#it's in a mental world but still. this poor kid

[razzle-zazzle]

Whumptober Day 25: you're not delivering a perfect body to the grave

Buried Alive + Storm (metaphorically)

3387 Words; River Runs Deep

TW for discussions of memory alteration, death mention, burying someone alive

AO3 ver

“What did you say in that letter?” Raz asks.

“Nothing important, really.” The reflection of Mail Ford responds.

“Just that I loved her.” Agent Cruller continues. “She just wanted to help, but they pushed her too far.”

“How should we have known?” Mail Ford asks. “It’s not like she was marked ‘Fragile!’” The typewriter passes from his hands to Agent Cruller’s.

“But I thought I knew her, and everything she held inside herself.” Agent Cruller laments. “Ahh, I had so much to learn.”

“Ah,” Mail Ford says, “I guess some packages are better left… unopened.”

And with that remark, Raz is left standing once again in the messy treehouse. He looks at the final piece of the mirror in his hands.

“Ford and Nona…” Raz has learned so much, just from poking around in Ford’s brain. His Nona’s memories of her past have been shrouded in mystery. The Aquatos feared the Psychonauts as much as they feared the Deluginists because of this fact—surely, if the Psychonauts ever learned that Nona used to be Maligula, they would prosecute her.

But Raz has learned so much. His Nona used to be a part of the Psychic Seven! She’s one of them! She and Ford were lovers! And oh, some part of Raz’ mind is almost giddy at the realization, that Ford Cruller could have become his great-uncle—but he pushes that part of himself to the side. Now isn’t the time to be fanboying. Raz has a mission to complete!

Still, the fact that Nona and the Psychonauts are more closely linked than Raz ever thought…

Maybe hiding from them is pointless. Maybe they won’t prosecute her. Maybe they can help.

Raz sighs, and puts the last piece of the mirror back in place. He has a mission to focus on. He pulls out the typewriter, and sets it on the shelf.

The silence stretches on, for a moment.

“Razputin.” Ford’s voice cuts across the space.

Raz turns to the mirror clasped in the body’s hand. “Agent Cruller!” He grins. “How do you feel?”

The reflection frowns. “I’ve done a terrible thing.” He shakes his head. “And so have you.”

“What?” Raz’ voice comes out smaller than he wants it to. “I just wanted to help!” And to see if Ford knows anything about whoever took his Father’s and Nona’s memories—though Raz doesn’t voice that bit aloud. “I don’t know who shattered your mind,” Raz steps forwards, “But now we can find out!”

“I already know who did this to me.” Ford admits. “That’s the first thing I’ve learned in here.” The mindscape begins to tilt, slightly, the sky above Raz starting to twist. “The rest you’re gonna have to see for yourself…”

And suddenly Raz is standing in a dark forest, Ford standing next to him. In Ford’s hands is a shovel, and on his face is a grim expression. He’s no longer dressed in a Psychonauts uniform, instead wearing a shirt and jacket.

“Ford,” Raz turns to him, “What is it?” Who shattered your mind? What are you trying to show me?

Ford points with his shovel. “See for yourself.” He utters, as Raz follows the end of the shovel to a stone archway.

Raz swallows. When he looks to his side again, Ford is gone.

Guess I gotta keep going. Raz walks through the archway, and finds himself in what looks like a cemetery. All of the tombstones are blank.

Slowly, carefully, Raz continues forwards, cool mist curling around his ankles. He picks up figments as he goes, looking this way and that for the answers Ford indicated would be here. The ground starts to curve sharply downwards before him.

Raz turns around at the sound of something scraping. His eyes widen—a massive comb is slowly advancing behind him, already past the cemetery’s entrance.

“Uh oh.” Raz hops on his levball and runs, rolling along the ground and collecting figments along the way. The sky darkens as he progresses, the comb advancing behind him at a steady pace, until the only light is that of Raz’ levball, and two lanterns hanging up ahead.

The lanterns are standing to either side of a deep hole. Raz hops down into it. The comb passes harmlessly overhead.

“Agent Cruller,” Raz calls up, “I’m getting less sure I want to see this!”

And Ford is there, at the edge of the hole, pushing his shovel into the dirt. “Oh no,” he mutters, lifting up a shovelful of dirt, “I don’t think you’ll want to see this at all.” He dumps the dirt into the hole—into the grave, Raz realizes, his eyes widening. Within moments, the grave is full, and Raz is struggling to escape the dirt surrounding him. Air! He needs air!

The dirt doesn’t give, pressing in all around Raz as he struggles. He needs to get out of here! But it’s heavy, and dark, and Raz can’t breathe—

Raz’ hand bursts through the dirt, and he scrabbles for purchase on the ground. His head emerges from the dirt with a gasp, his lungs sucking in all the air they can get. Even though he’s only a mental projection and would merely be dementestrated if he failed to make it out, Raz’ chest heaves and he struggles to regain his breath.

Well, now he’s even more sure that he doesn’t want to see this.

But he has to. So he picks himself up all the way, hauling his legs out of the dirt. He pops free, but instead of landing back on the ground he floats upwards.

No, Raz realizes, looking up above him—or rather, looking below—he’s not floating, he’s falling.

“What?” Raz reaches back towards the dirt, yelping as he falls—

Very slowly.

Okay. Okay. It’s okay. He’s fine. Raz looks back down, at the shapes floating in the gloom below him. He’s not going to go splat. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be fine.

Sharklike-shapes swim circles in the gloom. Raz angles for a figment, grabbing it as he falls towards a candle-lit ledge. He lands, and runs over to the door, pushing it open.

A bowling alley stretches out into the darkness before him. A single light illuminates the beginning of the lane—and illuminates Bowling Ford, who’s lying supine on the wood, a bowling ball resting in his hands on his stomach. Raz walks up to him.

“Hey Ford,” Raz starts, “What’s the deal with the deep six treatment?” Couldn’t he just drop a memory vault or something? Points for the presentation, but Raz is tired. He has been running around all day trying to fix this, and he would appreciate a break.

“I did what I had to do.” Ford states miserably. “I loved her, after all.”

All of Raz’ annoyance comes to a halt. “Wait, what?” Okay, now he’s wondering if he actually managed to put Ford back together, because that makes no sense. It’s like he isn’t even responding to Raz at all—what does loving Raz’ Nona have to do with burying Raz alive?

Ford lifts his head up. “Someday, when you fall in love, you’ll understand.” He closes his eyes, puts his head back down, and, without any further comment, slides along the lane. A light that wasn’t there before sits at the end of it, backlighting a set of pins that Ford knocks over in his exit.

Oookay then. Raz tries to follow, but he can’t get any further than the edge of the light. Fine. He turns around, walks out the door, and makes his way to the edge of the ledge. There’s two more like it, further down, lit with the warm glow of so many candles. Raz jumps.

He floats down just as slowly as before, but it isn’t long before he comes to a landing on the next ledge, having grabbed two more figments on the way. The window above the door is yellow, this time, instead of the pink of the ledge above. Raz grabs a third figment, and enters the door.

Raz is in the hair salon, now, a single light illuminating a patch of green and yellow tile. Barber Ford sits towards the back, atop a massive jar of Hydrocide™. Raz walks into the center of the light.

“Ford, what’s going on here? What did you want me to see?” Raz is so, so tired of having to jump through hoops. It’s all he’s been doing, today, all he’s been doing since Truman asked him to put Ford back together. Raz would really like some answers now!

“I couldn’t let her go free, she was a danger to the world!” And once again, Ford’s talking like Raz isn’t really there at all. Raz huffs in annoyance. Ford continues, “Even though it was the world that made her dangerous.”

Okay, that’s not helpful. Raz already knows all of this—for all that Nona’s memories of her life before the Deluge are gone, she can still remember bits and pieces of her time as Maligula, for all that she refuses to share those bits. Besides, Raz saw all of this when he was running around in the hair-filled mindscape of Barber Ford!

Still, Raz persists. “I know this! But who took your memories?”

“Safe. She’s safe.” Ford says, like Raz isn’t there at all. “Well, she was.” He frowns. “We all were. Huh.” Ford shrugs, “Not anymore.” He plugs his nose, and falls backwards into the Hydrocide™. Raz reaches out, but Ford’s already gone.

Just like before, Raz can’t go much further beyond the edges of the light—not that there really is anywhere to go. So Raz turns around and leaves the room, standing on the edge of the ledge outside the door.

One more ledge to go. Raz already has a good idea of what’ll be on it.

He floats down through the twisted ground making up the chasm, collecting figments as he goes. The window above the final door is blue. Raz pushes the door open, and walks out onto a wooden floor. A typewriter dominates the space, and Mail Ford sits atop it.

Raz pushes up his goggles. “Look, Ford, whatever I’m supposed to know—just spit it out!” He’s so tired. Is it so much to ask that even just one thing comes easy today? Must everything be a struggle?

“I had to hide her from the world, because they’d never forgive her.” Ford rambles. “And I had to hide her from me, because I’d never forget her.”

Raz’ heart starts to sink. Ford isn’t saying… no. No, he must be confused, or talking about something else. “Where?” Raz asks, “Where did you hide her?” He has a sneaking suspicion as to who she is. He hopes it isn’t true.

Ford shuts his eyes. “She’s with family.” He falls backwards over the bar, sinking down into the slot for paper.

Annoyance and dread fill Raz in equal measure. He was hoping for answers about his Nona, about the Memory Man who took her and Dad’s memories, made them think they were mother and son instead of aunt and nephew, left them with nothing but broken pieces when the illusion finally shattered—

Now, Raz isn’t sure what he’ll find, and instead of being excited by the prospect, he only feels a growing dread. He grabs the Half-a-Mind dancing to the side of the door, and makes his way back out. One of the shark-shaped coffins floats by, a tag dancing on its back. As tired as he is, Raz slows it down with time bubble to grab the tag, then leaps off to float down further.

He tumbles slowly, starting to fall faster and faster—

Raz hits the ground with a thud. He picks himself up, and finds next to a tombstone marked “Maligula.” More importantly, though, he’s in a coffin, and despite his protests it slams shut on him, trapping him inside.

The world around him blurs. Raz finds himself still in the velvet-lined coffin, but now it’s big enough for him to stand in, like some weirdly-shaped hall.

What is it with Ford’s mind and Raz getting buried alive? Is it Bury Raz day? Can Raz catch a break?

Probably not. Raz continues on, the velvet hall expanding around him as he goes until it’s almost the same size as a regular hallway. Clusters of candles sit in the corners of the room he finds himself in, cobwebs hanging from the walls and ceiling. Before Raz is a bed, with two skeletons lying on it.

“Ah!” Raz jolts back. “Who’s that?”

Ford’s voice comes in from all directions, even as Ford himself is nowhere to be found. “That’s your grandparents, Lazlo and Marona. They drowned in the Valermo Dam disaster, remember?”

“I already know this…” Raz mutters. Though it is kind of weird for Ford to know it, he thinks. No wonder the Memory Man shattered Ford’s mind—they must have been protecting their own identity. Which means that Ford definitely knows who they were!

(There is another possibility, sitting at the edge of Raz’s brain. He ignores it.)

“You—what?” Ford sounds genuinely caught off-guard.

“Er—” Raz backtracks. “I mean, Grandpa Lazlo died, but my grandma made it out and came to live with my father.” He tries. It doesn’t sound very convincing.

“No, Raz. She didn’t.” Raz can’t tell if Ford believes him or not. Then again, Ford apparently already knows that Raz’ Nona isn’t really his grandmother.

Something clicks behind Raz. When he turns around, the wall is gone, revealing a long hall. Raz sighs, hops on his levball, and continues forward.

Ford’s voiceover continues. “Razputin, after the fight with Lucy, she was defeated, but alive. I snuck her away from the others and brought her back to the Gulch.”

But… wasn’t Ford’s mind shattered in the fight with Maligula? How could he have brought her back to America? Could he still teleport that far with a shattered mind?

(Unless Ford’s mind wasn’t shattered at all, Raz realizes. He shoves that thought down.)

“I put her in the Astralathe—one of Otto’s inventions.” Ford continues.

Raz comes to a screeching halt at the end of the hall. The room before him has wooden flooring mixed with the velvet, a stained glass window, and a strange machine that Raz has never seen before. His heart sinks. No, no, no.

“Created to make permanent alterations to the psyche.” Ford continues, ignorant to the rising panic filling Raz’ throat. No. No no no. Can Raz go back to being buried alive? Please?

Raz spots the purse behind the machine—the Astralathe?—and darts towards it, needing the distraction. He pulls out the purse tag and attaches it. Ford’s voiceover pauses, waiting until Raz is done to continue. After a long moment, Raz continues on past the machine, towards a blue door at the very end of the room.

“But I knew the world would never forgive her,” Ford says, as all of Raz’ hopes fall apart. “So I had to hide her somewhere safe.”

Tentatively, Raz opens the door. “Oh no.” Oh no, indeed—Raz is standing in the doorway of his family’s caravan, looking out over an empty and darkened version of their campgrounds.

“I hid her among her family, Razputin.” Ford says, “Among your family.”

Raz can’t deny it any longer. “You’re—” he gasps, his throat starting to tighten. “You’re the Memory Man!” He exclaims, “You’re the one who took Nona and Dad’s memories!” Raz’ chest tightens, the weight of the world crashing in all around him. No, no—this can’t be right. No.

All at once, the scenery playing out in Ford’s mind stops. “You… knew?” He appears next to Raz in the mindscape, surprise coloring his face.

Raz can’t be in here for a minute longer. He scrambles for his smelling salts and whips them out, popping them open in front of his face. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get out—

“Razputin—” Ford reaches for him—

+=+=+=+=+

Raz snaps back into his body on the mailroom floor. He looks at Ford, once, his chest starting to heave. No—he can’t do this. He never should have done this.

Ford comes back to himself, whirling around to face him. “Razputin—” He tries, but Raz is already running. He needs to get out of here! He needs space!

Raz runs, using his levball to go faster. He runs, all the way through the atrium into the lobby, outside the Motherlobe entirely, across the floating platforms—

(The water feels his agitation, and trembles in shared rage-hurt. It reaches out to Raz as he passes over it, whispering offers to play and wash his cares away.)

Raz reaches the tunnel to the Questionable Area, and keeps going. He bursts out the other end, his chest and legs burning, and he does not stop—

He can see the fairy lights of his family’s camp strung up, bright against the darkened sky. Raz dashes, intent on getting to his parents so they can all leave this place, or something—

Ford crashes into Raz from the side, stopping him from reaching the campgrounds. They tumble across the ground, Raz’ panic hitting a peak—

“Let me go!” he shouts, squirming in Ford’s hold.

“Listen, Raz!” Ford begins, “I know you’re mad—”

“Of course I’m mad!” Raz shrieks. “You’re the reason my Dad can’t remember his mother’s face! You’re the one who put my whole family into this mess, who forced us to hide Nona without any help!” Tears are bubbling out of Raz’ eyes like steam from a kettle. He finds he doesn’t care. “My family’s had to keep Nona’s past hidden all on our own just because you felt the need to shatter your own mind and run from your problems!” He can’t believe this. All his life, he’s looked up to Ford—wanted to be a hero, just like him.

But Ford isn’t a hero at all.

“You’re right to be mad, Razputin.” Ford sighs. “I was young, and I made a terrible mistake.”

“You could have stuck around!” Raz yells. “Did it never occur to you that they might remember?”

“I had hoped they wouldn’t.” Ford admits.

Raz yells. “Well they did! Except they still don’t remember before the Deluge!” He glares at Ford with every inch of anger in his body, “Nona remembers Maligula, but she doesn’t remember you!” And maybe Ford deserved that, to be forgotten by the woman he loved. But Nona didn’t deserve to have all her memories wrenched away like that. The Aquatos didn’t deserve the fear of not knowing, of always looking over their shoulders for fear of what lurked in their shadows.

“Razputin—” Ford raises his hands in a placating gesture.

“DON’T ‘RAZPUTIN’ ME!” Raz is tired. Raz is so, so tired.

“What’s all this?” Augustus’ voice breaks through the tension, and all of the anger leaves Raz’ body at once. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired.

Ford freezes like a deer in headlights. He opens his mouth—

Raz points at him. “He did it!” He shouts. “He’s the one who messed with your memories!”

Augustus’ eyes snap onto Ford. “What.” He sounds so much smaller than Raz’ father should ever sound.

Distantly, Raz notices his mother and siblings wandering over, Queepie held in his mother’s arms, Mirtala holding Frazie’s hand and rubbing at her eyes. He shoves down the part of him that doesn’t want his family to see him crying—Raz doesn’t have it in him to care.

He’s so tired.

“Why?” Augustus asks, clutching at his chest. “You—why would you—”

“Because I loved her.” Ford laments, “And I thought it was the only way to keep her safe.”

“So you took her memories?” Raz doesn’t know how he has the energy to continue yelling. Anger’s just like that, he guesses.

His mother passes Queepie over to Dion, wrapping an arm around Augustus’ shoulders. She glares at Ford. “You.”

Somehow, Ford manages to look even more rigid. “Me.” He admits.

“You have some nerve!” All of his mother’s ire turns to Ford, and Raz can’t find it in himself to defend the man. “What is wrong with you? Do you have any idea the damage you’ve done to this family?”

Ford opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

“Wait.” Frazie pipes up, bringing everything to a screeching halt. They all turn to look at her.

“Where’s Nona?”

#whumptober2023 #no.25 #buried alive #storm #psychonauts #zaz writes #memory alteration tw #death mention tw #burying alive tw #it's in a mental world but still. this poor kid #the river runs deep au #razputin aquato #ford cruller #augustus aquato #nona is mentioned at various points but she's the only aquato that doesn't show up #the other all show up at the end #BOY OH BOY FORD'S IN HOT WATER NOW HUH #also. i had to watch playthroughs to get the events and dialogue right. and OUGHHHHHHHH #AUGH AUGH AUWAUGH RAZ. RAZ C'MERE SOMEBODY GET THIS BOY A HUG

[hella1975]

hella come rescue me from america i don’t like it here anymore

i actually would rather not come over there rn bestie

#you know i made that one post about economic development back when youse were asking me econ questions for my exams? #well i mentioned in that post that the two main ways of measuring development are either directly through income per capita #or through the HDI which measures 3 things - education life expectancy AND income per capita #so either way there's a hugeeeee weighting put on a country's wealth and it basically means if you're wealthy you're going to be considered #a developed country #because imagine your life expectancy is 30 and your education is piss poor but you're SUPER wealthy. you still get a high HDI ranking #so naturally there's a lot of economists arguing that development should be measured in other ways #what if you measured by mental health? how happy your population is? things like that? #and long story short i genuinely think if wealth wasn't such a huge factor in measuring development #then america wouldnt make the cut. or at least they'd be hanging on by their fucking nails #like you're gonna force people to have kids and then the kids are gonna get shot in school. that's not pro-life #and safe to say if the fuckers in charge knew their 'first world country' status was in the balance #i can guarantee they'd suddenly be MUCH more interested in the rights of their people #ask

[killuaisaprincess]

Non-Breath Oblige

Bisky was a good, calculated choice. Alluka and Nanika both love Leorio, and Killua does too, not that he’d admit it out loud to the old man, but Leorio couldn’t fight them. He would try, but Killua doesn’t want anything to happen to Leorio. If worse came to worse, and he has to confront his family…

Alluka likes Bisky too.

“Thanks…”

The air just feels so tight and heavy. He can’t breathe, he doesn’t want to breathe, but it’s a necessity. Bisky tilts her head towards him, and he just freezes. His own hands aren’t his, and his feet aren’t his, and he can’t ground himself to anything.

“I’m sorry.”

Of course, she’s disappointed; why wouldn’t she be? Why wouldn’t anyone be?

He grips the fabric of his shirt, the fibers itching against his skin; as he tilts his head up, the sun blinding, he can’t breathe. His throat burns, his head pounds, and he blinks back the tears.

“I…“

“I-I couldn’t do it.”

So hit him for it. Punish him for failing. It’s the least he deserves. He’s a failure of an heir… failure of a friend… maybe they were right to hurt him. Maybe he should’ve never left home… his father was right. Bisky was right. Everyone was right. But he can’t go back. Seeing Alluka and Nanika happy…

He loves them.

He hates himself.

“Sorry.”

He tries to be as blunt as possible, but his voice wavers and tears roll down his cheeks.

“Sorry… it took me so long… but I kept my promise…”

He left Gon’s side.

He slumps down to the floor, tugging at the ends of his sleeves. It won’t hurt. Not compared to how much he feels like he’s drowning. Like his lungs will never get a breath.

The pain doesn’t come, just a firm but gentle hand resting on his head.

“I am the one who is sorry, Killua. I failed you both as a mentor.”

His skin itches. He’s gonna drown. He’s gonna drown.

“N-no… I…”

It’s not your fault. His whole life, he’s been told he doesn’t deserve friends. Shouldn’t have them. They were right. He should’ve listened.

“I just…”

He wished he had listened. His own body is fighting him and tearing him apart. Some part really wishes he had left. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel this pain! Maybe it’s selfish… but if he had just left. Gone back home… Illumi could stick more needles in him, and he’d just forget it all. Forever… But he can’t do that to them. His sisters. He would’ve never remembered… if he had gone. He wants them to have a fun life…

It just hurts so much sometimes. He feels like he’ll die.

“I… I’m sorry.”

He whispers in a breathy voice, biting down on his lip till he can taste copper.

“If that is what you feel you need to say, but Killua… It is not your fault. I am sorry I put that burden on you.”

Her words have a sternness to him that runs cold to his very bone, but her fingers hold a gentleness, resting in his locks of hair and playing with them.

He supposes they are the same.

Liars. And terrible at expressing themselves. But he knows she cares.

“Thanks, old hag.”

She doesn’t hit him for once.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

He’s drowning.

The cold metal railing of the balcony is harsh against his feet, the wind whipping and hitting his bare legs, pain tingling right down his spine, a shiver coursing through his body. It felt like a harsh whip against his legs. He stares blankly at the light scars, wrapping his arms around himself.

The sun is coming up.

He looks down.

Just do it! He wants to do it! He can’t take it anymore!

Everyone! Everyone would have been happier! If he’d just never been born…

Everyone… All those people he was forced to kill. Gon. Gon. Gon would’ve been happier if he had never been born. Gon might’ve died with Kite, but what if he didn’t…? And it was all his fault. His fault. Everyone would be happier.

Maybe even Illumi. Maybe Illumi would be less twisted. Maybe Alluka and Nanika would’ve never been locked up… his fault…

Gotoh…

He can’t-

He wants to die.

Killua can’t anymore; once he dies… can he breathe again?

He falls backward, landing on the balcony, pain crashing through his body and breaking at his ankle. He sits up shakily, breathing heavily, and tears blur his vision; he can’t tell if he broke it; he can only see the mix of red and purple against his pale skin. Everything hurts too much to tell… he can’t. He’s gonna die. He hates it.

He can’t-

He digs his fingers into his hair, pulling and tugging, sobbing.

“Hey, buddy. Hey.”

Leorio…

Everything feels distant except his voice and warm, kind hands gently prying his fingers from his hair.

He’s so selfish. How could he…? Leorio already lost a friend, and Alluka… and Nanika… it just hurt so much-

“…’m sorry…”

imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay, buddy.”

Killua recognizes the texture of the chalk that Leorio pushes into his hand; he hated it originally; it made his skin itch, he just wanted to scratch and scratch until he bled, but now there’s a comfort to it, and a weight that makes him feel like he is here.

“Why don’t you draw me a nice picture, okay, buddy?”

“…okay…”

A small breath into his lungs.

Leorio always treats him like a child. Killua doesn’t hate it. When he’s done, and it looks no better than a five-year-olds, and he sniffs and rubs his sleeve under his nose, Leorio just pats his head and tells him it’s amazing and takes a photo on his phone.

Killua’s not stupid; he knows it’s a way for Leorio to keep track of when he does this…

“…’m sorry…”

He doesn’t deserve Leorio.

He doesn’t complain ever, and even when Killua buries his face in Leorio’s pajamas or his expensive suits and cries, he never minds.

“Hey. Don’t apologize, buddy. You don’t ever have to apologize for being you to me. I love you.”

“I-I love y-you t-too.”

He can barely say it between hiccuping, but he means every word.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

“You’re doing that on purpose!”

The screeching of his best friend makes him laugh.

Killua takes another bite of the takoyaki, grinning.

“Oh, come on, no, I’m not. Besides… everyone knows you’re the best squid!”

Killua looks down, smiling and placing his skewer to the side, his red friend's eyes widening and filling with tears.

“D-do you mean that?”

“Of course I do.”

He smiles softly, swinging his legs back and forth, letting the edge of his sandals hit the cement.

“Killua. Gon is going to be here. Will you be okay?”

A cold slender hand rests on his shoulder, and he kicks some of the dirt, inhaling. Shouldn’t he be asking her that instead? She was obsessed with Gon once. Maybe that’s another reason… they somehow ended up friends.

“Palm. I’ll be fine…”

She sits beside him quietly with a pensive look as she covers one of her eyes.

“They will be arriving soon.”

“Yeah...”

Iklago jumps up, sitting on his other side, placing a tentacle-like hand on his knee.

They sit in silence. But it’s all Killua needs.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

“You look pretty, big brother!”

Killua gingerly takes the straw hat from his sister's fingers, admiring the pink ribbon around it. Joy pushes up in his chest, and he smiles, placing it on his head. It complements the long white sundress he is wearing, with the tiny pink lace in the front tied in a bow.

“Thanks, Alluka, Nanika; I love it.”

He stands up on his tiptoes, patting her dark locks before letting his feet sink into the sand. Everytime he sees them; his heart just fills with so much pride and joy. All the suffering in his life was worth it, just for that.

She puts on her own hat, the ribbon split in colors, red and blue, and marches off, humming.

Killua guesses he better go too.

He feels the ocean pulling him in again…

Killua looks over at the waves crashing down, grabbing the top of his hat as the breeze picks up.

He’s okay.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

“Woahhh! Killua, you look really pretty!”

Gon still has that same smile. Those same warm eyes. And he’s saying things that should make Killua’s stomach twist and his heartbeat flurry. It’s Gon. It’s Gon. The anxiety, the thought would drown him…

It doesn’t. He swims up past it.

Gon’s smile… his words… him… Killua doesn’t feel any anxiety. Sadness. Fear. Butterflies. He doesn’t feel anything.

He smiles; a polite one. Not like the ones he gives Alluka and Nanika, or Ikalgo and Palm, or Leorio.

“Thanks.”

He turns on his heel, looking as Ikalgo jumps up and down.

“Killua! Come on!”

He takes a step forward in the sand, running forward, laughing, letting the breeze whip up his dress and tangle his hair, and...

He doesn’t look back.

#hxh #leorio #killua #bisky #alluka #Hunter X Hunter #killua hunter x hunter #;windy’s stuff #ikalgo #palm siberia #LOVE KI PROTECT KI #My heart aches so much for Ki. I just wanna wrap him in a blanket and protect him so badly; it legit hurts. #I just can’t help but I just think how much Biskys words worsened Ki’s mental state in the long run even if it helped in the short term #the kid already doesn’t love himself 🥺 it hurts so much. It just hurts. The poor kid deserves so much more. #ACTUALLY HURT SO MUCH NOT TO PUT GK TOGETHER. IT HURT SO IF I HAVE TO SUFFER SO DOES THE ONE PERSON WHO READS THIS 😤 #It actually hurt so bad Ki in a cute dress 🥺 and Gon calling him pretty is one of my fave niches; I LOVE IT. But I really liked the conclus #lusion of Ki moving on and just having friends and loving himself. #KI BEING HAPPY ACTUALLY AHHHH MEANS THE WORLD TO ME 🥺 I JUST WANT HIM TO BE LOVED AND HAPPY AND BE TREATED LIKE A PRINCESS 😤 #LEO HELPING KI STEP DOWN FROM SUICIDAL THOUGHTS BY MAKING HIM DO LIKE CHILDLIKE THINGS HURTS SO MUCH #CUZ KI DIDNT GET TO ENJOY THOSE THINGS AS A KID TRULY 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭 they may have given him toys but they still just hurt him like #I’m not a doc obvi so like idk but I like the idea it’s like him healing Ki’s inner child it hurtsssss I’m in so much pain fuck. Ki deserves #the world 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🤧🤧🤧🤧

[talaok]

i loved the hickey fic🥵

can i request a role reversal fic?

reader marks up joel and is unashamed about it

Pairing: Joel Miller x reader

a/n: thank you love, hope you'll like this although its been so long you probably forgot about this. and if you're interested, this is the fic they were referring to

It was just you and Ellie in the kitchen this morning. You were laughing about another funny dream she had last night, this one involving Joel trying to tame a gigantic sheep so he could ride it or something, she didn't quite remember the purpose, not that it mattered.

But as you both quite literally felt on the verge of tears from the image the dream was painting in your minds, the main character of said dream, appeared in the doorway, throwing you both a dirty look as if watching two of the three people he loved the most in this entire world didn't fill his old heart with pure joy.

"It's too early to be this chipper" he grumbled, walking to you to leave a quick kiss on your cheek as he reached for the coffee pot behind you.

A gasp sounded from the other sound of the counter

"oh my god what happened to your neck?!" 

And it was then, that Joel Miller, the unafraid, stone-cold killer of a man that he was, turned red from hairline to neck.

"O-Oh fuck I-" His eyes widened, his hand going to cover your work on his neck, but it was all useless, because the second Ellie's eyes landed on the smirk plastered on your face, she knew.

"oh my god ew" she groaned, rolling her eyes, her focus going back to the eggs on her plate.

"You remember Janine, that woman I told you about?" you explained, talking to her

She laughed at that, remembering your conversation about that woman who's always flirting with Joel.

"you filled Joel's neck with hickeys because of her?"

Joel wasn't even red anymore, he was turning purple, his eyes were wider than a deer's caught in the headlights, and you suspected he hadn't taken a breath since he first entered the kitchen.

"this..." you smiled, trailing your fingers on Joel's neck "is my own little way of telling her to keep her hands off my man"

Joel choked, he literally choked on his own saliva and just then, just when he was about to have a heart attack, Tommy entered the house, his eyes immediately going to the image before him with more than a little amusement.

"What have I walked into?" he grinned, walking over to the kitchen "And why does my brother look a breath away from exploding?" he laughed, his hands gesturing to Joel.

"y/n here was giving me way too much information that I certainly didn't want to know" Ellie explained, looking at you pointedly for the last part of her sentence, making you chuckle.

"About what?" Tommy asked

"About the work of art I left on your brother's neck"

"wha-Ohhh" he breathed, smiling like a smug bastard as he understood what you were talking about "Janine tried something again I presume?" 

"You presume right" you smiled, giving Joel a little kiss on the cheek and stifling a smile at how terrified he seemed "for the last time"

"You ok baby?" you asked, stroking his cheek

His gaze was on Ellie, his mouth parted in shock.

"You still with us man?" she asked, giggling softly, making him shake his head to try and get his mind to start working again.

And then, then the words came tumbling off his tongue, filled with what sounded like pure panic

"S-since when do you know what a hickey is!?"

Everyone in the room except him laughed, but when the shock on his features persisted, and Ellie regained her composure, she answered.

"I'm not a kid Joel, I know what sex is"

Another pang to his poor heart, 

he felt all the organs inside him twist into a knot

what the fuck was happening?

Did she just say-

"sex!?" he cried, looking a second away from having a mental breakdown "I-I never said sex- H-how do you even know- I- You- You're too young- I-I"

"ok ok ok" you tried your best not to chuckle, intervening before his heart really decided to stop "How 'bout we go outside for a moment huh? Take a few deep breaths? How about that?" you murmured, soothingly drawing circles on his back 

He looked at you then, looking every bit as disheveled as he sounded 

"y-yeah" he swallowed thickly, "I-I think that's a good idea"

He looked back at Ellie for a moment to make sure this wasn't a nightmare and he didn't just make that up, before you both left the room.

And as if on cue, the second you did, Tommy and Ellie started laughing like maniacs.

"I don't think I've ever seen him so scared" Ellie laughed, as Tommy sat next to her, patting her back

"Neither have I" he chuckled, none of them saying anything before an idea came to his mind.

a hell of a funny one

"ten bucks if you tell him you know what porn is"

#joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fluff #joel miller x fem!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #smut #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #fluff #joel miller imagine #joel miller blurb #joel miller angst #fanfiction #the last of us #tlou #the last of us hbo #tlou hbo

[wolfiesmoon]

Ratted out

sometimes friends and family accidentally (or purposefully) reveal things they shouldnt :)

characters featured: Leona, Kalim, Jade, Jack

ufff idk whats wrong with me but i ended up creating an entire (unrelated to this fic) movie plan related to twst this is mentally stable activities, truly

also unrelated but the new event got me SCREAMING how do they look so good😫

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Leona Kingscholar

when hanging out with your boyfriend Leona, a little lion boy suddenly jumps him and he immediately lets you go

who is this child???

"Uncle Leona!" the boy clings onto him and you can feel the annoyance eminating from Leona

it's like its own aura thats how annoyed he is🥴

so his nephew (you presume) looks to you all of a sudden and asks "who are you?" with an innocent look on his face

"I'm his lover...?" you said, a little unsure. But when you looked to Leona, he had a look of pure horror on his face...? What is even going on?????

"What?! No way, you're dating Uncle Leona?!" the kid got all excited and ran off somewhere before you could stop him

"...What have you done?" Leona hissed at you through clenched teeth, holding his forehead

you do realise you just revealed that he's dating you to the most big mouthed child in the world, right? that his whole family will know in a matter of minutes, right? that you've basically just invited yourself to every future family gathering at once, right?

and sure enough, in a few minutes he got a surprised text from his brother which he left on read 💀

"Damn brat..." he muttered under his breath, you still confused over what just happened

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Kalim Al-Asim

let's be real babes there is nothing for his siblings to rat him out on because he immediately told his family he was dating you

however....😈

his siblings happened to overhear a little something...

"Hey, hey." one of Kalim's younger brothers pulled your sleeve, wanting to tell you something

"yes?" you answered absentmindedly, thinking he's going to start talking about a strange thing he saw today or something

"Kalim's gonna marry you." he whispered to you, looking around to make sure no one heard

You laughed a little. "If you think so." you pat his little head

"No, he was like, asking mom if he can marry you soon. We heard it." another one of his brothers joined in after hearing the tea being spilled

"What?! Really?!" you're both extremely surprised and happy and mad at his brothers for ruining the surprise right now

oh well, what's done is done, and now you know Kalim is SERIOUS about you

that gets you thinking about wedding stuff now...🤔

What none of you know tho is that Jamil overheard all of you

"Okay, maybe we need to scrap the whole surprise wedding proposal thing..." he sighs, making a mental note of it and preparing to dissapoint poor Kalim

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Jade Leech

jade is like... oddly nice to you after you first meet him

you're a little wary of him considering his reputation but he hasn't done anything weird at all so... might as well accept his gifts?

one time he approaches you with jade in tow and you think absolutely nothing of it since they're together like 90% of the time anyways

"Hello there, are you enjoying your lunch?" he just sat down next to you without asking if he can at all 😔

"Uh, yeah, I suppose." you didn't really know what to tell him and it seems he doesnt know how to continue the conversation either so u just kinda... stare at eachother while Floyd casually steals a bit of ur food

"Maaaan, aren't you like, supposed to be crushing on Little Shrimpy or something? Then taaalk about stuff, I'm bored." Floyd looked bored when he saw the two of you didn't start talking about weird stuff

Jade simply smiled at you, telling you to ignore Floyd

But on the inside he was planning approximately 10 ways to... get rid of someone without others noticing

or alternatively, just beating the everloving crap out of his twin brother if the first plan is not a possibility

"Do you have a crush on me?" you wanted to know now...

"That's for you to think about." he smiled oddly eerily, but then just started talking abt something mundane 😥

ᐟᐟ☆๋࣭ ⭑໑ Jack Howl

You're visiting him for the first time because you got curious what his family is like

OF COURSE HE'S AN OLDER BROTHER IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

his younger siblings immediately ambushed you with their little sniffer noses as soon as you stepped in the house🤔

"Who are you?" they asked, always curious about anyone that Jack brings over

When you told them who you were, they immediately ran away to "TELL MOM" and were literally screaming that the two of you are dating so loudly that the whole neighborhood could hear

You could also hear some woman (who you presume is his mom) laughing from somewhere in the house so uhhh.... atleast she isn't mad about it?

You looked back at Jack who seemed more annoyed than anything

"Aren't you gonna... go stop them?" you asked, raising a brow.

"Nah, I was gonna tell mom I'm dating you anyways. I'm just mad that they beat me to it." he crossed his arms, huffing in annoyance

"Actually, speaking of, isn't me dating you kinda a big deal? You told me before that wolves have one partner for life." you actually got kinda nervous, i mean, you gotta impress his family good now

"It is. But I think everyone's just happy I got someone at all." Jack looked at his overly excited siblings who were still celebrating

"Wow, that's sad." you sassed him 😝

"...I shouldn't have brought you."

#˗ˏˋ ★ ♡ 「Wolfie’s other works」 ♡ ★ ˎˊ˗ #wow im finally writing for someone that isnt the big three ™ on my blog gimme a pat on the back for effort #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x y/n #twst x you #twst x yuu #twisted wonderland x yuu #leona x you #leona kingsholar x reader #leona x reader #kalim x reader #kalim al asim x reader #kalim x yuu #jade leech x reader #jade leech x yuu #jade x reader #jack howl x reader #jack howl x yuu #jack howl

[sohnric]

plot twist – k. sunwoo

pairing: kim sunwoo x gn! reader

genre: coworkers au, enemies to lovers au. fluff, a poor attempt at comedy. movie theatre! worker sunwoo and reader. bitch boy sunwoo. the reader has anger issues. owner's son! sunwoo being annoying about everything. winter themes, sunwoo is a little kid about stuff but mostly the snow.

wc: 21k

warnings: swearing, a heated make out session. y/n's inner monologue is just my own feelings about this man im sorry. i watched too much of the office when writing this can you tell. also i made sunwoo's sister underage for plot reasons deal with it.

working with kim sunwoo has so far been the worst experience of your whole entire life. just his existence alone is enough to make your day completely miserable– though, one would think that working with movies on the daily would prepare you for the biggest plot twist of your life.

a/n: this took me SO LONG to write woah. i have a humble playlist for this fic if any of yall wanna listen to it while you read <3 a huge thank you goes to my best friend @csenke for being my biggest motivator and hype man when it came to this fic. thank u for being my first ever beta reader hihi i couldn't have done this without you i am forever grateful ily. also im tagging @heemingyu because whe told me to

ho ho ho! this fic is a part of the secret santa event by @deoboyznet ! @kimsohn maya, i was your secret santa this year, i hope you enjoy the fic i prepared for you

TONIGHT'S PREMIERE – UGLY TRUTH (2009)

If anyone ever asked you about your job in the movie theater, you wouldn’t really know what to say. 

You see, what may had seemed like your dream job when you were little, acquiring the fairytale vision after going to the cinema for the first time to see the Horton movie when you were just 7, quickly turned into reality one ordinary day during your junior year of university. And it wasn’t even that hard; you just dropped off your CV at the movie theater on the corner of the town's square when you saw the sign that said ‘looking for part-timers’ in a messy, giant handwriting on the glass door– and soon enough, you found yourself in the depths of the vintage-looking cinema, wearing the red uniform the owner gave you, selling movie tickets to teenagers and taking out the trash. It’s hard to enjoy the job when you’re on bathroom cleaning duty, though, and the fact that this is what you once imagined to be the most exciting job in the whole entire world turns twice as boring when you realize just how mundane it really is. 

Still, you can’t bring yourself to quit, well, because you need the money.

Do you hate working in the cinema? No. Not really. Sure, it’s kind of boring– especially on the nights when you’re selling tickets at the front and nobody comes in for hours– but it’s not that difficult. It’s not physically or mentally demanding, so you’d say that you’re still on the better end when it comes to work environment. Your boss isn’t a dick and you get paid on time– so really, if anyone asked you if you hated it, your answer would be no. 

Until one fateful day, of course. 

You’re met with a person that’s going to efficiently change this opinion around in one swift bat of their eyelashes and a drag of their hand through their messy hair.

“So… you’re the new part-timer?” a tall boy asks you one day when you arrive at work. You’re already wearing your uniform when you come through the front door– since you don’t really feel like changing in the toilets that are not staff-exclusive here– and frankly, his voice startles you on your way in.

“Yeah,” you nod, furrowing your brows at the stranger. “And you are…?”

“Sunwoo,” the boy says, matter-of-factly, as if you’re supposed to know who exactly he is now that he’s introduced himself to you. The look on your face may show that you’re still clueless, and see, that’s something that must have played with the boy’s ego. “Kim Sunwoo,” he snickers, “the owner’s son..?”

Blinking a few times, trying to remember if Mr Kim’s ever told you about having a son– he hasn’t– you gasp like a fish on the dry, nodding. “Oh… Hello..?” you mumble, not really knowing what to do with the information.

“Hi,” he says, face stone cold and motionless. Something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it…. 

Well, you’ll have to deal with that later. “My shift starts in 5 minutes, so I gotta find Mr- your dad, and ask him what’s on my to-do list today, but it was nice meeting you,” you try to force out a polite (maybe even warm) smile before you turn on your heel and march towards the staff room, where Mr Kim usually resigns unless he is helping you out with something at the front. See, on not busy days, working at the cinema requires only one person. On Fridays, though, it can get tough. That’s when the owner makes the popcorn while you both sell and scan the tickets at the same time– sometimes you wonder why he doesn’t hire another person to help out with the job.

“Wait– newbie–”

The nickname startles you, again, as you turn around and squint at him. You have a name– and although he has no way of knowing it (other than his father telling him, but seeming that you didn’t even know about his son, Mr Kim isn’t big on sharing information)– but still, you’d love to be called by it. “It’s Y/N, actually.”

“Oh, right…” he hums, “well, Y/N, dad’s not here tonight, so… I’m… kind of in charge,” he says, nodding as he gets the words out, trying to prove his point, “he had other things to take care of, so he sent me down instead,” he explains, watching as your face morphs into one of quick understatement.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he nods, sucking on his teeth.

Thick silence overtakes the atmosphere. You feel awkward and out of place.

“So…?” you hum, waiting for him to tell you what to do. 

Because a guy your age ordering you around at work is already embarrassing enough for a university student just trying to pay for their groceries. You’re not gonna ask for the orders yourself. You still have some dignity.

“So… I could take the ticket booth and you can clean the screening room, since there are no movies on tonight?” he suggests, rocking on his heels. The boy seems a bit shaken with the new sense of responsibility, but you figure that even his undoubtful awkwardness still doesn't put you above his position.

You mentally sigh. Cleaning is your least favorite part of the job. 

Still, you’re not gonna talk back to your boss’ son. You’d like to keep your job for a while longer. At least until you find something better.

“Alright,” you nod, turning on your heels once more and preparing to disappear into the depths of the cinema.

His voice stops you again, though, frustration flowing through your veins. “Don’t forget to mop the floors! Oh, and the bathroom could use a clean as well.”

“Alright,” you nod again, your back facing him.

“Also, you need to get the gum off the chairs, I know it’s kind of disgusting, but there’s a-”

“I know how to do my job, thank you,” you turn, smiling ironically over your shoulder.

You don’t know what it is about the man that makes you so, so incredibly irritated. Maybe it’s the fact that every bit of information coming out of his mouth sounds like he’s mansplaining everything to you. Maybe it’s the fact that you feel humiliated to be told what to do by a man that’s your age. Or maybe, it’s just the sheer fact that you hate cleaning– the one thing he just told you to do.

Still, you go and get the vacuum. You go and mop the floors, you go and take the gum off the chairs and scrape it into a bucket you keep in the pantry in the back. You go and clean the bathroom, even though it’s 10 minutes until the end of your shift (you only work 4 hours on Wednesdays) and you spent almost your whole day cleaning the whole screening room by yourself (the screening room that’s giant and Mr Kim helps you with on most days). You go and wipe the mirror in the bathroom, as well as the windows in the hall. 

You say that your work in the cinema is not physically demanding, but by the time you’re out, your back hurts and your knees are all bruised up from getting on the ground so often.

What really sets you off, though, is the sight of the owner’s son sitting in the booth, both legs up on the table and chewing on something, his phone in his hands as he watches, what you presume from the language resonating from the speaker, a silly anime. At least someone had fun during their shift, you think as you leave without saying goodbye to him, slamming the door behind you with a loud bang on your way out.

Quite frankly, you didn’t know what set you off so bad this time. Maybe you just had a bad day. Maybe it could've been fixed with your next shared shift with the guy– you never know.

Little did you know that it was only going to get worse from now on, though.

TONIGHT'S PREMIERE – PALM SPRINGS (2020)

If you knew your boss’s son would play the role of your supervisor from time to time, you probably wouldn't have taken the job when it was offered to you. 

Why?

The reason is quite simple– while you go to work to make money, Kim Sunwoo goes to work to make your whole life a living hell. Ranging from always giving you the more difficult task of the day to making unfunny jokes about your performance (he once asked if you ran a marathon after you mopped the whole hall, his grinning figure staring at you from inside of the ticket booth), you’re starting to think that Kim Sunwoo is mentally stuck with the brain of an 11-year old boy. 

More so with his recent endeavors. You don’t really know what he’s trying to achieve with all of this, but you’re starting to despise going to work even when you know he’s not on the schedule– somehow, you’re afraid his silly pranks and jokes will follow you and surprise you even when he’s not present. Is this his way of asserting dominance? You really don’t know.

It all starts one day before a movie premiere when Sunwoo walks up to you and introduces you to a new concession item to sell in the snack booth. While you don’t really know why one would even think of new combinations to sell at a cinema, since everyone’s just gonna get popcorn or nachos, you don’t really question the idea much further– Sunwoo’s father owns this place, so he must know the best marketing strategies for his business. The reality only downs on you when you’re forced to promote the “Ultimate movie mix” to every customer– which wouldn’t even be that strange, if the mix didn’t include the weird combination of pickles and candy. 

Running on two all nighters and half an energy drink, you didn’t realize the snack stand doesn’t even hold pickles. You were notified the day after by your boss, though, and that wasn’t your best experience.

The terror follows when Sunwoo’s father decides to run a Star Wars marathon one weekend. The flood of customers wouldn’t be as hard to manage when you run the snack stand, but it does get more difficult when your coworker running around with a lightsaber knocks over all the buckets of freshly-made popcorn you just put on the counter for the customers to take. 

He doesn’t even say sorry. Or help clean the spilled popcorn up from the floor. Or help you make a new batch. 

He just laughs.

Sunwoo just loves to laugh at you. Like that one time he made you wear a giant popcorn costume and stand in front of the cinema for the entirety of your 4 hour shift on Wednesday to promote the new movie airing on Friday. Hardly anyone took the fliers you were desperately trying to force into their hands and when you came back, you saw Sunwoo pointing his camera at you from the big glass window. 

The next shift, his dad asked you how Sunwoo did when promoting the movie. You didn’t have the heart to tell him he forced you to do the dirty business instead.

Another time, Sunwoo informs you via text in the middle of your shift that you should clean the bathrooms. The fact itself already makes you furious, but you follow the order nonetheless– because, well, what else can you do? You’re used to cleaning the toilets, since it’s a part of your job. It’s just the fact that a guy your age told you to that’s making you rethink all your career decisions.

The trip to the bathrooms quickly turns traumatizing when you step inside of the tiled room and have the door behind you close with a loud bang, followed by the light switching off. Screeching, you jump and try to escape the room with fear making your heart run faster than Usain Bolt, however, you find the door seemingly locked– the sound of Sunwoo’s snarky laugh coming from the other side making you recognise what just happened and how he’s pulling another one of his childish pranks on you again.

When the door finally opens, you throw the toilet brush into his chest and scream out a “I’m going to fucking quit if I see your face one more time!”. You’re over all formalities.

That doesn’t mean you’re not scared every time you enter a room in the cinema when you work with Sunwoo, though. Your reaction was strengthened very abruptly, you see.

Sitting in the ticket booth, door ajar to monitor your surroundings, you plop your head on your hand and glare at Sunwoo, chewing on your gum. If anyone saw you right now, they’d think you were trying to kill him with your stare, but the opposite would actually be the truth tonight– you were quite enjoying the sight of him wiping the sweat off his forehead and scowling at the neverending flow of customers.

The beauty of having ticket booth duty on premiere night is that everyone bought the tickets beforehand already, meaning that it wasn’t usually busy. Scanning the tickets and running the snack booth were the more difficult parts of the shift, and since Mr Kim decided to show up to work today, Sunwoo was graced with the snack booth duty– something that warmed you up from the inside and made you want to kiss your boss’s feet in gratefulness. 

There’s just something about seeing Kim Sunwoo in misery that makes your stomach turn and do cartwheels. You’re in love with his pathetic, tired face.

His eyes meet yours when he takes a moment to breathe– the look behind them is pleading, almost embarrassingly hopeless as he internally wishes he was in your place. You think this serves him right for the weeks of torture, and when he becomes you to come over with a motion of his hand, you just shrug at him and bat your eyelashes in faked innocence. 

It’s not your fault he’s on duty tonight. What does he want with you?

His lips mouth “Come here,” which makes you battle a satisfied smile. Poor Kim Sunwoo is helpless in his task. The rush just won’t stop and he’s asked of more than he can handle. You kind of feel sadistic when you truly think about your sentiments, but you think you’re only valid for feeding on his misery.

“Help!” he mouths again, and now you truly can’t battle the laughter anymore. His hair is tousled and sticking to his forehead. His uniform is dirty. The tie around his neck is loose. The sight makes you utterly satisfied.

As he mouths “Please,” accompanied by clasped hands and a pleading look that would work on most women, you finally decide to stand up from the uncomfortable chair in the ticket booth and shake your head in disbelief. You can’t even count how many times Sunwoo left you alone in the rush before a premiere, but you can’t really risk his father finding out you didn’t come to rescue his beloved son, since however you might hate this job, you still can’t lose it in your current living conditions.

Sighing and closing the door to the ticket booth after you, your legs take you to the snack stand. Eyes of enthusiastic customers looking almost high on coca cola and the smell of salted popcorn are on you when you finally reach Sunwoo’s side. 

“So I’m supposed to help you with your work whenever you ask, but when I’m left cleaning the whole theater completely alone, you can sit around and play on your phone?” you jab, annoyed with the turn of events. You find a spare apron and tie it around your waist, not really wanting to dirty your uniform as you pour caramel into some buckets of popcorn, hearing your companion chuckle next to you.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay, so I’ll be back in the ticket booth after serving this customer-”

“My dad’s watching.”

“This is blackmailing,” you snap back, smiling ironically at your coworker.

Sunwoo grins at you when he hands two cokes to the teenage girls behind the counter, shrugging to himself. “Not my problem.”

You learned long ago that fighting with Kim Sunwoo is a battle you can never win. Logically, you know you’re always right, but the boy always thinks he should have the last word in everything, which makes ending an argument with him pretty much impossible. That’s why you stopped trying to prove your truth. In your heart, you know how it is, and no amount of snarky remarks from the feisty boy will change your opinion.

You two work alongside each other in silence for some time. You’d even say it’s efficient– you make the popcorn and he makes the nachos, both of you taking turns behind the coca cola machine, and after a few minutes in his proximity when he’s not being the butt of the Earth, your brain starts to question why you two can’t operate like this on a daily basis.

Oh, how foolish of you.

You’re quickly brought back to reality when you walk over with the grande size bucket of popcorn towards the counter, meeting halfway with Kim Sunwoo’s chest.

It takes everything in you not to scream, but the restraint is deleted as soon as you feel something cold dripping down the front of your uniform, your white button-up suddenly sticking towards your chest in a big, dark-brown pool around your waist area. One sharp look into his eyes is everything it takes you two to come to a mutual understanding of what your next action is gonna be– Sunwoo quickly puts the now empty cup of coca cola onto the counter and puts a hand towards his head in self-disappointment.

“Kim Sunwoo, are you fucking incompetent?!” you scream out, the sensation of your cold shirt sticking to your already sweaty skin making you want to crawl out of yourself and scratch your coworker’s eyes out with the claws of the demon he wakes up in you.

“Look, you don’t have to-”

“I just washed this yesterday, there’s a line of people waiting for their snacks up to the fucking front door, you just ruined the popcorn I made so now I have to redo it, and you just decide to spill this onto me?!” you continue with your rampage, not really caring about the eyes of everyone on you, just letting out all your built-up frustration that creeps inside of you every time you see his face.

“As if I did this on purpose…” he grunts as he turns around in his place and reaches for napkins, not really putting much thought into his actions as he presses the material into the damp place sticking to your skin. 

The image startles you– Kim Sunwoo almost in physical contact with you, a paper napkin soaking up some of the coca cola flooding the surface of your skin– and as you watch his slender palms run over your front, your eyes falling to the fluffy hair at the crown of his head, you feel heat rushing to your insides, making you jump away from him.

“Sorry-” he mumbles out as you forcefully pry the napkin out of his hand, gritting your teeth.

“I’m starting to think you’re making me do everything just because you’re useless,” you spit at him.

Rolling his eyes, Sunwoo pokes his cheek with the tip of his tongue. “It was an accident.”

“Don’t care,” you grunt, walking away from the booth, “I’m going to change in the back, you better not burn the place down with the popcorn machine before I’m back,” you comment, sending him a sharp glare over your shoulder.

All that accompanies you to the staff room is Sunwoo’s loud sigh and a sugary-sweet tone he offers to one of the customers as he throws the ruined popcorn into the trash. “I’ll be right with you, miss!” 

If anyone asked you if you hated your job now, you think you’d say yes.

Who are you kidding?

You’d definitely say yes.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – THE HATING GAME (2021)

You were quite pleased on your way to work today. It’s Wednesday, which usually means it’s not as busy. The weather is cloudy– good enough to not make you gloomy, but not quite sunny enough to make you wish you were outside instead of being stuck in the cinema the whole afternoon– and you packed a home-made sandwich with you to eat on your lunch break. Which is whenever, since you’re on ticket booth duty today– another great news. 

The best thing about today, though? Kim Sunwoo isn’t working today. 

That alone is good enough to make your whole entire day better. The sun shines brighter, your breathing is lighter, the air is clearer and the birds chirp louder when you know you don’t have to interact with the hellspawn that day. It’s like his absence alone is enough to heal all your wounds and delete all your worries– who cares about the fact that you’re barely getting through your Biology class when you know you won’t have to stare at Sunwoo’s face as you contemplate dropping out of university during your shift? 

Maybe you should thank him, in a way.

And with all of this knowledge, a smile plastered on your face as you’re prepared to sit through your 5-hour shift in silence with an occasional swipe through your social media and a well deserved chicken-mayo sandwich towards the end of your shift, it’s quite natural for your smile to freeze and your spirit fall the moment you see the mop of dark brown hair walk through the doors of the cinema. 

“What the fuck is he doing here?” you mourn as he walks by, only realizing you said the sentence out loud when the boy looks at you with a scowled face, a scoff escaping his throat.

“Didn’t know we were speaking to each other in third person now,” he says as he stops in his tracks and plops his head into the door to your booth, infesting your calm abode with his presence.

Deep breaths. In and out, Y/N. In and out… 

“Hello to you too, Y/N,” he smiles, irony dripping off his tongue, “having a good day so far?”

“It was better without you here, thank you,” you snap back, rolling your eyes at him when his eyes flash with something akin to a victory– it seems you both take joy in making the other one absolutely miserable with your presence.

“Sweet,” he nods on his way out, grinning to himself. “Well, I won’t be long, so don’t let your mood drop too much.”

With that, he’s out of the ticket booth. All that’s left behind him is the smell of his cologne– the tingle of lemon and bergamot filling your nostrils in a way that makes the fine hair at the back of your neck stand up all alert– and silence. It makes you wonder about his whereabouts– you can never know… what if he’s setting up a trap for you somewhere? You wouldn’t be half surprised. You make a mental note to yourself to be twice as cautious when going to the bathroom next time. Just to make sure.

Before you’re able to think of any possible situations that Sunwoo could get himself caught in (while completely ignoring the fact that his father is somewhere in his office in the back– for all you know, he might just need to talk to your boss, like a son does sometimes), the woodworm of your thoughts appears in your view again, two rolled-up tubes under his shoulder as he walks over to the front door.

“Wait! What are those?” you ask, eyes zeroing on the very clear posters in his grip. The shiny white back of the big posters you have to sometimes put up in the front of the cinema are unmistakable to anything else.

“Posters,” Sunwoo replies, calling over his shoulder, already halfway out of the building. 

“I know what those are–”

“Then why are you asking?” he huffs, shaking his head in disbelief as he takes a few steps towards the ticket booth, eyes meeting yours. His figure fills the door frame as he towers over you, still sitting on the chair. His eyes have a different kind of twinkle in them– you think, no, you know it’s mischief– making the blood in your veins boil at deadly temperatures.

“Because– well,” you huff, already frustrated, “we’re not allowed to take these,” you say, pointing to the two posters under his shoulder like a kid in the candy store. You try to ignore just how embarrassing you must look right in this moment.

“Oh,” he pouts, taking the posters from below his shoulder, unraveling one of them and resting the other one against the doorframe, “so you’re telling me… I can’t take those two amazingly big, shiny, cool posters of the latest Spiderman movie home for me and my friend Juyeon?” 

You’re only half-aware of the fact that he’s teasing you right now, sighing at his innocent face. “No, Sunwoo. You can’t.”

“Hm,” he hums, looking at the poster from top to the bottom, seemingly sad about the news, “that’s terrible. Says who?”

“Your… your father, Sunwoo. He told me when I asked him the other day if I could take–”

“You wanted to take posters home from the cinema?” he gasps, looking at you with big eyes. He looks stupid. So, terribly stupid. Dumb. No thought behind his eyes. You want to smash his head against a concrete wall. 

…He’s teasing you. It finally dawns on you.

Now, you want to smash your head against a concrete wall.

Still, you admit defeat with a solemn tone in your voice. “Well, I really wanted the Enola Holmes poster to put up in my bedroom…” you mumble.

“And my dad said no?” he asks, eyebrows quirking up towards his hairline.

“Yes, Sunwoo. Your father said it’s prohibited to take posters home from the cinema, that’s exactly why I’m stopping you right now,” you say, tone filled with annoyance. You know he’s enjoying your face full of misery. But still, if there’s one thing you’re good at, it’s following the rules and orders– if Mr Kim says you can’t take the posters home, you’ll go in the back and tear them into pieces before throwing them into the bin like you’re told to. 

If things were going your way, you’d advise Sunwoo to do the same. 

A day with Kim Sunwoo in it never goes your way, though. You should’ve been prepared.

“So I can’t take those posters home because my dad said no?” he clarifies, looking like a dummy. Like one of those kids that ask the most obvious questions during exams. Like one of those kids you want to sucker punch in the face.

“Sunwoo–”

“Well, Y/N-ie,” he purrs, the nickname making your hands curl up in fists, “that’s too bad… because I am the owner’s son, so… the rules don’t really apply to me, you see.”

And with that, he sends another sickeningly sweet smile your way before he turns on his heel and marches towards the front door again– not responding to any of your annoyed, infuriated calls of his name. He doesn’t stop at your warnings. He doesn’t care.

And just like that, he disappears just as fast as he appeared. The interaction didn’t last more than 10 minutes, but you consider your whole day ruined.

Fucking Sunwoo and his fucking privileges. And his fucking annoying face. 

It’s not even that important. It’s just two posters that would get thrown out to the dumpster in the back at the end of your shift anyway. You don’t even care about those posters in particular– you just with equal rules applied to all workers in the workplace.

It’s not like Spiderman Homecoming is one of your favorite movies… not at all.

You could’ve had that poster. You deserved that poster. You sold tickets for it and served the snack booth when it premiered– not Kim Sunwoo and whatever his friend’s name was.

You kick the wall with your sneaker. It leaves a dirty mark.

You should’ve known the day felt too good to be true.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1993)

There’s a new thing Mr Kim is trying to lure more customers into the cinema. He calls it ‘Rewind Thursdays’, where he picks a movie from the past and airs it in the theater again to bring out nostalgia in the whole town. You think it’s a good idea– you remember when the Harry Potter movies had a rerun back when you were little, ecstatic that you finally got to see them in the cinema because you missed out on the experience when they were coming out for the first time. You went even though you saw them all before, and you had a blast. So in your books, this was the best thing that could happen to the little, old movie theater on the corner of the town’s square.

You were overbeared with joy when Mr Kim went up to you during one of your slow Wednesday shifts in the ticket booth with a paper and a pen, requesting you to write down your favorite movies. He informed you that he’d prefer it if they were older, to, quote, really get the nostalgia going, and you were happy to have some say in the list of movies to play for multiple reasons. One, because it meant he valued your opinion, and two, you don’t usually work on Thursdays, so if your favorite movie is on that day, you can go and relax in the cinema while watching it.

This all happened a few weeks ago. You gave the list back to your boss at the end of your shift, smiling brightly just thinking about it, and he told you he’ll get through it and see what he can incorporate. 

The plan gets to you on one uneventful Wednesday. You are stuck in the ticket booth again. Today is one of the Wednesdays where Sunwoo is in charge, because Mr Kim is out of town. You hate those days most of them all, but recently, he’s been giving you your freedom and letting you work in the ticket booth instead of cleaning the already clean cinema, saying he has stuff to do in the back. You suspect he just sits around in his father’s office with his legs on the table, chewing on his obnoxious strawberry mints. The image makes you furious only the tiniest bit, because the fact that he’s out of your sight and isn’t ordering you around is enough to calm your nerves. It could always be worse, you remind yourself. It could always be worse.

“I have the schedule of ‘Rerun Thursdays’ all done,” Sunwoo says as he walks up to the ticket booth close to the end of your shift. His eyes look a little tired when he holds up a thick card to you, the design of the poster making your eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Did he do that?

“It’s ‘Rewind Thursdays’, actually,” you note, pointing towards the very obvious mistake on the top of the poster.

“Oh fuck– you know what, not anymore,” he scowls, taking the poster back from you and pointing glares at the title he mistyped, “I spent 3 hours on this, I’m not remaking it.”

“It looks like a kindergartener did it,” you note, eyes scanning the bubbly font and the orange-yellow combination used throughout the whole design when he offers the paper back to you. It looks like a Winnie the Pooh convention is taking place instead of an event full of nostalgic movies, and you would tell him that, but he beats you to it with a tired remark.

“Well, if my father wanted this to look professional, he should’ve hired someone to do it,” he mutters, obviously hurt by your harsh words, “I used Canva. I don’t know how Photoshop works and my dad can barely operate the computer, so this is what we’re going with, okay?” he says as he explains, big eyes suddenly bearing into yours. “Unless you wanna redo it yourself…?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then this is the final poster,” he says, “I’m gonna hang those outside when we close,” he notes, watching you scan the movie titles. The event will take place in 4 weeks from the middle of November to the middle of December (right in time for Christmas movies to air, since you’re certain Mr Kim has another Christmas-themed business tactic up his sleeve). 

“Did any of your movies make it?” Sunwoo asks, surprisingly friendly. You can’t remember a single casual conversation with the male– all you two do it either give each other the silent treatment or scream at each other (more like you scream at him, but he always deserves it…), so you’re kind of surprised at the change. Not pleasantly surprised. Just surprised.

Eyes falling to the second movie on the list, you feel yourself nodding as you smile. It’s like a dream come true– you can finally see your favorite movie in the cinema for the first time. You don’t know who to thank for this miracle, but something in your insides feels very grateful. 

“Yeah,” you say, trying to seem unaffected. You’d rather kill yourself than to show any signs of emotion in front of Kim Sunwoo. All he deserves to see is your stone cold face.

“Which one?” he asks, seemingly interested.

“National treasure,” you hum, pointing to the movie on the list, having Sunwoo nod to himself. You expect him to say something to you– perhaps engage in a conversation like a normal person would– but suddenly, he gasps and takes out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket, offering it to you and playing the role of the manager again.

“Oh, by the way,” he starts, watching as you unfold the paper, “I know we don’t usually work on Thursdays, but since my dad decided to do all of this, we kinda have to, since he wouldn’t be able to handle the premieres on his own, so… Here's your schedule for the next 4 weeks,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him.

It takes everything in you to not correct the male and tell him that those are technically not premieres, but when your eyes land on the little Excel table Sunwoo printed out for you, the feeling is overpowered with one of deep disappointment.

“I work the second week?” you ask, as if the question might magically change the schedule.

“I mean, I think you can read…” Sunwoo hums, shrugging to himself.

A heartbeat passes by of you staring at the schedule, a pit opening in your stomach at the realization. You only work 2 Thursdays out of 4, noticing the fact that you rotate with Sunwoo (with him somehow taking the first week, much to your surprise), but for some reason, one of those days had to be the day when National treasure is on. 

And sure, you might think this is good– you can just watch the movie while you work! 

Wrong.

Working means either staying in the ticket booth the whole time in case a customer comes, working the snack booth the whole time in case a customer comes, or cleaning the bathrooms. Working means also standing in front of the screening room sometimes, making sure no one is going in without a ticket in the middle of the movie. 

There is no time for you to watch National treasure if you’re working. 

Sighing, you decide to do something you always prohibited yourself from doing– you ask Kim Sunwoo for a favor. “Listen… my favorite movie is airing the week I work, so I was… wondering if we could exchange shifts? So I could go and watch it?” you ask, looking at your coworker with what you presume are pleading eyes. You hope it works on the boy– he looks like the type to fold under a tender gaze.

“So you want to get out of work only to still come?” Sunwoo clarifies, snickering.

“Pretty much, yeah,” you nod, tapping your fingers on the table.

“Well, the schedule is set,” Sunwoo shrugs, “I can’t do anything about it.”

Eyes sending darts to the very middle of Kim Sunwoo’s forehead, you take a few calming breaths before you speak up again. You don’t want to blow up on him when you’re asking him for a favor– you don’t think this approach would help you much in the situation.

“Why?”

“Because,” he shrugs. 

“Because?” you repeat. “That’s the reason?” you say, a weak laugh dragging out of your throat.

“Pretty much, yeah,” he mirrors your previous response, the blood in your veins already growing hot from the confrontation.

“Sunwoo, you– come on,” you say, “just this once, please? I’ll take the first week. We can just switch, what’s the difference?” 

Sunwoo tongues the inside of his cheek, eyes pointing towards the paper. “Schedule is schedule, Y/N. You have to follow it,” he says, an innocent look glazing his big fuckass boba eyes. Oh how you despise that look. It’s the look that tells you he finds this all so, so amusing, but won’t laugh in your face in hopes of teasing you some more. 

“Oh, amazing,” you say, throwing the schedule to the table, “I knew I could always count on you ruining my day, Kim Sunwoo. And I bet you did the schedule as well! You knew it was my favorite movie, so you made me work that week. Very nice of you, you dumbass. Thank you very much,” you grunt, annoyance flowing through your brain and making you truly merciless– you have no proof of Sunwoo even knowing which movie of yours made it in, or proof of him making the schedule– you don’t care, though. All you want at this moment is to claw his eyes out and pop them in between your fingers to ease the anger on your insides.

You can’t do that, though, so a screaming match will have to do the job.

“Stop being so dramatic,” he scoffs, eyebrows furrowing. “I didn’t even know which one your favorite movie was, so how could I do this on purpose? Plus, I didn’t even make the schedule, my dad did–”

“As if I would believe that,” you roll your eyes, huffing. “You’re all owner’s son privileges this, owner’s son privileges that, but when I ask you for one thing, one! Single! Fucking! Thing! You can’t do it,” you bite, words dripping in spite.

“Look, I really can’t-”

“You can’t do this one thing for me?” you cut him off, the question sounding like an ultimatum.

“No,” he shakes his head, seemingly unaffected by the conversation.

“Because…?” you demand a valid reason.

“Because I just can’t,” he shrugs, casual and cool. 

The world stills for a moment. You calculate your next move. Blood rushes in your ears, you see red. Your eyes fall on the clock– it’s 4 minutes after your shift. That’s it.

You take your coat draped over the chair, stand up from the chair and dash towards the front door. You can’t stand being around this man any longer– all he does is bring misery into your otherwise, already boring life. 

Speedwalking out of the place, you yell out a harsh “Go fuck yourself!” over your shoulder, leaving Sunwoo to close the cinema by himself. You don’t even change out of your uniform before you go– your head is too clouded with anger to remember to do so. Cursing out your coworker isn’t the best thing you could do in this situation, more so when he’s the owner’s son, but suddenly, you don’t really care about losing your job at the cinema anymore.

Maybe you should quit yourself, actually.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003)

In your books, there aren’t many things worse than working three days in a row. You can only think of so many even when you try hard enough: like going to school in your pajamas, getting sick on the day of an important event, ripping your pants on the metro, standing outside of the cinema in a popcorn costume for 4 hours… 

Yeah. Not too many.

So naturally, on the third day of your work week, putting one sweetened coffee into your stomach after another, barely keeping your head up from the lack of sleep you’re getting in between classes, work, and writing your essays until 3 in the morning, you beg god for a calm shift. It’s Wednesday, the first week of Mr Kim’s ‘Rewind Thursdays’ event, and it just so happened that you were set to work the first half of the week while Sunwoo got the other half. 

The only thing keeping you going is the fact that you and Sunwoo will now basically not see each other’s face for the next four weeks– with the exception of Fridays and Saturdays, the premiere days. You’re getting a lot of shifts this month, but hey… Christmas is coming. At least you’ll have plenty of money to buy gifts for everyone this year. (Or not. You’re very underpaid.)

Entertaining yourself by watching the world outside of your window and mentally betting on the race of raindrops falling down the glass surface– because your phone battery almost ran out during class this morning and you forgot to bring your charger with you– you hope you don’t fall asleep right in this moment. Your boss is somewhere inside and if he oh just happens to check up on you (which he never normally does, but you can never be too sure), you’re certain you’d lose your job after taking a nap in the ticket booth. Some things just can’t be accepted. 

Cat fights with his son? Perfectly acceptable. Sleeping on the clock? Not so much…

Eyes drooping when the third raindrop race doesn’t go the way you bet on in your head, you figure you can just rest for a second or two… Eyelids shielding your irises from the orange hues of the lights inside, your brain already turning off and preparing a happy dream for you, you think that taking a nap is not such a bad idea right now…

Wrong.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” the noise of a thunder– actually, no, that was just someone’s voice– wakes you up and makes you jump in your chair, your knee hitting the bottom of the table making you hiss in sharp pain.

“Fuck, man–”

“Didn’t know taking a nap was in the job description,” Sunwoo grins at you through the glass window of the booth. His eyes twinkle in amusement as you drag your hand through your hair, trying to smoothe it down after tousling it in your weird sleeping position.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” you mutter, not even meeting his eye. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah… just had… my eyes closed…” you hum, scratching the back of your neck. Clearing your throat, you look back up at him with an disinterested look on your face. “Anyways, what do you want? You’re off today.”

Scanning his figure, fully taking in his appearance– the fabric of his dark gray hoodie a little stained with raindrops (you bet he ran from his car into the building without an umbrella. He seems like the type to be embarrassed about umbrellas.), the fabric of the garment enveloping his head and shading his face a little from the ugly yellow lights. His face is a little flushed– you presume it’s from the running– and his hair is falling into his face. You can barely see his eyes behind the curtain of chocolate locks– he really needs a trim.

“Damn, didn’t know you hated me so much that you can’t stand seeing me on my off days,” he jokes, leaning on the counter as if to stick his face as close as he can into yours. Thank god for the glass shielding you two– you think you’d give him a fist to the nose if you ever felt his breathing on your skin.

“I do,” you agree, impatiently drumming your fingers on the top of the table, “so tell me what you want so you can disappear again,” you say.

“I just went to check up on whether you were sleeping or not so I can tell my dad to fire you–”

“Kim Sunwoo–”

He puts his arms up defensively, eyebrows raising at your threatening tone. “Okay, not really. I don’t actually care that much. Besides, you promised to quit yourself anyway, so,” he explains, shrugging to himself, “believe it or not, I’m here to buy tickets for a movie.”

You shoot him a stare, the look in your eyes dead, stone cold as you ponder on his words. It’s cold outside, it’s raining, and Kim Sunwoo just happens to decide to buy tickets for a movie today. In a cinema that he works at. In a cinema that he works at tomorrow.

“You work tomorrow…?” you mirror your inner monologue, kind of confused at the turn of events.

“You know my schedule? I’m flattered–”

The irritation is slowly creeping into your bones again. Actually, it has been since he arrived, but the more he talks, the more agitating the whole encounter feels. Maybe you should tape his mouth shut the next time you see him– you bet the day would be so much better if you don’t have to listen to him talk. 

“Why don’t you just buy the tickets tomorrow when you work? Didn’t have to walk here in the rain,” you explain, sighing to prove just how annoyed you are with his presence.

“Because I kinda need them today,” he says, clarifying to you with the tone you use when you explain mundane things to a child.

You don’t know what he did in his past life to get the ability to annoy you each and every time you meet him, but you’d like some of it to get back at him in your next life. Why you’re even thinking of past lives and the possibility of meeting Kim Sunwoo in your next one, you’re not really certain, but if it helps you to not smash the glass separating you two, you guess you can get behind the thought process.

“Okay,” you nod, painfully calm for the amount of screaming you’ve been doing internally, “what movie?” you ask, turning your body to the computer on your right and breaking eye contact with him. If he’s a customer, you’re going to treat him like one– no small talk and no arguments. You won’t ruin your day even more over a man that doesn’t know what chapstick is. (You don’t stare at his lips, just for the record. It’s just painfully obvious when he talks. Sometimes you want to reach over and pluck away the dead skin with your fingers– you won’t, though. That would be weird.)

Sunwoo straightens his back as he fishes for his wallet in the front pocket of his jeans. “National Treasure,” he smiles, making you break into cold sweat, “two tickets, please.”

Like a scene in a horror movie, your head turns without moving the rest of your body, eyes twitching when you see him standing at the other side of the booth, calm and collected. Suddenly, the scene makes sense– he bought the tickets to see your favorite movie on the day of your shift. Of course. He just has to rub it in your face. 

Not only are you working that day. You will also most likely serve popcorn to him as he goes inside with whoever he is buying the second ticket for. And you will try not to trip him on his way inside the screening room.

It was a smart move for him to not go inside the ticket booth with you, even though he has all the right to. You bet he knows you’d claw his eyes out if you had the chance.

“You have to be kidding me.”

“What? I can’t buy tickets for a movie?” he asks, innocence dripping off his tongue.

Breathing deeply– while trying to contain the demon that’s begging to crawl out of your insides and tear him into 25 different pieces– you smile ironically at the male, gulping before you speak. “That would be 12 dollars, please,” you say, your customer service voice turning kind of eerie.

Not even letting the male choose his seats– he lost the privilege when he decided to come and buy the tickets for your favorite movie– you print out two tickets with the worst possible view (the ones in the first row, far right. If Sunwoo loses his neck because he has to look up at the screen for the entirety of the movie, well, who are you to hate that) and offer them to your coworker.

Like a mind game, the male slips them into his pocket without even looking at them, not breaking eye contact with you sitting behind the booth. 

“Have a nice day,” he says as he takes two steps back before fully turning and escaping through the front door, figure dashing towards the old Prius parked in front of the building.

Bawling your hands into fists, you try the breathing exercises you found the other week. Calm your body and your mind, the title said. You knew you’d need those when you saved the post into one of your boards on Pinterest.

Still, you can’t help yourself. You simply cannot. You let it out– it’s not healthy to keep negativity inside. 

He can’t hear you, but you still mutter a spiteful “I hope you choke,” under your breath as you settle back into the uncomfortable surface of the chair.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – YOU’VE GOT MAIL (1998)

Remember the time you said you didn’t really mind having more shifts in November, because it meant a bigger paycheck? Yeah… that was true. For a few days.

Until you got a phone call one day from none other than Kim Sunwoo– whose number you didn’t even want to save into your contacts, but after his insisting that it’s for work purposes, did so under the name ‘dumpster raccoon’– telling you that you have to get to work immediately, that his dad said so, and that it’s an emergency. 

Do you believe him? No. Absolutely not. 

His tone of voice was too calm to be in an emergency. If his dad wanted you to come to work today, he could’ve called you himself instead of making his son do it. And also, you really don’t know what’s so important to take care of on a Wednesday, since it’s the slow day of the week, but still– you angrily took off the facemask from your face before the timer even went off, shut your laptop with a half-watched episode of The office in your Netflix window, changed out of your comfy clothes and marched towards the cinema. 

Because you never know. He might be saying the truth, after all. And if that was the case, you didn’t want to be caught disobeying your boss.

You get to the old movie theater on the corner of the town center at 4 in the afternoon. The sky is already getting dark and you feel the coldness of November seeping into your bones, and so you waste no time in getting inside and chasing the heat of the vintage-looking interior. Your boots make a thudding sound as you walk across the hall, seeing Sunwoo sitting in the ticket booth in his usual habitat: with his phone in his hands and his feet up on the table, chewing on his favorite strawberry mints. Now this sight screams emergency if you’ve ever seen one.

“What was so important for you to call me to work and then chill in the ticket booth all afternoon?” you ask, spite slipping off your tongue with every word you speak. 

Sunwoo looks up at you from under his eyelashes, hair still slightly shielding his eyes. He doesn’t even have his uniform on– there’s a gray hoodie enveloping his torso (you swear he lives in this garment. You wonder if he even washes it sometimes) and black jeans hanging off his hips– and the more you stare at him, the more you feel like punching him in the face.

“Oh,” he hums, stretching out his limbs from the hours of sitting on the chair unmoving, “dad said to tell you to clean the screening room. Since it’s Thursday tomorrow, and all.”

The look on his face is innocent. He looks like he just told you the most casual piece of information– and truth be told, he kind of did. The whole thing is just not making any sense right now. 

“I should clean the screening room today? You’re on the clock, though, why don’t you do it?” you ask, frustration clearly written all over your face. You were looking forward to having a self-care day today, so you can only imagine how tired of his endeavors you are right in this moment. 

“Yeah, but I am on ticket booth duty, so I can’t,” he shrugs, frowning a little to prove his nonexistent point.

“It’s Wednesday. It’s not busy. You know you can do both.”

“Look, it’s not me, it’s my dad–”

“Is it? Is it, Sunwoo?” you huff, arms flying into the air. “Or are you just using me to do the work you don’t feel like doing? Because it really does seem like that right now,” you bite, running your hand through your hair in exasperation. 

“Do you want me to call him?” Sunwoo asks, tone of voice suddenly threatening. 

A heartbeat passes. You continue to have a staring contest with him. The fury inside of you rages like a storm. Still, you nod to the feeling of authority coming from your actual boss, and so you wordlessly turn on your heel and march towards the screening room, ready to clean the place in the least amount of time so you can go home and back to your selfcare endeavors. (You’re adding printing out Sunwoo’s face and throwing darts at it to the list of activities. You think you really need that right now.)

The screening room is dark when you come inside, and as you reach towards the lightswitch, you almost fear something jumping at you. See, the traumatic response from being locked up in the toilet from your coworker is still very present in your bones. When you stop working here, you’re going to ask for financial compensation for all the damage this boy did on your mental health.

You walk down the aisle of seats and try to inspect the damage. No movies air on Wednesday and there was only one kids movie going on Tuesday, so you can either expect it to be almost clean, or full of snacks that fell off the hands of grabby children during the cartoon. The more you inspect the place, though, the more it seems like… somebody already cleaned it before?

The floor is clean. The laminated surface under the seats has no smudge of dirt on it, like someone already mopped the place. And when you think back, the bins were empty as well.

The screening room was definitely cleaned before.

Which means that Sunwoo brought you here for absolutely nothing.

Suddenly, the lights go out. The whole room falls into darkness, and the anger inside of your veins very quickly mixes with panic as you try to climb up the stairs on the side of the screening room and escape. Your throat gets dry as you yell for your coworker, not really caring if your next outburst is going to get you fired or not.

“Kim Fucking Sunwoo, why the fuck did you call me to clean an already cleaned screening room?!” you yell, not really knowing if he hears you or not. Doesn’t matter– it feels cathartic to do so anyway.

Your feet stumble on the awkwardly-long stairs, your figure almost falling to the ground. Managing to hold yourself up and steady your body before your head hits the sharp corner of one of the stairs and makes you die, you continue on with your small tangent. “You really think this is funny? You’re having fun pranking me all the time? I hate your guts, Kim Sunwoo, and I hope you burn in hell!”

A bright light suddenly illuminates the screening room, coming from somewhere behind you. When you look over your shoulder, the screen is white for a few moments before the opening credits of a Jerry Buckheimer film flash on the big surface, halting you in your movements. The sound is a little too loud in the speakers, but it gets adjusted the moment you almost lose your hearing. The moment you see Nicolas Cage appear, it’s clear as day.

There’s a movie playing. And the movie playing is National treasure. 

You think you’re hallucinating. This is surely a fata morgana.

Standing in the middle of the screening room, your mouth hangs agape and your eyes go wide as you watch the first few scenes of the movie. Ben Gates already learns about the hidden treasure passed down through American history when you feel a slight nudge to your shoulder, making you turn your head to see a tall figure staring you down with a bucket of popcorn in their hands.

You are confused. So utterly confused. The movie was on last week. You’d know– you worked the snack booth that day. The screening room is empty and it’s Wednesday– what’s going on? 

“Can you sit? Or are you just going to watch the movie standing in the aisle,” Sunwoo grunts, balancing the big bucket of popcorn and two drinks in his large hands, the sight comical and almost making you want to watch him suffer some more.

Caught off guard, though, you let him back you into the aisle of seats, your figure slouching into one of the red cushions like a rag doll. Sunwoo takes place next to you, placing the big bucket of popcorn into your lap, before he settles into a seat as well and focuses his eyes and attention on the movie.

“What… what is this?” you ask, frozen in the seat. 

“Hm?” Sunwoo frowns, looking at you. “National treasure,” he hums, “I thought you’d know, since you threw a scene about it that one time.”

“I- I know that, I just…” you trail off, still surprised at the turn of events, “what’s going on right now…?”

“We’re watching National treasure,” he notes, talking to you as if you were slow.

“What…?”

A sigh escapes Sunwoo’s lips at your utter confusion, his hand coming up to the bucket of popcorn in your lap and throwing a handful of the snack into his mouth before speaking. “Look, Y/N. You said you wanted to watch your favorite movie in the cinema, so that’s what you’re doing. Enjoy my owner’s son privileges for once,” he shrugs, watching as your face morphs into an unreadable expression.

That explanation satisfies you for a bit. The shock in your insides, though? Still present.

There’s something about the whole gesture that makes your stomach feel uneasy. Sunwoo did something nice for you– out of the kindness of his own heart– and you really don’t know why he would even think of something like this. You two aren’t on the best terms either, after all. Maybe he finally went crazy.

Or maybe you did and this was all the result of your imagination. Either or. 

Yeah, you must be the one that’s gone batshit insane. Surely. You’re certain of the fact when you reach for the popcorn and accidentally touch his hand, the two of you deciding to get some at the same time, and your stomach does a flip and your brain makes a sign for you to quickly retract your hand– but the feeling of his slightly cold hand against your fingertips is now engraved into your memory and won’t leave and let you focus on the movie no matter how hard you try.

“You wouldn’t have to do this if you just let me switch schedules with you that time,” you note, “just saying.”

“I couldn’t,” he shrugs.

“Huh? But you bought two tickets..?”

“Yeah, but those were for my friends. I had to drive my mum down to grandmas that day, so I couldn’t go or take your shift that day,” he hums, not once breaking eye contact with the screen.

“If you would’ve just said so, I wouldn’t have made a scene about it–”

“Yeah… but I enjoy watching you make a scene,” he grins, shifting his attention towards you for a second with that lazy smirk playing with his lips. His hair is falling into his eyes and you have the urge to get it out of his face with a motion of your hand while also scolding him like a mother to finally get a haircut, just so you could see the twinkle in his mischievous orbs.

“You need to get serious help, then,” you grunt, pointing your gaze back towards the screen, unable to look at his face for any longer. He’s being annoying again. You’re annoyed.

“Probably,” he admits.

You two sit in silence for a while, the only sound accompanying you being the movie playing out on the big screen in front of you. You think this is the calmest you two have ever been around each other, and you’re starting to think that if Sunwoo just didn’t talk, you two could even get along.

Something touches the side of your thigh in the darkness of the room. Eyes darting to the source, you notice Sunwoo’s thigh pressing against yours, the cause of his obnoxious man-spreading, and something about the closeness of his body and the smell of his citrusy cologne makes you feel like your chest is heaving in on itself. You can’t stand him around you. You two can’t share this close of a space.

“Are you not leaving?” you ask.

“No,” he hums, “should I be?”

“Well, you’re on the clock…”

The man snickers, shaking his head in disbelief. “Y/N, you and I both know that the possibility of someone coming to buy a ticket on a Wednesday afternoon is close to zero. Me being there makes no difference in today’s sales.”

His hand knocks into yours again as you reach for more popcorn. You gulp, nodding. “Right…”

“And I wanted to see the movie to see if it’s really that good to make a scene about it,” he teases, another playful look sent your way from the corner of his eye.

You grunt, rolling your eyes. Oh how you hate his guts…

And even though you love the movie, you pray for it to end quickly. The more time you spend with Sunwoo forced into your zone of comfort, the more uncomfortable you feel– even the slightest movement of his body affects you and makes your brain turn on overdrive. It’s strange and it’s weird, and you don’t understand how hatred for a person could manifest in such reactions. 

It’s better that you didn’t notice you two sitting in the love seat. God knows you wouldn’t handle that well. You’d rather die than to hold on to that knowledge.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – CLUELESS (1995)

They say that you only start realizing just how stupid people can be when you work in customer service. As one of the only three employees of the small, vintage cinema on the corner of the town’s square, you can only agree with the sentiment– you have a lot of stories to tell about the wonders of the human brain.

Like that one time you got screamed at because the movie tickets were ‘too expensive’ – because naturally, you should be able to change the price of them when asked. Or that one time you got screamed at because the movie tickets were sold out– because naturally, you should add more seats to the screening room just for the two middle-aged women to sit on during the premiere of the newest Orlando Bloom movie. Or when somebody yelled at you for the toilets being full after the movie– naturally, you are supposed to throw people out in the middle of them peeing. Or build new stalls. Either or.

They say that you only start realizing just how stupid people can be when you work in customer service, but truly, you also realize just how rude they can also be for no reason at all.

Much like today. It’s Friday, which means it’s premiere night. The tickets to all movies this week are sold out already, so no one is on ticket booth duty, and much to your relief, Mr Kim took the snack stand himself. Your responsibility for the day is scanning the tickets and then making sure no one is getting inside during the movie without a ticket. 

It’s not a hard job. Not at all– you would even say nothing about working in the cinema is hard, when you don’t have an annoying coworker trying to make your whole life a living hell– but you see, customers love to make your job harder just by being unreasonably rude about things that are clearly out of your control. 

“Sir, I really can’t let you in, I’m sorry,” you say, tone of voice polite despite screaming on the inside. In front of you is standing a tall man, maybe a few years older than you, the expression on his face full of anger and vexation. They say a customer is always right. You agree only when the customer looks like they could wait for you after work and beat you up in the bushes. Sadly, that still doesn’t mean you can let the man inside without a valid ticket.

“What do you mean? Little one, I’m telling you I bought the ticket here, so if you don’t let me in–”

“All tickets purchased for the screening should be able to scan through this, sir, and if it doesn’t work, I am not allowed to let you inside of the cinema,” you try to explain, getting kind of desperate. The line behind him was forming and the movie was supposed to play in a few minutes, so if you wanted to scan all the tickets in time, you had to be quick.

He wouldn’t budge, though. His eyebrows are furrowed and the guy behind him seems to be getting angry as well, making the hair on the back of your neck stand up alert, like a cat when it senses danger. You try your hardest to keep your tone firm, hands clasped politely behind your back. “I’m gonna have to ask you to leave, sir, or maybe check in with the owner about the issue? I don’t have the competence to–”

“Listen, I won’t be talking to anyone, because you will let me in, okay?”

“Sir, I can’t-”

Your sentence is cut off by the man again, his fury making you take a step backwards in fear. “And if you don’t, you will see the consequences.”

Gulping, you try to think of a way to get out of this situation. Mr Kim is too far away for you to call, and he is also busy– the line is long and Sunwoo isn’t working today. It’s just the two of you today, so your options are getting slimmer. You can’t let that man in without a working ticket– it seems like the one he’s showing you is either a fake one, or bought in another cinema– but it seems like if you don’t, he’ll have you dead before the next morning. 

“So?”

Opening your mouth to answer (although your brain is still empty and you don’t even know what more to say), a low voice coming from behind you startles you in the middle of your crisis. “Is there a problem here?” 

Turning your head to the source of the voice, you’ve never been more relieved to see Kim Sunwoo in your close proximity. You watch as he puts a rolled-up poster to the ground behind you before he takes another step closer towards your figure, his expression stone cold and glaring at the man in front of you. 

“Your coworker here won’t let me in to watch the movie,” he complains, hand waving around in a threatening way. 

Just having Sunwoo around makes you more confident. Clearing your throat, your eyes dart to your coworker, seeing his face morph into irritation. “It won’t scan his ticket, so…”

“If it won’t scan your ticket, it means it’s invalid and we’re not allowed to let you in,” Sunwoo says, tone of voice way less polite than the one you were using before.

“That’s ridiculous-”

“You are ridiculous,” Sunwoo grunts, annoyance clearly written all over his face. “You were asked to leave, so maybe you should.” 

Truth be told, you’ve been in a couple of arguments with Sunwoo before. In none of them has he ever looked and sounded like this, though. You and Sunwoo argue with spite– sparks flying waiting to start a fire, curses and harsh words thrown around carelessly in moments of heated hatred. His tone is stern, but never threatening. Never mean. Not in the way he’s being right now.

It makes you stare at him wordlessly. He seems to be taking the lead in the situation, reacting territorially to the man in front of him. You can’t say you don’t feel safer with him around– you would be lying.

“Maybe you could just let me in and get this over with–” 

“And maybe you could fuck off,” Sunwoo says back, something in his tone making your stomach feel all light. He looks serious, standing his ground, and the man finally seems to get the memo that he’s not watching the premiere tonight, because he backs off and grits his teeth at the male.

“Your boss will hear about this,” he threatens, making Sunwoo chuckle.

“I’m sure he will.”

Sympathetic looks are thrown your way from the women in the line behind that can finally come up to you so you scan their tickets. You smile at each one and try to seem unaffected by the exchange, but the memory of it still lingers in your brain and doesn’t make you rest easy as you greet the rest of the customers. 

You didn’t even realize Sunwoo was still standing next to you, watching you work. He seems to recognise your shaken-up composure, tone of voice sympathetic and quiet as he asks: “You okay?”

“What?” you ask, surprised by the question, “oh. Yeah, I’m fine. He was just… being a bitch, the usual.”

“Yeah,” he snickers, “why didn’t you just scream at him like you do to me? I bet that would scare him away,” he notes, making you roll your eyes at the comment.

“Because he looked like he could beat me up, Sunwoo.”

“And I don’t?” he gasps, suddenly offended.

You scan the boy up and down, pretending to think it over for a few before you shake your head. “No,” you shrug, “I could beat you up.”

“Excuse you?” he gasps, crossing his arms at his chest in a defensive stance, the shock on his face mixing in with amusement. 

“Don’t believe me? Wanna try?” you test, the conversation suddenly flowing freely, without you even noticing. You don’t pay it much thought, but you guess getting along with Sunwoo is easier when he’s on your side. Most of the time, he’s not, though– and maybe that’s the problem.

“Okay,” he nods, “meet me in the back when you’re off. No weapons allowed, we’ll do it the street style. This is a battle of fists,” he points a finger at you, the sentence making you sigh dreamily and point your eyes towards the ceiling.

“You can’t even imagine how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.”

Sunwoo smiles at that– that dumb, boyish smile you usually so despise– and shakes his head at your antics. The conversation dies down a bit after the exchange– with you scanning the tickets and trying your hardest to make it through the line before the movie starts, when your coworker, dressed in none other than his signature gray hoodie and black jeans, nudges you with his elbow. “Want me to stay for a bit, or are you good now?”

“I can take care of myself, Sunwoo,” you sigh, “you can go about your day.”

“Well, it didn’t seem like it a few minutes ago–”

“I can take care of myself when I’m not confronted with a tall muscled man that is threatening me, Sunwoo,” you repeat, looking at the rest of the line, “so with him gone now, you can go about your day. What are you even doing here, by the way? I thought you were off today.”

“I am,” he nods, rocking a little in his place, shifting weight from his heels towards his toes, “I was just… here to drop off something for you,” he says, clearing his throat and pointing towards the poster he was holding when he first approached you, the shiny tube now resting against the nearest wall. 

You shoot the boy a curious look, eyebrows furrowed in question. You don’t get to ask for clarification about the character of the poster, because he abruptly cuts off your train of thought, speaking fast as if to avoid making any more conversation with you. “I’ll see you in the back after you’re done for that fist fight, then. Bye!”

And before you get a chance to say anything back, Sunwoo swiftly turns on his heel and awkwardly marches towards the front door. You don’t have much time to inspect the thing he dropped off for you, but after you’re done with scanning the tickets and have time to breathe when the movie starts, you allow yourself to peek inside– 

only to see a National treasure poster staring back at you, surface glossy and glimmering, as if you just opened a chest full of gold. 

As you take the poster to the staff room with you (while also wearing a huge, embarrassing grin on your face for someone staring at the face of Nicolas Cage), making sure it’s safe and sound until you can bring it home with you, you wonder why you haven’t been civil with Kim Sunwoo before.

It’s good to have a taste of his owner’s son privileges sometimes.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – ME BEFORE YOU (2016)

The day is Friday, the 1st of December. Mr Kim’s ‘Rewind Thursdays' event is over and while Fridays are always the premiere days, meaning you usually have to work the evenings either in the snack booth or in the ticket booth, your boss told you you can have the night off under one condition– you come in the morning (since you told him your classes are done for the semester, he’s been keen on making you work at random times of the day) and help Sunwoo with Christmas decorations in the cinema.

And, well, who are you to say no to a free evening? Maybe you can finally have that self-care time you’ve been needing before your exam season starts.

“Can you get the ladder from the back?” Sunwoo asks, tone of voice not at all interested. You don’t know what the reasoning behind his mood is, but you figure it’s either the fact that he had to get up before 12, or the fact that he doesn’t really seem like the type to like decorating.

“Why don’t you get it?” you huff, wiping your forehead off the sweat that’s cumulated on it over the time you spent bringing out all the boxes full of decorations out of the staff room. “I brought everything in, maybe you can do some work for once.”

One would think your dynamics with Kim Sunwoo would shift after he’s been nice to you on multiple occasions. And sure, you don’t really fight with him as often and he hasn’t pulled a prank on you in a while, but some days, his whole presence is still just as annoying to you as it’s been for the past couple of months. There’s not really much you can do about it– especially not when he’s bossing you around and not doing any actual work himself.

“I built the christmas tree,” he grunts, opening one of the boxes full of ornaments, squinting at the contains with disgust on his face. “And I put up all the other useless stuff before you got here too,” he says, pointing a glare at you. 

Looking around the theater, you notice various types of decorations all over the place. There’s some mistletoe hanging off the ceiling (which has you wondering how he even got it there in the first place) and garlands framing all the doorways– the greenery making the whole place decorated in a very vintage tone. It’s fitting to the theme of the cinema, though, and you can tell that Sunwoo really can’t be arsed to do any better, so you don’t mention it out loud in favor of avoiding another one of your petty cat fights.

Admitting your defeat, you storm back into the staff room and carry out the tall ladder, struggling to fit through the doorways and to cross the corners, praying to all higher forces that you don’t accidentally scratch off pieces of the wall on your way to Sunwoo.

You put down the metal construction with a loud thud, making the boy look up at you from beneath his bangs, the silent curse evident in his eyes. You don’t know what’s up with him, but again, you won’t ask. You try to tell yourself that you don’t really care either, but with every glance towards his direction, the question keeps bugging you and dancing around your brain. 

You force yourself not to care.

Watching as he tries to untangle the Christmas lights, struggle evident in the frustration written all over his face, you sigh and walk over to him, taking the bundle of wire out of his hands and threading your skilled fingers through the lengthy cable. You’re an expert in untangling– you don’t own bluetooth headphones, so you do this pretty much every day before listening to some music. Your headphones love to tangle in your pocket no matter how neatly you try to keep them in your pants– it’s a mystery. Almost like the Bermuda triangle. 

“I can do it myself,” Sunwoo huffs, eyebrows furrowing when he watches you work your magic.

“You seemed like it too,” you ironically note, letting the spiteful side of you win, enjoying yourself when you’re rewarded by the snarky roll of Sunwoo’s eyes– everything is back to normal. You two aren’t friends, you don’t like to be in each other’s presence, and no number of shiny stolen posters and private sessions in the screening room will ever change that.

“Hold this,” you say, thrusting the end of the cord into his hand, walking a few meters away from him as you detangle the lights, watching as he impatiently stomps the floor with his heel, reminding you of Snowball from The secret life of pets movie.

When you’re done and the Christmas lights are now a straight line of wire, you slowly walk over to the tall tree in the middle of the room, wrapping the lights around the fake forest-green needles. You’re glad that the lights are long enough to cover the whole thing and you don’t have to untangle another ones, and when you’re done, you watch your coworker plug them in, examining the small, colorful light bulbs. 

“Okay, now the ornaments,” you say, more to yourself than to anybody in the room, as you waltz over to the boxes and take out the decorations varying in shapes and sizes. You don’t really know what color scheme Mr Kim wants you to go for– and you doubt Sunwoo is aware either, so you just take out the ornaments you find the most pretty and hang them all over the tree, making sure each branch is covered.

Sunwoo stands around for a while, unmoving as he watches you, before he sighs to himself and finally decides to help. You leave him be, thinking that it’s for the best if you two don’t speak today when he’s in such a bad mood, but you break that promise almost immediately when you stare back at the tree after retrieving some more ornaments from the box to your right and notice the almost painful clash of colors.

You should’ve known you can’t trust a man with decorating. The beautiful contrast of the baby pink and brown ornaments you put on the tree is now ruined by the green ones you intentionally left on the bottom of the box. The colors don’t go together at all and you want to claw your eyes out every second you have to stare at it.

“Sunwoo, those colors don’t go together at all,” you say, point and blank– no sugarcoating, no offensive words, just straight facts.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that tree looks terrifying, and it’s all because you ruined it,” you say.

Okay, maybe you are overreacting just the slightest. But isn’t there fun in making your coworker completely out of his mind? Is this your roles being reversed for the first time? Are you finally winning this little game? 

Nevertheless, you are enjoying the outburst that follows from Sunwoo. Mainly because he looks like a child throwing a tantrum as he huffs and takes off the green ornaments he put on to the tree and throws the handful back into the cardboard box, not really caring if they break or not. You’ll be replaying this scene in your head forever before you go to sleep, for the absolute frustration and annoyance on his face is one of your biggest trophies. Right now, though, you’re battling the urge to laugh.

“Fine, do it yourself, then,” Sunwoo says as he walks away from the tree, choosing to sit on the floor cross-legged, taking out his phone and scrolling through social media.

Again, you don’t know what’s gotten into him today, but you force yourself not to care. You have a job to finish here so you can go home and enjoy your day, and that’s why exactly you just shrug and finish putting on the pretty ornaments, admiring your work every once in a while when you take a break and stare on the tall tree, kind of breathless from the beauty.

You’re not really big on Christmas, but you must admit that this is fun. 

The sound of Sunwoo swiping through Instagram reels is the only thing accompanying your actions, and as you look over your shoulder and see his almost sad face, you bite your lip just to not ask him what’s the matter. You’re not supposed to care. And you don’t.

“Can’t you put some festive music on?” you ask instead, your lips just begging to have a conversation with the male, despite your best judgment.

“No,” Sunwoo barks back, not even taking his eyes off the phone as the sound of the reel changes into another one, a swipe of his thumb across the screen showing him another video. 

Nodding to yourself, you carefully try to pick out your next words. Not really sure how to address the male, you choose to approach him with a hint of humor you’re not sure he’ll appreciate. “What’s up with you? You’re bitchier than usual,” you say, scanning the male with cautious eyes.

Sunwoo stops for a while– a millisecond of him halting his scrolling, an action you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t trying to see any shift in his composure– before he speaks up again. “Nothing,” he shrugs.

“Okay,” you say, a tone of voice full of doubt. 

When you conclude that you’re not getting more answers out of him, you nod to yourself and dart back towards the Christmas tree, making sure you make more eye contact with the glossy ornaments than with your coworker sitting behind you on the ground. Not much time passes by before he speaks up again, though, tone of voice quiet and hesitant.

“I’m just not in the mood today,” he sighs, “I have a final next week and it’s stressing me out, I haven’t slept well in quite a few days, my dad’s making me work more than usual and on top of that, I absolutely hate winter.”

“You hate winter?” you choose to focus on the least serious topic of the little rant, not really knowing when your boundaries lay in discussing the more serious ones.

“Yeah,” Sunwoo chuckles, “it’s like a shittier fall. It’s cold and dark all the time. It would be different if it snowed, though. I love it when it snows.”

Snickering at his sudden confession, you shake your head. “You’re like a little kid.”

“I remember you calling me a child once,” Sunwoo hums in agreement.

“That was different,” you say, hoping to cheer the male up at least a bit with your usual quarrel.

“I figured by the way you threw the toilet brush to my chest,” Sunwoo laughs, the memory of torturing you fond in his brain. The poster he gave you almost made you forget about the fact that he managed to make your life a living hell for quite some time– maybe you should consider this a wake-up call.

The conversation quiets down for a bit, even the sound of Sunwoo’s Instagram reels discontinued as you two marvel in the now much more comfortable silence. Testing the waters, you clear your throat before speaking up again. “Don’t worry about that exam, by the way. I’m sure you’ll do well.”

“How would you know?”

“You’re clever. You need to be clever to come up with all various ways to make my life more miserable,” you say, smiling when you hear him let out a breath of air through his nose, signaling a silent laugh.

“Any advice on the sleepless nights?” he asks, tone of voice light and humorous.

“Less things in your head,” you hum, putting the last ornament onto one of the branches, satisfied with your work. “Or melatonin.”

“Noted,” he nods, sharing a smile with you.

Walking over to the boxes stored a few feet away from the male, you open up the slim one thrown on the side, holding up the star. Your eyes meet his, a carefree twinkle in your orbs when you try to cheer up the boy’s inner child by doing a child's favorite activity. “Do you want to put the star on?”

He fails you, though. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You decorated it all yourself, so you can do the star,” he shrugs, not really into your idea.

“Oh come on–”

“I don’t feel like standing up,” Sunwoo grunts, the joy on your insides finally dying down when you get a taste of his usual composure– the one that really can’t be arsed with anything. 

Sighing to yourself, you waltz over to the tall ladder, and despite your biggest worries, you continue climbing up the metal construction even when it wobbles and makes you fear you’re gonna fall. The whole thing is kind of unsteady and makes your heart thump in your throat, but you choose to get it over with and finally climb to the very top, outstretching your arm and putting the star on top of the tree, the decoration process now done and freeing you off your today’s work responsibilities.

Something akin to satisfaction beams in your insides as you climb down the ladder, and now, you’ll write this off to you being a little too excited with the vision of a face mask and popcorn at home– but your leg slips on one of the steps and despite the ladder being now magically steady, your body comes crashing down to the floor.

A yelp fights out of your throat, hands go flying in a desperate need to steady yourself or hold on to something that would make you not fall hard against the marble floor, when a miracle straight down from heaven comes to rescue in a form of flesh holding you up and shielding you from the fall, a grunt landing in your ears when your body settles into soft fabric of dark gray.

Head snapping to the source of the arms around your waist, surprised at the person’s strength used to balance you two on your feet as you fell (well, your knees buckled, but still, they haven’t yet hit the ground), you notice a pair of chocolate orbs staring down at you through a curtain of dark hair, wide eyes scanning your face and breathing out a puff of air.

“Look where you’re stepping next time, for fuck’s sake,” Sunwoo huffs, watching as your brain tries to process the near-death experience.

Registering his arms firmly placed around your waist (now realizing the soft fabric was the hoodie he’s been living in for the past few months), the citrusy scent of his cologne makes your head spin, eyes scanning his face in quick motions, as if not aware of who was your savior. You wonder how he even got to you on time (not really noticing him walking over to the ladder as soon as he saw it wobbling under you, holding it down to keep you from toppling over), and when your eyes curiously gaze at his chapped, yet plush lips, the warmth in your stomach makes you finally snap out of it. 

Untangling yourself out of his limbs, much like you did with the Christmas lights a few minutes ago, you clear your throat and try to get your breathing back to normal. Your knees are a little weak, but you write that off to the shock of falling. 

“This wouldn’t have happened if you just agreed to put the star on,” you complain, straightening your clothes as you walk over to the empty boxes nearby, stacking them into one another and avoiding all possible eye contact with the male.

It’s working– at least that’s what you keep telling yourself– up until you hear him chuckle and see a pair of hands taking the tower of boxes out of your hold, a charming grin sent your way as he walks away from you to the staff room. “If you say so.”

Okay, so it’s not working.

You’re fucked.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – THE PROPOSAL (2009)

“So… I was thinking,” Sunwoo starts one day, a bundle of rolled-up posters stacked up in his arms like a pyramid, puffs of cold air making clouds appear in front of his face as he speaks, “would you want to go see a movie with me?” he asks, tone of voice casual, as if he was asking you about the weather.

The poster you’re currently putting up into one of the glass holders outside of the cinema almost slips out of your frozen fingers out of shock, your heart skipping a beat. “Huh?” you hum, taking out a container full of pins out of your coat pocket and securing the poster to its designated place. “You want to bring money to your father’s competitor?” you joke.

“What? No,” he quickly replies, furrowing his brows as he shakes his head. “I meant, like, here,” he says, nodding towards the building to prove his point, taking a step aside when you close the glass door of the poster holder and move towards the next one, 3 more movie banners left to put up outside of the cinema. 

The wires in your brain work on full force, trying to clear out any confusion caused by his sudden invitation. Sure, you two have gotten closer ever since you talked with him at the Christmas tree a week ago, but still, you didn’t know it was enough to hang out outside of work hours. 

Instead of focusing the conversation on this unpredictable development, you turn towards clearing out the logistics instead. “How would we even do that? We either work at the same time or you work when I don’t and the other way around,” you say, taking the next poster from him and putting it up.

All of the movies airing the next two weeks are Christmas movies. Some of them are old, some of them are premieres, but still– you can’t really imagine watching a festive movie with your coworker. Up until last week, you thought of him as the next reincarnation of Grinch.

“I could get my sister to switch with me on a day you don’t work,” he hums, sheepish about his preposition. There’s something bashful in his tone, something shy in his gaze as he watches you put up the movie poster, but you try your hardest to ignore it for the sake of your sanity. You’re already having a hard time dealing with the fact that he appeared in your dreams twice since he caught you in his arms last week. You don’t need to add the switch in dynamic to the mix.

“Isn’t she underage?” you ask, snickering.

“Yeah, and?” he shrugs. “It’s a family business, Y/N. Everyone has to be included, underage or not.”

A laugh erupts out of your throat at the comment, shaking your head at the boy in disbelief. 

“What would you even wanna see? Those are all Christmas movies,” you say, moving along and focusing your attention to the glossy material in your fingers.

“I don’t see how that’s a problem,” he says. 

“Oh, it is,” you mutter, “I don’t like Christmas movies.”

Sunwoo grunts. “Well, I don’t really care. I saw your favorite movie with you, so you can return the favor and see my favorite movie with me,” he speaks up, making you roll your eyes at his words.

“There’s no way any of those movies is your favorite,” you note, doubtful tone haunting the boy.

“You wouldn’t know,” he laughs, making your heart do cartwheels at the sound, his teasing making you feel warmth despite the cold breeze trying to make your bones freeze into blocks of ice. 

“I won’t go unless I believe you,” you say, grinning as you close the glass box and take the last poster out of Sunwoo’s hands, watching as the boy puts his frozen fingers into the comfort of his warm jacket, shielding them from the cold. 

“Not fair.”

“Very fair, actually.”

“Oh come on,” he sighs, shaking his head in disagreement, “I thought we could watch a Christmas movie as a celebration to the end of semester,” he says, tone of voice almost pleading.

Securing the last banner into its designated place, you turn towards Sunwoo with an examining look on your face. He seems to be completely serious, eyes big pools of honey as he watches your face morph as you think. Something in your stomach makes it feel like it’s flying, making you clear your throat as you avert your gaze towards the line of Christmas movie posters on the brick wall. “Fine,” you gulp, “so what do you wanna watch?”

“The Polar Express,” he says, pointing towards the A3 scale you put up last, showing one of the movies that were older, but Mr Kim decided to air anyway– as if he was aware.

Fuck, you think. That’s my favorite. 

“Absolutely not,” you cough, “I hate that movie.”

“Huh? How?” he sighs, face full of disappointment. 

“Just because. It’s too long.”

“It’s not even two hours?”

Eyes quickly darting towards the poster, pupils shaking as you look towards the airing dates at the very bottom, you chew on your bottom lip, trying to find a way out. “You’re working on the 18th.”

“Okay, then we can go on the 19th,” Sunwoo says, determined to make you watch the movie with him. Why? You don’t even want to know at this point.

“I go home for Christmas break on the 19th,” you say, shrugging. “See? It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Y/N, come on–”

“Listen, can’t we just go back to hating each other instead of you annoying me about this stupid movie?” you sigh. In the whirlpool of events, you forgot just how insistent Sunwoo could be– who knows, maybe this was the real reason why you were so irritated with him in the first place.

Slowly walking back towards your workplace, hearing Sunwoo’s sneakers hit the ground behind you as he trails after you like a lost puppy, a sense of momentarily victory flows through your veins when you recognise that you found your way out. There was no way Mr Kim would let his underage daughter work instead of Sunwoo, and you truly were leaving home the evening of 19th. You already had a train ticket– you’re not gonna change your plans because of a man you despised just a few days ago.

“I never really hated you, by the way. Besides, you’re only saying that because you hate the movie,” Sunwoo grunts, chiming in front of you– making you think he’s being petty and doesn’t want to talk to you anymore, surprising you when he opens the door for you and offers you a solemn gaze, waiting for you to walk through the entryway and go back to work. (For you, it’s sitting in the ticket booth in silence. For Sunwoo, it’s pretending to work in the back, since his dad is absent today again)

Reciprocating his gaze, noticing the disappointment behind your coworker’s eyes, you feel something in your stomach drop, the weight of it so heavy you quickly avert your look. 

“Maybe,” you shrug.

And maybe, the true reason is something completely else. 

The words resonate through your brain– ‘I never really hated you, by the way’. Funny. Then what were all those months of torture all about?

You decide you no longer want answers.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989)

You can’t believe you’re doing something nice for Kim Sunwoo.

Shoes hitting the gravel, your scarf pulled up so it covers your nose from the ice cold air, a hat hugging your head in warmth and shielding you from the aggressive weather, you start to contemplate your choices and your next moves. A sigh escapes your throat when your eyes land on the marquee above the entrance of the movie theater, teeth chewing on the inside of your cheek as you shift your weight from one foot to another.

Pulling out your phone to check the time, a shiny 7:24PM stares back at you, pushing you to walk up to the door of your workplace on your day off, 24 minutes after the beginning of The polar express. 

You feel silly. You feel oh so stupid when you push the door open and your body is immediately engulfed in warmth, the yellow dim lights of the cinema making your eyes slowly adjust to the brightness contrasting the darkness of the outside world. You feel like you must have gone crazy, especially when your insides start to get all light and bubbly, hints of nerves tingling at the tips of your fingertips and the deepest corners of your stomach. There’s no turning back now, you tell yourself– and when your feet automatically take you to the ticket booth, gaze landing on the boy with his bangs in his eyes and an expression worthy of a kicked puppy on his face, you suddenly feel like your trip to the cinema was all worth it.

Clearing your throat, you notify your coworker of your presence, his big, doe eyes staring at you in surprise. Sunwoo’s mouth goes agape, shock overtaking his features when he takes in your appearance. (You bet he thinks you look laughable– your eyes teary from the cold and your figure stoic, numb limbs hanging by your side.)

“What are you doing here?” he asks, the question not as aggressive as it sounded out of your lips every time he paid a visit to the cinema on his days off for all these months.

“Uh… I forgot some things in the back and I wanted to take them home tomorrow, so I came back for them,” you hum, the practiced excuse slipping out of your lips with ease, “can you come help me?” 

Sunwoo looks even more surprised at your question– although there is now a hint of confusion in the mix. What could you possibly have in the back to need his help with? For as far as he knows, you only ever kept your work uniform in your locker. “What? Can’t you get it yourself…?” he asks, noticing as you shake your head in disapproval.

“It’s… it’s on the top of the lockers and I can’t reach it, so-”

“Grab a chair…?” 

You didn’t really expect to have Sunwoo question your half-assed excuse. Truly, you thought this was going to go smoothly– but knowing Kim Sunwoo, you should’ve known it was never going to go the way you planned. You’re determined to win, though. 

And so it’s the time to bring out the big guns– men never say no when you praise them and make yourself look incompetent.

“Please? I don’t feel like bringing a chair and you’re tall enough. It will only take a second…” you pout, watching as the male in front of you sighs and stands up from his seat, nodding at your humble request.

Sunwoo follows you as you walk down the corridor, your heart thumping with the start of your little plan. Your steps are calculated and your movements carefully programmed, the nervousness in your stomach making you even more giddy with every meter of distance you two cross. 

Before you two get a chance to make it to the back, you make a swift turn and open the doors to one of the rooms on the left of the hall, dragging Sunwoo by his hand and tugging him inside. His body stumbles against yours, but the door closes behind him faster than he can react to the impact. Steadying the boy back to his feet, you watch him with anticipation, awaiting his reaction.

The truth is, you haven’t thought the plan out this far. The depiction of it in your brain always ended with you sneaking him into the projecting room and his curious eyes peering into yours. Something about the image of the events always made you feel too overwhelmed– you never dared to imagine the situation further. (That would mean admitting some hidden desires to yourself, so you never even tried. That all makes this situation twice as nerve-wrecking, though.)

“What… are we doing here?” he asks, eyes darting around the darkness of the projection room, the only light illuminating his pretty features being the movie playing behind the glass of the small booth.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to watch The polar express with me?” you ask, voice a few octaves higher than usual. 

“I… did…” he mumbles, confusion making him stumble over his own words.

“Well, you are working and I leave tomorrow, so I figured I had to find a way…” you shrug, watching as Sunwoo looks at you a little frozen, big eyes staring you down, gears turning in his head. You can’t really read him– you don’t really know if he’s going to laugh at you or send you home for ruining his shift. You don’t know if he appreciates the gesture, or if he thinks you’re being embarrassing. You don’t know if he registers the slight tremble of your hands and the lightness of your breathing, you don’t know if he realizes how much his reaction could make your day or completely ruin it (just like always), and so, you panic– and when you panic, you ramble. “I know we are technically not supposed to be here– well, me, at least– but I think that being with the owner’s son could make my boss let me off even if he somehow finds out, which I doubt he will, but–”

Sunwoo’s face starts slowly morphing, the slightest of shifts slowly adding up to a change of expression, having the male break out into the biggest, happiest grin you’ve ever seen him sport. His eyes light up and glaze your features in the softest of touches, his head shaking in disbelief. “Oh, you’re adorable.”

“What?” you ask, your heart doing seven somersaults and five cartwheels, eyes a big pool of surprise.

“You did this for me?” he beams, his grin so big and pretty it takes your breath away. Butterfly wings tickle in your stomach at the sight, having you mentally curse yourself– hold it together, Y/N. 

“I- I mean, I didn’t really do anything, we just sneaked in–”

“This is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me,” Sunwoo hums, the teasing tone making its comeback in his voice, “actually, this might be the first sweet thing you’ve ever done for me–”

“Well, okay,” you roll your eyes, an embarrassed laugh dragging out of your throat as you turn on your heel and walk closer to the little table in the opposite end of the room, needing to avert your gaze from the boy for at least a second. The air is suddenly too heavy and it’s hard for you to breathe, heat rushing to your cheeks. 

Eyes focusing on the screen in front of you, your brain tries hard to focus on your favorite Christmas movie. Failing, your head running thoughts full of conflicting emotions and erratic exclamation marks screaming the name of the boy behind you, you ask yourself how and when exactly you’ve gotten yourself into this mess.

Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten this job in the first place.

Ears painfully alert, listening to each sound heard in the small projecting room– the shuffling of Sunwoo’s feet as he nears your figure, the muffled noise of the movie playing in the screening room in front of you, the resonance of your own heartbeat in your ears as Sunwoo’s hands suddenly sneak around your middle, your jacket squeaking from the contact of his limbs as he hugs you.

“What–”

“Don’t fight me, Y/N. Just this once,” he hums, voice deep, but still a bit hesitant. It’s like he’s walking on unsteady land, cautious of his movements in fear of making you run away. He’s in a new territory, in your personal space– the scent of his cologne fills your nostrils again as his head settles itself on your shoulder, the two of you silently watching the movie for a few seconds, not really knowing how to proceed.

There’s something intimate in the way he holds you, in the way the movie is a mere background noise to the marathon of your thoughts, the blue light illuminating your faces as you both try your hardest to keep your cool. 

A flashing thought of just how much you from a few months ago would hate the position it’s  in right now passes by your brain, making you instantly feel foolish. Oh how much you’d love it if you stood here unaffected right now– there’s no way to battle the warmth flooding your insides right at this moment, though.

“This is nice,” he mumbles, voice barely louder than a whisper. “Thank you,” he says, your insides squeezing at the sincerity. It’s not often you get to see this side of Sunwoo– the sweet, patient one, the side of him that makes you feel safe in his arms and appreciated with the soft tone in his words. And while you realize you don’t hate the playful side of him just as much as you thought you did, you must admit the novelty of the situation makes you feel a bit more joyful than you’d like to admit.

The weight of his head disappears from your shoulder, making you feel momentarily disappointed by the action. You expect him to pull away and take a seat on the chair, to finally focus on the movie playing in front of your eyes, the thought alone making your spirit fall. The fire in your inside lights up like a match thrown into a pool of gasoline just as fast again, though, when you feel soft lips come in contact with your cheek.

They stay only for a second before they disappear, an airy laugh landing in your ear a second later. “Please don’t run away now,” he says, tone of voice uncertain, telling you that now the ball is in your court– your next actions could either make him the happiest man on Earth, or completely break him. 

The choice is yours.

Your head turns his way, eyes instantly locking with his brown orbs searching for any signs of discomfort in your face. Slowly, as if still processing the events of before, your eyes trail over his features– the awfully handsome way his face was sculpted, the softness of his eyes and the sharpness of his jaw, the slope of his nose and the plushness of his lips. They’re not as chapped today, making you wonder if he started wearing vaseline, and before you get a chance to stop yourself, you start wondering of the way his lips would feel on yours, imagination running wild. 

He heaves out a shaky breath, your eyes darting back into his– as if to ask for approval, see if he’s okay with it. There’s a dazy look in them, gaze pressed to your lips, then to your eyes, then your lips again– a look you take as an invitation as you act against all your best judgment and lean towards him, pressing your mouth against his.

As if testing the waters, you make the kiss short. It was long enough to engrave it into your brain, though– to remember the way his perfectly shaped lips pressed against yours, the way the world stopped just for a moment, the way he tasted of the strawberry mints he always eats at work whenever he has nothing to do. 

Sunwoo seems to find liking in the action– lips glazing yours again, pressing another peck to them before he deepens the kiss, the tingling in your fingertips intensifying and the excitement bubbling in your frame making you turn in your position, front facing him and pressing up against his chest. His hands quickly adjust, slipping under your opened jacket and settling on your clothed waist, the slightest contact making your knees weak and settle your bottom against the table behind you, hands grabbing the fabric of his sweatshirt. 

He pulls back to catch some air, a boyish grin breaking out on his face, forehead knocking against yours in a sweet, giddy manner. “I’ve wanted to do this for months,” he huffs.

The sentiment makes a thousand question marks appear in your head– why did he make your life a living hell, then? Why did he pull pranks on you and make you hate every second spent with him? Why did he make you so furious each time and argued with you about the smallest things? How could Sunwoo possibly have wanted this for months, when you just only started noticing his attractiveness a few weeks ago?

“Why–”

“I’ll tell you later,” he says, cutting you off as he presses his lips against yours again, your mouth automatically welcoming his presence. Brain erased of all previous questions, his kisses working like a spell, you focus all your senses on the man in front of you.

Having your hands feeling up his abdomen, Sunwoo hesitantly asks for entrance with his tongue, running it along your lower lip until you welcome him in. You like this type of power battle much more than the one you had going on until now, and with each new movement, you feel yourself falling apart under him. 

His fingers tug down on the sides of your jacket, pulling it down. You don’t need it anymore– with how heated you’ve gotten, you are actually kind of happy that it is gone. One of his cold hands sneaks under the hem of your jumper, fingertips trailing up and down your side, the other one tugs down the hat from your head, discarding it somewhere on the table behind you before it finds its place on the side of your jaw, angling your head in a way that allows him to deepen the kiss even more, the contact of your lips growing firmer as seconds go by. 

Your scarf is swiftly untangled off your neck, Sunwoo’s skilled lips blindly trailing down the side of your mouth towards your jaw, feathery kisses ticking you before he gets more bold and sucks on the side of your throat, a shaky breath shyly escaping your lips.

“Sunwoo…” you say, tone of voice not really present, no real intention behind the call of his name.

The boy hums against your neck, having you gasp again when he lightly bites the softness of your skin, your hands shooting up to tangle in his hair when he licks the spot to soothe it after. Threading your fingers through his locks to ground yourself, you can’t believe you ever hoped for him to get a trim.

His hands firmly hold the underside of your thighs before he hoists you up on the table, continuing his confident attack on your neck when you’re sitting comfortably on the hard surface. It’s not like you didn’t feel excited, the tiniest bit thrilled at the mental image of his possessive marks all over your throat, but you were glad it was freezing outside and you could wear a turtleneck to hide the bruises from your family tomorrow. He nuzzles his nose into the hot skin of your neck, the action making you grin in ecstasy and endearment.

Getting lost in the way he was handling you, his touches firm, yet delicate, acted out in a way that makes you feel safe and comfortable with his passionate ministrations, you almost don’t notice the door swinging open, the figure of your boss like striking like the lightning in the doorway of the screening room.

“Sunwoo!”

The boy jumps, his body quickly ungluing itself off yours, as he listens to his father scolding him. “I don’t care what you two have going on over here, but you’re on clock! There’s a line waiting for the tickets for tomorrow’s movie and someone has to sell them right now.”

The boy clears his throat, voice a little hoarse. “Coming,” he says, trying to keep his composure. His hair’s a little tousled, cheeks rosy and lips puffed– the image that will haunt you in your sweetest nightmares now– and before you get a chance to say anything or let your brain process the events of the last few minutes, your panic works faster, making you act.

Quickly scattering for your things, you run out of the projecting room without saying goodbye to either Sunwoo or your boss, never once looking back.

You think of what you’ve done on your way home, bones freezing now that they weren’t in his presence. You try hard to regret your actions, but you don’t find it in you to do so– it’s kind of hard with the feeling of his lips still playing with yours.

Even though you’d hate to admit it just a few weeks ago, you must do it now. 

Kim Sunwoo does make a really good kisser.

TONIGHT’S PREMIERE – PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005)

There are many thoughts swimming around your brain as you walk through the coldness of the town the next day, your duffel bag hanging off your shoulder. There’s a conflict between the actions of your body and your thoughts – feet on their journey to the train station, but head stuck in the small projection room of your workplace, your coworker’s kisses occupying your every sober thought.

It’s not surprising, but you haven't heard from Sunwoo since you left the cinema last night. Not a single text or a call– but you figure that this is just your dynamic. Sunwoo’s never been much of a texter when it came to you. He’s never had the reason to text or call you, unless it was work-related, and you think it will stay that way, even though you did make out with him just last night.

Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he just didn’t feel like pondering on the events any longer– maybe it was just a one-time thing for him and he didn’t put much significance to it. You wouldn’t know– it’s not like you’re suddenly an expert on the way he feels and operates. 

You, though? How do you feel about the turn of events? Despite not wanting to admit it to yourself, the answer came to you the second you tried to fall asleep last night, every soaring thought in your brain showing you the reflection of his dazed look, desires of wanting him to look at you that way all the time oh so skilfully infesting themselves into every crevice of your neocortex. You want Sunwoo to like you. You want Sunwoo to want you. You want Sunwoo to be so enchanted with your existence that he thinks about you before he goes to sleep at night– just like you have done for the past few weeks. 

The answer comes to you again when you feel something wet fall on the top of your cheek, making you turn your eyes towards the sky. Your breathing comes out in puffs of air as you watch the magic happen right in front of you– and as you watch the snowflakes scatter all around the place, you are in another inner argument. While the rational side of your brain is screaming at you to keep walking to the station so you don’t miss your train home, the delirious side is cooperating with your feet for once, your figure crossing to the other side of the street and walking over to the place you could get to even with your eyes closed at this point; all because you suddenly remember the conversation you had with Sunwoo when you were putting on ornaments to the Christmas tree.

It’s the first snow of the season. 

Kim Sunwoo loves it when it snows.

Speed-walking towards the vintage movie theater at the corner of the town’s square, you feel something akin to childish excitement bubbling in your insides, a hint of nervousness inviting itself into your insides when you push the door open and aim straight towards the ticket booth, where you know Sunwoo will be sitting, wasting another shift away.

He’s there– eyes pressed towards the window, gaze following the snowflakes kissing the cold ground. You expected more excitement in his character, more childlike joy in his figure– and after taking in his composure: shoulders slouching and fingers picking at the skin of his cuticles, you suddenly feel silly for coming.

Well, here goes nothing, you think.

“Sunwoo,” you call, making the boy snap his head towards you in surprise, big eyes meeting yours the moment he recognises your voice.

You don’t receive a verbal response for a while. The boy just stares at you, a bit hesitant and clueless. His face reminds you of a small puppy trying to take in the new situation in front of it. His lips are formed into a small pout, gears in his brain turning and trying to process the reality of having you standing there, face beaten from the cold.

Clearing your throat, you try to take charge of the situation. “It’s snowing outside,” you say, eyes peering out of the window, all thoughts suddenly escaping your brain, words blanking off your tongue, “and, well… you said you like the snow, so…”

The boy’s mouth hangs agape, a twinkle in his eyes slowly appearing once again when he stares at you, your nervousness doing wonders to your conversation skills. “I- I don’t even know what I wanted to say with that, it’s just- I don’t know… I saw it was snowing and I automatically came here, so-” you stutter, the sentence cutting off as Sunwoo jumps to his feet and grins, wordlessly taking your hand into his and dragging you outside.

The duffel bag falls off your shoulder somewhere in the middle of the hall, discarded to the floor, before Sunwoo sharply halts in his steps and runs back towards the ticket booth, still dragging you with him by the hand. The boy grabs something off the table, the item not visible in your rear point of view, and before you have a chance to register what’s happening, you’re outside of the building again, coldness instantly slapping you in the face.

It’s dark out, but the heaviness of the snow provides enough light in the silent evening for you to see where you’re going under the yellow lampposts on the street. Instantly noticing the lack of Sunwoo’s warm hand in yours when he suddenly lets go, you turn your head to look at the male.

Terror fills your veins when you notice him gathering snow from the ground and pressing it into a tight ball, a screech escaping your throat when you watch him swing it at you, a playful, boyish grin playing with his features. The male chases you around and most of the snowballs don't even hit your running figure (he does have an awful aim), but you still duck anyway and try your hardest to win your snowball fight.

Numb fingers creating snowballs and halting them at his tall frame, but missing most of the time due to his fast reflexes, you laugh and let go of all the worries and questions clouding your judgment. Sunwoo looks enthusiastic, so much more lively than when you found him in the ticket booth just a few minutes ago– but that’s still not enough for you to let him win.

Gathering the icy texture into your hands, you run towards him, taking advantage of his inattention as he’s bent over and taking more snow into his hold, and halt the whiteness into his face just as he straightens his back and wants to prepare for his attack.

More laughter bubbles out of your chest when you watch him drop his snowball to the ground, admitting defeat. The snow is all over his face– slowly running down his cheeks like teardrops, redness tinting his nose and the sides of his face. 

The male shudders from the cold, and you instantly start feeling bad. Only now you realize that he ran out without a coat, a gasp escaping your throat. “Oh god,” you mourn, hands flying towards his frozen face to wipe off the snow from his cheeks, fingers carefully tracing over his cold skin. His eyes open as he watches you, something in his gaze so tender you feel yourself melting even in the middle of the snowstorm.

The male shuffles his hands into the front pocket of his gray hoodie, taking out the item you now recognise to be the hat you accidentally forgot in the projecting room yesterday (and already mentally paid goodbye to), his frozen fingers tugging the fabric onto your head. 

“Why are you putting this on me? You’re the one that’s freezing over here!” you scold him, shaking your head at the male. 

He rewards you with an amused grin, watching your next moves. Acting on auto-pilot, not really putting much thought into your actions, you unzip your jacket and step impossibly near to the male. Holding the jacket open, you hug him around his middle, making sure you are sharing the warmth with him and keeping him as close as possible, shielding him from the cold with both the fabric of your puffer jacket and the heat radiating off your body.

Faces just inches away from each other, you peer at his face. He wears a warm expression, eyes peeking out from behind his dark bangs. Clouds of breath escape his mouth when he speaks, voice quiet, as if to not ruin the atmosphere. “I thought you would regret it,” he says, making you break out into a foolish smile.

“I thought so too,” you nod.

“And you don’t?”

Shrugging, you reply. “Not really.”

“Why?” he asks, suddenly doubtful. “You said you hated me. Which was odd to hear, honestly, since I did all this to get your attention anyway and I thought it was just how our dynamic works, but… I could see how it could be annoying to you…”

Chuckling, you roll your eyes at the sudden revelation. It’s sickeningly sweet how endearing he looks when he doubts himself, explaining himself to you in a nervous blabber. “I don’t hate you. At least not anymore.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” you shake your head, a tender gaze shared between the two of you, “I actually quite like you, I think…” you mumble, a little bashful to admit it out loud.

“You do?” he asks, the twinkle in his eye glimmering twice as much as ever before, tone of voice playful, yet laced with honest joy and surprise at your confession.

“I do,” you nod, voice barely louder than a whisper as you watch him lean closer towards your face, cold nose bumping into yours before he angles his head, breath mixing in with yours in the few seconds before he dares to kiss you again, capturing your lips with his.

The kiss is sweet. The kiss tastes of strawberry mints and the first snow, of unsaid confessions and longing looks sent your way every time you weren’t looking. The kiss makes your stomach fill with a thousand little butterflies, it melts away the ice around you, the two of you like a spark of a fire in the middle of a snowy land. 

His actions have your composure faltering, hands untangling from behind him and moving up to cradle his face. He melts under your touch, leaning into you as your fingers trail over his cheekbones. Holding on to him, thumbs padding his soft skin, you’re reminded of the cold only when he breaks off you and shudders again, teeth clattering from the freezing temperature.

“Let’s get you inside,” you say, planting a short peck to his lips, “before you turn into an icicle,” you giggle, watching as he scrunches up his face.

“I won’t,” he shakes his head, “love warms me up,” he grins, making you roll your eyes at his bold statement.

“You’re so cheesy.”

“But you quite like me anyways, no?”

Sighing, moving away from him and tugging him back inside the cinema, you shake your head at the boy. “I’ll think about it on my train home,” you bite back, opening the door to the theater and aiming towards the duffel bag you dropped on your way out.

Sunwoo watches you with a warm gaze, an adorable smile playing with his lips. His figure seems to be visibly taking in the heat again, his face adorning a flush, pink color. 

“So I take it as you’re not quitting anymore, then?” he teases as you walk back to the door, both of you ignoring the customers waiting for their tickets in the line in front of the forgotten booth.

“We’ll see,” you shrug.

“I’ll text you the schedule for January?”

“You better text me about something else too, Kim Sunwoo,” you bark back, opening the door towards the cold landscape, “or you’re gonna have a very uncomfortable return back to work in January!”

The boy laughs, the noise like a Christmas carol to your ears. “Noted.”

Slipping outside, you watch as he waves at you goodbye, your feet dragging through the snow towards the train station having more pep to their step now. You don’t even know if you can make it to the train on time, but you surprisingly have no regrets– you can always catch the next one, right?

Mentally wanting to slap yourself for the lovesick grin playing with your lips, you sigh. 

The male that once made your life a living hell is now the one you look forward to seeing the most once you come back after Christmas break. It’s kind of strange, really. 

One would think that working with movies on the daily would prepare you better for the biggest plot twist of your life.

#dbn: holiday party #deoboyznet #sunwoo #kim sunwoo #the boyz #tbz #sunwoo fluff #sunwoo scenario #sunwoo x reader #kim sunwoo fluff #kim sunwoo x reader #kim sunwoo imagine #sunwoo imagine #the boyz fluff #the boyz x reader #the boyz fic #the boyz scenario #the boyz imagine #tbz x reader #tbz fic #tbz fluff

[bellejolras]

i don’t mean to go on a rant but I’ve been reading reviews of Poor Things bc i hate being happy and ohhhh my goddddd

spoilers under the cut but I have complaints about people’s (lack of) media literacy

Oh my god okay so first of all, if you haven’t seen a movie how are you going to comment on it. Reading summaries and other people’s reviews only is not sufficient to make an original point. you do not know what you’re talking about. just stop.

Second, the movie is. satirical. Which I thought was obvious from the absurd premise and surreal visuals? This is not supposed to be the real world. Nor is it advocating for all the stuff it shows. In fact, it’s even actively indicting some of what it shows. For example: fucked up power dynamics in sexual relationships exist in the movie, but the movie is not saying they are good, it’s criticizing them. Is this not getting through to people?

Third, and related, it’s not ! just ! about ! a sexy baby !! Partly because again, satire. But also partly because she rapidly goes through childhood & adolescent maturity. And it’s not meant to be, like, linear… the regular laws of empirical data and science do not apply to this world… so she is not in fact, like 6 when she’s having sex but more like 16. Which you could argue is still a minor, and im not disputing that, because again the movie is critical of this part and duncan is a total loser. But there’s a massive difference between the mental development of those two ages. ALSO there’s literally nothing inherently wrong with baby bella autonomously discovering masturbation. That’s extremely normal for little kids, often just as a way of self-soothing because it feels nice and not with any awareness of sexuality. And it’s fine if you thought that was a weird scene! but it’s hardly pedophilia to include in the film when the “baby” in question is in fact played by fully grown adult emma stone and I cannot believe that I’m seeing people accuse this movie of that

Fourth, if you claim your takeaway from this movie is “it wants me to believe that women’s power only exists through their sexuality” then I don’t believe you’ve seen the entire movie (see point 1). Narratively it’s only a means to an end for Bella, and when she gets tired of it, she stops! She gets bored of duncan and reads philosophy! She leaves her sex work career and becomes a medical professional! And, even in the sex scenes, while there are many, they center her and her experience, her pleasure. Yes, her tits are out a lot but the sex scenes are weird, intentionally grotesque without being violent. The montage with duncan is shot through a fisheye lens and literally pans away from the bed to focus on a bird landing in the room. Duncan can proclaim himself the best lover in the world, but he’s really not important to the scene ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In conclusion, I know the people I’m complaining about aren’t going to read this, but just in case, I urge you to learn media literacy. And anyone else who read all of this, thanks lol!! accepting good faith discourse in the notes/replies

#this is literally just me complaining about people lacking media literacy so look away if that sounds boring #also there be spoilers #poor things #poor things 2023

[sttm99]

Bakugo finding out he has a daughter with his ex....

Trigger warning: Mentions of pregnancy, abortion....

Part 2 of this

Bakugo sees the kid a few months after the meeting in the supermarket. This time, he's out with his daughter. She's just like him too, loud and brash and obnoxious, and takes after his looks; a spitting image of Katsuki Bakugo.

They're at the mall doing some shopping together. It's some father-daughter bonding time cause he's been so busy with work, and he misses her. So they're at a store and she sees something she likes and begs her dad to pay for it for her.

So he does, and she wanders off while he's at the counter paying for her stuff. And he's just finished picking up the bag when he hears her excited squeals and yells.

"Daddy! Daddy!" And he turns around to see yer dragging some poor boy by the forearm, pulling at him and bringing him to Bakugo. "Daddy! This boy looks just like me! See!"

And Bakugo's already rolling his eyes and mentally preparing an apology to the kid's parents. But then his eyes lock on the kid, and he sees it. Clear as day.

The boy looks like his daughter, a few years older, but they look like siblings. The harsh red eyes and spiky blonde hair. It's there.

"See? You see it, don't you, daddy?" His daughter is asking, squealing and giggling and jumping, and the boy is nervously trying to pry away the hyperactive girl.

"My mom's gonna be looking for me," he says. "I have to go back to my mom."

And Bakugo is quiet because he can see how much the boy resembles him, and how much he resembles you too.

It almost aches his heart. The lips are his own, but the nose and the brows are yours. The gait is yours, too- it's obvious.

And the final straw is when he hears your obvious (he could never mistake it) calling out what he assumes is the boy's name.

He looks up at you. Your eyes are wide, and you look frantic as you quickly approach your son, still in the clutches of Bakugo's daughter. Her grip is still tight.

"That's my kid, isn't it?" He asks you, his voice shaky even as he speaks.

You don't even answer him, softly prying away his daughter's fingers from your son's arms and soothing both of them as they whine and whine. You're gentle, he thinks, so so gentle with his kid.

"YN..." He repeats, "That's my kid, isn't it? Why aren't you answering me?"

You look up at him with tired, unamused eyes. "You're yelling. Can you stop yelling, Bakugo?" You tell him.

It's like a punch to the gut. His daughter has quickly run up to his side, holding on to him and gushing over the stuff he bought for her. But all Bakugo can pay attention to is you.

All he's looking at is how you're pampering your son, caressing his cheeks, and asking if he's okay and all that.

"YN... please... just answer me. Isn't that my kid?" He asks again, his voice soft, almost pleading.

It's hard enough to think about how he left you. It's worse to think he left you with a child by yourself.

"Do you know his name?" You asked him calmly, your voice as he's come to know it, showing no emotion. "His birthday? Do you know it?" You stand up, holding on to your son's palm.

He's looking between Bakugo and his daughter and touching his own hair because he can see the obvious resemblance.

"You didn't tell me. You didn't tell me anything!"

He's getting agitated, and you can tell, so you ask to go somewhere a bit more private and without the kids too. And luckily there's a small playground/daycare like place where you drop them, and then go over to the food court nearby.

So now Bakugo's just staring intensely at you as you look down at the table, performing all your little nervous ticks- cracking the joints in your fingers, thumbing your palm, whatever.

He can tell that you're nervous to speak to him about it, despite how scarily calm your face looks.

"He's my kid, isn't he?" He asks slowly.

You nod. And it's another punch to the gut. His vision blurs for a moment. His whole world spins on its axis. He leans back in the chair, head hung low and eyes downcast.

"Fuck- why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have raised him with me back then?" You reply quickly, putting your elbows on the table as you lean over. "Hmm? You leave me just as you begin to get successful, make money, and find some other pretty girl to fawn over, and I should tell you I'm pregnant with your kid?"

He looks up at you as your voice begins to grow bitter, and for a moment he can see just how bad he'd hurt you.

"Think, Bakugo? How would that go? I'd tell you what? I can't raise a kid on my own and fight you for child support? Or you'd fight me for an abortion-"

"I'd never have asked for an abortion, YN." He swiftly intersects.

"How was I to know that? You didn't care about me then. Why would I think you'd care about my child?"

The words make him clench his fists. "I did care about you."

"No, you didn't, Bakugo." You say, and you look so tired. "You really didn't. I don't even mean love, I mean care. If you cared even the slightest bit about me, things would be different now."

He can't even disagree with that. Things would be different. If he'd gone about it better, maybe you two could have remained friends or distant acquaintances. Maybe he'd have been in his daughter's life.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"I don't need it."

And there's a heavy silence hanging in the air for several minutes.

Then you sigh and relax back into your seat, looking down at your phone for a moment before you look back up at him. "So? What do you want now?"

He glances up at you. "I just.... My son- what's his name?"

"Miko." You tell him.

He nods. "He's seven?" That's how long it's been since the breakup.

"He turns eight in two months."

Another round of tense silence.

"I want to be in his life... if that's okay. Please." He leans forward. "He doesn't even have to call me 'dad' or anything if you're not comfortable with that. I can be 'Uncle', or - or just 'Bakugo'. Please, just let me be in his life."

You tell him you'll speak to your fiance about it, and you'll get back in touch with him. And his heart hammers as he offers his number, it hammers even harder when you accept and give him yours.

It's like starting all over again.

It's about a week or two later, when he's just finished speaking to his wife about it, and he's relieved that she's fine with it all.

"It's your kid," she tells him. "I would never stop you from seeing your kid. And I know you've always wanted a son."

And soon after, you call him, saying he should set up a time and place for you to formally introduce him to your son. He's ecstatic, and he's nervous, but he's happy.

Because for the first time in a long while, it feels like things are falling into place.

@nishinishshou7 , Now I feel I want to make this into a series 😔

#bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou katuski x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #mha bakugou #bnha x reader

[queen-paladin]

disclaimer: yes, I am complaining about cheating in media. Because, yes, writers have the freedom to create what they want but if the morality in creation is free for all forms of media, but no piece of art is exempt from criticism, and that includes criticism on personal moral grounds. I betcha if I said Harry Potter is good, actually, everyone on here would flood my blog telling me I am wrong because of the author's intense prejudice. That being said, I am criticizing cheating in fiction, If you don't like that, don't interact

So often lately I see period dramas where the husband cheats on the wife (ex. Poldark, The Essex Serpent, Queen Charlotte, The Great)...and not only do I despise the cheating trope with every fibre of my being to where I get panic attacks when I consume the media...but specifically with period dramas...

Do these writers not understand the greater implications of a husband cheating on a wife during these periods? More than just the humiliation and heartbreak in the case of a loving, good marriage just like it is today.

In the Western world, probably until certain laws were enacted in the 1900's, if a woman married a man, she was legally his property. She had no legal identity under him. She was financially dependent on him. Any wages she made would automatically go to her husband. Her children were also not legally her children- they belonged to the father. If the husband died, even if the wife was still alive, the children were legally considered orphans.

Women could only rarely gain a divorce from their husbands. In England in the mid-1800's specifically, if a wife divorced a husband she had to prove he had to not only cheat but also be physically abusive, incestuous, or commit bestiality. On the other hand, a husband could divorce a wife just for being unfaithful. Because, kids, there were sexual double standards.

Getting married was often the endgame for a lot of women during that time. Sometimes you couldn't make your own living enough- marriage was a way to secure your entire future financially, with more than enough money to get by. If you were a spinster and middle class, you could get by with a job. But if you are an upper-class lady, the one thing a lady does not do is get a job and work. So upper-class spinsters basically were dependent on their families to get by (ex. Anne Elliott in Persuasion faces this with her own toxic family). As strange as it sounded today, marriage gave them some freedom to go about since a husband could be persuaded sometimes more easily than a father and one had a different home, their servants, etc. A husband was your foundation entirely for being a part of society, and standing up as your own woman.

So if a husband cheated on a wife, that was a threat to take all of that away.

He could give a lot of money that could be used to support his wife and children to the mistress. He could completely abandon said wife for the mistress. And since the wife legally couldn't get a job as he still lived, she would be dependent on any money he would said- and that is IF he sent over any money.

He could take her to court and publicly humiliate her to get a divorce away from her (look up the separation of Charles and Kate Dickens, he would call her mentally ill and say her cooking was bad and that she was having more children than they could keep up with all while having an affair and divorcing her to be with the misteress). And even if the wife was the nicest, more proper, goodest, more rule-abiding never-keeping-a-toe-out-of-line lady in town...as a man, the law was default on his side (look up Caroline Norton's A Letter to the Queen which details exactly that, the poor woman had her earnings as a writer taken by her husband and was denied access to her children from said husband)

So yeah...even if there was "no love" between them (and anytime the wife is portrayed as too boring or too bitchy so He HaS tO cHeAt is brought up is...pretty victim blamey)

So yeah. Period drama writers, if you have the husband have an affair ...just consider the reality of these things and address them, maybe punish the husband for once (*gasp* men facing consequences for their actions?!?!!), and if not, just please find other options and other tropes and devices for once.

#tw: cheating #cw: cheating #period dramas #feminism #history #books #tv shows #movies #television #tv series #costume drama #period film #queen charlotte #the essex serpent #the great #poldark

[kirke-is-my-name]

Hello! Can i request headcandons of Miguel o'hara with a shy nurse reader who is constantly tired? Being nurse is a physically and mentally demanding job and i love the dynamic of hero who falls over his heels for his nurse or even being protective over her, but if u don't want to make this request i understand

I’m so sorry I just saw this! But of course let’s see what I can think of 😌

A nurse reader who is dating Miguel would honestly have a terrible sleep schedule like him.

Like poor baby is working 24,48 or 72 hour shifts at the hospital. And often times hardly sleeps so when you are home it’s time for rest and relaxation

When working those longer shifts Miguel makes it his job to arrive home at least 90 minutes before you, so he can not only prepare a bath with all your favorite soaks. But also a hot home cooked meal. Because god damn it you deserve something nice

If you need something? He will get it. You need to rant about your shift? Don’t worry he is a good listener. You need to cook dinner? Nonsense sit down and he will cook.

Two sleep deprived lovers whatever will they do!?Sleep…they sleep can only sleep if the other is in bed with them.

If you start nodding off he will carry you to the bed. And if you refuse to sleep he will sit in the bed with you and do some work or also fall asleep.

Has Lyla constantly keep watch at your hospital to alert him if anything is wrong.

Oh you haven’t eaten? You have a DoorDash under you name within the hour. Running out of medical supplies? Nonsense someone just bought some for your entire department . You had to deal with a very hard patient? Woah look at that someone sent you flowers. Someone threatened you? That’s so weird they ended up in the police station brushed and hurt…

He is whipped

Knowing he is spiderman and seeing the damage his villain can do to others really only makes you appreciate him more. Granted if an innocent person is harmed you are chewing him out. He might of gone to your work a few time as both Spider-Man and Miguel asking for your help to patch him up. The one time he tried to fix his injuries himself you scolded him at doing such a bad job that you insist on patching him up every night if you have to.

Honestly? His favorite time watching your hands move to maybe sow together a cut that’s rather deep. Or even wrapping him up, his just looks down fondly at you as patch him up and talk about whatever is on your mind. But if he is being a little shit his wrappings or thread might be pulled a bit too tight.

Both of you acknowledging the other has a difficult job, but Miguel thinks you are stronger then him in every sense. While he saves the multiverse he doesn’t personally interact with the people. You though…you talk to them and get to know the people. He saves the world but you save the people.

It gets hard losing a patient who was a kid or someone you’ve bonded with. Often times you’ve cried at their passing. But you have a job to do and as quickly as you cried, the tears vanish and you continue your job. For that alone Miguel believes you are stronger . To truck on after losing someone and still maintaining a friendly demeanor and positive attitude. Even when you know the situation won’t get better. Is something he knows he couldn’t do but you can. So when you cry and are tired he comforts you in every way he can. Because one person can only strong for a certain amount of time before it gets to them.

One time someone took a picture of Spider-Man with you in his arms. For WEEKS your coworker and patient cornered you asking if you know the masked hero. You stuck with the story “noI just patch him up really?!” Of course a villain saw that picture and though it was a bright idea to kidnap you and use you against Miguel…bad idea. Sure you are a nurse and SHOULD be helping the injured but after seeing the damage Miguel left you turned your head and said “Im off the clock so I can’t help them”

Bonus

You needed new scrubs so Lyla order a spider-man themed scrubs for you. Honestly got a nice laugh out of it and you wear them at least once a week.

Another time your lunch happened to be the Miguel Burger and attached was a small strawberry also designed like Miguel. It cheered you up for sure

#miguel o'hara #miguel o hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o’hara imagine #miguel o hara x reader #miguel o’hara x y/n #atsv miguel #miguel x reader #miguel x you #miguel o hara x you

[echofromtheabyss]

So, if you want to understand the history of ND stuff in any useful kind of way you have to know that we talked about these things differently. Gen Xrs have a different generational experience and Boomers' is different still.

Prior to the 80s, NDs were really not a thing. The optic was almost entirely in terms of learning disability and intellectual impairment in the 70s.

ADHD - not autism - is really the first we see of anything resembling the modern ND consciousness, as "autistic" was a label reserved for children presenting with severe disability or at minimum, delay.

Autism in the 70s and 80s and before was not culturally adjacent to ADHD or giftedness, it was adjacent to conditions of severe intellectual impairment.

It's possible to be an 80s ADHD labeled autistic who gets good interventions *because lots of how ADHD was understood at the time, got absorbed by autism later.*

This is basically my story as a matter of fact, a lot of helpful support I got early was via the ADHD pipeline, and so ADHD *is* my "recognized early enough to get meaningful self understanding and meaningful support* narrative, which is a big reason I was ABLE to shrug off autism as a label for about 15 years, until the changing autism stereotypes caught up with me.

ADHD and early issues with visible LD etc are WHY I didn't end up in the "normal until hospitalized" optic that some autistics I knew ended up in, if they had *only* been seen as gifted. I was very aware of my stuff very early even if it was called something else and even if it will be called something else in the future, and it shaped my social choices, my career choices, etc.

Also there was the optic to Boomers and older that you really could just be a "normal" person or even a high performing "genius" who was just "a little slow as a kid." (There are many historical figures this actually applies to. "A little slow as a kid" may just be within a *normal* range of child development.) This is actually part of where many Boomers are coming from when they think a certain degree of autism is just normal.

Early labels in adults (whom we would now understand as high masking ASD-1) were more personal history than identity.

To Boomers and older, you were "mentally well" until you presented "mentally ill." There really wasn't anything like being ND as we presently understand. Also, the *very same optics* that got boys seen as gifted, invested lots of time and support into, etc, got girls into the clinical pipeline early. The real dx discrepancy between girls and boys in my generation and older is the degree to which cis het white rich boys were just allowed to not be anything at all while girls were immediately tagged as mentally ill or developmentally disabled with the very same presentation, even within the same family. My grandmother who was a victim of this, and heavily and deeply abused from early childhood, is the sister of my physicist uncle who was on the Manhattan Project and was odd but successful, had a wife and family, never labeled anything at all.

Lots of people we now see as autistic were just considered normal gifted people who then had a "nervous breakdown" after high school/entering the adult world.

It was possible to be totally ego-syntonic as an odd person until diagnosis, if you were in the 80s gifted pipeline, because if you were in a social set that was actually ALLOWED to be intelligent let alone gifted in the first place (i.e., an upper middle class person, with more weirdness optic allowed for boys) you likely weren't going to be diagnosed with ANYTHING unless you were Weird with a Capital W.

That I had any kind of optic besides just being Gifted is *because* despite high IQ, I was a poor academic performer, and *couldn't* mask well inside a school setting.

These are people without even that optic.

They literally were just seen as gifted, and it was assumed that - of course - highly gifted people were a little weird. Gifted optic in school meant access to a whole different social and academic pipeline consisting hugely of other people we would now understand as ND, so it's actually possible to come out of that being totally ego-syntonic, and never ever even seek diagnosis until something breaks.

If you're like my ex husband who ended up just going away to sea for years, and then becoming a programmer in a basement at a university, you might never get diagnosed with anything, especially if you never see yourself as the problem in any of your interpersonal interactions, and that was a FAR more common optic with gifted white Gen X and Jones ASD-1 boys than early dx was.

The thing for my generation isnt the degree to which boys were diagnosed over girls... quite the opposite, it's the degree to which smart white rich boys were just *allowed* to be odd and given tons of concessions *without* being labeled ANYTHING, because of the degree to which the culture saw that boy was probably a future curer of cancer or a future astronaut.

A chunk of the "NT [more likely, high masking autist] woman miserably married to ASD man" narrative on those websites like FAAAS is actually referring to men who don't have any diagnostic label whatsoever and don't understand themselves as the problem, if you actually read the stories.

Those guys don't get diagnosed until something actually breaks - like, their wife hauls them into couples counseling, or they have finally exhausted their supply of good will (many social compensations of gifted children stop working past one's 20s and that's actually when my dx happened too).

Interpersonal problems weren't enough for dx unless they actually bothered a person enough to seek help. Something has to break. You don't end up with a diagnosis because you're happy and adjusted, no matter how odd you are.

Please ask Boomers about nervous breakdowns because half the time this is referring to what we now understand as autistic burnout.

#i have a lot of thermonuclear takes tbh and don't feel autism is going to be a meaningful term in 20 years #the map is not the terrain

[alwaysonf1]

oopsy?

Pairing: Charles LeClerc x Hamilton!OC

Genre: Slice of Life; Fluff

Word Count: 4.4k

Warning: Canadian NHL team shit talking. Middle fingers.

Rating: PG-13

Author's Note: N/A

As much as Iman doesn’t mind and is one hundred percent on board for all the filming and hanging out with the drivers, she's happy that it’s not an every day of the week and every class kind of thing. There’s a level of mental capacity it takes to deal with the people around her while doing this that she can’t maintain every day.

But today isn’t one of those days. Today they’re at a track and that’s one of her favorite places to be no matter where it is.

NOLA Motorsports Park hasn’t seen any real IndyCar action since twenty fifteen, but it’s still a place that some teams use when they want to test and practice in a place where it wouldn’t really be expected. Though there were times they did open the public stuff and in about a month there would be a McLaren sponsored karting tournament for kids already in and new to the world of motorsport. 

Iman looks forward to that day because she enjoys helping the kids with their races and even more so helping them understand how their karts work. She was even going to be in charge of a more informational segment that she knows is going to be boring as hell, but hopefully insightful for kids and their parents.

The sport can be hard enough getting into it and she wanted to make it easier for them. Even if she felt a little like a fraud speaking as her path hasn’t really been from the ground up like half the kids there.

But at the moment what she’s most happy about is that she isn’t the one making the drive to the track. The place is over an hour from her apartment and though it rarely feels that long it’s nice to have someone else to do it. 

Though she could do without being sandwiched between her brother and her new frenemy, Lance.

“It’s a Canadian sport. And they are original, how could you dislike them? They have more championships than Seattle has in years playing. I mean I like them too, but come on, Iman.”

The entire rant is funny and it’s the same argument they’ve had twice now after he found out that she enjoys hockey. They’ve talked a little about football too, but the moment she enacted her duty of humbling a Canadian it’s been a back and forth of him being flustered over her dislike of almost all the Canadian teams in the NHL. Most of it being due to her disdain for certain players - most of which for petty reasons and some because they’re assholes.

She reaches out and pats his leg, giving him a soft and kind look that’s only playfully condescending.

“How about we pick this back up when a Canadian team breaks their thirty year streak of not winning the Stanley Cup. Something multiple players in Seattle have done in that time period.”

“You went there?”

“I went there.”

Lance huffs and puffs. He tries to say something, but every time his mouth opens he closes it again. If I didn’t notice the way he wanted to laugh and the resignation in his expression I would fear I’d genuinely offended him, but I know I hadn’t. Poor man knew it was the truth, even if it was a painful one.

“It’s their year.”

“Who’s year?”

He sighs. “I don’t know. One of them.”

“Leafs?”

At that he makes a face that can only be read as disgust.

“You’re mad at me and you don’t even like them.”

“I’m obligated.”

“I get it.”

Because she does. That conditionally and sometimes fake patriotism got the best of her too.

She opens her mouth to bring them back to common ground by shitting on Vegas, but for the tenth time there’s a pull at some strands of hair at the back of her head. Eyes narrowed she turns her head to look at her brother. Who doesn’t even bother to look away or remove his hand.

“Why?”

Lewis shrugs.

Rolling her eyes she reaches up and pulls on one of his braids, earning a swat to her hand.

“Don’t pull my hair,” he says.

“Then don’t pull mine.”

And he does it again.

Like the child she sometimes is, she goes to retaliate, but the van rolls to a stop and she settles for glaring at him.

“Ha.”

“Oh, shut up.”

With the last word she follows the others out of the van, “accidentally” kicking Lewis on her way out. By the time he’s out and able to get her back she’s already standing at the front of everyone barely suppressing a gleeful smile. He joins the group and flips her off in a covert way and she does the same.

Not them doing that on the low mattered since the cameras weren’t focused on the group yet. Every camera person is huddled together talking amongst themselves.

“Is that a McLaren indycar?” Alex asks.

“Sure is.”

Daniel raises his hand, a broad smile on his face. “Are we going to get in it?” 

“Maybe.”

That seems to shock everyone, but there is some giddiness to it. One would think that a group of men who raced for a living and who would be back to doing it in about a week wouldn’t be so eager to get into a car. But then again that’s the driving force of why some of them do it for a living.

Before anyone can say anything else Anne walks up and the camera surrounds them. Anne gestures to Iman and she takes her cue.

Iman hitches her thumb backward. “This is where I do a lot of my internship work during the school year. Though it’s not often used for pro-racing, it is used for testing. And that’s what McLaren’s Indycar team is doing here for the next month or so. And today you’ll be helping me with work. 

“All of you know there is some level of secrecy going on with this stuff, but everything you see and hear today will be things that are known to the public or that no one cares about anyone else knowing. Plus, this testing is for this past season's car, not the coming one.

“We’re going to get a tour of the place and then get to work. Any questions before we get things going?”

The group is quiet and after a few seconds Iman nods and then turns. She leads the group up to the pit lane where McLaren mechanics await them. There are greetings and then another explanation of what they’re doing there. Then they’re led off on a tour of the spaces. They field questions from the drivers and to round out the tour they end up back in front of where they started.

“Okay, so we’re trying to figure out what went wrong with this engine during one of the races this season. We had to replace the whole thing and it didn’t become a priority to take it apart and find out, so that’s what we’re doing now to see if there’s anything we need to change in the future,” the head mechanic says.

He looks around at everyone in the way one does when ensuring that they have a listening audience.

“Okay, so you’ll see what Iman and our team do to figure that out. I know this could be more exciting, but we decided this is a good glimpse to really show what she does and in a way we’re comfortable showing. You’ll pair off and our people will explain what’s going on. Feel free to ask questions and point out any oddities you see, we need all the eyes on this that we can get. It’s all preliminary, so they won’t be at it for long and then that’s where the fun begins.”

He shares a mischievous smile with Iman and by the looks of everyone it makes them a bit unsettled.

“What does that mean?” Lance asks.

Iman shrugs. “You’ll see. Now go get changed.”

They do what she says even though she could see the questions they want to ask. 

About ten minutes later everyone returns in coveralls. Iman is already dressed in the clothes she works in so she’s sitting on a rolling chair when they return.

“Ready?” she asks.

They nod.

“Okay, I’m not going to treat this like a class room so everyone in groups of two and then you’ll be with one of us.”

Much like all Iman’s years of school, all the drivers freeze. Then they all scramble toward their chosen person. Despite the small group - or because of how small it was - some end up losing out. It takes all of her not to burst into laughter when Carlos goes for Charles and Lewis snatches up the Monégasque. Which means Carlos is with Daniel. The man pouts while Daniel grins ear to ear, but you could tell it was more playful. 

Lewis and Charles laugh at their antics and Iman knows that those two groups are going to be a chaotic mess.

And because she’s so busy holding back giggles at their nonsense, she misses the chance to grab a group that doesn’t contain her brother. She knows that part of this whole thing is wanting them to be together, but she would be a bad little sister if she didn’t act indignant about it.

“I guess I’m stuck with you too,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Lewis grins. “Yes, you are. You’ll love it. Won’t she Charles?”

Both men turn their heads to face each other and they share similar grins. Then they turn to her and she sees devious intentions in their eyes. Iman feels like they’re plotting against her and she doesn’t like that.

“Of course. We are a delight,” Charles says.

Now she really knows they’re going to be a handful. Though she hopes putting them to work will help.

“Sure, you will be. How about using that delightfulness to help me disassemble this.”

She gestures to the problem engine. She’s to take care of that one while the others look at two others. Both of them cling to their little creep show and then finally nod and help her disassemble the thing. Lewis is a little competent in it because she always talked about it and forced him to learn, but Charles is a little surprising to her. But it’s nice to only have to give a little guidance and get to focus on her work.

Of course she gets so into it that she forgets that she should probably talk to them a little after Charles clears his throat. By the sounds of it he’d been trying to get her attention for a little while.

“Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“You work for McLaren?” he asks.

“This year.”

“Only this year? They seem very okay with this for such a short time.”

“Once before, but for a shorter amount of time then. I’ve done about four internships, two of them with them. One in Nascar and another for a different IndyCar team.”

“Wow, that’s a lot. How do you find the time?”

“I don’t. Just chaos twenty-four seven.” She laughs. “But to be fair, the first IndyCar was when I was a senior in high school. They were doing a program for kids of that age to get them interested and I was a test subject. Since my mother worked for them it was more likely they’d get better feedback versus the kids who might be scared saying anything could get them blacklisted.”

“Really?”

Iman smiles. “Really. There weren’t many issues and nothing major though, so it was fine.”

“No, I mean in high school?”

“Yup. It’s what happens when you tell the people in your life what you want to do for a living and they have the connections. The moment my mom knew I was serious she had me applying everywhere and brought me in to shadow her and anyone else she could have agree. I was annoying, but good enough that they didn’t tell her to stop.”

Talking with Charles is easy and the conversation is one that helps her focus on the task of disassembling the unnecessarily greasy mess that is her side of the engine. Something is peaceful about it too. Nice even.

When she looks up and past Charles to her brother Iman sees a weird expression on Lewis' face. It’s one he wears when he knows something or thinks he knows something and a weird smile. She wants to question it, but thinks better of it. Knowing Lewis it will irritate her and there is a part of her brain that is sure she knows what that look is for and she refuses to address it.

Not stepping into that shit show. Nope.

“Okay, what happened?” Lewis asks.

“It stopped the car completely and then when we went to check it there was a small-ish fire.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was the furthest from the fire, Lew.”

There’s some grumbling, but his expression and body language mellows out. Not much though. For some reason Iman looks to Charles for support, but instead she’s on the receiving end of a look that gives off mild anger and a silver of disappointment. Of course she doesn’t know Charles well enough for her to fully understand his expressions, but she’s familiar with the reactions of siblings.

Iman groans. “Oh come on. Not you too.”

“I’d be mad at my brothers for it as well,” Charles says.

Lewis fist bumps the man and they both stare Iman down as if expecting something like an apology from her. One that she isn’t willing to give, because while she gets the worry and is appreciative of it - especially when Charles barely knows her - this is her job. She’s made a career choice and these kinds of situations are the kind of shitty parts that she expects and that need to be expected. Especially from people who’ve seen their fair share of chaos and tragedy in the world of motorsport. She knows that that’s probably why they’re worse about it. But Iman also knows that there’s something more to it.

Instead of indulging them she rolls her eyes and focuses on the engine. They join in after a couple seconds and she guides them through it, telling them the running theory on what they think caused the fire and answering the questions they have about all the ways their hypothesis could be true.

The help feels nice. They don’t slow her down at all and even if they did she realizes that she wouldn’t mind it. Their interest makes it enjoyable.

By the time they finish they’ve mostly ruled out what it wasn’t but have no confirmation on if what McLarens mechanics think went wrong did. It’s frustrating, but Iman knew enough about the job to know that eliminating possibilities was sometimes better than finding the answer right away. In this case it meant she could catch anything that was also an issue, but didn’t get its chance to show out. And there were at least two of those issues she had to document.

Iman follows the other mechanics to give a report and compare notes and she returns changed into clothes she brought with her. When she emerges on the track the drivers are also back in their clothes and standing in front of some of the newest cars from their respective brands or the creators of the engines their F1 car uses.

Lance is looking at her with a raised brow as she enters their field of view and the others appear curious.

“What’s happening here?” Daniel asks, though with how giddy he is Iman knows he knows.

“Friendly race.”

As if they weren’t professional drivers that did this multiple times a year an electric kind of excitement filled the circle. It’s classic teenage boy behavior as they nudge each other and talk shit.

Anne steps in and grabs everyone’s attention.

“We’re going to have a friendly race. Everyone will be paired up and though there is only one tandem here, you can’t be paired with your teammate.” There is some groaning from the Ferrari boys. “And, because we have a McLaren IndyCar driver here waiting around, Pato O’Ward, will be joining in on the fun.”

Pato appears the moment his name is mentioned. He wears a wide smile and shyly waves to the group.

“Hey, guys. Hope you don’t mind me crashing this.”

“Dibs!” Daniel yells.

Everyone startles, but then it’s a bunch of eye rolling and some bashfulness from Pato.

“That’s fine, Daniel. I was going to choose who gets who, but it's free for all. So pick yo…”

Before Anne can finish what she’s saying everyone scrambles and Iman crosses paths with Lewis. She knocks into him, sending him a little off kilter and with enough force that he ends up next to Carlos and her next to Charles. 

“Hey!” he shouts.

Iman waves. “Hi.”

“You know what.. How dare… Why?”

“I haven’t caused you suffering in a while, which I’m obligated as a little sister to do. Also I’ve driven many Mercedes. I want to try out a Ferrari. Plus, even if I didn’t go for Charles the odds of me reaching Carlos before Lance chooses between him and Albon were low. Shit end of the stick, Lew.”

Everyone laughs as they watch a series of emotions play on the man’s face. He huffs and puffs as he tries to find the words.

Realization dawns on Lewis’ face.

“Wait. No. You’re not racing. You can’t… This isn’t… No.”

Every sentence he starts is clearly going to lead to the interaction turning from funny to a little more serious, so Iman lets him work through finding his words.

“Then you shouldn’t have taught me how. I’m not the one who got grounded at his big age for letting me race a car by a woman who is not their mother.”

Alex snickers. “Wait. He did?”

“Yup. Of course she couldn’t make it stick, but she was trying hard to figure out all the ways she could.”

Lewis winces, probably remembering it. Then he rolls his eyes and sulks. “Fine.”

With a much gentler smile Iman walks over and places a kiss on Lewis’ cheek and ruffles his braids, then retakes her spot next to Charles. Though he fights against it she watches the sulking stop

“Okay, just don’t cry to her or dad when I kick your ass.”

“Bring it.”

Anne retakes control of the conversation and directs everyone to their cars. They’re all given helmets, because this is hot lap adjacent. 

“Everyone will get one lap, then you’ll swap. This is about speed and I know that every one of you is capable of doing this in this type of vehicle, but I’m reminding you all to be safe. Nothing crazy unless you’re sure you can execute it without risk to yourself and everyone else. Got it?”

There’s a chorus of agreement.

They all discuss who is going first, but Iman just directs Charles to the driver’s side. He looks at her with a brow raised in question, but then he follows her gaze and sees that Carlos is taking this lap. He smiles and nods.

Once in the car they strap in and Charles takes a few deep breaths. They’re given the signal to get into place and they get into a formation that works for them. Charles looks at her, a smirk on his lips that is equal parts cocky and confident.

“Ready?”

“Yes, I am.”

He extends his arm, his hand in a fist. Iman bumps it without question. Then they both turn forward and wait for the go ahead.

Despite seeing it at the same time as Charles and preparing herself, Iman's heart drops to her ass once he hits the gas. It takes a few seconds for her to chill out and by then they’re on the first turn. 

Charles drives seamlessly and despite the blur of their surroundings Iman doesn't feel like she’s going terribly fast. Then a Mercedes sails by and then another. Without having to think about what’s happening. He is pushing it, but he’s holding back. 

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t let loose Charlie.”

He barely glances at her, probably to gauge if she means it, and then he pushes it. In about ten seconds he’s passed one of the cars in front of them and is fighting off the other. The others behind them catch up and it’s a battle back there, but it’s irrelevant to the one in front of them.

At every instance he tries to get around the Mercedes she knows Carlos is driving, but despite almost getting past he misses the mark by half a second. Before they know it they’re crossing the finish line barely behind the Mercedes. There’s a three way tie for the others about two seconds later.

And then everyone exits their cars. There’s some bragging and arguing. As Charles and Iman change sides he lightly bumps into Carlos with a frown on his face. He’s trying to seem upset, but the smile he’s wearing is wide.

“What about being comrades?” Charles jokes.

Carlos laughs. “Not here.”

Iman slides into the driver’s seat and takes a few deep breaths as her fingers trace the steering wheel. Nerves creep in, but they leave her the moment she feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns to see Charles looking at her with a bit of concern.

“Are you okay?”

“A little bit of nerves. Nothing I won’t shake as I put them behind us.”

That brings back the smirk that he wore when he was behind the wheel. There was obviously going to be some uncertainty about her being the only non-driver in the race, but as she smiles back at Charles she realizes he didn’t bring that up or seem bothered when she snatched him up from someone who he’d seen do this for a living. It was a nice reassurance. Even if she knew damn well she could hang with the big boys. At least in this kind of situation, behind an F1 car was another thing entirely.

A muffled shout interrupts the moment and Charles puts down his window, revealing Lewis with his own down. He’s smiling, but it’s that stupid lazy one he puts on when he’s feeling himself. 

Annoying man.

“Ready to lose, Immy?”

Of course he uses that nickname while being annoying.

“You should be asking yourself that, LuLu.”

“Well, I am a seven time…”

Iman flips him off and he shuts up, looking appalled. Charles puts the window back up while laughing, but she catches Lewis’ returning the gesture.

Again Charles reaches out and they bump fists. Then it’s lights out and away they go.

In comparison Iman’s take off is delayed, but despite the few inches everyone has in front of her when she does get going, she closes and surpasses it. She puts her speed over one hundred and keeps it there on the first turn. Lewis pulls ahead and so does Lance, but she manages to evade being boxed out and puts a little over a second between them. 

The next turn has her losing speed a little, but she regains it and keeps herself next to Lance and Daniel for the straight and then on the next turn, she guns it. With ease she ends up in front of Lance and then she’s next to the Mercedes. Lewis increases speed, but it doesn’t beat her out. In the final turn she does what she did in the last one and pushes the car to its limits. The last few feet before the end of the track are a close race, but at the last second she pushes further.

With her speed the car goes past the finish, but it’s a second or two before her brother crosses the line. Everyone else trails by a second or more and then they all leave the car. Iman is shaking from the speed and the excitement. Charles rushes over and pulls her into a hug she happily returns. 

“That was great. No, excellent. You crushed it,” Charles says.

“Thank you.”

There’s some shit talking, but they all praise her.

Lewis is pouting, but it’s not fooling her at all. He’s the last to pull her into a hug and it’s tight. 

“You did fucking phenomenal, Immy. I didn’t expect that. You blew away all expectations,” he says.

As he pulls away he kisses the top of her head and refuses to let her go. Pride shines on his face and she feels even more proud of herself. She feels like she’s the shit. There are no delusions of grandeur on the level they’re at, but she beat multiple professional racers at something adjacent to their own game and that’s good enough.

“I did learn some things from the best,” she says.

He laughs, throwing his head back a little and then pulls her into another hug. They pull away and Pato walks up, patting her arm.

“Maybe you should be in Nascar, that was better than your IndyCar test,” Pato says.

“Her what? You’re what?” Lewis moves so fast to look at Pato and Iman that he should have whiplash.

“Uh…”

Pato winces. “Was that supposed to be a secret?”

“Iman Marie Hamilton. You’re what?”

He moves toward her just as she ducks behind Charles. With how serious - but not in a bodily harm way - he looks she’s sure Charles is going to move out of her brother’s war path, but he reaches a hand around and takes hold of her shirt. As Lewis tries to get around him he moves with her, using the shirt to leverage her.

“Maybe we should forget this and go to dinner.”

Sweet Charles is trying to de-escalate, but it’s not working and that’s in part because he can’t stop himself from giggling. Which turns Lewis ire from just  Iman to both of them.

“LeClerc. Is this the war you want?”

Everyone holds their breath and seconds tick by.

“Yes.”

And without a word Iman breaks into a sprint with Charles following suit. Carlos has chosen Lewis' side so he goes for his teammate. Pato and Lance run interference for Iman while Alex and Daniel join in the sport of being the first to get to Charles. It’s chaos and it dissolves into laughter and labored breathing so quickly. Yet none of them stop.

You’d think they were all a bunch of children and not very much grown adults. But it’s so funny that Anne puts the camera people to work chasing them down for all the actions.

#charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x black reader #f1 x reader #f1 x black!reader #formula one x black reader #formula one x reader #formula 1 x reader #formula 1 x black!reader #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc fan fiction #f1 fanfic #f1 fan fiction #f1 imagine #formula one x oc #formula 1 x oc #charles leclerc x oc

[wannaeatramyeon]

HIII i just discovered u recently and i love ur writing and acc sm!!! i was wondering if u could do a scenario where in the taehun’s s/o thinks that taehun’s dad is hot (i mean he is the ult dilf esp in manager kim 😩😩😩😩)

Aww ty anon your kind words fuel me, legit cant believe yall like my bs! YES I WOULD LOVE TO AND I COMPLETELY AGREE, HE IS THE BEST DILF

Seong Taehoon x Reader: meeting the DILF

"Is your dad going to be home?"

"How should I know?"

You click your tongue at Taehoon in annoyance. Today is the first time going to his house, you haven't actually met his dad yet despite hanging out at the studio occasionally. This asshole, he could be more considerate of the situation.

"What do you mean you don't know? Meeting a parent is a big deal! Should I have bought a gift?"

Taehoon flicks your forehead in response, "Stop worrying you big nerd, my dad won't care."

You remain unmoved by his front door, arms folded, and a nervous expression adorns your face. In an attempt to pacify, Taehoon snakes his arms around your waist.

"Listen loser, he might not even be in so you're worrying for nothing," he places a kiss atop your head. "Besides, he thinks you're good for me."

It works.

As soon as you enter, you catch Taehoon's dad in the hallway and freeze.

"Hi, you must be Y/N. Taehoon's mentioned a lot about you!" Hansu Seong gives you a smile. You take in his Taekwondo dobok, showing his defined pecs.

Even underneath the loose fit, you could tell that this man is well musculed. You could make out the shape of powerful thighs, and his top straining against buff shoulders and biceps. His sleeves are rolled up revealing strong, vascular forearms. You gulp.

"I haven't said shit, old man," Taehoon's words snap you out of your ogling.

"Don't be so rude to your dad!" you give Taehoon a light slap on the arm before returning the greeting, "Hello Mr. Seong! I can see where Taehoon gets his good looks from!"

Huh. It's also interesting to see where Taehoon gets his fluster from too.

"Oh. Ahem, well thank you, Y/N." Hansu clears his throat, cheeks pink.

Taehoon quickly ushers you away, "We'll be in my room!" and leaves his poor dad still standing there, not quite processing the compliment.

Taehoon slams the door and turns to glare at you.

"What the fuck was that?"

"What?" you throw him a cheeky grin, "Your dad's a DILF!"

It takes a moment for him to realise what you said. You could literally see the cogs whirring and the split-second the understanding dawns on him. Taehoon looked like he was stuck between beating you up or cringing so hard he would die. You think you might have broken him.

"Well you should have told me your dad is hot! I could have prepared myself." You try to defend yourself, poorly.

"Are you kidding me?" Taehoon rubs at his temples, he feels either the world's worst headache coming on or he might be on the verge of a mental breakdown, "Don't think I won't kick you."

"It's a compliment! If that's what I've got to look forward to once you're his age..." you glance at him slyly, weighing up if a kick is worth what comes next-

"...You know. A proper daddy."

Taehoon throws himself on the bed, not wanting to be a part of this world anymore.

#how to fight #viral hit headcanons #how to fight headcanons #how to fight manhwa #how to fight webtoon #viral hit webtoon #viral hit x reader #viral hit manhwa #taehoon seong #taehun seong #seong taehun #seong taehoon #seong taehoon x reader #taehoon x reader #taehun seong x reader #seong taehun x reader #wannaeatramyeon

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

On poverty:

Starting from nothing

How To Start at Rock Bottom: Welfare Programs and the Social Safety Net 

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: “Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?“

Understanding why people are poor

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Why Are Poor People Poor and Rich People Rich?

On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows

Bitchtastic Book Review: Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado

Is Gentrification Just Artisanal, Small-Batch Displacement of the Poor?

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights

Developing compassion for poor people

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Stop Myself from Judging Homeless People?“

The Subjectivity of Wealth, Or: Don’t Tell Me What’s Expensive

A Little Princess: Intersectional Feminist Masterpiece?

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford to Dine Out

Correcting income inequality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap

One Reason Women Make Less Money? They’re Afraid of Being Raped and Killed.

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make All Our Lives Better

Are Unions Good or Bad?

On intersectional social issues:

Reproductive rights

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

How To Get an Abortion 

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

You Don’t Have to Have Kids

Gender equality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap 

The Pink Tax, Or: How I Learned to Love Smelling Like “Bearglove”

Our Single Best Piece of Advice for Women (and Men) on International Women’s Day

Bitchtastic Book Review: The Feminist Financial Handbook by Brynne Conroy

Sexual Harassment: How to Identify and Fight It in the Workplace 

Queer issues

Queer Finance 101: Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Racial justice

The Financial Advantages of Being White

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander: A Bitchtastic Book Review

Something Is Wrong in Personal Finance. Here’s How To Make It More Inclusive.

The Biggest Threat to Black Wealth Is White Terrorism

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

10 Rad Black Money Experts to Follow Right the Hell Now 

Youth issues

What We Talk About When We Talk About Student Loans

The Ugly Truth About Unpaid Internships

Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”

Identifying and combatting abuse

When Money is the Weapon: Understanding Intimate Partner Financial Abuse

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Say ‘No’ When a Loved One Asks for Money… Again?”

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

On mental health:

Understanding mental health issues

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Bitchtastic Book Review: Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Coping with mental health issues

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics 

On saving the planet:

Changing the system

Don’t Boo, Vote: If You Don’t Vote, No One Can Hear You Scream

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

Season 1, Episode 4: “Capitalism Is Working for Me. So How Could I Hate It?”

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights 

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

Shopping smarter

You Deserve Cheap Toilet Paper, You Beautiful Fucking Moon Goddess

You Are above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid

Fast Fashion: Why It’s Fucking up the World and How To Avoid It

You Deserve Cheap, Fake Jewelry… Just Like Coco Chanel

6 Proven Tactics for Avoiding Emotional Impulse Spending

Join the Bitches on Patreon

#poverty #economics #income inequality #wealth inequality #capitalism #working class #labor rights #workers rights #frugal #personal finance #financial literacy #consumerism #environmentalism

[jiminjamms]

sex therapy :: 20. showtime

chapter tags/warnings: dad! toji. toji also calls himself daddy. vouyerism. angsty! megumi. infidelity/adultery. pet names (mainly "princess" and "sweetheart"). mentions of violence. mentions of betrayal. so much family drama. strong language. classism. manipulative undertones.

word count: 2.6k

notes: this was originally going to be one long ass chapter but I had to break this into two. you will see why. enjoy! comments, likes, and reblogs are much appreciated. xoxo

fic masterlist | 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. 08. 09. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Obviously, you wanted to learn everything about Toji Fushiguro.  

He didn’t have to hear you say it. 

Already, Toji could tell from the inquisitive glisten in your round eyes, that all he saw in you was curiosity with the need—not the want—for him to share himself with you. Naturally, you would like him to retell his story from chapter one. 

Similarly, he longed to share his tales, revealing the burdens that had been gnawing at him since his childhood. That Toji had known Naoya for years, that he used to be a Zenin himself, that he knew your husband was fucking his ex-wife. How messed up was that? 

Very much so.

The main problem was, though, that Toji was selfish. 

While he would love to be honest, he did not want to shatter your trust in him. He knew how much you lived under Naobito and Naoya’s control since your father worked under the Zenin Corporation, so the last thing he desired was for you to associate him with them. 

Toji didn’t want you to be scared around him, too.

The idea of losing you was something that Toji did not want to think about. Yes, this was going to sound possessive but...Toji liked having you around. Not in a sexual way, but in a companionship manner.

Or maybe both, but still.  

Regardless, your presence comforted him.  

Of course, Megumi was another factor in the equation. Given that the teenager hated his Uncle Naoya, he understandably could not stand to see his pampered in-law (you) either. Toji knew Megumi’s frustration was a projection of his mental turmoil and that much of the ordeal was due to Toji’s previous poor decisions regarding women. 

But you were different.  

For the first time in a very long while, Toji believed he had gotten something right. 

All these thoughts brewed in his mind as he outstretched his arm to brush over the smudged mascara by your cheek. In vain, he attempted to rub away the signs from your earlier sadness. 

“Want to wash your face in the bathroom first?” 

The question came out more like a command, and defeat sank into your features as you ultimately respected his decision. 

“Okay,” you acquiesced.

Even if you wanted to, there was no chance for you to protest when Toji stepped past you and toward the spiral staircase. You followed him without another choice, trailing behind him like a lost duckling.  

Although you seemingly settled down from the whole Naoya situation, Toji had yet to. As he ascended the steps to the apartment’s upper level, he placed up a front in which he was all calm and levelheaded when—in reality—he could still feel the burning, white-hot anger rolling off his body. 

Toji badly—so, so badly—wanted to hightail it to wherever the fuck Naoya was in this world and beat the living shit out of him. He always knew that his kid cousin couldn’t be trusted with a wife because he wrecked so many people already. 

Nonetheless, Toji had kept these thoughts to himself ever since he first heard about Naoya’s marriage from business and celebrity newspapers. After all, Toji didn’t know you earlier this year and wasn't in the appropriate position to intervene, therapist or not. His relationships were his relationships, and your relationships were yours. 

Now, with that misogynistic jackoff proving him right, Toji had some regrets.  

He should have done more.  

Toji abhorred knowing that Naoya was emotionally abusing you, disrespecting you, and treating you like you were just another dumb slut.

Put simply, he absolutely could not stand to see you so upset and fucked over by somebody who didn’t deserve you in the first place—by Naoya fucking Zenin of all people in this world. 

While Toji would admit that he had his reservations about you upon the first encounter, he rapidly realized that you were nothing more than an innocent lamb caught in an ugly crossfire. 

Could Naoya not see how lucky he was with you? A whole package was what you were: your allure unparalleled, your energy contagious, and your elegance remarkable. No wonder Naobito had taken every measure to secure you as his son’s wife.

On the other hand, Toji sincerely wished that you would no longer be miserable because a person like you deserved to enjoy all the rhapsodies of life. 

Sometimes, Toji wished that you stood up for yourself more. He wished that you had been more selfish over some things that were rightfully yours. Your marriage, your family, your happiness一these belonged to you , yet some other woman (the real ‘dumb slut’) was robbing you of these entitlements.

Had you been single, had you waited a little, Toji knew for sure that countless suitors would have lined up vying to court you, willing to throw themselves on the line because you would be their queen. 

“Are you alright?”  

Given that he had been lost in thought, Toji jolted at your voice. He had stopped completely at the upstairs landing, brain still reeling from thoughts of leaving Naoya busted and bloodied, hanging on to life from a thin little thread. 

Vigorously, he shook his head from side to side to clear his mind. 

Regardless of how badly he wanted to and how easy the task would be for him, Toji would not stoop that low to exert physical violence on someone else. Even though the fool deserved to be punished twenty times over, Toji wouldn’t hurt your husband because you would also not want him to. 

But damn, holding himself back was hard. 

For Toji, who had seen how Naoya’s impulsivity and greed had hurt his step-daughter Tsumiki and his son Megumi as well, restraint was especially difficult.   

"Ah, my bad,” Toji finally said after composing himself many moments later. He then realized that he had yet to introduce the apartment’s layout. “So the lower level includes the guest areas: the parlor, kitchen, bar, dining space, home theater. Upstairs, though, are where the living spaces reside.” He gestured toward the far rear of the corridor. “Bedrooms are over there with a study room at the end, but the washroom,” he went several steps ahead, pushing open the first door to the left, “is right here."  

In slow and inquisitive steps, you followed as Toji started rummaging in a linen closet by the entrance. He grabbed at the white cotton towels in the lower compartment.

"For you," he explained, placing a neatly folded set into your delicate hands. “Here. Splash some cold water on your face. Let me find you in a couple of minutes. I will check on Megumi in the meantime.” 

“Alright,” you hummed while Toji retreated back into the halls. 

“Talk to you later, then.”

Next mission was Megumi Fushiguro, a troubled boy who could easily be misunderstood. 

Oftentimes, Toji saw his own reflection within his son. He recognized himself the most in Megumi’s cheerless gaze, where beyond the initial glimpse lay a barren tundra bleakened by pain, by incidents that have hurt him before. 

In that dark void existed a part that cried for help, but this place remained faded over so that others could not pry into the true emotions within.  

Megumi was terrified. 

Heck, even Toji was, too. 

Because, in their experiences, those who had betrayed the most were those who had been the closest to them. Therefore, all that was left was caution, wariness, and distrust, such that now—between father and son—there was no one to turn against but one another.  

“Megumi!” Toji shouted when arriving at the said boy’s door. (Unlike a certain colleague, he at least had the decency to announce his arrival.) 

As expected, however, there came no response. 

He then knocked loudly so that Megumi would hear the sound even with his headphones blasting.

Nothing again.

Exasperated, Toji wiggled the knob. Noticing that the handle was unlocked, he opened the door and into a darkened room. Megumi had switched everything off save for his glaring computer monitor, but the boy wasn’t in his chair either. 

“I don’t really want to talk right now.” 

Instead, Megumi’s grumble came from his bed, to where Toji looked and saw a large blanketed heap. The teenager was cocooned in his sheets, not leaving a single black strand in sight. 

From the small gap amid the lump came another glow.  

He’s on his phone , Toji figured, which he knew among kids these days was the ultimate sign that they wanted to be left alone. 

Except the therapist side in him was not going to give up that easily. 

Idly, Toji flicked at a nearby houseplant. 

“Not talking right now is okay but,” his green gaze shifted from the succulent to the enveloped lump, “trust me on her. She’s on our side.” 

Rather than another outburst, Megumi didn’t reply immediately. “Sure,” he mumbled eventually but hardly convinced, using whatever TikToks he was scrolling through to fill the silence for him. 

“If Tsumiki had been home from university,” Toji continued, this time bringing up the step-sister that the boy adored, “would she want to hear her little brother talk to others like that?”

Another long pause. “Whatever.” 

“I know I had made bad judgments about people before, but—for this one instance—think about what you’ve said tonight,” was what Toji left his son with as he wished Megumi a good night and closed the door behind him with one very extended sigh. 

Being a therapist was tough, but being a single father was a thousand times more wearisome.

Toji would consider calling an end to the evening, to sit in his study as he evaluated his own emotions, but was reminded that he had a guest by shuffling sounds from down the hall.

Knowing that he still owed a small explanation, he paced back to the bathroom, barging into the vicinity to suggest, “Whenever you’re ready, let’s go talk again...down...stairs....” 

His voice trailed off before disappearing completely when he could not locate you.

Rather than finding you by the sink washing your face like he advised and expected, Toji spotted your tossed clothes on the floor. Confused, his gaze darted around until he glanced toward the bathtub where he found your muted form hovering over, frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. 

“I, um,” you blinked rapidly, as though you had been caught doing something bad. “I showered, too.” 

You got flustered too easily, which was adorable. 

The only thing that covered your naked and glistening form was the towel that had been wrapped around your figure, but even that hung low from your chest before stopping abruptly past your hips, leaving little to the imagination. 

In the lamplight, you glowed golden while clinging droplets made your skin shine. Your cheeks and arms were flushed, your body heaving from heavy panting.

You clutched the fabric tighter so that the towel would not merely slip away, but if Toji had to be honest, you would have to hold on to that for dear life so that he didn’t yank the whole damn cover away entirely. 

A shaky breath later, his gaze wandered up your body until his malachite eyes flicked up to collide with yours, his tongue—piercing and all—caught between his teeth. Meanwhile, your mouth was plush and sweetly pursed, softened by a doe-like innocence, and he saw how you trembled slightly from the sudden vulnerability. 

Toji should be able to handle himself better. After watching you break down and then dealing with his personal stressors, the last thing he should feel was the boiling need that burned through his skin, the air in his lungs weighty as if flames from his stomach drifted thick smoke into them. 

Just…leave him alone okay? 

Fuck.  

"Not inviting your host to the party is bad manners,” was what he found himself saying, but the light grin on his face did not match the lust and pink flush that swept across his face.

You cleared your throat as water dripped from your elbows. With every effort, you tried to stay casual. “Sorry.” 

Toji chuckled at how seriously you took the accusation. “Relax, princess. I’m just messing with you.”

All pouty, you looked at him with those huge, round eyes.

“Then, can I ask something while you’re here?”

Intrigued, he lifted a brow. “Depends.”

“Why are you scared to open up to me, Toji?” you pressed on.

The said man didn’t immediately answer, placing his hands inside his pockets instead. He rolled his shoulders back, all without his gaze leaving your intentful one. Sure, you both stared at each other wordlessly—but somehow, in the absence of conversation, the more you two began to understand one another. 

“Simple. I don’t bring up my past to just anybody, darling. Apologies for the disappointment.” 

“But I’m not ‘just anybody,’” you fought back, half-offended. “We’re friends , remember? Just like you had said.” Then, you directed an accusatory finger to his stoic face. “So, I’m somebody special .”

Well, you stumped him now. 

Contemplating an answer, Toji walked around your clothes and met you at the other section in the bathroom, cornering you against the nearby countertop as his brawny body leered over your smaller one. 

When you glanced upward, your warm breaths fanned across his scar. But the heat that whirled between your bodies was far more excruciating, stifling even. 

“What if my reason is to protect you?” He stopped, half-expecting you to cower but all that shone was determination. So, he resumed, “My history is fucked up. I was born into an unlucky situation surrounded by manipulative people, and I was another stupid person making stupid choices. Here I am, still dealing with the blow many years later. I don’t think you’ll want to talk to me again once you learn about the people I share the same blood with."

“But that is them. That is not you . Why would I want to forget you after everything you have done for me?” you vented in disbelief. “Toji, all I want is to help you!”

“Better not to drag yourself into this. You’re already much deeper in the waters than you think,” he admitted with a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his inky hair. “I couldn’t shield my son, and I couldn’t shield my stepdaughter. Therefore, I cannot promise that I would not hurt you, either.”

You fell quiet for a brief moment.

“That’s okay,” you resolved. “Because you…would be worth the pain.”

Toji felt...his heart leap? He had not been this exposed in many, many years, and he reached for your hands so that he could lace your fingers together. His emotions were so fragile and raw , his face only inches away from yours at this point.

"Really now?"

"Yes." A pause. “Then, what…does this mean for us?” 

Toji shrugged, eyeing that stupid fucking wedding band on your fourth digit. “I’m not the married one here, sweetheart. The decision is yours,” he offered up, although he could feel himself grow dizzy. “What do you want?”

In anticipation, your tongue ran across your lower lip. You crept forward and moved closer until your thighs were pressed flush against his.

“ You .”

And boy, did Toji love that answer.

He leaned forward again, this time scooping up your behind and propping you onto the countertop, yanking the pointless towel that had been shielding your goddess-like figure. He gave your hips a good squeeze before tearing your knees in opposite directions. 

You yelped and winced from the discomfort, but Toji knew you loved being maneuvered. Between your legs was a glistening mess, almost as if your pussy had been weeping for him, begging and crying and sobbing for your therapist’s touch. Did you actually think you were going to hide this from him?

When Toji looked up and met your line of sight, he cherished how you peered at him from under your fluttering lashes.

What a beautiful scene. 

So, he smiled. 

“Then why don’t you give daddy a show?”

last chapter || next chapter

end notes: 1) I know you hate me for the cliffhanger, but I had to! 2) For a while, I had been debating whether to write this chapter and the upcoming one in Y/N's or Toji's POV. In the end, I chose Toji's perspective to shine some light into his thoughts when he's with us. See you all again soon! Get ready to get real dirty next chapter. ♡

taglist: @dissociatingdiva @httpsplanetmarsdotcom @nemoyr @huangfairy @shadowarchon @203steph @agentdedf1sh @cloudybabes @hinativity @lynn-writes-things @illicitwriter @7oji @kikuchimi @piqer @nobody289x @chaoticjojofan @musicisme333 @vvestwoodrose @kumocchin @s-guru @mwahilovemylife @hey-gurls69 @cloudsinthecosmos @moon-mumu-moon @kazscara @obitohno @skilerfrostfairy @funicidals @nico707 @proteovaldez @tsukiyohanayome @marimoares @qirbys @blackdragoncigarette @puffaloxx @shoisae @sakanoshitaa @arizzu @kissditrio @tokyometronetwork @downtown-roponggi @the-cosmos-network

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk smut #jjk fluff #jjk angst #jjk season 2 #toji x reader #toji x y/n #toji x you #naoya x reader #geto x reader #choso x reader #sukuna x reader #naoya #geto #sukuna #choso #toji #toji fushiguro #megumi #megumi fushiguro #fushiguro #anime #anime fanfic #anime smut #anime angst #anime fluff #fanfic #fanfiction #jamms.sextherapy

[imintoomanyfandomscuzihaveadhd]

Random ass spider headcanons that are in my maladaptive daydream

Warning: Not proof read, Cussing, probably OOC, acro ace kiri, mentions of AOT,

First and foremost FUCK HIS FOSTER FAMILY UNCLE NORM RAISED SPIDER 😤

His pain tolerance is through the roof. Like he fell out of a tree and was confused on why Lo’ak was freaking out, he looked down and was like “oh my leg’s broke”

He also like never gets sick but when he does it’s bad

Poor baby got abandonment and anger issues 😭

Probably projecting but he’s got ADHD. It was worse when he was little but he still has his hyper manic episodes

This boy radiates so much heat it’s not even funny

HE CAN SING 😩 AND PLAY THE GUITAR 😫

However he can’t dance worth shit💀 all he can do is a awkward shuffle

Projecting (again) but he tries to take care of his hair but gives up really easily. Like he will have a solid hair routine for like a week and just forgets about it instantly

subconsciously brings samples back to the lab.

This poor boy is touch starved please give him a hug

Most of the young Na’vi kids love him despite their parents distaste

Secretly watches his parents video diaries but pretends like he never wants to see them especially his dads

Him and norm watch old anime and superhero movies that was saved on drives

His hair grows hella fast

He’s a very fast learner

He knows Spanish definitely can and will cuss anybody who doesn’t understand it out

Lyle: “SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT HE’S SAYING I DONT SPEAK TACO BELL”

Lopez:😭🤣

Has crazy ass sleepwalking spells. Like everyone in the lab literally couldn’t find him. Norm decided he would go avatar to look for spider outside and spider was dead ass asleep in the pod💀

He also sleeps like a rock like the whole lab could get blown away and he would still be sleeping

Morning boi. Like why is he up at 5:30am eating breakfast watching old Pokémon reruns on a Wednesday 🤨

His room is a disaster

Steals avatar/recom clothes

Norm: “Spider, give me back my shirt it’s like 6x your size”

Spider, who looks like a toddler cuz the shirt is so big: “So? You just jealous I look hotter than you in it🙄”

I feel like there’s random period where spider will just wonder off into the forest when he’s not feeling mentally well. And it’s ok because he got the ewya armor

Like he’s found his own secret caves and groves to go to when he’s upset or just wants to be alone

Him and loak once stole the Navi equivalent to alcohol, got drunk and Jake beat their ass

Helps teach Navi kids English

Him, loak, kiri, havin waifu talk after spider showed them the wonderful world of anime

Lo’ak: “historia is top tier”

Spider: “man fuck historia have you seen ANNIE AND MIKASA 😩”What can I say man loves him a strong woman

Kiri: “acro ace vibing with hange”

Boy’s oblivious as hell

omeone will flirt with him and 3 day later while he’s chilling in the lab he’ll go: “HOLY SHIT……THEY WERE FLIRTING WITH ME-”

The waifu one was based off these videos here

@hyperfixatedfandomer @naavispider @today-or-tumble

#avatar #fandom #avatarfanfic #spider socorro #avatarwayofthewater #avatar way of water #avatar 2 #headcanon #avatar loak #kiri avatar #norm spellman #miles soccoro #miles spider socorro #spider soccoro x reader #miles socorro x reader