely yellow labrador, loving the irony. 

It was your first-ever picture, from over seven years ago. Had he been stalking your account? Why the fuck would he do that? 

Well, you thought, it was only fair if I do it too. So, through the like, you made your way over to his account. 

First thing you noticed was the number of followers he had. 15.7k How the fuck do people even get those numbers? Well, it’s easier if you’re a hot frat guy, of course. 

His profile picture was a mirror selfie, and clearly, it was his favourite composition, for at least five out of the first nine pictures in the gallery were the same style. All full-body reflections, with him holding the phone in his right hand, leaning his head a bit to look at the screen as he took the picture. His lips weren’t exactly in a smirk, but there was that cockiness in there. He really was feeling it, that was obvious. 

The first picture was a classic mirror pose- A black jacket and a black hat: the same outfit he had been wearing in class. You looked at the timestamp and saw that he only posted it an hour ago. Already it had dozens of comments and a low thousand amount of likes.

You scrolled down. A denim jacket and beanie in the mirror; a grey t-shirt and sweats in the mirror; a black suit in the mirror, the list could go on. There were other pictures, mostly from the frat house parties and other events where alcohol played a significant role. There were also the occasional front camera selfies. 

You couldn’t help but look at those a little bit longer. There was something about that small tight smile that he made that was so cute. In one of the more saturated pictures, with a deeper shadow, you noticed that his nose actually had a little bump in it, most likely from breaking it in the past. 

But just from likes alone, you could tell that the mirror was a public favourite. 

There was something about the confidence that the pictures portrayed that spoke to you.. He knew he looked good, and no one could deny it. Except, he looked so much better than good. 

It was interesting to be scrolling down his posts because it was like a trip back in time. At first, it didn’t wasn’t that obvious, just maybe a change in temperature during the year that was referenced through his clothing. Then it showed a bit more as his hair started to get shorter by each picture taken. It got shorter and shorter until his hair was not much more than a buzz. The reason for the drastic hair change was explained in the next picture. 

You had already scrolled down four years worth of pictures, and this one was of him (taken by someone else). Tom was standing in a victory stance on a grass field, which you recognised to be the campus square. He was only wearing boxer shorts and on his chest was painted, in bright blue paint, 𝜟K. Underneath the post, read the caption: Delta Kappa babyyy! with a bunch of other hashtags. One that was included was #deltakappapledge #initiated. Of course, it was during his pledge period. 

You kind of hoped that he had to do more than just shave off his hair because he didn’t even look half that bad. It even suited him actually. Hoping to find some more evidence of that embarrassing period, you scrolled on. 

The sound that came out of your mouth as you scrolled to the next picture was inhumane. Keeping to tradition, it was a mirror selfie. Behind him seemed to be some workout equipment, possibly from the campus gym, but no one would look at that. Everyone would be too focused on what was in the foreground. 

It was Tom standing in front of a mirror, chest glistening with sweat as his hair draped in front of his eyes. Instead of the usual pose, he stood sideways, showing off not only his flexed bicep as he took the picture, but also the outline of all his other muscles.

Completely forgetting what you were doing, you double-tapped the post. How could you not? Only a second later, did your monkey brain realise what you had done. You had made that exact same mistake as Tom. Except while he had liked a picture of a cute dog, you had made your mark on a shirtless selfie.

As the pure humiliation flooded over you, you threw your phone to the other end of the bed with a squeak. 

What’s done was done. 

_________________________________

Tom came back from the walk with Tessa after an hour. They both enjoyed a long walk around the park neighbouring the campus, just to then pretend like they were too exhausted and lay in bed the rest of the day. Well, Tom pretended. Tessa seemed legitimately tired. 

They went back to their position on the bed. Not sure what else to do, Tom got back to Instagram. There was no reaction to his accidental like yet. Not even a follow back from y/n. A bit rude but okay, maybe she hadn’t seen it yet? 

He shook his head. He didn’t like this weird side of him. Where had it even come from? Since when did he wait for anyone to respond to him? And they weren’t even having a conversation! 

Having nothing else to do, he searched through his phone gallery for a good picture to post. He chose one he had taken during lunch, on his way from the bathroom. It was still crazy that his friends wanted to go to a place where you needed to take an elevator to go to the toilet. 

He didn’t care for editing, so he went through the usual Instagram process of making a post, thought of some dumb caption and send it out into the internet. Soon enough, as if they had a notification on for his activities, the likes streamed in.  For the first few minutes, he tried to look through them, again hoping that y/n would be one of the likes or the heart eyes emojis in the comments, but quickly it became too much, and Tom couldn’t keep up. He still enjoyed reading the comments.

Of course, it was all one big ego boost. The praise and compliments, even if it was for something as shallow as his looks, definitely gave him a good kick of dopamine and all those other happy chemicals during the day. 

Tessa was snoring and drooling on his belly as Tom went through his timeline and explore page. There was not much exciting happening in peoples’ lives, but it made the time flow by faster. An hour had gone by probably when he decided to recheck his activities. His new picture already had a few thousand likes and was close to reaching a hundred comments.  He went through some of them and either liked them or responded with a matching emoji. 

But as he scrolled through the activity, he saw a like that was to a different picture. A rather old one too, just from the beginning of college. And who might have liked this picture? y/n 

She liked a workout selfie, huh?

With the confidence that the like gave him, Tom clicked on her account and the message button. He thought about what to send for a moment but decided against overthinking it and went with a simple- 

_________________________________

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: Hi 

You looked at the notification for a while. He definitely saw you had liked his old picture. Was he going to make fun of you? Tease you how you had outed yourself for thirsting over him? 

But maybe he just wants to talk? You tried to sound optimistic to yourself. After all, he did like an old picture of yours too. You were kind of in the same boat.   

Putting all worries aside, you clicked on that damn nerve-wracking notification, and without much more thought send out the reply. 

(y/n)

Hey :) 

Before you could even send out the smiley, the message rose to reveal “SEEN” beneath it. Was this happening? Was it? You could see he was typing. 

(tomholland2013)

After stalking me you could have at least followed me back lol 

(y/n)

Right sorry just a lot of mirror selfies. Thought i’d seen everything there is to see 😂

(tomholland2013)

Rude Seen anything you like though? ;)

Uhhh, of course, you have. You liked it. A lot. But you weren’t going to give him that satisfaction. 

(y/n) 

No not really 

Quickly change the subject. 

So what are you up to? 

Good enough subject? 

(tomholland2013) 

Just lying in bed with Tess

Tess? Who was Tess? Did he have a girlfriend? If he did, he would have posted something on his Instagram, right? That’s what couples did? Unless it was just a one time fling. You couldn’t even call it a one-night stand since it wasn’t even night. 

Wait, why did you even care about that? You had literally only said hello to each other and shared a coffee during class. 

But the curiosity was gnawing at you.

(y/n) 

Tess? 

(tomholland2013)

Yeah, she’s falling asleep on my chest. Kinda tired her out lol

You looked at the text, unsure how to respond, or even if to do it. Was he telling you about his hookup?  It didn’t sound like the nice guy you had met in front of the lecture hall, and that gave you his leftover coffee and Oreos. Your face wrenched into a grimace, not sure anymore what to make of this conversation or of what had happened during class.

He was typing again. 

Wanna see? 

Jesus Christ, this was a mistake. You didn’t respond, but he still sent you a picture anyway. It was a timer, unfortunately, meaning you had to click on it to see what he had sent. But he could see you got the message and that you were online. The longer you took, the more prominent you would make it that something was wrong, and you didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He had given you his coffee. 

The curiosity got the better of you once again, though, and you clicked on the little bomb. What popped up was almost what you expected- but at the same time, so not. Before your brain properly processed what you were looking at, you were scared that he had sent you an unsolicited dick pic, but it was the furthest thing from that. 

What you saw was a POV shot of his chest and legs. He was indeed lying on his bed. On his chest, however, was the head of a grey silver dog. “Tess” had her eyes closed peacefully as she slept on. 

Of course, it was a dog. 

You decided to be honest. For the benefit of the conversation, if anything. 

(y/n) 

Omg 💀 

(tomholland2013)

We just came back from a long walk, so she’s pretty knackered  What?  Did you think I meant something else? 

Embarrassment kicked in anyway. 

(y/n) 

No... lol 

(tomholland2013)

You sooo did lmao Jealous much ;)

(y/n) 

Of the dog maybe

(tomholland2013) 

Cause she gets to be here with me? 

(y/n)

No I meant it like  She’s so cute  I want one

(tomholland2013)

Relax  I was just messing with you  But if you ever wanna come over

(y/n) 

Maybe another time 

The response came out in a panic. Had he invited you for what you thought he did? No, there was no way he did. Besides, you couldn’t go to his house. You barely knew the guy- your mind kept on whirring about it. But the conversation continued.

Soon the sun had gone down, and it got dark outside, but the messages kept coming in. At one point Marie finally woke up from her hangover slumber. Drowsily she got up and headed for the shower with a towel and toiletries bag in her hand. Before she left, though. She asked you if you could prepare something to eat for dinner since she was starving. You being you, agreed.

(y/n)

Hey, I think I gotta go for a bit. Gotta make dinner for my roommate

(tomholland2013) 

What’s on the menu? 

(y/n) 

Probably spicy ramen? 

(tomholland2013) 

Damn. sounds good But can’t she make it herself? 

_________________________________

A part of Tom wanted to send another message. I want to keep talking to you. But that felt like a bit much. She was typing again anyway. 

(y/n) 

Because she’s still hungover from your party lol Thank for that btw 

(tomholland2013) 

You make it sound like i am personally responsible 

(y/n) 

Well your the only guy from DK i know so  you’re**  💀fml. There go my chances of an english degree 

(tomholland2013) 

Nah babe YOU’RE good ;)

 _________________________________

Your heart fluttered at the little word, for no reason. It was just a text message. He probably called every girl he texted that. Still, the sentiment was there. Also that winky face of his. Could he stop? 

He started to type again. 

(tomholland2013) 

But if you ever wanna meet the other guys, you really are welcome to come over. 

(y/n) 

I’m good thanks. 

Going to a frat house alone? You felt like that could easily be the start of your personal horror movie. It would absolutely crash at the box office, but that didn’t matter. And it was the second time he invited you to come over. If it was a hint, it wasn’t a subtle one. It didn’t stop you from doubting it.

(tomholland2013)

No need to be scared. They’re pretty chill dudes. 

It was cute how he could read your mind because you were undoubtedly scared, but what he probably did not think was that you weren’t interested in meeting any other frat guy because there was only one on your mind at the moment. 

(y/n) 

Maybe another time  ttyl? 

You had sent the last message in the hopes that he had as much fun talking to you as you did with him. You watched eagerly as the three dots danced around on the screen while he typed out his answer. 

(tomholland2013)

 Absolutely

_________________________________

Tom turned his phone off with a smile covering his face. He had just spent talking a good two hours to y/n, and he had to admit, he hadn’t had that pleasant of a conversation with anyone in a long time. It was just so easy to talk to her. It might be partly because it was only texts. But still, she was funny, sweet, and so pretty...

Unbeknown to himself, he was falling a little bit for y/n. Although, maybe he did feel it coming. The idea of getting another text from her made his face heat up. The idea of seeing her in class the next day almost made him… giddy. And it’s only been a day. 

“Hey, man,” there came a knock on his door. “Better hide anything that would make it awkward between us cause I’m coming inside in 3-2-1-” 

“‘S all good,” Tom said right as Harrison walked through the door. 

“We’re gonna order pizza, what do you want?”

“Just the usual, I guess,’ Tom shrugged. Honestly, he didn’t really feel like eating pizza but to be the only one that wasn’t having any wasn’t a good strategy either. 

“Alright, then.” As quickly as he walked in, Harrison was also leaving the room. But he peeked his head through the door once more before actually walking away. 

“Hey, are you sure you’re good?” Harrison looked at him through narrow eyes.

“Yeah,” Tom answered as he prodded himself to sit up. “Why?” 

“I don’t know… Nevermind.” And with that, Harrison left to share Tom’s order. 

It was a rare occasion that all the house members would be at home on a night that wasn’t reserved for a party. That night, when it came to dinner, it was around 8 of them. Everyone was already sitting on the couches when Tom came downstairs to grab his pizza. He grabbed a chair and his box and sat down. A football game was playing on tv, and it made Tom roll his eyes. He still had no real idea of how football was supposed to work. He always preferred golf or basketball, or even baseball. 

The guys cheered at a touchdown or whatever but all Tom could focus on was his phone. He kept checking if there were any notifications from y/n. So far, there was nothing. She was probably busy, he told himself, not wanting to feel too disappointed. 

 _________________________________

“So who were you texting back then?” Marie said as she slurped on her noodles. You were playing around with your own portion a bit, not really in the eating mindset.

“Huh? No one.” you shook your head.  

“So it is someone. C’mon. Who is it?” She extended her leg to poke yours. She kept going until you finally gave in. 

“Just this guy from Dowling’s class.” you finally took a bite of ramen. 

“Aaand does this guy have a name?” Marie kept on asking. 

You looked up from your cup of noodles. “Tom… Holland.” 

Marie gasped, almost dropping her food onto her lap. “Tom Holland? As in Delta Kappa Tom Holland?’ you nodded your head yes. “No fucking way.” 

“What?” Not the most nuanced reaction, but it would do. 

“No way you have a crush on Tom fucking Holland.” You always noticed that when Marie cursed her French accent would show up again. Just the slightest bit. This time, however, what you stayed on was her statement. 

“I do not!” you said as your cheeks were heating up. 

“Ohhh, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said ‘nobody’. Everybody knows that ‘nobody’ is code for either crush, boyfriend, or drug dealer. And I think we can exclude the last option.” you were going to protest, but you would have only been fooling yourself. 

“So, hypothetically, let’s say I do have a crush on him. Why did you scream out ‘No way’?” You bit your lip, a bit scared for an answer. 

“No, no, no. I didn’t mean it like that.” Marie put down her ramen on her desk and came to sit down next to you on your bed. “I didn’t mean that you, like, don’t have a chance with him. Please, if anything, you’re too good for him.’ you both chuckled. “I just didn’t think he’d be your type.” 

“What, hot?” You raised an eyebrow to which she slapped your shoulder. 

“You’re being difficult. I mean, so… out there. You know, he’s basically the leader of that frat house, he always parties, always has stuff to go to. And you’re… well, pretty much the exact opposite. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Completely not. I just don’t want you to put yourself in any positions that you’re uncomfortable with to impress him or anything. Remember, you are too good for him.” 

“Thanks.” you hugged her from the side. “But don’t you think that it would be good for me to go out once in a while? Out of my comfort zone?”

“Sure, if you’re actually doing it for you. Not some guy.” 

“He is really nice, you know.” you smiled, remembering what had happened that morning. You went on telling Marie about it. 

“Oh, so he’s got a crush on you too, huh? That works out perfectly. ” She finally said when you were done telling your story. You looked at her with wide eyes. 

“What? Noooo,” you said, letting an awkward laugh escape through the no. 

“Fine, whatever,” Marie moved back to her own bed and grabbed her cup of ramen. “But I bet you that if you check your phone now, you’ll have at least one message from him.” 

You rolled your eyes again but grabbed your phone either way. And, fair enough, you had two notifications from ten minutes ago. 

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: Heyy

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: I hope the ramens good

Holding in your smile, and ignoring the smart ass comments of Marie, you replied quickly. 

(y/n)

It was :)

_________________________________ 

The speed at which Tom checked his phone when he felt the vibration in his pocket could have caused someone severe whiplash. He responded to the text and got up. Ultimately, he had hoped that he could slip out the room unnoticed, but he never got what he wanted, did he? 

“Where are you going?” It was Dave that saw him get up. Tom stopped in his tracks like a little kid that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 

“Just up to my room. Feelin’ a bit tired.’ He explained. This answer received several strange and confused looks, but Tom ignored those and just walked upstairs without saying another word. He plopped down onto his bed. Tessa was still downstairs under the table chewing on some pizza crusts, so he was finally alone. 

The texting continued through the whole night, and Tom had wholly lost the sense of time. He didn’t even feel tired. If it wasn’t for y/n saying that she was about to fall asleep, he wouldn’t at least. Like that, the windshield crashed, and he felt the fatigue from the hours of messaging and staring at a screen overwhelm him. He just about managed to send out goodnight before his eyelids were too heavy to open up again. 

_________________________________

The next morning you woke up feeling much better than either time the day before. Fresh and energised, with plenty of time to get ready before class started. Not that you really put much effort into how you looked for the morning lectures. It was more mental preparation. With enough time to eat breakfast, shower and brush your teeth, you felt excellent walking out the door. Dressed in a sweater that was warmer than two jackets and some loose jeans. With your bag over your shoulder. 

You always thought the walk from your dorm to the lecture halls was delightful. The path leading toward it was enveloped in a tunnel of trees, and during the end of the year, when the leaves were turning into their auburn and golden shades, it almost felt warmer than in summer. Because the harsh wind still kept up with its schedule. It blew in your face as you walked, rubbing against your cheeks. 

When you got there, the lecture hall was still relatively empty. Only a few other people had taken their seats. This was the crucial moment of choosing your seat. Against all your own instincts, you walked down to the bottom of the auditorium, into the fourth row. You had never sat that closer to professor Dowling’s podium, too scared you would be too easy to notice and called to answer a question. But something in you told you to be brave. 

Besides, you had the idea that Tom wasn’t eager to sit there either.

As much as those butterflies in your stomach fluttered at his mention, you didn’t want to talk to him now, not during class. You needed to pass this class badly and to do that, you needed to focus. Something you could not do with him sitting next to you. 

That’s what you told yourself. It was, of course, true, but the bigger problem was that you were scared. Tom sounded like a nice guy, a very good looking nice guy, but Marie’s words played in your head. He was from a completely different world. And it was a scary one. Why not keep a bit of a safe distance at first?

So, you kept your head buried in your notebook as people started to stream into the room. One by one, the seats around you were getting occupied—none of them by Tom, for better or for worse. 

_________________________________

It had taken Tom a while to find y/n. He walked into the room, thinking he had come in with plenty of time to spare, but as he was making his way down the steps, the professor was already making his way to the podium. Tom tried to look around the room as quickly as he could, but he could not see her. Where was she? 

Professor Dowling coughed loudly, indicating for everyone to shut up and sit down, so he could start the lecture. Tom took the first empty seat he saw. An aisle seat somewhere around the 8th row. The course started, but Tom’s eyes stayed on the seats, looking for that braid. 

It wasn’t a brilliant plan, because he had no idea if she had actually kept that braid in for another day. And she had not, in fact. He noticed her, sitting somewhere at the bottom of the class, as she grabbed her hair and was pulling it up into a bun. She did it so quickly, so smoothly, without ever letting her attention get away from her. Focused on the class. He could really learn something from her. 

And he tried to take a page from her book as he finally looked ahead of him to see Dowling write an entire essay on the blackboard. He cursed himself and quickly started to type everything over. His fingers went in fully automatic mode, and he had no more idea what the words he was typing actually meant. 

His mind had wandered off once again. He couldn’t stop feeling that disappointing pull at his heartstrings. He had hoped they could have had a repeat of yesterday. She apparently thought differently. Or maybe she had hoped he would sit next to her, but he was just too slow? 

The lecture went on forever, felt like. Tom’s fingers were cramping up from typing so much, and he could feel his back beginning to hurt in the uncomfortable chair. He kept stealing quick glances at y/n, hoping to catch her in doing the same, but she had not moved once. 

He had to get a grip. They had known each other for one day, spoken maybe ten sentences to each other in person. The rest was all through text. And nothing was the same via messages. Maybe all his feelings were coming from the entirely wrong place? Perhaps she was just polite, and he had misinterpreted it for casual flirting? Besides, there was that sweater of hers yesterday- what if she had a boyfriend? 

But a part of him still wanted to ignore all those signs and go for it. So, when the bell rang, and professor Dowling finally dismissed the class, Tom made sure he was one of the first ones outside. The large hall had two exits, so he stood against a wall, somewhere in the middle between both doors, hoping to catch y/n as she was walking out. 

The loud rumbling of thunder caught his attention momentarily. 

It was just a second, he swore to himself. But the second was enough to miss her. Somehow she had escaped him, nowhere to be found.

_________________________________

You had seen Tom waiting out in front of the room, and you felt horrible for walking the exact opposite direction. For the sake of your own feelings, you didn’t look back at any point on your way to your second lecture. 

As Professor Phillips spoke, you felt your phone vibrate. 

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: where are you? :) 

The little smiley made heat up in the cheeks, but you tried to ignore that as you typed out a response. You didn’t even click the notification to go to the app, just responded through the shortcut. 

(y/n): had another class

Another notification popped up not long after. 

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: wanna meet up later? 

(y/n): ngl I don’t feel well, will probably head back home right after

(y/n): but i’d love to chat

You shut off your phone, too scared to see the reply. Maybe it wasn’t the best move since you could not think about anything else for the remainder of the class. When you checked your phone again on your way back to the dorms your heart was lifted. 

(tomholland2013): Tom Holland: of course. hope you feel better <3

_________________________________

Tom tried to think that she wasn’t avoiding him. After all, they texted almost every possible second that they had the time for the past week

They had talked about pretty much anything and everything. And it felt great. The way they spoke to each other, or at least Tom to her, was as if they had known each other for ages. 

Tom only wished he could do that with her from across a table, or a on a bench. Where ever, he didn’t care. He wanted to be able to look into her eyes as they talked and see her smile. Hear that lol and not just imagine it. 

Unfortunately, y/n was kind of giving him the cold shoulder in the real life. She ignored him during classes, and was gone before he could get the chance to talk to her. Whenever he asked if they could meet, she’d give him some reason she couldn’t. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had actually already met in real life, he had vary valid reasons to think he was being catfished. 

Another reason could have been that she sounded too perfect.

It was the next Tuesday already, and Tom was waiting eagerly for the lecture to end. It had been a full week and he had decided, while copying some of Dowling’s notes, that he would talk to y/n today. After class. 

Tomorrow would be the opening of the Sterling and he wanted to ask her if she wanted to come.Or at least to know if she wanted to hang out ever. If the truth came to be no, he would be fine with that. He respected that. He just needed to know. It wouldn’t take away from the fact how great it was to have someone to talk to, even if it was only through text bubbles.

The bell rang and Tom sprinted out. He kept his eyes on both doors as best as possible and finally saw her. 

_________________________________

“Hey, y/n!” you heard your name being called from behind you. It was from Tom. He waved to you so would come over. Taking a deep breath, you decided to wave back, but your legs were frozen in place.

You felt absolutely terrible for ignoring him and denying his various invitations to hang out or to go anywhere, but it was just too terrifying. You were scared of fucking it up. Of it to turn out to be one big joke. You had heard of frat guys using dates and hookups as dares and shit. You didn’t want that. You couldn’t let that happen.

But when you saw Tom smile at you, those worries suddenly disappeared and your legs moved without connecting to your brain. Suddenly, you found your spot next to him.

He had been leaning against the wall with one foot, his arms crossed. You decided to lean against it with your shoulder. Even though you had your sweater, you could feel the grizzly texture of the bare red brick. He smiled and mirrored your movement, so you were only a few inches apart. ,

“Hey,” he said, still with the smile on his face. 

“Hey,” you replied. 

Tom uncrossed his arms to brush his fingers through his hair. As you watched him do so, you couldn’t help imagine how it would feel to play with his hair. It looked so soft. 

“I just wanted to say,” he licked his lips. You were so close to each other that you could see how pink and chapped they were. Focus. “How much fun I had the past week. It’s bee really great talking to you.” 

“I had fun too,” you said. It really was nice talking to Tom. Especially now, standing so close to him, you could smell the coffee he had consumed that morning. Was it pumpkin spice? You felt stupid for not letting it happen sooner.

“Great, that’s- that’s really great to hear. I said great already, didn’t I?” He laughed, shaking his head, “Anyway, I was thinking: a couple of friends of mine are going to the opening of this new bar, the Sterling, it’s probably going to be a bit boring, but I thought, maybe you’d like to come? With me?” He looked at you with those big brown eyes. Your mind started racing a million miles an hour at his words. The fuzzy warm feeling that you got from looking at his smile was dispersing and setting in for anxiety.

He wanted you to go to a bar with him and his friends? Would that be considered a date? For the sake of your dignity, you decided against asking for clarification. It didn’t matter. You couldn’t go to some dingy bar with strangers, even if one of them was Tom. You could already feel your body heating up in anxiety as all the horrible scenarios played out in your head. 

You realised you had been quiet for a while and Tom was still looking at you hopefully. 

“No,” you blurted out. “I mean, I can’t. Sorry.” 

“Oh, that’s fine. Totally. Maybe another time? Or if you don’t wanna go there, we could go somewhere else?” 

“Uhh,” you couldn’t breath. All his suggestions were so sweet, but it felt too overwhelming to answer. Thankfully, the clock tower at the other end of campus rang and indicated the quarter of an hour. Your next class would soon start, and it was about a five-minute walk to get to. 

“I have to go.” you pointed back and started walking, but Tom grabbed your hand gently, just enough by your fingertips. 

“Sorry, I just- if you don’t want to hang out with me, that’s totally fine. You don’t have to pretend to like me, no hurt feelings. I don’t want you to-” 

“I do, Tom,” you told him with a compassionate smile. Then you looked back at the clock. “But I really got to go.” 

“Right, sorry.” he let go of your hand, and you ran off to your next course. 

 _________________________________

“Who was that?” 

As soon as y/n ran off, Tom heard the voice coming from next to him. Zendaya popped up out of nowhere, an unlit cigarette hanging between her lips as she leaned in the same spot y/n had. 

“Just a friend,” Tom shrugged. That’s what they were, after all. If even. He hoped he could describe someone he had mainly only spoken through texts with as a friend. 

“You sure about that?” Zendaya smirked. “Cause by the looks of it, she’s got you pretty hooked. You were basically begging her to go out with you, bro.” 

“Yeah, well, forcefulness isn’t exactly an aphrodisiac, is it?” he sighed then almost turned pale at the words he had said. Zendaya didn’t say anything, just nodded and took out her glittery lighter. 

“Could you not?” Tom pulled the cigarette out of her mouth before she could light it and put it in his pocket. “We’re inside, for fucks sake.” 

“Fine, but tell me who this friend of yours is.” She nodded her head back into the direction that y/n ran in. 

“I don’t really know. I mean I do, but- Basically we met last week before class. Then I found her on Instagram and DM’d her-” 

“You slid into her DMs? Bro,” she laughed. 

“Call it what you want, it was the only way of reaching her I had.” 

“Fine, so you like her, yeah?” 

“I guess.” Tom didn’t like sharing his feelings. It put him in this vulnerable position that he was not used to. Zendaya knew that, yet still she pushed him to do it almost every time they talked. 

“For what it’s worth, I think she likes you too,” she said. 

“How so?” he questioned hesitantly. It wouldn’t have been the first time that Zendaya had pulled that trick on him to date someone. And it had not ended well. 

“Well, body language for one, she felt comfortable enough around you to stand close to you, facing you; she smiled at your rants which, props to her, is hard to do.” 

“How long had you been watching us, exactly?” Tom asked a bit freaked out. Zendaya ignored the question.

“Believe me, she likes you. She’s just scared.” she pulled out another cigarette from her pocket, “also, taking a girl to a shithole like the Sterling for your first date? I’m glad she said no. Set some standards, man.” And with that lovely comment, she walked away. She didn’t have to see Tom flipping her off, she knew he would do it, and she replied lovingly in the same way. 

That’s what you got for being friends with psychology majors. 

 _________________________________

The first thing you did after walking out of your second class was to check your phone if you had received any messages from Tom. There was nothing. So you decided to message him yourself. 

(your account) 

Hey  Sorry I ran away like that  And basically anytime after class and making those dumb excuses not to meet up Just so you know I do really wanna hang out with you I’m just not really great with crowds or with places like bars and stuff And ive also never really been asked to go anywhere with anyone, like personally  Idk why im telling you this. I’m definitely rambling Texting is definitely easier than talking huh Sorry for all this 

It took Tom two minutes to see your messages and to respond.

(tomholland2013)

It’s totally okay. I get it And sorry if i made you uncomfortable with all that.  Can i come to your place tonight? Or how about we go to Le Moulin?

Le Moulin. You had been there before. You could do that. With trembling fingers of excitement, you replied

(your account) 

Deal. Around 7?

(tomholland2013)

Sounds perfect. See u then 

 _________________________________

Tommo: Hey guys, sorry but im gonna have to skip on tonight 

This short message was seen and very much not appreciated by his friends. None of the replies could be seen as appropriate for day-time television. Except for the one Zendaya had sent him through their personal chat. It was simple, 

Z: 👍

With the entire afternoon off, Tom made sure he looked somewhat decent for the night. He took a shower. Washed his hair and made sure it was extra soft. He wasn’t sure what y/n thought of it, but from past experiences, he knew that usually, girls loved his hair. Thinking about other girls was probably not the best mindset, though. Still, his hair did look really good. He brushed his fingers through it. 

It had not yet stopped raining, which was a bit of a problem, but he hoped she wouldn’t mind getting a bit wet. For the sake of it, he took an umbrella with him. Luckily it wasn’t very windy, so it actually came to good use. The walk from the frat house to the dorm that y/n said she lived in wasn’t too far away, and fortunately on the way to the place he had in mind to take her to. 

On his way over, he thought about what Zendaya had told him. 

Was y/n scared? Of what? 

They had talked about that kind of stuff briefly, during the weekend, and she and said that she suffered from anxiety. Tom just thought it was stuff like giving a presentation in class. He hadn’t even thought about the more social aspect of it. And here he was pushing all those things at her like going to some bar with strangers. Jesus, why did he have to be such a dumbass? 

The dorm complex had a buzzer system like a regular apartment complex, so he searched for her name on the long list, and pressed the button next to it. 

“Hello?” It was her roommate, Marie, that answered. 

“Hey, it’s Tom. I’m here to pick up y/n.” He could hear some indistinct giggling coming from the other side of the line. 

“Of course, c’mon up. But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a bit.” Next followed the buzzer, and the doors opened for him. The number on the button said 54, so he assumed it had to be on the fifth floor. When he walked up to the door with that number, he was greeted with a colourful collage of rock bands whose hair was probably more impressive than their vocal range, which said a lot considering Queen was on it. 

He knocked and waited for someone to open. y/n was the one to do it. She stood frozen in the door, only a towel wrapped around her body. 

“I thought we said seven?” she said, her voice a bit higher than usual.

“It’s quarter past seven!” Marie shouted out from inside the dorm. y/n cursed. 

“Shit, sorry, I lost complete track of time. Give me ten minutes, okay?” she held up a finger so he would wait here. Tom nodded and let her close the door again. He could still hear her yell at Marie as to why she had not told her she was running late, to which Marie only responded with hysterical laughter. 

“Holland?” someone in the hallway asked a few minutes later. Tom turned in the direction to see a guy with a head full of bed hair poke out of his doorway (which was covered in pictures of death metal posters and my little ponies). He stepped out in the hallway to reveal he was wearing nothing but a pair of tiny and tight briefs, leaving little to the imagination. 

“Oh hey… Crocker,” he called the guy by his preferred nickname. 

“Hey man, what are you doing here?” Crocker asked. The way his eyes were almost ruby red and the stench coming from his room, Tom presumed that the guy was higher than a kite. 

“Oh you know, waiting for a date, heh.” He said a bit awkwardly, pointing back to door 54. 

“Ah, getting some of that French jay nehsuh gwaa.” 

Tom looked confused. He wasn’t sure he had ever heard someone butcher a language that badly. Well, probably, but he didn’t remember it. He kind of understood what Crocker meant, though.

“No, I’m here for y/n. Not Marie.”

“Damn? Really.” Crocker started to giggle, which might as well just have been a side effect from whatever he had smoked up in his room. 

“Yeah?” He wasn’t sure how else to react. Crocker just shrugged and walked back into his room, smashing the door closed. Tom turned slowly, not sure what exactly had happened just then. And he turned right on time too, because the door of dorm 54 opened and y/n walked out. Wearing a raincoat over a sweater and jeans. She also had a pair of black ankle boots on. Tom could not help but smile at the sight of her. 

“Sorry about that,” she said, the nervousness in her voice was unmistakable. 

“First,” Tom spoke, remembering one of his earlier worries from days ago, “you don’t have a boyfriend, do you?” The question made her laugh.

“I very much do not. Why did you think that?” 

“The sweater you wore when we met. It had that whole stole-it-from-my-boyfriend vibe.” 

“No, I haven’t had anyone to steal clothes from in a long time.” she shook her head. Tom extended his hand for her to take, which she gladly did. It felt amazing.

“So what will you be ordering?” 

“Ice cream,” Tom answered, almost matter-of-factly. 

 _________________________________

“Ice cream?” you asked to make sure you had heard him correctly. He nodded in agreement. “Don’t you think it’s a bit cold for that?” 

“No.” He said bluntly, which really sold the case for you. You were on your way again.

You could hear the rain pound against the main door before you even reached the ground floor, and it only got harder and louder the nearer you got. Tom, being a true gentleman, opened the door for you, but you were a bit hesitant to walk outside. 

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he let you hold the door so he could step through the threshold and push open the umbrella. You noticed it was a Delta Kappa umbrella. They really made merch of everything. As he put the umbrella up, he extended his arm for you to intertwine yours through. Then, you walked. 

Though it was relatively early, the sky was pitch black because of how early the sun set those days and the dark clouds that had been pestering the sky that entire day. Not a star was to be seen. The rain tapped heavily against the umbrella, and you tried to stay as close to Tom as possible. The excuse, of course, was to not get wet but really you wanted to enjoy the warmth that he was giving off. At one point you had changed position from just having your arm over his, to him wrapping his arm over your shoulder. 

You walked down a brightly lit path, so you could see everything around you. The trees, the cars passing by, the building. So, when you saw the little café at the end of the street, you squealed. 

While there were plenty of bars, pubs and clubs to go to around town, so there were restaurants and cafés. And while restaurants really weren’t your thing, you loved to sit in one of the cosy coffee shops with a cup of tea or coffee and read a good book. Another fun thing about all those places was that they were very internationally orientated, speaking to the wide variety of students that the university had. Le Moulin was of course based on a Parisian café. You had actually found it together with Marie, in hopes she could have something that felt a bit closer to home. Though it didn’t come close to the real magic of the French capital, it still had plenty of its charm in it. Not to mention, the pain du chocolats were to die for! 

Yet, you had never actually had ice cream from their menu. 

You still weren’t sure if today would be the day for it. By the time you wear under the little entrance roof, you were freezing, and so was Tom, visibly. 

“Are you still sure about the ice cream?” you asked him as he closed the umbrella.

“Hot chocolate?” he suggested, suddenly fluent in your love language: chocolate and hot drinks (it was a very simplified version of said love language). 

This time Tom got to be the real gentleman as he let you walk inside first. He dropped the umbrella in the stand, together with a few others. When you looked around the café, you saw that a few more couples were enjoying the cosiness. A sweet melody was playing from the speakers. The rain had also softened outside, and together with the vintage sounds of guitar and vocals, it gave the perfect atmosphere for the night.

You had barely stepped inside when one of the waiters walked up. He smiled and said: “Your table is ready,” which surprised you, but Tom took you by the hand, and you both followed the waiter to one of the tables next to the wall, where one side had a couch instead of the usual chairs. You sat down first, taking off your jacket. Tom was going to sit opposite you, but now it was your turn to grab his hand. 

“Slide in.”

He smiled and sat down. He probably didn’t need any convincing and just wanted to hear you say that you wanted him to sit next to you. You didn’t mind that. 

“Should I prepare the order?” the waiter asked as you made yourself comfortable, again confusing the hell out of you. 

“Actually, scrap that. We’ll have two large hot chocolates.” Tom said. 

“With cinnamon!” you added. 

“One with cinnamon.” Tom corrected. The waiter nodded and walked off. 

“Don’t like cinnamon?” you quizzed, to which Tom shrugged. 

“It’s alright, just not a big fan.” Both of you looked around the room. You had never been in the café at night, so you hadn’t even realised that the walls were covered in soft gold lights, giving it all that much more the feeling as if you had stepped into a fairytale. 

“I didn’t know this place took reservations.” 

“I’m not sure either,” Tom replied, you noticed he had his arm draped around you again, “I just called to be sure.”  

“Really?” That split you up into two. Your heart skipped a beat at the thought that he had made a special call to the café to get, probably, the best seat in the house. On the other side, you were freaking out for a few reasons. He had put in quite the effort in an almost last minute notice of plans, while you were fifteen minutes late. That was embarrassing enough. And this reservation basically put you in a spotlight for the entire business, which was really not ideal. You didn’t want to be noticed. 

“Hey,” he whispered and squeezed his grip around you lightly, “everything okay?” 

“Huh? Mhm,” you nodded your head and smiled, trying not to think about how the waiters might be judging you. 

“I saw you had posted a picture from this place on your Instagram, and I used to come here a while back, so I thought it would be cool, but if you don’t like it-” 

“It’s perfect,” you made up your mind. In the end, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. You felt safe, sitting on the little couch, next to Tom. 

Soon after, the waiter came back with two mugs of hot chocolate. When Tom ordered large ones, they delivered. The mugs might as well have been cereal bowls, topped with a peak of whipped cream and cocoa powder, and a cinnamon stick in your cup to distinguish the two drinks. 

“Et voila!” the waiter put the cups down. You thanked him, and he was gone again.

There were spoons, but you decided to stir your chocolate with the cinnamon stick. 

Still with his arm around you, Tom took his mug up to his lips. With the feeling of having him so close to you, you wondered what this really was. What if he just wanted to be friends and spend some time with you? Had he noticed how sad and lonely you were, and did he want to take his pity out on you? Were you a charity act for him? God, you hoped not. You really really hoped not.

“Tom?” You looked at him, to see his eyes dart in your direction. His top lip was covered in whipped cream. You gestured it to him, slightly giggling, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. How was someone that hot, so adorable? 

“You were saying?” he said, putting the mug down on the table in front of you.

“I was just wondering,” Be quick, get it over with, you’ll feel better when you say it. “is this a date?” 

“Do you want it to be? It doesn’t have to.” He added the second part quickly after.

“I- I think I do,” I smiled. Though he had just put his mug down, he picked it right back up, you did the same.

“Then a date it is.” You clinked cups. Still, something felt off. You were holding the cup up to your lips, but just far enough not to be able to drink from it. Your eyes glazed over as you focused them on the mural in front of you. It was of the Paris skyline. With the Eiffel tower in the middle, the Arc de Triomphe a bit to the left, on the other side stood the two symmetrical towers of the Notre Dame cathedral. It was probably geographically inaccurate, just good enough to keep everyone who had never been to the City of Love satisfied. 

“Okay, something’s up.” Tom brought you back to the date. “What’s wrong? And, please, be honest.” 

“I don’t know,” you huffed out a laugh. “But before you start to freak out, it’s nothing to do with you, I swear.”

“So, you kind of know what it is about.” he raised an eyebrow. He had a point. If you knew what it was not, it meant you knew what it was, indeed. 

“I, uhm,” suddenly you felt very much aware of everything and everyone around you. Were they listening? “Well, I really want to apologise for being so distant outside of Instagram.” 

“There’s really no need for that, darling,” he said. “I understand it, and should have been a bit more considerate. I should have realised sooner that bars and shit aren’t your cup of tea.. or hot chocolate.” 

You both laughed. 

“Yeah,” you were smiling, but the word came out a bit as a sigh, conveying your all the troubling thoughts that were going on in your brain.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Tom saw through it. You bit your lip, not sure how to say it. You didn’t want to say it. He would probably think you were a joke. Besides, all those people around. Some of them from your school. They could probably hear every word you were saying.

“Do you maybe want to text it to me?” he suggested with a kind smile. You hadn’t realised when he had moved, but he had let go of your shoulders, and his hand was now on top of yours. His thumb moved slowly over your skin, reassuring you that, whatever it was, it was okay. 

How you hoped it was. 

You grabbed your phone and started to type out your message, taking a deep breath before sending it to him. You heard the vibration in his pocket, and with it, your heart skipped with anxiety. Tom kept holding on to your hand as he took out his phone and read the text. His eyes shot wide open. 

“Wait, really?” 

 _________________________________

“Never?” he asked, to which she bit her lip and shook her head. 

No, it wasn’t possible. 

“How has no one- nooo,” 

“It just… never got far enough- No, I mean, ugh,” she finally took a sip of her hot chocolate. Tom had to admit that it was cute how that was her go-to frustration action. She wiped off the whipped cream from her lip. Tom couldn’t stop looking at them, they were just so perfect. He wanted to feel her, to taste her. He wouldn’t even mind the taste of cinnamon that would have remained on them. 

“There was just never a guy that made me think, oh yeah, I want to kiss him,” she said after another sip of the hot chocolate. 

“So, you’d want to kiss me?” 

“Shut up,” she said glaring, but just to hide the big smile on her face. 

“Sorry, I just can’t believe you’ve never been kissed.” She flinched a bit at his words. “I don’t mean it in that way. You shouldn’t be ashamed of never being kissed. Sometimes it happens early on, sometimes it doesn’t. If it wasn’t for my pledge, I don’t think I would have had my first kiss till last year.” He confessed. y/n looked at him with eyebrows that had a twist of disbelief in them. 

“Yeah, right.”

“I swear,” Tom laughed, putting his hands up. “So really, no judgement here.” Then he leaned in to whisper into her ear, “and I definitely won’t mind breaking you in,” He couldn’t keep a straight face saying it, and neither could she. He had thought it would make her nervous or flushed, but she just slapped him on his arms teasingly. 

“In your dreams, Holland.” 

“Fuck, I hope so.” That made her freeze, just for a second though. “Shit, too much?” He asked, afraid he had finally taken it too far with his inappropriate humour. 

“No, you’re good.” She took another sip of her hot chocolate, allowing Tom to do so as well. 

“See, just because I’ve never been kissed, it immediately puts me under this label of being a prude or something, but I’m really not. I’ve just- had a really shitty love life.” Or just a complete lack of it.

“Well, I hope to change that.” He leaned in again and pecked her cheek. That finally got him the flushed reaction he had hoped for. 

“You already did.” 

 _________________________________

Your hand moved up to your cheek, hovering above the area that he had kissed. You felt like an idiot, but with Tom, it didn’t even feel like a bad thing. 

“We’ve known each other for less than two days, and I can already tell you, you’re way up there in the list of good dates.” 

“Way up there? Give me stats.” He nudged on. You thought for a second. 

“At least… top ten.” 

“Top five? Oh C’mon, babe, I think I’m a bit better than that. Not to toot my own horn, of course.” 

“Top five.” You said, ignoring the butterflies that had escaped in your stomach. He glared at you. You glared back, keeping your eyes on each other for another moment until he had dipped his finger in his hot chocolate and pressed it against your nose. You blinked in confusion. 

“That just moved you down to number six.” 

“Well, shit.” Tom leaned in and licked the whipped cream off your nose. As disgusting as it should have been, you burst into a fit of giggles, hiding your face in his chest to not disturb the rest of the restaurant. While you were trying to calm down, you felt Tom kiss the top of your head a few times. 

Finally, you sat up again. 

“Top three,” you stated. It was good enough for Tom. For now. 

You drank the rest of your drinks in the best silence possible that could be kept as both of you kept laughing at each other. Finally, the mugs were empty. Tom paid for everything and let you take the lead to walk outside with the umbrella. When you opened the door, however, you saw that the storm had now passed over into a light drizzle. You kept the umbrella closed. 

You were already letting yourself get taken up by the rain when Tom was outside. You thought he would come to join you, but he stayed under the little roof, watching you with a big smile. 

“Not afraid of the rain, are you?” you asked. “Or are you made of sugar?” 

“All I can say is, come and find out for yourself.” You were already a few steps away, so you hopped over to him, took his hand and took the final step, so you were touching chest to chest. His other hand found its way on your hip. You saw his eyes flicker from your eyes to your lips. You smiled and pulled him in closer, making you take a step back and exposing him to the weather. 

“Mutherfucker!” He gasped, not having expected that. “Ohh, you’re good.” 

Before you knew what was happening, he had picked you up by the waist and spun you around. You squealed from surprise before the both of you started laughing again. Eventually, he had to put you back down again, and your eyes widened in horror when you saw him walk to a large puddle. 

“No, Tom! No, no, no.!” He put you down right next to it. Probably an inch from the water edge. 

“C’mon, I’m not that mean.” he pouted. 

“Nah, you’re a softy,” you poked his cheek. He grabbed your hand. 

“Oi, I wouldn’t go that far.” then kissed the tip of your index finger, which you had poked him with a second before.

“Too late, I guess.” 

“You sure about that? You’re still really close to that puddle babe. We wouldn’t want any… accidents!” He gripped you by the waist again, and the sudden movement made you feel like he was gonna throw you down into the puddle. You shrieked but soon felt his arms still around you and no parts of your body were soaked (only moderately wet from the light rain) or on the ground. He was still holding you. 

“You never answered me,” he said, his sweet laughter was gone, and his eyes were on your lips again. 

“Answer what?” you kept looking at his face as a whole, taking in every detail. The way his nose scrunched when droplets of rain well on it. How one of his eyebrows was more bushy and irregular than the other. The dimple in his chin, his freckles- everything. 

“If you wanted to kiss me.” 

His golden-brown eyes were so warm, even in the dim street lights at night. His wet hair was sticking to his face, but framing it so nicely. His jaw was sharp, it didn’t seem like it should be real. 

“I do.”

His lips. Though thin and a bit chapped, they still felt so soft. The sweet taste of chocolate, mixed in with the rain that had fallen in the few moments that you stood outside. His hands cupped your cheeks, pulling you in closer to him. It felt so good. So right. 

You pulled away but with no idea how much time had gone by. His stands stayed in their position, his eyes searched yours for a reaction. Nothing came from it since you were still in an emotional daze. 

Tom chuckled. 

“Fuck, I should have slid into your DMs sooner.” 

“Way to ruin the mood, Holland.”

“Oh, you love it.” He said before pulling you into another kiss. 

The END

> song played in Le Moulin: Rendez-vous sous la pluie (Jean Sablon)

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed

> please leave a comment or ask with your thoughts. i love reading them and let me know if you want to see more of this au cause i really enjoyed writing it :)

> if anyone has a comment about how it had only been a day since they met etc. i wrote this 15k story in the span of 24 hours. i wish i could have added more to it but at this point, i am physically and emotionally exhausted and do not want to make it even longer. 

>masterlist and link to taglist in bio

tagging:

@definitely-not-black-cat @artemisiaarm @nerdyhockeygirl @miraclesoflove @justasmisunderstoodasloki @thefridgeismybestie @m19friend @creative-happenings @parker-holland-osterfield @fanficparker @fanficscuziranout @peterparkoure @xxtomxo @happywolves81 @captainbuckyy @tra-gicx @qxeen-of-hearts @varshavisuu @kangaroobunny @petersunderoos96  @the-lost-fairy-tale @nerd-domland @sleepybesson @rissa067 @the-queen-procrastinator @scarletteclipze @screeching-student-unknown  @spiderrrling​ @captainpeggy40 @tomhollanders2013 @miraclesoflove @playinonaloop @queenoflostspirits @roses-hxlland @hereiamhereigo @sunnydays0803 @averyfosterthoughts @moorehollandplz @beiroviski @you-bleed-just-toknowyouarealive @peterparkerbabyyy @multifandomlover21 @lmaotshollandd @badbitchydecisions @tikapollak @awesomehritz​ @madzleigh01​ @oh-what a beautiful-parker @taciturnspidey​ @quaksonhehe​ @mountainsforwords​ @harryfobter @peepeeparkerr @viagracex​ @ethereal-beauty-p​ @slytherin-chaser​ @worldoftom​ @moonysoftt​ @peeterparkr​ @wazzupmrstark​ @saintlavrents​ @peachybloomss​ @blissfulparker​ @chloecreatesfictions-archive​  @fallinfortom​ @bitchydecisions​ @okokimfreakingoutahh @cicicantblog​ @musicalkeys​ @joyleenl​ @multifandomdoodles121 @awkwardfangirl2014​ @marvelouspeterparker​

#tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #frat!au #fratboy tom #college!tom #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #stranger to lovers #college!au

[yoshkeii]

"𝙵𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚜"

࿐ character(s): Daichi Sawamura, Asahi Azumane

࿐ genre: sfw, soft/fluff

࿐ type: (au) headcanons

࿐ requested by: anon

⌦ boyfriend male!reader (he/him)

⌦ genshin impact x haikyuu!!, modern settings

⌦ ‘can i request an au headcanon (basically genshin impact x haikyuu!!, modern settings, but the vision bearers are rarer than post traveler time and there's still spiral abyss where vision bearers help discovering new information and artifacts, and getting paid from their country for that) So, daichi and asahi's boyfriend(a vision bearer, which element is up to you to decide.)(also separetly) reacts that their boyfriend just give them an old flower artifact that he found that reminds male!reader of his boyfriend‘

A/N: an interesting concept !! thank you for requesting, im not good with reactions but- ihopethisisokay,, i dont think i did well on this,, khai writes hcs weirdly pt. who fucking knows.

asahi azumane’s give flower: wanderer’s troupe or viridescent venerer

𝙳𝚊𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚒:

》 staring at the rosy-red petaled flower that was supposedly made into a brooch, a piece missing that would make the item stay on the wearer. your eyes glossed over the item, identifying cracks and scratches on the metallic bronze pieces that accompanied the ordinary looking flower, that somehow was in one piece. just... slightly off-colored. before jumping as your name was called by another vision-bearer with two others by the way towards the exit of the Abyss floor, you began to hurry over to them as you gently slid the “Gladiator’s Nostalgia” into your pouch. the name you had read before within a dusty journal, remembering it so clearly with a much vibrant image than the real one you had now. but it oh, so reminded you of your beloved boyfriend, the one waiting for you at your shared home. 《

→ Daichi didn’t know he would be dating a vision-bearer, no one would’ve thought of a thing really. they were such a rare sight to see out in public- especially in the modern days. but that only just added to the many surprises you came home with after your days of working in the “Spiral Abyss” is what they call it.

→ giving him the faded-out red flower as soon as you walked through the front door, a bright smile across your face, was a sight he would never get tired of. except the slight worriedness would built up seeing scratches n bruises along your skin the more he stared...

→ eventually leading him to treating your injuries properly, maybe a slight scold or lecture here and there-

→ “Love, you know you have to be careful. Especially with fire! I know you have a Pyro vision, but that doesn’t mean mess around- and play with fire itself- You aren’t immune to it.” “..even worse that you tried using your abilities to cook..”

→ “He-hey it was a one time thing-!! and I was really curious ‘Muraaa..” you whined, wincing and pulling your face away with a pout as Daichi pressed a cotton swab onto the cut along your cheek.

→ “Yeah yeah, lil’ember.” He muttered the nickname, swiping a thumb over the bandaid to cover the cut. “..there you are done, now go get a change of clothes dirty boy- I have to put the first aid stuff away.”

→ seeing you disappear pass the door frame of your shared room, he went back to pack and close the first aid kit. before his eyes wandered towards the flower you had given him earlier, which was just idly sitting there on the counter. Daichi picked up the flower holding it gently in his palms, feeling the petals with his free hand.

→ he stared at the flower for a long moment, observing the petals before noticing the scratches on the metal pieces attached to the brooch. he smile gently, beginning to realize this was a gift to him, a gift that you gave and probably risked your life to nag. 

→ sighing deeply at the thought of you getting hurt, knowing how clumsy you can be, he went off to the shared room where you would be. just to make sure you dont... do something stupid.

→ “Y/N?” Daichi had softly called out, seeing your head peek out from the closet as you slid a shirt on. he motioned his hands upwards a little, still holding the faded-brooch in his palms. 

→ “Oh! The Gladiator’s Nostalgia? The flower, do you like it??” the way you had ecstatically replied, he could imagine a puppy’s tail wagging so fast. your eyes shimmering as you awaited his answer.

→ “I love it, ember, it was really nice of you to give it to me.” “..although I hope you didn’t get hurt too much... to achieve it. I bet this was hard to get-” He spoke softly, genuine about the words slipping through his lips.

→ “Well actually... not really-” seeing Daichi look at you in confusion, “..I’ve seen that artifact set a lot on my runs with my team, but are often- broken’n’damaged. So I- I could never give you one-” “There’s also different ones apart of the same set for yours!! I might try to collect the others for you... or more.. flowers..”

→ “Wa-wait-,, there’s more-?” he longed on his question, before he could let out another word he noticed how you started to ramble. talking about interesting details of the items you could get him on your adventures and battles, and all he did was listen. settling down on the edge of the bed while you went on.

→ you were so passionate with your job, what you were doing as a vision-bearer. it’s what he liked about you, or well... loved about you. although he wonder if every Vision-bearer were the same, he’d still take you, . date you, just as who you are. with, or without a vision. and ofc he will keep an eye on what gifts you decide to give him in the mere future.

𝙰𝚜𝚊𝚑𝚒:

》 being an Anemo Vision bearer, your able to adapt and flow with whatever could come your way. making elements spread across the battlefield with one set of moves or to crowd-control them into one spot for the others to strike the unfortunate foes. time to time you would stumble upon the “Viridescent Venerer” set in the fallen loot of opponents or the scuffed chests that were stashed at the end of battles. they looked so different than most artifacts, especially the flowers. common artifacts were genuine real flowers, making them have the same aspect as any other flower, withering and fading into nothing but dull-bland colors. but the Viridescent Venerer’s flower did not, it was just a white wild flower that used to cover the earth. and it has not withered one bit, and still gives off an exquisite fragrance you noticed as the times you ran by it... and well of course noticed it as the scent was what you usually smelled since you had one as part of your outfit. 《

→ Asahi had always pointed out the flower on your outfit, the “In Remembrance of Viridescent Fields“ is what the books would title it, but in short you just called it the Viridescent Venerer flower or just... Viridescent for Asahi’s sake.

→ he had always complimented on how it looked beautiful and pretty, especially when his beloved boyfriend is wearing it. 

→ as days of works and floors of the Spiral Abyss, you managed to find a new piece of the Viridescent to use. unlike discarding the one you currently you had, you had an idea that came into mind, finding you sliding the newer artifact into your bag before leaving off to home. a smile brought onto your face.

→ now cuddling in each others presence, you both chatted about your days. already cleaned yourself up from your days works. hand in hand with soft laughter erupting from both of you, before it died off into comfortable silence.

→ “Azumane, love?” you simply called out, knowing you caught his attention instantly as you felt movement from him. “You certainly like the flower on my fit.”

→ “Well it really is- pretty. Like knowing how regular and most flowers wilt and wither- That one hasn’t! An-And I believe its the same one you wore the day we met too-” he noted.

→ to only be surprised at his memory of these types of things, you laughed- making him startled and a bit embarrassed.

→ “You sure have quite the memory, to even remember that image? I’m impressed, so I assume... it has caught your eye since the start? Just like I was to your own vision~” you cooed, getting up from his grasps before disappearing pass a corner of a wall.

→ confusion expressed on Asahi’s face, sitting up from his position on the couch before his eyes caught the glimpse of the Viridescent in your hand.

→ sitting on the edge of the couch, you motioned the flower towards him, a gentle smile across your face.

→ “I would simply like you to have mine then, it is quite old- and worn from the times I’ve had it through my lifetime. But I think it’ll be a nice gift from me to you.”

→ hearing the words being slipped passed your mouth, he felt tears daring to fall from his eyes- Asahi did not know why. but imagining keeping the Viridescent you had for who knew how long-

→ it would be something he would cherish, something he wouldnt let go.

→ exchanging gentle kisses across your face in exchange, trying his best not to cry the joy. because it was so touching- so simple yet so poetic to give. he didn’t think he deserved one.

→ and from that afternoon, Asahi had kept it. he had kept it safe and sound, bringing it with him whenever you were never there. so he had something to calm him down in anxious moments. he had a memory of you in a flower that would never wither.

#at-dusk;- 🌆 #folder 📁;- 𝙷𝚊𝚒𝚔𝚢𝚞𝚞 #daichi x male reader #asahi x male reader #daichi sawamura x male reader #asahi azumane x male reader #haikyuu x male reader #hq x male reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #x male reader #x reader

[icollectyoursins]

Okuyasu x Fem!Reader SFW

martinbolseiro asked "If requests are still open I would like to ask you for a Stroheim x Female reader fluff / nsfw nº24 and nº82 please hihiihi and Okuyasu x Female reader fluff nº1 and nº10 “

Reader and Okuyasu are in high school for this one, just so it’s not weird with an adult dating a teen. We do not stand for that here. I also use (L/N) which will stand for your last name in this.

You had the unfortunate luck of getting sick in the middle of the school year and your boyfriend has just the thing to cheer you up! I mean, what could be better than him visiting you with your movie, munchies and drinks? Nothing. That’s what.

First part of the request is here.

No. 1 "Shh, don't cry. I'll always be here." 

No. 10 "I'll keep you warm, come here."

Wanna know what I’m willing to write? Rules here!

Have a character, but no idea? Prompt list here!

Looking for more? Master post here!

WARNINGS: None, reader is sick, so there’s talk of that. Also some Tonio stuff at the end, nothing too graphic though.

Word Count: 1308

     A loud, painful cough thundered in your lungs making you wince. It was just a cold, but still, you felt like hell. You groaned, lying back down on your bed, tossing the tissue to the side. Suddenly, you began to think about all the school you were missing and felt worse. It was only a week, but still missing five days of school could be the equivalent of missing a month depending on the subject.

     While in the midst of your self-loathing, you heard a shout from outside your window.

     “Oi! (Y/N)!” Okuyasu. You groaned, begrudgingly getting out of bed and opening the window. “Hii, (Y/N)!”

     “Hi, Okuyasu,” you grumbled. Not that you weren’t happy to see him, he always seemed to brighten your day, but frankly, you didn’t want to see anyone right now. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

     “No! We just finished.” You furrowed your brows, it couldn’t be time for home already, could it? A glance over to your clock proved that school was indeed done for the day. “Hi, miss (L/N). Can I come in to see (Y/N)? I have some work for her.”

     “Not for too long. Wouldn’t want you getting sick too!” Your mom replied, stern but somehow still cheery. 

     “Ookay.” With that, he was practically running up the stairs to your bedroom and bursting through the door. “Hey! How are you feeling?”

     You sighed with a roll of your eyes. “Okuyasu, you’re going to get sick, don’t- hey! No, don’t hug me-ah!”

     “I missed you!” He had lifted you up into a bear hug. A very warm and comforting bear hug. You couldn’t really be mad at him as he gently set you on your feet and started going on about what had transpired the week you were away. Though you weren’t entirely sure it was true, it was entertaining getting all the info on the drama when you weren’t there.

     “Wow. Didn’t think she’d do something like that,” you comment as he’s telling you about what one of the cheerleaders did to the other. It made you feel so glad you didn’t join the team or any other team for that matter. You were perfectly happy and busy running around after your lovable fool and his friend. 

     “Yeah, it was wild. Teachers didn’t even know what to do! They were just as shocked as we were,” he burst out laughing, tossing his head back and wiping away a tear.

     Suddenly you were sent into another coughing fit, covering your mouth with your elbow. At first, he panicked, then saw the tissues and the glass of water on your nightstand, running to grab them. He knelt next to you, eyes wide while he rubbed your back until it subsided. He offered you the glass first before settling down to sit cross-legged. You groaned when he pulled you closer so you were leaning against him.

     “Okuyasu, you’re gonna get sick,” you mumble, eyes slowly drooping into sleep. He was so warm and comfy. The perfect human pillow. He laughed at you.

     “I never get sick! And if I do, I just go to Tonio’s! Heyy, that’s an idea! Let’s go to Tonio’s!” Okuyasu was suddenly getting up, pulling you with him. Then, he went through your closet, looking for something for you to wear. 

     “I really don’t think I’m in the best of shape to go somewhere.” You sit down on your bed with a sniffle.

     “It’ll be fine!” He reassures you. “Besides, isn’t fresh air supposed to be good for you? Here, wear this. I’ll be downstairs waiting.”

     He tosses some nice-looking, comfy clothes and excitedly exits your room. You sigh. There really wasn’t a way to stop him at this point, so you got into your clothes, changing the shirt to something less cartoony to a plain single-coloured tee with less stains. Maybe he was right. You would feel better if you went outside and something other than your mom’s cooking sounded so nice right about now. Whatever, what’s the worst that could happen.

     When you got downstairs Okuyasu had already sold your mom on the idea of going out. She cheerily told you to have fun and be back before curfew as you walked out the door. He grinned proudly, wrapping an arm around you while you made your way to the bus station.

--------

     The bus ride to the little restaurant by the graveyard was full of idle chatter about school again and what he was planning on doing when he got home. A new game came out recently, so he and Josuke agreed to play it together.

     “You can come-” he asked, quickly covering it up with a hasty “-if you want! I don’t know. Josuke isn’t one to share his games, but I might convince him.”

     You laughed. “Well, if you can convince my mum to let me outside, you can probably get anyone to do whatever you wanted. But, Okuyasu, I’m sick, remember.”

     “Ha! Just wait. Tonio can cure anything with his food. It’s the best in the world.” You rolled your eyes, only half believing him. You hadn’t been to Tonio’s before but your boyfriend never shut up about how good the food was.

     “As long as you’re paying,” you elbowed his side, teasing him. He looks shocked.

     “Of course, I am! What kind of man doesn’t buy his lady food?” He mutters under his breath, seriously asking. You just laugh again. 

     The walk from the bus stop to the restaurant was thankfully short, but you swore could smell the food cooking from a mile away. Okuyasu grabbed your hand, gently pulling you behind him. He burst through the doors, happily calling out Tonio’s name. They exchanged hellos while you were sat at the table.

     “Um, is there a menu?” You asked awkwardly. They laughed.

     “No! Tonio makes whatever you need. He knows everything! Here, have the water.” He sets your cup down in front of you while Tonio goes off to make whatever it was he thought you needed. Your boyfriend practically shook with excitement while he waited for you to take your first sip.

     Your eyes grew wide with shock as the water hit your tongue. It was the best water you had ever had. Was it from a well or something? You glugged down the rest, then suddenly you were crying and couldn’t stop. Okuyasu, though still smiling, rubbed your back, soothing you. Just like that, it stopped and your eyes felt better than they ever had before. They weren’t scratchy or tired. You were wide awake!

     “See? Don’t you feel better?” He asked, petting your head.

     “Yeah, actually. I do. What the hell is in that water?” He chuckles to himself, muttering something that sounded like ‘sand tomes?’ You were about to ask him to say that again, but Tonio came back with a bowl in his hand.

     “Chicken noodle soup! Enjoy!” He called out, disappearing back into the kitchen.

     It was the best-smelling chicken noodle soup. Without wasting another minute, you dug in. Okuyasu was right. This was the best food in the world. You finished in record timing, humming happily. Then you started coughing again. You grabbed a napkin and coughed into it. It felt like you were literally hacking up a lung or some other organ. One large inhale of breath and it magically subsided.

     You could breathe so much better now! How? That was- how?

     Okuyasu leaned back with his arms behind his head and his feet kicked up on another chair. You could feel the confidence radiating off of him. 

     “How do you feel, (Y/N)?” He asked, cocky as all hell. “Wanna go hang at Josuke’s?” You stared at him awestruck while he laughed loudly. The only thoughts you had were: thank you? Then, my boyfriend is crazy and finally what the hell just happened?

#now this is a character i'm comfortable writing for #love this stupid teenager #okuyasu x reader #okuyasu fluff #okuyasu #sfw prompts #diu prompts #sand tomes is okuyasu for stand tomatoes

[noona-clock]

What’s Your Sign?: Sagittarius

Genre: Celebrity!AU

Pairing: Choi Minho x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Words: 5,534

Author’s Note: Since I’m so fascinated by astrology, I decided to do a Zodiac series! I will be writing a one-shot fic for each sign featuring different members from different groups (and even an actor!). Each story will be posted on the 5th of the month during that sign’s season. Please reblog, comment, or send in an ask with your feedback! Thank you for your support 💜

Ever since you’d seen him in his first ever role on a television series about five years ago, you’d fallen in love with Minho.

Choi Minho, probably the most attractive man you’d ever seen. Through a screen, at least. You hadn’t yet been lucky enough to see him in person.

And since you’d fallen in love with him after watching his very first episode of that television series, you’d done nothing but support him for the last several years.

You saw every one of his movies the day it released in theatres. You watched every single episode of every single television show he appeared in -- even if he was just a guest star.

His popularity from his first role had soared pretty quickly, which was really a win/win scenario. Minho, who presumably had been a struggling actor previously, was now flush with offers from directors. And you, an immediate superfan, got to spend a lot of virtual time with your new favorite actor -- because, not only did he act in a very large handful of projects every year, he was also interviewed on talk shows, featured in magazines, walking the red carpet of premieres and award shows. He didn’t have a social media presence for some extremely odd reason, but you still felt like you knew him.

From everything you’d seen and read about him, Minho was outgoing, friendly, and charismatic. He was confident, straight-forward, and optimistic. He basically always had some version of a smile on his lips, and based on many posts in the Choi Minho subreddit, he never turned down an opportunity to meet a fan out in public.

He... was basically perfect.

And you couldn’t stop yourself from daydreaming about one day meeting him, falling in love, getting married, and having about ten children together in the most beautiful house in the universe.

But, to be fair, your daydream wasn’t entirely impossible!

You were a bit of a celebrity, yourself!

Kind of.

On the Internet.

You had started a YouTube Channel six years ago, and at first, you hadn’t really had a clear vision for your videos. An absolutely rookie mistake, of course, but there’s nothing you could do about it now.

You’d started off with makeup tutorials because that had been the hottest YouTube trend at the time. But... you quickly discovered you weren’t as good at makeup as one should be to post a tutorial online in good conscience. You also weren’t quite good enough at doing your nails, cooking, or sewing to do videos about those.

For at least a few months, you’d been stumped. You knew you wanted your own YouTube channel -- you had a pretty fitting personality for it -- you just didn’t have any one marketable skill.

Until, one day, you stumbled upon a video of a guy watching a K-Pop music video for the first time and reacting to it. That was literally it. The whole video had been just him watching and talking about it.

And you were very good at that. You loved watching things on a screen -- YouTube videos, television shows, movies, you name it! And you always had thoughts running through your head while you watched something. In fact, you frequently wished one of your friends had exactly the same taste in music, shows, and movies as you so you could voice those thoughts aloud to someone who actually wanted to listen.

So, how had you never thought of doing that on your YouTube channel?! There was obviously a market for it -- the guy you’d watched had a few hundred thousand subscribers, and since it was something you genuinely enjoyed doing, you weren’t afraid of running out of content inspiration or motivation any time soon.

It was literally the perfect idea.

The next day, you had set up your camera, pulled up the first episode of your favorite television show of all time, and got to work. When you posted the video a few hours later (Re-watching my FAVORITE show of all time), something about it just felt right. Like the stars had aligned. No matter if you got five views or five thousand, you knew you were on the right path -- when it came to YouTube, at least.

Every day after that, you chose something else to watch -- a nostalgic movie, a viral YouTube video, the really cheesy musical episode of a television show. You tried to pick things from all along the spectrum, and you also tried to wait a few days in-between continuing on with your re-watch of your favorite show, simply for variety’s sake.

Little by little, your channel began to grow. After work, you would film, edit, and post -- every single day. On the weekends, you would film two different videos in case you ever needed to take a day off. Or in case you just felt like posting two videos!

Your first sponsorship offer email had come about six months after you’d posted your first video, and your eyes had nearly fell out of your head when you’d seen how much they’d offered you. (Looking back, your first paying YouTube gig really hadn’t been that much money -- compared to what you could make now, at least -- but it had still been incredibly thrilling.) And, really, that had been the catalyst of your YouTube career and popularity. It seemed just the one sponsorship had been all you’d needed to catch the attention of other brands who wanted to work with you, and when you got to the point where you could actually afford to quit your job and turn down sponsorship offers you weren’t wild about? That’s when you knew you’d made it.

Okay, but really, you knew you’d made it when one of your videos hit one million views for the first time (a video of you watching a particularly cringe-worthy teen movie from about ten years ago).

And now, six years later, you had almost four million subscribers, and your most viewed video had almost twenty million views. Sometimes, you still couldn’t believe it!

The highlight of your time on YouTube so far -- at least, in your eyes -- had been when you’d seen Choi Minho for the first time about a year after starting your channel. You’d still had less then one-hundred thousand subscribers back then, so if anyone ever left on a comment on a video mentioning how long you’d been a Minho fangirl or remembering when you first discovered him, you knew they were an OG subscriber. But ever since that video, you did absolutely nothing to hide your affinity for him, both as an actor and as a person. You watched and reacted to every single one of his movies and every single television show episode -- you even sometimes reacted to interviews or videos other fans had made about him.

Even when your channel hit some pretty big milestones -- five-hundred thousand subscribers, one million, two million, three million subscribers -- you never played it cool when it came to Choi Minho. You switched up your content and your editing style here and there, but one constant on your YouTube channel was the fact you let your inner fangirl shine for all the world to see.

In fact, just last month, the trailer for his new movie dropped, and you were able to upload your reaction to it within two hours. Since then, you’d read and watched every interview you could find, favorited every tweet about the upcoming film, and liked every post on the #ChoiMinho hashtag on Instagram. Since he had no social media, you had to be satisfied with other people’s content rather than his own.

You were scrolling through his hashtag on Instagram right now, actually, as you procrastinated getting out of bed to go set up for another day of filming.

Now that you had almost four million subscribers and were approached by more than several companies for sponsorships every single day, you were able to focus on your channel full-time. You definitely got cabin fever from time to time, but it was worlds better than filming after work and on weekends. Now, you could actually take a day off whenever you wanted! It was glorious!

But you still procrastinated working. You were still human, after all.

After you caught up on his hashtag and liked just about every picture you could, you navigated to your inbox to look through your DMs. Over the years, it had gotten pretty easy to skip past the spam and sugar daddy requests (which were plentiful, unfortunately), so you no longer dreaded checking the unread messages. You could usually tell which ones to delete straight away from the profile picture and first few words alone.

To be quite honest, you really only opened ones where you either could tell someone was genuinely reaching out to say hi or thank you for posting your videos or... messages with Minho’s name visible in the preview. Shameless, but oh well!

After deleting a few messages at the top which were clearly spam, the next one you came to was actually one of those messages -- you saw ‘Minho’ in the preview. It was the very first word, even! And in all caps.

You pressed on it as quickly as you could.

And when your eyes took in the rest of the message... your heart stopped.

MINHO WATCHED ONE OF YOUR VIDEOS!

...This had to be a prank, right?

But right after the message in all capital letters was a link to a YouTube video, and the preview for the video was right below the message.

It was one of those videos put out by a big fashion magazine where celebrities watch videos about them and react to it. Usually, musicians and singers would react to covers of their songs by fans, but every once in a while, actors would read tweets or watch fanmade videos about them.

And when you clicked on the link this person had sent, the video opened in your YouTube app to show the title “Choi Minho Watches Fan Videos on YouTube,” and your eyes widened.

If what the Instagram message said was true... Minho had watched not only a fan video... but your fan video. And since his movie was premiering in just a couple of days, he had most likely watched your reaction to the trailer.

Oh my god.

Oh my god.

Since the video had started automatically after clicking the link, you took a deep breath and concentrated all of your focus on your phone screen. You were not going to miss the part where he watched your video.

But, of course, after not even thirty seconds, you found you had already gotten distracted by how handsome he looked.

You quickly shook your head a bit, widening your eyes briefly before narrowing them to focus on your screen again. “Come on, Y/N,” you muttered to yourself. “You can watch it again right after this to admire him.”

It was only a fifteen-minute video, so it’s not like you had to wait forever to get to the part where he watched you!

Still, though, as the minutes ticked by, you felt your heart begin to race in anticipation.

What would he say about you? Would he find your obsession with him creepy? I mean, it had to be a little creepy watching someone squeal and profess their love for you -- someone you’d never met!

But, then... when you got really mushy comments... most of the time, it didn’t feel creepy. It just felt sweet, and you were incredibly grateful that a lot of your subscribers and viewers were so supportive.

Ugh! You were getting off track again!

You shook your head once more and set your gaze back onto your phone screen.

Finally, when the clip of Minho watching a fanmade music video transitioned into the clip of him watching your video, your breath caught in your throat.

Were you going to survive this?

Outcome is unclear.

“Oh, yeah, I know her,” Minho said as your trailer reaction video began to play in the corner. “She’s the reaction girl, right?”

Your jaw dropped.

................Excuse me?!

Minho knew you?!

As you watched Minho watching you with the most adorable soft grin on his lips, your hand slowly crept up to cover your mouth in shock.

And, then, when you in the video paused the trailer to bring up another one of his movies that this trailer had reminded you of, his grin widened and he looked very pleased. “She knows her stuff, huh?”

You heard someone behind the camera murmuring something, and subtitles appeared on the screen. “She’s a known superfan, actually.”

Minho’s brow furrowed and he leaned toward the camera. “She’s what?”

“A superfan,” the person repeated, a little bit louder. “She’s known to her viewers for watching all of your movies and shows. There are always comments about you on all of her videos.”

Minho’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Really? All of them? Comments about me?” He leaned back and nodded slowly after, apparently, receiving a positive answer. “I had no idea. I’ve just seen her videos about, like, the cheesy teen movies we watched as kids.”

You truly almost dropped your phone.

So... he knew who you were, but he hadn’t known that you fangirled over him on a regular basis?

First of all, how was that possible?

Second of all, did it really matter?! He knew who you were!

He knew who you were!

You didn’t expect that he regularly watched your videos, but still.

HE KNEW WHO YOU WERE!

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest as you watched him finish up watching your reaction video. The look on his face was one of delight, and even though you knew he was a good actor, it sure didn’t seem like he was simply pretending not to be creeped out.

“She’s so fun,” he smiled as your video ended, his gaze shifting back to the person he had spoken with earlier. “She has more? Like, for my movies?”

The person mumbled something back, and this time, there were no subtitles on the bottom of the video. But Minho’s eyebrows shot up immediately.

“All of my movies?” he asked. And then he let out a joyous chuckle and added, “No way.”

He quickly turned to the computer and clicked on your channel name.

But the video transitioned into another clip of someone else’s video, so you didn’t get to see if he actually watched any other ones.

Even if he hadn’t, you were still overjoyed -- to say the least -- that he had watched just one!

He knew who you were! He had actually known who you were before this which was probably the most surprising thing you’d ever heard in your entire life. (Besides the fact that Minho was currently single. That was definitely more surprising than anything.)

After sitting in your bed for a few minutes, staring blankly at your screen as the video finished up, your gaze unfocused and blurry, you finally came to when you realized the video had ended.

And then you proceeded to freak out.

You squealed and shrieked and kicked your legs and rolled around and scrambled to your feet to jump up and down on your bed with glee.

Was this the best day of your life?

Quite possibly!

Once you’d calmed down just a tad, you plopped back into a sitting position, crossing your legs into a pretzel as you navigated back to Instagram.

You sent a reply to the person who’d sent you the video (”OH MY GOD THANK YOU HE KNOWS ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”) and then refreshed your inbox.

As expected, a whole new slew of messages came through and literally every single one seemed to be about the video.

Your lips split into a huge grin, and just before you clicked on a random one to read and reply to it... you noticed that one message had a blue check by the sender.

Pausing, you shifted your gaze to that message.

And your heart jumped up into your throat when you recognized the name of the account.

Obviously, it wasn’t Minho himself because he didn’t have one.

But it was the next best thing.

His management company.

You followed them, of course, and liked every single picture about him or with him. Of course!

But you had never gathered up the courage to message them. You’d had no reason to! What would you have said?

And now they were messaging you.

The several days following the video of Minho watching your video had been... a blur. To say the least.

You still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

I mean, you knew you were here because Minho’s management company had direct messaged you on Instagram inviting you to the premiere of his movie and you had accepted without one millisecond of hesitation and then you’d gotten on a plane a couple of days later and then checked into a super nice hotel and had a stylist and makeup artist sent to your room and after many hours you now looked better than you ever had in your entire life.

That’s how you got here.

But you still weren’t even really sure how you’d gotten here.

A rather large stroke of luck?

Good karma?

Hard work to grow your YouTube channel into something that would make you more easily recognizable by actual celebrities and their management companies?

Or a combination of the three?

Either way, you were overwhelmed with gratitude, and you knew you would never be able to forget this experience -- even if you, for some odd reason, wanted to.

I mean, you were currently in a really nice car, and the driver (yes, you had a driver!) was taking you to the red carpet.

The red carpet!

An actual movie premiere! With an actual red carpet!

And the movie was Minho’s movie.

You were at the premiere of Minho’s movie.

Oh my god, what if you saw him?!

As the car rolled to a stop in front of a crowded theatre, your heart and stomach dropped down to your very expensive and gorgeous shoes.

You’d gone to somewhat fancy events before -- it came with the job of being a YouTuber -- but never anything like this. Never an actual movie premiere. Never the chance of seeing your favorite actor in the history of time. And, obviously, never walking a red carpet.

Your door magically opened just as the car stopped moving, and a hand popped out of nowhere to assist you in exiting the vehicle. As gracefully as you could, you slipped your fingers into the mysterious palm, allowing it to gently pull you up and out of your seat and onto the sidewalk.

Almost immediately, camera clicks, light bulb flashes, and inquiring voices filled the air.

Cameras and lights in your face, you were used to. It was your everyday life, in fact!

But... all these people? Looking at you? Watching you? Taking pictures of you?

I mean, yeah, a few million people watched your videos. But it was absolutely not the same as a hundred or so reporters and photographers standing right in front of you.

Thankfully, some short but very powerful woman guided you onto the red carpet, muttering to you that all you had to do was stand in front of the backdrop, pose and smile for the cameras, and then move on to the next mark. Some reporters from news and entertainment channels would be waiting along the way to interview you (which didn’t scare you quite so much as you’d been interviewed a few times before), and all in all, it would take about an hour.

But it took you way less than an hour to discover that walking a red carpet is not as glamorous as it looks on television.

Walking like your shoes were covered in almost-frozen molasses so every photo taken was a good one. Switching back and forth between facial expressions so every photo taken wasn’t the same one. And do you know how many good places there are to put your hands when posing for a picture? Exactly two. One was on your hip and the other at your side. That was it. Definitely not clasped in front of or behind you, and definitely not tucking your hair behind your ear.

And just when you were sort of getting used to the constant posing for pictures, another short but powerful woman gently grabbed your arms and led you to a reporter from the most-watched entertainment news channel in the country.

“Hello, hello!” the perky reporter chirped as you approached her. “Come on over here!”

“Hi,” you greeted awkwardly as you made your way to the small mark on the ground next to her, holding up your skirt with one hand so you wouldn’t trip.

“Y/N! Good evening, good evening, how are you doing?” she asked before sticking the microphone in your face.

You had to quickly get over the shock of her knowing your name since you didn’t want to look like a fool on live television, so you forced a grin on your lips and answered, “I’m pretty overwhelmed, actually!” you chuckled.

“Is this your first time at a red carpet?”

“It is, yes,” you confirmed with a slight nod. “And I’m so used to being alone in my house, talking to myself in front of a camera, so this is all new territory for me.”

The reporter laughed with delight before asking which designer you were wearing. You answered her with ease since your stylist had drilled it into your brain before you’d left the hotel.

Then, after she asked you to tell the folks at home what you’re known for, she said, “It’s a pretty fun story of how you got here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it is,” you answered, your lips pulling into a shy but excited grin. “I woke up one morning to a message on Instagram, and someone had sent me --”

The reporter interrupted you then, and you noticed her gaze was directed over your shoulder. You turned to look, and --

Well, the next few moments happened so quickly, you really had no idea how you reacted.

“Y/N!” Minho called out, smiling widely and waving before reaching out and sliding his hands over your shoulders. He stood next to you, squeezing you once before letting his arms drop down to his side. “I’m so sorry for interrupting --”

“No, we were just talking about why she’s here at your premiere!”

Minho’s smile brightened even more, and he continued on with the story you’d been telling.

Meanwhile, you were standing there. Mute. Staring at him.

Because oh my god.

How was it actually possible that Minho was more handsome in real life?

But also, how was it actually possible that Minho was standing next to you in real life?

But also also, how was it actually possible that Minho was real?

That’s the real question, isn’t it?

You came to when you heard him say, “Yes, this is our first time meeting,” before turning to you and holding out his hand for a handshake. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

You took his hand, shaking it weakly, and said the first thing that came to your mind: “Oh my god, hi.”

The reporter giggled, but Minho, instead of acting embarrassed for you, simply let go of your hand and moved to pull you into a hug.

Holy cannoli, Minho was hugging you.

Choi Minho. Was hugging. You.

Hugging!

You!

“It’s so nice to finally meet you!” he repeated with a grin after pulling away, though he was still incredibly close to you and gazing at you with those sparkling, dreamy eyes of his.

“You, too,” you managed to reply shakily.

The reporter then went on to interview Minho, asking him who had designed his suit, what his character in this new movie was like, and if he was working on any new projects.

“I’m in the early stages of something, yes,” he answered. “I don’t think I can say too much more, but in the meantime, I think I’d really like to film some videos with Y/N, branch out onto social media.”

Your heart stopped, and you knew your facial expression was doing nothing to hide your surprise.

Minho then turned to you with an adorably guilty look on his face. “I mean, if it’s alright with you, of course.”

“Yes, absolutely!” you burst out immediately, and the reporter giggled once again.

“Well, there you have it, guys,” she said after turning to face the camera. “You heard it here first -- a brand new collaboration in the works, so keep an eye out.”

She turned to you then and asked you to remind the viewers of the name of your YouTube channel. You leaned into the microphone and silently praised the lord you were able to remember it.

“Thanks so much, you two,” the reporter said with a very peppy grin. “Have a wonderful evening!”

“You, as well,” Minho answered before putting a hand in-between your shoulder blades and guiding you back to the red carpet.

Wait, he was guiding you back to the red carpet? He wasn’t... leaving?

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured in your ear, his breath causing the most delicious tingle down your spine. “I swear I wasn’t trying to be rude, I just wanted to meet you --”

“No,” you shook your head slightly. “It’s -- it’s totally fine. It wasn’t rude at all. I’m -- I just -- I’m a little overwhelmed. In a good way!”

“Totally understand. I remember my first movie premiere like it was yesterday, I know exactly how you’re feeling.”

You simply let out a nervous chuckle, but then Minho did something to make you even more nervous (which you hadn’t even been sure was possible).

He bent his arm and held out the crook of his elbow toward you.

“Shall we?”

Okay, you were now convinced this was a dream. This was all a wonderful, perfect, heavenly dream.

There was just no way that any of this could happen in real life! Being invited to Minho’s movie premiere was one thing, but him interrupting your interview on the red carpet and mentioning he wanted to film a YouTube video with you? Him offering to actually walk the red carpet with you on his arm?!

Nope. Definitely not real.

So, since this was absolutely a dream, you figured you’d just go with it!

“We shall,” you replied as a soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

You slid your hand into the crook of Minho’s elbow, and the two of you slowly made your way down the red carpet. Together.

It didn’t take long for you to be awed by his professionalism. When the cameras began to flash, he posed like a natural. It seemed so easy for him, but you figured it probably was easy after going through this so many times. 

He murmured helpful hints and reassuring words to you as you struggled through, and he even insisted on doing his interviews with you by his side.

(Of course, before the two of you approached each reporter, he asked you quietly if you would rather have the spotlight all to yourself. He didn’t want to usurp your first experience on the red carpet and would gladly step away so you could finish the process on your own. You declined every single time.)

When you finally reached the entrance to the theatre about an hour later, you figured Minho would say it had been nice to meet you and be on his way.

But you should’ve remembered that this was a dream!

“Do you want to come inside? We can sit together during the movie if you want. I mean, you’re pretty much my unofficial date already, but you can absolutely say ‘no’ if you don’t --”

“I would love to,” you interrupted, your voice more sure and firm than it had been all evening.

But hearing your favorite actor and biggest crush of all time declare that you were his date for the night would do that to you. Plus, Minho literally exuded confidence and warmth -- you’d always thought so while watching him on a screen, and it was both relieving and exciting to learn he was exactly the same in real life.

Minho smiled at you and then led you into the theatre, your heart now basically in a constant state of flips and somersaults.

Once the two of you took your seats in front of the screen, Minho turned slightly toward you.

“I have to admit, I’ve been watching your videos a lot since I filmed the reaction for the magazine,” he said with the most attractive half-smile you’d ever seen in your life. “Seriously, thank you so much for being so supportive.”

“Oh my god, no, thank you,” you replied breathlessly. “I can’t believe you watched my videos.”

“They’re kind of addicting,” he chuckled. “I don’t know what it is, but I definitely understand why you have so many subscribers. I actually created my own YouTube account just so I could subscribe to you.”

Your eyes widened, and your heart actually stopped somersaulting because it stopped beating altogether.

“Are you serious?” you asked.

“You’re so entertaining! It feels like watching those movies and shows with a friend. And I like how you’re really honest but still nice about it. You don’t seem to have a cruel bone in your body.”

“Uh, no, I think you’re getting me mixed up with yourself,” you replied with a somewhat awkward laugh.

Minho simply grinned at you, and the somersaults started back up inside your chest.

“I was serious about wanting to film with you, though,” he said, eyebrows raised earnestly. “I would love to collab --”

“Yes, absolutely,” you reassured him as fervently as you could. “Literally whenever. Please. Yes.”

“Okay, good,” Minho chuckled before reaching into his pocket and sliding out his phone. “Here, give me your number so I can let you know when I’m free next.”

You hesitated before accepting his phone because...

What?!

Minho was giving you his phone. His actual phone. So you could put in your number? Your number?

This night just kept getting more and more unbelievable.

But you were never in a million years going to pass up the opportunity to give Choi Minho your phone number, so you took his phone and quickly added yourself as a contact.

“Perfect,” Minho murmured, almost to himself, when you handed his phone back to him. He looked at the screen for a few moments, and you noticed a soft grin pulling at his lips. And then he shifted his gaze over to you and said, “I can’t wait.”

And... as your eyes locked on his...

You had a moment.

A moment.

One of those moments you will never, ever forget as long as you lived.

One of those moments where your future basically flashed before your eyes.

Minho arriving at your house to film a video with you, a friendship forming, late night texts and phone conversations, going out to restaurants whenever he was in town... a more than friendship forming.

And you truly could’ve sworn this was not just your heart wishing, but... you honestly felt like you were going to marry this man.

“I can’t either,” you replied softly just before the lights went down.

The first thing you did when you got home was set up your camera and film a video relaying everything about your experience at Minho’s movie premiere.

Of course, you didn’t mention The Moment -- y’know, the moment you had when you realized you were most probably going to marry him? And you could just feel that it wasn’t wishful thinking? You figured it was probably best to keep that to yourself for now.

But everything else you shared with your subscribers, and you did nothing to hide how wonderful and magical it had all been -- and it had really been Minho which had made it so perfect.

“And you guys, he is truly exactly the same in person as he seems in, like, interviews and stuff. He’s so nice and so friendly and so warm and so gracious and --”

But you were interrupted by a text message.

Most of the time, you left your phone on silent as you filmed, but you’d been too excited to get all of your thoughts out that you’d forgotten to switch the sound off before turning the camera on.

“Whoops,” you murmured as you reached for your phone on your desk in front of you.

Instead of simply turning your phone on silent, though, the actual text message you’d received caught your eye and was too intriguing to ignore.

It was from a number you didn’t have saved, but your instinct to read the first few words of a message from an unknown sender took over... and you were incredibly glad it did.

Because the message was:

Hey, it’s Minho 😁 Are you free next week?

OTHER SIGNS: ARIES, TAURUS, GEMINI, CANCER, LEO, VIRGO, LIBRA, SCORPIO, CAPRICORN, AQUARIUS, PISCES

#kwritersworldnet #minho scenarios #minho imagines #minho au #minho fluff #minho fanfic #shinee scenarios #shinee imagines #shinee au #shinee fluff #shinee fanfic #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop au #kpop fluff #kpop fanfic #choi minho #shinee

[redstaratmorning]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Astarion

Ahoy there me hearties! It is time to embark on yet another long voyage into the seas of discovery and character exploration, to fill in the details of the blank map with speculation and musings alongside the occasional sea serpent drawing! Tonight we are once more focused on Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3, and we set sail with navigation logs that include Scents And Sensibilities, or more specifically how both taste and smell might impact Astarion as a vampire and his perception of the world. The second major topic of speculation would be the one that gave this post its title: amnesia possibilities with speculations on the influence of torture and starvation for induced memory loss. This is of course all speculation based on early access content, so beware of spoilers upon the horizon! Content warnings include discussion of food items, consumption of food, consumption of rotting food, graphic descriptions, maggots, insects, emetophobia, vampirism, blood, dark backstories, abuse, torture, horror, and other themes typical of the Baldur’s Gate 3 setting. Spoilers for both Baldur’s Gate 3 and some spoilers for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: Justine included. Google story details of the Amnesia series at your own risk, these tags are intended to be reflective solely of mentioned elements in this essay, not of all potentially disturbing content in those games.

So with the starting fact of how closely the senses of taste and smell are in real life, what does this mean for Astarion and other vampires in DND when it comes to how things smell versus how they taste? Referencing another of Pjenn’s fine posts regarding everyone’s favorite local vampire spawn, Astarion has a line regarding consuming a treacle tart from Auntie Ethel’s cottage: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [click here for a link to said post]  Now this could just be because Auntie Ethel is a hag and cooks horrible food, and according to tumblr there are poisonous apples to be found at her place as well. [Alas no post citation to confirm the poisonous apples.] If Astarion’s reaction isn’t due to Ethel being a terrible cook, and is more to do with the fact that he’s a vampire, then that’s a horse of a different color. Presumably, through speculation based on his surprise and lack of disgust prior to consumption of foodstuffs, standard humanoid foods likely still smell or at least smell similar to how they used to smell to him when he was alive. An apple still smells like an apple, as it were. It may just be that instead of Astarion feeling hunger at the smell of an apple, it might be more akin to smelling pleasant like apple-scented perfume or such though for him...curiously, that would suggest that he did not try or more likely could not try to eat anything of the sort under Cazador’s rule. On that note, it would be a certain flavor of tragedy for regular humanoid foods to still smell appetizing and edible to Astarion but taste like ash in his mouth, or worse. But how does food fit for vampires smell to Astarion? Namely, blood, of course. Though one might wonder at rare steak or other cuts of meat still bloody to the taste—could he eat beef tartare and enjoy it, for example? Sashimi or other raw seafood? That’s straying into headcanon territory though. Back on topic, in the one camp scene where everyone is feeling ill with the beginning sensations of ceremorphosis, he mentions “I can smell the blood in your mouth” on one dialogue branch. It could be that the two are standing awfully close together while discussing matters, and/or the MC’s bleeding a pretty significant amount and the scent is quite noticeable, or Astarion’s got a pretty keen sense of smell, or a combination of the above. It probably smells pretty good if it tastes as good as Astarion’s reactions and comments would strongly suggest, and if we’re going to go wild with fun fantastical interpretations, I’d put forth the idea of Astarion being able to smell the difference between different people’s (or animals’) blood at close range. If Larian puts the following datamined not-present-in-game-yet scene in, the former idea would tie in very nicely with how Astarion speculates on how the different companions’ blood might taste, from this datamined text post once again kindly provided by Pjenn. [click here for text post link, bottommost “tastingparty” section] Transcription of some of the possible lines in question (not in the game at time of writing, and possibly may not appear in the final game): “Take Gale, for example. He strikes me as someone whose blood is rich, refined like a well-aged brandy.” “Take Wyll, for example. A man of the people, very palatable, like a sweet cider.” Above lines chosen for their more descriptive wording, thus why the other party members (both current and future as of this time of writing) are not added in the above examples. Astarion is quite colorful in his descriptions of how he thinks some of the companions’ blood would taste, based off of their personalities. So what does everyone’s various MCs’ blood taste like? There could be delightful variety based on the details of the various MCs’ personalities and personal life histories, I’ve seen some explorations on the dash here and there which is delightful, and I’d shan’t say no to seeing more. It is a beautiful opportunity for character exploration regarding the MC, Astarion’s perception of them, the reality of who they are (and perhaps Astarion shifting said perception of them), and all around a great potential moment to have some fun writing descriptive prose if one is so inclined. One internet search later, I will say that it appears that reddit and other google search sources do seem to suggest that in real life the blood from various different species of animals looks and tastes different from one another, even without going into factors such as age and health’s impact on blood. If we as normal humans are able to tell the difference in that, it seems reasonable to think Astarion would be able to do that and more with supernatural augmentation as the basis for that line of thinking. What do people smell like to him? Different from one another one might suppose. Is that part of what informs his imaginings and wonderings about how their companions’ blood might taste? Individuals tend to smell unique to some degree, due to body chemistry among other factors. One would expect blood to be a factor in that, seeing as that’s how many hormones and such get sent about the circulatory system—which might mean Astarion (and our potential future weregnome companion) may have more of a time having to deal with the whole party foregoing soap for better or for worse, unless Gale or Shadowheart have a Summon/Conjure Soap spell, or perhaps the MC is a ranger who can find a soap plant. Not a great time to have a sensitive nose potentially, though foregoing soap and thus additional layered scents like floral infusions and such might be beneficial. One can only imagine hunting might turn out better for the entire party’s dinner-scrounging efforts by not alerting the local wildlife that there’s someone about who smells like a potpourri bowl...though that’s another idea, does Astarion volunteer to go hunting moreso for the party in order to be able to drain blood from the kills? One would bleed and gut a carcass anyway as part of the processing, so who would know if he drank it dry versus bled it out with a knife from a tree? Moving on though, imagine what it must’ve been like the first time after he rose up from being turned and he smelled another living person’s blood, only to feel his mouth suddenly start watering. Was he confused? Repulsed? Horrified? Startled, but accepting? There’s potential ripe for the picking to interpret that in any number of ways, including conflicted and complicated in multiple directions all at once, which his actions and emotional depictions might suggest so far in early access. Imagine the torment of being ravenous every night—and I am personally impressed that Astarion actually can keep his mental faculties and presentation together well enough to seduce someone given potential speculation of his physical state,—and knowing only a meager portion of the most putrid, rotting rat flesh awaited him back at Cazador’s mansion, while he had to interact and seduce with people who smelled just so good to his vampiric senses. Consider the added twist of the knife in Cazador’s torment of Astarion with the fact that one can consider saliva to be filtered blood—if one headcanons Astarion as actually being quite physical with his seduction up to and including kissing of any kind. Consider also, the fact that if Astarion has shared a kiss with one of the unfortunate victims-to-be, he might have more of an idea of what they might taste like but must also now sit and SMELL their fresh-spilled blood right from the vein, right there in front of him, and watch while Cazador enjoys his own supper, while being forced to down a disgusting rotting carcass under threat of punishment. [in-post content warning: Graphic description of rotting dead rat carcass, food, maggots, etc in the next paragraph] Did Astarion throw up the first several times? Cazador would’ve surely punished him for so “rudely” rejecting a dinner all set out especially for Astarion and everything. To get to the point where one can consume let alone look at and smell a plate of rotting food,—specifically a dead rat with the fur still attached, the guts bloating up and putrifying from within, that very well might have live, wriggling maggots in it,—and not vomit? It must be one hell of a potent cocktail mix between primal hunger-driven desperation and fear of punishment applied over a prolonged period of time for Astarion to actually be able to consume that, let alone look upon it. This essay by the by will not be doing any in-depth exploration of the overarching situation relating to the victims’ point of view, as I feel that’s been implied in previous meta posts by both myself and others on Astarion, in the “Clearly The Other Victims Have It Bad Too And No One Deserves To Suffer Cazador” thread of implications.  We are however acknowledging that all of this experience for everyone else, aside from Cazador, is Fucked Up And Very Very Bad. Continuing past acknowledgements of the large moral cluster of ideas over yonder, let us move forward into the “present” time when Astarion has joined the party, and no one is as of yet aware that he is a vampire. Consider the scenario where he can smell their individual scents, but it’s nothing he hasn’t handled before, even if he seems to be...curiously free of the immediate need to get back to Cazador right away, while still wrapping his head around this bizarre new reality of walking in the sun. The inescapable reality of how different everything looks bathed in the all encompassing colors of sunlight, compared to moonlight and lantern light. Be it the blinding yellow, white, and blue of the noon time sun, or the violent golds, oranges, reds clashing against the violently deep blue shadows of night’s approach during the fall of twilight, or the brilliant and mellow pale grandeur of all the world’s color coming to life as the dawn breaks forth...it has been so long since last he saw any of that. Do you think he sat up specifically to watch that first dawn, while the other companions slept? It’s a beautiful thought. But I would follow that with the unfortunate potential consideration that he is starving—and when hunger eats away at one’s mind for long enough and in a demanding enough fashion, it can be remarkably difficult for a person to feel much of anything save very faint echoes of emotions or on the other extreme end only the strongest emotions, and more often than not those emotions are very likely to be the negative ones. Just about nobody’s happy when they’re starving after all. Astarion may very well feel awe at seeing the dawn again, but how deep does that feeling go, when instinct is screaming and gnawing at his very bones to insist that he is hungry? Famished. Starving. Appreciation for beauty is a privilege that is hard to enjoy at all in any degree of depth when the basic needs are wailing inside one’s head so loudly.  And he can smell his companions’ blood, even when they’re not bleeding. He has also smelled their blood spill out into the open air too, during fighting. How does that eat at him, how does that sharpen his appetite so? Does it make his stomach twist in pain to smell what his senses are clamoring for and labeling as food so close, so near, as he slowly loses his mind waiting all day for the party to break camp so he can try to slip away and hunt? Does he catch anything? He does find some animals canonically in some encounters, but there is no guarantee he will find enough without expending strenuous effort, assuming he finds anything at all on a given night. And his luck does run out eventually it would seem. One night he just doesn’t have any reserves left in him to go hunt down another animal, to take another gamble that’s stacked even higher against him with how badly off he is. Does he feel an uncomfortable chill set in, cooling his blood and rendering his flesh even colder than his normally low body temperature standards as his undead form slips just a little bit closer to a semblance of true death, whether or not he can starve to death as a vampire? Do his hands shake? Can he think at all as thoughts fade in and out from hunger-induced weakness? Can he think through the haze of sensation and awareness if he breathes in through his nose, his open mouth, inhaling a lungful of the smell and taste of living blood right there? The smells that he’s grown familiar with over these last few days? The companion origin for Astarion definitely seems to spin it towards needing to know if he can resist Cazador’s orders now, but consider this thought: imagine the progression of realization that Astarion might have as he considers the idea that he could resist Cazador’s rules, with the lack of magical-compulsion to return to Cazador’s side right away. That if Astarion himself is no longer bound by those supernatural, unyielding, magically-enforced laws, he can also drink the blood of thinking creatures. He can drink the blood of people. He can drink the blood that he’s been smelling the enticing scents of this entire time. The blood that is right. There. And he is starving. Imagine how that must feel, that pupil-dilating moment of realization as muscles tense and the next breath comes in as a sharp inhale at the instantaneous, primal understanding that you can have food, real food, good food, right then and there when you feel like you’re dying for something, anything to stop the hunger from eating you alive from the inside out. And all you have to do, is take it. Humans in real life can potentially have very predatory responses to hunger at times, especially when it comes to hunting down prey animals, and when it comes to spotting an easy meal when one is working on empty reserves. Imagine how that can scale up for a vampire...and for Astarion, this is the first time he’s been free to actually choose to act on those instincts. Cazador’s rules have always been the backbone holding him in place as surely as the mindflayer prison pods kept everyone well and truly trapped—until our merry lot was broken free. Now though? The only thing standing between Astarion and his sleeping, delicious-smelling companions’ blood, is his own will and choice. That has to be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. He’s never been free like this—free, with vampiric needs clamouring for his attention. Free, as a vampire, spawn or otherwise. But does he want to? I would actually suspect he feels conflicted about that on multiple levels, given a possible line Auntie Ethel might say should you fight her. ”You’re one thirsty night away from betraying everyone!” [One of Auntie Ethel’s taunts when using Vicious Mockery during her potential fight, linked here in astarions-ears’s post.] On the one hand: the power to take what he wants, what he needs, is at his fingertips. Much like how the power of the tadpole is. It could help him protect himself, be stronger, do whatever he wants...just like the tadpole power. This whole situation is a mess of temptation in the long term for Astarion in so many ways. On the other hand though...I suspect based on that line from Ethel above, assuming it makes it into the final version of the game, given that it’s used during a casting of Vicious Mockery, I would say there’s fair grounds to assume Astarion does have at least reservations about betraying the party, at the very least with the hesitation given rise from self-serving desires such as wanting to have a group of people in his corner. I would say though, it wouldn’t cut so deep, and wouldn’t be so vicious a mockery, if he didn’t care that it was betrayal. I think it safe to say that if he truly didn’t care in some shape or form, Ethel would’ve ended up mocking some other aspect of Astarion’s personality or insecurities, likely something along the lines that everything he does is futile as he will still end up killed or enslaved by either Cazador or others (such as the party and MC having so much sway over his life and choices), rather than needling him about betrayal of all things.  Another reservation he might have from lack of experience is that he’s never hunted other people for his own food before. He might never have hunted for someone personally of his own free will before this point, either. That little nuance could be a hook on which he hangs onto for dear life—or unlife—in order to keep what remains of his perceived identity. Who does he want to be, and among those details, what must he be, in order to survive? What can he avoid doing? Does he want to be what he perceives as a monster? Is he hoping not to become a monster, to validate that he isn’t one already, based on his conversation after you catch him trying to steal some of the MC’s blood? “I’m not some monster!” There’s also the line from the post-Raphael first meeting, “If I keep the tadpole, I risk turning into a monster.” which all seem to imply that Astarion draws a line between what he thinks is and isn’t monstrous, much like in the first meeting with Astarion where if you tell him about the tadpole, he laughs bitterly and goes, “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster.” Isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase? It implies so much fertile ground for speculating on what he thinks of both his own vampirism, and what precisely makes someone or something a monster. The MC has come into Astarion’s life at such a fascinatingly crucial point in time, beyond just Astarion’s sudden new freedom, however fragile, from Cazador. Because of that freedom, this is also the time of exploration and self-definition for Astarion to decide who he is, and who he will be, a coming-of-age if you will, which is hysterically ironic and well-played by Larian Studios in my opinion given that he is almost assuredly going to be the chronologically oldest member of the main party. This dovetails so very neatly into the MC’s already obvious potential influence on how Astarion views his condition, other people, the world around him, his own self and morality...it’s really just so rife with potential. This particular part is nothing too new, just added detail and layering on top of previous musings in past posts, but there are elements of interest to examine I think. Personally, I was inclined to guess Astarion as being older, even as elves go, based largely on the fine lines one can see upon his face when he’s emoting, some elements of his attitude and dialogue—(“A fine effort, but I’ve seen it all. I was walking this land while your ancestors were learning to crawl.” - said if you fail a skill check during his recruitment scuffle)—but looking at some of these other elements has me reconsidering that. Perhaps he was more on the young adult side of the elven age range, rather than middle aged prior to being turned? If he can retain scars as a vampire under the living conditions Cazador subjected him to, perhaps he also has stress-related aging tells, since it seems from other DND materials (Curse of Strahd I believe has a vampire locked in a basement that’s largely starved of blood if I recall correctly? I am uncertain of the details regarding the situation unfortunately) that vampires can at least show physical deterioration when it comes to being starved for blood. It would be an entertaining take in my personal opinion to see an older character having a coming-of-age growth type arc, since those are almost always strongly associated with a relatively narrow range of ages from teenaged-to-middle-twenties-ish protagonists and characters. Whichever way Larian goes with it though, it is looking quite promising just based on the overall quality of the various game elements so far. To build on that possible theme interpretation though, there is another element that I think ties into Astarion’s uncertain age as well—how much he remembers of his life before Cazador, and how much life there was to remember to begin with. One might generally presume that the older a character is, the more time they’ve had and thus more opportunity to learn, to be exposed to life experiences, to garner wisdom. Often, this also tends towards a certain amount of cementing of a person’s outlook, personality, and other core traits along with potential varying levels of self-awareness regarding those elements. It goes without saying that people do still change sometimes dramatically other times gradually over the course of their lives, but typically the more easily-influenced vibes commonly go with younger and/or more naive character builds, though not always of course. Without addressing significant or otherwise notable exceptions, specific nuances or variations though, there is something of a vague expectation and template starting-base that older characters and personalities are typically more “put together”, “collected”, and less likely to be outright mutable. Astarion though? As a character in an RPG that is built upon the foundations of choices, in a DND world where choice IS the defining feature in both character expression and storytelling? His core will remain as himself I’m sure, but by the very nature of the game attempting to make this an enjoyable experience for the audience, odds are very good that Astarion will be heavily influenced in his outlook into a set number of branched endings based on what the MC chooses to say and do. But I have some potential suspicions now that Astarion might actually be a touch more malleable in some parts of his outlook and manner beyond the influence of just the aforementioned elements above. Consider the following lines Astarion currently has in Early Access, including one mentioned previously: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [Said in the previously posted link above when eating a treacle tart for presumably the first time, stolen from Auntie Ethel’s before illusion is lifted.] “I’ve seen so little of the world. Still, there’s time now.” [Looking at a globe, post linked here, from Pjenn’s blog] “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies. Was that normal?” [If you kill Mayrina’s brothers and Auntie Ethel disappears into thin air. Video from Danaduchy on youtube linked here] “Probably wise. No one gets that old and crooked playing by the rules.” [Same conversation as above mentioned in the video regarding Auntie Ethel if the second option “I’m not sure. We should watch ourselves around her.” is chosen in response to Astarion’s question.] While one could certainly retain youthful or what one might call immature or dramatic inclinations even through to one’s golden years, I am on the fence on how far Astarion’s presentation is strictly personality-based versus influenced by a possible lack of diverse life experiences. Nature versus nurture, as it were. The first of the above quotes seem to suggest he hasn’t done much traveling, and may have some wanderlust in him (potentially hinting at moon elf wanderlust leanings?), but then why wasn’t he out traveling? Why did he become a magistrate? There is much life to be lived in great depth and diversity when one stays in one place, true. But we really know so little about Astarion’s past before Cazador, all in all, and that intriguingly puts him back in step with most of the other companions at this point of backstory reveal, I’d say. If we include Cazador’s influence, I’d say we’ve seen quite a bit more of his story than most of the others because there’s a lot more visibility and immediately-threatening emotional tension in his story, even when compared to Gale’s, surprisingly, followed by Wyll’s, Shadowheart’s, and then Lae’zel’s as of what I personally have seen of their stories (my knowledge may be lacking, even as far as Early Access content goes.) To be fair though, Astarion is the one who thus far shows the most visible, dramatic expressions of fear and trauma regarding his backstory than all the rest, so that would be a major factor as to why it feels like we’ve seen more of his tale, among other factors. Regarding life experiences within a more geographically limited area though—that puts some of Astarion’s comments as even more markedly odd to me. Specifically those comments of his after Auntie Ethel poofs away into thin air, should the party slay Mayrina’s brothers for Ethel, “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies.” Perhaps his specification is the helpless part, but even if he was spending time with powerful old ladies, who asks “is it normal for the elderly to disappear into thin air like that?” He must have met some older people, ladies included, as Baldur’s Gate is not a strictly elven city, according to the wiki its demographics are mostly human but widely diverse. [Link to wiki page here.] This is especially strange if he’s of a noble background and was ostensibly working with other government officials, one would expect a range of ages with plenty of older individuals present both in his work and social circles, even if only in passing. That’s just not adding up, especially if it’s a genuine question, which his expressions and tone of voice during his inquiry in addition to his responses afterwards to the MC’s various dialogue options all seem to suggest if not confirm. If that question was coming from a young character who hasn’t seen the world, one would assume they were just incredibly sheltered. What does it mean coming from Astarion? What’s even stranger is that Astarion is the one who baits the MC into a trap using a similar disception upon meeting—”Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered!” One would think Astarion would recognize a ruse like that as one of the oldest tricks in the book: pretend to be helpless to get someone else to do the dirty work for you. Such a trick often is pulled off well especially when the pretender is either a) pretty/handsome, b) innocent looking (young or otherwise), c) dressed in a uniform or clothes that have helpful connotations for snap judgements in one’s favor (e.g. wearing good-aligned clergy garments), d) helpless looking (young, old, specific subgroups depending on culture, disabled, etc), or has other elements to their advantage there. If Astarion doesn’t recognize that particular ruse, which he doesn’t seem to, that has additional implications going on for him. If he did recognize the ruse, one would expect his reaction to be much more in line with Shadowheart’s. If he recognized it and was hiding it, one would think he wouldn’t want to play stupid, if only for pride’s sake—for all that Astarion has done things that have unquestionably humbled him, his penchant for verbal wit and criticism (various insults aimed at the MC and others regarding their intellect/stupidity) and touchy ego makes playing stupid seem like a very emotionally taxing and potentially painful thing for him to do, and thus not worth the mental/emotional effort in what looks like a very low-stakes situation. He seems too impulsive and reactive to be planning out a long-term con of hiding his intelligence, he makes far too many quips to pull that off at this point. Assuming Astarion does indeed not recognize the ruse beforehand, some of the possible implications for that could speculate on his overall awareness of his techniques when it comes to deception and manipulation. He definitely can spot it on occasion based on a narrated internal monologue line presumably from his origin— *I gave her a hard look. Never play a player.* [Linked to the audio of this line here from scionsandsinners’s blog] That he spots it in the potential origin line above, but presumably not with Auntie Ethel, might suggest that his experience is likely limited to within certain restricted lanes of behavior, likely seduction were one to guess based on what we know of his backstory and some datamined emotional directions/descriptions for voice acting, along with speculation based on his in-game behavior and demeanor. That would potentially push him moreso towards appearing when being manipulative to be doing so out of either self-perceived need (e.g. defending personal interests, inquiring after information of interest, etc), learned response, social norms, and other short term motivations that are more situational than long-term planning. I admit I’m still personally not of the opinion he’s playing a long-term game, and is playing it by ear as he goes—both honestly and not-so-honestly, as mentioned in previous posts on the subject. [Mentioned past essay post of mine linked here] In regards to short-term machinations, I think they’re all largely emotion or survival driven, as far as we’ve seen. I would include the voice acting direction for the romance scene where it’s noted that this is a power game for Astarion and that he’s an old hand at seducing others. Specifically from the synopsis: “For Astarion, this is a game of power - one he’s played many times before in the taverns of Baldur’s Gate, trying to lure people back to his master. He’s an old hand at seduction, very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” [Link to Pjenn’s post here.] I’ve seen intriguing, angsty, and fun takes on what this might mean all around tumblr, so allow me to offer up an additional one that might either compliment some of the already circulating pre-existing ones, or stand on its own depending on personal preference. Consider what power means to Astarion in the context of seducing someone specifically when it’s to lure them back to Cazador’s mansion under orders. It truly isn’t power in the sense of anything one might consider meaningful even under broad definitions. It’s a short-term deception, appealing to someone enough to get them to do what he wants for a short time, likely just enough time to flirt and then bait them back to Cazador’s estate (we’ll be skipping over speculation of anything else Astarion and company might get up to between point A and point B in this essay for simplicity’s sake, though there is much to consider on how it might impact his behavior and outlook there.) One of the specific words of interest I would say is the use of “script” in there. I’m sure others can hear it too when they listen to his dialogue during the party romance scene, but it really does sound like he’s putting on a tried-and-true act that might come across as a little over the top in romantic-dramatic-flair. One potential inference that can be gleaned from this might be some of Astarion’s expectations regarding how people perceive him, and most specifically how people perceive him in a desirous way. I will admit, Astarion’s romance scene makes me laugh, I'm impressed he and the MC both can avoid laughing at his lines in-scene, no disrespect intended. To me, he sounds like he ripped those lines straight out of a torrid romance novel, the kind where women might have a momentary description of heaving, delicate bosoms barely constrained by their bodice laces, while the men have had their shirts ripped open to display rippling muscles in a moment of romantic daring do. It makes me wonder if someone will go with a modern AU idea of BG3′s main crew that includes Astarion moonlighting as a much beloved romance/erotica writer under a nom de plume—the man has lines and characteristics that would shift well in such a verse-transposition. With that comparison in mind, I would suggest that Astarion is very, very used to playing the role of the illicit lover, the tempter of passions and other archetypes wherein he is the one confidently enticing people to cross the line of propriety with him for the implied, unspoken promise of a night filled with unparalleled ravishment. It might be he is fully, intentionally playing up to people’s fantasies about the passionate lover who falls madly in love with them at first glance. The fantasy of being so madly desired, as put forth by some romance stories. Then we have this other portion of the acting direction for the scene, “... very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” Isn’t that interesting? “Very self-assured at first,” why only at first? What changes? Does he have little doubts springing to mind then, because the realization that he knew, but didn’t really know until this moment when he feels the difference, that this isn’t just another routine night like all those other countless nights over the past two centuries where he had to tempt some poor, unfortunate soul back to Cazador’s waiting clutches? That this is someone he’s picked to spend the night with, solely for his own motivations, with no one else pulling the strings? Is it another moment of the realization of freedom, wherein he feels a touch terrified? Suddenly there is no script, there is no expectation of what he’s seen happen time after time after time after time to each person who’s looked at him the way the MC is looking at him now. Is it anxiety? Is it trauma? Is he feeling a moment of distant, cognitive dissonance that this time, this time, this person whom he’s picked, won’t be dead at the end of this? That he doesn’t have to hold them at arm’s length with the they’ll be dead soon or worse mentality he may have had previously...but can he afford to care? Does he dare? Whether he does or does not, it could be such a scary little moment of epiphany, that he even has the option to do so without immediate, horrendous repercussions. But can he really care, even without Cazador looming overhead as an immediate threat? Even if Cazador is slightly more distant now...there’s still the matter of the tadpoles. There is so much uncertainty potentially. Could this be the last chance he gets at having as close to a normal night of fully consenting, fully aware, mutual passion with another person as he can ever have, as a vampire spawn? Astarion could be interpreted as a character who is very strongly ruled by his emotions, in particular his fears and his desires. Does it befit his fears or his wants more to engage as he does in the romance scene? I’d guess moreso his fears, but it’s a fun back-and-forth he’s got as a character, zigzagging between those two extremes. He fears trusting as denoted in the dialogue from him if you fail the persuasion check asking him to trust you and to talk about who he dreamed about, but since you can persuade him...does that mean he wants to trust? If he speaks truthfully in this following scene, he does trust the MC to some degree out of necessity and/or the want to trust, as mentioned if you use the illithid powers in the camp bite scene where he’s revealed to be a vampire. He has likely been alone among the crowd of Cazador’s other spawn, given the lack of mention of anyone else, friend or otherwise, in his banter with Shadowheart regarding if there was anyone waiting for him back in Baldur’s Gate and other general conversations and discussions. That’s rather concerning truth be told, to go two hundred years with what might be a complete lack of positive or healthy social connection. Another thing Cazador has ripped away intentionally, it would seem. Does he want connection, meaningful friendship or otherwise? The fact that his approval rating has an impact on his manner of address of the MC or other selected origin character seems like it could be read as a suggestion that he does show whom he likes and dislikes openly in fairly standard socializing behaviors. That he does want to spend time around people whom he likes, who like him back. What would’ve been terribly clever of Larian (said without being able to compare all the different levels of approval shown via dialogue general greetings from the different companions), is if they had a character whose greeting was still amicable, polite, and most importantly friendly even when their approval of you was low. What if such a theoretical character’s greetings never changed, or changed very little aside from some variation at higher approval levels? That could be a great little twist of game mechanics to show either Something Isn’t Right, or that the character is a great liar, through meta knowledge on the player’s part of comparing all these disparate little details to compare and contrast. That kind of tell could be used to show that a character lacks either a degree of empathy and care for the main character, or that they are keeping the MC at arms’ length regardless of what the MC does (barring some potential high-approval impact and side-quest-completion that leads to influencing such a character, who might otherwise be a betrayer, into remaining loyal.) Seeing as Astarion lacks those major tells as of yet and that he does engage honestly either through persuasion or eventual revelation (such as if you fail the first dream-convo persuasion check, you find out from when he wakes up from nightmares regarding Cazador “reading poetry” what his dreams really were about), one could assume he does, in spite of all he’s been through, despite all the reasons he’s been given to fear, all the repetition beaten into his head to never trust another person ever again or to ever be trusted ever again... ...in spite of all that, perhaps a part of him still wants to reach out and engage with others. That some part of him still wants to interact as most if not all people do, in an emotionally meaningful and honest way. He says to the MC that he thinks they want to be known—and as I’m sure many of you clever lot who are in the shipping business alongside the rest of us have already thought or written out into fic, it very well may be that Astarion wants to be known too. Not just in the romantic or impassioned-love-affair manner of speaking, but simply for who he is, with both the MC and the rest of the group too. Accepted. Does he enjoy the little quips and barbs (assuming he actually is allowed to drink humanoid blood) such as from Shadowheart regarding his vampirism? Does that feel like a new, pleasant normal to him that he likes after a while? A joke between friends? Like the line “You know? I’m a little proud none of you were stupid enough to trust him!” [Linked here from scionsandsinners’s blog] while definitely still sporting his current insultingly low bar of expectations, it could be a nice potential build towards actually getting attached to the group on the whole as friends. Did he have that before he turned at all? Did he want that before? It seems likely given what we’ve seen of his raw emotional drive, that his potential desire for meaningful connection however obscured behind quips and barbs, that those elements were always a part of him in some way, shape or form. Does he remember, though? Or is it potentially something he’s forgotten, to some extent or other? Does he remember vaguely what friendship was like as another hollow memory among many, after so many years of torment wearing away at his mind? Do his friends from life if any still live? That could be bittersweet, if he did leave someone behind from when he was alive, that we might meet in Baldur’s Gate. He calls that Before—that time when he was still alive, before he lay dying and accepted Cazador’s offer of eternal life and was thus turned into a vampire spawn—so long ago it’s ancient history. “Everything before that is so long ago it’s ancient history and everything that came after…well uhm–I’d rather not reflect on it.” [Link here, from scionsandsinners] In some lines, tentatively guessed as post-vampire-status-reveal casual dialogue regarding his past before Cazador, relating to his days as a magistrate, he says he can’t remember what happened too clearly. “I…can’t remember much, truth be told–centuries of torment will do that to you.” [link from scionsandsinners blog]  According to google searches on the internet for DND rules regarding the turning of vampires and vampire spawn, they do seem to retain the memories of their life even into undeath. Astarion certainly could be obfuscating and lying about how much he remembers from back then...but consider this alternative as a possibility: What if he isn’t? [Spoilers for some of the Amnesia game series ahead, specifically Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the DLC Amnesia: Justine.] What if he does have a certain degree of memory loss? Enter the comparison of Daniel and Justine both from Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the game’s DLC. Astarion, unlike the main character for Amnesia’s main campaign Daniel, did not technically volunteer for memory loss...unless one counts agreeing to take Cazador’s deal as volunteering, specifically without full and knowing consent of what he was getting into. Daniel in comparison knowingly and willingly ingests a potion to erase his memories, and leaves a note to motivate himself and thus the player to follow the course of ensuing events that make up the game. Justine does so in a similar fashion to Daniel, but her memory loss is intentionally temporary, whereas Daniel seems to have meant for it to be of a more permanent fashion. What if part of Cazador’s intentions regarding torturing his spawn, including Astarion, was to break down memories of happier times until those spawn could only remember that they had ever been happy once, not the actual memory, not the actual feeling—only the bitter, hollow forgetfulness and knowledge that they had known, once? Starvation is devastating in many, many, many ways. Ways that are so rarely fully explored in fiction beyond the feeling of extreme hunger. Few, after all, would consider the impact of malnourishment or a constant caloric deficit upon mental faculties unless they have observed it, experienced it, or studied it. It is possible to suffer actual physical brain damage from starving, so one must ask is it so surprising that the ability to think, comprehend, and process information, memory or emotion also falters when under the very real physical stress of prolonged famine? The brain eats up at least a fifth of the baseline caloric intake required for the average person’s bodily needs. It does not compromise well for less without the person in question suffering consequences for most if not all individuals. We know Astarion has not had more than enough to barely survive under Cazador, and the quality has been well below subpar at best. What if, after all he’s been through, with the exhaustion of constant fear and extreme pain, of unending ravenous hunger, and so much more...what if Astarion can’t remember much of before at all? What if he has forgotten chunks of his past? He does remember large, broad brushstrokes yes, the shape of ideas and what he once knew. The home he might long to see that he has not laid eyes upon in centuries [mentioned in the conversation with the Ornate Mirror if Astarion is the one talking to it (or does it require he be the chosen main origin?) I have no source available at this current time alas.] How much of that home does he remember in full? I’m sure he can recall some details...but are they the abstract knowledge of those details of what he knew they were like, or the actual memory?  Can you imagine the added layer of pain for an elf, if Larian is working with any of the racial features involving trancing, or the Reverie, if it’s built based off of the 2e DND Complete Book of Elves excerpt as mentioned in the following linked thread? [Posted by Remathilis, key word phrase is “The Reverie” or “The reverie is akin to sleep”, linked here] Specifically if these elements are at play:  “The reverie is akin to sleep, yet is very much unlike it. When elves enter this state, they vividly relive past memories, those both pleasant and painful. Like the dreaming of humans, elves have no control over which memories rise to the fore when they relinquish their bodies to the reverie. Occasionally, elves do actually dream, but this is not a frequent occurrence and mostly occurs only when they truly sleep.” “Although the reverie provides rest, it is primarily an important memory tool that helps the elf maintain a strong sense of identity. Since their lifespans are so great, elves must periodically recall the events in those hundreds of years that were integral to the making of their personality.”  This is from older versions of DND rules it’s true, but if it still applies, and applies to Astarion? This man has had over two hundred years’ worth of memories full of suffering and torment that, if he’s having traumatic PTSD nightmare episodes also helping to induce a higher frequency of recalling his torment at the hands of Cazador both during those centuries and afterwards, are potentially shaping his personality not only through the channels we can recognize in both fiction and the real world in psychological and physiological terms, but also supernatural or magical influences due to his being an elf and potentially shaped by the influence of what memories his reverie might dredge up. And the larger the number of traumatic, dark, fearful memories he has, the more likely he is to encounter them, especially if they’re coupled with a constant, ongoing fear of knowing these memories will be made anew each night unto infinity if he is stuck bound to Cazador’s service forever. Who wants to bet Cazador knew about this aspect of elven psychology/biology? Or at the very least speculated it, as far as having elven vampire spawn went? It will be interesting to see if there are other elven vampire spawn among Cazador’s underlings—either for the route of Cazador taking a particular extra pleasure in breaking elves because they are supposedly harder to influence in such a manner if he had others before Astarion, or if Astarion was the first elf Cazador turned, then perhaps Astarion received particular, special attention for being seen as an added challenge due to being an elf. Alexander from Amnesia however had to use a slightly defter touch to manipulate Daniel, having not so concrete a hold over him as Cazador over Astarion. But the torture of others, of fleeing to Alexander’s or Cazador’s promise of safety from an impending horror or threat of death, followed by a descent into the dark, unyielding despair of what Daniel or Astarion have done to survive? They do have potential parallels enough to make for a possible AU exploration in fics, certainly. One question that arises in this scenario of comparison though, is how much is Astarion aware of? How much of Cazador’s insidious influence does he recognize, in particular the more subtle parts that have seeped in over the years? Consider then the added layer of stark, blinding contrast, that he now has new memories, of new people, new experiences, in particular ones that are not torture or the anticipation of said torture, and it’s all in the daylight. Memories of daylight the likes of which he’s not had in two hundred years. Consider the mere color contrast from the lighting difference of daylight versus night time, like in the line where he asks  “Was the sky always this blue? It’s magnificent…” [Link here to the audio, presumed triggered after vampire status reveal] If he dreams in reverie and the memory that comes to mind is set in the daytime...would he feel a bit safer in hoping that it will be a safer, better dream, than if it’s set in the night time? Consider how much of a horrible, terror-inducing surprise it might be to dream of a sun-filled garden, only to see an idealized version of Cazador show up, a la the tadpole. That has to be the meanest surprise-twist Astarion could have for a dream setting there. But on other nights if he does not have memories of Cazador or tadpole dreams plaguing him, does he dream of the camp, the companions, the MC, the actions their group has undertaken? What does he think of those dream-memories? Are they only relatively restful compared to the other dark memories lurking in his head, or are these new daylight-filled memories actually objectively restful for him? Perhaps one additional group of reasons he’s willing to join up with the party, is to get away from the memories. With people, there is the added unknown factor of complexity and chemistry, of lives and histories not his own added to the mix of any situation they come across. Of interaction. Of not being left alone to his own thoughts and nightmares. This group’s members aren’t victims meant for Cazador’s fangs and thirst, nor are they Cazador’s spawn, fellow damned souls and torturous devils both who alternate suffering upon the rack and potentially being the ones to turn the rack’s wheels for whoever is tied down upon it that night. Mayhaps Astarion wants to remember more of the things he’s forgotten in the darkness of all the years he’s suffered under Cazador—to make new memories of things he would associate with living, with being free. To fill in the hollowed out abstract memories with fresh, new details of life lived in the sun, in the here and now. Is he aware of just how much he’s forgotten? Even if he isn’t fully cognizant of the full tally of all that he’s potentially lost...it must still hurt to have an idea of how much he’s lost even if he’s only partially aware. In this, he might hold more comparison to Justine from Amnesia’s DLC moreso than Daniel, depending on what choices Astarion makes if he’s the chosen origin, or on the MC’s choices if it’s a custom origin playthrough—with Justine, her choices are all setup and intended to be an exploration of who she is as an exploration of character, to find out if she is capable of mercy and compassion still—while exercising a great deal of monstrous cruelty for her own amusement. With Daniel there is still the solid comparison of thematic elements in that his quest is a desperate pursuit of revenge while trying to outrun a great evil, all while acknowledging that he himself is horrifying as well. Justine’s story would parallel Astarion far more so on the dark path through Baldur’s Gate 3, naturally, whereas Daniel, if one selected the Revenge Ending at the end of Amnesia, has more in common with Astarion’s tentatively projected good route—revenge, while also ending a greater evil than himself. The parallel with Daniel may possibly even include a comparison to Amnesia’s Good Ending depending on what direction Larian takes Astarion’s story in. I doubt Larian would have Astarion become self-sacrificial, but I could see him potentially becoming much more inclined towards helping his friends and party members on a good-aligned path, as he seems at least not entirely unwilling to engage in do-goodery, particularly if bribed enough. There’s also certainly the idea of comparing Daniel being “tainted” as Alexander put it by the Shadow to Astarion’s potential point of view on his vampirism, given some of his expressions at times in emotional scenes relating to it. Then also the comparison of all the horrors Daniel has inflicted upon people, as have Justine and Astarion, and the fact that after the amnestic-influence of their specific story elements in this build, they are ultimately all able to be influenced towards better or worse endings dependent upon more immediate influences, namely the people surrounding them, and less so from long-standing influences of their past such as tradition, upbringing, and other core elements of identity that memory so often brings to the table, or at least helps formulate the detailing of. Justine admittedly does not really have “better” endings, but her horror story’s core could be interpreted as “was truly a monster at heart all along” from start to finish. Will Astarion prove to be similarly corrupt at his core, something that had always been true deep down regardless of Cazador’s influence on him, ultimately sowing harm and ruin upon the world and people around him, like Justine? Or will he turn out to be leaning towards being more of a good-inclined, flawed character with a bloodstained history he regrets and seeks to overcome, like Daniel? As a disclaimer though, Daniel is not a Good-aligned personality. He did many horrifying things to preserve his life, and Astarion certainly has done terrible things canonically under Cazador’s direction, though we still wait to see what Astarion did back when he was free to choose. With the attention to detail Larian Studios is applying as is to just what we’ve seen in Early Access, I would expect a fairly nuanced backstory for Astarion with murky morality, based on what we see of his opinions and character traits now. Another idea just to let loose an additional fox among the chickens: Consider the added layer of potential morality conflict in the scenario where Astarion might actually have very well been pursuing his idea of justice as a magistrate— coupled with his low opinions of others which he may have had before Cazador turned him, along with his racist/discriminatory comments and behaviors (re: Gur, Goblins, Gnomes, Kobolds, etc), likely suggests he could very well have been very biased in his perspective on how he meted out justice. I would not be surprised if Larian Studios kept the story idea that he was selling criminals off, but I also would not be at all shocked if they added details where it made what Astarion was dishing out closer to overly-harsh street-justice—he makes a fine murder-hobo adventurer as it is when the watchword of the day for many an adventuring party is “Murder Is An Acceptable Solution If Words Aren’t Working.” I also wouldn’t bat an eye should we find out he was as judgmental and cynical before Cazador as he is now, albeit perhaps with a different bend to his outlook from life experience influences. This all really ties in well with the usual game build of everyone starting at level one, as brand new, green adventurers—barring past adventuring experiences for backstory like Wyll, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart do or potentially have—at the start of their journey, off to explore the world and grow into the world-savers (or world-enders) they’re destined to be in a given campaign. Astarion fits this very well on many levels, among them given the fact how new everything is to him with this sudden change of the rules altering the very fabric of his existence. He has to deal with figuring out how to deal with his vampirism under his own agency and all the ensuing complications that come with that, has to figure out how to socially interact with others in all new ways, has to level up to go on his personal quest to save his own hide and eventually his friends’ and the world—it’s all so new and different, even the things he’s experienced before with such a drastic perspective shift and a change in power. It ties right back into his tagline so nicely too if that ends up being a possible theme of his, the whole memory-loss/memory-informing-his-identity element of being an elf: “ Astarion prowled the night as a vampire spawn for centuries, serving a sadistic master until he was snatched away. Now he can walk in the light, but can he leave his wicked past behind?” Can he leave those memories behind and forge himself into a better version of himself, if that is what he wants? What choices will Astarion make, if he does indeed have warped memories due to Cazador’s corroding influence to the point of some degree of memory loss? How will this flood of new sensory and social experiences change him as he goes forward? Who will Astarion choose to be, at the end of the day when they reach the road’s end? Will he let those dark memories twist and shape him, or will he try to make new ones among new friends, and follow their lead back into the sunlight? So many potential questions! Speaking of potential good-versus-bad-paths, this line isn’t in the game yet, but I feel it suggests Astarion might have a certain tolerance or perhaps even willingness to at least consider going out and saving the world, beyond lines we’re all familiar with already at the Tiefling celebration party: “Don’t you think we have other priorities right now? We need to save ourselves before we can save the world.” [Link here from Pjenn’s datamined post, dialogue theoretically occurs after a currently locked-off from Early Access encounter with a drow servant of the Absolute in the Underdark] It makes for a lot of intriguing possibilities, I dare say, all of which could make for marvelous variations in core character trait builds and influences for different interpretations of Astarion as a character. So many choices and gradients to play with, he and all the rest of the main cast have such nuance, it’s fantastic. The cast of characters all so far seem to have a wide variety of wants and motivations, and Larian seems like they might be quite determined to blur the line and inspire more rich exploration opportunities regarding perceived morality among many other potential topics of discussion—we have good characters with on-going flaws and darker motivations, evil characters with recurrent virtues and sympathetic appeal, and quite a few in-between when non-party-member NPCs are included in the mix. I do think Astarion along with all the rest of the party fit into those kinds of complicated-morality situations we’ve seen play out and be hinted at so very nicely, and it will be such fun to see how they grow through these experiences! It’s marvelous writing, directing, animation, acting, and just straight up work all across the board it looks like from over here. Anyway, thank you all for coming along on this literary ramble with me, I hope you had a fine time and that you all have a lovely day or night as befits your current timezone. Happy tidings to you, and stay safe everyone, and see you next time! :D

#Astarion #BG3 #Baldur's Gate 3 #long post #BG 3 spoilers #food cw #abuse mention cw #emetophobia cw #maggots cw #torture cw #character study #character meta #you know to expect searching for weird things for writing fiction #nobody tells you the weird things you look up while writing character meta #Amnesia: The Dark Descent spoilers #Amnesia: Justine spoilers #very long post #IT IS ESSAY TIME MY FINE FELLOW NET DENIZENS #one of these days I will figure out how to write shorter analysis posts #I'm going to forget what I've written previously on at some point #bc my essays are all so long #oops

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero @magic713m @ccboomer @aubsenroute and @somebodyswatson

Chapter Seventeen The Silver Doe

HARRY POTTER SIGHTED IN LONDON: NARROW ESCAPE IN THE MUGGLE UNDERGROUND

Hermione screamed and dropped her half-full coffee cup as Ron handed her the paper.

“Is he alright?!”

“I think so.” Ron sat down next to the campfire. “I didn’t read it closely, but it says ‘narrow escape’ doesn’t it?”

Hermione’s heart raced as she read the article. He’d been found in a shop for poisons and venoms — highly suspicious, the author noted — and he had been chased by an unnamed Snatcher through Knockturn Alley, all the way to the Underground. The author also noted how Harry had failed to pay his fare, and closed with, “Before she was Obliviated by the Hit Wizards sent to clean up Potter’s flight, a Muggle woman described how Potter had nearly turned over her pram with her baby still inside of it before disappearing on the Muggle train. Hit Wizards were posted at stations along the line, but Potter was not seen again.”

Knowing that Harry had made it away safely eased Hermione’s anxiety. She read through the paper for any other news about the Order, but she found nothing else of interest. The Prophet always made the world sound as peaceful as possible, while praising the progress the Ministry made in weeding out Muggle-born witches and wizards from the community. It made her sick.

She passed the paper back to Ron, who looked over the front page with mild interest.

“What do you think he was doing in a poison shop?” Ron asked.

Hermione refilled her coffee. “I expect he was looking for something to destroy the diadem.”

“Yeah, but even if he found something, it wouldn’t do him any good,” Ron had said.

“Don’t look at me like that’s my fault!”

“I wasn’t —”

“How was I supposed to know he was going to leave?”

“Hermione, I wasn’t blaming you. I was just thinking out loud.”

Ron might have said several times that it wasn’t her fault that Harry had left, and he might claim that Harry’s pointless trip to a poison shop that had nearly gotten him killed wasn’t her fault either, but she knew that neither of those things was true. She was the one who had fought with Harry the most, after all, and she was the one who had told him that all of his ideas were too risky. Harry might as well have singled her out by name in the note that he had left them:

I know you’re both going to be upset with me, but I finally understand that I have to do this alone. I can’t ask you to risk yourselves or your families any more than you have. I hope you’ll forgive me.

— Harry

She sipped her coffee and avoided looking at Ron for the rest of the morning. They didn’t even speak until that evening, when he said he was going to find food. Hermione let him go without even looking up from her Runes dictionary. It was better for him to disappear to work out his temper rather than sit in the tent, fidgeting with his Deluminator and making it impossible for her to read.

Once he had gone, she reached into her beaded bag and pulled out Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem.

She really hadn’t meant to steal it from Harry. That hadn’t been in her head at all. She had come in from watch that night, and before waking Harry for his turn, she had decided to take a look at it. Besides, her enchanted bag was probably a safer place than Harry’s bag, so why shouldn’t she hold onto the diadem?

And if he hadn’t run off, it’s not as if she would have kept it secret that she had moved it. She hadn’t done anything wrong, really.

Hermione stared at the silver band and the words engraved on its edges. Wit beyond measure… Hermione felt unfortunately short on wit these days. She had no idea how to destroy this Horcrux, nor how to find any of the others. She didn’t know what Dumbledore meant by leaving her a children’s book, nor how he expected them to accomplish something he hadn’t even finished. And, on top of it all, she didn’t understand why Harry had left.

There was his note, yes, but it didn’t explain much. Something in Harry had changed after reading Rita Skeeter’s description of Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindelwald. Hermione had read and reread that chapter, but whatever Harry had seen, she didn’t.

“Hermione!” Ron shouted, and she shoved the diadem back into her bag.

He sounded excited, and she was immediately filled with suspicion. When she went to see what had him so happy, she found him holding up a pair of chickens.

“Did you steal those?”

“What? No. They’re wild. Or they were. Good find, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

She and Ron both set to work preparing the chickens for cooking. They worked in silence, and Hermione thought it was more pleasant than most of their evenings since Harry had left. It was certainly better than the bickering they had made a habit of.

“I was thinking,” Ron said suddenly, and Hermione wondered if he had read her mind somehow and intentionally broken the silence to annoy her. “It’s getting close to Christmas, isn’t it?”

“A month or so, yes.”

“I had an idea for it.”

For months now, Hermione had been thinking of nothing except how to find and destroy Horcruxes. She did not have room for something as trivial as Christmas.

“Should we hang baubles from the tent poles?” she suggested icily. “Or perhaps we ought to add a wreath on the tent flap? And make sure to take them down each time we move campsites? We could make a garland out of chicken and squirrel bones.”

Ron very obviously bristled, as he always did when she took that tone of voice. “Didn’t realise it was a crime to want to do something nice for once,” he snapped.

“I’m not sure if you noticed, Ron, but hunting for Horcruxes doesn’t leave us a lot of time for something nice.”

Ron snatched her plucked chicken from her and shoved it onto the stick they had been using to cook their meals.

Her stomach turned unhappily, but surely it was just hunger, and not any sort of guilt. She was in the right, after all. It wasn’t as if he was doing anything helpful while she spent hours poring over her research.

“Can I finish what I was going to say about Christmas?” Ron asked.

Hermione pursed her lips and reached into her bag in search of the herbs Harry had gathered for them before he had left. “What do you want to do for Christmas?”

“I think we should stay with Bill and Fleur.”

She opened her mouth to give Ron a dozen reasons why that was a bad idea, but he cut her off.

“I’ve thought it all out, and it’s a good plan. Their home is further south, on the coast, so we won’t have to worry about freezing over in the middle of watch, and they’re probably under less surveillance there than the Burrow would be, so we can stay there for a bit, and we won’t have to spend so much time hunting and foraging. You’d have more time to study all your runes and whatever else you need to do. And Ginny will probably come around because she’ll be home from Hogwarts. She might have talked to Harry. She could even help us talk to Harry.”

Hermione paused her search for the jar of herbs. “How do you know they aren’t being watched?” she asked.

“Well, Bill and Fleur don’t work for the Ministry or anything like Dad does.”

“No, they just work for Gringotts, don’t they? That’s nothing the Death Eaters care about.”

“It’s still a good idea!”

“It’s risky.”

“So is camping out in the countryside all winter. Just last week, Snatchers set up their camp not far from ours. We can’t avoid all risk.”

She bit down on her lip. That was part of why Harry had left, wasn’t it? She had told him that all of his ideas were too risky.

“We can look,” she finally said, “and make sure we’re not going to be picked up by any waiting Death Eaters or Snatchers first.”

She risked a glance at him and saw he was grinning from ear to ear. She wondered if she’d seen him smile at all since before Harry had left. Her face grew warm and she quickly resumed her search for the herbs.

“They’re staying in my aunt’s old house on the beach. We used to spend summers there, and I know the cliffs pretty well. We can pick out a spot to watch from for a day and make sure the coast is clear.”

“Where did you say it was?”

“It’s in Cornwall, outside a place called Tinworth.”

Her searching hand finally closed around the jar she wanted. “We’ll go tomorrow then, and see if they’ll have us for the week.”

Ron was still smiling as she sprinkled the herbs over the chicken. It wasn’t long before their campsite was filled with the scent of roasting chicken and rosemary. Ron complimented her cooking, and she blushed at his praise, even though he had done most of the work and the herbs themselves had been Harry’s.

The next day, just as she had promised Ron, they packed up the campsite and Apparated to Tinworth. It was not a large village but it was lovely. Ron led her along the cliffs until they could see a house in the distance, decorated in white-washed seashells. She could see why Ron wanted to stay here.

“See?” Ron said, gesturing at the cliffs and the horizon. “It’s not an easy place to keep a secret watch on. Nowhere to hide. Long as we stay inside, no one should know we’re there.”

Hermione still thought it best to stay cautious. She and Ron could easily set up a camp here, with no one the wiser, and keep watch on the cottage. It would not be hard for Death Eaters to do the same.

By the time sunset arrived, she still was not ready to concede.

“We should give it at least another day,” Hermione said.

Ron picked at what was left of yesterday’s chicken. “We haven’t seen anything!”

“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see. If you and I are spotted, it’s not just us they’ll come after, it’s your whole family. Including Ginny, who’s away at Hogwarts and can easily be taken without warning. We have to be careful.”

Ron tossed a chicken bone into the fire. It sparked and cracked. “Fine,” he grunted. “I’ll take first watch then.”

Hermione returned to the tent, but she didn’t get into bed. She was tired — exhausted, really — from the stress of traveling and hiding, but there was still work to be done. There was always work to be done, and there would be until she solved the puzzles she had been left with.

She opened up her copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Harry’s note slipped out from between the cover and first page, and she quickly tucked it back in. It wasn’t the reason she had opened the book, and she didn’t want to dwell too heavily on why she had decided to keep the last thing Harry had left for her with the last thing Dumbledore had given her.

Instead, she turned to “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” There was nothing about the story itself that stood out from the others, but at the top of the page was the symbol from Dumbledore’s signature: a triangle with a sort of eye in it. She grabbed a spare piece of parchment and her ink bottle and set to work deconstructing the symbol in an attempt to decode its meaning.

She rewrote the lines of Dumbledore’s unusual mark into a handful of different letters and runes, but it meant nothing to her. She didn’t even know why she was looking into this. The symbol, whatever it was, had been written down by Dumbledore long before Voldemort had even been born, let alone begun creating Horcruxes.

But then why had he left her a book with the same marking?

While she read and worked, it was easy to lose track of time. The steady roar of the ocean below helped with that, creating an almost hypnotic work space. She drew and redrew the symbol for hours, tried hundreds of different rune translations or abbreviations, but nothing made sense to her.

She was so focused that she might have kept working straight through the night, or at least until Ron came to trade watch shifts with her, if he hadn’t poked his head in the tent and hissed, “Hermione — come see this.” He flicked his Deluminator and extinguished the light in the tent.

“Ronald!”

“Sh — just come look.”

“How can I look when you’ve taken all the light?” she grunted, abandoning her notes at the table and joining Ron on the cliffside.

Sometimes, when she was ignoring him, he would turn the lights out to get her attention. She was about to scold him for doing so now when she saw why he had insisted on darkness. He had even extinguished their small campfire to get a better look.

There were no lights to indicate the shoreline, nor even lights to mark where Bill and Fleur’s cottage was. There was nothing but inky blackness, as far as they could see, except for, down on the shore, a small silver light.

“It looks like a Patronus,” Hermione whispered.

“It’s been sitting there for twenty minutes. Don’t they usually move about?”

Hermione fidgeted with the strap of her bag. If it was there to guard against a dementor, maybe not, but the air didn’t feel unusually chilly. Cold in the sea spray, yes, but not abnormally so. There was no frost on the ground, and she could still see the stars above them.

“Maybe it’s waiting to give someone a message?” Ron suggested. He squinted. “Harry’s Patronus is a deer, isn’t it?”

Whatever the shape below them was, it was large and four-legged, but Hermione was not certain that it was a deer. It could just as easily be a horse or a cow.

“I’m going to get a closer look,” Ron said, and was already moving towards it before Hermione could stop him.

“Wait, Ron!” she hissed. “You’ll fall off the cliff without light to see by!” but the ocean drowned out her warning.

She gave an exasperated sigh and whispered, “Lumos.” Hermione kept her wandlight pointed down, aimed at the edge of the cliff just so she could see where not to walk, and hurried after Ron.

Someone had cut stairs into the cliffside. She and Ron walked carefully down the wet stone steps until they reached the soft sand of the shore. The waves rolled up the shore, creeping ever closer to the cliffside as the tide rose.

Now that they were level with the Patronus, it was very clearly a beautiful silver doe.

“What do you think?” Ron asked Hermione.

“I think that’s definitely not Harry’s Patronus.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because Harry’s Patronus is a stag.” Hermione pulled on Ron’s jacket. “We should go back to the campsite —”

But Ron was already approaching the deer. As he stepped closer, it turned tail, and bounded down the coast. Ron ran after it.

“Wait!”

Hermione bit down on her lip. She looked up at the cliffs above. She saw no lights, no signs that someone was watching them. She hurried after Ron.

As they ran down the coast, the soft sand was abruptly replaced with hard rock. The doe turned from the shoreline and bounded out into the ocean, bouncing from rock to rock. It ignored the waves crashing into the rocks around it. The sea spray fell right through its incorporeal form and washed over the rocks, leaving them cold and slippery.

Hermione risked raising her wandlight to illuminate the deer’s path. It was not impossible for them to follow, but it would be dangerous, especially in the dark.

“Wait, Hermione, move that light back —”

Hermione saw it too, and did as Ron asked in search of the strange silver light that had reflected her wandlight back to them.

There, in the middle of the ocean, tip buried in stone, stood a great silver sword with a ruby-studded hilt. A wave crashed over the rock, obscuring the rock briefly, but even as the water fell away, the Sword of Godric Gryffindor stayed firm.

“Bloody hell,” said Ron, and the doe vanished.

“What’s it doing here?” Hermione asked, though she knew Ron wouldn’t have an answer.

“Accio Sword,” Ron shouted, but nothing happened. He handed Hermione his wand. “You want to hold the light while I go get it?”

She took the wand without thinking, and immediately tried to give it back to him. “No! It’s dangerous!”

“Yeah, I bet it is.” Ron took a careful step out towards the water. A wave rolled over his shoes, and he waited until it had passed before pressing on. He reached the edge of the outcropping. There were a few rocks within jumping distance, but the sword was further out, another ten feet from any of the rocks Ron could reach. There was no way to get to it without a short swim.

Hermione followed. The rock was slippery and she tested her footing on each step before putting down her full weight.

“Ron! Don’t!” She hoped he could hear her over the roar of the ocean waves as they crashed into the rocks. She flinched as the cold spray doused her.

“Keep the light steady!” Ron called back to her.

“Ronald Weasley, come back right now!”

Ron’s long stride reached the next rock easily. He found a grip in the pits of the rock, made by constant battering from the ocean, and pulled himself onto it, just in time to be drenched by another wave.

Hermione lost sight of him for a moment in the ocean spray, but when the wave receded, he was standing on the rock, just drenched from head to toe. She couldn’t hear him over the ocean crashing around them, but she knew the shapes of the curse words on his lips.

Hermione reached the edge of the initial outcropping and, despite her shivering, tried to hold the light steady on the next rock for Ron. He jumped across the gap, and Hermione gasped in horror as he slipped, falling to his knees.

“Are you alright?” she shouted.

He flashed her a thumbs up, but his face was pulled into a grimace.

“Ron, just come back. We can get it in the morning.”

He either couldn’t hear her or chose not to. Another wave slammed into the rocks, soaking Ron and splashing Hermione.

He could make one more jump onto another rock and get a bit closer to the sword, but it was not a direct path. The most direct path was through the water. Ron was already eyeing the sword.

Hermione bit down on her lip. The wave receded, and as it did, Ron slid into the water.

She could tell from the way he was moving that the water was not especially deep, at least not as the wave went out. It was still up to his shoulders, though, and it pulled on him easily. His entry had been straight towards the sword, but already he was a few feet off course.

Hermione knelt on the edge of the outcropping and held her hand out. “Forget the sword, just come back!”

As if the ocean had heard her, it swelled forward. The wave rolled over her and she lost sight of Ron. She coughed and spluttered and when she had her bearings again, she could no longer see Ron in the water.

“Ron!”

She cast her wandlight about the rocks and the ocean, until she found him climbing onto the rock with the sword.

“Don’t touch the blade!” Hermione warned him.

Ron gave her another thumbs up. He used the pits in the rock to pull himself to the crest, then yanked on the sword’s hilt. It didn’t budge.

A wave crashed over Ron and he clung to the sword to keep from being swept away. As the water receded, he wiped his soaked hair from his eyes. “Hermione, I need my wand!”

“What if you don’t catch it?”

“Don’t throw it! You’re a witch, for Merlin’s sake.”

Hermione used her wand to Levitate Ron’s wand across the water. He snatched it out of the air neatly, then aimed it at the base of the rock.

“Wait —”

Hermione’s warning came too late. With a blue flash, Ron split the rock apart and pulled the sword free, just as a wave crashed into him. He went tumbling into the water. Hermione screamed.

She searched the water for any sign of him as the wave receded. She waited anxiously for his head to pop up, spitting out water and fighting to get back to her. Her light finally found his red hair, bobbing along with the swell of the ocean, but otherwise unmoving.

Hermione scrambled down into the water. She had thought she was cold and wet enough, just from the spray of the waves, but it was nothing compared to submerging herself. Her muscles and joints protested with dull aches and her thick, curly hair became twice as heavy.

She held her wandlight over her head, trying to keep it trained on Ron as she treaded water. Occasionally, her toes brushed the slick rock of the ocean floor, but only when the waves were at their lowest.

The current pulled her further out to sea. She didn’t fight it, not yet. She swam towards Ron, though it was slow going with only one arm. The motion of the water helped, and she pushed off the rocks Ron had jumped on to propel her forward. Getting to Ron was simple enough. It was getting back that would be difficult.

She wrapped her arm around his chest and turned him so that his head was above the water. His lips were blue, and blood matted the side of his hair, but he moaned and coughed in her arms, which she took to be a good sign.

The same current which had pulled them out pushed them forward suddenly. Hermione kicked with it, desperately, even as it threw her into the rock Ron had broken to retrieve the sword. Her shoulder throbbed where it struck the rock, but she scrambled for a hold, something to keep her and Ron from going farther out to sea.

She could do this, she told herself. She would simply use the rocks as anchors, and let the waves carry her forward. She just needed to get Ron to shore. Wherever the sword was, they could find it another time. She just needed to —

“Hermione,” Ron gasped.

“I’m right here,” she said, but she was already eyeing the next rock, preparing to push off towards it.

Ron mumbled something, but she didn’t pay attention. She didn’t have time. The water was coming back in. She pushed and kicked, aiming desperately for the nearest rock.

Her aim was slightly off, or the current was stronger than she had calculated for. The wave tumbled over her head, throwing her and Ron about like ragdolls. She didn’t know what rock she hit, but something struck her back and her grip on Ron faltered.

She managed to catch part of his jacket as the wave pulled them back out. Hermione kicked her way to the surface and pulled Ron up with her. She readjusted her grip so she could keep his head above the water. She held her wand light up and watched the shore drift further away from her even as the wave broke against it.

She realised it was not the current pulling on her after all. What kept pulling on her chest was the beaded bag slung around her shoulder. It was, bizarrely, trying to drag her out to sea.

She tugged on the strap, but it resisted her movement. Hermione lost all light for a moment as she plunged her hand into the water to see if perhaps the bag was caught on something. To her surprise, the bag felt hot.

Too late, she remembered Harry’s story of how the diadem had nearly killed him during his duel with Voldemort. She wasn’t sure how it knew that it was in danger from her and Ron, but it did, and it was fighting desperately to survive.

She yanked on the bag and tried to kick her way back to shore. It was like fighting her way through the Devil’s Snare she, Ron, and Harry had faced their first year in Hogwarts, except this time, she didn’t dare relax.

She pulled at her bag again and it ripped apart.

“No —” She lunged forward, catching the diadem on the end of her wand, but there was nothing she could do as the rest of the contents of her bag spilled out into the ocean.

Her books, her clothes, their medical supplies and potions, her cauldron, and even Phineas Nigellus Black’s portrait from Grimmauld Place tumbled from her bag and into the water. Hermione stifled a sob, but knew there was nothing to be done. She kicked again, and this time, without the bag pulling on her chest, she was able to make progress.

Another wave propelled her and Ron forward, and she used its force to climb up onto the rock. She didn’t stop there. She dragged Ron across the slippery rocks towards the shore. She only fell twice, scraping up her hands and knees as she did, but nothing worse. It could have been so much worse.

She collapsed onto the shore beside Ron, diadem still attached to her wand, and as she looked over Ron, she saw his hand still gripped tightly around the sword.

Hermione searched him for any sign of injury, other than the blow to his head. He was bruised and battered, but she saw no cuts from the sword. At least he wasn’t going to die from basilisk venom.

She didn’t have the Healing experience that Harry did, but she did know first aid. Hermione laced her fingers together and placed the heel of her hand against Ron’s chest. She pushed repeatedly, counting to herself, though she couldn’t remember exactly how high she was supposed to count. It had been a few years since she had attended a training course with her parents. Was it a count to fifteen? Thirty? Fifty?

She settled on twenty-five, then pinched Ron’s nose closed. She closed her mouth over his and breathed out with all her strength. She took in a deep breath and repeated.

Tears fell from her cheeks to Ron’s cheeks as she returned her hands to his chest. She begged him to breathe, cough, anything to let her know he was still alive. If he had died for that stupid sword, she would never forgive him.

She could feel his chest dip with each press of her heel, then rise as blood moved back into the space. After another set of compressions she leaned down to breathe into his lungs again. Her lips had hardly touched his when he spluttered beneath her and pushed her away.

She fell back into the sand and he rolled over onto his stomach, coughing until he vomited a stomachful of ocean onto the shore. He groaned weakly.

Hermione couldn’t stop crying.

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” she repeated between sobs.

Ron rubbed his head and flinched. He mumbled something, but his speech was slurred, she couldn’t make it out.

“You hit your head hard, Ron. Can you walk? I’ll help you to the cottage —”

“The diadem,” he finally managed to get out. His hand reached weakly for the hilt of the sword.

“Ron, we can’t worry about that right now —”

He pressed the sword hilt into her hands. His words were unintelligible, but she knew what he was trying to say.

“I can’t — but I’ll get you to Fleur, and she’ll fix you right up, and you can take care of it, I promise.”

“Hermione.”

He was unfocused and unclear, but so stubborn. She took the sword and looked at the diadem, still interlaced with her wand. The diadem quivered in the sand, like it knew what was about to happen. She remembered what Harry had told them about the locket, how it had tried to tell him secrets about Dumbledore. She wondered what the diadem would try to tell her.

She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

“You’re pathetic,” a voice hissed from the Horcrux. It was high, reedy, and Hermione could only assume it was Voldemort’s. The sword trembled in her hand, even as she lifted it.

“Who do you think you are? Nothing but a skinny little girl. A child. A Mudblood.”

Something flickered in the sapphire gem, and then, something Harry had not described, took place. From the stone in the diadem, a shape began to emerge. A woman, tall, fair, with long straight hair that hung to her back and pale, graceful arms that reached out to Hermione seemed to rise from the diadem.

Hermione screamed and fell backwards. She might have even scrambled away if Ron was not there at her back.

“You don’t belong here,” the strange, terrifyingly beautiful woman said. “You don’t belong anywhere.”

Ron tried to say something to her, but she wasn’t sure if he was unintelligible because of his head injury or if the strange woman before her was too mesmerizing. Even as her words cut into Hermione’s very soul, Hermione could not look away, could not raise the sword against her.

“It’s your fault, you know. If you were braver, if you were stronger, Harry never would have abandoned you. You’re not worthy of love, child.”

Hermione’s lips trembled.

“I know what you want. I know what you seek. You scoff at beauty because you can’t have it. You crave power because you think it will satisfy you, but you know the truth. You foolish little girl, you know that it will not earn you respect. You will not earn anyone’s love. You can’t earn what you don’t deserve.”

Ron squeezed her arm. Hermione swallowed down her tears of fear, anger, and sorrow, and stood.

“You’re just a wretched little Mudblood —”

Hermione swung the sword through the strange and terrible vision. The blade crashed into the diadem and an earsplitting shriek howled over the echo of the waves. The woman vanished into pale, smoky wisps, and something inky and dark oozed from the crack in the diadem.

Hermione dropped the sword and collapsed into sobs. She was distantly aware of Ron wrapping his arm around her. He was warm, which felt nice on the cold beach. She leaned into him.

“Hermione?” His voice was hardly a whisper, but she could tell he was putting a tremendous amount of effort into the shape of her name.

She took a moment to get her breathing under control before looking up at him.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

She said nothing. She wasn’t sure she could speak without falling apart just yet. Ron seemed to understand.

He pressed his forehead against hers and looked down. It was a strange way to avoid intimacy, when they were already so close together yet so dimly lit, with nothing but Hermione’s wand, now half-buried in sand, to illuminate their faces.

“I — I’m afraid of all those things too,” he whispered. Each word was drawn from him slowly, inhibited by the damage to his head, but it only made his confession mean that much more to Hermione.

She took his face in her hands and, ever so gently, pressed their lips together.

It was a soft kiss. Nothing like the face-sucking she’d watched him go through with Lavender, and nothing like the long, passionate kisses she’d once shared with Viktor, but it was… nice. There was something wonderful in the way he hesitated, in the way they brushed against each other only briefly before pulling away. Like indulging would be too decadent, too overwhelming for the both of them.

She buried her face into the crook of his neck. “We need to climb the cliff.”

Ron groaned, a noise made of both complaint and compliance. She knew how exhausted she was, how her muscles ached and her lungs throbbed with each breath. She imagined Ron was in much worse shape.

“Did you manage to hang onto your wand as well as the sword?”

Ron shook his head then winced. Hermione picked up her wand and pressed the sword into Ron’s hand. Then she turned to the ocean and waved her wand.

Accio Wand, she thought, and Ron’s wand lifted out from the water and soared into her hand. She thought of the contents of her beaded bag, scattered about the ocean. They would have to wait for morning light, after Ron was taken care of.

She returned the wand to Ron, and pulled his arm over his shoulder so that he could lean on her as they walked.

They did not get far before her foot nudged against the diadem and she hesitated. She looked down at the broken halves, severed with a single blow — her doing. Within an hour, the tide would come in and wash what was left of the diadem away. It would disappear into the ocean. It was, she thought, a fitting enough end.

Together, she and Ron began the hike up the cliff to Shell Cottage.

#hermione is the most unreliable narrator #it makes a great love hate relationship with her chapters #harry potter everyone lives #hp everyone lives #hp everyone lives au #hp fic #dh

[radbutsafe]

ALL FUCKIN 35 OF THEM SKLNWESDJFPXO

I SHOULDVE EXPECTED THIS FROM YOU

1. From one to five stars, how would you rate your writing? (No downplaying yourself!)

A three! I think I’m mid range cause I ain’t terrible but there is still shit I gotta improve and grow in my writing

2. Why do you write fanfiction?

to manifest what canon won’t give me and to write more! (though yes it is mainly about the smooching and the— I’ll stop there LOL)

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

Hm! My weird research details? I’m that “fun fact, did you know...” in my fics sometimes LOL! I plan on giving a penthouse for erina in a fic and I went through penthouse listings in Japan for floor layouts and locations💀 my research gives me inspo and depth to stuff I think I lack in comparison to others sometimes.

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

In terms of fellow fic writers, one of them I can’t name here but she’s an inspiration with her exceptional gift for prose period and her lovely skill at comedy! I want to be as funny as her when I write, I love her ironic situational humor. Other fic writers are @takoyakitenchou, @royaldragonsevgisi15 who I always love sharing ideas with and motivate me to create more! For non-fic writers it would be V.E. Schwab, Leigh Bardugo, Oda, and Horikoshi! The last two may be mangaka, however they are writers as well to create their stories! The depth these creators have given their worlds and interesting characters theyve given life to are all what I aspire to be like!

5. What’s the fic you’re most proud of?

so far uh?? hm everything I’m currently writing are wips lol!! im proud of my wip that has been nicknamed ‘soma panics’ that is a multi-chapter fic that spans like probs 20 plus chapters maybe

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

dialogue! it’s so much fun! and character thoughts. I’ve said to people I may be better suited for script writing

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

I think it’s description, of like setting and showing action. also an expansion of my vocabulary LOL

8. Which character(s) do you find easiest to write?

erina! I think it’s because canon has shown us many of her different faces and range of emotion.

9. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

SOMA!! chill ass mofo whos more carefree compared to the common shonen protagonist! for other shokugeki characters I’m not sure just yet because I haven’t flexed my fingers enough for the rest of them.

10. What’s your favorite genre to write for?

I guess I should say romance cause that’s what I mostly write LOL!

11. Who or what do you find yourself writing about most?

sorina and I try to get them to smooch eventually KEK and yeah it’s..usually romantic fluff lmao

12. Tell us about a WIP you’re excited about.

HONESTLY ALL OF THEM but “soma panics” is my brain child

13. First fandom you ever wrote for?

pretty sure it’s digimon....

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

currently shokugeki no soma!!!!

15. What’s the weirdest fandom you’ve ever written for?

uhhhh I guess SNS? LMAO fandoms...all have their quirks to them.

16. Any guilty pleasure trope(s)?

characters cuddling!!!! or getting the urge to smooch!!!!

17. A trope you’ll never, ever write for.

unrequited love GOOD FUCKIN BYEEEEEE

18. Wildest fic you’ve ever written?

I have plot ideas thst can be wild potentially but so far nothing fits this criteria so far that I actually have written.

19. Do you prefer canon-compliant, AUs, or something in-between?

depends on the fandom, but if written well, all of it!

20. Gen fic or shippy stuff?

shippy 100% like I said I like smoochin

21. Favorite pairing to write for? (platonic or romantic!)

romantic is...*drumroll* SORINA! platonic, soutaku and erina and alice!

22. Do you listen to anything while you write?

Sometimes! There are times songs will be on loop and times I just shuffle a playlist. and if I’m writing in random bursts it’ll be with no music but it really does depend lmao I think music is when I’m forcing myself to write?

23. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

completely independent ideas, I’ve realized in the past prompts shoot me in the foot often unless I luckily figure something out. but I’m often driven by my own sporadic self interest with shitty ping ponging attention

24. One-shots or multi-chaptered works?

multi-chap I guess cause I can post without being finished LOLLL but tbh can I really answer? I haven’t finished anything.....

25. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

I can’t answer this question imo because I haven’t finished a fic yet so technically stuff could all fit in the one fic?

26. Is there anything you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been too scared to try?

MYSTERY AND CRIME! I love the genre and I have plot ideas once a blue moon but I can’t dive in because I want to make details that work and reduce plot holes where suspension of disbelief isn’t as needed. I need to study it more (I need to study all the details for any of my fics imo to be confident sometimes LOL)

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I don’t think I can say one comment was the nicest because I’ve gotten comments that have given me quite the smiles to my face many times! I know this is a cop out but it’s true!

IS WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY UNTIL REINA SENT ME THE FOLLOWING ON DISCORD LIKE TWENTY MINS AGO:

and also rad. i am never this vocal about my emotions like EVER but this needs to be said your fics are obviously far from perfect, as are mine and everyone else's. but the thing about your works is that they're so well-sanded that it's impossible to find any rough edges or faults in them in terms of cohesion to a plot. your cast is never OOC and the amount of effort you devote to developing your takes on the characters as accurately as possible is unimaginably awe-inspiring.

BITCH I WANNA CRY 😭

28. How well do you handle criticism when it comes to your writing?

I’d like to believe I take it often well to try and improve because that’s always my goal. if someone is rude lol that’s not constructive snd is unhelpful. If I disagree with criticism I’ll explain why !

29. Have you ever gone outside of your comfort zone for a fic? How did it turn out?

Not yet, but I have some plot ideas I think will let me test this.

30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

F L U F F.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

elliott fuji, a japanese-american award winning photographer who is erina’s boyfriend in ‘soma panics’ which..causes soma’s panic LOL he’s 30 with slightly wavy black hair. I still haven’t pinpointed his personality just yet...he kind of humble brags for sure an artsy fucker and flirts maybe I’ll make him a lil shy though. he teaches sometimes, and becomes an adjunct photography professor in Tokyo so he can be with erina.

32. Summarize a random fic of yours in 10 words or less.

a cook is unfashionably late in realizing his feelings.

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

I am a slow. so slow. motivation who is she? I also write out of order, unfortunately a bit too often.

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

this should be for the fic ‘soma panics’ it’s either megumi or satoshi talkin to him rn, I’m leaning towards satoshi

“You thought she would always wait for you, didn’t you Soma-kun? To always welcome you home.”

Soma drags his palms down his face and groans. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t shy from confrontation but this is a whole different ballgame. Soma doesn’t play any ball.

“I guess..?” Is his reply, because he thinks he isn’t sure how to answer that.

“You guess?”

Just being questioned again is enough to crack Soma’s pathetic facade as if it was dropped chinaware and he lets out the longest sigh.

“No.”

Coming home means coming home to Nakiri Erina too.

Nakiri Erina is his forever.

this is @takoyakitenchou’s excerpt she’s most proud of that I’ve written, which is also from you guessed it, the long fic soma panics

SOMA: I am, I mean I will be, I swear I will always come home to you, not spend as much time abroad, once I’m done with work I’ll come right back. I’ll make sure to message you. Nakiri, I’m in love you with you. Maybe for a really long time. You know how I say I dedicate my food to you? My dad—my dad said that the key to become a good chef is to find someone to dedicate your cooking to. A special someone. For my dad it was my mom, you know? For me it’s...

(this is a good piece of dialogue tbh so I am also proud of this)

35. Ramble about any fic-related thing you want!

I’ve mentioned it throughout this but the WIP I’ve nicknamed ‘soma panics’ is something I’m super excited to write, but it’s going on slowly...and almost completely out of order. out of all of my writing it showed off that particular habit of mine, along with “what is this, a shoujo manga?!” though the latter is currently being written chronologically now that I’ve posted chapter one and is pretty solid in direction. it was originally supposed to be a one shot but I got impatient and wanted to post at least something for the sorina / soueri fandom.

however, because ‘soma panics’ (I won’t call it that LOL) is my baby I want to keep true to my rule of refusing to post it until I have a draft of the entire fic finished and I’m satisfied with the main points pretty much. due to my writing out of order, I’m worried I’ll change my mind about scenes or want to reflect things in earlier chapters for later ones etc etc

I joined the SnS fandom extremely late, as season five was airing. I was a fan of the manga five years ago and dropped it because I forgot to check for updates when I caught up 😔 I really want to bang out the different fics and aus for sorina that I have before the fandom fizzles out entirely but tbh I’m writing for myself, I’m manifesting what I want to see and I’ll just share it with all my friends to read if no one else will. cause I’m slow broski I dunno what writing fast even is like LMAO I do really want to write faster though, so I can contribute more and let the words free from the discord dms....

#ask meme #ask rad shit #writing #writing by rad #fanfic #reina girl u put me thru it I swear lol #thank u for sending!! #ur amazing!!!!

[jessicafurseth]

Reading List, Ten Year Anniversary (double) edition.

The Reading Lists are ten years old! Looking at the first one (the picture, linked here) I see that the stuff I read has changed a lot as the internet, and I, have grown. I've kept this reading record mostly for myself, but I hope some other people have liked it too. Let's keep going a bit longer x

*

"Here in the hills, the new silence of my days, deepened by the solitude of the pandemic, has allowed me to observe the state of our planet in the year 2021 — and it looks to be on fire, as our oligarchs take to space. From my view down here on the carpet, I see a system that, even if it bounces back to “normal,” I have no interest in rejoining, a system that is beginning to come undone." Work is a false idol / On 'Lying Flat' [Cassady Rosenblum, The New York Times]

Why Are So Many Knowledge Workers Quitting? [Cal Newport, The New Yorker]

The Argument for Everyone Taking This Entire Summer Off [Amelia Tait, Vice] I just took a month off and I'm evangelical about it - at least do two weeks in a row once a year, you need it! 

"The much-awaited summer of love is not as anticipated; it is not wild and feverish. It is cautious and gentle and full of questions, asked with the same apprehension felt at high-school dances or the first days of dorms. “Can I walk you home?” “Do you want to hang out?” " What Dating Feels Like in the Pandemic [Dolly Alderton, The Cut]

"[Online security questions] are artifacts of an era when society thought differently about what constituted identity and how to prove it, when who we were wasn’t rooted in the idea of objective documents like passports and driver’s licenses, but in personal, often hereditary knowledge that could be shared." Online Security Questions Are Not Very Effective. I Still Love Them. [Sophie Haigney, The New York Times]

Screenshots Tell the Real Stories About Who We Are [Clio Chang, The New York Times]

What Matters in A Name Sign? This is completely fascinating [Ilaria Parogni, The New York Times]

With More Freedom, Young Women in Albania Shun Tradition of ‘Sworn Virgins’ [Andrew Higgins, The New York Times]

For Trans People, Transitioning Has No Before or After [Denny, Allure]

How Growing Up in the ’80s Felt Like Freedom [Danielle Henderson, The Cut]

Lucy Kellaway bought a gorgeous, impractical house. [The Modern House]

"I could end this story by saying “We kept swimming and it was beautiful even if it will all be gone someday,” or some shit, but I already ended another climate story that way. I have, several times, really nailed that ending — sad, wistful, something like pining for lost love but worse because larger in scope but not worse because not totally immediate. Writing is stupid. I just want to be alive. I want all of us to just be alive. " All the right words on climate have already been said [Sarah Miller, Nieman Lab]

The Best Abortion Ever Topical, unfortunately [Sarah Miller, The Cut]

A personal history of vaccine passports [Karen Tumulty, Washington Post]

"The trick to good zucchini is to cook it." What Alicia Kennedy learned from trying to go vegan [Prism]

Could 'green noise' be your secret weapon to reading - and writing - more? Anecdotally I'd say yes [Amelia Tait, Penguin]

"I was as piteous as a medieval martyr, but without good cause – I had made all my bad life decisions, after all. I was 26 years old. I felt as if someone had put a wheel lock on my life and my tyres were grinding in reverse." On quitting a job you hate [Sirin Kale, The Guardian]

How did you get radicalised? [Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study]

"Here’s the thing about Not This: It’s got little to do with rationality or logic. In my observation, it usually comes about in one of two ways. One is that you’ve simply had enough. You become convinced that the suffering of your current situation is worse than the suffering of plunging into the unknown, and so you jump. This can happen in relationships, addiction scenarios, jobs, places you live—whatever. When you reach this point, logistics and sensible choices do not matter. Your life is on fire, so throwing in some dynamite seems totally fine. You go forth and begin to extract yourself from whatever Not This has outlawed, no matter what it takes." [Rosie Spinks, Index]

#reading list

[httpjeon]

❝ collateral damage ❞ pjm ― m.

― summary: you’re a simple bank teller and you certainly didn’t expect to be taken as collateral for outlaw bank-robber park jimin.

outlaw!jimin/reader ― ft. jungkook & taehyung | wild west!au | fluff, smut | 5.2k ↬ content warnings: basically pwp. kidnapping, guns, old timey bank robbery, referenced off screen murders (non-explicit), yoongi gets choked a bit, light thigh riding, sexual punishment, cunnilingus, dirty talk, light sir!kink, blow job, hair pulling, vague pain kink, pet names

a/n: this fic is part of the under fire collaboration for the summer smut project by @btssmutclub! be sure to check out the other writers’ fics for this collab! > disclaimer: i’d like to point out there is no real violence towards the reader in any capacity in this fic. she remains safe and unharmed throughout the fic, just spooked bc of jimin’s reputation as an outlaw and crimes!

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You huffed, covering your eyes with your hand like a visor as you stared out in the blistering heat of your city. It was hot enough to cook an egg out, no doubt.

It was a peaceful, small town that you had lived in your whole life. Everyone knew everyone and there was rarely a problem that arose.

"Mornin' _____!" The local mercantile owner, Yoongi, beamed at you.

The two of you had become good friends as your job at the bank was located right next door to the mercantile his family owned. Often, he would bring you little snacks during work and you frequently picked up your groceries and essentials from him.

"You hear they've up and found some gold nearby? I expect we'll start to get a lot busier now!" He smiled, mindlessly sweeping the front steps of his store.

"Oh really?" You hummed. "I haven't heard much. But with tons of towns popping up everywhere with the gold and silver bein' found, I guess it's hard to keep track. I didn't think there'd be some nearby here though!"

"Why? You wanna go and search for some gold?" Yoongi snickered.

"As if," You chuckled. "I'm doing well enough here, I don't need to risk my life for the sake of greed.”

"If you say so," He teased, finally turning and heading back into the store with a casual wave of his hand.

You sighed, wiping the sweat off your brow before turning on your heel to get back to work.

After that, it seemed Yoongi's prediction was right. You had people coming in, asking for loans and coming in to exchange their gold and silver for cash money.

Unfortunately, the peaceful reputation in your little town wouldn't stay that way for long.

Another terribly hot day that had you heaving against your desk — hoping the wood would somehow cool you down. The doors opened and several footsteps entered, making you look up.

"Hey there, sweetheart," A pretty-faced young man leaned against the counter.

"Welcome, how can I help you?" You asked, smiling up at him.

He had black hair that stuck to his forehead from sweat, a wide-brimmed hat on his head to shield his eyes from the sun.

He was good looking, no doubt about it.

Behind him stood two other men near the door, as if guarding it, and a feeling of unease began to wash over you.

"I'm awfully sorry about this but," You gasped as he pulled out long-barrelled gun, pointing it directly at you. "How about you hand me that little box back there and give me all the money you got, sweetheart?"

"I..." You trembled underneath the weight of his glare and the gun.

"Hurry it along, darlin' we ain't got all day," One of the other men called, his hand on his gun which sat in its holster.

"A-Alright...just hold your horses," You grumbled, grabbing the box and placing it down for the man. He chuckled, lowering his gun as you finally opened the box for him to take the money from.

He eagerly stuffed fistfuls of cash into his pockets with a grin on his face. You thought you were in the clear, breathing a sigh of relief as he began to back off, showing no intentions of actually hurting you.

That is, until the door opened and Yoongi walked in with a smile.

"Hey ____—" He was cut off by one of the men aggressively grabbing him, wrapping their arms around his neck to choke him as he slammed your friend harshly against the wall.

"Don't hurt him!" You cried, rounding the counter to try and come to your friend's aid.

Unfortunately, the man who took the money grabbed you, holding the gun to your temple making you cry out in fear and shock.

"Now, you're gonna behave mister and let us leave in peace alright?" He hissed. You met Yoongi's eyes, noticing how red his face became with the lack of oxygen. "And we're gonna take this here girl as collateral. We're gonna get out of here and get nice and far, and if we make it out safely...we'll let her go."

"Y-You can't..." Yoongi choked out, no doubt worrying for your well-being.

None of the men seemed to listen. Yoongi was released, falling to the floor with a heavy thud as he gasped for air. He was too weak to do anything to stop you from being dragged out.

“Remember,” One of the other men mumbled to Yoongi, bringing his finger to his lips in a shush motion. “Not a peep.” 

The streets were bustling more than usual, on account of all the traffic picking up lately, and you were easily manhandled onto the horse tied out front of the bank. Jimin hopped on behind you, his spicy scent permeating around you. You were sitting sideways on the horse in front of him, boxed in by his arms as he held the reigns.

"This is...crazy," You grumbled as the man kicked the horse, making you jerk forward in surprise. Glancing over the man's shoulder, you could see his two lackeys following.

"Sorry about this, we planned just a clean ol' robbin' but..." The man shrugged, trailing off before clearing his throat and looking down his nose at you. "What's your name anyway?"

"Why should I tell you?" You grumbled, wondering why you were acting like a brat to the man who literally had a gun pointed at you moments before.

"Well I'm Jimin...Park Jimin,"

Immediately, your body stiffened as a shiver of fear raced down your spine. You knew that name. His wanted posters were posted all across town, all across the state no doubt.

He was an outlaw wanted in several states for various crimes — mostly robbing banks and trains. He even had a few murders under his belt.

Okay, so he could kill you at the drop of a hat. Maybe you should be on his good side and not piss him off.

"M-My name is _____," You stuttered out, suddenly very aware of how you were hanging onto the fabric of his plaid shirt in order to keep yourself stable.

"Well, nice to meet you, _____. I hope we can get along well," He smiled, a rather cute eye smile for a wanted outlaw.

Why did your abductor have to be cute?

Still, with the memory of the cold steel of his gun pressed against you, you had no hope of escape anyway. You could jump off the horse but that would no doubt seriously injure you at the speed you were going. Plus, he'd probably turn around, angry, and shoot you in the end anyway.

You sighed, making him chuckle against your back.

"Now, now sweetheart it ain't that bad," He said. "Ain't nothin' bad gonna happen to you with us, I promise. We'll just keep you around until the heat dies down and we'll send you on home.”

"Unless you want to stay~" One of his companions said, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

"Jungkook," Jimin scoffed, shaking his head but still smiling.

"Unbelievable," You whispered, noticing that you were beginning to slow down.

Looking around for the reason, you saw a little shack up ahead. It was out in the middle of nowhere, way off the beaten path, and you doubted you'd be able to find your way back to town because you had no clue where you were. Not like you were exactly paying attention to the route anyway. You didn't exactly frequent the outskirts of town, the desert was no place for someone like you — with the snakes and coyotes roaming about. You weren't very fond of the idea of being a wild animal’s snack.

Finally you came to a full stop and Jimin hopped down from the horse, holding his hand out for you. When you hesitated on it, he sent you a small glare that had you reaching down for him to help you. He kept his grip on your arm as he began to walk towards the house...or shack.

"Taehyung, you hitch the horses up, alright?" Jimin called over his shoulder, a short 'yeah' from one of the men came in reply.

You were tugged inside, which you were grateful for because the summer sun was literally 2 minutes from actually killing you. It was still hot inside but at least you were out of the sun.

The place was scarcely furnished — a worn couch, a little coffee table, and a couple sleeping mats. There were also some metal bowls sitting on the counter of the tiny kitchen.

"Have a seat, sweetheart, make yourself at home," His voice was soft but held a tone of authority that made a shiver travel up your spine. You were always weak to voices — that's why you liked to hear Yoongi talk so much.

At the thought of your friend, you frowned. You hoped he was okay and safe. Jimin dropped down in the empty seat beside you on the couch and pulled out a flask, handing it to you.

"Drink?"

Your eyes narrowed. "I don't drink."

"It's just water, darlin'," He said with a shrug, urging the flask towards you. "I know you gotta be thirsty bein' out in the heat."

"This isn't a trick?" You asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"I promise it's just water," His voice and face turned serious as he said the words.

Sighing, you took the flask from him and turned it up — immediately you felt refreshed by the cool water. Taking a few mouth sips, you handed it back to him and thanked him which earned you a smile.

The door slammed open and the other two men came stomping in with groans about how the heat was killer. The one named Jungkook swiped some sweat off his brow before dropping to sit on the floor with a thud. The other, Taehyung, followed suit except sprawled out across the floor like a starfish.

"That floor can't be clean," You muttered, making Taehyung open on eye to peek at you.

"You worried about my health, honey?" He asked, a smirk gracing his lips when you narrowed your eyes in a glare.

"I'll have you know I can that floor meticulously every day," Jimin piped from beside you, taking another sip of water.

"Why do I find that hard to believe?" You shot back, crossing your arms over your chest as you eyed the dusty, dirty, scuffed floor the two men were laying upon.

"Why on Earth would I lie to you?" Jimin asked, raising a brow.

"Do you want the honest answer?" As soon as the words left your lips, Jungkook began chuckling from where he was leaning against the wall.

"Aw man, she's cute and funny," He muttered through his giggles. You felt your face flush at that, making you feel even hotter than you already were.

"Alright boys," Jimin stood up. "We should start getting ready for the night."

You remained seated, watching as the men began to bustle about. Jimin was in the kitchen cooking dinner, you assumed — which was weirdly domestic thinking about it. Jungkook went out to collect water and Taehyung was setting up the beds for the night.

"I guess you can sleep on the couch," He said when he noticed you watching.

"I can't believe this..." You grumbled, flopping back onto the couch with a sigh.

"Oh we're not that bad!" Taehyung pouted as he took a seat behind the small table in front of the couch.

You didn't offer a reply, only sighed.

The rest of the night wasn't anywhere near as bad as you expected. Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook laughed and joked with one another as they chatted. You ate some soup, which in the heat was torture, but it tasted good nonetheless and it felt good to have some food in your stomach. 

You were restless as you laid down on the couch that night. You could hear the even breaths coming from the three men scattered on the floor. It was strategic, how they were laying. Jungkook was sleeping right in front of the door so you wouldn't be able to get out. Jimin was sleeping right in front of the couch so you couldn't move without him knowing. And Taehyung was in between as an interception if you were to attempt to run away.

You were positive it was the worst night of sleep in your life when your eyes fluttered open, still heavy and stinging with exhaustion. Jungkook and Taehyung were gone and Jimin was sitting at the table cleaning his gun. He looked up when you sat up and smiled.

"Good mornin' sunshine," He grinned when you groaned in response. "What's the matter? Didn't sleep well?"

"I miss my own bed," You complained.

"Well that's just too bad," He sighed, placing his gun down. "We're keepin' our hands on you for awhile longer."

"This isn't fair!" You snapped, stomping your foot on the ground. "You stole the money, I don't want any part of this! I just want to go home!"

In the blink of an eye, Jimin was in your face, nose brushing up against yours as he glared.

"Better watch your tone, pretty girl," He growled, making your heart stutter in your chest.

Then as quick as he was there, he was standing and moving into the kitchen. You placed a hand against your chest and sighed while his back was turned to you. Your cheeks felt hot and you silently cursed him for being so damn attractive.

The longer you spent with Jimin, the more you began to see he wasn’t scary at all. He attempted to put up a front when he caught himself slipping but in the end, his true personality began to shine through.

“Jimin?” You asked one night while Taehyung and Jungkook were out. He hummed, looking up from where he was shining his boot. “Why did you become an outlaw?”

He scoffed, shaking his head. “What kinda question is that?”

“The normal kind?” You shot back, raising a brow.

“Well,” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes people do what they have to do to get by. I discovered a knack for thievin’ and I stuck to it. Simple as that.”

“Simple as that,” You scoffed, making him look at you with a frown. “There’s lots of things you could have done instead of stealing.”

“My decisions in life don’t concern you, little girl,” He snapped, making you flinch. His eyes were alight with anger at your words and you immediately quieted down.

He continued to glare at you for a minute, as if wanting to say something more, until the door opened and Taehyung and Jungkook came back in. Jungkook dropped onto the couch beside you and stretched his arms above his head until his joints popped.

"We're going to bed," Jimin snapped suddenly, making the other two look at him in shock.

"It's still early though!" Taehyung complained.

"You'll do as I say!" Jimin shouted, making everyone collectively jump at the volume.

Immediately the two scrambled to get into their sleeping arrangements. You sat on the couch, avoiding Jimin's gaze as he continued to glare at you as he placed his boots beside the couch.

No one uttered a word as Jimin turned the lamp out — casting the room in complete darkness save for the moon's light.

With a sigh, you collapsed onto your side and shut your eyes in an attempt to get some sleep as well.

"Wake up," Jimin uttered, shaking your shoulder until your eyes popped open in surprise. "Need you to go collect the water pails from outside. Taehyung and Jungkook ran off without bringin' them in."

You sighed as you sat up, blinking sleepily until you felt coherent enough to stand. Jimin was silent as he followed you out, watching you leave the house before turning back to sit on the couch and kick his boots off.

By the time you got inside, placing the water buckets down, Jimin was fast asleep on the couch with his mouth open. You stood and watched him for a second, eyeing the open door.

No one was watching and you could make a run for it. If you were quiet, Jimin wouldn't even wake up.

You squinted at him, feeling quite petulant over the problems he had caused you with literally kidnapping you and making your heart stutter in your chest over his stupidly handsome face. Sneaking out of the doorway, you tiptoed around the brush against the side of the building.

A sneaky grin crawled over your face as you heard the tell-tale signs of a snake warning you to stay away.

You dropped onto your knees and circled the creature until you got behind it. Reaching out with a steady hand, you quickly pinned its head and took hold of it to keep it from turning and biting you.

Then with a stealthiness that surprised even you, you snuck back inside and ever so easily dropped the snake into Jimin's boot.

Standing up straight and casting one last glance at Jimin, you turned and booked it out of the door.

The sun was still beating down, the summer heat making you break out into a sweat immediately. Your feet pounded against the ground with every step you took and you were quickly panting and running out of stamina — the heat literally sucking everything out of you.

You could have cried when you saw Taehyung and Jungkook riding up on their horses. There was no hope to escape; they'd already spotted you and you couldn't outrun their horses.

With a resigned sigh, you stood there and glared until Taehyung stopped beside you. He stared down with a brow raised.

"That was a close one, huh?" Jungkook uttered, saddling up on the other side of you.

"Hop on, don't be a pain," Taehyung muttered, though he sounded more bored than angry with your attempted escape.

You heaved a big sigh as you mounted Taehyung's horse, holding onto the back of his shirt as they rode back the short distance to the house. You could see Jimin was still asleep on the couch through the open door.

Jungkook was snickering as he hopped off his horse. He lifted his hand and helped you down off of Taehyung's and began to lead you inside the house, still holding your hand.

"Hey Jimin!" He shouted, taking both you and Jimin by surprise.

"What?!" Jimin shrieked as he sat up so fast it made your head spin.

"Almost had this one run out while you were gettin’ your beauty sleep," Taehyung muttered as he finally walked in, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

Jimin growled as he stood up, shoving his feet into his boots "This is—SHIT!"

"What?" Taehyung and Jungkook cried at the same time, watching as Jimin kicked his boot off, making it fly across the room and hit the wall.

The four of you watched as the poor snake slithered out of the boot and disappeared around the corner to the kitchen.

"There was a snake in my boot," Jimin muttered, glaring at his boot.

There was a beat of silence before Taehyung and Jungkook physically doubled over as they howled with laughter. You bit your lip to keep from laughing as you watched Jimin's bottom lip poke out in a pout.

After you all finished eating dinner, a rabbit Jungkook had caught earlier in the day, they decided to set back out once again.

"I heard that the law was starting to extend its search for us, turns out word’s gotten out we’re around the area, so I think it'd be a good idea to make sure there aren't any nosy people driftin' around," Taehyung said as he and Jungkook mounted their horses.

Jungkook slipped his hat on his head and gave you a little wave before taking the reins of his horse and following after Taehyung. You stood and watched, feeling Jimin's eyes on you, as the two vanished into the darkness.

"You know," Jimin said from his seat on the couch, voice a few octaves lower. "I don't really appreciate you making a fool of me today."

You felt a shiver go down your spine at the way he spoke, words full of unspoken promise. You could hear his boots against the floor as he walked up behind you, breath fanning over your neck. He swiftly pushed the door shut and turned you around, slamming your back against its surface.

You gasped, meeting his dark gaze, goosebumps rising over your skin at the look in his eyes; dark and lustful. Never before had you felt so drawn to a man — he was dangerous, charismatic, and so attractive that it almost made you crazy.

His plush, full lips met yours in a kiss that started off heated immediately, not wasting any time showing you what he wanted. You whimpered, reaching up to fist his dark locks and pull his body even closer to yours.

His hands became busy immediately, reaching behind you to pull free the buttons of your dress, the fabric pooling on the floor around your feet.

"So pretty," He whispered, gripping your waist and grinding his hard length, hidden in his jeans, against your hip.

You gasped, tightening your hold in his hair. Before you could deepen the kiss further, he was pulling away and pressing his lips against your neck. You moaned, tilting your head back to allow him more access. He reached up, cupping your bare breasts in his warm, callused hands and you whimpered — the rough drag of his palms against your sensitive nipples making your knees buckle.

He chuckled, working his thigh between your legs — your weight falling on his thigh to keep you upright. His jeans ground against your clothed heat as he continued to palm your breasts.

Tilting your head back against the door, he dipped his head down to take one of your perked, hardened nipples into the heat of his mouth. Holding back a whimper, your clung onto the back of his shirt as his tongue flicked the bud.

With his free hand, he gripped your hip and began to move you to grind against the firm muscle of his thigh.

"J-Jimin—" You whispered, eyes rolling slightly at the pressure against your clit. He pulled his mouth away from your breast and licked his lips, sharp eyes cutting up to look at your blissed expression.

"I think you should be punished, you know?" He asked, teasing tone apparent. "For trying to run away and for that mean prank you pulled."

"N-No...don't punish me," You whimpered, beginning to desperately grind against his thigh.

"Oh? You don't want to be punished?" He asked, straightening his back. The added height made him look more intimidating, especially with the way his sharp eyes were filled with hunger.

"No please," You whimpered, licking your lips as your core throbbed with need at the dominant energy he gave off.

"Then I think you owe me an apology," He whispered, lips moving to brush against yours.

"I-I'm sorry, Jimin," You gasped.

"Sorry for what?" He urged, tongue sneaking out to run over your swollen bottom lip — plump from biting it.

"F-For trying to run away a-and putting the snake in your boot," You whimpered, nearly sobbing when he sharply pinched your nipple.

He hummed, rolling the bud between his fingers. “Apology not accepted.” 

“What—!” You were cut off by him aggressively shoving you to your knees. 

“How about you really show me you're sorry,” Your arguments were cut off when he pulled his cock free from the confines of his jeans. 

Unable to help yourself, you leaned forward and enveloped the head of his cock between your lips. He hissed at the sudden contact, your tongue catching the precum beading at the tip. It was a little salty and slightly bitter but with the way his thighs trembled the deeper your took him, you could ignore the taste. 

His fist tangled in your hair and his head rolled back as he began to shallowly thrust his hips. He pressed against your gag-reflex and you pulled back with a cough. 

“You've got a sweet little mouth, you know?” He smirked, wrapping his fist around his cock and spreading the mixed saliva and precum along his shaft. 

You blushed, opening your mouth for him to slip his cock back inside. He groaned, eyes fluttering closed as you eagerly began to suck his cock. His grip in your hair tightened and the tinge of pain had you gushing into your panties. You whimpered around him, clenching your thighs together to hopefully ease the pressure forming between your legs. 

“Stand up,” He groaned, shuddering at the way you whined when his cock fell from your lips. 

Before you knew it, you were being pushed onto the couch, your ass in the air as he pulled your panties off. A string of wetness clung to the material as he pulled it from your legs. He groaned, catching it with his fingers and popping the digits in his mouth. 

“So sweet,” He growled, falling to his knees. 

He pulled your folds apart, exposing your clenching entrance to his hungry eyes. His cock throbbed when you gushed — sweet, creaming juices from your entrance. Unable to help himself, he leaned forward and slid his tongue over the expanse of your pussy. He could have came right then and there at the obscene cry of pleasure you emitted at the feeling of his tongue swiping over your clit. 

He chuckled, taking the swollen bud between his lips and circling his tongue over it until you were clawing at the couch beneath you. It was too much, your inexperienced body trembling at the overwhelming pleasure on your sensitive clit. 

“J-Jimin…” You whimpered, eyes rolling as you mindlessly ground your hips against his tongue. 

The introduction of his fingers had you letting out a long, drawn out moan as he sunk the digits into your spasming cunt. 

“Shit, you're tight,” He muttered swirling his tongue over your clit as he pulled his fingers back out, scraping over your g-spot in a way that made you sob. 

You cried out his name again, the only thing you could think of as the coil tightened in your stomach— winding up until your whole body was locked up. 

With a well-timed thrust of his fingers as his tongue circled your clit, you came. 

He worked you through it, wrapping his free hand around his cock to keep himself from cumming untouched at the incredible display of you cumming for him. Before long, your whines turned into those of overstimulation and he pulled back, getting to his feet. 

“Are you ready now?” He asked, nearly groaning as you arched your back for him — your swollen, gushing folds making him want to dive back down for another taste. 

“Yes sir, please,” He growled at the title and eagerly began to push into your tight entrance. 

The two of you cried out in unison at the feeling — him stretching you deliciously and the hot tightness of your walls enclosing around him. You were wet enough for him to easily sink in completely. 

“Look at you,” He chuckled, pulling back to quickly push back in. “What would your friends say if they knew you were letting a wanted criminal fuck your little cunt?” 

Your walls clenched at the idea and he chuckled, picking up his pace. He nailed your g-spot perfectly and you buried your face into the couch cushion to muffle the complete sobs of pleasure. He growled, not appreciating you attempting to quiet yourself, and wrapped your hair around his fist and yanked up until you were on your knees only. 

The change in angle has him fucking against your spot even harsher, and your eyes rolled back at the feeling. It felt like you were losing your mind, losing yourself on his cock. You were soaking his member, gushing and dripping down your thighs. The sounds emitted every time he moved within your cunt were obscene and you would have been embarrassed if your mind wasn't completely fogged over with pleasure. 

“They'll be back soon,” He grumbled, reaching around to find your clit with experienced fingertips. “Better hurry up darlin’ or else they might come in and see you creaming all over my cock.” 

His filthy words paired with the deft circles over your bud sent you over the edge. He let your hair go and oh bonelessly fell back onto the couch, trembling through your high. 

Before you could even get through the aftershocks of your orgasm, Jimin pulled out and wrapped his fist around his cock — working himself to his own orgasm. Ropes of cum splattered over your ass and you sighed at the feeling, licking your lips as you wished you could taste it. 

As you both came down, he dropped onto the couch beside you and sighed. Running his fingers through your hair, he pulled the knots that formed, from his pulling, free. 

“Let's get you dressed,” He muttered, smiling when you whined as his warmth left you. 

You sat up and allowed him to help you dress back up — just in time for Jungkook and Taehyung to come barreling in. 

“We've gotta go,” Taehyung growled, grabbing Jimin's pack off the floor and tossing it to him. 

“W-Wait!” You gasped as Jimin grabbed your hand and pulled you off the couch. 

“You go with Jungkook, he'll drop you off closer to town so you can get home,” Jimin muttered, watching as Taehyung and Jungkook swept the area to make sure their belongings weren't being left behind. 

“Wh-Where are you going?” You asked. 

“Probably gonna head on to the next state, get away from the heat here,” Jimin grunted as he mounted his horse. 

“Take me with you!” You cried, wincing when three pairs of eyes were on you. “I...I want to stay with you, Jimin.”

“Shit, you got it bad,” He chuckled, narrowing his eyes at you. “Cute little girl wanting to come with the outlaw, huh?” 

“I…” You suddenly felt embarrassed, realizing he most likely didn't feel any real attachment to you like you felt. 

There was a beat of silence, Jungkook and Taehyung mounting their horses. 

“Hop on then, baby,” Jimin chuckled, holding his hand out. “We've got a long road ahead of us. I'm sure you'll enjoy it though.” 

You grinned, fighting the stinging tears of happiness in your eyes as you took his hand and let him help you onto the horse behind him. You wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your head against his back. 

With a swift kick to the side of his horse, the three of you were off. You turned and watched the little shack disappear from view in the darkness and you realized you didn't even feel sorry about your leaving. 

Maybe one day you'd see Yoongi again but deep down, you knew you were excited for the new adventure ahead.

© httpjeon 2019. do not modify or repost.

#btssmutclub #bscproject #bts smut #jimin smut #bts scenarios #jimin scenarios #bts imagines #jimin imagines #bts reactions #jimin reactions #bts preferences #jimin preferences #bts fanfic #jimin fanfic #jimin/reader

[thepandapopo]

A Step Through Time - Chapter 1: Visitor

Me: Don’t do it

Brain: 

Me: Don’t do it.

Brain:

Me: We haven’t even finished the other one yet-

Brain: HERE’S A SYLVIX IDEA THAT YOU NEED TO WRITE SINCE IT’S PREVENTED YOU FROM DOING ANY MEANINGFUL WORK ALL DAY.

Me: FUCK.

Pairings: Sylvain x Felix ; minor Claude x F!Byleth

Warnings: mentions of masturbation/sex; typical Felix swearing.

Synopsis:

When Felix agreed to go back into the past to make sure certain events during the war actually happen, he expected that he would be the only time traveler at the monastery for those three moons. What he did not expect was for his 6 year old daughter to send herself to the past 4 weeks after himself because she missed him.

or

The one where the post time-skip gang meets an older Felix Fraldarius from the future who tells them he’s there to help for a few battles for reasons he can’t explain and everyone’s dying to figure out who the hell he’s married to - wait, what the fuck he has a daughter?

Some notes:

Verdant Wind / Azure Moon route mash up. Basically the Golden Deer Route but then at the Battle of Gronder (Ch: Blood of the Eagle and Lion), Dimitri joins up with Claude.

Dedue is back. Dimitri isn’t crazy anymore. Rodrigue is unfortunately dead.

All characters are recruited (including Black Eagle students)

Next Chapter (coming soon!)

XxXxXxXxXxX

It takes roughly two weeks for the Resistance Army to fully wrap their heads around the fact that there are not one, but two Felix Hugo Fraldarius’s at the monastery.

It takes them another week on top of that to come to terms that the newest Felix to join their army is from the future. 12 years, to be exact.

The day that Future Felix - that’s what they’ve dubbed him and he thinks it’s ridiculous; who has time to say that mouthful? - arrives knocking on the monastery gates, the entire place goes into an uproar. Claude and Byleth aren’t entirely sure whether or not this is just some dark magicks that the Empire has cooked up in a sad attempt at espionage, or if something has gone so horribly wrong in the future that they send their prickliest general back in time to whip them into shape.

Claude insists on tying him up which Felix grudgingly accepts, because of course this all seems a little far fetched - no one has ever heard of time travel magic...at this point in time anyways. And like everything else Felix does, it just makes them even more suspicious of him because the Felix they know would be hissing and spitting at them with all the fury of an angry wyvern if they even tried to touch him, much less restrain him.

Funnily enough, it’s his past self that manages to convince them that he’s the real deal.

“This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Younger Felix crosses his arms and glares at his future self, as if his stare alone could dispel any illusionary magic with its withering intensity.

It’s a bit weird to be on the listening end of his scathing remarks rather than saying them. But technically he is saying them... or at least the past him is, so really is it any different?

“Well, unless you have a better idea, I think this is the best we’ve got for now.” Claude shrugs and runs a hand through his tousled hair for the millionth time that day. “If he really is you, then he should know a secret you’ve never told anyone, and you can confirm it.”

Byleth nods from her place next to the Alliance leader, “We can’t wait until Lysithea and the others find an answer in the library. It could take weeks before they can confirm that any of this is possible through magic.”

More like years, Felix thinks to himself. In his timeline, time travel magic is still a completely new thing. In fact, the only people who know anything about it are a select few that Dimitri, Byleth, Claude and Linheartd trust with their lives. The only reason he’s here now is because the green haired mage had somehow stumbled upon a rift in the flow of time while conducting some experiments. Fearing that this small bump could have dire repercussions to the past, it was decided that they would send someone back to Harpstring moon of that year to help along the events that were yet to unfold.

Between the people who knew and who were available, it ended up coming down to Felix or Sylvain. 

Unanimously, they all voted for Felix. (”Hey! I’m totally trustworthy!” “We know that, Sylvain, but with your reputation for having a silver tongue, none of them will believe you.”)

And now here he was 12 years in the past, tied up to a chair in the Knights hall in front of the fireplace, patience running dangerously thin at the bickering that has been going on for hours.

“Fine,” his younger self grouses with a scowl fierce enough to make a grown man cower. “But he’s writing it down and none of you are allowed to stand close enough to read it.”

It’s a smart idea, really. And if Felix knows himself, then he knows that the quickest way to get to the end of this whole fiasco is to write down a secret his younger counterpart is too embarrassed to admit out loud.

Thankfully, Felix has plenty of those from that time.

From before things become official with Sylvain.

From before he becomes Felix Hugo Fraldarius-Gautier.

A mercifully short moment later, his hands are free and he’s rubbing at the tender muscles where the rope bit into his skin.

A small inkwell, quill, and piece of parchment are placed in front of him by a silent but wary Dedue and Felix nods in thanks before his younger self more or less shoves everyone back a good distance so they cannot read his secrets.

It is silent other than the occasional pop and crackle from the low fire. Hard, piercing Amber meets warm liquid Amber, neither willing to look away, one gaze filled with distrust and jaded bitterness, while the other watches with silent empathy and understanding.

Blame it on his husband’s bad influence, but Felix can’t help the growing desire to tease his younger self. (Which he knows is absolutely hypocritical because he hates being teased but Sylvain was right when he said it is just so easy.)

“How much do you want me to reveal?” Felix dips the tip of the quill in ink and pauses, the tip hovering over the parchment ready to spill secrets only the two of them know.

“...I’ll tell you when to stop.”

It’s a free pass to go wild, is what Felix hears.

There are so many things that he could write. Ranging from the priceless family heirloom he accidentally broke and hid when he was child all the way to some of his more embarrassing training mishaps - one of which involved him falling and stabbing himself on his own goddamn sword -  but despite all of the memories that flash through his head, one in particular stands out the most.

For the second time that day, Felix curses his husband and his perverse influence before scrawling out:

Bedside table. Second drawer. Third notch - press hard to release the fake bottom.

Images of a very familiar flask of oil that has seen many restless nights flash across Felix’s mind. And if the red flush on his younger self’s face is anything to go by, he would bet everything he owned that he was also thinking the same thing.

A beat of silence. “Not enough?”

Felix is honestly a little impressed. He was sure that his secret sex drawer would be enough to mortify his younger self into believing him.

Fine then. He could bring out the heavy artillery.

The first time we realize we are in love with Sylvain is when we are 15 and figure out that the burning rage we feel every time he talks about his latest girlfriend is actually jealousy.

He pauses for a moment to look up at younger Felix. Receiving no response, he continues writing.

The first time we realize how absolutely fucked we are is the morning after the training session where Sylvain takes off his shirt and we dream about -

Ink splatters on the table and over his gloves as the parchment is unceremoniously wrenched away from him and immediately tossed into the fire.

“He’s real” are the only words the new Duke of Fraldarius manages to sputter out between the fingers hiding his burning face. The poor boy looks like he wants to spontaneously combust and also let the floor swallow him whole.

Felix almost feels bad. Almost.

----

The days following can only be described as incredibly odd as Felix wanders the familiar - yet different - grounds of Garreg Mach. He helps where he can with the chores and spends the remaining time either at the Training Grounds like usual, or just simply chatting with his friends of old.

A few times a week he will accompany the troops and assist them in their various missions eliminating bandits or Demonic beasts that have wandered too close to their base. Though he is older now, Felix has never slacked off in his training regimen, not even after the war ends, and his current skill and mastery of swords and Reason are more than enough to deal with these minor nuisances.

All in all, Felix is enjoying himself.

...Except for how much everyone keeps pestering him to reveal things about the future.

“Ooooh, do Claude and the professor finally hook up?” Hilda is leaning across the dining hall table with the biggest shit eating grin on her face, the sausage breakfast in front of her completely forgotten in favor of even juicier gossip.

Felix sighs for the umpteenth time that morning and cuts into his own plate with a bit more force than intended. “Hilda. For the last time, I can’t tell you anything specific in case it fucks up the future.”

“But you’ve already told Annette that she goes on to teach at the School of Sorcery and Mercedes opens up an orphanage!”

“Yes, and that’s because I want to make sure those things actually happen.”

“So what, you don’t want Mr. Leader Man and the Professor to finally knock boots?!”

To his right, Dimitri chokes on his toast at the mental image Hilda conjures.

Much to his relief (or dismay), Dorothea chooses this time to slide into the seat to his left along with Petra.

“Are we interrogating Future Felix again?” The Songstress doesn’t even bother hiding her mischievous glee as she eyes Felix the same way a predator would prey.

“No, we are not.” He glares at the former opera star, cursing the fact that his friends have already figured out that the years have more or less mellowed out his bark and that he has a LOT more patience before he actually bites.

“Aww, come on. It’s basically a breakfast tradition now! Nothing like a side of future gossip with my tea to get me going in the mornings.” Dorothea winks at him before a flash of flaming red near the food line catches both her and Felix’s attention.

“Hey Sylvain! Felix! Come sit with us.” She waves them over and nudges Petra to scoot over to make room.

“Is there anything you guys want to know about the future?” the pink haired Great Knight asks as soon as the pair are seated.

“Oh tons,” Sylvain winks as he picks up his fork and twirls it loosely in his hands. “But the real question is if Future Fe over there will actually answer them.”

Felix lets out a humorless snort. As if he would.

He makes a point to actively avoid his younger self as much as possible because he isn’t sure if it will affect his timeline in any way. Unfortunately, that also means that he has to avoid Sylvain.

Seriously, how did he never realize that they were basically joined at the hip? Where one went, the other was never very far.

It was a fucking miracle that no one had figured out his lifelong crush on Sylvain considering how much time they spent in each other’s company.

But then again, considering everyone’s surprise at how many of them ended up paired off after the war... maybe they were all just that blind. Or stupid.

Thank the Goddess they were all blind and stupid.

Felix manages to fend off most of their prying inquiries, snapping only a few times at Hilda and Dorothea who don’t know when to stop, but everything truly goes to hell in a handbasket when Mercedes comes by asking the group if there is any equipment or armor that needs cleaning since she’s on duty this week.

“Oh, yes actually.” Felix seizes this opportunity and begins pulling off his gloves to hand to the Bishop. “I need the ink stains removed from my gloves. I never managed to find time to properly clean them since the first night I arrived.” 

He isn’t aware that he has done anything wrong until the table goes silent and everyone is staring at him, or rather his hand, with a mixture of disbelief, shock, pleasant smugness, and overall general bewilderment.

“What are you all...” His question trails off when he realizes that his wedding ring - the one that he always wears under his gloves - is now out in the open, the plain obsidian band glittering innocently in the morning sunlight filtering through the windows.

“You’re... married?!”

Oh fuck.

----

“So who’s the lucky girl?”

You like Annie. Don’t murder Annie.

Felix swings his training sword against the practice dummy and lands a clean diagonal hit.

“Ohhh, I bet it’s some noble girl from the Kingdom.”

You like Thea’s opera shows. If you kill her now, you won’t be able to see them after the war.

Stab. Feint. Slash.

“No, Felix doesn’t care for dainty noble girls who don’t know how to fight...”

Thank the Goddess Ingrid is still reliable as ever.

“Maybe it’s a guy?”

Nevermind. Ingrid is the devil.

Duck. Side step into a zig zag pattern approach. Upwards slash.

“It’s... forgive me if I am overstepping, but I am happy that you have found happiness in the future, Felix.”

Don’t kill your king. Regicide is a crime.

Retreat backwards. Dash in for the final blow.

“Yeah! Congrats Felix on finally getting laid!”

It’s only when Felix snaps his training sword in half at the blue haired warrior’s comment that his sword training session turns into a brawl training session.

----

The Fraldarius Duke has never been more relieved to receive a call to action than when Byleth rushes in not long after Future Felix gives Caspar a shiny new black eye.

“Bandits. In the sealed forest. Civilian involved. Gates, now.” is all the warning they get before she is sweeping out the training room doors, no doubt going to retrieve her own equipment.

After 5 years of being at war, they are all seasoned soldiers and as such, it doesn’t take them very long before they are rushing towards the site of the battle.

They have foregone the usual battalions in favor of only deploying their former classmates, allowing them to move much quicker through the dense vegetation.

Up ahead, they can hear low voices talking and what sounds like muffled sobbing. Byleth signals them to slow down and get into position - it’s one of their usual strategies: approach undetected, surround the enemy, and then close in to eliminate.

It isn't until they get close enough to hear the sobbing more clearly that Felix feels his heart leap up his throat.

He knows that sound. He’s heard it a million times over the past 6 years at all times of the day.

Please Goddess, he prays as he creeps closer with more urgency, ignoring Claude’s alarmed look, let me be wrong.

Of course he isn’t.

Raw panic seizes his chest as he recognizes the little girl with an ornate sword strapped to her back cornered under the jagged overhang of a large rock, her long wavy hair a crimson beacon amongst a sea of green and brown, and Felix is running before he can even formulate a plan.

“Come on, little girl... just give us the sword and we’ll let you go,”

“N-no! Papa gave m-me this sword!”

“Well then I hope you’re ready to die-”

Electricity crackles through the air and his body falls to the ground before he can finish his threat.

“Sophie!”

Large, watery honey gold eyes lock onto his and suddenly the battlefield narrows. For one agonizingly long heartbeat, Felix watches the little delicate, red nose he loves so much scrunch up, and he can already hear the tearful wail that comes next.

“PAPA!”

Then, all hell breaks loose.

---

There were very few of them that could say they had the privilege of watching the Felix from the future fight prior to the current battle. Felix - the younger Felix of this timeline - is not one of them.

However, as he watches his older self weave through the bandits like liquid steel, mercilessly cutting them down with cold rage, he cannot help but compare it to his current skill level.

He wonders how many more battles he will have to go through before he reaches that level of deadly grace.

“Watch your left!” Sylvain shouts at him from somewhere to his right and Felix grunts as he parries a hard downward strike of an axe.

His feet flow through footwork long ingrained in his mind and in the next moment, he has slipped past the bandit’s strike range and shoves his sword through his chest.

A clean, quick kill.

Felix is actually rather grateful for the distraction of a battle. But despite the battle cries and sounds of metal on metal clashing around him, he still cannot silence the one thought he’s sure is going through everyone’s mind.

He has a daughter.

He has a daughter in the future. A freaking daughter.

A little girl whose hair is unmistakably the same obnoxiously beautiful colour as those of the Gautier lineage.

Who in the actual fuck does he marry?!

The question rings in his head over and over again as he fells enemy after enemy, and by the end of the battle, he still has not found reprieve from the shock that he is grappling with in his mind.

Felix is not aware that he is unconsciously searching for familiar golden brown eyes before the knot in his chest dissolves when he spots Sylvain cleaning his lance off to the side.

But just as quickly as that knot disappears, another one takes its place.

Because as much as he loves Sylvain with all his heart, there’s no way that even if by some miracle they get married in the future that they can have a child together.

Which means that either Felix has married a distant cousin of Sylvain’s or Sylvain has a daughter that Felix somehow ends up taking care of.

And since Felix knows that he would never be able to love or marry anyone other than his childhood best friend...

...that leaves him with a very bitter pill to swallow.

----

“Papa!”

Sophie is wearing her favourite teal dress with the little swords embroidered on the hem, and even though it is now caked entirely in mud, Felix cannot bring himself to care as he falls to his knees and cradles his daughter tightly to his chest.

“Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?” Calloused fingers fruitlessly brush away the steady stream of tears on Sophie’s blotchy cheeks, the salt water clearing some of the mud away as Felix scans for any injuries.

She shakes her head twice and continues to sob into his chest and he continues to hold her while stroking her hair gently in gentle, calming caresses. Even after this whole fiasco, Sophie’s long waves somehow look as beautiful as ever and a distant part of Felix’s brain wonders if it’s just some inherited Gautier genetic to always looks good no matter what.

“Felix! Goddess, who is that? Is she okay?” Ashe runs up to him, Mercedes and Ingrid not far behind him with equal looks of concern in their expressions.

Felix shakes his head, “I’ll answer questions later. Mercie, can you take a look over her right now and make sure she has no injuries? she says she’s okay but she’s probably still high on adrenaline.”

It is the first time in Mercedes’ life that she has seen Felix look this concerned for another person’s well being and she’s already reaching out with warm white magic even as she nods, but as soon as her hand makes contact, Sophie flinches further into Felix as if burned.

“Sophie. Sophie, it’s alright. You’re safe now. I’ve got you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” 

It takes a little bit more coaxing before she pulls away far enough to look at him.

“Hey,” Felix nudges her temple gently with his nose. “It’s alright. You remember Auntie Mercie, don’t you? Auntie Mercie would never hurt you. She just wants to make sure you’re not hurt, okay?”

If Mercedes has any reaction to being called Auntie, Felix is thankful that she does not outwardly show it.

“It’s okay, Sophie.” The healer flashes her a soft smile. “I promise this won’t hurt a bit!”

It’s only when Mercedes manages to start her healing spell that Felix lets the tension and fear seep out of his body.

There are so many questions clamoring around in his head, like how in the world is she here in the past and where the hell is his husband who is supposed to be watching her in his absence, but all of that will have to wait until they return to the monastery.

And, if the matching strangled, heart-broken looks on his younger self and Sylvain are anything to go off of, he’s also going to have to reveal a little more than planned if he wants to make sure that he still gets to marry the love of his life.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Sorry that the ending seems a bit rushed. I’ve been working on this for 5 hours now and I just want to post it and go to bed (it’s 3AM). I promise I’ll come back to make some edits later!

Next Chapter

Masterlist

#sylvain jose gautier #felix hugo fraldarius #SylVix #felix x sylvain #fire emblem 3 houses #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #byleth eisner #dimitri blaiddyd #blue lions #golden deer #azure moon #verdant wind #AU #alternate universe #alternate timeline #time travel #future felix #original character

[anotherkpopvictim]

Into a New World (Through the Gate) - BTS OT7 Fantasy Story Chapter 6

A/N: Hello! I'm back after three months! I took some time to write a bit ahead so I would have enough to post today and on Namjoon's birthday.

So Happy Birthday to our maknae Jungkookie! Enjoy <3

Updated Timeline in case you get confused -

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVJ9t7XMDjiMNU1AU4wGVs65x_fh-WxzbBYKTtGylkU/edit?usp=sharing

Relationship: BTS X BTS

Rating: T

Words: 4528

Hurt/comfort, fluff, fantasy

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Chapter 6: A New Hope

Worldbuilding Notes on Familiars: Familiars are a witch’s companion and can be any animal, though most commonly they are dogs, cats, birds or snakes. When a human reaches the point where they become a witch, an animal (usually on the streets or occasionally in the wild) will begin to feel a pull towards the witch. They usually find each other fairly quickly and physical contact finishes the transition from animal to familiar. These familiars become more physically and mentally powerful, and can heal more quickly than a regular animal. Just like a witch will keep themselves young, they will also keep their familiars young as well.

The feeling of a bond between a witch and their familiar is similar to the feeling of a pack bond but not quite the same. If a familiar dies, the witch will experience intense pain for a few weeks, but they will ultimately survive. On the other hand, if a witch passes away, their familiar will unfortunately die along with them.

------------------

September 9, 3501, Present Day

“Please, hyung! Please, please, please, please, please!”

“No.”

Jungkook whined and stomped his feet petulantly as he pulled at the older vampire’s jacket sleeve. “That’s not fair, hyung! I’ve been good, I want to go into the city again!”

Yoongi sighed and reached over to ruffle the younger one’s hair apologetically after he finished buttoning his black coat. “You have been, baby. You’ve worked so hard on keeping your bloodthirst under control and I’m so proud of you,” he praised. “But, Taehyung and I are going into town to meet a new person and I don’t want anyone going that doesn’t absolutely have to.”

After Namjoon and Yoongi had spoken the night before, it was decided that Yoongi would be the one to go with Taehyung to meet this Minho guy. Jungkook hadn’t been happy when he learned that he wasn’t allowed to go with them. He’d been dying to get out of the house since he’d been cooped up nearly seven years ago. Most fledglings only needed to stay with their sires for five years, and yet, here he was, still locked up.

Jungkook pouted and crossed his arms now. “There’s always an excuse.”

Yoongi looked up from where he was adjusting his gold watch. “What?”

The younger vampire huffed out an annoyed and disheartened breath. “Whenever I ask to go into town with you, you always have some excuse as to why I can’t. You say that I’m doing well with keeping my bloodthirst under control, but you still won’t let me see other people again.”

Taehyung came over from where he’d slipped on his shoes and wrapped an arm around Jungkook’s waist, giving a comforting squeeze. “Kook-ah, you know that your bloodthirst was much different from other fledglings. Hyungs just want to make sure that you aren’t a danger to yourself or anyone else.”

“Think of it this way, Jungkookie,” Yoongi reasoned, his tone soft with guilt now that he knew his baby was unhappy. “We don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but this will undoubtedly be the longest you’ve been away from me before. Namjoon will still be around, but this is another step towards going out like you want.”

“I guess,” Jungkook replied, though his shoulders slouched dejectedly. He slipped out of Taehyung’s grasp and started walking out of the foyer with dragging feet. “Bye, hyungs.”

The older vampire and the witch watched him go, one with guilt in his eyes and the other with a knowing look. Taehyung ushered the two of them out the door quickly and to the vehicle waiting outside that he had pulled out of the garage earlier. Eunji was resting in the back seat, idly grooming her paws.

After they typed in the park address and were out on the long stretch of road from their remote abode to the outskirts of the city, Yoongi found himself thankful that Taehyung had decided to drive today, because his mind was currently occupied. He was nibbling at his lower lip anxiously and thinking about how upset Jungkook had been. The younger vampire’s dejected expression etched into his brain.

“Do you...do you think I’m being too careful with him?” Yoongi blurted out, breaking the quiet ambience of the soft music playing from the car speakers.

Taehyung took it in stride, as he always did. He’d always been the most intuitive out of all of them and often knew the others needed to talk well before they themselves did. “Well, since I’m not a vampire, I don’t have the knowledge or experience or feelings that you two do about all of this. I honestly think that only you and Jungkook can decide that.”

“I’m his sire, I’m supposed to protect him, but I’m also supposed to help him grow and acclimate to society.” Yoongi shook his head, “I thought I knew what to do from what I’ve been taught and told, but it’s different when it’s your own fledgling. I don’t want anything to happen.”

“You have the best intentions, hyung, and Jungkook knows that,” Taehyung replied. “But I’m sure that not being able to go anywhere except your own house and see no one but your family can get suffocating after a while.”

“So you think that I should let him have more freedom? Bring him to the city?”

“Not necessarily such big steps,” Taehyung corrected. “Perhaps allowing a human friend to come over and visit and see how he does. Then, maybe you could take him to the outskirts of town where there’s not as many people as in the city.”

“Yeah...yeah, okay,” Yoongi began nodding, hopeful, though still cautious. “That could work. I don’t want to overestimate his control, but I also don’t want to underestimate it. I think your ideas would be great to try, Taehyung-ah.”

The witch couldn’t help but smirk, “Aren’t they always?”

Yoongi rolled his eyes as he snorted before gently slapping his boyfriend’s arm. Then, the vampire changed the subject of their conversation. “So, what do we know about this ‘Minho’ guy?”

“His name is Choi Minho and he’s 173 years old,” Taehyung listed off. “Baekhyun referred me to him as he claimed to have once been helped by the Dragon.”

“The Dragon?” Yoongi frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard the name before. “Isn’t that a witch of legend?”

Taehyung hummed in confirmation. They had reached the outskirts of Seoul now, where they passed some farmland. “I’m sceptical as well. On the phone with Minho, I asked him if he was serious about it and he said he was. He was hesitant to talk to me at first, but once I explained the situation with Hoseok-ssi, he agreed to meet us at Riverbend Park to speak in person.”

“At least he wants to meet in a public place,” Yoongi remarked, feeling uneasy about someone with such an outlandish claim. “It’s a good thing you brought Eunji with us, just in case this goes sour and we need backup.” From the backseat, Eunji let out a pleased rumble and leaned forward enough so the vampire could run his fingers through the fur on top of her head. “Not to mention that she’s amazing at reading people. She’ll probably know this guy’s true intentions long before we will.”

“I’m hoping for the best,” Taehyung said, “But if this doesn’t work out, I don’t know if we’ll be able to save Hoseok before his magic energy disappears completely.”

---------------------

Hoseok could feel the effects of Taehyung’s last energy potion wearing off already, and it had barely been four hours since he’d taken it. It appeared that the more he drank it, the less effective it became. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by the others either. They all wore varying expressions of worry on their faces as they came in and out of the room intermittently.

As he’d lost the ability to move, Seokjin had cooked up a simple soup for him, which Jimin was currently attempting to force down the orange fairy’s throat. Jimin eagerly claimed the position of Hoseok’s entertainment for the day, which was mostly just talking about anything and everything. Eventually, though, the conversation inevitably veered in the direction of Aurora.

Jimin had sparkles in his eyes when he spoke about the beauty of the Fairy Kingdom, of the vibrant colors of the plants and the vastness of the forests. He explained that Earth was one of the most developed worlds (naturally, as it was the center) and that large forests like back in Aurora did exist, though not as many, and certainly not as filled with life as the Fairy Kingdom.

“Jimin-ah,” Hoseok began as he swallowed the last bit of soup, “Can...can I ask why you live here instead of Aurora?”

The pink fairy froze for a moment before setting the empty bowl on the bedside table and looking back at Hoseok with a solemn smile on his face. “Of course you can. Fairies don’t often leave Aurora, so I imagine you’re curious about me.”

“Well, yes, that,” Hoseok replied, “But I also just want to know about you as a person. If you don’t want to tell me anything, that’s fine too.”

Jimin smiled more genuinely at that, then he crossed his arms on the edge of the bed and leaned his chin on them. “I lived in Aurora until I was twenty-six. Then...then, I was banished.”

“What?” the orange fairy was shocked. Jimin frankly didn’t seem capable of doing anything that would get him banished from his homeland. Then again, his own brother had banished Hoseok for an unfathomable reason. “Twenty-six...so that was many decades ago. My father exiled you? What for?”

“Honestly…” Jimin bit his lip, apprehensive, but looked the older man directly in the eye so he knew he was telling the truth. “Nothing.”

Hoseok blinked before furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. “Nothing?”

“I lived in Rosewood,” the pink fairy explained. Hoseok knew that Rosewood was closer to the edge of the Fairy Kingdom, almost as far as one could get from the royal palace. “There was a string of robberies in the community at that time. I happened to walk by the crime scene the morning after one had taken place at a jewelry shop and I was immediately pinned as the perpetrator by the owner. He never liked me, and I suppose he saw a chance to get rid of me and took it. I thought I would be released quickly once they realized that there was quite literally no motive or evidence that I did anything, but…I was banished by the king.”

Hoseok was honestly shocked and it took his mind probably too long to really understand what Jimin was insinuating, perhaps because his body was exhausted. “Jimin...I…”

The younger man smiled softly, still a bit solemn. “You don’t need to say anything.”

“But I do,” Hoseok rebutted. “My father exiled you from your homeland without probable evidence and that...I’m so sorry, Jimin-ah.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Jimin replied. “But thank you.”

Hoseok felt a little bit overwhelmed by what Jimin had told him. Before his brother was the king, Hoseok’s father, Jaeseok, ruled the Fairy Kingdom for over a century. Compared to his brother’s reckless, heated antics, Hoseok thought that his father had been a rather fit king. After hearing Jimin’s words, however, he questioned whether he really knew enough about what went on during King Jaeseok’s reign. Hoseok felt choked up with second-hand guilt.

“In the end, I suppose it was fate,” Jimin continued, eyes alight and sparkling once more. “If I hadn’t been forced out of Aurora, I would never have met Yoongi, or any of my other packmates.”

That’s right, even though Jimin had been wrongfully banished, it allowed him the opportunity to meet the others. So at least there was a silver lining there.

The orange fairy felt like he could breathe easier again. “I guess we’re in the same boat, huh? Wrongfully exiled but managed to meet our packmates-” Hoseok tried to cut himself off once he realized what he was saying, but it was too late. He looked at the other fairy with wide eyes.

Jimin’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. “You found your packmates? But you’ve only…” Then his eyes widened in understanding. “Wait...we’re your packmates?”

Hoseok winced but nodded sheepishly. “I’d definitely felt a pull towards all of you, but it was Namjoon and Seokjin-hyung that told me.”

“Of course the Ties knew,” Jimin said, a slight furrow to his brow. “But why didn’t they tell the rest of us then?”

“I think…” the older man wracked his brain for the right words. “I think they wanted to wait and see if I could even be healed before telling you guys. So it wouldn’t be as painful if I…” he trailed off.

Jimin stood up from the chair with a desperate, worried expression. The pink fairy leaned over Hoseok and threw his arms around his neck, holding him in a tight, comforting embrace. Hoseok used what little energy he had to wrap an arm around the other’s back and hug him. “I won’t...I won’t let you die. Whether you were our packmate or not, it would have been the same. I won’t let you die.”

A feeling of pure adoration and love came over Hoseok, making him smile weakly. If he didn’t already know that he was meant to be with these six men, he would have to know now with all the butterflies that seemed to swarm his stomach when they were around.

Hoseok’s eyes shot open the second he felt something soft and warm against his cheek, only to see Jimin leaning back away from his face. The pink fairy had given him a gentle kiss to the apple of his left cheek, leaving a tingling warmth in its wake.

“We’ll figure this out, Hoseok-ah,” the younger man said determinedly.

The orange fairy didn’t have anything to reply with, and not much energy anyway, but he could only hope that Jimin was right.

-------------------------

The park was quiet because of the clouds covering the expanse of sky above them, but there were still some people milling about. The humans that passed by Taehyung and Yoongi gawked at the rather large wolf accompanying them, and even the other supernatural creatures did double-takes. A wolf was a rather uncommon species for a familiar, as they were usually pet animals like dogs, cats, rabbits, or birds. Though the species of a witch’s familiar didn’t reflect the amount of power they held, it was still rather jarring for anyone to see a wild animal in the center of the city.

Eunji wasn’t the only wild familiar around today, apparently, because as Taehyung and Yoongi spotted a man standing where they were to meet Minho, they could clearly see a large black bear by his side. As they approached, the large animal gave them a suspicious glance and made a huffing noise before going back to eating berries off of the rather long branch it had cradled in its arms.

“Minho-ssi?” Taehyung questioned as they reached the picnic table.

The man turned at his voice and smiled with a gentle nod. He was tall with short black hair and a kind smile. He was dressed in simple jeans and a long-sleeved blue button-up. “Taehyung-ssi, I presume.”

The witch returned the nod as the two of them took a seat on the other side of the picnic table, Eunji settling down next to Taehyung and eyeing the black bear across from her curiously. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Minho-ssi.”

“That’s not a problem,” the other witch replied.

“This is Yoongi-hyung, he’s one of my packmates,” Taehyung explained. The two nodded their greetings before Taehyung cut to the chase. “So...Baekhyun-hyung said that you really had an encounter with the Dragon?”

Minho’s friendly expression turned a bit apprehensive then. “Why exactly do you want to know? You mentioned something about an injured friend?”

“Yes, a new...acquaintance of ours is losing his magic energy,” Taehyung replied. “We aren’t quite sure what caused it, but it doesn’t really matter when every witch I’ve contacted insists that it can’t be treated.”

Minho looked thoughtful. “Hm, that’s very strange. Uncommon, too. So, you’re seeking out help for this friend?”

Taehyung nodded, “Yes. I haven’t had any luck so far, though. That’s why when Baekhyun-hyung told me that you claimed to have an encounter with the Dragon - as far-fetched as it sounded - I had to follow up with you.”

The older witch locked Taehyung in an intense gaze, like he was analyzing him. After a good minute of silence, Minho let out an exhale and dropped the intensity of his gaze. “I have met him - the Dragon. It’s true.”

“Baekhyun mentioned that he saved your familiar from the brink of death?”

“He did,” Minho confirmed, turning to run his hands through the black bear’s thick fur. “He saved my Hwayoung. It was a few decades ago now. I was in Russia, hunting down a demon that had been terrorizing a few of the villages there. The demon...managed to trap Hwayoung in a ring of hellfire.”

The demon must have been powerful, then, as Taehyung knew that only the oldest demons were able to produce a ring of hellfire. Hellfire was magical in nature, and therefore couldn’t be put out in any natural manner. Not even witches had a spell or potion that could put it out. The fire only disappeared if the demon was slain, which was no easy task if it was powerful enough to create a ring of hellfire.

Taehyung felt himself automatically reach over to Eunji and run a hand over her back, confirming her presence. He could imagine how terrifying it was for Minho when his familiar was in such a position.

“By the time I killed him, Hwayoung was…” Minho paused and blinked back the surfacing tears. “All of her fur had been burnt off, and her skin was charred. She had the faintest heartbeat I’d ever heard and I felt such sick dread. I did what I could to keep her alive, but she didn’t improve even over many weeks.”

Taehyung’s heart clenched painfully in empathy. A witch’s familiar was an unimaginably important being in their lives, just as much as their packmates, but in a different way. He’s not sure how he would handle the grievance of losing Eunji if it ever happened. She meant a lot to him.

“I found myself wandering the country, just waiting for a miracle to happen really. And then it did,” Minho continued. “I made acquaintance with a much older witch, who told me about a place those who were desperate could go to pray. I didn’t really necessarily believe in any god or higher power, but I was willing to try anything at that point.” It was then that Minho paused in his words and looked at Taehyung and Yoongi with a serious expression. "The woman told me that I should keep the place a secret because if the location were to become known to someone with ill intentions, it would disappear forever."

“That’s why I couldn’t find anything about it,” Taehyung realized. “Anyone who does know is hesitant to talk.”

The older witch nodded with a smile. “I went to this place she spoke of, and I prayed for help. And then...the Dragon appeared. Just...out of nowhere. I was shocked, but I told him of my Hwayoung’s condition and he agreed to heal her if I brought her there. When I did, I watched him heal her like it was nothing. It was the most powerful display of magic that I’d ever seen before.”

Both Taehyung and Yoongi were surprised at the story, but not as unbelieving as they had been before. Minho appeared honest and genuine in his retelling, and in Taehyung’s mind, if Baekhyun trusted him, then he really didn’t have a reason not to trust him as well.

“That’s...incredible,” Yoongi managed out in awe.

“Do you…” Taehyung bit his lip. “Do you trust us enough to tell us where this place is? It seems like it’s the only chance for Hoseok-ssi to be healed.”

Minho took a minute to carefully look over both of them before he nodded. “I trust you. I will tell you the location, but I trust that you will keep it secret and not abuse it.”

Taehyung let out a long breath, some of the tension that had built up over the last few days easing away. “Thank you, Minho-ssi. You have no idea how much this means.”

The older witch’s smile turned into a teasing one. “Are you sure that this Hoseok-ssi is only a friend? The way you talk about him certainly makes him seem like more.”

“Maybe he will be,” Taehyung replied honestly. “But right now he is only a friend.”

Minho nodded. “Well, Baekhyun told me that you live near the Mysterious Forest, correct?”

Yoongi and Taehyung shared a confused look with each other but nodded in confirmation.

“If you wish to meet the Dragon, there is a waterfall deep within the woods of the Mysterious Forest where you can pray. I believe the place is an extension of himself, and if he believes your intentions, he will show himself to you.”

“The Mysterious Forest?” Yoongi exclaimed, his utter shock only barely held back. “Are you serious?”

“Very serious,” Minho replied earnestly. “Even though it is quite near to you, the waterfall is hidden very deep in the woods. He may ask you for something in return for his help. He asked me to eradicate a group of feral trolls over in Egypt.”

“We’ll do whatever he needs! Wow! I…” Taehyung struggled for the right words. “Thank you! Thank you, Minho-ssi. Thank you for trusting us with this information. Hoseok-ssi will be very happy to hear it, just like the rest of my packmates will be.”

Minho gave a mysterious sort of smile then, “Speaking of packmates, does one of them happen to be a young vampire?”

Yoongi straightened immediately, on alert. “Yes, why?”

The older witch huffed out a laugh and pointed behind Taehyung and Yoongi. The two of them quickly turned around and instantly spotted the familiar head of dark hair peeking out from behind a tree across the clearing in the park.

“Jeon Jungkook!” Yoongi called sternly, his resounding voice momentarily startling a human couple walking nearby. “Come over here!”

Demurely, Jungkook revealed himself and shuffled across the grass towards them, refusing to meet any of their eyes the entire way. He stopped next to Eunji and gave her a head rub in greeting. “H-Hi, hyungs.”

“Jeon Jungkook, what do you think you’re doing?” Yoongi chastised. “You know how dangerous it is for you to be out alone.”

Though the younger vampire obviously still felt bad for disobeying his sire, he stood firm and crossed his arms over his chest. A serious frown twisted his lips and made a furrow between his eyebrows. “Yet I didn’t kill anyone. No one’s been hurt and I feel completely in control.”

Yoongi sighed harshly through his nose, “How long have you been here?”

“The entire time,” Minho supplied. “He arrived with you but since he was hiding I assumed he was back up or something. Once I saw how terrible a job he was doing at hiding, I realized you might not have realized he was here.”

Jungkook’s frown turned into a prominent pout. “Was my hiding that bad? I thought I was being pretty sneaky.”

“Maybe you weren’t too bad,” Minho clarified with a gentle smile towards the young vampire. “But when you work as a hunter, you become more aware of your surroundings all the time. Work on using your other senses to eavesdrop so you don’t expose yourself by peeking around trees so much.”

“You really feel completely in control right now, Kook-ah?” Yoongi asked.

Jungkook nodded, “I was going to turn back and head home the second I felt any bloodlust but I never did.”

“That’s rather impressive, Kookie.” Taehyung complimented. “I’m proud of you.”

While Jungkook blushed and grinned at the praise, Yoongi narrowed his eyes in Taehyung’s direction. “You knew he was there the whole time, didn’t you?”

Taehyung shook his head in denial, “No, I didn’t know. Though I had an inkling he might follow us this morning.”

Yoongi turned back to Jungkook with a sigh but a softer look in his eyes. “Even though what you did was risky, I’m proud of you too, Kook. I’m sorry that I underestimated you.”

“I forgive you,” the younger vampire replied. “I know you’re just being overprotective. I remember when I was a human, we would call people like you a helicopter parent.”

“Yah!” Yoongi exclaimed, his normally pretty calm expression twisting up in disgust. “You’re my boyfriend, please don’t refer to me as your parent!”

Jungkook’s smile became mischievous and he rebutted, “You always seem to like it when I call you Daddy, though.”

Minho broke down in full on laughter across the table and Taehyung giggled along, highkey proud of Jungkook’s confident teasing. Yoongi, on the other hand, sputtered out incomprehensively and blushed a color that obviously contrasted the rest of his pale skin.

Along with the good news of a real possibility of healing Hoseok, the moment lightened the atmosphere that had been so cautious to begin with. Taehyung looked at Hwayoung now sharing her branch of berries with Eunji and the smug smirk on Jungkook’s face, and he felt like maybe - just maybe - everything was going to be okay.

------------------------

The sound of the book falling out of his hand and hitting the desk is what startles Namjoon back awake. He realized that he had been falling asleep while reading as he’d had a difficult time sleeping the night before. He was overwhelmed with anxiety as he pondered Hoseok’s - his packmate’s - fate.

The shapeshifter sighed and dropped the book onto the table after he bookmarked it. He stood up from the chair in the library and stretched out his arms and legs. On his way to the kitchen to get some water to quench his thirst, Namjoon stopped by Jungkook’s room. The door muffled the sounds coming from inside, but it was clearly some kind of war video game the young vampire was playing.

Namjoon didn’t bother knocking on the door and simply opened it, though he did so cautiously as he knew that Jungkook was still bummed from earlier that morning. “Hey, Kook-ah, have you eaten anyth-”

No one was inside. Namjoon took in the empty chair Jungkook always sat in when he played video games in his room, the television playing the start menu - accompanied by sound effects and gunfire like in the game - over and over again, and finally looked at the curtains blowing gently in the wind that came in through the fully opened window.

Namjoon pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he realized what had most likely happened. “Jeon Jungkook, you are in trouble!”

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A/N: Comments and kudos really help me to stay motivated to write, so leave one if you enjoyed the chapter. See you on Joon's birthday with the next chapter!

#bts #bts fantasy au #bts fanfic #bts fanfics #bts fanfiction #bts ot7

[pinkcatharsis]

THE PRINCE - OMAKE

I wanted to write more of the Tenzou/Yamato-big-dong-universe but eh, ended up with this thing that is as good as an omake but not enough context for me to post it on Ao3.

The Prince can be read here.  CW: Smut. Language. Stupidity.  Tenzou knows that they shouldn’t.

They really, really shouldn’t.

They have just finished setting up their apartment in preparation for their dinner get-together with team seven, a sort of a house warming thing in their new home. He and Iruka had spent all morning in the market and cooking a splendid spread including pudding that is now sitting cozily in their fridge, chilling.

They had enough time to just shower, clean up and air the apartment out, what with everything more or less already set up in their dining room. Iruka is brushing his hair, their clothes already laid out in the bed when Tenzou steps into the bedroom, clad in only a towel and damp from his shower. Tenzou sits on the bed, taking his towel off, setting it aside, his beef whistle hanging limply between his legs.

He’s about to slip his legs into his boxers when Iruka comes up to him, a bit of a smile tugging at his lips, a salient gleam in his eye that burns as bright at the sun in the dim lighting of their bedroom. It makes the breath catch in Tenzou’s throat because he knows what that look means, knows what is going on in Iruka’s head when it really shouldn’t be going on in Iruka’s head because they had about fifteen minutes before team seven arrives.

Then again, Tenzou thinks, as he watches Iruka kneel on the ground, his denim clad knees parting for balance, when did time ever stop Iruka’s appetite and need?

When he and Iruka had decided to take their relationship to the next level after a few more dates together, the most logical thing to do had been to move in together. Some may frown and say it’s too soon, too quick, they’ve only been seeing each other for less than year. But Tenzou, if anything, is a practical man. Iruka more so because he had economics coming into play. It didn’t seem to make any sense to spend most of their time in each other’s apartments and still pay double the rent. Not when most of Tenzou belongings were in Iruka’s apartment and a lot of Iruka’s belongings were in Tenzou’s apartment.

So Tenzou had proposed the idea of having a unified front. A joint unit. A cohabiting arrangement.

He still reels on some days at the memory of how Iruka had looked at him in a way no one ever has. Soft, benevolent, happy. Tenzou still remembers how Iruka had taken both his hands, held it oh so tight and leaned up to press a lingering kiss on Tenzou’s chin, whispering, I am in your care, Tenzou.

Caring for Iruka has become Tenzou’s north.

And vice versa.

Living with Iruka is… an ego booster.

Tenzou didn’t think his ego can swell the way it did, but Iruka seems to know just what to say, what to do and how to touch him, how to whisper the most lurid of lines in his ears to ignite a passion that roars in Tenzou’s veins, raging as wild as a forest fire. Iruka seems to treat his custard launcher like a deity, almost always wanting to kneel before it, take it in his mouth, play with the fleshy wand.

His thrusting pole gets all the love it deserves. Iruka has stopped passing out each time Tenzou has fucked his ass, only ever getting so tired but never losing hunger. And really, Tenzou can say he gets a lot of blowjobs now. It’s a man’s paradise!

Tenzou can go as far as saying that his life is the epitome of perfect.

Like right now, Tenzou is parting his legs, giving Iruka a bit of a look, watching Iruka rub his cheek against the slowly swelling cock, Tenzou’s breath coming out long and slow.

“You know they’re gonna be here any minute,” Tenzou mutters, while also knowing that he is powerless to stop Iruka once Iruka gets into one of his moods.

“And?” Iruka asks, his tongue slowly swirling over the head of Tenzou’s cock, suckling at the ruddy, pre-cum dribbling tip.

“And I know you,” Tenzou sighs, reclining a little bit more, hissing through his teeth when Iruka drags the tip of his tongue from root to tip.

“So you better move fast and fuck my mouth properly, don’t you think, taichou?” Iruka asks.

Tenzou grabs hold of his now fully hardened cock, tracing the head of his cock right over Iruka’s parted lips, glossing it with precum. Tenzou knows Iruka likes being humiliated, it’s a bit of a kink Tenzou has discovered; it is something he is more than happy to indulge in. Iruka also seems to like it when he slaps his hardened love muscle all over his face. Tenzou will never forget than one night when Iruka came in his pants just by having his face slapped by Tenzou’s cock. It had boggled the living shit out of Tenzou’s brain, his thoughts unable to quite process what had just happened, because Iruka simply looked up at him, dazed and then proceeded to take Tenzou’s fudge sickle into his mouth, enjoying the last few drops of his very generous milk bottle.

Tenzou slaps Iruka across the face now and watches as Iruka gasps, his head turning to one side, upper teeth coming down to chew on his lower lip before he turns to face Tenzou again, offering his face, lips parted in an obscene wanton moan, eyes heavy lidded.

Tenzou slaps him again, patting the head of his cock over Iruka’s cheek, smearing precum all over his scar and cheekbone, watching Iruka shudder under his cock’s ministrations, happily getting pre-cum all over his face as if it were a aloe vera face mask one gets from the pharmacy. Tenzou slaps him again, tapping the head of his cock on the apex of Iruka’s chin, watching Iruka tilt his chin up, long hair spilling down the length of his back as cum

Gods, being with Iruka has turned him into some sort of uncontrollable pervert. Never in his life did he think that slapping his ham bone on someone’s face would turn him on ridiculously. Iruka is also a massive fan of getting teased when Tenzou would drum the length of his cock over the curve of his ass, almost always keening when slick, lubed hard flesh would slap rather loudly on his smooth skin.

Again, again, oh gods, slap me with your hard, big cock, Iruka would say, like Tenzou's fucking personal porn star and Tenzou almost always had no clue what to do but to oblige. Enjoying every minute of it.

Gods, he is a pervert.

Iruka hums, his slack jawed tugging up on a grin. “You like slapping me with your cock, don’t you?”

“What if I do?”

“Filthy pervert,” Iruka says, his warm, smooth fingers pressing on the insides of Tenzou’s thigh. “Is it because you like it when I beg for your long, big, thick cock?”

“When are you not begging for my cock, Iruka?” Tenzou asks, tilting his head to one side, slapping Iruka on the chick with his hard piston.

“I always want your cock. Maybe you should fuck me now. I’m still warm from this morning,” Iruka offers, tongue lapping up the towering flesh head, swirling over the top, saliva and precum making gossamer strands as he pulls back with a grin. “Make me have a hard time sitting infront of your team, your senpai. Because you’re going to know just how hard you pounded this monster into my body. You’re going to hear me through out dinner. I bet you won’t be able to take your eyes off me.”

It’s not fair.

Iruka isn’t fair.

It is cruel of him to put these images into Tenzou’s mind when they had about ten more minutes before they have to entertain everyone with dinner and be civil. He didn’t want to sit across from Iruka and watch him lean against one side of his body, just because he’s so stretched and worn by the pounding of Tenzou’s warrior king. Iruka would have a blush then, maybe a bit of a dazed look in his eye from the ferocity of his orgasm because apparently, whenever Tenzou fucks him in the ass, hitting his prostate is a no brainer. Iruka always, always ends up being over simulated, and the challenge of hitting his prostate to make him cum isn’t the question but rather, Tenzou is simply applying steady pressure and rubbing it. Tenzou has watched Iruka shudder hours later, like he’s still riding out the rest of his orgasm. Iruka would be curled in bed, or the sofa, or on Tenzou’s lap, soft cock still buried in his ass and he’d just shudder in Tenzou’s arms, cheek pillowed on his shoulder, a high as a kite grin on his face.

There wouldn’t be time to clean up either.

So that means Iruka is going to have to make do with a wipe down. And hold in whatever cum of Tenzou’s in his ass.

It’d drip out of him for sure.

Make a mess on his boxers.

Ah, fuck.

Tenzou purposely slaps Iruka a little harder with his cock, making Iruka gasp, head snapping to one side, his hair splaying on his shoulder.

“You deserve an award for cockslut of the year,” Tenzou murmurs, letting the words wrap around Iruka’s neck like a collar.

Iruka who inhales slowly, sharply, the sound of it audible, the flush on his cheeks burning down the column of his neck, spreading all over his chest. “My prince deserves my servitude, and you know that?”

“What of your king?” Tenzou slaps Iruka again on the cheek, smearing more cum down his cheekbone and watching Iruka shudder under the assault.

“My king is—“

Tenzou is pulling back his cock, ready to slap Iruka again when the doorbell rings.

Tenzou releases his cock like he’s been burned, just as Iruka turns to look up at him wide eyed, and gets the full hit of Tenzou’s weighty, meat constrictor slapping on the face, uncontrolled, harsh and almost like a whiplash. It jolts Iruka, making him bob up which unfortunately makes the head of Tenzou’s cock go right into his wide open eye.

Precum and all.

Iruka howls, scampering away, torn between laughing and hissing in pain, one hand on his cheek, his eye scrunched shut and Tenzou watches, with every bit of horror killing his raging boner, as Iruka gets torn between laughing at being poked in the eye by a giant dick while getting unintentionally swaffled that will no doubt, most likely bruise.

Iruka bruises easily too.

Well, fuck, fuck fuck!

“Oh gods that burns,” Iruka mutters, huffing a laugh that tapers off to a groan, the heel of his palm pressing against his eye that he tries to blink away the precum but ends up wincing and hissing, shakily getting up from the floor and rushing to the connecting bathroom, running the tap.

Tenzou sits there, on the bed, torn between putting his clothes on, answering the door or checking up on his lover and decides fuck all, team seven can wait and follows Iruka to the bathroom.

“Why aren’t you dressed yet? Open the door!” Iruka says, laughing and bent over the sink as he rinses his eye with cold water.

“I’m sorry but you just got poked in the eye with my dick and – oh god it’s red. It’s really, really red, you like you have pink eye!”

“No I don’t!” Iruka says, blinking rapidly, turning to look at the mirror. “Oh dear…”

Then he bursts out a laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Tenzou says, a bit of hysteria in his tone. “Why are you laughing?”

That seems to make Iruka laugh even more because he begins to wheeze while grasping the sink, bent over and clutching his stomach, shaking his head and pathetically waving Tenzou away or beckoning him over. It’s really hard to tell. Garbled words fall from Iruka’s mouth, making Tenzou frown as the doorbell rings again.

And again.

And then proceeds to be pressed violently in rapid succession until the doorbell starts to sound hoarse.

It’s like having a war siren and Tenzou is still standing there naked, his long ass ramburger twitching and not at all dying, for fucks sake. Does his dick just not have any ounce of self-preservation?

Tenzou wants to throw himself off something, embarrassment painting down his body by a hot brush.

“You two better not be doing funny business because I did not skip lunch for this!” Naruto yells.

There is a bit of a commotion which Tenzou can only assume is Sakura possibly hitting Naruto, or stepping on his foot. Or something. It’s hard to tell. But the doorbell ringing ensues and Tenzou can do nothing but hobble out of the bathroom, put his clothes on in a flash, internally yell at his cock and resolutely, with his most serious face on, answer the door.

--

“Iruka-sensei, do you have pink eye?” Naruto asks, scorfing down his rice bowl.

Tenzou stares and wonders if Naruto is even chewing anymore because he doesn’t think they made that much rice if Naruto is going to insist in snorfling food at this current pace. Iruka, bless his heart, simply smiles and shakes his head.

“I had a little accident earlier,”

“Oh, that explains the weird bruise on your face. Were you moving furniture again?” Naruto asks.

That apparently makes Kakashi toss his head back and laugh. Ugly laughing, even. Jaw shamelessly open, wheeze inducing, staggered by pinched inhales that sounds like a dilapidated whistle being blown, because oh fuck, Kakashi knows. Kakashi knows and Tenzou wants to die, sink on the ground and melt like a candle burning out of shame.

Iruka blushes, which serves him right, the fucking little shit. Until he says, “Well Naruto, we do have a lot of wooden furniture. I had to make room."

Tenzou wants to strangle Iruka, shake him like he’s a rag doll. Except Iruka is grinning and taking it all in stride, the fucking perverse jerk, who simply tucks back into his meal, taking a bit of roasted chicken.

Kakashi’s chopsticks ends up on the ground. He ends up on the ground too.

“I don’t get what’s so funny,” Naruto says, staring at the Rokudaime who is curled on the floor, well on his way to cardiac arrest.

“Naruto! Stop asking about the furniture and the pink-eye!” Sakura snaps.

“But it’s pink eye! And those things are gross! One time, Kiba had pink eye and it started to develop puss and shit and I ended up getting it too, and it was just so—“

“Naruto, if you look closely, what Sakura isn’t telling you is that Iruka-san has a bruise the shape of a penis—“

Sakura’s fist flies before she can stop it, sending Sai tumbling off his chair and into the hallway, skidding across the polished wooden floors and coming to a full stop at the bottom of the stair landing.

“Stop saying perverted things about Iruka-sensei, asshole!” Naruto yells, slamming his fists on the table.

From the floor, Kakashi manages to lift up a finger, garbling unintelligibly, pointing at Tenzou. He wheezes out a breathless, “Swaffle—“ before he promptly loses it all over again.

“Waffles?” Naruto asks. “We’re having waffles for dessert?”

“Sure,” Iruka says, continuing with his meal despite the chaos at their dining table. “We can have waffles.”

Tenzou buries his face in his palms and sighs.

Gods, he wants to die.

--

Iruka ends up making waffles for dessert all right. He goes as far as cutting star shaped strawberries and making flower-shapes with orange. Kakashi hasn’t stopped chuckling, absolutely hopeless in getting his facilities in order, even after Tenzou had kicked him very pointedly on the foot.

All Kakashi had to say is, “My, my, kouhai~ Your little soldier sure is mighty.”

Tenzou can safely say that pulling Kakashi’s poof of silver hair down and over his head, as painfully as he can manage had to be the most satisfying thing he had done all night, considering the entire house warming dinner is turning out to be a horrible, embarrassing nightmare.

When they leave after tea and opening gifts, Tenzou locks the door and windows, puts up the wards and grabs Iruka by the neck, whose eye is now swollen like he had, indeed, a bad case of pink eye.

“You little—“ Tenzou shakes Iruka, who ends up laughing and hanging limply like a noodle in Tenzou’s grip. “Stop laughing!”

“Gods, I love you so much, you are so adorable!” Iruka says, grinning dopily.

Which makes Tenzou just stare at him like he’s lost his mind because how? How can he even fight this man whose eye is starting to look like a fucking grape, who is looking at him like a smitten pirate in love? How can he fight him for making it known to Sai and Sakura just how big his dick is now, because right there, on Iruka’s face, is the shape of his fucking yoghurt gun.

“You’re not getting away with this!” Tenzou huffs, letting of Iruka’s arm and neck, slumping tiredly.

“With being happy that I, solely, have the access to Konoha’s royal dick?” Iruka asks, dimples dotting his cheeks.

“Don’t say that!” Tenzou wheezes.

“Because I do~” Iruka sing songs taking Tenzou’s hand in his and tugging him closer, looping his arms around Tenzou’s shoulder. “Ahh, is Tenzou-taichou upset? Look at your frowny, frowny face. Like a prickly cactus~”

They start swaying in each other’s orbit, Tenzou’s hands coming to rest on Iruka’s hips, their foreheads touching.

“I won’t forget this,” Tenzou warns, perfectly serious.

“Of course not,” Iruka agrees.

“I’m serious, Iruka!” Tenzou stresses.

“I know you are.” Iruka nods.

“Now, you see, I know you’re making fun of me?” Tenzou frowns.

“Am I?” Iruka tilts his head to one side, teeth bared to a devilish grin. His hand comes down and snakes past Tenzou’s waistband, cupping Tenzou’s jewels in his palm and giving a languid caress and roll. “Am I?”

Tenzou growls, spins Iruka around and wraps an arm around his neck pushing his pants down where he proceeds to teach Iruka a goddamn lesson.

FIN

#yamairu #iruyama #anbu tenzo #yamato tenzo #yamato tenzou #Umino Iruka #team7 #hatake kakashi #humor #smut #Fic