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strawberrynightmare · 7 months

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Mikey, Mitsuya, Koko & Izana with foodie s/o

Content warning: Just Izana being a little bit... extreme

Koko

~It all started when he took you birthday shopping. The two of you went to a mall and he told you to take anything you want and not look at the price, to which you hesitantly agreed. He expected to be dragged into a clothing or electronics shop. Whatever you wanted; jackets, shoes, bags, perfumes, headphones, games, or maybe, once you get more confident, a phone, tablet, laptop? Or even a tv?

~He got so lost in his fantasies it took him a few minutes to comprehend your current whereabouts.

~...A grocery store.

~Well, that’s fine. It’s completely reasonable that you’d want to do groceries. Duties first, pleasures second. Although he had to assure you that he’s more than happy to pay for your overflowing shopping cart full of sweets, snacks, cheese and other stuff. He didn’t let you carry everything yourself, either. He insisted he carries at least 3/4 of them.

~Then the two of you went to get pizza. For that, he paid without even asking. Of course, it wouldn’t be good to shop hungry. And then a sweet dessert - ice cream!

~And when he thought that this is where the actual shopping trip starts, you said that you were done and thanked him. He looked at you as if you were insane. Surely, you must have been joking.

~But instead of saying “just kidding”, you asked him if there’s anywhere he wants to go. This man was so flabbergasted that he just shook his head and silently walked you home.

~It didn’t take him long to accept his fate and change his strategy, though.��

~Instead of more “classic” gifts, he began to buy you food. And rather than to the shopping malls, he took you to some of the most recommended restaurants. Pretty chill about it too. Although only for as long as he gets to pay. He can get petty when you don’t let him. The two of you literally race to the checkpoint

~And no, you are not visiting McDonald's, KFC or such things. He’s willing to (respectfully) argue with you about that. Why would you even look at their trash-quality food, when he’s more than willing to pay for something healthier and tastier? *proceeds to wave his credit card in front of your face until you give up*

~If there’s a specific food you crave out of the blue, all you have to do is text him. He’ll order it for you. Hell, he’ll even order anything he sees advertised on the internet that he thought you might like, so don’t get surprised when you get random parcels delivered to your door.

~If you’re worried about your eating habits, he’ll suggest visiting a dietician and will even accompany you there. Won’t force you or stick his nose into your eating habits unless it’s clearly dangerous for your health, though. Most of the time he just supports every decision you make.

~Literally the definition of “Eat whatever you want, I can pay.”

Izana

~Okay this guy 100% loves to watch you eat. You can’t convince me otherwise.

~Like, imagine you’re casually enjoying your waffles and he sits right in front of you, staring at you, drilling holes into your soul with his gaze. Like this ◉_◉. He doesn’t even order anything for himself no matter how many times you ask him if he’s sure that he’s not hungry.

~Your boyfriend literally can get high on dopamine from watching you eat something you like. He doesn’t get bored. Each time the two of you meet, he just kinda gives you some kind of a snack and at this point, you don’t even question it, cause he’s gonna do it either way. The two of you start talking, he automatically extends his hand with a snack towards you and you automatically take it without missing a beat.

~The moment you split your food in half and offered it to him, he was so moved. In his mind, he swore to protect you forever. I’ve seen memes about girlfriends saying they don’t want anything to eat and then eat their boyfriend’s food. Which kind of resembles him because he’ll only eat if it’s from your plate. Can’t get his own for his life.

~I can clearly imagine a scenario where a gang fight occurs and all of the enemies get heavily beaten up except for that one guy who’s captured at the very beginning and then, at the end, they let him go with no more than a scratch, simply because he’s the son of the owner of your favourite sushi restaurant.

~At the same time, imagine what happens to the people whose food you dislike. Without a blink, he’d watch you eat something, and instead of the usual bliss he sees on your face, you frown and begin to slow down before hesitantly putting down the eating utensils. He’d ask you if anything’s wrong and after you reply that this dish is not really to your liking, he’d just smile and offer that you eat somewhere else. Then, the next day, you heard in the news that the very same restaurant burned to ashes during the night. The cause of the fire was unknown.

~Another time, he accidentally saw you out in the town with a friend. He just happened to be nearby and considered saying hello when he heard your friend complaining about you eating way too much. You didn’t seem to take it seriously, but a dark glint in his eyes appeared at that time.

~”I never had a problem with how much they eat…”

~Hopefully, you weren’t very close with that friend (._.)

~Lowkey the devil on your shoulder. He only means good, but he never really tells you no. If you’re thinking about whether to get something to eat, you don’t even have to look at him to know his advice. And if you can’t decide between two things, he’ll just get you both no big deal. Even if he’s aware that it might not be the best for you, it’s not like an additional portion of ice cream will harm you, right?

~He’ll even go as far as to rob a grocery store with his gang to get you a good supply of snacks. You might want to establish some boundaries with him. Just saying.

~Overall, wants the best, but tends to take things to the extremes.

Mitsuya

~Say no more.

~Actually, he’d cook for you almost each time you come to visit him even before he learns about your fondness for good food. And when he does? You got yourself a personal chef and no amount of insisting and resisting will get you out of this.

~Legit gets offended if you refuse to let him make you food and suggest eating in the town instead.

“Haaa? You’d rather pay for some stranger’s stuff rather than eat what your boyfriend prepared for you with love?”

~And it doesn’t matter that you only have the best intentions in mind and you don’t want to overwork him. He’s having none of that. If you really insist that you want to eat at some restaurant or worse- a fast food restaurant (!) he has no power to stop you. He’ll go with you, but he’ll be silent most of the time and will be glaring at you as you eat.

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”

~But the moment you finally break, and promise to always choose his food over others, he’s momentarily back to himself, apologising and cuddling the hell out of you. Overbearing, but he does it out of care.

~That’s where it ends though. He invites you to eat dinner with him every few days and sometimes makes you snacks, but the rest is up to you. He doesn’t really stick his nose into your eating habits. And he doesn’t forbid you from eating in restaurants either. He’ll straight out encourage you to try out new places, but that’s only as long as he’s not able to cook for you himself, probably due to lack of time.

~If he sees some occasional food trucks or other kinds of time-limited food stalls, he’s absolutely getting you stuff from there. He’ll probably get a little bit of everything so that the two of you can go back there and eat whatever you liked the most.

~And if he sees someone bothering you for your eating habits, he won’t hesitate to pull them aside and scold them or even start a fight if necessary.

~Will ask his friends and fellow gang members if they’ve been to any good restaurants/bars/cafes/food stalls or anything recently so that he can take you there later.

~Also, will try out even more new recipes and even has a little notebook where he writes down your favourite ones. Then, on some grand dates like anniversaries, your birthday or valentines, he’ll prepare little feasts entirely made out of your favourites.

~HOLD HIM FROM BEHIND AS HE COOKS. The first time you did it he froze and started blushing like crazy. He’d pin you to the wall and make out with you if he didn’t have milk on the stove.

~From there on, he usually demands that you do it each time you ask if he needs any help or feel guilty with how much effort he puts in for you. This is it, this is the payment. Bonus points if you nuzzle your face into his shoulder. It’s his favourite thing to make him relax.

~Compliment his cooking and he’ll be genuinely thrown off. It’s something which always manages to make his mind all hazy and the butterflies in his stomach spring to life. Don’t let him brush it off! Keep going to witness the great mitsuya takashi embarrassed and shy.

~All in all, LET HIM COOK

Mikey

I came up w/ this one while taking a shit

~I can literally see a whole love story forming there.

~Imagine you decided on a study break, went to some shop nearby and bought some snacks. Let’s say, a croissant or two. A full ass croissant with chocolate inside and stuff. And you go to the park to enjoy it. It’s late afternoon, you find a bench hidden in the shadow of some old maple and bon appetit!

~You were halfway in, when you noticed that someone sat at the opposite side of the bench. You glanced that way and saw a blonde who looked to be about your age. He was also eating, but it was dorayaki. Without thinking much about it, your attention shifted back to your treat. After you were done, you quietly left.

~Then, a whole week later, it was also around that time that you decided to have some air, went to the same store and this time, bought a box of cookies. Once again, you ventured into the park and soon noticed that the bench you occupied last time was once again empty. So you sat there and enjoyed your break.

~And again, the very same blonde appeared and sat nearby but with a different snack.

You were suddenly pulled out of your blissful state by the stranger’s voice.

“Can I have one cookie?” You turned to look at him. “I’ll give you pocky in exchange,” he noticed the slight surprise on your face and sent you a reassuring smile. “Is it too sudden? Sorry, but they just smell so good. Seriously, what flavour is this?”

“I think it’s because of the orange filling,“ you extended the box towards him as he moved closer to you. He took one cookie and offered you his pocky.

“Thank you! Now try this, it’s green tea flavoured.”

“Nice, thanks.”

~No more words were spoken and as you finished, you simply said your goodbye and left. But the next time you went there, he was on the bench already. When he noticed you, he waved you in greeting and another exchange took place, this time, you also had a little small talk. Then, the same situation kept repeating until the two of you sat right next to each other and chatted casually.

~Every few days, you headed to the bench, hoping to see him there. But after some time, it didn’t simply end on the bench hangouts. He’d ask you to go with him to that cafe you spoke so fondly about. Or the ramen restaurant he recommended.

~As you began to spend more time together, you exchanged numbers, began to text each other and even developed feelings. None of you could point out the exact time when you fell in love. It just felt so right when you were together, you soon began to officially date.

~Which brings us to this point. Seriously, you’re like twin souls. It is now a common occurrence for the two of you to exchange food or even steal each other’s. Literally imagine you and a few of his friends hanging out at his place and he looks through his drawers frowning for a while and finally asks “who took my limited edition strawberry taiyaki?” with a death voice. No one dares to breathe, but there you are, head peeking from the bathroom. “Oh, I ate it”.

~Everyone gets ready to hold Mikey down to at least give you a few minutes to run, but he just gets back to his normal mode and smiles. “Did you like it? I’ll buy more for you next time then.” And they’re absolutely bewildered. No, I will never get tired of this trope

~Food dates all of the time. Cafe, restaurant, bar, grocery store, name it and you’ll be going there. Especially if you’re too shy to go on your own. There is no such thing as ‘too much food’ in his dictionary. Eat to your heart’s content and if anyone dares to comment, we all know what happens.

~Totally the type to bring you some sweets and ask for cuddles, kisses and letting him sleep on your lap in exchange. But hey! You can do the same. Actually, you don’t even have to get him anything. He’s physically unable to say no to you even if he sometimes gets a little bit pouty, a few minutes later he doesn’t even remember why he was mad in the first place.

~Once you have dated for some time, he’s the type to ask you how does your food taste while you’re eating, and as you’re moving your plate towards him, it’s 50/50 whether he demands you to feed him or steals a kiss and then licks his lips and says, “it’s good.”

~The spoon feeding though. He wants you to feed him just as much as he wants to feed you. It makes everyone in the 10 metre radius look away. Especially if you happen to be hanging out with his friends. The moment you start, various groans and sighs can be heard all around you. But at the same time, they all have those little smirks on their lips.

~Their leader is smitten. Good for him.

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blue-thief · 2 months

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i still vividly remember that THIS was the moment i fell in love with isagi as character

i will never not be insane about how brilliantly isagi's character was written. i've never been the type of person to like the protagonist (in animanga at least), and when i DO like the protagonist, it's usually bc there's a lot of distance put between them and the audience. the characters i and many people are drawn to usually attract a large fanbase bc the mystery surrounding their true thoughts and intentions add to their intrigue.

meanwhile, there are people who ARE usually drawn to shounen protagonists are used to the nice sunshine boi and/or guy who brute forces his way through their power levels, obstacles, and character development by never giving up!!! archetype.

in isagi's case, he's able to create so much intrigue BECAUSE the audience understands his thought processes so intimately, and he plays around with the traditional shounen protagonist archetypes in an interesting and inventive way. when it comes to isagi's character development and problem solving, blue lock is the perfect example of the classic writing advice "show don't tell". other series (shounen and sports shounen especially) have their protagonists overcome obstacles through sheer willpower alone, but blue lock goes the extra mile with isagi. the narrative goes into painful detail to show how isagi identifies problems, deconstructs them, solves them, and finally executes his plan. it's always such a huge dopamine rush to see him this way during games.

other series also love their geniuses, and it's no exaggeration to say that it's hard to write geniuses. the solution is to usually leave said geniuses' full internality a mystery to the audience which is a completely valid and smart move on the writer's part. however, part of what blows me away with isagi is the fact that he is a genius whose mind is put on full display for the viewer. he's an attainable genius. not only does he empower the audience through platitudes about never giving up, he takes them on a journey to show how not giving up is possible.

#this isn't supposed to be any sort of formal analysis i just wanted to yap #god i love him and his mind so fucking much #blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi #yoichi isagi #bllk isagi #isagi #bllk isagi yoichi #bllk yoichi isagi

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writingjourney · 11 days

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I’m in need of some advice and kind words. As a fellow writer I’m really struggling to believe people will and want to read my stuff. There’s no real engagement anymore and I’m worried that if I post my long-form fic that no one will give it a chance. It’s really bringing me down because I love it so much but it feels like no matter what I try to do my stuff just doesn’t get seen or liked? I’ve even thought about changing my entire way of how I do things since I don’t think the way I write is working for the masses. How do you keep up the motivation as a popular writer and do you have an advice?

Hello anon!! I feel like this is something many of us currently deal with. And first of all I seriously hope that you do share your story!! ♡

To be completely honest with you the lack of engagement in the fandom has for sure impacted my own motivation which is why I haven't been putting as much time into longer fics (nor the Friday Nights series or IKNBS, I do write but I refuse to force myself). I don't feel any urgency because uploading fics hasn't made me as happy as it used to. It feels like only other active writers are reading fic atm and it creates a lot of pressure on creatives to stay super active.

I'm aware that I'm insanely privileged to have the engagement that I do have, that the type of stories I want to write are also the type of stories that generally seem to appeal. However, engagement tells you NOTHING about the quality of your work, only how many people are active in a fandom or like a specific pairing/character/trope. Your own unique voice matters more than numbers.

I also notice that a lot of people who used to read my works have disappeared which I completely understand. The fixation can ebb away during times of inactivity or when a certain hype dies down. People just don't get that dopamine hit anymore and move on. It's also entirely possible they get tired of a certain style of writing and prefer other writers at times, what do I know. I definitely don't blame anyone for that. First and foremost people should read for their own enjoyment and engage with fandom in a way that makes them happy. It makes no sense to pressure people into engaging. A huge issue right now is people overthinking these things which makes support transactional instead of genuine.

I don't care much about notes but I REALLY miss the feeling of sharing a fic with people who are excited for it, that sense of an active community. BUT the activity will come back – the movie will come out, new music and videos, heck even a whole new Papa!!! That's the natural flow of things. We can't be excited and super active all the time, we need phases of calmness as well (which is an act of rebellion in the capitalist hellscape of overproduction and churned out content. I am honestly glad Ghost is taking it easy).

Now, I recommend you write your story exactly how you want to!!! do NOT change it for the sake of popularity because it will lose its very soul and you will struggle to be happy with it by the end. You know how you want to tell your story and nothing else matters. It will find its readers or you can wait and share it at a later point. I recommend that you approach other writers and readers and intensify that contact, make friends and talk to them about your stories, hype each other up, share snippets. It's even more meaningful to know people you like enjoy what you do. I am currently working on super niche fics for non-Ghost characters and I'm honestly having a great time chasing that dopamine by just writing what I'm really into and sharing it with friends. Fandom is community, fandom is fun and we can work to make it better for everyone.

A few general tips when it comes to making stories accessible: Format them to be readable (paragraphs!!), add a "read more" break, add proper content information and a nice summary to draw people in, add some visual appeal like a banners or stock image edits (like i do for IKNBS) and then tag the fics with relevant tags (and only those). Also make sure to tag the OG post, tags on reblogs do nothing for reach. Engage with the community when you feel like it and it's likely that the community will engage back. Being supportive is worth it, being kind is always worth it even if it amounts to nothing.

#your fear is valid and wanting engagement is valid!!!#but don’t let it stop you from writing :)#asks #anon

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ginnsinabin · 1 year

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General dating wrench hcs

+Gen neutral

-More than once you’ve caught him staring with heart eyed emotes while you're either talking or simply existing

-Wrench will whip out the most random foods from his personal stashes hidden around the hacker space

-I’m talking a whole can of sweet corn that was taped underneath his work bench and he casually ate that shit on a Wednesday afternoon

-you will be the first to hear of his pitches for a new invention and you also unfortunately get to be the filter (or instigator) for whatever stupid, insane or downright lewd creations he’s concocted in his brain

-Hanging out with him in his garage gives him an ultimate dopamine high, just you existing in his space makes him feel like you're just some ordinary couple living their ordinary life despite that being so far from the truth

-Don't ever, and i mean EVER, ask this man if jimmy siska is basically an off-brand tom cruise. you will be forced to sit and endure a three hour long rant, WITH a 26 page power point, which will end in some raged arguments with people that are either not in the room with yall or simply don't exist

-In the wrench lair (as he has dubbed his garage) he has made a designated spot just for you. Like an entire mini fridge and shelf with your favorite snacks and drinks topped with a plush couch that doesn't even have that many scuffs and marks with at least six blankets and pillows

-as much as wrench likes to be forward and crass, he has his moments of soft downtime with you where he seriously asks about your day and how you're feeling, often checking up on you between dedsec shenanigans

-wrench has honestly tried (and seriously failed) to take you out on a typical romantic outing as seen on all those shows and movies, but each time is either ended in ruins or just doesn't go the way he thought it would go

-He’s much better at the simple but nice little dates where yall go out and do your own fucking up of things or have a little date night with your favorite foods and a movie/show

-Once he took you to the tallest bridge in San Francisco to gaze at the stars, which had his personal favorite picture taken of the two of you that has been made his lock screen (he did bring eggs to drop of cars down below, can’t be too corny after all)

(A/N I’m realizing how many hcs I have of wrench and since the fandom is kinda dead I need to fuel my love for wrench somehow. may dabble in a bit of we happy few bobbys later on, love me some dead game fandoms lmao)

(PS if you see any errors no you don’t)

#wrench #wrench wd2 #wrench x reader #wrench x y/n #wrench x you #watch dogs 2 #watch dogs x reader #watch dogs

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comfortfoodcontent · 2 months

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2024 X-Men #35 cover by Pepe Larraz

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

I love this cover. The art is amazing. It marks the end of the Krakoa era X-Men. It's been on my mind a lot lately and I had to get some thoughts out on it. If you know me, if you ever followed me or my comics site or whatever, you know I was a very loud, very big fan of the Krakoa era at the start, basically up until X of Swords and Hickman's decision to leave. It's finally ending.

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

But truthfully it may as well be 2019-2019 -RIP Krakoa Era X-Men. It pretty much failed from the start. I loved HoxPox when it dropped. It was, embarrassing to say now, life changing for me. I thought Hickman was a genius and had found a way to reinvigorate the line and render death as a cheap storytelling gimmick useless. A bunch of my faves were being used and ressurected. I was happier than a pig in shit. I joined Twitter and all the insane X-Fans on there. I started a website and a podcast dedicated to comics. Soon the Covid pandemic started. I was terminally online, my brain rot started and grew worse by the day. It was an insane wild ride that started high and died soon thereafter.

It's hard for me to separate my pretentious Comfort Food Comic media brand time with the pretentious Krakoan Era. Both started out so happily, so full of potential and optimism. To run a site or a podcast in these hellish times you must also play the social media game. Constantly be on there, constantly push your product. Being on Twitter during that time and being part of the X-Community, you start to see how much being on social media fucks you up. You constantly feel like you need to have an opinion on everything, and that it actually matters. You need to be a critic to every piece of media, every decision, every little thing someone says or posts. You lose your grasp on reality, the real world, how to function and interact like a normal human being not stuck hidden behind a screen with your dual public twitter profile and private locked one (something I'm glad to say I never stooped to). It brings you attention. It brings you friends. It pushes your product or brand. It gives you validation and the dopamine rush. It's an addicting, disgusting, fake as hell experience. I was fully caught up in it. It didn't help that I was quarantining and barely leaving my house for a few years. It got me through the pandemic but it also left me so much worse than when I started. Much like how the Krakoan Era treated the X-Men franchise.

Why am I talking about social media so much when I started with X-Men? Well, it felt like this era of publishing went hand in hand with what was being put into the comics. Every creator was constantly on Twitter interacting with fans, always seeing what they had to say. Even Hickman was on there. Dude just wanted to post photos from movies and talk about like what Gen X members he liked. He eventually left because insane X-Men fans wanted him to talk about George Floyd and compare real world race issues with some superhero comics and weigh in, OH GOD WHY ISNT HE WEIGHING IN PUBLICALLY??. It was really weird how fans dealt with that one. Vita Ayala, Tini Howard, Leah Williams - constantly interacting with fans, friends with many of them. A pretty cool thing really, but that shit started influencing their comics throwing in characters or scenes specifically to make some X-Men fan they know on Twitter squee real loud. Shatterstar is not your favorite AEW wrestler. We do not need a book of human X-Men fans who pretend to be mutants influenced by dorky X-Men fans online. We do not need longtime villain Apocalypse to become our "Blue Dad". Jordan White should be editing or at the very least reading any old X-Men comics instead of being on Twitter. We don't need to know what the X-Writers do on their Slack, or worse, what X-fans do on their own incestuous Slack. Gerry Duggan, a writer I loved and thought could do no wrong, joined this group and upped his Twitter usage and the brain rot commenced and his work was so influenced by it. I'll never forget when white people started using fuck around and find out on Twitter and then it was in like 3 of his books the next month. My point in this ramble is the books were being influenced by and written for the loudest X-Men fans on Twitter. The art was dead. The books were a product made in that echo chamber for that echo chamber. They got bad real fast because of our society's addiction to social media these days.

Now that the honeymoon phase is over and I've revisited a lot of these books I do still feel HoXPoX was a wonderful series, one of the best X-Men series, masterfully executed and a perfect jumping off point with so much to explore. I also see the usual Hickman faults. The my series starts some time later, not really addressing anything prior to it that all his books share, the insanely detailed long term plans that he nor the comics business machine will actually follow through on after a year or so, and the shadowy superior group of power that exists in all of his comics. The Moira retcon, while brilliant, quickly falls apart when they never develop her further, or deal with the fact Xavier and Magneto went on to have an entire publishing history knowing what amounts to their entire future until the Krakoa Age must be established. That never really worked and was ignored by the creators and fans alike, including me. So it never really worked from the jump.

Rather than keep the line condensed and maybe just let Hickman write his own story, they expand it out from there involving a bunch of different creators and new ongoings. Plenty of series to explore the ramifications of these retcons, the perceived ethnostate the mutants have established and their abandoning of the coexistent dream the X-Men always fought for, grappling with identity and what it means when death no longer matters, and the conflicts that would arise from having all these villains live with them now. Sadly we instead basically just got Utopia 2.0. Surface level shit where the mutants are on an island surviving that rarely ever went in on all the amazing story ideas we could have explored. But hey certain fans were happy because they could go "Hey Synch is here for a few panels!" or "this horrific out of character gladiator death ceremony is TOTALLY the same thing as my real life transitional phase". Nobody really wanted to question any of this in the comics or in real life. And hey sour grapes aside, we did get some cool stories and some fun character interactions and moments, mostly in the Hickman books. But even from the start, some of it is horrible, more of the same schlock - Fallen Angels a great example, or Hickman's more boring Giant Size issues or his Shi'ar issue, or half of every other title. What should have been being explored or dealt with in the text often went ignored and we got X-Men being superheroes or Otherworld nonsense, which at the time I ate up because I'm such a fan of the old Captain Britain material. Sadly that never really went anywhere either, just making nebulous dimensions that were out there somewhere, don't question it LOOK IT'S JIM JASPERS! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED! Even things that should have been celebrated like Betsy and Rachel pushing through Gal Pals territory to being together felt largely flat and hollow and forced rather than natural or fun. And that was a common theme as it kept going. Everything felt forced, felt wrong, the writing felt amateurish and simple as it ignored more major issues or reasons to exist. Things just seemed to start happening for no real story reasons. No real further development or exploration. A ton of plots don't make sense as established history and characterization is thrown out the window. Nothing really matters. Rockslide is ruined forever just because. Arrako will never REALLY make sense, Loa and Mercury are psychopathic sex fiends, Pixie of all people is a callous death pervert, Banshee is a Ghost Rider, Warlock's doing something, Colossus joins the Quiet Council and just sits there, Children of the Atom is designated a "red" important book and does nothing of value or import, Moira gets pissy so she turns into a no shades of gray villain robot who skins her soul mate and wears his skin and joins Orchis, mutants are fucking so much and I guess just quickly going to term and they just abandon countless babies in the forest, Anole and a few others are brainless dolts who love the Shadow King, Onslaught is bouncing around, there's an old X-23, Synch is now the best and can recall any power ever magically but never talks to any member of his old team or deals with his death, Inferno as a whole essentially just didn't happen or matter, Sinister isn't Sinister at all he's a clone and there's 3 more of them, Casandra Nova is on a team, Doug knows secrets, Magneto buys a lighthouse, characters are randomly and indiscriminately put into The Pit, Shaw and Selene are maybe the only two villains ever that get examined in a way where maybe they shouldn't be buddy buddy with the X-Men - I need to stop now before I get more angry and depressed but I could go on and on and on. Point is things got bad. Like a ton of this was just bad writing and bad comics. I'm sorry. I get it. I was blinded too. I ignored things. I made my own head canons. I focused on the good stuff.

By the time Hickman actually announces he is leaving, things are already falling apart due to him and Marvel deciding to expand and stretch this shit out instead of just letting him do his shit and end it as a complete story or era. He does Inferno which as I said did nothing and didn't matter. It's good but it's a big ball of nothing. From there the books get worse and worse. Duggan's superhero X-Men book is fluff. Nearly every other series declines more and more. Hellions is a fun dark comedy, but sloppy and lacking that depth and exploration. Al Ewing's work tries hard to reach those Hickman highs and I found myself quite enjoying his work on SWORD and later on X-Men Red but mainly because it all ends up divorced from Krakoa as part of his larger Marvel Cosmic work, with great characterization. I really dig that work and it's common theme is really how off to the side not involved it is.

Later writers, including some real Literal Whos? and pretentious "novel authors" further dilute the line with their less talented work(I like Steve Orlando as a person but I desperately wish he'd try harder to write actual stories instead of being a human youtube video that summarizes obscure 90's comic characters for modern day zoomers). Kieron Gillen, bless him, tries to be the new Hickman and he does have some of the best Krakoa era material, but even he starts failing pretty badly. Sins of Sinister was a clusterfuck of boring nonsense for people who want to seem or sound smart, same goes for this current Dominion plot.

Looking at the art now I'm struck by how none of these characters are TRULY changed from this era, let alone had a lasting or defining story. It's crazy to me we went 5 whole years with this and really what has changed, ESPECIALLY with the current Orchis wrap-up story. X-Men fight some nasty humans who don't like them. We're back to that ALREADY. We aren't getting to the end of the Krakoan Era, we've been in it for quite some time. As I look at this art I see only 3 wholly new characters, which they'll be lucky if they are used after this. One of them is Pogg-Ur Pogg, a perfect example of this era. A big Aligator man, not much thought behind it, that fans LOVED. Sadly, he wasn't actually an alligator man. It was all a fakeout. That was some suit a little boring gremlin wore. A little boring gremlin. Nothing unique, nothing fun. Same old shit you've seen in thousands of comics. That's what the Krakoa Era was. Something that seemed SO DAMN COOL, SO DAMN THOUGHT OUT, but really it didn't have much thought behind it. It was a flashy suit of potential hiding the same old gremlin you've always seen. Even after the eternally online creators saw how popular he got, they didn't change any of this, they just thought we've got it. The suit/gremlin thing is good. It wasn't and they tried to bring it back for further stories but it was so lame at this point it was pathetic. Much like the repeated attempts to salvage and course correct after Hickman.

So here we are at the end. I can't believe I'm actually THANKFUL it is ending. That I actually want to regress and return to the X-Men as superheroes fighting their villains again. I've been rereading old X-books and I crave that big, bold excitement of what truly made the X-Men superhero team work. It's such a bummer and such a failure of execution with so many to blame. What DISGUSTS me so much is already seeing fans eulogize this era as perfection that was cut short by Marvel and not a fun experiment that was botched from the start. I'm with you, I was the biggest believer and supporter at the start. I joined Twitter, I examined every panel, made countless threads of discussion, debated and discussed every little thing with fellow fans. I wanted so much for this to be what it could be. Please, examine it honestly and critically. It's a failure. It's time to pull the plug.

It's ironic to me that I deleted my Twitter this year, the Krakoan age having the same amount of life my Twitter fandom life did. It went from such excitement and fun to soul sucking everyday nonsense. It seems fitting and emblematic of what this age was and turned into. This era, just like Twitter which influenced it so much, is/was a stupid, ugly, brain rotted mess dotted with sparing gold with the unrealized potential for so much more. I for one, welcome it.

Peace Out Krakoa Era, you won't be missed.

#krakoa #krakoa era #x-men #mutants #me #my writing #writing #comics #comic books #marvel #marvel comics #pepe larraz

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miela · 7 months

Text

Shattered Memories • Chapter V: The Do-Over • {Peter Parker x Stark!Reader}

Chapter Genre: Comical Angst, Comical Fluff Chapter Warnings: Very dialogue-heavy Masterlist

↪ divider by firefly-graphics

“FRIDAY,” you sighed. “When is a riddle, not a riddle?”

You were at the Avengers Compound in your lab with information about none other than Peter Parker displayed on every holographic screen. You questioned yourself many times when you did this, and you felt like the character in those movies who obsesses over something because they definitely know something but everyone else around thinks they’re crazy or something. You considered stopping and going on living your life but you, your dad in heaven, and everyone around you know that once you set your mind on something, you cannot stop until you fully understand it or are satisfied with the facts that you have. You needed to know this for your own mental and physical health and you just about had it with not having the answers.

“When you have all the answers,” FRIDAY responded.

“And when is a puzzle, not a puzzle?”

“When there is nothing to take apart and put back together.”

“So, whoever Peter Parker is, is both a riddle and a puzzle,” you began with frustration in your voice. “I don’t have all of the answers nor do I have all the pieces. FRIDAY, I think I’m going insane.”

You rubbed your hands down your face slowly to try and calm yourself down. You had another dream last night. A wet dream. A wet dream about the Faceless Boy.

You couldn't get it out of your mind how…sweet he was. The way he touched you, kissed you, caressed you…he was so sweet and gentle and caring. He made you feel like you were the most precious thing in the world. Though you couldn't see his face, he kept eye contact with you.

But of course, you woke up once again in a sweat and with a migraine.

You were at your limit.

“Incorrect," stated the AI. “You are just showing signs of obsession.”

Your face twisted. I’m not obsessed. I’m just tired. “Way to make me sound like a loser,”

“Also incorrect, you just need to know everything about everything before you are satisfied.”

You deadpanned and took a deep, annoyed breath as you leaned your head in your hands again. You wanted to throw and break something.

“Trouble in paradise?” You heard a deep voice ask.

You look over to see Sam and Bucky in the doorway. Bucky was holding a brown paper bag that said sweet greens across it and Sam was leaning in the doorway.

It would have to be a fun time to be paradise, you thought.

"Sergeant Barnes. Captain Wilson." You responded.

“Should we be concerned?” Sam asked, looking at all the Peter Parker content surrounding you. “Because this is not looking good on your part.”

Bucky and Sam were two of the only Avengers that were left after the big battle with Thanos. Since the whole ordeal, they’ve been like big brothers to you since then. You were thankful to have them in your life still because they’ve been nothing but supportive through everything that you have been through and you have done your best to give the same support to them.

You rolled your eyes softly. “Is that my salad?” You asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky confirmed, walking over and setting the bag next to you on the table you were currently sitting on top of.

“Thank you,” you opened the bag took out the food, and immediately began eating it hoping to get some dopamine and serotonin pumping in your system.

“How can you eat that stuff all the time?” Bucky asked. “Isn’t too much of something unhealthy?” He looked up at the screens and then back at you.

You paused knowing what he was insinuating and sighed. “Brain food,” you replied. “You should try it sometime.”

He smiled in response and crossed his arms. “Alright smartass, wanna tell us why you're investigating this kid?”

“Not investigating him.”

“So then you're stalking him,” Sam asked.

“I’m not stalking him.”

“Well, you’re either investigating or stalking him. You gotta choose one.” Bucky replied again.

You looked at both men hard. “I’m studying him, thank you very much.”

They look at each other with looks of concern, confusion, and playfulness.

“Stalking?” Sam asked.

“Stalking,” Bucky repeated but as a statement.

Sam turned his gaze back to you. “Sounds like stalking to me.”

“Yep, I agree.”

“I’m not stalking him!” you exclaimed in frustration. “I’m trying to figure out who he is. You guys, wanna help? Help me figure out who he is and I can stop obsessing over it and move on with my life and run a company and be a normal fucking human being for once in half a decade, alright? If not, just leave me the hell alone to go insane.”

“Like I said, obsessive behavior,” FRIDAY added.

“Not in the mood, FRIDAY,” you responded as you put your food down harshly and rubbed your temples from the headache that had been forming since you woke up that morning from your dream about the Faceless Boy.

“Hey, kid,” Bucky spoke with a concerned tone. “Are you alright?”

Of course, you weren’t alright. After everything that you have gone through this month alone was making you sick. You had so much on your plate and so much to deal with that you had no idea how anyone made it through this before you. You may be being a tad bit dramatic, but you really didn’t care. Anybody in your position would most likely react the same way. You just wanted to figure this all out and move on with your life.

“No.” You replied. “On so many levels, no.”

“What’s wrong?” Sam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back on the table next to you as you sat on top of it. Bucky did the same on the other side. You sighed. How were you supposed to explain this entire situation to them without sounding like what you are appearing to be?

“Promise me you won’t laugh.”

“Oh god,” Sam replied with a cringed wince.

“I’m serious,” you said sternly, looking at him hard. “I need you to promise me you won't laugh. Because if you laugh I swear to god,” you turned to Bucky. “I don’t care if you’re a super soldier,” You turned back to Sam. “And that your Captain America. I will kick both of your asses and web-cocoon you to the ceiling.”

Bucky snorted.

“Alright, little tough shit, calm down.” Sam smiled. “Promise.”

You looked to Bucky, who also promised.

You take a deep breath to prepare yourself for what you’re about to say. “I’ve been having these…dreams...about a boy. But they’re more than dreams…they’re like...visions, vivid memories. But the thing is this boy doesn’t have a face and this has been going on for a while now. So when going through the Avengers files this came up.” You pull over the holo screen of Peter Parker’s file.

“So this is the infamous Peter Parker you asked us about.”

“Famous actually,” You took another bite of your salad. “He’s an Avenger.”

Both of their faces twisted in confusion as they looked from you to the screen to each other searching for answers.

“I’ve never seen him before,” Bucky stated.

“Me either,” Sam said with obvious confusion in his voice.

“Yeah and me three-ther.” You said as you click on a tab on his file and it pulls up information on Spiderman.

“He’s Spiderman?” Bucky asked but it came out more like a statement.

“Yeah,” You confirmed. “You guys don't recognize him and neither do I.”

They look at you with even more confusion and concern.

“Wait, you don’t?” Sam asked with doubt in his tone. “But y’all were partners in justice. Thick as thieves. The Iron Spider Duo. You two had inside jokes for days and were always with each other. How could you not recognize him or know his identity?”

“How can any of us not recognize him or know his identity?” you crossed your arms over your chest in thought.

“Well, we just figured he only showed you his true identity,” Bucky added. “We just thought he was shy or something.”

“Nah,” you shook your head. “He would trust you guys. He would trust all of us… unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless he did something wrong…or worse.”

“Okay, Like what?”

“I dunno, Bucky.” You replied and pointed your fork at his head. “What did I tell you about Brain Food?”

He deadpanned.

“So you think that Spidey Parker is the boy with no face in your dreams?” Sam asked and you nodded. “But you can’t remember him.”

“Yes. I’m eighty percent sure that it’s him but I can’t remember that it’s him. So I’m unsure if it’s him. But my gut tells me that it’s him. So whenever I get too close to knowing, my head feels like it’s splitting in half and I end up with a migraine all day.”

“Do you have any clue how this all happened?”

“I have some hypotheses. One, if it is him and he did something bad and if we can't remember him, he somehow did it to cover his tracks. Two, if it is him and he didn’t do something bad and we can't remember him, someone did it to him to ruin his life. Three, Somehow too many people, or all people found out his identity and for his safety and the safety of others, he or someone else somehow made it so everyone doesn't remember him. Four, one of the big three is involved with some other unexplainable shit.”

“So you’re researching him,” Bucky said to no one in particular.

“Those are some good theories,” Sam responded.

“But.” you started. “There’s a question I've been brewing in my mind.” You put the bowl of greens down again. “If we can’t remember him are there others we can’t remember as well? Like a memory blip?”

A moment of silence fell between you guys. It was a thought that terrified all three of you. If one person can be forgotten by the world, who can say there aren't others? Who’s to say it’s not a villainous person? The more you thought about it, the more it struck fear in you. Anybody could just be forgotten and go on with their lives doing something. Or someone good in life has to start all over and be lonely.

Suddenly you felt bad for your other arachno-half.

“Have you tried talking to him?” Sam asked, breaking the silence.

You let out a deep sigh as you remember the entire event clearly. “Yeah…”

“And?”

“And, he won’t tell me anything, which is why I formed my hypotheses. But I get the vibe that he’s harmless.”

“How are you so sure?”

“We got bit by the same spider, I can sense his intentions.”

Another silence fell over you all for a moment.

“We have to go on a mission for a few days,” Bucky stated. When we get back, we can help you figure all of this out.”

You nodded. “Thank you.”

“In the meantime,” Sam added. “Don’t do anything you would do.”

You scoffed and smirked. “Alright, I’ll just do what my dad would do.”

“Nah, you stay put, alright?” Sam chuckled. “Focus on being one of the 1% who actually give a damn about something.”

You smiled at that. “Be safe.”

Bucky put a comforting hand on your shoulder with a smile, “Be good.”

And with that both of your big bro figures leave and you sighed as you looked up at the screens. You thought about the possibilities of your hypotheses, the conversation you had with MJ, and the discussion you just had with Sam and Bucky. You mentally laid everything out and tried to decipher the missing pieces that you didn’t have.

Then it hit you. A light bulb went off in your mind.

“FRIDAY, pull up my dream logs and the information about Me and Peter Parker that we have and put them in timeline order to the best of your ability.”

“On it,” The AI replied back and instantly went to work. “This may take a while.”

“Trust me,” you replied. “I’ve got time.”

It’s been a week since you walked back into Peter’s life and he hasn’t heard from you since. He knew why though. You were very busy, especially when you had an entire company to run and a family to attend to. Peter was pretty busy too so he had no idea that the days had come and gone so quickly.

But he did have you on his mind the entire time.

He was thinking about all the memories that you two had together that you didn’t have. Or maybe you did and his face just wasn’t there in any of them. He thought about you during class, during work, and patrols. His mind was just filled with you, you, you…

He didn’t mind. In fact, he was wondering how he could contact you again.

After classes ended, Peter met up with Gwen, Miles, and Harry again, He usually walked to the train station with Gwen and Miles to take the train home together. Cindy and Pav lived in the dorms so they would usually just go there after classes and relax for a bit before studying and doing homework.

Miles had his arm around Gwen’s shoulders and she had her arm around his waist. Peter thought the high school sweethearts were a cute pair but it only made him miss you more. He was both happy for them and also jealous of them and he felt very juvenile for it.

“What are your plans for your day off of work, Peter?” Gwen asked.

Peter adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and shrugged. “Probably just gonna take it easy at home.”

“You’re not gonna just sit there and watch Star Wars again are you?” Harry asked with a playful groan in his tone. “I swear you can quote the script of every movie forward and backward.”

Peter laughed. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

They walked out of the doors and down the steps of the historic building. The campus was filled with students going to and coming from classes in the New York City sun as they walked down the sidewalk.

“So how are things with you and your girl going?” Miles asked.

“Uhm…I haven’t spoken to her…in like….a week?” Peter said as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Dude?!” Gwen exclaimed and punched his arm slightly. “A week?! Really?!”

“She’s a busy person!” He defended.

“We’re all busy people!”

Peter turned and started walking backward on the sidewalk to face his friends as he addressed them. “Listen, I just don’t want to come off too strong too fast. I want things to go smoothly.”

That was only half true. In reality, he didn’t have your new number and he was terrified to call your office number at the Avengers Building and Nika answered the phone.

“Yeah but a week?” Miles asked raising an eyebrow. “You could at least ask her how she’s doing and stuff like that.”

Peter chewed his lip as he stopped walking and his friends followed suit. “I mean…you’re right but…I don’t want to be overbearing and overwhelm her or anything. Especially considering everything happening with her, you know?”

“Yeah, totally,” Gwen replied not looking at him.

Peter noticed that they were looking right past him at something behind him and he followed their view. His face softened when he noticed a figure he wasn’t expecting to see.

There you were leaning up against a black convertible with a red interior. You were wearing your usual leather jacket with a black tee shirt tucked into a pair of fitted jeans and those Ghostface Doc Martens again. Peter concluded that this was your staple look. It was far from your oversized flannels, crop top tees, mom jeans, and Converse that you used to wear most days when you were seventeen. You wore a dark pair of sunglasses while scrolling through your phone. One of your legs was bent as your foot was flat against the door of the car.

“Hey Parker, your girlfriend’s here.” Harry teased.

“She’s not-...I mean she is-...I mean-” Peter didn’t even really know what to call you. “She’s not…my girlfriend…right now.”

“Oh? ‘Right now’?” Gwen also teased. “Maybe if you stopped fucking around she would be already.”

Peter rolled his eyes at Gwen with a small grin. He turned to you and watched you for a moment. Man, you’re so pretty. And he wished that at this moment things were very different.

He wanted it to be that you came to pick him up after class and he would run up to you and pick you up spinning you in a circle and you would squeal and laugh happily. Then you would grab his face and kiss him deeply and show the world that you were his and he was yours.

“Hey,” Harry elbowed him softly knocking him out of his daydream. “Staring at her like a creep won’t do anything but freak her out. Go talk to her.”

“R-right” Peter stuttered before taking a nervous breath. “Come on, Peter,” He said to himself, “you got this.”

He started walking towards you and the more he did the more his senses began to pull towards you. You felt it too because you perked up and looked at him. The shaded lenses of your glasses faded to clear lenses and he saw your beautiful (e/c) eyes meet his. He stopped walking when you noticed him.

“Parker!” You chimed. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He smiled as he stepped closer to you. “I should be saying that to you.”

“I was meeting with the admins about the gala. I plan on doing scholarships for incoming freshmen and offering financial aid to upperclassmen who are running out of money from the government. Same With MIT and the Ivy Leagues,” you explained. “But I thought I might catch you out here, so I stayed to say hello and to give you these.” You pulled a pair of glasses that were identical to yours and held them out to him. “They’re Stark Specs. Dad had blueprints made for them, one for me and one for you, so I decided to bring them to life. I connected EDITH and Karen to them and you can speak to them interchangeably. Don’t use them to cheat on your tests or anything, but I don’t control your life so do what you want.”

Peter chuckled and smiled. “Thanks (Y/N).”

“Don’t mention it,” You reply with a wave of your hand. “Try them on.”

Peter put them on and the glasses automatically began their work of data scan to identify him. Littler blue circles and squares showed up around the lens as they scanned his eyes to identify who he was. Beeping and other computer noises sounded as they worked and loaded information. His eyes darted from each thing that popped up on the screen out of curiosity. Once it finished five seconds later, there was a green bar that flashed in the corner of the screen that said “access granted” and “complete.”

“Hello, Peter,” EDITH Chimed. “Welcome to your new Stark Specs.”

“Uh, thank you…!” Peter replied.

“Friend detected,” the AI said as it narrowed in on you and your glasses. “Hello FRIDAY.”

“Hello EDITH,” Peter heard through his glasses.

“Whoa!” Peter replied with wide eyes as he looked at you. “Whoa…”

All of a sudden hearts start forming around your head through his lens. Peter blushed knowing that EDITH knows how he feels about you and with the Bestie Feature, she was messing with him probably just as much as Gwen or MJ would. He noticed that your smile was sheepish and he assumed FRIDAY was doing the same to you.

“Pretty cool right?” You asked.

“Yeah,” He smiled softly with hearts in his own eyes as he looked at you.

“They also will detect whenever you are by any Stark Tech. It will help you on your…y’know.” You said referring to his hero duties.

“Oh yeah for sure,” He nodded understanding as he put his hands in his back pockets.

You smiled and looked behind him. “Friends of yours?”

Peter followed your gaze to his three friends who were looking at both of you eagerly before turning away to look at different things pretending they weren’t just eavesdropping on your conversation. Peter let out a breath of amusement nearly snorting at them before he looked back at you and nodded.

Oh, those losers?” he responded in a playful tone. “Nah, they’re just whatever.”

“Huh?!” Gwen exclaimed hearing him.

You laughed softly at her outburst as she walked over and wrapped her arm around his neck.

“Hello,” Gwen smiled. “You must be the girl Parker can’t stop gushing about.”

Peter looked at Gwen with wide eyes as Harry walked over and put his arm around Peter’s neck as well with his arm resting over hers. Peter looked at Harry also with wide eyes and an unsure expression on his face. He got the feeling he was about to be tag-teamed by his friends. When Gwen starts some shenanigans, Harry soon follows suit, and vice versa. It’s something Peter had to get used to with them because once they start they don’t stop until they’re satisfied with themselves. It was like they shared a singular brain cell. Usually, Peter just laughs it off, but at the moment he really hoped that he wasn’t about to be the ass end of their lighthearted bullying.

Not in front of you anyways. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that kind of embarrassment as a makeshift first (really second or third depending on how one looks at it) impression.

“Hey Stark,” Harry smiled.

“Osborn,” You smiled back. “I thought I might run into you here too but I had no idea you were friends with Parker.”

“Oh, this loser?” Harry replied in the same tone as Peter a few moments ago. “Nah, he’s whatever.”

You and Harry had known each other since middle school and spent your freshman year of High school together at Horizon High before you transferred to Midtown Tech your sophomore year. Peter remembered when you told him that you transferred because you didn’t want to go to a genius school when you just wanted to have a normal high school experience. You also couldn’t stand how stuck up a lot of the students were there. He was always thankful that you transferred otherwise your relationship would probably have been very different.

You hummed in amusement and Peter blushed. He was definitely about the be the ass of the joke here.

Peter cleared his throat and swallowed hard as Miles joined in by putting his arm around Gwen with a teasing smile on his face. He had a very different vision of how he thought this moment would go.

“(Y/N),” Peter started before any of the others could attempt anything. “This is Gwen, Miles and…well you already know Harry. Guys, this is (Y/N).”

“Hello, (Y/N),” Gwen chimed. “It’s nice to meet the girl that has Peter so enamored.”

“Th-that’s a bit-”

“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you,” Miles also smiled. “He talks about you like nonstop, always daydreaming in class. Good thing he’s a genius or he would have been falling behind in class with how much he’s a million miles away.”

No not you too, Miles.

“Oh yeah, for sure,” Harry added. “He even doodles your name in his notebook when he should be taking notes. It’s kind of adorable.”

Peter pulled out of his rather annoying friend's grip and looked at them with a face of disbelief and shock.

“Guys!” He whisper-yelled.

“Uh oh, we’re in trouble,” Harry sang as Gwen and Miles snickered.

Peter wanted to run. He wanted to escape. He wanted to not be here at this very moment. He glanced at you to see you looking at him with an endearing smile.

“Aw, you like me, Parker?” you asked.

“No,” he answered as a reflex. “I mean yes, but…I mean…I…”

Harry pat his back. “That’s our cue, guys.”

Gwen and Miles nodded and said little goodbyes before scurrying away with Harry and snickering at their antics to tease Peter to no end. He glanced at them as they left before turning back to you with a blush dancing across his cheeks, nose, and ears.

“They seem nice,” you smile genuinely.

“When they want to be,” Peter responded and rubbed the back of his neck embarrassed. “Sorry about them.”

“Nah, it’s fine really.” you chuckled. “They remind me of my friends.”

Peter smiled thinking about Celina, Ned, and MJ and sighed softly at how much he missed them. He loved his friends now but nothing compared to the history he had with all of you.

“Are you busy?” You asked. “I promise I won’t corner and interrogate you again.”

“I have time,” Peter responded a little too eagerly for his liking. He mentally scolded himself.

“Great,” You smiled and shoved your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “Wanna go for a ride?”

“Sure!” There goes that high-pitched voice again, he noted.

You giggled as you opened the car door. “You’re cute, Parker.”

Peter blushed and made his way to the other side of the car. He’s pretty sure if you knew how he was last weekend at a party you wouldn’t find it so cute. He was thankful that his friends didn’t bring that up. He didn’t even wanna think about how humiliating that would’ve been if you knew he had a meltdown because his senses were crazy and craving you so badly. He just missed you so much and reacted in a not-so-healthy way. He wanted to put that all behind him and follow his friend’s advice about starting over with you. He got into the car and put his seatbelt on.

“Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Where do you wanna go?” You asked as you put your phone on a dock that was connected to the dashboard. “It’s on me.”

“No, it’s okay! “I-I can pay for myself, it's fine.”

“Consider it an apology for disrupting your day last week.” you grinned as you turned the car on.

“You could never disrupt my day,” Peter mumbled, not realizing that he didn't keep that thought in his head.

“You're sweet,” you smiled in response. “But I’m still paying. So where do you wanna go?”

Peter smiled knowing how stubborn you can be and looked up in thought for a moment. “I can go for a good sandwich right now,”

“Okay,” You nodded. “I know a place.”

You backed the car out of the parking space and drove off. Peter took the time to notice how customized your car was on the inside with various Stark Tech and a fiery red interior and yet the exterior was of a classic sixties Mustang. Peter figured it was your way of being discrete.

You turned on the music in the car and to Peter’s surprise, it started playing a song that pulled at his heartstrings.

It’s our love song.

One of the ways you and Peter communicated your feelings to each other in your relationship was through music. He sent this very song when he first said those famous three words and eight letters to you and gave you the necklace that he still keeps close to him. He decided that when you two got closer, he would give the necklace back to you.

“Oh my god,” you smiled big. “I love this song.” You started singing the lyrics and glanced over at Peter a few times as you sang the first verse.

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to be a star

Hey, hey, hey, lover

I love you just the way you are

For love is just the same

Without fortune or fame

Just give me

True love and understanding

Peter watched you and smiled as tears brimmed his eyes behind his shaded stark specs. He was so thankful that they automatically shaded themselves earlier.

“Come on, Parker,” you giggled. “I know you know this song. Sing with me!”

Peter laughs and wipes his eyes as he begins to sing.

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to be a queen

Hey, hey, hey, lover

You don't have to have a thing

For I'll be satisfied

Long as you are my bride

Just give me

True love and understanding

For the rest of my days

You smile listening to him sing before join in to sing the rest of the chorus together.

No, you shouldn't have to worry

Love's no problem in my hands

Just know I really, really, love you

And in your heart, I'd be a big man

Hey, lover, won't you treat me right

And be with me tonight?

Just give me

True love and understanding

For the rest of my days

You both laughed as the song continued to play. Peter looked down at his hands contemplating his next words carefully.

“I…uh…showed you this song,” he said sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head.

“Did you?” you asked. “So I have you to thank for this being in my playlist. Well, you have good taste in music.”

Peter smiled as you hummed the rest of the song to yourself. In this moment, he was truly the happiest he has been in a while and couldn’t wait to create new memories with you. Even if you couldn’t remember the history you had together, at least you were back in his life to create new beginnings.

Tags:

@chrisevans-realwife @riordanness @peterdarlingg @thecrystalclarity @brckenmemories @paleprincesssxo @blackcanary130

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coffee-and-guitar-strings · 9 days

Text

Studying with ADHD

Dear God. My activity on here is sporadic, as is fitting with my diagnosis, but I thought maybe this post could help anyone that's been struggling alongside me.

Warning: Long Post

Feel Free to browse the bullet points and stop if something catches your eye!

If you don't like any of these, don't use them! They're based solely off my experience, and everyone experiences ADHD differently <3

Content:

Setting up The Space

Study Snacks!! - No hunger in The Space

Compete with yourself

Ignore Pomodoro

Reverse the feeling of 'not being smart enough'

Active Recall

Unriddle.ai (not sponsored,,,)

Final Tip

Final Note

Here ya go:

1. Setting up The Space

Some sites say to create a 'distraction free zone' to study in. Screw that, it never worked for me.

My brain is the distraction. I'll stare off into space if there's no other option.

INSTEAD:

We set up a study space that both fulfils random urges mid-work session, and limits distractions away from the desk.

I.e. we don't get up until we need the bathroom.

You limit the amount you get up from The Space, you limit the number of things your attention span will switch to.

Snacks, fidgets, drawing, separate screen for watching stuff? Whatever works, stick it on the desk.

Food wise, I try to make a healthy lunch and then eat it at my desk while reviewing stuff, but sometimes I need a longer break.

If I am taking a break, I do it away from The Space. The Space is dead to me now.

Try to compartmentalise your area, work only in these spots, relax only in these, sleep only there.

We're trying to train our brains here, people, simple and clear relations of space to activity typically get embedded easier.

Also: work whenever.

Burst of energy at 9pm? Go for it, we sleep badly anyways.

Middle of lunch? Have a flashcard/ notes app on your phone, do it while you eat.

With friends? See method 5 <3

I'll link a separate post I'll be making on exactly how my space is set up, though most of the key points are in this one :)

2. Study Snacks!! - No hunger in The Space

One. Handed. Food. Only.

Also, food that doesn't get stuff on your fingers.

You can't work if you're constantly wiping your hands to keep going, and you need something you can absentmindedly grab while you keep your eyes trained on the work.

I recommend getting artificial sugar in your system, sweets, chocolate, give yourself a mild sugar rush to keep a bit of a buzz going while you work.

(try to be healthy about it, this won't be sustainable long-term, but I find a shot of sugar to the system can help prevent burnout)

Also caffeine! Please be aware of how much caffeine you're having for health reasons - I need to watch how much I have, since my medication is already bad for my heart, but even just having a coffee and some sugar at the start of the session, I get enough energy to start working

As long as I don't stop until I'm Done, I will be good.

3. Compete with yourself

I don't recommend competing with others, it toes the line of 'feeling like a failure' too much for my liking, but if it works for you, go for it.

Instead, I compete with myself. Mostly quizlet flashcards, but also 'how much of this have I remembered from yesterday?', and 'How much more can I remember today?'

Whether it's personality or hyperactivity, this gives a dopamine hit. Finding ways to make studying something you can score against is one of my favourite methods.

Video games are an ADHD staple for a reason, easily trackable progress and dopamine from rewards/hyperfixations/etc. make them addictive.

Turn the work into a video game (I think at this point I may sound insane to you guys but please trust me)

4. Ignore Pomodoro

ADHD students, we have to think like sharks: we stop, we die.

Once you have found yourself studying with (relative) ease, Do. Not. Stop. You keep that going as long as possible.

ADHD doesn't mean you can't focus, you can, you just have no choice in where that attention gets allocated. So, when a tomato-based timer tell you to turn off your focus and relax, after it took you half the damn time to start the stupid work, it can be a little counter-productive

(I may have some repressed rage for pomodoro, try to forgive me)

Please, ignore the pomodoro stuff. I know it's healthy to regulate the volume of work you do, but I find that once I start working, I can't stop until I run out of energy.

I time or video myself instead, I can track how long I've been working, feel proud of it, and I also can't use my phone during that session.

When my brain stops taking stuff in, I have an hour to 2 hour break, relax (away from The Space) try to reset my brain so it's back to baseline. Then I start again.

5. Reverse the feeling of 'not being smart enough'

I know I am smart, and it's on others if they don't see that, but having undiagnosed ADHD for 17 years did a number on my self image and confidence.

If you struggle with this, it's so, so helpful to try this method, and can start to reverse the negative internal image we've managed to cultivate <3

So, after you've covered a topic: tell someone about it (please make sure they're ready to listen to you rant for half an hour).

Not only are you reinforcing what you've just learnt, but you also get to feel competent, and teaching someone else about your topic helps to raise perceptions (internal or from others) of what you know/what you're capable of.

6. Active Recall

This one goes great with the whole, 'competing with yourself' method (no. 4);

Active Recall is just making sure you're going over old information and recalling correctly, once it's past short term memory. Trying to remember information without it present forces your brain to pull it from Long-term memory and reinforces the information in your brain.

I know it's been said a million times, but this + competing with yourself does wonders for me.

My favourite method is blurting ( read/write notes of one topic, wait ten minutes, do something else productive, and then try to copy that topic from memory. repeat until all key info is correctly recalled)

7. Unriddle.ai (not sponsored,,,)

Okay, this site changed it for me. 5 free uploads, 15 free inputs per month.

Download a copy of the fancy scientific paper/article/book you need to read through. Upload.

Ask unriddle to summarise key points, to re-write it as if you were 7, etc.

This genuinely saved my essays. Suddenly the procrastination of reading my source material was gone. It makes it so much easier to get through dense/boring text and then I wrote everything myself.

Please do not plagiarise, I am only recommending this site to make things easier to read, copying down what it produces is considered plagiarism by my uni, and likely most others.

8. Final Tip

Be kind to yourself.

When I got medicated, my friends were genuinely stressed by how much work I was suddenly doing.

One of them asked me about it, and I realised it didn't feel like I was doing any more than normal. I had always been working this hard, it was just that half the energy going in wasn't being wasted on trying to get myself to focus.

What you put in may not receive the same results as for others, but the reality is that you're likely working harder than they are. The irritating truth is simply that we have to compensate for the different cognitive functioning that neurotypicals get to take for granted

(no hate to the NTs, I'm glad ya'll don't have to think about it, but for someone with ADHD, it can be really tough to realise)

A Final Note:

You are smart. You can do this. We just need to modify the system a little to make it work for us. There is no shame in that, anyone telling you otherwise needs a reality check.

Genuinely though, I've noticed that people telling me I use my ADHD accommodations (required by law) as a 'crutch'.

1. If the world were set up by me, that same person would struggle just as much, if not more.

2. If Rishi Sunak's government is willing to GIVE ME FREE MONEY to access these accommodations, that implies that this genuinely is needed. Not because I think Sunak is intelligent or kind (my own political opinions, please just hear me out), but because there is no way, with the underfunding of the NHS, Public services, etc. that they'd be willing to give me money I don't need to repay if it wasn't a scientific fact that I needed it, and it helped.

Use the inadequacies of the government to your advantage in arguments, make the idiots see how integral our accommodations are. I'd have dropped out of uni by now without them.

For anyone in need of help trying to convince family/friends/teachers/etc. of the struggle with ADHD (or anything else, though I won't have as much experience with it), telling them what you need help with, or any other arguments, send me an ask. I do psychology for my degree, I am used to searching for research papers, and I will help you with the necessary scientific backing for your case.

You are not in this alone <3

Lots of Love!

Coffee + Guitar Strings

@chocolatelandgarden @chaoticstudyprincess

#studyblr #adhd #actually adhd #university #adhd problems #adhd studyblr #adhd study tips #adhd student #study tips #study blog #studying

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xerith-42 · 1 month

Note

dude. xerith. idk if you saw my reblog of madcatlad’s post, BUT. they cooked. the issue on the table: nether withdrawals. i’m insane about this.

very much exploring the idea of the calling being more about fighting the addiction that is the nether itself for shadow knights, rather than purely the aggression part.

thoughts? musings?

Oh Cinn, oh Cinn you've brought my attention to something beautiful.

Little known fact about me because I'm still pretty decent about over sharing on the internet, addiction is something I've actually thrown hands with before. The idea of the Calling as an addiction to the Nether?? Now that's a concept I can latch onto.

I think that there could be ways to satiate withdrawal, but not in an exactly helpful way. The Calling is in Shadow Knights brains like "Oooh you wanna kill your loved ones and come back to the Nether soooo bad." But minor acts of violence and arson can make it shut up. Enough bloodshed, such as what happens at the Werewolf Wedding, is enough to make it so a knight isn't drawn to the idea of killing their loved one anymore because the urge for blood has been answered. Of course... Most Shadow Knights fighting the call aren't exactly happy when something like the Werewolf Wedding happens to them.

As for the urge of the Nether, they could always try to answer that with things that are like the Nether or remind them of it. Sitting by a fire, setting things on fire, sitting in a pool of hot water that can at least try and simulate lava, setting things on fire, existing in the bitter dry heat of an Arizonan morning, or setting things on fire. The Calling always responds best to the most violent solution, and even while trying to satiate it, it's still pulling at the mental strings of a knight to make the most violent decisions possible.

That idea of being able to sit by a fire instead of setting something ablaze really sucks for Knights who might have been traumatized by the Nether and struggle to be around fire for very long as a result, Laurance.

A lot of moments of a premature Shadow Knight lashing out aren't necessarily because the Calling is making them want to kill, it's because it's making them want to go back to something they know is bad for them. It's a drug that they've overdosed on and are trying to run away from still present in their veins and urging them to take another dose, regardless of its lethality. That kind of mental gymnastics and battle wears down at a person even when they aren't actively fighting. Even if they aren't in their head fighting the Calling and it's urges, it's still there. They still think about it.

Laurance doesn't want to go back to The Nether. He would rather die again than go back there. But when he sees the frame of a portal, when he's nearby one that's unstable, he has to fight. He has to fight his body and its urge to go back to that hell. Just one hit will make him feel better. Just a chance to touch netherack and breathe that ashy air will soothe his worries. Because being reminded of the Nether, even if it causes a trauma response, does cause a part of his brain to feel good. The Calling sees fire and gives him a shot of dopamine and excitement.

Wouldn't it just be so nice if he went back? If he didn't have to feel this constant drain? If he was in the Nether then the Calling would shut up, right? Wouldn't it be so amazing to just feel this good all the time? He's already dead, what damage can be done to his body afterwards?

Of course the Calling has two components, both addictive. One is of course the urge to go to the Nether. The other is that urge to kill your loved one and gain immortality. Doing one only makes the other feel stronger. Oh, you sat next to a Nether portal and made it so you're now comfortable in the over world? Bet you wanna kill your lord right about now, huh?

What's that, you actually killed your lord? Well, don't you just wanna come home to the Nether where you're surrounded by people who have all done the same and won't hate you for it? Go on, you know you want to.

Like everything else, it comes down to the Shadow Kings need to control. If he can make Shadow Knights into addicts of stuff directly associated with him, they'll be more loyal. They'll serve him to get a fix of bloodshed and hell fire. They'll come running back to him after ruining their lives for his enjoyment, and they'll fall at his feet for the chance to become a higher up in their army. He deprives them of everything they ever could have had and calls it freedom.

#not to like #get real personal #but I have been falling back into some of my vices due to an ongoing depressive episode #so being able to project this onto my favorite block shaped brain worms is really nice #hope you liked what I cooked up Cinn #you usually do :)#minecraft diaries #aphblr #text post #laurance zvahl #mcd #answering asks #minecraft diaries laurance #mcd laurance #shadow knights

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gravidasomnia · 7 months

Note

Hi, Slasher movie ask anon here:

I wasn't looking for anything gory, that never entered my mind. I don't want to see anyone harmed, that's gross to me.

What I had in mind was more like movie stills of a pregnant character startled or frightened while being menaced by a 'something'. Mostly this was an excuse for you to do some more 80's themed things to make it feel very retro. Perhaps even some painterly movie poster type art of horror films that have a pregnant protagonist.

Goofy or over-the-top, but not gory.

Thanks again for humoring me.

Thanks for the clarification, you made it clear enough with the first ask I just wanted to let people know what to expect.

I've been trying for 90s VHS box art and while I thought it would be easy, well it's actually not going well at all with Stable Diffusion 1.5. Bing/Dall-e 3 would be amazing for this if their prompt/content filter wasn't insanely paranoid (and I've already been banned despite making every effort to comply with their vague rules). SDXL might be more helpful for sketching out something which I can then re-process with SD1.5 to make it look more authentic. Midjourney would probably also do the concept justice but I haven't subscribed and they also filter their results pretty strictly from what I've heard.

All the technical issues I'm hitting are things I should have worked on already but I'm a tired AADD-addled creator constantly interrupted by other priorities. But I do enjoy the challenge and the constant dopamine hit that AI creation gives me, it reminds me very much of my former gambling addiction but it's a whole lot less expensive and a whole lot more productive.

idk what I'll end up with but here's what the AI just spat out while I'm running through ideas

#ai art #Ai horror #Halloween

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frogtossing · 1 month

Text

i had such an amazing time in Cologne yesterday… i feel extremely hungover but it’s was so worth it.

it was so so nice to hang out with @echoes-of-mia again, you’re literally the chillest person ever irl and it was so fun to experience the concert with you :D 🫶

i met so many cool people while queueing (like the lovely @mogoce-nocoj who i got to talk with some more after the concert :D (even if i might have been a bit quiet, i was still processing the concert :P)), literally the best queue experience i’ve had compared to the other concerts i’ve been to (which were also nice!!! but i was a bit too shy to engage with people so i missed out a bit on the community aspect of queueing :<). i got so many cute bracelets and in turn got to give out a couple of mine :3. and i got some fucking beautiful stickers!!! the insanely pretty Kris sticker by the talented @autoantonyms and the stunning ASTP + Joker Out Köln stickers by @/vem.da.kris on Instagram!!!! so sad that the Dopamin fan project didn’t work out :( i really hoped they’d played it!!!

the concert itself was so so fun. before the show started, someone handed me those slay pose glasses and they’re so fucking cool??? and i also hastily traded some more bracelets inbetween the openers :D

also, wow, the stage design by @as-artrat-racik was so fucking beautiful in real life. i was genuinely floored by it!!!! and once the concert started, he first thing i noticed was everybody’s hair???? a bit random but Bojan’s hair looked super nice (like the length it’s at atm???) and omg, Nace mullet real????? + it’s impressive how long Kris’ hair has gotten again, compared to the last time i saw him on stage :0.

and i’m so glad i decided to abstain from listening to any recordings of any of the new songs because let me tell you, experiencing Šta Bih Ja live for the first time was a fucking religious experience. that song fucks so hard i need it injected into my veins IMMEDIATELY. and i love how they were peer pressured by the crowd to play Schlager even if it wasn’t planned LMAO. and it was such a pleasant surprise too! such a fun song which really reminded me a lot of some of Arctic Monkey’s calmer songs (like Mad Sounds). showed my recording of it to my mom earlier today and she said it might be her new favorite of theirs and that i should tell her once it’s out haha.

i love the incorporation of a keyboard in their shows now!!! Metulji with Jan on the keyboard was so nice, as was Everybody’s Waiting!! and i gotta say, i’m not a fan of EW but hearing it live was so so nice. i loved the staging of it all so much??? with it starting off by Bojan being all alone on stage, playing the keyboard and then slowly the others join him.. it was so awesome!!! never thought it would hit so differently live :0

the UM karaoke was so much fun and i heard so many lovely voices but i lost complete track of Bojan at some point 😭 he just vanished lmao.. also Sector 5 walked right past me??? i didn’t realize who they were at first and i just went ‘wait a sec those people look familiar’, so that was fun HAHA.

i got some merch after the concert and whew, that was maybe the most stressful part of the concert. poor Vita was the only one working at the merch stand and it was obvious that she was a bit stressed by the masses of people flocking to it :(. i love the shirt i got, even if i wanted to by the black tour shirt at first :D

i wish i could have given Nace the bracelet i made for him all the way back in June/July of last year (when i wasn’t even sure if id ever get to see JO live :’3) but it’s okay, ill be taking it as in excuse to see them live once again if i get the chance to 💪 (ill be earning my own money soon so that means i might be able to attend international gigs as well :D!) who knows what the future holds!

TLDR; I had an extremely fun time, Joker Out are so worth it to see live and there are so many amazing and talented fans out there, it blows me away every time. i’m really happy to be a part of this fandom <3

#had to get this out :3 #sorry if it’s a bit rambly my head is a mess!!#steph rambles #joker out cologne

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gemsgamegems · 4 months

Text

So this weekend I snatched off my dev hat and shoved my player hat on and devoured Our Cinderella, a highly anticipated title for me ever since Carrot mention they were working on it, and once again this world (even in AU form) has managed to alter my brain chemistry.

Allow me to spam you with the goodies from my first playthrough:

first I just wanna point out Iggy's room and how immaculate the cozy vibes are??? the snow animation was SO necessary for proper dopamine levels???

my only criticism of this game was there wasn't enough Kirby. there can never be enough Kirby

...good to know I'm not the only struggling human who needs to burrito themselves

(not in order) I don't think but I laughed so hard at orlam trying to escape the group chat MULTIPLE TIMES☠️ is my humor broken??? maybe.

....

and NOW for some Iggy and Gidget highlights that made me believe in life and love again I feel like I have to put a disclaimer out that my OTP is Iggy x Genzou but Gidget is THE PERFECT PRINCE HELLO !?!?!?!!?

no because why did this bottom exchange send me to the fucking MOON--iggy tell us your ao3 account plz

this interaction was SO effing sweet and I will never recover from it

obligatory Bucks being my favorite character screennnnn

another scene I won't recover from screen 🤧

...

words are VERY hard for me right now so forgive these fragmented thoughts but oh MY God there is nothing that makes me more emotional (or more insane) than when the baseline for any romance shaped ANYTHING is friendship.

and then there's something about platonic love slowly giving way to something more. and that something more doesn't have to be romance BUT IF IT DOES?!?!?!?

IF IT DOES?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

*screams into hands*

so anyway, play our cinderella and have a wonderful holiday 🤪

#vn: our wonderland #vn: our cinderella #post type: rambling #post type: review

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hwajin · 1 year

Text

#!! - 𝐓𝐖𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐄 — 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐱 ; ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢs

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: angst, short smut at the very beginning!!

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: hyunjin x reader, chan x reader

𝐰𝐜: 7.6k

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: the party was a week back, yet you couldn't get hyunjin out of your mind. and visiting him at work might have only driven you into deeper confusion, helplesness.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬/ 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: there's a very short suggestive/ smutty scene in the beginning, other than lots of angst and tension 😼. please please tell me how you like this series and if you liked this chapter!! is it going the direction you expected or differently, when do y'all think are chan and yn gonna break up, will they break up even??? 👁👁 LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE TAGSSSS there's nothing i love more than talking about this series <33

series masterlist | next chapter

A whimper leaving your lips, a hopeless one, one that signified a craving for more and for something closer, for any feeling more intense than this, than what you were feeling currently. Because Hyunjin wasn’t possibly near enough to your body, wasn’t closely giving you what you were needing; though the fact alone, to be having him like this in the first place – naked above you, skin against skin, hot breath intertwining intimately – it was already more of what you could ever ask and long for.

Your hand reached further down, fingertips dancing across Hyunjin’s chest, his torso, his abdomen. Taking all of him in, yet feeling too distant, too far away still. Vivid sounds in your ears, of his lust and pleasure, of his desperation; for you and only you, and the thought shot dopamine right through your veins. His face vividly before you, blown out pupils and bitten lips of his prone to make you lose your head, his vivid touch, his grip on your hips infuriating and determined to drive you insane;

And then you opened your eyes. Chest heaving up and down, pupils blown out and a pool of wet between your legs, waking you uncomfortably and reminding you of the embarrassing fact that today counted the second night you have dreamt about Hyunjin. The second night you have dreamt about Hyunjin like this; waking up the next morning feeling lightheaded, needy and wholly perverted because truly, wet dreams about any other than your own partner had to be a violation against some law. The act, though unconscious, feeling so sinful it couldn’t be legal.

A heavy sigh past your lips and you stretched out your limbs, attempts to shake off the morning numbness, wishing you could be staying in bed for another hour or two — the warm sheets and the soft mattress beneath your tired body seemed not too prone to let you go at least, the way they were lulling you back to sleep. You had planned to be productive for the day, to wake up early and get ready, jump on the bus and spend a day in classes, revisiting courses you had been lacking motivation for lately; the work was piling up by your desk already, missing lectures surely wouldn’t come in handy the moment exams stood around the corner.

But you couldn’t seem to get yourself out of bed. It’s been one week since the party; since you and Hyunjin touched and since Chan went to live with Changbin and Jisung. He had come home early in the morning, around six, maybe seven. You haven’t been sleeping; your eyes had been glued to the phone, fingers rushing over the keypad as quickly as they could, booze still coursing your system. You had been texting Seungmin, had called him prior though that had been no use — the party had gone on for a good while after you had left, and even when your friend stepped outside the noise was too prominent over the speakers of the phone. So, you had communicated messaging each other back and forth; you asking questions about who Hyunjin possibly was, who he had come with, Seungmin questioning what in the world had happened for you to leave this abruptly, without saying goodbye.

02:37 AM; seungmin << you looked genuinely happy when you came tonight, wtf happened when you talked to this guy???

02:37 AM; you >> chan happened, hw saw us taljing

02:38 AM; you >> hyunjin was so nicw tho

02:38 AM; you >> not my faulr chab is so jealous

02:39 AM; seungmin << girl

02:39 AM; seungmin << he’s your boyfriend don’t tell me you don’t get his pov

02:39 AM; you << you would have been pissed too

02:45 AM; you >> idk we’ve just been tlking tho

02:45 AM; you >> me and hyunjin

02:50 AM; you >> idk

You had been helpless, the deprivation of sleep, the exhaustion after a party, the alcohol running in your system; it all had been driving you to a state of frustration.

02:52 AM; you >> it was so weird thi

02:53 AM; you >> when I lliek touched him

02:53 AM; you >> hyunjin I mean

02:53 AM; you >> thre was this like

02:55 AM; you >> idk this feeling

02:56 AM; seungmin << elaborate cuz I have no idea what you’re talking about

03:02 AM; you >> idk i can’t explain it min

03:04 AM; you >> it felt so weird when I touched him

03:04 AM; you >> good weird

03: 04 AM; you >> but like out of this world I swear

03:10 AM; you >> i’m scared tbh

03:16 AM; you >> i don’t wanna be the asshole girlfriend and break up with chan, min. i know i still love him but he makes it so hard for me to show that. but I’m scared that if i it i brwak it off with him i won’t be as happy as i was when i started dating him

Not expecting to spill your heart like this over text, not when Seungmin was supposed to be enjoying the party, but you everything but had been thinking straight. Still drunk, still confused by whatever it was that you had felt with Hyunjin, still wary and utterly frustrated that a mere stranger managed to strike your attention and interest so much more intense than Chan ever has. Your boyfriend had come home then, and you had been fighting until the sun was up. You had been pissed that he let you reach home by yourself, he had repeated that his source of anger was Hyunjin, not the fact you had talked to him per se, but the fact you had denied your acquaintance prior only for you to run to the stranger first thing the moment you were left alone. He had called you a liar, you had called him a jealous ass - you had both said things you didn’t mean, and yet they had left your mouths. It had gone back and forth and eventually, under tears and runny noses, messy hair from running hands through it, you had decided that Chan would be living with his friends for a while. It had been his place before you and him moved together, so he had argued it wouldn’t be a big deal; when you had fallen into near hysteria he had made it clear that your relationship wasn’t over, not even on a break. You were simply taking a bit of distance, for a week of two, to clear your heads and come back to your senses. To come back to a relationship both of you were hopeful and eager to work on.

And then the dreams have started. If you were honest, you were glad Chan wasn’t sleeping in the same bed as you when they occurred; it would have been another factor adding to the pile of reasons for arguments. And in general; you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the quiet. It had been quiet all the time prior, surely; Chan had seemingly only pretended to live in the same home as you, the hours he spent at home significantly smaller than the ones he spent in studios. Yet, you now had no feeling, no obligation to wait. No reason to stay up until four hours past midnight, no motive to writhe around in a bed shared only to question when you’d feel a warm body against your own. The quiet was all the same, yet the atmosphere in your own four walls was essentially a different one. Calmer and in absence of pressure or doubts. Nice to not have a shared bed anymore, relieving to have one for your own. The emptiness in it was all the same, but now you had no reason to be sad about a lack of a partner in it. It sort of scared you. That your boyfriend being gone didn’t set off a feeling of longing within you. Though you faulted the night of the party for it.

You didn’t want to admit it to yourself, but you knew that today wouldn’t be a day for university. Dreading even getting ready and whining out at the thought of sitting in a lecture that you had all but no interest in within the given circumstances wasn’t a good omen, and you argued that if you had no intention of listening in class you had no reason to go in the first place. So you let yourself plop back onto the mattress, bouncing against it two times before you laid still.

The night of the party played revue in your mind, over and over. It was strange, it confused you. Over the past week one reappearing thought had settled in the depths of your brain; that the stranger was everything you’ve been looking for. Maybe it was the absence of your boyfriend, the fact he wasn’t around much to remind you of the fact that there was a person you were bound to in one way or another, but reoccurring thoughts about Hyunjin and the increasing awareness that came creeping, the awareness that he, the random man you have met in a tiny store across your street and that you’ve chatted with by coincidence on a party weeks later, was your ideal type, your idea of a righteous lover, in every sense. You weren’t sure if it was delusion, if the fight with Chan had simply left its mark on you. Because it had to be impossible to be so very sure about another person, after barely an hour of conversation. It had felt right, it had felt easy and seamless — not only conversation but basic understanding of each other’s character. It was almost like you had known each other for longer than a couple hours, despite the subtle nervousness that yet had laid in the room and above your heads.

You weren’t sure if such conviction was possible after such little time, but those thoughts weren’t all that scary anymore. You’ve had them before, stupidly so — when you had first seen Hyunjin your mind had short circuited, and a hopeless, longing part within you had taken in the stranger as a wish for a better love. Back then they were foolish, thoughts of another, now they were a possibility, in your brain a second plausible option in case you and Chan weren’t able to work it out anymore; which seemed most likely, inevitable. The fear of not being able to love another person the way you have loved Chan, and the uneasy feeling over the thought of not being loved back as passionately as Chan once did was significantly smaller, had decreased over the course of a week. Not that the worry wasn’t there altogether anymore — you didn’t think a fear as deep lying as this could simply vanish, yet your wariness about Chan, your hesitation when it came to your relationship didn’t frighten you nearly as much as it used to. Because whether it went to an end or not, whether Hyunjin would reveal himself as a possible future partner, a lover for the rest of your life or not; you had loved passionately and without regrets once, had lived a love they only ever write about in books and songs. Even if said love ended, if the flame burned out and left you cold for a lifetime, not bound to be lighted back up by any other; you had loved after all, had burned brightly with another flame, in a dance tauntingly beautiful. Not many people got to experience what you have, and maybe you were finally coming to terms with being thankful of your experience rather than mourning the past.

Which didn’t make the situation all that easier. Because as much as Hyunjin struck your interest, and as rocky your current relationship was, you weren’t one to take such matters mindlessly. You knew that your behaviour, your thoughts, the dreams and your ever growing carelessness was borderline emotional cheating, and that if Chan ever thought about another the way you thought about Hyunjin, you would want to be the first to know. You also knew that you should give it time, that you and Chan were currently holding space for a reason, a reason that wasn’t mingling around with other possible partners, surely. A week ago, when you and Seungmin had been texting after you had left, your best friend had scolded you.

03:58 AM; you >> you know if you ever finnd out who he is and if he’s single

03:58 AM; you >> i'd be thankful

04:03 AM; seungmin << girl

04:03 AM; seungmin << you’re in a relationship get a grip

04:05 AM; you >> in know i know

04:06 AM; you >> you can just ask around tho

04:08 AM; you >> i might be getting my hopes up for nothing, if he’s not single i can at least stop worrying about if he’d be a good match

Seungmin had not given in, though the next day he said that he did find out Hyunjin had come with Jeongin, and that the pink haired man was as confused about Hyunjin’s sudden leaving of the party as Seungmin was about your own. They had gossiped apparently, and you worried about the things Seungmin had revealed about you and Chan; when Seungmin had a drink or two he was prone to oversharing, the habit turning out to be dangerous countless times prior. Though Seungmin himself never admitted the contents of his and Jeongin’s conversation, claiming he could barely even remember, claiming also that no sensitive information was revealed. You could only hope it was true.

“Wait but, she isn’t single…?”

Hyunjin and Jeongin had been quarrelling about the matter of the party - the matter of you - for the past hour and a half, breakfast in front of them, Hyunjin’s roommates having left to work long ago. Though Jeongin wasn’t part of said roommates he was on a good way to be one, spending more time in Hyunjin’s four walls than his own - much to his roommates’ dismay, arguing Jeongin needed to pay rent if he decided to stay over as often as he did, the other party defending themselves, promising Jeongin would either come over less or pay some of the food, at least. Neither of the promises were ever held, and eventually everyone had dropped the matter.

“No she isn’t, but I’m saying you might have a chance, Seungmin said that she’s mad unhappy with this Chan guy.”

Hyunjin had called a cab after you and him had left the party – and after you had calmed down from whatever sensation your body erupted in when you had touched, though you hadn’t talked about it, had ignored it as best as you could and had worried about getting home safe. Hyunjin had paid before you could have complained and you’d lie if you said it didn’t set off some kind of feeling, a giddy one, within you. Hyunjin hadn’t had it in him to go back to the party after that, the events of a couple hours overwhelming enough to tire him out. He had texted Jeongin, for what purpose he wasn’t too sure, he had let him know what happened and why he had left without a notice though, and Jeongin himself had assured Hyunjin to find out who you were and who you had come with, if only for Hyunjin’s knowing, to not have him stay up at night questioning the mystery that was you. And a week later they still haven’t had enough of talking all about the matter.

“Yeah, but it’s not in my plans to make her cheat… or make them break up. She might be unhappy, but she has her reasons to still be with him.”

Hyunjin didn’t like the take Jeongin took on the situation; he didn’t have intentions to be the reason for a break off in your relationship, if on good terms or not. He didn’t want to catch feelings while you were bound to another, and he wasn’t prone to the idea of you having feelings for him while bound to another, either.

“If she’s not single, I don’t have a chance.”

He was set on that. If you were single, that would be a whole different conversation. Hyunjin would actually pursue you then, would actually make an effort for you to get to like him. Would not have an ounce of doubt in his body when it came to you, would not be embarrassed to act and think like a dumb teenager with a high school crush; but that wasn’t the case, so he didn’t even think of acting on said things. As much as Jeongin wanted to convince him of it, Hyunjin’s heart was all but too fragile, his persona too sensitive to get involved in something as complex as that. If you came to your senses all by yourself at some point, realising that Chan might not be the one and would give Hyunjin a chance, he wouldn’t tee that off. Otherwise; he saw himself with tied hands, accepted that love slipped past his fingers when it came to you. Not that he was sure of you entirely when it came to the matter of partners, but the part in him known to long after love and happiness in another person was set on you. He wasn’t happy about it, but it wouldn’t be the first time a crush of his developed into thin air, into a hopeless fascination about another. The romantic in him argued that it simply wasn’t fate, not with you, or not right now.

“Look, I’m not an asshole, you aren’t one, and I know you won’t make her be one either. I’m just saying that you could befriend her, that’s not against any rule. You do like her, and you are interested in her; why not be friends first? There’s like, no guarantee the two of you are ever gonna fall in love even- buuut if you do end up being a good friend and if you do end up catching serious feelings for each other…”

Jeongin was making his way to the fridge, getting out milk for his cornflakes and orange juice for Hyunjin. The direction he was going with his thought concerned Hyunjin, but he kept listening. Because something in it sounded plausible and not out of the norm whatsoever, sounded like something Hyunjin could act on without a heavy heart. Or maybe he needed the least crazy reason to get in contact with you. The least obsessing sounding one, because if he was honest with himself you hadn’t left his mind ever since you had left in the cab after the party. He had been dreaming about you, had been wanting, needing to talk to you. Embarrassingly enough. He wondered if it came off creepy, if he ever told anyone.

“She might realize that this Chan dude can’t even come close to you and break up with him for good. You might be doing her a favour after all.”

Hyunjin blushed a tint at his friends’ words, flattered he thought of him in such manner, though not believing he was necessarily any better than your current boyfriend. Different, surely, but you must have had a reason to fall for him in the first place. So maybe Hyunjin being different from Chan by miles wasn’t anything good after all. Jeongin was coming back to the kitchen aisle with the milk and juice, pouring some into his bowl, passing Hyunjin the other carton.

“Based on what I’ve heard from Seungmin he’s an ass who has a closer relationship with his job than with his girlfriend, Seungmin said she’s only really with him cuz she hopes he’d start paying more attention to her again. Kind of like, saving their relationship or whatever. But apparently he barely tries.”

Jeongin devoured his cornflakes in an uproar of slight anger, the situation visibly affecting him emotionally almost just as much as Hyunjin himself. Which was sweet to look at, didn’t help his conflict any bit though.

“In my opinion he will never try, to be honest. Workaholics have a hard time keeping solid relationships. Look at Minho, man’s been single for a decade.”

Hyunjin and Minho had been friends since high school, moving in together with Felix when they had met the boy in college, to make a cheaper living. Hyunjin and Felix both were essentially different to Minho, in every characteristic possible. Minho had never been a geek at school, but his grades were never below good, the work ethic not decreasing in college either. As a dance major he spent more hours in practice rooms than in the dorms, and it was nothing but admirable, though Jeongin had mentioned the downgrade of it; neither Hyunjin nor Felix had ever seen him with a partner that extended a one night stand, and activities like parties or long get togethers with friends were nothing they’d even ask Minho to join in. He was fun in the company of a befriended crowd, but it occurred all too seldom that he had time to actually let loose and get wasted. And thinking about a guy like him keeping a relationship for longer than a couple months; any partner would leave due to the lack of time. Not the lack of care, necessarily; the fact that Minho was barely home and had his head up in work didn’t mean he lacked qualities of a good friend. It surely wasn’t enough for any romantic relationship though, one where the other party wasn’t as work-involved as he was.

And figuring Chan to be similar to Minho in that aspect, and questioning whether you were the same work obsessed type of person; it painted up the thought if the two of you were in any way compatible, at all. If there was a possibility even of you holding out much longer.

“Look, I’m just saying. You don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do… but if you ever need me to get you her number from Seungmin I’ll be glad to help.”

With that he finished the last bite of his breakfast, dropping off his bowl in the sink and launching himself on the sofa, leaving Hyunjin alone with his thoughts by the kitchen aisle. In a way he was right; befriending you was nothing out of the ordinary, would maybe turn into a better friendship than a romantic relationship could ever be. But Hyunjin would lie if he said that he wouldn’t feel guilty at all at the act. Because he could deny it all he wanted, his intentions wouldn’t be all too platonic altogether. He could fight it with all his might but the interest you stroke in him wasn’t one that he saw himself end in friendship. He took a sip of his orange juice, having lost the appetite he took a last half hearted bite of his buttered toast and disposed his plate to Jeongin’s bowl. It seemed almost hopeless to think about the matter, as long as he didn’t know your point of view. Because essentially, it was you he was betting on, your motives and plans he was questioning. Maybe, he thought, he should get your number for the only purpose to spill his heart to you and be blatantly honest with you, confess everything from the moment he saw you to the strange sensation he felt when touching you to the ever occurring thought of you in his mind. And that he couldn’t stop thinking of you, besides knowing you weren’t an available partner. And that it was killing him that another man was in the picture at all. And that he’d die to know all your thoughts on the matter as well, or otherwise he’d catch no sleep at night. If he did all that, if he grew the balls to be this honest with you, the whole matter would be settled in no time. You’d reject him or not, and he’d move on with his life or would be granted the chance of getting to know you.

He sighed out heavily in despair, slipping on his shoes, grabbing his keys, urging Jeongin to get ready to leave as well. Hyunjin hoped to rid himself off the thoughts throughout the day, dropping off Jeongin at home before driving up at work, the small library standing quiet by a still lake, soft rays of sun illuminating the space in tranquillity. Though opening up the doors, letting in the first waiting people, setting up his space at the reception; you were the only thing on his mind. His work came automatically, without much thinking, and his head was filled with you. He surely wouldn’t catch a break as long as you stayed a mystery to him. Though he wouldn’t go the extra mile to get behind saidmystery. Because being even remotely the fault in a possible breakup was nothing Hyunjin thought he would be able to handle.

The day was slow, the sun throwing ever differing shadows against the wooden entrance door, giving Hyunjin a convenient source of distraction during the lack of customers and interested readers. Hyunjin had been working long enough by now to be allowed a book by his desk, or a piece of paper accompanied by a pen when all people in town seemed unwilling to leave the house and make a visit to the small library. Additionally, his often only job was to watch the reception, lend out and take back books; when it came to the deeper mechanics of the place, about hunting down bestsellers and ordering the newest trending pieces of literature, or organising newly arrived deliveries, he wasn’t in charge anymore. Which he couldn’t much complain about, at the end of the day he was making easy money while being able to doodle and sketch to his heart's desires on the side, or let his mind get lost in the current piece of fiction he was reading. Though he sometimes wondered if that was truly all to his existence. Was aware that if his dream as an artist went down the drain he’d stay working in the library, that this would be his future until retirement. And the thought was strangely frightening.

The heavy, wooden door opened with a familiar creak, Hyunjin dropping his pen and looking up to see the shadows yet changed in the small foyer. It was late noon by now, only a couple hours left to work, a comfortable and cosy midday tiredness long taken over Hyunjin’s body.

Until his limbs suddenly felt on fire, worked up and all traces of tiredness gone, in a sensation so familiar to him though he hasn’t felt it too often before. And then your face appeared in his vision, confirming the turmoil in the lower pit of his stomach. It was all the same, having felt you before having seen you. It was strange, unexplainable with Hyunjin’s basic knowledge of biology and science; but he liked it. Fancied the idea that there was a person out there seemingly so connected to him that their presence was announced before they appeared in his vision. The thought was stupid, stemming from the familiar hopelessness he knew so well of himself; after all you have barely spoken with each other yet, the connection you two had was barely fit to be called a friendship, if anything. Acquaintances, yet not even that.

Hyunjin watched you looking around the place, eyes not having met his yet, and he wondered if for you it was the same. If you, too, could feel him before you could see him. He hoped you could. He hoped it was a sensation mutual, hoped he wasn’t the only one pathetic enough to be enchanted by a stranger.

Judging by your expression, you either haven’t visited the library in a while or have never been inside the building altogether; making Hyunjin question anew if you might be new in town, first having had the thought when you encountered each other in the small-town store, the thought reappearing now as you looked around the place with big eyes, mouth slowly agape. Admittedly, for a town as small as this the little library surely was impactful. The building was everything but big, and far from modern – the bricked walls dark and shabby, the floor creaking here and there, the windows not changed since the middle ages, it seemed. Yet thousands of books made the rooms look more welcome, more inviting. They were stacked everywhere, shelves reaching as far as the ceiling, and wherever there wasn’t a place for literature filled cupboards, plants accentuated the place, all different sizes yet green and blooming, pots held a terracotta colour to keep the quaint feel of the place. The windows that were built gen west never disappointed in giving the building the prettiest views of early sunsets; altogether, for such a small town the little library surely was impactful.

You caught Hyunjin’s eyes, and after a moment of hesitation you made your way to the reception. The laptop in front of him was the only thing seeming out of place in this building, too modern to fit into the oldish, tranquil atmosphere. The blue light of the screen illuminated his face in the slight dim of the room, throwing dark hues against his cheekbones and eyes. It was calming to see him again; strange, yet calming.

He had told you his current place of work when you have conversed at the party, mentioning briefly that he found it best to keep a part time job next to his passion and estimated occupation. You had short mindedly decided to pay him a visit; for whatever reason you weren’t sure. Maybe you wanted to befriend the man that seemed so very special and unique to you. Maybe there were ulterior intentions that you weren’t brave enough to worry about. But you were here, and you were glad he was too; after all Hyunjin hadn’t told you his work schedule, it was pure luck to have met him today.

“Hi.”

A smile from you, warm and inviting, and your voice soft. Hyunjin had missed you and he hadn’t even known you for long; he wondered just how attached he would grow to you if you only started a friendship, and decided then and there that Jeongin’s plan would everything but work; he could never simply befriend you. His soul would always need more of you. The whole of you.

“Hi.”

He smiled back, hoping to not come off as overly nervous. He was every time he saw, thought of you, hoped it wasn’t visible from the outside. Hyunjin wanted to keep his cool when in front of you; because you always seemed so very laid back, so very unbothered. Interested, but unfaced.

“What are you doing here?”

He always looked so calm when talking to you. You wondered if he was, or if he was only trying to play it cool, as hard as you were trying to appear collected. Because you never seemed to be in his presence. It was strange, truly, considering you were a grown woman, not a teenager guided by hormones only.

“Uh, I haven’t been here in like- ages… and you said you worked here? I thought I…- I thought I’d give you a visit.”

Hyunjin’s brows quirking up in surprise – he hadn’t expected that answer. Upon seeing his reaction your face darkened, in flusterness and embarrassment.

“And uh, I’m looking for something to read… I haven’t read in ages…- not for like- entertainment only, you know.”

You were cute, words leaving you in a quick manner as if to save yourself from admitting something you didn’t mean to admit. Hyunjin laughed softly, and the sound was bound to stay in your memories for long; it was a resonance prettier than anything you’ve ever heard prior.

“Oh yeah, I get you… I remember when I was in uni, textbooks were the only form of literature I consumed… can I, uh- help you, though? With picking out a book? Or did you come for, like- something specific?”

Hopefully not too pushing, but you gave Hyunjin a smile, one that showed thankfulness. He liked the way you were looking at him. Eyes soft and intrigued, curious yet patient. There was a sweetness to your gaze, due to a good hearted persona or something different, he wasn’t sure yet. But he liked it, liked the way you inspected your surroundings so carefully, inspected him so carefully, intimately, almost. He wished you would look at him like this forever.

The library was small, after accepting Hyunjin’s help – not without a hint of nervosity – and revealing you’d love to read a classic romantic novel – not without an internal smile from Hyunjin at your choice of literature, he knew you’d have more in common than initiated from the first conversation you had – he quickly guided you around and to the corner of the building reserved for heart fluttering and tear worthy romance. You thanked him before he left for the reception again, arguing he’d love to stay with you and talk more literature but he couldn’t leave his seat at the front uncovered for too long. You understood, giggling when he said he’d wait for you by his desk - because truly, where else would he go? - and that you should take as much as you needed; picking out the right book after a hiatus of reading was crucial, he mentioned, both laughing at the seriousness of his tone. Yet no time on earth could ever calm you enough, too soon when you made your way back to the reception again after picking out a book that sounded interesting enough. Your movements too giddy and thoughts too scattered to be fully prepared to encounter him again. The feeling of his proximity grew within you, the pulling and tugging whenever he was close, like an itch you couldn’t quite reach, until you stood before him. He looked like he was expecting you – maybe he had the same sort of sensation coursing his limbs whenever the distance between your bodies closed, after all. Or maybe you deluded yourself too deep, maybe he simply heard your footsteps against the old, wooden floors.

“You’ve decided?”

Genuine interest in his voice, a curious look at the book when you passed it to him to scan it into the system.

“Good choice, I’ve loved this one.”

Not expected him to be interested in this genre of literature you were taken aback, only shortly before comfortable small talk settled in between you, while Hyunjin’s hands worked fast to type in your name, your number, your address, adding the chosen book to the “lent” list. Moves sure and quick, and it impressed you. It was interesting seeing him work, seeing him concentrated to get numbers right and the spelling of your name correct. Thick brows just slightly furrowed yet drawing a crease, lips pouted just faintly yet showing concentration. An occasional brush with his hands through his neck long hair, and a quick look to you, giving an answer or a question to whatever conversation you were having, smiling, before eyes wandered back to the screen. You hoped you could see him do more mundane things more often. It was intriguing. He was.

“Alright, here you go. You have four weeks to bring it back, if you need more time, just write us a mail, though. Or uh- call. I work the late shifts from Monday to Thursday… you can call whenever though, obviously- someone’s always at the reception just-… I’m here from twelve to six every Monday to Thursday.”

His speech scattered, entirely too nervous and breathless, too fast. Hyunjin looked up at you and hoped his face wouldn’t change a darker, redder colour. You smiled down at him, thanking him before taking the book – and brushing your fingertips against his. Just shortly, barely even a touch; yet bittersweet nostalgia rushed through your nerves, as though your soul slipped past your fingers. Somehow confirming the both of you hadn’t dreamt it, somehow setting in stone that something was utterly wrong between the two of you, incredibly strange and out of this world. Maybe unexplainable at all. You looked at each other, eyes blown wide open, yet you didn’t speak on it, still. Too scared, too cowardly maybe, especially from your side – Chan was never not in mind. You exchanged a shocked expression, only a second before you stored the book into your bag, avoiding confrontation. You would talk on the subject, at some point. When you were closer than this maybe, friends. Because the thought of speaking out the elephant in the room was embarrassing enough – talking about feeling quite literal sparks when touching a stranger with said stranger was nothing you were looking forward to.

Hyunjin watched you pack the book away, the initial shock of your skin on his subsiding and suddenly feeling an idiot instead, for revealing his working hours. Because the intended message was his exception, his hope that you’d come to the library a second time to see him. To see him instead for another piece of literature. How naïve he was, after all.

But your answer surprised him.

“I’ll be here then, in four weeks… somewhere between Monday and Thursday, sometime between uh- twelve and six.”

A blush across your face, subtle but enough for Hyunjin to notice – and to coo out audibly, almost, if he didn’t keep his composure, as best as he could. He smiled at you, warm and soft, and you said a quick goodbye before leaving the building, not without a last questioning, curious look back.

Maybe there was hope, altogether. Maybe Hyunjin had made a bigger impression on you than he ever believed to be possible, wasn’t stupid to suspect mutual interest, after all.

Hyunjin was one to respect privacy, always. When people lend out books Hyunjin needs to ask for name, phone number and address – books were expensive, and the institution needed to make sure to receive every last of it back. Not once has Hyunjin written down a number for his own purpose, though. Surely, he’s met enough interesting people throughout his part time career, people that he found attractive, interesting, intriguing. Not once has Hyunjin had the urge to get a piece of paper and take the advantage of his job for his own entertainment, though.

And he felt wrong, sinful almost when he had stared at your number in his system for longer than it was wholly necessary.

He could be smart, and wait until you come back in four weeks and ask for your number properly. With no ill intentions, in full honesty – admitting he liked you, being also aware of your boyfriend and suggesting to simply become friends, if you wanted.

Or he could be dumb. Utterly and thoroughly dumb and save your number into his phone right the moment and text you before the day was even over. Which was both creepy, and entirely too clingy. You’d think he’s obsessed, or a stalker. You’d think he’s weird and would never speak to him again, surely. So he really, really shouldn’t do it. Really shouldn’t let his hands wander into his jean pocket to fish for his phone, really shouldn’t open his contacts and create a new one, with your name on it, typing in your number, saving it up.

He was utterly and thoroughly dumb.

And he texted you, all but two days later – because he didn’t want to be too clingy, after all. Telling you the truth instead of making an excuse as to why and how he got your number – admitting he had wanted to ask for it for some time now and had forgotten when you stood before him eventually, so he took matters into his own hand and advantage of his job, which he explained he never normally does, that he knows it kind of seems pushy, and that he generally is too dumb to even have texted you, that he should have waited the four weeks it took you to bring back the book you had lend out. You took it surprisingly well, though, the matter of Hyunjin sniffing around to get your personal information, more or less – after all it had been there right before him, you argued, you would have done the same thing, you admitted.

And texting you was so simple. So easy, catching a mutual wave length in seconds and messaging back and forth without minding how fast time passed. It’s been three days, and your exchanges rarely ended before two in the morning, surpassing early morning hours at times. And to think you weren’t talking about anything crucial, anything deep lying – it was mundane conversation, small talk turned into jokes and complaints about the work day, or your studies. Small talk that didn’t seem all too important but that Hyunjin adored, enjoyed to the fullest. Getting to know you and your character by day to day things, reading the way you observe and describe things, the way you text him in general – it was all but too intriguing, pulled Hyunjin in even deeper. He reminded himself more often than not that whatever you two would have going on, whatever would develop with the course of time would never go beyond a friendship – but if Hyunjin was fully honest with himself, though he was too cowardly to admit; he was too deep into you already, too pathetic, too desperate, unable to take off his heart shaped and pink tinted glasses. It was too late for his heart to turn back from you, and he was aware. Though it was yet not in his plans to approach ill minded plans. He’d let his heart hurt, bleed a bit more, until yours decided on him as well. And if it didn’t, if your heart was never meant to find his in a way Hyunjin wanted it to, then he’d let it be. He’d let you be, let the deep, gashing wound right at his heart be. Because maybe the first flickers of love he felt were enough to allow him to suffer for you, were enough to sacrifice his own dumb heart for your sole happiness.

You were clueless, confused. Perplexed and stumped and any other word you could possibly think of. And most of all, you were helpless. When you had come home from the library – feelings of euphoria coursing your body, a faint smile painted on your lips, sinfully so – you had found Chan waiting before your doorstep. He had wanted to talk, wanted to sort things out. Had said he missed you, deeply, and that he hated whatever was going on between the two of you. Had realised long before that you had been growing apart but that he’s been too cowardly to speak up, and that now he wanted to be a better boyfriend, a better partner, for the sake of you and your relationship.

And you couldn’t have been happy about it, couldn’t have been relieved or glad that it seemed like a new beginning for your cracking love. You thought of Hyunjin, remembered the way it felt when you had been skin to skin, for less than a split second – couldn’t help but compare that to Chan, how you had never felt the same with him, had never felt the supposed spark that you had never much believed in but that now was a matter you worried about, when it came to Hyunjin. Whenever he was in mind you remembered the myth you’ve been so obsessed with as a child - that twin flames would be bound to one another the moment they touched. Couldn’t help but compare the first touch you shared with Chan and the one you shared with Hyunjin, and how essentially different they had been. Had realised that whatever you were feeling with Hyunjin, and as shortly as you had known him - he felt more a twin flame than Chan ever has. If any of the saying laid in truth, after all.

You had felt guilty because surely, it wasn’t Chan’s fault, the lack of spark, knew he wanted only the best for you, your relationship. Altogether; your boyfriend was utterly clueless about your turmoil of feelings, your torn plight. Clueless about the fact you had been playing with the thought of breaking up with him – because recently the thought hadn’t been as frightening as it used to be. Hadn’t been giving you sleepless nights in fear of never finding love like his again. It had felt relieving, the thought of being alone, of being free from never ending lonely nights, never ending bickers and fights – in fact, you should have broken up long ago, when your love had reached its peak. When it hadn’t yet trembled in its confines, when you had merely started to realise that the two of you wouldn’t work out in the long run – if you had ended it back then, you wouldn’t be hurting now. You would have gained an experience of love you’d be able to cherish for years to come, even if that meant being alone for the rest of days. You’d rather be alone than in pain. Alone by yourself than lonely in a relationship of two.

And then you and Chan had spoken, long and painful, and had decided to give it a try. A last one, because he couldn’t simply let you go. Not on bad terms, anyways. And apparently, you thought mutually. Let yourself lull in by his words, let yourself convince that love was never easy, needed to be worked on. You had agreed, had hugged and kissed in tears. And in thought you’d been with Hyunjin.

Two days later he had texted you, and you hated how well you were hitting it off. How easy conversation flowed with him, how topics converted into each other and never seemed to stop. Hated how you were looking forward to in four weeks, looking forward to seeing him again. In the same breath, though, you tried to convince yourself that it was friendly, solely. Platonic excitement to meet a new acquaintance – you wanted that to be the case, lied to yourself about it. If you didn’t admit that there was more to it, then maybe there wasn’t. If you didn’t admit that the feelings for Chan grounded against zero the more time passed, then maybe they’d come back.

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