#the person behind the screen saw his performance

[nalyra-dreaming]

Reading the S2 reviews (so beware spoilers ahead!). Wanted to get your take (and others’ if people have thoughts!), citing The Wrap’s review:

“Daniel might be the most radically different character from book to screen. He’s older, more pessimistic and utterly allergic to the allure of vampire life. Only now he is able to confront the deep-seated scars left behind after his night with Louis (although book fans might be disappointed to know that the show doesn’t tease out more of the romance he has with Armand in the books. Theirs is strictly an adversarial relationship in the series.)”

Other reviews confirm that S02E05/the episode about Daniel’s past is not romantic at all, rather a horror episode. Which I’m sure will be good (some describe it as the best episode), but I can’t help being a bit disappointed that they don’t seem to be doing DM - or at least not in this season at all. I think the reviews only cover episodes 1-6, but this reviewer seems so very sure… (also they seem to know the books so I’m guessing the episode won’t be too similar to the book either. Meaning it won’t end with “the chase” or will it?). So is there a real risk that no DM will play out?. The greatest hint of DM in my view was Zaman’s podcast appearance where he stated that Armand is curious about Daniel and that there is a history there. But this could just be referring to their horror-filled encounter in episode five. So I don’t know, I’m a little sad - was pretty excited for some f*cked up memory stuff (there is just something so compelling with the idea of discovering that there is a whole side of your life that you’ve lost - that this person you don’t know is someone you loved etc.). I wanted to see what it would do to Daniel and Armand respectively, and I wanted their dynamic to be as interesting as possible. Remember reading speculation that Daniel will remember more in the finale - maybe a romantic aspect but I think it was just pure speculation, no hints or comments from the cast/writers backing this up.

What do you think? Grateful to hear your thoughts! Also, I’m still psyched about this season of course, looking forward to the Armand/Louis romance, the Theatre! Hayles performance is supposedly going to be amazing, and I’m looking forward to more of Daniel’s snark obviously! It feels unreal that the season is around the corner!

It is!!! And I am also sooooo hyped, it's unreal *laughs*

Okay, so... first of all, it's always a thing of perspective with reviews. For example, there's this as well, after episode 1:

Now... that is no review, granted.

But it's perception. I... do not think that all of the "Devil's Minion" will be spelled out in the first episodes (nor do I think we will get all of it this season!). In fact, I think the horror that "he loved this monster" is part of the horror of it all, this realization. And that will very likely be in the last episodes, in whichever way.

So. With that in mind - btw, which review did confirm it's ep5? (I only saw that focused comment I think?) - I did not expect Devil's Minion to be "happy". In fact, I think it might have stalking, cages, attacks, and the beginning of the chase - and that chase does NOT start out as cute.

Daniel just gets used to it, over time. And then Armand falls in love.

Season 2 is going to be significantly darker. I bet it's also going to be a lot campier, if the comments to this hold true, with dark humor. But they're leaning fully into the horror aspects of this vampire world now, and the beginning of the Devil's Minion is exactly that - horrific.

The above review matches with what Jacob said about Louis and Daniel forming alliances... and I bet that alliance is indeed needed to drag the whole story out.

And when that whole story is out - that will lead to repercussions.

THAT in turn goes for Louis just as much as it goes for Daniel... because this second interview has just as much to do with him.

So... I would wait until you can see it with your own eyes?! :)

I mean... AMC's promotion(al pairing of the actors) speaks a very loud language? And Assad said he had chemistry read with "Daniel"... for reasons.

But it won't all be revealed in the screeners. I bet the last two episodes will pack a punch.

Maybe even literally. 😜

#Anonymous #sending you a hug nonny #we will get the whole story no worries #but we might not get it all this season #asks #ask nalyra #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #interview with the vampire #the devil's minion #armand #daniel molloy #devil's minion #iwtv s2

[kuijoon]

haha wow art that totally didn’t take 6 hours hahahaha

#was so close to giving up #sampo koski #sparkle hsr #hanabi hsr #hsr #masked fools #giovanni hsr #anyways gonna ramble about what I was thinking #this is supposed to be the tavern and they have screens where they broadcast others performances (Sampo’s monologue made it seem like #the person behind the screen saw his performance #also he doesn’t have his mask (entry ticket to the tavern) so he isn’t physically present #but rather showing the events of Belobog #sparkle is in the front because she seems to like being the focus #(for example the bp where she wants the audience to keep their eyes on her while sampo wants the audience to be part of the show) #Giovanni is just there because I like him #I would’ve drawn zhongshan too but I didn’t know where to place her sorry #my art

[wave2tyun]

meddle about | ☆

pairing: idol!yeonjun x idol!reader

genre: idol!au, best friends to lovers, some fluff but also a bit suggestive (?) towards the end

prompts: – “you’re blushing”

– “i can feel how fast your heart is beating right now”

warnings: none!

word count: 1.8k

a/n: the inspiration for this came from a wonho photoshoot behind the scenes clip that i randomly saw on ig reels........😟 i hope there aren't any mistakes left in this because i've been lazy and going only by trust when i repost fics asdbhja

☆ = repost from my old blog!!

you and yeonjun didn’t exactly meet…under the greatest circumstances.

as txt’s fame was continuously on the rise, there was no way you had never heard of yeonjun, or the name tomorrow x together. however, it was only when you had your comeback stage at inkigayo that you finally got to see yeonjun in real life, and not just on a screen.

you expected things to go smoothly. yeonjun was going to just take your interview, and then you were going to simply perform with your group on stage, as usual.  

realistically speaking, that was supposed to be it- nothing more than a polite, professional interaction, he was the mc after all. you didn’t even think you’d cross paths with him throughout the day again. but the lunch break had something -quite staggering- in store for you:

the inkigayo sandwich. those words still make you shudder.

as an idol, you had to have one, at least once. it was the talk of town after all, even though the combination of egg, crab and strawberry jam- all squished together between 3 pieces of white bread- didn’t exactly sound appealing to you.

you gulped as you looked at the piece of food in your hands; the smell wasn’t that appetizing either, and you wondered how it was possible for them to have such high sales for a shitty product.

you didn’t want to do it, but the thought of wasting your money without at least having a bite was haunting you. you closed your eyes, anticipating the worst outcome imaginable as the sandwich came closer and closer towards your mouth.

“hey- at least remove that paper before you start eating” one of your members said, making you frown. paper? what paper? the ingredients of the sandwich were already weird enough, what did they add that paper for?

confused, you opened your eyes again, a small note had been carefully placed somewhere between the plastic wrapper and the bread. grossed out, you removed it, moving towards the trash can to throw it away, only to get a glance of a phone number written on the back of it, making you stop in your tracks.

‘call me ;) - choi yeonjun’

now, you see- you only knew that the inkigayo sandwich was famous, you didn’t know why it was famous. 

you angrily searched for choi yeonjun around the cafeteria, shoving the sandwich towards his chest once you found him “what the fuck is this?” you hissed appaled by his actions. not sparing him a single moment to respond, you instantly got into a rant about how you were ‘put in danger’ by him for placing something (almost) inedible in your lunch.

he stared at you with big eyes and raised eyebrows, panicking that you’d blow this out of proportion even more if he excused himself before you were done blowing off some steam. he knew very well not to argue with a sleep deprived person who was also hungry.

“that actually wasn’t meant for you…” he muttered in the end, biting his cheek.

“oh.”

on the way back to the dorms, you swore you’d never step foot back into inkigayo ever again, or at least not until yeonjun stepped down from his position as an mc.

despite the seemingly traumatic event, you still kept the piece of paper containing his number, jam stain and all. you fiddled it around your fingers as you rolled around in bed, unable to fall asleep. it was way past midnight, and the remorse you felt for not having apologised to yeonjun was keeping you wide awake. you had been too embarrassed to utter any more words after hearing his reply and used the first opportunity -which was a member calling out for you- to leave the room. 

the guilt was eating you up, and, in the end, you decided it was best to at least say sorry to him through text. and so you did- not exactly expecting much besides getting blocked by him. 

turns out yeonjun found the situation more amusing rather than infuriating. he accepted your apology with ease, and you promised that you’d buy him lunch the next time you visit inkigayo, as emotional compensation.

yeonjun, however, lied to you that day. the phone number in the sandwich was, in fact, meant for you. he heard from his seniors that ‘back in the day’, this was a particularly popular method to start dating between idols. when it was announced that you’d perform on the day he was mc-ing, he found his chance, took it, then pretty much failed miserably. his attempt at getting to know you better was somewhat saved by your apology text. after the whole ordeal, he decided that it was better to take it step by step and develop his friendship with you before dipping his toes into the dating scheme once again.

bit by bit- yeonjun began to reveal his flirty nature. first, he started bringing food and drinks to your company whenever you told him you had to stay up late, practicing overnight. then, he made sure to always compliment how you looked in music videos or album teasers, sometimes even sending coffee trucks to the filming sites to support you. finally, he started bringing you flowers whenever you were done with comeback stages. the change in his attitude was making you question the status of your relationship. still, knowing how risky this all was, you decided it was foolish to jump to any conclusions- although a part of your heart did cling tightly onto the hope that he did this because he saw you as something more than a friend.

it was no surprise to the public eye that the two of you were close friends in the industry. so, when elle korea wanted a photoshoot between a pair with good chemistry, yeonjun ran to his managers, begging to convince some of the higher-ups to recommend the two of you. not a single soul in the company was able to resist him, so he successfully scored the spot. however, you were only informed that you received an offer for the photoshoot, not that yeonjun had been involved in this whole ordeal.

the concept was not quite what you were expecting.

when you heard the words “a pair with good chemistry” you were expecting a fun, bubbly photoshoot, something colorful maybe- not a sensual, romantic theme. you choked on your spit when they showed you the outfit you were supposed to wear, then choked again when you saw yeonjun’s outfit: black pants and a blue satin button-up shirt that had more than 3 buttons left open, exposing the skin of his chest. 

and -as if the revealing clothes weren’t enough- there was one more detail left that would supposedly “tie this all together”: a kiss mark. on yeonjun’s neck. 

the staff handed you a tube of red lipstick, shoving you and yeonjun in a private dressing room before you could even process the situation.

you stole a look at yeonjun, who pursed his lips, trying to contain his laugh as he made eye contact with you.

“did you know about this?” you asked him with a serious face, pointing the lipstick towards him. why were you the only one baffled here?

yeonjun couldn’t help but let out tiny squeaks as he struggled calm down, your shocked, accusatory expression all too entertaining for him “no” he snickered “why? are you nervous? think you can’t do it?” he crossed his arms.

the attitude with which he said that only earned him a scoff from you “of course i can do it” you said as you walked towards the mirror. once you were in front of it though, you were suddenly way more aware of how sweaty your palms were getting, hands trembling a bit as you put the lipstick on.

yeonjun was never one to shy away from physical touch. you were used to receiving hugs from him, sometimes even having him hold onto your hand or arm, swinging them playfully whenever you walked together. but this? this felt…different. 

intimate. 

it was like a possible breach within your friendship. and while you weren’t exactly nervous about the situation itself, you were definitely afraid about what was going to happen between the two of you after.

yeonjun was already behind you once you finished putting on the makeup and turned around. the playful smirk he’s had ever since you both entered the room never left his face. he lightly quirked up an eyebrow, provoking you to make the move- curious to see if your earlier statement was the truth or whether they were just empty words. unsure what to do with your hands, your fingers didn’t let go of the lipstick tube, playing with it in a restless manner as you inched closer towards yeonjun’s neck. the citrus fragrance of his perfume still lingered on the skin, and you closed your eyes as you left a quick kiss there, the touch too light to leave a mark visible enough. 

“you’re blushing” yeonjun chuckled, tilting his head as he looked in the mirror behind you, clicking his tongue “that’s not right…” he muttered. his gaze was fixated on your face for a few seconds, admiring the pink dusting your cheeks. then, they trailed off to your hands, snatching the item to cover his own lips in that same crimson color. “this is how you do it” he whispered, dipping his head down, arms sneaking around your waist simultaneously. warm breath on your neck, chest flushed against yours, yeonjun could feel your racing pulse underneath his lips as he pressed a long kiss on the hot skin. the chilling sensation running down your spine had your hands unconsciously reaching out for his forearms, holding onto them to keep yourself steady and not slip away from his grasp. 

“i can feel how fast your heart is beating right now” he breathed out, fingers tracing lines along the small of your back. seeing that you weren’t pushing him away, his face didn’t leave its close spot to your body. instead- his lips travelled along the skin, pressing featherly kisses along the way- nibbling, lightly biting, the red marks blooming being hidden away by the lipstick covering them.

the mirrors, the vanity lights, even the photoshoot itself, they were all turning into a hazy memory as you were becoming more and more enthralled by him. completely absorbed by his touch on your body, you felt like you wouldn’t be able to breathe properly again until he carried on with the next step. “jun-” the sound of the nickname was enough to send an electrifying jolt throughout his heart. his own breathing was irregular as he stopped, distancing himself a bit from your neck to lift his head up, plush lips and smudged lipstick coming into sight. 

“we’re not leaving this room until you kiss me on the lips”

taglist: @huekalover3000

#wave2tyun #txt #txt fluff #txt x reader #txt fic #txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt smau #txt headcanons #txt yeonjun #yeonjun fluff #yeonjun scenarios #yeonjun fic #yeonjun x reader #yeonjun imagines #yeonjun headcanons

[aespicysstuff]

Scream

Jenna Ortega x Fem!Reader

Description: "When Jenna can't help but fall in love with her coworker, but she's too much of a coward to confess believing you don't feel the same, however, the girl is wrong you would kneel for her."

Words: 18.1k

Saju: "ENJOY IT LOVE"

---

Jenna Ortega is a well-known name. She is an authentic woman with unreal beauty, creativity, cuteness, education, intelligence, and more. I could spend days complimenting her without getting tired. Like many people, I know Jenna from her works. Watching her performances on screen is already something gratifying and magnificent, but nothing compares to witnessing her talent in person.

How do I know this? Well, perhaps because, thanks to my job, I had the opportunity to work alongside one of the people I admire. Since a very young age, I have always been interested in parkour, martial arts, and boxing. Recognizing my potential in these areas, my father ensured I learned everything. Thankfully to him, I have the most enjoyable job – being a stunt double.

---

You logically started with small films and series, sometimes even commercials and a few games. You had begun to gain popularity among directors, especially after being the stunt double for Zoë Kravitz in "The Batman" and being the motion and body model for a new character in the Resident Evil game franchise. The director of "Scream VI" was looking for a stunt double for Melissa Barreram, the actress playing Sam Carpenter. Like other stunt doubles, you submitted a video showcasing your skills. After seeing your performance and how adept you were at both agile and heavy movements, they hired you for the role. You've been enjoying the experiences to the fullest.

At this moment, you were heading to the set and also meeting with the cast. During the filming, you had gotten close to almost all the actors, especially Jenna and Melissa. As you arrived, you spotted Jasmine and Mason from a distance, quickening your pace to reach them. "GOOD MORNING, BEAUTIES!" You kissed both of them on the cheek. "Good morning, lovely! You woke up in high spirits today," Jasmine said after you sat beside her. "I also noticed. Does it have something to do with a 5'1" Latina who loves playing characters with no sanity?" Mason teased while ruffling your hair.

You weakly slapped his arms, scoffing as they both broke into laughter. But when you were about to say something, a familiar scream interrupted. "MELISSA, STOP!" In minutes, you saw a small figure running towards you and hiding behind you. "Y/n, protect me, plea—" Jenna was interrupted by a furious Melissa chasing her. They ran around the table, making everyone laugh at the actresses' cuteness.

You decided it would be better to stop them before someone got hurt. You got up, caught Melissa in your arms, and held her tight. She struggled a little, but your grip was firm. Though she might be taller, you were stronger. You placed her beside Mason and sat back down, chuckling. Jenna sat beside you, and you offered her a water bottle. After she thanked you and turned to the group, you couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

Your eyes roamed every detail of her face, from her freckles to her dimple, her button nose, and the lips you wanted to feel so badly. Jenna felt her heart jumping in her chest, as if she would pass out from how intensely you were looking at her. She started leaning her face towards yours, interlinking her gaze between your eyes and your lips. Hypnotized, both of you were so entranced by each other that you didn't notice when you were called, "LOVE BIRDS!! WE HAVE SCENES TO SHOOT!! STOP EATING EACH OTHER AND GO TO THE SET!!" Jasmine, always the sweetheart, got your attention, making both of you jump a little and put some distance between yourselves.

The staff and some actors had already entered; only you and Jenna were missing. You remained in silence, trying to tame your heartbeats and your blush. You heard Jenna clearing her throat, "Uh... I-I think it's better if we go inside too." Jenna said while getting up and walking to the set, not giving you time to reply. You stayed for a bit longer, trying to absorb what just happened. Would you guys really have kissed if you weren't interrupted? You put your hands on your head, sighing, and started your way to the set.

You had started the recordings, and now you found yourself restless and apprehensive. At the moment, you were shooting the theater scene, and seeing Jenna hanging there wasn't pleasant. You couldn't believe how many times this girl faced danger without fear. She had mentioned loving to do her own stunts, and you couldn't blame her. You felt incredible after your own acrobatics. Still, you feared that one day she might get seriously injured. You couldn't help but worry about her.

You almost ran towards her when the director gave the order for her to fall, but you held back and sat down again. Her character and Jack's had a brief dialogue, and following the script, Tara thrust the knife into Ethan's mouth. You couldn't deny that seeing her smile of relief after her action and the blood on her face made you more infatuated with her than you already were.

Just as it was said, you knew Jenna from other works, and since then, you admired her. Just like her fans, you couldn't resist the charms of this Latina. Since the first day of filming, you've been falling more and more in love with her. She doesn't help much in easing these feelings since, from the first day, she hasn't let go of you. Not that you're complaining, but trying to stop liking her is almost an impossible mission.

You would really like to confess your feelings to Jenna, but you feel that she deserves someone better, someone who understands her (in the work sense) and who is a beautiful woman that fits with her. You're just the stunt double, the tomboy, as some call you, simply because you have a more sculpted body, a muscular physique, and a tomboyish style. You've always faced these kinds of unpleasant comments for these reasons. Your friends always comfort you, and your small fan community defends you as much as they can.

Jenna also always comforts you when some of these comments shake you. She always says that you're like a Doberman, always with a stern face, ready to snap at anyone who comes close. She said she feels safe with you, as if she were at home. Lost in your thoughts, you hadn't noticed that they had finished the scenes. You also didn't see a certain short girl watching you attentively.

Jenna observed every trace of your face, every bit of you. From your curly hair to your tattoos, she loves every part of you. She finds herself hopelessly in love with you, every aspect of you, habits, words—you leave her fascinated. It wasn't in her plans to fall in love, but on the day she saw you, she knew her heart wouldn't hold up. She perfectly remembers how her heart skipped a beat after seeing you. You were in simple clothes that highlighted your curves and, most importantly, your muscles. But the fatal blow was the smile you gave her after hugging her.

But Jenna is afraid of this, of these feelings. She has always been more focused on work, never paid much attention to romance. But now, after getting to know you, she daydreams about your life together.

She wants to confess, but she never manages to. She always retreats before revealing her feelings, afraid that you won't fit into her life or even that you'll distance yourself because of it. That's why she hasn't confessed yet. But the desire is there, what's lacking is courage and a bit of shame.

Jenna shook her head slightly to get rid of these thoughts and silently approached you since you were still distracted. She came close to you, laughing at your expression, and on impulse, she squeezed your shoulders and gave you a kiss on the neck, staying with her face there. "Jenna! Why did you scare me like that?" You said in a playful manner, covering your face, hearing the girl laugh at the situation. "Sorry, mi corazón, it wasn't my intention, but you looked so beautifully distracted, and I couldn't resist." She hugged you, and you turned a bit, pulling her onto your lap, hugging her waist and resting your head on her shoulder.

Jenna put her arms around your neck and planted a kiss on the top of your head. You didn't say anything, just enjoyed each other's presence. It was enough. The connection you two had was visible for everyone to see, and it was a beautiful thing. That's why many didn't bother you two. Unfortunately, your moment was interrupted by the director calling you to shoot some stunts. Both of you sighed; you gave Jenna a little pat on the thigh signaling her to get up. "No! I'm not leaving. I'm home..." She said in a cute, whiny voice, and your heart skipped a few beats. "I'm home," you couldn't help but smile.

You tightened your embrace. "It's okay, my love. I promise to spend the whole rest of the day with you." You cupped her face, caressing her cheek. Jenna felt butterflies having a party in her stomach. Ugh! How she wanted to kiss you until the air evaporated from her lungs, but she restrained herself, moving away a bit and raising her pinkie finger, "Do you promise with your pinkie?" You laughed at her cuteness and joined your pinkies, "I promise, mi amor." You kissed her fingers, making Jenna even more infatuated.

"Then go do those stunts quickly because I want to be cuddled up with you all day." You picked her up, making her squeal and then burst into laughter. You put her down and started walking toward the actors, but you stopped, turned back, and ran towards Jenna. However, what she had to say got stuck in her throat. You had given her a kiss on the eyebrow and whispered in her ear, "See you later, mi amor."

You ran off after the director shouted your name, leaving a paralyzed and tomato-red Jenna behind. She snapped out of her trance and ran to her trailer, laughing like a love-struck teenager.

---

The sun had already set when everyone was released from the recordings. The sky was partially orange, and its dim light guided you to your trailer. You knocked on the door, and it didn't take long for Jenna to open it. "You took your time!" She pulled you into a hug. "Mi amor, you were the one who got released early, haha!" You squeezed her in your arms, resting your chin on her head. You stayed like that for a few more minutes.

"Let's go inside; you must be tired." She led you in, closing the door once you entered. "Can I take a quick shower, princess?" You asked, seeing a cute pout forming on her face. "But... I wanted to cuddle with you now." She pouted, and you couldn't resist the cuteness, pinching her cheeks, making her pout intensify.

"My love, this will only take me a few minutes, and then you can have me all to yourself." Jenna looked at you with those bambi eyes and agreed, going to sit on the couch while you prepared. As you had said, after a few minutes, you were already by her side, watching none other than "Puss in Boots 2" haha. You were lying on the couch, and Jenna was lying on top of you.

There was a pleasant silence between you two, only the sounds of the movie were heard. You lowered your gaze to Jenna, observing every detail of her, from eyebrows to lips. You became (once again) hypnotized. Jenna felt your burning gaze on her head and turned her face, resting her chin between your breasts, "What's wrong?" She asked, giving you a small smile. You just shook your head, watching her, seeing how every part of her reacted. God, you were hopelessly in love and didn't know what to do.

You wanted to shout at the top of your lungs about how much you love her, wanted to kiss her, love her, take care of her, wanted to be with her. But you are a coward who can't take action and is afraid of losing her in every way. You ran your hand over Jenna's face, gently caressing her with your thumb, watching her close her eyes and practically melt into your embrace.

Jenna turned her face, depositing a kiss in the palm of your hand, still with her eyes closed. She felt the temperature of her body increase with each touch of yours; to feel you so close is a blessing and a curse at the same time. She wanted to have you like this but as her girlfriend, as the love of her life and not as "friends"; she hated that term. She wants to have the freedom to kiss you, love you, but fear and insecurities consume her, and gradually she gets closer to possibly losing you.

You were in your bubble; no one spoke anything, just felt the touches of your bodies and souls. Jenna opened her eyes, seeing your eyes fixed on her, and you realized you’d been caught. So, you sent her a crooked smile with your cheeks reddish. You realized how close your faces were, and with courage taken from your ass, you gradually started to close the distance between you two.

Jenna also started to close the distance; she felt her body tremble in anticipation. She put her hands on your shoulders, grabbing your shirt. "Kiss me… Kiss me please Y/N." Jenna grabbed your face, putting her forehead on yours. She slightly dragged her lips across your face, whispering, "kiss me mi amor."

"F*ck it," you pulled her neck and kissed her. The kiss was hurried, but firm. In it, love and desire stored for so long were transmitted. Sighs were released, hearts accelerated and synchronized, bodies hot like the embers of a bonfire, hands exploring every part of the bodies, every curve, caressing the skin like a brush caresses.

The air became scarce, and both, reluctantly, separated. Jenna had opened her eyes slowly, trying to reason if what just happened was true or just another one of her dreams. She lay on your chest, still panting, and looked at you, waiting for you to open your eyes and snap out of the trance.

You felt like you were in the clouds, more alive. You opened your eyes, seeing the woman of your dreams watching you. "Are you real? Like... did this really just happen, or am I delirious?" You asked her while caressing her hair. Jenna smiled, showing her dimple, and hid her face in your neck.

You both were euphoric, finally! You had fulfilled one of the wishes, but the doubt still lingers. Even though you had just kissed each other with all of you, with your hearts, you can't help but question, "Does she really like me?"

You cleared your throat, bringing Jenna's attention back to you. "Uh... I know we just kissed as if the world were ending, but... uh... what are we now? Like, do you really like me? Because I like— No! I... I love you, Jenna." You confessed, watching Jenna react with disbelief. "I've loved you since the day I met you, with your more reserved way, your somewhat eccentric humor, your sarcasm, your freckles." You said everything with a smile on your face and a special sparkle in your eyes. "You can't imagine all the times I held back from kissing you, telling you how much I love you. All the tears I shed for you, feeling insufficient for you." You let out a shaky sigh; getting all of this off your chest is a relief.

Jenna couldn't explain what she felt at this moment. Relief? Happiness? Sadness? She couldn't believe that you were really saying all this; her heart felt like it was going to explode with so much happiness. But she felt sad hearing your last words, "How dare you feel that way?!? Y/n, I've never felt so happy, safe, and comfortable with anyone like I feel with you. It's like my heart already knew that you would take care of it with your life." She passed her hand over your face, wiping away the tears that you didn't even realize were falling.

"You make me feel so many things at once, but none of them is something bad. You always take care of me, make me feel beautiful, make me feel like I can conquer the world and the universe. You are my star; you are more than enough for me, mi amor. And answering you, I love you too, and I want this to turn into something more. I want you as my partner for the rest of my life." She chuckled lightly; her soul felt light after confessing, after knowing that you also love her.

You hugged each other with big smiles on your faces. Both have a lot to learn, but now, they won't do it alone. You have each other, and this union will be hard to break. Your love is special, like the love of the sun for the moon.

#jenna ortega x reader #tara carpenter x reader #i love this woman soo much #black reader #fem reader

[controld3vil]

chaotic duo

pairing(s): dune cast x actor!reader (platonic), oscar isaac x actor!reader

synopsis: requested by this ask!

⤷ alt: even your on-screen son can't deny how delightful his on-screen parents were.

notes: absolutely no shade to jessica ferguson i adore her too much. reader is considered to have fem pronouns. ALSO ive been feeling iffy about trying to write for dune characters?? personally, although i love writing these actor!reader stories, writing for the actual characters i feel would be more challenging. dune's still pretty new to me but i kinda wanna give it a shot if i can make a good storyline T-T

It all started with the Dune Cast Q&A brought together by Nerdist. Timothee Chalamet and Denis Villeneuve had just finished chatting with the host, Stephen Colbert about their perspectives on Paul's character. Much emphasis had gone on the young actor's performance. And Denis's decision to cast such a well-experienced one.

After finishing up their last question together, Stephen decides to introduce two additional members. "Timothee let's bring out the man and the woman who play your parents, Duke Leto Atreides and Lady Jessica." A transition between screens to display your camera view and Oscar's. He introduces both your names.

"Hi!" You grin at the camera, comfortably leaning against one of the arms of your chair. Similar to everyone else's backdrop, yours was pitch gray, covering all but your silhouette and chair.

"Hey Stephen," Oscar greets at ease, as you proceed to wave to each of the people seen onscreen.

It cuts immediately to the host gesturing in continuation for a question. "Tell me and the audience about Duke Leto Atreides. What do we need to know?"

"He's the father and human. I think that's the biggest thing and uh under incredible pressure to save his family. Save his house but to adapt to this new existential threat situation which is moving to this strange planet," Your fellow costar puts into short. Short and concise was what was expected.

Content with his answer, Stephen moves the attention to you. He calls out your name, eagerly. "Rereading the books uh- right now, I am struck by how much of the story- uh the backstory and the action story is driven by the decisions Lady Jessica makes." A smile grows on your face, knowing how much fun was a character to play for you.

Along his last few words, you find yourself nodding in agreement. "I'm impressed with that you, Stephen actually read the books again!" An instant grin comes from the said man. "But it's all applause to Denny- he highlighted this from the book. In the film, her decisions basically create, fractures and disrupts everything."

"Best parents ever," In a low whisper, Timothee murmurs and the five of you burst into short chuckles and snickers.

"The best you could ever have!" You clapped your hands together, shaking them above your head in victory. And when the screen expands to show everyone's reactions, the audience can noticeably pinpoint Oscar's playful eye-rolling.

Another fun interview you had the pleasure of sharing was with Grazia UK. It was in a more comfortable setting. With you and Oscar in a lounge room, with the Zoom camera on. While the female interviewer complimenting a kind smile.

"Can I ask you something," Not within a second of the conversation, you rose up with a peculiar question. "Do you remember his beard?" Your costar beside you, looks away in disappointment. Even raising his hand to emphasize his discouraged state.

"A bit yes..."

"Yeah,"

"Yes!"

"Why? It was an impressive beard," Sort of clueless really, the interviewer says, of why you wanted to the topic up.

"Yeah, it was impressive!" Oscar looks back and forth between you and the camera, directing towards the woman on the other side. While you shriveled in embarrassment, leaning your head behind his shoulder, with a few snorts of laughter. "She doesn't even remember if I had a beard or not in the movie! She just saw it."

"Quite a prominent beard!"

"Yes yes, well I can remember so much," You chaste, leaning closer, locking eyes with your costar. Threatening really in a playful way.

"We shot together for a few months! How could you not remember?!" He exclaims, raising both his hands in the air in exasperation. You puff, adorning a pouty-like look.

"I work with what's in front of me," you turn to address the interviewer, pointing at Oscar accusingly. Because much contrast to what he looked months ago, he no longer had that impressive beard. He was clean-shaven, much to your display.

Next to you, Oscar scoffs. "Apparently not!" Bumping shoulders with you as you fought back, poking him many times obnoxiously.

You both later discussed a provoking quote referenced multiple times from Dune posters. Fear is the mind killer. Truly a simple yet intriguing phrase that fitted well with the film. And in generally, you and Oscar compared each others quotes from personal experience.

"I guess you could combine them together," Taking a sip out of your glass, you eyed at Oscar. He hums back and smooths his hands comfortably down his hips.

"It will pass and love prevails!" He cheerfully expresses. Even from afar, the interviewer can notice how much fun you two were having with the question.

"Right and, it plays perfectly with the film," You add onto your little spiel, nodding as you go, "Besides the fact that- you know, fear is the mind killer."

The male actor lets out a long sigh. "Makes you forget how violent the movie is."

On the other side of the screen, the blonde interviewer shrugs her shoulders. "Well- it's only included in small parts in the movie."

It was your turn to hum, dragging out the M sound. "I think maybe the film focusses too much on romance."

A caught off cough comes from Oscar as he tries to his best to dismiss his your sarcastic comment. "I feel like there should've been more of it."

"Really?!" The shot pans to your exaggerated shocked gaze. You then turn to look at the interviewer. "He has no idea how to write a movie." Instantaneously the male actor bursts out laughing, shaking his head back and forth in little denial. Even you couldn't hold it together and giggled a little.

"You play Timothee's parents so spent a lot of time with him. What is the most interesting thing we do not about Timothee Chalamet?" The interviewer prompts, having their arms supported on top the their desk with pure keenness.

Pursing your lips together in concentration, your attention turns towards your partner. "Well coming from me- I mean I don't know if people know this about him or not- but he's very open hearted." Oscar continues, "And me, having to play his father- hence the beard!"

"Ah!" Giving more emphasis, you raised your brow in recollection.

He goes on comparing the analogy of having to play Duke Leto as a powerful leader of a House. Without his people and court, he wouldn't resemble much of an prestige leader. However Oscar later mentions that Timothee's performance was the catalyst to their relationship look authentic. He is young yet incredibly sympathetic towards what's to be done for the film. His time with both of you really sold your relationship as a family, you'd think.

"So that's a very generous thing to do for a young actor. And I was impressed and admired that," In the background, you can be heard mumbling in agreement. Your partner shifts his posture, facing and expecting you to go next.

Licking your lips, you took one last glance at him before focusing strictly at the Zoom camera. "I think for me, to have a young actor like him- he's very driven about it all. When he's on and off screen, Timothee's just focused- he's very serious and concentrates heavily on what Denny says- and I can say I respect that." You punctuate your point, tapping lightly on your knee. "And I play his mother you know, and I try to accommodate with that. I play along and we work until we find a good rhythm with each other." The older woman on the screen seemed enamored by your compliments regarding your costar. Yet her eyes quickly makes it's way to Oscar, sitting quietly and listening to you ramble.

His laidback posture showed how greatly he took your words in. You grab your glass and take a quick sip before hearing him say, "We raised him well." Taking your hand in both of his as a sign of pride.

A delightful chuckle comes from both you and the interviewer while your partner gives a satisfied grin. "We really did!"

The media did not need proof to know of your enjoyed time during the production of Dune. In fact, multiple vlogs and documentaries about the film had fans and viewers alike become fond of your positive and laid back attitude about it all. Despite playing a calculating character such as Lady Jessica, you were nothing of serious when on screen with your costars.

"Welcome to Arrakis!" You popped into frame, wearing an exquisite dress, costumed by one of the designers. It was golden yellow with chains running down from the bottom half of your face to your chest. A faint veil covered your head but for right now, you had it placed on your hair. You spread your arms with anticipation for the cameraman to pan around your surroundings. "It's sunny today so I think we'd be out here for some time." You moved extremely close to the camera, before moving out of the frame to the side.

Abu Dhabi was bliss. The production and crew worked diligently day and night working in the deserts. And on this particular day, most of the cast had been present as well for the introduction of House Atriedes on Arrakis.

A few shots slowly pans from the crew's tents and Denny far into the sandy mountains as he speaks with Timothee. Another shot slyly captures you showing Josh Brolin an unknown video, sideways. Which somehow made him cackle very enthusiastically, holding his stomach to air as you quickly pat his back multiple of times. In all, everyone of the cast members were having a blast in the dry outskirts of the unknown.

"Hello," Brolin pops in another clip where he stands, wearing the Atreides armor. Under a massive shade area, a few people can be spotted in the background, moving equipment and conversing with others. From afar, the people filming the documentary can be heard presenting a few questions for him to touch upon. "Ah what do I think about Lady Jessica being played by," He says your name sincerely.

The video cuts to you having a conversation with your on and screen husband. A hand covering above your face to shield yourself from the sun, while Oscar tries to move where the light is hitting you as the best he could.

"I mean a phenomenal actor like her playing in that kind of role is guaranteed to have an amazing performance. She's- We've known each for a long time since Sicario and with Denny," The male actor softly grins, staring at where you were. "But Oscar on the other hand, eh- not so much." His tone becoming monotonous, as if the shift in topic was distasteful to the touch.

"Whatcha say, Gurney?!" A scream echoes and it's Oscar, cupping both his hands into an O.

The older actor couldn't keep it together before breaking into frivolous giggles. "Nothing, my lord!" He takes one last glance back before seeing you give him two big thumbs up with a silly smirk. "No in all seriousness, those two are just the best! You can never have a bad day with them."

Another prominent section in the video fans adored was with the actors that played Duncan Idaho and Dr. Liet Kynes. This time they are situated in what looked like the structure of Arrakeen. Where all ornithopters were supposedly stationed and the introduction of Dr. Kynes.

"They're so mom and dad," Jason Momoa shaking his head playfully with his hands clamped together. Both him and Sharon Duncan-Brewster wore still suits unlike many other extras who wore Atreides armor. "I mean- they're playing Paul's parents- but in real life it's just so different."

"Definitely more chaotic," Brewster jumps in, earning a hum from her costar. "They act nothing like them."

A cool shot from different location displays you in a dark with Timothee. It was the scene after Paul is put to test to by the Reverent Mother. It was a chilling scene yes, but in post production, many realize how unprofessional you sometimes were even in the most serious times.

The cameras were not live however the film crew were about to pan to you gesturing back and forth with your on-screen son. It was a interactive and intriguing conversation you both were having. You looking in purely engaged with what the French actor was saying. After a few sentences being spoken, it looked as though you chided a teasing joke which gave the reaction of Timothee slightly snickering, backing away slowly.

"I mean do they look like my parents? No," The young actor states shortly. It looked as though the clip was shot right after capturing your cute moment togehter. "But I'd say- yeah Oscar Isaac's a great actor and- to be able to play my dad is pretty cool. Even though we look nothing alike." Nervous laughter spouts as he clears his throat.

"I feel like I get the resemblances from my mom though," Affectionately stating your name, "You can tell where I got my powers, good looks from." Momentarily readjusting his collar as he takes a quick look from behind, knowing your footsteps.

"See? I'm the favorite parent!" In hushed squeal, you wrapped your hands around Timothee's shoulders, earning a lovable grin back.

#dune #dune part one #dune x reader #dune imagine #dune 2021 #dune cast #oscar isaac #oscar issac x reader #duke leto atreides #duke leto x reader #duke leto x you #leto #leto atreides #house atreides #lady jessica #leto atreides x reader #leto atreides x you #leto atreides imagine #timothée chalamet #timothee chalamet x reader #paul atreides #paul atredies x reader #gurney halleck #duncan idaho #liet kynes #bene gesserit #REBECCA I LOVE U #fr tho #spare us #NO BETE READ UGH

[atinystraynstay]

Black And White - Kim Hongjoong

Synopsis: Weddings are always happy occasions. You've always loved watching two people showcase their love in such a momentous way. It made you wonder if one day, you too will get married.

Pairing: Kim Hongjoong x fem. reader

Genre: Flufffffff, established relationship, long-term dating, talks of the future

Word Count: 2k

Hongjoong sat in the black cushioned folding chair. It was a gorgeous venue. It was an old warehouse that was rented out for the intimate wedding. He was amazed at how the decorators were able to transform the space so rather than feeling cold and empty, it was filled with so much warmth and love to mark the special occasion.

When you told Hongjoong about the wedding, he got excited. Not just to be able to go. To be honest, he wasn't sure if you wanted him to go anyway. Your childhood best friend was getting married, after all.

That is why he was a bit apprehensive about attending the wedding. To an extent, you two were still getting to know each other. He never thought wanted you to feel pressured you had to take the relationship in a certain direction. He was just content with being exclusively yours.

Over the past few months, you have been more introduced to his world. You knew all his friends very well, often hanging out together. Hongjoong has met some of your coworkers when he has picked you up after work or attended the company's holiday party. He just hasn't met the people that meant the most to you, which is what terrified him.

To Hongjoong, winning over the people closest to you made him the most nervous. He could easily go on stage and perform his heart out. Hell, you could say the president of South Korea was in attendance and he'd own the stage. It was his comfort zone. He wasn't even nervous to meet your parents. It was your best friend who terrified him.

And not because she was intimidating. From everything you've said about her, she basically walked on water. The two of you have been friends since you were 11 years old. You've known your best friend longer than he's known his members!

Despite the distance since you moved to Korea, you chatted nearly every day. He was convinced you spoke to her more than him on some days. He wasn't jealous of that fact either. If anything, he was more appreciative and thankful you had such a loyal person in your life. Your best friend championed you unlike any other, and you did the same for her.

However, that is where the immense pressure to win over your best friend stems from. What if she didn't approve of him? What if your best friend believed you deserved better? Would you listen to her and leave?

One thing was for certain is that Hongjoong could not afford to lose you. For the first time in his life, he was experiencing the love he's watched on the big screen. He never thought he would be one of the lucky ones to find such a perfect partner. You constantly went above and beyond for him, and he was trying his best to love you twice as much. He believed you deserved the whole world, and he wanted to be the one to give it to you.

His inner monologue was disrupted as soft instrumental music began to play. People around him rose to their feet, and he followed suit.

You were concerned about Hongjoong being in the audience for the ceremony. He was your plus one, whereas your best friend asked you to be in the bridal party. But Hongjoong couldn't complain. He got the best view in the whole venue.

As if on cue, he noticed the back doors open. He turned to his side as he saw the bridesmaids and the respective groomsmen make their way down the aisle. Hongjoong was trying his best to remember the names of those you pointed out before. There were a few other friends of the bride you, and a few of the groomsmen you knew.

He smiled politely as the pairs began their walk down the aisle. However, he kept glancing over his shoulder once they passed. He just had to see you.

His heart stopped as he could see you behind another pair. You were making light conversation with the man who was walking with you down the aisle. He was the groom's best friend. You were the two people who have heard about this beautiful marriage leading up to this momentous day.

Hongjoong just couldn't take his eyes off you. Your best friend decided everyone would wear the same color - a light blue that some could describe as Tiffany blue. Yet, each bridesmaid dress was unique to the woman wearing it. It was unconventional but that's what Hongjoong loved. He loved seeing all the different dresses each person chose.

Undoubtedly, his favorite was yours. It was an A-Line floor-length dress. There was a slit running up the left side of the dress, stopping at your mid thigh. You were always the type of person who loved the freedom to move around. The sleeves were ruffled, possibly made out of chiffon. It tied in the back, a pretty bow resting against on your upper back. You looked heavenly.

You wore a wide smile as you looked at the groom. You often gushed about their relationship, especially since you were certain from the moment you met the man at the altar that he would end up marrying your best friend.

However, Hongjoong noticed your eyes would leave the altar every now and then. He couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong if you were okay. You didn't seem tense. This was the disadvantage of not being a part of the ceremony. He couldn't attend to your needs right away.

But when your eyes met his eyes, you visibly became more relaxed. You smiled at him lovingly. And he looked at you like you were made out of the most precious gems. "Wow," he mouthed to you. You couldn't help but blush before turning away. While you wanted nothing more than to rush over to kiss your lover, you couldn't This was your best friend's big day.

"So when is the wedding?" A voice came from Hongjoong's left side.

Curiously, Hongjoong looked to his side away from you. There was an elderly man with a smirk on his face. He looked at Hongjoong, waiting for a response. However, Hongjoong was terribly confused.

"Sir, we're at the wedding now. It's beginning," he whispered, not wanting to speak too loudly to cause a distraction.

The old man chuckled and shook his head. "No, not this one. I'm not that old. I'm speaking of the one between you and your girl. I'm guessing a summer wedding?"

Hongjoong's eyes widened. His heart was doing flips in his chest, nearly jumping out. His body filled with warmth, not sure if it was the nervousness of having to say no or the idea of marrying you that made him feel so tingly.

"We haven't selected a date yet," Hongjoong whispered.

The old man seemed satisfied at the response before turning back towards the aisle. Everyone around him was gasping softly as the bride made her way down the aisle. Yet, Hongjoong couldn't look anywhere but up at you.

At first, your eyes were on your best friend walking down the aisle. Seeing her so content, so happy did your heart well. Your best friend has been waiting for this moment since you guys discovered Pinterest and made boards when you were in junior high. You couldn't help but have your eyes wonder towards the crowd.

To your surprise, Hongjoong was staring at you with the widest grin on his lips. Your chest filled with warmth and cheeks heated up.

Maybe one day the two of you will be at this milestone. You sure hoped so.

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

Throughout the ceremony, Hongjoong's eyes didn't leave you once. He couldn't help but picture you one day wearing a white dress. Hell, maybe even a different color. All he wanted was you.

The two of you were over by the bar. Everyone had filed in as they made their way from the ceremony venue to the reception hall. The bride and groom were making their rounds to interact with everyone who came to celebrate their special day. For the time being though, you and Hongjoong were soaking up every opportunity to just focus on one another.

"You clean up nicely, baby," you teased him.

He rolled his eyes playfully but had a wide smile on his lips. The two of you were sipping the signature cocktails of the bride and groom. For you, you opted for your best friend's favorite, a bay breeze. Hongjoong was sipping a whiskey sour, the favorite of the groom.

"Have to dress my best when I've got the best date," he chuckled. His lips pressed against the corner of your mouth. He then pressed tiny kisses along your cheek heading to the earlobe. You shivered at the feeling but your body felt warm and tingly, and it wasn't due to the alcohol. Hongjoong always had this way of making you feel on fire in the best way possible through his displays of affection.

One hand rested on his arm while the other held your drink. He wrapped his arm around your body, pulling you in closer. His thumb gently caressed your lower back. You giggled when you felt his breath hitting the shell of your ear. "Couldn't take my eyes off of you, sweet girl," he murmured. For an added effect, he grazed his teeth along the shell of your ear. He knew it drove you wild.

You whined out gently. "Baby, please."

He knew he had to keep himself tame for now. He'll show you how much he enjoyed the view once you were alone. For now though, he'd do everything he could to make you feel like the only woman in existence. Because in his eyes, you were just that. Nothing else mattered besides you.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," a voice spoke from beside you. You pulled back slightly, but not enough to step out of Hongjoong's arm. Not that he would let you anyway. If anything, his grip tightened a bit to hold you closer.

Looking over, you grinned to see your best friend with her new husband. You set your glass down on the counter of the bar. Sensing your excitement, Hongjoong let go of you. And just in time too because you threw your arms around your best friend. Hongjoong and your best friend's husband share a laugh.

She hugged you back tightly before you two slowly let go of each other. Hongjoong wrapped his arm loosely around you but turned to politely address the happy couple in front of him. Maybe it was the sips of alcohol helping his confidence, or the words from the stranger during the ceremony, but the nerves leading up to this day subsided. It felt odd to be the nervous one giving the milestone the couple in front of the two of you just experienced.

"So you're the man who's captured my best friend's heart, huh?" Your best friend asked teasingly. "Well if anything, she's got me wrapped around your finger and I pray every day she doesn't let me go."

Your best friend grinned at the response. Hongjoong up by one point.

The conversation between the four of you flowed easily. Your best friend asked her typical interrogation questions, which made you internally groan. Hongjoong wasn't fazed by any of it. Most of your exes in the best would have frozen and spewed out whatever. Not Hongjoong. he answered honestly.

"So where do you see this going? Because my best friend is the whole world and she deserves it." "And I couldn't agree more," Hongjoong answered. "And truth be told, if you asked me yesterday, I would've said that we are taking it one day at a time." "But?" "But now? I want everything with her." Hongjoong looked down at you, seeing your shocked expression. He couldn't wipe the grin off his face.

"Everything and anything as long as you're by my side." He no longer spoke to your best friend. He was speaking directly to you. Your smile was wide, which eased Hongjoong's heart when he noticed your eyes tearing up. His lips pressed firmly against your forehead before looking at the married couple.

One day, you two will be there. He was certain of it.

#kim hongjoong #kim hongjoong x reader #kim hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong #atz #hongjoong x reader #hongjoong x y/n #hongjoong x you #hongjoong ateez #hongjoong imagines #hongjoong fluff #kim hongjoong imagine #kim hongjoong fluff #ateez x reader #ateez #ateez fanfic #ateez fic #ateez imagines #atiny #ateez x y/n #ateez x you #ateez x female reader #atz fanfic #atz x reader #atinystraynstay #kpop #fanfic

[bluemari23]

soul haze || choi seungcheol

soul glow

summary: you had just gotten home after leaving the seventeen concert early, only for your phone to start ringing with what you think is the biggest joke of the century. it turns out, that maybe you left too early.

pairing: choi seungcheol x neurodivergent reader

genre: soulmates, soul bonds, idol au, angst

warnings: some insecurity, angst, not much

after many requests here is the second part to soul glow! enjoy :)

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

You kept the lights off when you closed the door behind you, still overstimulated and almost needing the reprieve the darkness allowed. It's also not like you didn't know your apartment like the back of your hand, everything placed meticulously and to your liking. 

Locking the door, you maneuvered yourself to your bathroom, needing to remove the make up your friend had put on you before the concert. You could feel it on your skin and that was something that always seemed to bother you when you became overstimulated. You couldn’t help it. 

Once you felt that all of it was gone, you used your favorite moisturizer on your skin, loving that it cooled you down and left you feeling like you skin was soft. You know it was on your skin, but instead of feeling it on your skin, it was like it blended in perfectly, not just sitting on the surface. 

You were about to get changed into your pajamas when your phone rang, an unknown number coming up on your screen. You ignored it the first time, but the second time and then the third time had you wondering just who was calling you at almost ten pm. On the fourth ring you finally picked up the phone. 

“Hello, who—” You were cut off by a man’s deep voice. 

“Is this the phone of Ms. Y/n L/n?” Your face turned up in complete confusion, not wanting to deal with an important phone call so late when you were already overstimulated.

“Uhm, can I ask who is calling first before I give that answer?” You try in vain to see who was calling, as they just insist on asking if this was your phone number or not. 

“Is this Ms. L/n speaking?” 

“Yes. Now can I ask who is calling me so late at night?” You almost spit out, already tired of the person on the other end. 

“This is the manager for the group Seventeen who you just saw perform in concert. Now, before you hang up—” You almost look out your blinds, wondering how this man knew you were about to hang up the phone, now thinking this call is a huge prank. 

“Please note that you and your friend sat in row 1 seats 8 and 9 and you left the concert early. We also have your friend’s license plate number and both of your ticket confirmation numbers if you still don’t believe me.” Your eyes had now widened considerably, any tiredness now leaving your eyes and body. 

You were feeling a little scared at this point and were trying to figure out if you had broken any rule or etiquette at the concert that you didn’t know about. It was your first concert and you truly were worried that you did something wrong now. 

“Miss, are you there?” You hadn’t even realized you had spaced out, not listening to the man on the phone. 

“Uhm, y-yes I am.” You stuttered your reply. “Am I in trouble?’

“Uhm, no miss, you aren’t in any trouble—” You cut him off this time.

“I promise I didn’t mean to break any rules or anything. It was my first concert and I tried to learn proper etiquette before hand—” 

“Miss. I can assure you aren’t in trouble—” You can hear struggling happening on the other side of the phone and a new voice starts talking. 

---

Scoups was freaking out now, fearing you had gotten away and they would never find you, he would never find you. He could feel Jeonghan and Mingyu trying to talk to him but all he could imagine was the thought of never getting to hold you. 

That all stopped when he heard his manager on the phone, reassuring someone that they weren’t in trouble. He couldn’t stop himself; he just barreled forward and took the phone from his now frozen manager. 

“Y/n?” He asks, voice shaky as he feared he took the phone when it wasn’t his soulmate on the other end. 

“Yes?” He could feel his heart begin racing, hearing your voice. He knew it was you, then and there. The tingles he felt and the beating of his heart didn’t lie. 

He didn’t speak the best English, and he didn’t know how to vocalize what he wanted in his moment of urgency, so he called Joshua over, who was the closest, and told him what he wanted to say. 

“Tell her that she needs to come back to the stadium, that we will get a vehicle for her if needed.” He was straight to the point, his urgency almost bordering the line of manic, his fear of you disappearing covering his usual calm nature. 

---

“Hi, this is Joshua, Scoups does not speak the best English so he is asking me to translate, is this okay?” Oh, my, goodness. You were now on the phone with one of your biases. You felt way in over your head and that this was all a dream. 

“Uhm, hello. I—uh yes, that’s fine. I do speak some Korean but I am still learning.” You mention your knowledge of the Korean language hoping that it would help them communicate if needed. You didn’t know if you would be of any help, you had no clue what was going on at all. 

“Oh, that’s awesome. Well, is it possible for you to come back to the stadium? There are some things we need to discuss with you in person. It is very important.” You tilted your head to the side, confusion coming back into your head as shock is pushed to the back.

“I, uhm, my friend just dropped me off at home. I don’t have a way back to the stadium.”

“We can send a car right now. What is your address?” Joshua is quick to respond, ignoring Scoups hitting him in the shoulder and trying to get him to ask you more things. 

You give the man your address, hearing the almost stress in his voice. You would hate to cause anyone trouble, especially people who just finished an almost three hour concert and were probably dead on their feet. 

“Keep her on the phone, don’t let her hang up!” Someone tells Joshua, making you question everything. 

“Who was that? Why do I need to stay on the phone?” You ask after slowly translating their words in your head. 

“Uhm, that was Scoups, and we just want to make sure you get here safe!” You can tell the excuse was said by someone else, Joshua just repeating the words. 

To be honest, you were so tired and still overstimulated that you just decided to go along with everything hoping it meant you could get home sooner and into bed. You were bordering non-verbal again but you didn’t want to make things difficult for anyone, especially when they claim this was an important thing. 

You hated feeling like a burden. Like you were being difficult. 

By the time the car arrived for you, you had been asked a couple more questions, just basic things like what your favorite Seventeen song was, or when you became a carat. You think they were just trying to pass the time, but you still had a hard time answering them. 

You had grabbed your concert bag, thankful you hadn’t taken anything out of it yet, and made your way out to the car. 

It took about an hour to make it back to the stadium and inside, given the after-concert traffic, but you made it inside and the person who drove you there helped you get past security where someone was waiting for you. 

“Are you Miss Y/n” He was wearing a tour shirt and black jeans and lots of wires with a small earpiece. You figured he was someone on the Seventeen management or security team. The driver walked you forward, leaving you with a nod of his head. 

“Yes, sir.” Your voice was quiet. You tried hard to project your voice but it was like the connection between your brain and your voice box was faulty. 

“Please come this way.” The man had such a bright smile on his face with his dimples peeking through, that you almost felt uncomfortable. You were bordering grumpy now, not having slept or bed in bed by your normal time. 

“We are very that excited you are here.” The man tries to make small talk, but you don’t understand what he is trying to imply and it makes you even more annoyed. You don’t manage to respond by the time he stops in front of a door to your right.         

“You can go on in, Miss.” You nod your head in thanks, before slowly turning the door handle and pushing your way in. 

The first thing you notice is a bright, glowing silhouette, surrounding Scoups. You stood frozen, the both of you, just taking each other in. Him seeing you up close for the first time, and you trying your hardest not to faint at the implication of the glow.   

You knew what it meant, and suddenly everything made sense for why they needed you back to the stadium, as quick as you could. You were in a haze by the bright glow of the soul bond, realizing Scoups was your soulmate. 

You were still frozen in the doorway, trying to make sense of your soul bond when Scoups pushed forward, slowly and cautiously as he watched you. He thought you looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and it caused him some discomfort, seeing you like that. 

“Hello, my glow.” His voice was deep, yet soft as he approached you, causing tingles to shoot up your spine. 

“Can I—Can I hold you?” He just wanted to comfort you, feeling in his soul that you needed it and he couldn’t help but to take your silence and your doe eyes as a response. You could just feel his arms wrap around you, as if he knew exactly what you needed in that moment, something to ground you, to support you. 

The second his arms were around you, the glow you both held disappeared and you both felt like a weight was lifted from your shoulders. Both of your bodies almost immediately loosened, all of the tension leaving your bodies. 

“My glow.” Scoups whispered affectionately in your ears, pulling you into the room without letting you go from his embrace. 

“I’ve found you.”

#scoups #soulmarks #soulmates #scoups x reader #scoups fluff #scoups seventeen #seventeen soulmate au #seventeen imagines #svt scoups x reader #svt scoups #scoups soulmate #bluemari23

[ghostehe]

in this life and all the others !!!

alternatively — ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ john price prepared his daughter for everything and that included him being gone. what he didn't prepare himself for was her being gone.

simon riley x fem!price!reader — 𖦹₊˚⊹☁️

warnings — ⋆｡°✩ language. kinda ooc!simon but idgaf. reader may have some specific traits, sorry for self projection, it WILL happen again. kidnapping, allusion to death, blood, wounds, the usual yeeyay with their line of work. john is going through it. reader and ghost are already together.

author's note — ⋆｡°✩ hiii :) my first time ever writing for this fandom and i'm reallllly excited!! i hope you like this <3 fair warning, the reader's sense of style, hair length description, possible field of work may be specified so if that's not to your preference, i'm really sorry for it :( if you would like me to do something like this with some specific points and all, you can just ask me!! i'm sure i'll be able to work with that!! thank you so much for reading, i already love each and every one of you <3

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

it felt wrong to admit it now but when your mother first dropped you at your father's house, he didn't — well, he didn't exactly want you.

it wasn't as if he didn't love you, he did — you were his daughter. but his life had enough chaos to last him a lifetime and he was just fine with staying in touch with you through screens and only seeing you alternately on christmas, that too if the circumstances allowed him too

sure, he wouldn't be there at your parent teacher conferences or have you show him your report cards. he wouldn't get to see you perform extraordinarily in your extracurriculars or have you run towards him with whatever prize or trophy you'd get. he wouldn't always be there at your birthdays and sometimes, he might even forget to mail you a present. he might not get to see you grow up and he might only be just your father and never your dad.

he was fine with that.

so, what would it matter if his heart broke a little when his ex-wife, your mother, called him the night after they had signed the divorce papers and asked him to talk to you because you wouldn't stop asking for your dad? why would he be second guessing himself after hearing your small voice breaking in between as you asked him to come back? why did he get the sudden urge to drive to your mum's house and pick you up and apologize and let you choose the colour of the walls of your room in his house — your home?

but sure, he was fine.

he assured you that he was just a call away, told you to be good for your mom, eat your veggies, be nice and kind and then bid you goodbye. he tried hard not to pay attention to your cries as your mum took the phone from you and apologized to him, explaining that you just missed him.

'she just misses you, john,' and he was ready to break down then and there. you needed him, your dad, and he was refusing to be there. refusing to let that shadow of his work even fall on your shadow for a second. refusing to let you be a soft spot for him because that was the most dangerous thing a person in his line of work could ever have.

'she'll get over it soon, forget her old man and all,' he tried to laugh it off but his voice broke and before your mum could say anything, he hung up.

the next time he saw you, you were at his door, standing with your luggage behind you and your mother. he noticed that her own luggage was still in the cab and it didn't take long for him to figure out what was coming. he had tried to explain himself, explain why exactly he wasn't cut out for this and that he was very happy with seeing you every other weekend. all while you stood near the staircase and stayed quiet.

your mum left and left you behind with a father who didn't even remember his daughter's favourite colour.

he remembered the look on your face and the way you tried to make yourself as small as possible, taking the least amount of space you could. you had just turned ten, your birthday being one of many that john would eventually come to miss and he looked at you like you were still that same one year old baby who pulled herself up and walked to her dad.

he grabbed your luggage and one of your hands and walked you up the stairs and into one of the rooms down the hall. it was mostly empty, a twin size bed and a dresser drawer spread out with a wardrobe in the corner but he figured you'd be fine.

if he saw you pause at the walls being your maybe-favourite colour, he didn't say anything.

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

"what do you mean?"

"john — "

"stop, just — stop," john took a deep breath, exhaling shakily as he broke eye contact with laswell and looked away. his hands ever so slightly shaking came up to fix his signature hat as he pointedly ignored ghost's gaze piercing him from where he was listening to everything at the back of his office. "what do you mean?"

"we're trying to locate — "

"that's my fucking daughter and you swore that this wouldn't ever catch up to her!" john snapped, his voice firm and sharp as he desperately tried to hide the tremor in his words. "you — you guaranteed that my line of work would never catch up to her and that she'd be safe and she'd be fine and now she is — "

he cut himself off with as soon as his voice cracked, looking away as he shook his head, shaking the concerned and empathetic eyes of kate and the blank stare of his lieutenant. deep down, he knew that she was doing everything she could to locate you — the whole base was. with soap leaving no stone unturned as he investigated the residence, gaz checking the cameras installed out the place and the street to find a trace of anything, kate herself flying down to the base to do everything she was capable of doing and ghost doing... something, everyone was on it.

but still, you were his daughter.

his daughter. the one who always waited up for him ever since you learned that your dad would be away for a while but he'd come back. the one who called him 'old man' but cried and got upset whenever he tried to have the 'when i'm gone' conversation with you. the one who made cards for every single occasion, cards he still cherished with his everything. you were his everything and you were nowhere to be found.

in a way he blamed himself, he always did. whether it'd be you catching a fever or not having all of your project supplies, he'd always blame himself. he'd continue to do it until someone — more often than not, kate — came by and knocked some sense into his head, told him that one shortcoming doesn't make him a bad dad.

his eyes glanced around the room, anything to prevent him from looking into the empathetic gaze of kate because it felt like she had already accepted that you were gone. you were not, you were just taken — taken from him and he needed to get you back.

he locked eyes with simon and took in his appearance for the first time since he came into the room. truth be told, nobody really saw him coming in, nobody even called for him to be in here. he just showed up and john knew that it would be futile to get him to go out — not that he wanted him to go. it was weirdly comforting, having simon in the same room as they discussed what to do next. maybe it was because they both had the same goal in their mind, get you back or maybe john had just grown familiar with his presence after countless mornings of him descending down the stairs to see him and you at the breakfast bar. whatever it was, john was grateful simon stuck around.

looking at him, everything was the same, not one thing out of place but john knew different, he knew better. he could see the small specks of blood decorating his infamous skull mask and the empty holster attached to his thigh. he could barely make out the dark spots on his glove but if he strained his eyes enough, he'd find them.

he wasn't looking at simon, he was looking at ghost.

john knew that ghost hadn't expressed one percent of what he actually wanted to express. he knew as soon as he stormed out of the room when laswell broke the news to the team and returned a couple hours later, gloves discarded somewhere and his knuckles stained with blood. he kept his mouth shut, mind running haywire as he tried to plan out anything, anything to get even a sliver of news about your whereabouts.

he could feel kate stare at him with calculating eyes and something akin to guilt swimming in them. he could feel simon stare at his form as he paced around the room, hands fidgeting as he fought the urge to call soap and gaz every minute.

kate's gaze didn't bother him, simon's did because it mirrored his hopelessness.

he was so lost in his own guilt and desperation and defeat that he didn't hear the footsteps thundering down the hallway, not until they were right in front of them and the door slammed open. it was only then he looked to see soap panting, a small piece of paper in his hands and he pointed to it back and forth and for a moment, john could feel the sickening sense of hope swell in his chest.

gaz was right behind soap, seemingly in a better position to speak than the latter and plucked the piece of paper from his teammate's hands and held it out for john to see.

"what — "

"we managed to trace the owner of the car that was seen going around your block more than eighteen times," gaz informed, eyes flickering to ghost who had now made his way towards their small group and back to his captain in front of him. "the car was brought under a very... creative way, three shell companies and we traced each one of them back to a single corporation."

"they have these warehouses, right outside of the town," soap continued, taking notice of the desperation in his captain's eyes and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, "it's a very good chance she's there."

"how sure are you?" it was the first time ghost opened his mouth ever since he joined john and kate. his voice gave away nothing and to anyone, it must have sounded like he was just talking about any other mission but john knew that it took everything for him to keep his voice steady and strong.

"damn sure, lt."

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

john remembered the first time he had the 'when i'm gone' talk with you.

you were eleven, and it killed him inside when he realised that he would have to make you understand the risks in his line of work.

he remembered the way you threw him the dirtiest look you could muster, the most withered glare set on your face as soon as he said the words and he had to stop and blink in surprise because goddamn, his daughter was scary.

he remembered the way you shook your head at his every 'understand?' the way you tried to run off to your room and you would've, if not for his arms shooting out to catch you before you could bolt. the way you told him to be quiet as politely as you could when he continued, denial in your eyes at the prospect of your dad going away and not coming back.

he remembered his heart cracking in two when you looked up at him with tears in your eyes and he almost stopped himself, cursing himself in his mind because you shouldn't have to sit here and listen to him telling you what to do in case his dog tags came back and he didn't.

you managed to get yourself free from his hold and rush upstairs to your room and he didn't have it in himself to call you back down and you both left it at that.

the second time he tried to have the talk with you was when you turned eighteen and he got shot on a mission.

the way you looked at him when he woke up in the hospital still haunted him on nights when he couldn't sleep and he knew that he was basically torturing you with this. going away and not providing any guarantee that he would come back but he couldn't.

he could leave tomorrow and say that he'd be back in time for christmas and there would still be a chance that he'd end up coming back home in a casket.

he couldn't give you the security of his arrival but he could prepare you in case anything ever happened and he did. he set apart bank accounts for you, under a different name and a different address. he brought two different apartments in the city, under a different name and a different address. he brought a small house and trusted that you would make it a home, under a different name and a different address. he made sure that you would be okay if he left, after he left and he knew he did a damn good job with it.

you didn't do the same.

he prepared you on how to live if he went away before it was time but he never prepared himself for if, god forbid, you were gone. he never had to because what kind of father would want to come to terms with the knowledge that their kid could leave before them?

"hey — hey, honey," he brushed the hair out of your face, his facade slowly crumbling away with his fingers came back stained with blood — your blood. his gun lays discarded next to him and he almost wants to go back and bullet a few more bullets in those bastards' heads for your condition. "you still with me?"

"dad..." you whispered, eyes fluttering close with fatigue and blood loss as your head rested against the wall. he could see the way you forced your eyelids to stay open, your grip on his hand weak and so delicate that he wanted to scream.

"i'm here, i'm here," he murmured, stroking your cheek to keep you awake while you both waited for the clear signal from the rest. his hands were shaking and he was sure that his heartbeat could be heard by everyone else on the comms but even then, he had to be strong. "i'm here, my sweet girl."

"you know," you forced these words out, eyes unfocused and dazy as you made an attempt to smile at his terror stricken face, "now's my turn to do the 'when i'm gone' talk. you already had two chances."

"NO! no — no, no," he shook his head, eyes blurring ever so slightly as the chaos over the comms became white noise to him. "we will never be having his conversation. ever. i'm supposed to go first and it'll be me. i don't care if i have to fight the fucking grim reaper for this, it'll be me and never you, you hear me? never — never you."

"when i'm gone," you continued as if he didn't practically tell you that he'd fight the devil if you went first and held onto his hand just a little bit tighter, as tight as your wounds would allow you to, "i want you to continue to invite simon around."

"darling — "

"no, please. i know you both and i know you'll just go away from the things that remind you of me and i don't want that," you talked quietly, your voice dipped in pain and john used his free hand to apply more pressure on it and when you didn't really wince or made a move to recoil back, his panic grew. "you both will remind each other of me and i don't want that to just hurt you more. invite him over, have tea, talk shit about me and — and just, keep him company. keep yourself some company."

"none of that is happening because you're not going away," john spoke sternly, his eyes determined and so confident that for a moment, he himself believed that you'd walk away from his alive and breathing. "we have years ahead of us and someone needs to be with me to make fun of riley for liking that stupid sitcom."

"i want you to be happy, dad," you continued, eyes fluttering close and stay shut for me even a longer time now and john panicked. "always happy."

"only when i have you," he shook you awake, your eyes shooting open at the motion and he almost cried in relief. he set you firmly against the wall and withdrew his hand from your grasp to talk over the comms. "lads, how's it looking?"

"positive, i believe. how's our miss soldier doing, sir?" gaz asked and john heard the occasional shower of bullets from his side and figured they were still stuck in the crossfire. "any damage to that billion dollar outfit of hers?"

"well, it's stained with blood now, so," john replied dryly and could feel gaz draw in a sharp inhale at that and figured he'd be out of the harm's way soon. "keep me updated."

he knew ghost was nearby, could feel his boots echoing in the almost empty hallways down the corridor and knew that you both were safe and secure. it was only when he looked away from the corner and back towards you that he noticed your limp hands and the way your head was slumped forward. he hands shook as he cupped your face and called out your name, almost hopefully.

"darling? honey, you gotta wake up," he spoke, almost inaudible and his own voice sounded foreign to him. it sounded too hollow and he hated that it looked like he had already accepted that you were gone. you were not. "come on, love. don't do this to your dad."

his hands were shaking terribly and blood smeared across your cheeks but he didn't care. all that he cared about was that you were there, still and so silent in his arms and you were not answering him. his could feel his heart break. he could make out exactly where it hurt him physically as he repeatedly called out your name and you did not respond.

heavy footsteps sounded from behind him and he didn't have to turn to know that it was simon — ghost, in that moment. he didn't have it in himself to turn. partly because you were here in his arms right now and if he turned, you being gone would be reality and he didn't wanna face that. partly because he didn't want simon to see you like that. blood trickling down the side if your head, face smeared with blood and a wound in the abdomen. no, john wanted simon to remember you happy, smiling and alive.

he wanted simon to have that much, even if his own last memory of you was you begging him to stay happy after your death.

and he thought about it. as he cradled your body close, rocking back and forth, he thought it was simply impossible. as if he'd ever be happy again without you here.

he didn't notice simon walk closer, didn't see him walk around to crouch in front of him and only realised that he was here when he called out his name. he couldn't even hear it clearly, high pitched ringing in his head and blurring images in front of him, the feeling of your blood on your hands, it was all just too much.

" — tain? captain?" simon called out, his eyes locking with his and john knew that it costed ghost his everything not to stare at you. his skull mask laid discared next to him, his signature balaclava in its place as he kneeled down. john could see the way his hold on his gun was too loose and the way his hands were trembling just the slightest bit as placed his gun back in his holster. "we need to get out of here."

"doesn't matter," john replied, his voice not giving away the turmoil in his heart and the war that was going on in his head. "she's gone, ghost."

"cap — "

"my daughter, she — fuck, my kid," john exhaled shakily, his hands carefully pushing away the strands of your hair out of your face. "lord, i don't have a child anymore."

"captain — "

"you don't get it, i'm not a father anymore!" john exclaimed, his voice breaking in the middle of the sentence as reality settled in. the weight of it seeped into his bones and he knew that he would carry its weight for the rest of his life. until he saw you again. "i'm not a dad, anymore."

he couldn't let you go, couldn't place you down and let you be gone from him. he couldn't accept it and why would he want to? what kind of father would he be if he just accepted that he was never going to hear someone call him 'dad' ever again? he'd never hear the words 'i love you, dad' or 'good morning, dad' or see your face smiling at him after he came back from a particularly long and stressful deployment or have you hug him whenever you got a nightmare or drink tea with you and simon as he joked about your relationship with his lieutenant. how was he going to accept this cruel and wretched version of reality?

"you'll always be a dad, captain," simon spoke quietly, his hand reaching out to smooth your hand down and just like his own hands, john noticed that it shook. "always gonna be her dad."

john couldn't do anything except watch. he tried to move, his mind screamed at him to move but his body caged him down. the dead weight of you — his daughter — weighted him down and for a moment, he was so sure that he'd feel this weight for the rest of his life. because, how was he supposed to forget the way you asked him to be okay after you? how was he supposed to be okay after you?

how was anyone supposed to be okay after you?

he blinked, eyes stinging with tears that he refused to let down and looked towards simon who was too quiet. john looked at him, watched him as he leaned down until his forehead was pressed against yours and felt an invisible knife twist around his heart. he could see the balaclava move and figured he was saying something to you but the ringing in head refused to let him hear anything, though, he thought that he heard the words 'come back' and 'don't do this to me' and felt his heart break some more. he had never — never — seen his lieutenant look so hopeless. so defeated. not when he found out that you both had broken up for some indefinite reason, not when he got injured on a mission and the only thing he asked for was you, not when you had made it your mission to paint his nails and only relented after his nails were a shade of wine red.

no.

john had always seen ghost so full of life around you. he had always seen his eyes crinkling at the corners as he spoke to you in low tones, always seen his shoulders dropping from their usual tense posture whenever he was around you. he had always seen him as simon around you.

john looked at him and realised that not only did he lose his daughter, simon lost the love or his life. he lost the one thing and one thing only that made him the happiest. he knew simon loved you even though he hadn't said the words out loud out, he knew he loved you. it was evident in the way only you were allowed to hold onto his mask for him as he adjusted his balaclava, in the way he always listened to you speak about anything and everything under the sun and never once interrupted you, in the way he always brought back something for you from his missions, ranging from a rock to a dried flowers.

john looked at him and realised that at any cost, he'd have to make it through this, for simon. for your promise.

for you.

he nodded, not trusting his voice to say anything and moved to stand up, your head lolled against his shoulder as he placed his hand under your knees while the other wrapped around your shoulders. he stood up as carefully as he could, as if any movement would cause you discomfort and held on tighter to push himself to be on his feet and — you whimpered, your wound pressing against his vest and your dad stilled, frozen alongside simon whose eyes shot towards your face as you stirred, your expression scrunched up with pain.

it didn't take more than a second for ghost to abandon his gloves and check your pulse as you went still once again, forcing his hands to stay still. john pretended not to hear him whisper 'please' under his breath as he placed his hand on the side of your neck, mainly because he knew he would break down if simon didn't hold himself together.

he looked at ghost who nodded and then he was already off, walking swiftly in front of john and you as he put on back his gloves and drew his gun to clear out anything that could show up, making a path from their corner to the evacuation point. john walked as fast as he could without jostling you and mumbled rapid apologies as you groaned in pain.

"we're heading out," ghost informed soap and gaz who were on the other side of the floot, drawing out any left hostile parties left. he filled them in your condition and in less than thirty seconds, they were running towards the three of you, panting and guns drawn. "she has already lost consciousness and we need to get her back."

john could only walk wherever ghost turned, his movements a bit too robotic and as they cleared out the building, the only thought he had was you, your safety, your life.

he doesn't remember much of the ride home but judging by the blood — your blood — on his hands and clothes, and the number of times gaz asked him if he was okay, he wasn't sure if he wanted to.

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

"so, i pass out from the pain and blood loss and your first guess is that i'm dead?"

"well, when you put it like that — "

"there is no other way to put it!" you laughed, instantly regretting your decision to do so as the action pulled on your stitches. "fuck — that's a bit dramatic, don't you think? did you even check my pulse?"

"listen — i was not thinking. my girl was just laying there in her own blood, what was i supposed to do?"

it's been more than a couple weeks since you've been discharged from the hospital, stitches in your abdomen and the side of your head but it's mostly inconvenient rather than painful if you could be honest and john and simon both know this because you have expressed this opinion far too many times.

john and simon both disagreed.

you wish you could say that they had toned the whole scary-guard-dog thing down ever since you got discharged from the hospital but you'd be lying. if anything, their protectiveness dialled a few notches up. if your dad was busy with something, simon stayed with you and vice versa.

now, your dad was protective. you had always known this. if you thought that there was no way he'd be able to get more protective than he was before this whole ordeal, you thought wrong. you weren't allowed to get up from your bed unless it was to stretch your muscles — (simon volunteered to help you with that. you dad threw his boot at him. thrice and then one more time for good measure.) — or to use the bathroom. you were on strict diet for the first week, mainly consisting of fluids and lots of proteins alongside the years' worth of medicine you had to take. he stayed home, officially on leave until he was sure you wouldn't collapse after standing for more than seven seconds and then he stayed for an extra week simply because he wanted to.

("i think i can pick up the remote without popping out my stitches."

"'m not talking any chances, kid.")

and then, there was simon.

if you thought that there could be no more increase in the protective measures after your dad, simon set out to prove you so wrong.

he stayed with you even after your dad went back to the base and that meant he stayed with you. you couldn't move an inch without his hand coming up to stabilize you — you told him you didn't need it, he disagreed — or just straight up pushing you back to sit down, gently and doing whatever you were out to do. it made your life just a tad bit difficult but you knew this was coming from a place of love — and fear.

"i'm okay," you smiled softly at your boyfriend, hands intertwining with his as you both laid on the couch while your dad worked in the kitchen, occasional shouts and gasps announcing his continued presence. "i'm okay."

"the fuck? you are not," simon's eyebrows were furrowed and you fought the urge to lean up and kiss the spot until he relaxed, partly because it would put pressure on your stitches and you did not need another lecture on basic medical knowledge by your dad and your boyfriend again. "don't make me tie to your bed."

"don't threaten me with a good time," you laughed softly at his blank stare, squirming away as he poked one of almost healed bruises. "fuck you."

"you're injured, not now," you could practically feel the smirk behind his mask and gave him the best unimpressed look you could. "stop lookin' at me like that."

"when was the last time you slept?" you ignored his advances and slapped away his hand that was coming up to tug you towards him, looking him in the eye. "you look worse than me."

"i'm breaking up with you."

"no, you're not."

"no, i'm not," simon sighed, his hand coming up to run through his grown blonde hair that he had intended to get cut — not by you because he doesn't trust you with scissors anywhere near his head. "i slept last night."

"liar," you narrowed your eyes at him, taking in the dark circles around his eyes and the way his eyes were droopy and how his eyes remained close when he blinked. "i heard you watching that movie you told me you hated."

"i was not — "

"simon," you sighed and he stopped speaking, knowing he was in for a lecture from you about his sleeping habits and his biological sleep cycle — something you wasn't even sure existed in his body. "love, why haven't you been able?"

he stayed silent, his hands fumbling with your hands and twisting your rings around your fingers. he almost smiled when he noticed the ring that he had made for you on your ring finger, a small 's' in the middle with a semblance of a tiny heart next to it.

"haven't been able to," he replied finally, his voice gruff with faux annoyance directed at your ability to coax answers out of him just like that. "too much going on."

you knew what he meant by that. the last couple weeks have been hectic to say the least and you couldn't help but feel guilty about being a part of the reason for your boyfriend not being able to sleep. "i'm sorry."

"shut up, what for?" he rolled his eyes and placed a fleeting kiss to your cheek, very near to your mouth before leaning back. "i'd take a few sleepless nights over your bleeding out any day."

you didn't say anything, just tugged on his arms firmly enough to make him get the hint and settle back into the mountain of pillows you had brought down from your room. he looked at you, a confused look in his eyes but complied as you pulled him towards yourself and wrapped your arms around him, smiling when he nuzzled into the crook of your neck and finally, relaxed. he pulled back just for a moment, one of his hands coming up to squeeze yours when you frowned at the lack of contact while the other one pulled away his mask, leaving his face bare.

you had seen his face many times but each time, you found yourself falling in love more and more. you knew each and every scar that adorned his face, every inch of uneven skin. you had spent nights kissing all that he thought made him ugly and promised him that he thought so wrong. you said nothing as he looked at you once again, eyea squinting at you playfully before he was back in your arms.

"i love you so much, you know that?" you whispered, your hand playing with his hair. you could feel him press feather light kisses to your neck, his breath fanning over your exposed skin making a trail of goosebumps and you didn't mind it one bit. "you know that right?"

he hummed in reply, pressing himself as close to you as he physically could. you didn't stop playing with his hair, knowing how much it relaxed him and soon him, he went completely still next to you, his grip on your loosening just a bit as he went slack. you couldn't help but admire him when he was like this, his face free of the usual scowl that he pulled up with him at every table, the furrow of his eyebrow that you always kissed, the frown that he had whenever anyone spoke, it was all gone.

you didn't hear your dad come in, a tray of three steaming cups of tea in his hands and settled it down on the centre table, proud of himself. he picked up your usual cup, strawberries drawn on it with a few daisies in the middle spaces and gave it to you, smiling softly before turning to look at simon — who to his surprise, was fast asleep against your shoulder.

"he's knocked out," john remarked, making a mental note to make another cup of tea for simon whenever he woke up and settled back into his designated chair adjacent to yours. "never saw him this... relaxed."

"yeah, well," you sipped out of your cup before placing it on the side table, eyes flickering to simon's still figure before looking back at your dad, a small smile on your lips, "he's been pretty set on not letting me lift a finger."

"he's worried about you," your dad nodded and you couldn't help but feel your heart flutter. "never seen him so out of mind. you know he loves you, right? he would fold the earth in the half if anything happened to you."

"i know, dad," you replied, eyes locked on simon as he slept next to you. you could see his chest rising and falling with every breath he took, his lips slightly parted as he breathed in and out evenly. "i don't even know how i'm supposed to tell him just how much he means to me. i don't know where to begin."

"he knows," he stated, sipping out of his own mug — with small yellow crowns — and setting it back down. "you'll both make it, you know? don't need to see the future to figure that out."

you knew what he was talking about.

you'd make it. of course, you would. it was simon who held your hand randomly while you walked around your town. it was simon who made sure that you were always stocked up with your favourite candies and chocolates. it was simon who learnt how to make paper rings because you were singing that song about how you'd marry him with paper rings. it was simon, always.

and even if this lifetime was enough for you, you knew that you'll find yourself falling for him in every other life. in all the universes out there, in every version of reality, you'd find yourself in love with him. you knew this much, you felt it in your bones.

maybe in another life, you would've seen him from across the bar and he would've sent a drink your way. maybe you would've ran into him at a coffee shop and he would've asked you your favourite blend. maybe you would've been childhood friends and he would've always been in love with you.

it would always be you and him.

"yeah, i know."

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

#ghostehe — ★₊˚﹟🪐 #call of duty — ₊˚⊹♡ #simon riley — 𖦹₊˚⊹☁️ #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley x y/n #simon riley imagine #simon riley au #simon riley fluff #simon ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #ghost x reader #ghost x you #ghost x y/n #ghost x female reader #ghost x fem!reader #cod x reader #cod x you #cod x y/n #cod x fem!reader

[hearts4hughes]

sweet nothing | luke hughes

nora’s birthday celly | luke hughes x fem! reader

a/n: this is the first official writing for my birthday celly! it took me forever to write because i suffered from a lot of writers block 😔. but here it is (finally)!! sweet nothing is my favorite song from midnights. it holds such a special place in my heart. it’s so effortlessly beautiful and breathtaking at the same time, so i hope this lived up to the expectations 🫶🏻🫶🏻

luke couldn’t escape the headlines. everywhere he looked he was being blamed for the devils’ playoff performance. he didn’t understand it. everyone on the team reassured him- including you- that he did great considering he’s straight out of college. luke, himself, thought he did good; however, the lingering feeling of doubt and guilt stained his mind like permanent marker.

he sighed, shoving his phone into his pocket and exiting his car.

when he entered the shared apartment, he was met with the sight of you in the kitchen. you were swaying back and forth, humming to the taylor swift song that played quietly in the background. a wave of comfort immediately washed over the boy.

luke didn’t believe in love at first sight until he met you. the second you wandered over to the bar counter, asking for a shirley temple with extra cherries, he knew he had to get your number. you were skeptical at first. of course you knew who he was- every sane person in new jersey knew the devils’ roster by heart- however, the heavy feeling that you were just going to be another notch on his belt, held you back. after getting swept up in conversation with the hockey player, you caved in and gave him your number, sending him a text to confirm everything. he texted you all week and you soon fell victim to his infectious charm.

“hi, baby!” you beamed as your boyfriend removed his shoes and hung his keys on the key rack. he smiled, already feeling calmer in your presence.

“hi, my love.” his voice was soft as velvet while he walked up behind you, snaking his arms around your waist and hugging you. with your back pressed against his chest and your scent filling his senses, all his problems ceased to exist.

you giggled as his head fell into the crook of your neck, placing soft kissing on your sensitive spots. “how was work, babe?”

he paused, pulling away from you and leaning back against the marble counter, “hm, fine.” his eyes glued to the floor, a telltale sign that he was bottling up his emotions, tucking it away into the back of his mind, and hoping you don’t notice. except you did notice. you saw right through luke.

it’s not that he didn’t trust you. god, you were one of the only people he trusted. it’s just that he didn’t want to burden you, knowing you, as well, shared a stressful career.

“did something happen?” you asked, your hand reaching up to rub up and down his arm. he continued to stare at the floor, his words getting caught in his throat.

“nothing happen, i just said it was fine.” he snapped, pushing himself off the counter and walking into the living room.

sensing his turmoil, you gently followed him into the living room. you placed a reassuring hand on his arm, turning him to face you. “baby,” you cooed, tears of frustration brimming in his eyes.

“you want to know what’s making me so fucking upset?” he spat, tossing his phone at you. catching the device, your heart sank into your stomach. the screen illuminated an article with the title, ‘luke hughes - the real cause of the devils’ demise’. “oh and if that one doesn’t do it for you, you can just search my name on twitter. there’s plenty more.”

instead of responding, you placed his phone down and brought him into a comforting hug. “it’s ok, lu. i’m here for you.” your voice was soft and soothing. he clung to you, his grip tight.

as he nestled against you, the weight of his frustrations spilled out in quiet sobs. you held him, your fingers tracing soothing patterns on his back.

"i know it's hard," you murmured, your lips brushing against his forehead. "but it wasn’t your fault. the team does everything together, including loosing. those comments and headlines are just words, they don’t define you.”

he sniffled, his arms loosening their hold slightly. “i just wanted to prove myself, you know? i wanted to show everyone that i belong on that ice."

"and you will," you affirmed. "lukey, you've already shown your talent and dedication. you’ve got an entire team behind you, including me, who believe in you."

he pulled back slightly, his teary eyes meeting yours. the vulnerability in his gaze was heartbreaking. "i don't know what i’d do without you," he admitted, his voice raw with emotion.

you smiled gently, cupping his cheek. "you don't have to go through this alone. we’re a team, baby."

he leaned into your touch, his lips pressing softly against your palm. "i’m sorry for snapping earlier," he whispered, his voice laced with regret.

"it’s okay," you assured him, your thumb brushing away a stray tear from his cheek. "you don't have to apologize for feeling frustrated. just promise me you'll always come to me, even when it's tough."

he nodded, his expression a mix of gratitude and relief. "i promise."

#hearts4hughes #nora’s writings 💐 #nora’s birthday celly! #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes #luke hughes blurb #luke hughes imagine #luke hughes imagines #new jersey devils #nhl imagine #hockey blurb

[milkistay]

backstage — yji

synopsis. the cute maknae from stray kids catches your eye backstage at m countdown. he’s been crushing on you since your debut.

pairing. jeongin x gn!idol!reader

format. imagine

word count. 2.2k

of course you knew of stray kids—it was impossible to even dip your toes into the world of kpop without hearing about the record-breaking 4th generation boy group whose success was undeniable—but aside from the handful of their songs on your playlists, you didn't know much about them. frankly, most of your attention was so focused on your own group and your next comeback and your upcoming shoots and your future fansigns that you barely had any time to become familiar with other groups.

backstage at m countdown, makeup artists were rushing between you and your members with brushes and lip tints, fans were whirling in the background to minimize sweating in your stage outfits, and the room had the faint stench of hairspray and coffee. the collar of your shirt was a bit too tight and the heat in the room was beginning to overwhelm you, despite the hard work of the fans. you motioned to the door to one of your members before slipping outside of the room, instantly gratified by the chill of the air conditioning in the quiet hallway.

that was, it was quiet, until you heard a loud shriek from one of the ends of the hallway. from a few doors down, two boys sprinted out of their room and a third followed, pointing a camera at them with a smile on his face. one of the first two boys was clearly chasing the other, arms held wide open asking for a hug, while the other expertly avoiding his embrace.

"ah!" the chaser—the shortest of them all, with broad shoulders and a grin on his face—exclaimed. "when did you get so cute?"

.

his victim—dark hair, sharp eyes, the most endearing smile you could ever think of on a person (he was smiling, despite being hunted down for affection)—laughed as he was cornered. he didn't give in, though, holding his arms out and pushing on the other boy's shoulders to keep him at a distance.

"enough!" he said, but he was giggling, even when he brought his fist up in a fake threat.

the chaser puckered his lips and the boy behind the camera let out a laugh.

"innie!" the chaser cried in an overly-sweet voice as he finally won the fight and enveloped the other boy in a tight hug. "cute, cute, cute!"

his victim's smile grew as he pulled his face away from the other boy's puckered lips. he was laughing with a thin blush on the apples of his cheeks and you couldn't help but chuckle at his predicament. he was still trapped in a hug when the three of them retreated back to the room and, as their door closed, you could hear a final complaint of "let go of me!"

later, you clutched a handheld fan centimeters from your face as post-performance sweat gleamed on your forehead. your stage microphone was still taped to your cheek and your in-ear monitors were draped around your neck. it was a great performance; you were extremely pleased with each of your members' execution and your staff members had praised you on a job well done. freshly-delivered starbucks drinks were handed out as you began to peel off unnecessary layers of your stage outfit.

when you finally collapsed on the couch, feeling cooled off and free from the shirt collar, you caught sight of the television on the wall live-broadcasting the m countdown stage. a boy group of eight were just beginning their first song when you immediately recognized the three boys you saw in the hallway earlier. their giggly, playful demeanors were gone, replaced by commanding expressions with a subtle air of sensuality. from the second the song track kicked in, your eyes were glued to the screen, watching the eight of them dance like it was their second nature and deliver their lines skillfully. they were beyond professionals and the simple title of 'performers.' the stage belonged to them. you glanced at the bottom of the screen at the words that read: stray kids. ah. they lived up to their endless praise.

you couldn't help but keep feeling your eyes drift to one member in particular, the one who you watched get attacked by his member in a hug. his presence on the stage was magnetic—sharp gaze, smooth movements, the youthful glow in his face. it was hard to believe this was the same boy who grinned brightly and laughed openly in the hallway. then, when the first song ended and the camera held onto his face for a few moments longer, he shot the audience a small smile and you recognized that lively glint in his eyes. you were charmed.

innie.

"do you know who that was?" you asked one of your members when the camera cut away.

your member finished a sip of their iced americano and shrugged. "i don't know. i think i recognize him—something with two letters. i want to say i.n?"

innie. i.n.

you later learned, from a quick internet search, that your member was right. his name was i.n, his real name was yang jeongin, and he was stray kid's maknae and vocalist. he was smiling in the accompanying photo that popped up.

you decided that wouldn't the last you saw of yang jeongin.

unbeknownst to you, yang jeongin had learned of you long before you spotted him in the hallway. when he first heard of the rookie group that had broken a record with their debut song, he was immediately intrigued and looked into your group. he watched a handful of music videos, listened to your debut album, and even watched some of your behind-the-scenes videos. every time, without fail, the person who caught his eye was you. there was something about your demeanor and your performances that drew him in. as he watched more content, he found himself incredibly attracted to your personality. plus, you were really, really cute.

since then, he had been keeping up with you in secret, always being the first to watch whatever the latest content from your group was, streaming your album on repeat, and popping into the occasional vlive. during a vlive of his own, he shyly mentioned that his new favorite song was one of your group's and slid in a couple of compliments in the most subtle way possible.

undoubtedly, he had a huge crush on you. he pulled your photocard in the album he bought and seungmin teased him for weeks over the giddy look that spread across his features when he saw it.

that's why, when he skimmed through the latest skz-talker episode, chuckling at the scene of changbin chasing him in the hallway for a hug, and the camera was angled in a way where it caught a figure standing at the other end of the hallway, he froze. the figure's face was blurred but he recognized your outfit immediately. he blushed and groaned with embarrassment. how was it that the first time you saw him in person it was during such a stupid antic like that? he wanted to meet you properly and charm you with a cool, professional manner. but no—you watched changbin chase him around in a baby voice. mortifying.

the next time you saw jeongin was at the kbs song festival. you sat in a chair backstage, impatiently tapping your foot and wishing you'd finish hair and makeup already. you fiddled with a certain piece of paper in your lap.

"all good," your makeup artist told you with a finishing touch of eyeshadow.

you thanked her and headed out of your dressing room with another word. it was a different building than m countdown was held in but hopefully the room you were looking for wouldn't be too far...

there it was. a few rooms down, taped onto the grey dressing room door, was a sign that read STRAY KIDS. should you knock? you suddenly felt a bit awkward; you weren't used to this kind of thing.

you ended up knocking, just loud enough to be heard over the blow dryer. the door opened moments later and a staff member stood behind it. judging by the quick look that flashed across his expression, he recognized you. you felt a bit more awkward.

"excuse me, but is yang jeongin here? i.n?"

"oh," the staff member said. he glanced behind him. "um..."

stray kids were spilled across the small room—some played games on their phones, one was asleep on the couch, another ate chips, and the rest were getting the hair and makeup done. but jeongin was nowhere to be found.

as you scanned the room, you locked eyes with one of the members getting his makeup done. you recognized him—seungmin, if you were correct—and his eyes widened in shock.

"you're looking for jeongin?" he asked you, like it was the most impossible thing in the world.

you gave him a short bow. "yes, i'd like to give him something. do you know where he is?"

"he's in the bathroom." his expression was deep with regret. "i can go get him right now."

"oh, that's okay," you assured. "i don't want to be a bother."

"no, no," seungmin said, getting up from his seat. "wait here for a bit, i'll go get him."

he slipped past you and out the door with a sense of urgency. you really didn't want to make it a big deal, and you felt bad for making him run an errand.

"i'll wait in the hallway, thank you," you told the staff member.

he nodded the closed the door uncertainly. you fiddled with the paper. maybe you should've just given it to seungmin.

one of your own staff members peeked her head out from your dressing room.

"what are you doing out there? you have to go on in two minutes, you have to come now."

"now?" you asked, even though you knew that two minutes already meant you were running late.

"yes," she urged.

you sighed, glanced at the direction seungmin left and stuffed the paper in your pocket.

"okay, let's go."

you were so focused on your performance while onstage that you didn't even think about jeongin or the paper in your pocket. you executed every practiced move with precision and smiled when the audience cheered at your parts. it was a fantastic performance and one that left you exhausted by the time you stepped off and walked back to your dressing room.

you were talking animatedly with one of your members when, right before you entered your room, you spotted jeongin standing nearby, his hands in his pockets and his shy gaze on you. he was really cute.

"i'll be there in a sec," you told your member and they closed the dressing room door, leaving you and jeongin alone in the hallway.

after a brief moment, he gave you a deep bow, one that you reciprocated immediately.

"hi," he said, eyes big and curious. "one of my members told me you were looking for me."

his hair was carefully styled and his makeup looked like it was just finished—bronze eyeshadow that drew attention to his eyes, a light rosy blush on his cheeks, a pink tint on his lips. he looked astoundingly good.

"yes," you told him with a chuckle. "yes, i was. i—uh—i wanted to give you something."

"really?"

you reached into your pocked and pulled out the paper. "yeah, well, i noticed you during m champion and i sort of thought you were very attractive," you admitted, a smile on your face. "hot and cute at the same time."

"oh," he said, the tips of his ears quickly growing red. he glanced down at his feet, then back at you. "i sort of think the same about you. i find you very attractive."

your smile grew. "is that so?"

he let out a small, beautiful laugh. "it's a little embarrassing, but yes."

"well," you began and held out the paper for him. "this was what i wanted to give you."

he took it from you and carefully unfolded it.

"it's my phone number," you told him. "if you want to, you know, get in touch with me later or something. maybe we could go for a coffee or dinner sometime."

he grinned brightly, that endearing smile of his that warmed your heart.

"i'd love that," he said. "really. i'd really love that."

you giggled. "great. i'm happy to hear that."

the two of you stayed there a moment, trading smiles and coy, pleased looks.

"i have to get back," he said, a twinge of disappointment in his voice. "i have to perform soon, so i should get back."

you nodded. "yes, of course. good luck onstage! and get in touch when you can."

"thank you, i will definitely get in touch soon. definitely," he assured. "see you later!"

"see you, jeongin."

you shared one last look of childish joy before he turned to leave and you slipped back into your room, a mental image of his gorgeous smile at the front of your mind.

#jeongin fluff #jeongin imagines #jeongin drabble #jeongin x reader #jeongin x gn!reader #i.n imagine #i.n fluff #i.n x reader #skz imagine #skz fluff #stray kids fluff #idol!reader #jeongin x idol!reader #skz x idol!reader

[hugthepanda12]

‘Edred is in control the most in the host body’ 

True, but also consider the followng.

I can’t believe this

and this

is the same person xD

I mean, we don’t know enough about Edred. Maybe he HAD some goofy moments in the past. However, taking into consideration how expressive Dimitri is, I do believe all of the silly faces actually are made under Dimitri’s influence. 

Dimitri lets Edred do whatever he wants because, I think, they both agree how to react in a given situation. For example, when they see these statues, they’re both scared that sight is inapropraiate for Lady’s eyes (chivalry am I righ?)

Additonaly, it would be fun if Edred heard Dimitri’s voice sometimes. Specifically, when Dimitri wants to suggest something. 

Remember when Edred tried to distract Melinda from looking by explaining the mysterious magic behind the awakening of these statues?

In the screens Edred makes several hand movements and acts pretty awkward. In my mind, this is a rare instance of Dimitri’s mannerism, while the words come from Edred himself. But, I’d like to imagine Dimitri told him to come up with a bluff, Edred started talking and panicked, which resulted intro a rather poor performance.  

Another instance of ‘Dimitri’s taking over’ is presumably in the ship when Edred tried to woo Melinda. 

These make me laugh, you have no idea

I call these ‘Edred your Dimitri is showing when you flirt’ 

And if my silly idea ‘Dimitri communicates with Edred sometimes’ is somewhat true, I would even take into consideration the possibility of Dimitri being Edred’s wingman xD

Just imagine Dimitri trying to cheer up poor Edred because his love gave him ‘the STARE’ and then suggesting he should remind her of their first date and Edred is immediately like: YES, THAT’S IT! And then he whispers to his sword to do the thing we saw in the episode lol

Also, I wanted to add that the smile presented in this screen above is an expressio of pride that emerges from BOTH Edred and Dimitri. Maybe it is Edred’s smiling due to the fact he’s sure his plan to make Melinda love him again will come into fruition but my silly brain can’t help but wonder if Dimitri’s also content he is sitting in the first row and whitnessing a romance novel in live action lol

That being said, I’m lookng forward to Dimitri manifesting more often.

(and waiting for Edward to cuss in Russian because why not it would be funny)

#uwe #unicorn warriors eternal #edred #uwe edred #dimitri dynamo #my silly ideas regarding dimitri and edred being homies xD

[milksuu]

Imagine Yone having a wife, which the rest of Heartsteel doesn't know about, I mean they never asked, and then one day he brings a child to the bands apartment. Since his wife has to work late hours and the nursery is already closed, he has to take care of their child. What would the reaction of the band be? And how would they be with children? (Also the wife is the reader since I love self indulgence with Yone)

❥ prompt: Yone never talked about his personal life. The Heartsteel gang had a few assumptions, but they were just theories. Nothing proven. Until the gang found a toddler running around the apartment. ❥ content/warnings: fluffy fluff, gang shenanigans ❥ characters/pairings: v!Heartsteel & yonexreader!gn!kid

KAYN

"What the hell is that thing!? And since when did Yone spawn anything into existence!?"

Kayn isn't used to children being within a five-foot radius of his presence. He tends to not surround himself with booger eating, snot crying, whining little crotch gremlins. Even worse, their damn parents.

Kayn's chaotic nature in public can't be stifled. And he's met his fair share of parents trying to lecture him on his behavior. He always has two words ready for such an occasion: Fuck off. And then proceeds to flash both middle fingers in the air, and laugh when the child behind the fuming parents drops their ice-cream. Absolute poetry.

This was a little different. Scratch that—a lot different. Not only does he know the damn parent (Yone) but the child has managed to infiltrate his room, and infect everything with a thousand unnamed child born diseases. He's about ready to blow a casket. Until the kid accidentally starts playing his Pentakill vinyl album on the record player. That's when he saw a rockstar be born. The way that little tyke started headbanging would put a bunch of mosh pit psycho's to shame. And the screeching? A future screamo lead-singer, easily.

An all out heavy-metal concert ensued. With Kayn rifting his guitar with the song instrumentals, and the kid jumping and screaming into a cheap cordless mic he found under his bed. When the song ended, Kayn chanted "Jump! Jump!" into the mosh-pit of one. And you don't need to tell a child to launch themselves off of anything twice. The tater-tot squealed and laughed, being caught in Kayn's hands and praised into the air for a killer performance.

From the bedroom door, an audience member leaned cooly against the frame. Clapping at the spectacle. "Dada!" The kid raised their fists higher into the air. "I'm a rwockstar!"

Yone lifted a brow, crossing his arms in pure amusement. "I can see that."

"Y-Yeah. Next time, tell your kid not to barge into other people's rooms," Kayn coughed, quickly setting down the kid and patting them towards Yone. "Teach it some manners, o-or whatever. So that I don't have to deal with it."

Yone chuckled under his breath. Taking his child by the hand, he smiled. "Come with me. We should go before someone gets a little too attached."

Kayn huffed red. Slamming the door and shouting behind it, "WOULD NOT!"

APHELIOS

".........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?"

So, there was a child. An actual living, breathing one. Stumbling. Running around. Knocking things over. Yelling at the wall and ceilings like some deranged lunatic out on the city streets. What a disaster. What a nightmare. Aphelio's wasn't scared by most things; monsters, zombies, ghosts, spam mail. But children were terrifying creatures. Destructive and loud. The worst kind of combination in a singular human being. Kind of like Kayn.

He swore he broke out into a cold sweat when the child barged into his room. Not quietly at all. His heart pounded. His fingers turned cold. And his eyes trembled against his computer screen. He hoped the child would grow bored of terrorizing his room like some miniature version of Godzilla. He also hoped someone would see the calamity, take pity on him, and come to his aid. Someone like Sett.

He then heard a familiar note. He cursed himself twice. He shouldn't have left his electric portable keyboard out in the open. Aphelios turned cautiously in his chair. He swallowed hard and braced himself for a horrific sight. He thought he'd find the child bashing the keys in or trying to pluck the knobs right off. Instead, he saw a small round face filled with wonder at the sound. Carefully, the child pressed another. Smiling, delighted by the next note. Aphelio's eyes rounded. That's when he saw a little bit of himself.

It didn't take long for Apehlios to gather his spare headset and cord link. He plucked the kid up and placed him right on his lap at his desk. He was going to show this little one all the instruments in his digital toolbox. The workflow of an absolute musical genius. And they were going to make a mixed bite that would leave people speechless.

"Oh! Oh! Dat one. Dat one." The toddler tapped Aphelio's hand against his computer mouse. A few clicks and the instrument was spliced into the mix. When Aphelio's replayed the bit, the child kicked their legs back and forth, clapping their hands together. Wanting to gauge the tots overall opinion, he flipped between thumbs-up and thumbs-down. Back and forth. The little one took his hand, and kept it thumb-side-up with a cheeky grin. And they both nodded in agreement. This mix was a certified banger.

EZREAL

"Hey, guys. Has anyone seen my phone? Nevermind. Found it! Someone's totally random kid has it. Wait—HUH!?"

Ezreal doesn't mind kids so much. They could sometimes be a lot of fun. The only thing Ezreal can't handle is once a crying session starts, or a random tantrum erupts. He gets a little nervous when the meltdowns start. Because he has no freaking clue how to handle it. So for the most part, Ezreal does like kids—from a distance. Where he can smile and laugh at their antics, without having to actually deal with an emotional ticking time bomb. Kayn was bad enough already.

The other thing he can't deal with is someone messing with his phone! And unfortunately, his habit of misplacing it has caught up to him. Because now a toddler has it. Deleting and messing up his apps. Possibly trying to look for some silly game he doesn't even have installed. And if Ezreal thought he was fast, well, this kid took the crown. Call that tyke 'Lightning McQueen', because they were leaving sneaker marks on the floor.

But this game of chase had to come to an end. Ezreal caught up to the road-runner, and slipped the phone right out of those tiny fingers. Ezreal cheered himself thinking he won. Ezreal quickly figured out he was actually about to be the biggest loser. He witnessed those round eyes growing in watery magnitude. Face wrinkling with pure, unfiltered raw emotion. The hiccups increased in volume, and those puffed cheeks were getting more red by the minute.

"H-Hey! Don't cry. No, no. Shhh—Shhh! It's okay." Ezreal smacked his hands together, begging and pleading for mercy upon his sensitive soul. Ezreal sunk his top teeth into his bottom lip. He wasn't prepared for this at all. And if Yone ever found out he made his kid cry, then mostly likely, he'd make sure Ezreal was crying too (and bleeding) on the floor. Then forced to clean up his own murder scene!

A few quick taps and he knelt down with the hiccuping toddler. With the cat filter setup, Ezreal pretended to be a kitten; meowing and licking his paw and rubbing his cheeks to clean himself. The kiddo sniffed back their brimming tears, giggling when they saw they had their own whiskers and ears! After a couple of loud meows, the child hopped up and down. "Doggy next! Doggy next!" One tap and now they were puppies, barking and panting.

Many cute pictures were taken. Ezreal picked out a few and messaged them to Yone.

[Yone:] Thanks. The wife will be happy to have these. [Ezreal:] np! 😋 [Yone:] By the way. Have you finished cleaning the bathrooms? [Ezreal]:..............................................yes. 🤗 [Yone:] Finish the bathrooms. Now. Or I'll be confiscating your phone for a week.

Ezreal almost broke down in tears, falling to his knees. He was so close to having his own meltdown. Just from the sheer thought of losing his phone privilege's. Honestly, he should be off the hook for entertaining the kid and sending cute pictures. Life totally wasn't fair!

SETT

"Well, hello down there. You wanna play a game or—shoot. I didn't mean to scare ya'h off! I swear I'm a nice guy if ya'h give me a chance!"

There was no doubt about it. Sett really, really, liked children. There was something about them that brought him joy whenever they were around. All of his personal baggage and adult stress would simply melt away from a simple giggle or smile. And Sett had his fair share of babysitting other single-moms' and their children while growing up. It was one of his part-time jobs from middle to high school. All to help Ma' with paying the bills.

Unfortunately, kids didn't seem to like him too much (at first). With his overwhelming mass, they'd think he was some sort of monster. The one their parents told them would gobble them up if they didn't shower before bed. So, here he was, trying to entertain the little one. But anytime they caught sight of him, they'd cry in terror and scamper away. Sett had to think bigger. He tapped his chin a couple of times before a light bulb went off above his ears.

He laid out the scene in his room. He thanked his Ma' for one of the plushies she sent came with a tea set in the box. He went as far as to grab a few outfits and materials he stitched up as small replicas of larger projects him and K'Sante worked on. Him and the surrounding stuff toys were dressed appropriately for the most exquisite tea-party. Dress, hats, neck pearls and all!

Curiosity always got the best of any child. When the tater-tot heard the laughs and conversations, they had to sneak a peek. And once they entered the room, the child found Sett sitting on the ground, surrounded by his plushies, all served with tiny cups and plates.

"Oh! Quiet down everyone. The prince/princess has finally arrived. Mr. Chonk, please. Show our honored guest to their seat." He motioned his tea-cup to a free spot at the 'table'. The child glowed with excitement, scurrying to their designated placement. With a fancy tilt of their teacup, they took prim and proper sips of their tea. "More tea, Mr.Swett?" The toddler wiggled forward and picked up the teapot.

"Why, yes. I would love some more. Thank you." Sett raised his cup at the offer. The giggles and excitable conversation could be heard throughout the entire apartment. It wasn't long till the rest of the gang stuck their noses through a crack at the door. Opening the door, they couldn't help but burst with laughter at the display. Ezreal, of course, snapping pictures. Aphelios chuckling to himself behind his mask. Kayn roaring with laughter and tears. And K'Sante commenting on how he'd never expect some of his designed outfits would be used at a kid's tea party. "Nuh-Uh. You can't come in." The toddler hoped on their feet, pushing all of them all out the door. "Dis invitation onwy. No stinkers!"

"That's right, fellas. No stinkers." Sett laughed, raising his pinky into the air. "This is an exclusive tea-party. Better luck gettin' invited next year. Right?"

K'SANTE

"He-He. You think you have what it takes because you are Yone's kid? Show me and prove it."

K'Sante grew up with a large family. Brothers, sisters, first cousins, second cousins, the neighbors next door and their kids. Heck, even that laundromat lady his mom was friends with and her kids. Actually, just about everyone in the community. Seemed like it was always a party at his parents home. No matter the day or week, K'Sante had always dealt with a high-energy household. And when the adults pulled out the bottle of Akpeteshie, you knew it was going to be a rager. And at the kids table, K'Sante was in charge of watching over the parade of younger children.

Being a certified older sibling within his family unit, and apparently, Heartsteel as well, handling one little wasn't going to throw off his cool or cramp his style. In fact, he was more than prepared. If there was one thing he knew from growing up, kids loved to play dress up. And he had a full wardrobe of runway worthy outfits.

K'Sante busted out a long carpet down the hallway. Borrowed some plushies from Sett, and made them the audience and judges. Dimming most of the surrounded lights, the hallway bulbs illuminated the catwalk with intensity. Let the show begin!

"Higher energy! Yes, show them a 'ting or two about what fashion truly means." K'sante clapped his hands as the kiddo strutted down with dramatic sass. "That is it. Right there. Now, finish them off with the look." At the end of the carpet, the child titled their head back, and narrowed their eyes before sharply turning with a fling of the boa around their neck. K'Sante cheered, pushing one of the stuffed animals as if it passed out from sheer cut-throat fashion! He blew kisses into the air. "They can't even handle you right now. You are new, you are fresh, but also timeless. Molded by the hands of Gods. Your power is infinite."

Wardrobe changes were a must. K'Sante wasn't going to let such talent go to waste. His work of art and the tiny fashion model would display it all for the world to see. Well, the stuffed animal world, he had to remind himself. Seemed like a game of pretend was feeling like a real runway gig! And after the runway show was over, it actually wasn't truly over. K'Sante had pulled out a magazine from behind a display case. Showing the kiddo a picture of their father walking down a runway in an all black-attire event. "Dada," the kid placed a hand against the glossy page. "Supah cool."

"That's right." K'Sante said proudly, puffing his chest. "And your Dada looks cool because I am the one who designed his suite. But, I'll give him credit. He is a pretty cool guy all on his own."

an: this req was too cute to write omg. sorry if i just focused on the gang and the kid, rather than the yone x reader part you also requested. felt it was getting a bit long, and i wasn't sure if i could incorporate it well enough. very sorry about that. but don't worry! i have another yone x reader req. incoming.

#heartsteel #sheida kayn #aphelios #ezreal #sett #k'sante #yone #request #reqs open #league of legends

[chishiyaisasnack]

It’s under my skirt, Doctor

Hello everyone! It’s been a while. I finally got this little thing together, and I hope you all like it.

Disclaimer! This is smut. Stay away if you aren’t of agw or if you’re uncomfortable with the topic. Remember to use protection in real life!

Written and posted on mobile, I apologize for any wierd formatting.

Chishiyas life was work. Long hours, sometimes so long that he didn’t leave the hospital before his next shift. The couch in his office had become soft from where he slept, countless days and nights spent there alone. Not that it mattered, not to him. He liked his job. Kind of. There was nothing else he wanted to do anyway, so filling his life with something that kept his brain occupied and evolving was good enough. Once he stopped caring about all the injustice he focused solely on performing surgeries. The heart was an interresting thing, so small, so powerful. One wrong move and a life could end. Sometimes he wondered what that would feel like. He would never play with a life like that, he wasn’t completely insane, but the thought had showed up once or twice.

This particular shift got his mood turning all over the place. Everyone was whiny, rude and just hard to deal with. Twelve hours of pretending to be respectful was hard enough on the good days.

When he got back to his office he sank down into the couch, contemplating buying new cushions soon because they were starting to get uncomfortable. He needed to get his mind cleared out, to stop thinking about work and kids and parents who he wanted to toss in the trashcan.

A vibration went off in his pocket, making his head hurt just thinking about what they would need him for now. He just wanted to rest. So, when he picked it up and saw the notification on his screen he got pleasently suprised.

Y/N: Hey, sorry to disturb your work but I have a medical issue that I wondered if you could take a look at? I can come over in 10 minutes if that works for you.

He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Normal people didn’t use the words ”medical issue” as a synonym for ”I want to fuck” but it worked very well for the two of them. Chishiya had met her at a work gathering and that turned out to be the best stress reliever he could wish for, and he knew that she used him for that exact same reason. Some might say that they were dating, but the only times they really met in person was just for sex and maybe some lunch afterwards. Chishiya did spend occasional nights at her place since she lived closer to the hospital than he did, and getting his dick wet then sleep in a bed instead of his office couch was a nice change.

Ten minutes later the telltale three knocks on his office door woke him up from his thoughts. Trying not to run to the door in excitement, he stood up, took a deep breath and changed into his normal ’I don’t care about anything’-face before opening it. The ’not caring about anything’-face changed as soon as he saw what was on the other end of the doorframe. He was not prepared for her standing there, panties hanging from slender fingers on one of her hands and her head cocked to the side. The skirt she was wearing was short and flowy, almost revealing what was, or rather what wasn’t underneath it.

”Eager are we?” Chishiya welcomed her in a smug voice, trying to hide the mess his head was already in. She winked at him in response.

”You usually don’t have very long so I thought I’d be prepared.” She walked straight to him, put the underwear in the chest pocket of his white doctors coat and kicked the door closed behind her. Chishiya could hear the click from the lock but was more interrested in the cleavage that her ”too tight to be comfortable”-top was showing. He didn’t even try to hide that he liked what he saw. He knew she liked it. A finger under his chin woke him up from his thoughts and when he looked up he was met with sparkling eyes full of excitement when she gazed back into his.

”Hmm.. I like how professional you look in this outfit” she purred as she smoothed her hands up his chest until she reached his neck, hands tangling in the blonde strands in the back until his hair tie fell to the floor, one thumb tracing his ear. ”I’d let you examine me any day.”

Chishiya rolled his eyes at her attempt at flirting, but rather than giving her a comeback he reached in and put his hands on her bare thighs, inching further up while he kissed that lovely space between her neck and shoulder that made her whimper every time.

”So, what did you want me to take a look at?” Chishiya murmered teasingly into her ear. She hummed and moved her hands back down to his shoulders, gripping onto the neck of his coat.

”It’s under my skirt, Doctor.”

In one swift move she grabbed the stethoscope still hanging around his neck and pulled him with her until they both hit the wall behind her, before crashing her lips into his with urgency, and Chishiya returned it with just as much desire as he was given. It was intoxicating, her soft lips, the sweet smell of her perfume, her hands tugging at his hair trying to coax him closer.

His hands went from her thighs to her waist, with just a quick squeeze at her ass first, clenching his fingers in the fabric of her shirt, pulling her even closer so that she could feel that this was affecting him too. His cock was already getting hard, pushing uncomfortably against his pants, but her soft stomach gave great friction whenever she moaned and rubbed herself against him.

Trying to deepen the kiss, she slid her tounge against his lips, making him smile against her whine when he didn’t answer her attempt. He was the one calling the shots and he wanted her to remember that. Instead of giving her what she wanted he pried his lips away from hers and targeted her neck.

The sweet sounds she made whenever his lips caressed her made his head spin. He couldn’t keep his hands still any longer and torturously slow started to inch them up the skin under her top, feeling the way she moved under them, how she was shivering against his touch and how her lungs moved with every heated breath that left her. He knew that undressing her probably wasn’t the best idea in case someone managed to interrupt them, but when he felt her breast under his palms, so soft and squeazable and utterly wonderful to nibble at, his desire to put his face between them took over his rationality. So, after he sucked down on the skin on her shoulder - and grinned at the sour moan she made - he pulled her top off and started his descent down her body. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard the thump that her head made when she threw it back against the wall but he was far more interrested in the goosebumps that spread under the line he licked down her collarbone. When he finally moved his mouth over her nipple he felt a hand grip his shoulder with a strenght that was sure to leave a mark.

The noises she made went straight to Chishiyas cock. His mind was so clouded by the need to be inside her that he was having trouble keeping his teasing facade in check. Nestling his face in her chest did ground him a bit though, it was the whines that followed it that made him throb in his pants.

”Fuck, Chishiya… lower please” she begged, shivering when he swept his tounge over her other nipple. The gentle squeeze from his other hand earned him another whimper - and a fist in his hair trying to push him further down. He complied with a quiet laugh, loving how aroused she was from just this. Not that he had anything to say about that, he was aching just as bad as she was.

He didn’t bother to take her skirt off, he just held it up with one hand while running the other up her inner thigh, slow and steady so that he could hear her quiet complaints that he took too long.

”Hold it” he commanded, looking at her and then the skirt, nodding towards it to make his point. A shaky hand took a hold of the hem of the skirt and he shifted his focus back to her soft thighs, leading up to her glistening center that he couldn’t wait to be inside. He couldn’t help himself and squeezed the inside of her thigh, thinking about how great it would feel to have them wrapped around him - then laughed at her impatient grunt before giving in and giving her what she asked for.

With one hand he hiked her leg over his shoulder and then he dove in and let his tounge spread her open, loving the wetness he was met with. A cascade of ’yes’-es fell from her mouth as she rolled her hips in time with his tounges movements. A long lick between the folds, flicking over the clit, sucking, kissing, circling… he knew exactly what she liked and he gave it to her. Every time her moans got a little louder he slowed down, dragging out the sensation (and pissing her off just a little just because he could). It was his favourite leisure activity and he could go for hours if he had the time. Unfortunately he didn’t and with a last lick he stopped, her disappointed groan chiming like music in his ears.

He rose to his feet, one hand still lingering on her thigh, the other moving a strand of hair from her face that was so lovely and flushed from desire. There was a hint of irritation from the way her eyebrows scrunched together, but it disappeared when he used the same hand that he just caressed her cheek with to draw a line along her pussy, wet and warm, and so inviting, making her squirm under his touch.

”I want to take my time with you but we’re in a bit of a hurry,” he reminded her. ”Come here.”

Chishiya started walking towards the couch, sat down and patted his lap as an invitation for her to sit.

”I’m tired and have been working all day,” Chishiya playfully told her, watching her eyes roll as she walked towards him, which made him chuckle. He enjoyed how obvious she was with everything and that she didn’t take any of his shit. She was strong and powerful and he wouldn’t have a chance against her wits if she wanted to ruin him. And he didn’t want it any other way.

”You need a new couch” she complained while straddling his lap, knees sinking down too far and throwing off her balance before she put her hands on his shoulder and shuffled her way forward to hover over his length.

”But I really like my couch” he lied, lazily putting his hands on her waist to pretend to help her.

”Sure you do. Take off your pants, or are you too tired to do that to, Doctor?”

For once he hurried, mostly because his dick was aching and he couldn’t wait for it to be inside her. So he moved his pants and boxers out of the way, enough to release his cock. She didn’t waste a second and sank down onto it right away.

Both of them moaned, her from finally being filled and him from finally being hugged by her warm, wet walls. When she started to move, riding him nice and deep, he couldn’t help himself and let his head fall back so he could watch her face as she fucked herself on him.

”Fuck, I’ve been needing this” he groaned as she took him in, Chishiya pushing as far in as he could to savour that warm and tight feeling that her insides gave him. ”You feel so good.”

”Fuck…” was the only answer he got, but it sounded perfect. Breathless and broken, turning into another moan when his cock hit her sweet spot again.

She rode him deep and fast, her wet walls stroking his cock in rhythm with her movements. Desperate to feel more of it, he bucked up into her to bury himself as deep as he could. Her hands was on his shoulders, nails digging deep into his white coat.

Chishiyas hands were everywhere, grabbing her ass hard as she bounced on his lap, sliding up her waist when he went back to rolling her hips, cupping her breasts when he took over and fucked her from below. The bliss on her face drove him on, making him thrust harder and angling his hips so that he hit that spongy spot inside her with every thrust. He could feel her getting close, her insides tightening and clamping down around his cock, stroking the life out of him with it. He wouldn’t last much longer either - he needed her to come so that he could join her. So he slid a hand down to her center, putting two fingers on her clit and started to circle it in time with his thrusts. The loud groan she let out at the sensation made the fire in his stomach grow even more and, fuck, he needed her to orgasm.

”Y/N, come for me,” he hissed and pressed down harder on her clit. ”Fuck, come on my cock.”

And so she did. With a rough moan into his neck he felt her walls clamping down on his cock, so fucking tight, before convulsing around him. Maybe he should have stopped and let her catch her breath but his hips moved at their own will now. He fucked her with desperation, each thrust bringing him closer, until he emptied himself deep inside her. She moaned as he did, rocking her hips to stimulate him more until his cock had stopped twitching.

Chishiyas hands landed on her waist again, this time drawing soft circles on her skin, making her shiver under his touch. Her breath was warm against his neck when she nuzzled her face there. He let her rest on him, he was too satisfied to move anyway. They sat like that until both their breathing had calmed down, and until he had gone soft enough to slip out of - although he didn’t want to. She felt too good. But even he wasn’t able to control his body that much. He had tried.

When she moved it was with shaky legs, tired from overworking them on that dumb couch. He smirked as he helped her up onto her feet, casting a glance on the clock hanging on the wall above his desk. There were still time to have some more fun, and even if his dick was tired, his tounge wasn’t. Standing up next to her he bent in, moved a strand of her hair away from her face, and softly spoke into her ear.

”So, is there anything else you want me to examine?”

#chishiya #my writing #chishiya alice in borderland #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya x reader #aib chishiya #chishiya x y/n #shuntaro chishiya #chishiya smut #chishiya x fem!reader #chishiya shuntaro smut #chishiya imagine #shuntaro chishiya x reader #chishiya shuntaro x reader

[sungbeam]

nonidol!lee hyunjae x fem!reader

your best friend hyunjae ain't no romeo, but you're still in love... so let's hope he doesn't find out you wrote a whole play about him!

▷ genre, warnings. bffs2l, fluff, angst, comedy/humor, swearing, college au, pining, hyunyn r kinda franchise movie buffs, shirtless hyunjae......, slow burn-ish lol, if ur a theater kid i am so sorry, stress and academic pressures, mentions of a bitter ex-friendship and ex-relationship, sabotaging and low-key terrorizing by an ex-friend, kissing, insecurity, lots of jargon i looked up and hope i'm using correctly, massive leaps in time and multiple chapters that span one day 💀, denial is a river in egypt so ig hyunjae's in egypt

▷ total wc. 30.9k (i actually overshot this one r we surprised 0_0)

this is the fourth installment of the love in unity series! this can be read as a standalone, but there will be references to other fics, and all prev and future yns will be referred to as __!yn !! i do recommend reading at least one of the prior storylines ;')

a/n: mmmmmmmmmm idk what to say but have fun bye!!! AND REBLOG FOR GOD'S SAKE REBLOG PLEASE—

EPISODE ONE (PILOT): ONE ON ONE

“HAVE you always wanted to be a playwright?”

The question caught you off guard as you glanced up from your tablet screen, the white blue-light contrasting sharply against the warm amber radiating from the small, battery-operated lamp seated on the plastic folding table. There were a couple of technical issues going on behind the curtain at the moment, so the transition to the next person auditioning would be delayed by a couple minutes. In retrospect, it was nothing, but when you were already a couple weeks late behind schedule, a couple of minutes was everything.

A young and bright second-year student sat to your right in the middle rows of the university performing arts center nosebleeds. She was peppy and eager and passionate—all the things that you sometimes saw yourself as when you were her age. Her name was Bae Sumin, and she wasn’t here to audition, nor was she here for you. She was actually here to interview a few of the dancers for the winter showcase in representation of the university’s premier newspaper called The Daily. She had asked if she could sit in for a few of the auditions and observe, maybe ask a few questions; who were you to refuse an eagle-eyed undergrad who reminded you so much of yourself?

“Oh, well,” you began, eyes flitting to the velvet curtain where you saw a man in a dark baseball cap—Lee Jihoon—give you a swift thumbs up, “kind of. Playwriting was my first love, but it eventually turned into screenwriting over time.”

“So why choose playwriting for your capstone instead of screenwriting?” Sumin followed up, as you and her attention turned to the spotlit stage where your next auditioner walked out onto.

You knew the answer to that; you really did. But the audition was beginning, and though he was introducing himself to you, you couldn’t quite get your head in the game. Why did you choose to write a play over directing a film? You quickly murmured an answer to the second-year beside you as the student onstage had gotten so nervous he dropped his copy of the script on the floor. “I guess, when it counts, you always go back to your first love.”

— ✶

It was times like these where you really valued a good, strong cup of coffee.

“—I’m gonna stop you right there.” The poor kid—you really did feel bad for cutting people off sometimes, but you swore it was wholly necessary—froze like a deer in headlights. You stood up from your chair and began making your way down the aisle and into one of the rows that were closer to the stage. “Michael, is it?”

Michael, the student on stage who had been auditioning to play the role of a Napa Valley wine salesman, bobbed his head in affirmation.

You dipped your head. “Okay, Michael. Let me ask you: what is your motivation for this scene as a wine salesman? Because, if I’m being honest, dude, I’ve counted like… four different ways you’re playing this character.” In this singular scene alone. Your head was spinning from stress, and his mannerisms felt right for the role, but his acting itself just wasn’t hitting the mark. (If that even made sense, but your initial thought when he first walked onto stage gave you the aura of a business major.)

“Um,” he stammered, scratching the back of his head, “my motivation is to… sell wine?”

“Sell wine, and? What else?” Please pick up on the lines. Please tell me you read the other lines of this character.

He rifled through his packet of stapled script papers, clammy fingers flipping through and his eyes racing over lines. He probably printed out multiple sheets to audition for multiple parts in case this one fell through. “Oh! I, uhm, I’m supposed to eventually lock Alex and Kai in the wine cellar.”

“Because…” You prompted.

“Because… my boss is the… second cousin of the bride’s uncle?” He quickly added on, and you could see the cogs in his brain turning like rent was due (your rent—your rent was due—oh shit), “Wait! Wait! And Uncle Lee overheard the ex-boyfriend plotting to get Alex alone, so he asked me to hide Alex, and I do it because I want to get promoted.”

You punched the admittedly sky-high ceiling of the performance art hall. “Bingo. Now give me desperate, ass-kissing wine salesman, Michael.”

Michael did indeed give you a desperate, ass-kissing wine salesman. He did so, very well, in fact, that you declared that you were done for the day. Because you definitely were. If you saw any more people and heard the same lines of script over and over for any longer, you were going to commit murder. At least, not without filling your stomach first. When Michael was done and scurrying off stage, you caught one of the sophomores working with Jihoon—you thought her name was SW!Yn—and asked if she could have the house lights turned on.

You trudged back up to your original seat up in the nosebleeds and found that Sumin had disappeared off somewhere. However, she left a baby pink-colored sticky note on the table for you to read: I realized that I have an actual job to do, but watching you work was so cool. Thank you for letting me sit in! x, Sumin. She’d scrawled her phone number below the message line in case you were up for a proper session to let her pick your brain, and you felt yourself smile as you tucked the note into the back of your phone case for later.

“Yn-ie!”

You settled into your seat, an eyebrow cocked in blatant amusement as you watched your best friend, Lee Hyunjae, leap down from the stage and bound up the aisle to where you were. “Where’ve you been for the past two hours?” You mused as you began packing your things away into your backpack at your feet. Hyunjae had come in with you early this morning at seven, and for the three out of five hours you’d been conducting callbacks and auditions, he had been seated beside you to keep you (relatively) sane and to give you his opinion.

He, of course, had not been allowed to sit in for Kim Younghoon’s audition, because that was favoritism. Hyunjae tried to convince you by saying he would be even more judgmental of Younghoon, but you had effectively booted him out of the auditorium. After that, he disappeared to god knew where, and Sumin replaced him.

“I’ve been around,” he said to you casually. Instead of coming into the aisle were you were, he went up one more row. “I’ll tell you about it at lunch. Hungry?”

You patted your stomach, leaning back in your chair and stretching your limbs over your head like a cat. “Yes, sir. I can go for a buffet and a half right about now.”

“Oh, a buffet and a half?” He chuckled. He came up behind you and wrapped his arms over your upper half and rested his chin on top of your head. Your heart skipped about a dozen beats then; his embrace was always very warm. “So that must mean you're resuming this train in the afternoon, too.”

“Glad to know you pay attention.”

“Hey!” He squawked indignantly, no doubt jutting his bottom lip out in a Younghoon-esque pout. “I do pay attention to you.”

You made a face that he couldn’t see, but he could feel you pat his hands. “Sure, buddy, sure.”

Cleaning up didn’t take too long, as you reassured (more so reminded) Jihoon that you would be back at around 3 o’clock sharp. If he or Chan weren’t in to turn on lights and the like, you were certain you could hold your own. You and Hyunjae agreed on heading over to one of the closer restaurants on the Ave, only a few minutes’ walk from the performing arts hall. It was a cozy sort of cafe that served really good wonton noodle soup for both winter and summer days (Hyunjae always teased you for drinking hot soup on hot days, but it was something you had done since you were a kid).

Once the two of you had settled in a booth tucked away into the corner of the establishment, you were both swift to relay your orders to the waiter. Saying you were starving would be an understatement.

“You know, there are just some people who I can’t understand how they’ve made it so far in the program,” Hyunjae said to you as you squeezed a wedge of lemon juice into his glass of water. “Thank you,” he beamed boyishly, accepting the lemony beverage to sip. “—I mean, I’m sure they got in somehow, and like—I have no right to judge, but at this point, shouldn’t you understand the basic principles of design?”

You gave a meager bob of your head, taking your own glass to repeat your actions with a new lemon wedge. “They should if they’re all graduating in one quarter, too.”

“They’re all doing capstones,” he confirmed.

You offered him an amused smile. “Well at least you know that you’re doing okay, then.”

Hyunjae sighed, leaning back against his booth seat. His gaze flickered out the window for a second, then his lip curled upward as he returned his attention to you. “I guess so. Oh!”

He straightened and leaned forward again, bracing his forearms onto the table so he inclined himself toward you. “I was gonna tell you all about my backstage adventure!”

You chuckled. “Do tell, Jae.”

“Well, we begin our adventure with collecting dance kids like Pokemon—”

You sputtered around your straw, nearly snorting water from your nose and you swiftly slapped a hand over your mouth. Hyunjae’s eyes lit up as he laughed, but he was reaching over to hand you a napkin from the dispenser on the table. “I did not expect you to say that,” you managed to croak through your miserable laughter.

Hyunjae wagged his eyebrows at you. “What can I say? I am hilarious.”

“One out of a dozen times.”

“One out of one.”

“One out of ten.”

Hyunjae simply smiled. He could do this all day. “One out of one.”

But so could you. “One out of ten.”

He leaned closer. “One out of one.”

Not one to be beaten out by your best friend, you inched closer with a slightly narrowed gaze. “One. Out. Of. Ten—”

“Order of wonton noodle soup and an order of dan dan mian?” Both you and Hyunjae shot apart, heat crawling up to your cheeks, and you wondered if it was obvious to the bored-looking waiter setting your food down on the table. You passed a glance across the table at Hyunjae, but as always, he seemed practically unfazed. In fact, he was grinning like a madman.

You sighed, rolling your eyes. When the waiter disappeared and left you and Hyunjae to your own, strange devices, Hyunjae took a pair of plastic chopsticks from the collection on the table, wiping the pair down, then handing them to you. You thanked him as you accepted the utensils from him and wiped down a soup spoon for yourself.

As the two of you began digging into your separate dishes—with Hyunjae dipping a spoon into your soup and with you reaching over to pluck a couple pieces of minced pork from his bowl—it seemed that a silent truce about the matter prior had come to settle.

Hyunjae suddenly cleared his throat, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t using his chopsticks. “So as I was saying earlier—I found Juyeonie somewhere—I can’t remember. And then we found Sunwoo. The poor kid was just wandering around like a lost sheep; he was looking for Changmin, so we all went searching for him. And then Younghoon caught up with us—how’d his callback go, by the way?”

You swallowed the bite you had in your mouth before answering. “He did great, as usual. But you’re not allowed to know more than that.”

He sent you a playfully unsatisfied deadpan. “Hmph.”

“Hmph, back at ya,” you teased. You arranged a perfect spoonful of noodles, soup and wonton, carefully blowing on the surface. “So where did you guys end up finding Changmin?”

"In a closet."

You lurched, furiously holding back your snort as you closed your mouth around your bite. Bad. Idea.

Hyunjae didn't bother hiding his giggles as he watched you struggle to chew and swallow your bite of food. "You okay over there?"

With a glare that needed no extended interpretation, you wrestled the food down your throat. "I hate you."

"Hehe, whatever you say," he sang. "He was technically in a dressing room, but same thing. He was miserable, dude. Looked so perturbed."

You scoffed. "Perturbed? What is this? The Fast and the Furious?"

"Hey! Leave my man Vin Diesel alone!"

You cocked a brow at him as you slurped noodles into your mouth. "No." And then you added, "There is literally no reason for there to be so many Fast and Furious movies."

He huffed at you. "You know, that's exactly what people say about all franchises. What would you say if somebody came after Star Wars or Marvel like that, hm?"

"I'd murder them, and you'd help me hide the bodies."

A beat passed. "Touché."

Your lip curled in mild satisfaction. "Okay, so why's the squirrel feeling so down in the dumps? Something about that ex of his?"

Hyunjae motioned vaguely with his free hand. "Ex dance partner. Apparently, it was this whole thing that happened in high school, but I didn't get all the details."

"Ah," you replied. "I'm sure a good cup of coffee can get him to perk up just fine."

"Agreed." Hyunjae's eyes went skyward as a thought occurred to him. You couldn't help but admire the definition in his jawline as he did so. "There was something weird that happened."

"Oh?"

He quirked his mouth to the side and a crease formed in his forehead. "Yeah… we were talking about your play, right? And I was agreeing with Changmin that the whole thing was my favorite because you wrote it—"

Oh. You nodded your head indulgently, expression set in a way that seemed like you were incredibly invested in what he was saying. In reality though, your insides were flaring and you could feel the sweat dripping down the back of your neck.

"—and they just looked at each other? Like that thing you and I do when we know exactly what the other person is thinking, but I didn't get it." Hyunjae wrinkled his nose, reaching for his water. "Wondered what that was about."

You averted your eyes to your bowl of soup, trying to get ahold of yourself. "Yeah," you laughed, and you hoped it didn't sound as nervous as you thought it did, "I have no idea what that's about."

He simply shrugged then. "It's probably just something stupid," Hyunjae mused, then chuckled. "Just my friends for you. Silly geese."

You cleared your throat. "Yeah…silly geese, for sure."

And you were going to have a talk with those silly geese.

EPISODE TWO: LET'S ROCK 'N' ROLL

THIS was not your first rodeo, and it certainly would not be your last. It was approximately two weeks later, the Saturday at the caboose of Spring Break, that you found yourself standing in one of the first few rows of nosebleeds with your hair pulled up and out of your face and a packet copy of your script in hand. The entire acting cast sat in a sort of half circle mass on the stage with their own copies of the script. Today was Script Read-Through Day—as well as an intermittent fitting day.

Thanks to the efforts of your fellow workaholic, drama nerd classmate Kim Hongjoong, a handful of costumes for the entire play had been completed over the length of Spring Break. You'd asked your cast to find time over finals week and Spring Break to get a quick fitting done by Hongjoong and his team, and luckily, all of that had gone smoothly.

Now, it was your turn to lean in.

"Let's get down to business, everyone!" You said with a clap of your hands to capture everyone's attention. Your eyes roamed over the faces of the people who were selected and your heart thundered in excitement. This—this was just one part of the rush you lived for. You didn't bother to suppress your grin. "Thanks for being on time and making it back here; I know I cut your break short, but we're on a very tight schedule. Can we start with going around and introducing ourselves with name, year, major, and role?"

The circlet of introductions began at Cha Eunwoo, the young man in your year who you selected for the role of Kai, the main male lead. Younghoon was cast as Ryan, Kai's best friend, and the guy who was marrying Choi Miyeon's character Lily. Minatozaki Sana was playing Alex, opposite Eunwoo. You had been surprised Younghoon hadn't auditioned specifically for the role of Kai, but you were content that he'd gone for Ryan instead—a simple chemistry reading with the four main leads the week prior had confirmed to you that you'd made all the right choices.

The main cast also included Jung Eunbi, Jung Yerin, Choi San, and Dong Sicheng, another close friend of yours. All in all, you had been incredibly lucky with the ending line up of cast members, and the supporting cast, too.

The read-through carried along smoothly—well, mostly.

“—why, of course, dear Prim! It mainly trickles down to a few… specific details—Yn,” said San as he abruptly broke out of character. Everyone’s heads shot up from their scripts, including yours, as you watched San’s hand air-gesture to an invisible beard on his face. “I’m getting one of those weird old man beards, right?”

There was a murmur of chuckles throughout the group, and you gave him a small smile. “Of course, you are. I asked Hongjoong for the perverted-looking ones, specifically.”

He grinned, nodding. “Nice!” He thought about it, “Wait…”

Younghoon coughed up a laugh. “Shall we continue?”

You inclined your head in affirmation. “Thanks, Hoon. Yes, let’s get back to it. We were at Uncle Lee’s line about ‘specific details’.”

San had been selected to play the character of Uncle Lee, the role quite literally taken from the original Shakespeare play yours was based upon: Much Ado About Nothing. Your thesis play, the biggest project you would ever conduct in your undergraduate years, was called Jasmine. The storyline centered around ex-somethings, Alex and Kai, who were Maid of Honor and Best Man to their best friends Lily and Ryan, respectively. Because of Alex and Kai’s troublesome past, they acted like they hated each other, and Lily schemed to make them finally see eye to eye—as a wedding gift to herself, of course. She also convinced a party of characters to get in on the plan with her. It had all been very fun for you to write, and you imagined that the actors up on this stage now would make it all the better when they brought it to life.

With the read-through completed, you began splitting up groups to begin chemistry exploration readings. While you ushered Sicheng, Eunwoo, Sana, and a couple of the key supporting cast members onto stage, everyone else hopped down and scattered into the nosebleeds so they could get to know their fellow cast members more intimately.

You stood in the second row of the audience in the smack middle, one arm crossed over your stomach and the other propping your script up for yourself. Younghoon settled on one of the seats next to you, a small smile appearing onto his face as he folded his leg over the other. "Why hello Miss Director."

You hummed good-naturedly. "Why hello Mister Groom. Not up to saying hello to your fellow cast members yet?" Usually he was good about introducing himself to everyone; he was quite the charmer.

"I told the lovebirds I would pay attention to their chemistry reading for pointers," he grinned, eyes sparkling beneath the dim lights. "Kai's nervous about it."

"Ah," you voiced, glancing back to the stage where Eunwoo and Sana began interacting with Sicheng and the others on stage. "Awful nice of you, Ryan. Where's your darling bride?"

He gave you a show of wistful glance as he turned his eyes toward the ceiling and propped his cheek against his fist. "My beloved? Well, she is working her magic for the wedding. I told her—" he leaned forward onto his knees then, gesturing with his hands, "—I told her, darling! This is your special day. Anything you want is what I want. You should have seen the smile on her face—a daisy in bloom, Miss Ln.”

An amused expression fixed upon your face, you tipped your imaginary hat to him. “I think you should go find your bride, sir, before her plans get out of hand.”

“Her plans could never get out of hand,” he dismissed with the flick of his wrist.

“So you’re a Yes Man now?” You replied, your brain racking for the one part in the script you had written with this exact dialogue.

You saw the recognition flicker in Younghoon’s eyes. “That’s what love does to you, my friend. It’s not the same as those tally marks you always draw in that notebook,” he replied swiftly, gesturing to your script like it was the notebook that Kai was supposed to keep. “Say, you’ve never told me what those were for.”

Pleased, you arched an eyebrow. “That’s not the line, Hoon.”

You saw the moment he snapped out of character. He smiled, the kind of Younghoon trademark everyone could recognize and become spellbound by. “I don’t have the entire script memorized yet, Yn-ie.”

“I bet you have at least half of it memorized.”

He opened his mouth to remark something when someone hollered, “Oy” from the stage. Both you and Younghoon turned your attention to Eunwoo, who had captured both of your attention. He threw his arms open wide with a teasing grin. “Ryan, you’re supposed to be watching my back, man!”

Sana shot him a scowl. “Hey, if you get a second in this duel, then I get one, too. Lily!”

“As much fun as dueling you and winning would be, Alex, I’m not stuck in ye old days—”

“Your savior has arrived!” Everyone’s heads whirled in the direction of the doors at the back of the auditorium. There was a good handful of people who began filing in through the doors, with a very familiar blond at the helm of all the madness. Reminiscent of that one fiery Elmo meme, your best friend had his arms raised with an ear-splitting grin on his face.

Kevin Moon, one of the people amongst the masses, rolled his eyes as he passed Hyunjae to enter the auditorium. “They’re rehearsing, man.”

Choi Chanhee was swift to follow his friend. “Yeah, Hyunjae,” he teased with a grin.

You fixed your friend with a confused look. “Uhm… Hyunjae, what’s happening?”

Hyunjae jogged down to where you were, leaving his army of… people? behind. “You said you needed volunteers to help you prepare set pieces, right? Well, I told you I’d recruit some people and—” He made a wide, sweeping gesture toward the large group of people now simply crowded at the back of the room, awaiting instructions. Kevin and Chanhee sent you boyish smiles as they waved in greeting. “—I did!”

The lightbulb went off in your head. You couldn’t believe you forgot. “Oh, my god. You actually listened.”

Hyunjae wrinkled his nose. “Hurtful.”

Younghoon laid his head against his arms over the back of his seat with a teasing gleam in his eyes. “Aw, how romantic.”

Hyunjae pointed to his lanky actor friend. “Is he in character?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Your head shot over to Younghoon just as his eyes met yours. The man shrugged with feigned innocence, standing up to greet Chanhee and Kevin as the other two began slowly leading the army of volunteers down to where you all were setting up. You wondered how on Earth that man’s partner could stand his impish antics.

Hyunjae slipped into the row with you with a wince. “Aish, I can never figure out when he’s in proper character or not.”

“He is,” you blurted. You knew for a fact that Younghoon hadn’t been in character, but Hyunjae didn’t need to know that. Ignorance was bliss, after all. “But that’s besides the point—Jaehyun—”

He flashed you a smile, bringing his hands up to make a jazz hands gesture. “Uh oh, that’s my name-name. I either did really well or screwed up big time.”

You laughed, pressing your free hand to your forehead. “You did really well—”

“Yes!” He cheered while punching the sky. He laughed, bumbling over to you with arms open wide to embrace you. You simply could not escape him. “You’re welcome.”

You lightly punched his chest. “I never said thank you. But thank you. I appreciate it a lot.”

He let you go, lightly patting your head. A warm wave of energy made your nerves feel fuzzy at their synapses. “You don’t have to thank me for doing this for you. By the way, YH!Yn is on her way over; she’s just coming back from her internship.”

Younghoon suddenly, out of nowhere, appeared in the row again. “I heard YH!Yn’s name,” he chirped with a smile that looked like a heart. He waved his phone screen around, as if you could actually read what was on his screen, “Yeah, she said she’s on her way now.”

You nearly melted. “Oh, really? She doesn’t have to if she’s uncomfortable, Hoon. I know big crowds make her anxious—”

“Ah, it’s all good,” he said. “She’s happy to do it, really. It’s not that big of a crowd here, and you’re her friend, Yn. She wants to help out.”

“Speaking of more friends helping out—” cut in Kevin with Chanhee in tow (where did all of them pop up from, goodness), “—Cobie just texted that he, Sangyeon, Juyeon, and JC!Yn are all on their way, too. What’s the plan for all the set pieces then, Yn?”

All eyes went to you, and you felt your heart swell with love, pride���quite literally every happy emotion there was. This whole project had plagued your every waking and unconscious thought for months now. The pressure for this production to be good… there were too many people watching you now. But as you led your friends and your supposed army of volunteers to the backstage area, you felt like there was no way you could fail.

Right?

— ✶

You were cleaning up for the night. Your throat ached and exhaustion wore at your bones from the very extensive day you and everyone else had. Almost the entire cast and volunteer and tech crew members had cleared out by now—your friends had all decided to get dinner together, and you would all head over once you had finished with your business here.

You hiked the strap of your bag over your shoulder with a haggard sigh as you passed beneath the ghost light hanging backstage that signaled that Jihoon was practically done for the night. You caught a glimpse of the man hustling down the corridor and you called out to him.

“Hey, Jihoon-ah! I was hoping I could catch you on your way out.”

Jihoon glanced up from his phone, his slight smile illuminated in the pale blue-light of his phone screen. “Ah, hey, Yn-ie. Good first rehearsal today?”

You fell into step with him as you both maneuvered the dark backstage corridors together. “Yeah, actually. I’m very proud of everyone’s progress so far. I was so stressed about being a couple weeks behind, but… I’m lucky I have such a good group of people here.”

He hummed, nodding. “Definitely. That one—your Hyunjae—”

Your heart stumbled. “Hyunjae? What about him?”

“It’s nothing, but I thought I should mention that I heard a couple girls gossiping earlier—”

You nearly stopped in your tracks, and you felt something crawl beneath your skin. “What’d they say?”

Jihoon glanced over at you, maybe a bit surprised at how sharp your tone was, but he continued on smoothly, “You know that I don’t like involving myself in that petty drama, right? But they were volunteering with the set pieces and stuff, and they were talking shit about him. The usual, like, cocky, arrogant bullshit. Something about wondering how you put up with him all the time.”

You felt your heart drop into the pit of your stomach. “Jesus,” you swore. “Who were they? I’ll deal with them—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said to you, firmly but not unkindly. The two of you had stopped in the middle of the corridor now, your voices hushed yet harsh still. “Hey, Yn—I took care of it. I don’t tolerate that shit in my theater, you hear? You have a lot on your plate, so I didn’t want you to worry, but I wanted to make sure you knew.”

Breathe, Yn. Your eyes shuddered for a moment. Hyunjae wasn’t always as well-mannered around other people as he was around you and his friends. He was like that for good reason—there were some things in one’s past that shaped who you would become, and unfortunately, that was one thing that you hadn’t been able to protect him from back then. So hearing something like this? You felt awful.

You finally gave Jihoon a nod. “Right, yeah… thanks Jihoon. Really.”

He nodded back. “Of course. Does that happen often?”

You rubbed the place between your eyes where an ache had formed. “No—I mean, he’s just got a front he puts on, but it’s not often. Maybe those girls just witnessed him on one of his bad days. He—” You shook your head.

“I get it; no need to explain it to me,” Jihoon murmured. He gently guided you toward the door out into the main auditorium where Hyunjae said he’d be waiting for you. “He’s a good kid.”

“I know. He’s great.” I love him.

When the two of you emerged into the darkened auditorium, the only light present was the one from Hyunjae’s phone. Your best friend glanced up from his screen, pocketing it away as he stood up to meet you. “Hey, everything okay?”

You and Jihoon exchanged glances. You met Hyunjae’s eyes, your smile small. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

EPISODE THREE: WE’RE ALL JUST TRYING TO KEEP THE STAGE LIGHTS ON

IT was Monday evening when you determined that you had reached the point in time where everything would only escalate from here. There was something about seeing the backstage crowded with techies that made everything seem ten times more real. Your day had begun an hour or two earlier than the actors’ as you came in to meet Jihoon and Bang Chan about set pieces and creative direction. When your actors had come in, rehearsal commenced by working through the first act of the script and creating a deeper understanding of motivations and purpose.

On Saturday, along with the chemistry explorations, there was also a moment where you had to sit everyone down and give them a better understanding of what this project even came from. (There was a real inspiration to the story, but there was no way you could expose yourself like that, especially in front of Hyunjae.) There had been yet another run through of the script, with some of your actors switching up the way they played their parts just slightly. That same experimentation would continue today.

You were in the box with Chan and a couple of his underclassmen peers as the few of you were discussing the matter of spotlights and the like. It was early in the rehearsal process, but it definitely killed to be early.

You heard a slight commotion as the doors at the back of the auditorium opened.

“You got it covered in here?” You asked Chan, already one foot out of the tech box.

Chan flashed you a dimpled smile and a thumb’s up, and you were on your way out and toward the sounds of newcomers. You could already make out the figures of your friends Park Jihyo and Wen Junhui from where you were running up to them.

“YN!” Jihyo squealed as she rushed to come bury you in a hug.

“Oh my god, thanks for coming, you guys,” you gushed, crushing yourself to her.

Jun scurried over, wrapping his limbs around the two of you, as well. The two of them had quite literally insisted on coming to this rehearsal as your sanity check, which you deeply appreciated. Well that, and the fact that Jihyo was helping you manage the finances for this project, as well as any sponsors who came through to support the play. You had never been good with that stuff, but luckily, your econ-business-major friend was. (Jun was always there for moral support; him being versed in acting also helped, too, with directing when you couldn’t.)

The three of you immediately got to work, and you were finally able to return to your own actors as the lot of you worked through the first couple of scenes of act one.

“What do you suggest we talk about?” Eunwoo asked from stage left where he and Younghoon lingered with their scripts in hand. They were standing opposite the stage from Miyeon and Sana, who were supposed to walk onto the stage from the right like walking into a restaurant. The main focus of the scene was supposed to be Miyeon and Sana, but because Younghoon and Eunwoo were still onstage, they had to act like they were actually doing something even if their microphones wouldn’t be activated.

Younghoon gave a shrug and an easygoing smile. “What do you think Kai and Ryan talk about?”

“Kai feels like the kind of pompous jerk who speaks only in Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sylvia Plath.”

“That could be an interesting dynamic,” Jun chimed in.

You lifted a shoulder in agreement. “I say ‘yes’. Let’s just see what this looks like—Eunwoo, play that; Younghoon, play the exact opposite.”

Younghoon sputtered a laugh, but he saluted, understanding your directions (somehow… it was probably because you had worked with him for a long time over the course of both of your academic careers). “Aye-aye.”

You made a waving motion toward stage right where Miyeon and Sana were poking their heads out from behind the curtains. “Ready? Action.”

It turned out that the overly smart version of Kai was not what the scene needed. After a couple of new directions to Eunwoo about this little thing, you eventually settled on a nice in-between that reminded you awfully of a certain someone…

Lo and behold, you heard the doors at the back of the auditorium open up once more. You didn’t turn your attention away from the scene playing out before you, but you had an inkling of who had entered the sphere of the dramatic.

It wasn’t until the brunch scene had finished, you pursed your lips, nodding. “I like that.”

“I like it, too,” Jihyo said, paired with a nod from Jun.

You flipped through your script, asking for the actors taking part in the next scene—the bar scene—to come to the stage. “Uhm, let’s see… I need all of the main cast, barring Kai and Alex, to the stage. I also need Bartender 1 to come out, as well.” You waved your hand around toward the middle of the stage. “Make a little cult circle or something—yes, Younghoon, you have to stand next to Miyeon, silly goose.”

It was now that you finally turned around to confirm your prediction of who had joined the crowd. Just a few rows up from where you and your friends were sat three eager faces. Presently, it was Hyunjae, Eric, and his girlfriend, the former of which greeted you by raising up what looked like an iced caramel macchiato. God bless.

You hustled up to where they were, making grabby hands at the frost drink. “Thank you,” you sighed, accepting the drink and straw from him.

“Aye! Hyunjae!” Younghoon hollered from the stage. “Where’s my drink?”

Hyunjae cupped his hands around his mouth. “The kid has it!”

“I’m not a kid,” Eric sulked as he attempted to cross his arms over his chest while also not spilling the iced americano he was in possession of.

“That’s right!” EC!Yn mused, then added, “You’re my baby.”

Hyunjae wrinkled his nose at the lovey-dovey young lovers. “Oh, now that was awful, EC!Yn,” he groaned. He nudged your elbow from where you stood next to his seat. “Wasn’t that gross?”

Your brain was filled with caramel and caffeine. “Leave them be, Jae. At least they have someone to be gross with.”

Hyunjae mocked a face of offense, and Eric and his girlfriend slipped past you two in youthful giggles to go deliver Younghoon’s drink to him down at the bottom stage. When the two of you were left alone, Hyunjae pressed his cheek against his fist as he peered up at you. “How’s today been so far?”

You finished your sip, swallowing down the sugary, caffeinated goodness. “It’s been alright so far. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Well,” he sighed, “I knew you were probably going hours without water, so I thought I’d at least bring you something pleasant.”

You sat down on the floor beside his aisle seat, silently offering him a sip of the drink he had treated you to. “You know me too well. And what do you mean? You did bring me something pleasant.”

Hyunjae took a ginger sip of the drink then pushed the cup back toward you. He grinned, flipping a lock of imaginary hair behind his shoulder. “Ah, you mean me—”

“I meant the kids,” you teased as you smiled around your straw with a look that was hardly innocent.

He deadpanned at you. “Never letting my head stay in the clouds ever, huh, Miss Ln?”

“Someone has to keep you humble.”

A soft laugh fell from his lips as he shook his head, then pressed his lips to his knuckles. “Well I guess if it's gotta be anybody, it should be you. Then again, that Chanhee keeps me on my toes, too."

"Weren't you the one who said he had no ass first?"

He let out a snort. "I only speak the truth."

"That you do," you agreed.

Hyunjae flicked his phone screen on for a second to catch the time and grunted. "Ugh, I have to go meet with my group members for a project in Public Infrastructure."

Your lips curled downward. "It's literally the first day of the quarter—you have a project already?"

He huffed sharply out of his mouth, sending one of his longer bits of bangs flying upward. "That's what I'm saying. Professor is insane this quarter, especially for putting me in this group. He said he picked our groups for us because we 'don't always get to choose in the real world'." He made a face. "Somebody has hurt that man, and we are paying for it. Pretty sure the people in my group don't even like me."

Your chest ached at that, and you leaned your chin onto his arm rest while he settled his head against the back of his chair. "I'm sorry, Jae. I know group projects are hard with strangers, but maybe they'll be cool with you? Are you just a little anxious maybe?"

"Dunno," he mumbled, picking at a stray thread on the red seat. He raked a hand through his hair, shifting. "I'm just dreading it, I guess. I just have that feeling y'know?"

"Yeah, I get that." You bumped your hand against his, mustering up an encouraging smile. "You're gonna be okay, Jae. I believe in you."

Hyunjae collected himself enough to smile back. "I can always count on you, Yn."

"Of course," you said, as easy as breathing air. You exhaled, "What are best friends for?"

— ✶

You found yourself seated in the darkness of the auditorium seats, the ghost light of the stage your only company. The ghost light was a single bulb that hung from mid stage in order to prevent any mishaps or accidents from happening when one had to stumble about in the darkness of the theater. It was a single part of theater superstition, as well as a sign that Jihoon and Chan had gone on their way for the night, leaving you to lock up. You'd been given charge of empty theaters before, and frankly, the peace and quiet was something you needed.

The time was nearing nine o'clock though, and your stomach growled at the thought of going back to your warm townhouse shelter for some pity ramen.

You finally shut the lid of your laptop, slipping it into your bag so you could stretch your aching limbs. You popped a couple joints as you did, then reached for your drained cup of iced caramel macchiato.

The rest of rehearsal had gone reasonably well. You were making progress, and that was the important part. Eric and his girlfriend had left a little before Hyunjae had in order to go get dinner together. Hyunjae had understandably been reluctant to leave, but he basically convinced you to let him call you while he made his way over to his project meet up location. You were directing as he did, but he didn't seem to mind and listened quietly with the occasional humorous comment.

You hoped he was doing okay.

Just as you slung your bag over your shoulder, typing out a fast text to Hyunjae to ask about how it went, your ears picked up the faint sound of creaking wood.

You froze, your head whipping around the very empty theater for the sound.

You heard it again—it was the slow, haunting creeeak, like someone was taking a deliberately drawn-out step. The hand around your phone tightened as you turned your gaze to the stage. The ghost light hung eerily in the now-quiet hall, its amber light creating a circle of light beneath it like a beacon for creatures of the night.

Creeeak… creeeak…

"Jihoon?" You called out. "Chan? Is that you?"

The creaking stopped; a shiver crawled down your spine.

"Is someone there?"

When you were met with silence, you pressed a hand to your forehead, speed-walking up the aisle of the theater and out into the lobby. Swiftly locking all the doors behind you as you made your exit, you figured you were probably just hearing things.

As you deposited your empty cup into the trash bin just outside the theater doors, you received a reply from Hyunjae. The performance hall door thunked closed after you twisted the lock mechanism into place.

With no more than a glance at the dark windows, you turned on your heel and made a beeline for the bus stop.

EPISODE FOUR: IT'S ALWAYS THE DARK AND STORMY NIGHTS

FRIDAY night brought an onslaught of the sky's wrath in the form of a storm. Rehearsal had progressed decently, and while you did appreciate how hard everyone was working, you had to remind yourself that you couldn’t rush the process if you wanted a phenomenal end product. You just needed to have faith in the people you were working with.

Nearly everyone had gone home by now, barring yourself, Jihoon, Chan, and a couple of undergrads they were keeping around to show them the ropes. You were in the backstage area packing up your things to head out for the night. You could hear the voices of your peers echoing slightly through the bowels of the theater, but none of them were too near to your location.

The hairs on the back of your neck suddenly stood up as you reached for a page of script cues that one of the techies had left behind on a stool.

You straightened, your eyes scanning the backstage area. All the lights were on tonight since Jihoon and Chan were still here. The ghost light was not your only companion tonight, and yet…

There had been a feeling creeping up on you this past week… something unsettling like you were being watched. Perhaps it wasn’t you specifically being watched—it was more so that you were never truly alone when you knew no one else was here with you. There was something bothering you about the shadows of the theater lately, and they had almost never been anything but comforting.

You had to visibly suppress your soul from jumping out of your skin when you heard that goddamn wooden creaking sound.

“Yn-ie?”

Your heart did about five cartwheels and a barrel leap as you whirled around to find Chan coming in from the other side of the curtain. He noticed your jumpiness and concern fell over his features. “Hey, you good?”

You usually weren’t so much of a scaredy cat, dear god. You let out a laugh, though it sounded more nervous than you liked. “Yeah—no, yeah, I’m fine. Just a little antsy, is all.” Yeah, that’s it. You slung the strap of your bag over your shoulder and walked over to Chan to bump fists with him in greeting. “You and the others wrapping up?”

Chan’s eyes swept over you and his mouth quirked into an expression that told you he didn’t believe your “I’m fine” bit at all. But he was never one to pry where he believed to be crossing a line. “Not really, actually,” he sighed, cupping the back of his neck above the headset hanging there, as the two of you moved back into the main auditorium together. “We just realized that some of the speakers have been left on for the past week. They seem to keep coming on even though we turn them off; just outdated tech, I guess. But we’re trying to see if we can fix them before considering getting new ones.”

The hammering in your heart subsided for a moment as your brows pinched together and your brain switched into work-mode. “Really? Okay, well, let me know if I can do anything to help—that is weird.”

You eventually said goodnight to everyone left in the performing arts hall as you let yourself out through the front doors. The rain seemed to have subsided from earlier, and the night was left with dark cumulus clouds looming above your head, and rain-soaked streets that smelled heavily of metal and petrichor. A cold, biting wind swept past your face and nipped at your extremities as you pulled your jacket around you tighter.

The walk to the bus stop wasn’t an awfully long one, but…

You stopped.

You swore you just heard a clattering sound from just behind you. Your attention went to a collection of trash cans sitting only a few meters behind you. When no animal revealed itself to be the source of the noise, you clutched your small canister of mace into your fist.

A tingling sensation crawled down your spine, and you turned on your heel to start walking faster toward the bus stop.

There weren’t many street lights posted in this area of campus, but if you could just get—

“YN!”

You nearly screamed when someone grabbed you by the shoulder, and you lifted the can of mace up in between you and the person.

“Shit, Yn. It’s just me!” Hyunjae slapped his palm over yours and shoved the nozzle of the mace can down and out of his vision. He wrestled your body to a stop, anchoring you to reality. “Holy shit, honey. Shhh, calm down. It’s just me.”

You furiously inhaled and exhaled, your chest rising and falling as you pressed a hand to your sternum. “Lee Hyunjae, what is wrong with you?” You growled. Had it been him this whole time?

Hyunjae dared a cheeky smile. “Well, I just saw you from down the street and I thought you saw me, but you kept walking. I guessed you were just in your head tonight, so I thought it’d be fun to surprise you.”

“You don’t grab a girl in the middle of a darkened, abandoned street and yell in her ear to surprise her.” Your eyes were hard as you reprimanded him; he was your best friend, yes, but you nearly had a heart attack right then. Your nerves were so on-edge that you just couldn’t joke with him at this moment.

He winced then. “Ah, when you put it like that…” He pressed his lips together, eyes taking in your tense form. There was something else in your face other than annoyance at his stupidity—something that troubled him. His voice grew soft, his touch even softer, as his hand cupped the back of your shoulder in a warm hold. “Hey, everything okay? I’m really sorry for doing that; it was stupid of me.”

You huffed a sigh and avoided his eyes. “This isn’t the first time I thought someone was watching me,” you confessed lowly, so not even the wind could hear you.

Hyunjae’s eyes widened when you said that, and he was swift to wrap an arm around your shoulders and gather you against him. His gaze surveyed your surroundings and the shadows seemed to dance in his view; his breath hitched. “Let’s get you home,” he murmured then, “I’m parked nearby.”

EPISODE FIVE: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

THE next day, Jihyo, Jun, Jacob, and Kevin were seated deep into the nosebleeds within the dim areas of the theater. Straight ahead, you and Hyunjae stood in the first few rows of seats as the actors were doing a run-through of the first act of the play. Hyunjae simply sat in the seat next to you, but you were doing your director thing. It wasn’t out of the ordinary at all to see you two so close, but something had shifted overnight from the last time all of them had seen you and he interact.

“Remind me again why you guys are here so early?” Jihyo’s question was directed toward Jacob and Kevin as she sipped on her morning cup of coffee. Everyone in the row was armed with their own cup of caffeinated brew, too; that was simply what being awake at nine on a Saturday morning called for.

Kevin peered at the other two from around Jacob. “His girlfriend and Chanhee are grocery shopping.”

Jun snorted. “Are they roommates? Why’s Chanhee grocery shopping with JC!Yn? Sounds a bit random.”

“They’re with her roommate and Changmin, too,” Jacob replied with a joking roll of his eyes. “Kevin’s just petty that they’ve never thought to extend the invitation to us.”

“Hey! You always hint at wanting to join them, too. It’s not just me, good sir.”

“I asked once, and when she said no, I never asked again—”

“—he’d only say that because he’s been scorned by love,” Younghoon lamented from the stage, his arm braced along the back of Miyeon’s folding chair. Props were still being finalized between a couple options, but Jun had found a bunch of folding chairs in a closet that you could use for the bar scene. Everyone’s attention moved away from invitation-less friends to friends playing pretend. He made a dramatic gesture, clutching his heart, then straightening with a laugh as he teased his friend who wasn’t in the scene. “I still think it’s stupid that he and Alex never worked out.”

Eunbi’s eyebrows flew up to her hairline as her hand, holding a water bottle that would later be replaced with a drink glass, froze in mid-air. “I’m sorry? This is news to me. Since when did Kai and Alex even have a chance at ‘working out’?”

Miyeon let out a delighted gasp. “Oh, where to begin?”

Yerin piped in with a lazier gesture with her water bottle. “They weren’t always sworn enemies, y'know. Once upon a time, the ‘lovebirds’ were actually lovebirds,” she chuckled at her own joke—or, her character’s joke.

Younghoon explained, "Their parents pretty much pitted them against each other since the end of middle school. They used to be friends, actually, and they were top of their class in practically everything. Except…"

"Academic League?" Eunbi guessed with her brows twisted. "I remember hearing about something like that."

"Yeah, I mean," Miyeon added, "something happened in junior year and it's been like that since."

"What happened in junior year?—"

Jihyo watched the performance with narrowed eyes, her body leaned forward onto her knees. "This sounds awfully familiar."

The three boys turned their heads her way. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head, eyes fluttering. She made a face and cocked her head to the side in thought. "Okay, maybe it's not exactly like what I'm… Jun, you remember when Yn told us about—you know?"

"That she almost confessed to Hyunjae? Ow! I'm sorry!" Jun yelped as Jihyo slapped his shoulder, hard.

Jacob and Kevin exchanged wide-eyed glances. "She almost confessed to Hyunjae? When?"

Jihyo sent Jun another hard glare, to which he sheepishly raised his hands in surrender, before replying, "Yn said offhandedly once that in junior year of high school, she was almost going to confess her feelings to Hyunjae, but then suddenly decided not to."

Kevin leaned his chin onto his fist. "Huh…"

"I don't know how I didn't even notice this before when I read through the script," Jihyo thought aloud. "Alex and Kai are Yn and Hyunjae—just…with a different ending."

All four heads turned to face forward once more, except, their attention zeroed in on you and Hyunjae. YH!Yn had appeared beside you, most likely updating you on the progress of the massive prop project she was working on for the play. You listened to her report intently as Hyunjae sat next to you, his head leaned onto your shoulder as he played some game on his phone. It was far too soft, far too—there was no way you based this all off of your own experience with Hyunjae, right?

In fact, it was possible.

As YH!Yn let you know that she would have to buy a few more PVC pipes from the hardware store, you assured her that she would be reimbursed for those expenses.

“—I know how busy you are—”

YH!Yn smiled sweetly as she cut you off, “Oh, no worries at all! I’m happy to help, as Hoon said before. Plus, this is a lot more fun than my internship; feels like a little creative project I get to nerd out on.”

You grinned at that sentiment. “Ah, I totally get that. Well, I won’t keep you from it any longer. Thanks again.”

YH!Yn gave a brief goodbye, then stood up to head back out to the backstage area where she was putting together the portable fountain she was building (you had given her a list of possible “show-stopping” prop ideas you had and she had picked the fountain). As she left, you watched as she passed by the bottom stage to catch Younghoon’s hand. Something like yearning ached in your chest. One day…

The mass weighing on your opposite shoulder stirred as he let out a noise of surprise. “Huh?”

You glanced over at him as best you could, then flashed Younghoon a thumb’s up to signal him that you were paying attention now. “Huh what?”

Hyunjae sat up straight, his nose scrunched, eyes pinned to his phone screen. “Didn’t you have a friend named Ellie in like, high school?”

Your lips curled into a slight frown at the name; it definitely rang a bell. “I did, what about her?” You asked. The sounds of the dialogue happening on stage faded to glorified background noise as you leaned over to peer at Hyunjae’s phone screen. There, he had a new text thread pulled up with an unknown number introducing herself as Ellie, a “classmate of his from high school”. Not only were you frowning, but your forehead creased, too. It had been ages since you had last been in contact with her. The two of you had been the best of friends before you drifted apart.

To be honest, you had no idea how the two of you drifted apart so easily when you’d been so close to her, but you ended up getting closer to Hyunjae anyway. You chalked it up to differences in interests, but maybe now you could get some answers. Well, that was depending on why she was texting Hyunjae.

“She texted me,” he said, holding the screen between you two. “Recognize the number?”

You could barely remember your own number. Shaking your head, you lifted your gaze back up to the stage where your actors had already moved through most of the scene. “Nope. Might be a new one since it’s been so long. Wonder how she got your phone number.”

Hyunjae blew out a puff of air as he laughed—you saw him begin to type out a response from the corner of your eye. “How do people not get my number at this point,” he grumbled under his breath.

— ✶

It wasn’t until you were seated in the booth of Junhui’s favorite Chinese restaurant on the Ave that he and Jihyo ambushed you with The Question™.

“So when were you going to tell us that the play was about you and Hyunjae?”

Your movements paused, then resumed so you could properly settle into your seat. "At least let me order first."

To their credit, your friends withheld from further questioning until the waiter had come by to take the table's order. When she had gone and was out of earshot, Jihyo pounced, whipping her head over to you and placing a hand on the table between you. You realized suddenly that you were trapped between her and the wall.

"Spill."

Your eyes widened a smidge, intimidated. "How did you guys figure it out? I mean, it's not that obvious, is it?"

Jun shook his head. "Nah, not really. Ji was just on five shots of espresso this morning apparently."

Jihyo sent him a pointed look. "I was not on five shots of espresso…" She murmured, "It was two."

"Okay, five shots, two shots—" Jihyo flapped her hands around as she angled her body toward you. "It was the bar scene and they were all talking about Alex and Kai. And I thought that the bit about junior year sounded really familiar."

"I can't believe you didn't confess to him back then," Jun feigned a disproving shake of his head while clicking his tongue.

You leaned your face against the palm of your hand with an unpretty fwump. "Guys, the play is basically centered around the idea: what if I had confessed to Hyunjae and it went wrong?"

"Just ten times more dramatic," Jun pointed out.

"And," Jihyo added, "their roles are switched. Kai's the one who confesses to Alex in the play, and it's Alex's ex who makes a grand showing at the wedding festivities to cause trouble. Yn doesn't have an ex."

"Uncalled for," you grunted.

Jihyo gave a charmingly beautiful smile that could make all the world fall at her feet. "You love me."

"You're lucky you're cute."

Jun sipped on his water. "I'm right here."

You and Jihyo bursted into giggles, the sound like twinkling bells. Jun sighed softly, but you saw the corners of his lips lift up into a small smile. For a moment, you had forgotten what the topic of this conversation was.

You sobered slightly, your hands reaching for your water glass to take a gulp, then nurse it between your palms. "Have you ever heard the saying that we always try to recreate our first heartbreak in order to rewrite how it ends?"

Jihyo and Jun quieted. They peered at you with eyes that could peer straight into your soul if you let them. That was why you couldn't exactly meet their eyes as you tried to articulate your thoughts behind writing this whole mess. "I mean," you pursed your lips, "it wasn't a heartbreak; it was never a heartbreak. My heart hadn't been broken because how could it be broken if I never even let it. You know?"

"That's not how a lot of hearts are broken, Yn," Jun murmured with a sincere depth to his dark brown eyes. There was something so soulful about them. "Most are broken in silence."

You huffed slightly. "That was a great line."

"I know—"

"Ahem," Jihyo said, reigning the both of you drama geeks back into the realm of real talk. She leaned over to wrap her arms around you, her head resting on top of your own. "So you wrote this… to conquer your fears? To comprehend your feelings?"

"To imagine, to wish, to dream," you added. It was quite sad, really. You couldn't quite think of writing anything else when the time had come to start drafting your thesis. "We write what we know best."

"I thought Hyunjae was basically there throughout this whole process," Jun said, his elbows resting on top of the table as he gestured vaguely. "How has he not figured out that Alex is him?"

You gave a shrug. You couldn't imagine how he hadn't yet figured it out, but it wasn't exactly the most obvious thing. You would soon rather go missing than Hyunjae ever figuring out the truth behind the play's inspiration. Whenever he asked you, it was always "I was so inspired by Kenneth Branuagh and Emma Thompson's rendition of the play" and "I wanted to spice up an old, timeless play and give it a kick of Today". He believed that you were writing a play based solely upon the themes of childhood manipulation, academic pressure, and miscommunication. And you were—just not only those things.

Your thesis would have never been accepted if you'd only presented a skeleton of a play about your nonexistent love life. All of the additions and embellishments to the story had come easy as you pieced together the plotline. But the two main characters had never changed.

With that now settled, the food arrived at your table. (What a brilliantly timed, cosmic coincidence!) You and your friends thought it best to move onto other topics of conversation. Somehow, you had reached the topic of your recent week of weird feelings. Not just about Hyunjae, but about the strange feeling of constantly not being alone. You'd even explained the entire debacle from last night, with Hyunjae scaring you then rushing you home.

Jihyo and Jun both replied appropriately: "Girl, what the fuck?"

You brushed it off with a nonchalance that was not convincing. (Then again, you were never an actress yourself.)

The rest of dinner progressed relatively smoothly, and when the check had come and gone, you wanted to offer a mint to your friends.

"—shit," you swore as you dug around in your bag. When your hand came up empty-handed, you brushed that same hand through your hair. "I left my Altoids in the theater."

Jihyo finished signing her bill, tucking her card away. "Oh? Well, let's go get them."

Jun bobbed his head as he shouldered his coat on. "Yeah, it's no problem, Yn-ie."

"Really? You guys don't have to; they're just min—"

"Nonsense!" Jihyo chirped. She stood up and out of the booth, giving you the space to slip out after her. She then linked your arm with hers, then hooked her other with Jun's. "Power in numbers, my love."

You could do nothing but agree—wholeheartedly. The way your heart rate slowed when she insisted that she and Jun would accompany you showed just how grateful you were. You probably wouldn't have even gone to retrieve them tonight, but waited until Monday instead. They were just mints, after all, but you were appreciative nonetheless. Even for a small item, they would be by your side.

The journey back to the theater was a brief one as Jun drove the three of you back to the performing arts center and pulled into the space right by the stairs up to the hall. You recalled leaving them on one of the dressing room tables in the back corridors, so you used your student ID to buzz into the back hallway of the performing arts building.

You and your friends' voices hushed as you all crept into the dark, abandoned building. When the door closed behind you all, you turned your phone flashlight on to guide your way toward the dressing rooms.

"It should be in one of these rooms," you told your friends as you entered the hallway of doors. You located a familiar number and pushed into the room, swiftly retrieving the teal-colored metal box of minty sweets on the vanity table.

The door closed softly when you slipped out.

"Hey, how's YH!Yn's fountain project coming along?" Jun asked as the three of you began to make your way back toward the back door.

"Oh yeah!" Jihyo perked up. "How's that going? She's so badass for that."

"Isn't she?" You gushed. "Do you guys wanna see her progress?"

There was an obvious answer to that, and the three of you made a hard one hundred eighty degree turn, swerving back down the corridor from which you had just come from. Your conspiratorial giggles echoed within the rafters and bowels of the theater, as if you were pixies from A Midsummer Night's Dream, frolicking through the forest in which they dwelled.

When you reached the vicinity of the backstage area, your footsteps faltered.

It was still dark.

You frowned, slowly stepping into the backstage area.

"Yn? What's wrong?"

Jun said it before you could, "Huh. The ghost light's not on."

Indeed, the bulb that was supposed to be on when no light was, was pitch black. A cool breeze drifted down your spine, making the hairs on the back of your neck and your arms stand up.

"Could Jihoon or Chan have forgotten on their way out?"

"You know Jihoon's not one to forget."

You drifted away from your friends as you slowly stepped into the backstage area. Your flashlight shone toward the walls first as you aimed to make your way toward the lights panel. It would be an easy fix—

Your heart dropped clean into the pit of your stomach.

The light of your flashlight illuminated the absolute chaos.

Setting and backdrop pieces that had been painted by volunteers, articles of clothing collected for people's costumes, scripts left behind torn out of their staples—all of it was flung about and scattered over the backstage floor. It was like a tornado had swept through the area, and you knew your friends were seeing what you were seeing now.

You held your breath for so long you were pretty sure you were imagining the hands shaking you.

Somebody had come in and took their rage out on your play. But who, and more importantly, why?

EPISODE SIX: PHANTOM OF THE PERFORMING ARTS HALL

"WHAT'S up with the ghost light anyway?"

There was a group of you gathered by the stage of the performing arts hall, the house lights having been turned on after you'd made a call to Jihoon and campus security. Along with Jihoon and campus security, however, Hyunjae, Juyeon, Eric, and Younghoon had also appeared. You had shot Hyunjae a text about what had happened and he'd rushed over with his friends—you felt awful about pulling them away from whatever they were doing, but Hyunjae didn't say anything about it.

You sat on the edge of the stage next to Jihyo with Jun and Hyunjae standing by you both on the floor of the auditorium. Well, Hyunjae stood in front of you and you leaned your chin on top of his beanie-covered head while the lot of you waited for whatever security pulled up from the limited amount of cameras. Jihoon had disappeared somewhere to make a call—you would hear from him, too, soon.

The question had been posed by Juyeon, who sat next to Eric and Younghoon in the first row of nosebleeds.

Jun dragged a hand down the side of his face, then rubbed his mouth. "Ah, it's uhm, old theater superstition," he replied. "Usually, backstage crew leaves the ghost light on so anybody coming in doesn't trip on anything or accidentally get hurt or, y'know—break anything."

"It couldn't have just gone out because of the power then?" Hyunjae asked.

Younghoon shook his head. "Usually it runs on the same electricity that every other light runs on. I've never been in a theater where the ghost light just randomly goes out, and there weren't any power outages today either."

"The problem isn't even about the ghost light," you said. Everyone's eyes flickered over to you and Hyunjae. Hyunjae patted one of the legs you had on either side of his upper body as a means of consolation or comfort. "It's about the props and costumes. We're just lucky that they were just scattered and not properly damaged. We would've been set back another week at least."

Eric perked up. "Maybe it's the ghost of Shakespeare haunting the hall!"

A snort fell from your lips as you mused, "Shakespeare in the park?"

Hyunjae cleared his throat as he prepared his best rendition of the Iron Man line: "Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?"

As the two of you shared a giggle and fistbump, the other remaining members of your party sent you strange, confused looks.

Younghoon gave an eye roll. "Oh dear god, you two really are meant for each other."

You caught Jun and Jihyo whip their heads toward you, but before anything else could be said, Jihoon was hustling back into the auditorium from the lobby doors in the back. He brushed the hair out of his eyes as he jogged over to where all of you were gathered, those signature bags under his eyes prominently featured. Oh, you definitely felt terrible.

"What'd they say, Jihoon?" Jihyo asked first.

Jihoon tucked his hands into his pockets as he joined the loose cult circle. "Security found that the locks on the front of the hall were picked open, so they wouldn't have gotten a record of somebody's card being used. Cams picked up someone dressed in black, but they knew where the camera would have gotten a clear shot of them. But because there wasn't anything officially damaged, there isn't much legal action we can take."

Juyeon offered quietly, "Breaking and entering."

Jihoon gestured to him. "Right. Breaking and entering, but that's about it." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes. "It wasn't just a prank or whatever. At least, I don't think so. What do you think, Yn?"

You swallowed, straightening slightly. "I don't think so either. I mean, I don't think any drunk pranksters would go through the trouble of picking open a lock. Even a sober one."

"Maybe a spiteful classmate," Jun suggested with a meager shrug. "Some people are ruthless."

"If there isn't much we can do, or much security is willing to do," you muttered, "then we should call it a night. We just have to take pains to lock everything up every rehearsal now."

Jihoon nodded sharply. "Right. Pains, but necessary ones."

"I'm sorry this happened to you," Eric frowned. A murmur of agreement echoed from everyone else in the group.

You pursed your lips. "It's okay, I—it's not okay, obviously, but I'm glad no one's hard work was properly destroyed. That's all that matters." Even if your nerves were a little shaken. Who could have done this?

The remainder of your time spent in the theater was picking everything up and putting them in their rightful places. By the time the group of you had finished locking everything up, the night had slipped away into its proper depths. Everyone was ready to get the hell out of here and go home to their beds, and Jihoon was certain to show you the ghost light being turned and sustaining for at least a couple minutes before the two of you were the last out.

Juyeon, Eric, Younghoon, and Jihoon said their goodnights and goodbyes, already departing their separate ways to go home. You lifted your head up to find where Jihyo and Jun were waiting for you when you saw Hyunjae standing closer to the entryway of the hall. He gave you a sleepy smile, opening up his arms for you to walk right into.

"Tired?" He chuckled, the sound creating a soft vibration in his chest as you shoved your face into his pretty-smelling sweater.

"Mm," you grunted. "You didn't go home with Younghoon?"

"Nah. I wanna go home with you."

In any other context, in any other situation, that would have meant something completely different. You swallowed, wrapping your arms around his frame. With a nod, you screwed your eyes shut and swept away those wistful thoughts. "Okay, fine."

You didn't know why you kept doing this to yourself. But he was your best friend, and tonight was… a lot. A friendly sleepover was something you needed—at least, that was what you were telling yourself.

— ✶

Being the oh-so courteous guest he was (especially since he practically invited himself over), Hyunjae let you take the shower first. You shared a townhouse a bus ride away from the university campus with two others whom you knew from rooming with them your first year of college. You had lucked out with the random roommate assignments that year, and the three of you weren't the closest nor best of friends, but you found great housemates in each other, which was just as valuable.

You had your own room and ensuite up on the topmost floor, so you and Hyunjae had a bit of privacy and wouldn't bother your friends below. You had finished with your shower a bit ago, so you were settled on your bed, flipping through emails and ensuring no important ones had ended up in the spam folder.

When you heard the door open from the bathroom, you glanced up, but returned your gaze back to this one email about a sponsorship that needed to be added to the playbill later.

"I accidentally grabbed the wrong shirt."

You hummed in question as you quickly forwarded the email to Jihyo, then looked up. A laugh sputtered out of your mouth as you took in Hyunjae taking up the space of your doorway. He was in a pair of his own sweatpants that he often left here, but instead of one of his t-shirts, he must have accidentally grabbed one of your tops. It was a Hello Kitty one you'd found in the back of your closet awhile ago, and fit you pretty nicely, so it looked strained on Hyunjae.

You flopped onto the bed, rolling around in your own laughter. "Jae!—your tits don't fit in that, honey."

Hyunjae's mouth stretched into a grin, his tongue darting out for a second. His dirty blond hair, damp and curly, hung slightly in his eyes over his forehead. "Oh, shut up."

To your detriment (you deserved this, you really did), he then smiled (more like, smirked) as he casually lifted the top over his head.

Your eyes widened just as your entire body lit up on fire. "Hey, woah there! Dude!" You jokingly covered your eyes—your whole face—with your hands as he flicked the shirt off, straightened it out, then stalked over to your closet to swap tops.

Hyunjae rolled his eyes as he ripped another shirt from a hanger and came to take a seat on the edge of the bed. "You've seen me shirtless before, Yn. Calm down."

No. How could you just calm down—? It was nearly impossible when you saw the way the muscles in his back rippled as he yanked the new, white T-shirt over his head. With muted sadness, you watched as the toned muscle on his stomach disappeared beneath the fabric.

Damn.

"You're drooling."

Your eyes darted up to where he was grinning down at his phone screen now, only looking at you from his periphery where you were still lying on the bed.

You huffed, rising onto your knees and hoping your embarrassment wasn't plain as day. But you subtly swiped your thumb across your lower lip to make sure you weren't actually drooling. This is your best friend, Yn; control yourself. "Loser."

"Child."

"Chicken."

"Weirdo."

"Nerd!" You shot back, making him laugh as you draped yourself over his back and tucked his head under your chin. His wet, cold hair tickled your skin, but it was a welcome sensation.

You peered down at his phone with him from your perch. "Who's that?" You asked as he opened up a new text notification from a new number.

You were scanning the message the sender had texted while Hyunjae huffed. "Another of your suitors, milady," he drawled sarcastically.

The message said something like "would she be interested?", the "she" referring to you.

Hyunjae typed out: In you? Probably not.

You let out a gasp, hitting him playfully on the (muscle of his) shoulder. "Hyunjae!"

He snickered, exiting out of the text chain, then deleting the number. "What? I'm just being honest. I feel like every dude who's interested in you goes through me to ask and it's so lame."

You absentmindedly watched as he opened up Instagram and started brainlessly doom-scrolling. "Maybe it's 'cause you've so clearly friendzoned me," you muttered incoherently under your breath.

"Huh? What was that?"

"Maybe it's 'cause they see you as the gatekeeper," you amended, leaving him to climb off your bed and step into the bathroom to prepare your toothbrush for use.

You could hear the incredulity in his voice. "Gatekeeper? Pfft, no way. They're all just cowards; they don't deserve you if they can't ask you out to your face." After a second, he added, "Hey, I don't gatekeep you!"

You made a face at yourself in the mirror as you brushed your teeth. "Uh-huh."

"That's not reassuring, Yn-ie."

You poked your head out of the bathroom and made eye contact with where he had rearranged his position so he sat up against the headboard. "I was just agreeing with you," you teased, then retreated back into the bathroom to finish up your night routine.

"No, you weren't, you menace."

You flicked the lights in the bathroom and bedroom off and rolled onto the bed next to him. The two of you laid facing each other in the dark, your bodies kept to your own sides of the bed and blanket. You both were propped onto your sides, one arm tucked beneath your head.

"I don't gatekeep you," he said into the silence, his voice lowering to match the volume of darkness. He poked your cheek with a finger, as if he could stamp the declaration there.

You gave a small smile. "Okay, Jae." A thought suddenly occurred to you as you broke your stare-down to twist around and grab your phone from the nightstand to see if Jihyo and Jun had said something to the group chat. "Oh, by the way, did you ever figure out what Ellie wanted?"

Hyunjae shifted so he was on his back now, one hand still braced behind his head and the other resting on his stomach—but his eyes still watched you. "Something about a random high school project from senior year. She couldn't find the file for it and wanted to draw inspiration from it or something."

"I didn't know you had a project with her in senior year," you said offhandedly, shutting your phone off and replacing it onto the nightstand. You sighed, slipping further beneath the covers and closer to Hyunjae.

He drew you close, tucking you beneath his chin this time. "Yeah, it wasn't really important. Nothing to worry about."

"I wasn't worrying."

You could already feel yourself drifting off into dreamland, the exhaustion in your eyes making your eyelids close like valance curtains at the very front, lowering to mask the backstage magic from the audience. Except, the magic were your thoughts rocketing into the realm of the fictional. For a split second, you thought about somebody being in your position with your best friend one day. Would it hurt to think about then as much as it did now?

You couldn't exactly think about that future right now. Hyunjae, you liked to think, was far from letting anyone new into his carefully-maintained walls. He had been hurt by people before, and you'd be damned if you didn't protect him from that ever happening again.

You thought Hyunjae had fallen asleep until you felt his thumb brush against the back of your shoulder. "When have I ever friend-zoned you?"

Your heart stuttered in your chest for a moment, but it wasn't enough to wake you up completely. As you drifted off fully, you convinced yourself that you had imagined him saying that. You were both awfully tired, anyway.

EPISODE SEVEN: OH SHIT, WAS MY MIC ON?

TWO whirlwind weeks had flown by. You could hardly even soak in the moments of this last undergraduate project before it all began to blur together. The only ways you were able to properly tell time were crossing out calendar dates and—

“Oh my god, oh my god! Get it out, get it out!”

You, along with everyone present in the main auditorium of the performing arts hall, came to a screeching halt as a flurry of squeals erupted from somewhere deep backstage. You and the conductor of the pit orchestra exchanged concerned expressions before you were making a beeline for the fastest access point backstage. Younghoon and Eunwoo were swift to accompany you, and though you had a sinking feeling you knew what this was, you held your grimace for when you confirmed your suspicions.

Over the past couple of weeks, the feeling of being watched had not faded from the back of your mind. You tried to adjust rehearsal schedules so that they were a little earlier in the evening, but people had lives and you simply could not inconvenience them based on someone trying to scare you. Plus, with the spring season flying in swiftly, the sun retired a lot later, which gave you some peace of mind, at least.

But over that same time, the person meddling with your show had ceased to cease. One day it was sky blue fabric strewn all over the main stage; another day it was peacock feathers left in the projection box; there were cables missing from tech, headsets changed to radio channels. Somebody was clearly pulling out all the stops to ensure that this theater and production was full of old theater superstitions and bad luck, either to scare you or the people you were working with (or both), and frankly—it was working. To an extent.

You stormed into the back corridor of the performing arts hall, the supporting cast and tech crew all sprinkled about the hallway, anxiously watching you and your friends pass by them toward one of the larger dressing rooms.

“What is going on?” You demanded as you entered the dressing room. There was a small gathering of people gawking at something—the dressing room vanity mirror. The breath left your lungs at the sight.

The surface of the mirror was vandalized, the infamous word “Macbeth” scrawled all over its reflective plane in red lipstick. Some of the product had begun to melt from the heat of the lightbulbs around the mirror and dripped down the mirror like blood. It would have been a comical prank if this wasn’t a theater. You felt a stiff, cool breeze run across your skin.

Somebody was really trying to fuck you over, huh.

You shoved down a swallow. “Somebody get me some Windex,” you croaked. When nobody moved, you repeated yourself, forcing a bit more strength into your voice.

Chan appeared in the room, his own eyes pinned to the subject matter upon the mirror, as he handed you a bottle of Windex and an old rag.

You snatched it out of his hands with a “thank you”, then marched up to the mirror. With shaky hands, you began scrubbing away at the word written over and over on the mirror. You heard Chan corral everyone out of the dressing room and back to their original activities. All your senses had dulled by now, and you felt Younghoon gently pry the rag from your hands so he could reach the spaces that you couldn’t.

“Who is doing this?” You voiced to the now sparsely populated dressing room. You sat in one of the dressing room chairs with your hand pressed to your forehead with Younghoon, Chan, and Jihoon present. Eunwoo had gone out to calm people down, but you knew that this was going to draw a line for some people. It was a known superstition not to utter the name of the notorious Scottish Play in a theater, and it had just been named about a couple dozen times on the mirror behind you.

Your friends could offer no suggestions.

Your pride took an even bigger hit when you decided to cut the remainder of rehearsal for the day; you were certain there were at least a handful of people who were scandalized by what just happened.

“Are you okay, though?” Younghoon asked you for the third time as the two of you watched people leave the performing arts hall from the base of the nosebleeds. “I know that you’re not usually so… swayed by superstition.”

You could only give a stiff shrug. “I’m not,” you agreed, “but this is going to be the biggest project and production of my undergrad career. I don’t—I can’t take any chances.” You smoothed a hand over one half of your face. “God, I’m just tired, Hoon. I’m so stressed, and cutting rehearsal short today—we’re gonna be set back another day—”

“Hey,” he soothed, grasping you by the shoulders so you would look him in the eye. He offered a kind smile, “You’re doing great, Yn. I can’t imagine the pressure you’re under right now for this to go perfectly, but I think you have to have a little faith in all of us, including yourself. One rehearsal is not going to make a difference in the long run. We’ve got a lot of talented, hard-working people who will sleep this mishap off and come right back to make up for lost time.”

He squeezed your shoulder. “And whoever’s been doing this? They’ll get their due karma.”

You let his words soak into your brain. You needed this; you needed those words said to you. With a nod, you and Younghoon deigned to head out with everyone else. Jihoon and Chan were swift to shut the theater down for the evening, as well.

As you and Younghoon stepped out into the early evening, the sky still glowed a buttery yellow swirled in purpley-blue. There was another breeze wafting by, but instead of the chills you got before, it was slightly warmer and made you inhale deeply. The air out here made your lungs less constricted, you realized, and maybe you’d been stuck in that theater for too long lately. This would be good for you, as well as everyone else.

“I think me and some of the cast are gonna get together to go over some scenes at the grove,” said Younghoon as he peered down at his phone screen. “Wanna come with?”

You brushed a strand of hair from your face, a decision coming to surface. “Nah, I think I’m gonna take a walk. Get some fresh air.”

Younghoon passed you a brilliant-sort of smile that gleamed in the golden hour light. “Alrighty, director. Sounds good. Have a good night then, Yn-ie.”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for today, Hoon.”

You and Younghoon parted ways there, and while he traveled down the stairs toward east campus, you traveled northward toward the quad. The quad, a place most known for the cherry blossom trees that bloomed in the early spring, was no doubt full of people taking late afternoon strolls in the temperate spring climate. It was the perfect environment for you to relax and let some of the stress and pressure fade from your pulsing temples.

There were no longer cherry blossom flowers blooming upon the dark branches, but healthy, dark green leaves. Even if they were shades of pink, they were still beautiful nonetheless.

After making a full loop around the quad lawn’s perimeter, you made a detour down one of the side pathways that were lined in trees that yawned toward its partner on the other side of the pathway. It was noticeably quieter and less populated here, and for once, you actually didn’t feel like you were being watched.

You were walking for only a few minutes in the serenity when you saw a pair of people standing in a clearing of trees just to your two o'clock. You stopped, a familiar blond haired best friend catching your eyes.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Was what you heard from Hyunjae, and you almost marched right up to them to defend him.

That was, until you saw the girl's face.

You hadn't recognized her at first because she had her back facing you and she had changed her hair. But it wasn't difficult to recognize your old friend, Ellie, the one who Hyunjae said had contacted her. Your eyebrows furrowed in utter confusion. Why were they together right now? You thought Hyunjae had said weeks ago that she was just trying to get ahold of an old project they'd done together in high school.

Ellie placed her hands on her hips, her facial expression stony and unreadable. "Can you think rationally for a second and listen to me all the way through? That's what you agreed to when you said you'd meet me."

Huh?

You pressed your side against the nearest tree trunk, your heart thundering your eardrums.

When Hyunjae said nothing, Ellie continued, exhaling sharply, "Okay. As I was saying earlier, do you even know what the play's about? …No. Look at you; can't you see? You don't even know what it's really about."

"Of course, I know what it's about," Hyunjae sneered. "It's about how academic pressure and miscommunication can ruin relationships—"

Ellie laughed, the sound mirthful, and yet carried an air of malice that made your skin crawl. This wasn't the Ellie you remembered… "That's funny, oh my god! You really don't know what it's about."

"What are you going on about?"

"I think you should ask her," she said with a smile. You peered around the tree, feeling utterly stupid like one of those characters from a teen drama eavesdropping on their lover and their nemesis. "Ask her, Hyunjae. I'm sure she'll tell you what it's really about when you mention that I told you she st—"

"Yn?"

Oh, for fuck's sake. You nearly jumped out of your skin at the sound of Jihyo's voice from behind you. You quickly grabbed her and dragged her down behind the tree trunk next to you. When she sent you a look that told you she thought you were completely deranged, you pressed a finger to your lips.

She indulged you, thank god, and followed your lead as you crept around the tree trunk again.

"It's cute that you have so much trust in her," was what you heard Ellie say next.

Jihyo squinted as she tried to identify the girl. "Who the fuck…?"

You kept your eyes glued to the pair before you, but muttered to Jihyo quickly, "That's Ellie. Old friend of mine from high school, but we drifted apart. Haven't talked to her since."

"She and Hyunjae are friends?"

"No, I have no clue what's going on." Yet, your stomach twisted and churned and you felt bile crawl up the length of your throat.

A muscle feathered in Hyunjae's jaw, but he couldn't seem to get himself to say something.

Ellie looked upon him pitifully. "One day, she'll drop you, too—when she finds someone better. That's what she did to me, y'know? I don't know why she went to you, though. You are awful. I've heard all the stories."

You saw red.

This time, Jihyo had to grab a fist full of your shirt and yank you down next to her to prevent you from clawing Ellie's vocal chords clean out of her throat. Because you would have.

Anything—you would've done anything to never see the flash of shame, hurt, and anger across Hyunjae's face when she said that. It was like she'd slapped him, clean and hard. Your chest ached as you watched his hand tighten into a fist at his side.

"You don't know anything about me," he said icily.

And it was over all too soon. Ellie said something to Hyunjae, but it was too quiet to hear. When Ellie left her own way, Hyunjae stalked off in a different direction, leaving you and Jihyo where the two of you remained hunched behind the tree.

You made to get up, but Jihyo pulled you back down again. "Ji, I have to go make sure he's okay—"

"I know you do," she told you firmly while keeping you seated down next to her. "But you're not in the right headspace, and neither is he. You need to breathe, especially after today and whatever the hell that was."

When you sent her a questionable look, she explained, "I bumped into Sana on my way to the performing arts center and she told me what happened. Then Younghoon told me you went on a walk and I just tracked your phone to here."

Your jaw dropped. "You tracked my—"

"Shhh," she shushed you, pressing a finger against your lips. "That's besides the point! Are you okay, Yn? For real."

You leaned back onto your palms, a frown coming up to your lips. "Everyone keeps asking me that lately."

"It's a valid question."

That was fair, you supposed. You released a sigh. "I mean… not really? I'm just stressed, and I don't even know what to think or how to comprehend what we just witnessed." Your brain was buzzing with every one of Ellie's biting words. What had she meant by all of that? She sounded so bitter, so malicious… What had happened?

Jihyo pressed her lips together, sitting down properly onto the grass. "What was that? Did you and Ellie end on bad terms?"

Your brows creased together and you absentmindedly scratched your jaw. "No," you murmured. "Not that I remember. It was just like we drifted apart over time. At least, that's how I remember it. I dunno."

You blew out another breath of air. Ellie and you had both been really good at what you did—theater, writing, all of the works. You two were a dynamic duo; if people now claimed you were a prodigy, then Ellie was your twin. In a way, you could probably say that your characters from the play you wrote almost mimicked yours and Ellie's creative abilities and technical prowess, but just in different spheres. While the love story was based upon you and Hyunjae, the foundation had been from you and Ellie.

But it eventually faded, that friendship. You figured that was just how things worked, as unfortunate as it was. You both moved on, and you found Hyunjae.

You relayed all of this to Jihyo, your friend listening to your words intently.

"—but I've never carried any ill will toward her," you reiterated at the end of your spiel. "I truly haven't heard from her since and she hasn't reached out either. I don't know what could have caused her to tell Hyunjae all of that."

Jihyo pressed her mouth to her knuckles as a thoughtful frown graced her porcelain features. "Hm, yeah. It's curious, for sure. What were they saying before I got here?"

You gnawed on your top lip. "She kept insisting that he didn't know what the play was really about and that he should ask me."

"Huh."

"I know right." You carded a hand through your hair. "I'm screwed."

"Only if he actually works up the guts to ask," she countered. "Though, I think you should beat him to it."

You cocked your head to the side in question. "What do you mean?"

She lifted her shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. "Y'know—like you have to confront him about meeting with Ellie. You can't keep this from him; I know you."

Yeah, she was right. It would eat at you if you let that guilt swirl in your stomach. Plus, all of those things Ellie had said to him… you hoped he was okay. Dear god, you hoped he was okay.

(But the question now, you supposed, was who would bring it up first?)

EPISODE EIGHT: EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT SHE'S THE BO-BO-BO-BOSS

FUNNY story: it took a week before you and Hyunjae could even have a proper conversation, in person.

With the quarter well underway, there was little to no time to stop and smell the flowers anymore. This had now become a race toward graduation, meaning that everyone was focused on their own problems. The “pranks” had dulled down, but they were, by no means, completely gone. There were always the occasional cord missing, or that dreaded creaking noise in the wings on late nights.

You’d grown used to it by this point, and so had your peers, luckily. The conversation between Ellie and Hyunjae sat in the back of your mind at all times. You always knew it was there, but you had so many things to worry about. Act two was just about wrapping up though, and so, play progress was chugging along well on schedule.

You really did have nothing to worry about—maybe it had all been jitters. Maybe it would all just finally go smoothly.

Friday night rehearsal was a little slower tonight since everyone had been here since noon. You’d all practically spent the entire day together, having lunch first, then diving into proper rehearsal. It had been a rehearsal full of laughs and a good time, and by the time Hyunjae stepped foot into the performing arts hall, you felt that you could take on anything. Even the conversation that needed to take place.

“Hey, you said you wanted to talk to me about something?” He said as the two of you stepped into the privacy of the sound booth, the tails of laughter still lingering in the air from the scene he had come into. You were currently rehearsing the directions of the first scene of act three, where Younghoon’s character was going through a full-on “groom-zilla” mode while Eunwoo’s character couldn’t stop talking about Sana’s character. It had been a full one-eighty character swap between the two friends.

You licked your lips, trying to press your smile down a little. “Oh, yeah. I was taking a walk, like, a week ago—and I saw you and Ellie talking.” You figured it would be better to just air it out right away; there was no need to beat around the bush. You lowered yourself onto the edge of one of the tables inside the booth, the air turning stuffy from the insulation inside the box. Crossing your arms loosely over your front, you watched as Hyunjae’s mood shifted, his body shuffling as he sought a comfortable position against the wall by the door.

Hyunjae cleared his throat, head ducking as his hand cupped the back of his neck. “Oh, really? You saw that?”

“I heard what she said to you—”

His head whipped up at that.

“—and I can’t believe she said that,” you said, those dagger-sharp words echoing in your mind from what Ellie had said to him about his own character. “Are you… are you okay?”

Hyunjae’s eyes widened a millimeter. “Am—am I okay?” He stammered.

“Yeah, I mean, she said that you were awful and it was…” You shook your head with a haggard sigh. “I’m sorry she said all that to you.”

“Thanks,” he exhaled, peering over at you through his eyelashes. He looked so small for once. “I—” He huffed air out from his nostrils, leaning his head back against the wall as he struggled to find the words he wanted to say. “Is that all you heard though?”

No, I also heard her insist you ask me what the play is about. You blinked, your own voice seemingly trapped in your throat. Why couldn’t you just own up to it?

But he must have taken your silence as you saying that you hadn’t heard anything else, so he gathered his wits to ask you, “Yn, what’s the play really about?”

The breath left your lungs. “You know what it’s about, Jae. You were there while I wrote it.” Please don’t make me say it. Please don’t make me say it. Because a part of you knew that if he pushed, you would give. You would tell him because… how could you not? If he wanted you to be honest with him, then… oh god, would you really? Would you risk this little secret of yours and ruin a friendship? Either way—it could go either way.

His tongue darted out for a moment as he carded a hand through his hair; he took a couple steps toward you. “I know, Yn. But—Ellie kept on insisting that I ask you what the real idea behind the play is. And she—and she,” he laughed, the sound disbelieving, “she said that you stole the idea from her, which is crazy! I know it’s crazy, because I watched you labor over this thing for months.”

She what? All thoughts except for one left your brain at that moment: why in the world would Ellie tell Hyunjae that you stole the idea for Jasmine from her? You didn’t remember ever seeing this kind of work from her before. “I didn’t steal anything from her.”

“I know,” he replied again, placating you. He now stood right in front of you, but your eyes raced back and forth about a mile a minute as you mentally went through the things you remember ever writing with her. You couldn’t remember; you couldn’t think. Why would she say that? “So I just wanted to ask,” he said slowly, his words drawn out as he leaned down slightly so you would look him in the eyes, “what is the play really about? The real meaning.”

There were pros and cons to telling him. On the one hand, you could spew the same surface-level bullshit that you usually did, but you had a feeling that one wouldn’t work this time. On the other hand, you could tell him—the truth. That was the worst pill to swallow. It could end in utter catastrophe or it could end in your wildest dreams. But what if, when he didn’t feel the same about you, had to let you down easy and your friendship would never be the same ever again? You couldn’t bear losing him, you just couldn’t. You loved Hyunjae…

“Yn, you’re scaring me,” he said with an anxious laugh.

You met his eyes then. “You don’t trust me?” You blurted before you could stop yourself. Those words, that tone… it sounded to you like he really was starting to believe what Ellie told him.

Something flashed across his face, and he was racing to defend himself. “What? No, of course I trust you. I just—I just want to know what the real meaning behind the play was about; that’s all!” And if you can’t tell me, then what else am I supposed to believe? “Yn, come on, honey—please—”

“It’s about you.”

All breath left him. You saw the way one hundred and one emotions flickered through his eyes; all of thoughts racing about at once as he tried to comprehend. “What? I don’t—I don’t understand.”

You balled your hands into fists in front of you as the frustration suddenly bubbled to the surface. “I wrote it about us, Hyunjae,” you told him. “Alex is based on you, Kai is based on me. I’ve been in love with you since junior year of high school, and that is what the true premise of the play is about.” Your hands were shaking now, gesturing between the two of you in stiff, constrained motions like the feeling of your chest’s range of movements at this time.

You watched it dawn on him, watched him swallow—hard. “Yn, I’m sorry—”

“Jaehyun.”

He shut up immediately.

You pressed your fingers to the space between your eyes. For a second, you swore you could feel tears tickle the insides of your eyes, and you blinked them away, inhaling deeply to get your body to calm the fuck down. Why were you crying? There was no reason to be crying right now. “Can you—” you stumbled over your words for once, “—can you give me some space. I can’t… I can’t think.”

He obliged you, backing up a few steps, and you said fuck it. “Hyunjae, I need space. Please.”

You thought you saw hurt flash across his face, but you just wanted to be out of his eyesight. You couldn’t bear to feel those soft, sympathetic eyes on you. You couldn’t bear the weight of his “I’m sorry I don’t feel the same” right now.

“Okay,” he said, though barely audible.

It took a minute, but he left and you were finally able to suck in a large gulp of air. You strode out of the sound box and realized that everyone on stage was either looking your way, or had quickly turned their heads to pretend they hadn’t just seen that silent argument take place through the sound box window.

Your face and neck were on fire, but you swallowed your pride and returned to your rightful place in the middle aisles of the floor seats. You picked up your script from where you’d abandoned it by your bag. “Right,” you said, your voice shaky until you cleared your throat. (Your hands were definitely still a bit wobbly, but that wasn’t your greatest concern right now.) “Where were we? Scene one, right?”

Everyone slowly began making their way back to their original positions, but Younghoon walked up to the bottom stage and lowered his voice to say, “Yn, we can take a break if you need one. Take five, then reconvene.”

He probably knew what just went down in the sound box. Yet, you found yourself shaking your head. “No, it’s fine,” you assured him, un-reassuringly. “I can do this, Hoon.”

He frowned at you then—those damn, soulful eyes—but nodded, respecting your decision. Like everyone else, he returned to the original position his character was in at the top of the scene.

I’m sorry, his voice seemed to echo in your ears. A part of you ached at the thought of that stark hurt on his face, but you were hurting, too. Why would you send him away like that?

You blinked, your head clearing. “Okay, everyone. Let’s see it.”

— ✶

A few hours later, you finally had everyone wrap up for the night.

“Thanks for all your hard work today!” You exclaimed as the actors and techies began swarming the stage to put props away. You climbed up to the stage, too, jumping onto one of the backdrops that Younghoon was wheeling backstage to help him direct it through the heavy folds of the backdrop curtain.

Younghoon shot you a smile from the other side of the prop. “Well, Miss Director, nice work today.”

You returned the expression wholeheartedly. “Thanks, man. The same goes to you; I appreciate all your hard work today. And that idea for the wedding sequence was absolutely brilliant.”

He chuckled at that, and the two of you worked together to slot the prop onto the cart with the rest of the ones that were just like it. A couple of stagehands then moved the assembly line along and rolled the cart down the hall to lock up in one of the dressing rooms. “I like to think I’ve been to enough weddings at this point to know how to spice them up.”

“Ah, that’s right,” you mused along with him as the two of you began walking down the backstage corridor to where you knew his partner was hard at work with that miraculous fountain. “I remember something about yours and YH!Yn’s first proper outing being to your cousin’s wedding?”

Younghoon threw his head back with a hearty chuckle at that. “Your memory serves you correctly then,” he confirmed. “Well, it wasn’t our first proper outing together. Technically, we met at an outing—”

“What do you think they were arguing about? It looked like they broke up or something.”

The line caught you off guard, and your footsteps faltered. Younghoon gave you a confused look, eyebrow arched. Your ears strained to eavesdrop on the conversation happening in one of the open dressing rooms you just passed by.

“No way that they were dating! … okay, I guess that would make sense why she put up with him all the time,” a second voice scoffed. “Maybe she finally got tired of his bullshit and cut him off.”

“That would make sense as to why he got out of the theater so fast. I went to their high school, and even after Hyunjae left, the year above me still talked about him—”

Your hand slammed against the doorframe of the dressing room, effectively making the two stagehands inside jump in surprise. They gaped at you with wide eyes, lips parted in shock as you addressed them with a carefully-made blank expression. “Let’s not go sticking our noses where they aren’t appreciated, yeah? Worry about yourselves, thanks.”

The two bowed their heads, apologies crawling from their mouths, and you turned back into the hallway where Younghoon was waiting for you.

You resumed your walk down the hall, and your friend casted you a side-long glance. “Thanks for standing up for him like you do,” he said to you. “I don’t know what happened today, but…”

“It doesn’t matter what happened today,” you said to Younghoon with a small exhale. You gave him a smile, even though you knew it wasn’t convincing. “I’ll always stand up for him.”

“Even when he doesn’t deserve it?” Younghoon joked with a laugh.

Your smile curled a little wider. “Even when he doesn’t deserve it.” In reality, you knew that he deserved to have someone stand up for him. Whether that be you, or Younghoon, or even Jihoon—you knew that everyone deserved to have someone watch their back when they weren’t around. You might have pushed him away earlier this evening, but that would never stop you from continuing to protect him. It was simple, really; you loved him.

EPISODE NINE: ARE DRAMA MAJORS ALWAYS SO DRAMATIC? WAIT, DON’T ANSWER THAT.

“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have done this in the grocery store like you guys always do,” Hyunjae grumbled as sounds of livelihood raged all around him: pots and pans clanged to the sizzle of food on the stove, the TV played some random American murder mystery show on low volume, and Hyunjae was sandwiched in between two others on his and Younghoon’s apartment couch.

Chanhee, who sat on the other side of Juyeon (who was on one side of Hyunjae), snorted. His nose was in his phone as he scrolled through Instagram, but didn’t look up as he replied, “As if we’d let you into Grocery Aisle Therapy. That’s exclusive admission.”

“That’s true,” Jacob chimed in from Hyunjae’s other side, as the man spooned a generous helping of Frosted Flakes into his mouth, “I tried.”

“And if even Jacob was denied entry,” Sangyeon mused from the kitchen as he turned off the stove and hood range, carrying over a bowl of the fried rice he had made for himself. Haknyeon skipped behind him with his own bowl and his cheeks were already full of the delicious food. Eric and Sunwoo were swift to follow their friend’s lead and raced into the kitchen to get a helping for themselves.

Changmin made a face from where he sat on the floor below Chanhee and Younghoon. “Not for lack of trying. You should’ve seen JC!Yn try to resist his goo-goo eyes. Bleh,” he gagged.

“I admire her tenacity then,” Hyunjae sniffed. “Not everyone can resist Jacob.”

Jacob beamed.

Kevin narrowed his eyes at Changmin. He sat just a few spaces away from the glasses-wearing menace, but carefully cross-legged and cradling a bowl of popcorn in his hands. “You say that when you literally pined after your girlfriend like an angsty teenager for three years.” He feigned a face of contemplation, then added, “Oh wait, you actually are an angsty teen—aye! Dad, Changmin hit me!”

“I am so sick of this family,” Sangyeon mumbled under his breath as he collapsed into the armchair adjacent to the sofa-sectional everyone else flocked upon. “Enough, both of you. Why were we all called here, again?”

Eric slid back into the living room on the polished wood floors in his socks, then perched atop the arm of Sangyeon’s armchair as he feasted upon his bowl of fried rice. He carefully lowered each spoonful of rice into his mouth so he wouldn’t dirty the fluffy cardigan he now wore. "Hyung's in trouble with his lady lover."

“Lady lover?” Sunwoo echoed with his face scrunched up like he just ate something sour. He had taken the spot between Kevin and Changmin to hopefully stop one from kicking the other again (hopefully).

"You're so judgmental."

"And you're—"

Sangyeon massaged the migraine pulsing in his temples away furiously with a clear grimace. "Shush, children. What did you do this time, Hyunjae?"

Hyunjae's jaw dropped, an image akin to one particular Pikachu meme. "Why am I immediately assumed to be the one at fault?"

"You summoned us all here," Haknyeon said with a shrug. "And Younghoon hyung said that it looked like you and Yn-ie suffered a break up in front of the entire main cast of Jasmine."

Hyunjae threw a displeased glance Younghoon's way; the tall man grinned sheepishly as if saying "what was I supposed to do—lie?" Hyunjae stared down at his lap, fidgeting with his fingers and the watch on his wrist. "It wasn't a break up…"

Kevin made a disapproving noise. "Oh, we know."

Hyunjae glared down at the top of Kevin's head. "Rude."

"Okay, so explain what happened," Juyeon prompted.

The man in question sucked in a breath. Where to begin? Someone muted the TV, so Hyunjae and Younghoon's apartment descended into a coat of silence. Everyone waited for Hyunjae's response.

Hyunjae decided that there was only one logical way to start. He began when he first received a text message from the elusive 'Ellie', your supposed best friend before him. He couldn't believe you had a soulmate other than him, but it only mattered that you two had found each other—not that that mattered—

He went through the entire spiel: Ellie had texted him about some project they worked on together in senior year of high school. He hadn't known why she would even care about something dumb they'd done in high school especially when she was a fourth year in college like the rest of you. But she had asked politely and he wasn't one to just dismiss someone when it was a simple, innocent request. However, when he had finished with this little task, he should have stopped there.

Their conversations eventually escalated from innocent "oh, you remember when…" to "if we meet, you have to agree to hear my side of the argument." He remembered her exact words: "You'll be very shocked to hear the truth" regarding your business with the play. He wanted to look out for you like you always did for him (and screw it, he was curious), so he obliged Ellie and met with her.

That had been one of many mistakes he made. The biggest mistake was what went down at the theater a couple of days ago. And now? He had just made you confess to him, he had broken your trust, and he didn't know how he was going to make it up to you.

(He had to admit though, that once he finally got space to think about what you said to him, there was something about the prospect of you being in love with him that gave his heart a lively kick-start—)

Chanhee reached over Juyeon's head and swatted Hyunjae's neck like there was a very large mosquito there. "You dumbass!"

Hyunjae yelped, his hand reaching up to rub the aching place furiously. "Ow!"

"Deserved," Kevin sang as he tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "That was super not cool, man."

"You don't think I know that?" He rolled his eyes.

"Yes," everyone chorused together.

Cue his next set of eye rolls.

"Hyung," said Sunwoo as he shifted so he faced Hyunjae. His eyes squinted up at him, his curly bangs falling into his pupils as they usually did. "How could you not see that she was in love with you? You have to be blinder than a bat."

"You've been hanging out with SW!Yn too much," Changmin teased.

"Hey, don't bring her into this and taint her good name! Even she saw how perfectly enraptured Yn-ie is."

Changmin opened his mouth to make another unnecessary comment, but Sunwoo slapped a palm over his friend's mouth.

"I guess that leaves one question," said Juyeon, finally, after a long stretch of his silence.

"And what's that, Juyeonie?" Sangyeon asked.

Juyeon pursed his lips together in a slight pout. "What else? Are you in love with Yn, too, Hyunjae?"

Oh—

Hyunjae's thoughts careened to a stop when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He maneuvered around on the couch cushion to retrieve the device, his heart pounding in anticipation—but that emotion was immediately swapped out with utter disdain.

His friends observed this flip with great interest. "Who—"

An indignant spark lit Hyunjae's dark irises as he furiously typed something to the sender and promptly blocked the number.

Jacob and Juyeon, who were able to peer over at Hyunjae's phone screen, both widened their eyes in scandal. Jacob grinned, lifting his hand to delicately hide his snickers. "Well that answers our question."

Hyunjae sulked, swiping through his contacts, then blocking Ellie's number, too. He should have done that so damn long ago.

"It was some guy asking if he knew if Yn was free in two weeks—"

"And she's not," Hyunjae grunted, shoving his phone back into his pocket, then standing up to go get Sangyeon's fried rice in the kitchen. "These fucking guys, man. Like, what the fuck am I gonna do? Hype you up to her? No way in hell—" He scoffed, slapping a spatula of rice into his bowl with a strength that the bowl, rice, and utensil didn't deserve.

He couldn't believe that one stupid, little thing the two of you had done in freshman year of college had led to this spam of dudes flooding his inbox for you. If he had half a mind, he would declare that you weren't on the market anymore and that you weren't even interested in seeing any… body…

The thought marinated in his head for a moment as he slowly chewed the fried rice. Why did he want you "off the market"? You were his best friend, but you weren't his to covet or shield or speak for. You weren't his.

You weren't… his.

"Oh my god, you can actually see the neurons firing in his brain for once."

Hyunjae plopped himself back into his original place on the couch. "I hate you guys."

"So you've realized that you're in love with her?" Younghoon asked exasperatedly, his hands splayed out on his legs like he was begging to the cosmos.

Hyunjae made a face and pretended that his heart wasn't palpitating and that a drop of sweat wasn't dripping down the back of his neck right now. "What? Of course not," he said through a mouthful of fried rice.

One could hear the collective exhale of disappointment all the way to your townhouse.

— ✶

It was Thursday evening when you found yourself walking out of the performing arts hall after yet another rehearsal, and coming face to face with the person who had become one of your greatest problems over the past month.

Your hand stopped in midair from which you were brushing the hair out of your face when you and a young woman made eye contact. She was seated on one of the benches facing the entryway of the performing arts hall, her attention lifting away from her phone and to you. The sky remained alight and streaked in its dazzling sunset colors, and yet, the sight of her made everything feel grayed.

She smiled at you. "Ah, you're done."

Something crawled beneath the surface of your skin. For a second, you thought it was disgust, but upon further thought, it was really something bittersweet. You swallowed, adjusting your hold on your bag strap. "Can I help you?"

"Do you remember me, Yn?"

"Of course, I do, Ellie." How could I forget you?

Ellie's smile shuddered and you suddenly couldn't read her face. It was strange seeing her four years into the future. You remembered catching glimpses of her in the hallways, her sweet smile and button nose, the freckles sprinkled across her cheekbones like kisses from the sun. "I guess that's one thing out of the way."

Her biting words to Hyunjae appeared in the forefront of your mind. "What you said to Hyunjae—"

"Was true," she cut in. "And based on the fact that he blocked me a few days ago, I'm guessing that something happened between you two." Her lips curled upward, "How does it feel to know he actually doubted you? If I'm being honest, it makes me fucking sing, Yn!" There was a shiver-inducing giddiness to her voice and you wondered if this was all a joke. It would be a cruel joke, but anything would be better than this.

Could she see the horror on your face? "Ellie, we were friends," you managed to say.

She pressed her lips together. "We were friends until you decided that we weren't."

"What are you talking about?" You threw back at her. "We drifted apart—"

"You abandoned me," she quipped. The smile was gone now, her mouth set into a taut line. "You left me to rot."

Your heart dropped into your stomach. About a million things flashed through your mind, but most of all, you came to a very fast epiphany: you'd always thought she was happy. "Ellie," you said, slowly, softly, "I'm sorry that you felt that way. Really, I am so sorry."

"I've made sure you feel that way."

"But you should have left Hyunjae out of this."

Ellie laughed and the sound was harsh. "This isn't about your stupid best friend, or whatever. This is about you and me. I can't believe you thought—how could you prefer him over me? Why did you stop talking to me, Yn?"

You were so confused. All this time, you had thought that yours and Ellie's friendship ended on a mutually neutral ground. You thought that you had just drifted away from one another from the eventuality of time. Was that not how she saw it this entire time?

The end of Ellie's question took on a raspy undertone, the gleam in her eyes less so that of anger, but the melancholy underneath. You wanted to make things right, but you didn't know what that was.

When you had yet to say anything except for letting the breeze waft past your face, she let out a scoff. It was a somewhat embarrassed sound, her eyes skittish. "You know that my parents always compared me to you. Constantly. You remember what you said to me?"

You swallowed. "'They can compare all they want, but you'll always be enough for me.'"

"I didn't want to bother you when we 'drifted apart', as you say," she continued on with a huff. "And then I saw you and Hyunjae, and the way you looked at him—god, I knew right away, Yn. And I was so bitter. Just so, so bitter." She shook her head. "I've been thinking about this for a long time."

Dear god, you hadn't known this whole time. You'd wished you had known. You didn't know what you might have done differently—maybe not have been so blind—but… what if you couldn't have saved that friendship? Was this always meant to happen in the grand scheme of the universe's stage?

You made your way toward her and she simply watched as you stopped a handful of paces away from her. “I didn’t mean to drift away from you or to make you feel like I was replacing you in any way.” For a moment, you were quiet, and you inhaled a deep breath to query, "What made you suddenly want to confront me after so long then?"

She peered up at you, a mixture of sadness and something sharper in the reflection of her irises. "You didn't have to keep getting better and showing off. I just got sick of living in your shadow when you weren't even there."

You bristled at that. “What else could I have done? I’m sorry you felt that way, really, but I had a lot of pressure on my shoulders, too. I wanted them to stop expecting more from me, but each time I did something right, they kept pushing for more. And I—”

“I just wanted my friend back!” She exclaimed.

The words died on your tongue, dissipating in the tense air between you two. The fight left you then, seeing the hard break in her expression, a sliver of the girl you remembered from so long ago. What happened to her? She’d been poisoned by whatever feelings were locked inside her, and you supposed that it was only inevitable that those same feelings would one day be unleashed. You wished she didn’t have to confront you this way. "So you thought lying to Hyunjae would have done the trick?" You finally murmured.

"You didn't figure out who's been messing around with your production all quarter?"

The question caught you off guard, but you were quick to catch on nonetheless. Your breath hitched as you stood there, stunned. "That was you?"

A nod.

"All of it?" Disbelief struck you clean across the face and you felt like you'd just been slapped. A new level of anger boiled in your blood; all of those nights you spent creeped out of your mind, the extra stress from all the superstitious bullshit—

"This is our last act," she said, her tongue darting out for a moment. "I don't want anything else from you after this."

You couldn’t believe she would go through all of this trouble—all for what? All to prove what? It was utterly childish, preposterous, dramatic. “Good,” you asserted, as firmly as you could muster, “I don’t want anything from you either.”

And there was a split-second where you saw a crack in her expression, truly. Before, when you’d seen that bit of melancholy seep through, it must have been purposeful. Perhaps it was to draw some kind of sympathy or guilt from you, but after she admitted to doing all of that crap to you and your peers, you weren’t about to lean into that, old friend be damned. Of course you felt bad that she had felt like that for so long. You pitied her. But it didn’t mean you had to forgive her; not for this.

Maybe this was it though: all she wanted from you was for you to feel as helpless as she had, but you simply couldn’t feel that way. All that you could feel was cold fury.

“Fine,” she cleared her throat, straightening. “I hope you learned your lesson.”

You let out a scoff, the sound making her eyelids shudder. Your teeth grated against each other as you closed yours and her “final act”: “And I hope you’ve learned yours. I hope I never see you again.”

You turned brusquely on your heel to walk away before you did anything rash. But a sudden thought appeared on the tip of your tongue, and you found yourself stopping. When you glanced back at her, she was watching you leave with an emotion you couldn’t quite detect. The two of you had been such good friends, and… you really wished you could understand her position better. “I just don’t understand why you went through all this trouble. If you had just—texted me, called me—” You made a gesture with your hand then let the limb fall limply to your side, “You could’ve just said hi.”

You left her behind after that, purposefully this time. Did people like Ellie deserve their chance at redemption? Maybe when the dust had settled, but for now, you hoped she received her due karma.

EPISODE TEN: GOOGLE, DEFINE DRAMATIC IRONY.

THEY said that a terrible dress rehearsal marked a production for a brilliant opening night. As Michael, the wine salesman dude, forgot his fifth line of the rehearsal; as the tech staff in the box forgot their second lighting cue of the night; and as Hongjoong continued to have to fuss over San’s Uncle™ beard for the third time, you were trying very hard to keep that saying in mind.

Weeks had passed—you didn’t know how many, maybe five, maybe two, maybe an entire year—but that entire time, you didn’t feel Ellie’s presence haunting you anymore, nor had you heard from Hyunjae yet. He was busy with his architectural capstone project, anyway, and you felt that you both needed to take this time to yourselves to focus on more important things. (You thought this as if your friendship with him didn’t mean the absolute fucking world, but you were pretty sure you were seconds away from setting this building on fire so—)

The dreaded Tech Week had descended upon the cast and crew of Jasmine. Not only that, but it was also Finals Week, meaning everyone in this room was just as stressed out as they usually were, except, five times more. It made for a great rehearsal, clearly.

“—remember that as soon as she says ‘fine!’, you have to be out here to pull the rug out from beneath her feet,” you instructed the stagehand, who looked a millisecond away from passing out right there on the stage.

When they nodded their understanding, you turned away with a migraine pounding away at your temples. You just had to get through one more act, and you could call it a night. Opening night was literally in four days, and you were trying not to yearn after your best friend and feel guilty about pushing him away—and then there was the guilt that had slowly bubbled up over the past few weeks from what happened with Ellie. Maybe it had been all your fault—

“Yn, your eye is twitching.”

“Huh?” You perked up from where you were seemingly glaring a hole in the ground of the nosebleeds. Younghoon shot you an amused, yet mildly concerned look from within the winds of the stage. “Oh, sorry. Can we take it from the top of act three, please? One more act, people; let’s hang in there.”

That latter bit was more for you.

By the end of rehearsal, everyone was just as happy as you were to head home. Today was Monday, the beginning of the week, and yet you wished it was Saturday already—graduation. Now that was the light at the end of the tunnel.

Younghoon held the door open for you as the two of you exited out the front doors of the performing arts hall. When you murmured a thank you to him, he fell into step with you easily. The walk to the bus station seemed impossibly long with the ache in your legs.

Younghoon released a low-sounding whistle. “So…”

“Hm?”

“Are you coming to Cobie’s surprise birthday party tomorrow? I know it’s finals week and tech week, but it’d be nice to have that little break beforehand.”

Oh, right. Hyunjae’s friend Jacob was having his birthday party—well, it wasn’t him who was hosting, but his girlfriend. She had organized all of it, and had even had the good will to extend an invitation to you. At the time, you couldn’t find it in you to say no, despite the knowledge of your busy month at the forefront of your mind. But even now, you found it hard to really formulate a concrete response. The uneasiness was creeping up on you again.

“I dunno, Hoon…” you said lowly with a wince. “Maybe I should just catch up on sleep, y’know? And plus, I don’t want my feelings for Hyunjae to ruin the mood or anything. I’m kind of a Debby Downer right now,” you laughed pitifully.

Younghoon’s mouth curved into a frown. “Yn, you’re not a downer. You’re stressed and you have a lot of burden on your shoulders, but… I think something carefree will be good for you, no? Maybe you should at least stop by and say hello to people—take advantage of Hyunjae having to be in charge of providing free booze for everyone.”

You glanced up at him, meeting his kind eyes. “I’ll think about it,” you promised. You were probably too tired to think logically about going anywhere else but your bed at this moment.

Younghoon nodded. “Okay.”

As the two of you carried on down the stairs now, the bus stop in sight, you gathered your wits about you. “How is… how is he, by the way?” You asked.

Younghoon peered at you with something akin to gentleness and sympathy. “He’s… I think he’s okay.” He squinted one eye as he looked up toward the night sky, the thoughts meandering about his head. “You just have to give him some time. You know how stubborn he is,” he joked.

You could only give a shallow nod at that.

Not one to let a friend leave him so upset, he nudged you with the back of his hand. “Hey, don’t worry too much about him, okay? You have a lot on your plate right now, and you deserve to have your head in the game, okay? It’s all gonna be okay.”

“You always have such a way with words,” you laughed lightly as you wiped a tear from your eye—whether it was from emotions or just being plain exhausted, you couldn’t tell.

He smiled again then. “If I wrote down these words, I’d be stealing your job, Miss Director.”

Your laugh was a little brighter at that note. “Okay, Actor Extraordinaire. We’ll see about that.”

The two of you shared a laugh, and when you reached the bus stop, Younghoon waited until the bus came by to pick you up. It wasn’t yet deep night, but he was a gentleman all the same. You climbed up into the bus, scanning your transportation card as you went, then sat by a window to wave to Younghoon.

When the bus pulled away from the curb and away into the night, Younghoon pulled out his phone to the text chain with his partner. He’d come to a decision then, and as hungry as he was, he figured he could channel this annoyance into confronting one certain man by the name of Lee Jaehyun.

younghoon’s phone: love, i think i’m going to be late for dinner

beloved mastermind: i’ll save u a seat &lt;;3

— ✶

The lights beneath the swimming pool glowed an ethereal shade of fluorescent blue. It reminded Younghoon of a mermaid's cove with the way the light waves reflected off the ceilings of the building to create scales on the rafters. The emptiness of the indoor swimming pool was offset by the thrashing of flesh against water as a lone swimmer stole lap after lap across the great blue.

Younghoon lowered himself onto a steel bleacher and watched Hyunjae bolt from one end of the pool to the next, hardly taking the time to breathe air, like he breathed chlorine and water instead. The familiarity of the smell—warm stone, pungent chemicals—sent flashes of Younghoon's own days on the high school swim team to his mind.

At last, Hyunjae took his final lap, his breathing coming out labored as he swept a hand up his face and through his hair. His locks slicked all the way back, and his chest rose and fell harshly as adrenaline pumped through his veins and his lungs fought to consume oxygen without asphyxiating on it.

Hyunjae clambered his elbows onto the deck. "How'd you—know I was here?" He managed to say, nodding his thanks as Younghoon handed him the water bottle at the other end of the bench from him where Hyunjae's duffle bag sat.

Younghoon gave a meager shoulder shrug. "I know you too well not to," he said. The two were both swimmers, and where else would swimmers go to put their head somewhere else and to escape the world?

Hyunjae couldn't argue with that.

The two friends were quiet for a minute as Younghoon let Hyunjae catch his breath. There was something troubling about seeing him so tense, even after pumping out so many laps. The exhaustion didn't seem to outweigh the conflict warring in his mind.

Finally— "Hyunjae-ah, what are you doing?"

Hyunjae blinked up at him, perplexed. "Huh?"

Younghoon leaned his cheek against his palm, elbow resting on top of his knee. He fixed him with a stare. "What are you doing?" He repeated.

This time, the message seemed to have been delivered successfully. Hyunjae licked his lips, his gaze averting away from Younghoon. "Did you come here just to scold me?"

"No, I came here to tell you you're being an angsty teen."

Hyunjae scowled, his lips pressed into a pout. "No, I'm not."

Younghoon rolled his eyes just as his stomach grumbled in protest at him not going straight to meet his partner for dinner. Instead, here he was, trying to talk sense to a wall. "You're so childish sometimes."

He quieted. Hyunjae leaned his head against the meat of his forearm, eyes fluttering closed against the warmth of the heated pool deck. "How is she?"

"She's not good, but she's also not bad," Younghoon replied. He sighed, leaning forward onto his forearms for a more comfortable confrontation position. His lips pulled into a line. "Stressed, of course, but I think that was a given."

Hyunjae rubbed his eyes. "I fucked up, Younghoon."

A solemn nod. "I'm glad you see it now."

"This isn't a joke."

"I'm not saying it's a joke."

Hyunjae squinted at him. "Sometimes I don't believe you."

Younghoon smiled cheekily. "Well, sometimes you have to pick who and what to believe."

That hit a nerve, even if Younghoon didn't mean it to. Hyunjae immediately thought of yours and his last conversation. He couldn't get the image out of his head of the look of betrayal on your face when you asked him if he didn't trust you. He'd been stupid to be so curious, but of course he trusted you. He'd always trusted you. Who else could he trust but the very person who always protected him and was by his side? So why did he have to go and be so stupid?

He backed away from the wall for a minute and simply stood in the middle of the shallow lane as if the water could give him wisdom. "I," he began, then sighed, "I miss her a lot. I've wanted to text her, to call her so many times." He smiled, but it wasn't a happy one. "I think I just don't know what I would say."

"An apology would be a good start," suggested Younghoon.

"Right…" That was obvious, and yet, it was always the most difficult step. Would you let him come back into your life after a reveal like that? Feelings were such fragile, fickle things.

His heart sank at the idea of losing you forever though.

One day, she'll drop you, too, those damned words replayed over and over in his head like a broken record. —When she finds someone better… I don't know why she went to you, though. You are awful. I've heard all the stories.

Once upon a time, Hyunjae hadn't always been "awful" or dogged down by other people's negative testimonials about his attitude. So what if he had been "scorned by love" as you so lovingly put it one time? That experience had been enough for him to shut down all access points, keeping you sheltered in with him. It was hard for him to think of wanting to be with anyone else… but you.

He didn't mean to latch onto you so tight, but perhaps he had grown so dependent on you all this time. You had never given him reason to doubt how much you cared—god, why had he been so stupid?

Younghoon watched Hyunjae's inner conflict through the windows to his soul, glowing with the cerulean blue of the chemically altered pool water. "Hyunjae, do you love her?"

Of course he loved you. That was out of the question. But this was a different type of love that Younghoon was referring to, and it called for something much larger in the grand scheme of things.

That kind of love—what a frightening prospect, he thought. But didn't you make everything so much less frightening?

EPISODE ELEVEN: PLACES, EVERYONE!

"YOU stole my boyfriend, by the way." Hyunjae huffed as he set down the last two grocery bags he had helped bring up to the apartment from Juyeon's car.

JC!Yn barely batted an eyelash at him as she swept past to organize the utensils and cups set out on the breakfast table. “You snooze, you lose, Lee,” she teased with a sing-song tone.

From the front door, Sangyeon bumbled in with a clean, crisp white box, as he whistled a happy tune under his breath. JC!Yn greeted him at the entryway, thanking him profusely for picking up the cake, then taking the box from him so she could transfer it to the fridge for safe keeping.

“Chanhee says that he’s bringing his best friend, so he wants everyone to—I quote—‘not be embarrassing’,” Changmin snorted and giggled loudly from the couch where he relayed the information from his texts with Chanhee.

“That’ll be difficult for you,” CM!Yn quipped back so fast that Hyunjae couldn’t even suppress the high-pitched laugh he let out. Not that he wanted to suppress it; he had to admit that Changmin’s girlfriend was just as much a menace as her boyfriend was.

As Changmin’s jaw dropped and he pounced on top of her to tickle her into submission, Hyunjae averted his gaze elsewhere. He pulled his phone out, leaning against the granite kitchen countertop while he read Younghoon’s latest text notifications.

bread face: we’ll be there soon

bread face: i think i saw kevin and jacob a few cars behind us at the intersection, so i’m making haknyeon step on it

hyunjae’s phone: lol i was gonna chastise u about texting and driving hoon

bread face: tch pls, i’m better than that 🙄

bread face: i would at least make yh!yn do my texts for me 🤪

Hyunjae glanced up just in time to see JC!Yn’s front door open to reveal Chanhee and Eric, along with their plus ones. He tongued the inside of his cheek, thinking offhandedly at the fact that so many of his friends had found people to be with. It felt like they were all growing up far too fast; even as a fourth-year in university, it was unimaginable. Where would they all be in ten years? Where would he be?

He hoped, at the very least, that he might see you in his future—one way or another. As long as he could pull his shit together and finally talk to you.

hyunjae’s phone: almost everyone’s here btw r u guys close??

bread face: yeah, pulling up one block over so they don’t see hak’s car

bread face: hey, do yk if yn’s coming today?

Hyunjae’s thumbs hovered over the keyboard, then he typed in the clear answer: no, not a clue. I have a feeling she won’t be here though.

He tucked his phone away, looking over to see that JC!Yn’s roommate, Kei, had just stepped out of her room with a finished “Happy Birthday, Jacob” banner. “Hey, you need help with that?”

— ✶

The party was well under way, and suffice to say, the surprise party had been an entire success. Because Jacob was definitely not a fan of being jumpscared, it was good foresight that everyone was just in sight when he and Kevin opened the door. He had no clue that his partner had organized this for everyone and that everyone else was in on it. (Even Eric was able to keep the secret in the wraps, no doubt with the help of his significant other.) Almost all of his friends had brought along a plus-one, minus the singletons (himself, Juyeon, Kevin, and Sangyeon—though, that was still debatable) and Haknyeon and Sunwoo who’s significant others weren’t too close with the group just yet. It was a marvel that Younghoon’s girlfriend decided to come, too, but she said she would probably leave early anyway.

“You’re so sad-looking,” said Juyeon as he hopped onto the island counter next to Hyunjae. The two of them could scope out the whole apartment from this vantage point; the mood seemed to be at an all-time high, despite it being an incredibly stressful week for everyone.

Hyunjae made an indignant noise and he lifted his plastic cup of soda to his lips. “Pfft. I’m not sad-looking.”

Juyeon gave a meager shrug. “Every time you see someone and their partner, you look like your puppy just got taken.”

“That’s—” he stammered in protest, “—that’s not true. I—I just keep thinking about my arch capstone, that’s all! School is ruining my life.” The lie was so stark that even Hyunje winced to himself.

“Ah, well, I can relate to that,” his friend sighed. The two gazed out at the party, their ears perking up when they heard Sangyeon say something about him and Jacob needing to step outside for Jacob’s birthday gift—whatever that meant. Hyunjae and Juyeon exchanged strange looks with one another, before bursting into laughter.

Not even a few minutes had passed before Jacob and Sangyeon walked back into the apartment with everyone’s curiosity piqued. Jacob had on the best poker face that he could muster, his lips pressed together but a muscle in the corner of his mouth twitching upward like he was either trying not to laugh or smile.

“Well?” Kevin was the first to voice. He, along with everyone else over at the couch, leaned over the back of the furniture, their eyes wide like dogs waiting for a treat. Hyunjae and Juyeon probably looked similar from their perches.

“He asked for proof of my girlfriend,” Sangyeon said as he closed the front door behind him.

Hyunjae snorted, catching a slight glare from the eldest in the room. For however long, their friend group had an ongoing inside joke that Sangyeon pretended to have a “secret girlfriend.” It was only because Sangyeon had never once provided concrete proof, and maybe it was because he purposefully withheld it, but Hyunjae simply couldn’t understand why. Thus, the hilarious teasing of their eldest friend. Nonetheless, Hyunjae and everyone else remained curious as to the truth.

“Well then?” Juyeon pressed, “What’s the verdict, Cobie?”

The smile on his face really couldn’t be suppressed anymore, and it looked so close to a smirk. Jacob grinned, strolling over to the couch to resume his place between his best friend and girlfriend. “No comment.”

The room erupted into a loud groan from seemingly everyone. “What kind of answer—”

Even Sangyeon looked frustrated and his eyebrows furrowed together, paired with a slight parting of his lips. “Birthday Boy has so much audacity today. Dude, I literally showed you—”

At the sound of the doorbell tone, everyone paused. Hyunjae hopped off the counter, chirping, “I’ll get it!”

No one was opposed to Hyunjae opening the door as everyone else engaged in a battle of wits commenting on Jacob's refusal to confirm nor deny the existence of a future Mrs. Lee Sangyeon. Hyunjae reached the front door and peered through the peephole curiously—then stiffened.

You stood on the other side, your hands fidgety as you played around with the little gift bag in your hands, no doubt for Jacob.

He could hardly believe his eyes—you actually came.

He opened the door without much else left to do. Your gazes clashed in the front threshold of JC!Yn's apartment, your breaths leaving your lungs at the sight of the other. Hyunjae swallowed; he hated this tension, hated the way he couldn't just wind his arms around you as easily as he had done before. The palpitations of his heart were teetering on dangerous territory, and he chalked it up to the fact that he was nervous he might be making you uncomfortable.

"Hey, come in," he murmured low but soft, stepping aside to give you space. He barely registered the background noise at this point.

"Thanks," you said back, your voice barely audible. You stepped out of your shoes and nudged them toward the massive pile by the shoe rack, like an ocean of footwear wherein one must play a matching game in order to leave. You coughed, "Uhm, is there a place where I can put this?" You lifted your gift bag half-heartedly.

"Oh, I can put it—" he automatically reached out for it, and when his fingers grazed against yours, the two of you jolted, "—away," he stammered. You let go of it so he could quickly grab hold and make his very awkward escape.

He dipped into JC!Yn's room where all the presents were being stashed, allowing himself to soak in a bit of quiet, even if he could still hear the muffled party just outside the room. That had to be the worst thing ever. Why was he so jumpy around you? It couldn't be that you professed your being in love with him, right? He wished it wasn't like this.

He needed to talk to you, damn it, he needed to fix this—

But when he emerged from the room and into the main living space, he saw you chatting with YH!Yn and Kevin and Changmin. He watched you smile at them and laugh and look way less awkward than you'd been with him just a minute ago. He remembered what this week was, what Friday was.

Opening night: the culmination of months' worth of blood, sweat, and tears.

He'd been there for you since the beginning of it. He couldn't see you fail, and this was the first time he'd seen you not stressed. He didn't have the heart to ruin that for you right now.

So instead of marching up to you and requesting an audience, he made his way over to a few of his other friends to join whatever conversation they were having. He would fix things when you didn't have five thousand other things to worry about. Today wasn't about him, after all.

EPISODE TWELVE: CALL TIME, BABY!

TONIGHT was the night. You thought you were going to throw up, to be honest, and you gently sipped on an iced caramel macchiato to keep your energy up. Perhaps the caffeine was making you just a little jittery, but it was probably the nerves—

"Yn!"

"Yeah, what's up?" You exclaimed, stopping in your tracks and just barely dodging the pair of stagehands hustling a backdrop past you.

Jihoon gestured wide with his arms. "Where are you going? Preshow's in seven minutes."

Oh, right. Your eyes widened in incredulity at your absentmindedness and practically jogged over to Jihoon and the other end of the corridor that led back toward backstage, instead of wherever the fuck you were off to… "Sorry," you muttered, waving vaguely to your head, "dunno what's up with me right now. Is everyone ready? Everything in place?"

He nodded, his eyes leaving you for a second while someone said something to him in his headset. "Ugh, shit. We can't find SW!Yn—ever since she got that boyfriend of hers—"

Your hands flapped between the two of you as you nodded your head vigorously—yeah, it was definitely the caffeine. "She's probably in the sound booth with Chan and the others. She's not that boy crazy."

Jihoon made an unconvinced expression, but bid you farewell nonetheless. He probably knew more than you did, but that was expected since you weren't exactly a long-term staff member working backstage. Jihoon ran a tight ship; there was no way anyone would risk a Jihoon stare by saying hi to their significant other.

You held your head in your hand and set your drink down on one of the stools by the edge of the room so it wouldn't get knocked over. Tonight was Opening Night—the night. Tonight, there was a full house, including your friends and family, everyone at school, and about a dozen or so industry experts. The latter weren't just here for you, but for your acting peers, as well. This was a critical night for everyone. It absolutely had to go right.

You shifted the headset on top of your head and made your way back down the corridor. You were far too antsy to just stay in one spot.

"—can one of you go check Jess's hair and makeup—no, don't just rip it, hon, that's not how it works!" You recognized that anguished cry anywhere, and you peered into the dressing room Hongjoong and a swarm of other busy people were.

"What's going on?" You asked.

Hongjoong's head whipped around so fast you were surprised he didn't get whiplash. "Yn, thank God! You know how to braid?"

"Jess still needs hair and makeup?"

"Yes, one of my people had to call out sick—thanks Yn-ie!" You were already on your way to find where Jess was before he had finished his sentence. You'd hardly even processed the fact that one of the costume staff had to call out sick—that wasn't your main concern right now—you literally had less than five minutes to locate Jess and yeet yourself backstage.

The sound in your headset sparked to life. "Sound to Yn, Yn to sound. Can you hear me?" Bang Chan's voice echoed into your ears.

You narrowly got beheaded by a portion of the wedding arch coming down the hallway. "Loud and clear; fuck, it's a mess back here, Chan." God, your head hurt and the play hadn't even begun yet.

"Hey, man. Take a little breath, okay? Yeah, there you go."

You sucked in a very large breath of air. The adrenaline was pumping through your veins and your hands suddenly felt very cold. "Hyunjae usually helped me through opening nights," you exhaled, your head swerving left and right as you checked each room for Jess's presence. "Where is she?"

"I know, Yn," he said gently. "You can do this though. I know you can. You've been waiting for this for four years—hell, even longer than that."

Your head bobbed up and down as if he could see you—oh shit, was that her you just saw?

"He's probably sitting in one of those velvet seats, absolutely pumped for you."

"Even though I completely fucked up our friendship?" You choked out, flagging Jess down. The poor girl looked frantic as she was trying to finish her stage makeup while also braiding her hair. There was no way she could do both, but you admired the attempt. You began to help her out with her hair as she used her phone as a mirror.

"I don't know what happened, Yn, but he loves you too much to not be here tonight."

It was suddenly very difficult to swallow.

"Preshow in two. Are you ready for this, Director Ln?"

You finished the braid, snapping the elastic with a crisp thwip. Tapping Jess to let her know she was good to go, you made an immediate reverse maneuver to backstage. You took a deep breath in once more—held it—

Get your head in the game. Chan was right—you'd been waiting for this for far too long, worked far too hard. You needed to put faith in your abilities and your peers. "Let's do this."

When you returned to the main backstage portion, you found techies ready to go, as well as your main cast. You caught Younghoon's eyes, silently asking for him to round up Eunwoo while you got Sana and Miyeon. Quickly, the five of you met in the middle.

"Everyone feeling okay?" You asked them, making eye contact with each and every one of them.

There was a buzz about the air, both nervous and excited. You could feel it in the way your hands shook, but you reminded yourself this was what you lived for. Someone, probably Chan, gave you the one minute warning.

"We're gonna do great out there," Younghoon affirmed.

"And when in doubt," Miyeon chimed in, "just improvise."

A small chuckle rang out, and you could hear the countdown in your ear. You had to go out on stage and greet everyone.

"Okay, I got my cue," you said to them. "Break a leg, everyone. Chins up, alright?"

"You too, Yn," Younghoon said to you with a pointed look.

A smile graced your face then, and something settled within your chest—finally—something like a calm. "I will."

— ✶

The only reason why Hyunjae knew how expensive flowers were was because he was well-versed in the nature of presenting you with them after each production you'd completed, whether that be through theater or film. It was all standard practice, and he couldn't believe Sunwoo had the audacity to argue with him and his girlfriend about when to send flowers backstage.

Flowers were to be withheld from reaching the actor, staff, or director until the end of the performance. It was just one of those other superstitious things.

So here he was, sitting shoulder to shoulder between Juyeon and a stranger, with a lap full of vibrant blooms in what he thought were the best seats in the house: the lower balcony seats. They were probably his favorite place to get a proper view of the stage while also not being as high as the top balcony and seeing the top of actors' heads. Maybe it was the child in him that liked anything concerning the balcony.

The play had been going strong for the entire run time. You had come out on stage at the very beginning to welcome everyone and thank them for coming tonight. All the relevant information about the play could be found in the playbills that were handed out at the door, and he had instinctively flipped through each page until he could confirm your name and Younghoon's were there. That had definitely brought a smile to his face.

But even now, as the play was coming to an end and the main characters ended up happy together, Hyunjae still couldn't get the smile off his face.

At curtain call, all the actors lined up on stage to take their bows. When you came out to gesture to your acting peers and take your own bow, everyone in Hyunjae's row, especially himself, stood to give you the standing ovation you deserved. Hyunjae's eyes watered as he whooped and cheered and whistled as loud as he could since the flowers made it difficult to clap.

As he and everyone else sat back into their seats, he had to sneak a hand up to delicately wipe his right eye.

"That's my best friend," he said to no one in particular, his laugh watery but proud.

The woman next to him heard him, though. "She's incredible."

Hyunjae smiled at her, then turned his head toward the stage again where you were corralling the main cast in a massive hug onstage. "I know; she's amazing." I love her.

— ✶

The entire performing arts hall was in a state of utter pandemonium. Both the auditorium and the backstage areas were swarmed with people trying to get out of the building, trying to find their friends, and a butt load of other things. You and all the cast members began helping backstage crew take everything down and lock them up; after all, they would need to be preserved for the next two performances of the show that would carry on through the first couple of weeks of summer. Opening Night was only the "presentation" of your thesis.

Tomorrow was Commencement Day—there were a great handful of you graduating literally tomorrow, including yourself, and so you'd all resolved to go home and save the celebration for another night.

As you wandered through the corridors and dressing rooms, you were sure to congratulate everyone for their hard work tonight. Your cheeks ached from smiling, pride singing through your blood, as well as the lingering adrenaline. But you couldn't deny that you were relieved that the night had gone, and gone well.

Friends and family members of the cast and crew began trickling into the backstage area, so the space to roam lessened considerably.

Unbeknownst to you, Hyunjae had rushed back here faster than his friends could stop him, antsy to finally congratulate you and let you know how proud he was and how great the play was. He craned his head over the sea of people, half his bouquet no doubt squished, but he was still determined.

There—he spotted the blazer you wore on stage—but you were all the way at the end of the corridor. There was no easy way through the people, and who knew if you would leave before he could get to you.

"Yn!" He hollered over all the noise.

Like clockwork, your head whipped around from the stagehand you were speaking animatedly with in search of who had called your name. You locked gazes with him, and there was a softening in your features.

(In a crowded room, all I'd see is y—)

His heart leapt and his legs jump-started into high gear, murmuring out sorries as he maneuvered his way toward you. There were tears pricking at his vision; he never cried for anything or anyone, but you'd been the only one to draw such emotion from him. You were the only one who deserved that emotion.

"Jae, you're here," you breathed out, but then somebody tapped your shoulder and nodded in the direction from which you came.

He saw the concern on your face, the sense of responsibility, and yet the reluctance, as well. "Call me when you're done," he said. He mustered a smile, pushing the flowers into your dumbfounded hands. "Promise to call me."

You managed to nod. "Yeah," you swallowed, "thanks for coming tonight."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

EPISODE THIRTEEN: ALL THE WORLD'S OUR STAGE

A couple of hours later, you'd managed to express your gratitude to nearly everyone and their mother for their work and help, as well as convince Jihyo to answer any calls that came in regarding the play tonight. It was a big ask and you had been reluctant to ask that of her, but you also knew you needed to talk to Hyunjae.

You made your way out the back door of the performing arts hall and into the warm, early Summer night. There weren’t too many people still around since the only handful of people left in the performing arts center were all older staff members and faculty. You spotted Hyunjae leaning against the wall by the staircase, his gaze lifting from his phone when he sensed you coming toward him. A small smile curled onto his lips, and you realized how much you missed the sight of it.

“Hey, sorry you had to wait for a while,” you said as you approached.

He tucked his hands into his pockets. “No, don’t worry about it. The play was—it was incredible, Yn. I’m really proud of you.”

Those words struck you even harder than you imagined him saying he loved you back would have. It meant a lot coming from other people, but it meant the most coming from him. “Thanks,” you rasped, the emotion shining through your voice, and you had to consciously reign yourself in. “I’m really sorry for what happened. I shouldn’t have pushed you away like that, and I know that my confession was kind of unexpected.”

“You shouldn’t have to apologize for that, Yn,” he said gently, his teeth biting down on his lower lip slightly. “I’m the sorry one. I mean, it was so stupid that I even entertained the idea of Ellie being remotely correct. It was a breach of trust and I crossed a boundary that I shouldn’t have. For that, I’m so sorry.”

You motioned to the path leading down the stairs and toward a path even you knew not where it would lead the two of you tonight. Hyunjae heard your silent suggestion, and the two of you began descending the stairs together, side by side. “Maybe I thought I wasn’t ready at that moment,” you confessed, “but maybe it was what needed to be said, you know?”

When you glanced over at him, you found that he was already looking back at you, clinging onto every word that came out of your mouth.

Your heart rate was still rocketing into the atmosphere right now, but you knew that it wasn’t from the play. “I think that I needed to say that—no matter if I was ‘ready’ or not. I don’t think I would have ever been ready, but…” Your foot hit the bottom step of the stairs, and you turned on the ball of your feet to face him, guiding the two of you down the path and away from your normal direction toward the bus station. “Before you say anything, just hear me out, okay?”

Hyunjae gave a nod, and your heart stuttered in your chest as you forged onward. “You don’t have to affirm my feelings if you don’t feel the same way,” you said, returning to your normal position at his side, “I think that was why I’ve been so afraid of telling you all this time—that you wouldn’t feel the same. That, and the fact that I was scared that telling you would absolutely wreck our friendship like it did these past few weeks.”

From beside you, Hyunjae managed to keep quiet, but his voice was also jammed inside his throat. It was filled up with all the things he’d wanted to say to you first, all the things that he wanted to say in response to what you were telling him now.

“Ellie confronted me the week after our fallout.” Hyunjae stiffened—had she done anything to you? “She told me that she was the one behind all the ‘pranks’ or whatever throughout the play rehearsals.”

“Yn, those weren’t pranks,” Hyunjae couldn’t help but cut in, “it was plain sabotage.”

Sabotage. You’d come to fear labeling her actions with that word, simply because you didn’t want to believe that that was her true intention. You struggled to swallow, stopping in the middle of the walkway. The two of you faced each other then, his eyebrows pressed together in shock and anger and every emotion in between. “She told me she did it to get back at me.”

“For what?”

“I abandoned her,” you told him. That emotion on his face shuddered like ripples in a pool of water. “It’s neither of your faults either, but I guess what I thought was drifting away from her and becoming closer to you, she saw in a more malicious light. And she said that she’d been sick of living in my shadow despite not even being in my life, and I’ve just been thinking about that for a while.” You said you’d be there for her, that she’d always be enough for you… how ironic that you’d been the one to drift away.

Hyunjae peered at you, a mess of things going through his head. You couldn’t imagine what he was thinking about right now, but you knew he was never the best at expressing his emotions and vulnerabilities.

It was okay, though. He didn’t have to say anything. “In that moment, I cut off all ties with her,” you clarified, “when she told me it was all her doing. Now, I just feel a little sad; I wished she would’ve just said hi to me.”

Hyunjae wet his lips, grasping your shoulders to get your attention. “You know you didn’t deserve any of that, right? All that shit she gave you? I mean, she pretty much terrorized you, Yn, and I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

You wondered—no, you knew—he was probably beating himself up inside for the argument the two of you had, too. The combined force of all of those tough conversations, as well as the pressure from the play… “I’m okay, Jae,” you reassured him. This time, you even believed what you said. “I’m shaken, no doubt, but it’s something that will pass with time.”

In this lighting, he was beautiful, ethereal. The amber streetlight casted a heavenly glow upon him, and made his eyes glimmer like the moon off a still body of water. You’d written something like that description somewhere in the original script, and you realized just how intimately you’d projected your reality into the lines of that production. Perhaps one day, you’d have the strength to point them all out to him.

A thought suddenly occurred to you in the silence, and your eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Oh my god.”

“What? What’s wrong—”

“I never got to see your finalized capstone project!” You gasped, your hands flying to your mouth in scandal. “Shit, the showcase for it was yesterday, wasn’t it? Oh shit, I’m awful—” For as supportive as Hyunjae had been with your final project, you had neglected to even think about his thesis these last weeks. Guilt coursed through your body in waves and you wanted to screech—

“Hey, honey,” he chuckled good-naturedly, “it’s okay. You were busy; don’t sweat it.” He bit his lip again, but it did nothing to suppress the shit-eating grin on his face. “Wanna go see it now? I’m sure they haven’t cleaned everything up yet.”

Your heart skipped for a new reason now. “You’re gonna break into the architecture building?” You laughed.

“It’s not breaking and entering if you have access,” he said in a “duh” tone, waving around his student ID.

As the two of you made a swift reverse back up the stairs from which you’d come from, you gaped at his ID card in disbelief. “I can’t believe they gave you clearance.”

He wrinkled his nose at you. “Why wouldn’t they grant their top student clearance on his last week?” He sniffed jokingly.

The pairing of dialogue and execution made a giggle sputter out of you, the sound making Hyunjae’s chest feel warm and fuzzy. He hated the tension that had wrapped itself around the bones of his ribcage, but those vines were slowly loosening and blooming into something familiar, and yet new.

The trek to the architecture building was well-worn by both you and him. You hadn’t been by the architecture building in awhile because of your busy schedule, but you used to always pop by to either walk him to lecture or to come visit him while he was working. The building was built in a Greco-Roman style with columns and arches, and beautifully carved marble murals and statues around the perimeter of the roof. You knew that the building style in particular was never Hyunjae’s taste, but you remembered when the two of you had toured the school in your senior year of high school, he had been awestruck nonetheless.

Just as he had said it would, his ID card slid against the panel outside the front doors to the architecture building and came up green.

The two of you, feeling just like you were kids again, giggled as you crept into the darkness of the foyer. Hyunjae grabbed your hand without thinking and dragged you down the right hallway toward one of the larger conference-style classrooms on the ground floor. He didn’t bother turning on any lights in case security came by and saw, but there was a conveniently-placed streetlight right outside the window anyway.

“There’s my masterpiece,” he said quietly, a sort of jitteriness coming through his voice.

You let go of his hand so you could inspect the model he constructed. The feature piece seemed to be the massive clear dome on the top, as well as the smaller, surrounding establishments. “It’s amazing, Jae. This is so cool.”

He almost looked shy as he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest and watched you. “Ah, thanks. It’s, uh, a proposed model for a new performing arts department.”

Your head turned to him then. “No way.”

“Yes way,” he smiled. “I don’t know if it’ll get taken up by the board or not, but I gave them my whole spiel yesterday.”

“You’re gonna give me the spiel, too, right?”

Hyunjae made a face, feigning reluctance, but you were already dragging one of the chairs over so you could sit for his little presentation. “I mean, I guess I remember enough to do it again.” He took up his rightful place right next to his model, in front you, and cleared his throat to give you his speech.

The speech went wonderfully; you cheered as quietly loud as you possibly could. Your face was split by a bright smile that you were sure was enough to power the lights in this building if you really wanted to. If the board didn’t take up Hyunjae’s proposed new model after that, then you were about to send a strongly worded letter to the dean.

Hyunjae took on a boyish sort of smile after the moment had come and gone. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?”

“Cooler than this?”

“Pfft,” he dismissed nonchalantly, “you flatter me. But yeah, actually. Come on—it’s on the second floor.”

You quickly shoved your chair back into place and followed Hyunjae as he practically ran out of the room and up the stairs to the second floor. He had far too much energy for it being around ten o’clock at night, but when you saw the absolute glow on his face when he took you from project to project, gushing and nerding out about all the clever designs, you didn’t have the energy to even question his energy. There was something utterly contagious about hearing him talk about his major with such passion; you were so glad he had found a home in this field.

When the two of you finally let yourselves out of the architecture building, it was probably around an hour later. Your body ached with exhaustion, but your brain was abuzz with activity. You had missed this, missed him so much. For the first time in a very long time, you had never felt this carefree before.

“Can you believe we’re actually graduating tomorrow?” You asked him as the two of you walked toward the direction of the street your town house was on.

Hyunjae snorted. “No, not at all,” he said with a shake of his head. “Well, I’m actually so glad that I’m finally getting out of here, but it’s kind of scary, too.”

You gave a nod, then tilted your head back to breathe in the comfortable, night air. There were stars up in the sky tonight. “Yeah, I get that. Like, where will we all be, y’know?”

“Right.”

“But I think that the unknown in general will always be scary,” you added. “In the end, we’ll always know that everything will turn out okay.”

“And if it’s not okay, then it isn’t the end yet,” Hyunjae replied with a pointed look.

“Exactly.” You had a few options lined up for you after graduation, but you’d told yourself beforehand that you would deal with all of that after commencement day. After months and years of working nonstop, you deserved a little rest before fully stepping into the adult world. Wow, what a scary thought, indeed. "I'm proud of you, Hyunjae."

He had to stop himself from breaking down right there. "I'm proud of you, too, Yn."

The walk home was quiet, but it was as if a layer of film had been laid over just you and Hyunjae. The white noise of the night became somewhat calming for you, and you felt yourself sinking into a state of serenity. You had confessed your love for him already—he finally knew how you felt—but funny enough, that was freeing.

That had been your biggest secret, and finally being able to lift that burden from your chest was… it was good. Everything was good now.

Hyunjae softly said, "I know that you probably have so much to do after graduation tomorrow, but we've always wanted to go on a road trip cross-country."

When you looked up over at him, he could read the excitement glittering in your irises. "You're right! Man, that conversation was so long ago. I mean… I won't be so busy after graduation, not immediately. I want time to enjoy freedom with you," you laughed, lightly punching his shoulder.

He chuckled, your words soaking into his skin like sunlight on the first warm day after a harsh winter season. "I think it'd be nice, just the two of us." He couldn't wait.

There was an earnestness in the way you looked at him then. His thoughts had been all over the place before, but now, they were beginning to clear. "I think that'd be nice, too."

Your townhouse was now in sight, and a distinct feeling of anxiety rose in his throat. It was bitter-tasting, the way he dreaded leaving you for the night even if he would most definitely see you again tomorrow. He didn't know why inviting himself in like he usually did was so difficult now, but suddenly, you were both standing in the middle of the entryway and you were getting your keys from your bag.

It was late; he shouldn't keep you up. You'd had a long day.

"—you tomorrow then. Thanks for tonight, Jae."

He wrapped his arms around you just as you hugged him, his face pressed against the crown of your head and yours pressed into his shoulder. He didn't want to let go, but it was late—

"Good night," he said, nearly inaudibly.

"'Night," you said, going into the house and closing the door.

Maybe it was the physical, literal visual of you closing the door on him, but the epiphany hit him like a bus.

EPISODE FOURTEEN: AAAND THAT'S A WRAP!

YOU were about five steps from dropping to the floor and sleeping for about five years. Of course, you could not do that because you literally had to wake up to graduate tomorrow, but right this moment, you were so excited to just face plant into your pillow.

Tap!

The first time, you hadn't even heard the tiny noise as you shuffled into your attic bedroom and set your bag on the floor at the foot of your bed.

TAP!

Actually, you hadn't even heard it the second time—

BONK!

"What the…" Your head whirled around toward the window. You could have sworn you heard something hit the window pane. Cautiously, you walked up to the glass and peered out into the darkened street. It was a little difficult to see given the contrast between the light of your bedroom, the dark of night, and the fogging acrylic pane—

You nearly screeched as a small pebbled hit the window, right where your face would have been. What the fuck—?

Immediately, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up. Could this have been Ellie trying to spook you again? No way, right? Plus, wasn't Hyunjae just walking by?...

Oh, wait.

With a huff of indignation, you wrestled with the latch on the window pane just as another tiny rock came flying at the glass. "Hold your horses," you muttered, finally managing to haul the dusty window up. You only ever really opened this window during the warmer months, and so you hadn't used it since probably late fall quarter.

You stuck your head out the window, and surprise surprise, Hyunjae was tossing another piece of ammo up and down in his palm, down at street level. "What is wrong with you?" You stage whispered.

His mouth curved into a frown, head tilting, eyebrows furrowing. "What?"

"What," you repeated firmer this time, "is wrong with you?"

"I needed to get your attention," he shrugged.

"You couldn't just text?"

"Isn't this what Romeo did?"

Clearly, someone hadn't been paying attention when you were studying for your classes on Shakespeare in both high school and second year of college. "No," you quipped, "and Romeo was stupid."

Hyunjae sighed, reaching up to cup the back of his neck, dropping the pebble in his hand to the ground. "Okay, so maybe I'm not some Romeo—" You weren't quite sure where he was going with this.

He started walking around, pacing the sidewalk in front of your townhouse since he couldn't stand directly below the window (your roommate would kill him if he killed her azaleas). For a moment, you were ready to go down there yourself and shake the words from him, but it seemed he was able to snap himself into focus.

"I just… it's taken me a long time—god, it always takes me a long time to come up with the words for this type of stuff," he stumbled over his words, and you felt yourself grow increasingly tender. He was never good at wearing his heart on his sleeve. "And my friends have been saying it this whole time—hell, I've probably been aware of it unconsciously this whole time, too! But you know how I am. I'm too damn stubborn to cave, even to myself."

You let him continue on without breaking his monologue. Though you couldn't be too sure what this was, your heart still galloped in hope.

"Yn, I'm—" he said, head tilting back to meet your eyes so you could see those beautiful irises of his, "—I'm in love with you, too."

This was really happening, huh? Your fingers curled around the window sill and you opened your mouth in an effort to say something, but then you closed it. The words and the thoughts were there, but it was so foggy in your mind that you couldn't even string the words together yourself either.

You watched the hope, the light, gradually fade from his expression, even if he wasn't actively trying to show it. "Please tell me to go home if you're not gonna say anything," he said to you next. "I know you're tired, but god, I just stood here and realized I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't tell you. I know it's selfish, but…" He lifted his hands in sort of a helpless gesture, his hands then falling limp at his sides.

Finally, you found your voice. You cleared your throat, then asked quietly, albeit a tad nervously, "This—this isn't just because you feel bad about what I said about not reciprocating, right? I mean, higher levels of excitement and arousal can be misattributed to feelings sometimes—"

Hyunjae shook his head. "Dear god, no. I've just been… I've just been really stupid, so, uhm, maybe I am like Romeo?"

You fought the smile on your face, but it seemed you lost the battle. "Silly goose," you teased, laughing as you shook your head. "You ain't no Romeo, Lee Jaehyun, but I've never wanted anyone but you anyway."

He broke into a laugh at that, the sound echoing in the streets, and it sounded like, if one could bottle up pure delight and release it to the world. "You're so much better at this than me."

"Clearly."

"Well," he bit his lip, his smile impish, "can I kiss you to make up for it?"

Oh, there went your heart—there it went, carrying you down the stairs and out the door—you would have leapt out the window if you were physically able (you weren't). Your heart carried you all the way outside again until you arrived in your best friend's arms, his face, his smile illuminated in the soft glow of the streetlight.

And he held you so tight, you couldn't tell if that beating at your chest was his heart or yours. The two of you wasted no time in pressing your mouths to the other, tasting the other's smile in one more way than you'd ever done before.

It felt, at that moment, that this might have marked act three of one part of your life—but act one of the next was just beginning.

Perhaps it was true then: when it counted, you always went back to your first love.

a/n: heyy thank you for reading thru!! i hope u enjoyed and if u did, pls do consider commenting, reblogging, or sending an ask :] we do love a bit of humility in the end ayo :3 the original plan is to go for sunwoo's next o7

permanent taglist: @tayunji @im-a-big-mess @honeyhuii @crazywittysassy @seomisaho @stopeatread @enhacolor @rnjfy @jaehunnyy @kpopjackie @spiderrenjunfics @soobin-chois @stayarmytinyzenmoa-l @mingiholic @ethereal-engene @ja4hyvn @vatterie @yogurteume @justalildumpling @hyunjaespresent-deobi @hongyangi @pxppxrminty @nerdypastacalzonespy @zhaixiaowen @wtfhyuck @jcmdoll @kflixnet

anr taglist: @oi-miya @loveliestfelix @sickvision @jaerisdiction @stealanity @magnificentjudementmoneyhands @inthesunnn @igotkpoopsss @letsnotdoanything @sodafy @dajanxekiwi @sseastar-main @moonyswolf @sleepymoon27 @floatingpluto @fictionlover100 @winterchimez @zlebooks @mcu-incorrect @moontyuns @blessedsunoo @elljj @softie00 @ohmykwonsoonyoung @makgeolli_jw @quill-ink

#the boyz x reader #lee hyunjae x reader #hyunjae x reader #the boyz drabble #the boyz drabbles #the boyz fanfic #the boyz imagines #the boyz scenarios #the boyz oneshots #hyunjae imagines #hyunjae scenarios #hyunjae drabbles #hyunjae oneshots

[drewharrisonwriter]

Is that alright?

Pairings: Henry Cavill x Singer Reader

Summary: You are a musical guest in The Graham Norton Show on an episode that also features your ex-boyfriend, Henry Cavill. You play your latest single that you've written when you were 18 and in love with Henry.

A/N: Implied previous relationship. I don't think there are any more warnings, except the delusional situation that I've concocted. LOL This is based on the song Is That Alright? by Lady Gaga from The Star Is Born movie.

Check out my fic masterlist.

As the stage lights dimmed, the audience of The Graham Norton Show erupted in applause, eagerly anticipating the next musical guest. The cameras panned to the artist nervously waiting in the wings. You took a deep breath and stepped into the spotlight, gently sitting down on the chair and placing your hands on the ivory keys.

With grace and confidence, you began playing your latest single which took you nearly 10 years to release. A song you've written when you were so deeply in love with the love of your life, Henry Cavill.

As you began to sing, your voice resonated with a depth of emotion that captivated everyone in the room.

When the last note faded into silence, the applause was thunderous. 

You took a gracious bow and went over to the red couch where the guests for the night were all on their feet, applauding as well and congratulating you on your heartfelt performance. 

Henry, being a guest as well that night, caught your eye as he extended a hand to shake yours. You gave him a warm smile as you shook his hand. 

"Y/N, that was absolutely stunning." Graham began when the greetings and applause were over. "This single is truly heartbreakingly beautiful. Tell us about it!" He asked enthusiastically.

You glanced at Graham, taking a moment to collect your thoughts. This was the question you were both expecting and dreading.

"Thank you, Graham." You began nervously. 

It wasn't that it was your first ever TV guesting, but it is the first time you were sharing the screen with your now excessively famous ex, Henry Cavill. Talking about the song you wrote about your relationship with him nearly ten years ago is a bit embarrassing on your end. 

"Yes, 'Is That Alright?' is a very personal song for me. I actually wrote it when I was 18 years old, so like almost ten years ago when I was deeply in love with someone who meant the world to me."

The audience watched intently, unaware of the connection between you and the other guest on the show, Henry Cavill. But Henry, caught off guard by your revelation, nearly choked on his Martini but tried to play it cool as he waited for you to continue. 

"Ten years?!" Graham exclaimed a little exaggeratedly. "Why did it take you that long to release this gem?" 

You laughed a little, hoping you looked cool and calm enough. 

"The long answer or the short answer?" You joked and everyone laughed. 

Even Henry was laughing, you were always funny, and he was amazed you were able to preserve your humor and wit despite the nerve-wracking fame you've garnered over the years. 

"How long will the long answer take?" Graham quipped.

"However long it takes the crew to give me five shots of tequila." The studio erupted with laughter, Graham was laughing behind the cards in his hands. 

"No, I'm sorry." You began, "Okay. So for real, this song holds immense significance to me, it’s a sort of love letter, you see… and these are the words I wanted to let the person I wrote it for know but I never had the chance to.” 

You saw Henry bit his lower lip and look down on the drink in his hand. 

"Why weren’t you able to give this ‘love letter’ to them?” One of the guests asked as you were drinking.

“He broke up with me.” You said shyly and laughter ensued once again. 

“How old were you again when you wrote this?” One of the older guests on the couch asked, an actor, that you can’t remember the name of but looks an awful lot like Nearly Headless Nick from Harry Potter. 

"Just 18. I was so young when I wrote it..." 

"You were binge drinking at 18, you were not THAT young," Graham said in jest and everyone laughed once again. 

You chuckled along with the audience, appreciating Graham's lightheartedness amidst the delicate subject. From your peripherals, you saw that Henry was looking in your direction, he was laughing, too. 

The conversation flowed, everyone on the couch asked their question or complimented your latest single, except for Henry. Graham, noticing how awfully quiet he was, asked, “And Henry, how do you find Y/N’s latest single?” 

You felt a lump form in your throat, you did your best to swallow your drink and as Graham asked Henry.

Henry chuckled, looking down at his drink a bit before looking at you and saying: “It’s beautiful.”

“Awfully unfeeling.” Graham quipped with a fake whisper and eye roll and laughter ensued once again. 

You laughed at Graham’s remark, too and thanked Henry. 

When the show ended, you made your way backstage to hurriedly gather your things when you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You turned to find Henry standing at the door of your dressing room. “Hi…” He said softly. You said a quiet hello and asked him to come in. 

“I’m so sorry, but…” He began as you zipped your bag. “Do you have any plans for tonight?” 

You straightened up and faced Henry, blinking fast trying to absorb what he just asked. 

“Uh…just go back to the hotel and that’s it. Order room service, maybe.” You answered honestly, feeling your face turn warm in slight embarrassment for your lack of fun plans for the night. 

He chuckled lightly, “May I interest you with a Pint?” 

You might have stared at him a little too long before answering, because you saw him lightly cock his head to the side. “Uhm… sure.” You managed to say, finally. 

“Perfect. Meet you outside in 10 minutes?” He said with a huge smile, and you only nodded in reply. You watched him walk out the dressing room, the smile never leaving his face. 

You were a bit shocked.

It’s been nearly a decade since you’ve last seen or spoken to Henry. But the last few minutes… they didn’t feel like much time passed. You sat down and breathed, you can do this… 

It’s just Henry. 

It’s just Henry.

TBC...

#henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill #henry cavill fic #henry cavill x #henry cavill x female reader #henry cavill x singer reader #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill x plus size reader #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x y/n #henry cavill x you

[pbelfz]

Two to One | 13 |

Pairing: Bakugou x Reader x Midoriya Chapter Title: Default Dance Chapter 12 | Chapter 14 Story Masterlist Summary: You are a simple college girl working at a cheap, back alley café! The top heroes, Deku and Ground Zero, visit your work in hopes of ordering coffee, but they pick something else up instead. You begin an interesting relationship with the pair, while slowly becoming aware of certain underhanded tactics they are using. Idolization isn't always that bad... Right?

WARNINGS: controlling, manipulative?

Deku never smiled as much as he did on television.

Izuku came down with a hearty fever within the first two nights of (Y/n) officially moving in.

Katsuki was quick to point his finger at her, blaming her for bringing her city germs into the house, but Izuku insisted one of his high school interns was coughing in his office a few days prior. Regardless, Katsuki kept his distance from both of them.

In the few hours he was awake, Izuku worked from home, sending reports to his agency secretaries and signing off on investigation collaborations. He slept most of the day otherwise, leaving (Y/n) alone in the spacious house.

All of her personal belongings were relocated to the new house, but it’d been an overwhelming feat to unpack most of the boxes – not that she had that many to begin with. Still, it gnawed at her how final this all seemed. She couldn’t help but feel like she jumped the gun a little too quickly when she saw the face her RA gave her when they exchanged lease documentation.

She’d never lived with any of her previous partners before. What would she tell Hana if she wanted to come over to hang out? Would Deku or Katsuki even be okay with her having guests at all? The last time she recalled needing approval for friends visiting was when she lived with her parents.

Her frown tightened as she performed the next dance move of Rich Girl by Gwen Stefani. She remained sour even as the TV screen dinged, signifying a perfect score.

Izuku groaned into the pillow, hearing the music travel up the stairs and into the master bedroom. Even with the door closed, it grew harder and harder for him to block out the nasally ‘Nana na na na na’s, the ache in his head pulsing with each beat, right behind his forehead. He texted (Y/n) a few minutes ago to turn the TV down, but she must not have seen it. He supposed this was his cue to get up.

Izuku – slowly, with no urgency about him – made his way to the kitchen. His cold was getting worse, but he didn’t want to worry Katsuki or (Y/n). He glanced at (Y/n) in the living room once he reached the bottom of the stairs, and on a normal day, his interest would’ve piqued to see her playing Just Dance.

However, today was not that day.

He turned and continued to the kitchen.

Izuku’s eyes could hardly stay open as he made himself a cup of peppermint tea, adding some honey for his throat. He took his time with it. Why not, right? Gwen Stefani was serenading him.

Deku never smiled as much as he did on television. That was one of the first things (Y/n) noticed when she moved in.

‘If I was a rich girl, nana na na na na–,’

(Y/n) was completely enthralled in the game, but once she turned around for a spin, she locked eyes with Izuku, who was leaning against the wall with his cup of tea.

“EE-eezuku!” She covered her mouth to conceal the tail end of her yelp before scrambling to finally turn off that damn game. “How long–?”

“Did you get my text?” Izuku cut (Y/n) off more harshly than intended, which took her by surprise. He’s never the one to do that. Izuku noticed his slip-up as quickly as she did, and he took a sip of his tea, glancing at the floor.

“No, I left my phone upstairs. What did it say?” (Y/n)’s voice was soft, worried that she missed something important. Izuku shifted his weight, his reply just as soft as hers, much gentler than his previous interruption.

“I was just trying to sleep,” his gaze flickered to the TV hanging on the wall behind her. (Y/n) got the hint.

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

Izuku nodded before turning away, withdrawing from her. “It’s okay.”

(Y/n) couldn’t help but feel compelled to follow him to the kitchen.

“How are you feeling?”

Izuku opened the fridge, bending over to check the lower shelves for something quick to eat. “Better.”

“Good.” She withheld the urge to feel his forehead to check his fever.

Izuku grabbed some bread, meat, and cheese to make a sandwich. He didn’t look at (Y/n) as he reached for condiments, which were right next to her.

Is he really that upset that she didn’t turn the TV down?

“Are you mad at me?”

It’s only natural to ask.

Izuku finally looked up at (Y/n), his face almost appalled at the question. “No,” was all he offered before biting into his sandwich and walking past her. “Just tired. And sick.”

He left her in the kitchen by herself.

With all of the audacity Katsuki carries, (Y/n) never anticipated how attentive he was towards Izuku.

She felt creepy, watching from the doorway as Katsuki spoon-fed Izuku the last of the homemade soup his mother dropped off. (Y/n) was in class when Mitsuki came by, but from what little Katsuki shared of his homelife, the Bakugous were a gourmet family, so it was no surprise they had their own recipe for everything.

Regardless of how big the house was, (Y/n) still felt lumpy and in the way. Katsuki brushed by her when they crossed paths in the hallways, almost purposefully knocking shoulders with hers. She didn’t have the heart to ask him if he actually was doing it on purpose, though; she still felt like a guest here.

More so now than ever, as she watched Katsuki kneel by the edge of bed, stroking the back of Izuku’s neck. Izuku was dozing off with a cooling pad on his forehead. They were muttering to each other about something, and Katsuki wore just a hint of a smile on his face as he monitored a drowsy Deku. (Y/n) didn’t want to interrupt them. They surely noticed she was there, but Katsuki wasn’t going to make an effort to call her in; Izuku was the priority at the moment. She observed how they looked at each other, and a black, tarry pit in her stomach kept telling her it was different from how they looked at her. Their hands found one another, Katsuki’s thickened skin naturally a comfort for Izuku, just as Izuku’s scars were for Katsuki.

(Y/n) hoped she caught the flu next week.

She turned and went back downstairs.

Days passed, and Izuku’s cold lessened into an irritating sore throat.

Izuku became antsy, not accustomed to being away from work for so long. The house was spotless from the compulsive cleaning he did when Katsuki wasn’t around (he would’ve gotten yelled at). (Y/n) gently suggested he continue resting, but her words went ignored. She then offered to help but was disregarded. That was fine with her; she was behind on her assignments because of her shifts at Satou’s.

Izuku’s weights clanged in the basement gym while she proofread a 10-page essay. (Y/n)’s fingers tapped on the keyboard, unable to focus on her work as she listened to her boyfriend work out. Two minutes passed, and there was silence. (Y/n) fixed a sentence on her document.

Clang!

She paused and waited.

Silence for another minute.

(Y/n) read another paragraph.

Clang!

Her concentration muddled once more, she groaned and closed her laptop.

Izuku almost instantly threw himself back into hero duty the second Katsuki’s mothering radar subsided.

The Bakugou-Midoriya-(Y/n) household found what their “normal” was.

Disgruntled Katsuki.

Overworked Izuku.

Unoccupied (Y/n).

It’s not like she was necessarily waiting for them to do anything with her! It’s just this situation screamed “roommates”. Isn’t that what they were now, though? Roommates with benefits, except they haven’t done anything sexual since Izuku’s got sick. (Y/n) wanted to talk to the two heroes to clear up any boundaries, but the throuple were hardly ever in the house at the same time. (Y/n) busied herself with schoolwork, carrying about her business as she usually would back in her apartment, except now there were two hunkering men lumbering about.

“Deku and I made dinner reservations for all of us tomorrow,” Katsuki mentioned over his shoulder.

Neither of them bothered to mention this to her before right now. (Y/n) tightened her lip to keep from rolling her eyes.

“I don’t think I can go. I’m going out tomorrow,” (Y/n) pondered aloud, scrolling through Instagram on her phone.

Katsuki’s attention, previously only halfway in the conversation, was now yanked fully into it. He finished his rep, setting the weighted barbell above him on the bar holder before sitting up on the bench. Sweat gleamed from his torso, and he grabbed the nearest rag to wipe his forehead.

“This is the first time I’m hearing about this,” he grunted, glancing up at (Y/n). She shrugged, still invested in her phone.

“I guess it was kinda last minute.” A slight jab.

Katsuki was quiet for a moment, trying to be careful about his words. “Does Deku know?” He asked, trekking over to the dumbbells.

“Does Deku know what?” Izuku suddenly called from beyond the basement stairs, the sound of the front door closing behind him. (Y/n) glanced upwards, noting how Deku always appeared at just the right moment.

Izuku took his sneakers off in the foyer, exchanging them for his slippers before bounding down the stairs. He was noticeably tired, and even though he wasn’t in his hero costume anymore, his clothes still seemed worn. He may have run into another villain on the way home.

Katsuki snorted a dry laugh, giving (Y/n) a look as he began another set for his workout. The dumbbells were bigger than (Y/n)’s head.

“I’m just going to a karaoke party tomorrow. Maybe some barhopping,” (Y/n) peeped from her place on the floor next to the weight rack. Katsuki glanced at his partner.

Izuku’s mouth tightened ever so slightly, but only Katsuki caught it. “Oh.”

“Who are you going with?” Izuku asked, hiding the hesitance in his tone as he stepped further into the basement.

Katsuki set the dumbbells down much quieter than Izuku did. (Y/n) didn’t know why they were making such a big deal about this.

“Hana. My coworker from Satou’s.”

Both men appeared to be in thought.

Izuku spoke first. “We can talk about it after we shower, okay?” He suggested with a soft smile, leaning back as an invitation for (Y/n) to follow him upstairs to the bathroom. (Y/n) remained seated on the gym floor.

“What’s the big deal?” She asked. Part of her was looking for a fight; they felt it. She wanted to do something with her friends, and they finally decided now was the time to give her attention? Katsuki and Izuku looked at each other. Katsuki was more reclusive than Izuku when voicing his concerns, so he withdrew as he wiped the bench down with a rag. Izuku sighed.

“We’re just worried,” Izuku spoke for the both of them, as he naturally did. (Y/n) blinked, setting her phone to the side as she prepared to hear them out.

“About what? I’m gonna be with my friends.”

Izuku scratched the back of his ear and stepped over to her, crouching down to her height on the floor.

“Everyone there is cool, I promise,” (Y/n) softened her voice, trying to comfort them further.

“(Y/n), we’re concerned about the college culture.”

(Y/n) furrowed her brow at that and glanced at Katsuki, who was watching the exchange.

“What do you mean by th–?”

“Just don’t be a whore,” Katsuki all but blurted as he picked up his water bottle and started chugging.

“Katsuki!” Izuku shouted over his shoulder. The volume didn’t seem to affect Katsuki, but it made (Y/n) jump. There was a beat of silence, as if Izuku was debating on yelling something else, but instead he turned back to look at her with an apologetic expression.

“We’re just worried about drinking and all that,” Izuku tried to explain, returning to his regular pitch. (Y/n) glanced between both of his eyes and held her tongue because she was about to tell him he sounded more like a father than a hero. “While they may not be villains, some people can do pretty villainous things, like slip something into your drink. If you’re going to drink, keep your drink on your person, and try not to take your eye off of it,” Izuku warned. (Y/n) shifted, and although she felt like he was overexaggerating everything, she still felt uneasy under his gaze.

“Yeah, I know…”

“And can you text our groupchat when you get there tomorrow? What time is it at? And the address?” Izuku asked, pulling his personal phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah, of course. I was going to, anyway,” (Y/n) picked her own phone back up to check her texts with Hana. “Karaoke is at around 8:30 PM at 228 Yugun.”

“Text every thirty minutes,” came Katsuki’s request. (Y/n) looked over at him, then back at Izuku, who seemed to be typing the address and time into his phone reminders. There wasn’t any rebuttal from the other hero, so this seemed to be a consensus between the two of them.

“Okay.”

It was so much easier to socialize with Hana by (Y/n)’s side.

(Y/n) cheered along with everyone as Hana completed the song on the screen. It wasn’t perfect, but Hana laughed off her mistakes, something (Y/n) always admired about her.

Their other friend from school, Chiharu, was a naturally gifted singer and was getting high score after high score on each song. Natsuko and Jin, who were dating, sang a duet but were too tipsy to get a score above 37%. Every time someone offered (Y/n) the mic, she politely declined, satisfied with simply sipping on her drink and eating some of the platter.

“Jin fucked that one up that time!” Natsuko laughed, slipping her jacket off and resting it on the seat behind her. Jin was carefree and good-natured. Patient. Everyone in the group knew Jin and Nat were a good match. Jin was flipping through the available list of songs, her shoulder-length hair swaying when she wiped some of the beer from her lip.

“You can’t blame all of that on me,” Jin retorted playfully. Chiharu suddenly shot up from her seat, pointing at the screen.

“Wait! Pick that one! Pick that one! I know the Tiktok dance to it.”

“Oh, God, nooooooo, boooooo,” Hana moaned with a thumbs down.

“Wait, no, I wanna see her do it!” Came Nat from the other side of the room.

(Y/n) sunk into the couch, cradling her drink as she glanced from person to person, a blissful smile on her face. After a dedicated discussion, Jin finally picked the Tiktok song. Just as Chiharu was warming up for her dance, (Y/n)’s phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her bag.

(09:48) Katsuki : What time you coming back?

(09:50) (Y/N)ヾ☆* : not sure yet

Katsuki is typing…

(09:50) Katsuki : Can you ask?

(Y/n) sighed and scratched her head.

(09:51) (Y/N)ヾ☆* : i asked. No one knows

Katsuki started typing again. He was typing for a while, but then the bubble disappeared. (Y/n) stared at the screen. He began typing again.

(09:53) Katsuki :  Deku’s picking you up

(09:53) Katsuki :  When you’re done.

(Y/n) replied with a thumbs up emoji.

(09:54) Katsuki : So let us know when you’re almost done, so he can head over there.

(09:54) Katsuki : Are you drinking?

Jesus Christ, Katsuki can talk when he wants to. (Y/n) shifted in her seat, setting her drink down on the table in front of her so she can type with both hands. Hana eyed her.

(09:55) (Y/N)ヾ☆* : I will

(Y/n) didn’t know if he responded because she shoved her phone back into her bag. She looked over and saw Hana already looking at her.

“You okay?” Hana asked.

“Oh, yeah. Just group project stuff.”

Hana nodded, understanding. Nat then came over and handed mics to her and (Y/n).

“I picked out this duet just for you two.”

(Y/n) and Hana stood on the curb with their arms locked at the elbow as they waved goodbye to their friends, watching the three of them stumble away in the direction of their apartments. Jin and Natsuko lived together, and Chiharu lived in the complex around the corner from them. Hana lived on the opposite side of the city campus, so (Y/n) offered to walk her. They were both laughing at a video someone posted on Twitter of the Deku Fortnite skin.

“Why didn’t they include Shoto? Dynamight and Deku, but no Shoto?”

“I don’t know, maybe he didn’t approve it,” (Y/n) remarked, watching Deku’s character dance on Hana’s phone. “And with good reason.”

“And Dynamight did?!”

(Y/n) shrugged, sputtering a laugh. “Maybe Dynamight likes the game.” By force of habit, (Y/n) pulled her own phone out of her bag to check her notifications. She ended up ignoring it for most of the night, so she couldn’t imagine what she missed.

To her surprise, she only missed one text from Katsuki and one text from Izuku. Izuku was letting her know the time he was picking her up at, which was… in 3 minutes.

(Y/n) stopped walking, her sudden halt pulling Hana back. Hana looked at her, confused.

“So, my ride is actually a few minutes away, and I only gave them the address to the karaoke bar…”

Hana understood, and she smiled. “Oh, okay! Text me when you get home?”

(Y/n) didn’t think Hana realized she didn’t live on campus anymore.

“Of course.”

Izuku pulled up to the curb in the sleek black car he and Katsuki alternated driving. They had other cars, but they both must’ve preferred this one. It was 1 in the morning, and the streets were starting to quiet down.

He wordlessly unlocked the car, and (Y/n) popped into the passenger side, smiling. Izuku didn’t give much of a greeting as he pulled off as soon as she buckled in.

(Y/n) broke the silence first. “I didn’t know you were in Fortnite.”

It was dark in the car, but (Y/n) could see the way his brow furrowed as he drove, as if he were trying to recall what on earth she was referring to.

“Katsuki’s in Fortnite, too,” she giggled. “Your costumes look a lot different, though.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he was no louder than a mumble as he looked past (Y/n) to make a turn.

(Y/n) sunk into her seat, taking this as her cue to leave him alone. Where Katsuki pushed her when he was upset, Izuku ignored her.

“How was your night?” He finally asked, after the lights of the city became sparser. (Y/n) perked up.

“It was a lot of fun! I was a little nervous to sing, so I spent a lot of time watching my friends, but Hana and I did a song together near the end.”

She didn’t know, but Izuku could smell the alcohol on (Y/n)’s breath, and he slightly turned his head away from her as she spoke.

“You have a lot to drink?” He asked quietly, a hand leaving the steering wheel to scratch his ear.

“No, not a lot.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t really–”

“How much, (Y/n)?”

(Y/n) looked over at him, blinking. Izuku’s gaze was still fixed on the road.

“I think no more than five,” she peeped. She watched him.

Izuku continued driving. They were almost home.

“You think?”

“I think, yeah.”

He was silent. He made another turn, and the light from a streetlamp shined down on half of his face, so (Y/n) could finally discern him. He appeared unaffected.

(Y/n) didn’t know what else to say, and whatever buzz she was feeling before quickly dissipated. She sat there with her hands folded in her lap. If this was Katsuki, she would’ve yelled back at him, but this was Izuku. Izuku has a different command about him.

The car was parked, and (Y/n) looked up. They were home. Izuku turned the car off, but he didn’t unbuckle. He turned to (Y/n), the light from the porch finally illuminating his face enough to give (Y/n) an emotion she recognized: pity.

“Please try to keep track next time.”

(Y/n) didn’t know what to say.

“Okay…”

Izuku got out of the car, closed the door, and headed inside with his hands in his pockets, leaving (Y/n) alone in the car.

#this is forever going to be the chapter that ive stared at for months #tto #bakudeku x reader #deku x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou #deku x bakugou x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #mha x reader #bnha x reader