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#its why i rarely ever talk to her
robotpussy · 8 months
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when you express your feelings to one of your parents and they take it as a personal attack..................
#like no because i was telling my mum for years that i cant just have a film degree and then walk into the industry#i kept telling her i have to make my own stuff to build up my portfolio cause the reality is they don't give af abt degrees#they just want to know if u can do what u say u can and she would constantly discourage me from making my own stuff#and now she wants to call me to say that shes encouraging me to pursue my dreams like... this always fucking happens#i will say i need to do something and she will disregard it or or shut it down and then years down the line she will tell me#to do what i was suggesting years before that... and when i tell her i said this years before she gets upset and starts yelling#when i told her shes been constantly discouraged me from making my own stuff for 3 years she started telling me its not true#because she helped me apply to a bunch of film residentials etc when that's not what im saying???? im saying when i#told her i wanted to work on personal projects. just because im excited she would shut it down immediately im not talking abt#you helping me find out about the bfi film academy??? but now she wants to push me to do it.... telling me about it like I've never#spoken to her about this before. she still has the mentality of no matter what age you are everything you say shouldn't be taken into#account because im older than you and i automatically know whats best. this happens all the time#all i can say is she actually apologised because in the past she used to never say sorry. i would just tell her im sorry and we'll leave#ot at that but atleast she said sorry. even tho she kept saying 'im sorry if u felt i discouraged you' like she still doesn't believe#what im saying. unsolicited advice but the advice is just shit i said to her years before..... its so infuriating#its why i rarely ever talk to her
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legobatjoker · 2 years
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whats more insane than in merlin episode 2x04 when merlin and arthur have that long convo about arthur and how he likes “gwen” except its clearly about how arthur likes MERLIN. and they both know this.. or possibly only arthur knows it… or perhaps most possible of all? neither of them know it.
#also i am no further than this episode so no spoiler pls#if for some reason u watched this show before the year 2022… which is the exact right year to watch all of bbc’s merlin…#bcuz bcuz bcuz#the way right before the scene starts its like arthur has one of the most rare moments ever where he actually says smthing non mean to#merlin and is like ‘sorry i shldnt have risked ur life’#and merlins like ‘haha well they do say love makes you do strange things..’ and arthurs like ‘what r u talking abt??’#and merlins like ‘just admit you have feelings for gwen’ and its like hmm. yeah. for gwen#and merlins like ‘why cant u just admit you like her’#and then theres the whole drawn out thing of arthur being like ‘bcuz nothing can eve happen btwn us!! so i cant bcuz it hurts😫 too much😫’#like ‘my father would never allow it’#and then when merlin goes ‘but when youre king you can change that..’ and arthurs like ‘i cant except ..guinievre(idk spell) ..to wait’#and the way theyre soo far apart physically for all this like so far apart and rhen merlin comes right up to say. ‘if she feels the same-#-she’ll wait for you.’#INSANE. INSANITY. INSANE#castle.txt#what if i posted this then went directlt ro sleep#also what’s more insane is. gwen and lance r rlly cute actually i like them a lot… like. ourhhhhggghg#also this episode was unimaginably cruel for the ‘nobody cares abt u’ evil speech delivered the gwen.:((((.. pls no..#i mean idk im willing to be proven wrong on the lance thing but idk. i mean obv gwen/morgana is quite real too#which! when i forst started watching i thought like#gwen/morgana was invented by internet girlies who wanted to shove the girl love interests together to make way for their gay boy ship#and like. that it wasnt real and j a woke excuse to not pay attention to the girls and why they arent w the boys#but actually they do have a real lesbian thing going on fr. i cld talk abt it but ill wait#god can u believe im merlinposting. i love myself❤️❤️❤️ I MUST SLEEP..
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oatbugs · 1 year
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eye pain is the WORST kind . worse than teeth even maybe
#esp when u cant rub ur eyes or itll maoe things worse#typing this w my eyes closed i hope it is comprehensible#anyway whwt the FUCK i am in so much pain from one eye only and its like . im aftaid#the flap they made during frmto lasik has moved or smthb. and itll wont end#bc whenever i open my eyes/blink iy is painful#resolved to do that very rarely . anyway eave me x . avcording to my doctor/surgeon i actually had#a scar that was imperceptible initially on each eye and thats why thos whole thing has been so#excruciatingly painful . like apparently ur notnsupposed to rly feel anythiny in femto lasik but it was#literally the worst pain i have ever felt in my whole life (i have a rly high pain tolerebce due to reasons);#anyway i have a feeling this may be due to the wounds/scars too idk...#also i had fat grafting to fill in my under eyes and like . it was suchba slight procedure and was done when i was under#anaesthesia for another procedure...that i forgot abt it. bc i dont rly touch my under eyes. anyway during lasik they#use this device which puts pressure around ur eye sockets which ahould have been fine#but it was putting a lot of pressure on a newly grafted area of my face and i was like . oh i see ! i want to scream !!!!!#but i couldnt say anything bc it was cutting a hole in my eyes and i was like yeah talking rn is a bad idea. but afterwards the nurse was#like . you look like you are literally going to pass out oh my god are you ok ?? and i told her abt the under eye thing and she was like.#YOUBSHOULD HAVE SAID THAT EARLIER like yeah ik im sorry 😭#personal#anyway lol its fine i just want to rub my left eye sooooo bad it is so . annoying /painful UGH
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arklay · 2 years
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i didn't really talk about it cause i think most mutuals know. but the reason that fic causes me so much pain is because they've been together for over ten years at that point and have never had a fight where they need a break from each other... they've never even had a fight where they yell
#leah.txt#pair: ewskers#tw: body image#they've bickered a lot like that's just how it goes. especially when you have two big defiant and domineering personalities. but they would#always laugh it off or just leave the room to clear their head then come back and apologise over getting shitty with each other but they#always talk things out and have these big just discussions to clear up any misunderstandings or you know just to air it out. they don't#like to let things fester. but the problem with this is like diana didn't want to bother him because of how busy and obsessed he was with#the project and his work so she just kept it all to herself and ofc you combine that with her love languages not really happening (physical#touch and quality time) because he rarely came to bed so they weren't having their moments of just cuddling and talking for ages. and#quality time ofc wasn't happening then too but when they were together it was always about just work work work. there were no breaks#and like he didn't really confide in her much anymore with what happened with spencer. like he did at first and they worked through that#and diana thought like he was Okay. like he was dealing with it. but he really just shut it out. he didn't want to confront it. he didn't#let himself *feel* the pain (which is why post volcano momence its A Lot for him to deal with... but they actually work through it better#then) but yeah like there's a lot going on behind all that fic. and with diana too. okay. so her childhood is one i don't really talk about#much but really high expectations were put on her from really young and even though she excelled in all areas like it was never good enough#and plus a few other things like it led to her constantly seeking for praise and admiration and recognition and like she was actually a#people pleaser until she was in uni for her bachelor's and before she moved to america. like. there was a lot going on there. so like she#had a lot of feelings of inferiority growing up and like not feeling worthy ever sooooooo it hurts + the humiliation her ex-husband put her#through kinda warps al just being busy and preoccupied and not thinking about anyone else to singling her out and doing the same thing her#ex did to her. so yeah. plus her body changing with the virus over the last few months has made her very like just. lies on the floor. like#because he always found her so beautiful and loved her eyes and made her feel beautiful when she had a bit of insecurity so now she's like#oh no but i look different now... maybe he doesn't think that anymore. lies on the floor
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danveration · 3 months
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That no-good-first-man-on-earth
Parings: Alastor x reader
Summary: Alastor opens up to you (kinda). You confront him about his cane being gone, asking what happened after the early extermination attack.
Word count: (Around) 1154
Warnings: Mention of Adam dying, mention of death, mention of Al taking someone’s soul, ummm.. yes I think that’s about it!
A/N: YES I MADE IT !! the ending might be a bit rusty but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless! :’)
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It was a week or two after the early extermination attack. The hotel has gotten a bit more residents and attention due to Charlie and the original residents protecting hell and successfully winning. The hotel has gotten an upgrade, that’s for sure. Lucifer now approves of its looks, so that says something.
During the attack you noticed how Alastor disappeared for a while and came back when it was all over. It made you question what happened when he went up against Adam. He was fine, physically. But you noticed something in his eyes that changed. Of course, he still smiles the same as before.. but it doesn’t always seem like he wants to. But the biggest, most obvious thing you noticed is that his staff/cane is gone. Nobody really seemed to question it but it set off an alarm in your brain because, well, he always has it on him.
You’re currently sitting in one of the lounge chairs in the lobby of the hotel, when you see Alastor confidently stroll in. He gives the lobby a quick look all around to see who’s all in there. In which, right now it’s just you.
“Hello, my dear!” He says, smiling and starts walking towards you.
“I must say, it’s rare that it’s empty in this area. Peace and quiet is often something I don’t have the luxury in experiencing, especially now that the hotel has gotten the attention that Charlie desperately craved.” He laughs.
He’s now standing beside you. You look up and smile back at him.
“Yeah, I’m happy for her though. She seems very overwhelmed, you know? But in a good way.” You say.
“Mm yes, she does, doesn’t she?”
You want to bring up how he doesn’t have his cane anymore, but you don’t know exactly how he’ll react. Though, he hasn’t ever snapped at you so you think it won’t be bad. Knowing him, he’ll probably just avoid the question by saying, “that’s for me to know.” As he does whenever someone brings up why he was absent for 7 years.
“Hey, Al?” You say, looking at him.
He raises his brow in question.
“Hm? What is it, dear?” He asks.
“I have a question.. you totally don’t need to tell me but I’ve just noticed that your um.. cane? You don’t have it anymore.”
You notice as you bring it up, Alastor tenses up and smiles more, darting his eyes away from you. You can feel that this was something he didn’t think you’d bring up.
He doesn’t seem to be saying anything, so you continue. “I was just wondering.. why is that? You usually keep it on you at all times. And also I’ve noticed that you’ve been a bit different since-“ You are stopped suddenly by Alastor using his shadow magic to teleport the two of you to his room.
You are caught by surprise, looking around disoriented, but than you realize where you are.
“Uhm- Al?” You question.
You assume he took you two to his room because he didn’t want anyone to hear the conversation, so you don’t question it. Which makes sense, he doesn’t want anyone else questioning his motives.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He opens his eyes and looks at you. “That is for me to know.” He says in a neutral tone.
Wow such a surprising statement.
“I knew you’d say that. Listen, you know you can talk to me, right? I’m here for you.” You assure him.
He looks at you weirdly, as if he is waiting for the joke line to happen. But it doesn’t. You care for him. That’s definitely new. Sure, Alastor has friends. Or, acquaintances, as he calls it. But you seem to deeply care for him and what happened.
He isn’t sure exactly how to react. “How amusing! That’s very kind of you.” He says and chuckles. You notice something in his eyes that doesn’t align with the emotion he is trying to project.
“Alastor, I’m serious. You don’t need to put on a show for me.. I want to know the real you.” You say, looking at him.
He debates if he should continue with his charades, but knows you’ll just see past it. He never ever would be this laid-back with anyone else accusing him of “putting on a show” or accusing him of having alternative feelings. He would’ve surely taken their soul or.. well, killed them by now. But you and his relationship has always been good. You guys always chat about whatever nonsense comes to mind, he showed you around the place where he records his radio broadcasts, and even let you attended once. He always had a soft spot for you. You never had a fear of him and never liked it when Husk or other people badmouthed him. He once caught you ranting to Niffty about how much you adored him. It made him smile.
Alastor squints his eyes and thinks of what to say.
“Well, my dear. You know that no-good-first-man-on-earth? Adam, I believe his name was.” He emphasizes the word “was,” seemingly to be very happy and satisfied now that he’s dead. He laughs continues, “he used his no-good angelic waves to break in half!” He says.
You’re in shock. Not because you thought his cane was indestructible or anything. It was because he actually told you what happened. You guess he trusts you more than he lets on.
“Oh..” You look at him sympathetically. “I’m so sorry, Alastor.”
“Mm, yes. Me too. But no worries, dear. I can live without it.” He says trying to cover up the fact that he cares quite a lot.
Without thinking, you place a hand on his arm trying to give him comfort. He slowly moves his head to look at your hand. He doesn’t mind one bit, in fact, he feels the complete opposite of how he usual feels when people try to touch him.
You quickly remember he doesn’t like physical touch very much, so you move to pull away.
“No.” He says quickly.
You’re confused and question what he means.
“No, what?”
Your hand on his arm felt like a new sensation he hasn’t felt before. He quickly became embarrassed of his sudden outburst decline of you not taking his hand on his arm.
Something inside him snaps and his persona cracks, and he then does something that you’ve never expect.
He hugs you.
Your heart feels warm and you have butterflies in your stomach. THE Alastor, the radio demon is hugging you. You don’t see him as those labels though. You see him as HIM.
Despite your incredible shock in what is happening, you hug him back, wrapping your arms around his suit jacket.
“I do apologize.” He mumbles while hugging you.
“You don’t have to apologize, Alastor. This is what I wanted. For you to open up.” You say softly and smile.
He doesn’t pull away yet, and you don’t mind one bit.
A/N: IM THINKING OF MAKING A PART TWO WHERE THE READER MAKES HIM ANOTHER CANE AS A SURPRISE. LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!!!
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luveline · 1 month
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i think it would be adorable seeing a conversation of spencer freaking out about pregnant!bombshell and hotch just calmly telling him all about different ways to help and them talking about new dad fears :((
pregnant!reader, 1k (sorry it was more about the pregnant part than the new dad fears!)
Hotch doesn’t know what Spencer’s going to say when he knocks, but he ushers him inside his office regardless. He has the appearance of someone with grief to share; Hotch immediately starts to think of the people he and Spencer have in common. 
“I need your advice,” Spencer says desperately. 
Hotch puts his pen in its holder. “Of course.” 
“She won’t sit down.” 
Hotch lets himself relax. “Ah.” 
“She’s acting like she isn’t pregnant at all. I want her to be happy, but she keeps running up the stairs. What if she falls?” 
“Y/N has very likely thought of that possibility already.” 
“Then why doesn’t she stop?” 
Hotch chews his cheek for a moment. “Spencer, sit down.” 
The chair squeaks as Spencer sits, scrubbing at his face roughly. 
Hotch has watched Spencer grow up, in a way, moving from twenty three to thirty quick as blinking, and he’s watched him fall in love with you, and now he gets to watch Spencer have daily conniptions over your apparent lack of self-preservation. He’s enjoyed it, genuinely, and he doesn’t mind offering some wisdom now as a partner who’s made enough mistakes to know better. 
“Spencer, you can’t make her sit down if she doesn’t want to. And she’s four months pregnant. Pretty soon, she’ll have no choice but to sit down. It’s best if you let her stay active as long as she can, so she stays as healthy as she can.” He leans back in his chair. The smirk is unbidden, but he can’t help it. “But you know this.” 
“Her ligaments are weakening, because of the baby. The pregnancy. It’s about to get much more painful for her,” Spencer says. 
“So?” Hotch prods gently. 
Spencer nods. Glances out the window down into the bullpen, before dragging his chair closer to the desk. “Hotch, it’s like she’s two different people. Or three. There’s the crying one, and the happy one, and the…” 
“The hates you one?” he offers. 
“Yes. Which is luckily quite rare, but terrifying.” 
“Just hormones, Spence.” 
Spencer breathes out. Hotch can’t help the immeasurable wave of fondness he’s feeling for his colleague. He genuinely wants to round the desk and pat Spencer on the back. This is all a learning curve, a way of life. Partners have been wrestling with their scary pregnant wives for long before he and Spencer came around. 
“The happy one is worth it, though,” Hotch guesses. He had some lovely days with Hayley. 
“You know what she’s like,” Spencer says.
Hotch can imagine. Before your pregnancy, you adored Spencer. You’ve doted on him since you met him, and if the glimpses Hotch has seen of you these last few months are any indication, you are immovably in love. Yesterday, you brushed the sesame seeds off of Spencer’s sandwich one by one because he doesn’t like them. The day before, you’d pushed your chair next to his and drawn circles into his arm the entire workday (while, impressively, still managing to finish your assigned consults). 
“There’s a common theme, I think, when she’s angry. She’s usually uncomfortable. I’ve started to go through a checklist,” Spencer says. He sounds guilty. 
“I think it’s a good idea. I noticed you’ve been keeping candy in your bag.” Hotch laughs. Spencer joins in. 
“Just the essentials.” 
Hotch doesn’t doubt that you’re on every prenatal vitamin you could ever need, that Spencer has researched pregnancy from the latest journals to the very rarest myths. He has no doubt that you’re well taken care of. You’re going to be fine. Spencer has no need to worry about you. Hotch might have cause to worry about Spencer, though. 
“Reid, I’ll tell you a secret. It might not work for you, but it worked for me.” 
Spencer holds his hands together. “What is it?” 
“The next time you want her to slow down,” —Hotch lays it out carefully, without judgement for you or any private teasing, just genuine care for the both of you— “you can distract her with the baby.” 
“I’ve tried that,” Spencer says. “She tells me I’m worrying.” 
“Not about the baby’s health. If she thinks everything is alright, it likely is. I mean about the future.” Spencer doesn’t seem to understand. Hotch searches for an example. “Baby shoes, clothes. I once calmed Hayley down from an hours-long meltdown by telling her I thought Jack would have her eyes.” 
“That works?” 
“It’s probably much nicer for her to have you encouraging positive thoughts than negative,” he says gently. 
“I guess I worry too much.” 
“Not too much, Reid. I’m just telling you what worked for me. When it’s over, you’ll miss it. A few years later.” 
They smile. Hotch watches with a distinct fatherly pride as Spencer retreats down into the bullpen where you stand talking animatedly to Anderson. You’ve been on your feet all day, in kitten heels no less, and you look tired but not unhappy. 
Spencer joins you for a while. You show no signs of moving. Hotch figures he’ll give Spencer time to act on his advice and goes back to his paperwork, losing track of time, ignoring the beep of his watch that signals lunch time. 
He finishes his paperwork a little while after. 
“I wonder what she'll have,” he hears Spencer saying. 
“She’ll have my hands,” you insist suddenly, your voice floating up the steps. You’ve always had one of those tones that attracts attention, even when you aren’t shouting. “Don’t girls often get their mom’s hands? And their dad’s noses?” 
He’s expecting Spencer to cite an article on genetic lottery, but he doesn’t. He sounds the polar opposite of how he’d panicked in Hotch’s office. “I think so. I got my mom’s hands, too. She had short nail beds.” A pause. Hotch glances out the window to find you sitting in Spencer’s chair, a sandwich laid out in two halves on a napkin, a tray of vegetable batons in your hands where they rest on your bump. “I hope she has your everything.” 
You lift your chin. Spencer taps your noses together. 
“Can I get you a drink?” he asks hopefully. 
“Yes, please. Anything you’re having.” 
Hotch isn’t smug, exactly, but he is admittedly very pleased at the outcome of his advice. 
2K notes · View notes
landitolover · 4 months
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𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒓, in which, if charles didn’t care for you, maybe a specific red bull driver he doesn’t really like, will.. part one here! ౨ৎ max verstappen x famous!reader
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INSTAGRAM DMS
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maxverstappen1 replied to your story
maxverstappen1
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hey, i’m sorry about the break up
charles never deserved you though
yourusername
haha it’s okay
he didn’t do anything wrong though 😊
it was a mutual break up
maxverstappen1
ohhh, alright
that’s nice to know 😃
TWITTER
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IMESSAGE , MAX & LANDO January 4th, 2024
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max
Lando
lando
Max 🤔
Rare text, what do you need mate?
max
by any chance do you have yns number
lando
oh my god do you
finally have the balls to (attempt) to pull her
max
i’ve always had the balls :/
charles just beat me to it
lando
he was quite charming
max
he’s a cheater, he isn’t very charming
lando
thats why i said ‘was’
max
ok but do u have her number
lando
duh? we’re like this🤞🏼
it’s xxx-xxx-xxx
max
okk thank you very much
lando
of course mate
goodluck you’ll need it
also u will be talked (possibly made fun of)
about in the gc. so be careful..
max
uhm ok mate
bye….. 😃
INSTAGRAM
yourprivate
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Liked by alex_albon, lilymhe, landonorris, and 122 others
yourprivate new year, new me 💆‍♀️
fuck🖕🏼men 🤮
January 14th, 2024
View all 14 comments
alex_albon yk damn well ur the biggest lover girl
→ yourprivate uhmm wdym? i’m not
landonorris i know something u dont 🤫
lilymhe its okay baby 😔
→ yourprivate 😔😔💖💖 ily
georgerussell63 wake up
→ yourprivate get out my private bitch 🤮
→ georgerussell63 cunt
→ yourprivate something u never serve..
danielricciardo wow this post ate 🎀
danielricciardo it would eat even more if u reactivated the main
→ yourprivate i’ll be back in like 9 months
→ landonorris HOLY SHIT ARE U PREGNANT
→ yourprivate NO??? WHAT??? WHY WOULD U THINK THAT???
→ landonorris coz u said 9 months and thats like how long it takes to give birth Idk
→ yourprivate u are so slow gn
IMESSAGE , MAX & YOU January 14th, 2024
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xxx-xxx-xx
are you a rose?
cause i think you’re a catch 😉
yn
oh my god 😂 that was such a sucky
pick up line.. who is this? 😭
xxx-xxx-xxx
your future boyfriend, hopefully
yn
how’d u get my number though
i rlly hope you aren’t a stalker 😭
or i’m gonna contact the police
xxx-xxx-xxx
WAIT NO 😭
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it’s max
i’m sorry lol
yn
oh my god 😭
i didn’t see u as the corny pick up line type
you changed this contact to ‘max’
max
what can i say?
also sorry for freaking you out
i asked lando for your number, i hope you don’t mind
yn
nah its fine 😭
max
are you okay though?
you deactivated, saw it all over twitter
yn
yeah no, i’m ok
well not rlly but I don’t wanna like .. talk about it
max
that’s totally fine
but if you ever need someone to talk to
i’m always free
and i have cats so.. free therapy
yn
thats how u get the girl !
max
charlie should have taken some notes
unsent message
haha i guess i know how to get you now ?
yn
you’re a flirt aren’t you
max
only for you
yn
😭😭
i’ll be back in a minute someone messaged me
max
alright
IMESSAGE , CHARLES & YOU January 14th, 2024
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don’t respond
hi angel, can i come over?
i miss your kisses, cherie
can’t we get back together
yn
no we can’t
charles stop it. i don’t want you
you’re the one who cheated on me
if you were going to miss my kisses so bad, why’d you cheat?
don’t respond
it’s a new year though, new us.
yn
no charles
you need to get over it
i mean, i did
don’t respond
get over it? you deactivated on everything
that isn’t getting over it. you’re avoiding your problems
yn
yeah I’m avoiding you, you’re my biggest one
get a new girlfriend
it obviously isn’t that hard for you..
Delivered
INSTAGRAM
yourprivate
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Liked by landonorris, alex_albon, lilymhe, and 102 others
yourprivate men suck….. (i think he’s cute)
January 17th, 2024
View all comments
lilymhe u better not be talking about ch*rles
→ yourprivate no
landonorris is it ***
→ yourprivate 🤔🤔🤔???
alex_albon i thought u weren’t a lover girl
→ yourprivate i’m not
→ alex_albon caption says otherwise
georgerussell63 yw for the cake
→ yourprivate thanks georgie 😊
INSTAGRAM
charles_leclerc
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Liked by carlossainz55, pierrepasly, arthur_leclerc, and 1,309,192 others
charles_leclerc overrated
January 23rd, 2024
View all 1,099 comments
user ohh ik yn is laughing at his silly ass
user he’s going dark 🖤⛓️
user he wanna be aesthetic so fuckin bad
user this is not it ‼️ archive this post ‼️
user yeah, ur overrated
→ user we luv a self aware king
user not everyone dragging him in the comments 😭
→ user cause we all love yn 💆‍♀️
lewishamilton be so fr you have no sense of fashion, m8 😂
carlossainz55 🖤
landonorris yeah this post is not ittttt
alex_albon alright mate….
danielricciardo who did not cheer! 😂😭
pierregasly 🔥
TWITTER
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TWITTER
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IMESSAGE, MAX & YOU February 14th, 2024
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max <3
hey :)
happy valentines 🤍
yn
hii maxie
happy valentines! 💌
max <3
i bought you a little something
since you love snoopy
and me 😉
yn
you got one thing right
max <3
wowww
nevermind then
yn
kidding 🙄🙄
max <3
i’m picking you up
is an hour enough time
yn
yess
see you sooon 😊🤍
max <3
🤍
IMESSAGE, “YN FANCLUB 😊” February 15th, 2024
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landoooo
how much r we betting that he did it
alexito
£100 he didn’t
lil 🎀
£100 he did
landoooo
i’m team he did it
georgie
he aint do shit 😂🔥
i’m team he didn’t do it
lil 🎀
is alex holding u gunpoint ???
landoooo
facts
max isn’t a pussy he def said something at least
yn
hi guyyyyssss
what are you guys talking about
georgie
we’re betting on ur little bf
did he ask you out
lil 🎀
ok wow 😭 straight to the point
yn
he did 😊😊😊
lil 🎀
HOLY SHIT
HAHAHAA
ALEX, GEORGE,
landoooo
PAYYY UPPP!!!! 💰
alexito
GTFOOO
georgie
🔥🔥 my ass is not paying
yn
u better pay them
also £100 is crazy???
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look at what he got me 🥹 and he’s such a cutie
lil 🎀
SNOOPY 😭 I WISSHH
so down bad
🥹🥹 the cutest
yn
i cried 😔 he’s adorable
alexito
u guys are so cute
i hope it lasts!!
landoooo
daniel asked if u bringing back the main
cause like ur happy now
yn
2025 my year
plus u guys are in my priv why does it matter
georgie
right lmfao 😭
congrats on the bf though 🥳
hopefully he doesn’t turn out like our
good ol’ friend charlie!!!!
alexito
mate sthu
respectfully
georgie
wow that makes it a whole lot better, thanks m8
lil 🎀
how about u both sthu
INSTAGRAM
maxverstappen1
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maxverstappen1 and here’s to my baby :)
June 3rd, 2024
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user didn’t expect a soft launch from max fuckin verstappen 😨
user HELLO???
user this girl has style.. dressing him up? 😍😍
→ user I noticed the style change, didn’t expect all this tho
user i just know shes hot
user stop soft launching i need to know who it is
danielricciardo lucky man
→ maxverstappen1 i am very lucky
landonorris cutie
→ maxverstappen1 😘
→ alex_albon it’s official: lando is the one getting soft launched
→ landonorris shhh people aren’t supposed to know
lilymhe she’s the loml
georgerussell63 🤮🤮🤮
→ maxverstappen1 get out - the girl
→ georgerussell63 🤓🤓☝️☝️
IMESSAGE, MAX & YOU June 13th, 2024
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max <3
the sunset is in two hours
i’m picking you up
and we’re going to the beach to watch it
yn
😭😭 okay max
max
see you soon :))
yn
yeah, i love you 🤍
max <3
say that again in person
not over text 🙄
yn
okay max 😭😭
max <3
i love you though
INSTAGRAM
maxverstappen1
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maxverstappen1 starry eyes sparking up my darkest nights.
June 13th, 2024
View all 1,001 comments
user AAUGGHH IM GOING CRAZY
user why are the captions so romantic… secret artist ? 😨
→ user lol she’s probably writing them for him
user charles gtfo 😭😭
user i love them (idk who she is)
landonorris 4 months tmr cutie 😍
→ maxverstappen1 i love you baby 🥰
→ user 4???? WHAATTT
alex_albon tell her to stop talkin abt u bro 🤦
→ maxverstappen1 no can do buckaroo
redbullracing our driver sure has some pretty good captions
lilymhe my gf 💖💖
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IMESSAGE, CHARLES & YOU August 5th, 2024
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don’t respond
you aren’t smart
yn
huh
don’t respond
you’re dating max?
is this just some petty thing ? cause i don’t like him?
yn
uhm no lmfao 😭
yeah i’m dating him though
don’t respond
is he better than me?
yn
yeah lol
100%
don’t respond
you know, he isn’t really the type to commit
yn
noted ? pretty sure he would’ve left by now
if that were the case lol
don’t respond
ok.
yn
lmfao.
You have blocked this person
INSTAGRAM
yourusername
🎶 let the light in : lana del rey (feat. father john misty)
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Liked by landonorris, redbullracing, alex_albon, and 2,871,292 others
yourusername 🎀
October 1st, 2024
View all 3,202 comments
user OH MY GOD
user the man..
user i fell to my knees
user who is that
user my girl came back better than ever
user FINALLY ????
user she came back and started to soft launch a man gn
lilymhe wowwww 😍😍 i missed ur main acc posts
danielricciardo SERVED CUNT 💋
→ yourusername mwa 😚
danielricciardo i prayed for times like these
maxverstappen1 last slide kinda kinky
→ yourusername u wish, never horny on the main
→ user LMFAOO
landonorris ooooo let the light innnn
georgerussell63 odd post for ur first one back
→ yourusername sthu
INSTAGRAM
yourusername
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Liked by redbullracing, maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc, and 1,200 others
yourusername redbull is my fav btw
October 8th, 2024
View all 2,292 comments
user her smile ☹️🤍
user THAT DRINK IS SO YUM
user my aesthetic queen 🐳
user mystery man u are lucky
user she’s so captivating
user UGHHH 😔😔☹️☹️
charles_leclerc drink company’s don’t suit u
→ maxverstappen1 lol
→ user LMFAOO
→ user embarrassing urself...
redbullracing 💙💙💙
→ yourusername 🩵
landonorris papaya better actually ☝️🤓
→ yourusername errmm 🤓
INSTAGRAM
yourusername
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Liked by maxverstappen1, redbullracing, landonorris, lilymhe, and 3,110,210 others
yourusername i want to wear his initial on a chain ‘round my neck.
October 10th, 2024
View all 1,209 comments
user m.. suspicious
user is that not max’s new cat
user shes so cutesy
user IS THE CAPTION A LYRIC HELLOOO
user white men always win her over
landonorris mmmmmmmmmm 3️⃣🏆
→ yourusername sthu😭😭😭
→ user bro tryna give us easter eggs
lilymhe that bagel looks rlly fucking good
→ yourusername IT WAASSS
danielricciardo my bf guys
→ yourusername 😍 -m
redbullracing 🐐🐐🐐
TWITTER
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INSTAGRAM
yourusername
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Liked by maxverstappen1, lilymhe, landonorris, redbullracing and 3,101,119 others
yourusername new ep soon. 6 songs. ‘solo, tiwwchnt, ciwyw, dbm, sdg, and getaway car.” i hope u enjoy it.. out the 12th ! <3
November, 4th 2024
View all 5,110 comments
user i’m in a getaway car too queen
user “and here’s to my real friends” 2019 rookies & lily 🥲
→ yourusername my babies 4eva
user DONT BLAAAMEEE MEEE, LOVE MADE ME CRAZY 😩
user who cried and screamed listening to this album
user i brought a 🔪 to a 🔫 fight
user AHHHHHHHH
user thank u for yn’s not so mystery man but thank u for this ep ☝️☝️
landonorris used to being the GOAT
→ yourusername 🐐
danielricciardo getaway car on LOOP 🔂
maxverstappen1 but would u run away with me ?
→ yourusername yes!
→ user WHAATT
→ user this confirms everything basically
lilymhe so proud of u wifey 🤍🤍
→ yourusername mwaaa 💋
georgerussell63 i support this
→ yourusername thanks pretty princess
→ georgerussell63 nevermind
alex_albon lily and i will be listening on repeat
TWITTER
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INSTAGRAM
maxverstappen1
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Liked by yourusername, landonorris, lilymhe, and 3,440,292 others
maxverstappen1 you said you love me, i say something back.
November 14th
View all 3,101 comments
user THE CHARLES SHADDEEE
user oh my hod. i adore them.
user ugh they’re the most bf gf couple ever
user charles could never LOOL
user these pictures im on the floor
user they’re my endgame
lilymhe she’s so cute in these pics
→ maxverstappen1 she’s always cute
danielricciardo FAVS
landonorris when they solo >
→ maxverstappen1 you’re the reason why i’m with her, thank you 😄
→ landonorris of course mate
christianhorner congratulations! happy for the both of you 🍾
georgerussell63 this is so goat coded
→ maxverstappen1 wow thanks
yourusername happy 9 months baby 💋
→ maxverstappen1 ik houd van je 🤍
→ user NINE. MONTHS.
→ user STOP NINEE…😭😭😭
yourusername wow we’re so adorable
arthur_leclerc thank you for making yn happier than my brother ever did 🙏🏼
→ maxverstappen ofc m8
→ user LMFAO EVEN HE’S TIRED OF CHARLES
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౨ৎ finally… i posted… so SO so sorry for not posting in awhile, this took so long to post but 😭😭 here u gooo…. also thank u guys so much for 400 !!! i love u all <333 💋
taglist: @landovilla @moneygramhaas @ch3rryknots @amoosarte @1655clean @dark-night-sky-99 @kortneej81 @he6rtshaker ౨ৎ
2K notes · View notes
tkingfisher · 1 year
Text
Right! Apropos another post, let’s talk about lawn crayfish aka The Lobsters Beneath Our Feet!
This is Craw-Bob. He’s about three and a half inches long.
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Long ago, when I had only gardened in the Southeast for a year or two, I saw an interesting hole in a flowerbed. It was rather deep and had a muddy front porch. I gazed into this hole, thinking “Ooh! Is it a rodent? A snake? A toad?”
And then I saw…the Claw.
It was unmistakably a crustacean claw. And it was in a hole in my yard. My terrestrial yard! Why was there a crustacean in my flowerbed?!
I could not have been more astounded if an octopus tentacle had come flopping out. I ran screaming for my husband and the internet, both of whom said “Yeah, that’s a lawn crayfish, they do that.”
And yes. There are about 400 species of crayfish* in North America, and a not inconsiderable number of them are burrowing species. The devil crayfish, which builds little mud towers, ranges from the Rockies to the Atlantic and as far north as Ontario. There are a number of other species as well. Some are limited to stream banks, but many burrow in lawns, flowerbeds, and other places with consistently damp soil, which means that there is a non-zero chance that when you wander around the grass, a tiny lobster is lurking somewhere beneath your feet.
You would think that more people would know this, but at no point in my life had anyone ever mentioned it to me.
Being me, I immediately set out to determine if other people knew about lawn crayfish and I had just somehow missed it. I took an informal poll—by which I mean I accosted random strangers at the farmer’s market, the coffee shop, and my doctor’s office—and discovered a stark divide. Half the people looked at me like I was telling them I’d seen a lawn chupacabra and the other half looked at me like I’d asked if they’d ever heard of squirrels.
It was not divided by social class or education. The farmer with the heirloom breed hogs knew about them, his wife did not. My nurse practitioner first thought I was hallucinating, then went out into the clinic, and began demanding to know if her co-workers had heard of this. My barista was like “Yeah, mudbugs,” but he’s from Florida, so may not count.
My theory is that if you know they’re there, it’s just a fact of life so obvious that you don’t bother to comment on it, and if you don’t—well, why would you ever assume that any given hole in the ground comes from a goddamn MINI LOBSTER? And since they mostly just hang out underground during the day and don’t really hurt anything, it just doesn’t come up very often, until one day you’re at the farmer’s market, just trying to sell some organic tomatoes, and a wild-eyed woman with a Studio Ghibli T-shirt descends on you yelling “Are you aware of lawn crayfish?!”
(Yes, they’re edible, but it’s a lot of work popping them individually out of their burrows.)
During torrential rains, they will often leave their burrows and wander around, which is how I got the photos of Craw-Bob. My hound spotted him in the garden and poked him with her nose, whereupon Craw-Bob poked back. Hound, not sure what was happening but that it was probably bad, began doing her “release the humans!” alarm bark, and I came out to find her toe to toe with a crustacean who was waving its claws and presumably screaming “Come on if you think you’re hard enough!” in Lobster.
Despite their willingness to fight everything, they’re pretty harmless. The most they do is move soil from underground to a little pile above. I’m sure golf courses hate them. Our local county extension office suggests “These nonprolific creatures should be appreciated like an interesting bird or turtle living on the property.” Some, like the Greensboro burrowing crayfish, are so rare they were thought to be extinct until somebody found one in the backyard.
So. Lawn crayfish. They exist! And could be lurking underfoot as we speak!
*or crawfish, depending on where you’re from.
11K notes · View notes
cupid-styles · 29 days
Note
omg bestieeeee i so need hocker h nd ballerina to talk and smooch !!!!! ngl i’m a sucker for protective and jealous h 🤭🤭🤭🤭 🐱
I feel like ive made you guys wait way too long for this one gvkdfjgkf
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a continuation of this blurb! (and sort of this one)
word count: 2.3k (we had a lot of ground to cover)
content warnings: minor mentions of smut, slight angst but all is fixed by the end, not ramadan friendly
main masterlist | hockey h masterlist
talk to me
. . .
Two weeks.
Two weeks of radio silence from Y/N.
Two weeks of over-thinking everything he did that night.
Two weeks of Harry drunk texting her on lonely nights.
please just tell me if you hate me
im so sorry
ill leave you alone if its what you want, I just need to know
Each and every time, Y/N read his messages, eyes scanning over the words, and locked her phone.
The truth is, she doesn't know what she wants from him, if anything. She doesn't know why she felt so attracted to him that night — she was tipsy, not drunk, and in complete control of her actions. She never hooked up with people in public — no messy makeouts, but she certainly never let anyone finger her in the hallway of a bar.
The entire thing was completely unlike her. Maybe that's what scared her the most.
Deep down, she wanted to reply to him, but she didn't even know what to say. She didn't want him to leave her alone — maybe that was selfish, but she liked knowing he was at least a little okay. She'd even been keeping secret tabs on the hockey team. They had won their past two games, but Harry had been thrown out in the most recent one for unsportsmanlike conduct. Apparently, he'd gotten into a fight with one of the players on the other team.
Admittedly, that worried her, but she didn't want to be his babysitter. On top of that, the spring showcase was this weekend, and she'd thrown every last bit of her energy into rehearsing and practicing to make sure her performance would be absolutely flawless.
She didn't have the time — or mental capacity — to worry about Harry right now.
. . .
"You look like an idiot."
Harry rolls his eyes as he adjusts the collar on his button down for the third time. James and his girlfriend Melanie had helped him with ironing it out so it looked presentable enough on his body. Anything he ever did rarely called for slacks and button up shirts, but Melanie advised him to look polished and put-together for tonight.
He wasn't in a place to reject her advice.
The other teammates that James lived with weren't quite as kind. Stephen, a sophomore defenseman who was only on the team for the perks of sleeping with every girl he could get his hands on, wouldn't stop throwing sarcastic comments Harry's way.
"Shut up, Stephen!" Melanie calls from the living room. She marches into James' bedroom as Harry smoothes out a few leftover wrinkles in his slacks, swallowing tightly. "When's the last time you cared about something besides fucking random girls? At least Harry has some direction in his life."
"I'm just saying, the girl's been ignoring him for weeks. She's gonna laugh in his face."
"Leave!" Melanie exclaims, batting him on the shoulder. Stephen lets out a yelp of pain and Harry smirks, despite the anxiety throbbing in his chest. "You're not helping! Get out!"
Reluctantly, Stephen rolls his eyes as he follows Melanie's orders and leaves the room. She sighs and comes up from behind Harry before flashing him a hopeful grin.
"You look great, H. I think this is a really sweet gesture."
He nibbles on his bottom lip as he turns to face her. "Okay, but what if Stephen's dumbass is right? She could call security on me and have me removed."
Melanie gives him a sympathetic look, "Yeah, it's a possibility. But isn't it better to go down fighting?"
He shrugs.
"You said ballet is her everything. It's her entire life. Show her that you're willing to integrate yourself into that."
"Yeah," he breathes out, nodding slowly. "Yeah, you're right."
"I know I am." she grins. "Okay, let's get you over there. Don't forget the flowers you picked up!"
. . .
30 minutes later, Harry can't stop shifting uncomfortably as he sits in an aisle seat in the campus auditorium at Y/N's spring showcase.
The massive bouquet of flowers in his lap keep making his nose run and he feels like he's being suffocated by the buttons on his shirt that go all the way up to his neck. Best of all, according to the show program, Y/N isn't scheduled to go on until the very end. She mentioned to him once that being placed as the finale act is the best and biggest compliment, and he can't fight the bit of pride that thrums in his heart.
For an hour, he sits there, fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt and pinching his bottom lip between his fingers as he waits for Y/N to go on. He sits through mediocre singing showcases and even a violin solo that almost puts him to sleep, if not for the older man clearing his throat next to him. Melanie and James even text him during the intermission to see how it's going, but he doesn't have much to report back.
Finally, the show comes to a close and her name is announced, following by the title of the French piece of music she's dancing to. His heart throbs in his chest — he's so nervous for her, especially knowing she hurt her ankle just a few weeks back. But the second she graces the stage, she's a vision of beauty, strength, and delicacy all at the same time. It's enough to take Harry's breath away.
As he sits there watching her, he doesn't move a muscle. Not for a single jump, spin, or step. He doesn't know anything about ballet — not aside from what Y/N has told him — but in that moment, he realizes that he'd be willing to learn every little thing there is to know if it meant she let him back into her life.
She's gorgeous. She offers a flawless performance and the second she's finished, a look of relief washes over her face as she takes a subdued bow, her pretty eyes widening when she sees all the people — Harry included — standing and applauding her.
For Y/N, the hard part was over. For Harry, it had just begun.
. . .
Y/N is elated to have a moment of silence after her performance.
With the dressing room door shut behind her, she lets out a long, deep breath. The dance she'd been driving herself crazy over for months was finally over.
And yet, for some reason, she feels empty.
She shoves it down as sits, eager to get her pointe shoes off. She's ready to shed her costume and get into sweatpants and head home. She knows the rest of the performers are heading out to a party tonight, but she's exhausted.
She's sorting through the bag of clothes she brought when there's a soft knock at the door. She knows she only has around 20 minutes to get out before the janitorial staff starts cleaning, so she rises with a sigh, unlocking the door and opening it.
"I'll be done soon, I just need to change—"
It's not the janitor, though.
It's Harry. Standing there stiffly in a starchy button down with a huge bouquet of flowers that almost encompass the width of his broad shoulders.
"What are you doing here?" she blurts without thinking.
"I came to watch you perform," he replies gently. His throat bobs as he hands her the flowers. "These are for you."
"You didn't watch me." she snorts with a shake of her head. She hasn't accepted the bouquet yet.
"Yes, I did," he instantly fires back, "What, do you wanna see my ticket for proof? I was in seat F34, next to an old man who kind of smelled like soup, and he kept clearing his throat and it was really annoying but I didn't care because I came to see you, and I'd sit through hours of bullshit to watch you dance."
Harry can't read the blank expression of her face, but he takes it as a step in the right direction when she takes the flowers from him. She blinks as she glances past him and then steps aside, motioning for him to come in.
"I have to get my shit together and leave soon, so... just sit in here."
He nods. He's hesitant to allow himself to relax since he's not sure if he's in the clear yet. She closes the dressing room door behind her and places the bouquet on her vanity.
"I need to change," she says, spinning around to face him. "Close your eyes."
He chuckles until he sees the serious expression on her face. "Wait, really?"
"Yes, really."
"But... I— y'know—"
"Just turn the fuck around, Harry."
He does as he's told, shutting his eyes as he listens to her roll her tights down and step out of her leotard. One day, if she let him, he'd be more than happy to do that for her — not even in a sexual way, but he knows how tiring it can be to take off his own gear after a long game. He thinks it would be nice to be there for her.
"Okay, you're good," she murmurs. She's stuffing her things in her tote bag when he bats his eyes back open.
"Are you meeting up with anyone after this? I'm sure your friends came to see you, but I just wanted to maybe talk and... y'know, clear the air a bit." Harry says, wringing his hands nervously in his lap. Y/N furrows a brow as she analyzes his body language. She doesn't think she's actually seen him look anxious before.
"Um... no," she says with a shake of her head before quickly revising her answer, "No, I mean, I'm not meeting up with anyone and no one came to see me. Except you, I guess."
"Wait, really?"
She sighs as she pauses the process of gathering her things. "Really, Harry."
He swallows tightly. They're silent for a moment as she grabs her jacket and throws it over her shoulders.
"Come over and we'll talk. I borrowed my friend Matt's car for the night but— yeah, you can follow me to my place or whatever. And I can't promise I'll be awake for much longer but I think clearing the air could be... good."
A rush of relief makes its way through Harry's body.
"Okay. Yeah, let's do that."
. . .
"I never said it, but you were flawless tonight."
Y/N laughs breathily as she settles onto her couch, a cup of sleepy time tea in her hand. Harry rejected her offer for one (his response had been, "Y/N, do I look like someone who drinks tea with a sleeping bear on it?") but he'd be lying if he said it didn't at least smell good.
"I fucked up on one of my jetés — I'll get yelled at for it on Monday, but otherwise I'm decently content with the performance."
"Well, you couldn't tell," Harry replies, "Seriously. You were perfect."
Her cheeks warm and she stares down at her tea. Her legs are sprawled out in front of her while Harry sits on the other edge of the couch, giving her plenty of room to stretch out.
"So... clearing the air."
Harry clears his throat and nods, prepared to embark on the speech he'd been practicing in his head for weeks. But then, she speaks.
"I'm sorry for running out on you and ignoring you," she says, keeping her gaze down in her lap. "That wasn't... I'm not the best person. I'm bad at feelings and I use ballet as a crutch. I figure it's the one thing I'm really, exceptionally good at, and that should give me a pass in life but I know that's not true. I can't just go around treating people like shit because I'm... scared."
"What are you scared of?" Harry asks through furrowed brows. "I'm sorry if I stepped out of line that night, I should've been better—"
"You didn't. You were great. You did everything perfectly," she replies with a shake of her head. Her response surprises him, but he tries to hide the shock on his face. "I'm scared because you're you. You're a hotshot hockey player and, besides this showcase, you're the only other thing I've thought about these past few weeks. That's horrifying for me."
"Is this...?" Harry attempts to roll his lips into a thin line, preventing a smirk from bursting onto his face. "Is this a very Y/N way of telling me that you like me?"
She groans, as if it's the worst thing to ever happen to her, and it makes Harry laugh.
"Don't laugh at me!" she exclaims. That only makes Harry cackle even louder as he slowly crawls over to her, taking her warm cup of tea out of her hands and placing it on the coffee table.
"You're cute when you're exasperated." he murmurs. She pouts and his eyes crinkle with a grin as he peels her shaky hands away from her face.
"You're the one exasperating me."
"I know," he replies lowly, licking his lips as his face hovers over hers, "I like it."
"This isn't us agreeing to date, by the way." she quickly tacks on. He issues out a mhm as he leans forward, testing the waters, and pressing a light kiss to her nose. "We need to take it slow. Like, painfully slow. Or else I'll freak out and run away again."
"Whatever you want." he mumbles, kissing her right cheek. "I mean it."
"And you can't just overwhelm me whenever you feel like it."
He laughs and kisses her left cheek, then her forehead.
"Okay. Any other demands?"
He stops pasting kisses to her face then, instead choosing to simply loom his lips over hers. He can feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest and watches as she swallows nervously.
"No," she finally whispers. "Just kiss me."
And so he does.
669 notes · View notes
leclercdream · 1 month
Text
maroon
this is part 2 of maroon
✮⋆˙ when carlos breaks reader’s heart, lando is ready to mend it
✮⋆˙ ex carlos sainz x singer!reader | bestfriend lando norris x singer!reader
✮⋆˙ warnings: cheating, carlos is an asshole, slut shaming
✮⋆˙ tofi talks: thanks for the love on part 1! one last part coming soon x please ignore dates
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yourusername
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liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, carlossainz55 and others
yourusername: my new album GOOD RIDDANCE out march 27! presave in my bio 💜
this project means a lot to me and i hope you love it as much as i do. i can’t believe this is my first full album!!
i also wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the love you are giving to MAROON 🍒 i wrote this song at 3a.m. in my best friend’s room, crying my little pisces heart out and accepting that sometimes letting go is for the better. i never expected it to get big, it was just an outlet for me, so again, thank you a million times!
this one is for you, you know who you are.
view 839 comments
landonorris: woop woop landonorris: i’m so incredibly proud of you landonorris: please let me listen to the whole album :(
yourusername: not yet ���� lilyzneimer: babe CAN I? i just know a few of these are love songs. oscarpiastri: me too please x yourusername: sending u the link for tmr!!! user1: WHICH ONE ARE LOVE SONGS!????yourusername: i don’t kiss and tell x user2: BITCH ALDNWNS
maxverstappen: P is so excited to hear it!
yourusername: i will send you the link to the early listening party 💜
user3: carlos liking this 😥 the audacity this mas has user4: why is no one talking about the last part guys, is it for lando? carlos???
user5: its not always about them u know?
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yourusername just posted a story
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replies
landonorris: can’t wait to see you tonight landonorris: you look beautiful yourusername: lan 🥺 thank u love, got pretty for u!!! landonorris: i’m giggling and kicking my feet landonorris: think about what i told you yourusername: i already said yes lan 🤭
oscarpiastri: why is lando blushing? what did you do? yourusername: lol yourusername: he asked me out on a date and i said yes? 👉🏻👈🏻 oscarpiastri: KALSW SUAVW YN!!!! oscarpiastri: sorry lily took over oscarpiastri: that’s amazing tho, told you he likes you! yourusername: don’t you think it’s too soon? after everything that happened? :/ be honest oscarpiastri: nah, after what carlos did you are allowed to move on. plus if you listen carefully to your songs lando and you are long overdue yourusername: thank u osc 🤍 please take carlos out on the next race yourusername: kidding!!! (not) oscarpiastri: at your service (kidding) (not)
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lando.jpg
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liked by yourusername, danielricciardo, kellypiquet and others
lando.jpg: yourusername just finished the first leg of her tour looking beautiful as ever. in honour of new year’s day being played today you can have that picure we took drunk at said party
view 920 comments
user1: i thought this was a yn post lol
user2: the second picture i’m screaming!!! the fact that she was dating carlos at the time yet she always looked at him like that 🥺
user3: slut behaviour
oscarpiastri: i’m so normal about this
yourusername: my favorite photographer ever 🤍
yourusername: glad you could make it tonight!! let’s get a podium tomorrow so we can go home and rest
lando.jpg: yes ma’am
maxverstappen1: Did you do it?
landonorris: yes maxverstappen1: What did she say? landonorris: yes maxverstappen1: 🤝🏻👍🏻 user3: what is this user4: they have such a weird relationship i swear
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yourusername
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liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri, lilymhe and ohters
yourusername: highnobiety thank you so much for having me! martietomanova shooting with you is a real rare joy. link in bio if you wanna read my interview taking about silly things and my new album! view 923 comments
user1: my jaw is on the floor
user2: lando must be loosing it rn lol about to risk it all
oscarpiastri: you are correct user2: nooo dont expose him lol
landonorris: asdjqenxf
landonorris: WHAT IS THIS
landonorris: YN???????
landonorris: please pick up the phone im so in love with you *deleted*
landonorris: GORGEOUS GORGEOUS WOMAN
landonorris: stop looking at her PLEASE im going insane
landonorris: you are the most beautiful human being on this whole world
yourusername: 🤭🤭 im blushing yourusername: see u soon? landonorris: YES landonorris: im picking u up RIGHT NOW landonorris: i would risk everything for you *deleted*
user3: anyone else saw lando’s deleted comments? boys down bad haha
user4: i love how as soon as she broke up with him he started showing he likes her lol long overdue
last part coming soon
taglist: @evie-119 @landossainz @noneofyallsbusiness @ladyblablabla @likedbygaslyy @softiecaro @1655clean @willowpains @lightdragonrayne if your name is crossed out i couldnt tag you
1K notes · View notes
sweetyluvs · 9 months
Note
desperate ellie sex hcs when she gets back from soccer practice 😩
𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞/𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐲 𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐱 𝐡𝐜𝐬 🐱
warnings : SMUT, MDNI ; vaginal eating out, dirty talk, name callings, scissoring, finger fucking.. i don’t ever write smut so ignore how bad it it 😭not rlly hcs but whatever 🧍‍♀️I MADE IT SO SHE LOST A GAME CUZ IDK WHAT ELSE TO MAKE IT ABT. hope that’s okay<33
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let’s just get it out of the way, that whenever ellie loses a game she’s angry or horny if not both.
breaks down the door when she comes home, her face so scrunched you are surprised the skin hasn’t torn.
is all grumpy and moody and upset, but eventually becomes clingy and desperate.
shoving her head in your neck and rutting her hips against your ass
turns you on from how desperate she is. a very rare occasion
“not now, ellie. I have to do my homework.” you defended, ignoring the pooling of your own pussy.
“fuck— please, baby. i need you.” she groaned, her hot breath fanning down your neck— and you gave in. pressing your lips to hers.
she devours you, her pleading whines becoming angry grunts when you two make it to your bedroom.
takes off her soccer uniform, throwing it angrily across the room before practically ripping off your clothes— nipping at your bare skin immediately
you whimper, the sudden feeling of her soft lips kissing your body never failing to make you feel crazy
ellie’s fingers drift down, fiddling with the hem of your panties before teasing you from the outside. her boney fingers lightly running over the underwear, your soaking cunt leaking through the fabric
whines and begs slipping from your mouth, pleas for her to touch you. but, she stops her touching, looking you dead in the eyes “what do you want? say it, use your words.” she demands, watching you so closely you could come just from her gaze. “please, ellie.. i want you to touch me.”
the satisfied smirk on her face made you want to punch her, but your desperation overtook your urges.
“where, baby? here? or…” she slides her hand from your boobs down to your cunt again, once again teasing
“here?” you whine at her words, nodding. “why are you nodding? i said to use your words.” she growled, her brows furrowing. “i wan’t you to touch my pussy, ellie.” you moaned out, enough to satisfy her.
She slowly slipped your undies off, watching as the wet material stuck to your cunt before sliding off completely. she moved herself down, proving her head between your thighs.
She kissed your puffy clit, causing an erotic moan to leap from your swollen lips. Ellie’s tongue worked its usual magic; sucking, kissing, rolling— your eyes began to water, the feeling of her inside you causing your build up to come much faster than usual
the way she moved had you crying like a little girl; red faced and sobbing, begging her to let you cum. “what do you want, again?”
“please, please ellie please let me cum. I’ll be good, i promise.”
“sluts usually don’t keep their promises.” the insult had your tummy flipping and cunt clenching, and of course ellie noticed. She took no time slipping her middle finger inside you, your walls sucking her in desperately.
lets just say, you’d came way more than you’d expected.
“ahh.. ellie.. i can’t.” you cried out, the feeling of her clit rubbing against yours had you choking on your spit, the way she gripped your thigh in such a controlling way.
“j-js’ shut it, ‘kay? f-fuck.” she grunted out, her hips increasing their pace. your hands gripped your pink sheets,
“yeah.. js like that. fuck, look at you, already about to cum again. what a fuckin’ whore.” ellie gritted out, watching as you shut your eyes.
your hips were cramping up, unable to keep up with ellie’s speedy pace— earning your name to be called.
“fucking move it— i.. fuck— move your hips.” she demanded, moving her grip on your thigh to grab your hip and harshly shove it forward— earning a moan from you both.
“o-oh, shit..”
your began to move your hips, clits rubbing together quickly.
“ellie.. els.. i’m gonna..”
she huffed, clenching her jaw. “go ahead, cum again you fucking slut.” her words put you over the edge, a cry leap from your throat as you came for the nth time that night, legs trembling as ellie continued to rub herself against you.
her moans and grunts became more high pitched, her brows furrowing and grip tightening.
“fuckin’.. fuck, oh shit, oh shit..” she groaned out, her lips hitching their movements temporarily as she met her own orgasm. you moved your hips with her, trying to assist her.
she released her grip on you upon her finish, panting in sync with you.
“fuck.”
you bent over, kissing her cheek softly. she didn’t look at you, clearly still upset about her loss. You had an idea, removing your legs from the entanglement of your sex to get off the bed, ignoring her eyes trailing on you.
“what are you doing?”
“you’ll see.” you replied, going to the bathroom and pulling out a drawer. you closed the door, putting on the secret lingerie you’d bought for a secret.
after a while you walked out, suddenly feeling small under ellie’s intense gaze. her eyes scanned your body, hunger filling her eyes.
“I hope you have more in you for a few more rounds because that shit is coming right off.”
3K notes · View notes
stillmonsterz · 18 days
Text
brave it together
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pairing: jay x reader, jake x reader genre: smut, angst, slight humor summary: ever since you started your first year at sadame university three months ago, jay has been bothering you. you try to keep your head bowed down, but you're finding it harder and harder to keep to yourself. an approaching storm, a party, and your job at the university's library inadvertently lead to you being entangled in the clandestine world of the karma club. you're starting to discover that there's more to jay, and more to yourself, than you could have imagined. contains: unprotected sex, rape, noncon, drug usage, alcohol mention, manipulation, suicide, murder, death threats, infidelity, exhibitionism, physical violence, piss. word count: 24.6k
taglist: @moon7jay @ui11iane @belowbun
Sometimes you wished you could be someone else. You wished you could have been like the other girls at your university, the ones that crowd in groups, that go to the bathroom together to make sure that they’re all safe. Girls that talk about everything with each other, who share common interests and talk to each other about their own interests. Friends who would listen.
You wished that you could know what to say. You wished that you knew the right way to act, to speak, the right way to think to make people care. You wished you didn’t repel others.
You only wished for this sometimes. 
You’re stocking the shelves of the university’s library. It’s an easy campus job, one that pays decently. You’re here on a partial scholarship, so you tried to save money however you could. The library was one of the reasons why you applied here in the first place; it was well-stocked, had vaulted ceilings in the main room, and, to your delight, had physical copies of rare books. 
 All you wished for right now was for the day to end so you could go home, watch an awful 60s giallo with vibrant paint for blood and eye candy to ogle, and avoid an encounter from Jay. You weren’t in the mood today.
Isa, a girl two years above yours, pushed the metal cart replete with books and occasionally pointed out where they should go. She had been doing this since last year, so she had a far better idea of you about the layout of the library.
You crouched down to the carpeted floor, scouring the bottom-most shelf for the appropriate spot.  “Next to the copy of ‘Neuroscience for Dummies’,” Isa said idly, pointing with a well-manicured finger. Isa was red-headed and gorgeous, and had an impeccable sense of fashion; she was wearing a white cashmere sweater with a thick, plaid skirt, knee-high black socks, and leather shoes. On top of that, she was intelligent, friendly, and incredibly personable. You wondered why she wouldn’t go somewhere else and leave the library to losers such as yourself. 
“Thanks,” you muttered, placing the book in its proper place.
“You know,” Isa began. You lifted your head up to meet her eyes, which were sparkling with a mischievous glint. “You’d look pretty with some makeup.”
You blinked, uncertain of how to respond. “I’m not pretty right now?”
Isa waved her hands contritely and shook her head. “No, no, not at all. I mean, you are pretty, it’s just…you’d look even better with makeup.”
“Oh…” Grasping for another book, you avoided Isa’s gaze. Not only did you not believe her, but you wondered why she was telling you this. She was probably just messing with you. Even a saint would take one look at you and tell you to kill yourself. For whatever reason, people seemed to dislike you, as though you emitted a repelling odor. “Look better?”
“Yeah,” Isa said cheerfully. “If you look better, you’ll feel better, too.” 
“Maybe,” you said, shoving another book onto the shelf. 
“Seriously,” Isa continued, and you wished she would just drop it. “You could probably pull a Karma Club member if you tried.”
Now she was definitely just fucking with you. She of all people should know that guys like that would have very little interest in you; Isa was popular, and you had seen her and her friends hanging around some of the KC members. Whenever you saw her and Jay in the same place, you’d walk the other way. Thankfully, Jay tended to spare you the humiliation of being mocked in front of others. He preferred to do it when no one was looking. “I’d rather not,” you replied, feeling around for another book from the cart. Isa handed you one, and you shuffled away to shelve it.
“Aw, why not?”
“They’re…weird,” you said simply. 
“They’re not all bad,” Isa said, and you slowly turned your head to glance up at her. Isa’s face was sheepish, and she was toying with her bracelet. Jesus. She liked one of them? Having a crush on a Karma Club member was practically a form of hybristophilia. You wondered which one she liked. Probably Jake, the nice one. 
Isa started to speak again, but some male student came up to her. “The printer’s busted again,” he said with an eye roll. 
“Annoying,” Isa muttered. “I’ll be back. Try not to have too much fun without me.” You gave her a curt nod and she gave you a thumbs-up before scampering off to save the day. You watched her retreating figure, then looked down at your hands. 
You reached up to grab another book from the cart, but someone’s hand rested on yours. First, your eyes traced the shoes (balenciaga sneakers) then up to his jeans (Levi’s, black, distressed), his Joy Division t-shirt, and finally, reluctantly, they settled on his face. Penetrating dark eyes framed by thick eyebrows, one of which was adorned by a silver eyebrow piercing looked down at you. His lips were fixed into their habitual crooked smirk. The heady scent of Tom Ford wafted from his body. 
“Yeah, you could be really pretty,” Jay said, batting his eyelashes. He grabbed your hand and jerked you upright, your chest hitting the metal cart as you staggered to your feet. “You could be a model, honestly.”
As always, you just stared at Jay blankly. What else could you do? The idea of begging him to stop or making some quippy little remark just made you cringe at yourself. Jay dropped your arm and walked behind you, rubbing your shoulders with a strong grip. You managed to avoid flinching, something you considered a small victory.
“Don’t know why Isa lied to you,” Jay whispered into your ear. “If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. If you put some makeup on a prude, it’s still a frigid little bitch, wouldn’t you say?”
Clenched teeth, pursed lips, fixed gaze. That was how you dealt with Jay. You stared at the books directly in front of you, rearranging them in your head by height. 
Jay made a low noise at the back of his throat. “You know,” he began, and his thumbs dug into your shoulder blades, “I’m getting really sick of this mute shit. I know you can talk, prude. Say it. Say that you’re a bitch.” 
The Secret History of the Moon Landing is the tallest, from your direct line of sight. You could put it with Mars and its Mysteries: The Red Planet Uncovered, and then Pluto as a Planet. 
Jay’s fingers clenched around your shoulders painfully. “I told you to talk. Come on.”
You and Jay were obscured by the tall bookshelf in front of you, so when Isa’s sleek oxfords came into view, Jay slid his arms around your neck in what could be mistaken for an embrace. “Hey, Isa,” Jay said amicably, his chin resting on your shoulder. You finally looked away from the shelf.
“Hi, Jay,” Isa said, stopping just beside the book cart. Her gaze flicked from you to Jay to Jay’s arms around you. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“Nah, her and I go way back,” Jay said, and you didn’t have to look at him to know that he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “Been taking care of her since she got to Sad.” The school’s name was Sadame University, but everyone just called it Sad U or just Sad. 
Isa’s eyes kept flashing between you and Jay, and the genuine smile she normally wore had been replaced by a far less sanguine expression. “Oh, wow,” she said softly, fiddling with her charm bracelet again. 
Jay nodded, his black hair tickling your chin. “Mhm. I was just inviting her to come to the KC party with me, but she doesn’t want to come.” He tilted your chin towards him, so that you were forced to look at him. “You should go out more,” he said lightly, but his eyes betrayed him. 
You didn’t say a word. 
His hand dropped back down to your shoulder. “Doesn’t go out and doesn’t talk. How do you put up with her?” Jay’s voice was jovial, almost like you were really friends. 
Isa laughed, almost too enthusiastically. “I know, right? These are the best years of our life, you know? Can’t waste ‘em inside all the time.” Does she seriously believe that shit? 
“Yeah, you should listen to your cute friend more often,” Jay said, shaking you once before clapping you on the back and letting go of you. He nodded at Isa, who was preening in front of Jay. “You should come to the party, Isa. The storm party on Friday, at Yeonjun’s. You know where his place is?”
“No, I don’t,” Isa said, tilting her head. Her glossy lips were pursed, and she admittedly looked really cute. If you didn’t know what kind of person Jay really was, you would think that they would make a good couple based on looks alone. Studious and playful Isa with pierced, crude Jay.  A bunny with a wolf. 
“I’ll take you,” Jay said, striding towards her. “You got my number?” 
“I have your Snap, I think.”
They exchanged numbers. You went back to stocking books. 
After a lengthy conversation that you had tuned out, you felt Jay ruffle your hair. “See you around, prude,” he whispered before walking away. His hands were shoved in his pockets. 
Isa stared after him before turning to you and biting her lip. “I didn’t know you knew Jay,” Isa said, her tone playfully accusatory. “You sly vixen.”
“You know him?”
Isa paused. “You could say that. He’s cute.”
“I didn’t know he was your type,” you said simply. “I thought you’d be into, uh, Jake.”
Isa snorted. “Nah, didn’t you hear?”
“No, what?”
Isa giggled before leaning in, as though she was telling a trade secret. “I heard that Jake is kind of a dick.”
– 
You had become disillusioned with the Karma Club mere hours into your first day at Sadame University. During an idle walk around the campus after your first class, you had ended up near a warehouse next to the facility where the sporting equipment was kept. There, you had seen a tanned, lean man standing in front of an equally tall person who was caged against the wall of the warehouse. You lingered in the parking lot facing the warehouse, hiding yourself behind one of the staff’s pick-up trucks. 
The tanned one, clad in all black, was goading the other one. A third person, an almost eerily-pale man wearing a brown blazer with a turtleneck and black slacks, was watching from a safe distance. 
“Go on,” the one in all black said. “Hit me. Unless you’re too pussy.”
Finally, the one pressed against the wall landed a feeble punch on his assailant’s cheek. The two other men looked at each other before bursting out into laughter. 
“At least pretend to be hurt, Jay,” the pale one had said, clapping his friend on the back. “You’re making him look bad.”
“You’re right,” Jay had said, clearing his throat. He pretended to be blown backwards, and his friend laughed even harder. Jay righted himself. You couldn’t see his face from this angle, but his body language seemed so tense, reminiscent of a dog with raised hackles. The guy who had thrown the punch at Jay looked confused and embarrassed, almost meek.
“Hey. You hit me first,” Jay had said. “Didn’t he, Sunghoon?”
“He did,” Sunghoon had said, nodding sagely. “He…I think he bruised you, Jay.”
“Bruised me,” Jay said, cracking his knuckles. “So this is a fight now.” With that, Jay had released an onslaught of punches onto the guy’s body. You were a fair distance away from the fight, if you could call it that, but you could still hear the thump of skin on skin. As Jay continued to wail on him, the guy slowly crumpled to his feet and shielded himself from the hits, covering his face with his arms. Sunghoon just watched, still laughing to himself. 
Jay had spit on the dirt. He had said something you couldn’t hear before digging his hands into his pockets. As he surveyed the school grounds, maybe for witnesses, his eyes landed directly on you. You stared back at him, your stomach dropping. You really hadn’t wanted to be involved in whatever hazing ritual this was. You hid yourself behind the truck again, to no avail. Jay stalked towards you, putting his hand up so that Sunghoon wouldn’t follow. 
You leaned against the trunk of the pick-up truck, and Jay stood in front of you. He assessed you for a nearly unbearably long time, taking in your appearance from your toes to your head. He crossed his arms and caught your gaze. An unexpected smile graced his lips, revealing a deep dimple on his cheek. He was unmistakably handsome. 
“Hey. No need to be scared. That was just something between friends,” Jay had said, his voice devoid of the haughtiness you’d heard earlier.  “We were just playing.”
You nodded, your hands clutching the straps of your backpack. Like you were a kid. 
Jay had frowned, scratching the back of his head. Then he stuck his hand out, regaining his smile. “I’m Jay, Jay Park. I’m a business major. Third year.”
You could see where his knuckles had split because of how hard he had hit that guy, and you were so captured by the sight that you didn’t shake his hand or talk. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. Sometimes you just forgot to talk. 
“Hey,” Jay said, and your eyes flickered back up to his face. HIs smile had completely disappeared, and you wondered if it had been very difficult for him to maintain a veneer of civility. “Don’t be rude. What’s your name?” 
You told him your name, withholding your major. 
“Never heard of you,” he had said with a sniff, withdrawing his hand. “Are you new?”
You nodded again. 
“Jesus.” Jay stepped closer to you, and somehow the frustration dripping from his voice and painted on his face was familiar. “Do you talk?”
“If I know someone,” you said.
Jay had laughed mirthlessly. “Aren’t you special? ‘I’m too good to talk to other people, I’m so mysterious, look at me!’ Anyone ever tell you that that shit isn’t cute?”
Plenty of times, you had thought. Instead of saying that, you just shrugged. 
“Fucking weirdo,” Jay had muttered. “Look, don’t say anything to anyone about this, okay? Or else I’ll…”
“Or else what?”
Jay scoffed and slammed one hand next to your head, his rings scraping the exterior truck. His face had craned towards your own, and his eyes flickered with a cold, sadistic gleam. “Or else…” Jay had leaned in towards your ear, whispering, “Or else I’ll do something really, really bad.”
With that, he hit the truck once more for good measure and strode away. His friend Sunghoon had followed behind him, casting a withering glance at you as he crossed the parking lot. 
You didn’t look back at the person Jay had beat up. You just walked to your next lecture hall, sat down, and tried to focus.
You hadn’t known it then, but that had been your first encounter with two of the members of the Karma Club. Through sheer social osmosis over the past three months, you had learnt about them - more than you had ever wanted to, really. The Karma Club was an exclusive society that had been founded at Sadame some time in the 60s. The idea was to round up the richest, most powerful students -or, alternatively, the students who wanted to have a “lot of fucking fun”- and give them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted.
 Students is a broad term for them. There’s never been a female member of Karma Club to date. The closest a woman could get to being punched is to date one of the members, although you don’t see why anyone would want that. They’re attractive, sure, but between the stories you’ve heard, the things you’ve seen, and what you’ve experienced, you’d rather toss yourself off of the roof than date a member of that stupid fucking club. 
There were seven members: Heeseung Lee, Sunghoon Park, Jake Sim, Sunoo Kim, Jungwon Yang, Nishimura Riki, and Jay Park. Generally, people either tried to avoid the members, or they did everything they could to get their attention. Apparently last year Sunoo had gotten pissed off at the Sad U cheerleading team and put laxatives in their pre-game protein shakes, but they all showed up to his birthday party the following month anyways. There was another rumour, that Heeseung had vandalized the interior of an upscale restaurant in the city because his girlfriend didn’t like the hors d’oeuvres. 
You figured that Jay Park fit squarely into the “richest and most powerful” student category, because you had never witnessed him have fun, at least in the traditional sense. When he smiled, it was generally because someone else was in pain. The only smile you’d seen him wear was that self-satisfied smirk.
At any rate, there it was. Your first introduction to the Karma Club, your first meeting with Jay, and the last time a man had voluntarily spoken to you at school. Go figure.
– 
After your unfortunate encounter with Jay in the library, you needed a pick-me-up, and fast. You made a beeline for the smoothie shop in the Stopkewich dorms. Your university had four colleges: Stopkewich, where the liberal arts majors tended to stay, Fawcett, where most of the dorm parties took place, Nakashima, the unofficial home of the STEM majors, and Stoker college, where the most affluent students lived. It was there that the Karma Club resided, in a tall, red brick building surrounded by oak trees marked by a large, multi-tiered fountain. 
Stopkewich was more conservative, a simple light brick college with a stone path leading into one of the entrances. Groups of people milled about under copses of trees or rested on the plush, well-maintained grass. It was a dreary day, but the weather was mild. As you walked through the door, you wished that you had chosen this college instead. You had decided to be practical and chose the college whose classes were closest to your own dorm, so you had chosen Fawcett. Without any knowledge of the intricate culture behind the colleges, you had ended up in the loudest one. Worse yet, you couldn’t switch out of it. 
Every college had their own restaurants. Stopkewich’s smoothie shop was situated right next to their vegan and gluten-free place, staffed by two enthusiastic, perky goths. To your delight, your favourite worker was there, refilling the bucket of biodegradable straws. 
“Hi, Lily,” you said, walking to the counter. A girl with pink hair, large eyes, and a wide smile turned to look at you.
“Hey,” she said brightly. “You want to try my newest concoction?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“It’s going to be passionfruit, mango, strawberry…”
You shrugged. “Sounds standard so far.”
“And maca root,” she added, holding up a tuberous plant with a wicked grin.
“Isn’t that…doesn’t that boost fertility?” you asked suspiciously.
Lily pulled out a bamboo cutting board and started chopping the root into tiny pieces. “No clue. I bought it because it sounded like macaroon. They never should have let my goofy ass buy the ingredients.”
“I see.”
Lily tossed the root into the blender and started heaping fruits inside of it. “Have you heard about that storm that’s coming?”
You sat down on one of the bright red stools while you waited. “No.”
“It’s supposed to be bad,” she said, turning on the blender. She raised her voice so she could be heard over the noise. “They’re saying we might lose power.”
“When?” you yelled.
“This Friday.” Lily turned off the blender and poured the smoothie into a glass jar. If you brought ten glass jars to the smoothie shop, they’d give you a free smoothie. You were gunning for a free smoothie by the end of the week. 
You paid for the drink with your campus card and took a sip. “Well?” she asked expectantly, leaning over the counter. 
“It’s good,” you said, staring down at the vibrantly-coloured smoothie. “Can’t even taste the fertility.”
“Another win for me,” she said, wiping down the counter. 
“Thanks, Lily.”
Lily shot a finger gun at you and winked. “That’s what I’m here for.”
You continued to drink your smoothie, swinging your feet as you sat on the colourful stool. Normally, you didn’t like to linger in public spaces, but Jay never came to Stopkewich. Lily was so calm and friendly, and she didn’t pressure you to talk, so you weren’t in a rush to leave.
“You know, you’re my favourite customer,” Lily said. 
You smiled softly. “Really?”
“Mhm. The other day, one of those stupid Kum Club members came here and asked for something that wasn’t on the menu. I said I don’t do remix smoothies, and he got so mad.”
You didn’t have trouble picturing which one that could be. 
“Those guys are freaks,” Lily said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I swear I remember hearing that they tried to straight up murder someone in the bathroom over something silly.”
“That sounds a little far-fetched.” Jay was a dick, but you couldn’t imagine him killing someone in cold blood.
Lily pointed at you. “You’ve only been here for a few months, so you don’t know. The Karma Club is far-fetched. That’s how they get away with it.”
It was always a bit bittersweet, leaving Stopkewich. Here, you almost blended in. There were quite a few moody girls who dressed in long skirts and baggy sweaters, who kept their heads low and wore bulky over-ear headphones. They milled about, smoking joints wrapped with rose petals and sage, sitting in corners drawing. 
The short trek to Fawcett gave way to girls wearing trendy, cute crop tops with curve-fitting jeans and guys wearing the ugliest fucking outfits imaginable. You wondered what the point of being cute was when all you had to show for it were idiots wearing Nike techs? 
Navigating the halls of your college was always a task. Somehow, there was always a throng of people cluttering the halls. Isa lived in this college too, and would wave every time she saw you. Thankfully, you didn’t see her today, so you could safely slip inside of your dorm room. 
You threw yourself onto your bed and sighed deeply, allowing yourself to decompress. Soon, you would do your homework, blasting music to drown out the noises of young adult debauchery. Then, like every other night when the weather was good, you would sneak over to the library, use the entrance to the roof located on the third floor, and sit on the roof and smoke. It was one of your few acts of rebellion, although you doubted that willingly poisoning yourself could be considered an act of rebellion against anything besides good health. 
For now, you rested. 
The next day was more of the same. Long, tiresome classes, stint at the library, brief reprieve with Lily, then to your dorm room. Strangely enough, Jay hadn’t spoken to you. Over the past three months, you had grown accustomed to at least a “prude bitch” being tossed at you, or even more.
He had been getting worse. Lately, just like yesterday, he’s been touching you. You don’t know how you feel about it, nor do you know why his behavior has been escalating. 
When you walked into Fawcett again and headed left to get to your dorm room, you saw Jay and Jake Sim hovering near a bulletin-board. You’d be lying if you didn’t find Jake a little cute, despite the unsavoury things you had heard about him. He had tousled, dark brown hair and a wide smile. He was wearing the navy blue Sad U sweatshirt with a baggy pair of grey sweatpants. Seeing Jay standing next to him with a scowl on his face ruined the picture, however. 
“He’s always fucking late,” you heard Jay mutter. You figured that he was talking about Anton, one of the only Karma Club affiliates you knew that didn’t live in Stoker. He was rich enough, popular enough, and snarky enough, but maybe being around the Karma Club that often would drive you insane. Jay had accosted you a few times while he was waiting for Anton, but he had never had Jake in tow. In fact, you rarely saw Jake and Jay hang out. 
This didn’t concern you. You were about to turn on your heels and head back outside when you heard Jay call your name mockingly. When you looked up, he was beckoning you with his fingers lazily. 
That little motion pissed you off, so you decided to leave, clutching your little glass jar. As soon as you opened the heavy wooden doors, you felt hands grab you back. Jay was sneering at you. “Mute and blind, huh?” His grip on your sweater tightened. “You’re like a less fuckable Helen Keller.”
“Jesus.” Jake had sidled over to Jay and was looking at him with annoyance. “Leave her alone, Jay. Hasn’t it gotten old by now?”
Jay let go of your sweater, but his eyes still smoldered. “Didn’t see you wearing a cape.”
Jake crossed his arms. “Huh?”
“Look,” Jay said, shoving his bejeweled hands into his pockets, “I just didn’t know you still liked to stick your dick in crazy. That’s cool. I actually have a few exes you could hit u-,”
“I don’t have to want to fuck a girl to know when you’re being shitty to her for no reason,” Jake said, and his eyes rested on your face. You hated how gentle his gaze was. You couldn’t trust it. 
Jay developed a sly little smirk. “So you don’t want to fuck her?”
“No way,” Jake said hastily.  His gaze snapped to your face and he laughed nervously, scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, you know, not in like, a bad way, just that, like…”
You’d rather have Jay call you a frigid whore for ten hours than hear anymore of this. When you tried to push past Jay to go to your dorm room, he grabbed your shoulders so harshly that the glass jar in your hand went flying. It shattered on the floor in the middle of the hallway, and bright red splatters of smoothie splattered onto the walls like a crude Jackson Pollock painting. 
You heard laughter behind you, and you pulled yourself away from Jay. He let you go, surprisingly. Sinking to your knees, you used your bare hands to pluck the worst shards of glass from the linoleum. “Leave it,” a voice whispered, and when you turned you saw Jake shaking his head. “Someone else will clean it up. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Someone might step on the glass,” you said quietly, still crouched on the floor. 
“Oh, boo-hoo, someone might step on the glass,” Jay said derisively. 
“Fuck’s sake, shut up,” Jake muttered. He gently pulled the glass out of your hands and set it on the floor. “I’ll go get a janitor, okay?”
“What do you want?” you whispered.
Jake scrunched his nose in confusion. “What?”
You shook your head. “Never mind.” 
“Hey,” Jake said softly. Belatedly, you realized that he had crouched to your level. “Tomorrow, Jay said he’s gonna visit Isa at the library. Do you want me to come along, to be kind of a buffer? I know he’s a dick to you.”
“Do whatever you want.” 
Jake just chuckled. “You’re not the friendliest, are you?”
You shrugged.
“I probably deserve it,” Jake said with a smile so good-natured, you almost smiled too. Thankfully, you caught a hold of yourself and stood upright. This wasn’t the first time that Jake had extended a modicum of kindness towards you. Two weeks ago, when Jay had “accidentally” spilled his energy drink all over your sweater, Jake had fished money out of his pocket and tucked it into your hand before catching up to Jay. Since then, Jake had been hanging around Jay more than Sunghoon did. You figured that Sunghoon was busy, or maybe they didn’t like each other anymore. Who knew? Who cared?
Jay sniffed. “So what?” he said, looking you up and down. “You only pull the selective mutism shit with me? I’m really hurt.”
You fought the urge to roll your eyes and walked away with your head bent, so you didn’t have to see the people who were invariably staring at you. Normally, Jay didn’t bother you in front of other people, just in crowded hallways, when he caught you going in-between classes, or in the library. 
As you were doing your schoolwork, a question began to form in your head, making itself wide, unavoidable, and encompassing. Why didn’t Jay just meet Isa in her dorm tomorrow? Why go to the library when she’ll be busy? He couldn’t even harass you in front of her, or at least as overtly as he normally did, so what was the point? 
That was always the question with Jay: what was the point?
After your classes on Wednesday was your job at the library. As you walked over to the main desk to check your tasks for the day, you spotted Jake, Jay, and Isa all talking. So Jake had shown up anyways. They were huddled by the desk, as though they were all co-conspirators. You noticed that Isa was wearing a black pleated skirt with a baggy t-shirt, a stark difference from her usual, more preppy style. As you approached, Isa turned to you and smiled.
“Hey,” she said, waving you towards her. You walked over to the desk, where she made a space for you to stand. You awkwardly positioned yourself between Isa and Jake, trying to avoid Jay’s eyes. “Let’s see. Today, we’re on shelving duty, we have to catalogue the newest shipment of books-,” Isa nodded at a sizable stack of pristine books, “and we have to load them into the online filing system.”
You nodded your understanding and grabbed the book list from the top of the book pile. 
“Hey,” Jake said. He grinned at you, his shaggy hair getting in his eyes. He flicked it out with the casual, unselfconscious ease of a surfer who had spent all morning riding waves. 
“Hi,” you said quietly. Jay was being unusually quiet, his arm slung around Isa’s shoulders. He looked directly at her, ignoring you for once. How lovely.
“So, uh…” Jake scratched the nape of his neck again. “ Yesterday, I noticed you had that smoothie…looked pretty good.”
“It was,” you replied, and Jake laughed a little. 
“Where’d you get it from? There aren’t any smoothie places on campus.”
“There is,” you said, pointing west. “Stopkewich has one.”
“Oh, damn. I had no clue. I don’t really go to Stopkewich that much.”
“You should go sometime,” Jay piped up, his voice as arrogant and snarky as usual. “There’s plenty of girls with daddy issues who’d let you do all sorts of weird, depraved shit to them.”
“You would know,” Jake retorted, and you couldn’t help but smile. 
Isa gasped. “Oh, wow. Jake, she’s actually smiling.” When the grin dropped off of your face, Isa pouted. “Aw, no. Your smile was actually so pretty. Wasn’t it, Jay?”
Jay looked at you and pursed his lips. “Yours is prettier, Isa,” he said, staring directly at you. You felt something stir in you, some foreign emotion, but you weren’t entirely sure what it was.
Isa smacked Jay playfully on his chest. “Don’t pit us girls against each other,” she said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “I’m a girl’s girl, you know.”
You turned away from them and started to go around the desk. “I’ll start loading these into the computer now,” you said quietly. 
Jake reached out and grabbed your wrist. “Hey, wait,” he said, lowering his voice. “Did you want an invite to the party on Friday? The one at Yeonjun’s?”
You stared at his hand. “Why would I want one?”
Jake hesitated before letting go of you, shoving his hand into his pocket.  “I dunno. So you can go and maybe have fun?”
“She doesn’t have fun,” Jay said. So much venom leaked into his voice that even Isa looked caught off guard. His eyes were still trained on you. “She just sits inside all the time, doing her homework, knitting scarves, listening to fucking Mazzy Star.”
“What’s wrong with Mazzy Star?” Isa asked.
“Whiny, plebeian indie shit,” Jay said disdainfully, picking up one of the books on the desk with his spare hand before setting it down.
Isa pouted again. “I like Mazzy Star.”
Jay didn’t even look at her. “Great.”
Jake turned back to look at you. “Just think about it, okay? I can give you a formal invite. I know you aren’t the party type. I’m not really, either. Haven’t been for a while.”
You hesitated before saying, “I’ll think about it.” You turned your back to them and set about cataloging the new books, hefting the pile in your arms. You didn’t have to look behind you to know that Jay’s gaze was burning a hole in your back.
Later that night, you received a text from Isa as you lounged in bed knitting. Normally, you two only corresponded to discuss your job, so this was a surprise. You set down your needle and yarn and unlocked your phone. 
“could u come to the library rq?” she had texted. It reeked. What could possibly be happening there that would require your presence. As you were putting your phone back down, you got another text. 
“it’s jay” followed by “he’s acting really weird rn…”
Right. Isa thought that you and Jay were somehow friends, and she was probably too shy to ask Jake for help. So her boyfriend finally reared his ugly head, and now she was calling on you for help. Clearly, she couldn’t be in that much trouble if she could text you.
You shrugged a jacket over your nightgown, tugged your shoes on, pocketed a Swiss Army knife, and headed outside. You had no intentions of hurting anyone, but it made you feel sort of cool.
It was raining heavily, a prelude to the oncoming storm. You ran across campus with your hood up and headed to the library. It was its own building, nearly as big as one of the dorm buildings, which is why stocking the shelves was a two-person job. You pulled your keys from your pocket, opened the doors, and stepped inside.
Your shoes squelched on the welcome mat, so you took them off along with your wet socks. Isa hadn’t said what part of the library she was in. It was a tall, distinguished three story building - one floor for non-fiction books, one floor for fiction, and one floor with a little student-run cafe and a sprawling arrangement of tables and computers. You didn’t text her, in case she had covertly sent the message. She might actually be in trouble, and then where would you be? 
Your Swiss Army knife burnt a hole into your pocket as you walked around the dark library. The rain drummed on the windows, making it difficult to hear anything. The only light came from the moonlight streaming through the skylight and the lamps affixed to every wall that turned on automatically after 8 pm. 
Soon, you heard a strange noise coming from one of the aisles. Straining over the pitter-patter echoing from outside, you followed the noise to the back of the library.
You shoved your hand into your pocket and approached cautiously, moving lightly so as not to alert Jay. When you approached the aisle from whence the noise originated, you only peeked your head. You were promptly greeted with the sight of Isa and Jay, but not in any way you could have imagined.
Isa was on her knees, her head in between Jay’s legs. His pants pooled around his ankles, and his long, thin fingers were threaded through her red hair. The silver rings adorning his hands caught the moonlight and reflected it, so it looked like glittering teardrops through her long locks. Jay lazily bobbed her head back and forth, controlling the pace. The moonlight created a chiaroscuro effect on them both, painting Jay in darkness. 
He stared straight at you with an unreadable expression. His teeth were gritted, and his lips were parted slightly.  He made Isa go agonizingly slow, and she made an awful choking sound at the back of her throat as she took him in her mouth. 
You knew you should walk away, but something about it was so absurd that it was hard to look away. You had come here, partially expecting a crude prank from Jay, partially expecting Isa to surprise you with a makeover, and partially expecting Isa to join Jay in tormenting you, but not this. 
Jay’s eyes were cold and sharp as he parted his lips, licked them, then said, “Fuck, that’s so good.” He jerked her head forward onto his length, tugging at her hair roughly, and she choked again. You winced at the violent sound.
Why wouldn’t he look away? It was like he expected something from you, and you didn’t want to know what it was.
You left without another word, rubbing your eyes as you stepped away from the garish scene. He didn’t move, and Isa didn’t hear you. You shoved your socks and shoes back on and ran back out of the library, back into the spray. 
As you sprinted through the cold chill, the water seeping into your skin, you wondered why you had even shown up. How uncharacteristic of you, to get involved in the affairs of others. Why didn’t you just tell Isa that you would help her the next day? Why had you come? 
And why had Isa, or Jay, known that you would come?
When you got into bed, you tried to sleep, but the image of Isa on her knees and Jay’s eyes boring into your own wouldn’t leave your head. You tossed and turned, and that same unfamiliar feeling began to eat at your viscera. Gastric acid spilling out of your stomach, scorching your skin. 
Heat licking you in your most sensitive area.
– 
When you came into the library the next afternoon, Isa looked at you and smiled as usual. “Hey,” she said brightly. “Didn’t get much sleep last night?” 
You shook your head and sat down beside her; on Thursdays, you went through the list of those with late fees and sent them emails through the computer on the library’s main desk. “You?”
Isa gave you a mischievous look. “Mm…you could say someone kept me up last night. But I don’t kiss and tell.”
So she really had no clue. Meaning that either Jay had texted you through her phone so you could witness her giving him a blowjob, or you had made the entire thing up. 
“Um, Isa,” you said awkwardly. “Is it true that on iPhones, if you text someone Congratulations, your screen lights up with confetti? I have an Android, so…”
Isa nodded. “Yeah, it’s so cool!”
“Can you send me a text? I wanna see it.”
She pulled out her phone and quickly tapped out a text. Her screen showed that she hadn’t sent a text message to you since last week. You chose to interpret this as proof of the events of last night being completely fabricated, the result of an overactive imagination, a lack of social interaction, and sexual frustration.
“So cute,” you said as the confetti popped up on the screen. You figured you should say something.
“Isn’t it?” Isa said, sending more words. “There’s one for birthdays, and New Year’s Eve…”
As she spoke, you saw Jake and Jay walking towards you. Jay’s lips were screwed into a self-satisfied smirk, and Jake trailed him. Jay’s neck was littered with red and purple bruises, so you figured that that was why Isa was wearing a white turtleneck today. 
Isa blushed as soon as she saw Jay, and she leaned across the counter to give him a kiss. Jay’s smirk faltered as she did so, and he glanced between you and Isa. 
“You didn’t say anything?” he blurted out.
Isa frowned. “Say what?”
Jay gaped at you.  “Crazy fucking freak,” he muttered, and Isa lurched back as though she had been the one insulted. 
“Don’t be so mean,” she chided, and you felt a sudden warmth in your heart towards Isa. 
“Quit taking your shit out on her,” Jake added.
Jay looked at Jake and Isa, his head whipping around. He laughed once before stalking out of the library, creating a path through all of the students who jumped out of the way to avoid him. 
“I’m worried about him,” Isa said worriedly. “He’s been acting so strangely…”
Jake sighed and rested his hands on the desk. “Don’t know. He’s going through some stuff with his parents, so he’s been acting weirdly. He’s like this at the dorm, too. Him and Riki got into it the other night and now Riki is sleeping at Fawcett with some friend of his. It’s such a mess.”
“Sounds like a mess,” Isa said, folding her hands together and resting her head on them. “Poor Jay. I wish he would just talk to me. He must be hurting a lot.”
Christ.
After your shift at the library, you decided to eat at the Fawcett restaurant. Why not? The weather was disgusting, and you needed something substantial, something warm. You ordered something, some rice dish, and you listlessly ate  alone at one of the heavy oaken tables in the dining hall. As you ate, someone you don’t recognize slid into the seat in front of you. He had a shaved eyebrow, calculating eyes, and short black hair with blond highlights. 
“You’re her, right?” He said your name the same snide way that Jay always says it. You nodded. “I’m Riki. Riki Nishimura,” he said, holding out his hand. Unlike Jay, his hand was free from any jewelry. You stared at it, unsure of what his game was. He was the only freshman in the Karma Club, meaning that his hazing must have been particularly brutal. Even though he was young, in the same year as you, he was a Karma Club member just like the rest. 
Riki pulled his hand away and smiled at you wryly. “Jay was right about you. You really are cold.”
Jay talked about you? You didn’t think you existed to anyone outside of your direct interactions with them. How odd.
“Look,” Riki continued, zipping his sweater up as he spoke, “I just wanted to warn you.”
“About?”
Riki glanced around furtively, then stared at you. He craned his head towards you, so you leaned in as well. “He’s gotten worse recently,” Riki said in a low voice. “So they tell me, anyways. I’m a new punch, so I never got to see him ‘normal’.” He made quotation marks in the air when he said normal. “They say he was bad, but never this bad, and he won’t talk to anyone. Not even Heeseung, and they’ve been friends since they were kids.” Riki had developed eyebags, his hair was messy, and he played with his fingers as he spoke. 
“Why are you telling me this?”
Riki sighed, looking away from you. “I figure I owe it to you, I don’t know. For whatever reason, Jay hates you. No one can even understand why he dislikes you so much, but…he just keeps talking about you, saying weird shit, so I really think he might do something just…stupid, and dumb, and I don’t want that on my conscience. If he does do something… bad.”
He already has, but judging by Riki’s expression, you figured that he meant something much worse. “What should I do?”
Riki shrugged. “Don’t know. Watch out, I guess?”
“Thanks,” you said, shoveling in another bite of food. 
Riki watched you eat for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Don’t swing first.”
“What?”
“No matter what you do,” Riki said, getting out of his seat with surprising grace, “don’t buy into his bullshit. You never do anyways, and I think that that’s why he hates you so much. Everyone else indulges his dumbass ‘I’m so hard’ act…even we do, but you don’t.”
You took in his words carefully. “Thanks,” you said again, but you meant it that time.
“No problem,” Riki said. “One last thing.”
You took another bite of food and looked into his eyes. 
“If you want to come to Yeonjun’s party this Friday,” Riki said, leaning in once more (did all the Karma Club members have such little regard for personal space?), “the password is ‘fate’ to get in. It’s like an unofficial KC party. I’ll be there, so will Jake.”
Fate. What an interesting concept. “Party during a storm?”
“No school,” Riki said simply. “And, you know, it’ll be cool. I’m just gonna head there earlier with Sunghoon, but Jake is planning some stupid way to get there.”
“I’ll bet.”
Riki snorted. “You really should come. Maybe things will get interesting.”
“I hope not.”
He leaned away from you and fixed his hair. “I don’t think you’ll get a choice.”
After you did your homework, you took a nap and dreamt about the scarf. 
When you had been naive enough to linger outside, when Jay hadn’t yet made harassing you a daily habit, you had liked to knit outside. It was still September, and the weather was mild. You sat on the bleachers after your shift at the library and brought your yarn out with you. 
As you knitted, you heard footsteps behind you, crunching on the grass. Now, you could recognize those sure, solid footsteps from a mile away, but at the time you hadn’t. Generally, people didn’t approach you, so it hadn’t registered that someone was coming towards you.
“What’s that you’ve got there?” Jay hadn’t waited for an answer, plucking the scarf out of your hands just as you had finished another row.  The skein of yarn tumbled to the grass and rolled at his feet. “Is it for someone?”
You didn’t reply, your lips pursed into a thin line. “Right,” Jay had said, examining the scarf, “no one wants you, that’s right. No one wants a buzzkill that sits around, doing fuckall. Have you tried actually living? Experiencing things? Anything except wasting fucking oxygen?”
You had looked all over for that specific colour, and now he was sullying your scarf with his filthy touch. 
In real life, he had used your scissors and cut the scarf free from the yarn and walked away, laughing. But in your dream, the yarn tumbled away from you both. Winding itself around the trees, yarn strewn along the branches, choking the leaves.
You woke up covered in sweat to the sound of knocking on your door. Your bedside clock said that it was 11:00 pm. Some fucking nap.
You opened your door just a crack, trying to see what lunatic it could be. Jay stood in the hallway, grimacing at you. His eyes were ringed with dark circles, and his skin was beginning to take on a sickly pallor. The stark overhead lighting did him no favours, only highlighting his worsening appearance. 
 He grabbed you by your sweater’s sleeve and pulled you out so quickly you barely registered it. “Come along,” he said, dragging you down the hallway. “We’re going to take a little trip, you and me.”
Fighting him was futile, so you allowed yourself to be pulled away. As usual, everyone in Facwett was hanging out in someone else’s dorm, so no one saw you and Jay. He pushed the door open with one hand, the other holding onto your arm. 
Jay plunged the two of you into the rain. The deluge chilled you to the bone, and the sky was clotted with menacing nimbostratus clouds. Despite the darkness, you knew where he was taking you. It was a path you had trodden many times, the way to the Sad U library.
“Why didn’t you do anything?” Jay asked, his voice carrying over the steady rainfall. “When you saw me and Isa?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t fucking know. You could have asked questions? You could have had an actual reaction? Why’d you just stare like a freak?”
“Why’d you do it?” That was the closest you had ever come to defying him in any way, and it even surprised you. 
“Don’t fucking worry about why I did it,” he replied. Lightning flashed, and for a brief moment you could see Jay clearly. His eyebrow piercing glinted, and his eyes were completely black. “What are you looking at?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued tugging you along the grass. 
Jay hauled you up the stone steps and into the library. You didn’t know how he had gotten the doors open without a set of spare keys, until you remembered that he could have easily filched them from Isa. Maybe she gave them to him. Once you were inside, he let go of you. The two of you left large, wet puddles everywhere you stepped.  “Upstairs,” he barked, pointing at the glass staircase. “We’re going to the roof.”
Treading lightly, for your shoes were wet, you walked up all three floors. The entrance to the roof was located in a small supply closet on the leftmost side of the area. You obediently walked towards the closet, flicking the light on to find the hatch. With shaking hands, you pulled down the hatch, which unfurled the ladder leading up to the roof. “Ladies first,” Jay said, so you hiked your skirt up with one hand and climbed with the other. 
Once you got onto the roof,  you lingered by the entrance, underneath the small awning. Jay crawled up, shut the door, and jerked you into the open. You hadn’t noticed the intensity of the rain, so shocked you had been by Jay’s intrusion, but it was terrible. It beat at your face with the intensity of hail, and from just a few seconds you were already soaked. If you had brought your phone outside, it would have been destroyed, 
Jay’s hands were on you again, pulling you close to him. His eyes were wild- even in the darkness, they flashed with a primal ferocity. “We’re going to play a game,” he said, his voice loud and raggedy. The rain drowned out noise, so he leaned even closer to your ear.
“What’s the game?”
“The game,” he said, and his fingers dug into your arms, “is very simple. You give me reasons why I shouldn’t push your prude ass off the roof, and I’ll decide if they’re good enough.”
You pulled away from him to assess his expression, to see if he was joking. Nothing on his grim face suggested humour. “You’ll go to jail,” you said. 
“Jail? I can’t go to jail,” Jay said, his breath unbearably hot on your ear. “None of us can. So come on, give it a shot.”
Lily’s words rang in your head: “They straight up tried to murder a girl in the bathroom.” The library was three stories off of the ground. If he threw you off the roof, it was unlikely that you would die from the impact. It was more probable that you would be grievously injured. Paralyzed, brain damage, a slow death from your wounds, a slow death either way. Jay was the only person stopping you from reaching an infinite unknown. He held your life in his hands. 
You felt your lip tremble before you spoke. “No.”
“What?”
“No,” you said, raising your voice for the first time in ages. “I won’t beg you for anything.”
Your life flashed before your eyes in a dismal montage. Your childhood, lonely and miserable, high school a near mirror image. A life marred by solitude, harshness, and alienation, with the promise of more of the same to come. 
Jay snapped you out of your reverie with another hard shake. “What are you, fucking suicidal? You’re really ruining any potential enjoyment I could be getting out of this, you know.”
The only friends you had ever had, a group of girls in middle school, had teased you and mocked you behind your back, then to your face. Thrift shop clothes, a shy demeanor, and an inability to read the room had marked you as other long ago. An other, someone unlovable, someone born wrong, a bird with a supernumerary wing. Even if you ducked your head down, didn’t provoke anyone, the scent clung to you.
“Try. Come on. Convince me. Try!” Jay yelled now, his voice carrying over the torrent. 
Getting picked last, asked out as a joke, your only “date” having been cutting worms apart with a kid back in the second grade. You were a complete virgin. Hell, you had never even had your first kiss.
“Do something!”
Your sleeves hung from how much water they had soaked up, and your hands were slippery. You cupped Jay’s cheeks, leaned in, and kissed him gently on the lips. It was just a peck, but in your books it counted. Your hands fell away from his face, lingering at your sides.
When you pulled away, Jay was staring at you with the same unreadable expression he had had yesterday night. “I’ve never had my first kiss,” you explained, “So…” Feeling embarrassed, you looked towards the edge of the roof. From here, you could see the four separate dorms and the main campus buildings, as well as the bustling city that housed Sad U. You hadn’t explored it much, and now you never would. Tumble to the bottom, hope for death on impact. 
Jay’s voice was incredulous. “So you kissed me?”
Still averting your gaze, you shrugged. “You didn’t give me a wealth of options.”
Silence hung between the two of you like a noose. The rain poured ceaselessly, completely penetrating your clothes.
“Look at me,” Jay whispered, but you were still gazing at the city below. Cars glittered on the streets, even this late at night. Where were they going? 
“I said look at me,” he said, and his hand grabbed your chin and jerked it towards his face. “And don’t look away.”
You stared into his dark eyes; you were so close now that you could smell his breath. It smelled like bourbon and cigarettes. 
“I hate you,” he said, his thumb and index finger still holding your chin in place. “It’s beyond hatred sometimes.”
“I know,” you said.
“I think you’re pathetic. I think you’re weak.”
“I know.”
“So stop making it hard for me,” Jay said, his breathing growing uneven and erratic. 
“Making what hard for you?”
“Oh, don’t fucking play dumb,” he snapped. “You’re always doing it. You’re doing it right now.”
“I don’t do anything,” you said.
“That’s your problem,” Jay said, “you never do anything. You’re always so fucking calm, and passive, and it pisses me off. You just can’t let anything get to you, right? Nothing ever matters to you. Nothing can ever hurt you, right?” He swallowed audibly.
Your eyes drifted to the entrance to the roof. Thankfully, Jay had closed it after he had followed you up. You would have hated it if water had gotten inside.
“I said, look at me,” Jay growled, so you did.
Then he jerked your chin upwards and kissed you harshly. His arms wrapped around you, holding you tightly against him, your chest flush against his own. Two wet bodies pressed together.
You didn’t know what to do, or how to kiss back. You tried to mimic his actions, but it was impossible to keep up with him. Jay kissed you like he was punishing you for daring to touch him. Jay’s tongue worked its way into your mouth and swirled around your own tongue, dragged itself along your teeth, shoved itself down your throat. His hands gripped you as if he thought you would tumble off of the roof on your own accord if he didn’t hold onto you. One clutched your upper back, the other hand wound its way to your waist.
Jay pulled away briefly, sucking in rapid breaths, before pressing his lips firmly against yours again. He forced you down to the ground, so that you both sank to the floor of the roof. Rain had slipped into your mouths as you had caught your breath. Saliva and rainwater dribbled out of your mouths, onto your chins. You were on your knees, being consumed by Jay. One of his hands pressed against the back of your head, holding you in place. 
Thunder crashed, but Jay was relentless. You wondered if he kissed everyone like this. You wondered if he kissed Isa like this. 
Once more, he broke the kiss, panting heavily. His arms slid away from your body, leaving you with a phantom weight. Jay shakily stood up, rainwater dripping off of him as though he were one of storm clouds hovering above you. “Congratulations,” he said, “I don’t feel like killing you today.”
He left you there, looking back at him, soaked in the torrential downpour. When you touched your lips, you found that they were already starting to swell.
On Friday, classes were canceled because of the weather. It was for the best. You stared at the ceiling listlessly, your hands folded over your stomach. You hadn’t remembered going to the communal showers, or getting dressed in a nightgown, but you had done it. Your throat was sore and you were sneezing on and off. 
The sound of an incoming text broke the silence, and you reached over to your nightstand to read it. It was Isa, asking you to come over to her dorm room. You weren’t in the mood, so you texted her that you were sick. It wasn’t a lie either; pressure was building behind your skull, and you just wanted to sleep. 
Unfortunately, no one at Sad U knew how to take a hint. Ten minutes later, you heard timid rapping at your door. You groaned, shuffled to your feet, and opened the door. 
Isa was standing outside, wearing a worn Judas Priest t-shirt with purple and pink bear pajama pants. Her face was free from makeup, and her fiery hair was tugged into a loose bun. “You look bad,” she said, then winced. “Sorry.”
“I’m sick.”
“I thought you were lying just to get rid of me,” she said sheepishly. “I’ll come back some other time.”
You shook your head and beckoned her inside. All of a sudden, you didn’t want to be alone right now.  You figured you might as well get this over with now, anyways. You sat down on your bed and patted the space next to you.
Isa sat down and looked around your room, trying to find something to compliment. “It’s very…cozy in here. It’s very you,” she said finally, turning to face you.
“Thank you,” you said, stretching out your neck. “What’s up?”
Isa sighed and tugged at the hem of Jay’s shirt. “It’s Jay,” she said finally. Of course. It was always Jay. “No one’s seen him since last night.”
“Maybe he’s on campus somewhere, like Ri-,”
“No, no one has seen him.” Isa screwed her face up in frustration. “He just disappeared.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Isa said bitterly. “Oh. So, I was wondering…if you had, I dunno, seen him? I know that you guys…know each other, so I was wondering if maybe he had said something.”
“No,” you said immediately. “No, he didn’t.” What could you say? Yeah, your pseudo-boyfriend threatened to kill me, we made out on the rooftop, and then he disappeared?
“Oh, okay,” Isa said, her voice faltering. She sniffled, but before you could make a feeble attempt at comforting her, she smiled. “Gosh. It’s such an ugly day, and all my friends are over at Stoker right now with their boyfriends. I’d go over there, but the rain is so bad…”
It was clear that Isa wanted someone to hang around, so maybe you could help each other. Just once. “I saved some movies on my laptop before the storm, if you wanted to, you know…”
Isa wiped her eyes. “What? You want to watch a movie with me?”
What were you doing? “If you want.”
 “Yeah. Yeah, sure, what movies?”
“Uh, Oldboy and Lady Vengeance…”
Isa brightened and clapped her hands. “Oh, no way. I loved Lady Vengeance. I haven’t seen Oldboy, though.”
You smiled slowly. “I haven’t seen either of them. Which should we watch first?”
“Oldboy came out first, I think,” Isa said, taking her hair out of her bun and fluffing it out. “So we should watch that…then Lady Vengeance.”
Watching a movie with someone had seemed tedious to you, an unneeded distraction. Why would you want to hear someone else talk while you were trying to focus? But for some reason, Isa pointing at your small laptop screen, making idle comments, and at one point going on a snack run and coming back with a small bounty of treats was actually enjoyable. The storm wailed outside, pounding at your window.
At one point, halfway through Lady Vengeance, Isa put her head on your shoulder. Awkwardly, you patted her smooth hair and she nuzzled into you. 
So this was what it was like to have a friend. 
“Hey,” you said quietly, “are you going to the party at Yeonjun’s?”
Isa nodded, her cheek rubbing against your shoulder. “I think I might, yeah. Yeah, my friends have been trying to get invited, but it’s pretty hard. And apparently there’s like a list of invitees, so you can’t just…go. Jay was supposed to take me, but…” her voice trailed off.
“I got invited. Formally,” you said, “so maybe we could go together?”
Isa lifted her cheek off of your shoulder so she could look at you directly, a smile slowly spreading across her pretty face. “Really?” 
“Yeah, and…” you swallowed thickly. “You could maybe…help me get ready?”
The sheer ferocity of the squeal that Isa had emitted could have powered the school in case the bad weather wrecked the back-up generators. “I’ll call Jake so he can pick us up,” Isa said, pulling her phone out. “He’s staying behind, so we can meet him in a few hours…”
“He’ll drive us?”
Isa looked at you slyly. “Not quite.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Jake reassured you. He was behind the wheel of a golf cart, his teeth gleaming in the dark. had parked outside of Fawcett, positioned under a large tree to evade the worst of the rain. 
“Won’t the rain wreck the cart?” you asked. At Isa’s behest, you were wearing a plastic poncho that covered you from head to toe, speaking through a small mouth flap. She had bought them in anticipation for the awful weather, and she would not have you wreck the makeup she had meticulously painted on your face. The dress you were wearing was one she had chosen from your closet. She had wanted to do raw hem the dress to make it look “grunge”, but Jake had pounded on your door, yelling for you guys to get out. So she had hurried you out, and you hadn’t even had the chance to grab your phone. Strange how eager she was to please him, even though they seemed to be on equal footing. 
Jake waved away your concerns. “It’ll make it to Yeonjun’s. Probably.” He could scarcely be heard amidst the thunder crashing in the distance. 
“How come you didn’t leave earlier? I heard the others went to Yeonjun’s a few hours earlier,” Isa said, adjusting her own poncho.
Jake hesitated, then whispered, “I thought Jay would come back. Wanted to be at Stoker in case he showed.”
Isa’s face crumpled for a few seconds, before she took a deep breath and steeled herself. “Come on,” she yelled, grabbing your hand and leading you into the golf cart. “Aw, man, my ass is wet.”
“That’s a hurricane party for you,” Jake said. With a whoop, he started the golf cart and sped away from Fawcett.
The main entrance to Sad U was closed off by a large, ostentatious black gate, but there were other ways to get off campus. Namely, there was a winding path that led from the warehouse into the woods surrounding the university that led outside. Jake maneuvered the golf cart through the powerful winds, hollering as he did so. 
“You drive like shit,” Isa screamed, clinging to you. 
“You try driving a golf cart through a hurricane,” Jake yelled, entering the forest. There was a brief reprieve from the winds, but branches, twigs, and pebbles still whipped around your head. You had to dodge constantly to avoid a barrage of debris. 
Somehow, Jake had wheeled the golf cart onto a side road. “Do you know where you’re going?” Isa asked warily.
“Yeah,” Jake said, “obviously. I’ve been to Yeonjun’s a bunch of times.”
“Are you sure?” The golf cart squeaked miserably as it rumbled down the concrete. 
“Yes, I’m sure! Get off my ass!”
“We’re in a golf cart in a Category 5 hurricane, someone needs to be on your ass.”
“This isn’t even a Category 2 hurricane. This is nothing. You know what we get in Australia? We get willy-willies. You wouldn’t know shit about that, would you?”
You started laughing. You couldn’t remember the last time you had done so, but it felt amazing. Clutching your stomach, you rested your head on Isa’s shoulder. Isa looked at you, then glanced at Jake, and they joined in too. A merry band of lunatics, cackling in the middle of a storm.
“We’re so fucked, Wednesday Addams is laughing,” Jake said, letting out a wheezing laugh. 
“It’s a good omen,” Isa suggested, “like a black cat walking under ladders.”
“13 mirrors in a funhouse breaking,” you said, unable to stop giggling. Maybe you were delirious. 
Jake snickered and continued driving. The storm hadn’t let up, but he managed to navigate the golf cart onto the sidewalk of a residential area - quite the upscale neighborhood at that. The houses looked more like dorm buildings with how large and decadent they were. 
“I thought it’d be a gated community,” Isa said, still holding onto you. 
“Yeonjun’s going through this weird Twitter socialist phase,” Jake said, “so he’s like, ‘gated communities are for the bourgeoise’, but he owns a shit ton of Rick.”
You glanced at Isa. “Rick?”
“Rick Owens,” she explained.
Just then, you heard a distinct gurgling noise coming from the back of the golf cart. “You guys hear that?” 
“I can’t hear anything in this weather,” Isa said, and as the words left her mouth the golf cart made a loud hissing noise. 
“Get out!” Jake yelled. “The battery is waterlogged!” Isa helped to pull you out of the cart, and the three of you watched the golf cart smoke before the rain snuffed any remaining heat. 
“Jake,” Isa began, her words punctuated by a thunder-clap, “why would you even take a golf cart to Yeonjun’s in the middle of a storm?”
Jake spread his arms angrily, but all he could offer was a meager, “The vibes?”
“The vibes,” she said, exasperated. “The vibes.” 
“How far is Yeonjun’s?” you asked, still wired from the strange euphoria you had felt earlier.
Jake shrugged, running his hands through his wet locks. “Like…five minutes away?”
“We should run,” you suggested. “What else can we do?” 
Jake opened his mouth, but with another loud thunderclap, he turned on his heel and started sprinting. Expletives spilled out of his mouth as quickly as he moved. Isa took your hand and you ran in a madcap sprint to Yeonjun’s house. It was almost surreal; every minute, there was a bright flash of lightning, and you could see everything in complete clarity. 
Your lower half was completely wet, you were holding hands with the “girlfriend” of the guy who had tormented you for months, and you were running towards a party with some of the most obnoxious people at your university, including his best friend. 
“Fate,” you murmured.
“What?” Isa yelled, pulling her poncho tightly around herself. 
“Fate,” you said, a little louder.
“Yeah, that’s the password,” Jake said, running a little ahead of you and Isa. “Who told you?”
“Riki.”
Isa let out a slight laugh. “You know Riki, too? You don’t tell me anything.”
You laughed, too. A few minutes later, you were in front of Yeonjun’s sprawling mansion. From what you could tell, it was around three stories. Lights shone from all of the windows besides the ones on the highest floor.  No cars in the driveway, but the ten car garage probably fit all of them neatly. The wind could batter this fortress all it wanted, but the brick and stucco building would probably hold up in a flood. You didn’t want to know how someone who had graduated university not two years prior had been able to afford such a nice place. He was an ex-Karma Club member- the president, in fact - so Lord knows what he was capable of. 
You could hear loud trap music with rapid 808s playing from inside, accompanied by frenzied screams. The yard, which was currently being pummeled by a torrent of water, was understandably empty as well. Jake walked up to the door and rapped three quick knocks using the brass knocker. Someone opened it, a young man with a cat-like smile. He looked at Jake, then at you and Isa.
“Password?” 
Jake groaned. “Jungwon, you little shit. Don’t be annoying.”
“That’s crazy,” Jungwon said, shoving his hands into the front pocket of his bright orange hoodie. “None of those words sounded like the password.”
Jake groaned again, leaned in, and whispered the password into Jungwon’s ear. 
“Enter,” Jungwon said, gesturing Jake inside with a flourish. Jake gave Jungwon the finger and walked inside, calling, “I’ll be in the living room” behind his shoulder. 
Isa walked up next. She gave Jungwon a little kiss on the cheek and said the password. She turned towards you and pointed at the right, presumably at the living room. Then she disappeared inside as well, already taking off her poncho. 
Jungwon looked at you expectantly, so you walked down the stone path, up the steps, and stood in the doorway. “Fate,” you said. 
Jungwon nodded at you, jutting his bottom lip out slightly. “Nice to finally meet you,” he said appreciatively. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
“Anything good?”
You both stared at each other blankly. “You’d better get inside,” Jungwon said, gesturing you in. “In, in. It’s raining cats and dogs and Jakes. Get it? Because he’s an animal.”
“Shut the fuck up,” you heard Jake call from up the stairs and Jungwon wandered over to him, still laughing. Your eyes adjusted to the sudden light.
The scene was something out of a music video. To your right was a winding, wooden staircase with ornate iron balusters. Clusters of people crowded on it, passing around a tired joint or just talking. To your left, you could see a small room that had been stripped of its furniture so people could have space to dance. Directly beside it was a small bar, replete with various bottles of alcohol along with a small cooler that rested on the counter. Riki was standing near the bar, and when he caught your eyes he stalked over to you.
Riki grinned at you as you peeled off your sopping wet poncho and jacket, resting them on a nearby coat hook. “You came,” he said quietly. 
“I did,” you said.
He walked back to the bar, and after a moment’s hesitation you followed him. “Do you drink?” he asked, pawing through the open cooler. 
“Not often,” you said, leaning against the counter, careful to avoid touching an odd puddle of liquid. 
“Didn’t think so,” Riki said. He pulled a blue Calypso lemonade out of the cooler and cracked it open, handing it to you. You received it reluctantly, swirling the liquid around. “Don’t worry, I didn’t spike it. That’s more of a Sunoo thing.”
You took a small, tentative sip. “Is it?
“Nothing serious,” Riki said, gulping his own Monster and wiping his mouth. “Just know that if you ever see a group of people mysteriously getting the shits at once, it’s Sunoo.”
“Is he here?”
“Yeah. Why do you think they have me watching the drinks? When he gets bored at a party he gets antsy.”
“Hm.” You continued drinking and surveyed the area. It was almost claustrophobic, seeing so many people dancing and writhing around. Thanks to Isa, you didn’t stand out, although you wondered if anyone would have even cared. 
Riki nudged your arm with his elbow lightly. “First party?” 
You nodded, clutching your small glass bottle like a lifeline. “A lot of people.”
Riki snorted. “Nah, wait till you see upstairs.”
“Upstairs?”
“Yeah,” Riki said, jerking his thumb towards the steps. “That’s where the living room is.”
You gaped at him, glancing at the large, open space beside you two. “That isn’t the living room?”
A laugh escaped Riki’s lips and he nudged you again. “This is so fun. Come on.” Riki abandoned his post at the bar and jostled you. You got to your feet and looked at him warily. As he pushed you up the stairs, helping you wind past the dazed partygoers sitting on the steps, he said, “You’re wet.”
“Jake drove us here in a golf cart.”
Riki laughed loudly, his voice echoing over the music coming from upstairs. “He was serious about that? What the fuck? We could have driven you guys in Yeonjun’s all-terrain truck.”
You got to the top of the steps and pulled at your wet dress. “He said he did it for the-,”
“Vibes,” Riki finished, swallowing the last of his Monster. He crushed the can and tossed it on the floor, where it clattered unceremoniously. “He’s an idiot sometimes.”
“So I’m learning,” you said. 
The red LED lights blaring from the expansive living room on the far left painted Riki’s face with a devilish glow. He put his arm around your shoulder and laughed again. “We should be friends. You’re funny.”
“You’d be my first one,” you said, walking towards the party with some apprehension.
“Your first? What about Jay?” Riki asked innocently. “I thought you guys were best friends.” You glared at him and he snickered. 
“Come on, let’s dance.”
“Wait,” you said, tugging on his sleeve. 
“What?”
You looked at the throng of people dancing freely. You could see Isa’s flowing mass of red hair in the middle of the room, and Jungwon’s bright orange hoodie led you to Jake doing some trendy little dance. You could see the other members of the Karma Club interspersed throughout the room - Sunghoon and Sunoo were in a corner, half-dancing and half gossiping. You didn’t see Heeseung, or anyone who matched his description. Everyone there, regardless of what they were doing, looked like they were having fun.  They were shouting the lyrics to a song you didn’t know. 
“I can’t dance,” you said finally.
Riki stared at you. “You think any of them can dance? Look at Jake.”
“Well, I-,”
Riki put both of his hands on your shoulders and looked you in the eyes. “You need to stop thinking.”
“Stop thinking?”
“Yes. Stop thinking. Just do what feels right.”
“I won’t know any songs.”
“Doesn’t matter. Every song has a beat, you just follow it.”
“But …”
“I’m about done with this conversation,” Riki said, and he pulled you inside of the living room. Someone with lanky hair was manning a turntable, holding up his red solo cup as he fiddled with dials. Bodies were pressed together, and the room smelled like sweat and weed and perfume.
Riki started to move to the beat, so you decided to follow him, still holding your Calypso. He looked at you and laughed. “Just like that,” he said. The two of you danced at the edge of the party together, and it was comforting realizing that no one was paying attention. You closed your eyes and tried to feel the beat; the music was so loud that the floors seemed to reverberate. 
You heard someone call your name, and when you opened your eyes you saw Isa running towards you. Her smile was lopsided and she was laughing a little too hard. “I’m about to start rolling,” she said giddily. “Took like 150 mg. Come dance!”
Isa suddenly possessed the strength of an ox, because she was able to yank you into the center of the room. 
Jake yelled your name and hit a dance move you didn’t recognize. You copied him, the same way you did Riki. “Aye,” Jake said approvingly, “Wednesday’s got moves.”
“I taught her everything she knows,” Riki said. He embraced Jake in a half-hug and Jake ruffled his hair.
“I’m gonna teach her how to twerk,” Isa said, tugging your arm. “Come here…” 
You tried to pry her hand off of you. “No, no, no…”
“Teach me, Isa,” Jake said playfully, and he dropped into a squat and rattled his bones. Isa made a retching noise and looked away. 
An unfamiliar voice gasped, and you whirled your head to see who it was.“Oh, God. Who got Jake popping his pussy?” It was a girl wearing a black beanie with a cross on it, a thin tank top, and baggy camo pants. 
Isa smiled. “Gigi!”
“Gigi” and Isa kissed each other on the cheeks. “Girl,” Gigi said, rolling her eyes, “someone gave my man an edible and said that it was only 10 mg. Tell me why he’s in the bathroom right now talking about ‘they’re after me’?”
Riki’s eyes lit up. “Heeseung is vulnerable?”
“Don’t scare him too bad,” Gigi said, but Riki was already speeding away. She sighed and bit the inside of her cheek. “That boy is evil, Isa.”
“You say that like every Karma Club member isn’t insane,” Isa said, pulling her hair out of her face and whipping it backwards.
Jake finally got up and frowned, standing beside Isa. You lingered on her other side; Gigi’s sudden appearance had made you feel a bit nervous. “I’m not that bad,” Jake said with a slight pout. 
“Please.” Gigi scoffed and adjusted her beanie. “That Mina shit was pretty bad.”
For the first time since you had known him, Jake’s face was completely serious. The air had become fraught with tension, and you realized that the three of them had completely stopped dancing. 
“Oops,” she said, holding her hand up to her lips. “Did I say something?”
Isa was chewing on her bottom lip, and Jake was staring at Gigi the same way that Jay looked at other people. Like he could kill them.
“Let’s not talk about that,” Jake mumbled, looking away from Gigi. He glanced at you, then back at the ground. 
Gigi followed his gaze to you, and she gave you a clinical, detached once-over. “Who’s this?”
“This is our Wednesday,” Isa said, rubbing your shoulder. She told Gigi your name, and a hint of recognition flickered on her face. 
“Oh, that’s you,” Gigi said, nodding slowly. “I’m Giselle. Heeseung’s brought you up.”
What was there even to talk about? “Oh.”
“Based on what Heeseung said, I didn’t think you’d show up to one of these,” Gigi said coolly. 
“Jake said he’d buy me smoothies for a week if I came,” you replied drily. 
“No, I didn’t,” Jake protested, but his wide, puppy-like smile returned. “Quit lying on me.”
“No, you definitely did,” Isa said, lightly pushing him. “I heard you say it. You said you’d get me a wrap from Stoker’s caf, too.”
“Fine, fine,” Jake said, holding his hands up. “Smoothies for a week for Wednesday and a wrap for her friend Ariel.”
The song switched, some rap song you didn’t know, but Giselle shrieked, clutching Isa. “Girl, this is my song,” she screamed. “Just got some top from a stripper bitch, she from Kankakee…”
Giselle and Isa started dancing, with Giselle gesturing at Isa passionately. You looked at Jake, who moved his arms in a ridiculous, exaggerated way. You smiled and followed his movements, to his amusement. 
“You been getting close to Riki?” he asked, tousling his hair. 
“I guess,” you replied, trying to mimic a dance you had seen in a music video. “I’ve only known him for two days, though.”
Jake nodded. “He seems like he likes you.”
“He’s nice.”
“Yeah, he’s a good kid,” Jake said, and you became aware of how close he had gotten to you. When had that happened?
“You say kid like Riki and I aren’t the same age.”
Jake stopped moving momentarily, and a shy smile spread across his face. You felt a blush creep over your cheeks, and you were thankful for the cover of darkness. “Well, you don’t seem like you’re the same age as Riki,” he said softly. “You seem a lot more…mature?”
“I don’t feel mature,” you admit and you wonder why you even said it. 
“You are,” Jake said, and you saw his hand reaching out towards you, towards your face. Before he could touch you, you felt someone push you. 
“Why aren’t you dancing?” Riki said, giggling. “You guys look like losers.” He patted your back and went over to Jake, shaking him. Jake playfully wrestled Riki, and as you looked on you swayed your hips ever-so-slightly. Now that you were a little more comfortable, you were starting to have fun.
“Okay, get it,” Gigi said. You turned and she was giving you a strange smile. Isa stretched her hand towards you, and without a moment of delay, you took it. 
Even though you didn’t know the words, even though you didn’t know anyone, you still danced.  Jake was on your right, Isa was on your left, and the six of you were in a group, letting loose. Isa let her head hang back and excitedly moved her body to the beat. Riki was a surprisingly good dancer, freestyling along with every song that came on. Jake wasn’t far behind him, either. Last week, you couldn’t have imagined yourself doing this, not with these people. 
“Let’s go,” Jake yelled before a beat drop, and Riki pushed your head down so you would headbang. You smacked his arm, a gesture you had witnessed girls do to guys. It felt good to do something normal like that, to express your familiarity with someone.
You didn’t know how long you had spent in the living room, but eventually you grew tired. You tapped Jake on the shoulder. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Shit,” Jake said apologetically. “They’re probably all occupied right now. You really need to go?”
You shook your head. “Just need to rest for a little. I’m tired.”
“Sure,” he said. “You wanna go to a bedroom?”
Resting on a soft, plush bed and nuzzling into goose-down pillows sounded like a great plan to you. You nodded your assent. As you left, Isa got a hold of your jacket’s sleeve. “You okay?”
“Not used to this many people,” you explained, and you could have sworn you heard Giselle scoff. Whatever.  Isa nodded sympathetically and gave you a long hug. You tapped her back awkwardly before pulling away. “Have fun,” you said softly. 
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Isa said, playfully hitting your arm before turning back around.
Jake winded his way out of the crowd with you in tow. He took you up another flight of spiral stairs, then down a hallway decorated with tasteful, if not somewhat generic, artwork. He knocked on a door at the end of the hall, and when he didn’t hear anything, he opened the door. Jake flicked the light on, surveying the room. It was a simple, spacious bedroom; the bed had a red and gold quilt, the floor was dark hardwood, and the curtains were drawn shut. “This place is so big,” Jake said admiringly. “If the apocalypse were to happen, I’d come here and just hide out.”
“You’d get looted,” you said, entering the bedroom. You took your shoes off at the door and walked over to the bed. Putting your calypso down on the nightstand, you laid down on top of the sheets. “Yeonjun won’t mind if I sleep in one of his beds?”
Jake scoffed and sat down on the edge of the bed, beside you. “Sleeping is probably the tamest thing people are going to do in his bedrooms,” Jake said, looking down at you. “You’re fine.”
“Oh.” With that, you crawled under the covers, which were deliciously soft. The pillows were cold and crisp, and you breathed out a contented sigh. 
“You must be tired,” Jake said. “First college party, right?”
“First party,” you replied, suddenly feeling embarrassment over your lackluster social life. 
Jake shook his head in disbelief. “You’re so chill, I don’t get why you weren’t popular in high school.”
“Ask Jay,” you deadpanned. “He could give you a few reasons.”
“Jay’s a fucking…” Jake seemed to catch himself, and he looked at the ceiling before staring back down at you. “I love him, but I don’t understand him. I don’t know why he treats you like that.” 
Why do you let him treat me like that? The words clogged in your throat. You were being unfair. Jake had been telling Jay to stop recently, had been trying to help you. It wasn’t like he could stop Jay, anyways. Jay always did what he wanted. 
You must have looked strange, because Jake bit his lip in worry. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I caught a little cold yesterday,” you said. Jake touched the back of his hand to your forehead, and you were surprised by how chilly his touch was. 
“How’d you manage that?” Jake said in a low murmur. He moved his hand to your neck, just under your chin. 
“Went outside.”
“And why did you go outside?”
You gave him a small smile. “The vibes.”
Jake chuckled. “You can be so funny,” he said. “You can be so…”
You never got to hear what else Jake thought you were, because he had leaned down and planted his plush lips onto yours, kissing you softly. A dulcet sweet kiss, as gentle as dandelion fluff. When he pulled away, his eyes lingered on your lips. “Sorry,” Jake said quietly, moving his hand from your neck. 
You didn’t say anything, and you felt as though you had reverted back to the you from Monday. 
“Sorry,” Jake said again, “I don’t know why I did that.” He hesitated, then whispered, “Do you want me to go?” 
You bobbed your head up and down, almost imperceptibly. Jake drew a sharp intake of breath, nodded, then stood up. “I hope you feel better,” he muttered before leaving the bedroom. 
You didn’t. You couldn’t even fall asleep. You laid there, listening to the sounds of the rain and the bass kicks coming from the living room. Your eyes were closed, but your mind was racing. 
Bringing your fingers to your lips, you traced the soft skin. Jake had kissed you like you were something fragile, something that needed special care. He was attractive, friendly, and treated you far better than any other man in your life ever had. 
So why were you thinking about Jay? 
It was only a seven minute drive to Yeonjun’s from Sad U, which would be a nearly two hour long walk. Even if the weather cleared up, it would be an arduous trek, and without your phone, you would probably get lost. 
There was no point in trying to rest, but you didn’t want to see Jake right now. You didn’t want to confront his feelings, your feelings, or your lack thereof. Maybe you should go downstairs, see if you could scrounge up some alcohol. Drink yourself into a stupor and black out. 
So you got out of bed, shoved your shoes on, and headed out the door. As you walked down the hallway, you bumped into Riki, who was carrying a bottle of something with two red solo cups. “Jake wants to drink all of a sudden,” he explained. “But he’s too much of a fair maiden to get it himself. Annoying. It’s a crime for me to even be touching this shit.”
“I want to leave,” you blurted out. 
Riki stared at you. “What happened?”
“Nothing. I don’t know.” 
Shifting the items in his hands, he sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He checked the time, then looked at you gravely. “Weather’s supposed to clear up in 3 hours,” Riki said finally. “I can take someone’s car.”
“They wouldn’t mind?”
“If they minded, then they shouldn’t have put me on key duty,” Riki said, shaking his flannel’s pocket. You heard the sound of keys jangling together.
“You really are evil,” you said approvingly. 
“How do you think I got into the club?” Riki smiled, then sighed. “I’m gonna go take care of Jake. You gonna come dance again?”
“Don’t think so.” 
“All right,” Riki said. “Which room are you in?”
“Up the stairs…down the hall, the leftmost room.”
“I’ll meet you there in a few hours, then,” Riki said, and he prepared to leave.
“Wait.” When Riki turned to face you, crading the bottle of alcohol under his arms, you swallowed.
“Why are you so nice to me?”
Riki snorted. “Don’t say depressing, orphan ass shit like that. You piss Jay off, you don’t suck his dick, you don’t get into dumbass slapfights, and you’re funny. That’s all I need.”
“I thought Karma Club members would sort of…hate the same people.”
“Yeah, a lot of people make assumptions about us,” Riki said, irritation clear on his face. “They don’t know shit.” When you remain quiet, he heads over to the living room.
Three hours pass by, trickling like molasses. You go in and out of sleep, dreams intermingling with daydreams. You think about the scarf, about Jay, the smoothies Jake promised you, about your classes, about how five days could culminate into something like this. Lying in a stranger’s bed. You think about how, if Jay hadn’t fiercely kissed you on the rooftop, Jake would have been your first kiss. But if Jay hadn’t kissed you, would you have accepted Isa’s invitation to hang out? Would you have come to this party?
Riki knocked on your door. “It’s open,” you said, and he stepped inside.
“Jake’s acting stupid,” Riki said, gesturing for you to get up. “Fighting with Gigi because she brought up the Mina thing.” 
You shuffled over to his side, and together you descended the winding staircase. 
“I take it you don’t know what the Mina thing is?” Riki asked. 
You shook your head. 
“Jake would probably hate it if I told you,” Riki began, holding the door open for you, “so I’ll tell you.
You slipped through the door; the wind was weaker, and the rain came in a light shower instead of the downpour through which you had traversed. “What’s with you?”
Riki laughed, striding over to the massive garage. He pressed a button and it folded itself into the wall. “I like starting shit.”
“Fair.”
The two of you got into someone’s car, with heated leather seats and fuzzy dice in the mirror. “So, the Mina thing was pretty straightforward,” he began, pulling out of the driveway. “From what I understand, Jake hooked up with a girl when she was drunk. Really drunk. She said it was assault, he said that it was consensual.” 
You were surprised by the blase nature with which he relayed this information, but you figured being in the Karma Club took a lot of grit. 
“She tried to take him to court, but Jake…well, he’s rich. Really rich. She never got a rape kit, apparently didn’t know they existed, so she had no evidence. The only thing was…” Riki squinted at the road. “Fuck, I missed a turn…doesn’t matter. Anyways, the only thing was that her back was fucked up.”
“Fucked up?”
“Scratches, bruises and shit. Jake said that she liked it rough, and I never got to see it myself, but one of her old friends did. She didn’t believe that Jake raped her, but it looked ugly. Anyways, then she got known as the girl that cried rape. Everyone sort of just ran with it. Then she tried to kill herself.”
Riki said it so casually, you nearly didn’t register that he had said it. “Pardon me?”
“She tried to overdose on something, I don’t know what. It didn’t work, she got her stomach pumped. And then she left the school. It was the middle of last semester, so I have no clue how she completed her exams. Probably didn’t. No one knows where she is now. No one knew about the attempt, except for the KC members at the time.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well,” Riki said, turning onto Decelis Street, where Sadame University was located. “She had lost all of her friends, so it’s not like they would have cared. Sorry if that sounds like a dick thing to say, but it’s true. And the people who did find her, well…they weren’t going to tell anyone.”
“Why? Who found her?”
Riki was silent as he pulled up in front of the tall, imposing gate. “You can get in, right? There’s a few entrances that lead inside, or you could climb over.”
“Yeah,” you said, unbuckling your seatbelt. “I should be fine.”
“Good.”
“Thanks for driving me.”
“It was Jay,” he said quietly. “Jay found her. She was from Fawcett, and he found her in the girls’ bathroom.”
Staggering through the halls of Fawcett, which were eerily quiet (quite a few students had gone home for the weekend, anticipating the storm. The rest were probably in Stoker, enjoying the proximity to the KC without stirring their ire. 
It was too much to think about, too much to figure out. Jake had either committed a crime, or he was being unfairly framed. Either way, the girl had tried to kill herself, and Jay had found her. Why would he be in the Fawcett bathroom? None of it made sense, and you were so worn out, you could hardly bring yourself to think about it.
You jammed your key into the lock, but you realized that the door was already open. That’s right. Isa had rushed you outside, so you hadn’t had the chance to lock your door. When you cracked the door ajar, you saw someone lying on your bed, reading one of your books. 
Jay.
This was the longest Friday night of your life. 
The door made a creaking noise as you pushed it all the way open, and he turned to you and smiled. It was a Duchenne smile, devoid of any joy. His hair, which was normally styled, fell limply into his eyes.  He set the book down on your nightstand, got to his feet, and pulled you inside lightly. As he let you go, he closed the door and locked it with an unpropitious click. 
“Where were you?” Jay asked, leaning against the door. He crossed his arms over his loose black button-up and tilted his head.
“Yeonjun’s,” you said.  You still felt weak from the last 6 hours, so you rested your hand on your nightstand for support as you stood in front of him. 
“Oh, Yeonjun’s,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “How was it? Fun?”
The benign nature of his questioning only made you feel more perturbed. “It was okay,” you said. “Loud. Not as many people as I thought.”
“You know how it is,” Jay continued. “KC parties are always exclusive.” His voice didn’t have its usual arrogant, loud tone, the one that commanded attention. Now he spoke in a slow, borderline sensual drawl.
“Why didn’t you go?”
Jay shrugged and kicked himself off of the door, standing upright. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You may not know this because you don’t have any friends, but hanging around the same people for so long gets boring. I got sick of it, all their bullshit. Besides, KC parties are all the same. You go there, you listen to the shittiest house music, you smoke cat piss because it’s Heeseung’s favourite, you grind on some sluts, you fuck one or two of them, you have to kick their drunk asses out, you go home, then you fight the urge to kill yourself, pen in your jugular.”
“Sounds like a great time.”
Jay laughed humourlessly. “I didn’t know you could make jokes. You’re just full of surprises. Going to parties - KC parties, no less! - wearing makeup…you fuck anyone?”
Your eyes widened. “What?”
“Did you fuck anyone? Seems like you were looking to get fucked tonight.” Jay took a small step towards you.
“No,” you said, thinking about the kiss. Both of them.
“Really?” Jay stepped even closer. “Not even Jake? He has a weird thing for you, you know. Probably thinks he can dick the mute out of you. I’m surprised he didn’t try anything. But then, he’s always been kind of a pussy, though.”
You stayed silent, backing up. He wasn’t wearing his usual cologne today, so his natural scent wafted into your nose. It was woodsy and a little spicy. 
“Back to the silent treatment? You’re killing me.”
Your hand brushed against the book he had been reading. “Why are you here, Jay?” 
“I missed you,” Jay said sarcastically. “I just had to come see you. Why, you didn’t want to see me? Are you scared of me now?”
You shook your head, stepping back again. Your calves hit the cool wrought iron frame of your bed, and you realize that there’s nowhere left to go. 
Jay advanced upon you, until he was hovering over you like a specter. “Of course you aren’t. Nothing I can do can frighten you, right?”
“No.”
Anger contorted his features into a vicious snarl, and he pushed you onto the bed. Yourlegs hit the edge of the bed, and you winced from the impact. Furious hands groped all over the front of your body, as if he were attempting to touch every part of you at once. Jay’s lips pressed onto yours, his teeth clashing against yours. This kiss lacked the desperation and  hopelessness of last time. Now, his kisses were vicious attacks, wet and hot. His hips rutted against your crotch, like he was trying to fuck you through the layers of clothing.
Jay pulled away, gasping. His lips were covered in his own slick saliva. “Why aren’t you fighting back? Why do you let me do whatever I want to you?”
He’s pinned your arms against your sides, so all you can do is look into his eyes. Your voice came out more strongly than you had intended. “You’ll do it if I fight back or not. You always do whatever you want. I’m not strong enough to stop you, so why bother?”
Jay growled with indignation. “You’re pathetic. You’re weak.” He kissed you again, as if trying to devour you. One of his rough hands slid up your dress, the other kneading your breasts through the thin fabric. 
You didn’t kiss him back. You didn’t squirm. You laid there, pressed into your bed. Jay forced his tongue into your mouth and let you choke on it. The hand had disappeared up your dress was now sliding your panties down, down your legs. Pushing your dress up to reveal your naked pussy, Jay broke the kiss, a string of saliva connecting your lips. He looked into your eyes. 
“You’re mine,” he said, unbuckling his belt. “You know that?” 
The words sent a flurry of goosebumps across your body. “What?”
“I said, you’re mine.” Jay held his belt in his hands and glanced at your wrists, then your face. He tossed the belt to the side and pushed your dress even further up your body, giving him access to your tummy. He spread his hand across it, rubbing it in a circular motion.
“You hate me.”
“I despise you.”
“Why would you want to have someone you hate? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Jay said before spitting into his right hand. His other hand yanked his zipper down and took his cock out. It was almost scary to look at: long and angry with a reddened tip and a slight curve. He pushed your legs apart harshly. As if it were a chore, Jay stroked his cock a few times as he lined himself up with your pussy. 
With a grunt, he plunged himself inside of you, piercing through your thin membrane ruthlessly. You bit your lip to stop yourself from crying out, but it was painful. It was a searing heat that licked at your walls, down to your core. Jay didn’t bottom out, thankfully, but he was already lingering dangerously close to your cervix. He was already panting, his hands gripping your hips as he tried to catch himself. His silver cross necklace dangled in your face, so close you could twirl it around your finger. 
Just as soon as you were getting used to the strange feeling of having a cock jammed in your cunt, you heard Jay’s husky voice. “Fight back,” he whispered before pulling out and slamming back inside of you. Your eyes were trained on Jay’s, and he captured and held your gaze. He thrusted again, harshly, and the slick noise made you realize that you were wet. “You’re just letting me do this,” Jay continued, starting to develop a deep, irregular pace. Quarter notes of hard snaps of his hips, allegrisimo sixteenth-notes of incessant pounding. “Letting me take this pussy. Come on, struggle or I’ll think you want it.”
Jay continued slamming into you, leaving little half moons on your hips from his fingernails. His head dipped down to your neck, and he bit and sucked on a small spot near its base. A hickey. Jay licked a stripe up to the right of your neck and marked you there as well.
You felt wildly conflicted. You didn’t want this, you didn’t ask for this, and it felt odd. Yet at the same time, you felt so full. Every time he drove his cock into you, you felt like you would tear apart. Pain and pleasure coalesced into something you couldn’t comprehend.
Jay’s words devolved into grunting as he thrusted faster and faster. Somehow, the look on his face didn’t seem to display pleasure, or even schadenfreude. He stared at you through darkened eyes and his nose was scrunched.
“You’d let me do anything to you,” Jay said, almost accusingly. “Anything.” With another thrust, you feel something hot and fluid fill your womb, and soon the acrid smell of urine floats into your nostrils. 
Jay stares into your face, waiting for a reaction, searching your face for any weakness. When he finds none, he lets out a strangled groan of frustration and begins slamming into you wildly. He lifts your legs up, gripping them by your thighs, and takes your pussy with the aggression of an animal. “I made you a piss-whore, a dirty fucking piss whore. Aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry? Are you a fucking robot?” He punctuated his insults with angry thrusts; you could hear the sticky amalgamation of piss and your own cum making squelching noises. You reach for the sheets beneath your hands and search for any purchase. 
Jay let out one final, irate grunt and spilled inside of you, shooting his cum all the way to your cervix. He dropped your legs back onto the bed and rested on top of you, your head between his arms. You had seen a lot of expressions on Jay’s face: anger, frustration, pride, sadistic glee, but this was something else. Something you couldn’t read. You made eye contact with him again, and he pulled out of you, staggering to his feet. He shoved his cock into his boxers and started to dress again. 
Jay opened your door, but before he did he cast one last lingering look at you as you laid on your bed. You looked a sight:forehead shining with sweat, two bright, stinging hickeys on your neck, and a pool of piss, cum, and blood oozing from your pussy onto your bed. Hurriedly, as if someone had ordered him to do so, Jay pulled out his wallet and tossed a flurry of bills on your nightstand. “Get something to eat,” he muttered before leaving, slamming your door.
Your fingers crawled down your stomach and dipped your fingers into your vaginal entrance, mimicking the stretch that Jay had given you.
As you rested there, staring at the ceiling, you decided to determine what had happened. The simple answer was that you had been raped. Could you enjoy rape? You didn’t feel like a victim. You didn’t feel like something horrible had happened to you. If you were being honest, this had been the most interesting thing that had occurred in your life. No one had ever felt so strongly about you in any capacity, and it thrilled you. Jay’s hatred invigorated you, made you feel warm.
It filled you.
You plunged your fingers into your vacant pussy and allowed yourself to moan. 
-
You woke up with a heavy body and a foggy mind. For some reason, you thought that you had woken up at Yeonjun’s party, surrounded by a pile of bodies. Instead, you woke up alone, wearing a clean nightgown. A nightgown? Hadn’t you been covered in bodily fluids last night, dressed in an outfit that Isa had picked for you? And your sheets, they were pristine. You smoothed them down as if trying to find remnants of the night before. Had you made all of that up? And if so, from where? It all sounded unreal. Riding a golf cart in the middle of a storm, partying with the Karma Club, and losing your virginity to Jay…
That’s right. You weren’t a virgin anymore. Your first kiss, your first fuck, they were both Jay’s. You glanced at your nightstand, and you the smattering of bills laying on top of your book. You picked one of the bills up, a one hundred dollar bill. You didn’t even think most stores accepted one hundred dollar bills these days. Christ. 
The next thing to do was to check your phone. A dismal sight greeted you: the time was 4:52, you had nine missed calls and 32 messages to parse through. First, the missed calls. Five from Isa, two from Jake, and one from an unknown phone number. You called that one first, and it picked up on the third ring. 
“You’re alive,” Riki said through the phone. “Jesus. Everyone thought you died.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? You’ve been asleep for over 12 hours,” he said. “Your room door was locked. Isa’s been driving herself crazy, and Jay isn’t helping- oh, yeah, Jay is back.” 
Yeah, no shit. “That’s crazy.”
“It is crazy. Been a stupid ass night. Jay won’t tell us where he went. And Jake’s been tweaking since the party.”
“Jake?”
Riki heaved a sigh. “Yup. He’s been pacing around and he has the temper of a chihuahua right now. He’s in Won’s room right now losing his shit. Swear to God, it almost isn’t worth it being KC sometimes.”
“Stressful night,” you commented blithely.
“Isn’t it? I’m on my way to the Stoker caf right now. I’m gonna fuck up a samosa."
“Enjoy it.”
“Oh, I shall.”
You hung up on Riki and groaned. With a degree of annoyance, you flicked through your texts. 
The ones from Isa were about what you had expected. Concerned “where are you” messages that made up the bulk of the 32 texts. Clearly, she got antsy when she was on molly. It was nice to have someone care, though. You didn’t text her back yet, lest she try to come see you. If you saw anyone right now, you thought that you’d explode. 
The texts you were truly apprehensive about opening were the ones from an unknown number. The message started with “hey, it’s jake”, which boded poorly. You steeled yourself and clicked on the text. 
hey, it’s jake. wanted to let you know that i had a lot of fun partying with you last night :) we gotta get you to the club sometime soon. you me isa and riki so isa won’t be third-wheeling
i hope i didn’t make things weird last night. i didn’t mean to rush you or anything.  i tend to think with my heart first instead of my brain, which makes me do stupid shit
not that kissing you was stupid
it was actually really nice
but i know that there’s been this longstanding situation between you and jay, and you probably don’t have the best opinion of us. i can’t blame you for that. and i know i probably haven’t done a very good job of expressing it, but i’m starting to have genuine feelings for you. been that way for a while, but it’s only now that i’ve gotten the chance to show it
so i got carried away
maybe it’s too soon idk but there’s something about you that’s different. i wanna get closer to you, and even if you don’t wanna pursue anything, i’d like to remain your friend
Hastily, you texted him: Let’s talk in person, later.
Not five minutes had passed before Jake texted you: sure, whenever you want. are you okay?
You: Yeah, you?
Jake: been better. did you just get up?
You: Yeah.
Jake: you sleep like a rock
You: It’s been a long night.
You surveyed the damage Jay had done to you in your full-length mirror. Two red hickeys staining your neck, fingerprint-shaped bruises on your stomach, a bruise on your hips, and scars like crescent moons littering your arm near your elbow from his nails digging into you. You found it pretty. 
Shrugging your nightgown on, you glanced at the money that was still on the nightstand. You hadn’t actually eaten anything since you had snacked with Isa. When you left your room, a hoodie covering your nightgown, you checked to see if the Fawcett restaurant was open. It was, but to your dismay Isa was sitting with a group of her friends. She looked exhausted. You remembered that you hadn’t spoken to her or responded to her texts, and you just couldn’t bear to face her right now.
You took the back exit out of the Fawcett building. Hazily, you remembered that Riki had talked about getting a samosa. You called him, and he picked up, making loud chewing noises. 
“Hey.”
“I’m coming to get a samosa. Is the coast clear?”
“Do you mean, is Jay in the cafeteria?”
“...Yeah.”
“Nah.”
“On my way.”
You hung up the phone and, for the first time, walked towards the Stoker dorms. To get there, you had to pass the library, and you made a note to get on the roof and smoke there. It had been nearly a week since the last time you had been able to puff away on a cigarette while you brooded. 
Upon entering, its opulence in comparison to the more modest dormitories was apparent. Why did a college dorm need marble tiles, a chandelier in the dining hall, and a plus red carpet lining the hallway? Unlike the other dorms, which were two story buildings, Stoker had three stories. This was despite being the dorm with the least amount of residents. The foyer faced a staircase that split into two, ultimately leading to the same area. To your right were the glass doors that led to the restaurant. 
As you walked towards the dining area, you looked for Riki. He should have been easy to find, considering his uncommon hairstyle and large stature, but you didn’t see him. 
The dining area was, thankfully, fairly sparse. You shuffled towards the short line for their restaurant, which was a sleek, modern eatery that sold a wide variety of dishes. As you scoured the menu, you heard thudding footsteps behind you. You didn’t bother turning around. 
“Riki tricked me,” you muttered, fingering the bills you had shoved into your hoodie’s pocket. 
“It’s what he’s best at,” Jay said, his breath tickling your neck. “Getting something to eat?”
You would have thought that such close proximity to him would have made you anxious. Instead, smelling his cologne brought a sense of familiarity. Jay teased you, you were the victim. The nature of the universe. “Yeah.”
“With my money?”
“Yeah.”
Jay chuckled. “Well, look at this. I fucked you, you’re using my money…it’s like you’re my girlfriend.”
You turned to look at Jay. He retained his cocksure attitude, but something was different about him. “Don’t you already have a girlfriend?”
He frowned, crossing his arms. “Who?”
Was he an amnesiac? “Isa.”
“Isa?” he asked incredulously. 
“Yeah?”
“Isa,” Jay repeated with a scoff. “No. No, I’m not dating Isa.”
“Tell her that,” you replied.
“I should. Bitch stole my Jane’s Addiction t-shirt,” he muttered. 
“So take it back.” One of the people working beyond the counter politely told you to order, so you turned around and ordered a vegetable samosa, just like Riki. 
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Jay said, flashing his card and tapping it onto the reader.
Things were too amicable. You looked at the card reader, then at Jay, who was grinning at you wickedly. “What, no one’s ever bought you food before?”
“No.”
“Jesus fuck, you really are pathetic,” Jay said, his grin faltering. You walked over to the waiting area, next to the straws and condiments, and Jay followed you over. For a while, you fiddled with a packet of ketchup while Jay stood by, hands in his pockets. You had a million questions you wanted to ask him, but none of them felt suitable for a spot like this, out in the open. 
“Did you tell Riki?” you asked finally.
“Tell him what?” You stared at him pointedly. “What, that we fucked? No. Haven’t told anyone. Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Not even Isa?”
Jay sighed, resting his head on the wall. “No, I’m not going to tell Isa.”
You nodded, feeling a sudden chill. In hindsight, you should have worn a jacket, but you weren’t thinking straight at all. 
“You cold?”
“A little,” you said.
“It’s November, you should have worn a jacket,” Jay said, shaking his head. “Pathetic and dumb…”
When your samosas were ready, Jay got them from the counter. He handed yours to you without a word, so you accepted it quietly. You walked over to an empty table. Like everything else in Stoker, it was needlessly ostentatious. White tablecloths for a college dorm cafeteria? 
Jay sat next to you without prompting. You didn’t know why he was acting so chummy, but you decided to take advantage of it. You decided to ask him one more question. 
“Why’d you do it?” you asked quietly.
Jay waited until he had finished his bite of food before speaking. “Jesus, you’re talkative today,” he grumbled. “I almost miss when you were mute.” 
You sat there and ate your samosa, flicking the crumbs off of the tablecloth. 
“Because I wanted to,” Jay said. He opened his mouth to continue speaking, but a shadow hovered over both of you. When you turned to look at the source of the obstruction, you saw Jake, dressed in his Sad U sweatshirt. His hair was messy, as usual, and he looked exhausted. You chewed your samosa and stared at him.
“Hey,” Jake said, mustering a small smile. “Riki said you were over here.”
Of course he did. “Yeah, Fawcett’s caf is closed,” you said. 
Jake nodded, his hair bouncing. “Wanted to what, Jay?”
Jay looked at Jake inquisitively. “What?”
“You said ‘because you wanted to’,” Jake said, and he began pressing his knuckles against the table. “Wanted to what?”
“Oh, that,” Jay said jovially. “I was talking about last night. I fucked her until she bled and she liked it. Didn’t you, sweetie?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jake said; his knuckles turned white and his voice was low.
“She was so wet,” Jay continued, putting his samosa on a paper towel. “And she purred like a kitten. The only problem was that she was tight as a bitch. I couldn’t even get my dick out of her.”
Jake slammed his hand on the table. “Fucking stop!”
Jay turned to you, his voice becoming polite. “See, Jakey here is having flashbacks. He hasn’t gotten laid in a long time. The last time he fucked a girl, was, well…”
Jay’s head snapped back as Jake landed a punch squarely on his cheek. You caught the smile burgeoning on Jay’s face before he stood up.
“Look at Jakey, trying to be a real man in front of a girl,” Jay said, dodging Jake’s wild punches. “You weren’t so brave last year.” 
Jake lunged for Jay’s throat and they tumbled to the ground. This was fun and all, but you didn’t really sign up for this. “Jake, stop,” you said, mainly because you felt like you had to.
“He’s always saying vile shit about you,” Jake said, holding Jay’s arms above his head. “This isn’t the first time he’s said gross, fucked up shit like that.”
Jay kneed Jake in the ribs with a gleeful smile, causing Jake to momentarily let go of Jay’s hands. The thought of getting in there and trying to pry them apart seemed funny, but it also repulsed you greatly. You got to your feet, took your samosa, and walked away from the dining hall. Whatever history Jay and Jake had, it went beyond you. You felt like you were a pawn in someone else’s game. 
When you got to the doors of the dining hall, Riki was posed in front of them, recording the fight with his phone. He smiled at you, shut his phone off, and pocketed it. “Pretty cool, right?”
“You tricked me,” you said, pointing at him with your samosa. 
Riki took a bite out of your meal. “I told you,” he said through a garbled mouthful, “I love starting shit.”
You couldn’t deny that he was an honest liar. You tucked yourself into a corner and watched Jay and Jak attempt to maul each other. 
You ate your samosa while Riki spoke. “You didn’t try to break up the fight?”
“Why bother?”
Riki craned his head towards your pastry again, so you held it up to him. “They say that indifference is the greatest form of contempt.”
“Thanks for the life lesson, Girl Meets World,” you deadpanned.
He snorted and wiped crumbs from his mouth. “I think I’m starting to understand why Jay is so obsessed with you.”
“Yeah? Why?”
Riki looked down at you and gave you an odd, almost solemn smile. “I think you’re the only person who cares less about life than him.”
You needed a smoke. Badly. Ideally, you’d like to be put into a 3-day medically induced coma, but a smoke would suffice for now. 
Unfortunately, life wouldn’t award you that kindness. As you sat in your room, debating on just opening the window and having a sneaky cigarette inside, you heard a knock on the door. A groan slipped from your lips before you opened it.
There stood a battered Jake. Split lip, one puffy, red cheek, and an eye that was swelling. “Jay looks worse,” Jake said with a small laugh. You knew that wasn’t true. “Can I come in?”
You nodded and gestured for him to sit down. He sat on the edge of the bed, resting his hands on his jeans as he gathered his thoughts. You locked the door and sat next to him. 
“I wanted to apologize,” Jake said, licking the fresh wound on his lip. “I acted…I wasn’t acting like myself. I was just so angry that he said those things about you, and it just…”
“It’s fine,” you said, looking down at your hands. 
“Thanks,” he said, sounding relieved. Then he frowned again as he glanced around your room. “Listen, uh…you heard Giselle talk about the Mina thing, right?”
“Yeah,” you said carefully. “I don’t know what it is, though.” 
“Wow. Riki kept his mouth shut for once? Impressive. Well…I figure, if we’re going to be friends, I should be honest with you. This is gonna be kind of heavy, so you know, we can save this for another time, or something…”
“I’ll be fine,” you said. “Go ahead.”
Jake cleared his throat and stared at the ceiling. “Well, last year I had a thing with this girl, Mina. She was…she was really shy. Cute. Artsy. She sort of reminds me of you, in some ways, but she wasn’t as mature as you are. Mina was kind of flighty, you know? She always did whatever she wanted.
“We had the same philosophy class, which is how we met. We sat next to each other, and we would talk during class. So we started hooking up, and you could say that we got pretty close. So, earlier this year, in April, I took her to this KC party. Mina wasn’t the biggest party girl, but she liked to take dabs and chill. The others didn’t mind me taking her, so she came with me.” Jake swallowed and glanced at you before returning his attention to the ceiling.
“We had both had a bit too much to drink, so I took her upstairs to my dorm room. And then…I suggested that we fool around a little. And, well, I got a little…I’m pretty rough. It’s not anything bad, it’s just how I like it. She liked it too. It was one of the reasons why we got along so well back then. So I was rough that night, but she liked it. She was definitely acting like she liked it. I don’t know what happened. The morning after, she was freaking out. She was pointing at all the bruises and calling me…she said that I…” Jake rubbed his chin harshly. “It was all bullshit. I don’t know why she didn’t just break up with me instead of trying to ruin my life like that. She spread that shit over the school, she tried…she tried to sue me. All because I wanted to have fun with my girlfriend.”
You waited for him to mention the suicide attempt, but he never did. Instead, Jake let the silence linger, and it was suffocating. 
“Thank you for telling me,” you said, and to drive your point home, you gently touched his arm. Jake looked down at your hand and smiled. 
“I thought you should know,” he said softly. “I wanted you to know.” Jake leaned back on his hands and sighed. “Feels so great to get that off my chest.”
You nodded, rubbing his arm gently, mentally reviewing all of the information you knew. 
“You know what I love about you?” Jake said. “You’re such a good listener. I feel like I can talk to you about anything.”
“I’m glad,” you said.
“Hey.” Jake grasped the hand on his arm and squeezed it tightly. “I meant it, you know. I do like you, but I’m willing to wait, or even just be your friend. It’s all up to you.”
Jesus. How did regular people deal with this? You looked at your conjoined hands as you tried to come up with something to say. “I’ve never even had a friend,” you said slowly, “so this will take a while.”
“I’ll wait,” Jake said earnestly, his eyes glittering. 
“I’ll need those free smoothies first.”
He laughed. “Yeah, of course. Of course, I’ll hook you up. Let’s head to Stopkewich on Monday, yeah? After the library?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Jake reluctantly let go of your hand and stood up. “I’m gonna go to the health clinic,” he said, jerking his thumb at his eye. “Can’t have this ruining the masterpiece.”
“Be careful,” you said, walking him the short distance to the door. 
“Will do,” Jake said with a wide grin. “See you, Wednesday.” 
As soon as he left, you pulled out your phone and texted Riki.
You: I need Jay’s number.
Riki: why lol
You: It’ll be interesting. I might plant more seeds of strife between your two friends.
Riki: be careful w that
Riki: there’s a delicate balance to shit-stirring
Riki: u can’t do too much of KC will be ruined 
Riki: *or
Riki: like u can’t tell jay some shit that’ll make him hate jake 
Riki: they should hate each other but ntm yk?
You: You’re full of sage advice.
Riki: ikr 
Riki gave you Jay’s number, and you texted him: We need to talk.
Fifteen minutes later, he responded.
Jay: ask nicely.
You didn’t know why you bothered.
You: Never mind. 
Jay: you need to learn how to swallow your pride sometime, you know that?
Jay: thought you would have gotten humbled last night.
You: It wasn’t nearly that transformative an experience.
Jay: god, you’re a cunt. 
Jay: i hope you aren’t getting clingy on me 
Jay: hate it when girls do that
You: You don’t have to talk to me again after this.
Jay: now you’re being dramatic 
Jay: where did you want to meet? your room again? 
You: Rooftop of the library at 11.
Jay: you text like a hitman
Jay: see you then
You were on the rooftop at 10:50, finally enjoying your cigarette. You breathed in the smoke, enjoying the subtle burn, and sighed. The rooftop was damp, so you bunched your coat under your butt and sat on it. The air was chilly, but you didn’t mind. You were focused on getting answers.
Shortly after you had finished your first cigarette, Jay sat down next to you, under the awning of the rooftop. It was hard to see his face in the darkness, the only light source being the full, luminous moon. Judging from the little you could see, you could tell that Jay had gotten the upper hand in the fight. “I didn’t know you smoked,” Jay said. 
You stubbed your cigarette out on the roof and shrugged. 
“I could use a smoke,” Jay said. “What do you smoke?”
You pulled another cigarette out of the pack and placed it between your lips. “Marlboro Lights.”
“You smoke lights? You’re as pussy as your boyfriend,” he said, holding his hand out. “What are you staring at? Give me one.”
You handed him a cigarette and lit your own. Jay leaned towards you, cigarette hanging from his lips, so you lit his own as well. 
The both of you sat there, taking long, peaceful drags. You closed your eyes as you smoked, relishing in the quiet. Jay’s presence didn’t bother you, either.
“I take it you didn’t bring me here to smoke with you,” he said after a while. 
“No,” you said. “I want to know about Mina.”
Jay coughed before barking out a sarcastic laugh. “Mina?”
“Giselle mentioned her at the party last night,” you said, taking another drag. “Jake got weird when Giselle said her name…”
“Giselle has such a big mouth,” Jay said. “Don’t know why Heeseung keeps her around.” He took another hit from his cigarette and looked out at the skyline. “You wanna know what happened with Mina? I’ll tell you what happened with Mina.
“Jake doesn’t know how to pick a decent girl to fuck, that’s his problem. He’s obsessed with finding some girl with mental problems and rehabilitating her using the healing power of his 2 incher. So if you thought he liked you for your stunning personality, then I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. He likes you because he thinks you’re weak. Mina was even worse, though. She thought she was special because she liked listening to indie music and smoking weed and having crystals and taking Seroquel. Jake loved that shit, though.
“So we had this party in Sunoo’s room. His room is on the top floor, so everyone kind of just spreads out anyways, out into the halls…you don’t care about any of this. Anyways, it was a small party and Jake brought Mina. They fucked in his room and the next day she was saying that Jake raped her.”
“Did he?”
Jay scoffed. “Who knows? The point is that he freaked out at her. Jakey is really conscious about his image. He likes being ‘the nice one’, so he’s always pretending like he’s not as fucked as the rest of us. So he lost his shit, started spreading rumours, dragging her name through the mud. It was pretty funny, but like I said, she was already fucked in the head. 
“So she called Jake one night, like a month after the party, and she’s hollering, saying all kinds of crazy shit. She said…” Jay took a long drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out. “That she was in the bathroom at her dorm, Fawcett. That she was going to take a shit ton of pills and kill herself and put him in her note, yada yada. I thought it was the usual borderline personality ‘please give me attention’ routine, so I was laughing about it, but Jake was tearing himself up. He was too pussy to go over there, so I had to do it.
“You ever seen someone overdose? Mina’s body was twitching and she was literally foaming at the mouth. I had to make sure that she didn’t knock her head against a sink and crack her skull open. I had to sit there and wait while Jake sat in his room with his thumbs stuck up his ass. She stopped breathing at one point, so I had to give her CPR. After that, she left the school.” 
You looked down at your hands. “What’d she overdose on?” 
Jay stared at you. “What, why does that matter? A girl almost died in front of me. Fuck, I was there when they had to give her naloxone. She probably overdosed on her stupid antipsychotics, who gives a shit?” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. 
“Were you scared?”
“Scared? No, I wasn’t scared. I was just…pissed. Pissed that Jake sent me to clean up after his problem.”
You let out a long trail of smoke, and the two of you fell silent again. The air felt thick now, heavy with tension. 
“You know, I didn’t even like it,” Jay said after a while. 
“Like what?” You stubbed out your own cigarette and pulled another one out of your pack. You didn’t normally smoke this much, but you felt as though you were making up for the nights you had missed. 
“Pass me another cig?” Jay opened your mouth, so you put the cigarette in and lit it for him. “I didn’t like fucking you.” He let out a long trail of smoke and leaned his head against the wall. “Physically, it felt good, but I didn’t get what I wanted from it.”
“What did you want?”
Jay chuckled. “What did I want? What I wanted…I wanted to feel something different, besides the way I feel every single day.”
You blew smoke out of the corner of your mouth. “And how do you feel?”
“Nothing. I don’t feel a damn thing.”
“Maybe,” you began drolly, “you should try having sex with someone you like.”
“Won’t happen,” he said. “I don’t like anyone.”
“So what about Is-,”
Jake groaned and pointed his cigarette at you. “Isa, Isa, Isa. You know what her problem is? She thinks she can change me. I don’t get it. She gets with me, and then she’s like, ‘Jay, hold my hand in public!’ ‘Jay, can you text me good morning?’ ‘Jay, can you take me to Nobu?’ I hate that. All those bullshit romantic gestures. They’re not me, and I don’t know why she thinks I would change for her. I can’t change, and I won’t change for anyone.”
You didn’t speak, so Jay continued talking. “I don’t think people can change, you know. I think whatever you show is who you are. When people ‘change’ because they get a little money, that’s just them expressing what they couldn’t before. It’s not that rich guys are all pedophiles. Every poor family has an uncle that likes touching kids. It’s already in you, and it’s just a matter of whether or not you have the means to express it.”
“I don’t think so,” you said quietly. 
“No? Please, enlighten me with your personal philosophy, Ms. ‘I’ll Let My Boyfriend Get beat Up Cause I’m So Aloof.’”
You sucked in a breath of smoke and blew it out slowly, watching the delicate tendrils evaporate into the night air. “I think if a person no longer believes a fundamental truth, then they change. If a child no longer thinks that they’re safe in their house, then they’ll change their behavior.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, “but they still have the capacity to do so. It’s still in their ability to change.”
“Well, change is a conscious decision. You’re saying that people can’t change, I think they can.”
“Quite an optimistic take from the gloomiest bitch in Sad.”
You shrugged. “I never said people always changed for the better.”
“I guess not.” Jay smoked his cigarette quietly for a minute before saying, “You think your boyfriend changed, or do you think he always had it in him to drive a woman to suicide?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” you said. 
“Ooh,” Jay said mockingly, “what are you going to do if I call him your boyfriend?”
You held your cigarette up, grinning. “I’ll put this out on you.”
Only the faintest of Jay’s features were visible in the darkness, but you could see his lips contort into a slight smile. “I dare you.” He took his jacket off, tossing it to the side, and rolled up his thin long-sleeve. “Do it.”
“It’s too dark,” you said.
 In response, Jay took your hand and pressed it on a spot near his elbow. “Right here,” he whispered. “Right here.”
When had you ever denied Jay of a request? You took your dying cigarette from your mouth and ground it into his arm. At first, you did it slowly, but as he hissed, you twisted the cigarette in. If you listened closely, you could hear the flesh searing. A quiet moan escaped Jay’s lips, a sound that made you feel a familiar warmth. When the cigarette was all but ash, you flicked the remaining butt away. 
“My turn,” Jay whispered. Cigarette clamped between his lips, he reached out and zipped your jacket all the way down. You pulled it off yourself, placing it near his own. Jay gently pushed you onto the roof, so that you were staring up into the sky. With warm hands, he pulled your sweater up, exposing a strip of your bare, tender skin.  You lifted your head up so you could see his movements. One hand held your stomach, his thumb idly swiping at it. The other hand was lowering the cigarette onto your flesh. 
It stung and burnt. You felt no shame in letting out a yelp of pain, but Jay kept going. Good. You wanted him to burn you completely, to leave a scar. You felt that heat grow within you, spreading from your core to your heart to your neck. Jay dug the cigarette into your skin the same way you had done to him. He tossed the butt aside. Then he licked the wound, his cool tongue acting as a balm against the searing pain. Jay swirled his tongue around the circular scar, and you whimpered. 
“You like that?” Jay whispered, both hands running up and down the side of your body.
You hated to lie. “Yeah.”
“Then get to work.” He sat up, so that he was on his knees. You lifted yourself off of the ground as well. Your lips met his expectant mouth, and he tasted like ashes. Jay’s hands remained on your waist, stroking you lightly. It was the first real kiss you had ever initiated, and you weren’t entirely sure where to put your hands. Jay picked up on your apprehension and guided your hands down to his belt.
It was difficult, getting his belt off in the darkness, but you managed to figure it out. “Touch me,” Jay said. 
“How?” 
“Just…” Jay sighed. He placed one of his hands over yours and showed you how to rub him over his pants. “Like that. You don’t have to touch it directly right now.” With that, he resumed kissing you, leaving you to palm his crotch. It was fascinating, feeling his cock harden under your hand like that. You applied a little more pressure, and Jay groaned into your mouth. “Yeah, like that.”
You felt his fingers dance over your knees, along your thighs, and pause by your panties. “No one’s ever touched you here, right?” he asked, whispering against your ear. “Like this?”
“Just me,” you said quietly. 
“I didn’t think you fucked yourself,” Jay said quietly. “How often?”
“Depends…” As you talked, Jay had started to rub your engorged clit through your underwear. 
“Mm. What do you think about?”
“I don’t know,” you said. Your head felt like it was filled with cotton. 
“Keep rubbing me,” Jay whispered. “Don’t slack off, now. Tell me what you think about when you’re cumming your pretty little head off.”
“I read…erotica,” you admitted quietly.
Jay laughed, but it didn’t sound as cruel as it usually did. “Of course you do. You read those bodice-rippers where the innocent little maiden gets pounded by some asshole while she cries, ‘No, no!’, right?”
You bit your lip, and he stroked your clit faster. “Don’t get shy on me now,” Jay said, “we were really getting somewhere. So you fuck yourself to books like that? Do you imagine yourself as the innocent little maiden, is that it? Hoping someone will just push your legs apart and fuck you? Is that what the prude thinks about?”
You didn’t speak, so Jay removed his fingers. “Tell me,” he muttered. “Tell me and I’ll let you cum. Tell me the truth.”
Rationality had left you long ago. You used to look down upon people who would throw away their lives and relationships for quick pleasure, but now all you wanted was for Jay to drive you to the edge, make you cum. “If you’re really good,” Jay whispered, “I’ll fuck you slow this time. I’ll be real gentle.”
“I do,” you said, wincing at your own weakness. “I do imagine myself as her. I want someone to…”
Jay kissed your lips once, twice, three times. “Say it,” he said, two of his fingers stroking your clit at an excruciatingly close pace. 
“I want someone to fuck me,” you said finally. 
“Of course you do,” Jay said, still teasing you. “You liked it when I fucked you, right? You liked that I took what I wanted from you. Admit it.”
If Jay was right regarding his fatalistic theory about humanity’s inability to change, then you were fucked. You hated to believe that this simpering desperation had been inside of you the entire time. “I liked it,” you said, head bowed.”
Jay removed his fingers again, and you looked at him with wide, confused eyes. “You said you’d let me cum.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, lowering his jeans, “you’re going to cum on my dick, and you’ll like it. You loved it last time.”
You tugged your panties down, wincing at the wet, shlicking noise they made. “Just let me do everything,” he said. His voice was uncharacteristically soft. 
Once more, your back hit the cool cement of the rooftop. Jay pulled your panties off completely, tossed them aside, and parted your legs. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. 
His cock teased your entrance before he plunged himself inside. Jay fucked your pussy shallowly this time, allowing himself to enjoy it. “Fuck, fuck, that’s good.” It was so much better now that you were wet. Instead of a harsh intrusion, it was more like a pleasant, warm fullness. You ached for him to go deeper. 
“More,” you murmured, and you heard Jay laugh. 
“More? You don’t want me to be gentle? You don’t want me to treat you with kid gloves?” Jay pulled his dick out of you completely, and you shook your head. 
“No, no, I want more, I want it…please.”
“Please,” Jay said, like it was the first time he’d ever heard the word. “Please. You’re killing me.” 
Jay slammed his cock inside of you, hitting you at an angle that made you see stars.  He gathered your wrists in one hand and held them above your head; the other hand braced itself beside you. Every thrust made you gasp with pleasure.
“Jake would fucking…kill himself…if he saw this shit,” Jay grunted, rutting his hips against yours. He was rough, just like the first time. He could hardly talk, speaking through gritted teeth. “If he saw his little crush in a fucking, fucking mating press…fuck…” 
Your gasps had turned into moans as he thrusted inside of you. You wished you could cover your mouth, but Jay still had your wrists pressed against the concrete. You bit your lip instead, trembling as you felt Jay tease the hard muscle of your cervix. You had never managed to get a good look at his cock, but you figured it had to be big. From the way he made Isa choke, to the way he was close to bottoming out. 
Jay used his other hand to squeeze your face. “No, you don’t,” he heaved. “You’re gonna moan for me. Moan like…like a whore. Like a good fucking whore.” 
The second you opened your mouth, you let out another desperate cry. “You love this,” Jay said, under your sweater. He groped your tits painfully, squeezing them like they were inanimate objects. “You love being treated like this, don’t you?”
“I do,” you gasped out. “I like it, Jay.”
“You love it.” He let go of your wrists, grabbed your hips, and moved you up and down his cock himself. With your free hands, you braced yourself on the ground. You could barely take it, but you loved the feeling of being pushed to the edge. 
“Close,” you panted out.
“Fuck,” Jay said. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
Jay paused, ever so briefly, before laughing. It was the first time you had ever heard him genuinely laugh; he tossed his head back and let loose as he held your hips. “You goofy bitch,” he said, pulling out of you. “Nearly made me lose my orgasm.” You let out a nervous laugh, unsure of what to do next. 
He sank deeply inside of you again, but he couldn’t stop giggling. “Where,” Jay muttered. You couldn’t bear to have him tease you anymore, so you kissed him. He reciprocated, slipping his tongue into your mouth. Soon, Jay had built up the same speed, and his kisses moved to your neck. 
“Gonna cum,” he warned, “where do you want it?”
“Inside,” you said, reaching down to play with your clit. 
“Right answer,” Jay said. He drove his cock to the hilt, frantically chasing his orgasm. You weren’t far behind, chills dancing all over your body. “Fuck, fuck, yes, fuck, yes, yes, fuck!”
You came mere seconds after he did, your pussy gripping him tightly. Your back arched as you let out a series of moans. They echoed into the night sky; everyone in Stoker could probably hear you.  You shuddered as you felt yourself clench around his girth over and over again. His hot cum painted your walls, and when you opened your eyes you saw Jay jerking himself off inside you, draining his balls. 
Jay rolled away from you, gasping. “Jesus fuck. I haven’t had a nut like that in…months.”
You crawled over to your jacket and collapsed on top of it. Jay joined you soon after, lying down on his own coat. If you spoke, you felt like you would make everything real. You shivered, both from the lingering aftershocks and from the chill outside. You realized that you had spent the last 4 nights running around storms and hurricanes. It was a wonder you hadn’t come down with hypothermia. 
“Cold?” Jay asked. You nodded, and Jay put his arm around you loosely. He rubbed your arm noncommittally before simply resting his hand on your skin.  
You stared at the night sky; Sadame wasn’t in the country, but it was far enough from the major cities that you could see a decent amount of stars. 
“There’s the North Star,” Jay said, pointing. “And that’s the big Dipper.”
You shifted to look at him. “You like stargazing?”
“Used to,” he said, facing you. “When my parents would fight, I would leave the house….head to the park near my house and lie on a hill. I’d lie on the grass there and just stare at the stars for hours.”
“You never got scared?”
“Nah,” Jay said. “They were scarier than whatever was out there.”
“When my parents fought, I would just read books,” you said. “I got good at blocking them out.”
“Hm. Where are your cigs?”
“One second.” You rummaged through your jacket’s pocket and procured your cigarettes and lighter. Jay took a cigarette, put one in his mouth and one in yours. He took your lighter and gestured for you to lean in. Jay lit both of your cigarettes at once and tossed you the lighter. 
Jay took a long drag and blew the smoke into the air. “What kinds of books did you read?”
You didn't have to think. “Mm…I liked fantasy books. Sci-fi. Anything different from reality. I liked Animorphs, too, actually.”
Jay chuckled. “Really? Those books with the covers of the kids turning into antelopes and shit?”
“Yeah,” you said. “They were pretty good. I was so envious of them, especially Rachel. Imagine how cathartic it would be to be able to turn into an elephant and stomp around.”
“Was that a very common power fantasy for you?”
“It was.” You imitated the sound of an elephant, and Jay snorted.
“You’re doing it again,” he said quietly. 
The smile dropped off of your face. “Doing what?”
“Quit playing dumb,” Jay said. As if he had been shocked, Jay rose to his feet and hurriedly put his coat on. You couldn’t help the wave of disappointment that washed over you. So he was going to leave you alone again, even after that.
“It’s cold as hell out here,” he said in an irritated voice. “Put your coat on. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“My room,” Jay said, jerking his head in the direction of Stoker. “I have a bottle of jack in there, if you aren’t tired.” He held his hand out, waving it impatiently. “Hurry up.”
Tomorrow, you would have to text Isa back. Tomorrow, you’d have to talk to Jake. Maybe you’d see Lily, get a smoothie. You’d go do your homework. 
Tomorrow, you’d have to reconcile with Mina’s story and how that would affect your burgeoning friendship with Jake. You'd have to figure out if Riki could be trusted in any capacity. You’d have to figure out what you were to Jay, and who Jay was to you. If you should be something to each other at all.
For today, you simply took Jay’s hand.
694 notes · View notes
puripurin · 2 months
Text
— Dance Partner!Yan, who was the embodiment of child star when he was 9 with his flexibility and incredible dance skills at such a young age, made him a little— scratch that, a massive little shit from the numerous praises he was showered with. That was until you stepped foot into the studio he was practicing at with your parents.
You, back then as a 9 year old child, didn't come from a wealthy family, but that didn't stop your parents from saving up until they could afford 2 months of dance practice lessons. It wasn't cheap either as the dance studio became popular from just him alone, but it was worth it for your safety as a child.
Almost immediately, he was infatuated with you. Talking with you, helping you, and just being overly friendly towards you. There was no doubt he was never going to let you go, even as a 9 year old. That's why he volunteered (well closer to asking his parents to threaten his dance coach) to be your one and olny dance partner.
You were ecstatic until you realized that you only had a week left of your dance lessons. Of course, you were sad and kind of embarrassed, but you wanted your parents to spend the money on other things other than something so frivolous, so you never said anything.
That first day when he found out that you weren't coming back was a nightmare. He was screaming and crying for you to come back, and he even lost his voice, so he resorted to isolating himself.
When you eventually came back later that day because of the frantic calls that your parents had gotten, he held on to you tight for hours and was only babbling incoherent sentences. From that day onwards, his parents were paying for you to go to the dance studio so that something like that never happens. Which leads you to the current day him.
Dance Partner! Yan was heavily affected by that incident, so now you and him were together for almost everything. Sleeping, bathing, cooking, and, obviously, dance performances. He always knows where you are, and you always know where he is.
He thinks that you are his one and only and will die on that hill forever. He's even made sure that you and him lost your virginity to one another.
Along with never allowing anyone to be your dance partner. If there was a new person who hadn't been informed of your relationship with one another and insisted on talking to you, his touchiness blows through the roof. He'll start groping you and making you flushed more obviously to deter that person away.
"Now, now, stop getting feisty. You don't think I'm tired of making sure people know that you are mine?"
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Awoop, art jumscare that is partly finished. Ofc its Cecil and Clear. Some parts look bad, but idc. Im not planning for art to be my main hobbie, and i rarely draw.
Also, here's some more images? Imagines?? Ummm, whichever one is the corect one.
Also another character added to my ever so slightly increasing roster of ocs. I was gonna write the the other charas but this was siting in my head rent free like, I let you come and live her for free and I don't even charge you rent?? The disrespect i just underwent.
Anyways, it was originally going to be a dance instructor slowly getting possessvie over you and only teaching you lewd dances then it actually became dance partner yan. So un yeah wwoop.
Noy preoofread
937 notes · View notes
droopywrites · 6 months
Note
did you ever did a part 2 to jjk dudes meeting their child who’s from the future?
⋆。Part || of JJK MEN meeting their future kids。⋆
Author's notes: I don't think I've posted it! Considering it kind of left my mind and the old draft is gone, but I did write everything I remember here. Also, it's like 3am and I wrote this crying, not proofread.
CW: Swearing, killing, cannibalism(?) like mention of eating people, children.
Pronouns used for the kids: She/her for Geto and It/its for Sukuna.
Part | (Warning, it's from 2021)
Geto
Starting off strong with Geto.
Definitely another girl. He's such a girl dad.
On a regularly scheduled day like always; it was wake up, talk with his connections, mingle with his family, check on Mimi and Nana, see whatever the hell the non-sorcerers wanted, get greeted by a little girl that wasn't supposed to be on the estate...
What the fuck.
How did she even get here? Why is she here?
Geto would stare at this child in confusion and look around, waiting for someone to claim her.
He has a soft spot for children. Sorcerers, of course. Non-sorcerers, debatable.
So, low and behold this little girl running up to him to clutch at his robes. Him trying to pry her off of him with her relieved cries of "Papa! Papa!" escaping her lips.
Papa?
Holds her by the shirt's scruff like a cat and squints, ready to scold her but pauses when he sees her face.
Because, holy shit, that's literally his twin. And suddenly every rare hookup played in his mind.
But no, she looked no older than 3. He hadn't been with anyone at that time, or ever yet. Not that far.
Drops everything for the next couple of days just to make sense of the situation, only telling his beloved family.
Mimi and Nana fawn over the idea of a little sister but are a bit restrictive if it's not a permanent thing.
The girl didn't speak much except for addressing Geto, the twins, oh and you.
You...?
You.
You.
You, who had just returned from your trip overseas to oversee some tasks involving curses.
You, who the little girl immediately ran to and called "Mama! Mama!"
You, who Geto stared wide-eyed at and surprised as you two tried to settle the fact nothing even happened between you.
Yet.
When that little girl eventually left to her own time, with everything still fresh and confusing, Geto eventually approached you.
Because, well, he wanted to see that little girl again.
After few dates, then a relationship, then marriage. Maybe.
Sukuna
Listen, he is NOT spreading those cursed genes of his pre-human/post-cursed-spirit.
Man hates love.
But, during the Heian period. When some stupid kid wandered into his life as if it always belonged there, maybe, maybe, there was something else in that space in his chest but hunger and his definition of love.
So, there it was. Whatever it was. Standing there with large eyes focused on him with a semblance of admiration and malice.
"What are you looking at, brat?"
"You."
The audacity of this thing. He killed it immediately.
And then it came back. So, he killed it again. And again. And... what the fuck.
This little shit was persistent.
His kid. He doesn't know how. But definitely his kid.
A worthy successor? Fuck no, he's not dying or leaving it as some birthright to a hindrance.
Learning of its origins was pretty interesting, to say the least.
"Not a human? I figured. A curse made from me, huh? Someone weak must hate me so much."
That meant a human parent. Or multiple human parents. Gross.
He wasn't getting into that.
The kid was though.
It often visited this village to... eat? Kill? Fight? Whatever makes it happy.
...
The hell do you mean it was visiting its human mother?
It had a mother? It had a mother that cursed him so much it resulted in a personalized cursed child?
He could see it stare longingly at that woman's village and before he could even kill her, his offspring said goodbye.
"I'll see you in the future, yeah?"
And then Sukuna was sealed.
He probably searched for his offspring in the Modern era.
Author's notes 2: Stopping with these two because it's been a while since I've posted seriously on this account, 2 years? Maybe I've gotten better, maybe not. This was the idea but with updated better minds. Maybe I'll do the others separately again, Yuji, Yuta, Megumi, Toge. Just did the adults first. Doing Choso and Higuruma definitely.
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annymation · 4 months
Text
Reimagining the characters in Wish
(Part 3- Star/Aster)
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ITS THE MOMENT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!
HERE COMES THE BOYYYYY!!!
Ahem… so yeah welcome to part 3
If you haven’t seen them yet, here’s the links for part 1 and part 2 where I talk about how I’d rewrite Asha and the villains respectively.
Star may be the most challenging character to reimagine since… All I have is the personality displayed on the Star we DID get, a song we all collectively headcanon as Asha x Star love song (At All Cost Demo), and my imagination… In a way that just makes things more fun too.
Now remember there’s no definitive version of this character, he never came true so there’s limitless ways we can interpret him.
Some may imagine him mute, some may imagine him as a wacky character like the genie, others may imagine him more soft spoken like the blue fairy, some may imagine him as Asha’s love interest while others may prefer them as just friends, or even have him look like her grandfather, there are no wrong answers.
So here’s how I imagine him to be like:
The Star 💫
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What’s a Wishing Star?
- Before we start talking about our star boy, I think it’s important we establish what a wishing star even is, so let’s begin.
-Star is an entity from another plane of existence, a wishing star, a being whose only purpose is to listen to the wishes from mortals that can see him and other wishing stars through their night skies. They listen to the wishes from mortals and provide some guidance in subtle ways.
- A wishing star is born, or rather, gains consciousness, once someone looks to them and makes a wish from the bottom of their hearts, once the star receives their first ever wish they are no longer just a celestial body of gas, they become a new wishing star, they gain a purpose, and develop their minds just like how a human would.
- As the years pass the star becomes more wise, more equipped to help the person who wished upon them for the first time.
- For a wishing star to grow up it may take a while, that’s why most people wish upon bigger ones who are already fully developed and clever enough to know exactly how to help.
- It’s not a wishing star’s job to GRANT a wish immediately, in fact, they’re incapable of doing that, their magic can only go as far as the hope and perseverance that resides in their wishmaker’s heart.
- Things that the mortal would consider just luck could actually be the works of a wishing star putting them in the right path.
- If the person loses hope in their dream then there isn’t anything the star can do, but if they remain determined then the star can help them go far.
- So a wishing star job is to just… stay in the sky, look down upon their wishmakers, give some subtle magic intervention here and there…
-That is, when they’re wished upon at all, otherwise they just stay there doing nothing.
- However… In some rare occasions, wishing stars can do a lot more than just give a subtle magic intervention from the distance. Sometimes, when someone truly well intentioned makes a wish with all their heart… The wishing star gets the power to do some extraordinary things.
Personality
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- Star, or Aster as I’ll be calling him in this rewrite, which is a non-binary name meaning “star”. I’ll be referring to them with (He/they) pronouns.
- Aster is a very young and inexperienced wishing star, in fact, counting with Asha’s wish, Star only got TWO wishes in their whole life. And he’s still working on granting that first wish he ever got 18 years ago.
(Haha I’m sure that’s not foreshadowing for something really sad)
- Because of that he’s often treated by the other stars as sort of a younger sibling or a little kid.
- I think I should just get this info out now: Aster is NOT the north star, that big, bright and iconic star we know from the Disney movies, nope, Aster is actually a small itty bitty little star that you can barely see, that kind of star you probably wouldn’t pick to wish upon, most choose the brightests and bigger ones.
- So who’s that big, bright and iconic star? Well, in the beginning of our story… That star doesn’t exist, like, it’s literally absent from the sky… After all, we're seeing that star's origin story :)
- We’ll get to that when we get to that, back to Aster tho.
- Aster is a lot different from the other wishing stars, while they’re these benevolent and wise entities, Aster is more of a naive and curious teen who’s fascinated with the world below them.
- No one wishes upon him EVER so he gets a lot of free time to just watch humans do human things and animals do animal things, and he loves it.
(He’s like Ariel and Quasimodo lmao)
- When he gets to earth he’s very excited to help Asha, showing appreciation for her wishing upon him through a lot of physical contact, often hugging her and holding her hand without him even noticing. (Asha at first is confused but she gets used to this behavior pretty quick)
- Although Aster is naive and overly excited they’re no fool, he can be very clever and creative when it’s necessary.
- He’s also not a fish out of water like Ariel when he’s on earth, they understands human customs and how things work, since he watched everything from the sky… Although nevertheless they’re delighted to see everything up close.
- He may be smart, but at first, they don’t really know how to guide Asha in the right path to make her wish come true, after all he’s a very inexperienced wishing star, and freeing a kingdom from an evil sorcerer king and queen is no easy task.
- But regardless he doesn’t let his own insecurities get to him, and remains optimistic they’ll figure it out, together.
His personality is reminiscent to Disney guys such as: Quasimodo, Peter Pan, Prince Philip (yes really, rewatch Sleeping Beauty, that boy has a lot of personality), Alladin and Hercules.
Main Traits:
- Optimistic and kind
- Naïve
- Protective
- Curious
- Energetic
- Secretly very insecure
Powers
I think it’s important to establish his abilities before we get to his backstory and all that jazz.
What he CAN’T do
Just like how Movie Asha did in her job interview, let’s get his weaknesses out of the way first.
- Sooo… don’t get mad but… Star won’t be a shapeshifter in my version. I don’t want him to feel too much like Maui or the genie. So he’ll stay in the shape of a princely looking boy the whole way through.
- He can’t teleport, would make things too easy, also there’s a plot reason I’ll explain later.
- Can’t materialize real things out of thin air, only things made of star dust so they don’t really have any utility other than to create fun visuals during music numbers or when he’s explaining stuff.
- Can’t hurt anyone, this one is VERY IMPORTANT for plot reasons I’ll talk about later on.
- Can’t make a wish come true with the snap of his fingers, he’s a star, not a genie.
Weakness: Dark Magic, hopelessness and Asha getting hurt.
What he CAN do
- Stretch and re-shape his body. He may not turn into animals but his body can regenerate and squash and stretch around (haha get it? Like the animation term), like he’s made of star dust. Have this piece of concept art as an example:
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- He can Fly and make other people and objects fly too
- Unlock doors, may seem random now but I’ll explain in a minute.
- Bring plants to life, and make them grow bigger, and I mean like “make a flower the size of a house” bigger.
- Make animals talk, but the animals only keep talking IF they so desire, if that’s not something they wish for then the magic fades away with time.
- Tho he naturally understands animals and any other living thing in their own languages.
- He can feel other people’s wishes, not all the time tho, he has to make a conscious effort to see what’s that person’s deepest desire.
- His body is warm like a small sun, so he can give warm hugs… that’s a power, yes.
- Aster may not teleport, but they can move really REALLY fast
- Uncorrupt wish bubbles, I mentioned in part 2 that Magnifico twisted most the people's wishes, those wishes that are changed are called “Corrupted wishes”, Aster can change those wishes back to what they originally were.
- Create dreams, is that too much like the sandman from rise of the guardians?… Im still keeping it.
-Get inside drawings, This is just for a scene I imagine Aster shrinking and walking around inside Asha's sketch book, I think that's cute.
- Make a human disguise, I'll elaborate more on this when we get to talk about his design.
- He can grant wishes “but Anny you just said earlier he can’t—“ yes yes I know… he just grants them in his own unique way.
What gives him strength: Hopes and dreams
(Undertale reference? More likely than you think)
A wishing star purpose is to serve as a guide, that provides some magic intervention so that the wishmaker has the means to get to their goal.
As such, the stronger Asha’s hope, perseverance and passions are, the stronger and more limitless Star’s magic becomes. Like his magic abilities are charged up by Asha’s beliefs, the more she wants something, the more he can do for her.
Now, let’s talk about how Aster and other wishing stars that come to earth function, and to do that, we gotta go waaaaay back to another wish granting character in the Disney catalog.
The Blue Fairy- What can we learn from her?
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- We all know the blue fairy from Pinocchio, she is in a way the closest thing we have in the Disney canon that resembles the concept of Star, so I’m considering them as both the same kind of entity, they’re both wishing stars.
(not the same character tho, and I’ll get to that soon don’t you worry)
- You would think a character we see so little about doesn’t provide a lot of context, but she actually gives us a pretty good idea about what wishing stars can and can’t do.
- First thing she says when arriving is:
“Good Geppetto, you have given so much happiness to others. You deserve to have your wish come true.”
- From that, we can interpret that wishing stars only assume a human form and help those who are truly pure of heart and have spread kindness to others. Like Asha.
- Geppetto wished for Pinocchio to be a real boy, a human boy, but the blue fairy couldn’t grant that wish, because the only one who could make himself a real boy was Pinocchio himself.
“To make Geppetto’s wish come true will be enterely up to you. Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy"
- So, am I saying that Aster will just fly up to Asha and say “it’s all up to you to save your people… GOOD LUCK! 😊” sparkle some magic on her and leave?
- Well no although that would be funny, he’s not gonna do that, in fact, Aster will act way differently compared to the Blue Fairy.
- Although Aster can’t immediately make the people of Rosas “Have something more than this” he will do everything in his power to help Asha with anything she needs, and stay by her side the whole way through… Not at all what the Blue Fairy did.
- Lets say the Blue Fairy did exactly what a wishing star is supposed to do.
-She didn’t let herself be seen by anyone except Pinocchio and Jimminy Cricket, she only gave Pinocchio a few instructions and then left it all up to him, and even then when she went a bit beyond that to inform him that Geppetto was inside a whale she did so by sending a note… Almost like she couldn’t go back again to tell him personally… Interesting huh?
(I know the reason is because the animators would lose their minds if they had to draw that sparkly effect on her dress a third time but let’s pretend there’s more to it okay?)
- So we have her being the best role model of a wishing star… and then we have Aster...
-Doesn’t even know where to begin with helping Asha, chooses to stay on earth more than a day instead of just giving cryptic advice and leaving, was seen by multiple people aside from just Asha and Valentino, and worse of all, falls in love with his wish maker… yeah dude broke several rule… And the other stars ain’t happy about that.
- You could say the scale of Geppetto’s wish and Asha’s wish are way different, one just wants a son and the other wants to defeat two evil monarchs.
-But the stars don’t see it that way, to them every wish should be treated equally and it’s not their purpose to mingle with humans and change the course of their history.
- So you see, while the Blue Fairy could go back to the sky and then reappear anywhere she wanted… Aster won’t have that privilege.
-If he goes back to the sky he’s not coming back down, because the other stars won’t allow it, not after he broke their rules.
- Aster knows all that, because he can hear them talking to him, warning him to stop and go back to the sky… Aster keeps that information a secret from Asha for as long as they can…
- He knows after he’s done helping Asha they’ll never see each other again, but that’s fine, he’s willing to break every rule to help her…
- Oh also there’s a scene in Pinocchio where the Blue Fairy opens a lock to free Pinocchio from a cage… that’s why I said Aster can unlock doors… okay moving on to our boy backstory.
Backstory
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Yup, Aster has a backstory. And it all started in one fateful night:
An elderly man was taking a walk, carrying his granddaughter in his arms, she was just a few weeks old, but he couldn’t wait to show her how beautiful the stars looked that night.
He sat with her on a thick tree branch, and even though she couldn’t understand him, he was so happy telling her the names of each constellation.
In that moment, it seemed like everything was perfect.
But then that moment ended… He heard screams, and smelled smoke.
The elderly man ran back to his home, only to find it completely engulfed in a fire.
His granddaughter was now crying in his arms as he watched some neighbors trying to put down the fire, but to no avail.
His son and daughter-in-law were in there, he lost them both in an instant, the pain he felt in that moment was immeasurable.
In that moment of sorrow all he could do was look up, between the thick smoke he saw it… a small star.
With all his heart, Sabino wished upon it
“I wish my dear granddaughter, Asha, never feel such pain and sadness as I’m feeling in this moment”
A new wishing star was born.
Those words were the first thing Aster ever heard, it took a few years for him to even know what they meant, but as Asha and him grew older, he started to understand them.
He tried his best to make Asha as happy as she could be with the little that he was allowed to do.
Sometimes giving her inspiration for her drawings, other times sending her nice dreams after a bad day.
But he felt like he was failing her, no matter what he did, Asha would still go through sad times… Specially after her grandfather passed away.
Aster treasured every happy moment that he saw Asha experience, her making new friends, getting better with her drawings, dancing during wish ceremonies. Aster would shine brighter every time she was happy.
Point is: They were connected the whole time, and Aster already knew Asha even way before she wished upon him.
To be clear he wouldn’t just stay up there looking at Asha all day, he was also interested on everything else on earth in general.
But then, we have Asha’s 18th birthday, the day she had to give away her wish.
Aster knew what was really going on in Rosas, about what happened to most of the people’s wishes, and although that also saddened the other stars they all agreed they couldn't intervene unless someone from Rosas wished for their help.
So you can imagine how happy Aster was when Asha wished upon HIM, of all the stars, she looked at him and asked for his help! What are the chances?
If you could listen to them, you’d hear all the stars collectively whisper “oh…this might not end well…” as Aster flies down to earth going "YYYYYPIIIEEEEEEE!!!"
A Star Who Wishes To Be Human
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- I’ve made it very clear that Aster is different from the other stars, for the reason that he’s so young and so fascinated with life on earth.
- But there’s more than that, see, I mentioned before Aster can’t hurt anyone, and that’s not because he’s some holier-than-thou pacifist, it’s because his magic literally CAN’T hurt living beings.
- Because his magic is made of ✨hopes✨ and ✨kindness✨ and ✨everything nice✨, so even if they literally make a sword with his star dust, all it’ll do is give Magnifico some tickles.
- And Aster hates that.
- He wishes he could be more useful to Asha… wait, “wishes”?
- That’s silly, a star is not supposed to “wish” for anything, to have wants, that’s a human thing... And yet here he is wanting to protect Asha in any way possible.
- This drive to protect Asha runs even deeper than just the wish he received from her grandfather or the wish she made, Aster feels as if it's a wish that comes within him.
- Aster would question why they feels this way, is it love? Can’t be that right? A star can’t fall in love…
- The same way a star can’t taste food, or smell the flowers, or feel temperature…
- But Aster wishes they could, Aster wishes he knew what food tasted like, what was the smell of the flowers and the morning dew, but most of all… Aster wished he could feel Asha’s warmth, the same way she feels when they embraced.
- This would be Aster internal conflict for most of the movie. They’d realize that they can’t be with Asha forever, but Aster wanted to at least confess his feelings before they went to enact their plan to defeat the king and queen, that’s when we’d get “At All Cost”.
- Soooo a bit of a spoiler to this rewrite, I’m basically telling a story all out of order at this point, but here goes, Aster does become human by the end, after the king and queen are defeated, the stars realize that punishing Aster for breaking their rules wouldn’t be fair after he did so much good, and also because some of them can’t stand him so they decide “hey, let’s leave him there” and just ask him to return his magic back to the sky.
- Once Aster accepts, his magic would be turned into a brand new star, that shines brighter than all the others, because it carries all the magic that Aster accumulated by helping Asha and all of Rosas. And thus we’d get an origin story for THE wishing star.
Design
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Aster has brown skin, sparkly freckles and blond hair that shines and moves almost like a candle.
He dresses up as a prince, with the classic cape we see in classic princes like in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
They choose that form because he recalls that Asha used to read a lot about princes that would help princesses in need, so he thinks it's fitting to at least looks like one to help Asha
"But I'm not a princess"
"I know, you're just pretty like one!"
A itty bitty detail I didn't mention until now: Aster would be hand drawn animated, while everything else would be 3D, and his animation would change as the movie progressed.
By change I mean he'd start in a very sketchy looking animation, like it's being drawn very frantically to reflect how excited he is to help Asha, but as the movie progresses he'd be drawn with more detail and with more fluid movements.
This would serve to both represent his character development, showing him becoming more mature and learning what it means to be human, and also a reference to how Disney's animation evolved over the years.
He can make a human disguise, as I mentioned earlier, but that would require him to keep his magic hidden somewhere, in this case, a round stone that holds his cape together on his chest.
Once his magic was all kept inside this stone he'd turn into a 3D animated character, however his movements wouldn't feel... quite right, like he'd be animated in a different frame-rate compared to everyone else, so you could tell he was struggling to make himself move like a human, and people would be able to tell there was something off about him.
In the end when he turned into a human for real he'd become 3D animated with the right frame-rate, and his hair would no longer be blonde, but rather brown, like his eyebrows (Tangled reference? yup)
Final Thoughts
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This was DEFINITELY the hardest one to translate my thoughts into words! My gosh this took so long to write.
Don't know if you could tell but I'm very passionate about this scrapped idea of a human looking star falling in love with our protagonist, and no it's not just for the ✨aesthetic✨.
I don't think it's wise to throw a romance when writing a story just because you feel like it, a romance needs to progress both the story and the characters involved, think of it like how Naveen learned with Tiana the importance of working hard, while in turn showing her that life can also be fun. They complete each other, and I want the same for Asha and Aster.
Asha needs to learn that she shouldn't feel guilty for wishing more for herself, she worries too much about others and what others may think of her that she forgets her own self worth, and Aster shows her that she not only can wish for things for herself, but she can also accomplish anything she sets her mind to. From becoming an amazing artist that can give movement to her drawings to the leader of a rebellion against two evil monarchs, she can do it all.
Meanwhile, Aster needs to learn that what Asha's grandfather wished upon him is an impossible task, for Asha to always be happy, that's impossible, because sadness is a part of life, its a part of being human, and that's what he learns, what it means to be human, to fail, get up and try again. As a wishing star Aster always knew that humans had to fail a bunch of times before having their wishes granted but he could never imagine how hard that actually was, and Asha's perseverance even with all odds against her is what makes him love her even more.
I talked a lot about why Aster loves Asha, so I should probably mention what Asha sees in him too. Asha get's a lot of laughs from Aster's innocent reactions to natural things on earth, like how dazzled he is seeing the sun rise for the first time, how he just stops and starts chatting with animals and plants like a damn disney princess, or how he randomly starts rambling about how some constellations don't look at all like the animals they're named after "Like, seriously, why did they name that one a lynx? That's obviously a snake hehehe"
But most importantly she loves how caring he is, how he's supportive and passionate about her interests just as much as she is, and how he makes her feel safe, and in turn she wants to protect him too.
I'm honestly debating with myself how I want Aster to go about the information he has known Asha all his life, like, I imagine he'd probably want to hide the fact because he didn't want to talk about the sad tragedy that led to her grandfather wishing upon him, yes Asha knows about the fire but he doesn't want to remind her and make her sad, because remember, at first he doesn't understand that sadness is just part of life.
But then like, would he pretend to not know her? Or would he be like a ghibli character and just nonchalantly say "Oh yeah, I’ve always known you" and never elaborate on that until the story demands it?
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… Great, now I just had the idea of Aster functioning like Haku from Spirited Away, like they don't remember where he knows Asha from because he forgot what their previous wish was now that he’s granting a new one, let's say stars can only remember one wish at a time, then as he gets to know her better he starts to remember what his first wish was, and things start to make more sense.
I don’t know, like that’s cute but might be a bit too complicated, y’all tell me, I’m throwing ideas and seeing what makes sense, this whole thing is me asking for feedback after all.
Honestly I think the idea of Aster knowing Asha the whole time works because it not only gives a better explanation to why a star came down from the sky to help her, but also gives more sense to the lyrics “you still amaze me after all this time” in At All Cost.
Welp, I think that's all I got, thank you so much for following along with this series, and don't worry I'm not over yet, there are a few characters to talk about before I start sharing the actual script of this rewrite.
Thank You For Reading!
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cloudcountry · 11 months
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the song from ratatouille is stuck in my head so…
housewardens + rook waking in on thier s/o “cooking dinner” but in reality it’s being cooked by a French rat
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SUMMARY: Their S/O cooking dinner with a multitalented rat they found in Ramshackle.
WARNINGS: None!!
COMMENTS: my character limit is five so i picked the housewardens C: i woke UP to this request and i was like ".,,,,,.,. What" HELP
also, i decided that ramshackle would have rats because its old and that mc could bond with them because its Twisted Wonderland and they're bonding with ghosts so its not even weird.
rip to anyone that goes by remy /lh
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Riddle does a double take, but is honestly not that weirded out by you and the rodent’s...cooperation. After all, The Queen of Hearts had many critters in her kingdom that helped out with various tasks.
He would eat the dinner without complaint and thank you for letting him stay over, still as formal as ever. When you’re insistent that he should thank the rat instead, he turns his attention to him and thanks him for the meal.
The rat, which you call Remy, squeaks back. Riddle nods thoughtfully and smiles, leaving you wondering what exactly your new friend said. Curse your inability to learn animal linguistics!
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Azul is worried about the sanitation of your kitchen when he sees you making dinner with a rat. Wait...wait, a rat? You’re making dinner with a rodent?!
He’s a bit nervous about eating the food, but when he sees you enjoying it, he tentatively takes a bite. It doesn’t help that the rodent you called Remy is staring at him expectantly.
Azul is pleasantly surprised when it’s good!! Starts coming up with a scheme to get Remy in the Mostro Lounge kitchen. If you’re wondering why your lover is squeaking at him and Remy’s squeaking back, that's why.
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Kalim doesn’t even blink. Of course you’re friends with the little guy!! Aww, his name is Remy? What a nice name!! Kalim thinks all you need to be friends with animals is kindness and compassion so this isn’t weird to him at all.
He eats the meal Remy and you prepared for him without batting an eye. He praises everything about it and shakes Remy’s little paw. Kalim earned a new friend that day.
Once he goes back to his dorm and tells Jamil about his meal that was made by you and your rodent friend named Remy, Jamil gets a headache.
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Rook sees the rodent in your kitchen and is immediately talking to him like they’re best friends. “Bonjour, monsieur! What meal shall you create for me today?” The rat squeaks back and Rook nods thoughtfully.
“Mon coeur, how did you manage to make friends with a rat when you cannot partake in animal linguistics?” “Uh...I gave him cheese and a strawberry and he was super into it. Also he’s a good cook and a good baker. He squeaked very loudly at me when I mixed up the baking powder and baking soda.”
Rook savors the meal and swoons in his chair. Remy looks pleased, and you’re glad he isn’t weirded out by your boyfriend’s antics.
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Idia is used to eating shitty packaged food, so you insisted on making him a meal. You did not tell him that you made meals with a rodent that you made friends with and he apparently has a name?!
He doesn’t want to offend this Remy guy, so he eats what’s in front of him. He’s weirded out when it tastes good and thinks that maybe, just maybe, this rat had some crazy secret super rare ingredient that made everything taste delicious.
When you ask him what he thought, he mumbles about how it was nice. He guesses. Ortho is thrilled to hear about this little rat chef and drags Idia over to Ramshackle the next door, much to Idia’s shame and embarrassment.
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