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dearestxiao · 2 months

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the color blue: neon [part 2] | yandere xiao x reader, yandere venti x reader

synopsis: the days until you finally meet your penpal has been ticking by so quickly, but with a new tutor, a clingy roommate, and a professor who seems to only want the worst for you, it's hard to keep track of time. WARNINGS: DARK CONTENT, yandere characters, creepy xiao is creepy (lots of potentially uncomfortable thoughts from his perspective), heavily implied stalking, possessiveness, manipulation, dub-con touching, student-teacher dynamic, age gap (reader is 21+ and zhongli is 27+, feel free to adjust as need be). let me know if I need to add anything! reader is gender neutral.

wc: 10.7k

author notes: I wanted to first say thank you for the wait, and I hope that everybody is able to enjoy the changes and edits I’ve made to the story. I also wanted to say thank you to the mutuals who had helped me create the original version of the story. it has been a long time since then, and I’m not entirely sure if they’re still active (OTZ), so I’m not sure if they would still like to be tagged but I am forever grateful to them. this is the last exposition heavy chapter, as well as my last read edit/re-upload of a chapter, so the next few chapters will be much meatier with new content!!! again, thank you so much for the wait. love you all! as always, reblogs are very appreciated if enjoyed and if possible!

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ່࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏” ♡♡♡ [part 1]

dark content. minors do not interact. do not repost/link.

from xiao's room, there's a perfect view of the town a bit away from campus that greets him everytime he steps inside. it's a gorgeous sight, which is something he could admit, even though he didn’t choose the place himself, one anyone would be grateful for. the town is bright and bustling even still, and it’s only now starting to dim down. it’s getting late into the night, with flashy lights and beautiful architecture and homey buildings, and so many people, people, people.

there are still families on an outing, and cute couples going on dates. shop owners sweeping around their store. he can see as the everyday salaryman walks back home, accompanying the students on their own way home from classes; he can see so many lives being lived from his isolated little tower.

and yet, on nights like these, no matter how enchanting the view, xiao usually prefers to keep his blinds tightly shutー out of sight, out of mind. jealousy is a vile thing, isn't it? it's nasty, tainting your view of the world, of the things you love. after the first few weeks after xiao had moved in, the view quickly lost the charm it once had. because at the end of the day, to him, the view only serves as a cruel reminder of just how alone xiao is and always has been.

it dangles around a painful reminder of the things xiao can never have. it's so close, yet so far out of reach.

but despite his usual bitterness, xiao doesn’t bother closing the blinds tonight, because tonight, he has hope, hope that he could one day be like the many walks of life he sees everyday from his apartment window. hope that he’ll have something worth wondering about.

xiao sits himself on his bed, the second biggest source of comfort in his life right now. for some reason, he feels awfully nervous. he knows why, but he can’t help but wish that awful feeling away. for a split second, he can’t help but wish he was as confident and fearless as... no. he won’t think like that, not right now, at least. he shakes away the thought. butterflies jitter all up and around his stomach as his shaky hands picks up his phone and dials numbers, your numbers. the digits are already memorized by heart.

he tries to calm his nerves as he presses the phone up to his ear after hitting the call button, nails digging into the pajamas he changed into when he got home. he thickly swallows, waiting as patiently as he can, like usual.

ring. rinnng. rinnnnnggg.

it doesn't take too long for you to pick up.

"hello?" he finally hears.

it's only one word (and a pretty basic one at that), but xiao can already hear the soft underlying shyness of your voice. his mouth naturally opens a little agape. you've always been nervous around those you weren't close to. your voice sends him into a state of bliss, so much so his brain is too foggy to reply until you coo out another hello, questioning if anyone is there on the other line due to the silence.

he almost has to force himself to speak "It's… xiao," he blinks, not even saying hello back, "from professor zhongli's class," xiao almost slips up by saying the name you know him much better by. “you… we spoke on the train. I don’t know if you remember,” he manages to stutter out.

you had seemed pretty out of it when you two talked earlier that very same day. you must’ve been so exhausted to have fallen asleep like that, right next to him. he’s still replaying the site of it over and over, the way you were struggling so hard to stay awake, head bobbing back and forth. it was probably embarrassing for you, but it was a pleasant sight for him. the soft puff of your cheeks and the furrow of your brows, the shallowness of your breath and how relaxed you looked. it made him feel like a creep, staring at you in that state, such an intimate state, a vulnerable state.

it’s why he had held back as long as he could before finally tapping you awake, wanting to bask in the precious sight for longer.

he snaps back to finally finish his explanation, “…you gave me your number earlier today," he says it less as a reminder to you, but instead as a reminder to himself. he bites his lip, waiting for you to respond, wishing he could see what you looked like right now.

in the meantime, he remembers how your eyes had begrudgingly opened back up at the feeling of him touching you. he remembers the warmth of your body that felt like it could melt his finger tips from the heat. he wishes he could see and feel both much more often, but xiao is patient. lord, is he patient.

he remembers how embarrassed you looked as you sat up in your seat, trying to reorient yourself. “sorry, what did you say?” you finally had spoken after getting settled. you must’ve been too frazzled to hear him the first time. he cleared his throat before he repeated himself, this time a little louder, a little less shy than the first time around.

“I asked which stop you get off at.” you looked at him with eyes big with confusion. he hoped, desperately (he’s always so desperate), that he hadn’t made you feel anything negative.

he made sure to explain the question in hopes that it made you feel more comfortable and not as confused. “…I can wake you up before you get there, if you’d like.”

despite his wants, he needed to make sure you were safe, and were able to actually get home. if he didn’t ‘protect’ you, who would? definitely not that roommate of yours.

to his (would be short-lived) disappointment you had shaken your head. “no, it’s fine. I really shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the first place.” you had paused for a short second before saying, “thank you, though, xiao.” he doesn’t like to remember how he almost shivered at the sound of his name coming from your lips, nor how he had to turn his head as he nodded because he could feel heat creep up it.

"oh, yes, xiao! sorry, I wasn't expecting you to call so soon. what can I do for you?"

“you asked on the train if I could tutor you. I wanted to set something up.”

it’s true, even if xiao can’t believe it himself. he knew this day would come, but didn’t expect it to be this soon. after several minutes of silence between you two, (or at least as silent as it could be on a train), you had turned to him, as if remembering something, getting his attention before you asked him something.

“sorry if this is coming out of nowhere. I was wondering if…” you took a breath, and xiao had almost sworn you were bordering scared as you finished your question. “I was wondering if you could possibly tutor me for zhonglis class? I don’t know if you’d be able to, but I spoke to him earlier today, and he recommended asking you for help.”

and of course he had said yes, to your surprise. he remembers thinking, silently, that maybe the universe was rewarding him for being so patient, and he had to keep his cool the best he could.

now here he is, actually setting something up. “would tomorrow with you?”

"yes!," you let out a nervous little laugh at your uncontrollable excitement. xiao can just picture the smile you have on your face, all shy and awkward and cute. "that would work great, I think. I really wasn't expecting you to set something up so quickly. I'm grateful though."

xiao would make the tutoring session today during the dead of night if he could. of course he would set something up so quickly.

you don't need to know that, though.

xiao hums at your words. "we… we can have our first session at my place, if you're comfortable with that." he realizes he might be coming off too strong, so he adds, "but we can have it somewhere else too." he hopes you agree to the first suggestion though.

"t-that'd be great, yeah. whatever works for you, works for me."

"I'll text you the address and the time, then… and we can discuss more sessions or a schedule and stuff further.”

"that sounds good. thank you so much again." you repeat, and he can hear the relief in your voice. it should be him thanking you, really.

"of course. goodnight."

“goodnight!” you repeat before you both hang up. a wave of bliss strikes his body.

but he isn’t going to sleep, not yet, atleast. Instead, he’s going to stay up all night, right in front of his window, thinking of all the possible lives he’s about to live.

he’ll make sure to thank zhongli for that in the morning.

ーーー NEW MESSAGE ーーー ☆

[name]: I don't think you understand how nervous I am right now

[name]: my hands are shaking and everything

alatus: why? is something wrong?

[name]: you know how I told you how I wasn't doing the greatest in one of my courses?

alatus: of course. did something happen?

[name]: the most intimidating guy I've ever met in my life is my tutor now

[name]: and I have no idea how this first session is gonna go

alatus: I think you’ll be fine. you shouldn’t worry yourself

alatus: you should let me know how everything goes.

ーーー☆

xiao's home is, to put it simply, unique.

you were left awestruck as soon as you stepped into the small but gorgeous studio apartment, shocked by both the feeling of jealousy creeping up your spine and the thought of how someone could possibly afford such an apartment, especially as a college student. no matter how xiao manages to afford his place, though, his home daunts over you.

there's a large window that lines the wall his bed and desk are propped up against and you can't help but imagine just how xiao would look as he looked out of it and at the bustling city. the glass is frosted and wet from the pitter pattering rain that seems to persist in the cool weather of october. it's a little messy, books scattered about here and there and takeout bags littering the table, and the amount of lighting in this room seems to be as minimal (and as cold) as can be, but it's nothing too bad at all. nothing that you could complain about, at least.

there's so many things inside his house, so many things your eyes are drawn to, like his big bookcase and comfy bed and his expensive computer setup, and yet it feels so... lonely. devoid of life, even. maybe it's the look of the gloomy black walls and the fact that the only lighting xiao has is a tall floor lamp and the light that comes through his window, but you've never seen such a full home feel so empty. no plants except for one little succulent that's looking worse for wear, no photos of friends or family, no bright colors, no pets to breathe life into the place, no companion to help make this house a home. nothing.

you're suddenly grateful you have such a lively roommate.

it's been a few minutes since xiao had let you in, greeting you in his comfy hoodie and baggy pants, hair put up into a messy bun, before attending to something on his computer (an important email you think, or at least something along those likes, something urgent), telling you to sit wherever you'd like and that he'll be with you shortly. you had nodded while leaving your shoes at the door, asking him if his bed would be a seat he's okay with you being on, garnering a hum in response from him.

"...I'll sit here then, since it'll be close to you and stuff," you murmur, admittedly a bit more nervous and unconfident sounding than you'd like. you plop yourself onto xiao's bed, placing your bag at your feet in front of the bed for easy access. xiao takes what's meant to be a quick glance at you, but he's unable to look away.

he knows it's creepy to say, especially when you're just sitting down so innocently, but the sight is better than what he's fantasized about. he's thought of you so many times in his bed, cuddling with him and running your hands through his hair and letting him press kisses into your face and collar bones. he's thought about waking you up with breakfast and how you'd smile and thank him even if he can't cook very well, but he's willing to learn a couple recipes for you. he's thought about laying there with you after a long day, letting you ramble as he listened like he does as alatus. he's thought about how he'd great you once he comes home like you probably do with venti, watching your form as he wait on his bed for him.

and, most of all, he's thought about the way you'd cry and sob and call him a monster once the day that you find out that his bed is now yours and that this apartment is now your home, trapped forever with him, finally comes.

one day you'll be here permanently, he's sure of it. baby steps first, though.

xiao doesn't realize that in the midst of his thinking, he's been absolutely staring you down, and considering that xiao has a naturally viscous (bitchy) looking resting face, you can't help but squirm under his gaze. "xiao? I can... move, if you'd like."

"no, I just..." he clears his throat before looking back at the work in front of him. "sorry, I zoned out for a second. you can stay there if it feels comfortable. whatever you want." the words come out as a sort of awkward, almost inaudible mumble.

is this supposed to be as awkward and tense feeling as it is?

you nod at his words, albeit a little hesitant, further settling into the soft plush of his bed. your brain is still convinced that he might want you to move, but you decide to just stay where you are. you reach down from your seat, pulling out everything you would need from your bag, waiting patiently for any instructions. the soft clicking of xiao's keyboard and the sound of rain hitting against the window fill the otherwise silent room, and honestly, given the atmosphere and the way xiao's room is so dark and cozy and how warm and inviting his bed is, you're tempted to fall asleep.

xiao's presence, though nerve-wracking, makes you feel at home. it feels familiar. you wouldn't mind falling asleep near him again.

but today's (sadly) not the day for resting. xiao finishes whatever he's working on, closing out of the tab and turning his chair to face your spot on the bed. he brushes a piece of his hair back and out of the way, uncovering the eyebrow piercing the bothersome piece had previously hid. his eyes look dead, tired dark circles laying underneath, and yet he still forces himself to speak, like a zombie who simply refuses to just give up and die.

"did you have anything specific in mind that you want to go over?"

you take a second to think, humming in response. zhongli never truly specified what you needed to brush up upon, only that the last few assignments weren't up to his standards, whatever that means. "I don't know. maybe everything from the last few weeks? I'm not so sure."

he too lets out a soft little hum as he thinks for a moment. he's never tutored before, and he's pretty sure he doesn't even have the qualifications to actually be of any sort of help. he makes it up as he goes.

“on the back of your textbook, there's a study guide that covers all the chapters inside." he gently motions for you to give him the book sitting on your lap, flipping to the page before handing it back to you. "I want you to do the questions of the study guide that cover the chapters we've already read in class. then I'll... assess you from there, and we can come up with a plan.”

it seems like a lot of work, and that's because it is. the longer you spend here (the more he can milk this session for everything it's worth), the better.

you nod, moving to get to work immediately, putting your full effort into the task at hand. you both work silently, xiao clicking at his keys alongside the noise of you flipping through the pages of your textbook and jotting answers down. the noises compliment one another well, creating a lingering sense of peace and calm in the air. you find yourself getting stuck on one or two of the questions, but… surprisingly breezing through the rest, and after a while of working, you gently speak his name, alerting him that you've finished. he’s quick to take your work, starting his inspection of it.

your hands can’t help but get a little clammy as you watch as he reads through your answers, analyzing each and every single written word. in the meantime, you’re doing a little analysis of your own, trying to distract your mind from feeling any more nervous than you realistically should.

your eyes flick from his messy hair, to the beauty mark almost right in the middle of his forehead, then to the soft dusting of red eyeshadow under his eyes. you look at how he runs a finger against the words on the page, too, almost subconsciously, and though you can’t really tell from this angle what he’s doing, you think he’s more so tracing the letters you’ve written than using it as a means to follow along. he almost looks entranced. you don’t know what to expect from xiao, can’t even guess what he’s thinking, and the furrowed eyebrows on his face definitely don’t make you feel any better.

you sit there, idley, awkwardly, fidgeting for what seemed like more than just a few minutes, before xiao finally speaks up.

you can barely hear him as he speaks, his words hushed and muffled. "you... need a lot of brushing up on the content, and your answers… lack good explanations and reasoning." he hands you back your work, sending you an almost sympathetic look. "I can see why zhongli believes you need help,” he adds.

it's a lie, of course, but you don't need to know that, not when zhongli had so delicately laid down the groundwork for all of this to happen in the first place. most of your answers were just fine as is, at least from what he lightly skimmed through.

still, he can't help but feel guilty when that look of embarrassment washes over your face.

for some reason you feel yourself get overwhelmed with emotion. you thought that maybe, just maybe, zhongli was simply just messing with you, as was notorious with the man and his teaching methods. but there's a stark sense of embarrassment that comes from xiao reaffirming what zhongli had said, an embarrassment so strong it sends your entire body ablaze with heat.

you can't help but awkwardly shift in your seat as you nod along to his words despite the way your head almost feels too heavy to lift, avoiding eye contact lest he sees you so embarrassed over something so... silly, a miniscule problem at best, something fixable with a bit of elbow grease and time, and yet it means way more than it should to you.

you've worked so hard in this class already. why aren't you improving?

he doesn’t let you really catch your breath before he speaks again. "I think we'll need a couple more sessions than we discussed earlier," he mumbles, again, as though too ashamed to speak up, flipping through his own textbook, face in his hand as he thinks. "I want to make sure we can get as much content covered as possible before the end of the semester and catch you back up, since you seem to be..." xiao takes a quick glance at you, and for a moment, just a split second, he sees you, sees inside of you, sees every little thing you've been keeping bottled up, your fear. he looks away, breath hitching out of complete and utter guilt. he forces himself to continue though.

"...behind," he finishes, the single word said notably softer than the rest of the sentence.

xiao forces himself to swallow down his guilt. truly, he feels terrible about lying about this, because you clearly seem to be doing just fine on you own and lord knows how much stress this entire ordeal is causing you, but what's the use of being presented and blessed by the gods themselves with such an amazing opportunity if his sinning hands can't take it out of greed? xiao hates it, but he's always been more of a taker than a giver, taking all he can from people and leaving nothing left of them.

the simple pure utter bliss at the thought of spending hours and hours with you, in his room, alone, intimately and in person instead of just being with you through a phone screen, extinguishes any guilt he could possibly feel.

you, on the other hand, do allow yourself to feel guilt, though it's a feeling that has much more innocent roots than what xiao feels. it's a feeling that pokes and stabs at you as you fumble for words to say. you're a much better person than xiao is in that regard. you can't help but to feel ashamed, ashamed that you were doing so terrible at a course that goes directly into your major that you would have to force xiaoー a man renowned for being a lonerー who surely would rather spend his free time by himself and not tutoring someone so out of your realm and element as you are.

maybe it's not too late after all to consider switching majors, you think.

"you seriously don't have to do that, I don't want to take more time from you than I'm already taking. honestly, I think I'm a bit of a lost cause at this point if I can't even do the simpler questions."

the truth is, not even xiao knows how scared you are. fear and dread soars through your body at the thought of ending up in the same spot you were in last year.

xiao lets out a sigh through his nose at your words, a noise that does nothing other than make you feel worse, especially when you can't read his emotions and tell what's going on in that labyrinth of a brain he has. maybe he's realized that you're not worth spending his time. maybe you really are a loss cause. maybe you really should change your major. maybe you should call it quits and drop out. maybe you should move countries, marry a rich doctor or a lawyer and spend the rest of your days as a glorified housespー

xiao doesn't let you finish your thoughts (plans), instead getting up from his chair slowly. "let's take a break." he says, and while you feel a break is a little undeserved after you haven't done much studying, you nod, thinking it might be best to just relax before jumping back into things. "taking things slowly is the better way to do things," you nod, although the words just barely register themselves in your head. you're surprisingly vulnerable with him.

"I'm... going to step out for a moment to get some air. I'll give you some time for yourself to think." you nod, giving him a small and meek thank you, genuinely so utterly grateful for all the time xiao has given you. you can't help yourself from bothering him just once more before he leaves, though.

"xiao?" you don't look up at him, eyes fixated on your answers and what must've been so wrong with them. you hear him hum, beckoning you to continue.

“do you think I'll be able to pass?”

"of course you will," he answers, and it's the first truth he's said all day.

"of course," he mumbles, this time lower, a reminder to himself of how you'd be completely fine on your own, and that he should never, ever take this opportunity for granted.

he makes a promise to himself that he won't.

----- NEW TEXT MESSAGE -----☆

zhongli: hello, [name]. xiao informed me earlier today that you two will be conducting your first study session today. I'm glad you spoke to him about tutoring like I had advised you to. how are things going?

[name]: it's going fine, he mostly just reaffirmed what you already told me though. but he's been really kind about it all, I'm grateful that he agreed to help me out.

zhongli: I see. I hope that he could give you a new perspective on things and aid you in your weak spots. xiao is an amazing student in his own right, and I'm sure that together, you two will make an amazing team. I'm glad you two are getting along.

zhongli: I'd like to give you a little heads up for a future assignment, but there will be a project upcoming where I'll be sure to partner you two up. I'm sure you two will impress me on what you come up with.

zhongli: I believe in you, [name], and I expect good things coming forward.

zhongli: I'm sure that xiao is grateful as well.

[name]: thank you.

[name]: I hope to meet your standards as best as I can.

-----☆

the apartment is even quieter than it was before without xiao.

it's lonely, too.

in a way, you used this little moment to yourself as a justification and way to figure out just what exactly is the enigma that is xiao. now that you're by yourself, you find yourself looking around at his walls, glancing over at one of the two of his cork boards that seems to have a bunch of what looks to be memorabilia of all sorts, stuff like old music concert tickets of local bands you've never heard of, polaroids with some familiar places and even some of his friends, post-it note scribbles of different tasks he has to get done, among other things.

you visualize yourself looking at the corkboard as though it's those ones in those crime movies, where you're using red yarn to connect the pieces of a story together, figuring out with all the clues you have at your disposal who xiao is.

there's other things, too. posters lining the wall and a singular cat shaped plushie on his bed, a wilted bouquet of flowers in a vase on his kitchen countertop meant for decoration, various little knick knacks on his desk, but the part of his room that catches your eye most, though, is his large, expansive bookshelf filled (a little messily) with a variety of different things, almost all of it stuff you actually recognize.

you’re halfway through looking around before you hear the door open back up again. you instinctually freeze, as of you’re a kid who’s been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. you shift your head, locking eyes with him as he steps back inside. to your surprise, he doesn’t look upset, not even annoyed, just intrigued as he watches you awkwardly shuffle away a little from the bookshelves.

you try to apologize with hast. “sorry, I wasn’t trying to snoop or anything, I swear, I was just–“

xiaos quick to interject as he walks right past you over to sit, this time on his bed instead of at his desk. “it’s fine. I don’t mind. you don’t have to apologize.” he crosses his arms once he’s situated in his seat. “do whatever you’d like.” he adds in an attempt to comfort you.

it sounds sarcastic, but you somehow can tell that it’s not. you nod, taking it as (hoping that it’s) permission to keep going. your eyes move over to the other corkboard near the bookshelves, hoping that you’re not stepping over any boundaries by doing so. this board is filled more with many different photos pinned up onto it. there’s all sorts of sites and places, things like concerts or shops or restaurants or nature– the list goes on– with a rare one or two photos with him actually in it. even rarer seemed to be other people that didn’t look like strangers in the background.

you subconsciously speak a thought aloud. “you seem to go out a lot. to really cool places, too.”

the only thing he really says in response is, “all of those aren’t recent.”

you hum in response, eyebrows furrowing a little as you nod in understanding. “oh, I see.” xiao takes it as an opportunity to ask you something even though he knows the answer already. “what about you? do you go out a lot?”

the question takes you a little aback. “I haven’t gotten out a lot recently either.” you try to think about all you’ve done recently, before realizing there’s nothing much to think about at all. you add, in truth, “…you’re honestly the first person I’ve spent time with in a while that wasn’t my roommate, but I don’t think that really counts.”

he cocks his head to the side at that answer, golden eyes staring at you (almost straight through your soul), intrigued. “why haven’t you spent time with anyone else?

a soft pang hits your heart as you think about the reason. the breakup. despite how much time has gone by, you’re still tender about the topic, and would rather not think about everything it’s caused as a result. would rather not think about him, either.

you let out a nervous laugh. “that’s a long story, I guess.”

xiao seems dissatisfied with that answer. he’s never responded so quickly, without hesitating before.

“I have time.”

you send a look of slight confusion his way. “I thought we were going to study some more today?”

“right…” xiao let’s a lot of dead air slip in whenever he speaks, pausing and hanging onto words as if he’s doing mental calculations to figure out what the right thing to say next. “…in the future, then.”

you nod as your eye continues it’s adventure through the board before another photo catches your attention fully. it’s a pretty photo of a bunch of people standing near the docks, holding up and letting go of lanterns. it looks like, judging from the date scribbled on the bottom of the photo and the contents of the photo itself, the annual lantern rite from a few years back. you remember that day, almost vividly, too. that was your first year at the school. you and venti had gone together that year. it was magical. it seems like xiao really was never too far from you. seriously, you’re surprised you two haven’t talked sooner.

you can’t help but smile as you reminisce on that day. “I remember this exact lantern rite. there was so many people, and the lanterns were so beautiful. they always are.”

you turn around to face him, again. “how long has it been since you’ve gone to the harbor? if I lived as close as you do, I think I’d go to the harbor whenever I have time.”

it takes awhile for xiao to respond, not because he’s thinking of an answer, but because he’s transfixed on your expression right now. you seem so happy that it naturally just pulls on his heart strings. he’s glad you still remember that particular lantern rite, even though he knows you’ve gone to more since then. xiao remembers that day visibly too, but probably (definitely) not for the same you do. he wonders if you remember that part of it deep inside.

“um… since the day of that photo, probably.”

you’re a little taken aback from that answer. xiao lives on the outskirts of the harbor. how could he have not gone back in years? everything you learn about xiao makes you more and more curious as to who he is. “really?” you can’t help but ask. he can’t help but shrug.

you speak without even thinking twice once more. “would you want to go again sometime then?” your eyes dart away from his face. you can’t help but look away before you finish the question, unable to look him in the eye as you clarify, “with me, I mean.” you stumble out the words more confidently than you exprcted.

he lets out a sigh. “there’s nothing I want from there…” it’s the truth. he hasn’t been very fond of the harbor for what has felt like centuries, especially not the memories he’s tethered to. he can’t help but to regret the accidental roughness of his words, though, when he looks up to see a flash of embarrassment paint across your face. it feels like he picked the wrong answer, but he wants to say the right one, desperately. xiao has never been great at talking, but he’s trying, for you. “but if you’d like… I’d like to go with you.”

you try to hide the way your heart picks up the pace a little at his words. “let’s go soon, then. I can tell you about myself, and you can tell me about you, too.”

he nods, and for a split second you think you’ve gone insane, because you swear, swear, that for a few seconds, the corner of xiao’s lips curve softly into a smile. a smile! smiling at the thought of you two ‘hanging out’ in the future! for all the times you’ve seen xiao, you can maybe only count on one hand how many times you’ve seen him smile.

“you want to learn about me?” he asks, earnestly, shocked, and it definitely wasn’t a question you were expecting.

“yeah, I mean I've always seen you around. I think we've even been in the same classes before this year, too, and now I’m getting tutored by you and I still know pretty much nothing about you.” you pause before adding on, “I’d love to learn more. I hope that’s not weird, or anything.”

he shakes his head, the ghost of a smile still etched onto his lips. and if you looked closely (which luckily for him, you weren’t), you’d see the faint dust of blush decorating his cheeks, too. “I don’t have much to tell you, but… that sounds good.”

he feels embarrassed at the fact he can’t control how warm his cheeks feel and how he can’t help but crack a smile at you. he clears his throat, trying to reset himself, suddenly ready to move on, going back to his desk.

“let’s keep working, I want to make the most out of the time we have together.” he doesn’t look at you as he speaks. you mentally brace yourself for another study session with him.

it’s gonna be a long night.

ーーー NEW MESSAGE ーーー ☆

ven: where have you been?

ven: haven’t seen you all day……….. ):

ven: my flower, the house is so empty without you……….. ))):

ven: are you with somebody? you never tell me these things anymore.

ven: talk to me soon, please.

ーーー ☆

it's late into the night when you're awakened rudely with a few desperate knocks against your bedroom door.

you can't help but groan as you stir awake, upset to be forced out of your dream state, although that irritation is soon replaced with guilt once you realize just why you were being awakened with such urgency in the first place. after whining out a loud, 'come in,' you peak your eyes open to see your best friend standing in your doorway, tears staining his face so much that they're visible even in the darkness.

shit. it's been so long since you've seen venti like this. you thought all of that was over ages ago.

"can I sleep with you tonight?" his voice is shakey yet gentle, filled with fear and something that you can only label as... need, as if he needs you more than he ever has. just his voice alone, paired with the way he looks so in the doorway while he's shivering and fiddling with his pajamas, hair looking almost as distraught as he's feeling, is enough to have you too stunned to speak.

"please?" he adds on when you don't reply immediately.

you nod, scooting over to make room for him as he slowly trudges to your bed like he's done many times before. he's quick to settle in under the covers with you, laying against the plush pillow underneath him. you move closer to him as though it's instinct, an action done out of retained muscle memory from the many nights you've spent doing this exact thing. your eyes, though half lidded and heavy, trace over his face over and over again, noting how his eyes look back at you and you can't help but think that venti is such an expressive person. even if he's so silent right now, his eyes are cloudy and storming, speaking a thousand words with the thunder that rings out within them.

he looks like he's trying to think of what to say, but he doesn't need to say a single thing. you already know why he's here.

his face is contorted in a way that almost showcases utter agony, and it hurts, hurts to see your best friend suffering, especially when the best you can do is guide your hand softly against the smooth the skin of his cheek and brushing away any tears in pity. if nothing else, you truly do hope that, at the very least, your presence can help.

“do you maybe want to talk about it?” you run your hand through his soft, pretty dyed blue locks that seem to almost glow in the moonlight, feeling the light moisture of his skin from his sweat. you’ve forgotten just how easy it always has been to brush your hand through his locks. your voice is gentle and low as if not to startle him, as if not to shatter him more than he already is. “you know you don’t have to, but you can always talk to me if you need to.”

“no, it’s okay... I just want to be with you right now.” his voice is meek as he chooses his words carefully as though they're meticulously chosen to pull at your heartstrings (they do), and he sounds like he’s on the brink of tears once more.

“is it the same dream as before?” you ask, remembering how many nights you've spent with venti just like this when he began getting frequent ‘nightmares’ awhile back, nightmares that till this day you don't know the contents of.

he nods, although hesitantly, as though it’s some sort of secret. and in a way, it is.

he could never, ever, ever tell you that you’re the cause of all of his nightmares after all.

“are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? you look really upset. you've never told me what makes you like this.”

“no, I just want to… I just want to stay like this for a while.”

“okay, ven,” you whisper, soft and quiet, as if your voice could shatter him whole. you pause, thinking of what to say, before you decide that you won’t prode any further, instead bidding him a goodnight. “I love you, venti. get some rest.”

for the first time in maybe months, venti doesn’t tell you he loves you back.

instead he burrows himself as deep as humanly possible, as if being torn away from you would kill him, just like the way his dreams pulled and tugged ruthlessly at his heart strings, shoving images of you with your new 'tutor' down his throat, like they had with him months and months ago.

how cruel is it that he's forced to see you being ripped away from him both in real life and in his dreams?

-----☆

you're half asleep when you feel him mumble into your skin.

"I miss you. I miss this." he whispers, but you can barely hear him. he misses the way you feel, how comforting you smell, how his hands connect with your body like they're puzzle pieces. he misses having all your attention on him like this, so quick to coo and ask if he's okay. everything’s changed from how it used to be.

"what?"

you feel venti's hands slip under your shirt, feeling the warm skin of your back as he slowly trails his hands up and down, basking in the way that you feel. "I miss you, cecilia. especially today." his voice isn't shakey anymore. instead it's much more fluid, as though he never had the night terrors that brought him into your room to begin with. you can't help but frown at his words even in your sleepy state.

"venti..." you mumble out, feeling his hands start to dig themselves into your skin. his grip on your waist is tightー not enough for it to hurt, but just enough that it keeps you from pushing him away if you really wanted to, trapping and suffocating you, bordering the lines of sucking the air out of your lungs.

part of you wishes he wouldn't keep things so bottled up from you, because clearly, your constant 'absence' in his life is hurting him more than you'll ever be able to understand, but the more selfish part of you is shamefully grateful that he is. you love venti, but for a man who constantly champions for freedom, he's always been so dead set on taking away yours.

you know deep down that if you gave venti an inch, he'd take a mile, and you don't have many miles left to give. you could spend twenty-four hours of a day with venti and he would still want you to somehow spend twenty-five on him. as much as you love ventiー truly, you love him more than anything else in the worldー, you know it'd be better if you didn't indulge him as much as you want him to. lord knows how quick venti would be to turn you into a hollow, empty shell of yourself by taking every second you have all for himself if he could.

besides, this whole thing will blow over eventually after the party, right?

right?

"I know that I've already whined and complained about it, but god, I miss you. you were gone for so long today with someone I don't even know… seeing you occasionally here and there isn't enough for me. I..." venti somehow manages to pull his body even closer to you, your chest and his chest plush against each other, so close that you can feel the way it rises as he breathes slowly. "I know I'm selfish, but I need you."

he says the word 'need' as if he'd die without you.

you don't think this is a conversation you two should be having when you're so... out of it, exhausted.

"venti, can we talk about this in the morning?"

his grip slowly loosens. "...okay." he says the word slowly and hesitantly, as if he's a child saying a cuss word for the first time, as if agreeing to put his feelings aside until you're in a much more lucid and conscious state is a sin. "I'm... I'm sorry for bothering you and being so clingy and... I just..." venti swallows thickly. "goodnight," venti mumbles, choosing not to finish his thought.

your eyebrows furrow, something about this whole conversation feeling off to you. never in a million years would venti have been so... upfront, apart from the day he invited you to the party. it's like venti's slowly unraveling like a string, just one little tug away from snapping.

it wouldn't be the first time venti's snapped on you though. you need to mend things and shut off the ticking time bomb before things blow up in your face again, like when you...

like when you...

ugh. you'll think about all of this later when you're actually well-rested and capable of forming cohesive thoughts. you softly mumble out a goodnight to venti as well, praying that the storm will blow off soon enough.

it doesn't, though. the winds only get stronger and louder.

ーーー☆

venti wasn't in your room by the time you woke up. infact, he wasn't in the apartment at all. not in his room, not in the kitchen or in the bathroom getting ready, nowhere. he didn't even leave a text telling you where he went.

you guess that venti needs time to think after last night, and you decide that it's probably for the best.

you'll see him again later anyways.

ーーー☆

it's cold out today, october's chill punishing you for wearing too light of a sweater for the weather, but the freezing temperature of the classroom during today's lecture isn't the cause of the way you squirm in your seat out of discomfort. no, you have professor zhongli to take credit for that.

you're convinced that zhongli gets a kick out of giving you borderline heart attacks.

honestly, that isn't exactly far from the truth. there's something about the way your eyes flicker in complete, utter fear just by him saying, "[name], may you please see me after class? there's something I'd like to discuss with you," that sends shivers down his spine, as egregious as that may sound. it's a shameful feeling for a professor to have, but at least he has much more innocent intentions this time as opposed to the last time he's asked you to stay behind.

the request was given to you right at the start of class (which you were actually on time to, thank god) before he began with his lecture. and once again, you couldn't help but think about just what exactly zhongli wanted to discuss with you throughout the entire lecture, almost too busy coming up with theories to focus. all you can think is, did you do something wrong again? was the assignment you turned in last night bad? all that studying you did with xiao couldn’t have been for nothing, right? you're going to fail the semester at this rate.

you wish zhongli was more dead set on helping you pass like last year than assuring that you failed.

you can’t help but call back to that time. you had been much worse off back then. you were visibly behind everyone else, but it hadn't started that way. so much was happening back then. and that breakup, oh that fucking break up, really made focusing on your school work beyond difficult. you truly did put up a fight, tried to make sure you stayed afloat, and it did work at first. but your responsibilities drowned you completely, and you never really learned how to swim.

it was a rough semester, and one of your classes had been taught by the very same man taking great pleasure in ruining you today. your one saving grace? once again, the very same man, who had seemed to take enough pity onto you that he took matters into his own hands to make sure you did well.

you stood out back then, not because you shone bright, but because you didn't shine at all.

zhongli wanted to light that fire back in you that you had at the start of the year. and he had.

zhongli had took you under his wing, struck you with passion and drive, made you fall in love all over again with the topic you were studying through his ramblings and stories and sheer utter knowledge; he revitalized you, filled a hole. he had kept you after class and in his office on weekends, making time to make sure that you succeeded and through his gentle nurturing that was the hot to his own cold. you had succeeded, to your surprise. and he had looked after you ever since.

it was silly for you to believe that he would grace you with the same mercy this course.

but things are different now. so much more different. you were grateful back then for him striving to push you to do better, but now it's overwhelming. back then, his standards were achievableー finish your assignments on time as often as you could, study a little when you can, at least attempt to attend every class you had. it was doable. but now, now you're almost convinced he wants you to become borderline perfectー no, perfect is an understatement. he wants you to be better than perfect.

perfect, and vulnerable.

back then it felt as though he was trying to help you but now, the back of your mind can't help but tell you that he's always been helping himself, benefiting himself, not you.

it was at the start of this school year that you let yourself fall right into the dragon's lair.

either way, maybe it's the fact that your mind was so occupied, or maybe time simply just decided to speed up, but the class flew by in no time. you had practically tuned out all of zhongli's ramblings and teachings today. you watched zhongli dismiss the class, staying seated despite the way everyone else shuffled out of the door as quickly as possible. once again, it was just you and zhongli in the empty room.

fuck.

zhongli walks to the front of your desk, running a hand through his hair before letting out a long sigh, and you never knew how such a little harmless action could strike so much fear into your heart. could you just combust already? you're not at all ready for whatever zhongli has to say.

"what a long class we had today, hm? I hope I didn't bore you too much. you looked particularly distracted." zhongli says, smiling gently at you as he attempts to brighten the gloomy mood you're clearly in. "luckily, though, I've been excited to talk to you all class. you truly were my saving grace today."

is this some kind of sick joke? you were kidding when you thought zhongli must get pleasure out of your failure, but you might actually be right.

gross.

"don't worry, though, I didn't keep you after class just to complain. I'll get to the point, since I know you hate pointless chatter."

"I know it's far too early to say this, but I'm proud of you, [name]."

that caring nature still shines through, the strict professor he's supposed to be eroded and washed away by time itself.

your eyebrows furrow. "what?" you can’t help but let the word slip out of your mouth in the midst of your confusion.

"the assignment you gave in last night, truly one of your best works this semester. you never fail to amaze me with how fast you manage to make a turnaround when you put your mind to it, [name]."

the assignment? the one you worked on last night at the last second despite having over a week to do it after studying with xiao that you had to keep your eyes pried open to complete? the one xiao had borderline picked apart a dozen times as though trying to break you down even more? that assignment?

what?

"but I... what? if it was any good, it's likely only because xiao was there to help me." you mumble, unsure of your words.

"so? are you really diminishing your accomplishments just because you got a little aid?" zhongli plants a hand on your cheek like he has a dozen times in the past before guiding your face to look up at him. "or are you trying to say that it was xiao who had done your assignment, not you?"

"o-of course he didn't, but-" zhongli is quick to shush you, pressing a gloved thumb against your lips with a soft smile.

"shh. you did well, and that's final. I hope this pattern continues. you know I want nothing but the best for you after seeing what you can achieve." his gloved hand caresses your cheek and you're convinced he can feel the heat your face is producing out of embarrassment even through the layer of fabric. "my little star, you're doing well again." he adds quietly, so quietly that you can just barely make it out, though the nickname is far less shocking than the praise that your brain is still trying to make sense of.

"before I let you go, I just wanted to reiterate that should you ever need my assistance with anythingー and I mean anything at all, whether it's related to your academics or notー know that I am and always will be here."

"I... thank you." it's the only words you can come up with as zhongli leaves you alone with your thoughts. "thank you," you repeat, speaking the words much more quietly. in a hushed whisper.

in the back of your mind, you realize that you should be thinking about how odd it is for zhongli to suddenly be so sugary sweet, how he's touched you so much more intimately than a professor should, how his little nickname for you is weird at best, and yet all you can think about is how he's proud of you.

for some reason, that's all that really matters to you in the moment. you can think about... all that other stuff, later.

ーーー☆

it's almost pitch dark out by the time you finally get home.

"I'm home!" you shout out as soon as you step through the front door, voice a little breathy after having to climb up a few flights of stairs to get up to your apartment, alerting venti that you've arrived in a way akin to how married couples do. you're quick to lock the door behind you, stripping yourself of your shoes that feel more like weights before placing them in the shoe rack near the door and putting your heavy bag down next to venti's violin case, deciding you'll bother with getting whatever you need out of there when you feel like it. you wince a little at the cold tiles of the floor underneath your feet.

maybe one day you'll move into a place with an actual heater, you think.

"I'll be there in just a second!" venti's voice rings out from what you assume is the bathroom down the hall, likely showering given the pitter-pattering sound of running water. you nod, as though responding to him despite the fact he can't see you, flicking on the light switch to the kitchen as you do so. the kitchen table immediately grabs your attention with how different it looks compared to how you left it this morning. two orange pumpkins sit at the center, and alongside it lays an unopened package of carving tools and another package of tea lights, a brown bag filled with what looks to be some house decor and knick knacks (venti truly does love trying to make your run-down apartment as much of a true home as possible), and a bag of groceries yet to be put away.

you sit down at the medium sized wooden table, allowing yourself to rest and bask in the day as you look through everything infront of you. it's been awhile since you've just sat in silence and thought, and even longer since you let yourself really live in this home without just heading straight to your room. your nails drill against the table, pushing one of the two pumpkins closer to you with a soft hum. you trace a finger against it, imaginging what'd you want to carve on it and how it'd glow after you put a candle inside.

this year you should do something new, get a little more fancier with the design that you have in the previous years that you craved a pumpkin. maybe you and venti will carve matching jack-o-laterns this year. you can't help but smile at the thought.

"they're cute, aren't they?"

you tense up when you feel a hand on your shoulder, but you instantly relax when you turn your head to see venti. you guess you were so lost in thought you hadn't heard him come out of the bathroom. you drink in his presence, giving him a glance over out of instinct. the smell of his apple-cinnamon bodywash assault your senses in an oddly comforting way, a scent that makes you feel right at home. he's in a pair pajamas and cute bunny slippers, and his hair is clipped up in a pretty half up, half down ponytail. the blue dyed tips of his hair are losing their signature color (which is odd, considering that despite his inherit laziness, venti's always been one to make sure those tips stay bright blue at all costs) and his skin looks a little damp.

a gummy smile paints his face, and he has a bit of a playful glint in his eye, but he looks notably tired, and a sense of worry pings at your heart at the sight. you were the roommate notorious for having bags under your eyes afterall, not him, so to see him look so exhausted, especially when venti's always been one for getting his 'beauty sleep,' tells you that venti internally isn't feeling his best. it sounds shallow, judging someone's mental health based on their appearance, but you know venti like the back of your hand, and you know that something's wrong.

even moreso, you know exactly what that wrong thing is, given last night's conversation.

"I got them at the grocery store today. thought it might be fun to carve them together before they go bad. that is, if you want to grace me with your undivided time and attention, of course." venti pretends he's joking, but you know deep down he means the sentiment of wanting you to give him your time for once, and you honestly feel awful at his words. nonetheless, you suck it up, smiling up at him. it's a genuine smile.

"why wouldn't I? it is tradition after all. I'm going to make mine extra scary this year."

venti laughs at your words, his heart internally flutter at the thought of how determined your face would look as you try to create the spookiest jack-o-latern he's ever seen. he leans down, pressing a soft, platonic peck to your forehead, finally giving you a welcome home.

"you're home later than usual again, everything go okay?"

you can't help but notice that venti is acting as if he had never said what he said last night, though the air between you is still awkward and tense, and his face does little to hide the fact that deep down, he's still quelling on the things he spoke about. nonetheless, you decide that that conversation is to be had when venti wants it to happen, knowing full well from years of being his best friend that venti prefers keeping a lighter mood at all costs, so you leave things at that until he's ready to speak about it again.

"yeah, I just thought that I'd try to get some work done while I could at campus," you answer, watching as he nods slowly at your words. you can tell he's fighting back the urge to interrogate you, to ask you if you were with anybody and if you really needed to stay at campus, and anything else he can use as a way to rationalize the fact that he's so clingy. he looks around the room, thinking about what else he could say to make sure the conversation doesn't end prematurely.

"oh! I ordered some takeout a bit before you came home. it's still hot, if you want to eat."

you nod, thanking him, and you can tell he's trying to read you, to figure out just how exactly he can stay with you longer without him bringing up anything you two talked about last night. he stands there, presence lingering as though he has something to say, and yet he chooses not to say whatever's on his mind, instead preferring to pick up the unopened bottle of dandelion wine on the nearby kitchen counter.

"you seem all set. I'll get going now, then. I have an urgent date with a bottle of wine that I can't miss for the world." venti moves quickly to leave as though trying to make sure you don't see through to him, turning his back to you without another word, but he doesn't get too far before he's freezing up at your words.

"you're not gonna stay and chat?" you say instinctively, a little surprised by the fact he was so quick to come and go today. you don't know what it is about today, but the thought of venti forcing himself to go when he clearly doesn't want to pains you. maybe it was last night's conversation, or maybe it's how venti radiates warmth that fights against the biting cold that nips at your skin, or maybe you just miss venti, but you want him here with you.

venti turns around slowly, his voice low as he speaks. "oh..." he starts off, "I thought you would've wanted to eat alone like all the other nights," you almost let out a wince at his words. how long has it really been since you last simply hung out with venti? "do you... want me to stay?" you let out a gentle hum.

"I want you here tonight. I want to talk to you."

"about what?"

you think about everything you'd want to tell venti, and you realize that that's exactly it; you want to tell him everything and anything you can. you want to tell him about your new tutor who turned out to be a lot less scary than you were expecting him to be, or that new coffee shop a friend had told you about that opened up near by that you'd love to tell him about, or how zhongli was actually kind to you today. but you also want venti to tell you everything too, about any escapades he's had recently while drunk or new songs he's written, or even how his classes are going and if he's thinking of going to any other parties soon.

you realize that, as much as you'd hate to admit it to yourself, you miss just being with venti a lot too.

"everything," you finally reply after thinking, grinning up at his hesitant form.

"everything? really? this isn't a ploy to tell me horrific news or to try to get out of going to that party, is it?"

"no, I promise. I'm honestly a bit offended you'd think I'd ever be so cruel as to try to get out of going to such an amazing party," you joke.

venti playfully rolls his eyes at your words, but he can't help the smile that creeps up his face. his smile is bright like a star, warm enough for a planet to survive off of, eyelids crinkling at the corners of his eyes as he puts the bottle in his hand down befofe he pulls up one of the kitchen chairs, the legs screeching against the floor so that he's sitting infront of you. he leans in close to you as though you were about to tell him the greatest story known to man. you can't help but feel warm and fuzzy inside. venti's smile, his real and genuine smile, gives you a feeling like no other. it makes you feel whole, like none of your problems neither exist nor matter and that everything in this world is perfect.

"okay then, dove, tell me everything."

ーーー NEW TEXT MESSAGE ーーー☆

alatus: can you believe it's almost sunday already?

[name]: holy shit, time is going by so fast

[name]: I'm so excited to meet you in person

alatus: I'm excited too.

[name]: I can't believe I've known you for over a year and I'm only going to get to see your face now

[name]: I swear, if you're just some creep...

alatus: I promise I'm not.

alatus: well, maybe.

[name]: ha ha, very funny.

[name]: but seriously, it honestly feels like I've known you for forever.

alatus: maybe you have and you just never noticed

#tw stalking #tw age gap #tw possession #tw student teacher relationship #tw yandere #tw manipulation #yandere xiao x reader #yandere venti x reader #yandere zhongli x reader #yandere Genshin impact x reader

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localtheorycorner · 4 months

Text

Names and their meanings - Blue Eye Samurai

Mizu- means water; this can represent that Mizu travels across the waters to find her biological father to kill him. Can also represent her flexibility within her identity. There is nothing solid. Mizu has lived her life as a man and a woman. She is both white and Japanese. Mizu draws the line between a swordmaster who appreciates the art of the sword and a person stricken with grief who will stop at nothing to achieve the vengeance they so crave. During the play, Mizu was both the ronin and the onryo. There is not one identity you can give to Mizu because she is as flexible and changing as water. After all, you can't keep water in your hands forever the same way you cannot tie down Mizu to one identity.

Akemi- translates to Bright Beauty. Akemi is mentioned to look nothing short like a princess even when her kimino was covered in dirt. The bright in bright beauty could also be taken as intelligence. Akemi throughout the series becomes knowledgeable, and well tempered. Fitting of a wise princess. You could also argue that bright could refer to her ambition to be great.

Taigen- means strong, fearless, and warrior. Taigen is regarded to be a strong samurai throughout the series, with Mizu even acknowledging his strength. He definitely fits into the warrior archetype. Always wanting to restore his honour, appreciating the art of the sword, physically strong, coming from a humble background, etc. Taigen is fearless to an alarming degree. Of course, he's brave but it can be deadly to the point of recklessness. For example, he was confident he could beat Abijah Fowler's gun with his sword. Not even considering the advance technology of guns.

Ringo- means apple. This one kinda stumped me, but I have an explanation that I hope makes sense. There's the saying, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." Usually referring to children being alike to their parents. In the beginning, we see that Ringo is helping out with his father's restaurant. Cooking noodles and serving customers. After seeing Mizu's showdown in the restaurant, he's inspired by her. Wanting to be her apprentice because Ringo wants to be a great samurai. In the season finale, Ringo is led to believe that Mizu has died. Master Eiji takes Ringo under his wing to learn the art of sword making. I believe his name refers to his willingness to always learn. Ringo learned from his father, Mizu then Master Eiji. (Taigen even teaches some stuff about fighting) I'm sure that him learning from all these people will lead up to something. Maybe Ringo will become a Jack of All Trades.

#blue eye samurai #mizu #mizu blue eye samurai #akemi #akemi blue eye samurai #taigen #mizu bes #ringo blue eye samurai #character analysis

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 years

Text

Have You No Idea That You’re In Deep? [Chapter 2: The Same Agony]

Aemond is a fearless, enigmatic prince and the most renowned dragonrider of the Greens. You are a (newly widowed) daughter of House Mormont and a lady-in-waiting to Princess Helaena. You can’t ignore each other, even though you probably should. In fact, you might have found a love worth killing for.

A/N: Thank you all so much for the love this series has received! I hope you continue to enjoy it. 🥰🥰

Song inspiration: “Do I Wanna Know?” by Arctic Monkeys.

Chapter warnings: Language, slightly more extensive witchcraft, mentions of death and violence, sexual content, this fic is for readers 18+!!!

Word count: 4.8k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @crispmarshmallow @tclegane @daddysfavoritesexkitten @poohxlove @imagine-all-the-imagines @nsainmoonchild @skythighs @bratfleck @thesadvampire @yor72 @xcharlottemikaelsonx @loverandqueenofdragons @omgsuperstarg @endless-ineffabilities @devynsshitposts @vencuyot @ladylannisterxo @itzwhatever123 @cranberryjulce @abcdefghi-lmnopqrstuvwxyz @liathelioness @mirandastuckinthe80s @haezen @fairaardirascenarios @darkened-writer @weepingfashionwritingplaid @signyvenetia

Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

“You wouldn’t happen to have any bear teeth, would you?”

“Bear…teeth?” Aemond blinks at you, confounded. You are standing together in the doorway of Helaena’s chambers as she plays on the floor with the children: stacking wooden blocks into diminutive castles, demolishing them with cloth dragons, chanting childhood nonsense songs in a wavering, whisper-soft voice. It is late-morning, and sunlight pours in through the open windows in sheets like rain.

“You see, bears are large terrestrial mammals. Their pelts make good rugs. They are commonly found in caves and forests, eat lots of salmon, and have often been observed—”

“Kindly desist your taunting,” the prince says, though fondly. “Why on earth would you require bear teeth?”

You hesitate. “They’re for…a tradition.”

“A tradition?”

“Um…perhaps…rather…a ritual.”

He flashes a devious grin. “A ritual, or a spell?”

You sigh in defeat. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

“You still worship the Old Gods,” he realizes. His single remaining eye—bright, cunning, oceanic blue—sweeps you up and down. He is not mocking, not appalled; he is forever seeking to uncover more pieces of you like shells collected from sand. “Well…that’s alright. We won’t tell Mother.”

“Yes, please don’t. She’d send me to the Wall.” This is an exaggeration, though not by much.

“What sort of spell involves bear teeth?” Aemond inquires, amused, like he’s waiting for a punchline.

“One for protection.”

“Oh? And who do you believe needs protecting?”

You peer up at him guiltily. He’ll hate that you’ve had this thought. “You’re riding in the tourney tomorrow.”

“Me?!” he exclaims, and laughs. It’s an alarmingly beautiful sound; you have to stop yourself from reaching out to touch him, his face or his forearm or his long silvery hair. “You think I need protection?”

“You never joust. You haven’t in years, I know, people won’t stop talking about it. They’re all baffled by your sudden interest. Everyone’s wagering bets. And you’re out of practice.”

“Hm, yes, well if Axel Hightower can do it then surely I’ll manage.”

You’re dismayed; if you’ve unwittingly encouraged him, that makes you responsible for any resulting catastrophes. In your own heart, at least. “Please tell me you aren’t doing this to outshine my dead husband.”

“Logistically, it would be rather difficult to compete with a corpse.”

“You don’t joust,” you say. “You never joust…”

“You know, my Uncle Daemon was known to joust on occasion.”

“Perhaps, but you aren’t.”

“Calm yourself.” He’s impatient now. “It’s a tourney, not an execution. And my match is some Lannister boy, it’s not like I’m stepping into the tiltyard with Ivar Kellington.”

“Right.” Ivar is the son of a house sworn to the Baratheons, and he is positively monstrous: tall, broad, fearsome, immovable. When he spars, he has to face two or three ordinary men to keep it competitive. He’s responsible for no less than four deaths resulting from tourney mishaps. He has a reputation even larger than he is; you’d heard about him all the way back in the Reach during your marriage. People around the court refer to him—with both awe and shudders—as ‘Sir Killington.’

Aemond considers you, always searching, never quite finding his footing. “I thought you weren’t one to shy away from battles.” And then he adds swiftly, just to emphasize how beneath him this is: “Not that a tourney is anything like a real battle, of course.”

“I’m not trying to stop you. I’m just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help,” he replies briskly.

“Fine.”

He stares out into the hallway with his arms crossed. You stare over at Helaena and the children without really seeing them. Neither of you speak, but neither of you leave either.

“Enjoy your sparring,” you say eventually.

“Enjoy the beach,” Aemond replies, and departs almost soundlessly like a shadow. You tug on your pendant as you watch him disappear down the hallway: the lines of his shoulders, the sheen of his hair, the way strips of sunlight fall on him through windows and doorways. As your grip tightens, the oval of moonstone etches its shape into your palm; the silver chain digs into the soft vulnerable flesh at the back of your neck.

That did not go well. That did not go well at all. You frown absently, your mind elsewhere. So much for my attempted witchcraft.

“Lady Mormont?” Helaena beckons, breaking your apprehension like glass. She clutches one of Jaehaera’s tiny hands in hers while Jaehaerys stomps around demolishing microscale castles. You hope this is not prophetic of his (possible, far-off) future reign. “Help me get the children ready. The sea is calling for you.”

You shimmy the toddlers into swimming clothes, gather up toys and linens and pieces of fruit, and walk with Helaena and her white-haired twins down to the golden sand, to the water’s edge. As Helaena supervises her children—which consists primarily of having flustered handmaidens chase them around while the princess sits on a sand dune and embroiders a green-thread praying mantis onto a pillowcase—you wander ankle-deep in the warm, foreign surf.

King’s Landing is nothing like Bear Island. Home was stormy and grey and fog-cloaked, harsh, cold, rocky, inescapably brutal. Home felt old, hopelessly old, older than the stars; there was no hope of changing one’s life there. The people of Bear Island have been scraping out an existence—forcing an untamed, unwilling land to nurse them at blade-point—since long before the Targaryens ever set foot in Westeros, since before the Andals, since before there was any divide between history and myths. But here…here…

As you stand on the beach below the Red Keep, there are gulls circling far overhead and clear blue skies and invigorating heat and ships gliding ceaselessly in and out of port. This land yields life plentifully, effortlessly. Within the walls of the city there are people clawing their way up ladders every minute of every day, and tumbling down them as well; there are always new futures to be made. This is an idea you could get used to. This is a world you could get used to.

Later, much later—after bathing the children, after lunch, after visiting the sept with Queen Alicent (requiring some pantomimed piousness on your part), after a meandering stroll through the godswood, after music and dinner and dancing—he finally returns. You don’t need to see him come in. You can hear his footsteps; you can feel the room shift like a ship rocked by waves.

“Aemond!” Helaena squeals in glee and rushes over to him. Meanwhile, you loiter by the fireplace pretending to be engrossed in a letter. In truth, you’ve read it twice already, and it wasn’t all that enthralling to begin with; one of your cousins, married into House Manderly, has just birthed her fifth child in seven years and feels the compulsion to tell the whole world about it. It occurs to you that some people’s luck is really quite excessive.

You try not to listen as Aemond asks Helaena about her day, as she prattles on about the beach (but mostly about her insect embroidery), as she gets sidetracked and scurries off and lowers herself onto the couch to finish the aforementioned embroidery. The prince’s familiar footsteps approach you. You refuse to look up until he’s waited several minutes with nothing but the dry, popping fractures of wood in the fireplace to split the silence.

“Did you and Sir Criston have a productive time hitting each other with sticks?”

“There was a slight change of plans.”

He tosses a leather pouch to you. You catch it in mid-air. Inside are cracked, bloodied bear teeth. You gasp in the flame-lit stillness. “How…?”

“It was the strangest thing. I, entirely unprompted, was struck by this intense desire to go bear hunting.” He grins: impish, off-kilter, waiting to see if you’ll forgive him. “I hope they’re adequate, they were difficult to…uh…dislodge. From the skull, I mean. And I wasn’t sure if you wanted them…you know. Cleaned.”

“No, you did well. It’s better if they’re bloody.” You are struck by a sudden, ludicrous vision of the prince practically dragging Sir Criston Cole through the woods for hours—their boots coated with mud, their brows sweated, twigs embedded in their hair—while dodging Sir Criston’s increasingly exasperated inquiries. “I don’t know why you did this for me.”

“I know what it’s like to hold something sacred that others don’t understand.”

From the couch, Helaena murmurs: “He had to close his eye.”

You turn to Aemond for a translation.

“To get my dragon,” he says softly, then gestures to his lost eye: quickly, as if he doesn’t want to draw any more attention to it than he absolutely must. You know it happened in some sort of childhood scuffle between Alicent and Rhaenyra’s sons—every noble who’s ever travelled south of the Neck knows that—but you’ve never heard the details. Unthinkingly, reflexively, you reach out for him, resting your right palm against the mutilated half of his face. He’s so perfect in spite of the destruction his flesh holds like a memory; he’s so fucking beautiful. Your thumb ghosts across the section of scar that slits his cheek in two. Aemond flinches and catches your wrist.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Gently, he lowers your hand back to your side. Then he grasps your pendant to examine it more closely. “Hm. Moonstone and silver, together, entwined. Curious, don’t you think?”

“Very,” you agree. You wonder what he looks like without his eyepatch, not in a morbidly curious sort of way but out of a longing—a craving—to know every part of him entirely.

“I’ve studied the Old Gods, you know,” he says. “Purely for scholarly purposes. And the Drowned God, and the Lord of Light. There are temples dedicated to Him in Dorne. I’ve exchanged letters with several of the maesters there.”

“I’m sure your mother is positively delighted that you’re writing to maesters instead of eligible Baratheon and Lannister women.”

He smiles wryly. “Aegon has brothels. I have the library.”

“So you don’t spend all your time sulking around unnerving courtiers.”

“Well, not all of it.” His face is illuminated by the fire, amber and scarlet and gold. He reads the nervousness on yours: the tourney, the joust, your own dawning realization of how much he means to you. “Fear not. I’m coming back.”

“That’s exactly what my mother said before she left me in the Reach with Axel Hightower. And I never saw her again.”

Without speaking, Aemond cups your face in his hands. He touches his forehead to yours—lightly, lightning-briefly—and then backs away. He takes several long strides, as if he’s afraid of what will happen if the space between you could be so easily closed.

“Good luck tomorrow, Silver,” you tell him.

He glances down at the leather pouch of bear teeth still clutched in your left hand. “I thought you were taking care of that for me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When the rest of the Red Keep is slumbering in unwitting darkness, you slip unnoticed back to the heart tree. You have to do this part here, where the Old Gods can hear you; you have to give Aemond the best chance you can. You pour a handful of the bloodied teeth, rosemary, sage, sea salt, and your last few pebbles of black jade into the mortar you left Bear Island with, and then Oldtown after Axel’s death. You hope you never have to leave King’s Landing. Everything in you struggles against the thought of it, like an animal with its paw in an iron-jawed trap. You light a white candle and set it on a root of the heart tree.

“Protect him,” you implore the flame again and again. It flickers and bends to you in the cold night wind. You grind the teeth until they are a fine, pale-pink dust. “Break others if you must, burn others if you must, bury others if you must…but protect him.”

This next part is the trickiest. Back inside the Red Keep, you evade guards and handmaidens to slink inside the prince’s chambers. The man you are regrettably falling in love with—Aemond Targaryen, Aemond One-Eye, the dragonrider of Vhagar—is exactly where he should be: asleep in bed. He is sprawled on his stomach and occasionally murmuring as if in the middle of a very consequential conversation. He is mostly obscured by blankets, but you can see he’s not wearing his eyepatch; his white hair flows freely and unincumbered over the pillows. You are careful not to look too closely at him, only because you know he wouldn’t want you to.

You crouch down on the cold, hard floor and scatter the powder you’ve ground under his bed. No one would ever recognize it as witchcraft. It could be sand, it could be dust, it could never be noticed at all. When you are finished, you flee the room with feather-light steps.

Yet you think you might have heard it as you crossed through the doorway, just maybe, just barely: a creak, a stirring, the prince rising to catch a glimpse of you with his sleep-bleary eye.

~~~~~~~~~~

A Mullendore unseats a Buckwell. A Tyrell unseats a Rollingford. A Westerling gets so drunk he falls off his horse mid-charge and the Tully proclaims victory. Sir Ivar Kellington breaks some poor Massey boy’s jaw. Everyone applauds politely.

Aegon leaps to his feet. “Well done, Sir Killington!” he shouts, raising his wine cup. “Uh…I mean…Kellington.” Aegon drops back into his seat. Otto Hightower glares at him.

You tug nervously on your moonstone pendant. Helaena claps and smiles when necessary but otherwise watches the birds, the clouds, the horses and works on the favor she’s making. The queen is wringing her hands and dressed—predictably—in a rich emerald-green gown. Alicent has always struck you as kind and affectionate enough, albeit in a distracted sort of way. You suppose she has plenty of legitimate distractions. Her husband the king is ailing, rarely seen, unlikely to live much longer. Her father is ruling the kingdom in all but name. Her estranged stepdaughter, a prospective schemer and confirmed dragonrider, is the heir apparent. And she has an adult son in need of a politically-expedient marriage…a son who doesn’t have any spare eyes to sacrifice to this tourney.

You turn to Aegon, who stares vacantly down into the tiltyard with red, groggy eyes. “I know the prince is good on his feet, but can he joust? You know…without his…?” You point to your own unharmed eye in explanation. Aegon shrugs listlessly. This does not inspire confidence.

As Ivar Kellington exits the tiltyard, Aemond comes in. They exchange a look as they pass each other on their horses, a silent antagonism, a taking of measurements. It can safely be assumed that Ivar—a man whose legacy will be built on the bones of the people he’s brutalized—would like few things more than a chance to publicly skewer the prince, but he won’t get it. The Hightowers would never allow such a match. Aemond smirks up at the giant triumphantly.

The crowd cheers as Aemond and the Lannister boy he’s scheduled to joust gallop around the tiltyard, but in a way that is tentative, taunt, uneasy. No one can recall ever seeing the brooding, one-eyed prince participate in a tourney before. As his long white hair flows out behind him like a banner, as he sizes up his opponent with a cool, stoic gaze, people chatter about how much he reminds them of Daemon Targaryen. Is Aemond another rogue prince? Is that primal breed of fear that he inspires in people deserved? You observe the nobles gathered here from your seat between Aegon and Helaena, noting for the first time just how many seven-pointed stars there are: on cups, on chairs, on pieces of embroidery, on necklaces. Queen Alicent wears them constantly.

What do they do to witches here? Burn them?

A bolt of dread pierces through your chest like a blade. No one is looking at you, of course; no one is paying any attention to you at all. But suddenly you feel naked in this crowd.

Sir Criston has appeared to give Aemond his parting words. He grabs the horse’s reigns and says something to Aemond that you can’t hear over the thunderous noise of the audience. The prince nods. Criston speaks again, miming a technique. The prince continues to nod. His mood is evident from his posture: Yes, okay, alright, let’s get on with it. Criston hands the prince his helmet, which is open in the front and without a visor, and people murmur about how Daemon always wore the same style. You think it has less to do with an homage as it does with practicality. Aemond cannot afford what sight he has left to be obscured by metal. He doesn’t look at or acknowledge you in any way, but when he dons his helmet and his hair is momentarily displaced you see it rubbed onto the back of his neck where no one will notice: a fine, chalky, pinkish dust.

He saw me after all. In his bedroom.

You can envision him crawling out of bed and dropping to his knees, investigating while still clumsy and half-asleep, pressing his palm to the dust before marking himself with it. You smile, a solitary moment in a pulsing space.

That has to be good luck, doesn’t it? That has to give the spell more power.

You wish you knew more about magic. You wish your mother was still alive.

Sir Criston hands Aemond his shield and his lance. Aemond asks Helaena for her favor. She gives it to him wholeheartedly: a small wreath of green calla lilies she’s been weaving together with jittery fingers. She waves him off and then sinks back into her seat, silent and remote.

Aemond takes his place at one end of the tiltyard. The Lannister boy—Leland or Luca or Landon or Lyndon or something like that, you keep forgetting—waits on the other. Their horses paw at the earth restlessly. There’s already blood in the soil, the air. Everyone else clears the tiltyard. The seconds tick down.

Suddenly—like falling forward—both riders have kicked their mounts and the horses are hurtling towards each other. The space between them evaporates like a waning moon. People are screaming all around you, and some of the noise is pure exhilaration but a good amount of it is horror, because already people can see it: the prince’s lance is aimed just a bit too low and too far to the left, and the Lannister boy’s lance is poised to collide with Aemond’s unguarded face. Aemond sees it too, soon enough to know but not soon enough to fix it. His blue eye is wide and gleaming with doomed shock.

Before the riders can strike, there is a deafening snap, a cracking of bones. The Lannister boy’s horse plummets to the earth as its left fetlock shatters. The Lannister boy’s lance goes flying, his lips loose a shriek…and his body falls perfectly into the line of Aemond’s lance. The prince’s lance crashes into the Lannister shield and sends the boy soaring off the back of his collapsing horse. The crowd explodes into cheers and applauds. Aemond has won.

He is dutiful about it, honorable about it. He dismounts and helps the Lannister boy to his feet and expresses sympathy about the horse: such bad luck, so unfortunate, although everyone knows horses are prone to such accidents. He bows graciously to the crowd of courtiers who have so consistently ignored, avoided, misunderstood him. And only then does he come to accept congratulations from his family.

Aemond receives a giddy hug from Helaena, a sloppy whack on the shoulder from a very intoxicated Aegon, and kisses on his hands from the queen. Otto Hightower gives him a proud, beaming nod. Sir Criston sprints up from the tiltyard to embrace—in fact, nearly tackle—the prince. In the joyous mayhem, you make no attempt to capture Aemond’s attention, but he does fight his way through it to find you. He circles an arm around your waist to pull you close so he can whisper to you as he places Helaena’s calla lily wreath on your head like a crown.

“I’m awfully glad I found you those bear teeth, Moonstone,” he says, and then he’s spirited away by admiring nobles.

You watch—alone in the havoc—as Aemond is commended by the great families of Westeros, the fathers and the matriarchs and the marriageable daughters too; and you are struck by a sudden and overwhelming sadness.

He is going to marry a Baratheon or a Lannister or an Arryn or a Stark, you think. And any fantasy that deviates from that eventuality is pure, self-inflicted cruelty.

You don’t belong in his world. Perhaps you don’t really belong anywhere.

Unnoticed—or so you believe—you escape through the spectators and into a small, empty stairwell of the Red Keep. You crumple onto a step, entertain the possibility of composing yourself, and then rupture into helpless, pitiful tears. You sit there sobbing with your face in your hands for five minutes, or ten, or twenty, you aren’t sure. It doesn’t matter. No one misses you.

When you hear the footsteps, you immediately know who it is. You don’t even look up. You wipe your sore, drenched cheeks with the sleeves of your gown and stare down at the stone floor in abject humiliation.

“What troubles you?” he asks. You marvel at his voice, and not for the first time: calm yet compelling, soft-spoken and yet so heavy with gravity.

You consider lying to him, but you don’t. The answer is so simple. Now your eyes find his. “I want something I can’t have.”

Aemond nods, solemn, pensive. “I find myself afflicted with the same agony,” he says. And then he’s gone.

~~~~~~~~~~

There is an informal feast held in the Great Hall to celebrate the winners of the tourney. People roam and mingle and eat off of plates balanced precariously in one hand. There is dancing and music, an anxious plucky sort of sound that plays from the strings. Aemond is the guest of honor, although no stranger would guess it; after his short obligatory exchanges with various nobles and fellow jousters, he makes his way back to his immediate family. You are obliged to accompany Helaena, and thus bound to stay near Aemond; all night you orbit each other like planets, like seasons. Sometimes he catches you watching him as you sip your wine, sometimes he skates his palm along the small of your back as he passes behind you, over and over again you find excuses to stand next to each other while saying nothing, while thinking everything, while feeling each other’s heat through the infinitesimal space between you. Finally, as the evening careens towards midnight, he finds you alone in the doorway of the same winding staircase he tracked you to earlier, except now you’re at the top of it. You’re nursing a cup of wine, unnoticed and unnecessary, still wearing the crown of green calla lilies. Helaena is thoroughly preoccupied with a plateful of pear tarts and the doting attention of Otto Hightower. Aegon is presumably off badgering a servant girl somewhere…or perhaps passed out under a tree.

“This is an odd question, I freely admit it,” the prince says, close enough that you can see the ring of dark blue around the edge of his iris like the ocean at night. Torchlight glows on the flush in his cheeks: one pristine, one ruined. “But would you happen to have been in my bedroom last night?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Lying is a sin in any religion.”

“Alright, yes, I was there. Briefly. Very briefly.”

“So you didn’t want to stay?”

In reply, you only gaze up at him, wanting him so badly it puts aches in your hands, your spine, your lungs, the threads of your heart. His smile is knowing and playful and warm and kind. He reads you the same way he pours over dusty, long-forgotten books in the library and you read him like a spell. You want to know everything he’s made of. You want to feel him beneath the innate design of your fingerprints. He looks into your eyes and sees all of this and more; and then he turns and descends the stairs.

You follow after him, your dress dragging on the stone steps. His footsteps are so light they’re nearly soundless. He moves like a storm, like a wolf; you don’t hear them until they’ve got their jaws around you. Torches burn overhead as you traverse the staircase down, down, down. You can still hear the muffled music of the strings through the castle walls. You can feel the pounding of your heart, the blood roaring in your ears like waves. The music fades as you walk, and then disappears; but your heart grows louder.

When you reach the final step, Aemond catches you, presses you against the wall, kisses you so deeply it feels like you’re drowning in him: in heat, in insatiability, in all that long-caged wildness screaming to be freed. Your wine cup and crown of calla lilies both tumble to the floor. His hands are gliding beneath your dress. You’re ripping open his tunic. In the sea of fabric, his fingers find the velvet-soft inside of your thigh and follow it upwards. You’re soaked for him already. He moans, licks his fingers, kisses you so you can taste yourself on his lips, his tongue. Your hands tangle in his hair and drag him closer, closer, until there’s no space left between you, not even enough to second-guess this. You open your thighs wider, bite his neck, beg him to fuck you. His fingers stroke you until your hips are thrusting in rhythm, until you’re stifling your cries against his bare, flare-hot skin. There is a powerful, shuddering sensation of an opening, a warm glowing like liquid gold. Reflections of fire dance over you both. His breathing is ragged, ravenous. Even through his clothes, you can feel how hard he is, how thick. You are starving to be filled with him.

“Wait,” you gasp, and immediately he stills. You touch his face, your palm to his scar, and this time he doesn’t flinch away. “Can I see you?” you say. “I want all of you. The real you.”

He hesitates. He reaches for his eyepatch. He rips it away in one fluid motion, like a bandage off a fresh wound, like he’s afraid of losing his nerve. Where his left eye should be is jagged flesh framing a glittering, savage-blue sapphire. You can see the shadow of the little boy he was when he was disfigured and never avenged. You can see every brick he’s built himself with since.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” you whisper, your words weightless and vanishing like smoke.

“I never wanted people to pity me.”

“No one pities you. They fear you.”

Aemond asks, mesmerized, spellbound: “Why don’t you fear me?”

“Because I was raised to admire ferocity, not to run from it.”

“You are perfection,” he breathes. “You were made for me.”

You grab his face with one hand, hook it around his jaw, and look him straight in his eyes, both of them: one flesh, one sapphire. “Show me.”

You’re still throbbing, still slick, still roiling in aftershocks as he plunges inside you. You fuck with your faces close and your hands entwined, kissing, moaning, biting, whispering promises that cannot be kept. When he comes, his teeth close around your collarbone to keep himself from crying out; and then he rests his forehead against yours. You remain there together in this dying moment, in the receding seconds, dwelling in them like the last days of summer. Then he steps back and the illusion is shattered.

You let the hem of your dress drop to the floor. Aemond refastens his tunic and smooths his hair. As you find your balance on weak and trembling legs—as you adjust to the unwelcome absence of him—you push Aemond away. “Go,” you say, glancing to the steps. “Go. I know you have to.”

His hands are open, empty. “Are you sure—?”

“Go,” you insist. “Please, just go. Before you’re missed.”

He looks at you like he’s going to say more. Then he picks up his eyepatch off the floor, secures it over what remains of his left eye, and ascends the staircase to rejoin his family in the Great Hall. That’s where he belongs, after all. That’s where he will always belong.

You wait to follow him until enough time has elapsed to evade suspicion. You wait at the bottom of the staircase in silence, in agony, your skin crawling with the echoes of flames.

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd #hotd fanfic #aemond x reader #aemond imagine

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inejschumacher · 4 months

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Day 3 of Via’s Taycember

pairing: oscar piastri x reader

wc: 704

cw: fluff, kissing

an: no one mention how late this is tyy

There's somethin' bout the way the street looks when it's just rained; there's a glow off the pavement

The golden-pink sunset reflects off the pavement and onto you, skin glowing with an angelic halo. Oscar can’t keep his eyes off of you as you two walk down the tree-lined streets, leaves glistening with fresh raindrops from the storm mere hours ago.

Hand-in hand, he listens to you ramble on about the day out, the delicious desserts served, the endless dancing with your friends and with Oscar, how much lighter you felt; it was just what you needed after a stressful time.

You walk me to the car and you know I wanna ask you to dance right there in the middle of the parking lot

Your hand tightens as you reach his car at the far end of the parking lot, a sign Oscar would never miss. Before a word can even escape your smudged scarlet lips, his slightly red ones lift at the corners as he suddenly twirls you around, eliciting a gleeful shriek from you as you startle with delight. He dips you low, arm strong under your back, the sun shining off his dancing brown eyes before he kisses you, reddening his lips even more.

We're drivin' down the road, I wonder if you know. I'm tryin' so hard not to get caught up now but you're just so cool, run your hands through your hair absent mindedly makin' me want you

One hand on the wheel, the other squeezing your thigh, Oscar focuses on the golden road as you two drive down the open roads through fields of cattle and corn. There’s nothing to distract you from watching his veins pop out when his grip tightens as he turns the wheel or how his long, soft fingers stroke up and down your thigh. Or from his face, aglow with laughter from a small joke you just made, and you have to wonder. Does he know how much these little pieces of him, these little actions, only make you want him more? He was all yours of course, but there was just that exciting prospect that there was more for the both of you, in the near future.

And I don't know how it gets better than this, you take my hand and drag me head first, fearless

You barely have time to be confused when Oscar suddenly stops the car on the side of the road, before he’s out and grabs your hand, pulling you out. Realization dawns on you when you see the little patch of wildflowers, blue yellow and white, and he’s spinning you around, hands never letting you go, and you dance to your own music, fearless of any strangers watching as you two laugh in delight at the spontaneous moment.

Or of the uncertain road that lay ahead in your shared future.

So baby drive slow 'til we run out of road in this one horse town. I wanna stay right here in this passenger seat, you put your eyes on me in this moment now capture it, remember it.

Back in the car, you two take your time driving down the sunlit road, admiring the many coloured florae decorating the roadsides, pointing out the little frogs and butterflies and bees that dance around the blooming petals.

In the distance, you hear the neighing of the only horse kept in this little town. You look through your window towards the oud, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but alas, he’s elsewhere in the fields. You turn back to greet Oscar’s bright blue eyes, paying you more attention on the road, and you simply want to live in this moment forever.

And I don't know why but with you I'd dance in a storm in my best dress, fearless.

The rain comes down from nowhere. It’s vicious, pelting the windows, winds howling with the sound of a hundred voices, but neither of you feels terrified at all.

When you come upon an unavoidable path of mud on the road, Oscar stops the car, and you both sit in silence, patiently waiting out the storm.

All it takes is one shared glance and you both are suddenly outside, immediately soaked through your clothes, and as you take each other's hands, you laugh.

You dance to the sounds of the wind and the water, to the melody of your open laughs and his deep ones, and you both know, that despite every storm of racing or schooling, or of your own families or your future one, you two will always have each other.

Well you stood there with me in the doorway. My hands shake I'm not usually this way but you pull me in and I'm a little more brave. It's the first kiss, it's flawless, really something, it's fearless

The rain lets up enough for you to make it home, the both of you huddling under your doorway as you fumble for your keys with shaking fingers as the cold has finally made its presence clear, or perhaps it was his unnerving gaze on you.

He gently cups your face as he pulls you in for a kiss, the first after dancing in the rain and his lips are so, so soft and you feel as if they fill you up with warmth as you kiss him back, fearlessly.

In my best dress, fearless

#via’s taycember #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri fanfic #formula 1 #formula 1 fanfic #Spotify #fearless #taylor swift #fanfic #fanfiction

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mylove-iv · 21 days

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❝i once saw forever in your eyes.❞

ʚ aged up, botw! link x fem! reader ɞ

synopsis: an alternative beginning to fearless child, broken boy; tell me what it's like to burn (part ii) that is more cut throat with the angst but this fic can also be read independently.

genres: angst, romance. | set pre-calamity.

content warnings: arguing, mentions of war and injuries.

reader specifications: none, no pronouns are used but was written with a female reader in mind.

word count: 832 words.

―originally posted on @mydarling-iv, jan. 2, 2024

ʚ part i ɞ | ʚ part ii ɞ | ʚ masterlist ɞ

Two weeks, two cursed weeks that you lover was away in Gerudo, wasting the time away with the princess beside him and only when he does get home—to you—he is ripped away once more.

“A ball?” You inquire softly, having no energy of meeting Link’s eyes, exhaustion apparent with the ache embedded deeply in your bones.

“Come with me?” He blinks softly, his sky blue eyes reminding you of the times where he and you would nap beneath the shade a tree has to offer under a stunning cloudless sky.

But such times are a thing of the past. The thought is scalding.

Link sees the fire your eyes hold, they’re practically smoldering as you glare at the sealed letter in his hands. “You want me to attend? The ball your princess is holding?” You sneer angrily.

He’s never noticed your anger and it takes him off guard. “It is just a ball, my love-“

“I refuse.” Your words are stern, leaving no room for argument.

Link feels an itch of annoyance claw at him. “I am required to attend, so please, come with me?”

“Go with your princess, Link, I have no interest in catering to the wants of the nobles.”

He’s quick to catch a flicker of hurt in your eyes and he feels his heart break. “Talk to me please?” Link’s voice is soft—vulnerable—and it reminds you of your Link.

Your guard lowers but you feel as if a cold bucket of water was just dunked over you. “You’ve been so angry recently, it isn’t like you—“

“It really isn’t like me Link, yet who can blame me when my spouse is always leaving me alone?”

His eyes narrow, blues darkening in warning. “Forgive me for I am at the very forefront of this war. Battered and wrecked, I come to you first.”

“Yet why do I not feel like I am first? To me, my love,” the pet name is sickly sweet and Link holds back the urge of wincing. “Your precious Zelda is always first.”

Time slows and Link momentarily pauses, he catches himself, “I’m sorry for not noticing until now-” It’s too late, all your hurt—inflicted by him—has turned into anger.

Anger rips through your very being as you meet his eyes, “You’ve only now noticed, Link? Or is it simply because you’re never here to see me hurt and angered by you and what you do to me?” Your words shock him, the anger masking your hurt irritating Link even further.

“Never here? I’m working to make sure you’re comfortable, that you’re safe, and yet this is what I get in return for giving you a better home than the old cabin we lived in?” Your heart aches as he yells and you’re able to see anger and betrayal simmering in his blue orbs that used to be so serene and calm.

A small laugh tumbles from your lips, your eyes aching with the weight of unshed tears—of having the weight of your relationship on your shoulders. “Do you not understand?”

The words die on Link’s tongue, guilt and hurt leeching into his soul at the sight of your tears. “I care not for the riches they bestow upon you, I care not for the land or titles you may hold, I care not of such things.” You furiously wipe away at your tears, hiccups becoming louder as the seconds pass.

“You are my home, do you not understand?” You look at him in the eye and Link sees defeat dim your eyes and it tears at the very being of his soul.

"I may be a fool for wanting that old cabin back, but at least then I was loved- I felt loved, Link. Yet, you trade that—our happiness—for the artificially that upper society has to offer?"

Guilt and sorrow claws at Link's insides as he feels defeat settle in his bones, a strong melancholy winding itself so tightly around his heart that it is even hard for him to breathe. He sees your eyes, puffy with unshed tears and he's enveloped in an unwanted hug of shame and guilt.

I was a fool. He thinks bitterly as he pays the price of seeing you so hurt, so bruised, but it all pales in comparison to the hurt you've felt, the pain he's forced you to endure.

"I go to sleep in a cold bed, I awake to one, yet does it ever cross your mind that your absence hurts me? And whenever you are home, in my arms, I mourn for myself—for us—and what our relationship could have been.

"Can you believe that? I mourn my lover who is sleeping next to me, I mourn the man who once showed me how much he loves me, I mourn us.” A dry laugh tumbles from your lips as you cry, feeling so alone despite your lover standing before you.

You’re breathless, "Do you not cry my name in the dark like I do yours?"

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bettyshoweduptotheparty · 5 months

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Orange is the new black? 🧡🖤

Thoughts on the colour orange in the TS universe

I've had some thoughts on the increasing number of orange things over the last few months and what they might mean. This is most definitely a work in progress, so please add to it with your own ideas and observations.

(Orange is currently not a colour associated with any TS album, for clarity, the colours are: Debut-green, Fearless-gold/yellow, Speak Now -purple, Red (self-explanatory), 1989-light blue, rep-black, lover- pink, folklore-grey/silver, evermore-brown (though white is also used in eras tour colours), midnights-navy blue)

The first prominent appearance of orange was in the LWYMMD mv: The prison jumpsuit in the golden cage and the door in the vault during the heist scene.

A person in a cage and a vault within a vault - makes me think orange represents imprisonment. Orange is the new Black was a very popular (and very queer) TV show about female inmates back in 2017. But in Taylor's case it was black (rep) is the new orange 😉

Since then we have seen orange appear on the Man wall, and all over the Eras tour visuals. Let's go chronologically. The Man mv came out in 2020 and gave us this famous wall:

There's the word karma in black in the middle, and in orange at the top at 12 o'clock. Orange and black again. But we are not aware of an album called Karma, so what's it doing on the wall amongst all the stolen album titles? I'm well aware of the karma album theory... was this something that was 'imprisoned' in 2017? Taylor does cut the wings off the plane and spray paints reputation on it...so, I'm in no position to say it isn't true. It might be. But if this was unreleased music, then I don't think it would have been part of the masters sale. It was never released by Big Machine so they couldn't have sold it. I have a different theory. The black karma is the process that ties all of these re-recordings together, her act of 'defiance' (as she calls it in the TIME article) against the man who bought them from under her. That's why it's in the middle, so karma 'comes back around' if you're going in a figure eight. And the orange karma at the top is a collective term for all the vault songs, that would never have seen the light of day/would forever have stayed 'imprisoned', if it weren't for the re-recordings. The fact that it's in a 12 o'clock position still has me stressing though, we've been counting down to midnight for over a year now and every time Taylor changes her socials back to midnights colours, we're reminded that the clock is still ticking. Will all albums/vault tracks be free when we hit midnight or is something else being released from it's cage?? There is of course, also the orange door that descends from the big screen during the Eras tour performance of karma, the very last song of the tour, that explodes into a kind of rainbow supernova when it hits the ground. Ideas on that one welcome, I've seen many but none of them have convinced me yet. Only in so far that it seems to indicate that whatever the orange thing is, it follows the midnights era.

I can't not mention the lover nail that changed from pink to orange in July on tour, but I still have absolutely no idea why that is. Of all the albums, lover was the first one to be owned by her so no clue why that one is now orange...Maybe the era that the masters heist happened. After all, that also changed a lot about Lover, including the title, some songs were replaced and she never got to wear her rainbow dress. But why not have it orange from the start then?

Something else orange that has recently been added to the Eras tour is orange confetti. I don't think anyone has confirmed when this was added, but here is the confetti as collected by people in April vs at one of the latest shows in November:

So, it seems something orange is definitely joining the ranks of the eras, but if that's something new or old...who knows. Something that would support the vault theory is the Spotify wrapped canvas, specifically this section:

There's the orange vault with golden glitter (fearless), leaves (red), purple fireworks (speak now) and seagulls (1989) coming out, so that's all the albums that have been freed from imprisonment so far. The rep snake (and what I assume are debut butterflies) are coming out of the cave underneath. Interesting to note that the woman monitoring the seismograph is also right above the vault, and above her is the person with all the clocks. The big mastermind clock is on midnight, and the full video shows us that when the clock strikes midnight, there is an earthquake/explosion, which may be what caused the vault to open, the clock person is certainly looking down towards it with interest. Something else I've noticed about the full canvas is that her lavender mountain seems to be 'melting away' like a glacier where the items are placed because they're all sitting on green grass, the only things that are actually coming out of the mountain are her head and her hand holding the burning house. Which brings me to the last orange thing: the fire.

‘Karma is the fire in your house’, right? 😉 The Lover house has been burning down since day 1 of the Eras tour, and I’ve already made multiple attempts at guessing why that might be and especially, why it’s burning with blue flames first and then changes to orange before it fully collapses. But I don’t think I got it right, because my guess was that blue meant 1989tv era, and so far, nothing’s been on fire. Or did I miss it?? If anything, she threw a flame into our little gaylor house with her poorly worded prologue… so it wasn’t 1989tv. The Spotify video actually zooms in on the burning house and we can see some of the items from the midnights house: the red phone, the retro sofa, and the chessboard that’s fallen off the table. So, does that suggest the fire is burning the midnights era? Possibly, but when Taylor’s TIME article came out, I noticed something else that stopped me in my tracks. I know we’re all waiting for reputation tv in the next few months, and rep is in fact the only re-recording she gives an explicit shoutout to in the article (along with the very rep-coded photo shoot), and this is what she says:

So much to say about these few sentences. Note how she’s being directly quoted here, so these are the words she used, no paraphrasing. And the one that stood out to me the most is the way she describes the rep vault tracks as „fire“. Out of all the words she could have used, when she’s been showing us open lighters and a burning house all year, she calls the rep vault tracks FIRE 👀. Like the fire that burns your house???

My English language graduate brain also wants me to point out the following about the way she describes reputation as a concept. (For those of you that weren’t around in 2017, reputation never had a rollout cycle or any promotion, it was the album that had no explanation, she never did a single interview about it, so this is kind of the first time she ever talked about it). Why rep is the ‘most charged’ era is probably self-explanatory, but she also says it’s an expression of ‘female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure’. So, assuming it’s her rage, what is society gaslighting her into believing? Maybe that two female friends can’t possibly be a couple, no matter how much they act like one. But a woman holding a man’s hand in public, that’s a couple for sure! I think heteronormativity is the social structure she’s mocking here, so much of reputation (even the title) makes so much sense when you look at it from that angle. We all know that if you heard any of Dress or Gorgeous with your societal conditioning removed you’d expect it to be about a woman, but heteronormativity and Taylor’s reputation for being boy-crazy made most people assume that couldn’t possibly be the case. And those people just saw it (as Taylor says) for the ‘sick snakes and strobe lights’. And immediately after that she says that the upcoming vault tracks will be fire. Call me crazy, but for me that sounds like “Reputation was me blatantly writing songs about the woman I love, because I know you guys won’t see for what it is anyway because you’re so blinded by heteronormativity, but these upcoming tracks will burn your expectations, you won’t be able to ignore it”. It might be wishful thinking, but by logical progression of what she’s saying here, it makes sense. And if I know one thing, it’s that Taylor chooses her words deliberately.

And the movie reference…? Collecting horcruxes or infinity stones suggest there is a mission/end goal that she’s working towards with these re-recordings. Guess we’ll have to wait for the movie to see how it ends 😉.

Edit: Addition submitted, thank you anon!

#thinking out loud #about orange things #karma theory #maybe?#the eras tour #lgbetty

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unclewaynemunson · 1 year

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They’re watching a movie picked by Nancy, and Robin can barely keep her attention to it. No, that’s a big fat understatement; she doesn’t even know which movie it is that they’re watching. It’s like all her senses have narrowed down to nothing but Nancy: to the movements she’s making in her peripheral vision; to the sound of her laughter whenever (apparently) something funny happens on the screen; to the scent of mint and artificial flowers not quite concealing the unique smell that Robin can only describe as Nancy; and, most important of all, to the place where Nancy’s knee is casually bumping against Robin’s from her cross-legged position.

And then, suddenly, there’s a hand on her knee. Robin swallows and tries not to be too obvious when she looks down to the pale, spidery fingers resting against her jeans. The soft pressure through the fabric of her clothes is somehow making it worse than if it had just been skin-to-skin contact: a taste of what it could’ve been and yet a reminder of what it’s not.

She looks up into Nancy's eyes, dark blue and wide, almost as if they're asking her a question. Then, she lets her gaze wander over the rest of Nancy's face, searching for something, even though she doesn't exactly know what...

And then Nancy's eyes again, still piercing into hers, fearless; always fearless. She realizes that all she was searching for is right in those eyes: she senses more than that she consciously deduces that she has her chance to kiss Nancy Wheeler, tonight, on this couch. She swallows thickly, still feels Nancy's fingers resting on her jeans.

It turns out that Nancy is the bravest of them, and honestly, that shouldn't surprise Robin as much as it does. But she can't help but utter a soft gasp when Nancy starts leaning into her space, as if it's all completely unexpected.

Nancy stills, her lips mere inches from Robin's.

'Is this okay?' she whispers, her breath ghosting against Robin's lips and looking up at her through her lashes with that innocent wide-eyed gaze.

And Robin can only nod, still frozen, letting Nancy come even closer towards her.

All it takes for her body to catch up to what's happening, is the feeling of Nancy's lips against her own. She immediately reaches out, puts one hand in Nancy's soft curls and the other around her waist, her touches gentle and soft because even though Robin knows she isn't, Nancy feels so breakable in her arms.

Nancy’s lips are soft and just as gentle as Robin's touches, but her fingers soon start clawing into Robin's thigh, and that's all Robin needs to deepen the kiss, to press their mouths together with more urgency, drinking in the taste of strawberry and mint and coca cola and Nancy.

She could keep drinking from Nancy's lips forever – she probably doesn't even need air anymore, as long as she can keep kissing this girl, and when she slightly repositions herself she feels Nancy's fingers digging even deeper into her leg while a tiny sound escapes from her mouth that starts driving Robin crazy in a whole different way.

When they finally pull apart, it feels like hours have passed, and similarly like it were only a few seconds. It feels like Robin is reborn. And it is exactly that realization that makes her come crashing back down to earth.

'Fuck,' she mumbles.

'Fuck,' Nancy echoes, breathless.

'Nance,' Robin says. 'This can't happen again.'

And that beautiful, excited smile immediately falls from Nancy's face, her eyes wide with something entirely different now. 'Wha – why?' she stammers. 'I thought – why?'

'This was – shit, Nance, this was fucking mindblowing – and this was only a kiss! If we do this again, or if we go any further – seriously, you'll ruin me, I am not kidding. I can't do that, I can't be your experiment knowing I’ll eventually lose you to some guy and – I just can't. You're too important for me to let that happen.'

'Wait, wait, wait,' Nancy says quickly. She's frowning now, but her hand grabs Robin's, and Robin is too weak to do anything about that, so she lets her. She lets her intertwine her cold fingers with Robin's; she lets her grip her hand firmly in her own.

'You're not my experiment,' Nancy says, her voice slightly unsteady. 'You're – you're fucking amazing, Robin, I would never... I've known for years that I'm not straight. I mean, yes, I've had boyfriends, but I don't need to figure anything out, alright? I know exactly what I'm feeling for you. This is not an experiment, I promise.' She takes a deep breath and Robin almost giggles at how the tables have turned; how Nancy has become the one rambling at her all of a sudden.

She squeezes Nancy's hand; the giggle makes its way out of her throat anyway. She can't help it, she's simply feeling too giddy, too overwhelmed, too... overjoyed.This is real, is all her brain can think, on a loop. This is real. This is happening. This is real.

'So...' she says, her heart beating loudly in anticipation. 'Do you wanna go out with me?'

Nancy starts giggling, now, too. She comes closer again, this time to rest her forehead against Robin’s.

'Well, yes, obviously – but I also really, really wanna kiss you again.'

'I mean, we can probably do that first,' Robin answers with a wide grin on her face.

#will I ever get enough of nancy kissing robin and robin thinking it doesn't mean anything?#NO NEVER #don't mind me rambling about stranger things #ronance #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #stranger things #fruity ficlet

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jackles010378 · 4 months

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A New Year's Eve to Remember

(dean Winchester X you)

No warnings just fluff 🥰

Y/n had always admired Dean Winchester from afar. She was captivated by his rugged charm, his fearless attitude, and the undeniable allure of the hunter's life. Now, with New Year's Eve just around the corner, Y/n couldn't shake the idea of spending the night with Dean. Gathering her nerves, she summoned the courage to ask him to be her date for the evening.

"Dean," she began hesitantly, "would you do me the honor of being my date for New Year's Eve?"

Dean glanced up from his magazine, surprise evident in his eyes. "Really, Y/n? You want me as your date?"

Y/n nodded, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "Yes, Dean. You're an incredible person, and spending the evening with you would mean the world to me."

Dean scratched his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Well, I gotta admit, that's a tempting offer. Alright, you've got yourself a date, Y/n."

Her heart raced with excitement as Y/n imagined spending the most magical night of the year with the man of her dreams. She had always envisioned Dean in his customary leather jacket, but as the day approached, an unexpected desire emerged within her.

On the night of the New Year's Eve party, Dean arrived at Y/n's door donning an unexpected surprise—a sleek black tuxedo. Y/n's eyes widened in awe at the sight of him, feeling a sudden burst of passion ignite deep within her for the handsome hunter.

"Dean, you look absolutely breathtaking," she managed to whisper, her voice filled with adoration.

Dean smiled, his green eyes gleaming. "I wanted to do something special for you, Y/n. You deserve it."

As Y/n closed the door behind her, she revealed her dress—a stunning midnight-blue gown that accentuated her curves perfectly. Dean couldn't take his eyes off her, his lips parting in awe.

"You look amazing, Y/n," he breathed, unable to tear his gaze away from her.

As the night unfolded, Dean and Y/n danced under the twinkling lights, their chemistry sparking like fireworks in the starlit sky. They laughed, they shared stories, and they connected on a deeper level than either of them had expected.

Caught up in the magic of the evening, Y/n couldn't help but notice the way Dean's eyes never strayed from her. His touch was electric, his words filled with sincerity. It was as if the universe had conspired to bring them together on this unforgettable night.

When the clock struck midnight and the room erupted in cheers, Dean's hand found Y/n's, and they shared a lingering, passionate kiss. In that moment, they both knew that this night was just the beginning of something extraordinary.

As the New Year began, Y/n and Dean embarked on a journey neither of them could have anticipated. Their love blossomed, intertwining their lives in ways they never thought possible. Together, they faced the trials and tribulations of the hunter's world, always supporting and protecting each other.

And every New Year's Eve, as the clock neared midnight, Dean would slip into that tuxedo once again, igniting the passion within him for the woman who had captured his heart. Y/n would step into her enchanting gown, feeling a surge of love for the man who had become her everything.

They would dance under the sparkling sky, celebrating not just the passing of time but the eternity they had found in each other's arms. And in that moment, they knew that their love would forever burn brighter than any firework, illuminating their lives with a love that was both timeless and true.

TAGLIST: @k-slla @cevansbaby-dove @kaleldobrev @janineb86 @deans-daydream @alternativeprincess94 @nescavaneck

#jensen ackles #dean winchester #supernatural #jackles #jensen ross ackles #spn cast #deanwinchtser #soldier boy #jensen ackles gifs #beau arlen #dean winchester x y/n #dean winchester x you #dean winchester fan fiction #dean winchester fanfic #dean winchester fanfiction #dean winchester fic #dean winchester fluff

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midnightsslut · 6 days

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the whole cardigan/Peter parallels are messing my head can u explain

okay so peter is actually one of my favorite songs on the album for this reason! I think it has parallels to a lot of other songs, not just cardigan. the first thing to get out of the way is the cardigan lyric about peter and wendy: ‘tried to change the ending, peter losing wendy.’ now, that line doesn’t make a ton of sense because peter losing wendy is the ending of peter pan (idk I’ve never seen it and never thought I’d spend this long thinking about them), but I think what she’s saying is that he tried to change the ending of *their* story to peter losing wendy. peter loses her because she outgrows him, while he remains a ‘lost boy’ forever. the cardigan demo has an alternate lyric where peter actually *leaves* wendy. this does not happen in the original story, and to me, it reads like betty (eh, I don’t think those characters existed when she wrote that song, but bear with me) is accusing him of trying to change their fate by leaving her. peter is meant to always come back to wendy. *she* is the one who eventually leaves him. either way, cardigan ends with them together. yay for betty and/or taylor.

now, peter was written 3-4 years later, and it is the conclusion of a story about outgrowing someone despite truly wanting them back. the ending was not, in fact, changed. she did outgrow him. very sad. I actually want to go lyric by lyric, but I’ll put a cut just in case.

Forgive me Peter

My lost fearless leader

In closets like cedar

Preserved from when we were just kids

Is it something I did

the song starts with taylor trying to figure out what went wrong. did she do something wrong to crush these dreams of theirs? she kept him in a closet of cedar (where unmarried women kept their belongings that they would want to take with them after getting married) in her mind, but things didn’t work out anyway. the first line being ‘forgive me, peter’ indicates that she is the one who pulled the plug, and she’s apologizing for it. again, she isn’t entirely sure what went wrong, which, to me, is a clear parallel to how did it end.

The goddess of timing

Once found us beguiling

She said she was trying

Peter was she lying

My ribs get the feeling she did

when they first met, the timing seemed to be perfect for their relationship (‘the goddess of timing *once* found us beguiling’), but that didn’t last. the goddess of timing claimed that she tried, but nothing could save them. taylor even wonders if she lied, which suggests a lack of faith in higher powers like fate or deities. this verse introduces timing as a major conflict in the story. ‘are you really gonna talk about timing in times like these?’

Said you were gonna grow up

Then you were gonna come find me

Words from the mouths of babes

Promises, oceans deep

But never to keep

peter went away, but he promised to come down once he was ready for a relationship. yes, this kind of applies to both of the main storylines on the album. you could take this to mean that they actually broke up a decade ago but promised to get back together, or you could assume there was some sort of break to their relationship, which she and joe did have. i kind of took it to mean that he wasn’t fully committed to the relationship, but he promised to be eventually. again, the renegade lyric, but also ‘i’m a fire, and i’ll keep your brittle heart warm if your cascade ocean wave blues come’ and ‘I’d hold you as the water rushes in,’ both of which are grand promises that neither party could keep.

Are you still a mind reader?

A natural scene stealer

I've heard great things Peter

But life was always easier on you

Than it was on me

he is charismatic. his magnetic field is a little too strong. he can read people. but he’s also fragile and inexperienced (‘he was a hothouse flower to my outdoorsman’). he may be able to read people, but things have been way too easy for him to ever understand a truly hurt person fully.

And sometimes it gets me

When crossing your jet stream

We both did the best we could do underneath the same moon

In different galaxies

And I didn't want to hang around

We said it was just goodbye for now

this is the thesis statement of their relationship to me. obviously, there’s the call it what you want parallel, but more importantly, it shows that the two people really wanted this to work. they just came from completely different places in their lives and perhaps the entire universe. this verse seems to reference the epilogue (‘resentment rotting away galaxies we created’ / ‘some stars never align’). they learned the right steps to different dances, if you will. she knew he needed time, so she left temporarily.

And I won't confess that I waited

But I let the lamp burn

As the men masqueraded

I hoped you'd return

With your feet on the ground

Tell me all that you'd learned

Cause love's never lost when perspective is earned

she does get with other men, but she keeps longing for him. she wishes that he would return with a grasp on reality and be the man she needs. if anything, the time away would give him the perspective he needs to ground himself. interesting parallel to ‘I said I don’t mind / it takes time’ in loml.

And you said you'd come and get me but you were 25

And the shelf life of those fantasies has expired

Lost to the lost boys chapter of your life

Forgive me Peter, please know that I tried

To hold onto the days when you were mine

But the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light

this is just devastating to me. well, first of all, both matty and joe were 25 when they first met her, which, lol. the dreams they had together have expired now. it’s been too long. she cannot keep holding onto a love from almost a decade ago. he took too long to return. he lost his lifelong dreams to what was only supposed to be a chapter of his life. she tried to hold onto the days when he was hers, and everything was right, but she had to turn out the light at some point. this is the moment when she gives up on their relationship. she apologizes for abandoning the ship, but she must do it.

overall, I think peter is a story about two people who genuinely did everything they could to be together, but their needs and their growth no longer aligned. there’s a sense of acceptance and lingering fondness here. she did everything she could not to bolt, but the ending was the same.

#peter #loooove this song #cardigan #ttpd

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mess-of-a-dreamerr · 1 month

Text

✨ Taylor Swift rare songs I have and need

I have:

Unreleased songs (written by Taylor):

-A Little More Like You

-All Night Diner

-American Boy

-Angelina

-Baby Blue

-Beautiful Days

-Bein’ With My Baby (Acoustic)

-Bein’ With My Baby (Studio)

-Better Off

-Brand New World

-Brought Up That Way

-By The Way

-Can I Go With You?

-Cannonball (Feat. Justin Bieber)

-Check Out This View

-Closest To A Cowboy

-Cross My Heart

-Dark Blue Tennessee (Studio)

-Dark Blue Tennessee (Studio Piano)

-Didn’t They

-Don’t Hate Me For Loving You

-Fall Back On You

-Fire

-Firefly

-4U

-Gracie

-Half-Way To Texas

-Her

-Honey Baby

-Houston Rodeo

-I Know What I Want

-I Used To Fly

-I Wished On A Plane

-I’d Lie

-In The Pouring Rain

-Just South Of Knowing Why

-Kid In The Crowd

-Let’s Go

-Live For The Little Things

-Long Time Going

-Look At You Like That

-Love They Haven’t Thought Up Yet

-Love To Lose

-Lucky You (Acoustic)

-Lucky You (Studio)

-Lucky You (Mr. Mig Mix)

-Made Up You

-Making Up For Lost Love

-Mandolin

-Mary Jo

-Matches

-Me And Britany

-My Cure (Acoustic)

-My Cure (Studio)

-My Turn To Be Me

-Need

-Need You Now

-Never Fade

-Nevermind (Country Mix)

-Nevermind (Pop Mix)

-One-Sided Goodbye

-Perfect Have I Loved

-Permanent Marker

-Point Of View

-Pretty Words [Scooter Carusoe Acoustic Demo]

-R-E-V-E-N-G-E

-Rain Song

-Ride On

-Same Girl

-Smokey Black Nights (Acoustic)

-Smokey Black Nights (Studio)

-Smokey Black Nights (Mr. Mig Mix)

-Songs About You

-Spinning Around

-Stupid Boy

-Sugar

-Sweet Tea And God’s Graces (Acoustic)

-Sweet Tea And God’s Graces (Studio)

-Tell Me (Acoustic)

-Tell Me (Studio)

-Ten Dollars And A Six-Pack (Acoustic)

-Ten Dollars And A Six Pack (Studio)

-Tennessee

-That’s Life

-Thinkin’ Bout You

-Thirteen Blocks

-This Here Guitar

-This Is Really Happening

-‘Til Brad Pitt Comes Along

-Under My Head

-Wait For Me

-Welcome Distraction

-What Do You Say?

-What To Wear

-Who I’ve Always Been

-Why Do You Tell Me?

-You Do

-You Don’t Have To Call Me (Alternate Version)

-Your Anything (Live)

-Your Face

-Your Heart’s Somewhere Else

———————————————

Covers

-Am I Ready For Love? (Celina-Berman Gray)

-Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton)

-Hopelessly Devoted To You (Olivia Newton-John)

-One-Way Ticket (LeAnn Rimes)

-There’s Your Trouble (The Chicks)

-The Star-Spangled Banner (Francis Scott Key)

-I’m Every Woman (Chaka Khan)

-Diary Of Me (Nick Brophy & Julie Wood Vassar)

———————————————————————-

Demos of released songs

-A Place In This World (Studio)

-All Of The Girls You Loved Before (Studio)

-Blank Space (Voice Memo)

-Beautiful Eyes (Studio)

-Better Man (Studio)

-Bye Bye Baby (Studio)

-cardigan (Voice Memo)

-Clean (Voice Memo)

-Cold As You (Studio)

-Come In With The Rain (Studio)

-Crazier (Piano)

-Crazier (Studio)

-End Game (Solo) (Studio)

-Fearless (Acoustic)

-Forever Winter (Studio)

-Forever Winter (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault) (Studio)

-I Forgot That You Existed (Voice Memo)

-I Heart ? (Studio)

-I Know Places (Voice Memo)

-I Wish You Would (Voice Memo)

-Ingrid (“tis the damn season” Instrumental Demo by The National)

-‘tis the damn season (Studio) *PROBABLY FAKE*

-Invisible (Studio)

-Stella (‘invisible string’ Live Acoustic Demo by Aaron Dessner)

-It’s Nice To Have A Friend (Studio) (Snippet)

-Love Story (Acoustic) (Tagged Snippet)

-Lover (Voice Memo)

-I’m Only Me When I’m With You (Studio)

-Mary’s Song (Oh My My My) (Studio)

-ME! (Voice Memo)

-ME! (Solo Studio)

-Our Song (Acoustic)

-Out Of The Woods (Voice Memo)

-Perfectly Good Heart (Studio)

-Picture To Burn (Acoustic)

-Picture To Burn (Studio)

-RED (Studio)

-Run (Feat. Ed Sheeran) (Acoustic) (Snippet)

-Run (Feat. Ed Sheeran) (Studio) (Snippet)

-Shake It Off (Acoustic)

-Shake It Off (Voice Memo)

-Stay Stay Stay (Acoustic)

-SuperStar (Acoustic)

-SuperStar (Studio)

-Teardrops On My Guitar (Alternate Version) (Studio)

-Tell Me Why (Studio) *PROBABLY FAKE*

-That’s When (Acoustic)

-the lakes (Studio)

-The Moment I Knew (Piano) (Snippet) *PROBABLY FAKE*

-The Other Side Of The Door (Studio)

-The Outside (Studio)

-The Story Of Us (Acoustic) (Snippet)

-The Story Of Us (Studio) (Snippet)

-This Is What You Came For (Studio)

-Tied Together With A Smile (Acoustic)

-Tim McGraw (Acoustic)

-Tim McGraw (Piano)

-Tim McGraw (Byron Gallimore Studio)

-Treacherous (Studio)

-We Were Happy (Piano)

-We Were Happy (Studio)

-White Horse (Studio)

-White Horse (Grey’s Anatomy Version)

-willow (Voice Memo)

-You All Over Me (Studio)

—————————————

Limited/uncommon releases

-Christmases When You Were Mine (Alternate Version)

-You Don’t Have To Call Me

-Picture To Burn (Rhapsody Exclusive Alternate Version)

-Sweeter Than Fiction (Taylor’s Version)

-“Slut!” (Acoustic Version)

-Dear John (Live From Minneapolis)

-Last Kiss (Live From Kansas City)

-I Heart ?

-Beautiful Eyes

-Welcome Back Grunwald

-Broadway’s Electric Barnyard Jingle

I also have TONS of remixes, international mixes, radio edits, live performances and other alternate versions

—————————

I need:

Demos of released songs:

-Only The Young (Studio) (Snippet)

-Safe & Sound (Studio)

-Stay Beautiful (Acoustic)

-Stay Beautiful (Studio)

-Tied Together With A Smile (Studio)

-Tell Me Why (Acoustic)

There are also dozens of demos (of both released and unreleased songs) that supposedly haven’t ever been leaked, but someone out there might have them! If you have anything not on this list that you’d be willing to share or trade please let me know!

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tsunreleased · 1 year

Text

Song Master List, dm for links

[last updated 02/22/24]

(note: songs that have been crossed out are temporarily unavailable but will be restored as soon as possible 🙏)

Ain’t Nothin’ ‘Bout You LIVE (Brooks & Dunn Cover)

A Little More Like You ACOUSTIC

All Night Diner ACOUSTIC

All Of The Girls (Lover Unreleased) STUDIO

American Boy ACOUSTIC

American Girl STUDIO (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Cover)

Am I Ready For Love ACOUSTIC

Angelina ACOUSTIC

A Place In This World (demo) STUDIO

Baby Blue ACOUSTIC

Baby Don’t You Break My Heart Slow ACOUSTIC (Vonda Shepard cover)

Barnyard Song STUDIO

Beautiful Days ACOUSTIC

Beautiful Eyes STUDIO

Being With My Baby ACOUSTIC

Better Man (original demo) STUDIO

Better Off STUDIO

Brand New World ACOUSTIC

Breathless STUDIO (Better Than Ezra cover)

Brought Up That Way STUDIO

By the Way ACOUSTIC

Cannonball ft. Justin Beiber STUDIO

Can’t Stop Loving You LIVE (Phil Collins cover)

Check Out This View ACOUSTIC

Closest To A Cowboy ACOUSTIC

Cold As You (demo) STUDIO

Come In With The Rain (demo) STUDIO

Crazier STUDIO

Crazier (alternate demo) STUDIO

Cross My Heart ACOUSTIC

Dark Blue Tennessee STUDIO

Dark Blue Tennessee (piano) STUDIO

Diary Of Me STUDIO

Didn’t They ACOUSTIC

Don’t Hate Me For Loving You ACOUSTIC

Down Came The Rain Deric Ruttan (Taylor is just backing vocals on this one) ACOUSTIC

Drama Queen STUDIO

Drive (For Daddy Gene) LIVE (Alan Jackson cover)

Drive All Night (Just South of Knowing Why) STUDIO

Fall Back On You ACOUSTIC

Fearless (demo) ACOUSTIC

Fire ACOUSTIC

Firefly ACOUSTIC

Forever Winter (original demo) STUDIO

For You ACOUSTIC

Gracie ACOUSTIC

Half-Way To Texas ACOUSTIC

Her ACOUSTIC

Here You Come Again STUDIO (Dolly Parton Cover)

Hold On ACOUSTIC(?)

Honey Baby ACOUSTIC

Hopelessly Devoted To You STUDIO (?) (Olivia Newton-John Cover)

Houston Rodeo ACOUSTIC

I’d Lie STUDIO

I Heart ? STUDIO

I Know What I Want STUDIO(?)

I’m Every Woman STUDIO (Whitney Houston cover)

I’m Only Me When I’m With You (demo) STUDIO

In The Pouring Rain ACOUSTIC

Invisible (demo) STUDIO

I Used To Fly ACOUSTIC

I Wished On A Plane ACOUSTIC

Just South Of Knowing Why (Drive All Night) STUDIO

Kid In The Crowd ACOUSTIC

Leavin’ LIVE (Jesse McCartney cover)

Let’s Go (Battle) STUDIO

Live For The Little Things ACOUSTIC

Long Time Coming STUDIO

Look At You Like That ACOUSTIC

Love They Haven’t Thought of Yet ACOUSTIC

Love To Lose ACOUSTIC

Lucky You STUDIO

Made Up You ACOUSTIC

Making Up For Lost Love STUDIO

Mandolin ACOUSTIC

Mary Jo ACOUSTIC

Matches ACOUSTIC

Me And Britney ACOUSTIC

Missing You LIVE ft Tyler Hilton (Tyler Hilton cover)

My Cure STUDIO

My Cure (alternate lyrics) ACOUSTIC

My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark LIVE ft. Fall Out (Fall Out Boy cover)

My Turn To Be Me ACOUSTIC

Nashville LIVE (David Mead cover)

Need You Now STUDIO

Need (Lover Unreleased) STUDIO

Never Fade ACOUSTIC

Never Mind STUDIO

Never Mind (Country Version) STUDIO

Oh My My My (Mary’s Song demo) STUDIO

One-Sided Goodbye ACOUSTIC

One Thing (Bye Bye Baby original demo) STUDIO

Our Last Night (Better Than Ezra cover) ACOUSTIC

Our Song (demo) STUDIO

Perfect Have I Loved ACOUSTIC

Perfectly Good Heart (demo) STUDIO

Permanent Marker STUDIO

Picture to Burn (original demo) STUDIO

Picture to Burn 2006 original (homophobic version) STUDIO

Picture to Burn (alternate production w/ extended outro) (demo) STUDIO

Picture To Burn LIVE ft Def Leppard

Picture to Burn (war cry demo) ACOUSTIC

Point Of View ACOUSTIC

Pour Some Sugar On Me LIVE ft. Def Leppard (Def Leppard cover)

Rain Song ACOUSTIC

Red (demo) STUDIO

R-E-V-E-N-G-E STUDIO

Ride On ACOUSTIC

Riptide LIVE from BBC Studios (Vance Joy cover)

Run LIVE (George Strait cover)

Run (original demo) (clip) ACOUSTIC

Same Girl ACOUSTIC

Shake It Off (demo) STUDIO

“Slut!” Acoustic Version STUDIO

Smokey Black Nights STUDIO

Songs About You STUDIO

Sparks Fly original lyrics LIVE

Spinning Around ACOUSTIC

Stupid Boy ACOUSTIC

Sugar ACOUSTIC

Superstar (demo) ACOUSTIC

Superstar (demo) STUDIO

Sweet Escape LIVE (Gwen Stefani cover)

Sweet Nothing (piano remix) STUDIO

Sweet Tea And Gods Graces STUDIO

Sweet Tea And Gods Graces (acoustic) ACOUSTIC

Teardrops On My Guitar (demo) STUDIO

Tell Me STUDIO

Tell Me ACOUSTIC

Ten Dollars And A Six Pack ACOUSTIC

Tennessee ACOUSTIC

That’s Life ACOUSTIC

That’s When (original demo) ACOUSTIC

The Diary Of Me STUDIO

The Other Side Of The Door (demo) STUDIO

The Outside (demo) STUDIO

There’s Your Trouble (Dixie Chicks cover) STUDIO

Thinking About You ACOUSTIC

Thirteen Blocks STUDIO

This Here Guitar ACOUSTIC

This Is Really Happening STUDIO

This Is What You Came For (possibly ai) (demo) STUDIO

Tied Together With A Smile (demo) ACOUSTIC

‘Til Brad Pitt Comes Along ACOUSTIC

Tim Mcgraw (piano demo) ACOUSTIC

Tim Mcgraw (guitar demo) ACOUSTIC

Tim Mcgraw (byron gallimore demo) STUDIO

Umbrella LIVE (Rihanna cover)

Under My Head ACOUSTIC

Wait For Me STUDIO

Welcome Distraction STUDIO

We Were Happy (piano demo) ACOUSTIC

We Were Happy (original demo) STUDIO

What Do You Say STUDIO

What To Wear STUDIO

White Horse (piano demo) STUDIO

Who I’ve Always Been STUDIO

You All Over Me (original demo) STUDIO

You Do ACOUSTIC

You Don’t Have To Call ACOUSTIC

Your Anything LIVE

Your Face STUDIO

You’re Losing Me STUDIO

You’re On Your Own Kid (strings remix) STUDIO

#taylor swift unreleased #taylor swift #unreleased songs #leaked song #lover unreleased #lover leak #taylor swift lover leaks #tsunreleased

167 notes · View notes

misslauravillanueva · 5 months

Text

So... I let my Mom rate and give an opinion on JJK men and bois ~~

She doesn't know JJK btw ><

Enjoy ~~

...

My husband, Ryomen Sukuna (😩)

"That's him?"

(She was looking at him for a while 😏🤭. She thought he was ugly at first but after showing this to her she was like: 😕😶😕👁️👁️— she didn't expect that he looked like that. She kinda found him handsome~~ 😏🤭. I have the best Mother don't I ~? 🥰🤭💞)

"Looks okay"

"I see why you like him" (😏)

"He kinda looks like my crush idol" (😏)

"Or maybe it's just his outfit 😗" (😆🤣😭)

"Is he old?"

"Why does he have those things on his face?"

"He looks old because of the markings on his face"

"Looks okay"

Overall: The chance of me being with Sukuna, liking him, marrying him, or the support that I have when I'm married to him and having a family with him is all okay for my Mother. She doesn't mind it 😏😆🤭. So 'Kuna, My Mother approves of you, she approves of our marriage. We're together forever~~😚😆🤭💍👰🏻‍♀️

Gojo Satoru

"Looks like an alien" 😆 (because he's all so white and his eyes are blue 😂😭)

"So white"

"Looks old" (because of his white hair)

"Looks okay"

(She's just "okay" with him 😆)

Geto Suguru

"Looks like a carrier at a wet market" LMAO 😆😂🤣

"His face looks fearless/bold"

"Japanese?"

"His eyes are so narrow (so asian 😂🤣)"

"Okay"

(She doesn't quite like him, he finds him ugly. But she's also just "okay" with him ig 😆)

Nanami Kento

"Looks okay"

"He looks like a frog 🐸" (😂😭)

"Mm. Okay"

(She's just "okay" with him as well 😆)

Yuji Itadori

"Oh! That just looks like the guy from before!"

"It's his sister?" (LMAO 🤣🤣🤣)

"Looks like a girl" (😆🤣😭)

"Oh"

"Looks okay"

(She's just "okay" with him as well 😆)

Megumi Fushiguro

"Oh! That's just the man from before! That carrier guy!!" (😂😂😂🤣😭)

"Also has a fearless/bold face"

"He's just that guy from before! His nephew!" (she's not convinced 😭😂🤣)

"Looks okay"

(She's just "okay" with him as well 😆)

Choso

"Looks like an alien" (😭😂🤣)

(She had a disgusted look on her face like: 😬🫠🤢)

"Meh. Okay"

"Why is he liked?"

"Eh! Those markings on the face again 😫😣"

(She doesn't like him and finds it weird that girls simp for him 🤣😭)

Toji Fushiguro/Zenin

"Nyeh!"

"He's just like the two dudes from before" (😭🤣🤣)

"They are nephews! They are related! A family!"

"Looks just okay"

"He also has a fearless/bold face like the two from before"

"His face is wide and (body) too buff"

"What's that thing on his back? a worm? Ugly! It looks like a monster, a goblin, an ugly goblin! Why does he have that?!" (😭😆😭)

(She's just "okay" with him as well, but she doesn't like him (speaking for her opinion over everyone else's) and also finds it weird that girls simp for him 🤣😭)

And the winner is 🥁...

Loid Forger from SpyxFamily 😂😂🤣🤣😭😭

"Handsome" (Really Mom???!! 😭😭😭😂🤣)

Yup, he's the only one she likes because his face is clean, neat, and tidy. She is a cultured woman after all— she has good grooming, manners and etiquette, clear speaking, etc. 😌😆😭)

29 notes · View notes

koreis · 7 months

Text

Made another sticker a while ago :3 might print it later.

The joke behind it is that Sabo is the kind of guy who would favor psychological torture and he’s plain unhinged and what better torture than threat by chicken? An acquaintance actually put a terrible image in my head after I drew this. Here’s a block of text about it:

The man’s back is to you. He’s dressed in blues, midnight vest and icy shirt, but his warm golden curls seems to bounce with sunlight as the breeze sends them dancing. He cuts a regal figure in the nothingness, with his back soldier straight, like the kind of gentleman one’s parents would want them to bring home. However, you’d have to get to know him first. He turns his head. He’s looking at something. His eyes are the purest black, or are they the darkest blue? You wouldn’t know. What is he looking at?

You blink. And you’re in a chair. Looking through the eyes of someone from another life, or maybe another future. The colors are all wrong, too dark, and something is swimming. You think it’s your head. The man is there again. His face is youthful, boyish.

He’s far away, but he’s noticed you’ve awoken. He smiles. It’s a nice grin, but too much teeth to be a friendly one. Barely anything is visible, but a light shines above his him. A halo. You think. He sets his gaze on you, heavy eyes adding pounds to your shoulders. You squirm and find your movements stopped. You’re bound, trapped between those eyes.

“You’ve never made this easy,” he says, words echoing down the hall. He’s shifts his foot, taking a step toward you.

“Perhaps because they’re a far greater threat to you than anyone who would look for them. Unlucky for you, I’m not anyone.”

Another foot.

He’s captivating. Maybe it’s the bad lighting that makes you focus on his face, the delicate features behind blonde curls, the slight upturn to his nose, or maybe it’s just his face. There’s a scar running through it, over one eye. Objectively, it’s ugly, but to you, it’s like a flame.

Another step.

And he may be getting too close. He’s a stranger, and you’re a captive. Perhaps this situation scares you. It should. It’s bizarre. But you feel like you’ve met him in a dream once.

He’s holding something. Bright yellow, with red lips. A crude imitation of a bird, a monstrosity.

You want to ask about it. Ask about him. Anything. But you have no words.

He squeezes it and it groans something dying. He squeezes it again, and it wails.

You decide that you don’t like it. But you don’t have to words to make him stop.

Another step, and he squeezes it again. Twice now. Four times. The halls echo with its tortured screams.

And finally, his eyes are level with yours. Dark swirling storms. Your noses are almost touching, and his grin is feral. Fearless. All teeth, with a hook to his lips. And he holds his cursed bird next to your ear. It caresses you, smooth and gentle. Your breath catches. He squeezes it, and your head feels like drowning.

It sounds like death, like hell. The repeated wail of the ill at ease, the buried but not at peace, the restless. And then it stops. And he giggles with glee. Sweet and charming. Your eyes refocus. His face is dazzling.

“So. Will you tell me where they are?”

You can only answer in silence.

He frowns. “I can subject you to this forever you know.”

Your heart jumps at the threat. And you finally find your words. Some of them.

“What are you even looking for?”

He scoffs. “My memories. I know you have them.”

Memories? What memories? You blink again, and he’s holding the chicken in your face. Right. That’s what it is. A chicken. Out of the corner of your vision, you can see him watching, cataloging your reactions. He bares his teeth.

“So,” he starts, “What’ll it be?”

~~~

This is a whole excerpt of nonsense that I just wrote btw. TLDR: someone told me that they imagined Sabo walking toward them squeezing the rubber chicken in a menacing manner—I couldn’t unsee it.

I just moved into college, which is very exciting and scary. Working hard on the next chapter of my fic; hopefully it’ll meet my and readers’ expectations. Idk how writers manage to keep a balance between canon and divergence as well as in-character and expansion of character, kind of like finding the middle ground between salt and pepper in a dish. I guess it’ll come with experience. I’m so happy and weird about so many things right now. It’s a growing up thing me thinks. Love you guyss :333333

#one piece sabo #op sabo #revolutionary sabo #one piece #stickers #asl brothers #one piece fanart #crack post

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starlostseungmin · 2 years

Text

the way i loved you, fearless ─── candle on the window sill.

masterlist. playlist.

✰ pairing — non-idol!seungmin x fem!reader (with she/her as pronouns) ft. mentions of day6’s wonpil

✰ genre — exes to lovers, angst, fluff, mutual pining, a little bit of idiots to lovers, a slice of life, semi-college au

✰ warnings — mentions of food, profanity and kissing, not proofread.

✰ word count — 7.01k

✰ songs that was used for inspiration — the way i loved you by taylor swift, here always by kim seungmin, give me your forever by zack tabudlo, love again by baekhyun, and araw-araw (everyday) by ben&ben.

REBLOGGING AND LEAVING A FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

What was it like to break up with Seungmin?

It was cold and blue, full of sad smiles and tears that were kept behind throughout the happiest moments you’ve had. Torn and crumpled sheets of paper, wilted flowers, broken glasses scattered on the floor, and a sad song. Voices of arguing people echoes within the apartment until someone decided to move out leaving half of it lies empty. Broken picture frames, one toothbrush in the bathroom, one pair of shoes by the doorsteps, the scent of his perfume remained until it fades. It was filled with madnessーhe was so in love.

The past relationship was beautiful, falling in love with Seungmin felt like an angel saving you from a tragic fate. Soft as clouds, sweet like candy, beautiful like flowers, it was so good and delicate, one that everyone craves for a relationship. He was perfect for you, the person who never fails to make you smile or make your heart pound like crazy. A sweet voice that sings you to sleep, physical interactions that send butterflies in your stomach, eyes that plead not to make you mad at him for a long time when he did something wrong, a shower of kisses during cuddles, his acts of service that force you to fall into thoughts, what did you do in your past life to deserve someone like him? You were so in love, and so he is.

It was love at first sight when you met him years ago after your sister got engaged to his brother. You were both in sophomore year in college but attending different universities. They live in the city proper as you were living an hour away. You remember how much he looked that day. Gray hoodie and baby blue jeans, white shoes, and a black backpack, he was running late. His hair was fluffy enough for the wind to play. A gentle voice of apology was heard with his awkward smile, he was so cute with those puppy eyes. One that made your heart race and cheeks turned red. His eyes fell in your direction and gave you a warm smile showing his braces. His brother introduced him to everyone and became very close friends with you.

Every beating for your heart was for him, yet you thought he only sees you as less than a lover. Every hour was spent with him you’d wish to last. It was one of the great experiences you’ve had and bittersweet memories you wanted to keep. Seungmin was the love of your life, he didn’t know that at first, but even if he’s not aware of how you felt for him, you were just thankful enough to stay by his side. And you know that one day, he will break your heart because you failed to do the right thing, or so you thought.

It was the way he persuades you to let him take you home even if he gets in his own house late at night. An hour from the city to your address and another hour from your house to the city where he lives in the proper. Your mother loves him as much as how she treats your brother-in-law who happened to be his older brother. A small world that leads you to two to be together. It sparked a friendship that soon turned into a romantic phase when he texted you out of nowhere, at 2 am and it was raining. You couldn’t sleep, thoughts filled with only him. He was standing outside your house, soaking wet in the rain, stole his dad’s car to drive here saying he wanted to see you after days of ditching when in fact he was deliberately contemplating on punching himself in the gut to tell you how much he was in love.

Kissing in the rain at 2 am telling each other how you felt was like heaven. His lips were delicate and warm, tasted like coffee he drank before to stay awake, his bangs covered his eyes due to the heavy raindrops, hoodies wet but it was warm. The very first kiss you’ve had came so unexpectedly. The blooming love enveloped your life and him becoming your first boyfriend was like a dream. He even learned the guitar and wrote you a song, purposely leave his hoodies when he comes to visit your house, takes you on cafe dates, and help you study, saying I love yous every time he takes you home before he leaves, it was perfect. Everything was.

The relationship was blessed for both parties and your first anniversary had to be on your sister’s wedding day. Felix, a close friend of yours was talking with you while sharing some cake as Seungmin was with his brother. Ceremonies ended an hour back and it was the time for the bride to toss her bouquet, a silly common tradition, but it was said to however catch it will get married next.

“Everyone ready?” Says her, turning her back from everyone as the other bridesmaids gather. You weren’t giving a shit, Felix didn’t even mind either, all eyes focused on the cake. “3, 2, 1!”

“Y/n, the bouquet, the bouquet!” Felix exclaimed which made you panic out of nowhere. The cake was being ignored as your sister tossed it high and far, it landed in your direction as the other girls tried to run for it. Yet, the flowers chose you as they ended up in your hands.

“What?” You asked, feeling stunned. Seungmin smiled getting shy after his brother teased him about it. Felix was also wriggling his brows because he knew you’d ended up with him for a lifetime. Only a few know, just your families and a few friends. Seungmin loved to keep it private so he held your hand tightly that night when everyone went home. The hall was empty, and you were sitting aimlessly staring at the flowers. He decided to sit beside you, holding your hand before placing a soft kiss on your lips.

“You look beautiful today,” He said, cheeks turning red from blushing.

“Thanks,” You smiled. “You look good yourself,” But he just laughed to cover the embarrassment.

“Can I take a look at the bouquet?” He asked as you handed it to him.

“What are you going to do with it?” You asked as he took a piece of wrapping paper and rolled it out, twisting them to make a semi-braid. Eyes fixed on it, Seungmin was up to something. He laid the flowers down on the bench.

“Since you’ve caught the flowers, I have a little negotiation with you,” He said as he stood up from the seat and stood in front of you.

“Okay, what’s up?” You asked crossing your arms as he suddenly got down on one knee, offering his hand. “Seungmin what are you doing?” Panic surfaced all over your face making you a blushing mess. It was fun to tease you, he loves the way you turn red for him, it’s a way to show his love.

“It’s our first anniversary, and I’m thinking if we should move in together,” He paused, taking your hand. “A year full of happiness even when he had bumpy roads on the way, it was worth it, and I want to spend more of it with you,” He smiled. “This is not a proposal yet, but I just wanted to make sure, marry me in the future, Y/n,” His eyes stared at yours, it was full of sincerity and commitment, one that you would expect from him but not this early. You love him so much, even if it was just a year, you’d risk everything for him.

“Yes!” You exclaimed as he slid the wrapping paper ring on your finger, pulling you for a hug. “I love you so much,”

“I love you too,” He said kissing your forehead. “We didn’t get to spend our anniversary because of the wedding but, happy anniversary baby,” He added before placing his lips on yours, arms wrapped around his neck as his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to deepen the kiss.

It was a perfect night, even if you were just in your junior year of college, Seungmin was confident to move in with you. After a few months of planning it, both of you hailed for an apartment. Living together meant cuddles now and then, sweet kisses in the morning and passionate ones at night, having to eat together and share everything. A pair of toothbrushes at the sink, two pairs of shoes at the doorsteps, a closet filled with your clothes, four pillows on the bed divided into two, a large white duvet enough to cover you, a back hug when the one is cooking or washing the dishes, you were both happy and contented.

Moments like taking the bus together at night as you fall asleep on his shoulder, he kisses the crown of your head and cuddles you in his arms after an exhausting day. An amusement park dates where you wear matching headbands and take polaroid pictures with cotton candies in your hands. Running under the rain while holding hands because one forgot to bring the umbrella. Having to play while doing the laundry and blow bubbles to each other for domestic fluff, you couldn’t even ask for more. And even if Seungmin and you don’t like drinking, you both ended up getting drunk in your apartment and making out until it lead your back to meet the mattress as your boyfriend hovered over you. An intimate one.

But then, it all ended up so quickly. Like a snap of a finger that you can never bring back again, or the fate decides.

It has been 3 years since you graduated from college, and work has been taking your time to go home to your family. Even received a phone call from your mom telling you to go home, it was your sister’s wedding anniversary too. One that you’d celebrate every year that you were called to come home but you’ve been missing during the past years. A sigh escaped from your lips as you took the window seat inside your old bedroom. You had arrived on a rainy afternoon on a Saturday. Everything changed per se. The trees had grown older, roofs had become a little bit dirty and covered by lichen, street signs had marks and scratches, and electric wires became thicker after being mixed with new ones, it is the aesthetic of your hometown.

Your suitcase becomes unattended on the floor as you look around. Polaroid pictures of you and Seungmin were still up on the walls. Each frame depicts different heart-melting moments or just simple pictures you took for memories for the years to come and remember. Smiling at the sight, your fingers reached for them to look delicately. Slowly changing the photographs, memories started to flood your mind. A train of heartwarming thoughts and giddiness, it was all about how the way your love blooms and the early days of your relationship.

You were all reminiscing until it was cut off when you heard a knock on your door, it was your mother.

“Y/n?” She called as you left the pictures scattered on your bed to open the rectangular frame.

“What’s up Mom?” You asked.

“Your sister and Wonpil will come tomorrow morning, they said, Joeun had to go to the dentist today.” She said, “But Seungmin will come over first, he said he’s coming to help with the preparations,”

“Oh,” You answered as your heart started to beat faster. It’s been quite a while since the last time you saw him. “That’s good, what time will he be here?”

“I don’t know, it might be this evening,” It was too soon that you didn’t get to prepare yourself. “But please do take a rest first, I know seeing him now after a while ever since your break up must be pressuring,” She chuckled. “Is that okay with you?”

“Of course Mom, it’s fine, we’re through anyway, no hard feelings,” You said, faking a smile as your mother looked at you with sympathy.

“I just hope you guys are all well now,” She smiled before patting your shoulder and left.

Closing the door behind you, the light became dim as a sign it was close to dark. Turning the lights on, you sat down on your bed to pick up the polaroids. You loved Seungmin so much that the break-up didn’t even end up well. It took you a while to stand up back on your feet again trying to move on but for your dear heart’s sake, you were so in love with him. It wasn’t easy to get over someone you truly loved even if the ending part was filled with fights and arguments, things you couldn’t understand. Seungmin tried, you tried, yet you ended up losing each other. But it never hides the fact that you were happy.

Happiness is found when you open a box of your favorite things, but that wasn’t the case. You found what happiness truly meant because of him. A rainy day that turns into the sunshine when he smiles, a tragedy that takes turn into a happy ending, the black that turns into white, Seungmin has a lot of side effects. A simple gesture turns into a fluttering heart moment. Memories of him are nostalgic. There was never a dull moment with him, you knew he loved you so much.

It was almost dinner time, you here helping to set up the table and Seungmin is almost home. You didn’t know what to do exactly, it’s been two years since the last time you met the break up was a blur, and suddenly, after a fight, everything started to fade, but not how you felt for him. You assumed he found a new one, probably he moved on, no talks, no social media interactions, no meet-ups, it was the pure end. You only hear things from Felix and Jisung, nothing more. A sigh escaped your lips as you heard the doorbell ring.

“I’ll get it,” Your dad chirped, making his way to the door, and opening it. “Oh, Seungmin it’s you!”

Your heart started to beat faster, quickly turning to the door and see him. The one you didn’t see in the past two years and the one that you’ve missed so much. His smile was still the same, he didn’t have braces anymore but still, it was cute. Bangs parted on his forehead, a large black coat with a gray hoodie inside and jeans and white shoes, he was holding a bouquet and a food basket. Those flowers reminded you of how he proposed after your sister’s wedding, the paper ring he gave you didn’t last long, but you placed it somewhere where you can carry it wherever you go. But the ring on his finger didn’t show the same love, it was new to your eyes. He must’ve met someone already.

“It’s been a few months since the last time you’ve visited,” Your father said hugging him.

“I’m sorry Mr. (y/l/n), work keeps me busy,” Seungmin chuckled as your dad lead him to where you were with your mother.

“Oh come on, you’re still calling me that? Why can’t you call me dad just like Wonpil, eh?” Your dad responded.

“I’m getting shy,” He laughed along with your dad.

He grew taller and became more handsome, his voice still echoes the same and makes you weak. But it hits more differently when he sings. You used to convince him to apply for a music competition when you were in college, despite going to different universities, you knew the trends yet he always refuse and promise to keep his singing voice only to you. Maybe his new lover is enjoying them now. A small smile was formed on your face as you locked eyes with him. Your mother welcomed him with kisses on his cheek as your father placed the flowers and food on the table.

“Hey,” He said.

“Hi,” It was awkward, both of you didn’t know what to say. Your parents stared at you for a few seconds, you were just standing there, with nothing to say and nothing to talk about, or so you thought.

“Since when did you get here?” He asked, taking the flowers off the table.

“This afternoon,” You said.

“For you,” He smiled, offering the bouquet. You realized it was the same set where Wonpil got your sister on their wedding day, the one you received after she tossed it around. It was nostalgic that you managed to remember.

“Thank you,” You said giving a soft smile, and took the flowers from his hands.

Dinner was served as you ate in silence while your parents kept talking to Seungmin. It’s an awkward family dinner with your ex, but still being entertained with how many questions they were asking him. He is in his third year in law school and at the same time working with his father’s business. You knew he wanted to be a lawyer when he grow up, and he’s invested in his dream now, with only a few more steps to take. It was a good experience to have a Political Science major as a boyfriend.

They were busy to put attention to you, it felt like Seungmin is being their child while you were left in the ditch but it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Your parents just missed how things were when you were still together and whenever someone mentions your name in between the conversation, it was only a faint smile that you showcase. Seungmin couldn’t help but take glances at you until dinner time was done, he volunteered to wash the dishes as you went inside your room. Your mother was being sneaky as she stood beside him, watching his solemn expression.

“I always see Y/n as one of the shy kids around and thought she was lonely, but then, you came,” She smiled. “She fell in love at first sight and there was never a day that she doesn’t talk about you,”

“I didn’t know what you did to her, because she was so in love and I like you so much because she loves you just like your brother, you boys granted my wish to have sons.” She added as Seungmin started to fight the urge to shed a tear. “I was happy that you said you’d marry her one day, but relationships come and go, I know you had your reasons why you decided to end it. Two years felt like forever,”

Seungmin’s head hung low as he started to rinse them, “I saw the hurt in her eyes when she came home after your break up, I know you loved her too right?”

Seungmin nodded, “So much,”

“You just need to talk it out, it seems like you didn’t get the closure you needed,”

“Mrs. (y/l/n) Iー,” Seungmin said as he was cut off when the electricity went off.

“Damn, it’s at it again, stupid electrical company!” Your dad exclaimed, taking his phone for a flashlight.

“Take the flashlight to Y/n’s room, yes?” Your mother added, giving him the spare flashlight she hid in the cupboards. Seungmin was done washing the dishes as he bowed to your mother and left.

The lights are turned off gently, the moon shines outside as you opened the curtains. It wasn’t as bright as the way you saw it from the city but it was still beautiful giving a hint of light. You found a match on one of your drawers and an old candle you used to light up when the power is off. Sitting on your window seat, you placed the candle on the window sill scratching the match on the box before letting the rope burn into a small flame. It became quiet afterward, but then, it was another knock on the door.

“It’s open!” You said as Seungmin entered with a flashlight.

“Hey,” He said. “Uhm, your mother asked me to hand you this,” He added, handing the small flashlight.

“Thanks, we don’t have emergency lights here,” You smiled, taking it from his hand.

“May I sit down with you?” He asked as you gave him a nod and moved a bit to give him the space. “Your room is still the same,”

“Yeah, I barely come here, I didn’t bother to make changes,” You sigh, letting the flashlight roll on the seat. Seungmin nodded as a response when he saw the polaroids lying on your bed, his hands reached out for them and move closer to the light to reminisce.

“You still have these?” He asked earning your attention, when you snatched them away from his hands.

“I was going to hide them,” You answered with an awkward laugh and placed them on the drawers beside your bed. Seungmin was stunned, he hoped for something else. “So uhm, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a while,” You smiled, shifting to another topic.

“I’m good, I’ve been busy for a quite while, and you?” He asked.

“Same sentiment,” You said as Seungmin nodded as a response. Another awkward silence again, he played with his fingers as you stared outside. His eyes suddenly fell on your hands looking for the paper ring he slid inside years ago but he scoffed mentally, it must’ve broken through the oldness of time. “Are you dating again?” You asked out of nowhere.

“What makes you think I do?” He asked as you pointed his ring using your lips. “Oh,”

“That’s great, I’m happy for you,” You smiled, but deep inside you were still hurting.

“Thanks,” He smiled softly. “So uhm, when are you going back to the city?”

You felt a pang on your chest, your instincts were right. It was stupid enough when he found someone else and you’re still into him. You just want to vanish into thin air and never show up yourself again. It feels like your world crashed with a meteor, the second time. The first time was your break up and now Seungmin is happy being with someone. Moving on was hard, loving him for years now made it difficult to let go. Maybe he forgot about you real quick, and you’ve been blaming yourself for why it all ended.

“Probably on Monday morning,” You said hugging your knees closer to your chest. “I heard you’re leaving tomorrow evening?”

“Yeah, I still have law school on Monday as well, it’s better to leave early, they’re kind of strict about tardiness.” He chuckled.

“You’ve been working so hard ever since we were in college,” You smiled. “It must’ve been so good being closer to your dreams now, I know you’ll ace the exam after you graduate,”

“Thanks, I hope you’re doing good with our routines,” He said. This conversation is killing you. Just an awkward exchange of words to check on each other but not about the break-up. But the thought of it might make him uncomfortable. Seungmin looked at you again as you were staring back at the scenery outside, unable to give eye contact. It might resort to crying if you see his face. “Y/n,” He called.

“Hmm?” You hummed turning to look at him.

“About what happened to us, I’m still sorry about it, I never get the chance to talk to you,” He said, expression softened and turned a bit gloomy.

“It wasn’t your fault, I was stupid that it lead us to break our relationship, let’s not talk about it, I don’t want you to worry about us anymore,” You smiled trying to hide the pain. “Besides, you’re happy with someone else, I bet you’re already engaged with them. Seeing the ring reminds me how you’d want to marry them for reassurance,”

“I’m not engaged,” He said.

“Then, married?” You asked as he chuckled in response.

“I was sure you’d be the one I marry,” He spoke, looking directly into your eyes as you were caught off guard. “But I’m not sure how things will turn out right now, I was hurt when we broke up, I blamed myself too��I also had a hard time trying to forget you,” He chuckles lightly.

“You were so good to me that you did nothing wrong, I was the one to blame so don’t beat yourself about it…” You said trying to hold back the tears. “I loved you so much that I want to stop myself from hurting you,”

It was that time when things started to get heated up by emotions, broken promises were held captive by the lack of time. You were both busy, Seungmin had a hectic schedule in law school and his dad’s business as you work on being an immigration consultant. He comes home late at night while you were left to do paperwork. Both are pressured by your jobs, no cuddles spent mostly, and only go to sleep because of exhaustion. Sometimes being driven by house responsibilities and emotional breakdowns. Seungmin tried to be a good boyfriend to you, but he grew tired.

Kissing your forehead after a rough day, you fall asleep in his arms as he kept his mouth shut about what happened to his day. He didn’t want to worry you as he promised to take you first before himself. You were the only one who kept him strong to hold off every pressure he’d been through. But it’s not every time he could hold in it, until one day, his bubble popped out with a loud sound. All because of a misunderstanding.

“Y/n, fuck, can you please stop complaining for once? I’m trying to work!” He snapped. You were too exhausted that day, your boss was getting all riled up because of your job. Seungmin was having a bad day as well, but you never expected him to yell back.

“How can I not complain about it? I want to quit that agency.” You scoffed as Seungmin sighed, crumpling his papers for giving too much time and revisions.

“Then quit! All you do is complain anyway. Did you even ask how I am? I always put your first because I don’t want you to get stressed out and now this? I just wanted a peace of mind. I’m trying to do a fucking project!”

“It’s always that excuse! Do you even understand how I feel?”

“Fuck it! Now you’re blaming me for not being understanding?”

You’ve been in a lot of arguments before, but not to the point where everyone was yelling. But ever since Seungmin talked back at you, things started to fall off. It happens at least a few times a week, every night you yell and he gets mad. Broken glasses fall on the floor, stationeries scattered on the table, him sleeping on the couch instead of your bed. Everything was chaos. It was becoming toxic. There were times you’d made up but then another series of arguments.

“You thought you didn’t do anything wrong in this relationship? Do you always think you were always right? No!” He said.

“Then why can’t you listen to me? I’ve been trying to keep this thing going with you but you’re messing up my patience!”

“You too! I’m not a punching bag Y/n, you can’t get all riled up to me when you have a bad day! Stop blaming me as if it’s my fault!”

“I am not fucking blaming you!”

“That’s it, I’m done with this conversation. I’m breaking up with you!”

“You left the apartment after that and move back with your parents,” You said. “I moved out a few days after you did, that place had bad memories,”

“I’m sorry,” He said as he held your hand.

“It’s nothing to say sorry about Seungmin, it was my fault,” You added patting his hand before slipping your hand off from the grip. “As I said, don’t beat up yourself about us because it might ruin your current relationship,”

“I still think of you,” He said, looking at the scenery outside the window. “I always remember how I used to wait outside your school just to take you home even if I arrive late on my own,” He chuckled. “Even forced me to stay, honestly, all I think about was the good things that happened when we were still together, not the bad ones, I just know that I used to be so happy whenever I’m with you.”

“Likewise, you know that I loved you so much right?” You asked looking at him.

“I do,” He smiled looking at the candle. “This house of yours fill in a lot of memories before we moved in together, and even if we did have our apartment, it was fun living with you, I just missed those times,” You bit your lip, looking down at your knees. His sentiments were like yours, the nostalgic feeling of your relationship haunts you both.

“If we didn’t break up, do you think we’re married right now?” You laughed shamelessly as he turned away trying to hide his pink cheeks, but later he realized it was so dim for you to notice it.

“Maybe,” He said. “And already have a kid,” He laughed as you smacked his arm making him let out a small reaction to pain, rubbing his affected area. It was so good to warm up with you again, but it would feel so great to have you back in his arms. Yet too afraid to hurt you again.

“I’m glad you’re happy right now Seungmin,” You said. “I wish I am in the same boat as you,”

“You’re still single?” He asked turning to you.

“Yeah, I never been able to go on dates after we broke up, too busy,” You said as Seungmin remembered what your mom told him earlier. Should I ask her or not? No, she might say no… Just shut it out Seungmin, he thought. He just nodded at your response and took a deep breath.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Go ahead,”

“Y/n, I stillー,” But Seungmin was cut off when the electricity came back, distracting you from the conversation.

“Thank goodness, I thought we were sleeping under a hot roof,” You said taking the candle from the window sill and blowing it off. “What are you going to say again?” Seungmin froze in his seat, the timing was wrong, and it would be awkward to pursue.

“Nothing, I think I need to go now,” He smiled awkwardly as he stood up from the seat. “Keep the flashlight in case the power goes off again,”

“Sure,” You said, couldn’t help but feel disappointed with the power being back. “Wait, you’re not staying here?”

“No, I’m sleeping at a hotel, all my things are there but I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” He said.

“The hotel near the convenience store?”

“Yeah, and if you want to come by, I’m in room 0325,” He smiled. “Good night Y/n,”

“Good night…” You answered as he left the room, closing the door behind him.

Laying on your bed, everything came unexpectedly today. Seungmin himself was the first, reminiscing about your relationship came second and the closure. A closure that just proves you are still highly into him and it will probably make you stay awake for the night. You would see him again tomorrow, that’s for sure but contemplating telling him how you feel might ruin things. A heavy sigh escaped your lips as your eyes fell back to the window, the curtains were still open and the moon decided to hide behind the clouds. It was raining again.

You closed your eyes as you listened to the sound. The memory of him coming to your house at 2 am saying he wanted to see you flashed back. Rain, wet hoodies, and a stolen car, a passionate kiss was shared. It felt like you just came back to this place to remember everything, from the beginning to the end. Seungmin was all you think about. You missed him so much, two years really did prove that moving on isn’t as easy as falling in love. He has a huge part of it, something that he had devoured the moment you became a couple.

You sat up again and took the polaroids from the drawer. Each picture depicts your feelings, one with happy smiles, one where he was smiling after pulling a prank on you, another shows your hands forming a heart and the last one was a kiss you had during a date at an amusement park. A tear fell from your eyes, how can I be so stupid to hurt him like that? Why am I still so in love after two fucking years? I want to take him back… you thought.

His car took off a while ago and the convenience store was only a block away. You tossed the polaroids on your bed and walked out of your room, running downstairs ignoring the voices of your parents. It was raining heavily, you didn’t mind. You just wanted to get into his hotel and tell him everything. A closure wasn’t enough, a simple conversation of how are yous is not going to work. You wanted him back, even if he’s in a relationship with someone else, it’s just Seungmin. The Kim Seungmin you once wasted that you never want to let go of again.

Several knocks were heard from his door as he was drying his hair after taking a warm shower. White oversized shirt and black shorts. It was his fit to get into bed sometimes. The towel played with his wet hair after taking a beeline towards the entrance, growing impatient with all the knocking as it got louder by the second. A harsh sigh escaped his lips as he peeked through the small hole at the center of his door. He dropped the towel on the side table and opened it.

“Y/n?” He called as you entered inside, looking at him with desperate eyes. You heard the door close behind you leaving Seungmin confused. “What are you doing here? You’re soaking wet!” He exclaimed as your hands came in contact with his cheeks before crashing your lips on his, causing him to lean on the wall.

The boy was left dumbfounded as his heart started to beat faster than usual. Your lips felt the same as before, soft and warm, delicate and sweet, except it was desperate enough to make him feel the same. It suddenly drove him crazy, as he pulled you closer to him, not minding how soaked your clothes were and him just getting out of the shower. His hands met your waist as he deepened the kiss, one that became passionate and driven by the longing for each other’s comfort. Eyes were shot, his lips molded with yours as he sucked your bottom before taking them again. Your arms wrapped around his neck making him smile in between. He waited for something like this to happen, he missed it so much. But you pulled away so suddenly.

“I don't care if you're in a relationship or not, I still love you–” But later you were cut off when he started kissing you again, hands on your cheeks as you held them right in the place. It wasn't as desperate as the first one, his kiss felt like it was longing for someone to come back. Closing your eyes again, tears started to form in them as you kissed him back. It was bittersweet, a gentle kiss that he always does after a fight. His thumb started to caress your cheek when his senses felt your tears.

“Hmm,” You hummed softly, heavy breaths started to escape as it ended with a peck. He rested his forehead against yours, looking at those sad eyes before kissing the tip of your nose.

“One more of it, I'm taking you back,” He whispered.

“Just take me back,” You said looking at him as he gave you a soft kiss on the lips.

“I still fucking love you, Y/n,” It made you cry burying your face in his chest, as he hugged you tightly.

“I missed you so much, and I’m sorry for everything that happened between us, I was stupid,” You cried as he pulled away, hands on your cheeks again to wipe your tears with his fingers.

“Shh, it’s okay, you’re here, I’m here. You’re not going to lose me again okay?” He reassured, leaving a kiss on your forehead as you closed your eyes to feel the warmth of it.

“Aren’t you married?” You asked, looking at him when he just chuckled in response.

“No,” He said. “Two years isn’t enough to pursue a new relationship baby, I was waiting for you, hoping that you’re still single, but I understand if it’s not me anymore, after what happened, it’s rare to have the same feelings from the past,”

“You weren’t giving me any decent answer when I asked you so,” You pouted as he gave you another peck on the lips.

“As I said, I still love you and you’re not going to lose me the second time, okay?” He answered with a smile.

“I love you too,” You smiled.

“I know. Now wash up and change into my clothes, you’re staying with me tonight,” He said before taking a few clothes from his suitcase. “Don’t tell your mother you’re with me,” He winked which made you roll your eyes in a playful way.

“My parents would probably know I’m here,” You said as he gave you his clothes and a bathrobe. “Thanks,”

“You’re welcome, now go, so we could cuddle,” He said with puppy eyes as you gave him a peck on the lips before storming inside the bathroom. Seungmin felt his cheeks turn red and the heated kiss made his heart go crazy. He had to drink some water to calm him down but excitement riled up in his body, wanting to take you again in his arms. The sight of you in his clothes made him more flustered, it’s been a while and you still look good in it. A view that he always falls in love with and would never get tired of if you’d use every piece of clothing he owned. “I can confirm that I’m still head over heels to you,” He spoke.

“How so?” You asked, drying your hair.

“I’m so down with the sight of you wearing my clothes,” He smirked which made you blush. It is his favorite, a gray oversized shirt on you and his boxers, Seungmin finds you cute every time. “Come here,”

“I love your clothes,” You cooed, walking towards him as he pulled you into a hug. “But I love you the most,”

“You’re making my heart go crazy again, stop it,” He laughed as you punched his chest playfully.

“You made me run here thinking that you’re married and I was so desperate to take you back not minding if you cheat, I just want to have you back,” You said as it made him smile, kissing your lips.

“Did you hear what I told you earlier?” He asked, sitting on his bed, dragging you onto his lap.

“About what?”

“I was sure that you’re the one I’m going to marry? It’s always been you,” He said, taking his ring off his finger. “I bought this a few days after we broke up, the paper ring from the bouquet didn’t last long, it comes with a pair,” He added, leaning towards the nightstand to take a small box.

“That’s pretty…” You said, feeling the guilt about what happened.

“I was planning to give you this, but things happened,” He said, showing you the other ring. It had a small rose-gold heart-shaped diamond on a silver circle. “Even if I managed to move on and have a new one in my life, I would never give this to them,”

“Seungmin,” You called, tears starting to form in your eyes again.

“This belongs to you Y/n,” He smiled, taking your left hand. “This isn’t a formal proposal but we’ll get there. Are you still up on marrying me?” He added looking at you.

“Fuck, yes!” You exclaimed, wiping your tears as Seungmin slid the ring on your finger before giving you a prolonged kiss. It was a rollercoaster of emotions that took only a day, and maybe you were sent home to come back to the person who longs for you as much as you longed for him. Seungmin was still foolishly in love as you consider yourself an idiot for hurting him like that. He deserves the same love he gives, he was perfect enough to put yourself at risk of falling in love. And as time passes by, his love never faded. It is still the same as making your heart flutter with a hint of teasing and mostly acts of service.

“I love you, Y/n,” He whispered in between the kiss.

“I love you too Seungmin,” You answered, taking his lips again not minding the sound of the rain outside. It was intimate and comforting, one of your love languages with Seungmin’s habit of smiling in between. Maybe it’s one of the courses of action that shows the way you love each other, finding one another back to what you were before.

“Say, do you want to live with me again?” He asked, staring into your eyes.

“You know I can’t say no,” You smiled as captured your lips for another quick kiss.

“I know you so well,” He smirked as you smacked his arm lightly.

“Ow,” He laughed, giving you a hug as you kissed his forehead before resting your chin on the top of his hair, hugging him tightly. “I’m never going to let you go again this time.”

REBLOGGING AND LEAVING A FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

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