#i’m failing 6/8 of my classes and i feel terrible and it’s only because i have a lot of missing work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wordsinwinters · 2 years

Text

Then Again, Chapter 28: Secrets of a Teacher’s Pet

Summary: After an intense fight and a forced-to-share-the-bed situation during their junior year decathlon trip, Peter and the Reader examine their faults and failings. As they attempt to fix their mistakes and improve their friendship, that friendship quickly begins to evolve into something else. Masterlist (with AO3 links) Betas: @fanboyswhereare-you @girl-tips-from-satan @lilbeatlebear

Then Again, Chapter 28: Secrets of a Teacher's Pet

(Word count: 4,134) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, High school lunches are abominable, and should be illegal. I swear, what passes for pizza, macaroni, and even grilled cheese might as well be scraps of cardboard stuffed with some sticky yellow substance of unknown origins, as opposed to anything healthy or vaguely edible. The vegetables available aren’t much better: they give off the look and odor of something that’s been canned for a few hundred years before being briefly stuck in a microwave and dropped into a metal pan. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. They’re just super bland and tasteless. But don’t get me started on the very real danger of the milk that’s required with cost-reduced or free meals. After getting one that’s curdled like cottage cheese or a slimy, soupy sort of solid, you learn not to trust them. A lot of kids take them because they have to and immediately dump them into a garbage can on the way to their table. The bagged apple slices aren’t too terrible though, given that the flavor hasn’t been boiled or steamed out of them and there’s no reason to doubt what they’re made of. Luckily for me, Peter’s gifted stash of snacks in my locker from yesterday held over to today and I’ve been eating enough during breaks that I’m only hungry enough for the apples, able to avoid all the other barely tolerable options for once. I’m as grateful for that fact as I was happily surprised to find he managed to remember and pick out my favorites. (Michelle probably helped him.)

Walking to the cafeteria ten minutes late is an uncharacteristically peaceful experience. The usual, deafening current of hundreds of teenagers rushing to their next class has been replaced by a trickling stream of occasional wanderers strolling along with hall passes lightly held in hand. It’s a calming change of pace. Still, as I draw closer to the cafeteria, the sounds of classes beginning behind closed doors grow softer, slowly overlapped by the swelling chaos of first lunch. It’s funny how approaching this part of the school during lunch feels like walking into a roaring tsunami of cacophony, but once you’re inside it talking with your friends, the enormity of it muffles into a tame tide, as if an invisible barrier has stitched itself together around the table. (At least if you’ve had enough sleep, that is. After another long night of texting with Peter, I’m not sure I’ll be able to block out much of anything.) By the time I turn the corner of the last hallway and head to the lunch line, most people already have their food and are sitting at their normal tables — my friends included — so it takes no time at all to maneuver through the pizza side. I grab a bag of apple slices from the tin pan beside the soft pretzel warmer and quickly get to the register. The lunch lady punches in the code for the apples as I swipe my ID card and type in my passcode, four little beeps quietly popping up through the bursting bubble of cafeteria noise. Like every day, I thank her and she offers me a tired nod in response. Then I make my typical path toward my friends sitting in the middle-ish back area. A few tables away from Michelle, Peter, and Ned, more toward the front, Abe and Sally are sitting with their other friends, including Flash. That must mean Monday was an anomaly like I suspected— just a chance to collect the last morsels of gossip about the trip before everyone slid back into our normal school routines. (Surprisingly, neither of them asked about or alluded to the pool incident, thank god, though Flash must’ve told Abe about the accidental blackmail thing because Abe whisper-asked me about it once no one was paying attention. As soon as I said it wasn’t a big deal and I’d rather Mr. Harrington never hear a word about any of it, he nodded and let it go with a subtle “OK” hand motion.) Suddenly, Peter whips his head around and catches my eye. He jumps out of his seat and rushes to meet me halfway. “Hey!” he says, smiling and slightly breathless a moment later, hair lightly ruffled from the mini-jog. “How come you’re late? Ned said you stayed after class, but he didn’t know why.” Then, looking at the lone bag of apple wedges in my hand, “And where’s the rest of your food?” As we make eye contact again, I try to ignore the swooping sensation in my stomach: I have been trying, really trying, to get used to his energy the last few days — to his wider smiles and the abrupt return of his sincerity — but his spontaneous excitement in moments like this still causes butterflies, as much as I resent the fact. Even so, his energy is infectious and, undeniably, pleasant. I find my lips itching to mirror his bare smile, and do my best to hold it back. “I stayed back to talk to Profé,” I explain as we walk together, “about the skit that’s due on Friday. I wanted to see if my group could just perform it for her tomorrow while everyone’s out recording theirs.” I glance at him and the crinkle around his eyes makes it clear he knows me too well. “You mean get out of having to watch your own video on Friday.” “Maybe.” I keep my gaze on our table as we approach it, shrugging and hoping my guilty-as-charged grin isn’t too obvious. The deal I made with Profé is normal for the two of us. It’s usually the group members who make it more of a struggle, refusing to cooperate because they’d rather procrastinate than memorize their lines a day early. (If they’re even willing to memorize their lines. 75% of the class just reads from a paper someone else has to hold up behind whatever phone or iPad they use to record it— even though Profé

takes off 5% of their total project grade if she catches it. And she always does.) Luckily, my group for this one was just as happy as me to get out of the awkward recording process and the even more agonizing experience of watching it on the whiteboard the following day, forced to sit still and confront our stale acting and terrible, underdeveloped accents. “What’d she say?” “She said it’s fine,” I say, climbing into my seat across from Ned and Michelle as Peter sits beside me. “As long as I help her grade the quizzes from her first year class once we finish.” Ned and Michelle let their conversation about Chemistry fizzle out to join ours. “Such a teacher’s pet,” Ned says with a wave of his hand. “Always manipulating the system for your own gain.” I give him a sarcastically sour look. “If you made fewer jokes like that, I could still be grading ours.” Last month, Ned just had to make a comment about me changing his test answers. As much as Profé likes me and would be happy to hire me as a personal assistant, she couldn’t keep handing me my friends’ and classmates’ assignments after he said that in front of everyone, which is fair. Plus, even though I enjoy helping her, it’s nice to have more time to socialize, especially since Ned, Betty, and I sit next to each other. It also helped me feel less guilty, seeing as I had actually done it. “But it wasn’t a joke, right?” Michelle clarifies, reading my mind. “You did change Ned’s answers for him.” Ned sighs, glancing down at his plate to spear a broccoli floret with his fork. “And I should’ve been more grateful, I know.” He looks back up, clearly amused. “But it’s just so funny to freak you out.” “Funny to you, maybe.” Objectively, it was pretty funny. I was walking up to Profé’s desk to hand in the stack of freshly graded tests when he very loudly asked me to change his answers on the next quiz too — which a few people laughed at, assuming it couldn’t be true if he had blurted it out — and it took me so off-guard that I turned and smacked right into someone else’s desk, hard enough it felt like I cracked my hip bone on it, triggering an ill-timed “Jesus!” Immediately, someone called out, “It’s pronounced Hay-soos in this class!” Even I could recognize the humor in it, once the pain had passed a minute later. Profé was still shaking her head in pity as I hobbled over and handed her the papers. Her tone of voice conveyed a sort of disappointment and inconvenience when she said that, well, maybe it’d be better if I didn’t grade this class’s work anymore. “Wait, for real?” Peter asks, brow twisted into a quizzical disbelief. “You’ve never done that for me.” Michelle’s mouth quirks into a (prideful?) smirk. “She’s done it for me.” He looks between the two of us, surprised. “You’re not in my Spanish class, though,” I tell Peter as I open my bag of apples, hoping the meager defense will assuage him. “Neither is Michelle!” “That was for our World History class.” “And AP Psych that one time,” I admit reflexively, remembering. I reach over to her plate and swap a few fries for a slice of apple. “Wow, okay then. I see how it is.” Peter leans back as if against an imaginary wall, squinting at me, eyes glinting with teasing sarcasm. Like I said before, as much as I’m trying to get used to our new dynamics, it’s hard to pretend this playful attitude isn’t incredibly attractive; we’ve always teased each other, but something about the nature of it has shifted. It’s more fun than before. I lick my lips to get rid of the salt from the fries and ignore him. Meanwhile, Michelle takes the apple piece I gave her and holds it like a cigarette. “Not to defend the cheating, lying, and overall academic fraud she’s committed,” she says, “but she was responsible for messing up my World History test right before we took it.” She bites the apple and chews for a moment. “We were quizzing each other on our way in and she said Genghis Khan went— what was it? As far west in Europe as Germany and as far east as Lebanon in the Middle East.” “Instead of Poland and the Levant,” I

repeat, the words having haunted me for weeks afterward, the answer seared into my memory since. “But Poland has been taken over by Germany at different points and it was fragmented when he got there. Plus, Lebanon is in the Levant, so I wasn’t totally wrong.” Michelle makes an “Exactly” gesture with her left hand. “And that’s why she corrected her mistake on my paper.” She notices me about to sneak more fries off her plate and swats my hand away. “And since I didn’t change my own answer,” I say, returning to my own food, “it wasn’t really cheating.” “Ha.” Her laugh is flat, but bright. “Only because you used a pen to take the test and were too scared he’d notice a scratched out answer that wasn’t there before.” Before I can (in bad faith) refute that, Peter interrupts. “Wait, what about the Psych one?” I pause and smile, remembering one of the reasons I love our Psychology teacher. “It was just an extra credit question: ‘Who is my celebrity crush?’ Michelle wrote Antonio Banderas instead of Dwayne Johnson. It was only half a point. Antonio Banderas is her mom’s crush, which she talked about in class a bunch of times, not hers. Easy to mix up.” “And Ned’s Spanish quiz?” Ned coughs on a bite of spaghetti he just took, quickly taking a drink of water to recover. If he’s nervous about me explaining that one, I’m surprised. He and Peter usually tell each other everything, and the truth isn’t really embarrassing anyway. “You wanna cover that one?” I ask him, just in case. “Nah. Go ahead,” he shrugs, unbothered. That’s more normal. A noodle must’ve just gone down the wrong way. “It was a few weeks ago,” I explain, “when we first started making our plans to study for the decathlon, I think? Ned was super stressed with it all and had a bad case of test anxiety. He told me he knew the right answers, he just freaked out in the moment.” Peter’s eyebrows raise and he looks pointedly at Ned, whose lips are twitching. “Ned doesn’t get test anxiety,” he says, staring at him. “I think I remember that, actually. He just didn’t study. He stayed up all night and then freaked out in the morning saying he was gonna fail.” Before I can react, Ned erupts into the same giggles I heard from across the classroom when I smacked into that desk. Michelle’s eyebrows lift, though she seems unsurprised; if anything, her expression is practically a mental handshake of congratulations to Ned for successfully cheating the system. (The system being me.) “Okay, okay!” He puts his hands up to defend himself. “I lied, I know, and that’s bad, it’s a bad thing to do. But my GPA, my chances for college admissions, shouldn’t suffer because I’m bad at conjugating verbs in a third language.” He turns his head toward Peter. “And I did want to study more, but someone convinced me to play video games that night instead.” The attention of the debate swiftly turns away from the ethics of test answer “editing” to which of them is more likely to put video games above school work. As the boys argue, Michelle and I continue eating in relaxed silence. Even though the two of us have been texting and talking less the last couple days now that my conversations with Peter have become more time-consuming, we’ve settled back into our usual, stable friendship without any lingering oddness from the weekend. Thank goodness. My eyes flit to her at the thought, then quickly back to the boys. As they do, a gentle wave of comfort and humming warmth envelopes me. It’s a new sensation, one that’s easy to sink into and strange to explain. (And randomly recurring since Sunday morning.) Although it’s similar to the solace I feel when I appreciate that Michelle (and Ned) won’t be abandoning me anytime soon, like I briefly assumed over the weekend, I’d be lying if I didn’t own up to the fact it’s undeniably reserved for Peter. It’s been happening here and there during the most unexpected moments ever since we apologized to each other that morning. (This back-and-forth debate between him and Ned, which now involves them citing specific dates and exact hours of video game

playing, for example, isn’t exactly heart-warming or intriguing enough that it should warrant this feeling, yet here I am.) At first, I thought the sensation was just the sheer relief of reconciliation after a shitty, hellish night. But now I’m not so sure. It’s complicated, of course, to say the least. After spending so long desperately trying and failing to shove down this crush, my anxiety surrounding Peter and how this all might end, it doesn’t make sense to feel so… normal. The months I spent begging my own brain to avoid thinking about him, only to fail miserably and obsess over how, inevitably, the best outcome could only be private pain while the best bad option, if I was found out, would be a simple unraveling of fragile humiliation that Peter would clumsily (and apologetically) inflict— those months were like being a small pet in a washing machine: drowning, jerked around, disoriented, and in general torment. This crush has been one colossal Sisyphean self-inflicted torture session after the next. And yet, somehow, I’m suddenly alright. The danger has passed and I’m breathing just fine. Sure, I’m still nervous around him more often than not, and flustered, cautious, and even anxious at times, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as before. It’s like most of the frightened, flighty energy this crush has plagued me with since the beginning has transformed into something less excruciating. Something that might border on exciting if I let it. It’s safe, above all else. Infinitely closer to safety than anything I’ve felt before, and certainly a thousand times more stable than that frozen, starless abyss I felt like I was staring into this weekend. To put it simply: my nerves have floated down to a reasonable level. Even if I still feel like I’m walking a tightrope some of the time, the rope is only a foot above soft-grassed ground rather than tied between skyscrapers. And since I’m less busy being worried, I evidently have more time to, as May would say, stay grounded and enjoy the moment. It feels like warm sunshine. That’s it. Safety and warmth. Anyway, suffice it to say that things are good between us. So much so that we’ve barely had a break in conversation since our fight. Between passing notes in the classes we have together, talking during lunch, and the obscene amount of texting we’ve done the last few days, it really does feel like being in a “friendship bootcamp,” like Ned and Michelle keep calling it. Especially because a big portion of our conversations has been Peter asking bizarre, random questions, like my opinion on Harry Houdini or if I know anyone who could get us fake IDs. (Each day I try to answer them as fully as possible with zero context. I gave up asking “Why?” and “What for?” early on; he would just text back things like, “wouldn’t you like to know, weatherboy?” or “you’ll find out later” or “I’m writing a memoir about you, duh.”) If it were anyone else, the sheer frequency of such vague texts might’ve aggravated me; instead, I found myself stifling laughter in bed until three in the morning Monday night, then 1 a.m. last ni— this morning. Peter and I have always enjoyed antagonizing Ned and Michelle on our own, so much so that, comparatively, we’ve always tended to be more civil (if not distant) to each other than either of them. Without the filter of them between us, our texting quickly became a tug-of-war of jokes, insults, and other teasing. In fact— “Hello? You there?” Peter’s waving his hand in front of my face. “You didn’t answer my other question.” I shake myself out of the mental hole I’ve been falling through the last few minutes and apologize for zoning out, only now realizing that Michelle and Ned have moved on to a discussion on the Spanish colonization of the Philippines and consequent linguistic history between Tagalog, Filipino, and Spanish. “Peter,” I say after a short yawn. “I think you’ve set a record for how many questions a person can ask in a day. Which one are you referring to?” I start to pull my phone out of my pocket to check my texts from him,

wondering what might’ve gotten lost in the waterfall of messages we’ve sent to each other lately. But he puts his index finger on the table, or rather, on the empty plastic bag that used to contain the apple Michelle and I finished a minute ago. “Where’s the rest of your food?” he specifies. “You and Michelle aren’t on any hunger strikes I don’t know about, right?” I roll my eyes. “I’ve been eating all morning, actually,” I say, returning his sarcasm. “A bunch of my favorite snacks somehow showed up in my locker. Weird, right?” “Super weird,” he says, nodding. “How’d someone get into your locker?” I pause. “That’s a good question. How did you get into it?” He grins. “Same way you got into mine on Friday.” He tips his head towards Michelle. “One of our friends pays way more attention to detail than anyone on the planet, and knows all of our codes.” Without breaking her eye contact with Ned, Michelle sticks her hand directly in front of Peter’s face. “Don’t bring me into whatever you guys are doing.” After a flash of middle finger, she puts her hand back down on the table and goes back to telling Ned off. “Really though,” I say, meeting his eyes again. “Thank you for all of it. It was nice to have a break from school food. Even if the sugar is going to make me crash sooner or later.” Preferably in sixth hour. It’s easy to get away with taking a nap in film class, as long as you can keep your head propped up on your hand. His ears twitch as he smiles. “I told you, I really want to make up for… well, everything.” “And I told you—” “That I don’t need to give you presents for that to happen.” “Exactly.” “So, you didn’t like the pens today?” Pens? “What are you talking about?” “I put some new pens in your backpack. You know, since you used up a bunch of yours taking notes during our decathlon study sessions.” That's true. In retrospect, I was more upset about them running out of ink than I ended up being about missing the actual competition. “Oh, I never saw them. I haven’t looked in my bag since first hour.” I wonder if…. “But, to be honest, I’m kind of particular about my writing instruments, so—” “They better be the Pilot G2 multi-color pack?” Wow. That is surprising. It must show on my face. His smile widens and he pulls his shoulders back. “Yes, actually.” I sit up a bit straighter. “You get that from Michelle too?” “Nope.” He shakes his head. “You left one at my apartment. Dark green. It’s also in your bag.” My heart rate jumps and I hate the fact that it’s over nice pens. Or maybe it’s the thought he put into it. It’s a perfect gift. Useful and, in a way, personal. The only other person who would think of it would be Michelle. She’s the only one who pays that much attention to me. “Alright then.” I try to keep my voice level, to not give away what I’m thinking or how happy I am that I can go back to color-coding my notes like usual. “That’s impressive, I’ll admit.” My chest aches, and I’m not totally sure why. “But,” I say carefully, “as much as I do appreciate it, there’s really no need for anything else.” “Oh really?” He leans forward, putting an elbow to the table, head resting against his hand. “Because I feel like you wouldn’t say that if you knew what I had planned for Friday.” I know it’s bait, that it’s meant to distract me from refusing his future gifts. But I can’t help it. “Tell me,” I demand. He pulls backward and, grinning, shakes his head so rapidly it messes up his hair. “It’s a surprise. I can’t.” It only takes me mentioning that, given how many wild questions he’s sent my way the last few days, I deserve one hint, minimum, for Ned and Michelle to notice and jump into our conversation. Ned offers to tell me about the Friday “event”— the one-word little slip up alone offending Peter more than the whole video game argument. “No, no, no, no!” Peter practically shouts. “Guys, I will kill you! Ned, I’ll tell Jason about how you’re planning to fight him, and MJ— I’ll, I swear, if you say anything, I-I’ll, I will—” “Yeah, you’ve got nothing on me, dude.” she says,

unimpressed, looking him up and down. “But, I’ll play nice this one time.” She looks at me, left eyebrow slightly raised with a clear message: There’s reason for concern. You’ll want to get it out of him as soon as possible. “So, Ned, when’s this fight happening?” We all turn to look at him, Michelle and I particularly curious about that piece of information. “Obviously it’s not,” he says, exasperated. “I’m just trying to figure out how to help a friend he’s been messing with.” “A miss Betty Brant, right?” As Michelle starts a rapid-fire interrogation into Ned and Betty’s beef with Jason, I turn my body and attention towards Peter once more. “You have to give me hints,” I say. “I’d like three, along with unlimited guesses.” He takes a deep breath, eyes searching mine carefully. “Alright, I’ll give hints,” he concedes. “But only two.” That’s better than I expected. “Two,” I agree. “But then you have to tell me tomorrow morning no matter what.” He extends a hand to shake, a smile perking back up. “That seems fair, since you’ll never guess.” I’m more than familiar with uncertainty when it comes to you, I think as that safe, sunny feeling settles over me again. I’ll manage just fine.

Next chapter

Author's note: Apologies for the very long filler chapter. Honestly, this is one of my least favorite chapters I've written and I'd hoped to fix it up a lot more before posting (I was planning a total rewrite tbh), but I figured it'd be better to stay on track with the weekly updating than push it back. Thanks for sticking with it!

Tag List: If you’d like to be tagged, send me a(n) ask/message or reply to this post.

*Notice: If you reply, I may not respond back; if you need/want confirmation, send me an ask/message instead :) Tag list: @qu3en-of-letters @brightcolorsoffendme @enoumen-t @wowieok @dottirose @moonofmy-life @ashleyhearto @a-typical-antisocial-fangirl @carrotsunshine @fangirldreamsandstuff @fandoms-stuff @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @jellzu @aussie-mantle @dude-whatawave @me-a-hopeless-romantic @susurrantsoul @kawaii-girl-101 @lxstneverfound @ukulele-tea-and-ocean @tepidtrash @emilymarie0422 @styles-bucks @tr1chst3r @shortstack-ofpancakes @lesdragly @peterparkerr @reanne @kateelyse96 @le-yona @madasameg @lowkeyfriggason @aelinashryv @arya-and-sansa @ajkenwo @idk123906 @scarz-xo @whenthe-smokeisinyoureyes @wist-elia @sftpjmn @comicglamour96 @thingfromlove @hannahrose130 @desteweirdo

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker x you #peter parker #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland x you #tom holland fic

34 notes · View notes

quokkacore · 3 years

Text

with great power I [lee jeno]

summary: there are two things jeno loves most about his life. one being spiderman, the other being you, his best friend. there’s just one issue: after your father’s death, you decide you hate both spiderman and yourself.

pairing: lee jeno x reader

genre: superhero au, high school au, coming of age, best friends to strangers(ish) to lovers, fluff, ANGST, minor crack

warnings (for this chapter): language, violence, gun violence, the mafia, parental death, police presence, sexual references, bullying (ily san im sorry), the dreamies being dicks to each other, police corruption, towards the end jeno experiences something similar to sensory overload, americanized names, pop culture references, VERY jeno centric

song rec: we go up - nct dream // any song - zico // 21 questions - waterparks // talk (remix feat. megan thee stallion & yo gotti) - khalid // sunrise - ateez // i really like you - carly rae jepsen // dare - gorillaz // stray kids - the tortoise and the hare

word count: 10.5k

a/n: this is so late...... i blame attack on titan. but hey!! better late than never :] a huge thanks to @doderyscoffee for beta reading <3

main masterlist // story masterlist

chapter one: jeno and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week

Jeno despised Tuesdays. He was pretty sure that Tuesdays despised Jeno as well because all of his worst days just so happen to be Tuesdays. He was 96% sure that, if there was a god, his day off was on Tuesdays, or that the planets aligned in such a manner on Tuesdays that it caused universal despair and misery. If he was to take Donghyuck's word for it, his chakra attracted negative energy the most on Tuesdays.

When Jeno was 5, his goldfish Pippin had died on a Tuesday. When he had his ass handed to him on the playground by San Choi in the third grade, it was a Tuesday. And in the seventh grade, he'd failed his Spanish test, missed his bus and walked home in the rain only to find out that his Aunt Sunny was at work, he'd left his keys in his locker and that had to wait an hour before she got home to unlock it for him, all on a Tuesday.

And wouldn't you know it, here he was, late for the first day of senior year, which was, of all days, a godforsaken Tuesday.

In his eternal wisdom, he'd stayed up gaming with Renjun until two in the morning, and because of it, slept through his three alarms, one set at six-thirty, the other at 6:45, the last one at 7:00.

He'd woken up at 7:17, to the sound of his elderly neighbor's pet chihuahua barking at a pigeon, checked the time, immediately panicked, sped into the shower, gotten dressed in a haste, grabbed a few granola bars from the pantry, and ran out the door while trying to jam his backpack closed, and managed to catch the train at 7:40, which took about twenty minutes to get to his stop, plus a ten-minute walk to school, and class started at 8:10. Not to mention he’d have to stop by the office and pick up his schedule. At best, he’d be five minutes late to his first class. But tardies were tardies, regardless, and the last thing he needed was to lose his perfect attendance streak.

He fished out his phone while standing on the train, waiting for his stop, scrolling through Instagram, and liking random pictures. A ping! from his phone caught his attention, then two, then a third. He smiled softly when your name popped up on his screen.

[7:48 AM]

y/n: pssst

y/n: shithead

y/n: where r u ????

[7:49 AM]

y/n: i can sEE u online on ig u know

jeno: …… i'm on the train

jeno: woke up late

y/n: YOURE GONNA BE LATR

y/n: LATE*

y/n: ON THE FIRST DAY OF SENIOR YEAR

[7:50]

jeno: probably, yeah

jeno: it's the school district's fault, why would they make the first day of school on a fkn TUESDAY

y/n: ohhh yeahh its terrible tuesday

y/n: [sent an attachment!]

[7:51 AM]

jeno: SHUT UP

jeno: you're not funny >:(

jeno: how dare you laugh at my misfortune

y/n: au contraire im hilarious

jeno: meanie :(

jeno: im gonna be late i hate it here

jeno: it'll end up on my permanent record and i'm not gonna get into college and then i'm gonna die,,,

[7:52 AM]

y/n: sometimes ur worse than hyuck i swear

y/n: FIRST OF ALL permanent records dont even exist !!!!!! its propaganda duh

y/n: also ur literally never late

y/n: im sure o n e tardy wont do anything chill

y/n: dont be stupid youll be fine

Don’t be stupid. Too little, too late, he thought, already having got off the train at a previous stop. Now, he was looking for an unoccupied street or alleyway, which, for once, was easy, taking a deep breath before he did the exact opposite of what you’d told him not to do. Don’t be stupid.

The buildings are low, he thought to himself, it’ll be easier to see me.

Don’t be stupid.

Too late!

Thwip!

Jeno didn’t hesitate to use the web fluid to pull himself up onto the wall, climbing in a haste, before running and jumping onto the next building. He quickly built up a quick pace, using the web fluid occasionally to swing onto a building slightly out of jumping range.

Signs in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish flew past him as he seemingly flew over the Queens traffic, leaving Flushing behind and crossing quickly into College Point quicker than he would if he took the train. He glanced to his left and caught a view of the bay, and far across it, the LaGuardia airport watchtower.

Jeno had lived in New York City his entire life. He knew Queens like the back of his hand, knew every dingy alleyway, every sketchy street, which restaurants to avoid if you didn’t want to get food poisoning, which convenience store aunties were the nicest and didn’t pinch his cheeks too hard. It was his home, and most likely would be for the rest of his life.

But seeing it like this, flying past him below as he glided with ease from building to building would never cease to be a sight to him. It was like watching from the perspective of an outsider, seeing people in their cars, walking along the street gave him a brand new perspective. A Jeno’s eye view, he called it, since he was pretty sure he was the only one in New York City.

Another noise from his phone brought him back to reality. He shook his head, stopping briefly to catch his breath and fish out his phone briefly.

[7:57 AM]

y/n: let me know when u get here !!!

No time to respond, he put away the phone and continued his trek to school. He had less than ten minutes to get there. But he knew he was already at least five minutes away, much quicker than he would be if he had decided to stick to the train. He smiled a bit to himself, feeling ever so slightly smug.

The hustle and bustle of the city definitely proved challenging to find a place to land without many eyes, but he figured it out eventually, landing behind a dumpster in an alleyway behind a restaurant that he knew was about three or four blocks from the school. He figured it would be a lot better to take it on foot from here. The notebooks he was carrying in his backpack bounced up and down with every step he took.

After what seemed like forever, the gates to the school appeared in his view, and Jeno felt a joy in his heaving chest, something he would have never thought would happen upon seeing the absolute hellhole that was Samuel Morse High School.

[8:06 AM]

jeno: just did >:D

Picking up his schedule was both quick and insanely long. He couldn’t stop himself from tapping his left foot while the secretary found his schedule and handed it to him. “Kibum, please hurry,” He muttered, and Kibum raised an eyebrow at him, but his gaze was teasing. “That’s Mr. Kim to you, in school at least.”

He handed Jeno his schedule a few seconds later. “Tell your Aunt to come pick up her casserole dish, by the way. She left it at my house after my last viewing party.”

“The Bachelor?”

“Please. We’re too classy for that. Drag Race.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Jeno,” Kibum said, staring up at him from his desk, his gaze now much more serious, “Get to class. Happy first day of senior year.”

“Thanks, Mr. Kim.”

He managed to make it to chemistry class at 8:09 with seconds to spare. His eyes quickly scanned the room upon entering, hoping his friends were in the class with him. He caught a few familiar faces, most of which, like San Choi's, he wished to avoid. No one paid him any mind. Everyone was still speaking to the people next to them, no doubt exchanging stories of summer vacation.

A hand shot up towards the back, waving at him. A smile stretched across his face as he registered your face, feet not hesitating to carry him towards the empty seat next to you. His heart skipped a beat at seeing your smile, and he tried his best to ignore it.

“Hey,” You greeted, “That was fast. I thought you said you were gonna be late.”

Jeno shrugged, eyes landing on the dark shade of the lab table. “The train was a lot faster than I expected, apparently.”

You wrinkled your nose. “Why do you smell so bad?”

“I, uh… ran a little.”

You grimaced, and Jeno tried to casually sniff at his slightly sweaty clothes. It’s not that bad. “I still don’t understand why you won’t let me drive you to school. You’re literally next door.”

“I don’t know,” He answered, rolling his eyes, “Maybe it’s because when it comes to that truck, you are absolutely insane. You won’t even let me drink water in that thing.”

The truck in question, a faded red 1998 Chevrolet S-10, had been your gift to yourself for your 17th birthday. You’d spent two summers saving up to buy yourself a truck, and that was what you were able to get for what you had. To say it was a huge piece of junk on wheels was an understatement.

The thing smelled like mothballs no matter how many air fresheners you bought it, the engine sounded like an old man having a coughing fit, and there was a very suspicious stain in the backseat that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times you scrubbed it. But for some reason, you treated it like it was your own baby. The amount of times you’d yelled at Jaemin for trying to put his feet on the dashboard was too high to count.

You mirrored his movement, eyes rolling as you sighed. “At least let me drive you home after school today. Maybe you can stay and we can finally watch Blade Runner.”

You’d been trying to get him to watch the film for almost a month now, begging and pleading because you insisted that he’d love it. He offered an awkward stare, before opening his backpack and pulling out a notebook. “Can’t,” He mumbled, “I’m headed into Manhattan. I have my internship afterwards.”

“Oh, yeah,” You said nonchalantly, eyebrows shooting up as you remembered, “Park Industries.”

He was about to reply when Mrs. Baker, the chemistry teacher, finally entered. She’d been working at SMHS for 30 years and had never, apparently, been nice, if his Aunt Sunny’s stories were anything to go by. However, she had apparently always spoken as if she smoked two packs a day. She was rambling about the importance of making the most of senior year academically, adult responsibilities, college, and whatnot. You and Jeno exchanged glances often throughout the monologue, hoping it would end soon.

“Enough of that,” She said after what seemed like an eternity, “Everyone quiet down, I’m going to call roll.”

Names were quickly called, and Jeno was ready to pull out a pencil and start working with you until Mrs Baker demanded a switch in seats, beginning to call on random names in an effort to deter everyone from speaking.

"Please not with Choi, please not with Choi," Jeno muttered under his breath, glancing warily at San, who was staring ahead, looking bored.

San had had it out for Jeno ever since day one, in first grade. For some reason, everything Jeno did seemed to annoy the other boy. He wasn't funny enough, or too nerdy, or too quiet. Jeno was always too much or too little for him.

You touched his forearm, and he looked towards you.

“You’ll be fine,” You said softly, trying not to alert the teacher, “You’re not gonna get paired up with him, and you can take it to the office if you need to.” “Yeah, because I’m sure Coach Peralta would be thrilled if someone tried to get his precious midfielder in trouble.”

“Choi, San,” Mrs Baker’s voice rang throughout the room, and Jeno braced himself for the worst, eyebrows furrowing with worry.

“You’ll be sitting with… L/N, Y/N.”

Jeno’s shoulders slumped, but your face remained impassive. You picked up your stuff, and pouted silently at Jeno in apology, before making your way to the front.

“Lee, Jeno,” Mrs Baker called a few minutes later, “You’ll be sitting with Jang, Yeeun.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief. Yeeun is nice, Jeno thought to himself, I could sit with Yeeun. She wasn’t part of his main friend group, but he had tutored her in math during sophomore year in exchange for her helping him with Spanish, and they’d been pretty friendly ever since.

“Hey,” Yeeun greeted as Jeno sat down, and Jeno smiled at her.

“Remember, these will be your assigned lab partners for the rest of the semester. No changes, no exceptions.” Mrs. Baker sat down at her desk, before beginning to talk about something Jeno didn’t really pay attention to.

You exchanged glances with Jeno, and he gave you a look of sympathy as you gestured at San with your eyes. San was talking to you about something—probably bragging about some soccer achievement—but you weren’t paying him much attention. Jeno swallowed something growing in his throat as he looked at how your hair looked today.

It was nothing relatively new, the same hairstyle you used on most days. But still, there was a bit of a shine to it. He wondered vaguely if you had changed your shampoo, the other day you’d been complaining about how itchy your normal shampoo made your scalp—

“You still haven’t told her about how you feel?” Yeeun asked quietly, and Jeno’s head snapped back to look at her, eyes wide.

“W-what? Me. Like Y/N…” He laughed nervously, trying to keep his voice down. He scratched the back of his head, avoiding Yeeun’s accusatory stare. “You’re hilarious, Yeeun. Tell another one.”

Yeeun shook her head. “You’d better hurry before someone else snatches her up, Jen. She’s not gonna wait around for you forever.”

“I don’t like her, Yeeun.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Hey! Jeno Lee!”

“Hey! Jaemin Na! What do you want!” Jeno answered as he sat down, mimicking Jaemin’s tone next to him.

“Well, for starters, a million dollars, and second, a date with Yiren Wang, but I doubt you can help me with either of those, so...”

Jeno glanced at the rest of the table. Along with Jaemin, Mark, Renjun, Donghyuck, and you were watching the interaction between the pair. “Where are the munchkins?” Jeno asked, noticing Chenle and Jisung’s absence. No one could really call them munchkins anymore. That nickname dated back to middle school, before the two underclassmen had gone through growth spurts.

“Eh, they should be here soon,” Renjun said, chewing on a french fry, “How’s your day been?”

“Pretty good so far, I guess. I got AP Calc with Mr. Washington later, though. That man wants me dead.”

You rolled your eyes. “He doesn’t want you dead. I’m telling you, you and Hyuck have been spending way too much time together. You’re being more dramatic than usual and Hyuck’s being more… weird than usual.”

“And just what is so weird about being enthusiastic about senior year, Y/N?” Donghyuck asked, shaking his head, “It’s our last year in this hellhole, I’m excited that we’re finally getting out of here. And besides—”

“Please don’t bring up the fact that you’re abandoning us next year.” Chenle seemingly appeared out of nowhere, sitting next to Renjun, Jisung following quickly behind him.

“Hi, Sungie,” You said with a smile, and Jisung smiled back. “Hi, Y/N.”

“What were you saying, Hyuck?” Jaemin looked at Donghyuck, who had taken the quick interaction as an opportunity to take a bite of his sandwich. His wide eyes darted to the slim boy, cheeks stuffed with chicken.

“Oh,” He replied after swallowing, “This is gonna be my year. I’m getting male lead for the winter musical and no one is gonna stop me.”

“Do you even know what musical you guys are doing yet?” Mark asked, “What if it’s like… Shrek?”

Jisung made a face. “There’s a Shrek musical?”

Mark nodded, and Renjun laughed.

“I don’t know about male lead, if it’s Shrek. You should try out for Donkey,” The Chinese boy joked, “With those front teeth, you’re a shoo-in.”

The entire table was silent for a moment, before snorts and chortles started pouring out from everyone except Donghyuck.

“Fuck you, Huang.”

Renjun flashed the friendliest smile he could muster. “Not if you paid me a million dollars.”

The subject remained on extracurriculars, everyone in your group except for Chenle and Jisung now wary of college applications. Donghyuck had been in theater ever since middle school, Renjun was in the robotics club and the debate team with Jaemin, who was also in the student council. Mark was on the math team with Jeno, and you had founded the film club.

"You're not gonna believe who asked to sign up for film," You huffed, looking kind of confused. The rest of the table looked at you expectantly, and you pursed your lips, almost as if you were trying not to laugh.

"San Choi."

Renjun scoffed. Jaemin raised his eyebrows before letting out a single, humorless laugh. Jeno made a face, poking his plastic fork at you.

"What is San Choi doing asking to sign up for film?"

"Fuck if I know. He said he needed one more extracurricular if he wanted to get into some college in Florida and he liked going to the movies, so he wanted to try out film."

Mark rolled his eyes. "I swear there's nothing in that guy's head but hot gas. It blows my mind."

"He's a dick," Chenle grumbled, "I'm still not over how he and Wooyoung taped Jisung to the flagpole last year."

Jisung scowled. "I thought we agreed to never bring that up again."

“Do you think they’ll finally calm the fuck down this year?” Jaemin wondered, looking wistful.

You took a sip of your coke and shook your head. “Doubt it. They’re not the hateful eight for a reason.”

The mood at the table turned tense, until Jaemin frowned at his french fries, before sighing and clapping his hands together dramatically. “I would like to hear,” He mused, “About the nuance that theatre gives the cinematic masterpiece that is Shrek when converted into musical form.”

Donghyuck beamed. “Oh, it’s amazing. You see…”

If it was difficult to get Donghyuck to stop talking in general, it was impossible when it was about theater.

The conversation continued on until the bell rang, and the eight of you had to go your separate ways. Jaemin and Jeno had the same class, so they both walked together down a relatively calm hallway. Jaemin looked both ways, before finally lowering his voice.

“So, you’re going to see Mr. Park today?”

Jeno nodded, looking down at his shoes. “He said he wanted to give me an assignment. Says there’s something big going on.”

Jaemin’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “Did he say what kind of something?”

Jeno shook his head, pouting slightly. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Once school was out, Jeno was getting ready to get onto the subway once again, this time heading towards Midtown. It was only day one and, as Jeno had predicted, Mr. Washington probably was out to get him, because he’d swamped the class with homework.

As he left the school, he spotted you in the parking lot, leaning against your car door, texting someone. He glanced at his phone. He still had plenty of time, he figured. He walked over to you, and when you looked up, you smiled.

“Hey!” Your voice had that signature tone of enthusiasm to it, and Jeno smiled back immediately.

“Hello,” He sing-songed. “So, I was thinking… are you free on Friday night?”

You looked somewhere above his head, furrowing your eyebrows before you perked up again and nodded. “Yep! Why?”

“I’m free after nine. Maybe then I could come over to your house? So I can finally get you to stop harassing me about Blade Runner.”

You grinned, pumping your fists enthusiastically. “Hell yes,” You answered, “Do you want me to get like, some frozen pizzas or something?”

“Pizza sounds good,” He said. “Who are you even waiting for?”

You made a face that made it seem as if you’d just gotten a whiff of rotten milk. “Well—”

Your response was interrupted when the school doors slammed open, and eight figures poured out, carrying themselves with confidence Jeno both envied and despised. He frowned, trying not to react at their loud whooping and laughing. The Hateful Eight.

“Oh.” Jeno averted his gaze, meeting your eyes again.

“Yeah. If you don’t hear from me later it’s because I jumped out of my truck because I don’t wanna work with—”

“Well, hello, gorgeous!” San’s voice filled the parking lot, and Jeno took a deep breath. Your mouth stretched into a tight-lipped smile at the unwanted ‘compliment’.

“Hey, San.” Your friendly passive aggressive tone almost made Jeno smile. “I’ve been waiting here for like, fifteen minutes. You could have just given me your number and asked me to send you pictures of my notes, you know.”

He shrugged, turning his body so that his back was turned to Jeno. “Sorry, babe. Coach wanted to talk to us about the upcoming season. When he gets going, it’s hard to get him to stop. And besides, where’s the fun in just asking for pictures when I could come here, talk to you, and take the pictures myself?”

You didn’t respond, but rather pulled out your backpack and began digging through it. When you pulled out your notebook, you handed it to San, who flashed a wink at you. You barely held back a gag.

“Thanks, Y/N. I’ll just be a minute.”

He walked over to the hood of your truck, and just as you were about to continue your conversation, two figures slung their arms around both of Jeno’s shoulders, causing him to flinch.

Out of the fifteen soccer players on the team, San and his best friends—seven of them, to be precise—were the worst. The others were pretty nice. But right now, seeing two of those seven surround your best friend made you uneasy.

Wooyoung was loud. He was also a temperamental brat. His dad owned three used car dealerships over in Brooklyn, so naturally, he thought he owned the entire world. He wasn’t someone who would get too physical in fights, like San, or Jongho, or Yeosang. But when he was angry, he could easily get you to jump into the stratosphere by yelling at you once. Over the years, he’d made several teaching assistants and substitute teachers cry, only getting let off with a slap on the wrist every time.

Yunho was terrifying for completely different reasons. He was friendly, but a little too friendly to the people he wanted to control. He could read people like books and could easily manipulate whoever he wanted. But he wasn’t afraid of getting physical either, especially not when he was built like a goddamn Power Rangers Megazord.

All in all, they definitely weren't anyone you wanted near you, near your friends. Especially considering how much they had it out for your friends.

"Hey, buddy," Yunho said, looking down at Jeno with a wide smile. "How was summer vacation?"

Jeno gnawed on the side of his cheek as he considered his answer. "Um, it was okay." He looked at you to catch your eyes darting between San, Yunho and Wooyoung, like you were analyzing the situation. "I kinda stayed in and played video games most of the t—"

"Cool, cool," Yunho answered, carding his free hand through his bleach blond hair. "What about you, Woo?"

"Oh, dude, it was so cool," He bragged, "I went to Brazil for like, a month. I went clubbing with Instagram models and shit, it was wild."

You stared at him as he patted Jeno on the back rather aggressively. "Where did you go? Have you ever even left New York?"

You knew the answer. Only a few times when the debate team went to compete in different states. Jeno spoke up again. "Well, yeah a few t—"

"Doubt it," Yunho scoffed. He craned his head back. "San, you done yet?"

"Almost!" San answered. Yunho turned to face you, and for some reason his smile seemed genuinely kind. “What about you, Y/N?”

You never understood why it was that the soccer team hated your entire friend group, but seemed to tolerate you. It made no sense.

So you shrugged. “Not a lot, I guess. Did my summer reading. Hung out with my friends.” You flashed a reassuring smile at Jeno. “Right, Jen?”

Immediately, he relaxed a little bit. “Yeah.”

San appeared from behind Yunho, Jeno and Wooyoung. “Thanks, Y/N. I owe you one.”

You waved your hand, wanting them to get rid of them quickly. “Don’t mention it. But next time, just text me for my notes. I have to get to work, so…”

“Oh! My bad,” He answered with fake remorse, before unlocking his phone and handing it over to you. “Here. For next time.”

You stifled a deep sigh, punching in the numbers hesitantly. “Just for homework, got it?”

San took his phone back, holding a hand over his heart and raised his head. “On a gentleman's honor,” He declared, and you bit back a laugh. Jeno looked like he was going to hurl.

“San!” The team captain—Hongjoong—called from a few feet away, “Are you guys done yet or what?”

“Coming!” San yelled back.

“Alright, we’ll let you go,” Wooyoung said, patting Jeno on the back again, a bit too harsh for comfort. “Bye, Y/N! See you around.”

The three of them stalked off, leaving you and a very frazzled Jeno. “Dicks,” You muttered once they were out of earshot. “You good?”

Jeno shook his head, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine.”

You tilted your head, frowning. “Jeno—”

“I gotta go,” He said quickly. “I’ll see you later?”

You nodded, offering a lopsided smile. “Yeah. Be careful!”

Jeno offered a deep bow, fluttering his eyelashes. “On a gentleman’s honor,” He sighed, adding a very bad British accent to it. You burst out laughing, eyes squeezing shut.

You didn’t catch the way Jeno’s shoulders relaxed at the sound.

I want you to know now

Baby, it could go down

I don’t wanna talk about it

Baby, let’s just go now

The train ride into Midtown didn’t take too long. He spent it digging through his backpack for his Park Industries lanyard, listening to music and thinking about you.

When you talk right to me

You gon’ have to do me

Every time you think you’re leaving

You running back to me

You’d met Jeno when you were six. Truth be told, he didn’t really remember. For him it was like you weren’t there at one point and by the time you were, you were thicker than thieves. It was a difficult time for him. He had just lost both of his parents, and was moving in with his Aunt Sunny and his Uncle Jinki, who were barely out of college at the time. He’d had to move to a new school and basically restart his entire life. You were the first sense of stability in his life for months.

Your mom lived next to his aunt and uncle. So naturally, you went to the same school and went on the same bus. And somewhere along the way, you two clicked. You’d introduced him to Renjun, Jaemin and Donghyuck. You were there to comfort him whenever he got pushed off the slide by San or Wooyoung.

He was there for you when your stepdad and stepbrother moved in when you were nine and you weren’t sure how to deal with it. He was there when your mom died when you were thirteen. He’d introduced you and your friends to Mark, Chenle and Jisung.

And you were there when his Uncle Jinki got killed when he was fifteen. And because fate had an especially cruel sense of irony, it had happened on a Tuesday. You didn’t know, but at the time, he had just gotten his powers. Your comfort and words unknowingly had a secondary effect: he made the decision to use them for good, and… well. The rest was history.

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Talk about where we're goin'

Before we get lost, lend me your thoughts

Can't get what we want without knowin'

Just like when he met you, he didn’t recall an exact moment where he realized he’d fallen in love with you. He knew there was a world where he loved you, but wasn’t in love with you. And he knew that there was a world here he’d fallen in love with you—he was living in that world now. He realized he was living in that world maybe when he was sixteen, and had been stuck in it ever since.

You were it for him. He’d had crushes before. But never something like this, where he was so aware of your presence around him. It wasn’t the way he was hyper aware of someone like San, or like Yunho or Jongho. It wasn’t out of anxiety or fear, where a shift in mood activated his fight or flight. He was aware of you in a way that only people who truly know each other do, where he could pick up on subtle changes in your behavior, but not out of fear. Rather, out of a desire to take care of you and to not have you worry about anything.

I've never felt like this before

I apologize if I'm movin' too far

Can we just talk? Can we just talk?

Figure out where we're goin'...

As the train rolled into the station that was a fifteen minute walk from Park Tower, Jeno put away his headphones and took a deep breath.

The “Jeno Tingle” as his Aunt Sunny called it—Jeno hated the term—had taken him a few years to gain control of. And while he could never truly turn it off, he could at least tune it out enough to be more at ease. The only time he did so was at school or when he was studying, just because he wanted to feel normal, and because being aware of everything going on around him really messed with his concentration.

Jaemin didn’t understand. “If I was able to tell whenever Seonghwa was behind me because he wanted to scare me into doing his chemistry homework, I’d never turn that shit off,” He’d said once. But truthfully, Jeno didn’t really care. Because while yes, he was still slightly scared of the “hateful eight”, he knew damn well that if things got to be too much, he could kick their asses if he wanted to.

It was his friends he worried about. He couldn’t be around them 24/7. You, not so much. He knew you knew how to fight. Even worse, he knew that San had the hots for you so you were off limits to the rest of them, be it bullying or flirting. But for everyone else… Well. He couldn’t hover over them like some guardian angel.

Now that the “Jeno Tingle” was on, it allowed him to sense everyone within a certain range around him. He could zero in on certain sounds with ease, and his reflexes became heightened. Halfway on his walk up Park Avenue, he jumped away from a chihuahua on its leash a second before it started barking at him.

When he entered the first floor lobby of the Park Building, he scoured the crowd of employees and visitors until he landed on one familiar face.

He'd met Doyoung about a year after his dad started dating your mom. Things between your parents were starting to get serious, and Doyoung was four years older than you were. When they moved into your house, Doyoung as your new stepbrother became the de facto chaperone and babysitter. If you wanted to go to the mall with Jeno, he had to take you. Every time you dragged Jeno to the movies, Doyoung had to go also.

To an extent, it wasn't that bad. Doyoung was cool, and he was smart—he was the one who got Jeno interested in computers and chemistry. He graduated high school at 16, and finished his bachelor's degree at 19. He'd also interned at Park Industries, and secured a job there almost immediately after college.

To an extent, he was the whole reason Mr. Park knew who he was, because of one incident. It was relatively soon after he started the whole vigilante thing. Jeno, still figuring out how to maneuver on the webs that shot out of his wrists, had accidentally crashed into your backyard late at night, when only Doyoung was awake. He was standing in the back door while he was waiting for his dog to finish peeing.

Initially, the older boy had freaked out, thinking that it was a burglar or something. When he yelled out that his dad was a cop and was asleep in the house, Jeno panicked, and pulled off his mask, holding up his hands.

“Woah, woahwoahwoah! Doyoung! It’s me, it’s me!”

Doyoung’s eyes had widened to the size of saucers, paying no mind to the dog as it sauntered up to Jeno, before turning onto its back in a request for belly rubs.

"You're the spider guy everyone's been talking about!?"

"Spider man," Jeno had answered, voice cracking as he dusted himself off. He cringed at the sound of his voice. "...and yes."

Of course, his cover was blown, and he'd begged Doyoung not to tell anyone, especially not you. And while Doyoung had promised not to tell you, it didn't stop him from telling his boss.

That had been almost three years ago now. The rest was history, and after that Jeno didn’t have to run around in bright red sweatpants and dollar store swimming goggles. Now, he had a nanotech suit that allowed him to activate protocols of the suit through voice commands using something top-secret Mr. Park called D.R.E.A.M technology. Direct Response Engaged As Machine—yeah, Jeno didn’t get it either.

Doyoung offered Jeno a smile as he escorted Jeno past security, showing them his employee clearance pass. "Hey. How have you been?"

Jeno shrugged, recounting his day in minor detail as he was led into an elevator labeled authorized personnel only.

This elevator only went up to the 35th floor, seeing as everything past that was only cleared for a certain list of people approved by Mr. Park and his security team, and everything past the 90th floor were Mr. Park's private living quarters.

Now, as Doyoung led him to another elevator to head up to the 85th floor, which was always where Jeno got to meet with Mr. Park—which wasn't often, maybe once or twice a year—he wondered where he would be if he hadn’t surprised Doyoung that night. He would probably still be using those ugly red sweatpants as part of his disguise.

"How's Y/N?" Doyoung asked.

"Oh, she seems okay. That guy who hates me keeps coming onto her though. He's a huge douchebag."

Doyoung frowned. "He's not harassing her, is he? Because if he is—"

"He just won't stop flirting, even though she clearly isn't interested," Jeno said bitterly, "He isn't physical or anything. Trust me, it wouldn't end well for him if he was."

Doyoung wasn't quite sure how to respond to the younger boy's dark tone. He looked down, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“So… how’s the apartment?” Jeno asked. Doyoung perked up instantly.

“Oh, now that Taeyong’s moved in and did his interior design thing, it looks great. He’s really done a great job at it.”

“When am I gonna meet this guy? He sounds cool.”

“He’s really cool,” Doyoung hummed, cheeks heating up. “Things are getting really serious.”

Jeno smiled at how flustered Doyoung, who was normally so level headed and calm, became at the mention of his boyfriend.

“You guys sound like a really good couple,” He said. Doyoung chuckled, waving his hand. “Oh, well—”

The elevator dinged, and Doyoung sighed. “I’ll tell you later. C’mon.”

The hallway it opened up to was lined with pictures of the company's history, starting from pictures of black and white of people in vintage clothing, to pictures in sepia tones to finally pictures of the current CEO at locations around the world: Chanyeol Park.

Jeno walked behind Doyoung as he led him down the hallway, before stopping in front of a door, and a friendly looking man in a suit.

Junmyeon was a part of Chanyeol’s Security and Intelligence team, and often sat in on these meetings with Jeno. The chain of contact also included him. If Jeno couldn’t contact Doyoung (which rarely happened), he’d contact Junmyeon. And if he couldn’t contact either of them, or it was an emergency, only then could he contact Chanyeol. So far, that had only happened once.

"Hey, Junmyeon," Doyoung said, "Mr. Park's 4:30 is here."

Junmyeon nodded, before smiling at Jeno and giving him a wave. "Hey, kid."

Jeno offered an awkward grin. "Hi, Mr. Kim."

Junmyeon rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Kid, you're making me feel ancient. I've told you a million times, just call me Junmyeon."

Jeno shuffled awkwardly, before nodding at the older man, watching as he pressed a button on his earpiece. "Hey, Yeol. Jeno's here."

The muffled response was barely heard, but Jeno automatically understood what Mr. Park said. Junmyeon turned to open the door, and let the pair inside. The “office”—if it could even be called that—opened up to more of a lounge, than anything. A wall of glass overlooked the Manhattan skyline, but Jeno knew that from the outside it looked only like a wall, due to camouflage technology developed by Mr. Park himself. As Doyoung and Junmyeon stayed back, closer to the door, Jeno took a few steps toward the man in question.

Chanyeol was standing a few feet in front of the glass window, working on a holographic model of a new piece of tech. His face was turned downward in a concentrated frown. He barely spared the teenager a glance as he said fondly, “Hey, kid.”

Jeno was used to this. Chanyeol wasn’t cold per se, but he wasn’t warm at all. He knew that Chanyeol cared about him, even if he didn’t really show it in a conventional way. Chanyeol was a very… eccentric man, so he had his own way of saying and doing things.

“Hi, Mr. Park. Um… you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yep! Needed some help from the friendly neighborhood Spiderman… A little birdie told me about something going on in Queens.”

“Queens?” Jeno asked, gripping the straps of his backpack. “You mean, other than the usual stuff?”

“Other than the usual stuff,” Chanyeol repeated, nodding. With a wave of his hand, the hologram disappeared, and another one appeared in its place. This time, instead of a 3D model, a few pictures and another, smaller 3D model appeared. Chanyeol turned to face him, frown deepening. He pointed at the model—a long, shiny oval-shaped purple stone. It reminded Jeno of an amethyst, but instead of turning white at the base, it turned to an iridescent jade tone. “You know what this is, right?”

Jeno nodded, remembering seeing the rocks all over the news when he was a kid. “That’s… that’s a Chitauri stone. From the invasion a few years back.”

Chanyeol nodded, standing up straight. “These stones have the potential to power weapons with no need to recharge, or change them out. They’re an infinite, extremely strong power source, Jeno, and in the wrong hands can be very dangerous.”

Jeno took a deep breath, feeling his stomach sink slowly. Chanyeol sighed. “Cleanup of the city after the invasion was long, and difficult, and obviously the government and the company weren’t able to get everything. It caused a black market to pop up. Now, the NYPD has been investigating it for years, but they have their limits… that’s where you come in.”

“M-me, Mr. Park?”

Chanyeol gave him a crooked, reassuring smile. He pointed at one of the pictures, which was of a man who most likely didn’t know he was photographed. He was walking somewhere, face looking angry and stern.

“You don’t know who this is, right?”

Jeno shook his head, and Chanyeol turned his head to nod at Junmyeon. “You’re up, tough guy.”

Junmyeon huffed, before walking up to Jeno. He put his hand on Jeno’s shoulder as if he could tell that he was growing anxious.

“Jeno, that’s Henry Duke. From what we understand on the intel team, he’s one of the cornerstones of the alien tech black market. He’s one of the top dogs. From what we understand, he likes to be present for all major negotiations that his group makes. A source of ours told us that there’s going to be a negotiation on Friday night not too far away from LaGuardia. We want you to go out there and just get a feel of what’s going on.”

“Just watch them, right?” Jeno looked at Junmyeon, who patted his back reassuringly. “Just watch. Don’t engage unless you absolutely have to.”

“You can do that, right?” Chanyeol said quietly, crossing his arms. “Because if not, then it’s totally—”

“Yeah, of course I can! Friday—shit, Friday. At what time are they supposed to be meeting up?”

Junmyeon furrowed his eyebrows, before answering, “Around eight or nine.”

Jeno bit his lip, thinking about the promise he’d made to you. It would just have to wait, he supposed. Chanyeol rarely asked anything this big of him.

“Alright,” Jeno agreed, “I’ll do it.”

Chanyeol grinned, clapping his hands together.

“Perfect.”

They discussed logistics briefly after. Doyoung would be on call with Jeno, his custom made suit allowing them to communicate, letting Doyoung see everything Jeno was seeing via a video feed coming from the ultra thin lenses placed in the white eye sockets of the mask. Doyoung would then report to Junmyeon, who would report to Chanyeol, who would probably report to the FBI. Jeno was only to engage if absolutely necessary.

After that, he set out on patrol. He usually found some discreet place to hide his backpack, and then went all over Queens looking for trouble, quite literally. Around five thirty, he stopped a robbery in Murray Hill. Then, around seven, he stopped a man from stealing a woman’s purse in Elmhurst. Nothing too much.

Around eight, he finally headed home, this time dressed normally, using the train and not web fluid. He walked home, tired, knowing that he’d immediately have to do that cursed AP calc homework. When he got home, he opened his backpack pocket to look for his keys, rummaging between his notebooks and other things.

Shuffling through his stuff, he furrowed his eyebrows as he couldn’t find them. Thinking back, he remembered this morning, when he’d left in a rush… and had very obviously left his keys on his desk.

“Shit,” He muttered to himself. He rubbed his eyes tiredly, remembering that Aunt Sunny had said she’d be working overtime tonight. He could very easily sneak in through his window, but he was pretty sure he’d locked it the night before, and it was too early. People’s lights were still on—anyone could see him if they just looked up, and then he would be screwed.

Huffing and zipping his backpack up, he marched up to your house, before ringing the doorbell. He shifted his weight back and forth, from his heels to the balls of his feet, until the door opened up. A familiar man with a face just like Doyoung's, but older, with graying hair and arms scarred and muscled from years of working on the police force stood in the doorway.

“Jeno?” Your dad offered him a warm smile. “Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”

“Hi, Mr. Kim,” Jeno said, smiling back. He shifted nervously. “I, um… I left my keys in my room this morning, and my aunt’s working late, so… could I… maybe wait here? Y/N’s home, right?”

The man nodded. “Of course, of course. Come in!”

Your dad had always been super friendly, even from the day Jeno had first met him. You'd told Jeno once that he was the only real father figure you'd ever had. Once everything settled after him and your mom got married, you started calling him dad altogether. And since you and Jeno were practically glued at the hip, he got along with your dad almost as well as you did.

“Okay.” Jeno stepped in and set down his backpack at the base of the coat rack next to the door, as he’d done a million times before. Jeno stepped into the living room, and sat down on the couch. He folded his hands in his lap and looked up at your dad.

"I think Y/N's in the shower, but she should be done soon. You can just wait here if you want… have you eaten anything yet?”

“Uh, I had a granola bar on the train, but that’s it.”

“We have some leftover pasta here, if you want—”

“Thanks, Mr. Kim, really! I’m fine.”

Your dad nodded, sitting down on his recliner. “So, have you started your college list, yet? Y/N said you wanted to stay here in New York.”

Jeno nodded, pushing some hair out of his face. “Well, yeah. It would make things a lot easier, I think. I might want to apply to NYU, but I think I’ll just go to community college, or something.”

Your dad shook his head. “You’re a pretty smart kid, Jeno. I think you could get into Columbia if you set out to. Plus, Chanyeol Park doesn’t give out internships to anybody. That’s your secret weapon.”

Jeno smiled. “Well, you’ve got a point.”

Your dad gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Come on, trying won’t hurt!” Your dad made a face, and then rubbed his knuckles. “Have you been working out? Those muscles weren’t there the last time I did that.”

Jeno laughed, trying to think of an excuse. “Oh, a little bit? The house needed some fixing up over the summer, and I wanted to help Aunt Sunny, so…”

“Jeno?”

He turned immediately, eyes landing on you at the base of the staircase. You’d changed into an old t-shirt and pajama pants. Your hair was slightly damp. “What are you doing here?” You asked, with a curious smile.

His shoulders slumped, and he grinned sheepishly. “Terrible Tuesday strikes again. I forgot my keys.”

You grimaced. “Brutal, dude. You wanna come up?” Your eyes moved to your dad. “Or am I interrupting guy time?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jeno answered, playing along. He took a cocky tone as he rested his hands on the back of his neck. “Your dad was just telling me about how much the NYPD needs me.”

You stifled a laugh. You dad seemed to be holding back a laugh too. "Hey, you're joking, but if you keep working out like that, and if by some impossible chance, the college thing doesn't work out… We might just be able to catch Spiderman if we finally got some brain cells on the force."

"Ugh, dad," You groaned, unaware of Jeno's gut twisting, "Not again."

"Yeah, Mr. Kim," Jeno said, scratching the back of his head, "He's not that bad."

Your dad shook his head. "Look, I don't hate the guy. In all honesty, crime rates have dropped since he started doing his thing. But he thinks he's above the law, and his methods can be a bit… unorthodox sometimes. He’s been undermining us for years and his tech is state of the art. Makes me wonder about what we should do to modernize the force."

Jeno looked downward, wondering what would happen if your dad knew the truth.

"Well, I guess we may just never find out. Jeno'd make a horrible cop. He couldn't hurt a fly if you paid him a million dollars."

But you came to the rescue as you grabbed his backpack, and soon enough he was up the stairs with you, heading into your bedroom, laughing to yourselves when you heard your dad jokingly call out, "Fifteen inch distance, you two! Door stays open!"

He sat on your desk chair while you lay on your bed, limbs splaying out.

"So you left your keys."

Jeno groaned. "Don't remind me. I was in such a rush to leave, that I… I forgot. I'm so stupid."

You rolled your eyes, rolling over onto your stomach to look at him. "You're not stupid, Jen. You made an honest mistake because you were in a hurry."

Standing up, you walked over to him and leaned against the desk. "Seriously, Jeno. What's gotten into you, lately? You freak out about every little thing. It's starting to worry me."

Jeno shook his head. "I don't know," He admitted. "I think I'm just scared about how after this year, everything changes. Renjun’s headed upstate. Jaemin’s going to Boston. You want to go to LA. I think Hyuck and I are the only ones who want to stay here. I just… I don't want things to change."

Your expression turned sad as he continued. "Everyone is expecting great things from me. You're smart, Jeno. You can get into an Ivy. Or, you have a Park internship, you'll be fine. What if I don't want things to be fine? What if I want them to just stay the same?"

You stayed silent for a few moments, trying to think of what to say. Jeno was relatively level headed for someone your age, but even he had moments of doubt and panic. It made moments like these difficult. You sighed before grabbing him by the hand. Wordlessly, you tugged him over to the bed, sitting him down and leaning your head on his shoulder. He could feel the dampness in your hair seeping slowly into his shirt.

"I guess I understand what you mean," You mumbled, trying to reason with him, "But come on. You wouldn't really want everything to stay the same. You can't tell me you want to keep getting AP calc homework. And I definitely doubt that you'd want to have your ass kicked by San for the rest of your life."

Jeno looked at the floor. "You're right. But you know that's not what I mean—"

"I know," You huffed, "I'm just saying. Change… it's inevitable. The longer you fight it, the harder it is."

Jeno nodded. "This sucks."

"It does," You agreed, taking his hand in yours. "But at least we have each other's backs, y'know?"

Something of a smile appeared on his face. You were so close to him, leaning on him, stroking his knuckles with your thumb. He hoped you couldn't hear his heart pounding in his chest.

"We really do, huh?" His voice turned quiet, with a bit of a sleepy lull to it. He allowed his head to rest on yours. "You're so comfortable. Can I like, use you as a pillow for the rest of my life?"

You giggled. "I'll consider it on two conditions."

"Oh, you'll consider. How generous of you."

"Yes, I'll consider. Now, do you wanna hear my terms or not?"

Jeno raised an eyebrow. "Go ahead," He said, before putting on his best Marlon Brando voice, "Make me an offer I can't refuse."

Snorting, you lifted your head off of his. "Okay. One, you finish your calculus homework here before Sunny gets home."

He pursed his lips. "Okay, I could probably do that. What's the other one?"

"Let me drive you to school for the rest of the year."

Jeno stared at you, and you nodded, eyes wide. "Trust me, Jen. You wouldn't need to wake up so early! And plus, you can't text the guy manning the subway asking him to give you five minutes because you need to find your keys."

Jeno gnawed on the inside of his cheek. You did have a point, and to be honest, he could probably refrain from putting his feet up on your dashboard.

"Deal."

You grinned. "Awesome," You answered, before nodding towards his backpack. "Now get to work, Einstein."

The rest of the week wasn't that bad. Yes, you were absolutely batshit insane about your truck in the morning, but he soon realized he didn't really mind. Not when it allowed you both to spend some twenty extra minutes together in the mornings, and they were spent joking around and listening to your extremely varied playlist.

On the other hand, he was saddled with more and more homework, greater and greater expectations. The looming threat of Friday's mission rolled around, and it made Jeno feel like time was passing much too slowly but also way too quickly. There was so much on his mind. He had chemistry with you on Thursdays in the afternoon, which also meant that San was there. Which also meant that sometimes, his heightened senses would pick up on San dropping a tacky pick up line which made Jeno want to punch him in the jaw.

Finally, finally, Friday afternoon rolled around. As he bid you goodbye and promised to see you later, he tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach. The feeling that something was about to go very, very wrong. He went out on patrol, ready for Doyoung to set up the call and tell him where he needed to go. It didn’t help that there wasn’t a lot for him to do that day. Crime had seemed to slow down altogether.

When the time finally came, and the sun was beginning to set, Doyoung rang in at about 7, telling him the location. An old warehouse near LaGuardia airport, hidden from prying eyes. Jeno made his way to the place, avoiding security cameras Doyoung warned him about, and found a place to hide. There was a hole in the warehouse roof, which allowed him to peer right into the building without being seen. It was about thirty feet from the ground.

“Why is it always old, abandoned warehouses?” Jeno grumbled. He heard Doyoung laugh quietly.

“Beats me,” Doyoung sighed.

And so they waited. Jeno wondered vaguely if you were still working. He wasn’t sure. They made time talking quietly, until a black SUV rolled into the warehouse. “Woah, Doyoung,” He murmured, “Hold up.”

Jeno leaned forward, but quickly realized he probably wouldn’t be able to hear what was being said. “D.R.E.A.M, activate Heightened Intelligence Protocol.”

Activating Heightened Intelligence Protocol.

The protocol allowed Jeno to use the lenses over his eyes to zoom in on specific targets, as well as use a microphone embedded in the suit to pick up audio from far away and feed it directly into his ears.

He watched as three figures got out of the car, a fourth remaining in the driver’s seat. The trio stood in front of the car, and Jeno recognized the man in the middle as the man Junmyeon had been talking about.

“Alright, there’s Henry Duke,” He said, “The one in the middle.”

“Got it,” Doyoung replied, sounding satisfied. “Now all we have to do is wait for the other party.”

“Did Junmyeon’s sources say anything about who it would be?”

“No. They weren’t able to find that out. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Jeno’s eyes never left the man. “Do you think it’s something international?”

Doyoung sighed. “I’m not sure. If it is international, then you need to be even more careful.”

“Got it. I think—Wait, here they come.”

A second vehicle, this one another black SUV, rolled up not too far away from the first car. The lights turned off and the engine sputtered to a stop, and four men stepped out of the vehicle.

Jeno’s stomach dropped, and of its own accord, his mouth let loose a quiet, “What the fuck,” as he registered the person leading them.

“What?” Doyoung asked, before realizing what—who—he was looking at. “...Is that my dad?”

“I think it is,” Jeno whispered, fingertips suddenly numb. Who was he kidding? They both knew who it was.

“So,” One of the men next to your dad said, “You show us yours, we’ll show you ours?”

Henry Duke clapped his hands together with an impish grin. “I suppose. Reagan, get the case.”

One of the two men standing beside him started off toward the trunk of the car. “It caught me off guard when I heard that the force wanted to purchase these. Almost made me wonder if this was your attempt at a sting operation.”

“What made you change your mind?” Your dad asked. Jeno swallowed at how cold he sounded. This wasn’t your dad, and it didn’t seem like Officer Kim either. This was someone Jeno had never met before.

“Honestly, Kim?” Duke raised an eyebrow, shrugging. “It was you. Your cooperativeness and willing to feed us information, as well as your… insurance agreement. And besides, you made a very interesting point when you said that the Avengers Initiative and Park’s alum Spiderman is ruining the way the law operates around here. That type of bitterness… hard to fake.”

Your dad huffed. “We’re fucking tired of it.”

The man leaning against the car your dad had stepped out of scoffed. “If this helps us catch the little asshole, then so be it.”

Jeno frowned. “I’m not little—”

“Jeno, shut up!” Doyoung snapped.

“—Alright, then.” The man holding the briefcase—Reagan—clicked it open, as if it were a prize reveal on The Price is Right. Five guns, all modified to hold glowing Chitauri stones were placed carefully together side by side.

“You know the basics. No radiation. Keep it away from security scanners and x-rays. They will blow up. And second of all, these are at half the price, along with the promise from the chief of police that my business won’t be touched, and will only be distributed to officers in on the operation and have agreed to turn off their body cameras when they decide to use these weapons. Should this not be a sting operation, we’ll be back here to negotiate.”

Jeno leaned forward, watching anxiously.

“Yes, sir,” Your dad answered, nodding. “We have the money here.”

“Hand it over, then.”

That was when Jeno made his mistake. He leaned forward too much, and proceeded to fall right through the hole, bringing down some scraps of the roof with him. As he tumbled through the air, the zoom on his lenses caused him to grow dizzy as he had no idea what he was looking at. He caught himself before he could fall, clumsily commanding D.R.E.A.M to go back to turn off the current protocol. His vision returned to normal, and he swung up onto a rafter holding the warehouse up.

“So, we have company.” Duke didn’t sound as amused as he had before. His face turned into a sneer. “Get him.”

In less than a second, before Jeno could say anything, five guns were pointed directly at him. He managed to swing away before any bullets could hit him.

“Jeno, get out of there now,” Doyoung ordered.

“What about the guns?” Jeno asked, swinging to another rafter. “They know I’m here, I might as well get them before I go—”

“No! Jeno, listen to what I’m telling you. You’ve done more than enough, and you need to let it g—”

Your dad aimed, and a bullet fired right at Jeno’s chest. For a second, he forgot that the chest area of the suit was lined with bulletproof material. While it didn’t shoot into his chest, it ricocheted right off him, and since he was in motion, it somehow caused the bullet to bounce back in the direction in which it came.

The wind was knocked out of Jeno, but it was nothing compared to watching the bullet land in the middle of your father’s chest. On the other line, he heard Doyoung yell, followed by the sound of something falling. And then, as he made his way back towards the hole he’d fallen out of, he couldn’t rip his eyes away from the body as it crumpled to the ground.

The others around him scrambled to get back into their respective cars. Jeno was back on the roof now, trying not to hyperventilate. “I’m sorry,” He gasped, “Do—Doyoung, I-I’m sorry, I didn’t want to—”

“Jeno, you need to get out of there, now,” Doyoung said, voice raspy. “GO!”

So he did, and Doyoung cut off the call once he was out of the vicinity. Jeno didn’t blame him. He swung across buildings, feeling numb as he looked for the apartment complex roof where he’d decided to hide his backpack.

When he finally did, he changed in a hurry, before slumping against the wall and forcing himself to take deep breaths.

Doyoung’s dad—your dad—was dead. And it was all his fault.

He cried on the way down the staircase. He cried on his way to the subway. The entire time, he ignored people’s stares. Suddenly everything was too loud, and if he met someone in the eyes he’d just about break down in the middle of the station.

As he got onto the train, Jeno thought about all of the things your dad had done for you, and for Jeno. All the times he'd taken you both to Coney Island in the summer when you were younger. The year Pokemon Go came out he took the both of you driving around in his car so you and Jeno could catch as many Pokemon as you could.

He’d formally adopted you when you were thirteen. You were his daughter in nearly every sense of the word, regardless of blood. And now he was dead, because of a stupid mistake that Jeno had made.

What would you say if you knew? He didn’t want to know. Checking the time on his phone, he saw he’d gotten a message from you just three minutes ago.

[8:36 PM]

y/n: lemme know when ur outside!! :)

“Fuck,” He murmured, wiping his eyes. He knew he needed to stop crying before he got to your house, and he had about ten minutes before he got to his stop, and then another five minute walk to the neighborhood. He focused on taking deep breaths and taking long swigs from his water bottle in the meantime, trying to tune out the sound of other people talking and the sound of the train on the rails.

The walk was the longest five minute walk he’d ever taken. The flashing lights of convenience stores did nothing to calm him down. As the stores in his peripheral vision began transitioning into suburban homes, he felt his heart speed up again. The constant movement as he walked meant he missed his phone vibrating in his backpack as you rang his number.

After what seemed like an eternity, two familiar houses came into his line of vision, and his shoulders slumped as he spotted you on your porch, looking small and teary, curled up into a little ball. In one hand, you were clutching your phone.

His stomach twisted as he put on a confused tone, even though he knew damn well that you knew. “...Y/N?”

You stood up, running to him and burying yourself into his chest, crumpling into his arms. You would have fell over if Jeno hadn’t held both of you up.

“Jeno,” You sobbed, “You’re n-not go-onna believe it.”

He brought a hand up to caress your hair, holding back tears of his own as he asked a question he already knew the answer to.

“Y/N, what happened?”

taglist: @decembermoonskz @itsapapisongo @lenaluvs @crescentjen

#kwritersworldnet #nct angst #nct x reader #jeno x reader #jeno angst #jeno fluff #nct au #jeno au #kpop scenarios #kpop angst #kpop imagines #nct dream x reader #lee jeno x reader #my writing

207 notes · View notes

adhd-disaster-willie · 3 years

Text

you're the one that brings the sun; chapter 1/6

Summary: Alex is prepared for every single variable except, apparently, the one in which his roommate is drop dead gorgeous and Alex is an absolute clusterfuck of a human being who falls for the first pretty boy on he sees on campus.

Willex roommate au!

Warnings: Swearing

Notes: The title is from the song “I Dare You” by the Regrettes. I’ve actually planned this fic out so here’s to hoping I don’t get burned out halfway through. It might end up having 6 or 7 chapters, 5 is kind of just an estimate.

---

When Alex was 11, his mother proudly plastered his report card to the fridge and exclaimed that one day, her little boy would go to Harvard. His father gripped his shoulder with pride and Alex beamed up at his parents like they’d just told him he had superpowers. 3 years later, he was 14 and teetering on the edge of failure in the majority of his classes. He wasn’t stupid by any means, just preoccupied. He’d started a band with his best friends and that felt like the most important thing in the whole world, and high school was new and scary, so it was easier to not pour all his focus into school. His parents’ smiles faltered but they kept up hope, Alex could tell. 2 years later, he stood shaking and crying outside of the Molina’s garage and suddenly, the concept of going to college begun to feel distant and fake. But he’s 18 now, and somehow, miraculously, gazing at the piles of boxes in the back of Ray’s car and swallowing down a lump in his throat.

It sure isn’t Harvard, but a part of Alex feels giddy at the fact that he’s attending a public college that was relatively easy to get into; oh his parents would be rolling in their proverbial graves. What didn’t make him quite so happy though, was the looming fact that he’d be living with some random person, because for some godforsaken reason, the college wouldn’t allow freshmen to choose their roomates. Some bullshit about meeting new people and socializing.

“Hey, ‘Lex. Dude, you’ll be fine.” Luke shakes his shoulders, before swinging one arm around him and the other around Reggie.

“Says the one who isn’t even going to college,” Alex grumbles, slipping from Luke’s grip and into the front seat of the car.

“Yea cause I don’t need it. Not my fault you’re both nerds,” Luke retorts.

“I’m not a nerd, I just like to have insurance-”

“Yea, back-up plan, safety net, heard it a million times. Reggie’s a nerd though.”

“Old news, dude,” Alex says.

“I am not a nerd!” Reggie protests indignantly.

“Tell that to your 2 years of college credit in math.”

Luke nods in agreement. “Nerd.”

“Math is fun!”

“You’re horrible.” Alex makes a mock gagging noise.

Julie comes bounding out of the house, her arms decked with various baked goods. She tosses herself in the backseat beside Reggie and Luke, looking quite pleased with herself at being able to force Luke to sit in the middle. “Tía was apparently up all night baking,” she explains, passing the sweets up to Alex. “Don’t be surprised if she shows up at your dorm with food every day.”

Alex snorts. “I would not object to that.”

Julie sighs, leaning back in her seat. “You guys are so lucky, I’m tired of high school. Damn September birthday,” Julie grumbles. Her birthday is just after the cut off date, so she would be 18 for the majority of senior year, but is just barely too young to be in the same grade as the boys.

Reggie leans over and pats her arm sympathetically, earning an offended squeak from Luke, who’s only pushed further into the back of the seat.

“Don’t worry!” Alex chirps sarcastically. “You get to spend more time with Luke, since he’ll be squatting in your garage!”

“Oh, joy,” Julie deadpans.

“I am not a squatter!” Luke protests, kicking the back of Alex’s seat.

“No kicking! I’m holding food!”

“Y’know Alex, you’ve been staying in the studio for 2 years, you’re not one to talk!” Luke argues.

“I have a job.”

“A stupid job.”

“A stupid job that gets you free coffee.”

Reggie nodds to that, chewing on a cookie. “Can’t risk losing your coffee privileges.”

Julie groans loudly and stuck her head out the window. “DAAAAD! Let’s goooo!” She cries.

“Wow, I didn’t know you wanted to get rid of me so badly,” Alex says, clutching his chest dramatically.

“Oh shut up Lexi, I just wanna meet your’s and Reggie’s new best friends!” Julie says, laughing.

“I’m not gonna be best friends with my roommate.”

“Yea, Alex forgot how to do that!”

“Luke I will smother you in your sleep!”

At this, Ray approaches the car with a raised eyebrow. “No one’s planning a murder, I hope?” He asks, chuckling as he slides into the drivers seat.

“No sir!” Reggie replies, grinning.

“Not yet,” Alex mumbles under his breath.

“Alright boys, who’s ready for college!” Ray says, starting the car.

“I’m gonna be sick.”

---

“And that’s the last of it!” Ray claps a hand over Alex’s shoulder and smiles encouragingly.

Alex nods tensely, gripping the strap of his fannypack tighter.

The dorm’s probably as good as he’s gonna get. One reasonably sized bedroom complete with two horribly uncomfortable beds, a kitchen with a fridge that was in no way large enough to fit even a weeks worth of meals, a tiny living room that would probably fit a couch and a TV at the most, and a bathroom that smelled suspiciously of mustard. Really it isn’t terrible, but Alex has a habit of noticing every little detail, especially the ones that could be a problem at some point. His roommate hasn’t arrived yet, so he’s standing amongst his various boxes, anxiety pulsing in his chest.

Julie grips his hand tightly and smiles, tears pricking the edges of her eyes. “Hey, Alex, you’re gonna be okay.” She squeezes his hand briefly.

Alex nods, exhaling shakily. “Yea, yea I know. It’s just…”

“A change, I know. But this is a good change. And-” she hauls Reggie and Luke over to them. “-we’re all here if you need to call someone and talk. And dad, and Tía, and I bet your roommate will be super cool.”

“Or a serial killer.”

“Just pray he’s not a football player,” Reggie stage-whispers, shuddering.

“God, don’t even suggest that!” Alex whines.

Encouragements and teary hugs are passed along, as well as a promise to meet at the Olive Garden nearby for dinner in a few hours, and then Alex’s posse is off to get Reggie settled, and Alex is left alone in the dorm. Alright.

Alex takes a deep breath, steeling himself, before beginning to wander the dorm. He’s anxious to start unpacking without his roommate and risk doing something that they wouldn’t like. Even choosing a bed feels wrong, he really doesn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with this person. But leaving the dorm meant people everywhere so that was a definite no. He sighs, lowering himself to the wooden floor and pulling out his phone.

“Yea… uh huh. Yes Caleb, I got here fine. No the Uber driver did not try and kidnap me. The boxes- the boxes are not too heavy. Okay. Okay. Yea, bye. Mhm.”

Alex looks up hesitantly upon hearing the voice nearing his dorm. The person standing in the doorway is well… less of a person and more of a large stack of boxes threatening to fall over any second. “Hello?” Alex stands up and makes his way to the boy stood in the entrance.

Said boy pokes his head out from behind his boxes and grins crookedly. “Hi, uh, I’m Willie!” And well, Alex is a goner. He swallows thickly, breath catching in the back of his throat. Willie attempts to adjust the boxes but ultimately fails, sending them tumbling to the ground amongst several muttered curses. “Well… nothing fragile in there,” he falters slightly. “I think.”

“Um…”

“Right! Sorry, uh.” Willie holds his hand out and Alex shakes it tentatively.

“Alex.”

“Alex, cool.” Willie smiles again, his dark eyes twinkling as he does so, smile lines popping out. He brushes his hair -which looks so soft and pretty- behind his ear to reveal a small golden hoop on his right lobe. Alex is dead, actually 100% dead. Because he’d been prepared for every single variable except, apparently, the one in which his roommate is drop dead gorgeous and Alex is an absolute clusterfuck of a human being who falls for the first pretty boy on he sees on campus.

Alex forces out a smile, all too aware that he’s still standing stiff and awkward in front of Willie, his grip on his fannypack tight enough to make his knuckles glow white. Then Willie coughs as some sort of attempt to fill the silence. “Sorry!” Alex squeaks. “Do you need help with the… the uh, boxes?”

“Oh yea, that’d be great!” Willie replies, beaming. “I don’t think there’s anything fragile in there, but y’know, my memory is absolute shit so if I broke some fancy china dishes I didn’t even know I owned, don’t be too shocked.”

Alex laughs anxiously. “Yea uh… I didn’t start unpacking cause I um… I didn’t want to claim a bed and stuff with-without your input?” His voice cracks at the end and he winces because Jesus fucking christ Alex.

Willie chuckles and Alex notes that he has the kind of laugh that echoes through your whole body and settles right in your heart. “ ‘S cool, man, I don’t mind.”

“Right, cool. Do you uh… are you okay if I take the bed farthest from the window? I’m not- not much of a morning person, and the window is… it’s east facing” Alex mutters, his gaze focused on his feet which are rocking back and forth at a rapid pace.

“Yea, of course,” Willie replies. “I don’t think I’ve woken up later than 8 in 5 years.”

“That’s horrific!” Alex cries, momentarily forgetting his anxiety. He steps back and blushes an even deeper red upon realizing how stupid he’s being. “I mean- I just… sorry, I just meant that-”

“You’re good, dude. I don’t bite.”

Alex cracks a tentative smile. “So uh… I’ll just start unpacking then.”

Willie shoots him a thumbs up and smiles once again, which is a thing he apparently does a lot.

An hour later, Alex’s belongings are unpacked and organized and the room feels a bit more his. He feels slightly lighter, exhaling and closing his eyes briefly. This isn’t so bad. Fiddling with the hem of his hoodie, he shuffles out into the living room where Willie is presumably unpacking. Except that he’s not.

Willie is laying upside down on a couch that somehow appeared while Alex was gone and he’s flipping through a tattered magazine while his belongings remain mostly unpacked.

“This quiz says that I should try roller skating,” Willie sniffs. “Some personality test this is- oh hey Alex!” He scrambles up so that he can look Alex in the eyes properly, and points to the magazine in his hand. “Found this in a box, not sure how it got there since I’ve never even subscribed to one of these, but there’s a chocolate chip cookie recipe in here.” He stops for a moment, pondering. “Personally I prefer peanut butter cookies, ooh especially fresh out of the oven. There’s this bakery near my house that-”

“Did you get… any unpacking done?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow.

Willie looks around at his boxes and laughs sheepishly. “Well I unpacked one and opened 3 so… some, yes.”

“Where’d the couch come from?” Alex pokes the cushion warily, as if afraid that it’s full of bugs.

“Room across the hall,” Willie says, pointing. “They both brought couches and didn’t have room for two we got the one with more stains.”

“Right.” Alex’s reply is forced and tense, and he winces upon realizing. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected his roommate to become so comfortable so fast and he felt like he was several steps behind. Damn extroverts. Drumming his hands against his thighs, Alex slowly sits down on the other side of the couch, pointedly looking ahead instead of at Willie.

“So.” Willie scoots closer, sitting cross legged with his elbows on his thighs and chin resting in his palms. “What’s your major?”

Small talk, god Alex hates small talk. “Um, music,” he answers.

“Ah, that’s cool dude.” Willie nods.

“Uh, what about you?” Alex asks.

“Art,” Willie replies, grinning. “Be prepared for paint stains, like, everywhere.” He chuckles and nudges Alex’s shoulder playfully. Alex is going to implode, he’s sure of it.

Alex laughs awkwardly. “So uh… what’s wrong with rollerskating?”

Willie shoves his shoulder again. “Everything, dude! Well-” he cuts himself off, thinking. “-I just kinda suck at it, definitely better at my skateboard.” He jerks his head in the direction of a skateboard leaned against the wall and Alex wonders how he didn’t notice that.

“Oh, that’s- that’s cool. I rollerblade but I uh, I can’t skateboard to save my life.”

Somehow, they slip into a comfortable rhythm, and Alex notes that his anxiety no longer has him in a chokehold. Willie seems to have that affect; he’s just so… open. Alex doesn’t realize it yet, but he’s subconsciously created a folder in the back of his mind labelled “Willie,” and he doesn’t think he’s capable of forgetting anything Willie will ever say to him.

“- that’s why airplane food is just, horrible. Cause you basically lose like 30% of your tastebuds because of the elevation.” Willie smiles at Alex, gaging his response.

Alex would rather die than admit that he’s still trying to figure out how the topic of airplane food came up, so he just nods enthusiastically, actively stopping his eyes from dancing across Willie’s face, which is practically glowing in the evening sun. Evening. Shit. Alex pulls out his phone frantically. “Shit.” He says it out loud this time.

Willie’s brow furrows in confusion. “You good, dude?”

“Uh yea I’m just, I’m supposed to be meeting my fam- uh my friends for dinner and I have to be there in like 5 minutes.” He ignores the way Willie’s expression falls, convinced he’s just seeing things.

“Yea um, of course. I won’t keep you.” Willie stands up, his posture the stiffest that Alex has seen it in the whole 3 hours they’ve been acquainted for. “I’ll just… order a pizza.”

Alex hesitates in the doorway, weighing his options, which has never been his strong suit. “Do you want to join me?” He blurts impulsively. Willie looks at him in surprise. “I mean only- only if you want of course, we’ve only really uh, known each other for a few hours and you- you probably don’t want to, it was stupid. I’ll just- I’ll just go-”

“No! I’d… I’d like to, eating pizza alone in the dark sounds a little pathetic,” Willie responds.

Alex smiles genuinely. “Ok, ok that’s uh. Cool. That’s cool.”

---

Alex is already regretting this. The restaurant isn’t too crowded, he notices with a relieved breath. But it’s loud. It’s loud and yet only one group of people is talking. Alex doesn’t even need to guess who.

“Ok but- no- no- the whole song would be better!”

“Say banjo one more time, I dare you!”

“Banjo.”

“Julie, what the hell?! This is betrayal!”

“You stole my breadstick, it’s only fair.”

Alex coughs, quieting the table to a dull roar.

“Alex!” Julie pulls him down to sit next to her. “Oh? Who’s this?” Reggie is grinning wickedly and Luke waggles his eyebrows in a way that makes Alex want to shave them off.

“This is uh, my roommate Willie,” Alex responds, his voice raising an octave. “He didn’t have plans so I uh… I invited him, I hope that’s ok.”

“Of course it’s ok!” Julie pats the space on the other side of Alex and Willie sits down, appearing… oddly nervous.

“Congrats! Your Alex’s first new friend since,” Luke taps his chin, pretending to think. “7th grade.”

Alex’s face promptly falls into his hands. He’s seriously considering the whole, shaving Luke’s eyebrows in his sleep thing.

Reggie leans forward conspiratorially. “What’s your opinion on banjos?” He asks, making a point to ignore Luke’s dramatic complaining.

Willie raises his eyebrows, clearly confused. “Um. No comment?”

“I’m… sorry about them,” Alex says apolegetically. “Uh, this is Luke, Reggie, and Julie-” he gestures to each of them; Reggie waves, beaming happily. “-and Julie’s dad should be…” He trails off, looking around.

“He had to take a phone call, something about Carlos refusing to eat dinner until he proves the house is haunted,” Julie explains, clearly biting back a laugh.

“I… okay.” Alex shakes his head. “Are we waiting for more food or did Reggie eat it all?”

“Ha ha,” Reggie punctuates his statement by sticking out his tongue. “We’re waiting for the actual meals-”

“Yea Luke already ate the entire bread basket.” Julie shoots a glare in Luke’s direction.

“Well… you suggested we get hotdogs,” Luke grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “Payback.”

“Okay,” Julie laughs.

Willie leans over to whisper loudly to Alex, “What’s the story with the hotdogs?”

“Don’t tell him!” Luke cries, leaning across the table and slamming his palms down.

“We don’t talk of the hot-dogs,” Reggie mutters miserably.

“Food poisoning.” Alex shudders slightly. “Very bad food poisoning.”

“We almost died,” Reggie says, eyes widening. “Like, for real death. I’m pretty sure I was a ghost for a few seconds.”

“Reg, you were not a ghost,” Alex says, speaking like Reggie’s a 10 year old talking about monsters under his bed.

“I was!”

“You were not!”

“So,” Luke smiles mischievously, taking Reggie and Alex’s bickering as an opportunity to apparently torture the latter. Despite Alex’s warning glares, he turns to Willie with an innocent expression. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Luke,” Alex hisses, all too familiar with Luke’s antics.

“Hmmm.” Willie is painfully oblivious to Alex’s panicked expression as he mulls over his answer. “A lot of stuff really.” He shrugs. “Rock, pop, I like those lo-fi playlists when I’m trying to study.”

Luke nods, clearly pleased with the answer, but he isn’t done and Alex wants to hide under the table. He knows what’s coming next. “Thoughts on… drummers?”

“Luke.” Alex is seconds from lunging across the table.

“Drummers?” Willie asks, tilting his head confusedly.

“Yup,” Luke says, popping the p and still smiling like he’s some sort of innocent puppy-dog and not an absolute bastard.

“Hot,” Willie jokes. Alex can’t even hide the way he manages to choke on his own spit, and Luke and Reggie have never been great at subtlety, turning to Alex with matching shit-eating grins. Willie either doesn’t notice or is kind enough not to comment on it. “Yea, pretty sure young Roger Taylor was my gay awakening.”

Reggie is full on giggling now, and Alex’s entire face is gleaming a bright red. Willie glances around the table, puzzled.

“Mhm.” Luke nods before swiftly turning to Alex. “Hey Alex, by the way, you left your drumsticks in the car, do you need them back?” His voice is sickeningly sweet, coated in some sort of poisoned honey. It’s Willie’s turn to choke on nothing, failing to disguise it as a spontaneous coughing fit.

“Fine,” Alex squeaks as he sinks further down in his seat. If he pulls out his phone and messages Luke a flurry of threats, that’s no one’s business. He dares a glance at Willie, who has become quite fascinated with his hands, which are tapping out a mindless rhythm on the table, his cheeks and the tips of his ears dusted red.

Needless to say, Alex makes sure Luke doesn’t even get to look at the next bread basket.

---

I hope you liked it! Tell me if you want to be added to the taglist :)

I’m hoping to update at least once a week, but who knows. Ok thats all.

chapter 2

Chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

#willex #jatp #willex fic #jatp fic #julie and the phantoms #alex mercer #willie jatp #willie nolastname #julie molina #luke patterson #reggie peters #ray molina #willow writes #ytotbts #you’re the one that brings the sun

231 notes · View notes

dinosaurtsukki · 3 years

Text

[ traffic jams ]

pairing: suna rintarou x gn!reader

word count: 1.8k words

contains: ‘timestamps’ in a way, some shenanigans to pass the time, slightly awkward!suna, a bit too many ratatouille references, friendship with mutual crushing

a/n: i lowkey miss the traffic jams going home and one thing that struck me when reading suna’s bio on the wiki was that he doesn’t actually live near inarizaki so i thought it would be cute to have like a suna x reader commute fic

>> 5:45 pm:

you sigh for what was probably the fifth time that hour as you stare at the road map on your phone. the highway you were currently on was marked with red, indicating a traffic jam that stretched for kilometers. ‘estimated travel time: 4 hours’ the top of your phone screen read.

‘great, and it’s a friday night on top of that.’ you rub the side of your temple and stare out the window of the bus. you already knew what going to inarizaki, a high school all the way out in hyogo, while you were currently living in tokyo meant when it came to travel time. you often had to wake up early and get home late with the long travel time to school and back. most days, it was manageable and a one hour commute meant a good day. however, there were days when a storm was raging outside, delaying the train and bus schedules, and road accidents that led to the kind of situation you were currently in.

after leaving at five pm, you spent the past hour doing some homework in the bus and now you were fresh out of things to do. you’re also avoiding using your phone too much and draining your battery. right before you’re about to put on your earphones, your bus seatmate stirs awake.

aside from you, there is one other student who also commutes all the way to school from aichi, the prefecture where you live: suna rintarou. you know him as one of the regulars in the volleyball team and that he’s in the same year as you. neither of you ever really interacted much but took the same bus to and from school. sometimes you’d greet each other good morning and recently had this silent agreement to sit next to each other.

you watch as suna blinks sleepily before glancing out the window beside you. “where are we?” he mumbles.

“still in hyogo. it’s been an hour,” you answer.

“damn, really?” suna groans when he realizes just how terrible the traffic is outside. “and it’s a friday too.”

“tell me about it,” you chuckle mirthlessly. “also, estimated travel time is four hours so there go my exciting friday plans,” you add sarcastically.

“sorry you have to spend them with me,” suna smirks at you. your stomach flutters and you smile nervously. despite not knowing him too well, you couldn’t help but find him quite attractive. in fact, the reason why you got up early in the morning and tried to leave school at the same time as him was because you enjoyed your daily commutes with suna so much. even more so when you two started sitting next to each other.

“well, i don’t think that would be too bad,” you clear your throat. “we could play ‘i spy’ for four more hours.”

“or,” suna grins, leaning down and opening his backpack before pulling out his laptop. you chuckle and pull out your earphones. “we could watch ratatouille.”

“of all the things to pirate. you really chose ratatouille?”

“fuck disney, am i right?” suna smirks.

“fuck disney.”

>> 7:46 pm

“good on you for making sure that your laptop was fully charged before leaving school,” you say, stretching your arms a bit as soon as the credits roll.

“hmm, yeah,” suna sighs and leans his head back. “though, i think i made the wrong decision.”

“how come?”

suna crosses his arms over his stomach and squeezes his eyes shut. “because we watched ratatouille, i’m hungry now.”

“oh...” you nod your head, just as you feel a rumble in your stomach. “oh,” you repeat.

“yeah,” suna groans. “do you have any food on you?”

“i have...” you rustled through your backpack before procuring “a bag of peanuts.”

“hmm, that’ll have to do,” suna said, plucking the packet out of your hand. “say, one nut each per two minutes? just to ration it out?”

you sigh. “it’s going to be a long night.”

>> 8:10 pm

“there it is, the last two nuts,” suna says gazing at the two peanuts in the palm of his hand before offering one of them to you.

“i really, really thought they would last longer,” you sigh.

“they would have if you kept them for yourself,” suna raises his eyebrows.

“i’m too nice for that,” you giggle. “besides, i’d feel too guilty seeing you all hungry.”

“and i might guilt-trip you just a little bit,” suna says. “like, toss you mournful looks and everything.”

“no! not the mournful looks,” you cry and the two of you burst out laughing. you lift your peanut towards him. “toast?”

“toast,” suna snickers. you toast your peanuts before popping them into your mouth. you’re both still far from home.

>> 8:30 pm

“i spy with my little eye... something red and blinking.”

“oh my god, it’s another car taillight isn’t it?”

“... it is,” suna admits, blinking lazily out the window. “i mean, it’s all taillights out there. anyway, your turn.” he nudges your arm with his elbow.

“i spy with my little eye... “ you blink and yawn. “some really tired passengers.”

“i’m looking at one right now,” suna snickers at you.

you two share a glance before simultaneously sighing.

“i want to be home,” you say. you don’t even have to look at suna to know he’s nodding in agreement.

>> 9:00 pm

“chicken nuggets.”

“suna, please stop,” you groan.

“it’s all i can think of,” suna shakes his head. the two of you are staring up at the ceiling of bus, trying and failing to forget your hunger. “when we get out of here, i’m going to the first fast-food restaurant i see and ordering chicken nuggets. also ice cream from the convenience store. you know, the soft-serve one in the cone.”

“yeah, you only mentioned that five times for the past hour,” you roll your eyes.

“how bout you? what’s the first thing you’re getting when we finally get to the stop?” suna nudges your ribs. you close your eyes, knowing that nothing good will come out of talking about food. but then again, not thinking about it wasn’t going to make you any less hungrier either.

“strawberry yogurt drink,” you answer. “i want that strawberry yogurt drink that they always have in convenience stores?”

“oh that one,” suna hums. “you’re literally the only person i know who likes that.”

“which is great because the vending machines never run out of them,” you add. “you what else i want?” you ask after a beat of silence.

“what?”

“that mushroom remy cooked in the beginning of the movie,” you giggle. suna shakes his head as a smile blooms on his face. now that you think about it, you’ve never really seen that kind of goofy smile on him before.

>> 9:30 pm

suna wakes up for the second time during that bus ride after a short nap. it doesn’t surprise at all that he’s still in the bus. what does, though, is seeing you fast asleep with your head on his shoulder. you must have accidentally leaned on him while you two drifted off to sleep but suna was far from annoyed.

he was never really one to approach random people to strike up a conversation, but he always enjoyed seeing you, wearing the same uniform as him, waiting at the same bus stop he took every morning. unlike suna, you were way more productive during your daily commutes by doing your homework in the bus. once or twice, he’d glance at your pretty handwriting or pick up your pencil after you accidentally dropped it.

suna noticed that sometimes, you’d pack cereal in ziploc bags to eat for breakfast. that it would take you less than five minutes to fall asleep in the bus when there are exams. that you rotated between the same five hairclips throughout the week.

the sound of the bus engine coming to a stop and passengers abruptly standing up brings suna out of his thoughts. with a start, he realizes that you’re both finally at the bus stop in your hometown.

“y/n. wake up,” suna nudges you softly. he only gets to appreciate your sleepy face for a few seconds before breaking the good news. “we’re home.”

“we are?” you wake up instantly at that and look out the window. “oh my god, we are!” you squeal. suna grins as the two of you quickly pick up your bags and leave the bus.

“okay so the nearest fast-food place is the one a few blocks away from here,” suna says as the two of you leave the bus. god, he’s starving. he can already taste the chicken nuggets.

“eat a whole bunch of them for me,” you laugh. suna stops and looks at you.

“i...” suna realizes with a hint of embarrassment that he was under the assumption you two would be going together. “if... if you’re hungry too you can come, if you want.”

“oh.” there’s genuine surprise in your voice and suna feels a bit of relief. “i... i thought.”

“of course you don’t have to if you really need to head home.”

“it’s not that i just, rarely ever get invited to things,” you chuckle and hook your thumbs into the straps of your backpack. “so... shall we go?”

suna feels the corner of his lip turn up in a smile. “chicken nuggets are on me.”

>> monday, 6:00 am:

you sprint to the bus stop as fast as your legs could carry you. rarely were you ever late for your bus, especially with how quickly you went through your morning routine. but this time, your sibling hogged the bathroom for five minutes too long, thus leading you to your current predicament.

the bus is thankfully still there when you reach the stop and you don’t hesitate before flinging yourself inside, only to be greeted with the seats full of passengers. ‘damn,’ you mentally curse. the next bus doesn’t arrive until twenty minutes later and you were surely going to come in to class late and--

“y/n.”

you hear suna’s voice call out to your right. he lifts his bacpack off the seat beside him and gestures for you to sit.

he had saved a seat for you.

“thank you so much,” you smile gratefully and slide into the seat while catching your breath.

“sure thing, busmate,” suna smirks at you. “i, ah, also got you this.” he reaches into his backpack before handing you something. it’s a carton of your favorite strawberry-yogurt drink.

you have to press your lips together to keep the giddy smile off your face as you accept it from suna. “thanks... busmate.”

“so,” suna clears his throat. “i was thinking of what movies to pirate next in the event of another friday traffic jam. you got any ideas?”

“hmm, let me think...”

maybe traffic jams weren’t going to be so bad after all.

▸ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ┈┈┈┈ 🎕 ◂

taglist (check out my post for details on being part of my taglist):

@montys-chaos @miyumtwins @strawberriimilkshake @pocubo @sugawara-sweetheart @akaashisbabydoll @laure-chan @therainroguefanfiction @atetiffdoesart @stephdaninja @oikaw-ugh @charliefredb @dramaqueenweeb1469 @tremblinghearts @applepienation @kirakirasaku @haikyuu-my-love @waitforitillwritemywayout @kattykurr @atsumusdomain @goodfoodxoxoxo @ah-kaashi @guardianangelswings @definitely-yours @amberalisa @whootwhoot @liz-multifandom-hotel @kac-chowsballs @procrastination-lady @miyakiyo0mi

98 notes · View notes

gukyi · 4 years

Text

four weeks | kth

summary: four weeks. that’s how long you’re trapped on campus after missing your flight home because of a grossly overtime final. and as you’re walking around your empty campus, thinking that you could sink no lower, you find yourself alone in the art building with a certain freshman-year-dorm-neighbor from hell, and he’s got an offer that you don’t think you can refuse: he’s staying on campus this winter break as well, and he’s happy to let you live with him.

or, four weeks is all it takes to fall in love.

{enemies to lovers!au, roommates!au, college!au}

pairing: art and chemistry double major kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, comedy, the whole nine!! word count: 20k warnings: alcohol consumption (be safe!), unwanted sexual advances (not between main characters and not at all explicit), and a ton of college tomfoolery. a/n: i’m finally finished with my very first semester of college! it was a lot, but finishing this fic was a treat after my damn finals, which were very stressful. this is part of the stranded for christmas collab, and i’m so honored to be doing this with such amazing, talented writers! please give them and their fics lots of love, and enjoy this super fun train wreck of a fic!

Admittedly, Global Politics in the Twentieth Century has never treated you particularly well.

Your lecturer is about as interesting as grass growing, the readings are low quality scans of book pages with the tiniest font and absolutely no line spacing, and any friends you had in that class in the beginning of the semester dropped out of it by the time mid-September rolled around, leaving you trapped due to societal pressures and a History and Politics general education requirement you still have yet to finish.

But, of all the things you could imagine Global Politics in the Twentieth Century doing to you, like charging you an exorbitant $200 dollars for a textbook you would never open anyway, burning your house down, or even straight up just murdering you, this is by far the worst.

It’s bad enough that your final for Global Politics in the Twentieth Century is on the last possible day for finals at the latest possible time, but when the clock strikes 8:00PM and you have just about fucking had it with this semester, you realize that no one else is standing up.

This panic intensifies as you begin thinking of all of the terrible things that could be the reasoning behind this: you’re just the dumbass who finished their final first and got all of the questions wrong, the clocks have yet to adjust to daylight savings and you think that it’s 8:00PM when really it’s 7:00PM, or, worst of all, your final is running overtime.

You have only ever heard of horror stories about overtime finals. Things like having to cram the next three-hour final into one hour, or having to reschedule the final to some other time that is equally as conflicting. Stuff that is, to a normal human being, a minor to moderate inconvenience at best (and to an overdramatic college student—pure, unadulterated hell), but when this is the last final on the last day at the latest time, there are no other finals to be had. No other school-related scheduling conflicts barreling into you.

It’s just your luck, really, that on the last day of the semester, at the latest time you are allowed to be here, Global Politics in the Twentieth Century would come back to bite you in the ass one last time. As if all the times you dozed off in class (or just plain skipped), forgot to turn in your reading analyses, and showed up late to your recitation are finally catching up to you. Like the very worst kind of karma that could ever befall you.

Well, to be fair, it’s not as if the rest of the day has treated you any better. The entire time you’ve been awake on this fine December day has been an absolute trash can of a day.

This is how the beginning of your very last day of the semester played out:

Your alarm went off at 8:00AM sharp, purposefully set that early so you could wake up and have a productive day studying before your final at 6:00PM.

You hit snooze and ended up waking up around 11:33AM.

You scrambled out of bed very inelegantly and attempted to get your life together before noon so you could at least have six hours worth of a productive study day before your final.

You remembered that you hadn’t packed yet, so you spent the next hour frantically stuffing your belongings into the singular carry-on sized suitcase meant to last you through your month-long winter break.

You also realized that you hadn’t done your laundry for the week (well, week and 6 days…), and you obviously want to bring clean clothes back home so you spend the next two hours doing your laundry and finishing up your packing.

By the time you finally managed to get the time to study, the panic had fully nestled itself into your bones, so you could not focus and spent the next three hours staring at your study guide and praying that osmosis would kick in so you could actually retain information.

You left to go to your final five minutes later than you should have and then ran across campus (with absolutely no dignity left) in order to get there on time.

You arrived at your final just in time, only for there to be technical difficulties with printing the exam because your professor is a procrastinator, just like you are.

The next thirty minutes were then spent contacting the IT department, attempting to fix the printer, having to go print in another building, and then coming back with the final exam to a room of aggravated students who thought that they would be thirty-minutes into the exam by now.

You are taking the final exam. It’s stupid difficult and you’re absolutely going to tank it.

You are watching as the final runs overtime for about half an hour.

You are watching as the final runs overtime for about an hour.

You are watching as the final runs overtime for about an hour and a half.

And on your very last day of the fall semester, your final runs overtime by two whole hours because of some mystic force determined to ruin your life, and your flight heading back home took off fifteen minutes ago.

You know, it could be worse. You could have failed all of your classes. Instead, you paid an exorbitant $500 to miss your flight, fail your Global Politics in the Twentieth Century final, and end up trapped on campus for all of winter break because you don’t have the money to buy another plane ticket at such late notice (or at all).

So, it could be worse.

You trudge out of your final exam and try not to burst into tears on your way back to your dormitory. Barely anybody is left on campus now that finals are officially over, but you still want to save that last shred of dignity. As you’re walking down the pathway, you begin to feel wet splotches on your face. For a moment, you think that they are fat tears rolling down your face, but you look at the cobblestone beneath your feet and realize that instead, it’s raining.

The perfect weather to match your mood, if you’re being honest.

Not wanting to get caught in a downpour, you end up taking refuge in the coffee shop connected to the art building on campus. It’s a genius business design, if you say so yourself, because there is no one more dependent on caffeine than sleep-deprived, eyebag-laden art students. Surprisingly enough, there are still people behind the counter bustling around, so you use the last of your university dollars to order a peppermint hot chocolate to warm your insides (but not your cold, dead soul).

From there, you take a quick detour to explore the art building, a building you have, admittedly, never really taken much of a look at. It must be empty now, with everyone off campus—except you, of course—which gives you the perfect opportunity to wallow in peace while admiring art.

Walking inside, you stare at your reflection in the enormous glass walls. Look at your tired eyes, slouched shoulders, lips pressed thin, and hands warmed only by the heat of your cardboard coffee cup. Count each acne mark and hair out of place. It’s almost like you’re watching yourself as you look in the mirror, a third person standing in the background. The audience. Like the person who’s looking back at you isn’t you at all.

It's quite artistic, actually. Ironically enough.

But no matter how picturesque, how cinematic this particular moment of your life is, nothing can really soothe you after missing your flight, failing your final, and pretty much having the worst day of your entire life.

Just then, you hear footsteps echoing down the halls.

You assume that it must just be a professor leaving their office, or even maybe one of the hardworking security guards, but as you watch the glass walls to catch a glimpse of who's passing by, you realize that it's not a professor, or a security guard, or even a very large mouse scurrying across the floor.

"I thought I would be the last one in here," Kim Taehyung says when he spots you, stopping in his tracks with a canvas about half the size of him underneath his arm.

"So did I," you muse in response, not really wanting to turn around to save yourself the trouble of talking to him.

Still, Kim Taehyung has always been one hell of an observant guy, so by the time he's stopped behind you, he's already peering into the reflection of the glass windows to look at who he's talking to.

"Y/N?" He asks, walking up to you with his eyebrow raised. He comes over, standing next to you as you look at each other's reflections in the glass. "Never thought I'd see you in here."

"Me neither, to be honest," you say. Seeing as you aren't a visual studies major, you never really considered the art building to be a location of top priority. Until now, that is.

The last time you spoke to Kim Taehyung was the last day of your freshman year, when everybody was getting ready to move out, packing up their belongings and removing the fifteen thousand Command hooks stuck to their walls. You and him made eye contact as you placed the last of your boxes for the semester into those enormous Residential Services carts, glaring at each other from your adjacent rooms.

“First year flew by, didn’t it?” Taehyung asks, smirk lacing his features.

“Thank God it’s over,” you tell him.

“Not gonna miss me, huh?” Taehyung winks, and it makes you want to take this cardboard box filled with all of the notebooks and lined paper and folders you used throughout the year and chuck it at his head.

“Miss you?” You ask with a scoff. With the final box finally out of your room, you can officially lock the door behind you, closing the chapter on your very first year at university. “Please. Nothing makes me happier than the fact that I don’t have to live next to you anymore.”

“Why are you still here?” Taehyung asks, tapping his fingers on the side of the canvas underneath his arm. “Thought you’d be off campus by now.”

“I had a late final,” you say, pretending that your life and every aspect of it is fine when it is, in fact, not fine at all. The best case scenario is that Taehyung accepts your bullshit answer for what it is and heads off to do whatever it is that he does, leaving you alone so you can wallow in pity and ponder the meaning of life. The worst case scenario is that Taehyung stays.

And Taehyung has always been very good at picking the latter.

“Ah, sucks, for what class?” Taehyung asks. You can’t tell if he’s genuinely curious or just wants to interrupt your personal self-wallow time for as long as possible.

“Global Politics in the Twentieth Century,” you tell him with a sigh. You don’t want to have to hear, say, read, or write that name ever again.

“Oh, really? I took that class last semester,” Taehyung says with an eyebrow raised, surprised. “I thought it was super interesting.”

As if you needed any more proof that you and Kim Taehyung are exact opposites in every way. You are hardly surprised that Kim Taehyung enjoyed Global Politics in the Twentieth Century—not when the two of them have so much in common, like inconveniencing you, being annoying, and sort of always having it out for you. It’s like they were meant to be together.

“I can’t say I thought the same,” you say pointedly, lips pursed into a tight line.

“Ah, well, I never did peg you for a history buff,” Taehyung says with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Why are you still on campus? I thought art students had to turn in their final projects on the first day of exams,” you ask, turning the focus onto him. It’s obvious that he has no intention of leaving you alone, so your next best option is to interrogate him until the tension between the two of you is so suffocating, so thick and heavy, that he wants to leave.

“I had a couple of chem finals after I finished up my art classes,” Taehyung says. Right. You forgot he was doing a double major. “And, my parents are actually travelling this winter break, so I was planning on staying on campus. Didn’t really want to go back to an empty house, you know?”

After the day you’ve had, you can think of nothing better than opening the door to your home, knowing that you have the entire place to yourself and can spend the night in your bedroom, watching Netflix.

“You’re staying on campus?” You ask. Great. The only two people who will be on campus this winter recess are you and Kim Taehyung. Fantastic.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says, clearly unaffected. He seems particularly unbothered by the fact that he can’t go home, almost like he’s been looking forward to having the entire university to himself. “You’re about to head home, then, aren’t you? Just taking a quick break in the art building?”

Well, almost to himself.

The chances of running into Taehyung this winter break, despite being probably the only two people on campus, is still slim. It’s a big campus, and there are people who are not part of the university that walk on campus all the time.

And still, you don’t know what you’ll do if you lie to Taehyung and tell him you’re about to fly home, and then bump into him at the local coffee shop. You might just perish. That might be what happens.

So, for once in your life, you suck it up and tell the truth. For once.

“Actually, I missed my flight because of my final running overtime, so I’m sort of stuck here,” you tell him, and as the words leave your lips it feels like your whole body gets weighed down, like you’re cemented to the floor.

It’s only then that Taehyung actually turns to face you, so you aren’t standing shoulder to shoulder and staring at the rain pattering on the pavement outside. You look at him, meeting his eyes and to your surprise, they aren’t filled with mirth. He hasn’t got this pleased grin on his face. He’s not milking this situation for what it could be milked for at all. He could be standing here, bathing in the satisfaction of your timely demise, and he’s not.

He actually looks quite sad.

“Really?” He asks, genuine.

“Yeah,” you say, and it’s then that you accept your fate, resign yourself to the fact that you’re trapped on campus with no way (and no money) to get home, and try to look for the silver lining. “So, I’ve actually got to get going, grab my stuff and everything.”

“Oh, do you live off campus?” Taehyung asks. “We should get together sometime this break. Who else are we gonna talk to, right?”

Spending time with Taehyung on your lonely-ass winter break sounds like the absolute worst thing in the entire world. It’s been two years since the last time you were forced to be within fifty feet of each other, so even having this conversation is taking you by surprise.

“No, I’m still staying on campus. But my dorm is closing for the winter break, so I need to go and find an Airbnb or something to stay somewhere,” you say, feeling your heart break at the notion of spending even more money this winter break after having watched your $500 dollar airplane ticket get flushed down the toilet.

Taehyung stays silent, eyes gazing at the lines between the linoleum tiles on the floor. He’s stopped tapping on the side of his canvas, a painting which you still haven’t fully gotten a glimpse of. In the quiet of the art building, the dust settles, and you wait for Taehyung to say something. Anything.

After a few more seconds, you decide that the two of you have been standing in awkward silence for long enough.

“Well, I’ll see you around, I guess,” you say nervously, letting out an unnatural and forced laugh as you turn on your feet and begin to head towards the exit. You have no idea where you’re going to go or what you’re going to do, but what you do know is that you have to be out of your building by noon tomorrow, so you’ve got less than a day to figure it out.

And then, Taehyung says the worst thing he could possibly say at this given moment:

“Do you wanna stay with me?”

You stop dead in your tracks.

“What?”

“You don’t have to say yes,” Taehyung immediately clarifies, as if that makes the offer any less sudden. “But I live in an off-campus apartment year round, so you could always stay with me if you’d like. You wouldn’t have to book an Airbnb or anything. But you don’t have to.”

You close your eyes, feeling your chest rise and sink as you inhale and exhale. You can’t believe you’re actually considering his offer. You can’t believe that Taehyung would willingly offer up his personal abode, his private apartment to you, the freshman year next-door neighbor who knocked on his door every six hours to tell him to shut the fuck up. You cannot believe that you are on the verge of accepting.

“Are you sure?” You ask, both eyebrows raised. Yes, the idea of free lodging and no-hassle appeals greatly to you, but you’re not so certain that Taehyung or you actually want this. After all, you spent all of freshman year hating on each other’s living habits as personal hobbies of yours. “You don’t have to offer just because I don’t have a place to stay. Seriously.”

“No,” Taehyung says, taking a step towards you. It’s barely a foot, but it feels like he’s a thousand miles closer to you than he was before. “I mean it. If you want to stay with me, you’re welcome to. I have a futon in my living room that you can sleep on. I’m being serious.”

You cannot believe that he’s asking this.

You cannot believe you’re considering this.

You cannot believe you’re about to say yes to this.

“You really mean it?” You ask one more time, just so you can be certain. You’d hardly be surprised if this whole thing was just a mindfuck.

“I do,” Taehyung says. “No matter what, I don’t think anybody should be alone for the holidays.”

“Then yes,” you say, letting Taehyung catch up to you as you begin to walk towards the exit, step by step. “I’d really appreciate it.” You turn to look at him, your eyes meeting his own chocolate brown ones, nearly ink black in the dark. You can’t offer much, certainly not anything to top this gracious proposal, but you smile, and he smiles back, and you think that’s enough.

Your first order of business is trekking back to your dormitory and grabbing your fully-packed suitcase. At least spending an hour shoving as many of your belongings as possible into a tiny carry-on has its benefits despite you not setting foot in the airport.

“Been a long time since we’ve done this,” Taehyung comments mindlessly as you walk through campus, following the cobblestone path as a shortcut to his apartment.

“Done what?” You ask snarkily. “Hung out with each other?” You scoff. You and Taehyung spent all of freshman year skirting around each other, desperately trying to avoid contact while also banging on each other’s doors every ten minutes. It was essentially two semesters worth of shouting at each other through walls and sneering when you actually locked eyes.

“Talked,” Taehyung simplifies, because he’s right.

“Isn’t that what we were aiming for?” You ask with a raised eyebrow, turning to look at him as your suitcase wheel skips on a stone out of place. “I thought we had reached that consensus already.” It’s been a year and a half since you last spoke to each other. You were almost confident that, without any overlapping classes, you would be able to keep that streak going long after graduation.

As it turns out, things change.

“I don’t know if we ever actually agreed on that,” Taehyung says, thinking back. “Almost like it went…” he pauses, and you can’t be sure if it’s for dramatic effect or because he actually doesn’t know what to say. “Unspoken.”

The irony is not lost on you. In fact, it hits you smack dab in the forehead as you watch Taehyung’s curious expression morph into the sleazy frat boy one he wore so much back then. He looks very pleased with his pun. It makes you want to sock him in the face.

And as it turns out, some things never change.

You resist the urge to punch him in the shoulder because he offered you a place to stay for this break and you sort of (actually, really) owe him big time right now. But that doesn’t mean you can’t send a disapproving frown, which seems to do the trick.

“I distinctly remember how you were so excited to never have to live next to me again when we moved out,” Taehyung says like he’s remembering a fun trip to the zoo. Almost like he looks upon the last time you ever interacted with each other fondly.

You mentally sigh. If only freshman year you knew what was going to happen in the middle of your junior year. If only your final hadn’t run overtime by two hours. If only you had booked a later flight.

If only.

“I don’t remember that at all,” you lie like a liar, saying the words as the picture of you snarkily spitting them at Taehyung at the end of your freshman year plays in your brain on repeat.

“You sure about that, Y/N?” Taehyung says, turning to look you up and down. He’s always been such a people reader, and you’ve always felt so helplessly transparent in front of him. Even back then. Even now. “Because I don’t really think that your memory is that bad.”

“Nope, no, I don’t,” you say quickly, trying to get Taehyung to stop eyeing you like you’re a question on an exam that he thinks is suspiciously easy.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter then, does it?” Taehyung muses as you round the street corner and his apartment complex comes into view. “Since we’ll be living together, anyway.”

“Miss you? Please. Nothing makes me happier than the fact that I don’t have to live next to you anymore.”

Before you can wheel your cart down the hallway and kiss your freshman year goodbye, Taehyung opens his mouth and says one more thing. You almost don’t hear him, too busy reminding yourself that you’ll never have to see him again, but then he says, “One day, Y/N, you’re going to realize that we’re closer than you think.”

When you walk into Taehyung’s apartment, your eyes zero in on these three things: the navy blue futon pushed up against the wall by his television and the fact that it doesn’t look like the kind of used furniture from off of the street that most college kids typically resort to, the little wooden kitchen table that looks straight out of a family-owned Italian restaurant (looks like the two of you will be eating dinner together), and the paintings on the walls.

“Did you paint these?” Is the first thing you ask once you’re inside, putting your suitcase up against the wall as Taehyung takes off his coat.

“Those? Yeah, I did them early last year. My walls looked so damn plain without anything on them.”

In freshman year, Taehyung seemed like the kind of artsy hipster who shopped at Urban Outfitters and put vinyl records on his wall with Command Strips but never actually listened to them.

But the pieces on his walls aren’t vinyls of bands like Arctic Monkeys and Modern Baseball. They’re paintings, oil and acrylics and even a bit of charcoal. Still life and portraits and shadows.

You had never seen one of his paintings before. You never imagined you’d ever want to, or even get the chance to. And now, you’re standing in the middle of his apartment, and you’re surrounded by them.

“They’re…” You trail off, eyes bouncing from wall to wall as you take all of them in. There’s at least ten, one, if not two on each wall in sight. His bedroom is probably filled with them. His apartment’s not enormous, rather small since it’s only got one bedroom, but the paintings make the whole place bigger. Make it feel full of life.

“They’re alright,” Taehyung finishes. He’s already grabbing extra blankets from the storage closet in the side of the wall. “They were assignments we had during the semester so I figured that they’d be put to good use on my wall.”

“It’s very impressive,” you admit. “Kind of a flex, but an impressive flex.” There is something so perfectly Taehyung about the fact that he’s got art all over his walls, but they’re his very own pieces that he has framed and hanging, on display for the entire world to see if they’d like.

“They’d collect dust otherwise,” he says with a shrug. He tosses two blankets and a pillow your way, letting them plop onto the futon. “Are those enough blankets? It can get fucking cold in here, so I don’t want you to freeze to death or anything.”

And for a moment, you think that Taehyung has actually outgrown his asshole-y freshman days, maturing into someone with an actual moral backbone.

“How considerate,” you say sarcastically, “but I think I’ll be alright. I’m a big, strong girl.”

“Just don’t come crawling into my bed if you want a taste of that weighted-blanket life,” Taehyung says, pretending to flip his hair. “Though, I wouldn’t blame you if you did want to sleep with me.”

With a pillow right at your disposal, you waste no time grabbing it and chucking it straight at Taehyung’s face. He easily dodges, having spotted the move from a mile away, and chuckles.

“Come on, Y/N, you can do better than that,” he says disapprovingly, shaking his head as he makes his way to the kitchen. “Your arm was much stronger back in freshman year.”

Scowling, you watch as he puts on the kettle to boil, letting the water begin to bubble as he goes about his business like he doesn’t have a guest in his living room that absolutely can’t stand him.

And you realize that maybe Taehyung’s a couple of years older, a couple of years wiser, but that doesn’t make him a couple of years any less unbearable.

If you were a sleep-deprived engineering student three cans of Monster deep who, in their 4AM haze, invented a time machine to go back to freshman year, and you told your eighteen-year-old self that you would be living under the same damn roof as Kim Taehyung in two years time, freshman year you would probably sock you in the face. And ask you if you changed majors. Which, you did.

It’s not a far reach to wonder why. By the time October rolled around, the two of you had already established yourselves as archenemies until the end of time.

It was a natural progression, really. Two tiny dorm rooms right next to each other, two beds pressed up against opposite sides of the same paper-thin wall, and two disgruntled freshmen trying their hardest not to die of alcohol poisoning.

Now, you don’t have a track record for going to sleep at a reasonable hour. In fact, you don’t think you’ve gone to bed before 11PM since middle school. But is it really that irrational of you to want to get some well-deserved shuteye at two in the morning after a long day of procrastination and a long night of doing the studying you should have done during the day? Your roommate is fast asleep across from you, having gone to sleep at midnight like a regular college student who has her life together, which means that she’s immune to the fact that right next door, you can hear nothing but pounding drums making the very linoleum floor of your dormitory shake.

Scowling, you scramble out of bed, sliding on your shoes to go give a certain Kim Taehyung a bit of a reprimanding.

Why the fuck does he listen to heavy drums at two in the morning? What the fuck is he doing? Does he not own headphones, or anything that might restrict the sound to his own two ears and nothing else? Does he not have any respect for the people next door to him that might also have to listen to the sound of a thumping bass while they’re trying to go to sleep?

Some of you have 9AM’s tomorrow morning. And by some of you, you mean you.

You quietly shut the door behind you so as not to wake your roommate, dead-bolting it so you don’t get locked out and have to trudge down to the Help Desk looking like a tired piece of non-recyclable garbage, and immediately bang on Kim Taehyung’s door. He hasn’t got a roommate, and you know he’s awake, which means that if he doesn’t respond, you’ll know why.

Surprisingly enough, he does, opening the door and immediately grinning once he sees who’s on the other side, like he can’t get enough of the fact that his mere existence bothers you.

“It’s 2AM,” you tell him, in lieu of a greeting.

He checks his watch. “That it is.”

“Would you mind turning down the music? I’m trying to go to sleep.”

“This late, Y/N?” Taehyung asks, an eyebrow raised. “No wonder you’re always so cranky.”

“Maybe it’s because my next-door neighbor plays loud fucking music when I’m trying to go to sleep!” You say, already beginning to raise your voice like a loser who can’t control her emotions.

Which is exactly what you are, actually. So this is very on brand for you.

“Hmm, never thought about it that way,” Taehyung says innocently. He’s got a gleam in his eye that says otherwise.

“I’m being very nice to you right now, Kim Taehyung. Please turn your music down. Because it’s loud and you’re probably bothering other people as well,” you say, restraining yourself. If you were any more sleep-deprived you’d storm into his room and pound in his face like it was the fucking drums he’s listening to.

“But you’re my only neighbor,” Taehyung says, a bitter reminder that you were unlucky enough to be the second-to-last room in the corridor, and he, the very last one.

You inhale, trying to not lose your cool despite having probably already lost it. Kim Taehyung makes you want to tear your eyeballs out. Or buy heavy-duty earplugs off of Amazon Prime. The thing is, one of those options costs you money, and one is entirely free. So, it’s not difficult to see which one you’re leaning towards.

“Taehyung, please turn your music down, or so help me God. I’m asking nicely,” you can feel the carbon dioxide paths coming from your nose as you breathe, in and out and in and out.

“Just for you, Y/N,” Taehyung says with a grin. God. You could just straight sock him in the face right now. “It helps me focus, but so does getting to see you.”

“Perish immediately,” you tell him sharply before pulling the door shut, marching back off to your room.

True to his word, Kim Taehyung does turn off his music. Or puts in headphones. At least he’s conceded.

That is, until you wake up to a crash of glass later that morning at 7AM, coming from only one direction.

The fact of the matter is, everything you and Taehyung did that year bothered the other so immensely that hatred, pure, unadulterated dislike, was really the only thing that could have come out of it.

“You still listening to loud ass drums in the middle of the night?” You ask, eyeing the speakers by Taehyung’s television as you sit on his couch (as far apart from each other as possible) and eat some leftover spaghetti.

“I invested in some AirPods as a treat to myself last year, so yes, but don’t worry,” Taehyung says. He’s mindlessly flicking through the available Hulu options on his TV, severely unimpressed by every one of them.

“Wow, AirPods, sounds like you’re moving up in the world,” you say callously. “At least I don’t have to listen to it with you anymore.”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said it helped me focus,” Taehyung says, all matter-of-fact about it. “It was from a Spotify playlist of modern orchestral music. You should give it a listen, it really gets you into the zone.”

“My relationship with classical music has, unfortunately, been tainted by a certain someone,” you remind him, taking the time to shoot him a glare just in case he doesn’t already know who exactly is at fault.

“What a shame, you might actually like it,” Taehyung says sadly, shaking his head.

“So what are the speakers for, then? If not for your fuckin’ drums,” you ask, motioning to them again as you slurp up the last of your spaghetti. It’s not as if you’ve got some sort of sacred reputation to protect in front of him. He’s seen you at your best (the first day of freshman year, when there was still light in your eyes), and at your worst (2AM, coming out of a drunken stupor, and bedhead-ridden). Like an ex-boyfriend, or something.

“My friends really like singing karaoke,” Taehyung says. He points to the bluetooth microphones underneath the television as extra proof.

“Why does that not surprise me,” you muse to yourself. Taehyung always struck you as someone that needs people not to calm him down, but to elevate his already boisterous personality. Friends who are equally as unabashed as he is.

“Since you’re here for a whole month, we should try it some time,” Taehyung suggests, taking the empty bowl from your hands and heading back to the sink to wash up.

“You need help with that?” You ask, immediately getting up because even if Taehyung has a tendency to drive you up the wall, you’re still going to be a good guest.

“No, don’t sweat it,” Taehyung says with a shrug. “You know, I have karaoke for All I Want For Christmas Is You. Super seasonal, right?”

You dust off your hands from where you’re standing, loitering in that weird halfway point between his kitchen and his living room. Checking the clock underneath his television, you realize that it’s already past ten. And while you haven’t gone to sleep this early in a while, being in Taehyung’s apartment makes you feel all sorts of strange. Subdued and exhausted, too grateful to be your normal aggressive and witty self. And after such a long goddamn day, passing out on his navy blue futon seems like absolute heaven.

“Not right now,” you say, shaking your head. Karaoke is something that friends do with other friends. And despite currently living under the same roof, you and Kim Taehyung are not friends.

(But perhaps you will be. And that’s the scary part.)

You sigh, absolutely tanked. It’s been a stupidly long day. “Maybe later.”

Living with Taehyung is a sort of strange limbo you never, in a million years, pictured yourself in. You aren’t close enough to be friends but you’ve matured out of being the true enemies you had both envisioned the yourselves as in freshman year. The both of you walk around his apartment like you’re afraid to talk to the other, waiting patiently for the bathroom when the other person’s inside, trying to keep yourself busy with nonexistent work (it is winter break, after all) and the apps on your phones.

This is the sort of thing you dreamed of when you were a freshman. A Kim Taehyung that you could co-exist with peacefully. Someone who didn’t spend every waking moment of his life making every waking moment of yours unbearable. You used to find excuses to sleep overnight in the library (it was open 24/7, after all) just so you wouldn’t have to go back to your dorm and see his stupid face. Now, the two of you sit on opposite ends of the couch minding your own goddamn business and doing two totally unrelated activities. In silence. The only noises being his refrigerator/freezer combo when it starts making ice and the sounds of your fingers hitting the keyboards on your laptops. Maybe he’s playing a video game on the Playstation 4 he keeps out in the living room, but he has headphones on and isn’t saying a word.

It’s a very strange sort of limbo indeed, because no opportunities arise for you to become friends nor do any arise for you to become enemies. At this rate, you’ll live together for the month-long winter break and when it ends, you’ll go back to never speaking to each other again.

And that, strangely enough, makes you sad. Makes you want to reach out to him, try and build up a relationship that last ended in absolute chaos so that when you leave this place, it won’t have been for naught. You will have gained something from it, no matter how small.

But just like usual, Taehyung beats you to it.

“Hey,” he says one day, walking into the living room and already pulling on his overcoat. “You free right now?”

“Yeah, why?” You ask, shutting your laptop as you turn to him. He’s all dressed up and you’ve been wearing the same hoodie for the past forty-eight hours.

“Let’s get hotpot. I’m freezing and I want some hot soup and meat.”

So, you go and get hotpot.

Like any normal university with more than approximately three East Asians enrolled, there’s a hotpot place right off campus that many a college student frequent. You have, admittedly, not been since freshman year, but this winter break you seem to be reaching back into all of those memories anyway, like a can of worms. Memory worms.

“I’m starving,” Taehyung says as the two of you sit down. He’s already opening the menu, eyeing all of the different ingredients he can order for a simple All-You-Can-Eat fare. “Plus, I’ve been craving hotpot for weeks now.”

As if on cue, his stomach grumbles and you can hear it from across the booth.

“Even my tummy knows,” Taehyung says, placing a palm to his belly to soothe it. “Have you gotten hotpot before?”

“Yeah, but it was a while ago. I just never had the time to go for a whole two hours and pig out on food,” you say with a sigh. It’s been so long that you barely remember what it tastes like.

“Then we’ll spend every minute that we’re allowed to here, eating as much food as we want and gaining a few pounds while we’re at it,” Taehyung says, determined. The waiter comes by to pour you both some water and he already begins to order, pointing to about fifteen different things on the menu before the waiter whizzes off.

“I don’t think I heard a single word you told that guy,” you say candidly. Taehyung listed everything off so quickly that it went right over your head.

“I just ordered a lot of food, so be prepared,” Taehyung says like it’s a promise. He’s got this glint in his eye, one that tells you that you should be glad you came on a fairly-empty stomach because it’s about to be filled to the brim.

And prepared you are. Within five minutes of Taehyung ordering, there are plates and dishes and boards of food in front of you and a steaming pot of broth in the middle. There’s so much on the table that you can hardly see the marble table top underneath.

Taehyung dives right in, clearly an experienced hotpot eater. He grabs two bowls filled with various sauces and pops a couple of the vegetables into his mouth as he waits for the broth to boil. And when it begins to bubble, he immediately begins dumping everything in sight into it, from meat to noodles to vegetables. It all looks ridiculously appetizing.

When the first round of hotpot is over and done with, you already feel yourself starting to get sleepy just from the consumption overload. Taehyung, on the other hand, has apparently no limit and is already ordering more, pointing to another fifteen things on the menu.

“Never thought we’d be doing this, did you?” Taehyung asks, and you can hear the knowing tone in his voice. Like he already knows how you’re going to answer him.

“I have to admit that I never did,” you say. It must the food that’s softened you up. No wonder Taehyung invited you to a place where you can literally eat as much as you want in a two-hour timeframe.

“This is nice, though, isn’t it?” He asks.

And for once in your life, you agree. It is nice. Not just the food (though the food is very nice) but being with someone on a winter break that would otherwise be overwhelmingly lonely. Eating out with someone, even if it’s someone with whom your relationship isn’t all that strong, isn’t that sturdy. It’s nice. Because it means that, somewhere along the way, you both wanted something to change for the better.

“It is.” You nod. “Way better than all the times we fought during freshman year.”

“Remind me why we never went to our RA to resolve things like we should have?” Taehyung says, but he doesn’t make it sound like you both made a mistake. He asks because he’s curious, and because the past is the past.

“I think we were both too fucking prideful for our own good,” you say, shaking your head. You now would disapprove of you in freshman year so strongly. “We thought that we could either resolve it ourselves or spend the rest of our lives hating each other.”

“Isn’t that crazy?” Taehyung asks, holding up his water like it’s a glass of vintage red wine from the 1800’s. “That we thought that we could just spend the rest of our lives hating each other?”

“I was prepared to do it,” you say, taking another piece of meat from the hotpot in front of you, letting the steam waft from it like a tiny campfire. “With how big this school is, I was convinced that you and I would never have to see each other again. Never have the opportunity to change how we felt about each other.”

“But that’s not how life works, Y/N,” Taehyung tells you, looking into your eyes like he’s trying to reach into your soul, pick apart the memories of freshman year and watch as your relationship deteriorated as each day went by. “It doesn’t matter if we see each other every day for the rest of our lives or if, after this, we never say another word to each other. You will always have the opportunity to change how you feel about someone, even if you aren’t with them. Even if you aren’t seeing them at all.” He takes a deep breath, and reaches over the steaming pot of soup to nudge your shoulder with his finger, ever so slightly. It makes you look up at him, meet his dark brown eyes with your own, foggy from the steam. “That’s what makes us human, Y/N. We’re human because we can change.”

Your heart, still and silent, begins to thump.

“Do you wanna go to New York?”

“Today?”

It’s early in the morning on Christmas Eve, and the two of you are wide awake after Taehyung’s neighbors a floor below him called the fire department as an early wake-up call for the entire complex. You’ve always been a light sleeper—Taehyung made sure of that in freshman year—but even he woke up as the fire trucks pulled up to the fire lane next to the apartment building. He came stumbling out of his room in nothing but a t-shirt two sizes too big and sweatpants hanging low on his hips, locks of his hair sticking every which way, face illuminated by the blue, red, and orange lights of the emergency vehicles beneath the window.

And he stayed like that, even as the noise died down and the sun rose. He marched around looking like he had just rolled out of bed, barely sparing himself a second glance in the reflection of his refrigerator.

“Yeah,” Taehyung responds like it’s obvious. “If we hopped on a bus now we could make it there by nine and spend the day there. How about it?”

“You mean, right now?” You ask, just as clarification. College and its many features have forced you to grow used to spontaneity, but it usually came in the form of “I’m hungry, so I am going to eat an entire bag of Hot Cheetos at this exact moment” or “Yes, my bank account is crying but these pants are very cute,” and not, “Do you wanna go to New York?”

“In a bit. Buses leave from here every hour to go to New York, especially since it’s the holiday season. Tickets are ten dollars. We could do it, if you’d like,” Taehyung says casually, like he’s suggesting that the two of you go grocery shopping or something else equally mundane.

“Just for the day?” You ask, a girl of both many questions and a shocked expression.

“Sure,” Taehyung says with a shrug, biting into a tomato as if it were a goddamn apple. “We can go to a museum or two, eat a nice lunch or dinner, and go ice skating at Rockefeller. See the tree, too. It’ll get us in the holiday spirit, don’t you think?”

And normally an outing to New York would have you planning weeks in advance, organizing reservations and buying tickets for entry into exhibits, but it’s winter break and you’ve got more free time than you know what to do with.

And maybe you’d hate to admit it, but you need someone like Taehyung to get you off of your ass and out of the house, do something fun and spontaneous like college students do in the movies.

Taehyung is practically a movie portrayal of a college student in real life. He’s spontaneous, secretive, sage. He’s artsy and worldly, paints but is also extremely smart and well-educated. He lives in a quaint off-campus apartment by himself and spends his days making friends and keeping busy. He loves to tease you, and has that sort of lopsided smirk that all casanovas do. And he is, as much as you’d hate to admit it, always been something of a looker. He’s got the same sort of handsome, classic look that young European men in paintings from the eighteenth century have, a portrait of them in the prime of their lives. One wink and he’d send every preteen girl in the audience to their knees.

And you? Well, you suppose you’re the tragically unlucky female lead who has to live with him until classes resume.

Taehyung’s standing in the kitchen, leaning on the counter island as he scrolls for bus tickets on his phone. “There’s a bus leaving from the station in thirty minutes. Think we can make it?”

It might be the fact that you’ve been holed up in Taehyung’s apartment for the past forty-eight hours that makes you say yes. Or it’s the desperation to do something, anything, literally anything, to keep yourself busy this break.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that little voice in the back of your chest, one buried in the depths of your heart, that makes you go. Because there is something so wonderfully exhilarating about being spontaneous. And there is something even more exciting about it being with someone you know.

You grin. “Let’s do it.”

Two hours later, the two of you are standing outside Penn Station in New York City, staring at the road signs to try and orient yourself. It’s chilly and a little windy, but the sun beats down regardless, shadows of skyscrapers cast along the streets.

You pull out your phone to pull up the Maps app, looking up directions, but Taehyung just begins to walk down 7th Avenue, not a care in the world.

“Where are you going?” You say quickly, scrambling to catch up to him. This early in the morning, your breath still turns to fog as you jog towards him to meet his abnormally long strides.

“Do you want to go to the Met, MOMA, or Guggenheim?” Taehyung asks simply, like he’s trying to decide which type of Doritos to get in the chips aisle.

“Uh…” you are, admittedly, not that particular to the art that you’ll see. Art does not have as much of an immediate relevance to you as other things in your life, like your bank account, or your final semester grades. “Why don’t you pick the museum, and I’ll pick the restaurant we go to?”

“Deal,” Taehyung says, that same devilish gleam in his eyes, a trick (or two) up his sleeves. Only this time, you aren’t afraid of what he’s got in store.

You find that you are very much looking forward to it.

Twenty minutes later sees the both of you standing outside the gigantic glass doors of the MOMA, surrounded by a pitch black exterior about as edgy and contemporary as the pieces of art inside.

“You never struck me as a modern art kind of guy,” you tell Taehyung as the both of you walk inside, glass windows and ceilings on every side of you and a bustling crowd right in front of you. Modern art seems rather stuffy. And perhaps, two years ago, you would have equated Taehyung to such, but now, stuffiness couldn’t be the furthest adjective to describe him. He may be a little obnoxious and overwhelmingly charismatic, but he is certainly not stuffy.

“I prefer Impressionism and the subsequent periods,” Taehyung tells you, another fact you never knew but happily stow away. “But I am, admittedly, a bitch for modern art, no matter how goddamn stupid it is.”

“Good to know we’re spending our money on a museum that will definitely be worth our while,” you say dryly, taking the two tickets from the woman behind the desk. You pick up a map while you’re at it, almost certain to get lost in this maze of a museum, but Taehyung is already zooming off, forcing you to scurry through the herds of people just to keep up his pace.

“Do you know where we’re going?” You ask, entirely serious. You fumble to open up the map and suddenly you’ve got a piece of shiny paper larger than your backpack in your hands, overwhelmed.

Taehyung stops, the two of you standing right by the middle of a doorway, blocking everybody’s path. And he places his hands on top of yours, lowering the map as you gaze up at him, wondering why the heck you haven’t moved to the side so you aren’t inconveniencing the thousands of people roaming the museum. His brows are soft, a little furrowed, like someone began to knit them together but then forgot halfway through. Like he’s thinking. Like he wants to tell you something.

“No,” Taehyung says softly, large hands enveloping yours as he begins to fold the map back up, “I don’t know where we’re going.”

You open your mouth, about to prove your point, but Taehyung continues.

“But I don’t need to. Because we’re supposed to get lost,” he tells you, honest, candid, and true. “That’s the whole point. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.”

You scoff, heart a little warm on the inside but wit still sharp. “You sound like an infomercial for a cruise.”

Taehyung laughs, tilting his head back in the way that says that he means it. “I’m serious, Y/N. Please. We don’t need a map. We can guide each other. All we need is faith, trust…” He pauses, leaning in and waiting for you to finish his sentence.

Begrudgingly, you give in, mostly because he’s too naturally charming not to. “And pixie dust.”

Taehyung grins, satisfied, before he catches you by surprise, takes your hand in his, and pulls you into the elevator.

Much like the corrupt businesses whose main offices are only a few minutes walk away, you go from the top down. Taehyung says that it is like a very, very long slide. You say that it’s an extremely slow walk.

He’s an art student. You don’t really know what else you were expecting. He stares at each piece until it bores into his eyes, fills up another cup in his soul, overflowing with color, with light and meaning and everything in between. Every now and then, he and you stop at the same one, inspecting each and every detail, and Taehyung will lean to the side and whisper in your ear.

He will tell you what he thinks of the medium, what he thinks of this piece and what he thinks of the positioning of that specific object. He tells you not how he interprets it in the eyes of the artist, but what it means to him, and how he perceives it. And, as the hours pass, you realize that, while you have been in museums before, you had never felt like you were truly there. And here you are, standing in front of priceless pieces of art with a boy in love with art beside you, and he holds your hand as he takes you through what brings him more joy than anything else.

(Well, besides perhaps, chemistry.)

When you reach the first painting and sculpture floor, Taehyung lets out an audible gasp.

You round the corner and before you know it, you’re standing in front of what could very well be the most famous painting of the nineteenth century.

“I forgot it was here,” Taehyung says distantly, like he’s forgotten who he’s talking to. In the ink black of his pupils, you can see the oil painting reflected, the thick blue and yellow brushstrokes, each and every line on the canvas.

“Now, this piece I’m familiar with,” you say, standing next to him and staring up at The Starry Night, an artistic feat, worth more than probably a hundred times your tuition, and a legacy. The legacy that The Starry Night left behind is one that you see still reflected today. You see it in all of the other people in this little room, clambering over one another just so they can get a glimpse. You see it in the little children who draw self-portraits in art class, Sharpies and markers and crayons littering the page.

And you see it in the boy next to you, who loved something so much he knew that he would be doing it for the rest of his life. He would be following a legacy, forever, until he forged one of his own. You look not at the art but as Kim Taehyung gazes at it, memorizing each and every stroke and imprinting it onto his brain. And you finally realize what art means: passion. It means that it fills you up, flows through your blood and into your heart, consumes you. And it means that the only thing you can do to prevent it from eating you alive is to spread it, and let others get a taste of the madness.

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it,” you muse. You don’t know much about art but when there is something so mesmerizing, so stunning, in front of you, it’s difficult not to notice.

You feel Taehyung turn his head, letting the gaze of his piercing brown eyes rest upon your figure for a split second before he turns back. “It is,” he says.

The way that the two of you go through art museums, by the time you emerge, it’s already dark and the streets are beginning to empty as tourists and cityfolk alike find places to eat, walking into every bar, restaurant, cafe, and house on the hunt for a good meal, whether homemade or curated. You had spent nearly an hour in the gift shop alone, laughing at the overpriced t-shirts and kitschy pillows.

“Where to next, m’lady?” Taehyung asks as you push open the glass doors and let the biting cold hit your noses.

“You know, we were so busy in there that I didn’t even have time to find a nice place to eat tonight,” you admit sheepishly.

“That’s alright,” Taehyung says with a shrug. “I like surprises. Spontaneity is my thing.”

“You don’t say,” you comment sagely, making Taehyung roll his eyes.

Knowing that it’s nearly impossible to get a reservation now, you and Taehyung make your way south, following the flow of traffic heading towards Times Square and keeping an eye open for any places that look relatively nice and busy, but not too busy, the perfect sign of both a delicious and available restaurant.

After walking for a few blogs, cuddling together (in a totally platonic way) to preserve as much body heat as possible in the now freezing weather, air no longer warmed by the sun’s rays, you stumble upon a tiny hole in the wall Mediterranean place. You can’t really see anything inside due to the fog on the window, forming from the combination of cold air and hot, but Taehyung does a quick google search and says that it’s a modern Mediterranean restaurant that specializes in pizza. Google says it has two dollar signs. You hear the word pizza, and everything pretty much goes out of the window.

“Hi,” Taehyung says as you squeeze through the little hallway to get to the host, voice warm and silky. “Table for two?”

“Your last name, sir?” The man asks.

“Oh, we don’t have a reservation,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. You two are college students. It’s not like you plan ahead anyway.

“That’s okay, we still ask for every customer’s name for a more personalized experience,” the host says. He leans forward, eyes wide, waiting for Taehyung to respond.

“Kim,” Taehyung says simply as the host gathers two menus and a wine list.

“Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Kim,” the host says, and you open your mouth to correct him (Because you are not married. You’re not. You’re not even dating. This is not a date. It’s not a date, right?), but Taehyung puts a finger to his lips and tells you to zip it. It’s almost like he’s enjoying this.

For the rest of the evening, the wait staff all address you and Taehyung as Mr. and Mrs. Kim, which is absolutely outrageous for multiple reasons: you are college students, you both look like college students, you’re not dating, you don’t act like you’re dating (other than the hand-holding and cuddling which was purely out of survival and nothing else), and most importantly, you’re not interested in each other like that. That part is obvious. Isn’t it?

When you order a glass of champagne each they call you Mr. and Mrs. Kim. When Taehyung has a question about one of the ingredients on one of the pizzas they call you Mr. and Mrs. Kim. When you order your food they call you Mr. and Mrs. Kim. When they come by to clarify Taehyung’s request of no anchovies they call you Mr. and Mrs. Kim. When they bring these massive pizzas and place them down on your table, wishing you a pleasant meal they call you Mr. and Mrs. Kim.

Mr. and Mrs. Kim, they call you.

“Everything alright, Mr. and Mrs. Kim?” Your waiter asks as you’re plowing through your individual pizzas very inelegantly.

“Yes,” Taehyung grins cheesily. “Thank you very much.”

He’s positively beaming.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” You ask, a single eyebrow raised.

“This pizza is really good,” Taehyung tells you.

“Not that,” you say with a roll of your eyes. You know that Taehyung knows exactly what you’re referring to, he’s just being annoying about it, as per usual. “The whole ‘we’re married’ thing. You like it, don’t you?”

“The “Mr. and Mrs. Kim’ thing?” Taehyung says with a smile. He’s relishing in the feeling, especially when it’s obvious that you’re not as keen on the collective nickname. “I fucking love it. You don’t?”

“We’re college students,” you remind him.

“So? That means that they think that we look old enough to not be college students. I consider that a win, especially because Jimin always says I look twelve,” Taehyung says with a shrug.

“We’re not married,” you add. It’s the truth.

“You’re right, we’re not, but Mr. and Mrs. Kim has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I love the way that it sounds,” Taehyung says. He basks in it.

“We’re not even dating, Taehyung,” you say with a sigh, exasperated. Doesn’t he get it? It’s weird, being Mr. and Mrs. Kim, because you never have been. There never was a Mr. and Mrs. Kim. And quite frankly, there never will be. “We’re not even interested in it.”

“Who says?” Taehyung asks, and the path he’s directing this conversation down is not one you’d like to take. It’s rocky and bumpy and unclear, hazy with fog. You don’t do fog. You like when things are clear cut and visible.

“I do,” you say with a frown. “Are you interested in dating me, Taehyung? Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to date you right now. Or, like, at all.”

Taehyung pauses. His brows are furrowed again, but all the way this time. He stares down at his pizza, and he contemplates. You sit there and watch him, feeling the weight of every second as it passes by. Were you too harsh? Maybe you were. But it was the truth, and he deserves something honest, even if it’s brutal.

“Oh,” Taehyung says, like he wasn’t expecting those words to come out of your mouth. What you said has been lingering between you like smoke, refusing to dissipate. “Well, I—I guess that makes two of us.” It’s obvious that there’s something else there, just underneath the water, but you don’t press further. It sounds like he’d rather keep it hidden.

When you leave, the waitstaff bid you goodbye exactly as you had predicted.

“Enjoy your evening, Mr. and Mrs. Kim,” they say cordially as you and Taehyung pull on your coats and hats and gloves and head out the door.

“You too,” Taehyung says softly after a few seconds, like he was waiting for the words to fade away before speaking. “Thank you.”

Your bus leaves from Penn Station at 9:30 that night, and it’s barely seven. Plenty of time for you to continue exploring, see Times Square all lit up like it’s New Year’s Eve, go up to the top of the Empire State Building, or even take a peek into Central Park at nighttime, when the moon is high and the lanterns are lit.

“How about we go ice skating?” Taehyung suggests as the two of you walk along the pavement, side by side. Your hands are buried deep into the pockets of your coat.

“At Rockefeller?”

“Sure, why not?” Taehyung says. That sentence pretty much sums up your trip to New York thus far. “I’ve always wanted to go skating and see the tree during Christmastime. When else will we get the chance?”

Five minutes later you’ve paid for rental skates, a locker for your shoes, and a ticket to the rink. Visible right next to you is the enormous tree, the lights twinkling and cameras flashing as everyone scrambles to get their Instagram picture to prove that they actually went to the tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

When the zamboni is finished and the employees have skated over the ice enough to increase the level of friction, Taehyung and you balance on your skates as you walk towards the entrance. Slowly, everybody begins to glide on, wobbling at first before eventually getting the hang of it. There are a couple of small children holding onto those little penguin skate assistants, laughing as their older brothers and sisters guide them along the ice.

“I’ve never skated before,” you admit nervously, about two seconds before you’re about to enter the rink.

Taehyung’s mouth drops open. “Never?”

“No,” you reiterate, even more nervous than before. “I have no idea what I’m doing, I just said yes because like you said we’re in New York and it’s nearly Christmas and we should just seize every opportunity that we have and—”

“Y/N,” Taehyung says, calming you down as he ushers you away from the entrance so you aren’t blocking other people’s paths. “It’s okay. You don’t have to worry,” he tells you, holding onto your wrists to make you look up at him. “I can show you how to. It’s easier than it looks, I swear. I won’t let you fall. You just have to trust me, alright?” He shakes your wrists to catch your attention, make sure that you heard him. “Alright?”

Deep breath. Inhale, exhale.

“Alright.”

Everything is, in fact, not alright. No matter what Taehyung says, ice skating is way more fucking difficult than it looks. Taehyung steps onto the ice and it turns into second nature for him, gliding around a small circle to get warmed up as you cling onto the side railing like an idiot. You have no idea how to move, you have no idea where to go, you just shuffle along the railing with the rest of the children who are far younger than you, also trying to skate for the first time.

This is embarrassing.

“You’re a liar,” you tell Taehyung pointedly as he circles around, coming up to rest next to you. You’d point at his chest for emphasis, but you’re afraid you’ll fall without both hands on the railing at all times. “This is—” you pause, remembering that there are children present, “—very difficult.”

Taehyung just chuckles. “You have to be brave, Y/N, come on,” Taehyung implores. He holds out his hand, motioning for you to let go of the wall and take a leap of faith.

“No, I will not be brave. Please let me be weak,” you beg, scared for your life. One wrong move and you’d go splat in the middle of the rink and embarrass yourself in front of all of New York City.

“Come on, Y/N,” Taehyung says, holding his hand closer. “You said you trusted me. I told you, I won’t let you fall. Come on. Be brave.” And then he adds, leaning in to meet your eyes, “for me?”

He’s always been too charming for your own good.

Tentatively, second by second by painstaking second, you remove your hands from the railing, first the left and then the right, as Taehyung pulls you right next to him, holding on tight.

“See?” He asks as you begin to move on your own, Taehyung’s short glides pulling you along the ice. “Look, it’s not that bad.”

“I am scared for my life right now.” You blink.

“Focus on me, okay,” Taehyung says, making you meet his eyes once more. “Eyes on me, alright. You’re doing fine. You’re skating, isn’t this fun?”

“I am terrified that I am going to perish on this very rink,” you repeat for emphasis.

“Look, Y/N, look! You’re skating!” Taehyung tells you, and finally you glance down at your feet and realize that they’re beginning to move on the ice, all on their own.

“Oh my God! I’m skating! What the—heck!” You say, eyes widening in excitement.

“I knew you could do it,” Taehyung says, hands gripping on tight. You can feel the warmth from his palms seep into your own, feel the back of your hand burning from the touch. “You just had to trust me.”

“This is so cool,” you say, immediately very pleased with yourself. “I’m such a pro, I can do anything. Who said skating was scary?”

Taehyung opens his mouth to respond, but you shoot him a warning glare and he zips his lips.

“Watch this, I can even do it on my own. You’re gonna be very impressed, Kim Taehyung, just watch me!”

Within the next moment, you’re letting go of his hand and pushing yourself away from him, gliding along the ice ever-so-slightly as you begin to balance on your own.

But power is short-lived, and much like every leading male in Greek tragedies, your hubris gets the best of you, and you face the ultimate demise.

The moment you attempt to pick up your left foot, your right toe pick gets caught in a dip of the ice and you go toppling over, collapsing onto the ice in a cold, bruised ball.

Luckily, your coat takes most of the hit, its length preventing your knees from hurting into the next century, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing. Ashamed of yourself and even more mortified to have to face Taehyung after boasting about how amazing you are, you slowly push yourself off of the ice, wobbling like a baby deer.

“What was that, Y/N?” Taehyung says with a raised eyebrow as he skates over. He’s clearly just recovered from a laughing fit.

“Fuck off,” you mutter, and you don’t even care if children hear you. “I got excited.”

“Clearly,” Taehyung notes, eyes wide and knowing. He holds out a hand, and before you even have time to think of a snarky retort your palm is reaching out for it, letting him pull you up off of the rink. “Here. Come on.”

One hour and two fairly bruised knees later, you and Taehyung are taking off your skates and relishing in the feeling of your feet, flat on the ground like feet should be.

“You alright?” Taehyung asks. You didn’t have any massive falls following the first spectacle, but you admittedly, still cannot ice skate very well. You’ll have to figure out a way to learn.

You round out the night by going to look at the Christmas Tree. Now that it’s fairly late, the massive families with young children have all gone home, leaving only the young adults left to bask in the glory of the peak of Christmas decorations.

“It seemed bigger in photos, didn’t it?” Taehyung asks as the both of you crane your necks to look at the tree in all of its glory. “Like it was the size of a small tower.”

“Yeah,” you agree. It looks somewhat disappointingly small, now that you’re here in front of it. “Today was a lot of fun, Taehyung. Your spontaneity paid off.”

“When does it not?” Taehyung asks, proud of himself. He even has enough of an ego to do a little hair flip, making you shake your head disapprovingly. “But I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I certainly did.”

“What was your favorite part?” You ask.

“Definitely when you were in your prime for one moment and a puddle on the ice the next,” Taehyung says, and for that, he earns a punch to the shoulder. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But I did really enjoy ice skating.”

“Yeah, because you can actually do it,” you remind him.

“What about you?”

You think. This day has been so long, from getting woken up by Taehyung’s irresponsible neighbors and the entire city’s fire department outside your window, to hopping on a bus to New York, to museums and restaurants and ice skating and the city, you feel like you’ve lived three days in one.

“The museum,” you finally decide. “I’m not really an art person, but I thought it was lovely. Nice and heated, too.”

“Yes, the best part about the Museum of Modern Art was its modern, state-of-the-art central heating,” Taehyung repeats, making you laugh. “I’m glad you liked the museum. I was worried you’d think it was too stuffy.”

You had thought that too. And then you watched someone fall in love with each and every piece, right in front of you, and you realized that there’s more to art than putting a price tag on it and critiquing it. It’s passion, materialized. It’s real.

It’s Taehyung.

“No,” you say with a shake of your head. “I thought it was beautiful.”

On Christmas Eve, it snows.

Correction: On Christmas Eve, it snows a lot.

Correction for the correction: On Christmas Eve, it blizzards.

When you listened to “White Christmas” last night, this isn’t exactly what you had in mind, if you were being honest. Maybe an inch or two. Maybe even just a flurry. But certainly not nearly two feet worth of snow, effectively trapping you inside of Taehyung’s apartment complex until the next day because not even the snow plows are allowed to go out on the roads. Not until the snow stops.

“Good thing we don’t live on the first floor, right?” Taehyung asks with a laugh that late afternoon, taking a peek out of the window to stare down at the white expanse below you. “I’d hate to be those guys.”

“It must be so cold,” you say sadly. You’ve spent the better part of today huddled up in as many blankets as Taehyung owns in his apartment and you have no intention of shedding even one of them. Not even as you sweat right through your pajama shirt from high school.

“We can just make dinner here, tonight,” Taehyung says, fishing around in his kitchen to see what the options are. It’s already beginning to get dark even though it’s not even five o’clock. God, you hate winter.

“What are we making?”

Taehyung fumbles through the cabinets and his fridge, hunting for anything that might make a good meal. Eventually, he pulls out two cartons of Trader Joe’s vegetable broth and every vegetable in his fridge.

“Wanna make soup?”

Soup is very easy to make. You set the broth to simmer, chop up vegetables, and dump them in the pot.

But the idea of you and Taehyung sharing his tiny kitchen space, both with knives in your hands is, well, a recipe for disaster.

Luckily no knife mishaps occur, but, like the children at heart that you are, you eventually end with pelting uncooked lima beans at each other in the most adult version of a food fight you have ever had in your life. No fuss, no mess, no tomatoes or key lime pies or spaghetti doused in sauce getting chucked across the kitchen floor, the dinner table.

No, your little food fight ends with you and Taehyung kneeling down on the tile as you pick up each little lima bean, gathering them in your palms.

You make to toss it out but Taehyung stops you.

“Wait,” Taehyung says, a hand on top of yours as it hovers over the trash can, “don’t toss them out.”

“Huh?” You ask.

“I’ll feed them to the birds,” he says, taking the pile from your hands and placing all of the lima beans, along with his own, in a Ziploc bag.

“You have a porch out here?” You ask, looking around. You’ve never seen it.

“No.” Taehyung shakes his head. “They land on my bedroom window sill so I feed them.”

When you were in freshman year, you remember how Taehyung always left his window open. You know this because even though yours was always closed, anytime a police car, fire truck, ambulance, or particularly loud motorist drove by, the sound was always loudest on the wall of your room that bordered Taehyung’s. You hated how he always left his windows open, even in the winter. Wasn’t he goddamn cold?

And now, even though it’s Christmas Eve and there’s a blanket of snow outside nearly two feet deep, Taehyung will go and open his bedroom window again and feed the birds lima beans like a fucking Disney prince, and it makes your heart flutter, ever so slightly.

You end the night sitting on Taehyung’s couch, only a foot or so of space in between your bodies as he multitasks, channel surfing and gulping down your homemade soup.

“I haven’t made soup in a while, but damn, this is good,” Taehyung says, drinking the rest of it before getting up to help himself to seconds. He sticks a hand out to take your bowl as well, and wordlessly you hand it to him.

“It’s my magic touch,” you tease. It was not. Taehyung did most of the work. You don’t have much of an affinity for cooking.

“It’s my chemistry brain,” Taehyung corrects. “Chem is basically like making soup.”

“But it can kill you,” you tack on.

“But it can kill you,” he agrees, returning to the couch. This time, when he sits down, he plops right down next to you, your sides touching as you sit in front of his television, slurping up homemade vegetable soup. “How’s your major? What is it, again?”

“English with a minor in Psych,” you say over a mouthful of carrot.

“Sounds like too much reading for me,” Taehyung comments. “I’d only like picture books.”

“Yeah, wonder why,” you tell him sarcastically. “But it’s going well. I’m thinking of maybe adding Consumer Psych as another minor since there’s a lot of overlap, but I’m not sure. I’ll think about it.”

“Sounds busy,” Taehyung comments.

“Almost as busy as visual studies and chem,” you remind him. “Seriously, do you ever sleep?”

“Inspiration is a fickle mistress and the will to do my chem problem sets, even more fickle,” Taehyung muses like the two subjects aren’t the absolute bane of his existence. “But yeah, I mean, I made it this far.”

“Our majors are so different,” you comment. They are. Encompassing all sides of the college major spectrum, from STEM to art to humanities. The only thing you’re missing is a business minor. But only snakes would ever be interested in something like that.

“It’s nice,” Taehyung decides. “Because this is forcing us to talk with someone with whom we don’t already share all of the same classes with.”

“I couldn’t imagine taking the same class as you,” you say, not because you’d hate having to be in the same room as Kim Taehyung or dread the potential to be paired up for group work, but because your tastes are so different. They’ve always been different. Art, English, chemistry, psychology. Headphones or speakers. Closed windows or open. It’s always been opposites with the two of you.

“Maybe I’ll take a psych class so that way we can,” Taehyung says.

“Maybe I’ll take an art history course,” you retort.

“You’d really take an art history course? They’re awfully boring, and I’m an art major,” Taehyung says, in disbelief.

You ponder it for a moment, but then nod. Yes, you would. Even if it sent you to sleep. Because it looks genuinely interesting. “After today, I wouldn’t mind it. You showed me a lot about art, Kim Taehyung. More than I thought I would ever learn in my lifetime.”

Taehyung sighs, shutting the television off. You guys weren’t watching it anyway. You hardly realized it was on. He looks down at his empty soup bowl, and then at you. He always does that—always looks somewhere else before looking at you, like he has to muster up the courage by first staring at an inanimate object. And then he says, “You’ll never stop learning about art. Neither will I. It’s a constant cycle, learning and relearning and changing your mind and revisiting old pieces. Because art is all around us.”

He looks at you, like he’s trying to say something else but doesn’t have the words. “You just have to look for it.”

New Year’s Eve is often a time of reflecting on the year that’s passed, making a list of goals to achieve once the clock strikes twelve. Thanking your friends and family, your loved ones, for being there for you this year, and promising to be there for them as well next year.

To you and Taehyung, it’s literally your last chance to get piss drunk this year without repercussions. You’ve never stayed here, at your university in the city, for New Year’s Eve (obviously). You’d be interested in getting all dressed up to go out. Taehyung would also be interested.

And so, after a day of slouching around and making half-assed resolutions you know you won’t keep (like managing your time better. As a college student? Impossible.), you and Taehyung decide to get dressed up and go out, pulling out the winter jackets you don’t care if you lose, or if they get trashed, or if they stain with vodka. All you want is to lose your goddamn mind in a tiny club with a bunch of other wasted young adults who don’t want to stay at home on the last night of the year.

You are, unsurprisingly, a self-proclaimed not-a-going-out person, but tonight is something of an exception. It’s your last night to do this this year, and honestly, you can’t really think of a better way to end the year. There’s been plenty of ups (that A+ on your paper on the ethics of Beowulf, yay!) and plenty of downs (Global Politics in the Twentieth Century, yikes), and no better way to say goodbye to them all than with alcohol in your system. But even if, during the regular college season, you’re something of a stick in the mud, you remembered to pack a nice party dress just in case, so you tug on a little black velvet mini-dress that sparkles rainbow in the light, covered with tiny glitters that get stuck in your hair and never come out.

As you’re fishing around for some tights that you don’t care about so your legs don’t freeze off in the cold, the door to Taehyung’s bedroom opens.

Out he walks in all of his New Year’s Eve glory, a full black ensemble complete with structured belt and a leather jacket. You turn around to look at him and he stops dead in his tracks, eyes blinking like he doesn’t know where to look. It gives you a clear view of him and his simple yet extremely flattering outfit. He looks like Danny Zuko. He looks like a boy you would avoid in high school.

Funnily enough, seeing him now draws you closer to him.

“Wow, hot stuff, you clean up nicely,” You comment, tugging on some black tights with a hole in the back that no one’s going to notice.

“I could say the same thing about you,” he adds on, a hand coming up to rub at the nape of his neck. “I didn’t even know you had this.”

“I packed it just in case,” you say with a shrug.

“Came in handy, didn’t it?” He asks. He comes up to stand by you, holding his arm out for you to wrap yours around, two people on a mission to not remember most things about this night. “You ready to go?”

Stuffing your phone and wallet into your purse, you quickly link arms with him as you walk to the door, your black boots clopping on the floor like the obnoxious high-heel owner you are.

“Yeah, you ready?” You ask, doing a quick double check. You’ve got everything.

“Let’s fuck some shit up.”

And fuck some shit up you do. By the time you reach the club that Taehyung had found online, you can already hear the bass pounding through the walls, feel the ground shake from the speakers alone. Go big or go home, you suppose.

As you expected, the club is already packed with bodies. Every young adult within a twenty-mile radius is out tonight, eager to spend the last night of the year doing what young adults in the primes of their lives do best: drink. And you and Taehyung are no exception.

Like everybody else entering the club at the same time as you, you make a beeline for the bar, already itching to get something into your system. You don’t love being drunk, and you like the taste of alcohol even less, so you just order a simple cocktail that should keep you occupied for a while.

Taehyung, on the other hand, well. He seems to harbor the go big or go home mentality quite firmly. It’s obvious that he’s here to do one thing and one thing only, which is not remember what he did when he wakes up tomorrow. You watch, a little impressed and a lot nervous about what exactly he’s trying to achieve, as he downs several shots in a row, pays the bartender, and immediately pulls you into the crowd of people dancing in the center of the room.

“The more I move, the faster my body can process the alcohol,” Taehyung tells you as your cocktail sloshes around in the glass in your hand. It’s an alright cocktail. A little too sweet for you, but you suppose that that’s your fault.

“Wow, when you said you wanted to fuck shit up, you meant it,” you comment as Taehyung dances, jumping and swaying to the beat of whatever Top 40 pop song is blaring from the speakers. You can barely hear the music over the volume of the rest of the club, people shouting to speak to each other, the sound of feet hitting the floor.

Within approximately fifteen minutes, Taehyung is already fairly tipsy and eager to keep going, bubbling over with excitement.

You convince him to dance a little longer before he goes back to get more, trying to make sure at least a bit of the alcohol he had at the beginning of the night goes through his body. The song changes to something much sultrier, like honey dripping from the speakers themselves, and suddenly, the entire club’s atmosphere changes.

“I love this song,” Taehyung says, and it must be the lack of control that causes him to place a hand on your waist and pull you in close to him, making you gasp.

“Wow, okay,” you comment, blinking. Taehyung rests his chin on your shoulder, leaning down as he holds you tight, your bodies swaying in tandem.

“You don’t mind this?” Taehyung asks.

“Not if you don’t,” you respond. He’s practically drunk, and you’re even a little buzzed. There are worse things you could be doing.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” He inquires aloud. It’s a good thing that you can’t see his face, can’t watch the haze in his eyes, otherwise you might lose your footing and collapse.

“What is?”

“This,” Taehyung repeats unhelpfully.

The next three minutes are some of the most confusing ones of your life as Taehyung rests a hand on your waist, palm rubbing up and down as the two of you dance together like it means something to the both of you.

But it doesn’t, does it? You chalk it up to both of your minds not being as sharp with some alcohol in your systems. That must be it.

When the song ends, the mood disappears as well, and Taehyung’s back to his bouncy, tipsy self. He’s practically stumbling over himself once he determines that it’s time for more shots, and you’ve never seen Taehyung drunk before but you can tell that he’s nearly there. You’ll probably put a hard stop on the drinks after this round, since Taehyung is the one most familiar with the way back to his apartment and you wouldn’t mind going home and sleeping after this.

“Come with?” Taehyung asks as he eyes the bartender like he’s the love of his life.

“No, it’s alright, Tae,” you say.

“You never call me Tae,” Taehyung comments mindlessly. Even when he’s nearly drunk, he still picks up on the little things.

“I guess the alcohol is making me soft,” you admit. “You go. I’m gonna find the bathroom and hope that nobody’s having sex in it.”

“Okay,” Taehyung singsongs as you pull away from him, looking for a dingy hallway to go down. “Be safe.”

“You too, I’ll be back soon,” you promise him, and that’s when you go rushing down the hallway.

Things are certainly weird down here. It must be the feeling of the new year looming over your heads. Like this is the last night to do everything wrong without regretting it in the morning. The bathroom is, luckily enough, empty, so you rush in and splash your face with some water, not caring about if your makeup runs. You’d sweat it off, regardless. You stare at yourself in the mirror, and this feels so stupidly like a goddamn romantic comedy that it makes you want to laugh at the irony.

Beautiful male art student lead gets drunk, confuses hardheaded and impenetrable female lead who doesn’t believe in love and supposedly hates beautiful male art student’s guts. Tension ensues.

Your life may as well already have a shitty Rotten Tomatoes rating stamped on top of it.

After collecting your thoughts and praying that that white stain on the wall isn’t what you think it is, you leave the bathroom and scurry down the hallway, eager to find Taehyung and make sure he isn’t bouncing off the walls after a second round of shots.

He’s not.

Instead, he’s still standing by the bar as a beautiful young woman speaks to him, long dark hair resting against her shoulders and a model-esque smile on her face. She’s leaning in with a suggestive look in her eyes, a hand coming up to rub at the side of his arm.

You furrow your brows as you watch them from afar, a little hurt by the fact that beautiful male art student lead is confusing hardheaded and impenetrable female lead even more, but then you notice Taehyung’s hesitance. The way he backs up a little when she gets closer. How he stiffens when she touches him.

And, well, fuck that.

“Tae,” you say, rushing up to him faster than you’d like to admit. “There you are, I was looking for you.”

The girl next to him frowns at the sight of you, and it’s clear she feels no shame to hide the immediately dislike. Sure, you don’t have model proportions or a smile whiter than snow, but you have morals.

“Who’s this?” You ask, trying to be nice.

“Nobody,” Taehyung tells you, and his hand immediately interlocks with yours. Standing next to him, you can feel as the tension fades from his body, his whole demeanor relaxing now that you’re by his side. “She just wanted to talk.”

“Are you a friend?” She asks, because she knows.

“I’m a special type of friend,” you say. There’s no way she’ll leave Taehyung alone otherwise. And this is definitely on the cocktail you drank (and nothing else, you swear!), but you even reach up to plop a kiss on his cheek for proof. Taehyung’s eyes widen as you do, but he plays it off as catching him off guard and grins, wrapping an arm around you to pull you even closer. “Can we help you?”

The girl is absolutely pissed, which means that you did your job.

“No, it’s alright,” she hisses through gritted teeth before turning her sights on someone else. Someone without a friend to protect them.

“Thanks,” Taehyung whispers once she’s gone. Even though she’s probably not coming back, Taehyung keeps you close, a hand on you at all times like you’ll fly away if he doesn’t hold on tight.

“Of course,” you tell him. “You’d do the same for me.”

“She scared me,” Taehyung says, and if his red face is anything to go by, it’s clear that he’s pretty much reached his alcohol intake limit. “I’m glad you came.”

“I could tell you didn’t want to talk to her,” you say.

“Because I wanted to talk to you,” Taehyung says, and it’s definitely the alcohol that’s erased his filter. “I was waiting for you to come out of the bathroom and she just came up to me and started flirting with me. I think she wanted to get in my pants. I didn’t want her to get into my pants.”

“I know.”

“I’d much rather be with you than with her. Than with anybody else. I would always want to be with you, instead.” He tells you, keeping your hands firmly intertwined as you lean against the bartender counter.

And well, huh. That’s different. Taehyung’s aforementioned lack of a filter means that any thoughts that run through his mind immediately turn into spoken words, but you weren’t expecting those words. You never thought you;d hear them, not in a million goddamn years.

“Okay, Tae,” you say, patting him assuringly. He’s just drunk. That’s all.

“I’m serious, Y/N,” Taehyung tells you firmly, pushing your comforting hand off of his shoulder and turning to face you directly. “I mean it.”

“I know, Tae.” you reassure him. It’s easier than trying to fight him, especially when he’s this hammered. You check the time on your phone. Maybe it’s time to leave. If you go now, you’ll be able to make it back by midnight. “Let’s go home, okay? I’m ready to go home.”

Wordlessly, Taehyung nods, and the two of you leave the club before people are even thinking about ringing in the New Year.

When you reach Taehyung’s apartment, he takes off his leather jacket to hang on the coat rack and turns the television on. Only three minutes to midnight.

“I had fun,” you say, trying to lighten the conversation. The way back was silent, the only noises the sounds of New Year’s Eve parties on every block you turned onto. Taehyung kept his face forward and his eyes ahead, even as you tried to huddle close to him to conserve the warmth.

“It was sort of fun,” Taehyung halfheartedly agrees.

“Did you drink too much?” You ask. His face is still beet red.

“I don’t think I drank enough.”

Two minutes to midnight.

You frown, brows furrowing. Why on Earth would Taehyung want to drink more? What would change if he had another shot, a can of beer or a little cocktail?

Slowly, you begin to peel off your own layers, resting your coat on the back of the couch and slipping off your boots. The both of you stand in his living room as the TV begins to buzz with excitement, the broadcast of Times Square lighting up the otherwise silent, tense atmosphere. He’s only a couple of feet away but it feels like he couldn’t be farther from you.

One minute to midnight. Everybody begins to count down, and you feel yourself holding your breath.

“Will you be alright going to sleep?” You ask. Even if Taehyung’s still drunk, he’s far less bouncy than he was at the club.

“I’ll be fine. Goodnight, Y/N,” he says, beginning to walk past.

Three.

“Okay.”

Two.

“Okay.”

One.

Something overtakes Taehyung, something quick and brief. He stops right next to you and flinches, like he wants to lean in and do something, anything, goddamnit, but stops himself before he goes through with it. Everyone on television is cheering, but this apartment couldn’t be less festive even if you tried.

Taehyung sends you a small smile as the world rings in the new year, dashing off to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him.

And you stand there, in the middle of his living room like the goddamn fool you are. Turning to the television, you watch over and over as every couple in Times Square kisses, clip after clip after clip, and like a goddamn idiot, you wish that Taehyung had done the same.

The end of winter break approaches faster than you’d like it, just like it does every year. Before you know it, there’s less than a week left before classes resume and you go back to the daily college life. Less than a week left before you can go back to your dorm and pretend like this year’s winter break mishap never happened.

Less than a week before you and Taehyung go back to never seeing each other.

You’re sitting at his kitchen table, clearing out your backpack and recycling every paper, every syllabus and assignment and study guide from last semester, doing a deep cleanse of your life (because holy shit, you need it), when you come across the purchase you had made at the MOMA.

“Taehyung,” you call out before you can stop yourself.

“Yeah?” He asks from where he’s sitting on the couch, reading a James Joyce book. You love that novel. It was one of the very few you read for fun last year.

You take the small paper bag in your hands, walking over to the couch. “I almost forgot about this, but since winter break’s starting to wind down, I just wanted to give you this as a thanks. For everything.”

“You got me a belated Christmas gift, Y/N?” Taehyung asks as you hold out the gift, clearly something thin like a posterboard or an art print.

“If it means I don’t have to buy you two things, then sure, consider this a belated Christmas gift,” you say with a laugh, sitting down a foot away from him as he slowly opens up the packet. “It’s sort of cheesy and very basic, but I just wanted to get you something nice as a thank you.”

Out Taehyung pulls is a print of van Gogh’s The Starry Night, big enough to fill up the empty spaces on his walls, so every inch of his apartment, of his life and his home, is filled with art.

“Oh my God,” Taehyung says, mouth agape. “This is…”

“It’s basic, I know. But I know how much you loved seeing it in person, so I thought that a memory of that would be nice,” you say, trying to ease the nervousness that has bubbled up inside of you.

“It’s wonderful,” Taehyung says, and you swear you’ve never seen him so happy, other than perhaps when you saw the real thing. “This is so fucking thoughtful of you.”

“I just—you told me a lot about the art we saw that day, but when we reached this painting, you were speechless. And I sort of knew, then, that it was your favorite piece. Because you didn’t have to explain it with words,” you tell him. “I could just tell. It was like your whole body warmed up the moment it came into view.”

“I’m touched, Y/N.” Taehyung beams. “This is all an art student could ever want, really. To be able to know that their love for art meant something to someone else.”

“I just wanted to say thank you for everything. Taking me in, cooking me food, being really nice me despite me entrenching on your living situation.” You smile.

“I was happy to do all that stuff,” Taehyung tells you honestly. “I’ve had a lot of fun this winter break, even if we’re still trapped on campus.”

You loved getting to go home for winter break your freshman and sophomore years. You loved being able to escape from the college mindset and just relax, no deadlines, no assignments, no worries.

But looking back on it, you think that you’ve had the most fun this winter break, stuck at school, a five-hundred-dollar plane ticket short, with your dorm neighbor-slash-nemesis from freshman year. Never have you done so much in so little time.

“Yeah, me too,” you say, thinking back fondly. It feels like this winter break has lasted for years, but also as though it went by in the blink of an eye,

“I have something for you as well,” Taehyung says, scrambling up to dash into his room. “Consider it just a Christmas gift, because I don’t really have to thank you for letting you stay at my apartment for free for a month.”

“Roast me, why don’t you,” you muse jokingly, rolling your eyes as Taehyung fumbles around in his bedroom before he emerges with an equally flat, similarly-sized gift wrapped up in some spare tissue paper.

“I don’t recall you buying anything at the MOMA,” you tease as Taehyung hands you the gift, settling back down on the couch to watch as you open it.

Slowly, you peel back the tissue paper, and when you reveal what he’s wrapped up for you, it drops to your lap.

It’s a portrait of you, done entirely in pencil. It’s you smiling, with your eyes closed, lashes fluttering. He’s memorized your entire face, drawn it neatly onto this piece of sketch paper, like he was just passing the time and suddenly he had a picture of you on his hands. He’s even remembered where your freckles go.

“What’s this, Tae?” You ask, like you don’t already know.

“Uh, it’s you,” Taehyung says sheepishly. “I wasn’t planning on drawing you, I didn’t have a gift in mind, but I was practicing sketches the other day and an hour later I looked down and I had drawn you. And I felt bad for not telling you, because that’s weird, so I thought that you could see it.”

“You drew a portrait of me? Just randomly, from memory?” You ask, looking down at the sketch in your hands like it’s just ruined your life.

“Yeah, so?” Taehyung asks. He looks terribly nervous.

“So, that’s—people don’t just do that, Taehyung. You don’t just draw a picture of someone purely from memory while you’re practicing sketching,” You say, reeling back as he tries to lean in, attempts to explain himself.

“What do you mean? I did that. I thought of you and I drew you, what’s so bad about that?”

“I don’t know if you missed the memo, Taehyung. I told you in New York. We’re not dating, Taehyung,” you tell him, so firm and certain in your conviction that you hardly pay attention to the way his shoulders sink. “We’re barely even friends. I’m not interested in you like that. Please don’t think otherwise.”

“Don’t tell me what to think,” Taehyung snaps, and he’s mad. Really mad, not like the fake anger from freshman year when you tried to get back at him by being an equally-annoying neighbor. “Don’t tell me how to feel. I drew you, Y/N. Not because I’m obsessed with the idea of us getting married, or because you’re my muse or some bullshit like that. I drew you because I thought of you, and I draw what I think of. Don’t tell me what to fucking think.”

“Do you like me, Taehyung?” You ask, on the verge of shouting.

Taehyung’s furious. “So what if I do? Huh? What difference does it make? You’ve told me over and over that you don’t like me back, so why does it matter? It’s not like I’d ever have a chance.”

“I told you because I didn’t want to confuse you,” you hiss, standing up and beginning to grab your belongings. It’s clear that this conversation is turning sour.

“Confuse me? You didn’t want to confuse me?” Taehyung shouts. “You did a damn good job at that. Telling me in New York that you hated being called Mr. and Mrs. Kim, but holding my hand as we walked around the city and looked at art together. Kissing my cheek in the fucking bar but then patting me like on the back like I’m just a sadass friend of yours. Can you blame me if I was confused, Y/N?”

“I told you,” you say again.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Taehyung bites. “I’m sorry that I fucking fell in love with you, even though half of the time you acted like it was alright. My mistake.”

“It was your mistake. I never said I wanted to date you,” you tell him firmly. You refuse to take the blame for something you had made so explicitly clear.

“Can you fucking blame me for being hopeful?” Taehyung asks. He’s standing up, about to head back into his bedroom, absolutely furious. “You held my hand and kissed me on the cheek and I thought that meant that you felt it, too.”

“Taehyung—”

“Keep the portrait, Y/N,” Taehyung spits. “I don’t ever want to see it again.”

He slams his bedroom door.

It’s a good thing you made friends with some upperclassmen when you were a freshman.

After packing your belongings into your little suitcase and standing in the lobby of Taehyung’s apartment complex, you remember that one of your old friends who had graduated last year still lived in an off-campus apartment since he would be beginning graduate school at the same university.

“Yoongi?” You ask when you hear him pick up your call.

“Y/N? What’s up?”

“Long story,” you say with a sigh. “Would it be alright if I stayed with you until school started?”

“Holy shit, you’re on campus? What the fuck, yeah, sure, you know where I live. I’ll be here whenever you stop by,” he says without question.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing outside his door, double checking to make sure you’d got the right apartment.

You barely get the first knock in before the door swings open to reveal Min Yoongi himself, clad in all black and looking very tired.

“Are you okay?” You ask. He looks exhausted.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he says, ushering you inside.

“Have you been up all night?” You ask, resting your suitcase against the wall.

“I took a brief nap between two and three, but yes, I have been,” he says like it’s natural.

“You’ve always been a chaotic sleeper,” you say with a shake of your head.

“The grad school grind stops for no one,” Yoongi says with a sigh. “What’s up? Why are you on campus?”

“It… it’s a long goddamn story. Do you have time?”

“I have a piece due for a small indie band tomorrow at noon that’s barely finished,” Yoongi says.

“Oh,” you say. You suppose the story can wait. Yoongi offered up his abode to you until classes resumed if you needed it, and there’s no way in hell you’ll be going back to Taehyung’s.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh’? I got loads of time,” Yoongi says. He plops down on his couch and motions for you to sit next to him. “Tell me everything.”

Yoongi has always been a particularly good listener. Not just to other people’s words, but to music, to the sounds of the chords and the notes of the piano. He has an ear for things that most others would never notice.

It’s the same thing for when he’s doling out advice.

“To clarify,” Yoongi says when you’re finished telling your story, thirty minutes later. You had warned him that it would be a long one. “You had once hated his guts, but no longer hate his guts?”

“I stopped hating him after freshman year,” you admit, more to yourself than to Yoongi. It’s true. The moment the two of you stopped seeing each other, everything dissipated.

“And now you like him.”

“We’re friends,” you say, tentatively. Maybe less than friends after the disaster that just went down in his living room.

“But he drew you a portrait of yourself,” Yoongi mentions.

“I said that it was complicated,” you say with a frown.

“It doesn’t sound that complicated,” Yoongi says. And maybe he is a graduate student with more life experience under his belt than you, but you think that it’s pretty complicated.

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds like he likes you, and you like him. I wasn’t really interpreting it in any other way,” Yoongi says casually.

You reject the notion immediately. “I do not like him.”

Yoongi frowns. “Would you really be here, in my apartment having a relationship breakdown, if you weren’t confused about your feelings for him? Really?”

“I just needed to get out of his damn apartment, that’s all,” you say, avoiding eye contact. Yoongi has this very annoying habit of being extremely reasonable all of the time, and it bothers you immensely.

“Sure, okay. Y/N, I’m not gonna dictate how you feel and try to change your mind, or anything. But if you can look me in the eye before the end of your break and tell me, one-hundred percent honestly, that you don’t like him, then I’ll believe you,” Yoongi tells you simply. “How about that?”

It sounds like a very doable deal. Maybe it’s not doable right now, but it certainly seems possible in the future. In the future, specifically.

“Fine. But you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” you tell him matter-of-factly. Why does he care? It’s not like you’re worried about it.

As it turns out, you’re worried about it.

You’re worried about it because even though you’re not in the same room, not in the same building, not even on the same goddamn street as him, you’re thinking about him. Thinking about how much fun the two of you could be having right now as you relish in the last couple days of your winter break before the cold reality of school hits.

Think about the things you could be doing. Exploring, going out to restaurants, finding new little gold mines in this city that you call home. And instead, you’re moping around your friend’s living room wishing that the two of you hadn’t ruined the whole thing.

Maybe you had been too harsh. Taehyung has a right to be mad at you for lashing out at him. How was he supposed to feel? You held his hand and kissed his cheek and pretended that it was still freshman year, that the two of you were still just two people stuck together by unfortunate circumstances. Acted like nothing had really changed despite the years going by. Going through with all of these adventures with him knowing, in the back of your mind, that once classes started back up, you’d probably never make an effort to see him again.

Drawing a portrait of you says one thing, but dancing around him says another. Every time you fucking see Yoongi in his own goddamn home you try to muster up the bravery to tell him that you don’t like Taehyung the way that he thinks you do, and you can’t.

He sets up his pullout couch in his living room for you when you go to sleep that night, you dream of Taehyung. Envision him wandering the halls of a nameless museum, priceless pieces of art hung along every wall, from van Gogh to Monet to Picasso. He turns back around so you get a view of his face, dream up his curly black hair and soft eyes, sparkling with wanderlust as he roams the corridors, stopping to spare a quick glance at every painting he passes.

And then at the end of the hall, he pauses in his tracks, looks up at the painting on the wall. You watch as the camera zooms in on what he’s looking at, what made him stop in his tracks the moment he laid eyes on it.

It’s your portrait. A simple piece of paper out of a sketchbook, graphite on the coarse canvas. It’s barely more than a line drawing, your eyes here, your nose there, the little freckles that decorate your skin. It’s only in one color and still, even now, it leaves you speechless. Taehyung made that. He drew that, line by line. He made that for you.

You wake up in a cold sweat at seven in the morning. Yoongi’s fast asleep in his bedroom, and you know he won’t be waking up until the hour on the clock reads double digits. Frantic, you scramble through your backpack until you pull out the sketch paper a little bit larger, a little bit thicker than the rest, still wrapped up in tissue paper.

Pulling the paper away to reveal the canvas, you stare down at it in the hazy light of the sunrise, small rays beginning to stream through Yoongi’s window. Your fingers trace along each line, picturing Taehyung as his pencil scratched along the paper, over and over until it looked perfect. Taehyung made this. He sat down, thought of you, and drew this.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but this one doesn’t say a thousand words. Instead, it only says three.

Curiosity getting the better of you, you flip the sketch over to see if there’s anything else he’s drawn. There isn’t, but you find a little note in the bottom right corner.

Y/N,

I hadn’t realized that I had drawn you until I was nearly finished with this. My bad, but it was too late to stop. I don’t know if I’ll ever give this to you, or if I’ll just have a guilty conscience for the rest of my life, but just in case I do, I want you to know this: art inspires me, and you are no exception.

Tae ♡

When Min Yoongi wakes up that day and trudges out of his bedroom, he finds you sitting on his pullout couch, staring down at a sketch in your hands. When you turn to look up at him, he sees your red eyes and wonders how long you’ve been out here, crying.

“I can’t do it, Yoongi,” you tell him.

“Do what?” Yoongi asks, even though he already knows the answer. Why else would you be letting your tears drip onto your portrait?

“Tell you that I don’t like him. Because I do. And I can’t lie to him like that.”

Yoongi grins. He knew you’d come around, like you always do. You may have quite the stubborn streak, but you’ve got a big heart, and it always gets the best of you.

He sits down next to you, glancing down at the portrait. It’s gorgeous. Taehyung did a wonderful job. He looks at you as you cry over a sketch of yourself, and he thinks that, even if he doesn’t really know this Taehyung character, the two of you will make a perfect pair.

“You should tell him that,” he tells you with a nudge. You look up at him, scared for your life. “I think he deserves to know.”

The night before winter break ends, you ask Taehyung if tenants of his apartment complex are allowed on his rooftop. He says no, but also says that his landlord is out of town for the holidays.

In the biting cold of a mid-January evening, you climb up the stairs of his apartment complex and push open the heavy metal door to the rooftop, a gust of wind nearly blowing you right over. Looking around, you spot Taehyung in nothing but a sweater and a scarf, sitting on the edge of the rooftop and looking out over the city.

“Aren’t you cold?”

He turns around to find you standing next to him, wrapped up in a long coat, gloves, a beanie, and a scarf.

“I’ve got a warm body,” Taehyung tells you, looking back out into the sea of lights.

“This is scary, isn’t it?” You ask, sitting down next to him. Your feet dangle off the ledge, and normally you’d be insistent on sitting in the middle of the rooftop where no danger can befall you, but this feels a lot more personal.

“Why did you want to meet me up here?” Taehyung asks, all business.

“I just wanted to talk,” you tell him. “You know, since it’s the last day of winter break and all.”

“It went by fast, didn’t it?” Taehyung muses.

“I remember failing my final and missing my flight like it was yesterday,” you remember fondly, laughing. It seemed like the end of the world at the time, but there’s always a silver lining. You just didn’t know what it was, back then.

You think you have a pretty clear idea of it now.

Taehyung chuckles, letting the two of you fall into a comfortable silence as you gaze out at the rest of the city. Taehyung’s apartment building isn’t particularly tall, but it’s got enough height to it that it feels like you’re looking out over a place you hardly recognize. There are so many things you don’t know about this city, despite having lived here for over two years. So many things you are aching to find out, and only one person you’d really like to do it with.

“What’s your New Year’s Resolution?” You ask randomly, interrupting the quiet that had befallen the both of you.

Taehyung jumps at the sound of your voice piercing through the atmosphere, caught off guard. You lean in, expecting him to answer.

“Oh, um, I guess to draw and paint for fun more. A lot of the stuff I’ve been making in school I’ve been doing because I had to,” Taehyung says quickly. It’s sort of obvious that he made up the resolution on the spot. “Uh, what’s yours?”

You press your lips into a thin line, smiling to yourself. “To be honest.”

Taehyung scoffs at that. “Believe me, Y/N, you are more than honest. Brutally so.”

“To others, yes,” you reason. You always were a tell-it-like-it-is sort of person. “But I’m not very good at being honest with myself.” You swing your legs slightly as they dangle over the ground below, kicking into each other. Taehyung turns to look at you, waiting for you to continue. “Yoongi says I’m a very stubborn person. I always have been. Once I determine something is the way it is, it’s very difficult to change my mind.”

Taehyung chuckles to himself. He’s probably quite familiar with that aspect of your personality.

“But I realized recently that sometimes, things change without you even realizing it, and that instead of being afraid of those changes, you should embrace them. So that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to be more honest with myself, because I think I’ll make everybody around me, including myself, happier.” You continue.

“Good for you,” Taehyung tells you mindlessly, turning back to face out towards the city.

“Kim Taehyung, I’m not finished talking, yet,” you demand, forcing him to look back at you. “I hated you in freshman year. You were the worst thing to happen to me that year, annoying and full of yourself. And I didn’t know you in sophomore year. We stopped talking and decided that it was better if we never did again.”

He lets out a little huff of breath, visible in the cold night air.

“But I do know you now. You offered me a place to stay when I missed my flight after what might have been the worst final I have ever taken in my entire life. You took me to New York, and we made vegetable soup together. You let me hold your hand and kiss you on the cheek, and you drew me a portrait,” you say firmly. He looks up at you and finally, finally, his eyes aren’t foggy. There’s no haze, no mist. You look into his eyes and you can see yourself reflected in the ink black of his irises. He’s beautiful. He’s sitting on the ledge of the roof of his apartment building in the middle of January with nothing but a sweater and a scarf on, and he’s beautiful. “You are the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Before you can even take another breath, Kim Taehyung places a cold palm on your scarf-covered cheek and pulls you into a bruising kiss, his other hand wrapping around your waist as you shuffle along the ledge, closer and closer. And even if his hands are cold and his lips are chapped, his mouth is warm and soft, wanton and desperate. You beam at the feeling of his lips on yours, wrapping your arms around his neck as you ring in the New Year for real. This is how it was supposed to be. This is what you had been waiting for.

When you part, Taehyung’s lips are a cherry red to match the tip of his nose. His brown eyes are twinkling, and not from the light pollution of the city.

“Can I be honest, too?” Taehyung asks. He’s got the biggest goddamn grin on his face. “I think I’m in love with you.”

The words are music to your ears. “My honesty is rubbing off on you,” you tease. “Because I think I’m in love with you, too.”

Smiling, grinning, positively fucking beaming, Taehyung wraps his hands around you and kisses you again. It warms your heart from the inside out, blossoms like a tulip in spring. When you started this winter break, you thought you had reached your lowest point, but you’re finishing it on a high that you hope never fades. He loves you, he loves you, and most importantly, you love him back. And as it turns out, the movie where beautiful male art student lead and hardheaded and impenetrable female lead are stuck with each other for four weeks has a happy ending, after all.

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

#taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #v fluff #v angst #v scenario #taehyung scenario #bts imagine #taehyung imagine #v imagine #bts au #taehyung au #REPOSTING BC IT WASNT SHOWING UP IN THE TAGS #w: four weeks

5K notes · View notes

obx-adventures · 4 years

Text

The Introverted Twin

Summary - Being John B’s bookish twin isn’t easy. Especially with my best friend, Pope, being weird about me getting closer with JJ.

Warning: Medical conditions and procedures described (as accurately as I could)

A/N - Flashbacks are in italics. This chapter may have been my favorite to write.

Catch up here: Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8

——

Chapter 9

I regain consciousness in the ambulance but am very disoriented. The first thing I notice is the neck brace keeping my head still, followed shortly by wet drops hitting my face. I try to determine the source of the wetness and realize that Kie is leaning over me and sobbing.

“Kie…” Her eyes shoot open as a new round of sobs overtake her diminutive frame.

“Y/N? Oh my God! Are you… how are… I’m so glad your awake!”

“JJ?” My voice is barely a whisper but the concern in my eyes tells Kie exactly what information I’m searching for.

“He’s in the other ambulance. He woke up as they were loading him in and was screaming for you.”

“He… is he…”

“I don’t know if he’s ok. Only that he woke up before we left. I called JB but I think his phone is dead. I was able to get ahold of Sarah and she was going to pick him up.” I’ve exhausted all of my energy and my eyes flutter closed. I hear Kie’s worried gasp and squeeze her hand to let her know I’m still awake.

When we get to the hospital, I struggle to open my eyes but fail. As soon as the doors open, I hear JJ screaming my name. The effect of his voice is like a shot of adrenaline to the heart. I try to sit up to look for him but am pushed back down by the paramedic. Kie jumps out and I hear her telling JJ that I woke up.

As I’m being rolled into the emergency room, Kie screams JJ’s name loudly. From the rush of doctors and nurses that run to him, I know it’s bad.

“Kie! Kiara!” I yell as loud as I can and am frustrated when it comes out as barely more than a whisper. I try to sit up again to see what happened and feel a stabbing pain in my ribs. This doesn’t stop me from continuing to push myself up, but I’m overcome with a sudden difficulty to breath. Before I understand what’s happening, my vision goes black and I slip back into the abyss.

----

There is a soft knock on my door, and I tell the person to come in without looking up from my SAT prep book. Even though I’m not starting my prep class until school starts back up in a couple months, I want to get a head start on the most important test of my life.

“Y/N, can I talk to you for a few minutes?” Hearing Kie’s voice shocks me into looking up. Without thinking, I lunge forward to hug her.

“Kie! I haven’t seen you since September! How are you?”

While all the Pogues have been hesitant about her return from her year at the Kook Academy, I’m just glad to see Kiara Carrera again. Being surrounded by boys all the time for the past 9 months has been exhausting.

“I’m ok. I came to apologize.” Kie’s face is full of pain and I realize just how difficult this past school year has been for her.

“You don’t need to apologize to me.” I pull her back to sit down next to me on the bed.

“Yes, I do. I’m so sorry that I haven’t been around. I’ve missed you. There were so many times during this past year when I wished I could call you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I knew the guys were pissed at me and I guess I just assumed you would be too.”

“I wasn’t pissed at you. I just missed you.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders and give her a reassuring squeeze. Kie starts to cry as she leans into me.

“The Kooks were awful, and I thought that if I leaned into Kook life, it would get better. I stopped hanging out with you guys and became friends with the Kook Princess. But it all fell apart and I was so lonely. I wanted to talk to my best friend.”

“You could have called John B! He was hurt but he would have understood.” At this, Kie lifts her head off my shoulder and leans away to look at me.

“I meant you.”

“I’m your best friend?”

“Why is that a surprise?”

“I just thought that I was John B’s sister to you, like I am with everybody else.” I shrug and look down at my hands in my lap. JJ and Pope are the only friends I’ve ever had. Most girls either ignore me or treat me like I have the plague, but Kie has always been kind and excited to see me. I thought she was just placating me so I wouldn’t feel weird when she was here with John B.

“I guess I have to apologize again then. We may have met because I became friends with the guys but then we started spending almost every day together and you started to relax around me. I got to see how funny and sweet you are. Even though you seem so shy, you have no problem putting the boys in their place. We both know that your dad and JB have no idea what their doing so you’ve had to run this place. Most teenage girls think about clothes and makeup and boys. But you worry about the electrical bill, cooking dinner, and making doctors appointments for all of you. It’s amazing. You’re amazing, Y/N.”

----

When I open my eyes this time, I hear my brother yelling at someone.

“That is my sister! I need to see her! Move!”

“JB…”

“No, Y/N, don’t try to talk.” The nurse currently taking my vitals tries to soothe me.

“Tell him… ok…” I plead with my eyes and the nurse turns to my brother who is still trying to push past someone to get into the room.

“Mr Routledge, your sister’s eyes are open and she’s asked me to tell you she’s ok. But I need you to wait outside because you’re upsetting her. I promise you can talk to her in a couple minutes.” He falls silent and I can practically hear the wheels turning in his head. I raise my hand a few inches to signal him that I really am awake.

“Ok, Y/N, I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later, true to her word, the nurse ushers my brother into my room. He grabs my hand like it’s a life line and I open my eyes to try to meet his. I get ready to talk but my brother shushes me.

“No, no. Don’t talk. You have a severely bruised… ummm, the voice box thing and a few of your ribs broke off and put a hole in your lung. The doctor put a tube in to help you breath but they are getting you ready for surgery to fix the ribs so there isn’t more damage.” I whine a little and try to convey the urgent question I can’t ask. “JJ has a few broken ribs and a really bad concussion but he’ll be ok.”

I sigh in relief and immediately wince in pain. John B worries over me as the nurse comes back in to tell him they need to take me for a CT scan before my surgery. I fall back under as they transfer me over to the CT table.

----

“John B, I need you to eat. Please.” My brother doesn’t even acknowledge that I’ve walked into the room. His sandwich is still untouched in front of him, exactly how it was when I checked on him 15 minutes ago. “It’s been a week. I’m worried you’re going to pass out.”

“I’m not hungry.” I sit next to him and turn his face to look at me. “Just leave me alone.”

“No, Bird. I won’t –”

“Don’t call me that!” I jump back at his outburst. The anger falls from his face when he sees the look on mine. “Sorry… I didn’t… Sorry… it’s just… Dad calls me that.”

“So do I, JB. I always have.” My voice is full of all the pain that I’ve been carrying this week.

“It hurts too much…”My twin has been like this since our father disappeared a week ago. He is not only dealing with losing our dad but also his guilt over the terrible fight they had before he left. He won’t eat, barely sleeps, and hasn’t showered since we filed the missing persons report. I finally got him to drink water a couple days ago by threatening to call ‪911‬ if he didn’t. At least now I don’t need to keep checking him for signs of dehydration.

“Ok, JB... I’ll make you a deal. You start eating and I won’t call you that.” He scoffs at me and looks away. “I’m serious. I need you. I can’t lose you and that’s what will happen if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Y/N.”

“I’m not being dramatic. Pope looked it up for me. You haven’t eaten anything in a week. That’s dangerous.”

“I’m fine. I’m not even hungry.”

“You’re in the first stages of grief. The stress throws off your appetite. But it doesn’t mean you don’t need to eat. Please, JB… Please…”I feel the panic attack building and start to stand up to go to my room. I’ve spent the past week consoling my twin and trying to hide the impact our dad’s disappearance has had on me. John B catches my hand before I can get too far away.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Y/N. I know this has been hard on you, too.” He pulls me back down to the couch and throws his arms around me. “I’ll try to do better.”

“What if we split the sandwich?”

“Deal,” he says as he kisses me on the cheek. “I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you too, JB.”

----

“When are they taking her into surgery?” I’m not fully awake yet but I can hear how scared JJ sounds.

“A few minutes. None of us are supposed to be in here but John B sweet talked the nurse.” I feel a bit better hearing Kie comforting him but I still fight to open my eyes, desperate to see that he’s ok. My eyes flutter open and JJ moves closer to me.

“Sunshine? Are you awake?” I squeeze the hand that’s holding mine, unsure if it’s his or Kie’s. “I’m right here. I got you.”

“Kie! Is she ok?” The new voice surprises me, giving me the jolt I need to fully open my eyes.

“Pope, she’s… she needs surgery…” Kie’s worry shines through her voice.

“Y/N! I’m right here! I’m so sorry…” He breaks during his apology and I try to comfort him through my eyes.

“See, Sunshine. We’re all here for you.” I look over at him and my eyes fill with tears when I see the bruises forming. “No, don’t cry… I’m ok. Don’t worry about me.”

“JJ, what happened?!” My eyebrows knit in confusion. I try to look back at him but he moves out of my field of vision. My eyes snap back to JJ to watch his reaction.

“Pope! Calm down. This isn’t JJ’s fault and you know it.” Kie’s admonishment is firm but JJ’s expression is full of guilt. “I was next to John B when he was telling you what happened. Don’t pick a fight.”

“No J…” All three of them turn at my voice. “Not… your… fault…”

“Shhh, don’t talk,” Kie tells me. “We all know this isn’t JJ’s fault. I’ll keep reminding him while you’re in surgery.”

“Pope…” My best friend cuts me off by putting a finger over my mouth.

“Kie’s right, Y/N. I know it’s not his fault. I’m just… I’m scared is all. I’ll be better. Just don’t talk. Please.” He wipes tears off my cheeks and smiles weakly at me. “It’s my fault, not his.”

“Pope, dude, this was my dad. Not me, not you.” I try to nod at JJ’s words but discover I’m in a new neck brace that I didn’t pay attention to until now.

“If I wasn’t such an ass when she told me about you guys, she wouldn’t have needed to go find you at your house.”

“Pope, I convinced her to go find JJ. I should have seen his dad’s truck when we got there and stopped her from going inside.” I whine after Kie’s done and have never been more frustrated that I can’t talk.

“Guys, stop. The nurses are coming so we need to clear out. None of you are to blame. And if Y/N could talk more than a couple words right now, she’d tell all of you the same thing. Luke Maybank did this to her and to JJ. And the cops have him so stop blaming yourselves.” My eyes shoot over to JJ to see how he’s handling all of this. We’ve all tried to talk him into reporting the abuse to the police but he’s always been adamant that he won’t. Now that choice has been taken from him.

“JJ, the cops are ready to talk to you,” my brother continues. “Kie, they may have some follow up questions so they asked that you stay. Y/N, the doctors told them that they couldn’t talk to you yet but I’m sure they’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Ms Routledge, it’s time to go. Mr Maybank, you should be in your room. The rest of you can wait down the hall.” The nurses start unhooking my IV and monitor wires, giving me a moment with each of the Pogues. I brush my fingers over JJ’s cheek, squeeze Kie’s and Pope’s hands, and whisper that I love my brother. One of the nurses inject a sedative into my IV line and then wheel me out of my room.

----

“Hey, Y/N! What are you doing out here?” I actively avoid looking at my best friend as he sits next to me on the end of the pier. I hide my hands under my legs so he can’t see that my fingernails are bit down to nubs, a sure sign of my current mental state.

“Hi Pope. I’m just hiding from John B…”He places his hand on my knee to comfort me and traces light circles on my exposed skin.

“Why?” His voice is so gentle and I’m afraid that if he offers me more comfort, I’ll completely fall apart.

“The police were here a little bit ago… they’ve officially stopped the search for my dad…” Pope knows that no words will be enough right now so he opts to wrap his arms around me and pulls my head to his shoulder. “I don’t know how to tell him, Pope. I just got him to start eating more a couple days ago. What if he… what if I lose him too?”

“You won’t lose him. All of us will be here to help both of you.” I start sobbing into Pope’s chest, finally letting myself feel every ounce of pain that’s been building up over these past 2 weeks. I’ve tried so hard to just focus on being there for John B that I haven’t done anything to take care of myself. I sit in Pope’s arms for a while and let someone take care of me for once.

After my mom left when we were kids, my dad tried his best to take care of us. But it was a mess. I finally took over when we were 11 after my dad sent John B and I with moldy sandwiches. It was right around the same time that Pope and I were partnered up for a project for the first time in gifted science. We were eating lunch together and he shared everything he had with me after I spit out the first bite of my sandwich. I confessed how chaotic my home life has been and Pope decided to help me set up some systems for tracking and paying bills, meal planning, and every other aspect of running a home. With his support, I whipped us all into shape. He was so excited about all the organization and planning that I’m not sure if he fully understands that I wouldn’t have been able to keep my family together without him.

“Do you want me to be there when you tell him? I can call JJ and Kie too so he sees that he still has a family.” I turn to look at my best friend and thank the universe for sending me someone to help bear my burdens.

“Yes, please. Thank you, Pope.” I kiss his cheek and pull him into a fierce hug. I feel like I can finally breath now.

“I’m always here for you, Y/N. Always.”

----

“There you are, Sunshine.” My head jerks up in surprise. I didn’t expect anyone to find me in my closet.

“Why aren’t you at the party, JJ?” Today is mine and JB’s 10th birthday party. Of course, since I don’t have any friends, everyone is here for my brother.

“You ran away before I could give you your gift.” Instead of waiting for me to climb out of the closet, he sits down with me. He hands me a small package, wrapped in purple tissue paper.

“You got me a present?” My shock is evident in my voice. In all the years of birthday parties for the Routledge twins, no one has ever given me a gift.

“Of course! It’s your birthday, too.” JJ gently nudges me to open my gift. When I unwrap it, I discover a handmade bracelet, just like the ones JJ wears, in all my favorite colors. I look up at him and he gently takes it out of my hands to put it on my wrist.

“JJ… this is… thank you!” I can’t put into words how much this means to me so I try to convey it with a hug.

“I know you think that you don’t have any friends… but you have me…” JJ’s voice wobbles a little and I pull away to see how nervous he is. He kisses my forehead, stands up, and offers me his hand. Without hesitating, I take his hand and return to the party with him. In this moment, I realize I would go anywhere with and do anything for JJ Maybank.

----

“Y/N, I need you to open your eyes for me.” I fight against the remaining effects from the sedative to try to comply with the man’s request. When I finally get my eyes open, it takes every ounce of energy in me to keep them that way. “Good job. I’m Dr Row, we met in the emergency room but I’m not sure if you remember that. I did the surgery to repair your ribs and lung. Everything went well but we need to keep you in the surgical ICU at least for tonight.”

I try to nod at him but realize my neck brace is still on. My throat hurts much too badly now to try to speak so I offer a weak thumbs up.

“I know you’re in a lot of pain right now. You kept passing out because your body was overwhelmed with how much it hurts and your brain was trying to protect you. Your throat is very swollen and we’re worried about some of the cartilage there so we’re keeping you in the neck brace for now so you don’t accidently injure it more. I had to put in some hardware to put your ribs back together and you still have the tube in your side so pressure doesn’t build up in your chest cavity. You’ll stay in recovery a little longer and then your brother can see you in your room.”

After another 30 minutes or so, I’m taken to the ICU room. The doctor was right about the severity of my pain and I’m doing everything I can to stay awake so I can see John B. Finally, he’s ushered into the room and grips my hand gently, fear etched into every inch of his face.

“Y/N, I’m here. I’m right here.”

“J…” I eek out and my brother shushes me before I try again.

“JJ is with DCS right now…” A sob escapes my tender throat. “No, no, shhh. Kie, Pope, and their parents are with him. We won’t let him get taken away. Y/N! Y/N!”

I hear my brother yelling my name as the monitors start going wild but I can’t respond or open my eyes again. The darkness engulfs me once again despite my desperate efforts to stay with my brother.

One chapter left...

Taglist: @agirlwholovescoffee @obxlife @meaganjm @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @velyssaraptor @http-cherries @prejudic3 @love-youu-softly @rudyismymanperiod @justcallmesams @celestialmaybank @yasminesameh @chaoticbisous @liloddcora @obx-snippets @xx-randomshit-xx17 @thepanmermaid @rudysdiaries @cinnamonandspice1994 @sexualparkour @lasnaro @bibliophilewednesday @nicolecarsley @x-lulu @shantililacs @andreiaafaria @ficsforlexie @royalpurplehuskies @drewsephsmiles @yeslifeofateen @bluesiderudy @wandressfox @poguestyleskye @haute-shawn @nashielouise @lonely-kermit @negativity4you @wtfkie @httpstarkey @duskangxl @kay667

211 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Text

Three Gates - on ao3 (for content warnings check Ao3) - on tumblr: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6, pt 7, pt 8

- Chapter 9 -

When Nie Huaisang was old enough to attend the lectures at the Cloud Recesses for what would prove to be the first of three times – they’d only planned to send him the once, when the right time came, but circumstances and an unusually uneasy border conspired to need them to send him early, and Nie Huaisang gamely volunteered to do so badly at his lessons that they’d have no choice but to take him back, as if he weren’t more-than-likely to get that result even if he were trying given that he was too busy using his brain for all sorts of other things – Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue made a point of coming in person to drop him off and pick him up.

The first time, Nie Mingjue loudly scolded Nie Huaisang about needing to do well, while Meng Yao hung around his shoulder with a worried expression that suggested he thought the entire thing was causing the Nie sect to lose face, and then they went to the hanshi to visit Lan Xichen and only just barely managed to hurry through the door before Nie Mingjue started laughing.

“It was a good idea,” Meng Yao scolded him, while Lan Xichen laughed into his sleeve in confused sympathy even though he had no idea what was so funny. “It’s going to work, mark my words.”

“I know, I know, it’s only – his face –”

Nie Huaisang had in fact been perhaps slightly overselling the ‘poor terrified younger brother who’s going to make a terrible fool of himself’ shtick.

Meng Yao’s lips twitched. “I understand that some exaggeration is common in beginning actors.”

“Huaisang can lie to my face without blinking an eye,” Nie Mingjue retorted, “and you taught him that. You were doing that on purpose. Both of you!”

They had been.

“Some points need to be driven home,” Meng Yao allowed. “Not everyone understands subtlety.”

“Do I want to know?” Lan Xichen put in, looking back and forth between them with a smile.

“We’re trying to get people to underestimate Huaisang,” Meng Yao explained. “And to think that he and da-ge aren’t as close as they are. As a matter of strategy.”

“Someone tried to kidnap him,” Nie Mingjue said, his laughter dying off. “He’s too young to defend himself, too independent to feel comfortable being guarded…Meng Yao proposed a middle path.”

“One that takes advantage of his already existing skillset,” Meng Yao put in.

“If by skillset you mean total inability to recall things he doesn’t care about.”

“I do, as it happens. It’s actually rather impressive how thoroughly facts flow out of his head like water, unless they’re about fans, or art, or – ”

Vengeance.

“ – other things like that.”

“He’s going to fail your uncle’s classes,” Nie Mingjue told Lan Xichen bluntly. “He was probably going to fail them anyway, but now it’s certain.”

Lan Xichen’s smile had faded as well, and he nodded. “I wish you did not have to make such calculations.”

“I wish your uncle were willing to make more of them,” Nie Mingjue said with a sigh. He did not mention Lan Xichen’s father, the nominal sect leader; the man hadn’t been seen in years and likely wouldn’t be for the rest of his life. “Even outside of wanting to make sure no one uses him as a bargaining chip against me, I don’t want anyone getting the idea that Huaisang is a younger and more vulnerable version of me.”

Anyone like Wen Ruohan, he meant, and Meng Yao didn’t have the heart to tell him that Wen Ruohan’s obsession with him was still startlingly personal. He’d had to see it again and again during the Discussion Conferences, all the little liberties Wen Ruohan enjoyed taking: sitting too close when possible, stroking his hand with his thumb while passing him a document, all but openly leering at him…

The other sect leaders pretended they didn’t notice, except only Lan Qiren who scowled helplessly whenever it got a bit too blatant – though Meng Yao suspected he might have mistaken the harassment as being mutual flirtation, which was somehow very nearly worse.

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Lan Xichen promised. “Can you two stay for a while, or will the Unclean Realm collapse if you don’t return at once?”

Nie Mingjue smiled. He didn’t do that often anymore, and the effect of it had somehow – in some grotesque, unfortunate twist of the universe – only magnified; Meng Yao’s sole consolation was that Lan Xichen seemed as stunned by it as him. “I think we can manage to stay for a little while, just to make sure Huaisang is on the right track.”

They didn’t really have that excuse when they came to pick him up, but Lan Xichen found them a supposedly private place with really great acoustics and Nie Mingjue got to use his battlefield voice to shout at Nie Huaisang in such a way that everyone heard, without the benefit of seeing the increasingly ridiculous faces Nie Huaisang was making in response.

After that, even Lan Qiren had delicately suggested that they stay a few days longer, quite obviously meant to allow Nie Mingjue some time to cool off his temper before a long flight home, and they’d wisely stayed with Lan Xichen the entire time to allow Nie Huaisang to go dramatically lick his wounds where everyone would be able to hear about it.

After all, Nie Mingjue’s ability to keep straight face was good, but not that good.

The second time they came to visit, they also didn’t have any excuse, but Lan Xichen asked them to stay longer anyway, looking very serious, so they did.

He took them to a secluded field and plied them with treats and started in on the small talk and the disclaimers to the point that Meng Yao – who was very good at this sort of thing, but couldn’t stand the increasing distress on Nie Mingjue’s face at the unexpected barrage of excessive politeness – finally interrupted and said, “If there’s something you’d like to tell us, Xichen-xiong, please do.”

Lan Xichen looked uncertain, so Meng Yao added, “Before da-ge explodes.”

Lan Xichen glanced over at Nie Mingjue and snorted with involuntary laughter at his woeful expression. “I’m sorry. I’m nervous, that’s all.”

“That,” Nie Mingjue said, “is what’s making me nervous. Are you trying to break some sort of bad news to us?”

“No! No, not at all – at least, I hope it’s not bad. It might even be good.”

“And it is..?” Meng Yao prompted, amused. The behavior was classic Lan, for all that he wasn’t sure exactly what Lan Xichen was thinking about that had put him on edge to such a degree – one would think, looking at him, that he was about to confess his affections, rather than chatting with his friends.

The two, it turned out, were one and the same.

“Wait,” Nie Mingjue said, interrupting about halfway through the somewhat overly flowery and abstruse speech. “You like both of us?”

“I do,” Lan Xichen said. “Very much.”

Meng Yao’s mind was racing and his breath was a little short: for once in his life he didn’t know how to reach or think or feel or anything.

Because Lan Xichen remained just what Meng Yao had always thought he was, kind and generous, a gentleman, perfect, just what anyone could ever want, someone Meng Yao secretly did want but couldn’t have because it would mean leaving the Unclean Realm, leaving Nie Mingjue, and he couldn’t do that.

Because actually he really had started to get worried that Lan Xichen liked Nie Mingjue the way Nie Mingjue so very obviously liked him back because if he did then there really wasn’t anything Meng Yao could say to oppose it other than but you’re mine and it wouldn’t just be about Lan Xichen, either, but of course that wouldn’t work because they were brothers, though not by blood; that meant it would be wrong and Nie Mingjue didn’t do the wrong thing.

Because he’d never, for all his cleverness, thought of asking for both, because he couldn’t have both.

He couldn’t even have one.

“I thought you liked Meng Yao,” Nie Mingjue said blankly, and Meng Yao felt a shiver of fear crawl up his spine: had Nie Mingjue only been holding back from pursuing Lan Xichen because of consideration for Meng Yao?

“I do. I just like you, too.”

“What are you proposing, exactly?” Meng Yao asked, and he only barely kept his voice even. “Would we trade off visits, perhaps? Set up a schedule?”

Lan Xichen blinked at him. “Why would you need to trade off visits? I had thought we could spend time together, as we’ve always done.”

Meng Yao wondered if there was a polite way to talk about the difficulties of having threesomes in which two parties didn’t touch with someone from the ever-repressed Lan sect. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Lan Xichen, he did, but he might actually die of jealousy if he had to watch him make love to Nie Mingjue, knowing that he could only touch the one and not the other.

“I thought the same might be true for love,” Lan Xichen said, with only the tightness of his hands in front of him revealing his nervousness now. “If you two would be willing to accept me, that is – I would never presume to interfere with your love for each other.”

Oh, no. Meng Yao was going to have to explain this, and then he would die.

A pity. It’d been a pretty decent life, as they went.

“Xichen,” Nie Mingjue hissed, his cheeks bright red, and Meng Yao already knew what he would say: that it was incest, legally speaking, even if they were not related by blood; that he thought of Meng Yao only as a little brother; that he’d never thought of it once, that it was disgusting, that he – “That was shared in confidence!”

Meng Yao blinked. His mind, which had never once stopped moving, seemed to be unable to function.

“But Mingjue-xiong, it’s important –”

“But he doesn’t – I don’t want him to feel like – ” Nie Mingjue’s eyes flickered over to him, panicked, and Meng Yao recognized it from what was now over a decade earlier, that nervousness and anxiety that was all for Meng Yao’s sake, a fear that he would feel like a stranger, unwanted, that he would think that he had to pay something for all that he had received, when all Nie Mingjue had ever wanted was his happiness.

“I think this plan of yours will work,” Meng Yao said to Lan Xichen, suddenly calm.

Calm, and very, very happy.

They both stared at him, and Meng Yao smiled. “I like you,” he said to Lan Xichen, and then, to Nie Mingjue, “I like you, too.”

Words didn’t exist that defined exactly what he felt for Nie Mingjue, something so far beyond love that it went into possessiveness and had come out the other side as liking; he wasn’t anywhere near there with Lan Xichen yet, had never allowed himself to go there with Lan Xichen because he knew his heart had already been taken, but they’d made a decent start and he thought they could get there, one day.

“I think you like him, too,” he told his da-ge, who’d always been bad at categorizing his own emotions and would definitely have no idea that he might have feelings for the childhood friend he’d allowed to grow nearly as close as his own family. “And – me, as well.”

“Meng Yao –”

“I don’t think of it as an obligation, or as something to endured,” Meng Yao continued, not letting him have a chance to speak. Not for the first time, he cursed Wen Ruohan in his mind: he ought to have considered the damage Wen Ruohan’s relentless pursuit had wrought on Nie Mingjue’s view of romantic relationships; it wasn’t really a surprise that even the whiff of a suggestion that consent might be questionable would send him fleeing. “But rather as a gift that I have been honored to be given.”

Nie Mingjue seemed almost dumbstruck by his words, although the fear in his eyes was slowly receding – still wary, but now with the possibility of joy. “I didn’t – it’s not – I don’t feel that way about Huaisang or anything. It’s just you.” A glance at Lan Xichen. “Both of you.”

“You never said anything,” Meng Yao teased lightly, and reached out a hand to hold Lan Xichen’s, squeezing it in gratitude for his bravery. Lan Xichen squeezed back, looking increasingly delighted at the way things were going.

“I couldn’t,” Nie Mingjue said, expression solemn. “I’m older, taller, stronger, with a temper I can’t always control; my political position is stronger, sect leader as opposed to a sect heir and an advisor. It would not be easy to say no –”

As if they couldn’t blow Nie Mingjue around like a paper lantern – he, who folded like a stack of cards at their every request.

“– and any consequences from a relationship would be borne by you. I could not bear to cause either of you pain.”

Lan Xichen, whose uncle would never approve of his having fallen in love with someone inappropriate; Meng Yao, who the world would whisper was just like his mother – yes, Meng Yao could see the problem, and the problem was only magnified by the fact that Nie Mingjue liked them both. How could Nie Mingjue accept Lan Xichen, when Meng Yao was in his heart? How could he speak to Meng Yao, who owed him everything, in a way that would let him know that the response was sincere? And of course if he let them be together instead, he was not so good an actor that they would be able to avoid all the problems associated with that; no matter what they did, there would always be rumors that one or another might be stolen away –

The plan blossomed to life in Meng Yao’s mind, fully formed.

He turned it around in his head a few times, only half-listening to Lan Xichen’s passionate declaration that it was pain he was willing to bear for love, his explanation that he knew that he was not yet in either of their hearts the way they were for each other, that he was only asking for the opportunity to try, but in the end he really couldn’t see any flaws with the idea at all. It would work perfectly with everything he’d already established, the groundwork years in the making, and no one would have any reason to question it.

It would be easy enough to convince Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen that it made more sense for the public aspects of their romance to start with Meng Yao and Lan Xichen – perhaps he could stay longer at the Cloud Recesses, which Nie Mingjue could not, or find some reason to come alone when the time came to pick up Nie Huaisang. He could make his smiles wider, his eyes more shining, paint himself as the perfect picture of a man in love – it’d be easy, given that he was already halfway there.

And when the time came, perhaps next year when all the other sect heirs came for their turn at the famous lectures of the Cloud Recesses, when Nie Mingjue took his turn at being the one who was affectionate, the entire world would think that Nie Mingjue had stolen Lan Xichen away from Meng Yao.

The entire world –

And Wen Ruohan, too.

It was the perfect plan.

#mdzs #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #meng yao #lan xichen #3zun #nieyao #my fic #my fics #here have some totally non-suspicious happiness #and for everyone complaining #this is primarily a nieyao fic #but LXC wants in on that #can you really blame him?#three gates

104 notes · View notes

logically-asexual · 3 years

Text

okay i'm already procrastinating and i don't plan on sleeping any time soon so here we go.

☆ ✩ my personal ranking for every season 1 Sanders Sides episode. ✩ ☆

i think it's going to be pretty similar to @dukeofonions' but let's see if i find something new to contribute haha. i see you didn't include that one about Patton in the Big Game or whatever, so i'm not including it either xd. also i think i'm going to count Accepting Anxiety as one episode only.

edit: i finished and now i dare you to drink a shot of water every time i say the word spanish or a version of the word comfort and become very well hydrated.

#16 I'm in a Disney Show

(i agree with dukeofonions here) i always forget this episode exists. it was ok in terms of being happy for real life Thomas but as a Sanders Sides episode it didn't do anything. the sides were just giving their opinions but it wasn't very funny or interesting. also i'm bitter because it made me look up the episode he was in and i didn't like it at all. i don't know if i'm too old for those Disney shows now but Thomas was literally the only good part of it, everything else was really dull and boring imo. a waste of time.

however, Logan supporting clickbait is one of the funniest things ever, and i'll never forget it.

#15 Becoming A Cartoon

i didn't hate this episode but it was just .. meh.. you know? several factors contribute to this. one, i couldn't feel much nostalgia for Butch Hartman's shows because i watched them in Spanish, and everything feels really weird when they speak English, i don't like how my old cartoons sound in English. two, it was disappointing to me because we were all desperately waiting for Plot™ and instead they give us this short episode about nothing (oh how the tables have turned now it's the other way around haha). and three, i didn't like the style of the animation :/ their faces and expressions freaked me out, Roman's douchey face still haunts me.

#14 Way Too Adult

here i'm biased because i don't like Patton much, and i didn't back when i watched the series the first time either, so this video was a little disappointingwithout the rest. also it wasn't relatable to me because i am still too young and dependent on my parents haha. but Patton is funny and it's funny to laugh at Thomas' struggling.

#13 The Dark Side of Disney

i've never been a fan of Disney movies. i actually never watched Mulan or the Lion King or Aladdin as a kid, so meh. i liked the ending, though, it was cool to see Virgil have fun and be right for once. it does make me a bit uncomfortable because the way Thomas tries too hard with Virgil's mouth movements and his low voice reminds me of a guy that had made me v uncomfortable not long before watching that video. so an icky feel overall.

#12 A New Year of Lying to Myself

this video was actually kind of fogettable to me. i had a hard time connecting the voices in the song to the characters and idk. i don't love it nor hate it, just .. neutral.

#11 My True Identity

pretty much the same opinion as dukeofonions, again. it's a good introduction and it's good that it was the beginning of it all but on its own it's not very special. i think it's awesome on Thomas to have come up with such a clever idea, like choosing the dad, the teacher and the prince and putting them together and match them with thoughts?? that fit so perfectly?? it really is just very impressive when you think about it, that it was just a random idea he had for a short 5 minute video.

#10 Taking on Anxiety

i liked this video a lot because when i watched it i had recently been a lot on tumblr, and found out through relatable posts that i had anxiety. so watching this video was really fun and it made me happy to feel so seen, specially the intro when Thomas just talks about what it's like to have Anxiety and Virgil is so smug about it.

- ★ -

okay now that those are out of the way things are going to get hard... all the following i love with all my heart so i'm going to rank them based on the smallest things.

#9 Growing Up

once more, Patton isn't my favorite. so that's why i'm putting this here, plus the echo at the end askjhsahg, but i love love this video. i remember we were waiting and oh so ready for the angst of nobody taking Patton seriously. and we received!! i love that though Roman and Logan are antagonists here, they're both so happy about Thomas wanting to have a healthy life. and i just adore the way Logan admits his mistake at the end and asks Patton directly. my heart... also aw.. the nostalgia. i remember none of us knew how to spell Patton's name and were writing it in very funny ways until Thomas and Joan told us lol.

#8 The Mind vs The Heart

when i watched this video the first times i didn't like it much, because i only had eyes for Virgil, but later i came back to it and loved it. so taking that into account i'm putting it here. logicality was the first ship i ever shipped in the show because i saw a gifset on tumblr of Patton screaming "what do you know about love?!" and Logan "apparently more than YOU" and the caption said "MARRIED", and i thought hey yeah... anyway. i love them. they're both my dads since that day.

this video is so so so relatable and i love it. Logan and Patton are so much fun arguing and i love how they compromise at the end and work together. im reconsidering.. i might move it higher? no, fine i'll leave it here.

#7 Making Some Changes

this video was absolutely hilarious. i personally couldn't see it as the Sides still once they were acted by Thomas' friends, i enjoyed it more as that bunch being silly and trying to be the sides but failing in so many ways, while sometimes nailing stuff suddenly. i really don't take this one too seriously as an episode. except Joan!Logan and Valerie!Logan, my beloved... i love how Joan acted as Logan and their voice and that they kept their ace ring on.. there's a reason i had them as my icon for so long. and Valerie looks a bit (a lot) like me with the glasses and dressed in dark colors, plus she spoke Spanish and there's .. no words to describe the joy i felt when seeing/hearing that. wait i'm getting emotional...

#6 My Personality Q&A

when i watched this Virgil was my favorite side and i didn't care much about the rest lol. when i heard his answers i related to him SO much it was scary, and also his voice is so soft and it was all very comforting. it was also when i first starting looking at Logan with more attention, because when he brought up Big Hero 6 and Fall Out Boy and said he didn't sing and would recite it like a poem? it only took a couple seconds but my brain said "me" and never went back.

now this video is a little underwhelming to watch for me, most of the appeal for me was in finding out the answers, and also watching it when we didn't know a lot about the sides. now we know more and want to know more so it's not as fun to me as it was first.

i wish so bad they'd do another one, although i know it would be more difficult with a much bigger audience, i think they can manage and i just need it. the chaos.. the energy.. they all being so savage with each other, learning little random facts about them you didn't expect.. i need it.

- ★ -

oh boy top 5 here we go. the next three are practically a tie. i can't choose.

#5 Alone on Valentines Day

i love Valerie, and the idea of this video was perfect and so perfectly excecuted. every side just giving their crazy opinions on how to woo a random stranger, i laughed SO much. first with Logan speaking simlish out of nowhere? at that point i didn't know practically anything about the sims except that it was some video game and the whiplash of Logan going AYO and the rest killed me. then when Roman whipped out that dialogue in Spanish??? my life was completed. i've never felt more happy than i did in that moment gosh. just the hilarity of Roman's drama, the shock of them speaking Spanish suddenly like that, the absolute JOY of seeing a creator i like speak (may i say) perfect Spanish, the other characters' faces after that.. never been happier.

also the conclusion was so cute. Virgil solving the whole problem without wanting to. i loved it.

#4 Am I Original

i think this video speaks for itself. it was fun to watch them all do the ideas Roman had, plus Logan and Virgil nodding at each other, (i love them so much), plus the angst at the end of Roman's perfectionism, plus Roman's just perfect name. this video has it all.

i think Thomas posted it kind of late at night and i watched it at 7am in the classroom as i waited for my classmates to arrive and the class to start. (i usually was like 40 minutes early to school due to mom’s work). i had to contain my laughter and it wasn’t easy.

#3 Losing My Motivation

i started loving this video after a while, when Logan passed Virgil in the position for my favorite side. but once he did this episode was beautiful. it's so funny and i love Logan and Patton's dynamic so much. and the video also so damn relatable in general. i felt so seen with it because they named all the problems i have when procrastinating, down to Patton's vague explanation of his feelings, it's exactly how i feel every time i want to do stuff. and the plot twist! i can hear the dramatic sound effect and see how they all turn to Logan clearly in my head, and it always makes me smile. plus there's so much Logan angst that can be dug up and overanalized. i love to watch it over and over.

#2 Accepting Anxiety

this video was perfect. everything we wanted. we knew it was coming and it delivered perfectly, better than any fanfic done in the waiting time. the week between the parts was agonizing but in a fun way somehow. i remember precisely when i was watching part 2 in my living room. i screamed. and i cried, a lot. i was feeling terrible at that time in my life and Thomas was such a comforting presence and i can't begin to describe how this episode made me feel.

and later it is always fun to rewatch with all their different reactions to being in Virgil's room, the energy of that was on point. Thomas is such a great actor and the characters where just amazingly performed. plus it gave so much to talk adn think about, the idea of the rooms, lots lots of insight into the characters, foreshadowing, so much. it's just perfect i have nothing else to say.

#1 (for purely emotional reasons, ironically) My Negative Thinking

i think Accepting Anxiety is the best episode of the season objectively but my favorite is My Negative Thinking. because i love Virgil and Logan so much and seeing them argue together was and is great. the comfort.. i can't repeat that word enough throughout this post. it's such a soft video while not being overwhelming with Patton and Roman's outbursts. just quiet (mostly) and clear and with perfectly timed humour.

Logan my beloved.. learning spanish... helping me with my own anxiety.. and their debate was so good. and the fact that they were friends i- i can't. Virgil didn't think Logan liked him and Logan told him explicitly that he did and the casual softness of it i cant even. Logan is happy that he tried.. it's just marvelous. Virgil and Logan as best friends will always be my favorite pair, and their dynamic will always be what i strive for in any relationship i might form, with both sides silently comforting each other within their own limits and realistic perspectives. so nice.

- ★ -

so yeah. that's all. thank you if you read all the way up to here. ♡ ♡ ♡

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders

19 notes · View notes

jaxsteamblog · 3 years

Text

Love Letters

This is the plain text version of an IMAGE SET! Please check out the chapter on AO3 for the visual, or enjoy the plain text here! If you end up liking the visual chapter, make sure to thank @the--descension and their fic, as well as @zk-modernau!

Click here to read the full fic on AO3

Image ID: Screenshots of a text chat between Katara in green chat bubbles and Zuko in white chat bubbles. / End Image ID

[Author’s note, timestamps are not included in this transcript as they were not accurately edited in the app. Texts will be labelled by sender first, followed by the message. Readers using accessible software please be aware that text messages will include extra punctuation for emphasis and misspellings. Emojis used will be typed out as a description.]

Blue text box with the date December 09, 2020

Yellow text box with lock symbol that reads Messages to this chat and calls are now secured with end-to-end encryption. Tap for more info.

Katara: BTFS!!!!!

Zuko: That good huh?

Katara: WHY are there so many earth kingdom cities????

Zuko: Oh, geography class. My favorite.

Katara: Crying emoji. This is worse than anatomy.

Zuko: NOTHING is worse than anatomy.

Katara: True.

Katara: But why do I have to memorize this? I can Booble ALL OF IT.

Zuko: Same reasons as anatomy.

Katara: Three red angry emojis

Katara: I’m making everyone wear name tags.

Zuko: That’s one way to handle it.

Zuko: Have you learned anything about FN yet?

Katara: Why else am I dating you if not for that?

Zuko: I thought it was for my stunning good looks….

Katara: I do miss your face.

Zuko: I miss yours too.

Katara: You’re coming for the coronation right?

Zuko: That’s the plan.

Katara: How is your family being?

Zuko: Terrible, as usual. Who knew a failed kidnapping plot would put them in such a bad mood?

Katara: Straight face emoji

Katara: I still think you should’ve said something.

Zuko: It would just make things worse.

Katara: I know.

Katara: I keep thinking about you during these stupid lessons.

Katara: I can’t believe you already know all this BS.

Zuko: I’ve been learning it since I was a kid. Male shrug emoji

Katara: Sure, but I’ve seen your interviews and stuff.

Katara: You’re really good at it.

Zuko: Aww, are you internet stalking me???

Katara: Shut up!!!

Katara: I feel like every interviewer has a crush on you.

Zuko: Again, my stunning good looks.

Katara: That’s starting to sound like sarcasm. You are aware that you’re handsome, right?

Zuko: Love IS blind.

Katara: I’m serious! You have really nice cheekbones.

Zuko: And you say you can’t be diplomatic.

Katara: You’re impossible.

Zuko: I just don’t do well with compliments like that.

Katara: I’ll have to find other ways to compliment you then. Smiling devil emoji

Zuko: Sounds like a challenge.

Katara: I have to go. Arnook has me working with Pakku on “Courtly Behaviors.”

Zuko: Sounds terrible. Have fun!

Katara: Miss you! Six emoji hearts alternating red and blue

Zuko: Miss you too.

Blue text box with the date December 22, 2020

Zuko: So, by the end of it, Uncle had the guy by his collar and the wife was mortified.

Katara: I cannot believe this happened.

Zuko: Me neither. It only ever happens when I’m home.

Katara: Do you ever wish you stayed in Ba Sing Se?

Zuko: I used to, from time to time.

Katara: Not now?

Zuko: Now I think about how the Water Tribe Queen can’t go around dating a tea server.

Katara: What if we both left and ran off to the earth kingdom interior? We can open up our own tea and herb shop.

Zuko: Training not going well?

Katara: Training is FINE.

Katara: I just really miss you.

Zuko: I miss you too.

Zuko: I think about you all the time. It’s really distracting.

Zuko: I zoned out in the middle of an important luncheon today.

Katara: Why????

Zuko: I was thinking about you.

Katara: That’s dumb. You’re dumb.

Zuko: You like me dumb.

Katara: Hot and dumb, himbos forever.

Zuko: Hey, Thuy’s calling me. I gotta go.

Katara: Say hi!

Zuko: Will do. Talk to you later?

Katara: Heart eyes emoji

Blue text box with the date December 30, 2020

Katara: And it happens every new moon!

Zuko: That sounds like a lot of work every month.

Katara: It’s unbelievable.

Katara: I mean, maybe the South Pole did it before the war. But it’d be news to me.

Zuko: I guess that’s why they really want a Bender on the throne.

Katara: It makes things easier but also, we know the moon is going to come back. Like, scientifically.

Zuko: I think Arnook might be holding on for different reasons.

Katara: Shoot. Yeah. You’re right.

Katara: Crap, now I feel bad.

Zuko: Sorry. I do understand what you’re saying though.

Katara: Maybe I can change it? Make it more about Yue and less like we’re all gonna die if we don’t appease the spirits?

Zuko: That sounds reasonable.

Zuko: You’re really getting good at this.

Katara: I’m good with the tribe stuff. I’m still bad doing all this talking out the side of my mouth.

Zuko: Pardon? Monocle emoji

Katara: It’s an Earth Kingdom expression. When you’re not talking straight and buttering someone up. Or backhanded compliments.

Zuko: Unfortunately, you’ll have to do that a lot.

Katara: Whyyyyyy? I’ll be queen. What are they gonna do about it?

Zuko: Rebel?

Katara: Against the ocean? Eye roll emoji

Zuko: Sounding a bit tyrannical there darling. Fire emoji

Katara: They’re making me do all this stuff!!! It’s not fair!!!!

Zuko: It’ll get easier.

Katara: Can’t I just go visit you? Let’s go to Ember Island again.

Zuko: I wish.

Zuko: You look good on a beach.

Katara: Everyone looks good on a beach. That’s why it’s popular.

Zuko: Fair.

Katara: I can’t believe that was just a few months ago.

Zuko: I can’t believe we’ve been dating for a full season now.

Katara: Do we have an actual anniversary? Thinking emoji

Zuko: Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about it because I don’t want to jinx this.

Katara: Three cry laughing emojis

Katara: Would it be the summit tho?

Zuko: I guess so?

Katara: We wasted SO MUCH TIME this summer.

Zuko: Well…

Katara: It’s not my fault you were dating someone else.

Zuko: If I had been bolder during the war…

Katara: How would that have even worked?

Katara: I hadn’t even hit my peak rage against the Fire Nation

Zuko: Probably wouldn’t have been down for dating the crown prince then huh?

Katara: But it was you. So who knows?

Zuko: You think you would’ve still fallen for me?

Katara: Didn’t I do exactly that?

Zuko: That wasn’t me though.

Katara: Tomato, potato

Zuko: Your brother says that.

Katara: He stole it from ME!!!

Blue text box with the date January 03, 2021

Zuko: Sorry I missed your call.

Zuko: Kat?

Zuko: Are you mad at me?

Katara: Yes.

Zuko: I’m sorry Katara, the meeting ran long.

Katara: I know.

Katara: I’m still mad.

Katara: Today was really rough.

Zuko: What happened?

Katara: I don’t want to talk about it.

Zuko: Hey, did you want to call now? I’m free.

Katara: No.

Zuko: Katara.

Katara: I just really needed you!

Katara: Arnook keeps yelling at me because I keep forgetting names and stupid stuff like that, and Pakku is telling me that I’m going to cause the next world war because I’m rude, and now one will train with me because I’m the stupid princess now and I’m really really lonely!

Zuko: I’m sorry Katara, that really sucks.

Katara: It does suck!

Katara: And when I call my boyfriend when he told me he’d be free, he didn’t pick up!

Zuko: I couldn’t control that.

Katara: I know.

Katara: I’m sorry.

Katara: I really want to see you.

Zuko: We can video chat?

Katara: No, I really want to see you in person.

Katara: We just started dating but I never get to be with you.

Katara: And when we are together, something bad always happens.

Zuko: I know. I’m sorry.

Katara: It’s not your fault.

Zuko: It kinda is though. It’s my family.

Katara: I just wish you were here.

Zuko: Me too. But I’ll see you soon.

Katara: Ugh, don’t remind me. Fed up emoji

Zuko: You’re going to do great. And you’re not going to be taking over right away. Arnook is still around for a bit.

Katara: Promise YOU will be around for a bit?

Zuko: I’ll stay as long as I can.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

#zutara #fanfiction #jax writes #zutara month #modern au #the fic that prompts built

16 notes · View notes

author-a-holmes · 3 years

Note

Yooo, for the writer asks: 1, 21, and 23? :O

Evening darling, thank you for the asks! ^_^

Answering asks 1, 21, and 23 from this ask list.

1. Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

Yes, actually! Right now I'm holding off on completing my Stolen Stories.

In the previous ask I mentioned that I completed the first draft of Book One in my Stolen Stories series between May and October of 2020.

My plan was to continue with that series and write Book Two while doing the first round of edits on Book One, so that I'd be writing Book Three while sending Book One out to Alpha/Beta readers. There's a full 6 books planned for that series, so I wanted to overlap them all slightly, and then eventually publish Book One sort of around the time I started writing Book 4.

But...

When I started looking into the publishing side of actually being a self published author, the reality of the process kind of hit me a little harder than I expected.

The first time you do something, anything, you're bound to make mistakes. I only have to look back at my first story to know that and, for all my years of writing practice, I've never hit the publish button on a book.

And 'Stolen' is my baby, for lack of a better term. Stella Korazon and Reilly Mosswolf are the darlings of my heart. I'd die for them, I'd kill or them. I do not want to "practice" the art of publishing a book with their story.

So Stolen, and it's sequels are currently on hold, and that's why I'm working on the Fey Touched novels right now. That's not to say I love Lizzy and Andric and Booker any less, but I have to split my mind into author and self-publisher. As an author, I love Fey Touched just as much as Stolen, but as a self-publisher a trilogy of 90k books failing is better than a 6-book series where each book is 140k+ failing.

Fey Touched is where I will hit publish for the first time and, hopefully, discover all the mistakes I'll inevitably make so that I can more effectively promote and market Stolen, when that monster of a series is ready for the world at large.

21. What do you think when you read over your older work?

That entirely depends on how old the work is :D

If it's something I've written within the last 1-5 years, then most of the time my reaction is something along the lines of;

"Oh wow, that's pretty good."

"Damn, that's an evocative line. Did I actually write this?"

"I FORGOT ABOUT THAT PART!!"

If, on the other hand, it's something like my first manuscript from when I was age 8 or 9, my reaction is usually something closer to;

"Oh no... that's... oh dear."

"Oh gods, please tell me I didn't say that..."

"Umm... That word doesn't mean what I thought it meant..."

"Bloody hell, I'm glad no one else will ever read this."

Having said that, @faelanvance takes great delight in digging through my old manuscripts and reading them back to me aloud for my ultimate mortification :D

23. Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

Probably too many to fit into a single tumblr post, honestly.

I'm constantly drawing from my own life experiences to put my readers into my characters positions. I can take pain and terror or Joy and Laughter from one set of experiences and then Copy/Paste it, for lack of a better term, into a different situation, but that direct knowledge lets me bring the descriptions to life for the reader. At least, I certainly hope it does!

As for specific situations that I feel have helped my writing... Let me just pick a couple.

(A) My Terrible Health

I mentioned in the previous ask that I was born with congenital talipes. Anyone can google it if they want more information, but it's also known as club foot. As a child, all this really meant to me was that I was constantly in and out of hospitals for operations and physiotherapy and that I wasn't physically able to run, jump, climb trees, or even walk long distances without my feet and legs hurting.

Also, because of the operations I spent a great deal of time in bed, or sitting in wheelchairs, while I recovered.

None of this is said in a negative light, in fact, in terms of my writing I'm rather grateful for all that free time to sit and think and imagine. I was and am a voracious reader. I was reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, and David Eddings' The Belgariad by myself at the age of 7 and 8. If I was only going to be allowed one book in hospital, I was going to make sure it was the longest book I could lay my grubby little hands on.

I could lay for hours on the children's ward while other patients yelled and fought over the single playstation or the jigsaw puzzles, and I could create entire worlds in my head. I could bring to life characters that could explore Middle Earth or go on adventures with Belgarath, and I only needed myself and my mind.

Books were a popular gift for me, because I was physically restricted, and then once I began picking up a pen, notebooks, journals, and fancy pens were quick to follow.

I think I would still have found writing, I can't imagine what my life would be like if I hadn't discovered this passion, but I'm not 100% sure I'd have discovered it as early as I did if I'd not been forced to stay still for so much of my childhood.

(B)

Another specific scenario that I feel really helped my confidence in my writing was my High School English teacher, Mr Reck.

I was bullied through most of my schooling, mostly for being on crutches, but this really didn't bother me. I just ignored them.

But one day we had been given a task in class, and I'd already finished, so as I usually did I pulled out my notebook and started writing a story while I waited or the next task.

One of the students thought to get me into trouble by telling Mr Reck that I wasn't doing the work. He came over, looked at my completed work, looked at what I was actually doing (writing an original story), and then told me that if I ever wanted someone to read over my writing and check it, I could always leave it on his desk during lunch... and then he calmly walked away.

This was, for 14-15 year old me, mind blowing.

I didn't care about the bullies, they really didn't bother me. I also wasn't self conscious about my writing, both my parents are and have always been strong supporters of my creative work. The reason this stood out to me at the time, and continues to stand out to me as one of the defining moments of my high school life was because it was the first time someone outside of my immediate family not only read my work, but thought it was good enough to actively encourage.

Mr Reck also got me into a writing workshop that year, that was only supposed to be available to graduating students. I've no idea how he managed it, but he did and I'll be forever grateful to him. I intend to add his name to the dedication page of the first book I publish, and I'm in the process right now of trying to track him down to send him a copy.

I think I've found him, I've just got to get the nerve up to send a private message to confirm!

If there are any teachers out there reading this though, please take note of this final story. I don't know that some teachers realise just how important one, single, non-family member showing a genuine interest in a students work can affect that students entire life.

#Ask Game #Ask Answered #Writer Asks #Ari Speaks #Blindthewind

4 notes · View notes

iam93percentstardust · 4 years

Note

buckytony for the ask game?

1. Coffee shop AU: Who is the barista, and who frequents the coffee shop?

Tony frequents the coffee shop. Bucky has been working at Bean True to Yourself (the owners are hipsters) for the last three years, trying to put himself and Steve through college because while they both got scholarships, it wasn’t enough and Steve’s health doesn’t let him hold a study job. Bucky has gotten pretty good at latte art actually. Only Natasha knows that it’s because he’s got a crush on the cute brunet with the messy hair and Bambi eyes that comes in sleep-deprived every single morning and probably doesn’t even notice the hearts Bucky puts in his lattes.

Tony definitely notices and it’s only because he’s spent so much time in the spotlight that he doesn’t blush every single time he sees the new art. Besides, he remembers when he first started coming here and the latte art was terrible. Bucky’s probably just testing out his artistic skills on Tony cause he knows he won’t judge him. There’s no feelings involved, right?

2. Highschool/College AU: Who is the straight-A student, and who’s the backrow slacker?

Tony has come to the conclusion that the only way to get Howard’s attention is if he puts absolutely no effort into anything at all, which is why he’s currently taking graduate-level courses as Edward Carbonell but Tony Stark is failing out of high school. Any attention is better than no attention, right?

And maybe it helps that his teachers come to him after class and suggest that he find himself a tutor and did you know that Bucky, Mr. Gorgeous himself, works in our tutoring program? I’m sure he’d love to help you, Mr. Stark. Okay, so maybe they don’t call Bucky gorgeous, maybe that’s just Tony’s own mind, but it’s not like he’s wrong. But Tony gave up on school a long time ago and Bucky has a motorcycle and wears leather jackets and is super popular all while having straight-A’s. There’s no way he even knows Tony’s name, let alone would ever like him.

3. Rivals to lovers AU: Who takes their rivalry seriously, and who is half in it just to push the other’s buttons?

Bucky isn’t entirely certain how he ended up as a supervillain’s sidekick and he definitely isn’t sure that he really wants to be there but he won’t deny to himself that the best part of the job is facing off against Iron Lad while Captain America and the Black Widow are fighting each other for control of the Deathstick of Destiny or whatever it is this week.

Iron Lad’s just so cute with his sense of justice and his wit and the conviction that he and Bucky are destined to be nemeses for life. And one time, a building fell on top of them and Bucky got to peel him out of his compromised suit and that was the best thing ever because he got to see Iron Lad’s flight suit, which accentuates the most perfect ass ever. Seriously, Bucky just wants to reach down and squeeze but he’s pretty sure that then Iron Lad might actually use the unibeam that he’s been threatening to use for ages.

4. Enemies to lovers AU: Which one switches sides?

Oof, Bucky does. He comes back from HYDRA to find a world that’s absolutely a bigger mess than he remembers it being and maybe that’s those rose-tinted glasses Sam keeps accusing him and Steve of wearing but he looks at Iron Man, taking out the ultra-wealthy and distributing the money back to the people, and then he looks at the Avengers and how they keep causing more property damage than they can fix and decides that he knows what side he wants to be on.

He slips out of the compound in the dead of night, unnoticed by all except Natasha who just wishes him luck, and tracks Iron Man across two continents and an ocean back to his secret hideout - in Latveria of all places, who knew that Doom could share? - knocks on the door and when a man with the prettiest brown eyes Bucky has ever seen answers the door, Bucky announces, “Hi, I’m here to be a villain.”

In retrospect, he decides as he’s dragging a fainted Tony inside, that might not have been the best way to introduce himself to his future employer.

5. Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?

The thing is, Tony knows that soulmates aren’t always perfect. His parents were soulmates and they absolutely hated each other. But Ana and Jarvis were soulmates too, and so is Aunt Peggy and Uncle Daniel, and they loved each other very much, so even though he’s been alive for almost 40 years and never once met his soulmate, he still has high hopes.

Bucky fell from the train without knowing his soulmate and the only thing he can thinks is Good. They won’t wind up with someone like Bucky, someone who has nightmares from his time as a lab experiment, who kills people without even blinking, whose main purpose in life is to be the shadow that dogs Steve Rogers’ heels. But then he wakes up.

And then he forgets he ever even had a soulmate.

The next time Bucky remembers anything, it’s 2014, he’s in a glass room (cage, really), and there’s someone standing with their back to him outside of the cage, doing something on a tablet.

“What’s it gonna take to let me out of here?” Bucky asks.

The person jumps, turns, and then a slow smile spreads over his face. “I don’t know, how about dinner?”

Fuck.

6. Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

Harley’s got a protective streak a mile wide (Bucky thinks he’s learned it from Uncle Steve), which is why Bucky isn’t surprised when Harley comes home with a black eye and immediately proclaims that it wasn’t his fault, there were these two big kids picking on a younger girl on the playground.

“Oh yeah and here’s this, I guess,” Harley mumbles and shoves a piece of paper with a phone number on it in Bucky’s direction.

Bucky holds an ice pack up to Harley’s eye and asks, “What’s this?”

“Mr. Stark’s phone number. I said I wanted it in case Peter wanted to play but he seemed nice and looked like your type and I’m tired of you going out with jerks who don’t like me so I got it for you.”

Well, leaving that aside, “Who’s Peter?”

“Morgan’s brother. He’s in my class and he helped when he saw I was helping her out.”

Right, like that explains anything. He dials the number, intent on seeing if this Peter can tell him the full story, only for someone to say, “Stark residence, can I help you?”

Bucky doesn’t believe in love at first sight (er, voice) but whoever it is has got such a pretty voice and he kind of wants to hear them moaning his name so he purrs, “You sure can, doll.”

Maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised when they make an offended sound and hang up.

7. Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient?

“Mr. Stark, please, I’m begging you, wear PPE when you’re working in your lab.”

“But then when would I get to see you?” Tony chirps, seemingly uncaring that Bucky is setting his fingers.

“At dinner,” Bucky says before he can think better of it.

They both freeze. Then Tony slowly says, “And that’s okay?”

Honestly? Probably not but Tony has been coming to the ER for months for his lab-related injuries and Bucky is always his doctor and they always end up flirting and he’s tired of this back-and-forth. So when he’s done splinting Tony’s fingers, he raises his hand to his mouth and brushes the softest of kisses over the back, smiling when Tony gasps.

8. Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?

Howard Stark is convinced that someone is out to get him, his wife, and his son. He can easily take care of him and his wife but Tony recently moved out of the mansion, insistent on making his own way in the world so surreptitiously, Howard hires Bucky to keep an eye on Tony by moving into the apartment next door.

It’s probably the easiest job Bucky has ever had because Tony almost never leaves their building, too caught up in his projects as he is. He gets food delivered and sometimes, he has friends over but otherwise, he’s pretty much a recluse.

And that’s a damn shame that is because Bucky has really only seen Tony twice so far and both times have about knocked him flat out on the floor.

9. Pirate AU: Who is the pirate? Who is the member of the royal family who did not sign up for this?

Crown Prince Anthony Edward Stark, first of his name, heir to the throne, would like everyone to know that he absolutely did not sign up for this, no way, no how. Just about everyone on the ship though, sees it when he gives Captain Barnes what he obviously thinks is a secretive wink. And they all know that they’re going to hear it when the captain and his “captive” go below the deck that night.

Sam scratches his head awkwardly and looks over at Admiral Rhodes on the other ship. “You want to come over?” he calls. “They could be down there for a while.”

Rhodes sighs and crosses over. “Chessboard still set up?” he asks.

“Nope, Nat had to move it for one of her poker games. But I remember where the pieces were.”

10. Childhood best friends AU: Which one was super obviously in love with the other the whole time? Who was oblivious until they were older?

Everyone knows that Tony and Bucky are going to get married someday - except for Tony and Bucky themselves. Steve has been trying for ages to get Bucky to see that Tony is pining just as hard for him as Bucky is and Rhodes has been doing the same for Tony but they’re just...so oblivious. It makes Natasha want to bang her head against the wall - or maybe just lock them in a closet.

Except Clint tried that, right after Tony gave Bucky his first kiss when they were fifteen and Bucky just thought it was because they were friends. They’d been in that closet all night and when Clint finally opened the door in the morning, they were snuggling but still not together so he thinks they’re just too oblivious. There’s a school-wide betting pool on if they’ll get their act together before graduation.

(It’s okay though because Tony and Bucky have been dating since they were freshman. They’re just waiting to see how long it takes everyone else to notice.)

#winteriron #alle writes #alle answers #angxlsgrxce

65 notes · View notes

imnotwolverine · 4 years

Text

The marriage pact - Island folk

Henry Cavill x OC Alice - multi-chapter

< Part 6 | Part 7 Island folk | Part 8 >

Disclaimer: mention of late motherhood worries

Author’s note: This story is just so much fun to write. I set a scene and *BOOM* it just kind of writes itself. Now, I don’t know how long this writing craze will continue, but so far you can expect an update every day. You read that right; every day!

Word count: 1.525

(Link to my Masterlist)

[ Alice.in.writing.land ]

Dear readers,

Dark are the abysses of my heart sometimes, and I know that keeping those thoughts under lock and key only make things worse. And so, for the first time on this blog, I’d like to share something really, truly personal with you. A little snippet of my thoughts for a tender of your time, I’d like to come clean about my most recent Google search which I did late last night, after hours of laying awake.

Late motherhood.

Why? You may wonder. Well, with my relationships continuously failing and the years - and candles - slowly adding up to my birthday cakes, I feel the increasing unease in my heart whenever I come to think of having a family of my own. Will it happen? And if so, am I not too late already? All my friends and family members had their first children in their late 20s, yet here I am, the oddball, single Pringling through life at 37.

It was about 3 AM late last night when I found myself quelling my nerves by looking at pictures of older female celebrities having kids at the “ripe old age of 35”, which in my book is still super young, but of course we are looking at Hollywood standards here. And, to be quite frank, I’m not sure if it helped me, but at least it did offer me the slightest sliver of hope as I found that I’ll probably just need a little luck, good preparation..and perhaps a donor, to make my wishes come true.

Research is required.

But, let’s not get carried away just yet. I know what I want, now all I need to give myself is time. Time to listen to my heart and learn if this is truly it, time to investigate my options a little more and time to sleep. Because honestly, Google is one hell of a click-through trap when you can’t sleep - I may or may not have ended up falling asleep to videos of laughing foxes, which are truly..the cutest. In case you want to look it up and dare to delve into the time consuming trap that is watching random Youtube videos, then search for: “Finnegan fox”.

Hi-la-ri-ous.

Also; apparently chocolate cakes have internet access. So, aherm, hello and welcome to my little writing den, oh mysterious chocolate cake of mine!

A very sleepy, but glad to have this off her chest,

Ali

The waves broke softly onto the shoreline as the wind tugged gently on my hair, my pen scribbling away on the paper notebook on my lap. For some odd reason I found it much more comfortable to write by hand, and so whenever the mood struck and I found the time, I snuck out to my little beach hide-out and started to write. This time it was for work, but sometimes I also worked on smaller fictional stories, the very act of writing calming my nerves considerably.

I looked up when I heard the sound of slushing feet through the fine sand, the distinct vibrations telling me someone was approaching me with slow, dragging feet. And.. it appeared to be not just anyone.

Henry.

So very suddenly I felt terrible about posting that blog this morning. Had he read it? Would he start a conversation about it? I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to have that conversation with him right now. We were at best just dating, our newly rekindled friendship slash relationship only a few days young.

He stifled a yawn as he plopped down beside me on the picnic blanket, his eyes sporting large dark circles beneath them, his shoulders slumping slightly as he looked me over. I sniffled, shaking my head at the fact that we both had barely slept - obviously.

‘Mornin’.’ He grumbled, a gentle smile reaching his lips, his body leaning forward, but halting mid-morning kiss. Almost automatically I closed the distance, my hand moving aside my notebook so I could lean in, lips brushing over his, which apparently was just what he needed, his lips curling up in a full smile. ‘Hi.’ I whispered into his lips, then leaned back, tucking some rogue curl behind his ear before studying him better. Once more he wore a blue shirt - he had a gazillion of those, didn’t he? - and some dark jeans, his hair fresh and messy straight out of bed.

’So…no sleep then?’ I inquired, watching him as he slowly moved his gaze towards the rolling waves before us. ‘Nope.’ ‘How come?’ ‘Hmm..’ He thought aloud. ‘..I suppose it is difficult to just stop my life right dead in its tracks.’ He sighed.

‘What’s up Hen?’ I scooted closer to him, fingering a hand through his curls, his eyes closing as he revelled into the simpleness of my touch.

‘I have to fly back to London for the weekend. There’s this event that my manager can’t seem to cancel without serious repercussions and..’ He sighed again. ‘You don’t want to go.’ ‘Not really no. But I will have to. The fox videos helped by the way.’

My heart summersaulted at his words - not only because he apparently read my blog, which wasn’t entirely surprising, but also because he was showing so much vulnerability. This large bear of a man was being honest about the things that frustrated him, something I had never experienced with previous partners. They’d always just burst out in flames all of a sudden, without giving me any fair warning before hand.

‘Hmm..’ I hummed, thinking. His eyes were still staring out to the sea, soft waves cascading in similar shades to his cerulean irises. He truly seemed to be a bit done with it all.

‘I’ve got some swimming pig videos at the ready too.’ I added, laying my head onto his shoulder and wrapping both my arms around his large chest, wishing to comfort him a little. ‘Hehe..swimming pigs.’ He chuckled, his chest vibrating with near silent mirth. ’Yea..can you imagine? Those tiny, tiny legs kicking through aquamarine water, their noses sticking out the water like living, breathing, skin coloured electricity points. Oink oink!’

Henry’s chuckle turned into rumbling laughter, his shoulders shaking until he finally looked back at me, my head still resting on his shoulder. ‘Ali..I ..eh..know this is maybe a bit weird, but, would you perhaps like to join me? To London? Leaving Friday night, back Sunday morning?’

I sat up, my brown eyes staring into his deep blues. Tender, hopeful blues. ‘Hmm.’ I hummed, blinking for a moment as I mulled over his words.

‘I know it’s all going fast and I don’t want to pressure you.’ He added.

‘No, it’s okay. It’s ehm..okay. Yea, sure, I’ll come. I haven’t been to London in ages and don’t have weekend plans anyways.’

‘Ages?’ ‘Naa..okay..maybe not ages. More like months.’ I snorted. We both laughed until finally my eyebrow quirked up. ‘So..what kind of event are you ..or we..going to?’ Henry smiled, leaning in to kiss me, the sound of my fluttering heart drowning out all else around us.

The answer to my question didn’t matter, I was simply very happy that I could join him and finally get a sneak peek of his usual life. Henry’s life.

—

‘I’m still amazed at the fact that you managed to pack all your things in that one backpack.’ Henry grinned, pushing my backpack in the overhead storage locker in First Class. I grinned in turn, shrugging my shoulders as I sat back in my seat. ‘Oh you know. I don’t mock about. No need to bring the unnecessary.’

‘You’d make for a fine traveller.’ He admitted, plopping down in his seat, right next to me, his hand quite instantaneously interlacing with mine - he didn’t even seem to think about it -, a smile tugging on the edges of his lips as he watched two business men enter, taking their seats a few rows ahead, leaving us plenty of privacy.

Slowly, he cast me a curious glance. ‘What is it, dear?’ He asked, noticing my studious look, his smile growing and his blue eyes sparkling.

‘Mmm..just wondering. You probably thought about this far better than I have thus far. But if you’d start a family..how would that..go? Like..-‘ ‘The travelling and stuff?’ ‘Yea.’

Henry leaned into the headrest, his head tilting up slightly as he licked his lips. ‘It’s going to take some back-and-forthing with my partner. And it won’t be easy. It will not only be my children that will give you broken nights, you see.’ He grinned and my heart fluttered at his words - children! -, yet my mouth remained sealed, waiting for him to continue. He sighed. ‘I..would definitely slow down my career. For the longest time I didn’t even think of that as a possibility. But like you wrote quite perfectly; all my friends and family members had their children young and here I am..the oddball. I know I should not press my luck by demanding my partner to give up everything for me. That is just not fair.’

‘Give and take.’ I added.

‘Yes, give and take.’ He smiled at me, his large warm hand squeezing mine gently. It felt nice. ‘Okay..so another question. You live in London right?’ ‘Mostly, yes.’ He nodded, making me grin. ‘Yea yea..Superman has several mansions and a jet setting career that makes you quiver right back into your 2-bedroom flat.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘But all joking aside..why did you chose to stay with your parents, now you requested a “time-out”?’

Henry shifted in his seat, his smiling face turning to one holding a more serious expression. ‘I’m from the island baby. And I will always, ALWAYS return to the island. It is my one true home after all.’

General tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss @tumblnewby @magdelen69 @thereisa8ella @mary-ann84 @darkbooksarwin @summersong69

Fluff lovers squad: @star017 @perhaps2remember @pterodactylterrace @witchersqueen @desperate-and-broken @toomanyfandomsshreya @deliciouslysassyarcade @pamacs-macs @cavilladdict @scorpionchild81 @lebguardians @sofiebstar @amberbabem @mis-lil-red @aestheticqueenb @misslalaland-blog-blog @ilieherecharmed-fics2readnrec @michelehansel

Want to be added to or removed from the tag list? Shoot me a message!

#henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x author #henry cavill x OC #henry cavill fluff #jetset #lifestyle #beach #jersey islands #london #motherhood #family planning #romcom #the marriage pact #island folk

50 notes · View notes

ineloqueent · 4 years

Text

Starstruck: Part 7

Brian May x Fem!Reader

This is Part 7 of a multi-part fic. Click the links below to read the Masterpost, the previous part, or the next part of the fic :)

Masterpost / Part 6 / Part 8

Summary: When studying at Imperial College in the 1970s, your path is crossed by a beautiful boy as much in love with the stars as you.

Warnings: swearing, drinking, angst

Historical Inaccuracies: none that I can think of!

Word Count: 4.3k

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

The sun made you wonder. Made you wonder why it was shining in the first place. How wretched of it to shine so prettily when you felt so miserable.

It was a misery too out of reach to be pacified, for it was not the obvious sort, the kind in which you cry and shudder and feel like you’re suffocating. This was the kind of miserable in which you mope, staring out the window in a daze, and the only thing you are aware of is the frown on your lips; you opt for bitterness with every word and thought. This is the miserable where you feel detached and lost, like you exist in one universe and your feelings in a neighbouring dimension.

Brian hadn’t spoken to you for over a week.

It had rained every day since.

When classes had resumed the following Monday, Brian didn’t smile at you when you chanced a ‘good morning’. He merely pressed his lips together and ducked beneath his curls. That was how you knew he was avoiding you.

On Tuesday, Brian failed Carmichael’s test. This you knew because he ripped it in half as he stormed out of the door, following the lecture And he was glowering. You’d never thought that timid Brian could even have the ability to glower.

On Wednesday afternoon, Deacy called you.

“I was wondering if you’d like to join me and Rog for tea today?”

You bit your lip slowly. “Just you and Rog?”

“Yep!” he said. “I’ve told you that Veronica’s just gone up to see her parents for a couple of days, and that I’m working so she thought it best for me to stay behind, haven’t I?”

“Yes, you’ve told me,” you replied. “And Heather went with her.” Heather and Veronica had grown up in the same town, and so Heather, behind due to visit her own parents, had boarded the train with Ronnie.

“Oh, yes.” John paused, then asked hesitantly, “Are… are you okay with just me and Roger, for tea I mean?”

You breathed quietly in relief.

“Y/N? Who are you avoiding? You haven’t fallen out with Heather, have you?”

“Oh, no no,” you assured him.

“With Veronica, then? Surely not.”

“No, Deacy, she’s lovely.”

“She likes you too. You get along well. Maybe you should go shopping together or something sometime,” he babbled.

“Yeah,” you answered distractedly.

“Well, you have our number. And you know you’re always welcome over.”

“Thanks, Deacy—”

But Deacy was still trying to work out who it was you were supposedly at odds with. “Not Roger!” he cried. “That’s why you’re not sure about lunch. You and Roger are arguing, aren’t you?”

“No, Roger and I are fine, John.”

“Oh, good,” he sighed. “I was worried for a moment. And I’ve already had to diffuse so many fights this week, in the band, y’know.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he sighed, “you wouldn’t believe it. So many. It’s like cats and dogs at the moment. Not sure why. Yelling and throwing various instrumental gear. Drumsticks, microphone stands, cables… clumsily. Almost an amp, yesterday.”

You winced, “That sounds, uh, violent?”

“Actually,” he considered, meanwhile you pondered the reason he was jabbering nineteen a dozen, “they’ve all sort of been started by… Oh dear.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, Y/N, dear,” he said in a pitiful tone. “You’re avoiding Brian.”

“Am not!” you exclaimed.

“Are you not?” He sounded genuinely surprised this time.

“If anything, he’s avoiding me,” you grumbled, because at this point, Brian deliberately turned his head away when you passed him in the mornings. He seemed so pained by your presence that wondered if perhaps there was something more to the death of his aunt, if you had unknowingly poured salt on a second wound.

“Well…” began Deacy, seemingly at a loss. “Well, why, if you don’t mind me asking?”

You rubbed your eyes tiredly. You’d not been sleeping well for the past few nights, awake and alone with your pestering thoughts. “I asked where he’d been, when he disappeared off to god knows where the other week.”

John’s puzzlement was apparent. “And?” he said.

“And nothing. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“That’s terribly odd, Y/N. I asked. We all asked. He said he’d been up to visit his parents when they lost power in a storm. Whole phone lines came crashing down, apparently. Too much of a mess to get any sort of communication through to anywhere, and he figured we wouldn’t worry badly.”

You shook your head, then remembered that you were on the phone. “That can’t be true, Deacy. And even if it were, we did worry, remember?”

“I suppose we did worry,” Deacy conceded. “But what do you mean, that can’t be true? Did he not tell you the same thing?”

The air gasped from your lungs.

He hadn’t told anyone.

Except you.

“No, Deacy,” you said. “He— he said… His aunt died.”

“What?”

“His aunt died.”

“Yes, I heard you, Y/N, but… He lied to us?”

“Or he didn’t tell you the whole truth,” you suggested. It was something you did often; you didn’t like to lie, but naturally, you didn’t want everyone to know everything.

“I suppose. That’s just so terribly unlike Brian,” John said concernedly. “He doesn’t like lying.”

“Um… who do you know that actively enjoys lying?”

“Oh, Freddie’s near-pathological,” Deacy said off-handedly. “But Brian’s got more of a moral compass than I have!”

“That’s slightly concerning…” you remarked. “So, how is Freddie?”

“I talked to him and he said he was well,” Deacy related, “but now I’m not so sure. He’s seemed a bit off lately. Something to do with Mary, I think.”

You frowned. “Yeah, I think something’s wrong.”

Deacy sighed. “I’m beginning to think the only people who are okay are Veronica and myself.”

“Roger isn’t okay?”

“He’s usually the person Brian takes his temper out on.”

“Oh.”

“Tell you what,” said Deacy, “come to tea at mine at seven tonight and we’ll talk more then. I imagine you’ve got lectures to get to.”

“Just finished with the last one for today, but some studying wouldn’t hurt,” you replied. “I’ll see you at seven.”

“Okay, see you at seven. Bye bye, Y/N.”

“Bye, Deacy.”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You spent the rest of the afternoon studying. Or rather, you tried to study. The formulas and theories and diagrams mostly swirled across your page today, as much a spiral galaxy as the Milky Way. You speculated your lack of sleep and your lack of water could be the cause. Or maybe your lack of interaction with other humans. No Heather, no Freddie, no Roger, barely John. And no Brian. It was a wonder you’d not yet become a total hermit.

At six thirty you threw on your scarf and coat and went out the door, a bottle of wine in one hand.

At six thirty-two, you had boarded the tube and remembered that the scarf wasn’t actually your own. It was the rainbow scarf. You nestled your face into the wool and fibres tickled the tip of your nose, subtle scents of coffee and lilies shrouding you in their homely warmth.

You missed the owner of that scarf.

At seven precisely, you rang the Deacon-Tetzlaff doorbell.

The door swung open and John Deacon beamed at you. “Ah, Y/N! You’ve made it to my little party.”

“Careful, Deacy,” you admonished, “you’re beginning to sound an awful lot like those old film villains.”

“I think I’ll need more evidence than that,” Deacy kissed your cheek in greeting. You returned the gesture and went on inside, offering the wine bottle which he accepted cheerily. He was just closing the door when there came a shout from the street.

“Hold the door, will you, Deacy?”

Roger had arrived, dressed extravagantly in a fur coat and thin, orange-tinted sunglasses.

“Bit over the top for tea at mine, Roggie?” Deacy laughed.

You nodded to Roger’s sunglasses. “Surely those aren’t necessary.”

“They just complete the look. And honestly, you two are daft. Coat’s for warmth. It’s bloody well snowing.”

“Snowing?” you and Deacy repeated, leaning out the door.

Roger was right; little flakes fluttered down from the dappled grey sky, dusting his hair, and now yours as well.

“And so it is,” John said with another laugh. You held out your hand and let the glittery while specks fall into your palm. Despite your love for warmth, you liked snow. It was like catching stardust.

“Brimi would love that analogy,” Roger kissed your cheek as well, and you realised that you’d spoken aloud. You swallowed, settling your features back into a mask of nonchalance.

“He wouldn’t love that fur coat, though,” you tapped Roger’s sleeve.

“Hello to you too, sweetheart,” grumbled Roger.

“At the moment, he doesn’t love much at all, really,” Deacy remarked as he shut the door when you were all inside.

“Yes,” Roger echoed the sentiment, “can we discuss that? He’s a right bore.”

“More than usual?” John joked.

“God, yes. Thinking of throwing my bloody hi-hat at him next time.”

“He didn’t get the message from the drumsticks?”

“Apparently not. Went past his house this afternoon. He’s still moping.”

You tried not to think about the fact that you were the reason why Brian was moping. Meanwhile, John and Roger bantered on as you hung up your coat and— and the scarf.

You missed the majority of the conversation, having drifted into the abyss of your own thoughts once more. It was becoming a bad habit.

“Champagne? Oh, perfect!” John was saying. You’d reached the kitchen. “And it’s Moët et Chandon, too. Fred would be proud of you.”

“Funny, it was actually his idea,” Roger mused, closing his sunglasses around the collar of his shirt.

Deacy’s eyes widened as he pulled a tray from the oven. “Freddie better not have suggested anything else.”

Roger raised his eyebrows. “What would he have suggested, John?”

You wondered whether Roger was alluding to Freddie’s dampened temperament of the past many days, his tearfulness on the floor of a public bathroom, his obvious discomfort when you spoke of Mary.

Deacy waved an oven mitt and squinted through the steam that rose from the loaf of bread he had pulled from the oven.

“Deacy?” you said when the latter did not answer.

“Food’s ready!” he said brightly, and you all gathered around the kitchen table, Roger’s question forgotten.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

You’d eaten your fill of John’s homemade risotto and bread, which was quite a large portion. Deacy was an excellent cook, in contrast with the likes of Freddie and Roger, neither of whom knew how to boil an egg.

“That was lovely, Deacy,” you said, positioning your knife and fork at twenty-past four.

“Agreed,” Roger nodded from beside you. “I’d ask you to give me the recipe,” he addressed Deacy, “but you know I can’t cook.”

“Oh, yes, we all know, Roger,” John sniggered.

“Freddie can’t cook either,” Roger pointed out petulantly, as though this made up for his own downfalls as a twenty-four-year-old who had moved away from home without learning certain basics.

“So, why are we here, Deacs?” you said.

“Mm,” said Roger. “You never call meetings, John. That’s always Freddie. And if it was about Queen, you would have actually invited the other two idiots over. Not Cinderella, here,” he elbowed you in the ribs.

“Ow!” you yelped. “Better Cinderella than an idiot, though.”

Roger narrowed his eyes at you. “Then dress the part. Otherwise I’ll have to take back the title.”

“Dress… in cinders and dirt, like you have?”

“This is an expensive shirt!”

“Hey!” Deacy interjected, but you and Roger only paid attention after he stood and tapped his knife to his wine glass.

You looked at Roger and grinned. Roger waggled his eyebrows; he had the same idea. You took a breath—

“Speech! Speech! Speech!” you cried together.

Deacy rolled his eyes. “How I put up with any of you is a wonder. Might as well not tell you, now.” He made to sit down.

“Well, I wanna hear it,” Roger pouted.

“Yeah, go on Deacy,” you patted his side of the table.

He tried not to smile, but he couldn’t. He glanced down at the tablecloth instead, adjusted the cutlery on his plate with two fingers, then inhaled slowly.

“You’re not dying, are you?” said Roger. You elbowed him to shut him up.

“Right then,” Deacy straightened up. “Y/N, Roger,” he toasted you each with his glass and you smiled back bemusedly. He paused for dramatic effect. Then, “Ronnie’s pregnant!”

Your mouth fell open.

“Oh, Deacy, you sly bastard,” Roger stood and clapped his friend on the back.

Deacy rolled his eyes again, but he was still beaming.

“John, that’s wonderful!” you said. “Congratulations!”

“Thank you,” Deacy replied, pleased as punch. “Freddie and Brian found out by accident, and they were both busy tonight anyway, and I wanted to tell you before Veronica came back because she was going up to tell her parents,” he gushed, “and by then Freddie wouldn’t have been able to keep the surprise a surprise anymore.” Deacy practically shone, he was truly so happy. You couldn’t imagine more of a family man than John Deacon would be. He doted on Veronica and would dote upon his children even more.

Roger suddenly laughed, and you and Deacy looked at him. “Now I get it,” he said.

“Get what, Rog?”

“The champagne.”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

Thursday, you woke up with a violent headache. You had definitely overdone the champagne last night.

You rolled over to turn off your alarm clock, but instead rolled over the edge of a sofa.

And kicked Roger Taylor in the face.

“For fuck’s sake, Y/N,” Roger groaned, pulling his fur coat up over his face. He had used it as a blanket for the night, rejecting Deacy’s offer of actual bedding. “If you wanted to sleep on the floor, you could just have said so, not kicked me awake to take my spot.”

“I was perfectly fine with the sofa, thanks,” you mumbled, rubbing your temples.

Roger sat up blearily. “God, what a headache,” he complained.

You nodded in agreement, your eyes screwed shut.

“Good morning!” John appeared in the doorway to the living room.

“Shhhhh,” Roger hummed.

“Not my fault you never learnt to be responsible,” Deacy shrugged. “Can I interest anyone in coffee?”

“May I order some silence?” you asked. “And a black coffee, please.”

“On my way,” Deacy left for the kitchen.

“Yes please, I’ll have a cup,” Roger called hoarsely after Deacy. “With one and three-sevenths sugars.”

“One black, one with one sugar?” John called back.

“One and three-sevenths sugars, please.”

“Three sugars, Rog?”

“No, one and three-sevenths.”

“Seven sugars?!”

“DEACY. One and three-sevenths!”

Laughter trickled through the kitchen door. “I’m just winding you up, Roger,” Deacy returned to the living room.

Roger sighed. “Well, thank god. I was beginning to rethink our friendship. You should know how I take my coffee.”

“We’re not married, Rog. And if you really felt so fondly about me, you should have told me so before I took my girlfriend to bed sometime last year.”

“Which was far too long ago.” Roger took his mug of coffee when Deacy offered it to him. “You take a long time to fall in love with, Deacs. Couldn’t possibly have beaten Ronnie to that chase.”

“Speaking of rethinking our friendship…” John muttered.

After finishing your coffee, you swore at the time the clock on Deacy’s mantlepiece displayed, made your apologies, and rushed off to your morning lecture.

And still Brian would not even look at you.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

At nine o’clock that night, you sat down in your armchair by the fireplace and made two phone calls.

First, you called your mum.

Then you called Brian, who had neglected to turn up for the evening’s derivatives-and-guitar session.

Three guesses as to who took your call and who did not.

You went to bed soon after that, but sleep would not draw you away until two hours past midnight.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

On Friday evening, two of your housemates decided to get shit-faced. As Heather and Roger had taken up residency in your room, you decided to join in the getting-shit-faced.

Joan and Paulie were waiting for you in the kitchen and cheered when you entered.

“Our favourite Y/N!” Paulie hugged you, and Joan grinned from where she sat atop the kitchen counter, already holding a poured drink.

“What’s the occasion?” you asked. But this was apparently the wrong question, because Paulie’s bright eyes turned suddenly tearful.

Joan hopped down from the counter and wrapped an arm around Paulie’s shoulder.

“Just some hypocrite called Paulie a slag,” Joan sipped her drink. “Now we’re celebrating the fact that little Pauline here packed her first punch, eh, sweetheart?”

Paulie blushed crimson, and it was clear that she was not on her first drink either.

She turned to you, “What’ve you come to celebrate, Y/N?”

You laughed bitterly. “Perhaps my wasted heart.”

“It’ll be a large drink, then?”

You nodded, and Paulie frowned sympathetically. Joan stuck you a glass, filling it to the brim with alcohol.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

It was midnight, but tonight, there was no magic in the hour.

You sat in the window seat and leaned your head against the wood of the window frame.

The heating was broken and it was raining ice outdoors. Sleet. Yes, that was what it was called. Your muddled brain struggled to keep up with your racing heart.

You’d left Joan and Paulie in the kitchen, because the thing about Joan and Paulie was that they were mad for each other, though they appeared to be the only two people in the world who were blind to the phenomenon. Tonight, however, they’d made some discoveries regarding that area of their lives. They’d stopped drinking early on and had begun snogging instead, so you’d taken a bottle of mulled wine with you to the window seat and now sat drinking alone in the darkness.

Or perhaps the darkness was what you were drinking, and what was drinking you.

From the cinema next door to the house, you could vaguely hear laughter, and the smell of popcorn lightly permeated the air that drifted in through your open window. It was no longer raining, and the sky with its spatter of stars was once more dimly visible above the silhouettes of London in the nighttime. The mulled wine was made of elderflower and blackberries, and it had heated your cheeks and filled your head with poetry and your eyes with a mist.

Swirling the wine in your glass, you imagined this was what it would be like to live on the cusp between tragedy and comedy in a Shakespearian work.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire,” slipped the words of Hamlet from your lips, “doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”

You sighed and wished for the night to grow day as you stared out the window, searching for planets and solar systems you knew very well could not be found by the naked eye.

The rainbow scarf warmed your skin.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

Saturday, as went without saying, was characterised by a fierce headache. Again.

And with Sunday came the Sunday Blues.

Well, really, you’d had the All-Week Blues, but Sunday did not care about this; you could now add the coming week of studying and assessments to your list of worries.

You listened to Freddie’s records and mindlessly memorised every word, every line. The music was your anchor, as it had always been. But it was now more so than ever.

You hated feeling worthless, but there was nothing you could do to not feel so.

Freddie and Roger and Deacy and Brian, they had each other. They wouldn’t have missed you, you told yourself, and it was only fuel to fire that Freddie did not trust you enough to tell you what it was that was going on with him. Then there was Heather, and Heather had Roger. And then Joan— Joan had Paulie. And Kate’s friends were Amélie and Jenny. No one was yours alone.

No one was yours at all.

And the fact that Brian May so actively avoided you just proved it all— who needs you?

Who needs you, it was in his lowered eyes.

Who needs you, it was in his silence.

Who needs you, it was in your head.

It was all only in your head. But sometimes, it was difficult to discern the world from your head.

So you picked up your guitar to prove your head, the world, wrong.

The strings stung your skin, and the memory of gentle smiles ghosted along your pulse where fingers had once applied their tender touch.

Your misery rose a wave and crashed as anger.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

Two more weeks cycled past on bell-less bicycles; they passed utterly without consequence.

February had yielded March, and snow had melted to an incessant rain. But the rain fostered new leaves and flowers, and turned London to all the colours of the rainbow in the glory of Spring.

It would have been pleasant, to leave classes and hurry through warm, sprinkling rain and spots of sunshine, for but the claustrophobia that the gaze of a tall and blushing young man provided you with, in every waking hour of your life, whether in person or by way of imagination.

You waited for everyone else to enter the lecture hall, hanging back so that you would be the last.

When the final dawdler had passed into the hall, you approached Brian, who, of course, was holding the door.

“Bri,” you began gently, willing him to look at you. He didn’t. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already said that.” He radiated hostility, but you felt uplifted by the fact that he’d acknowledged you at all.

“I know. But I meant it. And I mean it.”

His eyes flicked over you. “We’re going to be late.”

He let go of the door.

You grasped the handle before the frame could smack you in the face. The edges of your patience were tampered with by his gaze; they had now become short and sharp.

If he was going to behave so pettily, then you would stoop to his level.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

It began as stealing Carmichael’s questions before Brian could answer them.

Then it was politely saying ‘good morning’ to everyone you encountered, except Brian.

Then you temporarily overcame your hatred for mornings in order to arrive at the lectures early, before Brian. You held the door for everyone. Until he arrived. Then you let go and went inside.

On the third morning that this occurred, Brian glared at you and you sneered back.

How quickly you had gone from friends to… to rivals was slightly disconcerting.

Freddie seemed to think so too. He invited you to rehearsal one evening, and though you clenched your jaw at having to be in the same room as Brian Harold “Petty” May, Freddie begged and pleaded and wore you down.

But when you arrived at one of Imperial College’s unused lecture halls that evening, Brian was the first person you saw, and at the sour twist of his lips, you huffed and stormed back out the door.

Freddie and John were calling after you, and you vaguely heard Roger ask Brian what the hell was wrong with him. Yet, you kept walking.

And then you ran.

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

I’d had it with Brian. I really had.

So caught up in that bloody head of his, and for what? What had Y/N even said? What could have been so bad? She, like the rest of us, had naturally been worried by Brian’s disappearance, and he owed it to us, to her, to let us know that he had been at least physically all right.

I’d gotten it out of Deacs that Brian had lied to us about where he was the other week, and I’d been furious— how could he lie to us? Brian never lied.

I’d been good and well ready to knock him about a bit, that was what I’d been, and I had threatened to do just so, before Freddie materialised, as he often did, and pushed me back onto the drum stool before I could go anywhere. He demanded to know why I was so pissed off, and John explained.

Freddie frowned. “Yes, that is rather unlike him. And he’s utterly miffed, constantly. Looks about as cross as a cat caught in a rainstorm. Has done for fucking weeks.”

“Yes…” John folded his arms over his bass. “It’s got to stop. We’re not getting anything done.”

“We need to start working on the next album, and with him in this state, he won’t write anything of use,” said Freddie in agreement. “His muse is sadness, not anger.”

“That makes one of us,” I grumbled. “Gimme his guitar and I’ll write you a song, right here and now.”

“I would, darling,” Freddie sighed, “except that you’d probably destroy it, and you know he never lets it out of his sight anyway.”

“Hmph.”

Deacy ran a hand through his hair. “We have to intervene.”

“Mm,” said Freddie. “There’s only room in this band for one hysterical queen.”

“Any ideas?” Deacy asked. “Freddie?”

“Not a thing, dearie. Got enough troubles of my own, right now.”

“Rog?”

I was about to shake my head, no, when I remembered a trick I’d pulled on two of my mates back in school, years ago.

I smiled. “Oh yes. I’ve got a plan.”

⁺˚*·༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺

A/N: I definitely wrote Joan and Paulie to resemble John Lennon and Paul McCartney, oops :)

taglist: @melting-obelisks @hgmercury39 @stardust-killer-queen @topsecretdeacon

Masterpost / Part 6 / Part 8

#tina’s writing #starstruck #brian may #brian may x reader #brian may x y/n #brian may x you #queen #freddie mercury #roger taylor #john deacon #queen fanfiction #1975 #1970s #fic

72 notes · View notes