#the rampage no gravity

[jeremygallery]

It’s very womderfullll 

I love this song so much =3=

#THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE #no gravity #Riku #riku aoyama #Kazuma Kawamura #hokuto yoshino #the rampage #the rampage no gravity #jpop #newsingle #music

[elitehanitje]

Eddie Kingston speaks on the recent CM Punk interview and AEW Releases: "I don't care what Phill said."

#Eddie Kingston #All Elite Wrestling #AEW #Anthony Henry #CM Punk #Dasha Gonzales #Stu Grayson #Gravity #The Boys #Slim J #Jose The Assistant #Parker Boudreaux #ROH #Jora Johl #AEW Dynamite #AEW Rampage #AEW Collision #Ring of Honor #All Elite

[niaoniaos]

THE RAMPAGE / NO GRAVITY

#the rampage from exile tribe #the rampage #jpopgifs #jpopnetedit #japaneseartistsinc #lextag #userstorge #userchaska #userfext #maregifs #gifs #mare23 #listen to no gravity thx

[cyber-streak-2]

Rampage: Why do you have forks taped to your fingers?

Transmutate: *Grabs popcorn with forks* Improvement of human being.

#transformers incorrect quotes #source: gravity falls #Rampage #Transmutate #BW #Beast Wars

[silverxxs-world]

Oh shit gravity

Kommander oh my god

Hey what happened to death triangle I miss them

Oh ok sit boys

#aew #all elite wrestling #aew liveblog #aew lb #aew collision #aew rampage #house of black #gravity #komander

[thistaleisabloodyone]

VIP is also on streaming and there is entirely a chance I misheard this line, but damn, does this line go hard:

"I can be the fantasy you never had or I'll be the nightmare you always have"

#there's always a solid chance i misheard #like i misheard 'nobody can do it like me' from no gravity as 'nobody can be lightning' #the rampage from exile tribe #the rampage

[kpopmultifan]

[J-Pop] THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE has released their album “Round & Round” which features the title track “No Gravity.”

1. No Gravity 2. The Power [MV] 3. Slam That Down 4. Fallen Butterfly 5. Straight Up 6. Round Up (feat. MIYAVI) [MV] 7. Roll Up 8. Tsunage Kizuna [MV] 9. Love Will Find a Way 10. Change My Life 11. Kimiomou [MV] 12. Hajimarinouta 

[Apple Music/iTunes] [Spotify] [YouTube Music]

#j-pop #the rampage #mv #the rampage: mv #the rampage: no gravity #the rampage: round & round

[jpopstreaming]

🆕 「 NO GRAVITY (English Version)」 by THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE Available for streaming worldwide!🌐 Added to our weekly playlist 🎧 https://spoti.fi/3lgjH73

#THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE #NO GRAVITY (English Version) #Japanese music #J-music #Jmusic #J-pop #Jpop #Spotify

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 17 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language and depictions of medical treatment (mentions of an IV, not overly descriptive), fluff (!), angst, A LOT of pent-up emotions, SLOW BURN

words: 15.5k (help)

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 17 ► looking sideways when i say i’m okay with the past, but i’m afraid of what i might say if you ask

When you regained consciousness, it took you a few more minutes to understand what was happening.

In your hazy mind, the first clear thought you could grasp was a memory: Jungkook had gotten into a fight. Instinctively, you imagined yourself standing up and finding him. Not because your job required you to—honestly, you weren’t sure what job you even had at this point, your mind hadn’t sorted itself out yet—but because you wanted to see if he was okay.

You tried to open your eyes, but the room was spinning, and you felt a little queasy from the unexpected vertigo.

You shut your eyes again and tried to focus on your other senses—as best as you could without moving—hoping that this would answer some of the new questions forming in your mind.

You did not know where you were or how you got here, but the room was warm. The lack of proper ventilation made the air feel stuffy.

You didn’t hear any background noise, so you assumed you weren’t at a hospital. But you could hear a lot of shouting in the room. You thought you discerned three different voices, but they were all talking over each other, so it was hard to tell.

You were lying on something soft but scratchy, and a heavy duvet pressed you into the bed. It felt comforting, but you were starting to sweat.

Someone’s hand was on your wrist, their fingers cold.

Reflexively, you squeezed their hand.

“Don’t move,” someone whispered right next to you. Jungkook, you realised. “We’ve called a doctor.”

Your initial reaction was relief. He was here, so he had to be okay.

Your next reaction, however, was pure panic. You didn’t need a doctor. You just needed a minute.

“We should have taken her to a hospital,” another voice argued. “I’ll never forgive you if anything happens to her.”

That had to be Luna, you were sure of it. Your eyes remained closed, but you could envision your friend with her arms crossed over her chest, regarding the boy next to you with a scorching glare.

You didn’t like this mention of a hospital.

You squeezed Jungkook’s hand again, but even as he tried to explain to Luna that you would go on a particularly bloody rampage if he took you to a hospital—he had a point and you would have felt grateful if you hadn’t been so distressed—she still wasn’t hearing him.

You opened your mouth and felt your chapped lips tighten painfully.

“No hospital, please,” you croaked in the voice of someone who had been a successful chain smoker for over fifty years.

You heard Luna whisper-yell, “you’re unbelievable, the both of you!” and you tried to open your eyes again, but nothing had changed. It still felt a bit like gravity had taken a day off as the room and everyone around you continued to float.

You heard a faint voice that you did not recognise, and from the official tone and the immediate chill you felt inside, you deduced that it was the doctor.

“I’m going to administer a very mild sedative,” he said—to whom, you weren’t sure. Your insides felt very heavy. “And set up a drip. Make sure she doesn’t move much or the catheter will—oh, see, like that. That can’t happen.”

Your muscles spasmed involuntarily. Something pricked your arm. You didn’t mind needles, but you did not like IVs. You didn’t need to be sedated.

“I don’t think—” you tried to say when you felt something cold on your arm—the doctor’s hands, presumably, in very unpleasant, squeaky latex gloves. “I don’t think I need this.”

“Can you open your eyes for me, please?” the doctor asked.

“No,” you said with what you hoped was a shake of your head. In reality, you merely wrinkled your nose. “T-that is not something I can do right now. But in a—”

“Your body needs rest,” the doctor explained. Jungkook moved closer until he was clutching your hand with both of his. “It won’t knock you out, but it will relax you, make you a little drowsy. That will likely help you fall asleep naturally. Is that all right?”

You lacked the strength to tell him that you were already very tired—or the strength to tell him that you still had things to do, so you couldn’t just sleep.

The memory of the flooding at the venue in Manchester came back to your mind and your muscles tensed again.

Really, you were about to refuse, but there was hardly anything you disliked more than inconveniencing people. They had invited a doctor for you. He was just doing his job.

“Okay,” you said in quiet defeat.

“Your friends are in the room with you,” the doctor said. You felt a cold sensation on your arm. “They will stay with you and make sure you get plenty of rest. Even after you wake up, you must spend as much time in bed as you possibly can.”

“Don’t phrase it like that,” you heard Jungkook object. “Give us a specific time, or she’ll be out of bed as soon as she wakes up.”

Silence followed. You tried to imagine what was happening. Jungkook must have looked very eager—in his exaggerated manner, which resembled desperation rather than hope. Luna probably nodded in agreement. The doctor, if he was kind enough, smiled at them patiently.

“Two days,” he finally stated. “Today and tomorrow, at the very least. If she has to walk, someone should accompany her. But don’t keep her on her feet for too long. I’ve seen the crowd of people outside this room—don’t tire her out. There should only be one or two people in the room with her, all right? Proper nutrition, sufficient sleep, and a—”

You felt yourself drifting off, and the doctor’s words faded and merged together until you were no longer sure whether you were imagining what a doctor would say in this situation, or if he was actually speaking.

When you opened your eyes again, Luna and Maggie were seated in the armchairs next to your bed. The room had stabilised, allowing you to take in your surroundings before Luna glanced up from her phone and Maggie pulled out her earpods, noticing that you were awake.

The space around you appeared to be a hotel room. Next to the bed stood a metal bar with bags of faint yellow liquid on it. A catheter was attached to your arm and an intravenous line led to it from the drip. You shivered at the sight of it.

“Oh!” Luna’s gasp drew your attention back to her. She dropped her phone on her seat and straightened up. “How are you feeling?”

Right away, Maggie jumped up and removed her earpods.

“Confused,” you spoke and immediately tried to clear your prickly throat.

Maggie leapt forward and grabbed an empty glass from the bedside table. She poured some water from one of the three bottles on the floor and handed it to you.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had water. It tasted heavenly.

“You’re in a hotel room,” Luna explained as you drank. Maggie sat down on the armrest of her friend’s chair. “In Manchester.”

The mention of the city made you glare at her, and both girls breathed a sigh of relief. At least you knew where you were in a broader sense.

“It’s 7 PM,” Luna said after checking her phone. “The band has a day off tomorrow because the concert’s been postponed—”

“Because of the flooding,” you finished, leaning forward to put the glass back on the table. “I remember, Luna. Thanks. What, um—how come I’m here?”

Luna looked at Maggie for a moment, wordlessly asking her to take over the story.

“Well, you fainted,” Maggie started. She wasn’t usually a woman of many words, and this time was no different, which you found comforting. If Maggie didn’t think it was necessary to talk for hours, then you must not have been doing that bad. “Jungkook found you.”

“Yeah,” Luna had to interject with more details—she was still irked about his decision to book a hotel room instead of a hospital room. “And then he spent half an hour describing your symptoms. It took the doctor all of one second to diagnose you with burnout and put you on a vitamin drip. He told us to keep you on bed rest and watch for any more nosebleeds or fainting spells. If they continue, you’ll need to go into urgent care.”

You wanted to ask questions—where did they find this doctor? Where was this hotel? What was happening at the venue?—but the girls were on a roll.

“Meanwhile, I wasn’t even allowed in the room,” Maggie said, returning to her chair and sitting down properly. She was upset that she had missed what Luna had just summarised for you. “The doctor told us that only one person could stay, but neither Luna, nor Jungkook agreed to leave. So, no one else could come in until you were feeling better.”

“Jungkook was the one who decided on the hotel room, by the way,” Luna remarked, seemingly glad to finally express her frustrations. “I argued. I think you should at least have a blood test done. What if you’re anaemic? But—”

“I’m not anaemic,” you finally interrupted as you settled back on the bed. The mattress quickly adjusted to the shape of your body. Closing your eyes, you had to admit that the bed was really quite comfortable. Perhaps you could stay here for a few more hours. “This has happened to me before. I’ll be fine.”

Luna sighed. Her knowledge of the last time this had happened to you came from Jungkook’s haphazard stream of thought as he tried to explain to the doctor that the two of you had been in this exact situation before—you, unconscious, and he, on the verge of losing his mind.

Honestly, for a moment, Luna thought the doctor had considered sedating Jungkook instead of you.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she muttered after a minute. “Jungkook seemed to believe you’d shoot us all dead if we took you to a hospital.”

Gratitude bubbled up in your chest, but when you saw your friend’s solemn features, you tried to soften your response.

“I wouldn’t have shot you,” you said. “I would have smothered you all with pillows."

Maggie scoffed, and Luna rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips still turned up.

“Nice to see you haven’t gained a sense of humour while you were out,” Maggie teased.

“Ha,” you responded dryly—but you were smiling, too.

Luna crossed her legs on the armchair to get more comfortable. She glanced at Maggie anxiously. The girls weren’t sure if they were tiring you out with their conversation, but you were looking up at the ceiling, not indicating that you were tired in any way, so they decided to continue.

“So, want to tell us how this happened, then?” Luna asked.

You turned your head to her. “I was hoping you’d tell me. I can’t exactly remember.”

“You fainted,” Maggie reminded you. Luna leaned over and gave her a pat on the arm, thanking her for this valuable reminder.

You smiled gently. “You mentioned that. Where’d the doctor come from?”

“Oh, Jungkook found one,” Maggie said. “There’s a clinic across the street from the venue. And this hotel is right next door.”

“Oh.”

A minute passed as you attempted to piece it all together.

You could not remember any of this, but the news that Jungkook had taken care of most things was not calming. He must have really been going out of his mind.

You were curious about where he was, but you didn’t want to ask. Your paranoid mind made you think that any question about Jungkook that was not related to Rated Riot was unnecessary and would, therefore, be misunderstood. Your friends already seemed like they were resisting a few additional comments for the sake of your health.

“So,” Luna started after a quiet minute, “how come you fainted?"

You exhaled and tried to scratch your eyebrow, but the catheter tugged painfully at your skin, and you winced instead.

You dropped your hand back down. “I-I... I guess I overestimated myself.”

Luna pushed the IV stand closer to your bed so you could have more freedom with your limbs. You nodded gratefully.

“You’re going to have to slow down,” Luna said. “It’s no longer negotiable, I’m afraid. If you don’t listen to us, we will take you to a hospital.”

It was the plural pronoun that bothered you the most, but you forced yourself to swallow your discomfort at disrupting the daily routines of your friends.

“I’ll be alright soon,” you said. “And I promise this won’t happen again.”

“It had better not,” Maggie chimed in. “And what’s with this hatred of hospitals? You don’t like that they’re full of people who want to help you feel better?”

“I don’t hate them,” you said, which wasn’t entirely true. Your experiences in hospitals included your mum crying, and you’d rather not relive that—not so soon after your brother broke his leg. “I just don’t have time for them. I’m okay.”

Luna gave you a stern look. Even Maggie, who was usually quite calm when you said you were fine, was glowering a little.

“Fine,” you conceded. “I’ll endure this drip and then I'll be okay. Thank you for being here.”

Luna made a deliberate scene of fixing the bags on the metal stand—clearly intending to emphasise the seriousness of your condition—and then lowered herself back into her armchair.

“You’re welcome,” she said.

Smiling at both of your girls—to distract them from further discussing your health—you said, “I love you.”

“We love you, too,” Maggie said. “And, babe, just so you know, it’s not just us. There was—everyone was here. The concierge nearly fainted when he saw us all in the hallway.”

Your smile quickly fell. “What do you mean, everyone?”

“We took care of it, don’t worry,” Luna interjected, sensing your growing panic. “Maggie and I talked to Seokjin, Jimin, and Namjoon, who then spoke to the rest of the staff and escorted them out. And Jungkook took care of his band.”

The panic lingered. Your job was solving crises, not causing them. You did not like this.

“He took care of them?” you repeated, swallowing.

“Well, they were very worried,” Luna explained, glancing at Maggie for help. Maggie only nodded, indicating her agreement. “And, uh, they were very loud, too. He told them to go and texted them updates every ten minutes.”

“God.” You closed your eyes and carefully tried to prop yourself up into a half-sitting position. “What updates? I was asleep.”

“That’s what he’s been texting them,” Luna explained. “Every ten minutes, on the dot. And then Taehyung texted me, asking why I kicked his best friend out of your room—which is ridiculous because I did not kick him out. But you’re my best friend, so technically, I would have had the right to kick him out if you were uncomfortable.”

You pinched the bridge of your nose with your hand and shook your head, an involuntary smile creeping onto your face at your friend’s protectiveness. “I’m comfortable. Thank you.”

“Are you going to see him?” Maggie asked.

You looked up at her. “Jungkook?��

“Yeah.” She nodded. “He’s right behind the door, you know. Glued to the wall in the hallway.”

Your gaze slid down her dark blue jacket and focused on the mirror on the wall behind her. “Oh.”

“The doctor said he would need to go to the hospital, too, by the way,” Luna said, earning a surprised look from you. “He said the bandages around his head looked very threatening.”

You pressed your lips together. You’d expected that, but you still felt a fleeting twinge of disappointment—you’d covered his wounds to the best of your ability. And the bandages were honestly not the worst part of this.

“The doctor hasn’t even seen what’s underneath,” you said.

“He has now, actually,” Maggie replied. “He went to the emergency room about an hour ago to have them changed.”

You were too taken aback to properly understand her. “Jungkook did?”

“Yeah,” Luna said, pulling her phone out. Your mind tuned out her next few sentences as you struggled to come to terms with the fact that Jungkook had gone to the emergency room on his own accord. “—and he called us from the hospital. Apparently, he pestered the nurses with questions about what else we could do to help you feel better. They told him to leave, but he wanted to hear from us—in case we thought you needed anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought a heart monitor here, just in case.”

Maggie snickered—but caught the serious looks on the faces around her and covered it up with a fractured cough—while you groaned and rubbed your eyes. You wouldn’t have been surprised, either.

You exhaled. “Yeah—I-I’ll see him. If that’s okay with you?”

Both girls nodded and got up from their seats. Before they went, however, they convinced you to accept their help to complete the difficult task—as you pointed out while rolling your eyes—of walking ten steps to the bathroom, and then ten steps back to your bed. Clearly, they were taking the doctor’s orders very seriously.

“We’ll be right outside,” Luna said once you settled back in bed. “Call or text—”

“No,” you protested. “You can’t—you don’t need to stay here. You’ve already done so much.”

“We were just sitting in your room with you,” Maggie said. “It’s hardly anything. Don’t worry about us.”

“It’s not hardly anything,” you disagreed. “At least get something to eat.”

The two girls looked at each other. Maggie shrugged and then looked back at you, still doubtful. You nodded with more conviction.

“We’ll pick up some food for everyone and come back,” Luna finally decided. “Okay?”

You nodded again. “Okay. Thank you.”

As soon as the girls opened the door to your hotel room, you heard shuffling outside—as if someone had been leaning right up against the door and scrambled away before it opened.

“You may come in,” Luna told Jungkook with excessive dramatics as she and Maggie turned to wave at you again.

You gave them another nod and watched as Jungkook tentatively walked inside. He turned to close the door behind him and lingered, for an awkward moment, at the entrance.

His bandages were fresh and none of the scantily wrapped bruises were visible any longer. Perhaps they would heal in time for the concert.

Before you could express your hopes out loud, however, Jungkook took a shaky breath and approached you.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry, I don’t know what I would have done if—”

“W-why are you sorry?” you cut him off, disturbed by the absolute devastation in his voice.

He was right next to your bed now, barely able to inhale. “It’s—you—you fainted—and—it was because—I shouldn’t—”

It hit you, suddenly, why he was hyperventilating so much. And the shock of this realisation was so great that you could not react immediately, and he proceeded to stutter for another few moments.

“This—it has nothing—this isn’t about you,” you finally said, almost as coherent as he was.

Still, he persisted, “but I—you—I was—I should have—”

“I didn’t faint because of you, Jungkook,” you said more firmly. There were several reasons why he should have felt guilty, of course, but this was definitely not one of them.

He finally stopped speaking, although the rapid process of inhaling and exhaling—which caused his shoulders to hunch and straighten from the intensity of the motions—continued for another minute.

Then he gave you a long, uncertain look. You maintained eye contact and watched as his breathing gradually slowed. You had never seen him panic so much and so suddenly—he had seemed almost perfectly fine when he came in, but it took him all of two seconds to fall apart.

Slowly, he regained control of his breathing and looked you over once more.

“Okay,” he said, shifting his weight to his other leg. “I-I don’t know if that—if it makes me feel better, but—”

“Thank you,” you said.

Lost in his own thoughts, he craned his neck towards you. “Hm?”

“Luna and Maggie told me you’re the one who found me.”

Jungkook looked briefly embarrassed.

“I explicitly asked them not to tell,” he said.

You smiled. “I’m sure this was Force majeure, so don’t blame them. And they’re my best friends anyway.”

“Clearly.” He brought his hands down his face before admitting, “I just—I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

A part of you thought he was right to assume that. You shouldn’t want to see him.

But another part of you forced you to lower your gaze and twiddle your thumbs nervously as you linked your hands on your stomach.

“No, uh, see,” you began with a nervous chuckle. “That’s, uh—that’s almost the worst part of this whole thing. My plan, really, was to avoid you.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows, then politely lowered them. He placed his hand on the back of the armchair and said, profoundly, “very mature.”

“You don’t get to judge,” you warned.

The corner of his lip quirked. “Just making an observation.”

“So, my plan was to avoid you,” you continued. “But we both know how that ended. And then I woke up here, sort of feeling like I was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn, and you know what my first thought was?”

Jungkook thought he was floating in a space station somewhere near Saturn.

“Wh—um, what?” he asked.

“My first thought was if you were okay.”

You looked at him as you said that, and he thought he saw the rest of his life flash before his eyes—a life that, just a few days ago, he’d deemed meaningless.

Without any proper distractions, it was just him and his thoughts, and they were never good company. They hated him for losing you.

But then you fainted and now that you’ve regained consciousness, your first thought was if he was okay.

He didn’t trust his legs very much anymore.

“Can I sit?” he asked, a little breathless again.

You took a second to reply, and he interpreted it as a sign of hesitation. “You can.”

Suspicious, he asked, “will you try to leave if I sit?”

You gave him a questioning look and nudged your hand, causing the IV bags to wobble. “Does it look like I can move around with this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “You might still try.”

You snorted and shook your head. “Just sit down, Jungkook.”

He sat down.

The two of you were a peculiar sight like this. If this were a role-playing video game, there would have been exclamation marks over your heads—and if you had been approached, the list of conversation starters the player could choose would have been, simply, endless.

There was so much you wanted to say and ask each other, but the strength of your resistance was absurdly impressive.

One thought, however, overwhelmed everything, and it was very simple: how little everything else mattered compared to your health.

Jungkook took a deep breath and looked at you, taking in your tired, but ceaselessly dreamlike features.

Slowly, he found himself calming down. As long as you were here, as long as you were okay, things would work out one way or another.

“I, um—your mum called, by the way,” Jungkook said. “I have your phone. It fell out of your jacket when I—when I found you.”

Right away, you felt a surge of panic. You and your mum had a deal. She knew you were busy, so she would text sometimes, but never call. Unless something had happened.

“My—she called me?” you repeated with so much concern that Jungkook noticed the drip stand shake a little from the force of your distress. “Did you answer?”

He felt his own hands return to their almost natural trembling. “Uh, well, as it happened—I did.”

“Why did she call? What happened?”

“Well, nothing,” he said. “She said she hadn’t heard from you in a while, and she was worried.”

Mother’s intuition, she had called it when she spoke to you. When you returned to your dorm after your hospital stay six years ago, she had called you because “for some reason” she couldn’t sleep for two nights in a row. She didn’t know you were ill, of course, but it touched you, this maternal feeling that transcended all logic.

It could have been a coincidence, you supposed. Lots of things were.

“What did you say?” you asked.

“I said you had a lot of things to take care of,” Jungkook replied. “But you’d call her when you had a free moment.”

You watched him as he spoke and noticed his eyes widen momentarily, clearly taken aback by what he’d just seen in your expression. You realised you hadn’t expected him to hide this from your mum, and your surprise must have shown.

Blinking, you turned away and gripped the edge of your duvet.

“Thank you,” you said.

“I also told her you’re very stressed,” he added quieter.

“Oh—well, that—you could have kept that to yourself,” you said, less enthusiastic about his thoughtfulness. “She’s going to freak out about it.”

“Let her,” he countered. “You’re her child. She’s worried about you. You have to let people worry about you when there’s a reason to.”

You had a different opinion, of course. But instead of arguing, you chose to find out what conclusions your mum had drawn from this brief exchange. She hadn’t heard from Jungkook directly in years, even though she knew you were working together.

“What did she—was she surprised to hear from you?” you asked.

Your question made Jungkook appear as if he was trying very hard to tap dance while sitting down. He bounced his legs, tapped his feet, and occasionally scratched something under his chin, above his nose, or on the back of his neck.

“Uh, well, we’re, um, you know,” he said. You were almost ready to assume that he was hiding something else. “You and me—w-we’re working together. She wasn’t that surprised.”

“Right, but I mean—”

“I told her not to worry too much, and that you’d love to hear from her,” he finished, skilfully diverting from the topic and speaking even louder so you wouldn’t have a chance to interject with another question. “She said she’d text you, and you should call her when you have a minute. Not right now, though. You’re resting now.”

Again, you tried, “I’m just—”

“She put Kai on the phone, too,” he added. “So, I talked to him for a second. He called you an idiot.”

That took a very unusual turn, you thought in surprise. Your mum hadn’t spoken to Jungkook in years, and now she wanted to put your brother on the phone, too—you were simply confused.

“He—why’d he say that?” you asked, presently more unnerved by the name-calling than your mother’s unexpected choices.

“For forgetting to call your mum, he said. And for working too much,” Jungkook replied. “Which is precisely what I warned you about in Amsterdam, so I honestly can’t believe this happened to you again. We asked you to take it easy, so at least listen to us now, and—”

It was hard to breathe in this still room, with the force of everyone’s concern weighing you down.

Slowly, you kicked one leg out from under the duvet. “I did take it easy.”

“Right,” he said, closing his eyes and mumbling, “you never fucking take it easy.”

You heaved yourself up to your feet, holding onto the IV stand for support. “I was—”

Jungkook looked up and jumped to his feet as soon as he realised what you were doing. “Where are you going? Sit down.”

“I’m fine. I’m just—”

He blocked your way, quickly ensuring that you did not have enough space to take another step.

“See, I told you you’d do this,” he groaned, his chest pressed against yours. “Just sit down.”

You tried not to stagger backwards—which was his intention, of course—and still stood your ground. “I just want to open the window, I’m—”

“Sit down.”

Huffing in angry resignation, you sat back down.

“Okay,” he said, stepping back from the bed to give you more space. “Now lie down.”

You rolled your eyes but settled back into a horizontal position, glaring at him all the while.

“Should I roll over, too?” you bit. “Give you a paw?”

“Not unless you want to.”

You bared your teeth. “Funny.”

“Just lie down, please,” he reiterated. “And just—just rest, okay? For a little while, at least. I’ll open the window.” He saw you open your mouth and added hurriedly, “I know you can do it yourself. But let me.”

Sighing, you surrendered to the warm confines of the duvet. “Okay. Thanks.”

He crossed the room and struggled with the curtains for a moment. He could tell you were watching him, and he felt irrationally nervous—he thought that if he did something wrong, you would try to get up again. Finally, he grabbed the handle of the window, twisted it and pulled. A moment or two later, a welcome breeze finally filled the stuffy room.

Relieved to be able to breathe something other than your discomfort, you watched Jungkook return to his armchair.

“You didn’t tell me if you’re okay,” you reminded him. “How’s your eye?”

He looked confused as he lifted his hand—as if to verify if the eye in question was still there—then paused and dropped it again.

“It’s working,” he said, sitting back down next to your bed.

“And the pain?”

He shrugged. “Bearable.”

“Good,” you said, slipping your hands under the covers and resting them on your stomach. “I’m glad you took out your eyebrow piercing before the whole thing with Sid, by the way. Otherwise, we might have had even more problems.”

Jungkook didn’t want that to be your shared problem—he was determined to carry out his plan, which he boldly referred to as “Getting My Shit Together”—but at the same time, he was glad that he didn’t cause you any additional distress. Honestly, he couldn’t have cared less about his piercings right now.

“I—yeah.” He rubbed his eyebrow absentmindedly. “I hadn’t planned it like that, but it worked out, I guess.”

“Did you get any rest?” you asked then.

The question felt misplaced, and his stomach sank at the sheer wrongness of it. You were always worried about others. And he always gave you reasons to worry.

Really, while he was happy—alright, ecstatic—that you thought of him, he should have been the one asking you this.

“How, uh—how do you mean?” he returned.

“After the flight,” you said.

He looked down at the beige carpet under his boots and shook his head. He couldn’t have slept even if he wanted to—not until he was sure you weren’t on your feet, insisting you were okay.

“I don’t need rest,” he said.

But as you looked at him, it was clear that rest was exactly what he needed. Beneath the imposing bandages, his eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was pale and waxy. He was still beautiful—Maggie would have made a joke about it—but in a way that made your heart ache if you looked at him too long.

“You should go,” you said. “Get some sleep.”

Jungkook gave you a look as if you had just confessed that you enjoyed beheading people in your spare time: incredulous and slightly offended.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

This was going to turn into a childish game, you knew it. But you tapped your thumbs together and still tried.

“What if I want to be alone?” you asked.

“Then I’ll call Luna and Maggie.”

Your arched eyebrows challenged his solution.

“When I said alone,” you clarified, “I didn’t mean not with you.”

For just a split second, he looked almost relieved to hear this. Then he bit his lip and brought a hand over his knee.

“If my presence is not the problem,” he said, “then I’m staying.”

“The problem,” you argued, “is that you’re going to end up in this bed, connected to an IV, if you don’t sleep.”

“Let’s cut to the chase,” he offered. “I’m not leaving you alone. In fact, I’m staying. Unless you explicitly tell me you can’t stand to look at me anymore.”

He gave you an opening to tease, and you enjoyed building up to it as you looked down and ran your tongue over your lips.

“And, uh, you’d leave then?” you asked—taunted, really.

“Begrudgingly,” he replied, as discontented as you were amused.

You nodded. “Alright.”

He raised his eyebrows, slightly dispirited. “You’re going to tell me to go?”

“No,” you said. “Stay.”

So he stayed.

And this moment in the hotel room, as the vitamin drip dribbled quietly into the intravenous tube, did not just feel bizarre. It felt a little like a parallel universe—like you’d lost consciousness in a world where you were very angry and very stressed, and had woken up in a world where only subtle echoes of all the fervent emotions you’d once felt existed.

In this world, all that you were feeling was eclipsed by what really mattered: the people who were in this room with you and had been waiting outside of it.

But you felt another particularly prominent sentiment, which was heightened even more by Jungkook’s relentless focus on you. You did not want to name it, however. To identify it was to give it power over you, and you liked to believe that you had your heartbeat under control right now.

“It’s like—this is just like back then again,” Jungkook said suddenly. “Isn’t it?”

You exhaled, returning to the jagged, uncertain moment.

“Yeah...” you said, stretching the vowels in a frantic attempt to fill the space that would soon turn into an awkward silence. “Thank you for not taking me to a hospital this time. This really isn’t so bad.”

“It is bad,” he disagreed right away. “But I didn’t want you to have another reason to feel stressed. I thought a hotel room would relax you more than a hospital room.”

“It would,” you said. “Thanks.”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

Not the awkward silence, not the awkward silence, not the—

“Well,” you inhaled, “at least you won’t have to study for any finals this time, right?”

You expected him to smile back at the gentle jab about him failing his exam the last time you were in the hospital. But when Jungkook looked up, he looked crestfallen somehow—almost like he was disappointed that he did not have to study for finals this time.

“Yeah, um, actually—I-I didn’t fail my exam because I didn’t study for it,” he said in a slow, contemplative tone. He wasn’t sure if he could ever admit this to you, but he figured he didn’t have much left to lose. He’d already told you so much. He might as well tell you all the rest. “I failed because your friend texted me about twenty minutes before my final, saying that you left your exam looking very disoriented. She asked if I could check on you.”

Horror descended on your face as you realised what he meant.

“You went to look for me,” you surmised painfully, “and didn’t show up to take your final.”

He nodded and you shook your head with a newfound ferocity.

“Jungkook,” you said, remembering how you reacted when he first told you he had failed—how you immediately blamed his recklessness and his friends. How you brought up all of his mistakes and thought this was another one of them.

“You passed out,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”

“I yelled at you so much!” you continued, lost in your own guilt. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”

“You helped me study, too,” he defended, feeling almost uncomfortable. He’d never felt your reaction was inappropriate, even under the circumstances. He had failed the exam, after all—like he’d failed several others before.

You shook your head again. “Yeah, but—”

“It’s fine,” he cut you off.

“It’s not fine!” you refuted immediately. “It was my fault you failed.”

“It wasn’t your—”

“I thought it was your friends again,” you said. “I thought they distracted you, and you didn’t study.”

There it was—this vast precipice between what you thought had happened and what had actually happened. Now that years have passed, Jungkook didn’t even know where to start.

The fact was this: you believed that every time he failed you, it was his friends’ fault—and that belief comforted him. It was so appropriate, so fitting.

And sometimes it was true, but even when it wasn’t—when it was just him, not being good enough—your assumption that it was Sid’s fault didn’t paint Jungkook as desperate; merely reckless. Not hopeless, only a little dumb. He preferred it this way.

But now he took a deep breath.

“My friends did distract me from a lot of things,” he said. “But the truth is, sometimes… I tried too hard, and I didn’t want you to know about it. I couldn’t stand the thought of trying to do something for you and then—just completely fucking everything up and letting you down. Sometimes blaming my friends was a convenient excuse.”

You frowned. “What—what are you talking about?”

“Well,” he wiped his palms on his black cargo pants and stretched out his legs, “remember when we were planning to go on holiday together and I fucked up?”

Your frown deepened.

“Hawaii?” you asked. “When you bought the tickets home for the same day we were flying there?”

“Uh…” He hadn’t realised he’d messed up several times. “No. Different holiday. When I missed the train we were supposed to take to the beach? For our summer break?”

“Oh.” You nodded. “I remember. But I saw Sid’s Instagram videos with you, drinking at his garage. I know you were—”

“Those were old videos. And he posted them at a very bad time, which, honestly,” he chuckled sadly, “it’s nothing new for Sid. He seized every opportunity to make me miserable, and I was—I relied on that sometimes. I think he wanted to start an argument between us on the train, that’s why he posted those videos. The truth is, though, I didn’t even see him that day. I missed the train because I wanted to rent out a car and surprise you.”

The quiet confusion on your face prompted him to keep going.

“I didn’t want just any car,” he explained. “I wanted the same Cadillac convertible I’d rented out for our first anniversary.”

You had fond memories of the convertible. Not of the actual drive, which was, honestly, quite painful—there were bugs and unruly strands of your hair everywhere—but of the laughter you’d shared inside.

“It was summer, finally warm enough outside,” Jungkook recalled. “I thought it would be a nice way to relax after studying. I even, uh—I made decorations and everything. Glittery, silver letters that said, ‘just passed our finals’. It’s a play on ‘just married’, you know? It’s a—a joke.”

Eager to understand where this was going, you remained frozen on the bed, and Jungkook felt himself waver slightly. He was glad you weren’t laughing—he dreaded you’d laugh or find any of this as embarrassing as he did—but he slid his hands under his thighs anyway, as if to warm them.

“The thing is, though,” he continued. “I didn’t take my passport with me. Because you don’t need a passport when you’re taking the fucking train, but you can’t rent a car without one, and those fucking assholes at the rental shop—anyway. I went back to my dorm to pick it up, and by the time I got back, the rental shop had closed for lunch. And I missed the train.”

Your heartbeat was steady—fast, absolutely speeding, but steady nonetheless. It hadn’t slowed since he started speaking.

Your expression, however, was almost painfully concentrated. When he looked at you, it seemed as if you were listening to a séance where a spirit was recounting their death.

You cleared your throat and tried to speak. “I thought—”

“You thought I forgot about our trip and went out with Sid,” Jungkook finished for you.

You didn’t have to confirm it, he knew. The hope that this was what you would assume was his safety blanket—this way, he didn’t have to face the fact that he could never do anything right for you, not even when he tried so hard to.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked.

You weren’t angry at him for this because he’d made it to the beach later that night, after all. He had taken the last train and barged into your cabin just after midnight. You had nearly knocked him out with a bedside lamp, assuming it was an intruder.

But you didn’t understand the point of allowing you to believe—for years—that it was Sid’s fault. Why didn’t he defend himself?

“Because—did you not hear me describe the letters I’d cut out from glittery paper?” Jungkook asked, his voice high-pitched in irritation at himself. “It’s embarrassing. I should have just met you at the train station like I said I would.”

“Well, why didn’t you?” you questioned. “Why put all this effort?”

“Because I love you,” he replied. You tugged on the IV tube again as you squirmed and unconsciously flexed your arm. “And because I saw your friends get picked up by their boyfriends in their cars. I saw those boyfriends bring them massive bouquets of roses. I saw all the grand fucking gestures that I could never do for you, because I didn’t have enough—I wasn’t—it was mortifying. I thought that you deserved the world, and all I could give you was… some fucking wildflowers before our dates.”

The corners of your lips twitched as you tried to speak, “it’s—I loved your wildflowers, though. And I never cared about anything else.”

“I know,” he said. “But I did.”

You looked down at the white duvet. “You and your gestures.”

Jungkook hummed, but did not add anything else. He was thinking—and regretting his silences. You were thinking, too—and wondering if this was the only time he allowed you to assume that his friends were at fault when they weren’t.

The room around you stilled, adapting to the atmosphere of the conversation. Even your drip quieted.

But then someone knocked on the door of the hotel room, and you and Jungkook almost lit up with relief.

“It’s us!” Luna’s voice called out just as Jungkook stood up to check who it was.

Your friends had returned with paper boxes of Thai food—enough to feed at least five people, from what you could see from your bed—and waved at you from the doorway.

A conversation followed—one that you couldn’t quite hear, except for irrelevant snippets, such as “are you sure?” and “well, okay”—and then Jungkook stepped away from the door, allowing the two girls to address you.

“Apparently, we’ll be heading back to the bus for a quick nap,” Luna said. Jungkook gave her a disapproving look that she promptly ignored. “Is that okay with you? Jungkook will stay.”

Your reflexive response was, of course, to try to dismiss their responsibility. “He doesn’t—neither of you have to stay—”

“Someone is staying,” Jungkook stated, his voice strict, final. “And I would like to be the one to do that.”

You weren’t protesting against him specifically, but as you prepared to reply, you realised it might seem that way. Your hesitant silence was a chance for Jungkook to nod at the two girls again. They nodded back, but then glanced back at you.

“Our phones are on,” Maggie said, lifting her device up for you to see. “So, you can still call or text us at any point, and we’ll rush over here right away.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. “That certainly does not make it sound like I’m about to torture her.”

You bit back a smile on your bed while Luna said simply, “just a precaution.”

“I get it,” he said. “And I’ll personally call you if I say or do anything that’s over the line.”

Neither Luna, nor Maggie had a response to that, and you looked up to meet three pairs of expectant eyes.

“I—it’s okay,” you said to the girls. “You—yes, get some rest. We’ll be fine here. Thank you.”

“Okay. We’ll be back!” Luna promised, shooting a warning look at Jungkook, while Maggie waved her phone and called out at you, “text us!”

You wanted to give them a small wave, but the thick duvet and the persistent catheter digging into your arm made it difficult to pull your hands out, so all you managed to do was just shuffle around under the covers and nod at them.

The girls left the take-out boxes inside, waved at you again, and walked away.

Jungkook closed the door and slowly returned to his seat, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, and steps unsteady. He looked lost and frightened.

He didn’t want you to misunderstand his intentions. He didn’t want to stay here just to have you to himself, to apologise and to beg for your forgiveness. He wanted to stay because he couldn’t breathe when he didn’t know if you were okay.

As his hesitation hung in the air, memories of your previous hospital stay returned to you again, and you closed your eyes to shake them off.

“You should eat something,” you said.

Jungkook refused.

“When was the last time you ate anything?” you prodded.

Again, he mumbled and hummed under his breath, evading the question and sitting very still—as if he was expecting something. As if something was coming.

And you realised that something was coming. But you had to speak to bring that something here.

“So, then—w-was there anything else?” you finally asked.

Jungkook knew you were referring to the moment he’d just revealed, this deliberate misunderstanding. It was all he could think about. This was the something.

“There was,” he said with a sigh. “But I don’t—”

“Tell me about it.”

He had a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow—but not due to his lack of trying—and he suddenly felt like he was standing in front of a jury of his peers.

He didn’t want you to keep thinking that he hadn’t made an effort for you when he had, only it never turned out well. But he was also nervous about you learning how hard—and how impossibly much—he tried. He thought it would only highlight his shortcomings—and there were many of them.

He’d convinced himself that if you didn’t know about them, then he wasn’t letting you down. It was challenging to break out of this conviction now.

“Well—t-that Valentine’s Day,” he stammered. “Our second one—do you remember?”

You remembered right away. Despite your distaste for the commercialisation of the holiday, it still stung that Jungkook had avoided you the whole day. And for several days after that, too—although you’d assumed that to be deliberate. He’d missed Valentine’s Day and didn’t want to see you out of guilt.

“Sure,” you said.

“Well, that wasn’t Sid’s fault, either,” he said. “I know you thought we went on a drinking binge that weekend because Sid happened to conveniently go off the grid right at that time. He had a habit of—”

“But you weren’t with him?” you interjected, impatient.

“No. He was—it was nearly a Weekend at Bernie’s situation. There was some event happening at Jude’s summer house that weekend,” Jungkook said, and you tried to control yourself before you made mocking comments about the idea that people had enough money to own seasonal houses. “And Jude got so high that Sid and some of Jude’s cousins had to pretend he was just not feeling his best whenever his parents asked about him. They mimicked his voice through the door and everything.”

“So, where were you then?”

“I was—well, I—I spent that whole day—ah, no,” he stopped abruptly and brought his palms over his face, lacing his fingers over his mouth as he changed his mind. He couldn’t do this. It was awful. He was such a mess. “You know what? Maybe it’s better if you keep thinking I was at that summer house with them.”

“No,” you opposed in frustration, lunging forward to sit up. You did not listen to him drone on about Sid and Jude just to have him change his mind. “Now you have to tell me.”

Jungkook raised his head when you moved—his concern for you overwhelmed his chagrin.

“Okay, okay, don’t—lie down,” he asked, gesturing at the pillow.

You complied to get him to keep going. He took a breath.

“Just so you know,” he cautioned, “this might finally ruin my bad boy reputation.”

“You never had one.”

He clicked his tongue against his lower teeth. “Okay, ouch.”

You grinned. “Tell me. What really happened?”

He hesitated for another second, bouncing his knee up and down, up and down, and then stilling completely.

“Well, for one thing,” he began finally, “I was going to make dinner. That didn’t go well, because the communal kitchens were—well, you know. But that’s fine, I didn’t worry too much because there’s always take-out.”

You nodded. The communal kitchens in both of your dormitories were typically crowded with people or they smelled so terrible from a failed cooking experiment that it was simply wiser not to set foot in there.

“There was a great pizza place literally two blocks from your dorm,” you pointed out.

“Yeah, exactly.” He nodded in agreement. “But, um, we’d already gone out for a fancy dinner on Valentine’s Day the year before, so I wanted this year to be more… special. I don’t know. Or different, at least. So, I thought I’d cook and make you a slideshow. And—okay, you’ll have to stop smiling if you want me to continue.”

You hadn’t realised you were smiling. You pursed your lips and pulled them to each side to compose yourself.

“Sorry,” you said. “Continue.”

“Right,” he said. “So I made a PowerPoint. Added all of our pictures that I could find in my camera roll, wrote some funny captions. There were going to be at least 200 slides, I’m pretty sure you would have fallen asleep in the middle. I even recorded an acoustic Sleep Token cover to use as background music.”

You told yourself you’d stay quiet, but your disbelief was uncontrollable. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” he said, smiling, but trying not to, for the sake of the story. “It’s gone, though. I erased all traces of that night.”

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, I, uh—I didn’t want just to play you the slides on my laptop,” he said, scratching nervously at his chest over his dark grey hoodie. “I wanted something more.”

You nodded. “Of course.”

He looked away instead of acknowledging your comment.

“Then I remembered something I saw on Instagram that could have been cool. It was one of those aesthetic accounts. They had a picture of this dark, cosy room with a projector screening a film right on this white wall,” he said. “So, I thought, well, shit! I have a white wall behind my wardrobe. And the science lab downstairs has a projector.”

You didn’t like this as you stiffened on the bed, mumbling a dreading, “dear God.”

“Yeah.” He paused to lick his lips. “But it’s probably not what you think. I got the fucking projector.”

He said that with so much grandeur that you couldn’t help but raise your eyebrows—questioning if this was really something to be proud of.

He recapped the story anyway, “I took my roommate’s wrench, and it really didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to open the lab door, unscrew the projector, and bring it back up to my room.”

You shut your eyes and scrunched your nose at the step-by-step description. You wondered if there was a statute of limitations here, and if you would have been considered an accomplice now that you knew about this.

“They have security cameras, though,” you said, glancing at him again. “Don’t they?”

“They do,” Jungkook confirmed. He had a sardonic smile on his face. “Why do you think I was suspended for a month after Valentine’s Day?”

You lost him there. “Wait—they knew you stole the projector?”

“Borrowed,” he corrected. “I returned it two days later. But, yeah, uh—Minjun actually pulled some strings here. His dad went to university with the dean, so he vouched for me. Told him it was all a misunderstanding, and that it would never happen again.”

You looked away, frantically sifting through memories of the month after that particular Valentine’s Day. You remembered not seeing Jungkook for a few days after it, but you saw him fairly regularly later on. He would hang out in your dorm while you had classes, claiming not to have anything better to do.

It took you a full minute to properly recall the explanation he’d given about his suspension.

“Oh,” you said. “Minjun told me that you got suspended because you were caught completely wasted, spray-painting one of the campus buildings.”

Jungkook nodded, his eyes cast low.

“To be fair, I did spray-paint that one,” he admitted. “And I was probably wasted when I did it. But I wasn’t caught.”

You weren’t sure if “spray-painting” was a lesser offence than “stealing a projector from a laboratory” in your eyes, but you didn’t want to question Minjun’s decision now.

“Okay,” you said. “So what happened after you stole the projector?”

“Well, I took the borrowed projector up to my room and set it up,” he replied. “Everything looked great. I was going to give you the best Valentine’s Day dinner this world has ever fucking seen.”

He smacked his palms against his thighs as he spoke, showing off his determination, and you found yourself resisting a smile again. Jungkook had a certain way of telling stories—his changing smiles and small chuckles, his hand gestures and even his tone of voice always made it feel more vivid.

“But, um, I had to move the wardrobe to get a bare wall,” he continued. “And, uh, what I did not foresee was that, earlier that very same day, my roommate’s electric kettle had broken. He went out, purchased a new one. And he put the old one on top of the wardrobe to save space.” Jungkook gave you a moment to think back on this roommate. “You remember the guy, he hoarded everything, all kinds of fucking cables and wires, and—anyway. So, I started to push the wardrobe, and the fucking kettle—it fell and hit me right on the top of my head.”

A surprised gasp left your lips—a stark contrast to the easy, laid-back way he had just spoken.

Jungkook nodded in response to your reaction. “Yeah. My vision sort of darkened and I thought I heard something crack—I, uh, I did think it was my skull, not going to lie.”

He chuckled again—to minimise the impact of his words once more—but you sat up despite his inevitable protests.

“Jungkook!” you scolded. “And you didn’t tell me?!”

“Well, my skull obviously didn’t really crack.”

“I’m not so sure that it didn’t.”

“Anyway,” he stressed. “There wasn’t any blood or anything, so after a few minutes of sitting on the floor, I figured I was good to go. Then I stood up, and, uh—I don’t think you need a visual of what happened then.”

You closed your eyes.

Really, no. You did not need a visual.

About a year ago, at one of the smaller Rated Riot concerts—at a club that seemed harmless at first glance—Jungkook had climbed over to a wooden ceiling beam and swung his arms over it to brachiate across the narrow joist. The beam turned out to be heavily lacquered, and his sweaty palms slid right off, forcing him to crash onto the table below.

He gave himself a concussion, sprained his shoulder, broke $200 worth of bottles and glasses, and frightened the living hell out of the middle-aged couple who were sitting at the table that he’d landed on.

“Yeah,” you said in your quiet hotel room. “I can imagine.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook breathed out. He recalled this exact same moment—and he knew that, once again, the cause of his injury was his own overexertion. “So, I spent the whole night in my dorm room, on the floor—because I couldn’t crawl to my bed—hoping that I wouldn’t die.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to call me?” you asked—not gently. “Or the fucking ambulance, actually?”

“No,” he replied, unfazed by your disapproving tone. “Not if it meant having to explain what I was doing before all of that happened.”

“You’re crazy,” you said, shaking your head. “You clearly got a concussion, and you didn’t do anything about it.”

“To be fair,” he said, “it’s not that I was embarrassed about it or anything. I was just—horrified that I’d let you down. It was Valentine’s Day. I wanted to give you a slideshow and a romantic fucking dinner. Not—not lie on the floor of my room, half passed out.”

You fought against a pensive sadness. It seemed unfair that this night had not gone the way he’d planned.

“W-well, what did your roommate say when he returned?” you asked instead.

Jungkook poked his cheek with his tongue. “He wasn’t very happy that I broke his old kettle.”

“You broke his—Jesus Christ.” Your hands were on your face as you fell back and buried your head into the pillows. “So, he just left you there on the floor?”

“I assume he thought I was drunk.”

“Fucking—what a—and he was valedictorian, wasn’t he? What a fucking moron,” you groaned. “I knew I should have kicked his ass while I had the chance. I never liked him.”

Jungkook felt a warm rush of comfort to hear how agitated you were getting on his behalf.

“Yeah, he didn’t like me very much, either,” he said. “But that’s um—that’s the story. I missed Valentine’s Day, almost died, and got suspended. I couldn’t possibly tell you what happened.”

“No, how could you?” you deadpanned. “Your reputation was at stake.”

He smiled. “Precisely.”

Even though you joked about this, and he was grateful that you did, both of you knew that this was not entirely about upholding some specific “bad boy” image.

You’d already witnessed this side of him – the side that felt anxious and dreaded the thought of not being good enough. Of not meeting expectations. Of letting others down.

In fact, now that you thought about it, your first proper conversation during this tour had been about this very issue.

“The time I was arrested,” Jungkook said, his shaky voice interrupting your thoughts, “that was—it might have been another one of those times.”

“What?” you asked, perplexed again. “How—I was at the police station with you—the officers—”

“I don’t remember a lot of details,” he interrupted. “So, I’m—I’m not really sure. But, uh, apparently, that night we didn’t just spray-paint a building. Or spit at the officers, allegedly, while we ran from them. The police assumed Minjun and I were the “drunk and disorderly” call that they received an hour before they found us.”

Your memories of that night were hazy, too—mostly because you refused to go over the details in your mind. All you could remember was Jungkook calling you from the precinct and asking—in the most resigned voice you’ve ever heard—if you could come pick him up. The story that you were given when you arrived at the police station only came back to your memory in fragments: property damage. Assault of police officers. Resisting arrest.

“You weren’t?” you asked.

“No,” Jungkook said. “We had some drinks at a bar outside of town, and Sid started harassing some bikers across the street. Someone called the police. Jude said he even punched someone there, I don’t know. Minjun and I were already back in the city at that time. I asked him to come with me to keep watch. I wanted to spray-paint these song lyrics for you—”

Your head jerked as your surprise prevented you from shaking it properly. “Wait—you—what? What lyrics?”

“It’s—well, you know what lyrics,” he replied, timid suddenly. “There was only one song we listened to all the time.”

You remembered.

It’s you and me ‘til the end of time.

You swallowed, breathless, and almost completely weightless as you clutched the duvet tighter in an attempt to ground yourself.

“The building I chose was downtown,” Jungkook continued. “Right across the street from the park where we had our first—well, our first date. I wanted that place to have something—something that we both loved. To commemorate all that we had, I don’t know. I haven’t been a very good boyfriend to you at the time, and I wanted to redeem that.”

The unexpected tightness in your stomach worried you for a second, but the sedative must not have fully worn off yet, because you took a deep breath and felt your body wind down a little. The room continued to blur behind Jungkook, but you suspected that your condition or medication had little to do with that.

“And, uh,” you tried to ask, “the police found you there?”

Jungkook nodded.

“I think Sid guided them to us,” he said. “It never made sense to me why the police would even go there. No one patrolled those streets, what was the point? Not to mention, it was dark, we were dressed in black, and—honestly, it wasn’t our first time with graffiti. But what happened was, I got a text from Sid, saying that someone at the bar had called the cops on him. And not five minutes later, he and Jude both showed up downtown, and we heard sirens.”

“So, what did you do?” you asked—uncertain, suddenly, if you’d actually asked him this before. You had talked to one police officer that night and had accepted everything he told you as the truth.

“Well, Minjun and I ran, of course,” Jungkook said.

“And the other two?”

“I can’t remember the exact sequence of—I was—I was drunk,” he said, giving you an apologetic look. He wanted to share the whole story with you, but he wasn’t sure if he knew it himself. “I remember Sid and Jude shouting at us that they would hold the cops back while we ran—and I didn’t even—we didn’t even think that there was anything weird about that. Minjun and I just ran.”

You felt your memories frantically rearrange themselves after every word that he said. Your head had turned into a disorderly, confused mess.

“The, um—the spitting, then?” you asked.

“That had to be Sid and Jude,” Jungkook speculated. “But I guess I might have done that, too. I, uh—I want you to have the full story, so I won’t deny things that I can’t even remember. I’m thinking about it now, and I don’t know which moments were really Minjun and me, and which were actually Sid and Jude. We were all very drunk, and nobody at the police station believed a word we were saying anyway.”

You nodded, urging him to continue, and he did—grateful and a little scared that you were listening to him so intently.

“Minjun and I got a good head start,” he spoke. “I don’t know what Sid and Jude meant by saying they’d hold the police back, because three officers still chased after us. But they were always at least five metres behind—I could tell from the distant sound of their shoes. I remember feeling so disconnected from my feet as I ran, I could sense I was going to trip. I don’t—honestly, I’m not saying this to defend myself—but I don’t know how I would have managed to look at the cops over my shoulder, spit at them from five metres away, and keep running without breaking my neck or falling over.”

“Hmm—yeah. I don’t know, either,” you said, turning away from him. You understood that it was important for him to clear his conscience, especially if he had been held accountable for something he didn’t even do, but you had other questions. “I’m confused about something else, though. If you and Minjun were being chased while Sid and Jude stayed back, why weren’t they brought into the station?”

All Jungkook did was raise his head and give you a look.

“Right,” you realised. “Of course. Money.”

He looked back down and nodded.

Exhaling, you studied the ceiling tiles for a few seconds before admitting, “I’ve always had a feeling that Sid had set you up.”

“Yeah,” he replied with surprising calmness. “I think so, too.”

You ran your fingers over your hair and pulled a strand from the back of your head to toy with it as you tried to think.

In every conversation that you’ve had about Sid using Jungkook as a scapegoat, Jungkook had either insisted that you were misunderstanding, or he simply fell silent (to avoid arguments, you assumed, and not necessarily to indicate his agreement with you).

This felt very new and particularly unusual. He wasn’t feeding into your dislike for his friends. He was doing something else now, but you were hesitant to draw conclusions about what it might be.

He had claimed he was done with Sid right after their fight, but after enduring his insufferable friends for years, you weren’t ready to believe that you wouldn’t have to see Sid’s nauseating mug again.

“But, anyway,” Jungkook said after a quiet minute. “Minjun and I apologised. Minjun paid bail. We signed something—I don’t even know what that was. And I went home with you. That’s the, um—the whole story as I remember it.”

You simmered in your cluttered mind for a moment longer, attempting to form a thought that you could voice. But all you could manage was a question. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“Would it have made a difference?” he asked. “I was still caught. You had to come and pick me up.”

“At least I—it would have—okay. I don’t know,” you finished lamely. This was a ‘what if’ that you didn’t have the strength to consider.

He hadn’t lied to you, though, you realised—and you weren’t sure how that made you feel. He allowed you to make assumptions that his friends were to blame, and he went along with it. That wasn’t worse than outright lying to you, but it wasn’t much better, either—it still put an unnecessary strain on your relationship.

Logically then, knowing the whole truth about what was happening with him might have made a significant difference. He had good intentions—yet he did not use them to defend himself.

You felt a little sorry that he only told you now, when you couldn’t go back and see what would have happened if you’d known about this all along.

But you realised you did not feel angry. You couldn’t find a specific point in his revelations that you could point at and say, “this is the one. This will be the reason why I can’t stand to look at you anymore.”

You couldn’t say that his choice to be silent made sense, but you knew him. And you understood why he made that choice. The way you saw it, this was partially his friends’ fault anyway.

All on his own, Jungkook wouldn’t have felt this uncertain, this insecure to admit to you that he loved you and that he wanted to show that to you in unorthodox ways—a lot of which didn’t work out.

“So, you just…” you spoke up again. “You were okay with me assuming that you were out with friends every night? That you chose them over us repeatedly?”

Jungkook sighed. If there was anything he’d learned over the past few days, it was that communication was not his strong suit. But now he’d reached a point of no return. He had to talk.

“Honestly, I thought it was a better alternative,” he said. “I thought I was a miserable try-hard. And I realised after our conversation in Amsterdam that, well... this is part of the reason why I didn't—why I assumed that you broke up with me because you didn’t love me anymore. And not because I kept fucking up.”

Your breaths were shallow as you listened to him.

“I think that it turned against me, this unnecessary secrecy,” Jungkook continued. “I wanted to be the best for you, and when I couldn’t be, Sid became a great excuse. But in my head—for me, he didn’t seem to have that big of a presence in our relationship. But of course, after I blamed my own mistakes on Sid, too, they built up. And, in the end, I think what happened was that…”

He faltered and you finished his sentence for him, “I started to see that all the reasons why you fucked up were Sid. Sid. Sid. Sid.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I made you think that if I was given a choice, I’d choose my friends over you. Which I wouldn’t! But, um—I had a very poor way of showing that. Have, actually. Still do. I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.” You turned away. “Do you—you know what else I think this is?”

He looked at you. “What?”

“Sid’s influence,” you said. “You were so scared that he would think you’re hopeless or pathetic that you couldn’t even talk about the things that you did—the things that you wanted to do for me. You thought you were a ‘try-hard’ because your friends convinced you that you were.”

Jungkook felt stunned and a little nauseous.

He didn’t know if this was something he’d implied in his endless attempts to apologise for the bet, but you articulated everything he had struggled to convey.

He was trying to prove to Sid that he wasn’t pathetic—and he was doing it long before Sid suggested the bet. He was doing it every time he went out with his friends. He was doing it every time he allowed you to blame these friends after he missed your dates—just so he wouldn’t have to admit how much he tried to make these dates special, and how miserably he’d failed at that.

Eventually, he began to accept that he was truly pitiful for being so stubbornly in love with you. He hated their pity. He wanted to change it. Make it not so.

But the aftermath of the bet made him realise that all he really did, was prove that he was pathetic—he wanted to get you back in any desperate way possible.

He was okay with that now.

He was okay with being so in love with you that he couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t focus on anything else. Couldn’t stay where he was, repeating the same mistakes, going round and round, because he needed to grow. Needed to become someone who deserved you.

He was okay with it because being pitiful meant being in love with you, and he would never try to fight against that.

And you knew all these things about him. You knew everything.

He didn’t really understand how the world worked and he didn’t know if destiny played favourites. But he remembered writing a line in one of Rated Riot’s earlier songs—you weren't made for me, that much is true / but I was made for you—and he was once again confronted with the weight of this realisation.

He loved you. He’s always been yours so completely and wholeheartedly that you read him without looking at him.

He liked to think he knew you well—but that was extremely presumptuous of him. You were a universe within a universe. Really, it was you who knew him in ways he didn’t know himself.

“I—you’re right,” he said, running his tongue over his chapped lips. “I shouldn’t have given a fuck about what they thought, but I did. And I don’t—I, um—I don’t want this to seem like I am an angel for telling you about all that. No, I fucked up. Many times. We went binge-drinking, drag-racing, we skipped classes, failed tests, spray-painted buildings—”

“Stole projectors,” you interjected.

“—stole projectors,” he repeated reluctantly. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, while I only pretended to fuck up. No. I took you for granted many times, I know I did. And I’m—I’ll always be sorry about that. But I’m—I’ve kicked him out. Sid. I’m done. Truly done this time. And I don’t even care if Jude stays.”

The way his voice broke off at the last sentence sounded like he cared a little, but you recognised the determination in his eyes when you looked at him. He’d made a decision.

“And Minjun?” you asked.

Jungkook inhaled. “Minjun… said he’d stay.”

“Good,” you said.

“Good—yeah?” he asked, evidently surprised. “You think so?”

Minjun had constantly looked like a kicked puppy when you were in the room. Now that you understood why, you thought you liked him a little more for it.

“Yeah,” you said. “I think he’s the only one of your friends worth keeping.”

“I’m starting to see that, too,” he admitted. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

You looked down. With half of the vitamin drip gone now, you felt your body start to return to you—and, automatically, the surreal haze inside this hotel room began to clear. You were no longer floating somewhere on the ceiling and only pretending that you were perfectly fine.

You were coming back to yourself. And the return was rugged and painful.

 “You, um—you keep apologising to me like—like you’re obligated to respond to me,” you said. Jungkook didn’t know if you realised it, but your voice changed when you spoke to him as his manager and not as someone he’d known and loved for over seven years. “I’m your manager, but these things—you can—I shouldn’t tell you how to live your life. That’s not my—”

“I want it to be, though,” he cut you off with a sudden boldness that he hadn’t realised he still had in him. “I-I mean, I don’t want you to worry about me like that ever again, but I—I want you to think about me. Sometimes, you’re the only person who truly does.”

You shook your head—not to rid yourself of the responsibility, but to remind him, yet again, that he had people who wanted what was best for him.

And, honestly, he knew he did. He just wanted you.

“You have your grandma,” you said.

“Yeah, of course,” he said, nodding distractedly. “But, um, you know.”

“And you’re loved by thousands,” you continued. “They all want you to stay safe.”

He smiled—appreciative but oddly apologetic.

“I’m grateful for that,” he said. “It’s just that—I want you to be the one who wants that for me. I’ve only ever loved you, I’ve never—never been in a relationship with anyone who wasn’t you. And I don’t want to be, so the next thing that you say better not be about me finding someone else, because—”

“You have been in other relationships, though,” you said despite his warning. You didn't know if this was really true, but you ploughed ahead anyway—just to say something. “I don’t know how long or short, but Sid always bragged about your double dates whenever he called me to pick you up, so—”

“The double dates,” Jungkook said, “meant that Sid was on a date with two girls at the same time. And I was there for decoration.”

You scoffed. “I hardly imagine that to be possible, considering Sid looks like a sewer rat on a good day.”

Jungkook wanted to argue, but he was too amused by this image.

“And, um—what do I look like?” he asked.

You blinked, taken aback by the question, then quickly turned away to gaze out the window instead. “You look… you know what you look like.”

“No,” he said, fully grinning now. “Now that you mention it, I realise I actually have no idea what I look like.”

“There’s a mirror on the wall right behind you.”

“It’s like I’m blind, I don’t know what’s—”

“You’re ridiculous,” you groaned, your face warm. “You look nice. Move on.”

“Oh! That’s high praise coming from you.” He made an effort to bow. “Thank you.”

“Fuck off,” you retorted because you couldn’t smack him on the shoulder. Instead, you motioned with your hand, urging him to keep going. “Sid couldn’t get a date with a personality worse than his looks. Not if you were there.”

“I’m sure the expensive restaurant worked in his favour,” Jungkook remarked.

You threw your head back, realising the significance of money yet again. “Ah.”

“In any case, I don’t care,” he said. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat. “I never wanted to be with anyone who wasn’t you anyway. Which—as you’ll be happy to point out—sounds silly because when Sid was in a good mood, he was very dedicated to making sure neither of us left the club alone.”

You shrugged one of your shoulders, trying to come off as casual. “Well, since you brought it up.”

“Yeah, well.” He sighed, not running away from this, because, frankly, there was nowhere to run. “And you’re, uh—you’re my manager. You know what I’ve been doing after hours anyway.”

“Hmm.”

You didn’t have a better response, because there was something that Luna had said to you the other day that would not leave your mind alone.

He had the option to keep the bet a secret from you.

This evening had been filled with these options.

It would have been easy not to mention his miserable attempts at grand gestures or the people who were there after you. But he was bringing up everything—every little detail from your relationship and after it—and you sat expressionless on the bed, not knowing what to make of any of it.

“I meant what I said, though,” Jungkook said, leaning forward again. He felt restless; as if he could jump out of his skin if he tried hard enough. “You’re the only meaningful relationship I’ve had. It wasn’t fair for me to pretend to be interested in a second date with someone else, when I constantly caught myself thinking about if I’d ever see you again. Or when I’d see you again, after we started to work together.”

Your eyes were focused on the sheets of the bet, but he still didn’t dare to look at you.

“I didn’t want to believe that I could still be in love with you after all this time,” he said. “But—well, the evidence is against me.”

“W-why’d you go with Sid then?” you asked—quickly. Before he said something else that you didn’t know how to respond to. “Clubbing and on these dates?”

He clenched his jaw. “Well, you said it. I was trying to prove to him that I wasn’t pathetic. That I wasn’t in love with you anymore.”

“But why did you care so much about what he thought?” you pushed, and there was a hint of hurt in your voice. Jungkook felt his heart leap over several beats as it pounded against his ribs. “Why did his opinion matter to you more than mine?”

He exhaled so deeply that it was almost a miracle his lungs hadn’t collapsed. His insides were burning with regret. With an urge to turn back time. An urge to make things right.

“Because I was—I was a fucking idiot. For years before I met you, I thought Sid had everything I wanted,” he said—which was equally as simple as it was unfair, and, in retrospect, stupid. “The freedom, the audacity to do whatever the fuck he pleased. No consequences, ever.”

You remembered him saying the same thing to you on the bridge in Stockholm and felt yourself shiver as though the wind from that night had followed you all the way here.

“And the way he treated me when I was single was different, too,” Jungkook continued. “I was single, I was in a band, and it finally felt like he approved of me, like we were actually friends. Like we were equals. And I cared about that so fucking much. It felt like I finally had everything that he had, and I was just—blind.”

“But you didn’t,” you said. “You didn’t have what he has. I don’t think you ever will.”

Jungkook was surprised to realise that hearing this did not sting.

He agreed.

“Yeah,” he said. “I actually—I had so much more than Sid would ever have, because I had you. And that’s—that’s probably why he dragged me around with him. He was determined to make me truly lose you like he always made me lose everything. And I let him—I helped him make that come true. I can’t—I’m not much better than him. I want to believe I am, but I’m—I made the bet.”

You remembered thinking that Jungkook and Sid could never be equals, because Sid always needed Jungkook to have less. And now that you heard Jungkook come to a similar conclusion on his own, you thought you felt the room shift a little.

“Yeah,” you said, distracted. “T-that—the bet was fucked up.”

“I know. I’m—I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—I want you to know that I meant everything I had said. All of it. And I understand why you don’t want to believe me. I, uh—I know your family history. But I’ve got mine, too. My grandpa is almost eighty. He’s only ever loved one person his whole life. So did my dad. So will I. It’s just—regardless of what’s going to happen, you’re—I’ll always love you.”

You cleared your throat once, then once more—louder.

Jungkook was about ready to get up, alarmed suddenly, but you quieted and looked around. He caught a glimpse of your eyes as you scanned the room and he realised—in a paradoxical sense of relief—that you were frightened.

Not angry. Not refusing to believe him. Not disappointed or frustrated.

Just scared.

“It’s uh—it’s really late,” you said, looking back at the window. “Isn’t it? The sky’s completely dark.”

He swallowed. You didn’t want to talk about this. And you shouldn’t. You needed rest.

“Yeah, uh… do you want me to close the curtains?” he asked, swallowing all that was still left unsaid.

It was impossible anyway, he supposed, to pour seven years of misguided decisions into one conversation. He was just relieved you hadn’t asked him to leave.

“No,” you said. “Keep them open. I want to see the sky.”

He’d hoped you would say that, and he felt an almost forgotten lightness in his chest when you did. Lots of things had changed over the past few days, but a lot of things hadn’t—including your love for the night.

“A lot of stars tonight,” he said meaningfully. He was glad he had accidentally picked a hotel room with a view of boring back alleys: there were no lights to cover up the stars now.

“Yeah,” you agreed, much calmer. “They’re beautiful.”

There was a quote in a book his grandmother had once read to him: “are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?”

He remembered feeling oddly wistful when he heard it. He imagined the night sky behind his closed eyes and he felt as though he was lacking something crucial—something that would come, but not yet.

He remembered watching the way you watched the stars back in Tilburg—hours before it all fell apart.

The night sky had always reminded him of you—really, even before he met you.

“I could open the window wider,” he suggested.

You closed your eyes.

“Could you?” you asked quietly.

“Yeah.” He stood up and approached the window, pulling the frame until he saw the ends of the curtains lift off the floor. “A distinct smell, isn’t it? The night.”

“It is,” you agreed.

It probably shouldn’t have been possible at this point, but as he turned around and traced your features with his gaze, he thought he fell in love with you a little more at this moment.

“We, um, we have this song,” he found himself saying as he returned to the armchair next to your bed. This song had been buzzing in his head nearly the whole night tonight. You could feel his nervousness as he mumbled, “ah, you probably know it already, it’s so obvious. And I told you in Oslo—okay, anyway. We have this song. It’s a B-side on our second single.”

“Cursed,” you said, recalling the title easily enough because this was your mum’s favourite song.

You always thought that the single—“Haunting,” which was their second title track and the very first Rated Riot song that you’d heard—overshadowed “Cursed.” Perhaps unfairly.

“Yeah.” Jungkook nodded. “Who, um—who do you think inspired it?”

Swallowing, you willed your thoughts to clear, so you wouldn’t have to think about the lyrics, but could not do it.

You remembered the entire chorus with perfect clarity, as though you were listening to Rated Riot perform the song in concert right now—Taehyung heavy on the bass and Jungkook yelling out the lyrics with his whole body leaning over the edge of the stage towards the audience.

You’re for the stars and for the moon to see /

You weren’t made for me /

You’re for the night and for the day to breathe /

You’re everything they want to be /

You're the enchantment that makes planets turn /

You’re more than the entire world /

You weren’t made for me, that much is true /

But I was made for you.

“I have no idea,” you said finally. You hoped, against all odds, this was a song that Yoongi wrote when he was drunk—those tended to be very emotional. “Was this the, um, absinthe one?”

Jungkook snickered humourlessly and shook his head.

“Don’t do this to me,” he asked, looking down for a moment—just until he could count the four loose threads in the carpet. Then he returned his gaze to you.

“It was you,” he said. “Your love for the night sky. I know it’s your favourite thing in the world.”

He said that and suddenly your chest was filled with them—with these stars that you loved to watch and he loved to sing about.

“W-well, that’s—you’re, um,” you struggled, “you’re not wrong about that, I guess.”

“It’s a song about my favourite thing in the world, too,” he added.

“W-what’s that?”

He had a sad smile on his face. “You.”

Your stomach tightened again and you squeezed your eyes shut—a feeble attempt to get away from this situation and from all the thoughts that your head could no longer contain.

“Not tonight,” you whispered. “I can’t—I don’t want to talk about us or about—about anything else tonight.”

“Okay,” he agreed immediately. “We won’t talk about it.”

“Okay,” you echoed, even though his laid-back response did not relax you.

You sensed longing in his words, and anguish. He would have done anything you asked him to—and this power scared you. You didn’t want it. You just wanted—

Exhaling loudly to drown out your thoughts, you turned to a side and glanced at the bandages on his face.

“Tomorrow, we will have to—we’ll have to figure out what to do with your eye,” you said.

Jungkook had not fully returned to this planet yet. “My eye?”

“Yes,” you said, giving him a longer look—as if to check if you hadn’t dreamt him—and then closing your eyes again. “Your black eye.”

He reached up to touch the bandages, perpetually confused about his injuries. “Oh—what do you mean, what to do with it?”

“Well, it’d probably be weird to cut it out, so we’ll have to cover it up.”

“Hmm.” He smiled at the ease in your voice. If everything else was lost, he hoped that he would at least get to keep your banter. “Okay.”

“I’ll think of something,” you promised as the gentle night wind brushed a strand of hair away from your face and fluttered your tired eyelashes.

“Thank you,” Jungkook said in a hush—his courage had finally abandoned him. “I’m sorry that this is another thing that you have to—”

“No,” you cut him off. “It’s not that bad.”

You tried to turn your head towards him, but lying here with your eyes closed felt very pleasant. You thought you’d felt revitalised before, you thought your body had started to feel more like it belonged to you again, but that had been momentary. You couldn’t keep your eyes open long enough to properly look at him.

“Do you mind if I… keep my eyes closed for a minute?” you asked.

“Do you mind if I stay here?” he responded.

“You—”

“Actually, I don’t care,” he decided. “I’m staying.”

You forced yourself to look at him. “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

“You always say you’re fine,” he reminded you. “Look at where we are now.”

“It was a one-time thing. Look at this.” Lethargically, you raised your arm with the catheter. “I’m being pumped full of vitamins. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said. “I want to believe that. Really, I do, but you have to stop. You can’t keep going like this. I-I mean—”

You shook your head against the pillow. “Jungkook, this is really nothing.”

“I have a hard time believing that when you’re connected to a—”

“It’s—”

“Look, just—” he took a breath and extended his hands, “—p-please—please don’t let this happen again. Please look after yourself. I can’t lose you.”

He knew he might have to keep working with you without ever calling you his again. He’d have to learn how to deal with that.

But he could never deal with being here without you.

“Okay,” you said, your eyelids heavy. “Okay, I’ll be careful.”

“I’m going to need a promise here,” he said, reaching out his hand.

You chuckled weakly and extended your hand to gently graze his palm with the tips of your fingers. “I promise.”

He leaned in closer to fully grasp your hand in his, and saw the gentle—likely unconscious—smile on your lips as you squeezed his fingers. His chest filled with a warmth so big and powerful that, reasonably, there had to be no space left for his heart there anymore.

And yet something kept beating. He felt his own pulse reverberate against your fingers as he clutched your hand in his.

You’d be alright.

You hadn’t foreseen how calming the gentle dripping of the IV would be. You’d only meant to rest your eyes for a quick moment. You didn’t realise you had dozed off.

Only when your mind sobered up sometime in the early morning hours—you based the time solely on the colour of the sky outside—did you force your eyes open and concluded, with a painful jolt of your exhausted muscles, that you’d fallen asleep.

You looked around and for a moment, the dark, strange room filled your exhausted mind with terror. Then you noticed Jungkook sleeping in the chair next to you, and you felt yourself calm down.

Thank God he was here.

Blinking suddenly, you parted your lips as if preparing to argue with your own thoughts.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had a performance tomorrow. And a bandaged black eye that you still hadn’t figured out how to hide.

“I can tell you’re overthinking from all the way over here,” Jungkook said, his voice drowsy, eyes half-open. He must have heard the rustling of your covers and woken up. “Go to sleep.”

“What time is it?” you asked.

He was too tired to note the urgency in your voice as he mumbled, “sleeping time.”

“Jungkook, I’m serious,” you said. Finally, he caught your alarmed tone and his eyes shot open. “What time is it?”

He straightened in his seat and regarded you for a minute while he searched for his phone somewhere on the armchair. You didn’t appear to be in pain, but the emergency in your eyes threw him off.

“It’s three-twenty,” he said after a brief moment of blindness from the bright screen of his phone.

“Shit.” You looked around in the darkness, not sure when you had last seen your phone. You couldn’t remember Jungkook mentioning that he’d picked it up when he found you, and you hadn’t asked for it back. “I have to—”

“No,” he said, getting to his feet.

“No,” you argued back. “I need—”

He leaned over your bed and took hold of your hands right as you tried to throw off your duvet and sit up. You tried to evade him, but Jungkook proved he’d known you long enough to guess every move you were going to make—in complete darkness.

“No,” he said again, struggling with your relentless dedication to flail your limbs around until you stood up. “Lie down, please. I don’t know what you think you must do at three in the morning, but I promise you, it can wait. It’ll be done. I’ll do everything to make sure everything is okay.”

You stopped resisting his hold and allowed him to gently guide you back onto the mattress. He only let go of you when your head hit the pillows.

“You can’t be here. You need rest,” you insisted as he pulled the duvet over you, tucking it under your sides until you were firmly cocooned inside. You couldn’t tell if he did that for your comfort or to make sure you couldn’t escape this bed.

“So do you,” he countered.

“I'm fine—”

“No—for once, just... please stop saying that,” he asked, his eyes bright, but his voice completely spent. “You’re not fine. You’re getting a vitamin drip because you fainted. You need to sleep.”

You kept your eyes on his for another minute, trying to adjust to the thick darkness, so you could make out his silhouette as he towered over your bed. He was watching you and waiting.

“Okay,” you gave in. “I'll sleep.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, finally sitting back down.

You knew that wasn’t right. He needed to get proper rest. He shouldn’t have kept watch over you.

“Okay,” was all you said despite everything. “Thank you.”

He mumbled something unintelligible in response and you didn’t dare to ask him to repeat it. The room gave space to the night as your conversation wound down.

You could hear a faint screech of a lost bird outside the hotel window. Bugs were singing somewhere in the distance, too. And, as you drifted off, you thought you heard Jungkook whisper a weary “I love you.”

chapter title credits: bad omens, “the grey”

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[imababblekat]

To Catch A Turtle

@foxespen, "So part of the spiderman powers are having enhanced strength, right? So they could probably pick up any one of the turtles pretty easy, even if they stand at like half the brothers’ height. Imagine during a fight one of the boys gets thrown off a roof and their friendly neighborhood spider catches them and is just hold them bridal style and says like “if you’re gonna fall for me, it doesn’t have to be on a roof”Or something"

~xXx~

It wasn’t often the boys and (s,n) would get into a tough fight, but it seemed that with BeBop and Rocksteady, it always was one. They were two formidable foes for the ninja turtles alone, so having someone like you to fight along side them in these cases was always a welcome advantage.

When Donnie had relayed an alert from Casey, it wasn’t long till the four brothers found themselves fighting the two enemy mutants atop a bank building. Five minutes into the fight and you made your entrance by web launching yourself into BeeBop’s face, with a corny, “Starting the party without me I see!”, as you back flipped off the warthogs face. Just like that, with cheerful greetings, you and the crime fighting terrapins fell into sync, dishing out all you could against the other two. However, as the fight drew on, perhaps due to growing exhaustion, not everyone was able to stay on top of their toes.

“What do these guys even want?!”, you asked aloud, dodging a thrown pipe and landing next to Leo.

The leader in blue charged forward, swinging his dual swords at Rocksteady who was quick to hold up a chunk of broken building to block the attack. Narrowly ducking out of a punch from BeBop, Donnie swung his staff into the warthogs side, earning a harsh yelp from the assailant.

“Not sure. April thinks they’re making some sort of deal and need the cash to do so.”

“Stay out of our business, turtles!”, BeeBop snapped, grabbing Donnies staff and shoving the taller terrapin back into Raphael who had tried to attack from the side.

“The zoo’s not going to take you two, no matter how much you bribe them!”, you quipped, easily dodging Bebops attacks and jumping onto his back, blinding him with multiple web shots and tugging him in different directions as he started a blind rampage.

A loud laugh came from Mikey as he watched you rodeo the warthog, Leo and Donnie running towards you to assist.

“Good one, angel cakes!”, Mikey winked, just missing a punch from Rocksteady.

“The insects jokes are lame!”, the rhino grunted with irritation, grabbing a hold of Mikeys swinging nun-chuck and pulling him forward to give him a hard kick.

“Hey! Only I can call their jokes lame!”

Rocksteady quickly looked over at the person who had shouted, only to suddenly be tackled by a very heated Raphael. With a strong hold of the larger mutants midsection, the red clad ninja used all of his might to push the other to the edge of the building. Despite nearly having the wind knocked out of him by Raphael, Rocksteady was quick to firmly grasp his shell. With a loud grunt from above, Raphael had suddenly found himself being lifted into the air, staring down at a triumphant Rocksteady before being sent flying over the tall buildings edge. The last thing heard, as Raphael struggled to regain sense of what was up and what was down, were his brothers frantically shouting after him. At the height he just been thrown from, Raphael knew that even collapsing into his shell would prove futile to the crushing gravity once he hit the streets below.

Out of nowhere, Raphael felt his stomach lurch back and forth as something, or rather someone, swiftly swung him from one side of a building to another in a quick descent. It wasn’t till the world stopped spinning around him did Raphael peek open an eye, confusion followed quickly by shock when he realized who had been his savior.

“You know, Raphael, you make quite the cute damsel in distress if I do say so myself.”, you cheekily jested, and said turtle could just picture your eyebrows wagging beneath your mask.

(S,n) had been holding the bulky terrapin like he was air. Their arms snuggly wrapped beneath his knees and the midsection of his shell. Despite the alarming size difference, you cradled Raphael so carefully and securely, in a way that he had wished to someday carry a significant other. Yet, to be the one being held in such a manner, caused the macho man of a turtle to feel his face quickly heat up, and scramble out of your arms even quicker when he heard the approaching foot steps of his brothers. One could practically feel the heat of embarrassment radiating off of him, as he tried desperately to play things cool.

“What happened to BeBop and Rocksteady?”, Raph questioned his brothers, hoping beyond belief that they hadn’t seen a thing.

“They managed to get away, but not without leaving behind what they tried to steal. Casey and the NYPD are on their way to pick up the stolen goods.”, Leo informed, looking between his flustered sibling and the spider person beside him.

Raphael just let out a scoff, turning sharply and walking off in a random direction.

“Where are you going?”, Mikey confusingly asked.

“To find my sai's.”

“Your welcome by the way!”, you shouted out, to which Raphael simply sent you back a deep scowl before returning to his search.

Despite the aggravated grumbling you could hear come from the hot headed person you saved, you continued to smile to yourself, the squinted eyes of your mask telling of your hidden expression. Pulling out a pen and small note pad, the parchment labeled (s,n) Notes, Donnie began to scribble away.

“Did he even weigh anything to you?”, he questioned with scientific curiosity.

You shrugged, hands on your hips as you peered up at Donnie.

“Like a feather.”

“Oo, oo! Me next!”, Mikey excitedly shouted, bounding towards you at top speed.

Not even your spidey senses could have prepared you for Mikey’s suddenness, you both collapsing to the ground just as you’d barely caught him in your arms. Leo merely shook his head in slight disappointment, Donnie continuing to jot down notes, and Raphael in the distance still trying to calm his flustered heart.

~xXx~

#bayverse tmnt x reader #bayverse tmnt #bayverse raph x reader #bayverse raphael x reader #bayverse leo x reader #bayverse leonardo x reader #bayverse donnie x reader #bayverse donatello x reader #bayverse mikey x reader #bayverse michelangelo x reader #tmnt x reader #aged up tmnt #tmnt spiderman au #spiderman reader #@foxespen #imababblekat's writing

[exilepurify]

A small but crucial detail I really love about S3e12 and Reigen’s whole encounter with ??? is the fact that Reigen doesn’t break down until he lays eyes on Mob.

Reigen is calm and collected throughout the “earthquakes”, realizing that Mob’s causing the disaster, running after him, and braving his way through the tornado. He’s determined to reach Mob at all costs and never wavers or hesitates.

Reigen calls out to Mob when he sees his silhouette in the distance, but it’s not until Reigen struggles close enough to Mob to actually see the state he’s in that his composure crumbles.

And it crumbles. It’s the first time the audience has ever seen Reigen so openly upset. I am not exaggerating by saying that Reigen is genuinely desperate and distraught, and it happened the moment Reigen made visual contact with Mob.

And this isn’t even taking into account him breaking down into tears talking with Mob. This is just the start of the encounter.

I like this little detail so much because it accentuates the fact that Reigen truly didn’t have any idea what Mob was dealing with or holding inside. All of the evidence pointed to Mob being the cause of the disaster. Reigen knew on a logical level that this was Mob’s power at work (“But Mob’s in the center of that tornado, right?”). But I think Reigen still refused to believe it on a more emotional level. To Reigen, Mob can do no wrong. Reigen sees Mob with such a favorable tint, I’m sure in that moment everything seemed so unreal to Reigen that he couldn’t make himself believe Mob was capable of this.

But when he finally catches a visual of Mob in his ??? form, he sees Mob wrapped in a sinister red energy and absolutely monstrous, his shape blurry and poorly defined from his raw power distorting it into charcoal-like smudges, his face stuck in a pained grimace. ??? looks so out of place in the normal animation style that he seems otherworldly, like he belongs in a different dimension.

The only thing keeping Reigen in denial was not directly seeing Mob rampaging around the city. So when Reigen saw ???, the realizations and the gravity of the situation just hit him all at once and he flew into a desperate panic.

It just seems so like Reigen to downplay Mob’s ability to hurt, both himself and others.

I hope this makes sense lol i’m so tired

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 spoilers #reigen arataka #shigeo kageyama #mp100 analysis #mp100 meta #confession arc

[roseofhybrids]

Something I've been thinking about after the "solver is taking over Uzi and she might have to get mercy killed just like her mom" development

A tense situation to be sure, these drones are definitely gonna have a lot to go through with these last 2 episodes. But we can all guess it'll turn out ok in the end on the basis that, that's just how stories tend to go. A meta, non-diegetic reason not to worry.

But I'm looking for a little in universe hope that they'll manage to fix this, and I think I've found one. To explain it, we need to first take a look at Tessa and V. (prepare for a lot of reading, sorry in advance)

So, Tessa has made her thoughts pretty clear during her talk with N. This is a "for the greater good" scenario, it's either kill Uzi or the Absolute Solver kills everyone. Painful but understandable.

But then we have V. When she carries Uzi back to the others, she insists they leave right then and there, and waits for N to join her.

But he hesitates because of what Tessa has told him. V is let in on this fact when Tessa tells him she hasn't been honest with V yet. The fact Tessa says this while comforting N as he hesitates tells V that Tessa said something to him to plant doubt in his mind. It also implies, to N, that V doesn't know the gravity of the situation. But that just isn't true V has just witnessed what Uzi is capable of first hand in the operating room. Hell, she's witnessed a lot of the solver's power first hand. Such as when Uzi attacked her in episode 4, and when CYN mutated her in 5. She knows this thing is dangerous. The look she gives before they leave the operating room, and her reaction to Uzi trying to her powers when they find Doll's trap, says as much.

When Tessa offers to take a look at Uzi. V immediately shows hostility towards her over not controlling the sentinels like she said she could. Then there's her line after Tessa tells N she hasn't been honest with V. It makes sense for her to be mad after Tessa implies she's been keeping something from her. But rather than directing her next question at Tess, and saying something like: "Not honest about what?" or "What haven't you told me?". She instead turns to N and asks, "What did she tell you?" Her tone isn't just angry, it's accusatory. They're interrupted by Uzi waking up, and we get this look between Tessa and V.

A blank stare met with anger and fear.

This scene seems to put Tessa and V on separate sides.

Tessa believes there's no other option but to kill off the infected drones. She doesn't want to kill Uzi, but leaving her alive puts the universe at risk. Tessa's seen what the solver did with CYN. She's seen what it did to her parents, to the other drones, to the Earth, possibly what it did to other planets, and she can't let that happen again.

V on the other hand is protecting Uzi, something that would be pretty uncharacteristic of her before. When Uzi first shows she has her solver powers at the end of episode 3, her first reaction is to take aim with her gun. And in 4, she is shown to be terrified when Uzi turns that arrow into a flesh monster. V was still willing to kill Uzi because she was showing signs of solver infection. She only stopped when N got Uzi to calm down during her rampage. After that she was willing to cover up that Uzi ate her classmates, and now she's willing to give up interrupting CYN's plan, just so they can get an injured Uzi out of there.

Tess is 100% up for killing Uzi if it means saving everyone. V, not so much. It's hard to say that she'd let the universe get destroyed to protect her new friend. But, at the very least, V seems in favor of trying to find another solution.

It's a basically the trolley problem. Tessa's answer is - flip the switch so that only 1 person dies. V's answer is - isn't there another way?

This leaves N in between the two. Where he might have to make that choice (read might as definitely going to, because that's just how stories tend to go).

Do nothing and let 5 people die, or flip a switch so only 1 person dies Do nothing and let the universe be destroyed, or kill your best friend (read friend as love interest, like this is a historical account of two "very good friends". Because while it hasn't been outright been said aloud, that's just how stories tend to go).

So who is N to side with?

And to get what I think will be the answer, we need to look at V's says at the very end of the episode. Her final words to N and Uzi before the elevator falls.

N is yelling out for her to come with them, that they need her. V dismisses this with a simple "nah." Not even a proper no. She just brushes off the idea that they need her to come with them. Up till now, she's been trying to protect N from the truth (she did this in some pretty nasty ways, but that was her intent). But now he knows about the Absolute Solver and what happened back at the manor. He's stood up to both J and V, he's not going to go down without a fight. N doesn't need any protecting, she's willing to let him handle this alone.

Then she turns to Uzi and simply says: "Uzi, I trust you." I think is V saying she trusts that Uzi won't turn out like CYN did. She trusts her to find a way to fix this.

It's because of this that I believe the show is building up to have N side with V on this.

So they'll to stick together, move forward together, or not at all. They can work together to fix this instead of all the murder.

Ok, that's enough quoting the other episodes for parallels

So there you have, just some ideas to hold on to till we see this season end

#murder drones #episode 6 #murder drones episode 6 #media analysis #i think? #could just be rambling #you were wrong about the raptors Tess you can be wrong about the murder too

[traumxrei-archive]

【 these battles we live through 】

prompt #5: It’s time to fight an overblotted person and if he don’t tell them now, he might not live to tell them later (ft. riddle rosehearts, trey clover, leona kingscholar)

gn! prefect (you/yours), drabbles, word count: 1.4k

a/n: wooo overblots !! tbh i wanted to make these longer to impress a sense of danger, but it was already plenty long after i checked it with the word counter...so rip.... i hope that you can still enjoy tho <333

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle was absolutely furious. Not only was he furious at Leona for suddenly overblotting, he was also mad at himself. He cursed as he cast another healing spell, the blood that stained his glove making his own heartbeat thunder in his ears. How incompetent was he to see you get injured in front of his eyes?

"Riddle, I'm...I'm fine." He bit his lips at your words. You were fine. Objectively it was a deep gash to your arm. But Riddle couldn't help but feel like...

"Like I almost lost you," He pressed his forehead against your shoulder. Leona was still rampaging, his efforts now focused on Ruggie and the others rather than him.

"You didn't lose me," You said softly, holding onto his hand. "I'm right here, Riddle." Not even five minutes into the fight, and you had gotten injured. The gravity of the situation weighed on Riddle's shoulders heavily.

"I want you to leave this place," Riddle mumured, his grip on your hand tightening. "I don't think I could bear it if you got hurt again."

"It's a fight," You reasoned. "Everyone's gonna get a bit battered."

"But if I lose you, I..." Riddle tasted ash against his tongue as he swallowed. Maybe he would never get the chance. Maybe this fight would rob him of what he held the most dear. Maybe he would never be able to convey what he really felt.

"Prefect," Riddle said slowly, holding your gaze for a moment too long. "I know it is improper to do this in such a setting, but...I care for you. Deeply. And I wanted to...inform you in case anything happened."

"Then promise me," There was something resolute in your tone. "Promise me that you won't die here, and that you'll confess to me properly after all this over."

"Demanding as always," Riddle chuckled, and he could feel a faint warmth tickling his heart, even in this dire situation. "I promise. I will return to you."

This was a battlefield. Riddle was more than sure of that now. He flexed his soiled glove, pinpointing one of Leona's blindspots before releasing an attack spell. Leona simply roared in outrage, not at all fazed by his attack.

But Riddle had to try. He had to try and succeed. And what better motivation did he have than returning to your arms unscathed?

Trey Clover

Never in Trey's life would he have imagined that he would be caught up in, not one, but two overblots in his lifetime. He was under the impression that such ocassions were rare, but....

"Watch out!" A student shouted as the overblot beast raised its tail into the air, smashing through the trees like they were toothpicks.

He pressed himself against the foliage, watching as the beast passed by silently. And it was exactly then where he found you, crouching in one of the bushes. Relief flooded his chest as he checked you for any injuries.

"Thank Sevens you're safe," Trey said, pulling you into his arms. It was no secret how much he cared for you. It was to the point that Cater and the first year duo had an ongoing bet on who would confess first. But...

You smiled weakly, "I'm glad you're here."

His heart thumped almost painfully in his chest as he turned his head towards the direction of the overblot, "I have to help them."

"You don't have to," You pleaded, your hands mercilessly gripping his shirt. "You'll get hurt if you fight."

"The longer he stays rampant, the more time he has to hurt you, sweetheart," Trey pressed his forehead against yours. "You know....even if I didn't ever say it, you know how I feel about you."

"No, if you say it like that then—"

"I love you," Trey chuckled, though it sounded hollow and afraid. "And I'm deathly scared of dying. But more than that, I'm scared of losing you."

There were tears in your eyes now, "That just sounds like a final goodbye."

"It's not a goodbye," Trey said, gently wiping at your cheeks. "I just want you to know. It's bad timing, I know. I just...we can talk more after this is over, I—"

You leaned forward, wrapping him in an embrace so tight he almost didn't want to let go, "If you're going, then you're better try your best to come back unhurt."

"I'll try my best for you," Trey reluctantly let you go, grabbing his magical pen. "I will be back. Soon."

"Soon," You echoed as he ran off into the clearing, facing the overblotted person unafraid. There were already a few students attacking the beast, and he made sure to yell out his instructions.

Yet all Trey could think about was you. He would return, he vowed then, he would return unhurt, and he would finally be able to tell you all the words that he had been keeping inside his heart.

Leona Kingscholar

Azul overblotting was not a part of the plan. Leona dodged as anothe tentacle came to swipe at him, hauling another bystander behind a coral structure.

Then again maybe he should've been expecting it. An overblot was something he was all too familiar with. And Azul did lose everything that he had built up all of his life. He gritted his teeth as he launched back into action, shooting more spells towards the octo-bastard.

Leona just hoped that you would stay out of the fight for once; that the Leech twins would keep you occupied enough that you wouldn't get caught up in this battle.

But it seemed that there was no God smiling down at Leona today. Instead, here you were grabbing at his arm and tugging him behind a coral structure.

"Why are you here?" Leona hissed, hastily throwing up a barrier to shield you both from the surrounding chaos. "You're gonna end up getting yourself killed."

"Like you're one to talk!" You fired back, bringing your hand up to his head. "Did you even notice that you were bleeding?"

He released a harsh breath, "It's just a scratch. But I need you to get out of here."

"Why would I leave?" Your brow furrowed. "I can't just abandon you here."

"You don't have any magic to protect yourself."

"I won't do anything reckless—"

"Staying in this battle is the definition of reckless," Leona gripped at your arms. "How long will you hold on to your stubbornness?"

"Leona-senpai, I am not abandoning you here." The words felt like needles stabbing Leona right where it hurt.

"Please," The words were laced with emotions that Leona was unequipped to voice. "I can't see you get hurt." Your gaze softened, and for once he thought that you might listen. For once, he thought, that maybe he could keep you safe.

"Then I'll keep hiding," You said quietly, your hand now holding onto his wrist. "You'll be able to protect me. You're Leona Kingscholar, right?"

And Leona was foolish to think that his words could do anything about your bullheaded loyalty to your friends, and as an extension, to him.

"Hah," Leona leveled you with a glare. "What an unlucky thing, for me to be stuck harboring feelings for such a stubborn herbivore." He stabilized the barrier when one of Azul's tentacles thumped against it. He didn't have much time before the barrier fully collapsed.

Your eyes widened, "Did you just...?"

"You can hear the rest of it after the battle," Leona muttered, wiping at the dust caking your cheek. "That is if you don't get any major injury. Otherwise you'll have to wait even longer to hear it."

"Wait, Leona-senpai—"

"I'm casting a radius shield. You step out of it and I'm sending you out of here," Magic sang under his finger tips as he wove together the spell, and he watched as you nodded. "Good. Now shout if you see any openings, I'm not expecting you to stand around doing nothing."

"I wasn't planning on being a sitting duck," You huffed, though you stepped closer to him as he aimed another attack spell at Azul.

He should've been more nervous, considering he was facing an overblot; something he had no experience with prior. But he felt strangely calm, especially when he saw you right next to him as he fought. Maybe after all this was over...

Leona gripped his magic pen tighter. He just had to— no, he had to make sure that this was going to be over soon.

ty for reading these slightly hurt/comfort scenarios !! i hope that you enjoyed >:D if you did, go check out the rest of the 600 follower drabbles OR my masterlist ^^

#/trau writes #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #leona kingscholar #riddle rosehearts x reader #leona kingscholar x reader #trey clover x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #twisted wonderland #no there's no leona favoritism wdym #shhhhhhh #shhhhhhhhhhhh #also trey clover....my brain be exploding over him

[natalievoncatte]

cw: this ficlet contains some graphic violence and a child in peril, but everyone makes it out okay, except the bad guy.

“Now, Alex? Right now?” Kara demanded, as she laced the room with her phone to her ear. Lena watched her from the bed, hands resting on the dime of her belly, a bemused smile on her face.

“I’m sorry, Kara, but the rampaging supervillain didn’t check your schedule before attacking the city.”

She glanced at Lena, whose smirk had taken on a hint of sadness.

“My wife is about to give birth,” Kara sighed. “Alex… we talked about this. We still need to figure out how to make it work.”

“I know, I know, but I have J’onn on his way there now to keep an eye on Lena. It’ll be fine. You’ll probably be back before they’re done prepping her.”

“Fine, I’m on my way.”

Ending the call, she turned to Lena, cupping her soft cheek with one hand.

“I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

“Kara,” said Lena. “This is a surgical procedure. I don’t think you need to actually watch it anyway.”

“I promised I’d be here.”

Lena sighed. “Go get ‘em, Supergirl.”

Kara hesitated, unable to restrain the frown that twisted her lips as she left. She waited until she was on the roof to whip off her glasses and materialize her suit. Alex had directed her downtown.

Kara flew, and fast. When she landed it was with a bit more of a shockwave than usual, and she spared the usual pleasantries and pleas to surrender peacefully. An eight foot tall, blue, horned alien was engaged in the usual mayhem as she arrived, and paid her little mind.

He opened by throwing a steamroller at her. Kara sidestepped it, sighing. The wind really had left her sails for this. She wanted to be with Lena. She wanted to welcome their baby into the world.

The alien quickly made it apparent that she didn’t need to pull her punches, and she didn’t. Nevertheless, it took half an hour for her to put him in a headlock and knock him out, and there was an interminable wait while Alex had him loaded up into a containment unit.

“Go,” Alex finally told her. “Go see your son.”

Kara took off with renewed vigor, landing a block from the hospital to change into her civilian clothes before rushing in. She moved perhaps a touch too fast for a human as she returned to the maternity ward and walked into a nightmare.

J’onn was standing in the hallway. He seemed indistinct, somehow, like he was in the middle of phasing, and he was frozen as still as a statue. There was something stuck to the chest of his polo shirt, and when Kara reached for the circular device, her hand passed through him.

She jabbed the comms she’d left in her ear.

“Alex,” she whispered, frantic. “Something’s wrong at the hospital. Someone incapacitated J’onn.”

“Wait for me,” Alex replied at once her voice high and tight.

“I can’t.”

“Kara,” Alex began, but Kara ignored her.

She pushed into the surgical ward, slowing when she saw a nurse lying against the wall, clutching a wound in her stomach as a doctor crouched beside her. Lena was still on the table.

The baby, her son, was beside Lena, still covered in amniotic fluid, his cord uncut, crying lustily for his mother.

Standing over him was a man Kara never expected to see again. Ben Lockwood.

“Hello, Kara.”

She froze. Lockwood held a sharp chunk of Kryptonite in his hand, the jagged point aimed down at the child. The other held a gun aimed at Lena’s chest.

The painful burning spread up Kara’s limbs, working its way along her nerves like a thousand hot needles scraping under her skin. Her knees buckled and she fought the pull of gravity.

“Get rid of the kryptonite,” Kara demanded.

“You have to make a choice. The kid or the wife. You’ve got ten seconds. Pick one.”

Kara locked eyes with him, pleasing.

“Me. Not them. Take me instead.”

Lockwood smiled, though his eyes remained cold and dead. “Wrong answer. I guess I’ll just have to pick for you.”

Kara finally started to sink, the collapse imminent. She knew what she had to do. With her dwindling strength, she threw herself at Lockwood, sprinting the distance, and in her weakened state, she could do no more than artlessly crash into him.

The gun spun free, unfired.

The kryptonite slid home, parting the flesh under Kara’s ribs. A fresh agony ripped through her as the jagged point struck her lung. She collapsed on top of Lockwood.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, foaming blood from her lips falling on Lockwoods face.

With her remaining strength, she clamped her hands on his neck and twisted. It took no more effort than cleaning a chicken. She barely felt the bones part as her hand went numb.

I have to get the Kryptonite away from the baby.

Kara rolled off of the body and began dragging herself, forcing her way past her screaming son and into the hallway, painting the tiles red for a good fifteen feet until she finally collapsed. She thought she heard Alex calling to her, as blackness came in and swallowed everything.

***

The first thing Kara was aware of was the pleasant, prickling heat of sun lamps on her skin, and shortly after that, the sound of a voice… singing. It was a familiar voice, soft and halting, singing the lullaby as if she might be embarrassed if someone caught her.

Kara opened her eyes and looked over, flooded with a wave of relief as she saw Lena sitting beside her, curled up in a chair with the baby swaddled in her arms, sleeping peacefully.

Joy and relief shattered her more fiercely than sorrow ever could. Kara choked out a pained sob, more following as the sheer weight of it overwhelmed her. Lena looked up and Kara saw she hadn’t slept.

“Is he okay?” Kara said. “Did the kryptonite hurt him?”

“Nothing permanent or serious,” said Lena. “His half-human physiology makes him much less sensitive to it than you are.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kara said, her body shaking with sobs. “Rao, I am so sorry. I left you. I left you.”

Lena shook her head. “Kara, it’s alright. You saved us. Ben Lockwood was as much my enemy as…”

Was.

Kara sat up and plunged her head in her hands. She sobbed harder. She’d done the one thing she swore on her very life never to do. She killed him.

“Kara,” said Lena. “Would you like to hold your son? He wants to meet you.”

Her head snapped up. Kara held back the sobs as she tenderly accepted the bundle from Lena’s arms. Her little boy was at once the lightest and easiest and heaviest burden her arms had ever carried. Tears fell freely as she stared at his tiny sleeping face. He was perfect. Perfect.

“Should you be on your feet so soon after the surgery?”

Lena sighed. “It’s been two weeks, Kara. That kryptonite did a number on you.”

“Oh,” said Kara.

They were quiet for a time, Kara rocking the baby gently in the bed while Lena carded her fingers through Kara’s hair.

“This is it,” said Kara. “This is the end. Supergirl is done. He comes first. You come first. We come first.”

“Yes,” Lena agreed. “Alex and I talked about it while you were out and she told me what you were planning to do, so we took the opportunity. Supergirl died saving me from Ben Lockwood. I gave the eulogy at your public funeral. It was very moving, I’m told.”

“I’m sure it was,” Kara said, absently.

Suddenly, Lena threw her arms around them both, pulling them into a tight embrace. Kara leaned into it, burying her face in the crook of Lena’s shoulder.

“Let’s go home.”

#supercorp #supergirl fanfiction #supergirl #supercorp fanfic #lena luthor #kara danvers #kara x lena #karlena #supergirl fanfic #ficlet #established supercorp #Supercorp baby #mama bear Kara doesn’t care about your rules #supergirl retires #this is the last dance

[arc-misadventures]

Secrets Well Kept

Jaune was having a bog-standard day until the moment his day was flipped on its head.

Literally.

Right now he was suspended in the air by his leg hanging over the roof of a building situated away from prying eyes.

He was surprised how quickly he got up here, how a single thread was holding him suspended in the air, but more importantly, that he didn’t throw up his guts in the process of getting here.

But, considering he was hanging upside down he suspected that there was still a possibility of that happening.

Peachy.

Fortuitously he wouldn’t have to worry about that for long. Hopefully.

For his captor have finally revealed themselves before him, and he only had one thing to say to them.

Jaune: If you dare say, “How’s it Yanging?” I will deliberately throw up on you.

: You wouldn’t dare!

Jaune: Unless it is by the form of a vile semi-non-lethal case of projectile vomit, how else could I, a common human possibly harm you, Spidergal.

Spidergal, the wisecracking web-slinger that swung around the city, saving people from a variety of things: Criminals committing crimes, cars speeding out of control, an introductory lesson of the ramifications of underestimating gravity. She will come in, and save everyone, be they petty criminals, or crazy men in monster suits. There were too many of those weirdos around town lately.

Jaune: Or… should I perhaps say… Yang Xiao Long…?

Spidergal stared at him for a moment before pulling off her mask, revealing a mane of golden hair, vibrant amethyst eyes, and a face that vibrated with fear.

Yang: Why?! Why did you do that?!

Jaune: Seemed pretty simple really; Your name is, Yang. I’m hanging from a… Crane? Yang, hang: Yanging. Seemed pretty simple considering you like towards making cheap puns.

Yang: it’s good I’ll give you that! But, why?!

Jaune: Why?

Yang: Yes: WHY?

Jaune: Why what?

Yang: Why didn’t you tell anyone that I was, Spidergal?!

Jaune: Are you talking about that time I caught you changing into your spider suit, and I caught you in that tantalizing lacy violet underwear?

Yang: Yes tha…?! Wait, you peaked?!

Jaune: To be fair, I couldn’t help it. You were changing your outfit at the time, and I just happened to walk on you in the process.

Yang: …

Yang: That’s fair… But, why didn’t you tell anyone?!

Jaune: Yes, I’m going to tell everyone I found out, Spidergal’s secret identity because I caught her in her underwear whilst changing into her suit. Who the devil would believe that, that could possibly happen?

Yang: Well… uhhh…? Honestly I wouldn’t believe that either.

Jaune: Precisely! Besides, I try to be a gentleman; I would have legged it out of there if it wasn’t for the fact that your friends… What are their names… Weiss, and… Blake?

Yang: Yes, their names are, Weiss, and Blake.

Jaune: Yeah, they could have caught you in that compromising position. Short of confessing you were, Spidergal, or a nudist how could you have gotten out of that?!

Yang: Definitely not the nudist route…

Jaune: Not to mention that squid guy…

Yang: Dr. Oc!

Jaune: Lame. Anyway he was on a rampage, so you had more pressing matters to attend to.

Yang: But… T-That was a month ago! Why haven’t you done anything?!

Jaune: Anything? What do you mean by that?

Yang: you could have blackmailed me into doing stuff for you, or you’ll reveal my identity! Like stealing stuff for you, o-or… m-making me doing something lewd…

As, Jaune lazily hung from the air he shot her an infuriated look that shocked her as she gazed upon a face that screamed offence.

Jaune: I’m tempted to tell everyone now for how insulted I feel that you would dare think that I would do something like that!

Yang: I’m sorry! It’s just… you know… secret identity that she has to keep secret… smoking hot babe… teenage boy…

Jaune: Get your head out of whatever gutter its in lady!

Yang: Okay! Just, why haven’t you told anyone about this, hell why didn’t you come to me about knowing this?! I’ve been on edge all month thinking you were planning something?!

Jaune: Hmm… That’s a fair concern. Well, I’ll tell you precisely what I was planning! But, first, I require a favour…

Yang recoiled in fear, her nerves were on edge as she saw the loopy smile across his face. She didn’t think he was planning anything sinister, but she couldn’t risk it.

Yang: What favour…

Jaune: Get me down from here! The blood is rushing to my head, and I think the projectile vomit is more of a warning, not a threat now!

Yang: Oh shit, yeah, sorry!

Yang quickly brought him down where, Jaune promptly laid on his back as he let his blood settle. After a few minutes he stood up, shaking the dizziness away.

Yang: You better?

Jaune: Somewhat? Imma gonna need to lie down for a while… that is so uncomfortable…

Yang: You can get used to it.

Jaune: Yeah, but I’m not… whatever it is you now are.

Yang: Hey!

Jaune: Okay… What I was planning to do was this: Nothing.

Yang: Nothing; you weren’t planning on doing anything?

Jaune: Not a gods dammed thing.

Yang: S-Seriously?

Jaune: Yep, I wasn’t planning on doing anything. You’ve been a great help to this city, it needs people like you, honest to god hero. I didn’t want to mess that up for internet clout. I mean, image how many people will be impacted if they knew you were, Spidergal. I mean… How many people could be hurt if your secret got out. And, I don’t just mean your family, but your friends, and any random schmuck on the street. Me telling who you are puts so many people at risk. I couldn’t dare dream of doing such a thing. So, don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.

Yang: Oh… T-Thank you…

Yang fidgeted with her hair nervously as she looked away with a faint blush on her face. She did this because she thought the heroing was cool, and the overall right thing to do. But, to hear someone thank her for doing what she did, seeing that her being a superhero, and doing the things she does, and for who she does it for was more important than knowing who she was, meant the world to her, and really gave her that boost of confidence she needed.

Jaune: So don’t worry about it, Yang. I’ve kept this a secret for over a year now, I can keep it secret still for years yet to come.

Yang: Thanks, Jaune, I really…?! Wait… ‘Over a year now…?’ Hold up! You’ve know I was, Spidergal for over a year now?!

Jaune: Yep!

Yang: How?!

Jaune: Remember when we first met?

Yang: Uhh… We met in the hallway at school… you were helping me by putting a textbook back into my backpack?! You saw my suit when you were putting that book back?!

Jaune: Close, I saw your suit in your backpack before I put that textbook back in. Why do you think I zipped up your backpack when I put the textbook back, and gave you that warning about letting stuff fall out?

Yang: You’ve known the whole time that I was, Spidergal since our freshmen year?!

Jaune: You weren’t really famous for a while yet, but yeah, pretty much.

Yang: H-Have you been protecting my secret the whole time as well?!

Jaune: More, or less.

Yang: Oh… okay…

Jaune: So… now what?

Yang: I don’t know… You know my secret, and have been keeping my secret for over a year now… I guess we just carry on as we are?

Jaune: I can do that.

Yang: Do you… Would you mind if I came to you… To talk about all these things I’ve been through? I don’t have anyone to talk about this to, and I could really use someone to talk to… do you… Would you mind?

Jaune look at her before walking over to a vent box on the roof. The metallic box echoed as he sat upon it, he turned to her, and tapped a spot besides him. Yang smiled at him before jumping, and summersaulting in the air, and landing gracefully next to him.

Jaune: So… Lets start at the beginning shall we?

Yang: How I became, Spidergal? That’s a good place to start.

Jaune: Oh, I was going to ask how you hide all that hair under that mask of yours; like seriously, how?!

Yang laughed as she lightly punched his arm before she told him the origin story of the, Astonishing Spidergal.

And, Jaune had to admit, it was too ridiculous to be true. But, such is life: Too ridiculous to be true.

///

Ahh, finally get to play out that Spiderman idea I’ve had stuck in my head for months now!

That was fun. Well, back to the grinding stone.

Do enjoy~!

#rwby #jaune arc #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #weiss schnee

[chuuyrr]

If it isn’t too big of a request what if like Akutagawa was taken hostage by an enemy as bait to lure in the PM and I know Akutagawa can easily break free but this particular enemy has a member with an ability similar to Dazai’s meaning they can nullify someone’s ability just very differently.

Scarlet Witch! Reader upon hearing (Aku and reader are together) this goes on a rampage and drag Dazai off his ass to help them with rescuing Aku since Dazai’s ability will cancel out that other persons ability. Reader does most of the killing as some members were assigned to guard the prison Aku was in and Reader goes like “You want my lover, you’re gonna have to fcking kill me!”

basically this scene from Helluva Boss

when akutagawa gets taken away from his scarlet witch! s/o

bungo stray dogs x scarlet witch! reader

masterlist of the series

╰➤ CW(s): spoilers for bungo stray dogs, reference to wanda maximoff in multiverse of madness + wandavision, detailed fight scenes and mentions of blood

╰➤ PAIRING(s): akutagawa ryunosuke

╰➤ SYNOPSIS: in which the akutagawa ryunosuke is taken in as a hostage and bait by the enemy organization lure the port mafia, but they have no idea that in doing so, they're also luring in the port mafia's scarlet witch, who just so happens to be the black-fanged hellhound's darling.

╰➤ SONG SUGGESTIONS(s): ...ready for it? by taylor swift

"they.. fucking.. what?!"

port mafia executive nakahara chuuya recoiled at your harsh tone of voice as mori and his other subordinates when koyou ozaki reported that akutagawa had been kidnapped by the enemy organization.

even mori was taken aback by your sudden outburst, knowing how calm and collected you usually were and how you were never hostile. this was the first time they'd seen you snap and break as you always spoke softly and were very polite.

"[surname]-chan, put everything back down," mori sighed, shaking his head as he stared at you, unfazed by the pieces of papers and other furniture that were already floating in the air as they glowed red with your fingertrips twitching with agitation as an ominous pressure wafted in the atmosphere.

"[name], you heard the boss," your mentor, chuuya, exclaimed as he placed a hand on your shoulder, "i'm just as pissed as you are, alright? take it easy."

"how am i supposed to calm down when he's out there gravely injured and was taken in as a hostage to bait the port mafia in?" you raged, your eyes now furiously glowing red.

chuuya sighed, wondering if his temper and arrogance had rubbed off on you as you scoffed and glared at him before stopping your red psionics from making things float in the air with zero gravity out of rage. well, you were his subordinate, and possibly his younger sibling, given that he was only four years older than you and that you shared a brotherly bond with him.

"i understand how much akutagawa means to you, [surname]-chan," said mori, clasping his hands together, "but you must not let your emotions get the best of you."

despite mori's and your mentor's words, you were so consumed by rage that their words merely passed from one ear to the other.

you couldn't sit still as mori discussed what needed to be done with you and chuuya, but you already had other plans as you twitched and cracked your fingers, which they found uncannily similar to dazai, especially kouyou when dazai threatened her once.

"what are you doing, kiddo?" chuuya asked, raising a brow as red wisps of psionic energy oozed from your fingertips.

"i'm going to find.. and i'm going to kill every.. last one of them," you murmured as you stood up from your seat, your red glowing eyes boring into mori's with a death threat.

with that, you abruptly left the office, swinging the doors open with your red psionics as you extended your hands.

"o-oi! [name]! where the hell are you going?!" exclaimed your mentor, "[name]!"

chuuya rose from his seat to pursue you, but was abruptly stopped by mori. he said, blinking as he spoke calmly, "there's no need for that, chuuya. i was going to send [surname]-chan to get akutagawa and bring those fools to their knees anyway,"

"that damned kid.. tch, does [name] even realize the illuminati has a member with the equivalent ability to dazai's ability?" scoffed chuuya, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"i believe in [surname]-chan, so you should as well. after all, you're the mentor," mori smiled, almost sinisterly. "and for another thing, [surname] [name] isn't the port mafia's scarlet witch for nothing, chuuya-kun," he reasoned.

it was exactly what mori had in mind.

there was only one person you were going to approach in order to get akutagawa back.

you learned earlier in koyou's report that the illuminati, the enemy organization, had an ability user capable of nullifying any ability, which is why akutagawa was taken in, but the conditions are unknown, unlike this ability user you knew who does the same thing but with physical contact.

you wouldn't risk going after akutagawa and tbe illuminati empty-handed if you weren't certain that your chaos magic and other set of abilities wouldn't be nullified, whereas the one you were familiar with truly wouldn't.

inside the agency office, atsushi and the other detectives were taken aback, wincing at the sound of their door swinging open by red psionics pushing it.

they were all taken aback when they saw a familiar figure, you, to be exact, dressed in a dark red leather coat—the scarlet witch of the port mafia—standing in the door frame, hands extended out.

as you walked inside, or more accurately, stomped, the heels of your boots clicked against the pavement, everyone stood up. they could feel an ominous aura radiating from your body and couldn't move, but dazai osamu simply sat in his seat, legs propped over his desk, arms behind his head, headphones on, singing with his eyes closed.

you sighed at dazai and flicked your hand, using your red psionics to take his headphones, jolting him back to reality, prompting him to exclaim, "oi, what gives—ack!"

but dazai came to a halt when his shirt collar was yanked upwards, forcing him to rise from his comfortable sitting position, which was now floating mid-air as your red psionics took hold of him.

"well, if it isn't [name]-chan?" dazai's eyes widened slightly at the sight of you, blinking as he tilted his head to the side, "what brings you to the detective agency?" a small smile rose on his lips.

everyone was taken aback by how unaffected dazai was by your presence, and how casual he was with you—he even knew your name.

you scoffed at his friendly smile. you still don't understand how this man managed to leave the port mafia and live a renewed life as if he hadn't been a monster who made your boyfriend's life a living hell in the past, but as much as you hated it, you needed him to help you.

as you heard weapons being unsheathed, you hardened your gaze and flicked your other hand up. at that moment, kunikida's gun and yosano's machete were yanked from their grasps, as was kyouka's blade, which she whipped out as she summoned demon snow to her side.

you glared at them all for a split second before shaking your head, snapping your fingers to drop the weapons to the ground as you turned back to dazai, speaking in a calm tone of voice and folding your arms across your chest, "i'm not here as your enemy, i'm here as a client."

"a client?" dazai held a baffled yet amused look across his face, "how interesting, [name]-chan."

"yes, your client," you confirmed, twisting your hand before dropping it to your side, releasing dazai's collar and allowing him to return to his seat, "and whether you like it or not, dazai, you're going to help me bring back someone."

"bring someone back.." dazai's eyes blinked at you for a moment before it dawned on him who you were referring to, "oh."

yes, of course. that would explain why you were practically blazing with rage.

"hmm, alright. i'll help you out, [name]-chan," dazai said with a smile, standing up from his seat and removing his headphones, "who am i to refuse a client in need of my assistance?"

"hey! you can't be serious about assisting a port mafia member, dazai!" kunikida exclaimed as he looked at you, "don't you remember the last time we took in a client and it turned out to be an ambush?!"

"i'm confident of assisting our client this time, and besides, if [name]-chan really wanted to, we would have been hurt by now," dazai explains with a sigh, shoveling his hands into the pocket of his brown coat, "the scarlet witch of the port mafia can kill in the blink of an eye."

with that, you turned your heel and walked out of the office, pushing the door open with your red psionics.

as you picked up dazai in the air again, dragging his ass with you, leaving kunikida and the rest of them speechless, wondering how and why in the world dazai was so eager to help you, and even more so casual with you.

you and dazai were on the way to where akutagawa was after he deduced where he and the enemy organization were after you gave him the information you obtained from the mafia. however, dazai asked you a question.

"you know what i don't get, [name]-chan?" dazai began, tapping his cheek with his index finger.

"what?" you asked, scoffing at dazai's familiarity in addressing you.

"why me? you do realize you have that hat rack as your mentor. hell, and your wiggly-woos too," dazai explained briefly, folding his arms across his chest and tilting his head as he stared down at you.

"because the illuminati has an ability user like you. they can nullify abilities and that's why ryunosuke—i mean—akutagawa was taken hostage," you explained to dazai, your eyes narrowing as you looked away, "and the thing is, i don't know if i can work through their ability like i can with yours. i don't know the conditions, and you're the only one who figured out their exact location."

"and how certain are you that i can nullify an ability user similar to mine to help you out?" dazai chuckled, raising a brow at you.

"because yours only requires physical contact, whereas the said ability user's must have a different condition, and in any case a singularity would occur," you sighed, looking up at him, "of course, you would know how to react quick."

"you sure have grown up, [name]-chan. the last time i saw you, you were still quite young, serious and introverted, practically fragile as a glass too," dazai commented, staring down at you with what appears to be a soft gaze that made you scowl, "but still cunning and intellective as ever, and even way back in the mafia, you were the only one with guts to talk like that to me, and it was real amusing."

"don't talk to me like you're that familiar with me. i am not happy to see you at all, dazai," you said bitterly as you and dazai came to a halt in front of the massive steel doors in a secluded forest area somewhere in yokohama.

"ughh, chuuya's attitude has rubbed off on you, [name]-chan. when you were little, you weren't even that hostile to me!" dazai grumbled, childishly pouting, "you're way meaner now!"

"shut the hell up before i take your mouth away!" you yelled, a nerve protruding on your temple from agitation.

you straightened your back and stared at the massive steel doors, shaking your head. you cast a quick glance over your shoulder at dazai, who was no longer acting childishly, but was instead glancing at you with a curt nod, signaling that he was indeed ready.

you extended your hands, blasting the steel doors open with your unrivaled red psionics. as soon as you did, you and dazai were met by a swarm of guards armed with firearms and katanas.

"well, this is unexpected. i was expecting more from the port mafia," the gifted said as he banged against the bars of the cell akutagawa was in, causing him to wake up fairly weakly, his half-lidded, hazy eyes meeting yours, "and you must be this hound's little darling too. well, that's bad, i plan on keeping him around like this."

for a brief moment, your eyes softened as you discovered your beloved in a cell somewhere in the place, battered and bruised, chained like a dog in the cell as the ability user you were expecting stood right in front of prison.

"yes, i'm his little darling alright," you said as dazai stood behind you as you stepped into action, tilting your head.

your [color] eyes then glowed red menacingly as you scowled with your calm voice rising into a higher, and harsher tone, "you want my lover? you're gonna have to fucking kill me!"

you extended your hand to the guards charging at you. with your red psionics, you blasted and tossed them in the air before slamming them to the ground, causing a crater to form and debris and soot to scatter as a result.

instead of simply using your magic to fight harder, you incorporated it into a skillful close hand-to-hand combat, which surprised dazai enough that his mouth was slightly parted.

a smirk crawled across akutagawa's bloodied and exhausted features as he looked at you proudly as you moved sharply with fast precision as your red psionics simultaneously blocked hits of bullets and blades aimed at you as you used them all against the guards.

you even mind-controlled one of the guards to decapitate himself before manipulating his corpse to fight alongside you against the rest of the guards. all the while, you were using him as a shield and didn't care if blood was gushing out from the blades piercing his abdomen and decapitated head.

it was morbid but impressive—so much so that dazai smirked. he had always seen you making the most of your long-range combat ability, but it appears chuuya, your mentor, has changed that drastically. your fighting style now resembled chuuya's.

you now discarded the body and attacked, expertly dodging the other guards by either sliding and ducking fast only to snap their necks or manipulating their bodies to finish each other off with their own weapons.

the enemy organization's ability user stiffened for a split second as you effortlessly crushed a man's skull with your red psionics. as blood splattered on your face, you remained unfazed.

you kept walking as another who was still alive tried to shoot you from among the bodies. however, his limbs twisted and bones broke instantly when you twisted your hand. the last guard screamed in agony as his body mangled and exploded in a burst of blood.

"you know, i would have crumbled by now if i were you in your shoes," dazai mocked the ability user at the end of the area who was standing right beside akutagawa's prison as he trailed after you from behind and laughed.

your eyes held no warmth or remorse. the illuminati member saw only one thing in you: a mindless killing machine of the port mafia with one goal in mind, and that was to get your lover back at any cost.

your aura reeked of bloodlust and enmity, and it was comparable to the boss of the port mafia.

"hell hath no fury like a belladonna scorned," declared dazai as he soundlessly moved right behind the ability user who was frozen in fear at the sight of you.

before the ability's conditions illuminati's member activated, which turned out to be marking the surroundings with glowing violet runes, dazai nullified it, and even if the singularity had caused him to cancel out his own as well, dazai was quick enough to grab his arm behind his back and force him to yield.

you came to a halt and tilted your head, your eyes glowing red as you stared at the man dazai was holding. a smirk crawled across your lips as you turned your heel and walked past akutagawa and dazai.

despite your desire to revel in the vulnerability and helplessness of the gifted was who possessed a similar ability to dazai, your priority was not him.

dazai watched the ability user stiffen up before his neck broke, which dazai assumed you killed him from inside his mind, and looking at it—it wasn't snapped. you literally broke it.

you made your way to the cage prison where akutagawa was and immediately used your magic to break the bars and chains on him. as soon as you did, you knelt down to akutagawa's slumped figure against the bars and began to mend his wounds and injuries, which he visibly flinched at given how strange it feels to be stitched up at the molecular level.

"i'm sorry. i know, it feels weird, but i have to," you exclaimed, your tone of voice now hushed and calm as you no longer bore an emotionless and monstrous look, "just hang on tight for me. okay, ryuu? look, even dazai is here."

"dazai?" akutagawa raised his head weakly to see the bandaged man in a brown coat now standing behind you, looming over you.

"you look like a mess," dazai said to akutagawa as he blinked at him, but he immediately let out a surprised yelp when yanked his hair using your red psionics, "ow! [name]-chan!"

"that's for ryuu," you said, your eyes slightly narrowed at dazai, before returning your gaze to akutagawa, who was now sitting up as his wounds and injuries healed.

"thank you," akutagawa said quietly in gratitude, and you smiled back, but he couldn't help but stare at you as you finished patching him up with your magic.

that's right. even if dazai was right there, akutagawa focus was on you; this is how you know akutagawa is truly in love.

you also knew that akutagawa wasn't one for hugs and physical contact, so you were doing your best not to fling yourself at him, especially since quality time and acts of service were more of his love language.

but that seemed to change just this once.

your eyes widened in surprise as akutagawa leaned in, wrapping his arms around you, his cold body warming up at the close distance between you two, unfazed by the soot and blood all over you. he was just as happy to be reunited with you as you are with him right now.

"ryunosuke.." you muttered in surprise before smiling and tightly embracing him back.

"it feels nice once in a while.." akutagawa held a smug look, chuckling as he glanced at you.

dazai smiled as he watched you and his former subordinate reunited. now, if there's one thing you have in common with him, it's the way akutagawa makes you feel alive and warm, bringing light to your eyes. it was the same thing he had witnessed after leaving the mafia.

however, it amused dazai to see how quickly you transition from a fearsome and terrifying force to be reckoned with to such a sweet and loving darling to akutagawa every single time.

[ author's notes ! for reference, i also used the delted scene of multiverse or madness wherein wanda was supposed to fight the masters of the mystic arts in hand to hand combat. i hoped you enjoyed reading this. thank you for requesting <3

p.s. ! i also added in a small detail in this writing, which is reader being chuuya's subordinate (again) but also his little sibling figure. i figured it'd only make sense because akutagawa used to be mentored by dazai, so you should have chuuya as your mentor lolol. that's all, bye-bye ! ]

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#bungo stray dogs x reader #bungo stray dogs imagines #akutagawa ryunosuke x reader #akutagawa x reader #bsd x reader #bsd headcanons #bsd imagines #bsd x y/n #bsd x you #bsd scenarios #bsd oneshot #bsd scenario #bsd akutagawa #akutagawa x y/n #akutagawa x you #akutagawa ryuunosuke #akutagawa headcanons #bungo stray dogs headcanons #bungo stray dogs imagine #bungo stray dogs scenarios #bungo stray dogs fluff #bungo stray dogs x you