#new semester = new classes = new stress... dear god | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

marginsofmarga · 3 years

Text

You are a Survivor: A Reminder to my Future Self

Dear Survivor,

On the 12th day of January 2000, a bouncing baby girl was born and was destined to meet the world. She was innocently ecstatic, bursting into tears as a newborn, and her parents couldn’t be more grateful to have her as their daughter. As she turned eighth months, her parents were in disbelief for she had to deal with a serious medical condition called intussusception — a form of bowel obstruction in which one segment of the intestine telescopes inside of another. She was in a 50-50 situation during that time and the doctors did not provide any assurance for her to live when she had to undergo a surgical operation.

The baby girl was you.

Yes, you. Luckily, here you are. You made it. Your life started after such a tragic incident. In an early age like that, you are already a survivor. What a precious privilege it is for you to be alive. You have a purpose and it is yet to be discovered.

But brace yourself because it’s going to be one heck of a roller coaster ride.

Anxiety and the ‘new normal’

Growing up, you are this girl who is full of fears. You are afraid of anything that might put you in danger and you are terrified of the uncertainty. Diving deeper, your big fear is not knowing what the future holds. And I‘m sure a lot of people can relate.

This fear was especially present when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The world seems to have ground to a halt because of the virus. As a fearful person, this is such a big deal. In retrospect, conditions created by the pandemic were taking a psychological toll. You were full of anxieties that you even experience panic attacks. Remember how difficult it was when you couldn’t sleep? And how overthinking consumed you for months? You were drowning in pain and fright and you never knew when it will be over. You were stressed about so many things: your health if ever you and your loved ones catch the virus, the mental agony it creates, your education when setbacks and transitions happened, the stress of what this year would be like, the postponed travels, and all the uncertainty. Anxiety bugged you for too long. It took all your strength.

Think about where you were earlier last year. You were in your second year in college. Just before the world slowed down, you were just a typical college student who tries her best to go through the day of university life. Back then, you were kilometers away from home which required you to rent a dormitory. On weekdays, you basically had a routine – waking up as the sun rises, getting ready for school, wearing your neatly ironed uniform and taking a short commute when going to school. Having meaningful lessons, small talks during the breaks with your friends, exchanging information with your professors, and learning day by day made the regular jiffs worth it. Later on, the pandemic took place. It felt as if the world stopped. Everything changed in a split second. Over the past few months, you’ve experienced an unprecedented shift in your way of life due to COVID-19. Coping up with the transition from face-to-face to online classes wasn’t easy.

The journey you’ve been through was on a rugged terrain and so full of ups and downs. You were stuck at home juggling chores, classes and your side hustle, content creation. It seemed so difficult to adjust; there was a change in the situation of class’ atmosphere, you struggled with time-management and self-motivation along the way, workload is way larger than regular classes, barriers occur such as bad internet service, power interruptions and so on. Not to mention creating content when you are not at your best. All these left you in a crucial spot.

Challenges as the virus came closer

It was in the month of March when you found out that your grandmother, 72 years old, tested positive for COVID-19. Much to your disbelief, you were scared to death. It felt as if a thorn got pricked in your heart. Your grandma means so much to you. She is such a remarkable woman. A heart like hers would give so unselfishly. She’s a combination of love and laughter. The thought of losing her is painful to handle.

Fortunately, she was asymptomatic. But we never knew what might happen in a snap.

The pandemic is impacting everyone. And your family wasn’t an exception. It meant making big changes in everyday routines and raised anxiety in every household member. The alarming numbers gave you a picture of how deadly the virus is. It’s killing people on a large scale. So much about the virus is out of your control. Not just the virus itself but all other aspects of life.

Time often makes you play the waiting game. It quickly passes by when you want it to stay still, but doesn’t seem to tick at all when you want it to hurry up. At this point, you are deeply hoping that the pandemic comes to an end.

Disastrous encounters

In the early morning of November 1, 2020, Super Typhoon Rolly (International name, Goni), made its first landfall in the Philippines in Bicol – with catastrophic winds of up to 280 kilometers per hour and torrential rainfall. Reading about the weather update, you began to ponder how tormenting it is to deal with such predicament: super typhoon in time of pandemic. That’s two disasters in a row.

Can you recall waking up to howling winds and heavy-pouring rains? Of course you could. It was almost seven o’clock in the morning. Windows were intensely rattling in the wind. Some were even shattering. You were in your room full of worries, wondering when the catastrophe will end as your door started to tremble caused by the blustery weather. You immediately got up and went to your parents’ room. Your little brothers were still asleep. Your mom was securing some of your belongings and your dad wasn’t there so you looked for him outside through peeking by the window. You spotted him taking his good ‘ole motorcycles out of the garage and transferring those in the front gate. As you saw that the flood started to rise, you ran into your room and packed all of your things in plastic bags. As you finish, you prepared for breakfast. There were drizzles from the kitchen windows due to the gushing rain. Picking up new door mats was your idea but just then, the flood water began to enter. You tried to mop it out at first until it became too much too handle. It was not just a wet floor anymore. You continued to put everything on high places of the house. You weren’t sure whether the flood is going to reach above the ankle as usual but as several minutes or so passed, the water started to reach the knees and outside the house, the water reached the thighs of an average person.

It was a great relief that you were living in a two-storey house, but the second floor was usually untouched and unoccupied, and at that exceptional moment, it was your only safe refuge. That isolated part of the house had to be cleaned first so you and your brothers had to wait sitting on the stairs for the meantime. Almost everything was a bit slippery and taking a few steps to the stairs, your mom accidentally slid and fell on her buttocks, leaving her semi-injured with a small wound on the heel. Aching in pain, there she was as your anxiety began to escalate with everything that was happening.

It was past 12 o’clock during noon as the rain lie low and the strong winds stopped. Meanwhile, flood water kept entering the house. It even reached your bed. The unprecedented intensity of the calamity made the water rise so high. Other appliances were soaked in flood water. You all tried to secure everything in the house, but the sight of flood-affected area was horrible.

It seemed such a cruel irony that while battling the pandemic, a disaster as strong as Rolly made repercussions to your family and other families. It was such a struggle to recover from the losses. Some appliances were broken and your dad’s piggery was devastated. The agricultural damage it also brought to the small rice field your dad was handling affected your finances. The calamity knocked out mobile phone services, uprooted trees and destroyed critical infrastructures. The neighboring towns, particularly those which are near Mayon Volcano were engulfed in floodwater and volcanic mudflows. How awful! It was a twofold challenge on your concern. You badly want to help but you’re still a jobless student.

Just days after the onslaught of Typhoon Rolly, Typhoon Ulysses roughly crossed the same track and made landfall on November 11. Disaster after disaster. Destruction after destruction – in the midst of a pandemic. It was unbelievable, it was beyond imagination, and all at the same time, dreadful.

Multiple factors contributed to this turnabout. Most of the time, caused by circumstances beyond anybody’s control.

The rise after the fall

When you were in despair, you prayed everyday and kept your faith intact hoping and believing that everything’s going to be all right. You stayed strong when you are at your weakest and you let God move in His mysterious ways. Tomorrow awaits. There is hope. The anxieties were no longer haunting you. You realized that you are doing the best you can, you are letting go of the things you cannot control and you start to focus on things that actually matter. You learned to embrace the uncertainty by accompanying it with faith. Your greatest fears especially the consequences of this pandemic took all your strength but there was redemption. It may be chaotic as it seems but you managed to make it through. The girl who was full of fears is now full of strength.

You survived your online classes, finished the whole semester alongside content creation with new projects coming in, and you adapted to a new reality. The monstrous and unimaginable situation brought by the virus was difficult to deal with but you still took control of what you can actually muster. You learned to manage your time wisely. You created a workspace and followed a study schedule. You made learning a joy. You made content creation a passion. You tried your best in keeping your spirits up for the sake of surpassing all of the hardships.

One afternoon, while you were running errands with your mom, a notification popped. You were informed by a block mate that you are a dean’s lister. Wow. It made your parents proud. You were bursting in bliss. It was totally fulfilling. Memories suddenly flashed back. You remember all the challenges you faced, the hardwork you made and the efforts you poured bore an academic achievement in the midst of the pandemic. It all paid off.

Look at your grandmother. She’s doing well, healthy and is now back to her normal routine. You also get to spend more time with her now. A new tradition for the family was made. Every month, there is a “family day” where joyful memories are created. Being with your family is a blessing, take note of that. Don’t be so busy watching out for what’s ahead of you but rather, enjoy where you are. Never miss any opportunity to spend time with your loved ones.

When two super typhoons as powerful as Rolly and Ulysses both left trails of destruction in your region, it terribly affected many families and your family wasn’t an exception. It struck as the Philippines continues to battle the pandemic. Despite it all, your family recovered. After the previous crops have been ravaged by the merciless storms, the succeeding harvest was a bounty.

Seeing how the super typhoons affected millions of people in eight regions, it made your heart shatter. There was something in you that wanted to lend a helping hand not only to your family but to the community as well. Good thing, an opportunity came. You were asked to be the chairperson in your town for a relief operation called Barya Ni Juan, a movement made by Discover MNL in collaboration with Bicol Bloggers and other Bicolano brands, which provided aid for 1,000 families in 10 Bicolano communities that were gravely affected by Typhoon Rolly and Ulysses. Of course, you accepted the offer without thinking twice. With the help of your friends, you managed to accomplish the mission by distributing 500 peso-worth each relief pack to 100 homes. It may be a small act of kindness but you saw smiles on many faces. It felt gratifying. The greater your storm, the brighter your rainbow.

What a life! You’ve learned that things don’t always turn out the way you planned or the way you think they should. You’ve learned that you can turn pain into power and you can overcome anything that was meant to destroy you. You’ve become patient with yourself and your growth, knowing that good things take time. You fell so many times but you were able to get back up.

Be proud of how far you’ve come – the silent battles you fought, the adversities you faced, the moments you had to wipe your own tears and pat yourself on the back. You’ve gone through the dark side of life but you have gained strength, courage and confidence like no other.

Always remind yourself these:

“I surpassed many challenges.” “I am capable of everything I set my mind into.” “I take every setback and use it to my advantage.”

One day, you’ll look back and you’ll tell yourself you are indeed a survivor.

With love and light, A stronger version of yourself

_______________________________________________________________________

This story is an entry to ComCo Southeast Asia’s “Write to Ignite Blogging Project Season 2: Dear Survivor”. The initiative continues to respond to the need of our times, as every story comes a long way during this period of crisis. The initiative aims to pull and collate powerful stories from the Philippine blogging communities to inspire the nation to rise and move forward amidst the difficult situation. The “Write to Ignite Blogging Project” Season 2 is made possible by ComCo Southeast Asia, with Eastern Communications and Jobstreet as co-presenters, with AirAsia and Xiaomi as major sponsors, and with Teleperformance as sponsor.

#survivor #pandemic #writing #inspire #tumblr #inspiration #letter

9 notes · View notes

adultingautistic · 4 years

Note

Heyyy! So, when I was a kid, I was able to do a lot of things - I was on the gifted list for english lessons and in a seperate class, I was p decent at math, and science was easy peasy. Now, I'm much older and heading into higher education,, but It seems my needs have changed. My sensory issues are a lot worse, but the thing that strikes me the most is how my needs for support have changed. I now need help reading questions so I don't miss out on important information, and I need extra- (1/2)

(2/2) time to process things in order to be able to answer things or give a coherent reply. Bombarding me with questions verbally causes me to go nonverbal. I have meltdowns a LOT. Is this a common occurance in autistic people? When I was small I didn't show as many traits, but as the world has changed around me, I've begun to show more traits, and been in need of far more support. Should I be worried? Does this happen a lot? How can I deal with it? Thank you for your time. -🦈

Ask Date: September 10th

Hi, are you me? Did I secretly write this ask?

Because you are describing my life exactly.

I was also very bright in gradeschool/highschool and flew through the lessons with one eye closed because they were so easy for me. Forget needing extra help, I was giving it! I tutored a whole bunch of my friends and helped other countless kids understand the assignments.

Then my first year of college, I failed out. My grades for my first semester in college were F, D, F, I, and P. (Fail, Fail, Incomplete, and “Pass” which is code for “your grade was extremely low”). Basically, you can’t do worse.

Now I was also going through some incredible emotional trauma at the time involving my family that I won’t go into here...but had I been in high school at the time, I know my grades wouldn’t have suffered as much as they did.

So what happened?

This is only a theory, because I can only base this on my own experience as an autistic student. But I think what happened was it was too much change, too fast, with a sudden lack of support that was once there.

So here’s the thing. Autistics struggle in huge ways to learn social rules. This makes it really hard for us to make friends, gets us bullied, gets us called “weird”, etc. We need things explicitly spelled out for us, we need to be told what the rules are But school, as it is for a kid, is the MOST structured environment most of us will ever be in (the only thing I can think of that’s even more structured than school is the military). And this enables autistics to thrive!

School is all about routine! It’s about doing the same things and going the same places every day. The rules are explicitly explained, and they are clear, and we can understand them and follow them! Raise your hand if you want to speak! Don’t talk during a test! These rules are concrete and we can understand them, and follow them.

So then you spend 12 years learning the ins and outs of “School social”. By the time you get to the end of high school, you’ve got it down. You’ve spent your whole life at this and you’re pretty good at it. You know what to expect, you know what to do.

And then it’s gone.

Boom. Nothing.

College is nothing like grade school was. Your day isn’t pre-determined for you by others, you determine your schedule. If you forget a homework, no teacher is going to remind you the next day or ask you again. You just get a 0, nobody says anything, and life goes on. If you missed how the professor was informing students of what the assignments were, then well- you just don’t know what they are. Nobody’s going to check up on you. Nobody’s going to care that you’re failing. The professor is not there to support you.

In fact, you suddenly have NO support, at ALL. It’s hard to see when you’re IN gradeschool how much support you’re really getting, but it’s a lot. Teachers guide you. They explain things many times. They bug you when you forgot an assignment. They let you complete things late. There is so much help that you’re used to, and it’s enough support that you’re able to actually use your brain for what it’s supposed to be used for - learning.

When I first got to college, I had a bunch of zeros for my grades, and I didn’t even know where they came from. Apparently, the professors had been giving out assignments- but I missed that social cue, and I was unaware there were assignments. And it was different in every class. Some of them just quietly wrote it on the board, never said a word, and dear God you hoped you noticed it. Some of them just sent an email. If you didn’t know to read your email, welp. Some of them just handed out the syllabus with due dates and that was that.

It was impossible for me. My communication struggles suddenly hit me head-on like a brick to the face.

On top of that, the precious, precious routine from grade school was gone. Suddenly I was supposed to plan my day, and decide what to do with my time- when I had spent exactly 0 minutes learning how to do that or building those kinds of skills in gradeschool.

This was beyond stressful. And what happens when I’m stressed? My ability to handle sensory input crashes. Normally, I can handle a Bad Input or two for awhile, but if I’m already stressed, I can’t handle anything. So that yucky smell coming from that person next to you? What was before a little annoying is now “I have to leave the room” levels of intolerable.

Forget trying to be social, or to communicate. You mentioned being asked questions as sending you into near overload territory to the point that you go nonverbal- and this can absolutely happen if you’re stressed.

Autistics struggle hugely with change. Change is very, very difficult for us. And going from high school to college is one of the biggest changes there is in a person’s life. It’s a huge thing to handle. It’s going to cause stress. Which is going to lower your ability to process verbal questions, and all other sensory input.

So basically, yes, this is absolutely normal for an autistic person who is facing such a huge change. When we are stressed, all our autistic traits “show more”. That’s because we have less energy to mask. We can’t compensate.

But what you are doing is exactly the right thing. You’re using the supports that are given to you, and bravo to you for doing that! Rather than needlessly struggling, you’re making use of the accommodations that are available, so that you can still succeed! This is wonderful, and excellent self-care.

It took you 12 years to learn how to do grade school correctly. Learning how to do college is much harder and a huge change from that. It’s like you’re starting the game over from level 1- all the skills, items, and experience you earned is gone, because it’s a totally new level and the rules are so very different.

You do not have to be worried about yourself. It’s not really you that has changed, it’s your environment. The support system of routine, familiarity, and consistency that you had relied on for all your life are now gone, which is making your autistic traits “show” more, but they were always there. You were just compensating for them without realizing it.

Now you’re realizing you’re compensating for them, by using accommodations, but that’s okay. That’s exactly what you SHOULD be doing. The point isn’t what accommodations you needed- the point is to get the degree. And once you get it, it will be just as valid and count for just as much as anyone else’s, and you will have earned it, and you deserve it.

You’re doing amazing and I’m super proud of you. Keep going!

#actuallyautistic #actually autistic #college #university #change #routine #support #accommodations #ask

70 notes · View notes

winchester-with-wings · 4 years

Text

I Saw You First

“An Angel & Her Assassin” sequel

Patron Benefit Fanfic for @softdudebro!

Pairing: College AU - Bucky Barnes x Reader

Author's Notes: People have asked for sequels to this fic and I gave it a shot. I thought I'd dedicate this to Tomorrow since they like Bucky :) hopefully this is a good continuation and elicits some college feels cuz it definitely did for me! Hope ya'll like it!

Summary/Request: The story of the first time you and Bucky saw each other but didn't actually meet. Then a flash forward to the present. smut.

**inspired by that one video of Seb working out** gif post

Word Count: 1700ish

Wanna get previews, early access and make exclusive requests? Become a Patron! You can follow my Patreon for free too as some stuff becomes public after a while. I’ll be adding a discord server benefit soon too!

Can’t become a patron? please consider a donation to my Ko-Fi (Tips are appreciated!)

Mobile Masterlist / Patreon & Commissions Masterlist

---------------------------------------------------

Bucky noticed you before he ever encountered you in the laundry room or the elevator of your dorm building. It figures that it would be at the gym, likely one of the regular places he frequented. Of course, you never knew this until after that fateful night at the Halloween party when you finally, truly connected.

When you asked him to tell you the story, he was playfully vague. But you know. You were there. You’d checked him out too.

Here’s how it really happened.

-----

The summer after your freshman year, you created another reading list to focus on. One of your methods to read these had been to take a book with you to the gym. You figured getting a little exercise at the same time would only help you develop better habits.

It worked, at first. The beginning of the new semester, you went to the gym for maybe two weeks? You enjoyed the ellipticals and recumbent bikes--the things that kept your legs busy but your hands and eyes free to read. It also distracted you from feeling self-conscious about the fact that you didn’t look like the other girls that came to the gym to socialize and work on their already-perfect bodies.

With the addition of classes, going to the gym became a harder habit to keep. You could just stay in your dorm room and read all you want, right? But by now, Rachel, your roommate needed a work-out buddy. Someone to motivate her to continue to go to the gym, as well. She claimed she wanted to get in shape for all the boys she’d scoped out at the floor meeting for the dorm during the first week of the semester.

“Let’s try the classes!” she suggested, pointing at the schedule on the wall. Step Aerobics, Yoga, Zumba, etc. They sounded alright, and maybe a change to your routine would be good.

So you started with the step aerobics class. You didn’t last long. You were breathing hard, face flushed and dripping with sweat. The blood was pounding in your ears, harder than the beats of music and every step on the hardwood floor and plastic steps.

You took a break, heading to the back of the class to get your water bottle. The back of the room was floor to ceiling windows and doors that faced the main area of the gym where all other equipment was. It took you only a second to realize why you disliked this set up. Everyone in the class, mostly other female students were in a fishbowl, on display for all the guys passing by or just blatantly standing at the windows. One guy winked at you and you scowled at him, effectively directing his eyes elsewhere.

What was so sexy about a sweaty step aerobics class? You thought to yourself as you turned to look at Rachel, killing it on the routine.

Oh, the butts, getting toned by the steps...Ugh!

You left after that, picking a leg press machine instead.

“Hey! Why you’d you leave?” Rachel asked after the class was over.

“Did you not see all the guys window shopping?”

“Uh, yeah, I got a number or two,” Rachel giggled, swinging her ponytail over her shoulder. You laughed as you got off the machine, offering it to your friend. She sat down and lowered the weight, significantly.

“I don’t come here to pick up guys.”

“You could if you wanted to,” she said, exhaling on the release. You just rolled your eyes. You told yourself it was because you didn’t have time for a man but really, how could you possibly expect to attract the interest of some jock? The guy that winked at you doesn’t count. He was disqualified the moment he decided to drool over a step aerobics class rather than work out. Your standards weren’t that low, seriously…

You and Rachel tried out a few more machines in the circuit, trying your own hands at strength training. But you realized quickly that you’d left the quieter space of the cardio equipment, too close to the weight lifting benches. Young men of all sizes were pushing themselves to the brink, breathing hard, grunting, exhaling, chanting, and egging each other on.

“Come on, Sam, you can do it! Just two more!” You knew that voice. Everyone on your floor knew Steve Rogers, quarterback, certified hunk and sweetheart. Or at least that’s what you had heard.

“He can’t do it.”

“Shut up, Buck!” a football player shouted as he pushed himself.

Too much testosterone. Intense. Stressful. Intimidating. That’s not what you wanted out of going to the gym. Quite the opposite really.

As you two left the gym, you made a mental note to avoid that area again.

The next class you attended was Zumba and not only did you keep up with it but you enjoyed it! The music was awesome and the choreography wasn’t too difficult. You could totally see yourself doing this again. But of course, boys… not men… boys…they ruin all the fun.

If step aerobics could catch the attention of onlookers, then zumba was like blood in the water for sharks.

Then again, you did feel sexy, swaying your hips, waving your hands, rolling your body. You decided to put the spectators out of your mind, losing yourself to a Shakira song.

When you left the class, having stayed for the entire thing and deciding to return tomorrow, you felt so good, so confident, that you didn’t care about who was looking. You were just in Nike leggings and a tie-dye shirt, hair up in a messy bun, nothing special, but you felt great.

“Hey, Rach!” someone called out for your friend, inviting her back over to the weight lifting area. The guy who called out for her looked familiar, someone that was likely found hanging out with Steve Rogers.

“Hey Sam,” she greeted him. You stayed by her side, holding onto that Zumba confidence with a steely grip.

You didn’t really listen to what happened between your friend and the football player. You saw Steve a few feet away with another friend. The man was on his back, legs bent and giant dumbbell weights in each hand. Your eyes went wide as you watched him push them up and hold them there. The way his arms were bulging in that gray t-shirt, he was straining himself and you were tempted to tell him to be careful.

“Give me one more!” Steve encouraged him. His friend winced as that last push was almost too much for him.

“Ah, fuck,” he hissed, exhaling and grinding his teeth. He pushed those dumbbells into the air once more and even a second time, then put them down with a loud thud as rubber met the concrete floor.

You didn’t have the best view of his face from his position on the ground and your standing position over 6 feet away, but that sound...like a growl, and his bared white teeth against that strong jaw covered in stubble…it’s a sound that stirred something deep in your belly.

He jumped to his feet and did a few quick squats in those black basketball shorts. You averted your eyes from his perfect ass just as he turned around.

You wouldn’t mind if he’d been watching you dance.

-------

“Ah, fuck.”

It’s the same sound that he made now as you sit on top of him, his hips thrusting up. His fingers were digging into your hips and would likely leave a bruise, but you didn’t mind. You were Bucky’s and he was yours. You’d staked your claim with that hickey on his chest just the other night.

“Mmph, fuck, damn it. I love it when you move like that,” he grunted. You rolled your hips, earning another moan from his lips before you leaned forward and pressed your chest to his, kissing him. He wrapped his arms around you and pinned you to him as he sat up and rolled over. The grunts and squeaks coming from the two of you as Bucky repositioned himself on top were ridiculous.

“Quit giggling,” he half-laughed. “M’gonna pull a muscle in this bed, I swear.” Your head hit the pillow with a ‘oof’ and another giggle. “Dammit, babe, you make it hard to fuck you when you sound that cute.”

“Then don’t fuck me…” Bucky’s hips froze, his cock buried deep inside you. His sharp features softened with outright confusion and a slight insecurity. You reached up to caress the side of his face, the stubble on his cheek itching your palm. “Make love to me.” Bucky released a heavy sigh, rolled his eyes and collapsed on top of you.

“Don’t mess with me like that, Doll,” he whispered into your hair, using your new favorite pet name. His slow thrusts picked up again while he kept his face next to yours. You held onto him for dear life as the tension inside you continued to build until your arched back signaled your release. Bucky kept pumping until the lasting effects of your orgasm sent him over the edge. Rather than stopping completely, he slowed down until the only movement was a twitch of pleasure every now and then. “Oh my god,” he whispered, peppering kisses on your shoulder. “I’m taking you to dinner.”

“Why?” you laughed.

“I’m sorry, darlin, are you turning down a free meal? Is it the company? Do you just use me for my body?” Bucky climbed off of you but you reached out for him; He stumbled as he fully ejected himself from the bed.

“Nonono, that’s not what I said!” you said, as you continued to laugh. “I’m just wondering...if that’s your way of paying me for my services,” you wiggled your eyebrows, a hint at your teasing. Bucky snapped a finger and pointed at you, putting on his own mock serious face.

“Hooker, I’m taking you to dinner because I want to.” Having cleaned himself up, Bucky tugged on his basketball shorts and a t-shirt he’d left in your dorm room the other day. The boy considered your floor his own personal closet. “We’ve stayed in, ordered food and watched movies and you’ve even helped me with my papers. You deserve to go out to an actual restaurant.”

“Okay, well, we should probably shower before we go out.”

“Oh, I agree but I can’t share that shower with you. It was too dangerous the first time. Never again.”

You picked up your towel and toiletries as Bucky sat in a bean bag chair on your floor. You tapped him on the nose.

“Never say never, Buck,” you said with a wink.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tagging: @abbessolute @book-loving--anime-chick @faithtrustandpixiedust95 @fabinapercabeth4179 @thinkwritexpress-official @autoblocked @therealcap @mathle0matle @whoopxd @bookworm4ever99 @geeksareunique @bucky-plums-barnes @pottxrwolff @ravenhaviland @melaninspice11 @feelmyroarrrr @fvckingavengers @officialcaptain-marvel @sebbytrash

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes smut #my writing #marvel #college au #college au bucky barnes #sebastian stan #bucky barnes fic

44 notes · View notes

evehansenn · 3 years

Text

upright&reversed||task001

9 of cups, 4 of swords, 4 of cups

Eve had been stressed out, as many students had picked up on. Her outbursts in public were not something she would normally do- not ever. She usually tried to keep them tame, internally imploding at the drop of a hat, this week had been no different. She had bitten her lip raw, her fingernails were torn to pieces, and she hadn’t showered in a while. The new semester had thrown Eve to the wolves. New professors, advanced courses, and insufferable roommates, a deadly cocktail for any student, let alone Eve. Nothing has been making sense since she came back this year. Everything was off. Why was God trying to teach her? The question always lingering in the back of her mind. Flipping through the scenarios mentally, Eve began to decompress.

New professor: arrogant, annoying, jackass; but also handsome.

Advanced courses: stressful, never ending, unorganized; but also relieving

Insufferable roommates: arrogant, annoying, jackass; but not handsome.

She knew she needed to retreat, to withdraw from reality, even if just for a moment to collect her thoughts. She thought about home, and the smell of lilac bushes, parchment and a cold glass of milk. Comforting memories helped coax her temper, for now. Eve felt as though she had fallen into a pattern of stagnation. She wanted to indulge herself, but couldn’t figure out a way how, causing her to retreat further into her mind. Faith had always been a topic in Eve’s mind, but as of late she found her mind wandering. Perhaps she was reading one too many romance novels, or maybe she was growing restless. Eve picked up her journal, flipping open to an empty pink page.

Dear diary,

I’ve never felt less like myself, but never more alive. Or maybe I’m simply reaching the point of the typical delusional teenage girl. How pathetic. Seriously, Eve? Ew. (its okay, i know we’re just doing our best so just hold on) Anyways, this professor seems insane, or at least a bit deranged, but he can hold a conversation so I guess it’s okay. I got all the classes I wanted, the course load is a lot but nothing I can’t handle, and my roommate is most likely a sociopath incapable of human decency.

Also, there’s a new TV premier this month, the Addams Family or whatever, it looks dumb but I’ll probably end up sucked into it.

That’s all for today, diary, unless anything else decides to interject.

Love, Eve.

#letroadec: task #lets go #fuck it we ball #dear diary

4 notes · View notes

yandere-flower · 4 years

Text

Special Seat

Hey guys, I’m releasing a few fics about my OCs as I finish them this week since I’m getting my writing mojo back. I really want to try and release one for each boy about every day or two since you all have been so patient, and I have a few canon character fics I’m working on too. Cliff gets a last name in the because professors have those I guess.

Anyway, NSFW Cliff x Female Student!Reader

While many don’t look forward to the start of the new semester, you couldn’t help be relived. You missed contact with other human beings and you were just starting to get the hang of being a student. The classes were more challenging, sure, but that didn’t stop you from eagerly ordering all of your books for the semester. You just had to look at the list for your European History III class, but you paused at the last minute change of whose class you’re in. Now you’re in Dr. Cliff Milano’s class, the much older professor who you’ve been secretly lusting after ever since you took Intro to European Politics as a freshman.

Perhaps it was a classic case of a small town girl meeting an interesting and very different kind of man, but there was just something about Dr. Milano that thrilled you. Maybe it was the intelligent but warm way of teaching, or the fact that he was so understanding of the troubles you’ve had in your private life, and at night you do think that maybe it has to do with how his thick thighs are practically straining in his nicely fitted pants. He may dress like a professor, but you know that he takes care of his body like a temple. You know you weren’t alone in your feelings, as everyone on campus knows that if you have to take a history course, you do it with the cool and hot professor Cliff Milano, who always takes his older students out drinking at the end of the semester. You hadn’t had a class with him in over a year due to his sabbatical and him taking over American history briefly after another professors leave, but you had to admit you were nervous to have another class with him.You supposed you should be grateful, as the other class must have filled up and you were probably just wait listed or something. He probably didn’t even remember how he practically held your hand through freshmen year and helped you survive.

The first week of classes was more stressful than you imagined, between you getting lost and forgetting about pre-assignments to turn in. However, you were pleasantly surprised to find that Dr. Milano had remembered you. You practically melted when he lit up seeing you walk through his classroom door, and walked over to you and asked how you were doing. It was minutes prior to classes starting when he leaned down and asked you to stop by his office later in the week to catch up. Later, your legs were shaking as you approached his office door, and the light tapping of your knuckles caused a stir on the other side. Quickly the larger man welcomed you into his office where the two of you caught up about things, and you explained how you were in a much better position than your freshman year. He seemed so engaged and charmed by you, and you couldn’t help but feel like the prettiest girl at the ball. But the subject changed, and suddenly he was talking about taking you on as an advisee and all of these internship opportunities in museums and schools he had in mind for you. It became more...academic than you had liked. You suddenly felt like you were losing his attention, and the constant interruptions from students walking by was irking you something fierce. You couldn’t explain it, but your frustrations were growing with each passing minute. You had to excuse yourself, and abruptly asked Mr. Milano if he was free at a later time in the day, some time less busy and overwhelming for you. With his bright, toothy smile he grinned, told you to call him Cliff, and said he stays late on Thursdays.

You chastised yourself for being so rude to someone who was so kind, but being there in his office took you back to when you were at your lowest. How everything felt so overwhelming, like a tide rushing over you and consuming you. But Dr. Mil-Cliff, was always there to pull you out and wrap his arms around you. Well, metaphorically. He would always let you relax in his office, which was neatly decorated with awards and the smell of old books and his mahogany cologne that smelled like a distinguished older man. A smarter you would have scolded yourself for taking up so much of his time, and would’ve figured you were just another student of many, but you didn’t want that. You weren’t sure what you wanted when you dressed slightly provocative before your meeting with Cliff.

You didn’t bother knocking this time when entering Cliff’s office, and to say you surprised him was an understatement. It looked like he had pamphlets and listings prepared for you, as if this was any other academic meeting, but you could see his eyes follow the movement of your legs as you went to sit down, the slight tremble in his lip as your plush thighs squeezed together to prevent your skirt from riding up.

He swallowed back his surprised, and tried to take back control. “Well you look nice, finally taking part of the student life? I hope I’m not keeping you.”

You chuckled, feeling more confident than you had previously when you sat in this room. “No, I’m where I need to be.”

You let Cliff talk about his colleagues across the states, and how they would love to have a student like you join, how he’d be more than willing to write a letter of recommendation, but after a while you tuned it out. God, he’s still hot. And you’re older. Sure, he’s older to that’s how time works, but you’re an adult. And he needed to know that you didn’t want to go anywhere.

“I was actually thinking I could work with you on your research, but I don’t think I’m doing well enough in your class to join”, you pouted, hoping he would take the bait.

There was a pained expression on his face, and you could tell you had sunk him. “Well it’s only been a week but I think you’re doing fine enough to join my team, why do you think you need help?”

You leaned back and sighed heavily, letting you chest sink slowly as you looked up from the floor to meet his eyes, well, to see that his eyes had drifted slightly lower before adjusting to look at you.

“I’m just having trouble focusing in the back, I think I need a closer seat.”

His hearty chuckles caused a rumbling in his chest, and you couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to lay your head on his chest. “You should know by now that you can sit anywhere you like, there’s no assigned seating”. You were about to do something stupid.

“Anywhere?” you say, less of a question and more of a challenge.

You couldn’t read his face, but you did notice a glimmer of confusion at your response. He smiles to much, you can’t tell if his smug or just that sweet. But it makes your knees weak. He reiterates his point, “...of course it’s college I won’t stop you.”

You stand, puzzling him as he thinks your just abruptly leaving. He turns his chair to face the door as he notices you walking towards it, and you can tell he’s going to say bye but you have other plans. His massive thighs are spread apart and oh so inviting, and you can’t help but accept that invitation. Before he can ask why you are behind his desk, you press your knee down on his groin and lean into him, inhaling that musky mahogany scent of his.

“Woah now Ms.- I, I don’t think this a good idea” he protests, but his strong hands holding onto your waist say otherwise. Instead of listening to the older man like you normally do, you place you hands on his shoulders and use it to wrap you legs around his hips and let your clothed sex meet his. He’s gasping when you take the opportunity to shove your tongue down his throat and sloppily try and match his much more trained movements. He uses his hand to guide your hips, slowly rubbing your sex against his hardening length. He kisses just like he teaches, slow and gentle, as if you were his sole focus. Yes you could learn so much from him, but you weren’t here for a lesson, you want more. You are impatient. Taking a hand off his shoulder, you move to unzip his pants and he lets you, that hearty chuckle reverberating in your mouth as you try and keep contact with his lips. You’re shaky, but he’s more patient than you as you fumble around with the waistband before freeing his very lengthy and thick member.

His breaths became more ragged as he moves his cock to rub against the growing wet spot between your thighs, and at this he can feel your wobbling legs against his skin. A man like Cliff doesn’t let his baby suffer, shifting so one hand is gripping you tightly and the other is working to twist your wet panties to the side, the tip of his cock meeting your entrance. He lifts your chin up, and you can almost smell yourself on his fingers. He wants to meet your eyes, like he was asking you if this was alright. Of course, you thought to yourself as you sank yourself down on his lengthy member. It’s a burning feeling at first, being so full and the aching slow descend down his very stiff and veiny dick, but you can’t help but moan out in pleasure at being so full of the man you admire. The moan was a sign to the man underneath you that you were clearly enjoying this, so he put it upon himself to enhance the feeling for his precious little student. Both his hands grip tightly on your waist as he slams his hips up to be fully inside you, reveling in the shriek he illicits from your soft body. His hips rut into you, his dick probing the deepest parts of you as buries his nose in your neck to get a whiff of your natural scent. You try to match his pace, but your dear distinguished professor was an absolute animal once he was inside you, your warm walls enveloping his aching cock. He swivels his chair to face his desk again, where he swiftly stands up so his desk is roughly pressing into the curve of your back, the force of his thrusts pushing you deeper into the sharp edge as the little bit of pain makes the pleasure that much greater. You think that he snakes his arm behind your back to relieve pressure from the desk, but in reality it’s so he can use his other hand to lift you leg even higher so he can thrust himself deeper into you.

At this point, you’re a sweaty achy mess, and you find yourself overwhelmed again in his office. The pain, the pleasure, the sweat off his body mingling with yours as he erratically wrecks your body. His scent enrapturing you. It all starts to build up in your core, like the most intense version of butterflies in your stomach. It’s almost to much, as you try and slow down your hips and stretch your legs to give you some relief but in an instant it all comes crashing down as you orgasm on your professors cock. With his chest practically smothering yours you get to feel that hearty chuckle as he realizes your body has reached its limits, and a few more shallow thrusts and his melodic voice groans out as you feel a splash of warmth flood the deepest parts of you. With his arm still tenderly wrapped around your body, he pulls the both of you back on his chair as you both catch your breath, his cum seeping out of you as you lie upright on his softening cock still.

In between catching your breath you look up at him and laugh. “You know, I can’t help but wonder if you’re the once who changed which class I was in.”

#cliff #cliff x reader #yandere x reader #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #x reader #fics #fic

62 notes · View notes

captnbarnesrogers · 5 years

Text

Fall: Welcome to Brooklyn

Pairing/Characters: College AU!Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers, Winnifred Barnes, George Barnes, Rebecca Barnes (Bucky 616 Family) Warnings: Nothin, swearin Chapter Summary: Bucky takes you home to Brooklyn and introduces you to his family and close friend, Steve but someone can tell that this isn’t the real deal. Word Count: 2k+ A/N: Chapter two woop woop

You tapped your foot impatiently on the concrete ground. How could one person be late to their own event. As you looked across the yard, you see Bucky giving a blonde-headed girl a rough kiss, hands tangled in her hair. You rolled your eyes. He ran towards you and waved her goodbye.

“You’re fifteen minutes late! We’re going to miss the flight.” You groaned.

“Sorry, I had, uh, business to take care of.”

“Christ! Just say you slept with someone and you woke up late, women aren’t ‘businesses’, Bucky.” He took your tone seriously and immediately apologised, “Okay, load your shit and let’s go.” He found it to be quite a turn on that you were so straightforward, something he wasn’t used to with the girls he’d been with.

After exiting the car, Bucky thanked the driver and wished him a nice day. Today was a good day, it wasn’t too hot or too cold, the humidity in Los Angeles kept it that way. When you boarded the plane, Bucky buckled his seatbelt and exhaled.

“Get ready for the loudest family you’ll ever meet.” You chuckled.

“The louder the better.”

“I hope you mean that because you’re in for a wild ride.”

You bought a book on-board with you but before you knew it, you’d passed out. Bucky positioned your head on his shoulder and covered you in a blanket, not wanting you to get too cold from the plane’s air conditioning. He dog-eared the last page you landed on and placed it atop of the table in front of you. He let out a quiet chuckle at the way your mouth opened whilst you slept, swearing that drool was about to slip out. He watched a couple of movies before the pilot announced that the plane was about thirty minutes away from landing. Bucky gently shook you awake.

“Good morning sleepyhead.” You look up at him, catching his cheeky smile, “Have a good nap?”

“Yeah, since I had to wake up at 6 in the morning, only for you to show up fifteen minutes late.” You replied groggily.

“You wanna know the cherry on top of your sundae?” You raised your eyebrows in response, your head lifted from his shoulder, “It’s -2 degrees outside!” You groaned and squeezed your eyes shut before waking yourself up and sitting up, getting ready to get off the plane.

“See you in 10 minutes? Okay cool.” He could see how cold you were. Tapping your foot on the ground, your hands curling into fists, “They’re almost here, you good?”

“Yeah, j-just not used to the cold.”

“It’s not too bad today.” He stepped in closer and took both of your hands in his, covering the back of your hands and rubbing heat into them. You flinched lightly when he brought them up to his lips and started blowing hot air into them, “Relax, it’ll make your hands warm by the time they get here.”

“Okay, sorry.” He shook his head.

“Don’t apologise, you’re fine.”

“I’m just nervous, I guess.” You mumbled as he kept rubbing and blowing hot air into your hands.

“You’re really getting into girlfriend mode here.” He laughed.

“Really? Well, look at you.” You eyed him and his hands atop of yours.

“Touché, Y/N, touché.”

Seven minutes pass by and Bucky’s dad arrives in a black car, helping you both with your bags into the back.

“Freezing, isn’t it?” He ushered you both into the car, “Introductions later, let’s go.” Like an Oscar-worthy performance, you acted as if you’d been with Bucky for a long time, snuggling into him a little. It took Bucky aback a little, you being so affectionate after scolding him not even half an hour ago about waking up at 6 in the morning. You locked your arms into his and your head laid on his shoulder the whole ride back to his home. When you all arrived, Bucky had insisted that you go inside while he and his father unload the car but of course, you refused. You helped him with the bags and headed inside alongside him.

You greeted everyone once you entered their warm home, giving them hugs and a welcoming smile.

“Mom, Dad, Bec, this is Y/N Y/L/N, my girlfriend.” When those words came out of his mouth, it felt foreign. Probably because you’d never had a single person introduce you as one.

“Well, it’s so nice to meet you, Y/N, my name is Winnie and while our dear Bucky,” Winnie says with a disappointed tone, “hasn’t spoken about you, Steve has and you sound just wonderful.” Winnie took you by the hand and led you to the couch, sitting you down. His sister, Rebecca, followed whilst Bucky and his dad headed into the kitchen to grab a beer, “Tell us everything, how you met, what you do… Everything!” You could only give out a nervous chuckle.

“It’s a funny story actually.”

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2016 – UCLA Fall Semester Orientation

You hated being the new kid. Your anxiety was at an all time high and you were surrounded by people who were already making new friends. Although, knowing that these people were also new to the university calmed you down a little bit.

“If everyone could gather around and quiet down, tour is about to start, the quicker we start the quicker we can get you into your dorms.” The guide wore a blue and yellow shirt, UCLA written right across the middle, his hair was brown and long which he kept pushing back. To his right was a red headed girl and next to her was another guy with ashy blonde quaffed hair. They were laughing together whilst the brown headed guy tried to quiet everyone down.

“Hey! SHUT UP!” The red-headed yelled out and the crowed quietened down in an instant, “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Natasha.” He turned back to everybody, “Hey guys, I’m Bucky, this is Natasha, and Clint,” he pointed to the people beside him, “we’re your tour guides and once we’re done we’ll settle you into your dorm rooms.”

An hour later, a group which included yourself, were taken to your dorm rooms. The hallway was long but each of the first years had a room as you guys walked down. Your room was at the very end and you were bunking with another first year, her name is Maria. You exchanged greetings and she showed you around the room.

“I’m quickly just going to say thank you to the guide guy.” Maria nodded and gave you a smile. When you exited the room, you didn’t notice that Bucky was coming back to check on your room. Before you could react, your bodies bumped into each other, squishing the hot paper cup of coffee all over each other. You immediately reacted, “Oh my god, I am so sorry, oh fuck, oh my- I’m so so sorry!” You took off the jacket you were wearing and started dabbing his shirt, “This is all my fault, I-”

He couldn’t stop looking at you. He found it quite adorable how apologetic you were. Dabbing your own jacket up and down his shirt to dry him up. He took your wrist in his hand and you stopped in your tracks.

“You’re all good…” Waiting on you to answer with your name.

“Y/N.”

“Y/N.” He repeated, “Don’t worry about it, it’s an ugly shirt anyway.”

“Oh.” You smiled, “Okay.” Chuckling nervously.

“I’m Bucky.”

“I know, you, uh, said that at the, um, the garden.” You couldn’t stop looking at him. His eyes were beautiful and the way he spoke was like music to your ears, “I’m Y/N.”

“I know, you said that already.” You could slap yourself in the face. You did say that already.

“Looks like you do owe me a new cup of coffee though.”

“Okay, sure, um, where could we find that?” He laughed at you, not noticing that we was trying to flirt.

“I’m kidding, you know that, right?” You shook your head as you laughed at your own stupidity, “You know what though?”

“What?”

“I think we’re gonna be good friends, Y/N.”

You could tell by Winnie and Bec’s face that they were about to burst into laughter.

“You poured coffee all over my brother?” Bec laughing, clutching her stomach.

“Not poured, it was an accident and we were friends ever since.”

“And then I asked her out six months ago.” Bucky chimed in, taking a sip out of his bottle of beer, “Right, babe?” You nodded.

“You deserve more than a coffee spillage!” Rebecca laughed, pointing at her brother and his demise. Bucky threw a couch pillow at her and laughed along. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“James, let your father get that and come sit down with your wonderful girlfriend.” He smiled at you and sat down next to you, legs touching and arm hung around your shoulder. Chattering came from the hallway and then extravagant cheers of happiness.

“Steve!” He got up from beside you and gave the blonde haired man a tight hug.

“Buck! Good to see ya, man!” He looked down at you sitting on the couch. You got up from your spot and Bucky stood beside you, “You must be Do-”

“Y/N, this is Y/N.” Bucky butted in.

“I thought her name was Dot.” Steve whispered almost to himself.

“Dot?” Winnie and Bec questioned. Bucky’s Dad took a swig from his beer and slipped into the kitchen. Bucky, you could tell, was stressing. Time to bust out the improv skills you’d recently learned from your improv class.

“My middle name is Dorothy, my uh, mom was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz when she was pregnant with me.” The silence in the room turned into ‘Ohhhh’s’ and Bucky thanked you with his eyes, “It was only right, you know?” Steve looked at you with suspicion in his eyes. He knew you were lying. He looked at Bucky and back at you. He knew that you were both lying. You weren’t the girl Bucky had previously described to him. Not even close to the features that Bucky had talked about.

“Well, I might take Y/N to the museum, show her around Brooklyn.” Bucky suggested.

“In this weather?” Steve questioned.

“Yeah, the museum’s warm.” You said goodbye to Bec, Winnie, and George, promising to see them later on in the evening and Steve tagged along with you both.

“Did you want to sit in the front, Steve?” You offered.

“Nah, you’re the girlfriend, right?” You cleared your throat with nervousness and nodded. Bucky looked at you and he knew that Steve knew. You sat in the front and closed the passenger side door, Bucky and Steve following.

“So you know then?” Bucky asked directing to Steve. Steve just nodded.

“You think after 23 years, you can lie to me?”

“She’s not Dot.” They both said at the same time, “Her name is Y/N though.”

“I know.”

“She’s a friend of mine from UCLA.” Bucky explained.

“A bit younger than you, no?” Bucky nodded, “And how do you think this is going to work out? Lying to your family like this?”

“I just wanted them off of my back, Steve.” Steve shook his head in disbelief, being the Dad friend you already knew he was and you guys drove out of the driveway, headed on the road to the Brooklyn Museum.

Bucky showed you all of his favourite art pieces, explaining what he liked about them and history of the people who painted them. He was like a miniature brochure of the museum’s art gallery. You guys walked around the exhibition and admired the pieces with history within them and Steve excused himself to the bathroom. Taking this as an opportunity to talk to Bucky.

“Steve doesn’t like me, does he?” You asked, fidgeting.

“He doesn’t not like you, he doesn’t like what I’m doing, he doesn’t like lying of any type.” He wrapped his arms around you, “Even little white lies.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“He’ll come around, you’ll find that Steve is all about the good in the world and he’s always trying to make it a better place.” He placed a kiss on your cheek.

“You know no one’s around, right? So we don’t have to pretend.”

“I know, it felt right and that wasn’t pretend.” You couldn’t help but blush.

TAGLIST:

@panic-naran @galaxy-siren @madisonlupin @allonszassbutt @brilliantbellesoares @assemblemotherfuckers @emilysallysmith @darlingtholland

152 notes · View notes

ambrxsian · 4 years

Photo

✧·ﾟ( hebe + inbar lavi + cis female ) 𝒎𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝒎𝒊𝒂 !! have you seen ( lorelei naji ) around ? ( she ) has been in kaos for ( twenty years ). the ( twenty-eight ) is a ( cafe owner ) from ( marbella, spain ). people say they can be ( envious ) but maybe that’s not too bad ‘cause they can also be ( vivacious ). whenever i think of them, i can’t help but think of ( the first golden light of dawn shining over the horizon, the child-like wonder of wishing of a shooting star, the smell of coffee first thing in the morning ). ·ﾟ✧

what’s up i’m steph, i’ve got my hat on backwards and it’s time to f*ckin party. and here we have lorelei, the local sweet, resilient, too passive and self-sacrificing café owner. she serves up the modern nectar of the gods: coffee. (luke danes who?) anyways hmu if you wanna plot or are interested in any of the connection ideas below!!

full bio | pinterest | playlist

TLDR; BIO — (tw: mentions of death)

born as the result of a whirlwind romance turned long-term relationship, lorelei’s and her siblings’ lives were turned upside down when their dad suddenly left after 8 years. packing up her children and her life, lorelei’s mother layla naji moved from marbella, spain to kaos, greece into the home of her older brother rahim and got a job as a curator at the local museum. meanwhile, uncle rahim took care of the kids. his carefree, child-like demeanor made every day fun. lorelei came to idolize him, and hung onto his every word (especially those in the stories of the gods and goddesses he’d tell.)

he fell ill and passed away when lorelei was a teenager, and as the eldest she took up the role of “caretaker” for the family. placing school second on her priority list, lorelei worked two part-time jobs and deposited her paychecks into the family bank account or used them to buy groceries. her grades slipped, and the deadline to apply for colleges for the fall semester slipped by.

lorelei never attended college, choosing instead to focus on her siblings success. she did begin taking online business classes, and through years of diligent, hard work opened up her own café called ambrosia & nectar cafe (inspired by the stories her dear uncle used to tell.)

HEADCANONS —

her favorite colors are hunter green and peachy pink

she often has her hair tied back for work, usually with colorful, patterned scarves and bandanas

she barely remembers her father

sometimes she feels she should miss him, but the only father-figure she misses is her uncle

he’s still her favorite person, and she thinks of him often

lorelei often visits her mother at the museum

she loves the stories of mythology and has fond memories of hearing them as a child

lorelei’s mother is from morocco, and has another younger brother who still lives there

lorelei’s younger brother is three years younger than her

her sisters are four years and six years younger, respectively

lorelei adopted her vivacious, youthful personality to fill the void her uncle left

when relaxed she’s peaceful, responsible, amiable, perfectionistic, and often stressed

the woman barely sleeps and thrives off of coffee someone make her take a nap

she rarely takes a moment for herself to rest, and could sincerely use someone with whom she feels safe enough to just relax

she’s an early riser (after so many years, it became a habit) and is often up and moving at 4am

her cafe closes at 3pm and only serves coffee drinks, smoothies, tea drinks, breakfast & brunch, lunch and snacks

she sometimes resents her family for the work she had to do for them, but at the same time focusing on them helped her grieve the loss of her uncle

she has tried to be one of those people who goes for a run, and decidedly is not

at most she’ll ride her bike

she can drive, but doesn’t have a car. she bikes or walks (mostly bikes)

she’s never travelled, but always wanted to

she used to think that she’d go to college somewhere brand new, maybe study abroad for a semester and see more of the world

unfortunately, that didn’t end up happening. she’s only ever been to marbella, kaos, and morocco for her grandmother’s funeral when she was a younger teen

she has moments of envy towards her siblings

she wants to be a plant person, but she can’t keep any plant alive. (she tends to over water them)

but she’s determined to fill her apartment with greenery anyway — but they’re all fake

WANTED CONNECTIONS —

FAMILY FRIENDS: the naji family has lived on the island for the last 20 years, making them something of a staple in the community. perhaps your muse knew her uncle from elementary school, her mother from the museum, lorelei and her siblings from school, or maybe lorelei babysat for your muse’s family. wherever the relation began, the naji residence is like a second home for your muse.

BEST FRIEND: lorelei takes on more than any one person should, and almost never lets down and relaxes. your muse would be somewhere she feels at peace, somewhere she can forget about her responsibilities for a moment and simply be herself. lorelei tends to let her friendships and relationships slip in the wake of her responsibilities, whoever this person is would have to be persistent and patient with her.

DATE GONE WRONG: maybe lorelei was late because she worked too late, or they just didn’t hit it off, maybe it went well but lorelei never texted back. whatever the reason, things are somewhat awkward now (whether it be a mutual awkwardness, or one-sided.) all genders welcome!

SUMMER ROMANCE: a past fling — it worked because it was never meant to last. they owed each other nothing, but acted as a welcome distraction for both parties. and when they both said their goodbyes after your muse went back to their life (wherever or whatever it may be), they never expected to meet again. ...and yet.

CAFÉ PATRONS: whether they’ve been drinking lorelei’s coffee since all she had was a street cart, or they’re new to the café itself, she values every customer (especially her regulars.) she’d work to remember their names, their orders, and any other tidbits of information they choose to share.

#kaos:intro #if you're interested in plotting with this sweet (stressed) soul #hmu!#i'm up for p much everything

8 notes · View notes

kekekentyuh · 4 years

Text

The Quirks and Qualms of Online Class

The global pandemic terrorizing us as of the moment has taken so much of our lives when limited social contact was introduced. Preventing the virus from spreading further has reduced our lives to crumbs, robbing a lot of us of the chance to create a better life for ourselves in the outside world, forcing us to powerlessly retreat within the walls of our homes. And sadly, to say the very least, even the education system wasn’t safe from the Corona effect.

Remote learning seems to be the next logical step that most academic institutions can come up with because of the whole social distancing thing. For a while, it was a step so many dreaded to take because of how evident it was that it was just a disaster begging to take place — the countless government officials continuously campaigning to push through with the academic year weren’t of good help either — although it eventually arrived to a point where it was the only thing they could think of. Some have already opted to use this means of providing as early as April to finish off the previous school year, or summer semesters in some university constituents, all in little steps, but in general, we all know how it is: this type of learning is new to most of us, especially for those of us who are used to face to face learning, and we’re all learning to adjust to it while we’re still contained indoors.

The university I attend already had us undergo the whole process of online learning during our Midyear semester last June, where we took a couple of subjects that we were supposed to enroll in for the summer had the world not gone batshit crazy, opting only to open the possibility of attending that midyear semester for those who are required to do so in their respective course program curricula. We held synchronous online sessions via Zoom, where meetings were recorded for everyone's access, making for more accessible resources for note-taking, and used the online learning platform Canvas as pilot testers (both accounts provided by the university itself along with our emails) that we utilized for transfer of information, like learning materials and paperless, digital submissions, generally, and it all seemed to work, for a term that lasted a month maximum. But even before it began, I had a lot of qualms and reservations, particularly on how it’s all going to play out, and how it’s going to affect my performance and my academic standing, because up to that point, I’ve never taken any class or required academic sessions within virtual online learning platforms (not that I was happy while I was taking it, anyway; it’s a hellhole waiting to burst like a pimple). And that was just for a Midyear semester, which was four weeks at most; given how they’re planning to have this coming regularly-paced semester (shortened for the purpose of everyone’s convenience, although I’m pretty sure that’s going to do more harm than benefit, especially for students) purely on remote learning accords, we have no idea how we’re all going to take it on, not with major subjects and a lot of skill-based outputs being asked of us, which are probably much, much heavier than the countless submissions we had to do previously.

But you know what the boomers think: it’s all better than letting the school year just fly away, they didn’t have access to privileges like this so we’d better put up with it. Go now, plan later; and to that, I say one thing — you can’t stop a runaway train.

Even though one month of putting up with this mess is probably just a rough estimate of just how grueling an entire semester online is going to be, I would like to share a few of the things that I’ve noticed about remote learning that are not so great, and, to be completely unbiased, fine by my own judgment. I’m going to use the experiences me and my fellow Biology majors had whilst taking them to truly evaluate how effective it is for university students here in the Philippines, all with the company of you, my dear readers. This is, however, limited to the things we’ve experienced, and may vary for different situations, like from the point of view of a faculty member or a student of a different school, so please, take all of this with a grain of salt. We have no idea if things are going to play out exactly like they did previously, but it’s good to know a few things to prepare ourselves, right? Consider this as sort of a primer — from one lousy college student to another. If we’re going to deal with this bullshit, we’re going to look at it together.

For starters, remote learning is kind of energy efficient — and when I say that, I don’t mean chill. God, no; it’s anything but. The main thing I really like about learning from home is that it saves us a lot more time and physical energy than how much we usually need to attend face to face classes. It’s a very striking point, and I’m sure some may see it beneficial, especially those who still need to put up with the commute to go on campus. We don’t have to worry more about budgeting our time between classes and activities outside, like what time we’d have to wake up so we can have more time to get ready for our day ahead, or where to eat and what to wear to go out. We can wear home clothes while attending classes (not like your clothes even matter, anyway; at least not in UP) and don’t have to deal with the headaches and heartburns you get when you try commuting in the Metro, since we’re all just indoors. And let’s not forget, for someone who attends a university situated in the middle of a bustling city with people of all shapes and sizes that you can never trust, being confined to our homes means we are in a much safer environment, where we wouldn’t have to worry about being robbed every fifteen seconds or won’t have to look twice so every passing vehicle gets a lesser chance of ejecting us off the street. We’re all sitting within the walls of our homes, so we have lesser things to worry about logistically, so to speak. Besides, stepping outside is even more of a risk now than ever, and making available materials to access at home may reduce the probability of that risk getting the best of us, so at least that’s out of the way, like it’s supposed to be.

One thing that also struck me about remote learning is how it’s heavily dependent on how you pace your studies and work. Since your learning environment consists mostly of you and the digital materials, apart from the synchronous classes some professors require, a lot of the time, the way you’re going to deal with this is mainly on how you decide to work on it and how your pace with regards to taking everything on would be, and since there are scheduled deadlines and exams, and you can’t afford to lose any of your precious time monkeying around, albeit the hard way, you’ll definitely learn to manage your time on your own. It’s not completely individual, as there were still group tasks and outputs to be submitted as a unit, but since you’re all alone in your workspace, it’ll all depend on how well you manage to properly do these requirements. Time management is a key factor in college, or in any school level setting really, a skill better than any studying technique you will ever come across, since it helps a student tackle the countless loads of work being tossed their way without it stacking up to immediate doom, and remote learning prompts one to find the method that allows one to work with the flow the easiest — kind of like the perfect key to crank up an engine.

But the thing about remote learning is, for a whole student system not entirely prepared and properly equipped for it, the cons outweigh the pros — by about a mile.

To put it simply, limited contact is much more stressful in the parts of those who are actually involved in the setup, which are, primarily, the student and the teacher. Home environments, right up the first bullet, are not all conducive learning environments. This is entirely dependent on various factors, which may range from more personal ones, like unfavorable familial setups or various distractions at home, or more logistical ones, like the location of the home itself, all contributing to numbers and numbers of disruptive tendencies, none of which are under the child’s control, which may result to their lack of focus or increased anxiety. Home environments are not made for learning, unlike schools and universities where students are free to study without any distractions, and this may hold back the smooth process of their learning if continuous and entirely destructive — and there’s nothing the students nor the instructors can do about it but stress out. The number one most notorious culprit of them all, undeniably, would be the alarmingly appalling mediocrity of the Internet connection the majority has access to, which, on particularly bad days, may result to unfavorable situations almost unexpectedly, like constantly being cut off from the session and unclear instructions from professors, mostly, who have unfavorable access to the Internet themselves. The constant unannounced power cutoffs in some parts of the country (which is, personally, my biggest qualm and pet peeve that I have developed during quarantine) would come in at a close second, especially since a lot of these blackouts have no given range, much to the dismay of the consumers. On top of these are some unexpected inconveniences, like glitchy learning environments and faulty instructor-to-student communication, brought by lack of time synchronization, mostly, that may not seem like much, but can make this whole experience a whole lot shittier than it actually is.

And what’s even more stressful is the few solutions to these problems can all but do so much; mobile data as a substitute for WiFi connections can only give us so much with promos and the money it costs, but in the end, it’s still no match for the data requirements synchronous meeting platforms like Zoom or Google Meet require, so it’s best to just skip the class than waste your time and data trying to reconnect. Instructor-prepared course packs, which contain all materials needed for the subject, definitely designed to cater to students who lack the resources to make it to online classes, may work, but there’s still a lot of considerations that need to be made for their evaluations, which, preferably, need to match with the rest of the class they’re in. I know — no one wins here, except probably only the officials of our crappy Internet providers, happy that they still have a lot of people to leech out of.

The curriculum of the various degree programs students are enrolled in are at stake, because so much adjustments need to be done in order for them to be suitable for the online setting that they all, well, don’t feel like genuine learning methods anymore. Skill-based programs, like mine in Biology, for example, are particularly affected by these changes, since the materials and the opportunities for us to learn the skills we need for our degree are out there: at the labs, at the campus, out at the world. The pertinence of the development of methods to teach these practical courses with limited contact cannot be denied, but actually fulfilling those requirements physically and learning them with your own experience is something with much more impact, and that can’t be denied, too. The limits imposed on learning these necessarily skills will also limit the students to what they’re being given; if they’re given half the materials to make a bun of bread, they’ll only come up with half of that bun, because they’re given so limited resources. We don’t even know how lab classes will take place — how are we supposed to be sure we’re going to learn from them? Not only that, but the curriculum coming to play is at stake, too; take synchronous evaluation procedures, for instance. Does anyone want to take a quiz or an exam with relentlessly flopping Internet, with electrical power that plays Russian Roulette every single day of the year? Of course not, because you want to do as well as you possibly can in this exam. Do you want to wake up to a blaring, incomplete grade because the assignment file you’ve busted your ass for just didn’t make it through the portal, although you swore to your underwear drawer that you did? Of course not, and that’s why checking the submission box three times is almost nothing. So much of the learning process is being compromised and limited by a lot of factors outside of our control, it’s almost impossible to bounce back into the much-favored learning headspace we all desire to be in. We’re spending so much time worrying about not being able to learn because of so many things around us glitching that we lose, albeit gradually, our focus on actually learning.

These factors all narrow down to one big boulder about to trample one smacking detail within us: our mental health. It’s already bad enough that we’re dealing with the health crisis erupting everywhere around us, a health crisis that doesn’t seem to want to tone down anytime soon, and hearing and seeing so much of the tragedy it’s bringing to our country continuously, but we have to also constantly worry about whether or not we’re learning the right things or submitting the right things on time and still making sure we’re doing our best despite all of it. Imagine the constant anxiety and the rigid schedule of a regular semester multiplied thrice, all dumped online — with a few adjustments here and a few tweaks there, but almost inaccessible to some, and too much for many. You're not even sure, at any given point within the months-long span of supposed learning, if you're doing it to actually absorb the knowledge, or just fulfilling it because it's a requirement, and just hurriedly making sure everything is taken care of because you don't have any more energy to drag it on longer. That’s how mentally draining it is. And I get that I might be exaggerating (I have an underlying tendency to do so; forgive me, my bad) but who’s to say that it may not ring true for some? If you’re anything like me, who finds comfort in the company of peers, in the little things like building a routine and sticking to it, distracting yourself with new, uncharted things every day, and managing your stress outside the confinements of a house, then it’s probably taking a huge toll on you, too.

But all that’s nothing compared to those directly affected by the pandemic, like the family members of healthcare workers, those whose main modes of making a living were laid off due to contact protocols, and, most importantly, those who lost so many people dear to them because of a virus no one can contain. I can’t explain how much my heart cracks in my chest when I see a student looking to social media to ask for a means to fund his schooling, or when a person I rarely know is knocking to ask for a few pesos to get their ailing family members through. Remote learning, online classes, really, would work just fine — if you belong above that margin. If you have access to resources without going scathed, have nothing else to do but focus on what’s important for you, and leave the rest of the world outside your door. The exclusivity of remote learning is striking, and it’s extremely absurd how much people want to push through with it despite so many consequences for so many unwilling benefactors — six million children, to be exact — left behind. Children should never have to beg, lose themselves, or destroy themselves to be able to learn, because it’s their right to be given a chance to be the best they can by pursuing this education to the fullest extent. Apparently many people disagree.

Let me call remote learning for what it really is — a temporary aid, unsustainable way of dragging the students to uncharted waters. It’s a band-aid solution, meant to temporarily do what needs to be done while the future is still unknown. So many calls to stop the year from coming up have been put out there, as well as so much postponing and halting of the flow of inconcrete plans, promising to improve, but time and time again, to nothing; and amid so many calls for help, just within the education sector, there has been no reliable answer. Academic Freeze, which aims to halt the school year altogether, is not a plausible way of resolving this, as it is only student centered; although it may be beneficial for us, a lot of employees in the education system may lose their modes of income as well, which may lead to a shortcoming in their part. But given that, we also cannot turn our backs from the fact that so much of the student population, almost six million, will not be able to enroll, because education is a right that every child must be given, and if one child deserves to go on studying, they all deserve to. And postponing the opening of the academic year and delaying what is to come can only do so much.

Contain the pandemic — that’s the answer. If this administration, particularly the department concerned with this issue, truly cares about the rights of every Filipino to quality, equitable, culture-based and complete basic education, then they’ll take the necessary steps to put an end to this and protect not only those rights, but, to the administration itself, the welfare of their people.

Delaying the problem isn’t putting an end to it, because what’s only slowing down is going to gain momentum later on.

So many thoughts and so many words! What did you think about these experiences? And if your’re from the Philippines, what do you think about the Department of Education’s response to this rising concern? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Let me know by reaching me through the Inquiries page, or through my social media here I'd love to hear from anybody!

Like always, I wish everyone is doing well, being safe and secure, and in good health! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves by sanitizing and garnering a healthy lifestyle! It means a lot to me that you're here reading. Thanks for staying, and I’ll see you on the next one!

#online #classes #online classes #qualms #quirks #pros #cons #philippines #issue #education #children #university #hacking through life #hacking #through #life #off #the #beat #off the beat

1 note · View note

whimsical-ness · 6 years

Text

Hook, Line & Sinker | Baekhyun

◇ Link to Masterlist

◇ Genre: College! AU

◇ Summary: Your life gets a whole lot more complicated when the campus playboy sets his eyes on you; because if there’s one thing you know, it’s that Byun Baekhyun always gets what he wants.

◇ Word Count: 9.2k (whoops)

“Oh my fucking god. Oh my god. Y/N, don’t look, but Byun Baekhyun is totally checking you out right now.”

You snapped your head up from where you were seated at the library, the table right in the corner of the room, your eyes widening.

“For god’s sake, I said don’t look,” hissed your friend Chaeyoung, covering her face with her hands.

But she was right. Byun Baekhyun was quite unabashedly staring at you from across the room, his gaze unwavering even as you made eye contact with him. His friend Sehun was next to him, but he was seemingly preoccupied with his own work. Baekhyun was looking at you with interest, chewing on his pen, and to your complete astonishment, he actually winked.

You raised your eyebrows, and his lips perked into a small smirk, his shoulders moving upwards in a lazy shrug.

Understandably, you were thrown. Because Baekhyun, he wasn’t just any guy. He was almost the most well known guy on campus, and not just because of his outgoing personality and naturally good looks.

He was notorious for being a playboy. Dating girls sequentially, breaking up with them once he was bored and looking for a new toy to play with. He even dated several girls at the same time, and it only ever worked for him because he made sure to date girls who didn’t know each other, girls from different majors whose paths would never cross, rendering his obvious infidelity a secret for as long as he wanted it to be.

The stories that circulated around campus were like a broken record. The girls that swore they would never ever get involved with Byun Baekhyun, but who ended up sleeping with him at parties, regretting it later when they realized their encounter would remain nothing more than a one night stand. The ones who bragged about dating him exclusively for a good 2 months before they had gotten dumped, as if they had unlocked some sort of an achievement. The girls who still cried into their pillows because they missed him, because they had been foolish enough to actually fall in love.

No, you had always steered clear of Byun Baekhyun and his less than appealing image, and you planned to keep it that way until you graduated college.

But then why was he so blatantly checking you out right now?

You decided to just look away, instead focusing back onto the set of math problems you were trying your hardest to solve. You quite frankly didn’t have the time to ponder over what the hell Baekhyun was doing, because you had a test in three days that you had to pass if you wanted to maintain your average.

“Did you just ignore him?” whispered Chaeyoung, and you shushed her, your fingers already flying over the buttons on your calculator. “I honestly can’t be bothered,” you said to her, scribbling down numbers. “If he wants to stare, let him stare. I’m not going to give him whatever it is he wants.”

“Um,” said Chaeyoung, sounding a bit panicked. “He’s walking over.”

You set your lips into a thin line, determined to keep your head bowed down to your work to show him that you were clearly not interested in talking to him. Sure enough, you heard him approaching, the chair opposite from you being pulled back with a screech as he lazed into it.

“Hey,” Baekhyun drawled, and you sighed irritably, setting your pencil down and raising your eyebrows at him. He was grinning, his perfect teeth almost blinding, his eyes twinkling from beneath his messy light brown hair. It looked infuriatingly soft and silky, falling onto his forehead in a way that had him constantly shaking it out of his eyes. “You look stressed out. Need a hand?”

You frowned. “No thanks. I doubt you’ll be of much help.”

He leaned forward, sliding the sheets you were working on towards himself, ignoring your protests. “Oh hey, I was just gonna start doing these myself. I think two minds together would work better than one, right?”

You narrowed your eyes. “Wrong. I don’t need you distracting me.”

His grin grew lazy. “I’m distracting?” Chaeyoung coughed.

“Go away, Baekhyun,” you said tiredly. “Why are you even talking to me?”

It was a good question. Sure, you had a few classes together, but he had never paid much attention to you before, which you had always been glad for. And now here he was, trying to get all up in your business for god knows what reason.

“I talk to everyone,” he said, shrugging. You snorted. “Yeah, by everyone you mean the girls you want to fuck.”

This made him chuckle. “I don’t think I’ve heard you swear before. It’s kind of attractive. Also, I don’t want to fuck you.”

Thank god.

“Well, not yet, anyway.”

You flushed crimson, shooting him your middle finger as you stood up abruptly, snatching your homework back from him. “Go to hell.”

“Only if you’ll be there too,” he replied, grinning. “I’m going back to my room,” you told Chaeyoung roughly, and she nodded quickly, grabbing her things too.

“See you!” called Baekhyun from behind you as you stormed off, Chaeyoung at your heels, feeling extremely annoyed and confused by the odd turn of events.

You were in for an unpleasant surprise when the next afternoon, you walked into the library and headed towards your favourite spot, only to find Baekhyun sitting there, his books and papers strewn over the table.

He grinned as soon as he saw you, and you frowned, turning away from him and looking for another place to sit. But your eyes widened when he grabbed your wrist.

You flinched away from his touch as if you’d been scalded, and he looked a little offended. Good.

“I need help with a question,” he announced. “And you’re the only one in here who takes this class.”

“Where are your other useless friends? Can’t they help you instead?” you shot.

“Like you said, they’re useless,” he sighed, pouting. “Look at Sehun over there. He’s too busy staring at that girl to be of any help to me.”

“Isn’t that what you do all the time too?” you asked, crossing your arms over your chest. “You know, I really didn’t appreciate the way you were staring at me yesterday. It was weird.” Baekhyun’s eyes twinkled. “I didn’t mean for it to be weird. I just wanted to talk. So sit. And talk.”

It was probably against your better judgement. You really shouldn’t have. But you ended up sitting opposite him.

He smiled in triumph. “Here’s the question.”

You frowned at the sheet of paper, trying to figure out how to solve it. “Huh. This is just conditional probability. If you add those together...”

You furrowed your eyebrows and scribbled your answer onto the paper, nearly certain that it was right. “This seems like it should be it.”

“I have no idea,” replied Baekhyun, biting his pen again. “I barely pay attention in Statistics. I zone out half of the time.” You rolled your eyes. “Try not doing that next time then. If you actually focused instead of daydreaming about your next hookup you wouldn’t be in this position right now.”

“You seem to care a whole lot about my sex life,” he mused, raising his eyebrows. “Tell me, is it because you want to be a part of it?”

You grit your teeth. “Absolutely not. I have more important things to do in my spare time than fantasize about you.”

Baekhyun wet his lips slightly with his tongue almost pointedly, and you had to force yourself to keep your gaze on his eyes rather than on his mouth. Why did he have such an endearing mouth?

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some place else to sit,” you said, standing up again. “You know, it’ll be real funny if I end up scoring a higher mark than you on this test,” he piped, leaning back in his chair with a calculating look in his eyes.

You snorted. “I doubt it. That was an easy question and you still couldn’t do it. I’d like to see you try and solve the harder ones by yourself.”

“Wanna bet?” he asked suddenly. “If you’re right and I absolutely fuck up the test, I won’t bother you ever again. If you don’t want me to, that is.”

You narrowed your gaze.

“But if I score higher than you,” he continued, starting to smirk. “You have to go out with me. On a date.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

“You heard me. A date. It’ll be fun,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “This isn’t even a bad thing for you. Are you really going to give up a possibly entertaining evening with me?”

You were at a complete loss for words. “Do you hear yourself?” you sputtered finally. “You’re a self admitted playboy—”

“So?” he interjected. “It’s one date. Besides, if you score higher than me you won’t have to go on the date at all.”

Why was he doing this? Why was Baekhyun, the one guy you’d promised to stay away from, making it so hard for you to successfully do that?

And why were you even remotely considering his ridiculous proposition?

Your mind felt slightly numb as you opened your mouth to speak. And when you did, it was as if an unknown person was talking on your behalf, saying the words you’d never ever imagined yourself to ever say in a situation like this one.

“Fine. Deal.”

Oh dear.

If maintaining your average had been motivation enough to revise for the test, the prospect of having to go on a date with Baekhyun was the negative reinforcement you needed to get your shit together and work as hard as you ever had that semester. All you had to do was score higher than him, and then he would leave you alone. You could go back to your normal, uneventful college life, one where you didn’t have to constantly think about what the hell Byun Baekhyun wanted from you, or why.

The day of the test, Baekhyun looked oddly at ease, twirling his pen around with his fingers as he stared at you from across the hall, a lazy grin on his face. “Good luck,” he mouthed to you, and you could only attempt an awkward feeble smile before saying a silent prayer in your head. There was no other way out. You had to ace this test.

But boy, was it hard. It was as if the professor had taken the most fucked up questions he could find, ones that seemed to barely relate to anything you’d studied or practiced so far. You buried your face in your hands, your brain working furiously to try and solve the problems, and you felt increasingly alarmed at the possibility of Baekhyun actually being able to beat you at this. Because when you snuck a look at him, his head was bowed down, his pen flying over the paper furiously. He looked as if he knew what he was doing.

There was nothing you could do but gnaw at your lip as you handed your test in at the end of the hour, trying not to look at Baekhyun as you walked out of the exam hall.

You were only sure of one thing. That the test had gone terribly.

Now you could only hope that Baekhyun’s had gone more terribly than yours had.

“Fuck,” was the only thing you could say when you got the results back.

Thankfully, you hadn’t failed. That would have been colossally bad. No, you had passed, and decently, scoring a grand total of a 73%.

It could have gone much much worse, as you had expected a horrible result as a reflection of your supposed horrible performance, and so you were relieved that it wasn’t so bad after all.

Except, all relief and joy were very short-lived. Because as soon as Baekhyun dangled his test in front of your face after class, you felt your heart drop to your stomach.

85%.

He’d scored 85%.

“How the fuck—”

He stopped you abruptly, his index finger coming up to shush your lips. Your eyes widened, and he smirked. “A deal is a deal, babe. 7 p.m, Friday night. I’ll pick you up. Where we’re going is a surprise.”

Before you could even respond, he was gone, his hand raised in farewell as you were left staring at him in complete shock.

Chaeyoung stared at you as if you’d grown two horns when you told her. “You’re...crazy,” she said in awe. “You’re going to have a swarm of jealous college girls after you, just wait.”

She couldn’t have possibly been right, but she was.

You began getting dirty looks in class, heard your name being whispered more than a few times when you walked past in hallways, and one girl quite literally came up to you and called you a slut for agreeing to go out with him.

You were left staring after her with your mouth hanging open in shock, and feeling more than a little humiliated.

It was absolutely ridiculous. You began getting hate mail on your college email ID from anonymous users warning you to ‘stay away’ from Baekhyun, along with several choice insults that made your stomach curl.

After just two days of this, you had had enough. When you spotted Baekhyun in the library, you stormed over to him with your blood boiling in rage.

“We need to talk,” you spat out, and Baekhyun looked up from his textbook with his eyebrows raised. Immediately, he grinned. “Oh hello. Couldn’t wait until Friday to talk to me, then?”

You grit your teeth, angrily shoving your phone in front of him. “I’m going to go insane. Look at this. Why the fuck do I have to deal with this?”

Baekhyun blinked in confusion as he scanned the words on your phone screen. And then he coughed.

“Oh. Oh. Um...I don’t really know what to say?”

You glared at him. “You don’t know what to say? I’m getting hate mail every hour being called a skanky whore for going out with you and you have nothing to say?”

Baekhyun’s ears went red. “Hey, this isn’t my fault.”

“Yes it is! You’re the one who’s making me go on this stupid date in the first place, when I don’t even want to go! And I’m the one suddenly being treated like crap around campus for it. How is that fair?” you fumed, unable to stop the way your voice was rising several octaves.

As Baekhyun opened his mouth to reply, he was interrupted by a rather loud and pointed clearing of a throat, and you looked up to see the stern librarian making her way towards you with her lip curled. Oops.

Without waiting for Baekhyun to say anything at all, you roughly grabbed his arm and dragged him out of there. “Whoa, aren’t we a little eager?” he teased, his eyes twinkling as you frowned and let go of him.

“Shut up, will you? I’m done having to deal with this shit. Take someone else on the goddamn date,” you said roughly.

At this, Baekhyun’s eyes widened. “Wait, no. Noooo. Let me fix this. If you stop getting hate mail will you still go out with me?”

You stared at him with mild exasperation. “Why are you being so annoying about this? Just find someone else to bother. I’m sure any of the girls I’ve been receiving mails from will literally die of happiness.”

“But I don’t want any of those girls,” said Baekhyun in a low voice, shrugging. “I want you.”

You were pretty certain you went as red as a tomato. A smirk was starting to play at his lips, and you felt your heart skitter.

“Babe,” he said lazily. “I promise if you have no fun whatsoever on Friday and realize I’m really just as unbearable as you think I am...we’ll never have to do this again. But all I’m asking is one date. One chance, for me to win you over.”

You felt slightly lost for words. After a few moments of just staring at him and watching his smirk grow wider, you struggled to your senses. “Don’t call me that,” you said finally, swallowing. “And are you even going to tell me why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?” you blurted, throwing your hands up. “Why do you want to go out with me this badly?”

Baekhyun pondered over this. “You’re cute?”

You scowled.

He began to laugh. “I mean it. You’re cute, and I’m just interested, okay? Why is it so wrong of me to want to get to know you better?”

Because you’re a playboy and that makes you, for the most part, an asshole.

But something in you made you decide not say this out loud.

“God. Fine. Fine. But If I get one more message calling me an ugly bitch—”

“I’ll take care of it,” breathed Baekhyun, his grin disarming. “See you Friday.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Don’t miss me too much!” he called behind you.

Friday came much too quickly, both to your relief as well as despair. It was as if you were desperate to have the evening over and done with, so that you could go back to your uneventful college life when Byun Baekhyun had never been a problem.

To his credit, Baekhyun really had made sure that the mean messages had stopped. You weren’t sure how he’d done it, but since that day you hadn’t received even one. In fact, someone had even sent you an apology.

It was crazy, how Baekhyun was some sort of a mini-celebrity on campus. You couldn’t fathom how he managed to exert so much power over everyone, because it honestly seemed like he didn’t even try. It was this niggling curiosity about him that broke down your final mental barrier about the date.

Despite everything, a part of you wanted to get to know him just as much as he had claimed he wanted to get to know you.

And so now here you were, nervously running a hand through your newly straightened hair, waiting for him to call. When your phone finally buzzed, you nearly dropped it.

Baekhyun was waiting for you downstairs, leaning back on his heels with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He grinned when he saw you, his eyes flitting once over your figure before meeting your own. “Hiya. You look good.”

You furiously fought back the blush that was threatening to color your cheeks. “Thanks?”

You were in for a surprise indeed when he told you where you were going.

“The fair?” you repeated, in mild disbelief as you stepped off the campus shuttle bus after a mere 10 minute ride. “No way.”

Sprawling in the ground front of you was, in fact, a carnival. Or fair, or whatever one of these colorful and noisy places were called, where the air smelled sweet and salty simultaneously and where bright lights and cheery music baffled your senses.

You turned to Baekhyun in surprise, but he only smiled, jerking his head slightly towards the entrance. “Come on then.”

“I have been to one of these in ages,” you said, feeling a sudden wave of nostalgia wash over you as you clutched at your ticket, the surroundings suddenly familiar all at once. “How did you—”

“Find one?” interjected Baekhyun, grinning. “It’s only here for a couple of weeks. I thought you’d like it.”

You felt strangely giddy as you looked around, your heart leaping at the sight of all the usual attractions you hadn’t seen in years. The looming ferris wheel, the delicious smelling food stalls, the frustrating mini-games that made you spend too much money.

“I do,” you breathed, a little dizzily. “I love it.”

Baekhyun’s soft smile made your heart flip over.

“Now let’s go have some fun.”

“Oh my god,” you squealed, as your passenger car of the ferris wheel swung precariously over the very top of the ride. “I’d forgotten how high these things really go.”

Baekhyun chuckled, leaning in closer to you almost naturally, with his arm casually slung over the back of the cart. “If you’re scared you could always hold my hand.”

You rolled your eyes, purposefully leaning away from him. “This may work on the other girls, Byun, but you’ll have to try harder with me.”

Baekhyun pouted, his bottom lip sticking out rather adorably. “Aw come on. Humor me, at least?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “Not a chance. Even if you were threatening to fall off this ferris wheel like Noah in The Notebook, in which case I would be even further compelled to refuse.”

Baekhyun blinked. Your eyes widened. “Don’t tell me. You haven’t watched it?”

He shook his head, and you couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re telling me none of the 30 girls you’ve dated this past year have forced you to watch the most romantic movie of all time with them?”

Baekhyun’s eyes twinkled in amusement. “Thankfully, no. And I thought Titanic was the most romantic movie of all time?”

“Noted,” you replied, grinning. “I think so too. The Notebook is overrated. But I guess it’s still romantic. I mean, being in love with the same person like that for your whole life and waiting for them despite everything? That’s pretty romantic.”

Baekhyun shrugged as the ride ended, sliding off the seat and offering his hand to help you off it. “Can’t relate.”

You snorted. “Right, yeah, of course you can’t. I forgot I was talking to self-crowned campus playboy—”

“I actually meant I’ve never fallen in love with anyone that deeply, as in enough to feel that way,” he said pointedly, rolling his eyes. “But sure, keep calling me that. It boosts my ego, you know? Really helps me get a sense of my masculinity.”

You could tell he was being sarcastic, and you suddenly felt a little guilty. He was more than what you were constantly labelling him. Isn’t that why you’d agreed to go on the date in the first place?

You cleared your throat. “Think your masculinity is tough enough for that?” You pointed towards the over-dramatically done up haunted house in the corner, your lips lifting in a wicked smile when you saw that Baekhyun had gone slightly pale.

“I was getting a little hungry, actually—”

“We can eat after,” you said cheerfully. “In my experience, being scared builds up an appetite.”

Baekhyun coughed, looking increasingly uneasy even as you dragged him towards the formidable looking entrance to the haunted house. “Um, I’m not sure—”

He stopped abruptly when you leaned in close, your lips a breath away from his ear. “If you’re scared you could always hold my hand,” you said lightly, and Baekhyun’s eyes glinted when you moved away, shrugging.

“I might just take you up on that offer,” he breathed, and you felt your heartbeat speed up, just a little. “Go on, then. Ladies first.”

You stepped into the dim structure with mildly fake confidence, jumping when a couple of giggling teenagers brushed past you and into the darkness ahead. Baekhyun followed behind you, doing his best to maintain his calm facade even as you heard eery creaks in the distance.

“This can’t be that bad,” he muttered, starting to walk cautiously beside you down the winding corridor. “Bet there’ll just be couple of—AARGH!”

The rotting hand that shot out of the wall proved to be just one of the many, many such jump scares that plagued the two of you through your rather eventful trip around the haunted house. Screaming ghosts in your ear, cupboards slamming open and shut, strange icy breezes through closed windows; all of which contributed to one very flustered Baekhyun and one very, very entertained you.

You exited after a whopping 15 minutes bent over in peals of laughter, as Baekhyun stumbled forward with wobbly legs. “These things should be banned,” he croaked, running a shaky hand through his hair. “It’s not healthy.”

You wiped the tears out of your eyes, trying to compose yourself. “I should’ve taken videos of your face—”

You broke off in more laughter at Baekhyun’s magnificent scowl. “Very funny,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes.

“Tell me, do all those girls dying to have sex with you know you scream like a little boy when you’re scared?” you teased, unwilling to let this go. You were surprised yourself at how poorly Baekhyun had taken to the experience, his yelling and ranting so loud that you were pretty sure he had been the one scaring the ghosts.

“I doubt they’d care much,” he answered breezily, stepping closer with an unnerving smirk. “Because if they had sex with me they’d be the ones screaming. If you get what I mean.”

Your cheeks burned furiously, and you swiftly turned away from him, your heart racing suddenly. “You-you’re vile,” you sputtered, unable to stop the way your face was heated, or the way your heart refused to go back to normal.

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows. “You’re the one who keeps bringing up sex.”

Your throat felt very dry. “I-I—”

He smiled wryly at your apparent speechlessness. “Hungry?”

After snacking on multiple hotdogs and eating more cotton candy than you probably should have, you were almost ready to leave. Especially because Baekhyun was gazing at you constantly in a way that had your stomach tying up in uncomfortably tight knots, his eyes glinting mischievously and his lips pulled into a teasing smile.

This was not a good sign. At all.

And as if to top off the cherry on the cake, Baekhyun declared his intention to win you a stuffed animal by playing one of those silly hoop throwing games. “This is a classic,” he insisted. “I can’t let you walk out of a carnival empty-handed without even trying to play this. it would hurt my pride.”

You rolled your eyes as he squinted at the glass bottles in front of him, his hand already outstretched with the hoop. “I just need to get these around 3 of those, right? Piece of cake,” he announced. “Watch.”

To your astonishment, he actually managed to successfully throw 3 hoops perfectly over 3 glass bottles, consecutively. He grinned at you in triumph, his eyes crinkled adorably. “Pick the one you like best!”

You shook your head, smiling, wondering which of the furry stuffed creatures to take with you, when one caught your eye. And immediately, you knew it was the one you wanted.

Baekhyun stared at you in mild amusement when you happily snuggled it in your arms.

“An...elephant? Out of all of the teddy bears and bunnies...you picked an elephant?”

You hugged it tighter defensively. “What? It’s cute! Look at it’s lil’ tusks and floppy ears...”

Baekhyun listened with a small smile as you described exactly why you’d picked the soft grey elephant toy, even holding it himself for while as you took the bus back to campus.

“Name it something,” he suggested. “Something that’ll remind you of me.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And why would I do that? This is supposed to be our first and last date, remember?”

Baekhyun winced in mock hurt. “Ouch. And here I was thinking you were having a good time.”

You hid a smile. “And if I tell you that I am? Having a good time I mean.”

“Then I’ll take you on another date. And another,” he replied smoothly, winking. “Say the word, babe.”

You bit your lip. Did you really want to go out with Baekhyun again?

The immediate answer, the one that popped into your head without you even thinking, was yes. Yes, you had had fun, and yes, you wanted to go out with him again.

But you had to be practical about this. Baekhyun wasn’t just any guy, as stupid as that sounded. He was someone who literally broke hearts as a hobby without even trying.

You didn’t trust that he wouldn’t break yours, no matter how sweet he’d been all evening.

“Fred,” you blurted, going pink when Baekhyun’s eyebrows shot up in confusion. “I’m going to name it Fred.”

The floppy elephant fell forward in Baekhyun’s hands as he began to laugh, the sound of it so endearing for some reason that it made you want to record it to memory forever.

“You’re...really something else,” he murmured, shaking his head as he walked you back to your dorm building. “Who names a stuffed elephant Fred?”

“It feels right,” you argued, smiling nonetheless. “It does feel right,” agreed Baekhyun, but you got the sense he was referring to something else altogether. You’d reached the entrance of the building now.

“Thank you, for today,” you started, feeling suddenly awkward. “I really did...have a great time.”

“So let’s do it again,” he said softly, stepping closer. He was close enough that you could see the every pretty brown fleck in his bright eyes. Your heart stuttered.

When he leaned in, about a million things ran through your mind at once, the first of which being that you should probably push him away and then run away. But his lips didn’t touch yours, like you’d expected.

They brushed gently against your cheek instead, leaving a soft kiss that had your stomach erupting in butterflies.

When he pulled back, he was smiling, that same cheeky smile that so many girls had found themselves dreaming about, time and time again.

You had a feeling you were about to join the gang.

You were in trouble.

And it was the kind of trouble you had no clue how to get yourself out of.

Not physical trouble, no.

But trouble that involved you not being able to stop thinking about Byun Baekhyun at several odd hours of day.

You should have known that this would’ve happened. You should never have gone on the stupid date. Because now, all you could think of was his stupid smile and his stupid laugh, and the way his eyes sparkled like they held stars.

You might even have been able to snap out of it if you didn’t have to encounter him every day. But sadly, this wasn’t the case.

Because now he was making it a point to shoot you flirty smiles across the room every Statistics class, sending you silly texts with lots of emojis asking you about Fred the elephant, ambushing you in the library each time you went in there.

It would have been much easier to not develop a crush on Byun Baekhyun if he wasn’t so goddamn persistent about trying to steal your heart.

It was on one such occasion at the library, about a week after your fateful date, that you found yourself forced in his company, much to your dread, but also secret joy.

You received a very frantic call from Chaeyoung (who was also your roommate), urging you not to come back to the room for a good portion of the night because a guy was coming over.

And as some sort of strange coincidence would have it, the guy was Oh Sehun.

“Since when do you hang out with Oh Sehun?” you hissed into your phone. “We’ve been texting,” she protested. “And I think he wants to hook up which is why you can’t just walk in, okay?”

You hung up feeling extremely confused as well as annoyed, both emotions doubling when the last person you wanted to talk to poked his head around one of the bookshelves and shot you a blinding grin.

“You’re just the person I was looking for,” Baekhyun said, winking as he settled down in the chair next to you. “I need help with the homework again.”

You stared at him. “Isn’t it odd that your best friend is on his way to my place to hook up with my roommate? I didn’t even know they were interested in eachother.”

“Sehun is interested in anything that has boobs and an ass,” said Baekhyun shrugging, and you gasped, smacking him hard in his arm. “Ow! What, it’s the truth!”

“I suppose it’s the same for you, then?” you scowled. “Nah, I like girls who are unrelentingly mean to me even after I’ve convinced them that I’m actually not so bad after all,” he quipped, his lips curved into a smile. “Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like you.”

You tried to ignore the way your heart had started to thump.

“Since both our roommates are busy banging each other, we can get started on some exciting Stats homework,” he said cheerily, and you could have sworn he had the weirdest triumphant look in his eyes.

But you didn’t have much of choice. You ended up spending the greater part of your evening struggling through problems involving normal distribution, until you began to feel like your brain had turned to mush.

“I give up,” announced Baekhyun after a while. “I need a break. Let’s watch a movie or something.”

You looked at him witheringly. “How did you manage to get an 85% on that test with this attitude, hm?”

Baekhyun leaned back in his chair. “I study pretty well as long as I have some sort of a motivator to keep me going. You could always agree to another date with me to get me to work.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Anyway,” he continued, pulling open his laptop screen. “You can pick what to watch.”

“We’re in a library,” you reminded him. “Well spotted,” he grinned, nodding towards the screen. “So that excludes porn, then. Unless you—”

“Ugh, move over,” you groaned, pulling the laptop towards you. “I think I know exactly what to watch though...”

As the opening credits of The Notebook began playing across the screen, you had to stifle a laugh at the look of horror on Baekhyun’s face. “You said you thought it was overrated!”

“It is, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make you watch it,” you said happily. “It’s your fault for saying I could pick the movie!”

Still looking slightly betrayed, he popped in his one of earphones anyway, handing you the other one. “Never making that mistake again, clearly.”

But halfway through, you glanced at Baekhyun to see him completely enraptured, leaning forward in his hair with his chin resting in his hand, his eyes glued to the screen. You couldn’t help but smile at the way his lips were downturned slightly, his forehead creased in concentration as he watched the heart-wrenching events unfold on screen.

When it ended, he sat back looking stricken. “They...just die, like that?” he asked, almost a little accusatorially. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“Well, duh! It would have been a spoiler,” you said, shrugging. “Wow,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Weirdly enough, I think I might actually have enjoyed that a little.”

“A little?” you asked, smiling. “Looked like a whole lot to me.”

“I mean I get the appeal,” he mused, biting his thumb. “It was romantic. He literally constructed a house for her hoping she’d come back to him, and he didn’t even get with anyone else for years.”

“Mhm,” you replied, a little absently as you started to flick through your math homework again, trying to get the sheets in order.

“Go out with me,” he said suddenly, and you glanced at him in surprise. “As in, be my actual, proper girlfriend. You won’t regret it. I promise. I mean, I can’t promise to build you a house like Noah, but—”

You were too flustered for a few seconds to reply. “Baek—”

“Doesn’t it feel good, when we’re together?” he urged, his eyes earnest. “It feels right, something just clicks. It sounds cliche but I swear, I’ve never felt like this before—”

At this, you snorted. “Okay, that’s enough. How many times have you used that one, huh? How many girls have actually believed you before they realized they’d made a mistake?”

Baekhyun frowned. “Is that your problem, then?”

You ignored him, saying nothing in fear of your voice coming out unsteady, looking down at the messy working on your sheets instead.

“Let me get this straight,” said Baekhyun with narrowed eyes, twirling his pen with his fingers. “The only reason you’re so unwilling to date me is because of my not-so-innocent reputation around campus?”

“Hit the nail on the head,” you said thinly. “But I haven’t talked to a single girl other than you all week,” he argued, flicking his pen towards your papers to grab your attention. “So now you’re being unfair.”

You took a deep breath. “That doesn’t change what you’ve always been like—”

“Forget it,” he snapped, sounding a little hurt. “Thanks for the help with the homework. And for doing me a favor by watching the movie with me.”

And then he was pushing his chair back, and gathering his things before you could stop him, leaving you staring after him rather regretfully, wishing you had said the right thing instead.

It really shouldn’t have bothered you at all, the way Baekhyun was cozied up to some doe-eyed brunette who wouldn’t stop giggling into his ear.

It shouldn’t have bothered you when you saw him throw his head back and laugh at something she was saying, or the way she kept leaning in unnecessarily and ran a hand down his chest.

But it did. It did more than just bother you, and you felt an ugly burning jealousy rise in the pit of your stomach, making you grit you teeth and swallow down a bitter drink that did nothing but worsen the already bad taste in your mouth.

You shoudn’t have come to this party.

But Chaeyoung had insisted, because Sehun had invited her (things were surprisingly getting serious between the two?), and you had agreed purely because the prospect of bantering/flirting with Baekhyun had seemed appealing, despite everything.

But now here you were, in the corner of the room by yourself, staring daggers at the boy you’d foolishly let yourself crush on, and who was seemingly blissfully unaware of your presence and very busy flirting with someone who wasn’t you.

It hurt. You hated that it hurt, but you couldn’t help it. This is who he was, this is who he had always been, and just because he’d shown some interest in you for a couple of weeks meant nothing, clearly. This is what Baekhyun did; he played the game, and then abandoned it when he grew tired.

To help the dull ache in your chest, you had resorted to drinking copious amounts of beer, or vodka, or whatever the hell was being passed around and tipped into plastic red cups. You weren’t even paying attention any more, just swallowing down whatever reached your lips, knowing you should look away from him but not being able to stop.

“Are you, uh, alright?”

A slightly concerned voice made you tear your gaze away from Baekhyun and the girl, and you turned your head to see an adorably tall stranger peering at you curiously.

You blinked. “Oh, um. Yeah, I’m okay,” you said, clearing your throat. “These parties aren’t really my thing.”

“Me neither, actually,” said the stranger, smiling. He had a very cute dimple in his cheek. “I’m just cousins with someone who goes here, and since I was in town I ended up coming. I’m Chanyeol, by the way.”

“Y/N,” you replied, smiling back. “Nice to meet you.”

The wide-eyed cutie ended up a very, very welcome distraction. Before either of you knew it, you were both drunk out of your minds, talking loudly and laughing over the blaring music, sitting just a little too close on the couch.

Chanyeol really was very attractive, his deep voice sending goosebumps across your skin every time he leaned in close to say something, his large hands warm when they ended up circling your waist, his lips especially luscious when he tilted towards you—

“Whoops! Sorry, I tripped,” said a voice you knew all too well rather loudly. Chanyeol yelped in pain as he was pulled backward rather forcefully, and you narrowed your gaze.

“So,” said Baekhyun flatly. “I see you’ve met my cousin, then?”

You set your lips into a thin line. “Yeah. Now if you don’t mind, we were kind of in the middle of something.”

“I don’t think so,” snapped Baekhyun, and you tried to move away angrily when he grabbed your arm, making you stumble to your feet. “You’re drunk. I’m taking you home.”

Chanyeol cleared his throat. “Dude...?”

“Goodbye, Chanyeol,” said Baekhyun rudely. “Also, I’m never inviting you anywhere, again.”

“W-Wait—“ you sputtered, looking back helplessly at poor Chanyeol as Baekhyun all but dragged you out of there, the loud music gradually fading as you stumbled into the cool night air.

“How dare you,” you fumed, struggling against his grip. “Where the fuck are we going?”

“To get you sober,” he answered, completely disregarding the way you were trying to pull away. “My place is closer.”

At this, you began to struggle more desperately. “Let go of me, there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere with you—”

“He was trying to take advantage of you,” snapped Baekhyun suddenly. “Did you realize that? Chanyeol only goes to parties to find girls to hook up with—”

“Yeah?” you shot back, seething. “And what do you do? I always knew you were an arrogant playboy, didn’t think you were a hypocrite too.”

Baekhyun whirled on you as you stopped abruptly, realizing you were already in the lobby of his building. “Call me a playboy one more time, and I swear—”

“What?” you countered, shoving him in the shoulder as you got into the elevator. “You’ll find another girl to screw over? Why’d you leave that one at the party, huh? You looked like you were having a whole lot of fun.”

“You’re so thick,” he muttered, and this made your anger spike higher. “Excuse me?” you thundered.

“I was trying to make you jealous,” he roared. “Because you’re playing so fucking hard to get that I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Of course the only thing you think of doing involves flirting with more girls,” you said bitterly, storming after him into the apartment. “You’re pathetic, Baekhyun. You meddle in other’s business because you just can’t stand watching anyone else do what you do all the fucking time anyway—”

“You’re right,” he retorted, running a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t stand watching you with Chanyeol, because I was jealous for fuck’s sake—”

“Which proves my point,” you said shrilly, your hands clenched in fists. “You’re a HYPOCRITE—”

“SHUT UP!” he roared, suddenly, and your back hit the wall behind you with a thud as he took a step forward, his eyes flashing. “Just shut up, okay?”

“Make me,” you shot, feeling your heart race, so fast that you could hardly breath.

Baekhyun made an odd noise of exasperation. And then his lips were crushing yours in a kiss that quite literally stole all the breath from your lungs.

You barely fathomed what was happening, your brain apparently shutting down as your fingers roughly tangled in his hair automatically, tugging him closer to you as you kissed him back with more desperation than you ever had in your life.

He was a good kisser.

No, he was a fantastic kisser, because within seconds you were melting into him, gasping as he tugged at your lower lip gently with his teeth, as his tongue brushed yours and made you moan into his mouth.

“Fuck,” you breathed, as he pulled away and began kissing your neck instead. “I-I should definitely be pushing you away—”

Baekhyun merely hummed against your skin, his hands gripping your waist tightly as he pressed you up against the wall.

“B-Baek—”

You weren’t sure how exactly you ended up beneath him on the couch just a few moments later, both of you breathless as you struggled to pull clothes off, your hair messy and your heart beating wildly.

You were going to end up having sex on the couch with Byun Baekhyun.

You must have gone mad.

A loud buzzing made the two of you break apart, and Baekhyun growled in frustration as he pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans and threw it aside onto the rug below you, his hands returning to unclasp your bra and his lips latching onto your collarbone.

You whined, pulling his face up to yours, desperate to feel the taste of his lips again, as if you were drunk on them.

His phone buzzed again.

“Ignore it,” he breathed between kisses. “I’ll call them back later.”

But the buzzing was relentless, and even though Baekhyun was kissing you senseless, the annoying sound of it was extremely distracting.

“For fuck’s sake,” you snapped, breaking away from him and reaching for the phone yourself. “At least turn it on silent.”

But as the screen lit up once more, you felt your heart drop to your stomach.

A sick feeling began to swirl in your stomach as your eyes scanned over the texts, each one sending tiny splinters into your heart.

Sehun [23:45] : ur such a liar, baek Sehun [23:45] : i saw you leaving with y/n, very sneaky Sehun [23:46] : i guess i owe you 100 bucks Sehun [23:46] : hav fun gettin ur dick wet tell me how it goes 😜😜

“Shit,” cursed Baekhyun, running a hand through his hair. “Shit—”

“What is this?” you trembled, holding his phone up. “W-What is he talking about, Baekhyun?”

A faint idea of exactly what Sehun meant was beginning to dawn on you, and your heart began to hammer in unease.

“I-It’s nothing—”

“You bet on me?” you whispered, feeling as if you were about to throw up. “You bet on sleeping with me?”

Baekhyun’s face contorted in anguish. “It’s not what it looks like, I swear—”

“You’re disgusting,” you croaked, your voice breaking. “Is that all I was to you? S-Some girl to hook up with for some extra cash?”

“No,” said Baekhyun desperately, reaching for you even as you drew away from him, your entire body burning in humiliation. “No, Y/N, let me explain—”

“Stay away from me,” you stammered, pulling your clothes on and standing up, desperate to get as far away from him as possible. “I-I want nothing to do with you, ever again.”

“Y/N, please—”

“I hate you,” you whispered, shaking as tears sprung to your eyes, Your heart felt shattered as you pulled open his front door roughly, your anger and shame so intense that your mind was spinning. “I hate you.”

What a fool you’d been, to actually think that Byun Baekhyun liked you. All you’d been was some sick sort of conquest, just another prize he could claim and brag about, just someone else he’d hooked up with and forgotten about.

What a complete and utter fool you’d been, to actually let yourself fall for him despite knowing he would break your heart.

You’d known it all along.

But you hadn’t fathomed just how much it would hurt.

“Go away,” you mumbled into your pillow, even as Chaeyoung continued to knock at your door.

“Y/N, please,” she said, sounding exasperated. “You can’t just stay in there all day—”

“Watch me,” you shouted, turning over and pulling your blankets higher up. It had been a miserable 3 days since the disaster of the night, and you still felt like shit. You’d blocked Baekhyun’s number after he’d refused to stop calling or texting, begging you to talk to him, but that didn’t mean you were over it.

You couldn’t believe how naive you’d been. How could you have trusted a single word that had come out of his mouth while knowing exactly who he was?

It was bitter irony, really, that you’d ended up just like the girls you’d always made fun of. Who cried into their pillows out of frustration and anger, who sobbed because despite everything Byun Baekhyun had done...they still missed him terribly.

You sniffled, your eyes falling to where Fred the elephant lay, neglected on the floor. You’d flung him aside in anger and heartbreak that very same night, but you’d been unable to get rid of him.

But the more you looked at the stuffed animal now, the more the bitterness began to rise, yet again, and with sudden determination, you threw off your blankets and snatched it up.

If you had to rid Baekhyun from your mind completely, you had to rid of everything that reminded you of him. If that meant never watching The Notebook again, you didn’t care.

You pulled open the door of your room, clutching the elephant tightly in your hand. He was going straight into the trash.

But you were stopped when Chaeyoung hastily grabbed it from you, her hands coming up to grab your shoulders.

“I know you’re mad—”

“That’s an understatement,” you snapped, scowling when she pushed you to sit down on the couch. “But you haven’t given him the chance to explain yet,” she said, and your scowl grew further.

“I cannot believe you’re actually taking his side,” you said in disbelief. “Just because you’re dating his best friend, who, may I remind you, was behind the whole stupid bet in the first place!”

“Trust me, Sehun’s regretting that terribly,” she said darkly, and this gave you the notion that Sehun had not been let off the hook so easily, at least not by his girlfriend. “I refused to talk to him until literally last night. But he keeps saying that Baekhyun wants to explain—”

“There’s nothing to explain,” you said shortly, standing up. “He’s a lying, sadistic scumbag who takes pleasure out of fucking with people’s feelings—”

You broke off abruptly at the sight of said scumbag awkwardly stepping out of Chaeyoung’s room, Sehun right behind him.

You whirled on your roommate, your eyes wide in betrayal. “How could you—”

“He was threatening to sleep outside the door,” argued Chaeyoung, albeit looking sheepish. “I’m sorry, Y/N—”

“The only person who has to say sorry is me,” cut Baekhyun loudly, not taking his eyes off you. “Which is why I’m here. Please, just hear me out. Please?”

At this, Sehun cleared his throat, looking extremely awkward and nodding at Chaeyoung in a way that seemed to mean let’s get out of here before all hell breaks loose.

She took his hint, and with one last apologetic look at you (which you returned with an extremely dirty look of your own), she was stepping out the door with Sehun, leaving you alone with the last person on earth you wanted to be alone with.

“Y/N—”

“I’m not interested,” you cut coldly. “Don’t waste your breath.”

“You don’t know the whole story,” he began, looking pained. “The messages you saw, you didn’t see any of the previous ones, did you? There’s more to it—”

“Save it, asshole,” you snapped, turning away from him. “Just leave me alone.”

“I had called it off,” he said desperately, running a hand through his hair. “Right after our date, right when I realized how much I actually liked you, I told Sehun the bet was off—”

“That doesn’t change the fact that the only reason you fucking approached me in the first place was because you wanted to sleep with me!” you shouted. “It was all for a bet and I fell for it, hook line and sinker—”

“It wasn’t,” roared Baekhyun suddenly, making you flinch. “That’s the thing I’m trying to explain! I started to like you weeks before I ever came up to you, and that’s the truth, I swear. I admit I have a poor record when it comes to girls and dating them, but this is different. You have to believe me.”

You said nothing, gnawing at your lip instead to stop your eyes from tearing up in both anger as well as frustration.

Encouraged by your silence, he kept going.

“When Sehun noticed my crush on you, he told me outright that there was no way you would ever go out with me. He said if there was one girl who wouldn’t fall for my charms, who would turn me down flatly without a second thought, it was you,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. “And me, being well, me, I took that on as some kind of challenge. The bet was just a stupid thing we came up with as a joke. I-I wasn’t trying to sleep with you because of it, I swear.”

You could feel your resolve begin to break down.

“It was wrong. It was a stupid, fucked up thing to do, and I’m so sorry,” he breathed, walking closer to you and hesitantly taking your hand. “But I promise you, my feelings are real. I never thought I’d start to like you this much, and I’m going crazy because of it. Please believe me.”

You wanted to believe him. Something told you deep down that he really was telling the truth, because you doubted he was skilled enough an actor to be faking the look of despair that was across his features right now.

You couldn’t help it. You still liked him.

You still wanted him, and you didn’t want to lose him.

You let out a breath. “I-I don’t know.”

“Let me prove it to you,” he urged, his eyes searching your face. “No bets this time, no games. Just let me prove to you that I can be someone who deserves you. Because you’re amazing, Y/N. And I don’t want to let this go.”

You swallowed.

“You’re still an asshole,” you said in a small voice.

Baekhyun’s face fell slightly

“And this doesn’t mean I forgive you,” you continued. “But because I’m an idiot, and because despite everything I still have this hope for something actually real...”

He seemed to be holding a breath.

“I’m going to give you a chance,” you said finally, and the relief that washed over his face was tremendous. “Just don’t fuck it up this time, or I’m actually going to throw Fred away for real.”

Baekhyun looked startled at the mention of the stuffed elephant. “You were going to throw him away?”

You smiled wryly. “I thought you didn’t like him?”

“Of course I do,” he said softly. “I like him because you like him, and I like you.”

You rolled your eyes, unable to stop your heart from skipping a beat when Baekhyun smiled adorably, a special sort of smile that seemed especially meant for you.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his eyes shining. “For giving me a chance.”

And as he leaned in hesitantly to kiss you softly, your heart leaped.

You had the sense that no matter how annoying, cocky and infuriating he was...Byun Baekhyun was going to make things right.

And that, perhaps, was what mattered most of all.

A/N: This was fun :) I hope you all liked it <3 MUCH EXCITE to hear your thoughts!!

6K notes · View notes