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forlix · 1 month

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𝐚𝐜𝐞・h.h.

— volleyball superstar and your personal hell hwang hyunjin proposes a trade-off you can't refuse: his matchmaking services for a passing anthropology grade. the plan is foolproof in theory; in practice, it is something else entirely.

words・15.2k

pairing・volleyball player!hyunjin x tutor!reader (gn)

genres・college!au, sports!au, fake enemies to friends to lovers, fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, slice of life, mutual pining, slow burn. two polar opposites sharing one soul. a seungjin fic if u squint. loosely inspired by the manga/anime haikyuu!!

warnings・mentions of anxiety, fear of failure, heartbreak, loneliness, and self-image. course language and callous banter (as always) ft. suggestive flirting and one kms joke. some of the referenced players and coaches are real; this fic is not.

playlist・collision by stray kids・value by ado・waiting for us by stray kids・eternity by bang chan・dreaming by smallpools・fly high!! by burnout syndromes

a/n・writing this felt like returning to my roots tbh. i love volleyball and i love sports aus and i love, love hwang hyunjin. thank u to my sahar for bringing this fic to life with me, as always; i can no longer write for him without also writing for you. i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i adored writing it. happy late birthday, our jinnie, our hyunjin, our forever ace; you are so unbelievably loved ♡

“Not a word out of you,” you say, tossing your backpack onto the floor of the lecture hall with a heavy-handed flick. “I’m serious.”

Hyunjin glances up at you with a frown. “When did people stop saying good morning?”

Your lack of an immediate comeback tells him the situation is dire. He observes you for a moment, his mouth falling open, hanging still, then curving into a slow, serpentine smile.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Please, angel.”

“No! Leave me alone.”

Hyunjin slumps back into his seat, thinking hard. The solution occurs to him with a poke of his tongue into his cheek. “Coffee on me for a week.”

At this, your hands stop rummaging in your bag. You cock your head, your interest piqued. Got you.

When you finally humor him and turn around, you’re flinching like you’re in pain, eyes closed and breath held and all. He giggles and leans in for a closer look. Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes if he wasn’t so flummoxed by the state of your forehead.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Tried to cut my own bangs,” you sigh. “It didn’t go very well and now I look like Rock Lee.”

Hyunjin lets out a forceful laugh. “You’ve seen Naruto?”

You open your eyes. Only then does Hyunjin remember how little distance he left between your faces, when he’s staring straight into them and all the strange, starry speckles they hold.

The air between you curdles like sour milk.

Things are awkward between you often, he’s realized recently. What’s more, he didn’t think he was capable of being awkward with anyone anymore until he met you. It was your ill-fated seat that he chose to sit next to on the first day of ANTH 111, your ill-fated lap onto which he chose to spill his Americano, and the rest was history (or, in this case, anthropology). His tongue ends up in sailor’s knots with every smart-aleck comment and pitiful laugh you’ve given him since. Maybe there’s more to it, maybe there isn’t—Hyunjin doesn’t think about it much. He doesn’t like thinking in general.

You pull away from each other in unison. You clear your throat, glancing elsewhere.

“Of course I’ve seen Naruto,” you quip, and everything is normal again. “Why do you seem surprised?”

“Because you’re so scholarly.”

“I am not scholarly.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You go to a park to play chess with old people on weekends.”

“I need to get my steps in somehow.”

“You didn’t know what Urban Dictionary was until I told you to look up—”

“God, I learned so much about you that day."

“Your favorite social media platform is Quizlet,” he bursts, exasperated. “Quizlet.”

“It is not.” An introspective pause. “Or is it?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjin throws his feet up on the chair below him, jabs in your direction with a bandaged finger. “There is no way you enjoy watching 2D men beat each other up in your free time. I don’t buy it.”

“Honestly, I thought you’d have more to say about my current appearance than my hobbies.”

He does, though. Matter of fact, he’s been curating a list since this conversation started: Vector from Despicable Me, Dora the Explorer’s hot older sibling, Spock. You face-planted into a lawnmower. You mistook a paper shredder for a hat. It goes on.

But then his head turns. Your eyes meet again. He’s reminded that it’s hard to sustain an inner monologue and look at you at the same time, Vector resemblance and all.

He reaches up, nudges a lock of your hair over a centimeter or so, and gives the patch of forehead a gentle flick.

“Watermelon,” he mumbles with a sickening smile.

You divert your attention to your lecture notes with a disappointed click of your tongue. “You’re getting soft.”

He spends the entire lecture daydreaming about tropical coastlines.

“I only get coffee from that one place on the east side of campus, by the way,” you say as you’re strolling out the building together, “and I get it a very specific way. Can you handle it?”

“Your faith gets me out of bed in the morning,” Hyunjin deadpans. “I’ll handle it, love. Text me your order.”

All of a sudden, you position your hands close to your stomach, the lapels of your jacket casting them in shadow. Your fingers begin to move in a sequence that he’d recognize anywhere.

“Body flicker jutsu,” you whisper, and then you’re scurrying off without another word—but you do glance back at him to gauge his response. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the main quad’s busy thrum.

Hyunjin gapes at your retreating figure for so long that phosphenes start prancing around his field of view. Then he heads to the gym. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Hyunjin stops lacing up his shoes to see Coach Bang standing on the court’s sideline with a grim air about him. He glances at his captain, confused.

“Don’t look at me,” Minho says mid-stretch. “Godspeed.”

“Thanks, cap.” Useless.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. It’s all fluorescent lights and spotless white walls, the only decorative fixture a picture of his siblings, parents, and dog in front of the Sydney Opera House, framed and facing him atop his desk. Hyunjin once snuck the thing into the bathroom, an innocent plot to satiate his curiosity, and promptly discovered the man’s propensity for violence. He’s packing beneath those dry-cleaned polos, by the way.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “You can read, right?”

“Yes, coach,” he sighs. Everyone’s expectations for him are subterranean.

From: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Not good See email from Hwang’s antopology professor below . He submitted the complete script of the Trolls movie instead of his mid term paper and now he’s failing the class . Not good . Sort out ASAP JP Sent from my iPad

Bang snatches up his mouse and scrolls, his ears turning scarlet. “Wrong email.”

“Yep.”

From: Kim Kyeyoung «[email protected]» To: Park Jinyoung «[email protected]» Subject: Regarding Hwang Hyunjin To Director of Athletics Park, I am writing to inform you that, as of yesterday, Mr. Hwang Hyunjin has a D- (64.9%) in ANTH 111: Cultural Anthropology, due to his submission of the complete script of a kids’ movie instead of his midterm paper. It is disappointing to see Mr. Hwang trivialize and ridicule my class to such a degree. Please see to it that he reorganizes his priorities lest his Student-Athlete Participation Agreement do so for him. Regards, Kim Kyeyoung Professor of Anthropology

“That’s bullshit!”

“We’re in agreement there.” Bang folds his arms over his chest, throws his foot over his knee. “Do you know what your Student-Athlete Participation Agreement says?”

“Does anyone?” Hyunjin scoffs. Bang whips out a form and brings it to eye level, the thing covered from top to bottom in microscopic Times New Roman. “No way you just had that.”

“I had it delivered ten minutes ago,” Bang confesses, then clears his throat and begins to recite. “All student-athletes must complete the academic term with a C or higher in all courses, should they wish to continue their participation in athletics thereafter.”

Hyunjin stiffens. “What the fuck? I’ve never heard—”

“If any Department of Athletics personnel,” Bang continues, raising his voice, “have reason to believe that a student-athlete will not be able to satisfy this requirement, they are encouraged to utilize resources such as academic advising or peer tutoring in guiding said student-athlete back onto the correct path.”

He shoves the piece of paper across his desk. “Read that name aloud for me.”

Hyunjin stares at the signature at the bottom of the page, scrawled so carelessly that most of it deviates away from its designated line. There is a rare hollowness in his chest that he recognizes as anxiety. With it comes a glimpse of a life without volleyball, the question of what little of him would remain.

“Hwang Hyunjin,” he says under his breath.

The office goes silent. Bang tucks the form back into his drawer. It closes with a gentle click.

Then comes the yelling.

“The Trolls movie? Trolls?! Are you fucking with me, Hwang?”

“It was a cultural reset! The pinnacle of modern media! How’s that for anthropology?”

“BAD!” Bang explodes, gesturing to the email emphatically. “VERY, VERY BAD!”

Hyunjin slumps over, dejected.

“You’ve never had trouble with school before.” He leans over his desk imposingly. “What the hell happened this semester? What changed?”

Nothing is the first answer that comes to mind, but Hyunjin’s pulse spikes like a lie detector. Upon the inside of his eyes replays a scene of a certain someone with watermelon bangs doing teleportation jutsu at him from a few yards away, wearing a smile made of some kind of space dust that astronomists haven’t discovered yet.

He grits his teeth, annoyed. This is what happens when he thinks.

“Beats me,” he fibs. “Typical junior year stress, maybe.”

“Does any of it have to do with Piazza?”

Hyunjin shudders.

It just might, actually.

Modesty has no place in the career he’s had: high school national champion turned ace hitter in both the South Korean U21 roster and regular rotation for Seoul National University, the best collegiate volleyball team in the country. His name has lived at the top of ranking lists and the center of gold medals since he turned old enough to qualify for them; the press believes him the instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution. It’s a mouthful, he knows.

It was never a question that he would go professional; the question was who he should talk to and where he would go.

At the start of the school year, Bang, acting in place of the agent he was advised to find and never bothered to, gave him a list of people to reach out to. On the very top was none other than Roberto Piazza, the chairman and head coach of Allianz Milano, one of the most eminent club teams in the world—and current home to Hyunjin’s personal idol, outside hitter Ishikawa Yuki.

Hyunjin thought his poor coach had finally succumbed to his old age. The thought of stepping onto the same court as Ishikawa felt sacrilegious, let alone donning the red, white, and navy blue of Allianz Milano with him. But Bang slapped him on the back of the neck and reminded him that going professional was equal parts preparation and opportunity; he was never going to know the answers to questions he didn’t ask. Hyunjin was coerced to fire off an introductory email despite his reservations.

Piazza replied within the week.

For the last five months, Hyunjin has been fighting with tooth and nail to manage his expectations. He scrolls past the team’s social media posts like they burn his eyes. He replies to Piazza’s emails right before working out with Changbin under the assumption that whatever the shredded libero does to him will eviscerate his brain. If his world is made of dreams, this is the one at its very core, imbued with destructive potential the second it became attainable.

But that’s the last five months. The last five weeks have been you kicking him in the shin because he’s laughing (or trying to make you laugh) and the professor is staring; you listening to him rant and rave about volleyball when he knows you couldn’t care less about the sport; you relaying the contents of your class readings like hot gossip, your eyes wild and hands flying around because you can’t contain your excitement. You, you, you.

He cards a hand through his air, regaining focus. “You know how I feel about Piazza.”

“Expect the worst, hope for the best.” Bang’s chair skids backwards as he stands up. “I think it’s a good approach.”

Suddenly, he is directly in front of Hyunjin, low enough to meet his eyes. His hands rest upon his shoulders firmly.

“But hope is hungry, and it will consume you if you let it,” he says. “Do not let it, Hyunjin. I’m not asking.”

Even while being squeezed to a pulp and regarded with the cold intensity of a statue, Hyunjin can’t help but feel anchored, somehow, to the floor of this miserable office. Protected.

Bang lets go of him. “I’m not asking you to find a tutor by the end of the week, either.”

Hyunjin groans. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

A set of bandaged fingers appear in your periphery to place a paper cup onto your laptop. Accompanying the smell of fresh coffee is that of smoky rose, as decidedly douchey as ever.

“I thought you said your order was complicated.”

You look up from your phone to see Hyunjin plop into the adjacent seat. His long, caramel-colored hair is damp and unstyled in the aftermath of a morning shower, droplets of water pearling on the lapels of a navy blue windbreaker, layered over a white long sleeve. You recognize the outfit by now as game gear.

“Was it not?” You ask.

“It was an Americano, love. I walked up to the cashier and placed an order for an Americano.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you could handle that much.” He flips you off as you squint at the cup. “Someone wrote their number on the lid, by the way.”

“What? Really?”

“No.”

He shoves you hard enough for your upper body to drape over the opposite armrest; you’re still cackling by the time you’ve straightened up again.

“Why did you get this, anyway?” Hyunjin grumbles. “I thought you had a sweet tooth.”

“I do, but you don’t.”

Only then does the fool understand that you had no intention of charging him in coffee just for a haircut reveal. He takes back the coffee hesitantly.

“Thanks,” he says at last. “Nice of you.”

“I know, right? Hated it,” you respond, and he almost chokes on his first sip.

You almost choke on nothing when Kim Seungmin materializes in the aisle adjacent. He holds out a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “Yo.”

Hyunjin dabs it up mid-sip. “I fully forgot you were in this class.”

“Well, I’m due for my weekly appearance.” Seungmin slips into the seat directly below you, glancing at you over his shoulder. “Hey, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you say, somehow managing to stumble over the single syllable the word has. You thank your lucky stars that you fixed your hair yesterday.

You like Kim Seungmin. Not just in the cutesy, crushy way, but in the “I would relinquish all of my rights for you” way where you spend every waking moment cursing out whatever stroke of misfortune placed Hyunjin in the seat next to you instead of him. He’s funny, gorgeous, and talented—a vocal performance major with a student-athlete contract—and you think your infatuation is more than justified. Hyunjin thinks it’s hilarious.

You side-eye your blonde adversary, prepared to see one of three things: a suppressed laugh, a dramatic eye-roll, or a mature kissy face that usually results in the first option. You’re met with something far more worrisome.

He’s thinking.

That can’t be good.

Suddenly, his phone screen lights up with a text that temporarily wipes the conspiratorial gleam from his eye. Hyunjin scans it over and groans. “Can this guy do his fucking job?”

“He wouldn’t have to if you didn’t quit,” Seungmin answers. “I’ll never forget you, Manager Hwang.”

“Shut up.” You peer at Hyunjin, silently requesting an explanation. “Our captain is forcing us to help him look for a new team manager. We need one for playoffs because of some stupid U-League rule—Seung, why do you look morose?”

“I’m mourning.” Seungmin does look morose indeed. “Hyunjin committed larceny last year and our coach punished him by making him our team manager for the rest of the season. It was so funny.”

Hyunjin slides down his seat. “It was the worst experience of my life.”

Neither man seems inclined to elaborate on the mention of larceny. You choose to digress. “Can I ask why?”

“He had to be responsible,” Seungmin whispers. “For other people.”

The top of Hyunjin’s head stops right next to your armrest. You reach over and pat his hair in faux sympathy. “Poor thing.”

“Hardass refused to do it again this year, so now we’re recruiting.” Seungmin props an elbow upon the back of his chair, looks at you contemplatively. “I don’t suppose you have four hours to spare every day.”

Hyunjin scoffs from below you. Loudly. “This one? Team manager?”

“I can see it.”

“I can see killing myself, maybe.”

The next time you reach for him is to smack his forehead. A crisp smack resounds around the barren lecture hall, and Hyunjin cusses into his seat cushion.

“Seems like a great candidate to me,” Seungmin muses, and the warm smile he gives you mirrors onto your face before you can think better of it. God, it’s pretty. You wonder how it would feel pressed against your own.

Hyunjin is now completely out of sight and halfway onto the floor. “I miss when you didn’t come to class, Seungmin.”

Eighty minutes later, you’ve just emerged from the classroom when Seungmin calls out to you. You come to such a sudden halt that Hyunjin almost trips over you, but you barely notice him stumble, utterly enraptured by the hand Seungmin brings to the strands of hair by your ear, the fingers that dust your cheek as they pluck a small piece of lint from out of the tresses.

“Sorry.” He flicks it away with a sheepish smile. “I couldn’t unsee it.”

You manage to thank him just before your whole body ceases to function. Hyunjin sidesteps the two of you, yawning.

Seungmin excuses himself not too long after you reach the main quad. You also turn to leave, sparing Hyunjin a curt farewell in the process. He hooks his pointer finger around the handle at the top of your backpack and lugs you backwards with infuriating ease.

“I didn’t like that at all,” you say.

“I don’t care. I have something to tell you.”

“You have a kid, don’t you?”

“Wha—huh? Who do you think I am?”

“The one-night-stand’s poster child. The champion of the contraception industry.”

“Yeah, contraception industry. It’s right there in the name.”

You can’t argue with that. “What do you have to tell me?”

A shadow of hesitation flits across Hyunjin’s face. Your smile falters. Is it possible that you’re about to have a serious conversation with him for the first time? Maybe you should’ve saved the secret son bit for another time.

“I’m failing anthro.”

So much for a serious conversation.

“Come again?”

He repeats the mystifying statement.

“You’re joking.” The look on his face says otherwise, though, and your eyebrows disappear into your hair. “You’re failing anthro?”

“I just said that, yes.”

“You’re failing anthropology?”

“Mhm.”

“Just so we’re clear—you’re failing Introduction to Cultural Anthropology?”

“Yes. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

This is the best day of your life. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Yeah, well, our professor has no media literacy,” he mutters.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Hyunjin clears his throat. “Anyways, I was thinking—”

“Wow! Congratulations. That’s a big—oomf—”

Hyunjin puts his entire hand over your face. Your mangled noises of protest go unacknowledged.

“I was thinking,” he continues, pushing your head around like a stick shift, “you and I can work out some kind of deal.”

You shove his wrist off you with a revolted groan. “I think I just ate some athletic tape.”

“Happens. You wanna hear the deal or not?”

“Does it involve ingesting more sports equipment?”

“Do you want it to?”

“Just tell me the deal, boy.”

“Alright.” He takes a deep breath. “If you help me pass this class, I’ll set you up with Seungmin.”

Your head performs a triple-axel on your neck. You are unable to respond for what feels like multiple hours. Finally: “I’m gonna need you to elaborate.”

“On which part?”

“All of them. Everything.”

Hyunjin sighs, then scans the courtyard. His gaze settles on the student union a little ways off. “Are you hungry?”

You pick up a sandwich and a smoothie in a state of nervous stupor. One would think it’s the prime minister you’re about to have lunch with and not an imbecilic left-side hitter eating from three different entrees at the same time.

He’s chosen a table a few yards away from a planter of flowering cherry blossom trees. You feel jealous eyes on the side of your face as you take a seat across from Hyunjin, but they don’t know that his telephone pole legs still bump against yours even with them drawn as close to your body as anatomically possible. Or that he’s drawing up a literal Ponzi scheme on your sandwich wrapper. You wager you’ve had better company.

“You like anthropology. I like listening to you talk about anthropology.” He traces over the wrapper’s left corner. “And I kinda want you to boss me around. That weird?”

“Yes, definitely,” you mumble around a mouthful of bread. “Go on.”

“Conclusion one: you should be my tutor.” He taps in place as if applying a finishing touch, then swaps to the opposite side. “You also like my teammate, but he’s neck-deep in volleyball and music this semester, which makes him hard to get a hold of—for most people.”

“Let me guess. Not for you.”

“Ten points to Ravenclaw.” His British accent is nightmarish. “Seung and I live in the same building. We get dinner when we go back from practice together. Conclusion two: you should come with us.”

“To dinner or to practice?”

“To both. Which brings us to my third and final conclusion—”

He slams a fist onto the center of the wrapper.

“—you should manage our team.”

“I knew it!” You slam the table as well, your smoothie wobbling upon impact. “You’re trying to swindle me! You can’t pay for my labor with more labor. What do you take me for?”

“It’s not labor, dumbass! Ask our last manager! He didn’t do shit!”

“Yeah? Who was your last manager?”

“Me!”

Oh, right. “But you hated it!”

“I hate everything that isn’t playing volleyball. Try again.”

You fold your arms over your chest. “You said you’d kill yourself if I managed you.”

Hyunjin starts balling up your sandwich wrapper. “It’s true. I thought about you and my coach getting along and promptly got a rash. But it makes so much sense: you do whatever you want during practice, tutor me afterwards, and then you and Seung can eyefuck over ramen or something. My coach hops off my dick, you hop on Seung’s—”

“STOP!” A girl drops her receipt not too far away, startled by your outburst. “Stop right there. I get it. Stop.”

“It’s a good plan.” He slings the paper ball towards the nearest trash can. It drops into the hole without so much as a brush against the rim. “You know it is.”

You’re loath to admit that you do. “When did you even come up with all this?”

He flicks a thumb in the direction of your anthropology class. No fucking wonder he’s failing.

“What is this, mock trial?”

The owner of this voice is the third man you’ve seen today donning that navy windbreaker, white long-sleeve combo. He has a face that reminds you of your neighbor’s cat from back home, sleek and sharp and only slightly sinister. There’s a dash of humor in his expression as he approaches your table like he’s enjoying the company of a court jester.

“Slamming tables like fuckin’ tariff lawyers,” the cat-man hums, lifting a hand in Hyunjin’s direction. “I could see it from all the way inside.”

“Captain!” Hyunjin crows, dabbing him up without missing a beat. They really do that like breathing. “Just the man I was hoping to see.”

“Really? I thought you’d be avoiding me like the rest of our homunculus team.”

“I would never.”

“You did. Yesterday. When you saw me and started running in the opposite direction.” He pauses for emphasis. “As fast as possible.”

“Well, that was yesterday. Today is a new day.” Hyunjin tosses you a proud glance. “And today, I bring you a new team manager.”

You stiffen. “I haven’t—”

“Is that so!” When the stranger smiles at you, you feel the same satisfaction you did every time the cat let you scratch her on the chin. “Music to my ears. What’s your name, cutie?”

You catch Hyunjin’s eye across the table; he nods enthusiastically as if saying go on, then. You briefly picture yourself strangling him with his own athletic tape. You then picture yourself hopping on Seungmin’s—

Rigidly, you throw a hand out to the cat-man, your face aflame.

“Y/N,” you grumble. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

He shakes on it heartily. “Likewise. I’m Minho. Welcome to the team.”

“Yes, welcome to the team,” Hyunjin parrots, looking positively jolly. You gnash your teeth together so hard your jaw throbs.

He’s lucky that his proposal holds so much water. He’s lucky that you don’t plan to strangle him until after you try that eyefucking thing.

You do kick him under the table, though.

The team has five weeks to prepare for the Korean University League, the biggest college-level volleyball tournament in the country. You have five days to learn how the hell athletic tape works. You can’t tell which is the bigger endeavor.

“I’m going to cause him irreversible skeletal damage,” you tell Changbin.

The team’s libero is twice as kind as he is talented, a full-time sweetheart working part-time at the university’s sports medicine clinic. Only your first week on the job and you’ve already decided he’s the only person on Earth you would permit to usher you through the gym at 6:45 A.M., a roll of athletic tape pressed to your back like a pistol.

“You will not,” Changbin answers. “One, because this won’t involve his skeleton, and two, because I wouldn’t ask you to help if it did.”

“You’ve misunderstood me,” you return as the two of you stop in front of an examination room. “I want to cause him irreversible skeletal damage.”

“Oh.” He opens the door with a frown. “Oh dear.”

Inside, Hyunjin is sitting cross-legged on top of a taping table, fitted in a loose gray tee and athletic shorts. He watches in pessimistic silence as you enter the room and beeline straight towards the shelf on the right. You slip a thick binder into your hands and bury your nose inside it without so much as a greeting.

“I am going to get maimed,” Hyunjin tells Changbin.

“Have some faith, both of you,” Changbin replies sternly. You find the pages you’re looking for and begin poring over them like you’re cramming for an exam. “You’ll be fine, Jinnie. Y/N studied.”

“Studied?” He repeats. “For this?”

“I’m pretty sure Quizlets were made.”

“Three, to be exact," you interject, sticking out your hand. “Now tape me.”

Hyunjin mouths the words tape me in baffled silence. The latter obliges your request with a smile. “See? What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, actually, is a lot. Especially after Changbin gets called away to help stretch out a teammate named Felix who allegedly “sprained his ass,” leaving Hyunjin to you and your binder.

You detect no smoky rose in the air around him today, just the subtle smells of cedar and cypress—laundry detergent or shampoo, maybe. Figures he doesn’t wear that insufferable cologne to practice.

“Go easy on me, yeah?”

While Hyunjin’s tone is teasing, yours is downright somber.

“I can’t promise anything.”

With that, you turn your palms face-up in a silent request for his hand.

A few strands of hair fall into your face as you lean in for a better look. It’s the first time you’ve seen his fingers untaped; they’re pretty, long and slender and surprisingly manicured, but also battered in their delicacy, the veins running over the back of his hand and forearm prominent, his bottom knuckles discolored from the healing bruises they bear. His hard work is palpable upon the smooth skin as evidently as if tattooed.

Hyunjin says your name in close proximity. You respond with an absent hum.

“You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No. Maybe a little.” You let his hand fall free and go to rummage for supplies. “Fine, yes. Very.”

“But you made Quizlets. You’re prepared for anything.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” You realize only after spotting the gentle smile on his face that he’s making fun of you. “I hate you.”

“Actually,” he hums, “I think you care about me, love. That’s why you’re nervous.”

“Nonsense—I care about disappointing Changbin. That’s it.”

“And me. And hopping on Seungmin’s dick. All these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

You try to tackle him. Hyunjin catches your hands a few inches away from his face, fingers closing around your wrists with obnoxious agility.

“Have you lost your mind?” You whisper-shout, your face on fire. “Don’t bring that up here. I’ll maim you for real.”

The laugh that explodes out of him throws his entire body backwards, turns his eyes to crescent moons and his mouth into a little rectangle. You hate that you don’t hate when that happens.

“My bad, my bad. It slipped out. I won’t—”

One incremental shift of Hyunjin’s body later, you find that you’re precariously, alarmingly close to one another.

So much so that you notice the mole beneath his left eye for the first time, that you're nearly cross-eyed looking at it. That the tip of your nose actually brushes against his before you pull away with a quiet intake of breath.

Things are awkward between you often, you’ve realized recently. You’re both professional yappers, always quick to digress, quick to find a new topic to bicker about before the awkwardness marinates. But hours later you’ll look back on the interaction and still remember how the air shifted: like a layer of dust had been blown away and something untouched and unknown was discovered just underneath.

Since you’ve met him, Hyunjin has spent more time on your nerves than on your mind. You’re not exactly losing sleep over such a circumstantial acquaintance; you know that his presence in your life will end the way it began, naturally and anticlimactically and inside the ANTH 111 lecture hall. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed when your heart and stomach launch into an elaborate gymnastics routine in the wake of something he says or does, just as they’re doing now.

Hyunjin glances into your right eye a moment, then your left. The mole just below his left eye disappears when he smiles, the expression soft, saccharine, and sincere. How anyone casually looks the way he does is beyond your abilities of comprehension.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

Your face continues to burn, now perhaps for different reasons. “What for?”

He lets go of your wrist, sweeps the lock of hair that keeps getting in your eyes behind the cuff of your ear.

“Caring about me.”

Then he flicks your forehead. You recoil with a quiet ow.

“Now stop stalling and tape me, dumbass.”

“Okay,” you mutter, rubbing the injury tenderly. “No need to get violent.”

It turns out the arduous taping procedure described in the instruction manual is for serious hand injuries. Hyunjin splints his fingers together for support, not rehabilitation, so it takes all of five minutes for him to talk you through his process. You finish taping both of his hands with nineteen minutes to spare. So maybe the Quizlets were overkill.

As you’re walking him down to practice, you take his hand and lift it to eye level, scanning your craftsmanship dubiously. “It’s not too tight, is it?”

“It’s perfect.” He swivels the hand around and grabs onto your entire face, the sensation by now eerily familiar. “Want another taste?”

You shove him down the stairs that remain. Unfortunately, there are only two. “You are truly grotesque.”

The gym has come to life since you arrived earlier this morning, now illuminated by shining ceiling lights in addition to the sun spilling through high, narrow windows. Most of the team has yet to step onto the court, still stretching or jogging along the sidelines: Minho and Coach Bang are talking strategy on the bench, the coach taking notes on a handheld whiteboard every now and then; Changbin is leaning over a recumbent Felix below the scoreboard, presumably trying to fix his ass.

The only one already with a ball in hand is Seungmin, setting to himself by the net. Once, twice, thrice straight up in the air, and then he glances in your direction and sends the fourth towards the left side of the court in a buoyant arc.

You only glean bits and pieces of the next few seconds. Hyunjin is at your side one moment, making a break for the net the next. His arms draw backwards in perfect synchrony. Feet hit the floor with laserlike intent. His entire body unravels like a fraying chrysalis as he rises to meet the ball, pounds it over the net and into the ground at an angle so clean that the sound of its landing resounds within your ribcage. It rebounds over the railing of the second floor and barely misses the doorway of the examination room you just emerged from.

Hyunjin drops lightly back onto his feet, following the ball’s tumultuous trajectory with proud eyes. A leftover breeze tosses a strand of hair over the bridge of your nose, and time starts moving again.

“Oi, this isn’t your backyard! Go pick that up!” Their coach booms, though his words lack their usual bitterness after what he just witnessed his ace hitter do.

Hyunjin swivels towards Seungmin first. “Crazy bitch. What the fuck was that?”

“Lower and faster. Further from the net too,” Seungmin returns. “How’d it feel?”

The grin on Hyunjin’s face reminds you of a wildfire, untamed and all-consuming and frightening in its fervor. “Like we just won everything.”

He tousles your hair as he jogs past you and back up the stairs to fetch the volleyball. Seungmin waves at you with one hand and palms another ball into his other. His face is warm and bare, his slim build flattered by his volleyball gear. You’ve witnessed few people so nice to look at and even fewer things as elegant as his setting form. But you are still thinking about Hyunjin—and you can’t move.

It is debilitating, watching somebody do the very thing they were destined for.

A little less than a week later, Hyunjin is approaching hour three of spewing hot garbage into a Word document when he decides to give up and call you.

“Hello?” He immediately starts laughing. “Where the fuck are you?”

You poke the top of your head into the shot of your ceiling, gesturing to your headband. “My face is preoccupied at the moment.”

“Oh, you have to show me. Please.”

You flip your phone up for no more than half a second. A camera shutter goes off, followed by a shriek so loud that it peaks your mic.

“Motherfucker!”

He basically sprints to his camera roll. His prize: you with your face slathered in cleanser, hair pinned back by a Miffy headband, looking like the abominable snowman if he liked cute merchandise.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I’ll treasure this forever.”

“You’ll be punished, Hwang.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

You brandish your middle finger at him in response. He props his phone up against his computer screen with a chuckle.

“Aaanyways, I have a thesis statement to run by you.”

The first thing you did as Hyunjin’s tutor was help draft an email to Professor Kim, begging her to let him resubmit the two essays he royally botched. She replied with a lengthy quotation from her syllabus, specifically the section that talked about (and prohibited) resubmissions, but ended up making an exception for Hyunjin on account of the “truly piteous timbre” of his email. You fell out of your chair laughing when he read you her response.

“You should’ve opened with that.”

“I tried, hello? Someone distracted me!”

“Read. It. Before I change my mind.”

You spend a few minutes at most on the thesis itself, advising him to avoid passive voice, answer the prompt, establish a refutable argument, the works. Then he asks you a question about the research topic itself, allusions to the afterlife in Ancient Egyptian artwork, and the tutoring session takes a turn into what feels like a podcast episode.

You talk about the God of Death, Anubis, and his connections to the underworld; the elaborate, lavish funerary rituals intended to ensure the souls of the dead traveled safely; the vibrant murals that flanked their final resting spots as pictorial requests for divine protection. And you talk about them all with such confidence, such eloquence, that it’s as if you’re leading him through a history museum rather than talking to your phone as you do your skincare. He could listen to you for hours. He does, actually.

Around 1 A.M., Hyunjin stops typing mid-sentence when you come into frame for the first time, collapsing into your bed with a sigh of relief. Your eyes are soft and sleepy as they blink at your screen, strands of damp hair clinging to your cheeks. He feels his heart physically shift inside his ribcage when your mouth stretches into a yawn. It is the same sensation as the time you shot him a smile over your shoulder and he couldn’t move for ten minutes.

With that, his attention span has run its course.

“Baby,” he interrupts gently. “Let’s stop here, okay? You seem tired.”

You open your mouth as if to protest, only to yawn again.

“I suppose I am. Will you keep working tonight?”

“I think so. I hit my stride.”

“Text me if you have questions, then. I’ll respond when I wake up.”

“Okay.”

Your lips curve into the smallest of smiles. It copies onto Hyunjin’s face incurably quickly.

“I had my doubts about this tutoring thing, you know.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, you told me this class was the closest thing to daily naptime you’d experienced since preschool.”

“It really is.”

“You also told me you would rather slam your tongue in a car door than read more than three sentences in one sitting.”

“I really would.”

“And you once referred to academia as ‘Virgin Village.’”

“Didn’t you come up with that?”

“No, hello? I live in that village.”

He grins. “I know. I just wanted to hear you admit it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, don’t threaten me with a good—”

“What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t think you would take this seriously, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

Hyunjin leans back. “Well, turns out I might give a fuck about anthropology after all.”

“Really?”

“No.”

You pretend to punch him through the screen. It’s so cute that he forgets to think before he opens his mouth next.

“But I do give a fuck about you.”

There’s nothing crazy about the statement. You’re friends, sort of. You manage his team. It would be strange if he didn’t. But the seconds that follow are terrible, a silent prophecy of something disastrous, like a cloud of rubble before an avalanche, the standstill during a star’s final breath. And Hyunjin’s heartbeat is hounding against his ears like a performance of traditional taiko.

He says good night in a haste. The call ends. He stares at the wall of his bedroom in a muddled haze for who knows how long.

Then he opens his texts.

Hyunjin: We have team bonding tomorrow btw Hyunjin: Don’t forget Y/N: i forgot. Y/N: pick me up at 6:45? Hyunjin: 🫡

He picks you up at 7:53.

You approach his car with your fists balled and your eyebrows knitted together like a mean old curmudgeon and he’s walking too close to your lawn.

“His fault,” Hyunjin says before you start yelling.

Minho simpers at you through his open window. “Hey, you! So glad you could join us!”

You fix the man with a judgmental glare as you slide into the backseat. “Aren’t you the captain? Why are you this late?”

“Whoa, okay. I would’ve scheduled this for earlier if I knew right now was honesty hour.”

“You did schedule it for earlier,” you say. “You scheduled it for way earlier.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fired.”

“You can’t fire me, Minho.”

“I can too. Tell ‘em, Hwang.”

“I want nothing to do with this.”

When you step through the doors of the arcade, you’re met with a surge of sensory input that you haven’t experienced in years. The air hangs thick with the smells of greasy concessions; everywhere you look are flashing screens and neon signs, stuffed animals and fading posters; clamoring against your ears are the sounds of games being won or lost, of balls being pocketed or launched, and of a horde of fully grown men spectating a match of Dance Dance Revolution so passionately (and loudly) that they’ve scared everyone away from that side of the room. You recognize the current competitors as Changbin and Jeongin.

“I’ll go pay,” Hyunjin says. “How much time do we want?”

“Infinity,” Minho answers. Hyunjin doesn’t move. “Two hours.”

He flashes him a thumbs-up. “And you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“No you’re not,” the two men answer in perfect unison.

You glance between them warily. “I don’t mind watching, seriously. I don’t even know how most of these games work—”

“There’s Tetris,” Hyunjin cuts in.

You purchase an hour.

One would imagine the point of the evening is to break the SNU men’s volleyball team, not to bond them. You’ve never seen so many strained blood vessels in your life. Nor have you heard of half the insults they spew at each other as the night goes on. Felix has to pay a fee for lodging an air hockey puck in the side of the MarioKart machine. Changbin loses at skee-ball and has to down an XL slushie like it’s a shot. It’s a scary amount of boyishness expressed in scary ways.

But they’re happy. You’ve picked up on it when they’re on the court, noticed the raw elation they emanate just from playing together. Yet, their closeness has never been more evident to you than tonight. The men are either laughing or making someone else laugh, arms draped over each other at all times, equally happy to celebrate victories as they’re eager to punish losses. It dawns on you at some point that you’re glad to be here with them, grateful to be a part of something so special—especially because there’s Tetris.

“Have you ever considered going pro?” Hyunjin asks over your shoulder.

You waited until most of the team was distracted to slink off to your beloved machine. Hyunjin tagged along, undoubtedly with the intention of making fun of you, only to be rendered speechless by your mastery. He’s been watching in a state of stupor, forearms propped against the back of your chair.

You don’t respond for a while, too focused on a precarious patch to even blink, let alone partake in conversation.

“I already did,” you finally answer.

“Sorry, what? You played professional Tetris?”

“In middle school. Then I got bored and switched to backgammon.” You pause. “Then I got bored again and switched to chess.”

“How do you look like this with these hobbies?”

Your run ends a few minutes later with a somber sound effect. You turn around in your seat with an anguished groan. “I think I’m washed.”

He looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. “You just set a new record by three hundred thousand points.”

“It’s a small pond,” you say, and an idea occurs to you. “Do you wanna try?”

“I get the feeling I don’t have a choice.”

“Then you’re smarter than you look.”

“Well, you look—”

His eyes move between your shoes and your face, and then his voice is an inaudible mutter as he sinks into your seat. You think you hear something along the lines of unfair.

“What was that?”

“Ugly. I said you look ugly.” He cracks his knuckles. “Now let’s break some fuckin' blocks.”

When Hyunjin learns that the pieces can be rotated (so six or seven attempts later), a man walks into the arcade.

He has hair the color of dark chocolate, the face of a fairy prince—and he’s with someone. The two of them appear arm in arm, laughing at something he said. He looks at this person the way astronomers do to the sky.

Something shatters inside you like old porcelain.

Your hands loosen around the back of Hyunjin’s chair. You can’t watch. You can’t think. You can only feel a void of disappointment rip open, stretch over you like an elongating shadow.

“Seung!” That’s Jisung, you think. “You made it!”

“Yo, sorry we’re late.” That’s Seungmin. That is undoubtedly Seungmin. “Dinner took longer than I thought.”

“Min, are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” You don’t know who this voice belongs to and you’re not sure you want to. “I feel like I’m intruding—”

“Hwang,” you say suddenly. “I have to go.”

He turns around, confused. An unattended block falls into a terrible spot on the screen behind him. ”Already?”

“I forgot I had an important call to make.” You turn away, training your eyes on the patterned carpet. “Sorry. I’ll see you around.”

You have touched Hyunjin’s hands many times. He’s asked you to tape his fingers every day since the first; he likes the way you cut off his circulation, says it helps him hit harder. But you never hold his hand so much as you examine it, the act stiff and unfeeling, cordoned within the professional pretense of athletic treatment.

Now, Hyunjin catches your hand like a gardener repotting their favorite flower: delicately, careful of leaving its roots intact and petals untouched, but firmly, securely, so the flower continues to stand tall even when it’s been extracted from the soil, not even a speck of dirt slipping through the cracks between their fingers. That is the image you conjure when he slips his between yours, his metal rings cold where his fingertips are warm.

He says your name. There is a pinch of pain in the word, and you know that he knows.

“Do you want to be alone?”

You have never been asked such a thing—you have never asked to be asked such a thing—but, for some reason, the question brings tears to your eyes.

“Yes, please,” you whisper, and you pull your hand away.

When you stalk past him, you hear Jisung notice you, call out to you, a note of worry in his question. You also count three pairs of eyes on your back: one concerned, the next confused, and the last you are wholly incapable of meeting.

Unknown to you is the fourth pair fixed upon the top of the Tetris machine, where you’ve left your phone.

You emerge into the parking lot. The frigid air stills your mind for a fraction of a second, the last moment of mental quietude you will allow yourself that night.

Hyunjin’s right; the team manager doesn’t have to do much.

Coach Bang allows you to come to whichever practices and games you feel like, during which you might at most lug around a ballbag or fill someone’s waterbottle before holing up somewhere to do your own thing. But you like the people you work for too much to do so little for them, so you attend everything your schedule allows.

Last week, you could be found helping Minho put up the volleyball nets before practice, your laughter echoing throughout the spacious gym as he complained to you about his biochemistry professor’s distinct “cabbage scent.” Or running to grab materials for Changbin as he treated his teammates’ injuries like you were assisting an orthodontist giving someone a root canal. The dinner invitations you extended to Seungmin were always turned down, but his teammates were more than happy to assist you and Hyunjin in your quest to establish the best kimbap joint in the area once and for all. You even had a heart-to-heart with Coach Bang during one of the team’s water breaks, in which you managed to get half a smile out of the guy; Hyunjin was convinced that was his way of asking you to elope. You spent more time in the gymnasium those ten days than you had your entire college career.

Then came the arcade.

Five days have come and gone. You haven’t attended practice since, but you still see Hyunjin every morning at anthropology. The two of you sit in uncharacteristic silence for most of the lectures. You’ve taken the best notes of your life. He doesn’t mention the previous weekend; he doesn’t mention much of anything.

In person, that is.

That Friday afternoon, you’re reading on the terrace of the library when you receive a text. It’s from Hyunjin, a two-minute voice note. You hesitate for a moment, stick a pencil into the gutter of your textbook to save your place, and slip your earbuds in. You listen to it.

Then you listen to it again.

And again as you wrap up your study session and go home. Again as you cook yourself dinner and load the dishwasher. Again as you shrug on a jacket and pocket your keys, setting off on the familiar trek to the gym.

As for what you plan to do there on a Friday night, long after the team has finished practice, you haven’t the slightest clue. You continue to move regardless, fueled by the feeling that there is where you need to be.

Coach Bang is leaving the building just as you’re approaching it. He halts in his footsteps and raises his eyebrows when he notices you. The man has always been difficult to read, but his face is exceptionally opaque now. Maybe it’s the shadowy landscape; more likely it’s the uneasiness that began to mount within you once you noticed the lights in the gym were still on.

“It’s been a while,” he greets.

“Coach,” you return, lowering your head. “I want to apologize for—”

“Save it,” he says, not unkindly. “There’s nothing to apologize for, alright? The team is lucky to have you.”

You manage a grateful smile. “I’ll be back starting next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He starts to walk away, stops himself, and glances into the illuminated building. “I would give him some space, by the way.”

Your uneasiness morphs into anxiety as you watch his broad back retreat into the shadows. You remain outside the gym for a few minutes more, accompanied by the distant melodies of cricket chorales and the muffled squeaking of shoes against laminated hardwood, the harsh sounds of flesh meeting leather.

Briskly, you walk home, rummage around, and return to the gym ten minutes later with your textbook tucked beneath your arm. This time, you unlock and enter the building without a moment of hesitation.

Hyunjin is positioned multiple yards behind the service line, rotating a volleyball in his hands. A high toss, two resounding steps, and a collision like the crack of a whip. The previous ball has barely landed in the furthest corner of the court when he’s picking up the next, retreating to the same spot to do it all again. His tank top is the color of charcoal over his sweaty skin, his hair auburn where it’s plastered to his neck. He’s alone.

You only catch sight of Hyunjin’s face when you descend the stairs. His expression is crystalline, hardened with concentration and fortified by courage, but fragile all at once, rendered delicate by fatigue and fear, spilling from his every seam and splintering off his person like a broken vase. You recognize it as clearly as if you were looking at a picture of yourself from the worst years of your life.

“I was told to give you space,” you call out, and Hyunjin drops the volleyball he’s holding.

His lips fall apart. Nothing comes out of them. The only sounds to follow are your footsteps as you make your way towards the bleachers, a vertical wall of plastic now that they’ve been retracted for the night. You fold your legs into a criss-cross as you take a seat at their base.

“Is this enough space?”

More silence. You gesture to the volleyball nervously.

“Don’t make me go further, please. I’m not ready to die.”

Finally, this earns you a smile. It’s not much, but it loosens the nervous coils in your heart, permits your lungs to contract once more, and it remains on his face as he swipes the ball back into his hands. You open your textbook.

The rest of the night elapses in turning pages and soaring volleyballs. You don’t care for minutes or hours; you give him all the time in the world, as he did you.

The only time you glance at the clock on the wall is around midnight, when Hyunjin hobbles to the middle of the court and collapses. You’re worried at first. Then he rolls onto his back and releases a guttural groan into his hands, and your held breath comes out a laugh. You set down your book and stand up.

There’s a lake of perspiration forming around him. You pay it no mind and flop onto the floor, your eyes instantly narrowing beneath the fluorescent lights.

“How do you see under these things?”

“I don’t,” he returns. “I complained about it to Coach once.”

“And?”

“He made them brighter.” Sounds about right.

Hyunjin spends the next few minutes catching his breath, his chest rising and falling in your peripheral vision. You sift through your mind for phrases of consolation or gestures of support and come up empty. You wish you had Hyunjin’s way with words.

But you think about the way his smile reached his eyes as he thanked you for caring about him, the tenderness with which he caught your hand at the arcade, the I give a fuck about you he blurted before ending the study call. You think about the voice note. It’s not that Hyunjin has a way with words; it’s that he’s brave enough to break the silences that you can’t, like he perceives your anxiety for the aftermath, shouldering the responsibility so you won’t have to.

This cannot be his burden alone.

You inhale. “What’s on your mind?”

Hyunjin doesn’t answer right away. You give up on squinting and close your eyes. The lights are still bright enough to dance around the murky darkness.

“I don’t think I know how to put it into words.”

You nearly laugh; you know how that feels. “Don’t think, just talk. I’m here.”

The same advice you gave yourself seems to work on him as well.

“Do you remember Ishikawa Yuki?”

His role model.

“He’s currently playing for a club team in Italy called Allianz Milano.” He blows out a deep breath. “I’ve been talking to their coach, Roberto Piazza, for the last six months.”

The gears in your head creak in their effort to process the implications of these words. “Holy shit, Hwang.”

“He emailed again, this morning. Said he was coming to the tournament later this month, he’s excited to see me play in person, whatever. And it hit me, finally, that this is all real. Like, this is actually happening to me. I spent all of today freaking out and asked Coach to let me stay back after practice. Usually, it wears out my brain if I tire my body, but it only half-worked today. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything. I still can’t.

“I am who I am because of that man, and now…I have a shot at playing with him. I keep asking myself why I’m not—not happier. I should be bouncing off the fucking walls, no? If I told my past self that this would be happening to him one day, he—he would—”

You open your eyes, confused by the sudden silence.

Hyunjin is sitting up next to you, staring intensely into the bleachers. You first notice the tip of his tongue prodding into his cheek, then his shuddering breath. He lifts a hand to his face, pressing against his eyes.

You stop thinking after that.

You sit up with him. When you settle your fingers around his wrist, he allows you to pull his hand back to his side. But he turns away as if trying to hide from you; he squeezes his eyes shut as if that would obstruct your view of his pain.

You reach to cradle his face, bringing him back to you. The cuff of your sleeves wipe at the saltwater on his cheeks, push the hair off his forehead with gentle sweeps. The two of you are close, close enough that your lips would meet the space between his eyes if you so much as lost your balance. His gaze traverses to your face, but you resolve not to meet it. You know you will traipse into uncharted territory the moment you do.

“Don’t fight it.” You trace over the hill of his cheek. “Healing becomes easier if you let yourself hurt. Trust me, Hyunjin.”

His first name should feel foreign on your tongue, yet you suspect the syllables have accompanied you all your life.

“You don’t have to continue if you can’t.”

“S’okay.” Hyunjin lifts your hand away from his face, presses a kiss to the base of your palm. “I want to.”

You feel yourself stumble ungracefully into the uncharted territory from before; does he do the same?

“I used to play volleyball on this expanse of cracked blacktop, behind my primary school. It was pretty brutal on my feet—I blew through so many different pairs of sneakers my mom almost made me quit.” He smiles at the memory. “But every time I came close to quitting, I’d go home and rewatch the same USA vs. Poland match from the 2008 Summer Olympics I asked my dad to record, and I’d promise myself it would be me on some other kid’s screen someday.

“That kid would tell everyone who’d listen about how cool I am. That I’m a secret superhero. That I’m living proof humans can fly if they really, really try—just like I talked about the volleyball players I grew up watching on my TV.

“The other day, Coach told me that hope would consume me. I thought it was just some senile drivel at the time, but..I think I get what he means now. I would do anything and everything to make that kid proud—even if it meant losing myself.” He lowers his head, auburn strands falling into his eyes. “That’s what’s on my mind.”

Amidst the ensuing pause, a storm approaches. It does not come in the form of rain or snow, sleet or hail, no; it is a gathering of words unsaid and emotions unacknowledged, all emerging from the deepest chambers of your heart in synchrony. The same entities you used to scapegoat for all the times things were awkward between you and Hyunjin when you were the culprit all along. You and your blind cowardice.

The storm tears open the seam of your lips. You do not resist; it’s long overdue.

“Every time Changbin sees you, he turns into a smitten schoolgirl,” you say. “He is physically unable to contain how endearing he finds you. He told me so himself.”

Hyunjin looks at you with widened eyes. You think you can see your own reflection in them, and you are the spitting image of a lighter dropped into gasoline, unstoppable in your vehemence.

“Jeongin comes to you for advice before anyone else,” you continue, “even for things related to school—which I still find hard to believe, I’m not gonna lie. But you have his best interests in mind, and it shows in everything you do for him. Of course your opinion matters more than anything in the world.

“I know you think he can’t stand you, but you are the reason Coach Bang loves this job, why he loves this sport. It’s written all over his face every time he calls you something mean, every time he makes you run another lap, every time he looks at you. You’re like a son to him. Everyone sees it but you.”

“Then there’s me.” You pause to catch your breath. “When I think about what my life used to be, I remember a lot of things. I remember loneliness. Insecurity. I remember my books and my backgammon boards and the way I taught myself to disappear inside them so the world would never find me. I remember avoiding mirrors like a vampire because I didn’t like seeing my own reflection. I remember feeling like I had to put on someone else’s personality every time I left the house because nobody would want to know me for me. All I ever wanted was a place where I could be myself, love myself, without consequence. I have yet to find that place.

“But I found a person. Someone who wouldn’t know time and place if they kicked his dick into his body. Someone who thinks instant ramen is high in nutritional value because it comes with dried vegetables. Someone who sweats the same amount of rain the Sahara Desert receives yearly—your body is not normal, by the way.”

Hyunjin giggles; it is soft and short, a small, tearful huff into the quiet air that makes you feel like you’re flying.

“Don’t get me wrong,” you say. “Your sense of humor sucks and your taste in coffee is so boring and you are the one with no media literacy, not Professor Kim. But I love spending time with you. I love who I am when I’m around you. And none of that has to do with volleyball.”

The next time you blink, you discover that he’s not the only one with tears in his eyes. How long has that been going on?

“There’s so much about you to be proud of, Hyunjin.” You give him a watery smile. “That kid will be spoiled for choice.”

When Hyunjin pulls you into his arms, you fall into each other like going to bed after a long day. Your face burrows into the crook of his neck in your embarrassment; he is laughing and crying at the same time when he mumbles something into your shoulder: “I knew you cared about me.”

You are so happy for the comedic relief you could sob. It helps that you already are.

“How the fuck are you still sweaty?” You choke out, and you think you like his cologne after all.

Six days later, Hyunjin opens the door of his apartment.

A fun-sized flurry of black and white barrages into the hallway outside and almost runs headfirst into the figure waiting there. You fall to your knees like you’ve just been gravely wounded, emitting an ear-piercing wail to match. All it takes is a few good head scratches for Kkami to stop yipping bloody murder and start whining for attention instead.

Upon minute five of watching you and his dog cuddle in the hallway directly outside his home, Hyunjin sighs.

“Can you come inside, please? My RA will think I’m doing some freaky shit again.”

You side-eye him as you walk into his apartment, Kkami perched happily in your arms. “What, exactly, does freaky shit entail?”

He smirks as the door falls shut. “You want me to tell you or show you?”

You turn to Kkami, disgusted. “Your owner’s a bit of a pervert, my dear.”

Kkami licks you on the chin. Hyunjin’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Traitor.”

Naturally, Hyunjin’s parents chose the eve of his final anthropology exam—and the week before the tournament that will determine the trajectory of his career—to ask him to look after Kkami for a few days. He nearly canceled their plane tickets himself, but his impromptu roommate is currently ransacking your face with kisses on his couch, and he thinks your laugh complements his studio better than any decoration.

“Do you want anything to drink?” He calls from the kitchen area.

You meander over, Kkami (still) perched happily in your arms. “What do you have?”

“Alcohol.” He opens his fridge far enough so you can peer over his shoulder. “Americanos.”

He stops speaking.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Wait—and apple juice.”

“You are about to be a professional athlete.”

“What the Italians don’t know won’t hurt them. You want apple juice, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

“Maybe. Can you open it for me? My hands are full.”

Hyunjin does so with far less reluctance than he feigns. You thank him jubilantly, popping the straw into your mouth.

“Let’s get this over with.”

At 10:32 P.M., all is calm. You are sitting on the floor, your back against the side of his mattress. Hyunjin is where the universe intended: curled up in bed, both him and his laptop lying on their sides. You have studied eight out of ten units in only two and a half hours, and the night is still young. Kkami is but a fluffy, sleepy Oreo by your waist.

At 10:33 P.M., the Oreo begins to retch.

You startle a foot into the air. Hyunjin is out of bed and on his feet in the blink of an eye, the very image of a dog dad on duty. He grabs three different things off the kitchen counter with one hand and scoops up the long-haired chihuahua with the other, and then he’s kicking open the door.

Seungmin appears out of thin air carrying two heaping bags of groceries. Hyunjin nearly knocks him and a month’s worth of fresh produce down four flights of stairs.

“Hyun—Kkami?” Seungmin swivels. “Yo, what the fuck is—”

Hyunjin is already out the door.

A few minutes later, Hyunjin squats off to the side, pouring fresh water into a portable dog bowl. A little ways away, Kkami is throwing up ebulliently; a set of footsteps approaches.

“What is this thing?” Seungmin squats down next to Hyunjin, picking up the piece of patterned fabric lying on the grass.

“Kkami gets sad after throwing up,” he sighs. “His blanket makes him feel better.”

Seungmin watches the chihuahua for a few moments, a soft flinch crimping his features. “He ate too fast again?”

Hyunjin rakes a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Nobody’s gonna take his food from him.”

Seungmin laughs. “I didn’t even know he was on campus.”

“I picked him up last night. My parents are traveling for work—they say hi, by the way.”

“I say hi back. I miss your mom’s cooking.”

“Me too,” Hyunjin says, smiling. “She would love to cook for you again—she’s always saying you’re too skinny.”

“She really is.”

A beat passes; it is then that Hyunjin has an epiphany.

Seungmin was the one who put a volleyball in his hands for the first time. Back then, Hyunjin was the lesser troublemaker between the two of them—a concept that neither of them can wrap their heads around to this day. Seungmin suggested they use the clotheslines in Hyunjin’s backyard as a makeshift net, despite Hyunjin’s dissuading; half of Hyunjin’s father’s wardrobe caught on fire, Seungmin had a black eye for a week, and nobody knows what happened to that volleyball. The two of them have been attached at the hip ever since.

It is a crazy thing, having your best friend as a teammate; a singular flick of the wrist or a point of his shoe and Seungmin will know exactly Hyunjin wants the ball down to the net’s fraying fibers; Hyunjin will be exactly where Seungmin needs him down to the flecks of paint on the volleyball court. Hyunjin has always been Seungmin’s hitter—Seungmin, always Hyunjin’s setter. Nothing will ever change between them so long as that remains the case.

At least, that’s what Hyunjin used to think.

Learning that Seungmin was in a relationship was as much a wake-up call for Hyunjin as it was for you. At first, he was just fucking pissed; how could Seungmin be so stupid as to turn down someone like you, especially when Hyunjin had shot his mouth off about his wingman services? More importantly, how long had his best friend of eighteen years been in love, and why was he the last to know?

Only now, as they wait for his nine-year-old chihuahua to finish barfing, does Hyunjin realize that he can’t remember the last time he and Seungmin talked. Not “talked” as in a brief exchange inside the locker room or the lecture hall, about a new approach he wants to try or what Seungmin got on number four or if he wants a ride to practice—“talked” as in talked, about Hyunjin, about Seungmin, about the eighteen years they shared, about all the years yet to come.

Hyunjin sees his setter every day; he stopped looking for his friend a long time ago.

“Yeonwoo, right?”

He senses surprise in Seungmin without having to look at him. But he also senses a smile, a subtle show that Seungmin recognizes what he’s trying to do—and forgives him.

“Yeonwoo,” Seungmin affirms. “We’re in the same songwriting intensive this semester.”

“Also a singer?”

He shakes his head. “Piano player. Performed at the Carnegie Hall in the United States at, like, seven years old. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so talented.”

“Wow, that’s—hi, old man. You done?”

Kkami walks over with his head hung low and tail between his legs, and Hyunjin hurries to drape the pup in his favorite blanket, pulling the bowl of water in front of him in tandem. Seungmin runs a hand over the top of Kkami’s head as he hydrates.

“You’ve suffered,” he tells him solemnly, and Hyunjin snorts.

“As I was saying—that’s crazy to hear, coming from the most talented person I know. You guys looked so good together.”

“Thanks. It’s weird. I’m happy.”

“You deserve it. You really do, Kim.” They exchange smiles, and Hyunjin gives Seungmin a playful nudge. “When are you introducing us?”

“The arcade wasn’t enough?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“Whenever you want, then.”

“Dinner with my mom, dinner with Yeonwoo,” Hyunjin recounts. “I’m holding you to it.”

“Bet.”

They shake on it. If Hyunjin wasn’t already reassured by Seungmin’s smile, he knows by his clasp around his hand that they’ll be okay.

“What about you?” Seungmin asks. “Are you together yet?”

Hyunjin knew this was coming. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” Seungmin strings his hands together, letting them dangle in the space between his knees. “Someone you have questions for that you’re too scared to ask. Someone who’s lived in your mind since the day you met. There’s someone like that, isn’t there?”

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek.

Ever since that night on the gym floor, Hyunjin’s been having these dreams. By the time his alarm goes off in the morning, every detail of the dream has eluded him, leaving behind only a ghost of emotion, akin to the breeze that grazes your face moments after walking past another person.

But then he’ll get out of bed, and walk to that café on the east side of campus, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. There, he’ll order a vanilla latte with extra sweetener, then turn around to see you standing five feet away, holding an Americano and trying not to laugh. And he’ll just know, with everything in him, that you are where his head goes when he’s not keeping watch.

He still addresses you by the pet names you hate. He still finds any excuse to be close to you; he still pesters you like a child with a crush. But now, he calls you his baby like one wishes on a star; his eyes drift to your lips every time you’re within two feet of each other; he makes fun of your likes and dislikes only because he’s happy to know about them at all. Ever since that night on the gym floor.

It’s impossible for nothing and everything to change at once. Two people teetering on the precipice of something cannot withstand a gust of wind so powerful. He’s already hanging off the ledge, losing his grip; where are you?

Next to him, Seungmin lets out a soft laugh. “There is.”

Hyunjin doesn’t know what to say.

“It might’ve been me, at some point,” he hums, returning his hand to scratch the back of Kkami’s ears. “But it has always been you, Hyun.”

Four floors above them and inside Hyunjin’s place, you are pacing between his fridge and his bed, nervously awaiting his and Kkami’s return.

Something catches your eye, wide and flat and hung on the wall by his bathroom door. You approach it curiously, your lips pulling into a fond smile the moment you realize all that’s in front of you.

Many of the photographs are of Hyunjin: him in his preteens, dead asleep in bed while dressed head to toe in volleyball gear, braces visible because his mouth is open; an action shot taken at what must’ve been a U21 match, the South Korean flag stitched into the shoulder of his jersey; him with half a birthday cake in front of him and the rest smeared all over his face. There are headlines, too: Underdog team earns district’s first high school volleyball state title; Hwang Hyunjin proves himself worthy of “ace spiker” label at South Korea V. Croatia U19 match; Coach Bang “Christopher” Chan leads Seoul National University to second consecutive KUL championship. There’s one—Who is Hwang Hyunjin? Meet the twenty-year-old instigant of South Korea’s imminent volleyball revolution—beside which he’s written the singular word “mouthful.” You laugh; you agree.

But pinned to the corkboard is also a photograph of Minho, surrounded by stray cats in the alleyway outside a K-BBQ restaurant; his parents cradling Kkami in an apple costume; his high school volleyball team silhouetted against a pretty sunset. Him and Seungmin as kids, covered in grime and scrapes but beaming nonetheless; him and Seungmin at age nineteen, stadium lights on their backs, unadulterated elation on their faces as they charge towards each other, beaming still. Changbin piggybacking Felix through the hallways of the gym, neither of them wearing a shirt; Jisung offering Coach Bang a beer while the latter looks direly unamused (you make a mental note to ask about that one later); what looks like a Rock Lee cosplayer grimacing in the middle of your anthropology classroom.

You rush forward as if decreed by gravitational force. Not too far away is another picture of you, in which you boast a Miffy headband and a face full of foaming cleanser. Then another, your eyes narrowed like that of a sniper taking aim as you’re playing Tetris; you with so many volleyballs piled into your arms that you can’t see your own face; your cheeks squished by a bandaged hand after you lost a bet about pandas (they can swim); you clutching your stomach on the library floor, brought to hysterical tears by Professor Kim’s email. You, you, you.

You bring your pointer finger to this last image, tracing it over the curve of your own cheek. You see a dimple on your face you didn’t know you had. You realize it only comes out for him.

It has always been him.

The front door opens. A man with telephone poles for legs and a long-haired chihuahua in his arms appears behind it. You sense in him that something has changed since you last saw each other. The two of you lock eyes.

It’s not awkward this time.

Multiple yards behind the service line, Hyunjin is rotating a volleyball in his hands. It feels solid and sentient, an extension of himself held in cotton-clad fingers. He knows how this story will end.

He moves his eyes to his best friend’s back. Four fingers flash back at him twice, signaling a high lob set to the left, the very play they’ve practiced tirelessly for the last five weeks. The breath Hyunjin blows out of his cheeks seems to crystallize in the air, almost solid in all its exhilaration.

He bends low and throws high. His arms drop behind his body like a spread of feathered wings; his feet fall into place below him like a meteor shower, two consecutive strikes against the earth that fissure its mantle. The lights overhead are bright. His palm pulls taut when it slams into leather. He knows how this story will end.

The volleyball tears towards the ground. It trembles as if scared by all that it holds: the guarantee of a flawless denouement, the catalyst of a radiant future. Hyunjin’s heart is beating hard enough to crack his ribs when he lands back on the ground, when the volleyball lands in the furthest corner of the court. He’s not scared at all.

He balls his fingers into fists.

“JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, BACK TO BACK ON AN ACE—”

An arm seizes Hyunjin’s neck; another drags him onto the floor. His head thuds onto the hardwood with a sound he hears over the whole world detonating. His vision fills with the faces of the people he cares for most, some covered in tears and others rivaling the ceiling with their blinding smiles. He can’t feel most of his body; his sweat drips into his mouth. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

“—DEFENDING THEIR TITLE FOR THE THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR—”

His eyes find Seungmin’s among the fray. Their hands clap together with such force that Hyunjin cusses at the impact. Seungmin’s gaze burns into his with a ferocity that Hyunjin plans to take to his grave. His setter. His best friend.

He says something inaudible, but Hyunjin reads the words off his lips, and his eyes fill with tears: we win everything.

“—YOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONS: SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY!”

Hyunjin’s post-game interview is a lawless affair. He is allowed at most half an answer before a new teammate is barreling over with an animalistic screech or a new friend is screaming congratulations from out of frame.

The reporter is visibly agitated by her final question, unpursing her lips to ask: “Is there anyone you’d like to thank?”

Hyunjin exhales. “You want the short answer or the long—”

Changbin seizes him by the head. Hyunjin bursts into a peal of high-pitched laughter as the libero litters kisses all over his face, nearly crumpling to the floor in his attempt to escape.

“Love you,” he yells before hurrying off.

“Love you too, Bin.”

Hyunjin turns a sheepish smile to the reporter.

“The short answer,” she deadpans.

He starts counting off his fingers. He thanks his family—his first and last teammates, his eternal anchors. His other family, his actual teammates, the best boys he’s ever known. His coach, who will let him call him Chris someday. His best friend and setter, Kim Seungmin, who set a clothesline on fire once and changed his life forever.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the locker rooms. There’s a navy blue SNU banner draped over your shoulders, two overflowing duffel bags in your hands. Jisung and Jeongin run over to take them from you, and the smile you give them is wide and flushed, a remnant of the elation you shared from afar. The three of you start walking out of the gym.

Hyunjin thanks you.

You didn’t ask for the position, he tells the reporter, but some idiot roped you into it, and they’re all so grateful that you decided to stick around. You know the team better than they know themselves—it’s hard to believe you’ve been with them for five weeks instead of five years.

What are you like? What aren’t you like, is the better question. You’re caring, smart, strong; you see so much goodness in the people around you, all while unaware that it is your warmth that brings it out of them. Flowers only bloom in the sun’s doting radius, and so did he.

You have the sort of soul that incurs the scorn of the stars. They are the only ones to deserve you, they'd argue; you’re wasting your potential among humans when you belong to the sky, and they’d be right.

Hyunjin pokes his tongue into his cheek, suddenly annoyed.

“Why the fuck am I still talking to you?”

“Pardon?” The reporter returns, but Hyunjin is already vaulting over the bleachers, making a mad dash for the exit. She gives her cameraman an affronted glare. He shrugs.

He explodes onto the concrete, looking around in a frantic haze. He finds the blue banner heading toward the team bus and flanked by his teammates with ease.

He calls out to you.

You glance backwards. Your smile is purely effulgent, your laugh but a faint sigh against the area’s busy thrum. His heart is pounding against his ribs like a battering ram again, but he’s used to this feeling by now. Jeongin and Jisung make themselves scarce.

You’re beautiful. God, you’re fucking beautiful. That was the first thought to enter his mind when he spilled an iced Americano on your lap all those months ago and you looked at him like he hailed from another planet. And it is the first thought to enter his mind now, when he runs up to you and cradles your face in his hands, his touch infinitely, impossibly gentle, and you look at him like he’s everything that has ever existed, everything that ever will.

Tendrils of your body spray reach him from here, floral and light like a tropical coastline. He could’ve counted your eyelashes—if he didn’t have something far better to do.

“Tell me now if you don’t want me to do this,” he whispers.

A stupid smile crosses the face of the smartest person he knows. “My lips are sealed.”

Hyunjin kisses you. He kisses you until the banner around your shoulders is wrinkled under his touch, until your hands are tangled in his hair and aching his scalp, until the breaths you take are breaths you share, passed between your mouths like a puff of smoke before they’re colliding again.

He kisses you until he’s crying, again, until he’s no longer tasting your lips but your grin, and he kisses you only harder when those scornful stars start to dance before him, for you are his, not theirs, and he’s really won everything, now.

“Hwang, I need you in my office.”

Six months later, Hyunjin sees Coach Bang standing a few yards away with a grim air about him. He stops in his footsteps and glances at his captain, confused.

“I know nothing,” Seungmin says, walking away. “Good luck!”

“Thanks, cap.” Hyunjin swears he’s had this exact exchange before.

Head volleyball coach Christopher Bang’s workspace still reminds Hyunjin of a morgue. But there are two picture frames on his desk now: one of his family in front of the Sydney Opera House, the other of a band of boys clad in navy blue, draped over one another in exhausted bliss. The latter lends the room a much-needed sense of vitality. Too bad it still houses a rusty cyborg.

Hyunjin closes the door and takes a seat. Bang taps a knuckle against the tempered glass of his monitor. “Read.”

From: Nicola Daldello «[email protected]» To: Bang “Christopher” Chan «[email protected]» Subject: Re: Allianz Milano V. Pallavolo Perugia practice game Christopher, Allow me to apologize for my delayed response as I shared your request with Chairman Piazza. It is my great pleasure to inform you that we would love for Mr. Hwang Hyunjin to participate in our practice game versus Pallavolo Perugia. The match is scheduled for Monday, October 7th, 5-7 P.M. CET in the Giurati Sports Centre in Milan. Mr. Hwang will be playing for Allianz Milano as an outside hitter alongside Mr. Matey Kaziyski, Mr. Osniel Mergarejo, and Mr. Ishikawa Yuki. Please let me know of your availability to call regarding Mr. Hwang’s travel logistics. His transportation and lodging costs will be paid for by the club. I’m looking forward to speaking with you and welcoming Mr. Hwang to Italy once and for all. Yours, Nicola Daldello Assistant Coach, Allianz Milano

“I told you, some opportunities just present themselves,” Bang says, turning his monitor back around. “As for next steps, I need a holistic calendar view of your entire month of October, including social ev—Hwang, is that foam coming out of your mo—NOT ON MY CARPET! HWANG!”

In a park about a ten minute walk away, a small crowd of elderly people are scattered across a few stone tables, hunched over the fading chess boards painted into the granite surfaces. Mrs. Choi whisks away Mrs. Baek’s king with a triumphant yelp.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! That opening is unbeatable!” She swivels towards you, shaking a fist threateningly. “You! Get over here. Your reign is over.”

You are sitting cross-legged in the shade of a broad magnolia tree, clearing out your storage. You tried to take a picture of a particularly rotund pigeon to send to Hyunjin earlier and couldn’t even do that. It was then you decided you couldn't live like this anymore.

“As excited as I am to beat you again, Mrs. Choi, I need ten more minutes,” you call back.

She presents you with an unpleasant hand gesture. You turn your attention back to your phone, grinning. Two new notifications sit at the top of your lock screen.

Hyunjin: Omw now. Sorry had to talk to Chris Hyunjin: Same park? Y/N: yes Hyunjin: Who’s our opponent today Y/N: mrs. choi Hyunjin: Not that bitch again Y/N: ?

He’ll be here in eight minutes.

You return to the task at hand. You’ve already cleared out your apps, your documents, and videos; all that’s left is the audio files. You conduct a quick mental review. Surely you’ll live without your downloaded music and accidental voice memos.

Instead of hitting the “delete” button, you extract a pair of tangled earphones from your jacket pocket.

You go back to your texts with Hyunjin, open the shared attachments tab, and scroll for a long time before you find the voice note he sent you seven months ago.

He finds you a sobbing mess.

“Hey, hey, whoa.” He’s on his knees in an instant, gathering your hands into his, a world of concern in the brown of his eyes. Your earbuds fall out and clatter onto the cement below. “Baby, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” you say in a flustered haste. “Yes, I’m okay. I don’t—I don’t really know what’s happening.”

“Did that hag do this to you?” He asks this question so seriously. “I’ll beat up a senior citizen, I don’t give a fuck—”

“No!” You let out an ugly laugh through your tears. “No, no. Leave Mrs. Choi alone.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”

Eventually, your vision clears enough for you to look at the man kneeling in front of you. His roots grow out longer every day, his hair by now nearly equal parts gold and black. A spot of sunlight infiltrates the magnolia leaves and lands on his left eye, turning it the hue of melted bronze.

Your fingers drift to the sides of his beautiful face as you lean in close; he smells like a combination of smoky rose and tropical coastlines.

“I’ll tell you later,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to his hairline.

He is dissatisfied with this, hooking a pointer finger beneath your chin, guiding your face back to his. He laves the saltwater from your lips, your tongue, and then you’re smiling again, barely able to remember why you cried in the first place.

You rest your foreheads together. “Have I told you that you look like a bumblebee these days?”

He smiles. “Does that make you my flower, then?”

“Because you’re irresistably drawn to me?”

“No, because I wanna put my pollen in—”

You shove him away. “You are grotesque.”

He returns in a flash. “You love me.”

You kiss him again. And again. And one more time for good measure, during which you mumble I do against his lips, and then you remember something.

“Why did Coach hold you back, by the way?” You pull away, tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Are you in trouble again?”

“No, no. The opposite, actually.”

Your brow furrows. “The opposite? What—”

“In this lifetime, please,” Mrs. Choi hollers from the chess tables. You roll your eyes. Hyunjin smiles helplessly.

“Duty calls, my love.”

“Tell me your thing later too?”

“Of course.”

You dust yourself off and stand up, making your way to the battleground. But not before you whisper to Hyunjin, “now watch me beat up a senior citizen.”

He laughs with his whole body, his eyes the shape of crescent moons, his mouth a little rectangle.

“Hypocrite.”

Hyunjin: [1 Audio Message]

This is my seventh take and I’m not recording an eighth. What you get is what you get. I don’t care anymore.

I understand if you don’t wanna talk about what happened at the arcade. I wouldn’t, either. I just wanted to say that you don’t have to do this tutoring thing anymore. I won’t be able to fulfill my end of our deal, so…yeah, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You’ve already done so much for us. For me.

As for team manager, you’ll have to talk to Minho and Coach Bang if you wanna quit. Doesn’t sound like a fun conversation, I know—but if that’s what you decide, I’ll have your back. They don’t scare me. Well, they do. Sometimes.

You’ve been…distant, this week. I’ve known peace and quiet for the first time since we met, and I fucking hate it. I realized I couldn’t care less if you’re my tutor or my team manager or whatever—I just don’t want you to be a stranger. Maybe that’s selfish of me to say, but I’m tired of pretending the idea of losing you doesn’t terrify me. It does. It truly fucking does.

I’m gonna end this here, because I almost just stopped recording on accident and I would’ve committed first degree murder if I had to do this all over again. Sorry that this got so long, and…I’m sorry about everything. You deserve better.

Come back to me whenever you’re ready, okay? I’ll be waiting.

🔖 (send an ask to be added)・@astraystayyh・@like-a-diamondinthesky・@fire-08・@starsandrqindrops・@txtxlz・@laylasbunbunny・@strayghibli・@nuronhe・@seungminsapuppy・@vivisoni・@moon0fthenight・@sweetpickledjins・@svintsandghosts・@nhyunn ・@ur-boyfiend・@liknws・@hotgorloikawa・@randomwimp・@automaticpersonabatpaper・@aceofvernons・@linos-kitten・@newhope8・@weedforthoughtz・@hyunverse

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steddiehyperfixation · 1 year

Text

accidental eavesdropping (steddie ficlet)

based on this post by @imjust-that-shy. i hope i did this vision justice <3

The doors to the bathroom burst open, and - on some pure, inexplicable instinct and with nearly inhuman speed - Eddie darts back into the stall he'd just been about to come out of and leaps to perch on top of the toilet seat, crouched there like some sort of creature.

He hears the sound of retching and the stench of vomit fills the air. He holds his breath, wrinkling his nose and trying to imagine what possible context could be behind Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley bursting in here together to puke their guts out. Eddie knows the two of them work together, he’s seen them sharing shifts at Scoops Ahoy when he's walked by. (Not that he often intentionally passes by the ice cream parlor and slows down just to catch a glimpse of Steve or anything… Although who could really blame him if he did? Like, come on, Steve in that uniform? Hello, sailor.) His mind is busy spinning stories of possible explanations, ranging from spoiled ice cream to sneaking alcohol and getting too drunk during their break.

Eddie's leaning towards the 'drinking on the job' explanation, especially when the retching finally ceases and Robin says something about the room no longer spinning. Those little rebels, Eddie thinks approvingly.

“When’s the last time you, uh…peed your pants,” Steve is asking Robin now, in response to her telling him in a Russian accent to interrogate her.

Eddie curls over his knees, tilting his head to try to peer through the gap between the stalls and the floor to put an image to his eavesdropping. Might as well, he’s kind of stuck here and there’s really not much else he can do right now. He can see Steve’s legs, one bent and the other stretched out in front of him, and Robin in the stall past him laying on the floor with her legs up against the stall wall as she answers, “Today…”

“What?” Steve questions.

“When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw!” Robin says.

Okay…what? Russian doctors and bone saws? Eddie’s now thoroughly intrigued, if a little (okay, a lot) confused. Maybe they’re talking about a movie they watched or something.

Steve’s legs shake with his laughter. “Oh my god.”

“It was just a little bit, though.” Robin pinches her fingers together as she twists her body in Steve’s direction while he laughs again and mutters that whatever it is they took is still in her system. She pushes her feet off the stall and slides to sit against the opposite wall. Eddie can only see her legs now. “Okay, my turn. Have you…ever been in love?”

Steve answers that he has, with Nancy, and makes a sound mimicking an explosion. Eddie remembers that, remembers seeing Steve and Nancy being all touchy and cute in the hallways at school while he was trying his damndest to convince himself that he absolutely definitely did not wish he was in Nancy’s place. It didn’t work very well. And it’s not working very well now either as Steve starts to go on about some new girl he likes now instead - some girl who’s funny and smart and can crack secret Russian codes (okay, seriously, what is it with these two and Russians?) and oh shit, he’s talking about Robin.

Eddie very suddenly feels like he should not be here listening to this, eavesdropping on Steve confessing his feelings for someone. Not only is that, like, a private and personal thing, but also what if Robin likes him back and they start kissing or something right here in this bathroom where Eddie has to sit here and listen to it and that would just be horrible for him for so many reasons and- Eddie’s getting ahead of himself. Robin hasn’t even said anything yet, and her knees are pulled up to her chest and her voice shakes when she confirms she’s still alive after Steve asks if she’s OD’d there in the silence and she uncurls with a deep sigh. All signs that she doesn’t actually like Steve back.

Eddie watches as Steve shifts and slides under the stall into Robin’s, and catches sight of the nasty bruise marring nearly half of Steve’s otherwise beautiful face as he does so. Now concern has been added to the list of emotions this eavesdropping experience has rollercoastered him through so far. The bruise looks fairly fresh and Eddie can’t help but wonder what the hell gave Steve a black eye like that and if he’s okay.

After a brief spiral of concern for Steve’s face, Eddie tunes back into reality to find himself staring at Steve’s ass as Steve now sits with his back against the stall wall opposite Robin. Eddie blinks, expands his tunnel vision to include Steve’s lower back and Robin’s legs which are also visible beneath the gap in the stalls.

“It’s not because I had a crush on you,” Robin is saying. “It’s because…she wouldn’t stop staring at you.”

“Mrs. Click?” Steve sounds confused.

“Tammy Thompson,” Robin clarifies. “I wanted her to look at me.”

Oh. Eddie should really not be listening to this. Robin is trying to come out to Steve, trying to share something deeply personal and vulnerable with him and only him, not knowing that she’s outing herself to an eavesdropping near-stranger as well. Eddie feels violating and intruding. He can’t imagine how he would feel if he found out someone he barely knew had been secretly listening in on him coming out - probably not great, probably terrified. This is something he shouldn’t know, not like this.

“But Tammy Thompson’s a girl,” Steve says, his tone unreadable, and Eddie’s heart nearly stops, sure his own anticipatory anxiety is likely only just a fraction of what Robin must be feeling right now.

“Steve…”

“Yeah?” A pause. “Oh,” Steve’s voice goes soft. “Oh… Holy shit.”

“Yeah,” Robin sighs. Eddie can see her hands nervously rubbing at her shins. “Holy shit.”

Steve is silent for a few painfully long moments. Eddie’s hands curl nervously around his own shins. Is Steve going to be homophobic? Should Eddie be worried for Robin now?

“Steve, did you OD over there?” Robin asks, trying to be light but Eddie can hear the anxiety in her voice.

“No, I just, uh- just thinking,” Steve responds.

“Okay…” Robin’s voice is barely audible. Eddie is holding his breath.

“I mean, yeah,” Steve says finally, “Tammy Thompson’s cute and all, but the only reason I never gave her the time of day was because I was too busy staring at Eddie Munson.”

The aforementioned Eddie Munson releases the breath he’d been holding with an involuntary squeak and claps a hand over his mouth. Thankfully, neither of them heard him over the sound of Robin shouting. “What?! Eddie Munson?! You liked Eddie Munson?” she squawks, voicing Eddie’s own stunned thoughts perfectly.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms casually, completely unaware that he's throwing an eavesdropping Eddie into an absolute crisis right now. There's a soft thudding sound like Steve's hitting the back of his head against the stall wall. His voice gets kind of wistful, almost dreamy, as he says, “His rings, man. Rings and tattoos…and that long hair and those chains he'd wear… Honestly just his whole punk aesthetic thing had me mesmerized.”

“Pretty sure he's metal, not punk,” Robin corrects him.

Thanks, Robin. Also, what the fuck is happening right now?

“Whatever. Still hot as hell,” Steve says.

Eddie squeaks again and practically shoves his whole fist in his mouth to keep himself from making any more noise, his teeth knocking against his rings. The rings Steve likes, apparently. He feels like he's going to pass out, his heart beating so erratically it's making him lightheaded. King Steve - the popular, preppy, stupid, gorgeous, dumb jock Eddie's been crushing on since forever - just called him hot????

“Did you hear that?” Robin asks suddenly, voice low and cautious.

Shit.

“Is anyone else in here?” Steve calls out.

Fuck.

Eddie bites down hard on his knuckles and holds his breath, going impossibly still. If they get up and search the bathroom, then he’s about to be caught red handed, crouched on top of a toilet seat with his fist in his mouth and his face flushed scarlet, eavesdropping on their private conversation about secret Russians and gay crushes. Eddie contemplates falling into the toilet and attempting to flush himself down it. Every god imaginable is receiving a silent prayer from him right now as he watches apprehensively through the gaps in the stall. One of those gods must've heard and taken pity on this poor gay disaster of a man crouched like a goblin in a bathroom stall, because after a few horrible seconds of silence, all Steve does is lean down to peer beneath the stalls for a moment before sitting back up and saying, “Looks empty. I think the drugs are making us hear things.”

“Yeah, probably,” Robin says. Then she giggles, knocking her leg against Steve’s. “I still can’t believe you were into Eddie.”

Steve flicks Robin’s knee. “I can’t believe you were into Tammy.”

“What’s wrong with Tammy?!” Robin protests.

“What’s wrong with Eddie?” Steve counters. “At least he’s actually got talent. Tammy’s a total dud - she wants to be a singer and shit but she can’t even hold a tune.”

Eddie is going to die. He is actually going to die right here, right now, because Steve Harrington thinks he’s hot and talented. And then Steve starts mimicking Tammy, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart in a ridiculously goofy voice, and now Eddie is going to die because he finds that so stupidly endearing and adorable. Maybe he should just flush himself down the toilet, save himself from this hopelessly pathetic crush of his. Instead, he’s saved by the bathroom doors bursting open again and a new voice shouting at them, “Okay. What the hell?!”

Steve and Robin collapse into a fit of giggles before being dragged to their feet by the newcomers and led out of the bathroom, leaving Eddie alone and reeling and struggling to process literally everything he’s just overheard. He finally hops down from his toilet perch and exits the stall like he’s in a daze. He’s not sure how long he had been camped out in there - probably only about ten minutes - but it felt like hours, so long that the world outside of that single bathroom stall almost feels foreign and unfamiliar now.

Eddie grips the bathroom sink and stares at his flustered reflection in the mirror and whispers to himself, “What the actual fuck?”

---

Later, years later, only after he and Steve are already dating, Eddie tells him all about this experience, and Steve laughs so hard he nearly cries.

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upsidedownwithsteve · 2 months

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If you’re still in the mood, could you write something for my camp!Steve fav boyfriend? I love him so much🧡🥹

18+

“I can’t believe you managed to lose an oar.”

Steve huffed, squinting at you in the sunlight from his seat across from you. The small rowboat was almost floating in circles now as the second oar disappeared downstream.

“You say that as if it was my fault,” Steve grunted, trying his best to steer the boat in the direction of the camp, with no real success.

You snorted, poking a toe into the boy’s stomach, your shoes abandoned in favour of lying back on the bench under the sun, your dress hiked up high on your thighs to feel the warmth. “It was,” you laughed, squealing when Steve grabbed your foot and squeezed.

“Just as well it’s our day off,” Steve mused. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare on the water, craning his neck to see the lump in the distance that was Camp Upside Down. “I don’t think we’re getting back anytime soon. The current isn’t on our side.”

You sighed, too dramatically for you boyfriend to think you were actually annoyed. You sat up, stretching before leaning back against the wooden sides. “What a shame,” you pouted, pushing your sunglasses - Steve’s sunglasses - onto your head. “However shall we waste our time?”

Steve didn’t get a chance to ask what you had in mind before you were bringing one foot up to prop against his knee. The skirt of your summer dress falling to the tops of your thighs, smooth skin exposed under his gaze. His brows shot up, his hand slipping on the remaining oar before he swore, grappling before it slipping into the water too.

“Easy, sailor,” you laughed, grinning at his excitement. His cheeks were pink, rosier than before when only the sun affected them. “You okay there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve waved away your concerns, his free hand slipping over your calf, bringing your foot to lean higher on his thigh, your legs falling open further. “I’m fine, keep going, baby, don’t let me stop you.”

You snorted, all affection but you continued like you’d planned, fingertips trailing over your own legs to bring your dress up higher, spread thighs showing off the bikini briefs you hadn’t gotten to get wet yet. A forest green colour, tied at the sides of your hips and so, so easy to make fall apart. You fingered the ribbons, teasing, eyes on Steve’s as his lips fell open at the mere suggestion of you baring yourself to him so publicly.

“Babe, you’re gonna fucking kill me.”

“Boo,” you pouted, brows drawn together. “Here I was, just getting used to having you around.”

Steve scoffed, a choked laugh that trailed into a groan because you were sliding two fingers across your covered cunt. “Normally I’d have something smart to say to that,” Steve breathed, “but there’s like, no blood in my brain right now.”

Grinning, you let your foot trail to his crotch, pushing a little at his hard cock through his sport shorts. You played dumb, head cocked to the side as you leaned back onto your elbow. “I wonder where it’s went to?”

“Princess—” Steve warned.

“Harrington,” you bit back.

“C’mon,” he pleaded. His hands were back on your leg, rough and warm and wrapping around your calf until his fingers were trailing upupup and tracing the edge of your bikini briefs. “Gonna lemme see?”

You pulled at one side of the strings, the material falling loose and exposing one hip. Steve swallowed audibly. It would be too easy to pull the green fabric to the side, to let him see how wry you were, how much you loved the idea of him getting to see you like this out in the open. How much you got off on putting on a show for him.

How much you loved to win.

“Say please, pretty boy,” you asked him prettily, your voice all soft and saccharine.

Steve glared at you, knowing this game, knowing you always won. He swore when you pulled your dress higher, a small hand running down the soft pudge of your navel until your fingers dipped into the briefs, toying with your folds. You moaned, eyes fluttering, tongue on show as you brought the same fingers to your lips.

You made a show of licking your digits, sucking one into your mouth as you met his gaze, acting coy, feeling triumphant.

“Please, princess,” Steve rasped out, his cock pressed hard to his shorts, twitching for your attention. “Please?”

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington fanfiction #Steve Harrington oneshot #Steve baby blurb

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peachsayshi · 1 year

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ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ overprotective/jealous nanami on my mind - minors / ageless / blank blogs dni.

nanami kento knows he’s charming his way right into your heart - he knows because he’s putting all his effort into it. he’s already fallen madly in love with you, and what he needs is for you to meet him halfway. time is on his side, he believes it to be true, and eventually you'll realize just how good he can be for you.

he’s worked so hard for this, so hard for you - of course, he gets jealous whenever other men try to pluck at the delicate seams of your budding relationship. he’ll never unmask this side of him around you. he’s smart enough not to allow his emotions to govern his thinking in that way, and his jealousy would only unravel the blanket of trust that he’s slowly been weaving together with you.

it’s a risk he isn’t willing to take.

he can’t help but feel possessive over you right now. you’re both on a date, for god’s sake, and this asshole is still here chatting away like his presence actually means something. he’s been able to swat away the other suitors, but for whatever reason the guy in front of him remains drawn to you like a moth to a flame.

despite claiming that he’s a bit “overbearing” you still insist that this guy is “a friend”. nanami can see right through his intentions and it boils his blood. while polite word’s may be leaving his lips, in the back of his mind he’s cursing out the guy like a drunken sailor. he lightly rubs his thumb against your waist, maintaining his tempered composure so that you can finish carrying on the rest of this pointless conversation.

he subtly rolls his eyes when you accept the guy’s request to join your table. you’re too sweet, he thinks to himself, too considerate of the bastard’s feelings. he lets the evening play out until he finds a loophole when you excuse yourself to use the restroom. that’s when his face falls immediately - his stone cold expression hardening as he clenches his jaw out of anger. his gaze is hostile, the warmth of all his affection a shadow in line with your footsteps that’s far from the dinner table. he grips onto his whiskey glass with consideration to not shatter it into bits, before curtly telling the guy to fuck right off. nanami knows how intimidating he can be, which is why he isn’t at all surprised when the guy hastily scrambles to his feet.

you return to find a spot vacant on the table but nanami’s handsome smile fills the void. you slide into the booth feeling the comfort of his strong arm circle around you once more. you don’t even seem to care that your “friend” left without saying goodbye, as a matter of fact nanami might even think that you look relieved to find him gone.

you still take a moment to apologize to him for allowing the guy to interrupt your date. nanami leans in, placing the softest, most sweetest kiss on the corner of your mouth. “it’s fine, my darling,” he murmurs, noting the way your pupils dilate at the tender pet name.

you carry on with your evening like nothing even happened, ordering a dessert to share then clearing the bill. he walks you back to your apartment and kisses you goodnight with the intention of reminding you that you are his girl. it’s a kiss that makes you feel like that ground might swallow you whole, that has your fingers tangling into his hair as your lungs work hard to circulate the oxygen to your brain. everything around you is spinning, except for the gorgeous man in front of you who remained perfectly still. your desire lights up your pretty irises, and making you ask him in a lovestruck daze if he would like to come inside.

#nanami x reader #nanami x you #nanami x female reader #nanami kento fan fiction #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento x you #nanami kento x female reader

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felikatze · 5 months

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ISAT and Ludonarrative Harmony: Combat is a Storytelling Tool

Or: How Siffrin is stuck in the endgame grind, forever

Please Note: This is primarily aimed at an audience that already played In Stars and Time, because I am bad at explaining things, and it's good to already know what the fuck I'm talking about. I tend to only bring up game elements as I want to talk about them.

Spoilers for.... all of ISAT! Especially Act 5!

(image to show how i feel posting this and as an attention grabber over my wall of text)

To pull a definition of ludonarrative harmony out of a hat, game writer Lauryn Ash defines it as follows:

Ludonarrative harmony is when gameplay and story work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience. From a design implementation perspective, it is the synchronized interactions between in-game actions (mechanics) and in-world context (story).

It is, generally speaking, how well game mechanics work hand in hand with the story. I, personally, think ISAT is an absolute masterclass of it, so I want to take a look at how ISAT specifically uses its battle system to emphasize Siffrin's character arc and create organic story moments. I want you to keep this in mind when I talk here.

So, skills, right? If you've played any turn-based RPG, you know your Fire spells, your "BACKSLASH! AIRSLASH! BACKSLASH!" and the many ways to style those.

Well, what does casting "Fire" say about your character? Not all that much, does it? Perhaps you'll have typical divisions. The smart one is the mage, the big brawny one is your tank, the petite one's the healer. And that's the barebones of ISAT's main party, but it's much more than that.

Every character's style of combat tells you something about them. Odile, the Researcher, is the most well-travelled and knowledgable of the bunch. She's the one with the expertise to keep a cool head and analyze the enemy, yet also able to use all three of the Rock-Paper-Scissors craft types.

To reflect her analytical view of things, all her skill names are just descriptive, the closest to your most bog-standard RPG. "Slow IV" or "Paper III" serve well to describe their purpose. The high number of the skills gives the impression there were three other Slow skills beforehand - fitting, considering the party starts at level 45, about to head into the final dungeon. She's also the oldest, so she's the slowest of the bunch.

Isabea, the Fighter, has all his skills in exclamation points. "YOUR TURN!!!" "SO WEAK!!!" "SMASH!!!" they're straightforward, but excited. He's a purposefully cheerfull guy, so his skills revolve around cheering on his allies. He's absolutely pumped to be here, and you see that from his skill names alone.

Mirabelle, the Housemaiden, is an interesting case. She's by all means the true protagonist of this tale - She's the one "Chosen by the Change God," the only one who survived the King's first attack, the only one immune to his ability to freeze time, the only dual-craft type of the game - just a lot of things. And her skill names reflect that facade she puts on herself - she can do this, she can win! She has to believe it, or else she starts doubting. This is how you get "Jolly Round Rondo" and "Mega Sparkle Heal" or "Adorable Moving Cure." She's styled every bit a sailor scout shojo heroine, and her moveset replicates the naming conventions of "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Even Bonnie, the Kid, who can't be controlled in combat, has named craft skills. And they very much reflect that Bonnie is, well, a kid. "Wolf Speed Technique" or "Thousand Blows Technique" are very much the phrasings of a child who learned one complicated word and now wants to use it in everything to seem cooler than they are, which is none, because they're twelve.

Siffrin's skills are all puns.

You have an IMMEDIATE feel for personality here. Between "Knife to Meet You!" and "Too Cleaver by Half," you know Siffrin's the type to always crack a joke no matter the situation, slinging witticisms around to put Sonic the Hedgehog to shame. It's just such a clever way to establish character using a game mechanic as old as the entire history of RPGs.

This is only the baseline of the way the combat system feeds into the story, though.

The timeloop, of course, feeds into it. Siffrin is the only character who retains experience upon looping, whereas all other characters are reset to their base level and skills. And it sucks (affectionate).

You're extremely likely to battle more often the earlier in the game you are - after all, you need the experience (for now.) Every party member contributes, and Siffrin isn't all that strong on their own, since they focus on raw scissor type damage with the addition of one speed buff. (Of course it's a speed buff. They're a speedy fucker. Just look at him).

At first, the difference in level between Siffrin and the rest of the group is rather negligible. Just a level or two. Just a bit more speed and attack. And then Siffrin grows further and further apart. Siffrin keeps learning new skills. He gets a healing skill that doubles as an attack boost, taking away from both Mirabelle's and Isabeau's usefullness. He gets Craft skills of every type that even give you two jackpot points instead of one - thus obliterating Odile's niche. Siffrin turns into a one-person army capable of clearing most encounters all on their own.

Siffrin's combat progression is an exact mirror of story progression - as their experience inside the loops grows, they also grow further and further away from their party. The party seems... weaker, slower, clumsier. Always back at their starting point, just as all of their character arcs are reset each loop. Never advancing, always stagnant. And you have Siffrin as the comparison post right next to them.

I also want to point out here a change from Act 2 to Act 3 - Siffrin's battle portrait. He stops smiling.

Battles keep getting easier. This is true both for the reason that Siffrin keeps growing stronger even when all enemies stay the same, but also for the reason that you, the player, learn more about the battle system and the various encounters, until you've learned perfect boss clear strategies just from repetition. Have you ever watched a speedrunner play Pokemon? They've played this game so many times, they could do it blindfolded and sleeping. Your own knowledge and Siffrin's new strength work in tandem to trivialize the game's entire combat system as the game progresses.

(Is it still fun? Playing it over, and over, and over again? Is it?)

You and Siffrin are in sync, your experience making everything trivial.

As time goes on, Siffrin grows to care less and less about performing right for their party and more and more about going fast. A huge moment in his character is marked by the end of Act 3; because of story events I won't delve too deeply into, Siffrin has grown afraid of trying something new. And his options of escape are closing in. They need an answer, and they need it fast. He doesn't have the time or patience to dumb himself down, so you unlock one new skill.

It doesn't occur with level up, or with a quest, or anything at all. At the start of Act 4, it simply appears in Siffrin's Craft skills.

(Just attack.)

No pun. No joke. Just attack. Once you notice, the effect is immediate - here you have it, a clear sign of how jaded Siffrin has become, right at every encounter. And it's a damn good attack, too! The only available attack in the game that deals "massive" damage against all enemies. Because it doesn't add any jackpot points (at least, it's not supposed to), you set up a combo with everybody else, but Siffrin simply tears away at the enemy with wild abandon. Seperated from the rest of the party by the virtue of no longer needing to contribute to team attacks (most of the time. It's still useful if they do, though).

Once again, an aspect of the battle system enhances the degree of separation between Siffrin and the static characters of his play. You're incentivized to separate him, even.

Additionally, there are two more skills to learn. They're the only skills that replace previous skills. You only get them at extremely high levels, the latter of which I didn't even reach on both of my playthroughs.

The first, somewhere in the level 70 range, Rose Printed Glasses, a paper type craft skill, is replaced by Tear You Apart. It's still a pun about paper, but remarkedly more vicious.

The second is even more on the nose. At level 80, In A While, Rockodile!, a rock type craft skill, is replaced by the more powerful Rock Bottom.

I didn't get to level 80. If you do, you pretty much have to do it on purpose. You have to keep going much longer than necessary, as Siffrin is just done. And the last skill he learns is literally called Rock Bottom.

What do I even need to say, really.

Your party doesn't stay static forever, though.

By doing their hangout quests, side quests throughout the loops that result in Siffrin and the character having a heart to heart, all of them unlock what I'd call an "ultimate" skill. You know the type - the character achieved self-fulfillment, hit rank 10 on their confidant, maxed out their skill tree, and received a reward for their trouble.

These skills are massively useful. My favorite is Odile's - it makes one enemy weak to all Craft types for several turns, which basically allows you to invalidate the first and third boss, as well as just clown on the King, especially once Siffrin starts racking up damage.

But the thing is. In Act 3, when you first get them, yeah, they're useful. But... do you need them? After all, they're such a hassle to get. You need to do the whole character quest again, you can't loop forward in the House or you'll lose them. If you want to take these skills to the King, you need to commit. Go the full nine-yards and be nice to your friends and not die and not skip forward or skip back. Which is annoying, right?

Well, I sure did think so during Act 4. After all, a base level party can still defeat the King, just with a few more tricky pieces involved. Siffrin can oneshot almost all basic enemies by the time of Act 4. It's this exact evalutation that you, the player, go through everytime you return to Dormont. Do I want this skill, still? Would it not be faster to go on without it? I'm repeating myself, but that's the thing! That's what Siffrin is thinking, too!

I also want to take a quick moment to note, here - all skills gained from hangouts have art associated with them, which no other skills do. This feature, the nifty art, hammers home these as "special" skills, besides just how they're unlocked.

Siffrin also has one skill with associated art.

Yeah, you guessed it, it's (Just attack.)

At first, helping the characters is tied to a hefty in-game reward, but that reward loses its value, and in return devalues helping Siffrin's friends every loop. It's too tedious for a skill that'll make a boss go by one turn faster. You, the player, grow jaded with the battle system. Grinding experience isn't worth it, everybody's highest levels are already recorded. Fighting bosses isn't worth it, it's much faster to loop forward.

Isn't this what all endgame in video games looks like? You already beat the final boss, and now... what challenge is left? Is there a point to keep playing? Most games will have some post-game content. A superboss to test your skills against, but ISAT doesn't have any of that. You're forever left chasing to the post-game. That's the whole point - to escape the game.

As most games get more difficult as time passes, ISAT only gets easier. The game becomes disinterested in expanding its own mechanics just as I ran out of new things to fight after 100%-ing Kingdom Hearts 3. Every encounter becomes a simple game of "press button to win."

The final boss just takes that one up a notch.

Spoilers for Act 5 ahead boys!

In Act 5, Siffrin utterly loses it. His last possible hope for escape failed him, told him there's nothing she can do, and Siffrin is trapped for eternity. So of course, they go insane and run up the entire House without their party.

This just proves what you already knew - you dont need the party to proceed. Siffrin alone is strong enough. And here, Siffrin has entirely shed the facade of the jokester they used to be. Every single skill now follows the (Just attack.) naming conventions. Your skills are: (Paper.) (Rock.) (Scissors.) (Breathe.)

To the point. Not a moment wasted, because Siffrin can't take a moment longer of any of this. Additionally, his level is set to 99 and his equipment becomes fixed. You can't even pick up items anymore! Not that you needed them at this point anyway, right? Honestly, I never used any items besides the Salty Broth since Act 2, so I stopped picking items up a long time ago. Now you just literally can't.

Something I've not talked about until now - one of the main equipment types in this game are Memories, gained for completing subquests or specific interactions and events. They all by and large have little effects - make Odile's tonics heal more, or have Mirabelle cast a shield at the start of combat. For the hangout events, you also gain an associated memory that boosts the characters' stats by 30. It lets them keep up with Siffrin again! A fresh wind! Finally, your party members feel on par with you again!

...For a time. And just like that, they're irrelevant again, just as helping them gave Siffrin a brief moment of hope that the power of friendship could fix everything.

In Act 5, your memory is set to "Memory of Emptiness." It allows you to loop back in the middle of combat. You literally can't die anymore. Not that Siffrin could've died by this point in the first place, unless you forgot about the King's instant-kill attack. This one memory takes away the false pretense that combat ever had any stakes. Siffrin's level being set to 99 means even the scant exp you get is completely wasted on them. All stakes and benefits from combat have been removed. It has become utterly pointless.

Frustrating, right? It's an artistic frustration, though. It traps you right here in Siffrin's shoes, because he hates that all these blinding Sadnesses are still walking around just as much. It all inspires just a tiny fraction of that deep rolling anger Siffrin experiences here in the player.

And listen, it was cathartic, that one time Siffrin snapped and stabbed the tutorial Sadness, wasn't it? Because who enjoys sitting through the tutorial that often? Siffrin doesn't. I don't, either.

So, since combat is an useless obstacle now meant to inspire frustration, what do you do for a boss? You can't well make it a gameplay challenge now, no. The bosses of Act 5 are an emotional challenge: a painful wait.

First, Siffrin fights the King, alone. This is already nervewracking because of one factor - in every other run, you need Mirabelle's shield skill, or else you're scripted to die. You're actually forced to fight the King multiple times in Act 3, and have to do it at least once in Act 4, though you'll likely do it more. Point is: you know how this fight works.

You know Siffrin's fight is doomed from the outset, but all you can do is keep slinging attacks. Siffrin is enough of a powerhouse to take the King's HP down, what with the healing and buff skills they have now, not to even mention you can just go all in on damage and then loop back.

(And no matter which way you play it, whether you just loop or use strategically, it reflects on Siffrin, too. Has he grown callous enough not even death will stop their mission? Or does he still avoid pain, as much as he can?)

This fight still allows you the artifice of even that much choice, not that it matters. The other shoe drops eventually - Siffrin becomes slower, and slower. Unsettling, considering this game works on an Action Gauge system. You barely get turns anymore. The screen gets darker, and darker. Until Siffrin is frozen in time, just as you knew he had to be, because you know how this encounter works, know it can't be cleared without Mirabelle.

And, then, a void.

Siffrin awakens to nothingness. The only way to tell you've hit a wall is if Siffrin has no walking animation to match your button inputs. You walk, and walk, until you're approached by.... you. The next enemy encounter of the game, and Siffrin's absolute lowest point: Mal Du Pays.

Or, "Homesickness," in english. If you know the game, you know why it's named this, but that's not the point at the moment.

Thing is, where you could damage the King and are damaged in turn, giving you at least a proper combat experience, even if its doomed to fail, Mal Du Pays has no such thing.

You can attack. You can defend. But it is immune to all attacks. And in return, it does nothing. It's common, at least, for undefeatable enemies to be a "survive" challenge, but nope. The entire fight is "press button and wait." Except, remember the previous fight against the King? The entire time, you were waiting for the big instant death attack to drop. That feeling, at least for me, carried forward. I was incredibly on edge just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And, as is a pattern, Siffrin is, too. As Siffrin's attacks fail to connect, they start talking to Mal Du Pays.

But he gets no response, as you get no attacks to strategize around. The wait for anything to happen is utterly agonizing. You and Siffrin are both waiting for something to happen. This isn't a fight. It just pretends to be. It's an utter rugpull, because Siffrin was so undefeatable for most of Act 4 and all of Act 5 so far. It's kind of terrifying!

and it does. It finally does something. Ma Du Pays speaks, in the voice of Siffrin's friends, listing out their deepest fears. I think it's honestly fantastic. You're forced to just sit here and listen to Siffrin's deepest doubts, things you know the characters could not say because it references the timeloops they're all utterly unaware of. This is all Siffrin, talking to himself. And all you, all Siffrin, can do, is keep wailing away on the enemy to no effect whatsoever.

So of course this ends with Siffrin giving up. What else can you do?

And then Siffrin's friends show up and unfreeze them and it's all very cool yay. The pure narrative scenes aren't really the main focus but I want to point out here:

A) Mirabelle is in the first party slot here, referencing how she's the de facto protagonist, and Bonnie fills in the fourth slot left empty, which shows all characters uniting to save Siffrin

B) this is the only instance of the other party members having act specific battle icons: they're all smiling brightly, further pushed by the upbeat music

C) the reflecting shield Mirabelle uses to freeze the King uses a variation of her hangout skill cut in, marking it as her true "final" skill and giving the whole fight a more climatic feeling.

It's also a short gameplay sequence with Siffrin utterly uninvolved in the battle. You can't even see them onscreen. But... it feels warm, doesn't it? Everybody coming together. Siffrin doesn't have to fight anymore.

At last, the King is defeated. Siffrin and co. make for the Head Housemaiden, to have her look at Siffrin's sudden illness. Siffrin is utterly exhausted, famished, running a fever. And this isn't unexpected - after all, their skills in Act 5 had no cooldown. For context, instead of featuring any sort of MP system, all skills work on a cooldown basis, where a character can't use it for a certain number of turns. The lowest cooldown is actually Siffrin's Knife to Meet You, which has a cooldown of 1. In universe, this is reasoned as the characters needing a break from spamming craft in order to not exhaust themselves.

Siffrin's skills in Act 5 having no cooldown/being infinitely spammable isn't a sign of their strength - it's a sign that he refuses to let himself rest in order to rush through as fast as possible.

Moving on, Siffrin panics when seeing the Head Housemaiden, because seeing her means one thing: the end. Prior to this in the game, every single time you beat the King, the loop ends when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.

Reality breaks down, the whole shebang. It's here that Siffrin realizes - they don't want the loops to end, because the end of their journey means their family will leave, and he'll be alone again. The happiest time of his life will be over.

Siffrin goes totally ballistic, to say the least.

As it turns out (and was heavily foreshadowed narratively), Siffrin has been using Wish Craft to subconciously cause the timeloop because of their abandonment issues. It's rather predictable if you paid attention to literally anything, but it's extremely notable how heavily Siffrin is paralleled to the King, the antagonist they swore to kill by themself at the start of Act 5. The King wants to freeze Vaugarde in time because it is, in his mind, "perfect," for accepting him after he lost his home - a backstory he shares with Siffrin.

Siffrin has become the exact antagonist he swore to kill, and it's shown by how the next fight utterly flips everything on its head.

Siffrin is the final boss.

In a towering form made of stars, Siffrin looks down at their friends. His face is terrified, because of his internal conflict; he can't hurt his friends, but he can't let them go, either. The combat prompt is simply changed to "END IT!"

This fight is similar to the previous, in that you just need to wait a certain number of turns until its over. However, this time, it's not dreadful suspense. It's... confusion, and hesitance.

You have two options for combat: Attack your friends, or attack yourself.

And... you don't really want to do either, I think. I certainly don't. But what else can you do? It's Siffrin's desires clashing in full force. Attack your friends, and force them to stay? Or attack yourself, and let them go safely without you?

Worth noting, here - when you attack Siffrin's friends, you can't harm them. Isabeau will shield all attacks. And when you attack yourself, Mirabelle will heal you back to full. And the friends don't... do anything, either. How could they? Occasionally, Mirabelle heals you and Isabeau shouts words of motivation, but the main thing is...

(Your friends don't know what to do.)

None of them want to harm Siffrin. Both sides simply stare at each other, resolute in their conviction but unwilling to end it with violence. It's of note that this loop, the last one, is the only loop where the King isn't killed. Just frozen. And now here is Siffrin, clamoring for the same eternity the King was. Of course everything ends in a tearfilled conversation as Siffrin sees their friends won't leave him, even after the journey ends, but I still have to appreciate this moment.

Siffrin is directly put in the position with their friends as his enemies, forced to physically reckon that keeping them in this loop is an act of violence, against both their friends, and against himself.

It's a happy ending. But... what does it mean?

Of course, ISAT is obviously about the fear of change. Siffrin is afraid of the journey ending, and of being alone. However, ISAT is also a game about games. Siffrin is playing the same game, over and over, because it's comforting. It's familiar. It's nice, to know exactly what happens next. These characters might just be predictable lines of dialogue, but... they feel like friends. Have you ever played a game, loved it, put countless hours into it, but you never finished it? Because you just couldn't bear to see it end? For the characters to leave your life, for there to be a void in your heart where the game used to be?

After all, maybe it became part of your routine! You play the game every day, slowly chipping away at it for weeks at a time. For me, I beat ISAT in four days. It utterly consumed me during this time. I had 36 hours of playtime by the end. Yeah, in that week, I did not do much more than play ISAT.

And once i beat it, i beat it, again. I restarted the game to see the few scenes I missed, most specifically the secret boss I won't talk about here. I... couldn't let go of the game yet. I wanted to see every scrap I could. I still do. I'm writing this, in part because I still do. It's scary to let go.

Ever heard the joke term of "Postgame Depression?" It's when you just beat a game, and you're suddenly sad. Maybe because the ending affected you emotionally and you need to process the feelings it invoked, or you search for something that can now fill your time with it gone.

The game ends, for real this time, the last time you talk to the Head Housemaiden. But Siffrin gets... scared. What if everything loops back again? And so, his family offers to hold his hand. They face the end, together.

For all loops, including the ending, you never see what happens after. After they leave the loop for good. Because the loop is the game itself. It's asking you to trust that life goes on for these characters, and it holds your hand as it asks you to let go. There's a reason for Siffrin's theater metaphors. He is the actor, and the director, asking everyone to do it over one more time. He's a character within the game, and its player.

There's a reason I talked about endgame content. This, the way it all repeats, there's nothing new, difficulty and stakes bleed away as you snap the game over your knee - it's my copy of White 2 with two hundred hours in it. It's me playing Fire Emblem Awakening in under 3 hours while skipping every cutscene. Are you playing for the sake of play, for the sake of indulging in your memories, because you're afraid of the hole it'll leave when you stop?

Of note: the narrative never condemns Siffrin for unwittingly causing their own suffering. He's a victim of circumstance. It's seen as endearing, even, that Siffrin loves their friends to the point of rather seeing the world destroyed than them gone. But Siffrin is also told: we'll stay with you for now, but we'll part ways eventually. And one day, you'll have to be okay with it.

Stop draining the things you love of every ounce of enjoyment just because you're afraid of what happens next. I'm not saying to never play your favorite games again. Playing ISAT a second time, I still had a lot of fun! I saw so many new things I didn't before, and I enjoyed myself immensely, reading the same dialogue over and over. But... it makes me look at other games I love and still play, and makes me ask... is this still fun? Do I still need to play this game to enjoy it? Even writing this is an afterimage of my enjoyment, but it's a new way to interact with the game, to analyze it through this lens. Fuck, man, I write fanfiction. Look at me.

All of this, fanart, fanfic, analysis, is a way to prolong that enjoyment without making yourself suffer for it. Without just going through the motions of enjoyment without actually experiencing any. But one day, the thing you love won't be fun to talk and write and draw about. And it's okay. You'll have new things to love. I promise.

In the end.... I'm certain I'll replay ISAT one day. Between great writing, art, puzzles and unresolved mysteries, it's my shoe-in for game of the year.

But I won't replay it for quite some time. I've had enough, for now, so I let my love take other forms.

Siffrin is never condemned, because love is no evil. Be it love for another person, or for a game. And please, if you're overempathetic - it's still a game, at the end of the day. The great thing about games is that you can always boot them up again, no matter how long its been.

A circle within a circle indeed.

To summarize:

The repetitiveness of ISAT's combat, lack of new enemies, and Siffrin's ever increasing strength eventually allows you to snap the combat over your knee, rendering it irrelevant and boring. Though this may seem counterproductive at first, it perfectly mirrors how Siffrin has also grown bored with these repeated encounters and views them only as an obstacle to get past. The reflection of Siffrin's own tiredness with the player's annoyance increases the compassion the player has for Siffrin as a character.

Additionally, the endgame state of the combat system serves as commentary on the state of a favorite game played too often, much like how Siffrin has unwittingly trapped themself in the loop. Despite the game having no more challenge or content left to over, a player might return to their favorite game anyway, solely to try and recreate the early experience of actually having fun with it. This ties into ISAT's metanarrative about the fear of change and refusal to let go of comfort even when the object (here, your favorite video game) offering that comfort has become utterly bereft of any substance to actually engage with. Playing for the sake of playing, with no actual investment to keep going besides your own memories.

Later on, stripping away even the pretense of strategy for a "press button and wait" format of final bosses highlights the lack of options at Siffrin's disposal and truly forces the player into their shoes. Truly, the only way to win is to stop playing.

#feli speaks #in stars and time #isat #isat spoilers #lays down on floor. it's done. it's done #i actually narrowed down in scope to just focus on the combat by the way. and this is like. several thousand words

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dxrksong · 1 year

Text

Just a funny what if

The classic batfam being used to summon the ghost king scenario. Danny claws his way out of the circle and tries to intimidate everyone

Danny: WHO DARES-JOHNNY13?! Is THIS Where you've been this whole time?!

Jason: unfortunately.

Danny: wait, are you alive?!

Jason: unfortunately.

Danny: is that your family???

Jason: UNFORTUNATELY

[Later]

Jason: kid, wait up!

Danny: ?? What's up?

Jason: take me with you, PLEASE! I can't deal with their constant drama!!

Danny: John-JASON, I really don't think That's a good idea! With your family being overprotective as it is, your.....weird biology of being essentially a halfa ZOMBIE. I'm honestly concerned about what would happen if you went back into the zone.

Jason: kid please! There's hardly any ambient ectoplasm here that ISN'T tainted to high hell! Look, you can get a doctor or something if it'll make you feel better but I REALLY need to go back!!!!

Danny: *sighs* fine fine! I'll get frostbite. Just wait here for a little bit!

Jason: YES!!! THANK YOU KID!!! YOURE A LIFESAVER!!!!

Danny: uh huh, just don't die again. Oh, and btw, you might wanna start running now.

Jason: huh? Why?

The batfam, misunderstanding that entire conversation and gearing up to smother and protect Jason at all cost:

The Bike who drove itself home the moment Danny appeared because it knew Jason was gonna be fine:

---------

Frostbite isn't one for swearing

For one he's more than often surrounded by younglings and the other is to maintain the image of his tribe. For if he were to start swearing like a sailor, the rest of the yeti tribe will be sure to follow. And of course it'd be nearly impossible to reverse such a thing.

So when he met with the great one's distressed friend, all he could do was freeze as he desperately tried to pick his words VERY carefully.

What....

What the FUCK was he LOOKING at?!

This.....this poor thing is SERIOUSLY ILL!!

Oh-wait! The great one was saying something, he completely tuned him out!

FB: Great one, we MUST get him to the infirmary IMMEDIATELY!!

Danny: huh? Why? Is it really that bad- *Frostbite grabs Jason and runs back into the zone* -and wow he didn't even wait, this must be serious.

------

Frostbite......has no words.....

This......shouldn't be possible....

And yet for some reason it is....

FB: You have a parasite.

Jason: huh?? Like a virus?

FB: yes.....Which shouldn't be possible.

Jason: what?? How? I'm technically alive right?

FB: yes, but that's not why. It's the parasite itself, that's the impossibility!

Danny: what do you mean?

FB: it appears the parasite is mimicking a central nervous and vein system out of ectoplasm not unlike what the Great one has, hence your reserection.

Jason: and that means???

FB: it essentially means you have a second core! But it appears unfinished. Though I am curious as to WHY it's using itself so diligently to keep you alive...

Danny: so what were to happen if we were to remove it?

Jason: ?!?!?!

FB: he would have to be put in an intensive care treatment immediately as the shock would no doubt threaten to stop his heart or rupture his core.

Jason, trying to keep himself calm: so there's no way to fix this?

FB: on the contrary, it appears your body might be trying to absorb it. Or more specifically the corrupted ectoplasm that came with it.

Jason: ok?! And??!

FB: well if we get rid of the corrupted ectoplasm, the parasite SHOULD be weakened enough to the point we can just take it out, simple as that.....in theory.

Jason growled, green coating his vision. Before getting a small electric shock in the neck

Jason: OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!

FB: it appears the parasite reacts to your emotions. If you get angry, it boosts your strength. Although unfortunately it seems to elevate your emotions as well, which seems to only confuse the parasite more till the threat is neutralized or out of sight.

Jason: so, what? It's sentient??

FB: it appears so, however it doesn't look to be very smart. Only reacting to emotions and the stress levels in your system. Kind of like a blob ghost with it's herd now that I think about it.

Jason: .......ARE YOU SAYING I'M BEING POSESSED BY A FUCKING BLOB GHOST?!?!?!

Danny:

Jason:

FB:

FB: well I'm NOT not saying that-

Danny had to drag Jason back home before he injured frostbite.

#danny phantom #dp x dc #jason todd #red hood 13 #halfa jason #dc x dp #johnny 13 #dc red hood #dc x dp au #dc x dp crossover #dc batman #dp x dc prompt #dp #jason 13 #blob ghosts

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the-maw-consumes · 1 year

Text

“Have you…ever been in love?”

Steve blinked. That…wasn’t what he was expecting. Still, there’s only one definitive answer.

“Yep,” he answers, popping the ‘p’. “Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year.” His mimicked gunshot doesn’t even cover how that felt, but he does it anyway.

“Oh my god,” he hears from the other side, “She’s such a priss.”

Nancy Wheeler is a lot of things; priss, she is not. And maybe she doesn’t need him to defend her, but, still, he hums, “Turns out, not really.”

Robin scoffs as if that’s unbelievable, and maybe it could be. Then, she asks, “Are you still in love with Nancy?”

No, is the first thought in his mind. And, well, it’s strange to think his answer would’ve been different at the beginning of the year, as much as he’d told himself he’d moved on back then. But, the months in between have just made him realize that how he feels for her has changed a lot since October. He loves her, of course he does, and he’ll never really get over her. But, he doesn’t think he’ll ever love her like he did again.

So, after a moment, he says, “No.”

Then, of course, she asks the question he’s been avoiding thinking about: “Why not?”

There’s a lot of answers to that question, but Steve…well, he knows the one that’s most responsible, even if it’s been thrown to the back of his mind. He’s never really brought it to the light of day before—if bathroom lights could be called that. But there’s just something about this moment, sitting with Robin on a probably disgusting bathroom floor with his mind still kinda floating, that makes him feel like it’s safe here. They just went through hell—there wasn’t a better time, right?

“I think,” he starts, “it’s because I found someone who’s a little better for me.” He huffs a laugh, “It’s funny, you know? Ever since Dustin got home, he’s been saying, like, you gotta find your Suzie, you gotta find your Suzie.”

“Wait, who’s Suzie?”

“It’s some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure she's even real.” Steve shakes his head and kinda wishes he’d thought up a better analogy. “But that’s not really the point. Uh, the point is…I think I already found my Suzie. You know—this person is someone I didn’t even talk to in school, and I don’t know why. Maybe Tommy H. would’ve made fun of me, or I wouldn’t be…prom king. It’s stupid.” He sighs. “I mean, Dustin’s right, it’s all a bunch of bullshit anyways. I should’ve been hanging out with this person the whole time. I wish I did. I mean, they’re so cool and hilarious—I feel like, the past few months, I’ve laughed harder than I have in a long time. And they’re smart, and a dork, but so passionate—you know, they can talk on and on about so many things, it’s amazing.” Captivating, really, but the second it takes to reminisce about those moments are enough to make him realize he’s been rambling for like, minutes, and he’s gotta stop at some point. So, “They’re honestly unlike anyone I’ve ever even met before.”

Steve smiles to himself for a second, his head still feeling a little flighty—but the silence keeps dragging on beyond that. The smile falls a bit, and Steve really hopes he was careful enough with his words. He really hopes he can trust Robin if he wasn’t.

“Robin?” Steve taps on the stall wall between them, the sound echoing through the bathroom. When the silence just gets heavier, it’s with genuine concern that he asks, “Robin, did just OD in there?”

“No.” He breathes a sigh of relief, then hears it echoed, though weighted, from the other side. “I…am still alive.”

Still, there’s something so heavy in her tone, and a visual confirmation that she is alive becomes essential for him. So, shuffling over to grip the wall between them, Steve slides underneath the stall and lands a little to the left of where she sits, alive and breathing. She smiles a bit.

“The floor’s disgusting.” He huffs and glances down at the sailor uniform that has (probably) seen better. “Yeah, well. I already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so…”

She breathes a bit of a laugh, and, at the very least, some of the heaviness is gone. Alive and breathing.

“What do you think?” he asks her, almost intentionally vague.

“About?”

“Am I in love with Nancy Wheeler?”

“No,” she grants. Then, very decidedly, “But, I think you’re on drugs and not thinking clearly.”

And the look she gives him feels too significant, too weighted, and he really, really hopes he was careful because the possibility he wasn’t is starting to loom over him. He can’t argue that his mind was in stellar shape a few minutes ago, and everything she’s done since then is just working to form a pit of dread in his stomach. It feels like wishful thinking to consider that nothing she’s said has been outwardly accusing, but it’s still there.

Why did he have to say so much?

No, no, right. The drugs. Robin may be right, he probably wasn’t thinking clearly. And, damn it, this may not be entirely his fault but he does not want the repercussions for it.

“Well, I think I’m thinking pretty clearly now.” Wishful thinking, it is.

“You’re not.” Somehow, her expression feels like an echo of his own worries. “Steve,” she starts, and the dread gets worse, “you’re not thinking clearly about this. Look, you don’t even know this person—” Wait, what? “and if you did know them, like, really know them—I don’t think you’d even want to be their friend.”

Steve blinks. That—That’s what she was talking about? How did she even know who he was talking about? He shakes his head, honestly baffled. “Wait, what? That’s not true.”

She speaks again before he could ask what about everything he said was so revealing, “Listen to me, Steve. It’s shocked me to my core, but I like you—” Harsh. “I really like you. But I’m not like your other friends. And I’m not like Nancy Wheeler.”

Well, Steve thought he was thinking clearly, but he is lost. Somehow, this conversation has escaped him within the span of two seconds, and the moment feels wrong to ask how they got here. But, if he’s going to take any guess at her meaning, he much prefers thinking she’s…supportive, maybe. Indifferent, even. So, he doesn’t think of the ball of dread winding through his chest, and he tries to follow what Robin may be saying. “Robin, that’s exactly why I like you.”

And that is the truth, really. He’s never had a friend like her, if they could be considered friends. This summer has carved a small space for her in Steve’s heart, and the past few days have done numbers on expanding that space. She’s funny and smart and definitely not like Nancy Wheeler, wherever that came from. And he really doesn’t want to lose her, not right now. If they get out of this, he wants to be her friend. He wants to know her better than ice cream shifts can tell him.

Robin scoffs lightly as if that’s not what she needed to believe him. “Do you remember what I said about Click’s class? About me being jealous and, like, obsessed?”

“Yeah?” He nods slightly.

“It isn’t because I had a crush on you,” she says, slowly, as if a plea to make him understand. He doesn’t. “It’s because…” she continues, hesitant in her words, and he desperately wants to know how to make this better because his heart breaks for the expression she has. Then, quickly, like ripping off a bandaid, “...she wouldn’t stop staring at you.”

He blinks. “Mrs. Click?”

A breath of a laugh at that, but her eyes plant themselves on the wall. She clarifies, almost resigned, “Tammy Thompson. I wanted her to look at me. But…she couldn’t pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair.” She looks back at him, with watery eyes. “And I didn’t understand because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor and you would ask dumb questions and you were a douchebag!” She shakes her head lightly and he really is trying to understand. “And…And you didn’t even like her, and I would go home and just…scream into my pillow.”

Steve stares for a second, trying to will his brain back into place, his thoughts to something clear, because something is being said here, something important and—

The puzzle pieces click together.

Oh.

Oh!

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit,” she echoes.

Unwillingly, Steve laughs. A bark of laughter just bursting out of him because, jesus-–this entire situation is so botched. But her face falls and he immediately stops in a wave of guilt and throws himself at reassuring her. “No, no, that’s not what I meant! I didn’t mean to do that.”

Robin looks away again, shrugs. “It’s fine.”

No, that won’t do. Steve shakes his head, vehemently, and taps her hand. “No, Robin, seriously—there’s been a huge misunderstanding here. I don’t have a crush on you.”

That makes her look back at him, eyebrows furrowed “What?”

“I think you’re awesome, Robin, and super cool and smart. I really want to be friends with you, seriously. But I wasn’t talking about you.” And Steve could stop there, but she just revealed…herself to him and he owes it to her to do the same. He knows how terrifying that is. “I was— Jesus.” He laughs again, brushes a hand down his face. And, still, knowing about her doesn’t make it any less terrifying to say it out loud. “I was talking about, um,” Like a bandaid, right? “...Eddie Munson.”

Her eyebrows seem to go to her hairline, but he celebrates the light that’s back in her eyes. “What.”

“Yeah, we uh—” There’s warmth in his cheeks. This is the first time he’s saying any of this out loud. “I don’t know how it happened, but we ran into each other one day and just started talking and…like, hit it off, super surprisingly. It’s crazy, he wasn’t even on my radar back then and now he’s—” Steve cuts himself off before he can start rambling again, rubs the back of his neck. “I really like him. I was talking about him.”

Robin grins. “Holy shit.” She shakes her head, repeats, “Holy. Shit,” enunciating, as if for good measure. He matches her grin.

“I had no idea what you were talking about.” He explains, “I mean, maybe I don’t really know Eddie, but how do you know that? And then you started talking about Mrs. Click’s…” he mimics an explosion in his head. “I thought the drugs completely fried my brain.”

She laughs, finally, her head falling back onto the wall, and he can’t help but follow her lead. It’s a good few moments before they stop, Robin suddenly sobering to hold a hand, saying “Wait, wait, Eddie Munson? You’re hanging out with drug dealer, total nerd, band dweeb Eddie Munson?”

“Hey, hey, I didn’t say you could criticize my taste, Miss Tammy Thompson.”

She scoffs, sounding just a bit offended, “What’s wrong with Tammy?”

“I mean, she’s cute and all but she’s a total dud.”

“She is not!”

. . .

#steddie #platonic stobin #steve harrington #robin buckley #steve harrington x eddie munson #there's plenty of these already i'm sure #but i love changing the bathroom scene around to encompass steddie #and i was incredibly bored so #here this is

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legendofmorons · 8 months

Note

I’ve had this idea in my head all day, could I get a scenario or headcanons or something about the chain not knowing that twilight and the reader (gender neutral if possible please) are married? Like the reader is from Ordon village and ended up sneaking through the portal with Twilight. I just want to see everyone else have that “wait a minute” moment after like idk months of traveling and now suddenly someone notices that Twi and the reader have matching rings

Definitely Married, not just besties (Twilight)

Of course! I'm super excited to do this!!!

Pairing: Twilight x reader

Rating: G

Summary: The chain manages to miss that you and your husband are married, you, Twi, and Time enjoy the realization.

Warnings: Vauge injury (no details)

Other: If I missed anything, please let me know.

You'll admit that maybe your husband wasn't thrilled that you followed him through a mysterious and possibly dangerous portal. But he hasn't been too mad, mostly just worried.

Which is fair. It's not been boring on this trip.

The other heroes are fond of you, your skills helpful in many ways. From patching them up, to getting discounts, and even to keeping Twilight from absolutely raging when he finds hurt kids.

It would suffice to say that you fit right in.

-------

You lay in the bedroll you share with your husband, stars above you bright as the others all whisper about plans you can't come to care about.

Unfortunately, Wolfie dosen’t seem to care that you're tryingto sleep, the pesky wolf form of your husband flopping over your torso.

"Wolfie." You warn lowly.

"Oh- (Y/n)! Hey!" Sky smiles from a few feet away.

"Hello, Sky."

"Something wrong, (Y/n)?"

"I'm just tired." You say, pushing Wolfie to lay on your legs as you sit up, "Anyone seen Twi?"

Twilight, in true wolf form fashion, gives a soft bark and noses at your hand. You don't have to ignore him!

"He said he went on a walk. Why?"

"Just wondering, he has a penchant for finding trouble. "

Time laughs at that, "Yeah. He does. We're just talking about our next plan of attack. Any thoughts?"

"We should probably split into groups. Archers and sword fighters." You add with a sigh, reaching to scratch behind Wolfie's ear.

This earns you a happy sound and some tail wagging.

"Smart." Legend says as he works on cleaning out from under his nails with a dagger. All aware of safety and such.

"I think so." You smile.

"How'd you and Twilight even meet?" Wind asks, obviously done with all plans and interested in gossip now.

They others must have been at the strategy for a while if the way everyone immediately tunes in is any indication.

"Oh, well we grew up in Oradon together. We met real young, you know? I hardly even remember a before him."

"You should tell him you like him." Hyrule pipes up, "It's really sweet."

"What?" You ask.

"Tell Twilight you like him!"

You laugh, realizing the others have no idea you're married to your beloved husband. "I'll think about it."

(How do they not know? You two are almost always near each other. There's no shortage of affection. You share a bed roll!)

If later, when Twi is back to human form, you jokingly tell him you have a crush he just laughs and wraps you in his arms and says, "Good."

You fall asleep in Twilight's arms, one hand clutching your ring on the chain it's been on for months now- since the startof the journey. Your other hand rests on his chest.

-------

You sit in your underclothes and pout at Twilight.

Twilight sits across from you as he patches you up while the others wither patch up or help someone else. His gaze is soft, but he's obviously a little upset you took his hits to save him.

"I didn't know you had a ring on a chain." Wind says from where he's wiping off monster gunk a few feet away.

"Oh- yeah. I've had it for a few years now." You say, smiling at Twilight gently instead of looking to the Sailor.

"Kinda looks like the ring the rancher wears around his neck."

"That's on purpose. "Twilight says, adjusting the gauze under the bandage he's finished placid around your bicep.

Time can bee seen behind Twilight, looking smug and amused. The tall gremlin probably has known for a while but he seems as amused as you and Twi to watch the others miss the whole point.

"Why would you have matching rings? Are you super duper best friends or some shit?" Legend huffs.

"Or something." You say, biting back a giggle.

"That's like a married people thing." Hyrule says helpfully.

"Almost like we're married." You say evenly.

This earns a swat at your shoulder from Twilight. "Hey now." He says with a smile.

"Oh my hylia." Time mutters.

"You're married!" Wind declares.

"Yep!"

"To Twilight?" He demands, sounding shocked as can be.

"Unless you know someone else named Link from my home town?"

"Don't tease them, sweetheart." Twilight says, " 's not their fault their dense."

"You're married to eachother?" Sky asks, tone going soft like it does when he talks about his Zelda.

"Have been for a few years, actually." Twilight answers, pressing a kiss to your cheek. "Why?"

"Just surprised." Sky says, "I thought you two were pining."

"We all did." Hyrule adds helpfully.

"I didn't. "Time pipes in, "I've known since the second day."

"Show off." Legend mumbles.

"Awww, it's okay guys! We didn't exactly tell you." You say, trying to make them feel better.

"We didn't hide it either." Twilight says.

"You are telling us everything. "Wind says firmly, "The wedding, the proposal, your getting together, all of it."

You laugh, "Sounds good kid."

"Yeah... That sounds good." Twi echoes, and he's so star-struck just remembering the mentioned points of your relationship. He's whipped.

To this day, the chain likes to ignore the several months they missed the whole 'you and Twilight being married thing.

#misty writes #lu #linkeduniverse #linked universe x reader #lu twilight x reader #lu twilight #twilight x reader

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sailorwritesstuff · 11 months

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GUYS.

Did y'all pulled hobie being 16 out of your fucking ass??

Because the Hobie that is 16 in the comics is not the same Hobie that is in spider verse. You can literally tell that by looking. at. him.

That's like comparing (MOST) comic book Spider-Man (college age twenties) with mcu spider man (a teen)

‼️THEY'RE THE SAME PERSON BUT NOT THE SAME PERSON ‼️

He quite literally has his own place he is at the very least 18 (18/19 making the most sense as to why no one thinks it's weird that he's friends with Gwen who is 16, a year older than Miles)

Why are we shaming older teens for finding someone (who is clearly an older teen) attractive?!?

Update: ALSO. I rewatched his introduction scene and he says he's been Spider-Man for 3 years. WE KNOW that he became Spider-Man at 16 while being homeless. HOBIE IS 19 COMFIRMED.

#sailor says something smart #hobie brown #spiderpunk #spider punk #Spider-Man into the spider-verse #Spider-Man across the spider verse #Spider-Man #hobie brown x reader #hobie brown imagine #spiderpunk x reader #spider punk x reader #punch fascist in the face

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sailor-peeking · 2 years

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I keep seeing black stranger things fans begging for white writers to be more inclusive. And did genuinely seems no matter how much we talk people aren't understanding: "hey we want to be included too. And it's exhausting making content explicitly for us when it will always be drowned out by content for you"

We shouldn't have to yell to be heard. It grows annoying really quickly.

So... Here are some examples of Black Women in the 80's

Oh! and I don't want to hear "well they live in Indiana🥺🥺" as an excuse because first woman on my list is from Gary, Indiana. Miss Janet Jackson, Baby.

Genuinely if I see one more Steve x Dustin's older sister fic I'm going to SCREAM.

#sailor says something smart #stranger things #stranger things s4 #stranger things x reader #eddie munson #steve harrington #nancy wheeler #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #eleven #dustin henderson #fandom racism #black reader

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holylulusworld · 3 months

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Entitled rich people

Summary: Your boyfriend and his family are the worst.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader, Ransom Drysdale x fem!Reader

Warning: snobbish rich people, cocky Bucky, running away with a stranger trope, a break-up

Your boyfriend and his family are the worst. Entitled rich people at their best.

One moment they greet you sweetly, and the next they ask about your father’s business, and if the rumors are true.

To hell with rumors. Your father’s business was in trouble for a while, but he’s a smart and eloquent man.

He mastered the challenge and saved his company. But this doesn’t matter to people like Linda Drysdale.

If she finds a weak spot, she’ll hit you hard, and without mercy.

“Oh, it’s so sweet of you to visit us with Ransom while your father’s business is in trouble. I thought you’d prefer helping your father,” Linda coos, her eyes set on you next to your boyfriend.

“Business is fine,” you are your mother’s daughter, and never back down. Especially not in front of Linda Drysdale. “Sometimes the sea gets a little rougher, you know.” You flash her a perfect faked smile. “Luckily my father is a very good sailor and knows how to run his business. Unlike other people.”

You dip your head to glance at Joni and her daughter. Two perfect examples of people who know how to live off the money of someone else. In their case, Harlan Thrombey. The only bearable member of this fucked up family.

“Sure, sure,” she waves your words off as if you are only an insect to her she can squish with her boot. “Your father knows best.” Linda sneers. “I hope he can save his business.”

“I think he already did.” You dip your head to look the man’s way. “Or so I heard. It was all over the news. Something about a fusion, and Miracle Inc. doing better than before.”

“Who asked you?” Linda’s nostrils flare, and she glares at the man daring to talk without her allowance. “I hired you for the garden, not to interrupt my conversation. People these days.”

“Right, people these days,” the cocky man mirrors her attitude. You chuckle. This guy doesn’t bow in front of Linda Thrombey, and it’s refreshing. “And you didn’t hire me for the garden.”

He steps closer, giving you a once-over while passing you by. He’s wearing black jeans, a matching black leather jacket and black boots. He looks like a bad boy, but his soft blue eyes tell you there is so much you don’t know about him…yet.

You glance in his way, waiting for him to say more. His voice is deep and rough. Something you like about a man.

“What? Of course, I hired you to take care of the garden. I remember our conversation,” she argues, but the stranger won’t have it.

“Lady, you didn’t hire me,” he points his index finger at her. “Your son,” the stranger now jerks his head toward Ransom standing next to you. Your boyfriend stiffens, and he shifts from one foot to the other, “came to my store, bought a bike, and never paid for it. I’m here to get either my money or the bike back.”

“You bought a bike like some vulture?” A gasp escapes Linda’s mouth. She stares at her son, shell-shocked at the news. “Y/N! Why didn’t you stop him? I knew you were trouble when Ransom brought you here for the first time. Before he met you, Ransom would’ve never done such a thing.”

“I’m not his mommy,” you huff, frustrated. “I have better things to do than watching your son’s every step. Unlike him, I got a job.”

“Because your daddy is bankrupt,” Ransom huffs, and pouts. He glares down at you, making sure you know your relationship just ended.

“No. Because my parents raised me right. They gave me roots, but freedom. I work because I want to make my own money, and not live off my trust fund. Which,” you grit your teeth, “by the way is way bigger than yours.”

“Back to the bike,” the stranger interrupts your break-up scene with Ransom. “Money, or my bike. Now!”

“I’ll call the cops. This is a home invasion,” Linda points at the stranger. “You better leave my house.”

“You better teach your son how to pay for the shit he buys,” the man grins. “Don’t you worry. I know where he parked my bike. The pretty boy fell off the bike the first time he tried to get on it.” The man chuckles now.

“I want you to leave. Now.” Linda repeats. “Or I’ll call the cops.”

“Do it,” the man says. “We will see if you get away with stealing my bike.” He crosses his arms over his chest and quirks a brow. “I bet all your nice little friends would love to hear that your son is a thief.”

“No one will believe the likes of you,” she sneers and looks him up and down. “I’ll call my lawyer.”

“How about you call your lawyer, and I'll call mine,” he smirks. “If you want the public to know the Thrombey’s cannot pay their bills any longer.”

You sigh deeply. “As much as I enjoyed this get-together, I’ll go home now. Ransom, lose my number.” The stranger looks at you when you throw Ransom an angry look. “Never call me again. I’m tired of being your arm candy, and to bear your family.”

“If you need a ride, I can help you out.” The man jerks his head toward the door. “It’d be my pleasure to offer my help to a lady in need.”

“Y/N,” you take his offered hand.

“James,” he says, eyes dropping to your hand in his. “You can call me Bucky, though.”

Bucky promised to drive you home, but he had to stop at this bike shop first. One of his partners called him on his way out of Harlan’s house.

“Y/N, this is Steve,” Bucky points at his friend. “He’s my partner and best friend.”

“Hey, what about me? I got the bike back!” Another man holds out his hand. “Name’s Brock, sweetness.”

“I hope you got it back in one piece,” Bucky jokes. “And no flirting with the lady.” He suddenly wraps his arm around your shoulders. “This one is mine…”

Tags in reblog.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #ransom drysdale #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x female reader #Entitled rich people

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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 8 months

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it’s only three days late! here’s my entry for @thefreakandthehair's summer fanworks challenge!!

pairing: steddie | word count: 3,677 | rated: M | on AO3: it's a date

“These are the days where I miss when you worked at Scoops.” Eddie complains for the nth time that afternoon.

It’s hot, okay? Immensely so.

It’s so fuckin’ hot that it’s seeping into Family Video despite their normally pretty okay A/C.

He’s laid out across the front counter, one arm hanging loosely over it onto Steve’s side, and the other is holding his hair off his neck best it can.

Of all days to forget a hair tie.

Steve scoffs, “Yeah, you miss it, but that place was hell on my hair and therefore, on my game.”

“I still don’t understand that, who could resist Sailor Steve?”

“Apparently every person that came in could.” Steve pauses for a moment, “Except moms and grandmas. They all loved me.” he grumbles, leaning back on the far counter along the front window, arms crossed.

Eddie opens his mouth to respond with some sort of smart-alecy quip, but is interrupted by the chime of the bell above the door.

On instinct, Eddie peels his sticky skin from the green linoleum counter and slumps off into the aisles.

The government and Hawkins Police may have completely cleared him as a suspect for the spring break murders, but his presence in town is still not exactly welcome.

So, Steve goes into full-on ‘Prince Charming’ mode when the bombshell of a blonde approaches to ask about something, and Eddie meanders over to the horror section, trying his best to ignore the soupy jealousy in his gut for the girl at the counter, getting to be the center of Steve’s attention like that.

Eventually, she leaves, and from the way Steve’s eyes track the girl out the door and the droop of his shoulders once the door closes behind her, he struck out once again.

“I can’t believe I got to see the Harrington charm in action, live and in person!” Eddie says in imitation of a showman as he approaches the register, “And it failed! Where’s Robin’s board, huh?”

Eddie hefts himself half over the counter in front of him to hang over the other side of it, searching in vain for Robin’s famed ‘You Suck / You Rule’ board.

“Ha ha ha, Munson. You’re hilarious.” Steve pushes Eddie back to the floor with a hand to the face. “And I didn’t fail.”

He shows him a slip of paper with 10 whole digits written on it in a loopy hand, then promptly crumples it tight and tosses it into the nearby trash can.

Eddie somehow manages to keep his face from grinning at the action. ‘Just because he’s tossing her number doesn’t mean you have a chance, asshole.’ his brain tells him.

He puts on a confused face instead, to which Steve shrugs and says, “Not my type.”

Eddie lets out a low whistle. “Well that just sucks for her then. Never see how great a date with the esteemed King Steve would be.” Eddie says, clapping a hand to his chest in a half-swoon, straightening up again while Steve laughs, tacking on a: “Lord knows I’d want to.” in a low mumble. A guy can dream right?

“Would you now?” Steve says, still smiling.

Shit.

“‘Would I now?’ what?” Eddie manages to say before his mouth goes dry, tracking Steve’s movements as the other man steps forward to lean on his forearms next to Eddie at the counter.

His warm, toned forearm presses along Eddie’s, and he’s only half embarrassed that he doesn’t mind the added heat.

“You want to know how a date with me goes, huh Munson?”

Eddie gulps “Oh…y–yeah, sure; lay it on me Stevie, I’d love t’know.”

He had managed a facade of a cocky grin by the end of his response, but his throat dries right back up and clenches shut at what Steve says next.

“How about I just take you out tomorrow night and show you,”Steve says, then he’s leaning further into Eddie’s side, and whispering, “Maybe you’ll see how a date with me ends.” into Eddie’s ear.

Eddie slowly rears back to blink at the (beautiful) smiling man beside him.

Oh.

He’s fucking with him.

Of course.

Eddie rolls his eyes and shakes his head with a smirk. “Ha ha you’re really funny. You got all the jokes today huh?”

Steve just chuckles at him.

“I gotta run though,” Eddie says, pushing himself off the counter and heading to the door with a wave over his shoulder “Good luck with the babes, Steve-o!”

“Sure, Eds. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at six?”

He spins to face the counter again, “Oh yeah, sure you will, Big Boy. Sounds like a plan.” he agrees sarcastically, walking backwards out the front door.

Eddie goes through his normal routine the rest of that day and night; scrounge up some food, smoke a little, write out some of his campaign or song ideas, end up falling asleep around 9 am, waking up when Wayne leaves for his shift the next evening and deciding “Meh, might as well shower.’’.

So he does, and has just barely stepped out of the tub when the phone in the hall rings.

“Munson Residence, what’d’ya want?”

“Are you ready?”

“Hmm…ready for what, mysterious caller?” Eddie asks, shifting the phone to his other shoulder so he can continue scrunching the water out of his curls.

“For our date.” the caller (Steve, as he can now tell) says as if it’s obvious. “I’m about to head over so make sure you're ready.”

“Steve? Our date–wha?” he starts, but Steve’s already hung up.

“He can’t be serious..” Eddie looks at the clock. 5:30.

Oh shit.

There’s no time to panic about what to wear, Eddie just goes on instinct. He pulls on his one (1) pair of un-ripped jeans, the one (1) semi-nice button up he owns (both thankfully clean), and has only just managed to finish his eyeliner and put on his rings when he hears a knock from the living room.

Eddie scrabbles down the hall and nearly falls flat on his face when he trips on one of his discarded towels from earlier. He kicks it off his foot while trying to put his still damp hair up in a bun.

He exhales a shaky breath at the door, before finally opening it.

Steve stands there on his doorstep in plain, light wash jeans that look like they were painted on, Eddie’s (now, decidedly) favorite navy blue polo, unbuttoned all the way, and his gray Members Only jacket

“I didn’t think you were serious.” Eddie says, breathless.

“I know.” Steve grins, passing him a bouquet of roses, “You look great, Eddie.”

Eddie balks at the roses in his hand for a smidge too long, because Steve says, “So are you good? We’ve kinda got a timeline here...”, pointing to his watch.

Eddie feels his eyes widen even more (if that’s even possible), but quickly gets the roses shoved into the tallest glass of water he can, and follows Steve to his car, locking the door behind him.

Steve asks him about his day, and there’s nothing much to tell, but they continue to chat idly as Steve drives them through town.

“I thought you said we had reservations.” Eddie jokes as main street flies by outside the window and morphs into the darkening woods outside Hawkins.

“Never said reservations. Someone just assumed.” he says, looking over at Eddie with a smirk.

“Is that not what ‘We kinda have a timeline’ means?”

“Not always.” he smirks, then immediately follows it with: “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do, Steve.”

“Good, close your eyes.”

Eddie raises a brow at the other man.

“Please?” Steve chuckles, and Eddie obliges, covering his eyes with his hand for good measure.

He feels the car pull off the smooth asphalt of the main highway, and the motions of their new winding path jostle him softly back and forth.

“And here the lovely people of Hawkins thought I was the ritualistic murdering satanist. You taking me out to the woods to sacrifice me Stevie?”

Eddie can hear Steve’s jacket shift against the leather seat when he shrugs. “We gotta make sure the upside down stays shut somehow.”

“Ah, so I’m this year’s unfortunate virgin?”

Steve’s responding snort of laughter is the best thing Eddie’s ever heard. “Yeah, I seriously doubt you’re a virgin.”

“Hmmm…I dunno Steve, you really think I have people clamoring over each other for a shot at all this?” he gestures down himself with his free hand.

“You know what? I hope not; I’ve been in enough fights already, I don’t think I can take an elbow to the face.”

Okay, of all things Eddie thought might happen tonight, Steve admitting he’d legitimately fight for a chance with him (HIm! Eddie Munson!!) wasn’t on the list.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just grins down toward his lap, cheeks burning.

The car pulls to a stop then, and Steve says “Keep your eyes closed!” before he can even think about opening them.

Eddie’s seat sags a bit without Steve’s weight on the other end to balance him out. He hears him shuffle out and shut his door behind him, and doesn’t even get to ten whole seconds before his own door is opened.

“Give me your hands, but keep your eyes closed.” Steve says, grabbing both Eddie’s hands in his.

Steve helps him out of the car and leads them forward about 10 paces before pulling him down to sit beside him on something soft.

“Okay, you can open them.”

Eddie’s immediately blinded by the bright orange glow of the sun, just starting to set on the far side of the quarry before them.

“So no, not a restaurant...just didn’t want to miss this.” Steve says, a smile in his voice that pulls Eddie’s attention away from the blooming pinks and oranges of the sky.

Steve’s already smiling at him when he turns, then he gestures down at the blanket under them.

An honest-to-god picnic basket is set between their outstretched legs, a bottle of something leaned up against it. “So. We’ve got grapes, cheese, sandwiches, chips, pop, and even some wine.”

Holy shit. “What, no chocolate covered strawberries?”

Steve holds up a finger, flips open and digs into the bottom of the basket, retrieving a flat white box. He opens it with a “Ta da!”; a dozen chocolate covered strawberries.

“Damn Harrington, you really know how to make your dates feel special.” Eddie’s throat clenches around the words, as if he’s suddenly remembering this isn’t really for him.

“That’s the idea,” he winks

Eddie flushes red immediately, of course, stammering out a “So this is the King Steve Special, huh?”

Steve glances up at him while he unwraps some of the sandwiches. “Nope, this is the Just Steve Special.” He passes Eddie a bologna and mustard, his favorite (What the fuck??) “King Steve wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble. Would’ve just snuck in a window, made out in some random bathroom at a party.” he shrugs and picks up a ham sandwich for himself (Gross..), taking a bite. “Just Steve is trying all the things he probably should have been doing all along.”

“Well..I enjoy Just Steve’s choice of venue.”

“Even though it’s not a fancy restaurant?” There’s a glob of mayo on his lip (which Eddie thinks is‘Still gross, but also somehow super fuckin’ endearing.’)

“If you were at a fancy restaurant, you couldn’t touch the other person as easily.” Eddie proves his point by knocking a knee against the other man’s. “Also you’d have to wear stuffy fancy clothes.” Eddie shudders for emphasis.

“Says the guy who got dressed up in his nice shirt tonight.”

“Shut up… you’re not supposed to know this is my only nice shirt.”

“If that’s your only one, what are you going to wear on future dates?”

"Only need the one shirt." Eddie shrugs. “I wasn’t kidding earlier, Stevie. Breaking news! Local freak doesn’t go on dates regularly.”

“That just sucks for them then.” Steve places his hand over Eddie’s knee, “Never see how great a date with the Eddie Munson would be.”

Eddie’s face feels hot, but he can’t hold back the grin that climbs up his cheeks.

“Well then aren’t you a lucky guy then, huh Stevie?”

“Yeah Eds, I really am.” Steve is smiling back and holy shit, is he leaning closer?

‘Oh fuck, I am too…ShitShitShitHolySh–’

The klaxon alarms ringing in his head stall out immediately, when a firefly decides to light up the shrinking gap between their noses.

“Ah! Fuck!” Steve flails backwards, throwing himself away from the harmless little bug.

Eddie can’t help but laugh, “Oh come on, you can’t really be scared of a little lightning bug?” He cups his hands in front of the bug’s lazy flight path, catching it in one of his palms.

“Fireflies are weird as shit, man. And yes, I do mean even more so than the demo-whatevers.”

“C’mon Steve, just look at him!” He pushes his hand forward into Steve’s space and giggles a bit at his reaction, somehow unwilling to leave their picnic blanket, but wanting to get away from Eddie’s hand just as much has him practically laying all the way down on his back with his legs still crossed in front of him.

“I’m serious Ed, get that thing away from me!”

There's a hint of a laugh in his voice, so Eddie continues his teasing, sitting up on his knees to get closer. “OOOH what if I put it in your haiiirr..”

Steve’s laugh sounds hysterical, “No! Don’t you fuckin’ dare! Asshole!” he yells, batting at Eddie’s hand.

“Awe come on Stevie! What if he loves yo–and he’s gone.” the little guy flying away when Steve’s hand pulls at Eddie’s extended arm.

Eddie flops forwards onto Steve’s stomach with an “oof!” watching the little thing blink away from them.

“Oh thank god.”

He looks down and holy shit.

Steve’s smiling softly up at him, his hair all mussed from Eddie trying to grab at it and Steve keeping Eddie from grabbing it, but goddamn is he still beautiful.

Also: ‘Holy shit I’m laying right on top of him shitshitshitshit..’

Before he can do something stupid, like lean down and kiss the fuck out of Steve’s beautiful face, Eddie rolls onto his back and looks up at the sky instead, head pillowed on Steve’s arm.

They talk for hours like that. Lain out under the darkening sky. It’s the longest date Eddie’s ever been on.

By the time Steve says “I should probably get you home,” the other fireflies that had danced around them as the sun set have disappeared, the previously clear sky is rolling over with thin clouds, blocking the stars.

The strawberries are gone, the cheese is gone, half the sandwiches, and most of the pop. They hadn’t touched the wine.

Eddie sighs in disappointment. “Yeah, probably.”

They pack up the basket, tossing it and the blanket (wrapped around the unopened bottle of wine) into Steve’s trunk and head back to the trailer.

The ride back is a comfortable quiet.

Windows down to the cooling late summer air, Eddie’s hand dipping and diving on the air currents that fly by, radio playing whatever station Robin had left it on last time plays at a low volume..

Too soon, the wheels of Steve’s trusty beemer crunch over the gravel pad that is Eddie’s driveway.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you to the door.” Steve smiles, slipping out the driver side with a hand clasped on the roof.

Just to be a little shit, Eddie doesn’t move. Letting Steve get all the way around the hood of his car before realizing he’s still sitting there.

He stares at him in confusion, so Eddie clarifies. “Oh, I have to get the door myself this time?” he questions, opening the door to another loud laugh from Steve, “You might wanna remember to get the door for your next date, Stevie.”

“Sure Eds, I’ll remember.”

Eddie nods, walking past him and up the steps to the front door with Steve on his heels.

“So? What did you think? How was it?”

Eddie looks up to the ceiling of the porch while he pretends to think about it. “Hmmm…I’m kinda disappointed, actually.” he looks back at his friend, who’s already sporting a kicked-puppy look. “I thought you said I was going to find out how a date with you would end.”

Steve chuckles as Eddie heaves an over-exaggerated, put-upon sigh.

“I said you might, doofus.”

Eddie sighs again, “I didn’t even get a goodnight kiss..” and turns his back to Steve, pulling his keys out of his pocket..

He’s stopped from doing so, however, as Steve hooks a hand above his elbow and pulls Eddie back to him.

His other hand comes up to Eddie’s cheek and Steve leans forward, planting a soft kiss to Eddie’s lips.

Eddie blinks owlishly at him, sputtering as Steve pulls back, eyes blown wide.

So of course this is when he decides to panic. To run.

“So..” Eddie carefully pulls himself free of Streve’s grasp. “Thanks for taking me out tonight.” he manages to say, focusing on keeping his voice even while he turns away to unlock the door.

“Eddie–”

“Any girl would be lucky to go on a date with you.” Damn doorknob always gets jammed.

“Ed–”

“And I would know! I was just on that date, it was great!” Ugh, finally! The knob unlocks with a thick clunk.

“I don’t want anyone else!”

Everything around them freezes.

Eddie turns slowly to face Steve again. “...What?”

“I don’t want to take anyone else on any more dates! I don’t want the same awkward first date questions, I don’t want the kiss goodnight and that be it, I want something real with someone who knows me.

“I want you, Eddie.”

Warmth blooms in Eddie’s chest. Hope and affection that’s so damn close to that scary four-letter word already…he pulls Steve in for another kiss without even thinking about it.

Steve kisses him back, soft and slow, before Eddie pulls back enough to whisper “Would you care to see how a date with me usually ends, Stevie?”

Steve doesn’t need to know he’s talking straight outta his ass; Eddie hasn’t had a date that ended at his doorstep like this. No dates at all, in fact, but when Steve gives him a wide-eyed nod, he hauls him inside and down the hall.

Eddie all but throws Steve into his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

He sidles forward to the perfect being in front of him and places both hands on his shoulders, spinning them both and pushing Steve backwards onto his bed.

“You wanna know what I’d want someone who took me out for a picnic at sunset to do to me?” he asks, already climbing into Steve’s lap.

“Yeah…yeah,” Steve’s voice is all breath, his hands coming up to rest under the hem of his shirt. “Tell me what you want.”

He leans in close to Steve’s ear, his heart clenching when Steve automatically wraps his arms tighter around him, “I want you to fuck me.”

Sex with Steeeeeve Harrington is something Eddie won’t soon forget.

The feeling of Steve’s hands on him, first his waist, his back, his chest…softly caressing his jaw. The feeling of Steve’s lips on his skin, his length sliding against his own, the feeling of fullness from Steve’s fingers, his cock.

The pace he took, one of a lover and not of just another hook-up. Listening to him, checking in with him.

Eddie silently hoped to whatever being out there that this wasn’t going to be something he’d have to subsist on by memory alone. That this was something he could have for a while to come.

Speaking of…

“Ah! Aw fuck—Steve, please..faster…”

“Fuck—yeah? You want it faster, baby?”

“Yes! Yes, just like that—oohhh fuck me.”

“You got it darling.” Eddie can hear the smirk in Steve’s voice even though he can’t see it; his head thrown back on his own pillow in pleasure. He can feel the muscles in Steve’s thighs move faster, harder, beneath his.

“I’m cu—oh fuck…Steve, I’m—”

“Yeah, yes, fuuuck me too, Eddie—shit—Eddie, Ed——

…die! Eddie!!”

“Wha–What?”

Eddie blinks.

They’re back at Family Video.

They’re back at Family fucking Video.

“You okay man? You were zoned out for a second.”

“Y-yeah,” Eddie clears his throat of the weird mix of sadness, arousal, anger, and embarrassment in his voice, “I’m good.”

“You sure? I showed you that girl’s number and you like, completely zoned out.” Steve waves the very much not crumbled and tossed little slip of paper around in his hand while he talks.

“Yeah, I’m good. She just looked familiar somehow, I couldn’t figure it out though.” Eddie lies.

He can’t quite make himself look his friend in the eye, so he only sees Steve’s shoulders sag slightly in relief out of the corner of his vision while he picks at a hangnail.

“I thought you got Vecna’d, dude. Was about to call a code red over the walkie.”

“Nah, I’m all good Stevie, promise. So where are you gonna take her? Maybe a picnic down at the quarry? Could be cool at sunset..”

“Dude, that's a great idea!” Eddie can hear the excited smile in Steve’s voice.

He risks a glance to the other man’s face and feels his insides screw up in shame. The heat that shoots through him at the sight of those kind eyes he just recently saw hovering over his own is too much to handle. Time to make excuses.

Glancing away immediately, he says “You’re welcome man, have fun.” before pushing himself off the counter and, in the strangest case of deja vu ever, heads to the door while waving over his shoulder. “I gotta run though, good luck with the babes, Steve-o!” he calls, cheerily as he can, not able to look back at the man that will never be his.

i hope you enjoyed lex!!! all i have to say is 😈

#eheheheeh #i cannot express how LITTLE this was proof-read #i'm sure i will find mistakes when i re-read after posting and fix them lmao #LexsSummerFanworksChallenge #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #st #stranger things #st ficlet #st oneshot #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steddie oneshot #noelle writes #putting this tag at the bottom for spoiler-y reasons but: i've had this idea in my drafts called 'steddie psych out' since the end of may

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