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robinrunsfiction · 3 years

Note

CAN I GET A FRANK X READER FIC WHERE THE BAND GOES OUT FOR LUNCH AND Y/N STAYS AT THE BUS AND SLEEPS IN FRANKS BUNK AND THEY GET BACK AND FRANK SEES HER AND JUST GETS INTO BED WITH HER AHD HOLDS HER AND ITS ALL FLUFFY

Hold You Here

Pairing: Frank Iero x Female Reader Rating: General Requested By: Anons Word Count: 2,000 Author’s Note: I’m combining this with another similar request, which resulted in a longer story! I hope everyone enjoys! TW for a brief mention of Gerard’s addiction struggles in 2004

To be in a band meant that your bandmates were your most intimate friends. Hours, days, weeks spent cramped together in small confined spaces meant that everyone saw each other at their best, worst, and everything in between. Platonic physical affection wasn’t an unusual occurrence and neither was sharing beds so that the fewest number of hotel rooms could be reserved to save money, curling up under a blanket together while watching a movie on the bus, not to mention all the on-stage antics, it was all taken in stride.

It also helped that everyone looked out for each other, but it seemed as if Frank looked out for you more than the others. When things became hectic, or when you were suffering from one of your migraines, he’d always be the one checking up on you to make sure you were okay. Spending hours up late at night talking with him was one of your favorite ways to pass time on the bus. You’d developed quite the soft spot for the chaotic guitarist.

The band had been touring what felt like non-stop for ages, but especially now that Three Cheers was out. It had been a very long, hot summer full of meeting fans, rocking out, and if you were being honest with yourself, way too much partying on everyone’s part. You were feeling pretty burnt out, but the success of the band made it worth it.

Now it was the last week of Warped Tour 2004 and you could tell summer was ending by how quickly the nights were cooling down. As usual when the tour was stopped over for a couple nights, both a bonfire, and most of the bands, were lit. You were standing as close to the fire as you could without melting the rubber on your chucks trying to keep warm.

“Hey,” Frank said, walking over to stand next to you.

“Hey, how’s it goin?” You asked

“Good. Cold?”

“Yea,” you rolled your eyes. “I decided to dress cute, and now I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Who were you dressing up for?” Frank asked, unzipping his hoodie.

“No one really,” you replied, watching as he took off the sweatshirt. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping you warm,” he replied.

“You don’t have to,” you started as he put it over your shoulders.

“Too late,” he replied with a smirk that faded into a soft smile.

You looked up at him, in the dim light of the bonfire and you felt your heart skip, like a switch had been flipped. That soft spot you held in your heart for him suddenly felt overwhelmed, like the quiet feelings were now screaming in your ears.

“I bet it’s warmer on the bus,” you suggested, deciding to lean into the moment. You just hoped you were gauging the situation correctly.

His eyebrows went up in surprise, but he nodded. “I bet you’re right, wanna go back?”

“Yea.”

The walk across the parking lot was silent, as your hands brushed against each other’s, shoulders bumping occasionally. Climbing into the bus, you wandered to the back and confirmed no one else was around, and when you turned back to Frank he seemed a little nervous.

“Ya know you do look really cute. Like not just tonight, like all the time,” he said.

“Thanks,�� you replied, tucking your hair behind your ear nervously. You were in your 20s, why were you suddenly feeling like a middle schooler talking to their crush?

“Wanna watch a movie or something?” He offered after an awkward silence hung between you.

“Sure. Nothing scary though, I’m tired of horror.”

“How can you be tired of horror?” Frank asked with feigned shock.

“Because that’s all we watch and we’ve watched almost every movie we have 100 times over.”

Frank started flipping through the stack of DVDs that the band had accumulated through countless tours. “What about ‘10 Things I Hate About You’?” he asked.

“Yes,” you nodded eagerly, plopping down on the couch and pulling off your shoes.

Frank put the movie in the DVD player and turned off the lights, sitting next to you. You glanced over, trying to gauge what he was thinking. He glanced back and you snapped your eyes back to the tv. As the movie progressed, Frank casually put his arm over the back of the couch and you settled into his side.

“I wanna go play paintball, like real paintball, some time,” you said, watching Kat and Patrick’s date on the screen.

“We should go then,” Frank replied.

“Just us? Or,” you trailed off.

“Yea, I mean unless you wanna invite other people.”

You looked up at him, and he was looking back down at you. "No, just us," you said softly.

"Cool," he said with a goofy smile.

You had to bite your lip to keep from giggling, but in that moment, the energy between you shifted. Frank started to lean in and you closed your eyes as his lips met yours. At first the kiss was soft and tender, almost tentative. But then his arms wrapped around you, pulling you closer and your hand ran through his hair as he deepened the kiss.

When you finally came up for air, you couldn't help the smile on your face when you saw how happy Frank looked. "That was fun," you laughed.

"I've been wanting to do that forever," he said, running a hand through his hair, smoothing it down.

"Well we should do it again sometime," you replied.

Just then, loud, drunken voices could be heard outside the door to the bus and you both jumped apart.

"They're in here makin' out or something," Ray shouted over his shoulder with a giggle. You knew there was no way they could have seen you two just minutes before, but the joke still rattled you.

"No they weren't," Mikey said disbelievingly, as he and Gerard followed.

You glanced at Frank who was shaking his head at your bandmates before he changed the subject to something totally random. Things had literally just started with him, and it felt fragile. The last thing you wanted was to have it all fall apart like nothing happened, and be left wondering forever what could have been.

The next day, nothing about the prior night was discussed between you and Frank, but it had been a busy day of press, playing, and meeting fans. When you were climbing back into your bunk, completely exhausted, you spotted a folded up piece of paper on your pillow. You closed the curtain behind you and turned on the small light above your bed. When you unfolded the note, you immediately recognized Frank's scrawling handwriting.

(YN), all I've been able to think about today is how your lips felt on mine and wondering when I can feel it again. I can't remember anything that was said to me because I was thinking about how I'd rather just be talking to you. I hope sometime before the end of this tour we can hang out alone together again.

XO, frnk

You bit your lip to keep from squealing with delight.

The last few days of Warped Tour were just as much of a blur, and when that tour was over, you were quickly shipped off to another one. Gerard was struggling and the whole band was impacted. Everyone dealt with it in their own way, and luckily you had Frank to brush away the worried tears when your brain wouldn't quiet enough to let you sleep at night.

Soon after, Gerard got the help he needed and when he rejoined the band, you were immediately sent back out on the road. Everything felt a little brighter that fall.

You and Frank were as good as ever, but still keeping your relationship quiet. His hand would find yours when no one else was around. You'd each sneak into each other's bunks and spend the nights cuddled together. Then there was the series of excuses as to why you two should share hotel rooms, which included Mikey texting too much, Ray talking too much, and Gerard keeping the light on all night drawing, among others.

So when you were blindsided with a migraine one morning, you were not at all pleased. The pain throbbed through your head as nausea rolled through your stomach. You groaned as you slid out of your bunk and stumbled to the front of the bus, which was obnoxiously bright, to the cabinet holding the medicine.

"There's sleeping beauty," you heard Ray laugh, but you just grunted in response. You grabbed the bottle of Excedrin and silently prayed they'd do their job quickly as you took a dose.

"You ok?" Frank asked as you slumped down on the couch.

"No, migraine."

Your bandmates groaned, knowing how much of a pain, literally and figuratively, they were for you.

"So you don't wanna go grab lunch?" Mikey asked.

"Please don't make me think about food or I might get sick."

"Do you want me to stay back with you?" Frank offered. It didn't even register how much concern he was showing toward you.

"No, I just wanna sleep and hope it goes away before we have to play tonight."

"Ok, we'll leave you alone. Come on guys," Gerard said, shooing the guys out. You glanced up and saw Frank giving you a sympathetic look before leaving the bus.

You dragged yourself back to the bunks, closing the door to the main room behind you and looked at your bunk. There was no way in hell you were climbing back up into it. Instead climbed into Frank's.

You pulled his blanket over you as you curled up in a ball facing the wall. His pillow smelled faintly of his shampoo, but not enough to make you feel sick, or maybe the medication was finally kicking in.

It felt like no sooner you'd fallen asleep that you heard voices in the front of the bus. You wondered how long you’d been out, but didn’t care enough to check the time. Before you could drift off again you heard the door opening and closing softly. Shuffling steps stopped behind you and then you felt someone climb in the bunk behind you.

"Hey," Frank said softly, his arm wrapping around your side.

"Hi," you answered, a smile forming on your face for the first time all day, not that he could see it.

"Feeling better?"

"A bit. Not 100% yet, but better than earlier."

"Mind if I nap with you?"

"Please do," you replied.

Frank drew the curtain shut and settled in behind you. He brushed aside your hair and placed a soft kiss on the side of your neck before giving you another quick squeeze.

You drifted back to sleep for a while, and when you woke up again, your headache was mostly gone you were relieved that you'd be able to play that night without feeling awful. As you stretched your legs out, Frank shifted, pulling you tighter against him.

"Better yet?" He murmured sleepily.

"Yea," you said, not moving more, afraid of disturbing the comfortable cocoon you two were in.

“So at lunch the guys were talking,” Frank started.

“‘Bout what?” You asked, rolling over.

“Us.”

“Oh?” Your heart rate going up.

“We went to this café for lunch and I got you a cupcake, it’s in the fridge by the way. And they were just wondering if there’s something going on between us.”

“What’d you say?”

“I just brushed it off, they were just giving me shit.”

“Oh,” you said, suddenly feeling a little dejected.

“Do you still wanna keep us a secret?” He asked.

“I dunno," you mumbled. "Do you?”

Frank intertwined his fingers with yours. "It's been kinda fun this way. But I also kinda wanna tell everyone I know that I'm the luckiest dude in the world BECAUSE I'm with you."

“Let's decide later,” you replied. “For right this moment, let’s just enjoy this.”

"Good idea," he replied with a soft smile before leaning in and kissing you lovingly.

#frank iero x reader #frank iero fan fic #frank iero fan fiction #frank iero fanfic #frank iero imagine #my chemical romance fan fic #my chemical romance fan fiction #my chemical romance fanfic #my chemical romance imagine

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drowning-in-dennor · 5 years

Text

Celebration

A one-shot I wrote for Norway’s birthday. Dennor, Sufin, an exhausted writer who did a lot of research.

Disclaimer: There is no guarantee that this fanfic will be good, or that you will like it.

He almost forgets his birthday. What makes him remember is a rude awakening, in the middle of the night.

Norway’s phone screams for his attention the moment his clock reads 12:00 a.m., blaring its shrill tune and startling him off his bed.

Cursing himself for forgetting to mute his phone before sleeping, Norway accepts the call and, trying to hide the sleepiness in his voice, says, “Hello?”

“Happy birthday!”

He drops his phone, ears ringing. Denmark’s voice is echoing again, again, again in his head, and he’s confused. Norway picks up his phone, and, yawning, asks, “What?”

“Oh, how did you forget? It’s your birthday today, Nor, and I called to celebrate!”

Wondering how Denmark can sound so energetic in the middle of the damn night, Norway turns on his lamp and glances at the calendar on his desk. Oh, it’s the seventeenth of May. His constitution day. And his birthday. “Thank you, but why the hell are you calling now?”

“So we can celebrate the moment you become independent, and stuff!”

“So you decide to call when I’m asleep, scaring the crap out of me instead of visiting or calling at a reasonable hour, like a normal human being?”

“Exactly!”

Norway sighs, stifling another yawn. “I’m going back to sleep. Don’t call or visit again until it’s at least 8 o’clock in the morning, or I’ll take your axe and behead you with it. Now good night.”

He hangs up before Denmark can reply.

…

Iceland calls at nine in the morning, while Norway is preparing for a speech he’ll give later at borgertog, the citizens’ parade. One hand holding his cell phone, the other scribbling notes on cue cards, the nation answers the phone. “Hello, Ice.”

“Happy birthday.”

“I didn’t think you’d call today. Denmark woke me up at midnight reminding me about it. I would’ve forgotten if not for that.”

Silence on the other end.

“...Ice?”

He hears squawks, the beating of wings and Iceland shouting. “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Puffin, get off! No, that’s mine! Get — argh!”

On the other side, something drops to the ground with a thump and Iceland starts talking again. “Sorry, Norway. Mr. Puffin was trying to eat my bag. Oh, and by the way, I’m flying over this afternoon to join the parade.”

“Really?” Norway’s mouth twitches with the threat of a smile. “Thank you, Ice. I’ll get you some liquorice when you arrive. Until then?”

“Yeah. See you.”

Iceland hangs up, and Norway turns back to his cue cards, humming a tune.

…

He watches the childrens’ parade from his bedroom window, laughing softly at the kindergarteners and elementary schoolers flooding the streets of Oslo with their loud rendition of his anthem. Middle schoolers lead the way, some waving their school’s banner and others waving his flag.

One cluster of students is the loudest, jumping up and down and cheering. The oldest of the group seem to be barely twelve, dressed in red and blue and white and shouting in joy. Squinting at them tells Norway that the two young boys look rather familiar — one with bright blue eyes and golden hair, the other one a green-eyed redhead.

Sealand and Ladonia?

As though on cue, his phone rings again. He picks it up. It’s Finland.

“Hei, Nor! Happy national day! We’re walking through Oslo right now, almost at your house! How are things?”

“I think the kids snuck into the childrens’ parade.”

“What?”

“I think I saw Sealand and Ladonia with a group of students in the childrens’ parade.”

Finland’s voice goes muffled for a while as he yells for his husband. “Ber?” Norway hears. “Ber, where are Peter and Niklas? Wait, they’re not with you? Oh, sh—” His voice grows loud again. “Sorry, Nor, I need to go. We’ll be at your house by lunch!”

The family shows up at eleven o’clock, as Norway is stirring a pot of brun lapskaus on his stove. Sealand and Ladonia are still dressed in their parade clothes, walking into the dining room with shameless grins and holding little Norwegian flags. “Happy birthday!” They chorus, rushing towards Norway and tackling him in a hug.

Sweden pries the boys off when they appear to be crushing Norway, handing him a small box. “Happy birthday.”

The box reveals a battered bronze locket, engraved with filigree. Inside is a drawing of him, Denmark and Iceland, all of them a good few centuries older. It’s drawn in ink, on yellowing parchment that’s fraying around the edges.

“Found it in the attic,” Sweden says. “You left it here long ago.”

“Thank you, Sweden. I don’t even remember having this, but it’s nice to get it back.” Norway fastens the locket’s chain around his neck and feels the cold metal rest against his heart.

Ladonia and Sealand each hand him a card, written in messy words with brightly-coloured drawings and Gratulerer med dagen scrawled sloppily on top. The childish gifts remind Norway of Iceland.

A cloud of steam rising from the pot brings Norway back to his lapskaus, and he turns the stove off. Bringing out bowls from his cupboard, he turns to his guests with a rare smile.

“Let’s have lunch.”

…

His doorbell rings halfway through lunch and Iceland is standing in the doorway, bag in one hand and puffin in the other. Norway starts smiling again, and he gets up to hug his younger brother.

For once, Iceland doesn’t protest and hugs him back, mumbling “happy birthday” under his breath. He pushes a wrinkled package into Norway’s arms with a smile he tries to hide.

Norway tears the package open and finds a leather-bound book, the pages coming close to falling apart and turning ivory with age. Opening it curiously, his eyes scan over the ink-blotched words and starts to read.

The stars are bright. The moon is in the sky. Norway showed me the pictures in the sky. They are made of stars.

Today, Denmark fell off a horse. His arm was broken, like glass. Norway fixed his arm. He called him an idiot. What is an idiot?

Denmark and Sweden were fighting today. I heard glass break, and Finland was shouting. It was very loud. Norway stayed with me. He said things will be fine.

It takes a few moments before Norway realises that it’s a diary — Iceland’s diary, to be exact, one he’s been writing since he was barely even a nation. On and on these entries go, and Norway reads on wistfully as the writing and subjects both grow more mature.

Sweden and Denmark fought again, like they did so many times before. Norway told me to stay in my room the entire time, but I could hear them. Denmark lost, and I heard him yelling, begging Sweden not to do something. I thought it’d be like the wars the two of them fought before, but apparently not. Denmark came into my room at night, and he said Norway wouldn’t be coming home.

He didn’t say it, but I think Sweden took Norway with him when he won.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I guess I’m used to Norway and Denmark reading bedtime stories before I go to bed. Denmark didn’t read me any bedtime stories. I heard him crying in his room, when he thought I was asleep. I wanted to go over and tell him it was all okay, but his door was locked.

He shouted at me when I tried to talk to him, then locked himself in his room. Denmark refused to eat, too, and I can’t get my food down. I’m too used to the three of us sitting at the dining table, talking and laughing. I’m too used to Norway being around.

I miss him.

Norway doesn’t realise he’s getting misty-eyed until Iceland hands him a tissue paper, looking slightly sheepish. “So… do you like it?”

He crushes Iceland in another hug.

…

The sun is just starting to set when Norway takes his place on the podium at the end of borgertog, cue cards in hand. He clears his throat, looks at the crowd waving flags, and begins to speak.

The words flow from his mouth almost effortlessly, draft completely forgotten. He talks about the days he conquered and slaughtered with Sweden and Denmark, the years when all of northern Europe was under Denmark’s rule, the times when he and Denmark were in a union. His mind keeps drifting back to him, the nation he’s been with as long as he can remember.

And to think he couldn’t make it here today…

Norway’s speech is drawing to a close when he sees a figure make their way towards the front of the crowd, where Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the micronations are standing. Said figure is in a red shirt with a blue-and-white tie, practically bouncing on their feet and with a bright smile Norway knows all too well.

When he bows and starts to walk away from the podium, Denmark’s cheers rise above everyone else’s.

…

Denmark takes it upon himself to make dinner, somehow whipping up a batch of sosekjøtt in less than two hours. The five Nordics finish dinner in next to no time, clinking glasses and laughing, waxing nostalgia about the old times. But Norway notices that nobody talks about Kalmar, and certainly not about the treaty in 1814.

They don’t have cake, instead choosing to share stories. Sweden indulges his sons with stories of their Viking shenanigans, snapping Norway’s spellbooks shut when he tries to show them his magic. Denmark, out of nowhere, bring out his beloved axe, convincing Norway to fish out his ancient mace from a thousand years ago. Denmark shows drawings of his Protest Pig, Norway drawings of his troll. Slowly, gradually, everyone else seems to fade away.

Sweden and Finland whisk the children away when it’s almost midnight, leaving the house with cheery farewells. Denmark jumps from his seat at that with a grin, hopefully reaching for Norway’s hand. The latter glances at Iceland for a moment, and he stares back. “What? Go spend some alone time with Denmark. The worst that could happen to me out here is if I see your bills and faint out of shock.”

Norway takes Denmark’s hand and leads him upstairs.

The two of them shut the door to Norway’s bedroom and sit, side by side, on his bed. Denmark speaks first, his normally loud voice now soft and gentle. “Happy birthday, Norge.”

Shyly, Norway inches closer until there is no space between him and Denmark. He rests his head on the taller’s shoulder, eyelids drooping in exhaustion. “It’s been two hundred and two years,” he murmurs.

“Hmm?”

“Two hundred and two years, since my Constitution was signed.” His eyes close in contentment when Denmark wraps one arm around his waist. “It feels like such a long time ago.”

“Time really does fly, doesn’t it?” Denmark laughs. “It seems like ages ago when I called you at midnight.”

“Oh, that. Well, I’m tired again.”

“Don’t go to sleep yet. I haven’t given you my present yet.”

Norway straightens up a little, staring into Denmark’s bright blue eyes. “Oh?”

Before he realises what’s happening, gentle fingers curl under his chin and lift his face up, and Denmark seals their lips in a kiss.

“I love you,” he whispers against Norway’s lips.

“I love you too,” Norway whispers back.

A/N: The ending is stupid and cliche, but I’m currently really tired and I need some cheesy Dennor fluff to keep me awake so there you go.

#aph dennor #aph sufin #aph denmark #aph norway #aph sweden #aph finland #aph iceland #aph anko family #aph hanatamago family #aph fanfiction #oneshot #my writing #hetalia

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bubmyg · 6 years

Text

in a rose garden of geraniums - myg

genre: flower shop!au; soulmate!au

summary: Yoongi really wishes his soulmate would stop etching dicks all over his hands when he’s supposed to be marketing delicate flowers to potential brides, apologetic husbands, and broke college students who, for some reason, want an arrangement that passive aggressively says fuck you.

parts: one: geraniums, two: asters, three: roses

note: ahh my first full length fic!! enjoy ❤️🌸

geraniums: expected or unexpected meeting; foolishness

Yoongi hated ballpoint pins. Specifically the shitty ones from the shitty Staples store down the street that always sold him shitty paper clips and shitty folders and shitty excuses for pens. It was the cheap ones, the ones he could buy in a bulk pack of thirty-six for eight dollars that would last the store at least a couple of weeks before he was flipping the closed sign on the glass door for fifteen minutes and wandering down to retrieve more shitty pens.

He could probably afford better quality pens, maybe the assortment pack of twenty-four that included blue and red ink for just four dollars more than his current predicament. Those had the fancy hooks he could clip into his belt and whip out to scrawl on the tiny notepad tucked into his back pocket rather than scurrying back to the front desk and snatching a shitty one with a lost cap that was probably all dried out, half scratching the notes from the customer that he’d half to redo later anyway.

Maybe Yoongi resented those shitty pens because he’d mistaken the word anemone for amaryllis and made an entire wedding party boutonnieres of the lush red flowers only to be cursed out by an angry mother-in-law wielding a lavender bouquet and a lavender slash of fabric from the bridesmaid dresses that most certainly did not match his creations they paid for.

“Do you have any idea what the pictures are going to look like?” She’d screeched, wide rimmed glasses held in place by a delicate chain hooked over her ear nearly toppling to the glass covered register.

“No, ma'am,” Yoongi had answered earnestly, “Do you?”

He mostly hated the idea of big business mass producing an item in shitty quality simply because consumers would buy and buy and buy no matter if the pen lasted long enough for them to streak a single letter to the back of their hands. In a world where soulmates were connected by writing into skin, the words and characters and drawings and messages transmitted past pores and across land, boundaries, oceans. Even the unemployed beggar, after a quick stint for shoplifting, taking residence outside the nearest McDonald’s could afford to snatch up one of the very things he’d try to steal to use for an afternoon (and an evening, if he was lucky and shook the plastic body hard enough).

Supply and demand, free market economy, capitalism.

The tiniest part of Yoongi, the one swelling and taking up the most space in the throbbing frontal lobe of his conscious, hated those shitty pens because they were either the only things his soulmate seemed to have access to, or they had fallen directly into the trap he hated.

Okay, or maybe he hated those pens because you kept drawing dicks on his palms. If his soulmate was going to act like a twelve year old middle schooler who just discovered porn, the least they could do is make them good quality. Fill in the lines, add some details, or, most preferred, just stop drawing fucking dicks on his hands.

Yoongi convinced himself that his soulmate was some sort of manic masochist that enjoyed parading around with male genitalia inked into their skin. He was an idiot to assume that you would tell others that was your own doing. It angered him further than a handful of people in the world probably thought he was this raging hormonal asshole that simply wanted to coerce sexual favors in the eventual meeting of his soulmate.

In a way, it was some kind of reverse plagiarism that people thought the intricate casts of flowers vining around the knuckles and up the forearms of his soulmate were their own doing.

He considered himself a gentleman among a world of cheap, eight dollar a package, pen consumers. Yoongi used markers. Stashed in the bottom drawer of the register, protected by a reinforced plastic tub complete with clicking handles and the manual receipt book that he hadn’t touched other than to move it back and forth to access his rich ceruleans and lush greens and love stained reds.

There was something romantic about the tiny smudges of ink left over on the pads of Yoongi’s index finger and thumb that would surely bleed through to his soulmate. They were like tiny petals off the flowers he etched from memory, smudged around the edges and blurred unless you squinted, marking him to you wherever you may be, just as a fluttering droplet of velvet in a soft summer breeze still belonged to the circumference of pollen lain pistil that waved sadly from it’s rooted position in a garden box on an apartment window in the city in mourning of it’s long lost petal.

Shitty pens couldn’t do that.

But Yoongi wasn’t in mourning for you. There was a dull ache in his heart that could only be filled by you, that’s just how it was, but he wasn’t actively seeking you out. He wasn’t hiring a detective from the special task force rooted in center city like his love sick fool university roommate Seokjin had, he wasn’t quitting his job to wander aimlessly around the world with money he did not have with a lesser percentage of finding you than just staying put in his shabby little flower shop he’d purchased with his tax return check, and he certainly wasn’t going to just etch out a map of directions on the meat of his thigh for you to follow.

If the universe’s selection of soulmates was natural then so should the meeting. And in the meantime, Yoongi was going to draw you as many of the pretty flowers as he could in the span of time between a frantic looking husband and a tittering group of women screeching wedding party! through the drag of his painstaking shifts.

No one understood their soulmate markings at a young age. He assumed the blotches of crayon oil and red ink had been his own doing, something he’d accidentally swiped over his coloring page in primary school or blotched onto his thumb by accident in admiring the high marks on his spelling test. You’d had yours explained to you sooner, ten year old you starting out with squiggly Hi’s that faded into the void of existence before Yoongi could probably squint at the twinge in the middle of his forearm. His mother explained it to him because of you, finding the remnants of a cartoon flower on the back of his hand one evening when he was assisting her with the washing up.

She’d shown him the grocery list scrawled to her palm, a mix of drawings that ranged from detailed to child’s play, a way to coax his father into doing the shopping himself if he wanted those pen marks off his skin.

Straight words, greetings, attempts at addresses, even the slightest snippet of an alphabet, faded within minutes. Tattoos were the same on each person, permanent.

Drawings stayed until the original creator washed them off.

You couldn’t quite grasp that at first, trying to communicate with him in the only ways an elementary child knew how. Hi, my name is ___. How are you today? What’s your favorite color?

Yoongi’s first, and only, piece of information he knew about you came when you’d discovered a way to ask him his favorite color without articulating the sentence. You’d drawn a series of circles on his hands, all filled in with various fades of color you’d pressed crayons into. On his wrist, you’d scrawled a green check with a question mark.

What’s your favorite color?

The blue circle just under the ridge of his third knuckle contained your own tiny green checkmark.

Hoseok never knew why Yoongi kicked his shin to retrieve his green, gel pen, one that he had promptly used to scrawl a check next to the prominent red drowned in a faded opacity from the transfer of drawings across the map of your skins.

It was like you’d become bored with the prospect of having a soulmate after than day in year four. Nothing prominent came from you for years after that, nothing but smudges of ink and pencil lead on the underside of his left hand telling him that you were, at the very least, still alive.

So he knew one more piece of information about you. You were left handed.

Yoongi never tried to push the issue by reaching out to you through his own skin. He washed his hands religiously, not wanting to bother you with the smudges of ink off his books filled with music or the streaks of red pen from incessant lyric writing. He graduated, he went away to college, and he almost thought he began to get over the prospect of finding you as he lay awake staring at the tiny ceiling of his tiny dorm room one evening. With no marks to show on either of you, surely the opportunity of finding you had long since passed.

And then the dicks started appearing, somewhere in the middle of his junior year of music school when he was supposed to be evaluated by his private piano professor. He nearly died of embarrassment on his bench, failing the exam from the angry twitch of his joints as they desperately tried to cup away to hide the marks rather than properly execute the sheet music laid out before him.

But he graduated again and the dicks kept appearing. In the beginning, it was every day, the ink fresh and renewed and rippling across the lines of Yoongi’s expansive palms. The week he was to go to the bank to acquire the deed for the tiny run down shop pressed between a bakery and a clothing store became the first and only time he tried to wash away soulmate marks even if he knew they wouldn’t come off.

His hands were raw by the time he escaped from his bathroom two hours later, angry and red and smelling of the entire bottle of lavender hand soap he’d went through.

The frequency died away in the next couple of months, becoming an every other day thing until eventually it was once a week, the lines fading until Sunday’s when they were renewed again in staggered streaks of what was clearly the work of those shitty pens.

Yoongi tried fingerless gloves after a horrified elderly woman had informed him she would be reporting his perverted antics to her long list of friends on Facebook. He’d lost the business of headstone arrangements for a few months and had to apply for another loan, a meeting he was to attend the same day a tiny penis appeared on the curved edge of his thumb. Full gloves weren’t an option during the busy season of Valentine’s day and full coverage foundation became the remedy until he was shaking the hand of a disgruntled boyfriend who’d bought the first bouquet in the display case near the front door and smeared the grimy makeup all over the horrified O of the man’s face who had immediately assumed the substance was anything but foundation.

It was his second year of owning the shop when Yoongi decided to combat your antics after being dubbed the penis florist on a comedy column of his alumnus university’s monthly journal. He bought the good markers from Staples, a step above Crayola, the ones without the guarantee that they would wash off in the bath, the ink like concrete in that it would certainly be one thing.

Permanent.

He had half the mind to photocopy something gruesome onto his skin, like those flimsy tattoos handed out in elementary school on Halloween, depicted their favorite superhero or Disney cartoon of the decade. Instead his would be a graphic depiction of a broken arm, maybe a cockroach gnawing on someone’s ear in their sleep, a crying dog.

It was the same voice that had pricked tears into the back of his eyes that one evening in his dorm room at the prospect of never meeting you that stopped him midway to the printer in the backroom of the flower shop. There was still a chance, a small chance, but odds to bet on, nonetheless, that he would meet you someday.

And when that day came, he didn’t want you to hate him. He didn’t hold a grudge for the dicks, but he couldn’t even begin to fathom your tolerance for bullshit.

Okay, Yoongi didn’t hold a big grudge.

He drew the first thing that came to his mind, the thing he was surrounded in, the thing that reminded him and propelled his prospective career in music forward. He began to draw flowers, intricate vines up the canvas of his appendages. It started first as a tiny picture on the back of his hand that eventually grew up the expanse of his forearm to die away into the crook of his elbow. He overdid it with the curved edges of tulips, the expanding ends of roses, the sweet circles of daisies. He drew you an entire garden, one that professed and promised his eventual love if you were ever to find him.

He wasn’t a complete cynist.

It became a game, the more prominence of the childish drawing on his palm, the more flowers he added around his arm. It was good business too, advertisement for the shop, a way to distract from the male body parts coating his open palms when he gestured for cash or check or credit cards in exchange for one of his creations that likely mirrored a piece on his arms.

Yoongi began to add what he created, placing in the mistaken boutineers for the wedding just on the underside of his wrist, matching the prom bouquet he’d made for a starry eyed teenager and his tight lipped mother in April just under his elbow, stretching the lines of an anniversary gift he’d made complete with a pastel pink bow to waiver just on the freckled skin of his bicep. They were beautiful, they were art, and they were a connection to you. That was enough for him to continue his drawings.

A bouquet of roses was awaiting pickup, a voice Yoongi had guessed was either an expensive businessman in coattails in need to apologize to his secretary who might also be his mistress, or maybe just a concerned father retrieving a last minute mother’s day gift for his daughter to give to his ex-wife.

Quite frankly, no, there was no inbetween.

Yoongi twirled his red marker in his fingers, eyeing the outline of thick black. He hadn’t drawn the roses as a bouquet but rather a beautiful flowing vine, casting up the edges of his wrists. It wasn’t a day he needed to add to his drawings, in fact, the drawings that were the bane of his existence had faded considerably in the last two weeks. But he wanted to as the creation of flush roses under his nose he’d just received in a shipment were so exquisite that he almost didn’t want to pass them off to a cheating husband or a wistful ex husband.

He hummed, following the tune of the delicate crescendo of a piano filtering from his laptop tucked behind a display of “Freshly Picked!” daisies. Stark red stained against his skin as he lazily began to color, almost as if a sleepy toddler back in the days of primary school. He smacked his lips together, pursed in the concentration of his furled eyebrows over his newest creation on his arm.

An angry red mark appeared across Yoongi’s skin as he startled, yet he barely had time to curse himself or the entering customer for slamming his door against a stand of metal yard caterpillars waving to the streets outside as said customer was suddenly in front of him.

A wad of crumbled bills was thrown in front of him, one of the largest catching on a stem of the rose bouquet. His pouted mouthed rimmed into a large circle, eyes connected the dots of the scattered currency before lifting to find an extremely beautiful and an extremely angry girl looming over him.

Yoongi watched as she sifted stray strands of sweaty hair behind her ears, allowing him full access to gaze dumbly into the beaded fury rolling off the entirety of her aura.

“Hi,” He stuttered, startled again when clammy palms caused his red mark to slip from his grasp and clatter against the glass. “How can I help-”

“Hello,” She seethed coolly, cutting him off with a bored flick of her wrist. Her elbows knocked into the counter, face in her palms as she leaned forward, a wickedly evil smile stretching joylessly over cracked lips. “How does one, for the sake of the conversation, say fuck you with flowers?”

#min yoongi #bts #bts reactions #bts scenarios #yoongi scenario #yoongi scenarios #min yoongi scenarios #bts imagine #bts fic #yoongi imagine #min yoongi imagine #yoongi fic #bts x reader #yoongi x reader #min yoongi fic #i have zero idea what else to tag this ancndn #i hope this formats correctly ill fix it when i get home from dinner if it didnt!!!

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flowerconcept-blog · 7 years

Text

prince!hoshi

req’d by anon!!!

truly just the sweetest softest kindest boy in the whole country, and incredibly humble considering he’s also THE PRINCE

growing up the country totally adored him because he was so mischievous and cute, he would attend public events with his parents and would always manage to wiggle his way out of his bodyguard’s line of sight and run into the crowds to play with a dog he saw or kiss a baby

like ……. his parents hired an extra secret service guard for him after each event but even when there were ten of them watching him he was able to goof off and make the public laugh

as he got older he didn’t get less mischievous, but in public he had to behave better and also he was too big to sneak away :-( so most of the mischief happened in the palace

soonyoung and his bff seokmin, the head of staff’s son, would wreak havoc

it’s not like soonyoung didn’t want to be a prince as a child…..but his etiquette lessons bored him and he didn’t like the idea of being “refined” and “regal”

because that wasn’t his personality!!!! and it never would be

the only class he liked at all was his dance class, because he liked the instructor a lot and he really loved dance itself, something that he grew more and more passionate about over the years

so he ditched a lot of his dumb classes, and he and seokmin would spook the butlers and leave whoopie cushions on seats in the council room and run away from the guards hooting and hollering

one time they tried to sneak off the palace grounds into the city w/o protection….. the guards at the gate nearly had an aneurism but finally got them back inside the palace

they gave a lot of people headaches but the staff of the castle loved them anyways

because no matter how silly he was, prince soonyoung would always help the maids carry sheets to guest rooms, bring carrots to the stables for the horses, set the dinner table alongside the staff, basically he would just be humble and lovely and helpful

he never ever thought he was better than them and he always wanted to learn how to do things, whether it was baking bread or grooming a horse or gardening

in particular he spent a lot of time in the kitchens with seokmin, sometimes trying to steal snacks (they always got caught) but also just hanging out with the cooks

the head chef, a middle aged woman, loved soonyoung to death!!!! and sometimes acted like more of a mother than his actual mom did, and if he ever scraped his knee or anything the first thing he would do would go crying to the kitchens

he never got good at cooking despite all of the chefs trying to teach him his favorite recipes, but it never stopped him from trying, bless his lil heart

by the time it was time for him to go to school his parents had gotten a tiny bit fed up with his dislike of his royal tutors, so they decided to send him to boarding school just outside the capital of the country

honestly high school wasn’t HORRIBLE for soonyoung, but he missed the palace and seokmin and being able to see his people, and when he graduated he really wanted to go to college in the capital …. and because he did well in school his parents let him apply to whatever school he wanted, which was only like 20 minutes walking from the palace

because soonyoung didn’t like acting superior to anyone he compromised with his parents (who wanted him to live in the palace w/ full security) and ended up living in a little apartment near his campus

which ……. is right next door to your little apartment!!!!

you don’t go to college, in fact you’ve actually just started to work in the palace kitchens because you’re saving up to go to college!!!! until then you’re capitalizing off of being an incredible baker and working in the palace

but you want to be able to take classes in business and start your own little cafe, which is a dream since you were young …… you figure that actually understanding business is necessary to own your own, but you don’t know ….. anything about it

anyways, when soonyoung moves in you’re surprised to walk out the elevator on a normal sunday morning and see ????? a bunch of secret service guards in the hallway ?????blocking the route to your home?????

at first you’re panicking because ur like “oh god they’re here because i took a cake home oh no what do i do” but then you realize that there must be something else going on!!!! for a moment you’re trying to figure it out but then you’re like. you’ve gotta get your groceries into your home before your ice cream melts

so you try to sneak past but the guards are stone faced and are like “you can’t go past here” and ur like ????um i live here ?????? and they’re like “provide proof of your residence”

at this point you’re truly confused and about to argue but then you hear a voice go “c’mon guys let them get to their apartment” and you turn and oh my god it’s the prince ??!??!!??!?!

you’ve never seen soonyoung in person despite working in the kitchens, the older staff always tell stories about the prince and talk about how well he’s grown up, but he’s understandably busy now that he’s older so he doesn’t stop by that much anymore

and the times that he has dropped into the kitchens you’ve been off shift

honestly you were sort of jealous of your co-worker friends because they would rave about how handsome and kind he was and u were like!!! i want to see the prince :-(

but seeing him in person you really don’t think your friends were doing him justice … his eyes are sparkling and his skin is practically glowing and his hair looks so soft and MAYBE you’re getting a little too starstruck, but soonyoung is even more handsome than the kitchen intern named mingyu who everyone thinks is a model

and when he smiles toothily at you, you’re like. oh my god. An Angel Is Right In Front Of My Eyes?

meanwhile soonyoung thinks your shocked expression is adorable and he’s excited to have such a cute neighbor, so he sticks his hand out nd introduces himself and you stutter out your name and then you stammer out “i’m sorry i don’t mean to be so rude i’ve just never seen a handsome prince in person”

which. is NOT what you meant to say but soonyoung laughs and his ears go a little pink and you’d probably happily stand there staring for another hour but... … one of the guards is like “your highness-” “PLEASE call me soonyoung” “-uhhh soonyoung you have a lot to unpack before your dinner with your parents”

and the moment sort of fades away, you manage to get into your apartment but of course you can’t stop thinking about soonyoung (and how AWKWARD you are)

you think that even if he wasn’t the prince you would be excited for him to be living next door to you…...in fact you think him being the prince has almost nothing to do with the way you can’t stop thinking about his cheerful smile and kind eyes

little do you know :-) soonyoung is also thinking about you :-)

you wish that you could work up the courage to talk to him again, but you’re afraid of saying something embarrassing again and also he’s a prince!!! he’s surrounded by beautiful rich people that he could be friends or lovers with, so why would he want to be either of those things with you???

however your politeness and friendliness means that you have to give him a welcome gift, so a few days after he moves in, you bake him a cake and leave it at his door with a little note attached to it

and when soonyoung gets home from classes and sees your gift he blushes! he’s so happy!!!! he scrawls out a little thank you note (with a tiny drawing of himself eating cake!! cutie) and puts it on your door, and i’m not saying you stick it on your fridge but yeah you do that

you sort of get into a routine of passing notes between apartments, little things like “hope you have a good day” or “i liked the music you played last night haha,” but you never actually talk to each other :-(

because as famous as soonyoung is, he’s just as nervous to talk to his cute neighbor as you are!!!!

your schedules don’t line up at all so you don’t see each other either, but starting that night you’ll sometimes hear him laughing loudly with someone (seokmin!!!!) and sometimes you hear music playing (as he dances!!!) and it’s oddly comforting to know that he’s there

in fact you don’t see him until one slow day at the kitchens, you’re kneading dough and suddenly you hear the head chef exclaim “soonyoung!” and there he is in the flesh!!!!

many of the staff gravitate towards him, but you watch from afar, nervously trying to decide whether or not you should say hello or if you should just hide

but before you can slip away like a middle schooler with a crush soonyoung catches your eye!!! his smile grows at the sight of your floury apron and rosy cheeks and before you know it everyone’s going back to work and he makes his way over to your little baking station

seeing him in Prince Clothes honestly takes your breath away …. his hair is carefully done and he’s wearing a collared shirt and you don’t know how anyone is allowed to be this attractive?!?!?! especially when they’re also kind and rich !??!?!?!

soonyoung is like “i didn’t know you worked here or i would’ve come by sooner” and internally cringes at how cheesy he sounds…...

but when you duck your head and laugh shyly he figures it was worth sounding c*rny ;(

you talk for a couple of minutes before seokmin comes in and is like “soonyoung we gotta leave to go to this event rn” but before he leaves soonyoung asks if you’d like to come over for dinner on friday and your heart catches in your throat

and you say yes

as soon as he leaves the kitchen seokmin is like whom is that???? and soonyoung is like THAT Is The Most Amazing Person in the World and won’t shut up about how nice you are and how he can’t believe you said yes to getting dinner and seokmin regrets ever asking

friday you go next door to soonyoung’s for dinner………..except he sheepishly explains that he tried to cook and fucked it up ……….so you end up ordering chinese food but it feels more authentically soonyoung so you don’t really mind

and he’s genuinely interested in your interests and job and dreams so you end up talking until like midnight, he tells you about his fear of being king and his wish to help his people and make their lives better and his love of dancing

and as much as he’s interested in your dreams, you’re interested in his …… which is something that soonyoung doesn’t encounter that often ….. people are interested in his title or his image, but not necessarily what drives him and what he loves

and when he tells you he loves to dance and your eyes light up and you ask him to show you some time, he can’t help but lean in to kiss you

it’s only for a second before he realizes what he’s doing, and then he pulls away apologizing but you’re just like. soonyoung!!! don’t be sorry!!!!!!! and kiss him again

it’s your first kiss of many many many many many kisses

both you and soonyoung are always sort of in awe of the other, and for a while it’s difficult for either of you to believe that you’re dating, but slowly you get used to the movie nights and texting and cuddling and it stops being a fairytale

not that it isn’t still amazing!!! but soonyoung appreciates that you don’t expect a fairytale from him and understand that he’s just a normal guy who happens to be royalty, and you appreciate that he doesn’t want you to be royalty or famous, he loves you just the way you are

he starts stopping by the kitchens a lot more and the head chef totally knows and teases both of you about it, but also one day she tells you that she couldn’t have thought of a better fit for soonyoung and you can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day

despite soonyoung’s love of skinship, he wants your relationship to be private and intimate (because so much of his life has been public) so even after you’ve been together for a few years and the public knows about it your relationship the real affection is behind closed doors

but when ur in one of your apartments he will cuddle you until you overheat and literally need him to let go

he LOVES your baking and supports you wholeheartedly in your dream of opening a cafe!!!! it takes a long time but when you save up enough money and finally buy a little storefront near the castle he cuts the ribbon and obviously since prince soonyoung likes the cafe you do really well

but as he always tells you….. he made your talent known to the public but you’re the one who really made your dream come true, not him

he dances for you sometimes and you think it’s the most wonderful thing in the world!!!!! you encourage him to show people and it actually gets him to start teaching dance classes to underprivileged kids in the city !!!!!

when the two of you are wrapped under the covers and he whispers about his worries that everyone sees him as “the prince” and not as soonyoung ….. you kiss his nose and tell him that there is no universe that you wouldn’t have fallen in love with him, prince or not

#hoshi scenarios #seventeen scenarios #seventeen #hoshi #seventeen imagines #me: im gonna write a short thing #me: writes 2.4k of prince soonyoung #i hope this is good! i didnt proof read cause im TIRED but hopefully it's alright #i love u guys !!!!!!!!!!!!#and i hope u like it!!!!!!

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starshua · 7 years

Text

k.sy ❥ a little push

soonyoung x reader

gif; mine

word count; 2.1k

synopsis; highschool!au, soonyoung and y/n just need a little push. based off of prompt 37, “can i kiss you?”

✎ listen,,,i know this is late but happy birthday to seventeen’s squishy dance leader ily soonyoung also the gif doesn’t exactly match up with the story bc i said he has dark hair but shhh

A gentle breeze drifted through the air, slowly dragging its incorporeal essence through the vivid leaves decorating the oak tree that overshadowed everything in sight. The individual blades shook as the wind strayed past the curtains of your classroom to softly caress your visage. The students around you shuddered at the sudden coldness, but you merely trained your gaze on the raven locks in front of you. Swallowing, you resisted the urge to run your fingertips through the silky strands just inches from your face.

No, you told yourself as you busied your restless hands with doodling, praying that decorating the blank page laid out in front of you would calm your restive digits. The boy that occupied your thoughts slumped in his chair, effortlessly snatching your attention from your drawings and stilling your fist. He hurriedly scribbled something on a sticky note and pressed it to your desk, breathing a sigh of relief when the teacher kept his eyes on the whiteboard. Quickly, you reached for the slip of paper and placed it in your notebook.

“Wanna sneak up onto the roof after school?” it read. You scrunched your eyebrows and peered over at him, judging that he was in earnest from the way that he twirled his pen around in his grasp, a nervous habit that you would often catch him doing when he would ask you to do strange things with him. Letting out a resigned puff of air, you scrawled out a reply and stuck it onto his back, patting it a few extra times just for the fun of it. He released a poorly contained laugh into the back of his hand and reached to grab it as soon as the teacher was distracted.

“Sure, Soonyoung. Any specific reason?” it asked. A bright smile graced his face, lighting up his features and pushing up his cheeks in that way you loved to tease him for. He snuck a quick look at you and shook his head in response. You gave him a nod in acknowledgment and went on doodling little stars.

A specific reason, huh? he mused. While Soonyoung did enjoy his odd adventures, this little excursion was more for you than for him. Sure, he would get a thrill out of evading the teachers and lounging in a place where students were forbidden, but in truth, he just wanted to see that look on your face. He wanted to see the joy on your face—the glee that would flood your cheeks with pink and make your eyes shine like stars against the night sky—as you gasped at the breathtaking view overlooking the little city that the two of you shared.

Of course, there was no way in hell he would ever say that out loud.

“Soonyoung, shut up!” you hissed at the boy crouching at your side. “Do you wanna get caught?” He attempted to stifle his chuckling as you both rounded the corner, barely evading the sight of a grumpy history teacher.

“Well, no, obviously. I just want to have a bit of fun, y/n. Is that so much to ask?” he whispered, his signature smirk displaying his unyielding confidence and accentuating his sly orbs. You rolled your eyes at him and grabbed his wrist, dragging him through the hall and up the stairwell before any staff could catch you. He clutched at your arm and kept pace with you until you both stopped, panting and exhilarated, in front of the locked door to the roof. Chuckling, Soonyoung bent down and fished around in his pocket, finally bringing out a single bobby pin.

“...Did you steal that from me?” you asked as he began picking the lock. He let out a high-pitched laugh and licked his lips, not even sparing a moment to tear his gaze away from the doorknob.

“Maybe?” he said, his tone betraying his otherwise vague insinuation. You smacked him lightly on the head, enjoying the small Hey! that escaped his throat.

“C’mon, you must have over a hundred of those things. Do you really need this one?” he inquired. In his defense, he wasn’t entirely incorrect. You did own way too many bobby pins, especially considering they were more for visitors in your home than for yourself. It wasn’t the missing pin that you were flustered about, however.

“When did you even take that?” you asked him incredulously. He shrugged and raked a hand through his hair while maintaining the movements of his hand against the lock.

“Uh, remember when I came over to work on that science project like two weeks ago? It was when I told you all about my friend Minghao wanting to break into this weird room in his house,” he explained, pausing to gasp when the locked clicked. Your ears perked up at the sound and you trained your sight on Soonyoung as he stood and threw the door open.

“Wait, you took it to break into his—whoa,” you said, a bewildered grin pushing its way onto your face. You stepped out onto the roof and gaped at the sight before you. The view of the city was wondrous—each building stood proud and tall, the beautiful shine of each edifice reflecting off of the glittering river near the street that you and Soonyoung resided on. The setting sun cast a golden glow on your surroundings, filling the world with a layer of honey and warmth. The air itself seemed to shimmer around your starstruck form as you twirled around to look at Soonyoung. He smiled softly and stepped toward you with an odd look in his eye that you couldn’t quite place.

“So...you like it up here?” he inquired. You let out a breathy laugh and beamed at him, loving the way the breeze tussled his hair. He met your gaze ardently, his expression bringing heat to your cheeks.

“Are you kidding? I love it up here,” you told him happily. He grinned widely and let you take his hand as you led him to the perimeter of the roof. Placing your hands on the ledge, you took in a breath and closed your eyes, allowing the breeze to play with your hair and envelop you in its chilly grasp.

Soonyoung observed the relaxed slump of your shoulders and the swell of your chest as you breathed in the brisk air, memorizing the blissful curve of your lips and the feeling of your fingertips ghosting over the back of his hand. He was beyond enamored with you—he was positively enchanted. You were beautiful, otherworldly so, and you made his heart flutter with every look, every breath, every word.

The two of you stood in silence, too enraptured by the view to tarnish the ethereality by speaking. After a few moments of fiddling with Soonyoung’s fingers, you opened your eyes and examined the world in front of you. The sky had gotten darker, the rich flaxen having melded to a burnt titian. You looked to the courtyard down below and watched the remaining students gradually trickle through the school gates, each one of them appearing equal parts exhausted and content. You sighed and squeezed Soonyoung’s hand, his dazed look abruptly changing to a curious stare as you captured his attention.

“I think we should go home, don’t you?” you asked, your voice tender and sweet. The boy nodded slowly and followed you as you led him down the steps, his hand never leaving yours. The rooftop door clicked shut behind you, locking away the wonderland that you and Soonyoung had discovered. Its effects continued to linger on your adolescent frames, keeping your eyelids droopy and shoulders limp.

Soon your thoughts returned to the world that you would have to face—more accurately, to the stack of homework that you would likely have to assist your companion in completing—and your stupor dissipated into the air as smoothly as it had descended upon you. Soonyoung’s thoughts, however, remained entirely devoted to you. He recalled the countless times his friends had encouraged him to confess, Jihoon’s cranky tone and Seokmin’s sincere advice bringing a smile to his cheeks.

“You just need a little push,” his friends had told him, finishing their encouragement with a playful shove. Truth be told, Soonyoung would often find himself dwelling on that particular advice. There had been countless times when his self-control had worn thin and his feelings had nearly thin, and his feelings had nearly leaped from the tip of his tongue, but he had always managed to hold himself back.

Being so absorbed in his recollections, Soonyoung wasn’t even aware that his steps had slowed to a halt. You stalled your movements and turned to rest your eyes upon his countenance once again, curiously taking note of the nervous bobbing of his Adam’s apple.

“Soonyoung?” He met your gaze anxiously and gripped your hand just a bit tighter. What’s gotten into him? you wondered. He opened his mouth to speak, but not a sound could escape his lips before a voice called out from behind you.

“GO FOR IT SOONYOUNG!” someone shouted. Bewildered, you turned to see Seungkwan staring at the two of you with wide, glittering eyes. You turned back to Soonyoung and released a light laugh at his friend’s silly antics.

“Go for what?” you asked, refusing to get your hopes up.

There’s no way Soonyoung likes me...right? you wondered disbelievingly. You had spent your entire freshman year convincing yourself to ignore the little glances that he would throw your way, the frequent ghosting of his fingers across your skin, the dazzling grin that would light up his visage whenever he saw your face. You told yourself that it was just your imagination, that your ridiculous crush on him was making you think silly things.

You couldn’t have been more wrong, of course. Soonyoung had been infatuated with you since your days as middle schoolers, back when you were still growing into yourselves and exploring your untouched passions.

A little push, huh? he mused as he gazed at your expectant face. That was more like an awkward shove.

Soonyoung’s eyelashes fluttered upon his cheeks, his blinking gradually snapping him out of his thoughts. He rubbed circles on the back of your hand and lifted his unoccupied palm to your cheek. Slowly, he leaned closer to you, his breath gently ghosting against your lips.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered. You blinked a few times in surprise, not believing your ears and convincing yourself that the river below you had merely distorted his words. It was only when you took note of his firm, unwavering stare that it hit you—Soonyoung, your childhood friend and longtime crush, was just as enamored with you as you were with him.

“Yes,” you responded with a nod, your voice so delicate that he wondered if your words would shatter before him.

Tentatively, Soonyoung leaned forward and closed the distance between your faces, his palm steady against your face, his other hand never leaving the delicate tangle of your digits. The kiss was gentle and sweet, too short to satiate the years of pent-up attraction but long enough to leave you with your toes curling and shivers shooting down your spine. Soonyoung pressed his forehead against yours and closed his eyes, basking in the infinitesimal distance between the two of you and finally breathing a sigh of relief.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for years now,” he admitted, his cheeks as pink as the sky that surrounded the setting sun. You giggled and placed your hand on top of the palm that cradled your face, unconsciously leaning into his touch.

“Me too,” you said breathlessly. Glancing up at him, you took note of the way his eyes shone as a shy grin slipped its way onto his visage. You cast him a coy smile and stepped backward, hoping that the cool breeze blowing above the river would ease the heat rising to your cheeks. Soonyoung ambled to your side and leaned against the edge of the bridge, his dreamy stare aimed toward the glistening aqua. The lucidity of the gloaming light bestowed an opalescent shine upon the stream below, its soothing waters calming the rapid beating of your heart.

Without a word, Soonyoung grasped your hand once again, his fingers immediately intertwining with yours. The two of you drifted down the street, easily slipping back into your routine and heading toward the neighborhood that the two of you shared.

Seungkwan watched the both of you meander hand in hand and smirked. He tapped his phone screen and laughed to himself, eagerly awaiting the replies of the eleven other boys in the group chat when they saw the video that he had taken of the long-awaited kiss.

“Soonyoung will kill me for this but...oh well,” he declared with a content smile. “It’ll be worth it.”

It was only when his phone buzzed a few minutes later that the boy felt the first inklings of fright in his heart.

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musicalluna · 7 years

Text

perspective

this is for @ivory-leigh with special thanks to @onemuseleft for her help with the idea

i super didn’t mean to write this tonight but the idea was SO GOOD and i’ve really been jonesing to write

In the weeks following what they're calling The Battle of New York, Bruce settles into the Tower with an incredible ease.

The floor Tony designed for him is shockingly well-suited to his tastes and needs considering how Tony likes to claim he's not a team-player. Bruce suspects each floor is equally well-designed and perhaps that's why they're all able to slip into a routine so quickly.

It feels like something missing has slotted into place and Bruce can tell just by looking at the others' faintly bewildered expressions when they look around at the space they share that they feel the same.

Still, Bruce never looks toward Harlem.

He's...content right now, but it's only a matter of time before Ross decides to try again or his teammates are reminded that he's a barely-restrained monster, not their friend.

Even Natasha seems to have forgotten, despite the fact that she still can't walk on the ankle he caused her to injure.

“Knock knock, anybody home?”

Bruce startles, Tony's voice coming from right behind him.

He covers his heart and turns to glare. “Are you still prodding at my fault lines?”

Tony raises his eyebrows. “A) You have no faults, Brucie, B) of course I am, and C) it wasn't actually on purpose this time, I called your name like ten times and you didn't answer.”

Bruce gives him a wry look. “So you thought you'd just come in anyway?”

Tony gasps softly, like Bruce has mortally wounded him. “You could have been bleeding on the floor for all I knew.”

Trying not to smile, Bruce gets to his feet and brushes off his pants before turning a look on Tony. “No, I couldn't've.”

Tony looks back. “Nah, probably not.”

“Why are you really here?”

Tony's shoulders hop in a too-casual little shrug. “Just wanted to see what you were up to.”

“Mhm.” Bruce waits.

He watches in amusement as Tony starts to wander, nudging anything within reach with his fingertips. He fiddles with a lampshade and moves a coaster, fans out a stack of books on one of the side tables so he can see portions of the covers. Finally, he says, “So have you gone through your fanmail?”

Bruce is surprised and the question stings a little. Tony teases but he's careful to avoid rubbing salt in Bruce's wounds. It hurts to have him do it finally.

Swallowing, Bruce says as evenly as he can, “I don't get fanmail.”

Tony looks up, frowning. “What? Of course you do.”

Bruce's hands clench into fists and he manages to choke out, “It's not funny, Tony—”

“I'm not joking,” Tony replies, still surprised and incongruously serious. “At least, not unless I'm hallucinating the bag of mail in the living room that's starting to overflow.”

When Bruce just stares at him, Tony beckons him with two fingers and walks off.

Not sure what else to do, Bruce follows.

They ride the elevator up to the communal floor and Bruce hesitantly follows Tony out into the main space, feeling like he's being set up for one of those prank shows or something. Steve is lying on the couch with a book and he glances up at their entrance. “Hey, fellas.”

“Your shoes are on my couch,” Tony says, in lieu of a greeting and Steve flushes and swings his feet off the couch, sitting up.

“It's our couch.”

“Our couch,” Tony amends agreeably. Then he waves a hand with a flourish. “See?”

Sure enough, sitting in the corner next to a few other half-full bags of mail labeled with the others' names is a sack labeled BRUCE.

Bruce isn't quite sure what he feels at the sight of it, but it fills his throat. He shakes his head after a moment. “I don't think I want to know what's in those letters.”

“Yes, you do,” Steve says, voice gentle and earnest. “I've gotten some really nice ones from kids in Brooklyn.”

Bruce takes a step back and shakes his head again. “Mine won't be like that.”

“Wrong,” Tony replies and reaches into the bag. The envelope he pulls out is already open and it's got a rainbow sticker on it. Tony shakes out the piece of paper inside and clears his throat. “Dear Hulk,” he reads, “You're green. Green is my favorite color. I love you. Love, Gina.”

The fullness in Bruce's throat only gets worse when Tony gives him a look over the top of the letter as if to say, How do you like them apples?

“It really says that?” Bruce croaks.

“Look for yourself,” Tony says and turns the letter around, holding it out.

Bruce accepts it, hand only trembling a little.

The letter is written in green crayon and Bruce stares at it, reading it over and over. Green is my favorite color. I love you.

I love you.

Tony is watching him, expression soft, when Bruce looks back up. “They can't all be like this.”

“Can and are,” Tony replies, breaking eye contact and crouching to take a few more out of the bag. “The shitty ones go elsewhere.” He pulls a folded up piece of paper out of a pink envelope and peels it open. He smiles. “Look at that.”

What he shows Bruce is a drawing of a green blob with an orange scribble on top of the head. A bit of the green blob is separated and there's a green circle at the end with a bunch of green lines extending upward. Those are topped with big loops of purple and red and pink.

“Is that the Hulk with flowers?” Steve says and Bruce can hear him smiling. It is unmistakably that, even crude as it is. “How about that.”

Bruce takes a few steps forward and takes that one, too. Ann is scrawled in one of the corners in huge letters. One of the ens is backwards.

Tony starts reading again. “Dear Mr. Dr. Banner, When I grow up I am going to be a scientist. My girl friend thinks I should be a fire man. I have decided to get a new girl friend. Your fan, Trey.” By the time he's finished, Tony and Steve are both laughing. “You're a homewrecker, Banner,” Tony says between fits of giggles.

Still smiling, Steve joins Tony by the bag, picking one out himself. While he opens it, Bruce sits down on the floor next to Tony to get into the letters himself. The bag is bulging, there must be hundreds of them.

“Dear Hulk, Do you know Santa? You are both famous, so I think you do. Tell him I want an Xbox for Christmas. Love, Greg.”

“Oh my god,” Tony says, delighted. He elbows Bruce. “Hey, can you get me in with Santa, too?”

“Shut up,” Bruce says, but he's smiling.

“There are a lot of terrible things about being famous,” Steve says, carefully folding the letter and putting it back into the envelope, “but this is one thing I really get a kick out of.”

“Aw, hey, are you guys doing fanmail without us?”

Bruce twists around to see Clint and Natasha on their way in. Clint has an entire gallon of ice cream under one arm and he's eating right out of it.

“Clint, how many times have I gotta tell you, use a bowl,” Steve says, voice thick with exasperation.

“This is a bowl. A disposable bowl,” Clint replies.

“Give it up,” Natasha advises Steve. “He's hopeless.” She folds her legs and sits next to Steve, bumping her hip against his as she settles. It makes Steve duck his head and smile, which is good to see. They've been fighting to get Steve to stop trying to draw lines between himself and them and it looks like it might finally be working.

“Here,” Tony says, putting a letter in Bruce's hands. “Read this one.”

Bruce glances at him, but he's still focused on the bag, so he takes it and pulls out the letter. This one is written on college rule notebook paper and the handwriting's better. It looks like it was written by a middle or high schooler maybe. “Dear Dr. Banner,” Bruce reads, “I was...” His voice chokes off when he finishes the line.

Dear Dr. Banner,

I was in Harlem in 2011. One corner in our apartment got knocked out when something smashed into it that night. It was my bedroom. It scared me a lot. I had nightmares after that night because I thought the green thing was going to come back.

But then last month the aliens attacked. My mom and I were going to hide when I looked out the window and saw the big green thing again. One of the aliens was headed straight for our apartment and he grabbed it and smashed it on the ground.

You are the big green thing I saw. You saved my apartment and my mom and me. You protected us and now I'm not scared anymore.

Thank you,

Neil

He's clutching the letter so tightly it's crumpled and Bruce reads it three more times before someone carefully extracts it from his grip and replaces it with another. He reads letter after letter from children and preteens and there are even a few from adults thanking him.

Bruce knows he's breathing too shallowly, but what—how—

“God,” he croaks and his voice sounds wrecked, “they think the Hulk is a hero.”

Someone touches his knee.

“He is a hero,” Clint says quietly.

Bruce sucks in a sharp, wet inhalation, his vision blurring even as he stares down at a drawing of a brown haired man in glasses and a big green man in purple pants and a little boy in a red shirt holding hands.

Through their eyes, he doesn't look like a monster at all.

#bruce banner #hulk #bruce feels #musicalluna writes #iron man #tony stark #fluff #avengers #ensemble #onemuseleft #ivory leigh #avengers family #fan letters

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himbowelsh · 7 years

Note

What if the whole time Webster's trying to figure out who the thief is, he's starting a relationship with the infuriating man that usually sits outside the bakery that's next to synagogue Webster passes every day in his way to work. Bonus if Joe didn't know Webster was the detective assigned to his case until he was into deep.

Anonymous asked: Would you like to write a prompt for Webgott in Police/Criminals AU? I’m really curious how it would end for them.

AN: I couldn’t resist turning this into a prompt. I’m literally in love with this idea and it makes the whole scenario so much more interesting!

David trips over the curb.

It's the last straw, the cherry on top of what is already a terrible, terrible morning. He makes a furious sputtering noise, kicks a nearby flowerpot, and almost sends his coffee flying across the street.

It's an overreaction. He knows this, as much as he knows he must look like an idiot -- in his business suit and tie, red faced and furious. He doesn't really have any excuse: been a hard week, and an even worse month. He gets what's coming to him a second later, when his foot connects with the clay flower pot, sending a spike of pain through his ankle.

He draws his foot back to him, cursing under his breath. As a taxi speeds sat him, he shrinks into his too-large suit and wishes he could be invisible.

"Jesus, breathe a little."

The unexpected voice startles him. He jumps, nearly dropping his coffee again, and reels around to face the speaker. It takes him a second of scanning the sidewalk before his eyes land on him; a thin, lanky man balancing a coffee in one hand, sitting outside the coffee shop and lazily reclining with his feet up on the nearest table. Dark eyes regard David from beneath full eyelids, lips pulled up in a mean smirk.

He can't explain it, but something about the man makes him want to kick him. David huffs, drawing himself up with all the dignity he can muster, and scowls at the man. "You try breathing when your coffee's too hot, your bagel's too cold, and you're already fifteen minutes late for work."The guy considers this for a moment before shrugging. "First world problems."

He doesn't know why he's bothering. Clearly this guy doesn't have any job or responsibilities, considering he's sitting outside of a coffee shop in the middle of the morning instead of going anywhere. David needs to get to work, and fast, because David is a responsible adult.

He scans the traffic-packed road again, looking for a place to cross. Cars crowd the streets wherever he looks, beeping and stalling around each other. His lips curl in frustration. "I should have just called a cab, dammit...""You can probably make it in half the time if you sprint,” chimes Slothful Smirking Man, who’s apparently still not done. “I mean, if you can run in that monkey suit."David shoots a harassed glance over his shoulder. "Some people like to look nice for work.""Some people need a Xanax and a vacation,” the man fires back. His feet make a dull thud against the ground as he abruptly sits up straight. “Calm down, fuck. Being late for work one day isn't gonna destroy your career. Just take a breath, and eat your stupid bagel."David stares at the man; he stares back, impassive. For a moment, no one speaks. David hardly dares to breathe over the pulse he can hear pounding in his head, but he forces a few deep breaths into his lungs anyway.

The guy isn’t wrong. It’s a new day. He’s healthy, he’s alive, and he’s got his second-favorite bagel in his hands. Sobel isn’t their commander anymore, so he isn’t going to be crucified for being a few minutes late for work. Everything is alright, all things considered.

He finally exhales, and gives the belligerent man what he hopes passes for a smile. “You've got a point,” he says. “Thanks. Have a nice day."The man nods, leaning back in his seat. "You too, guy," he says, and that’s all David hears before he’s sprinting across the crosswalk.

He’s got a job to do. There’s no need to stress himself out, but he also doesn’t have time for distractions.

When he gets to the station, everything is about the same as expected. Guarnere and Toye are lounging in chairs on opposite sides of the room, tossing a tennis ball back and forth. Each throw barely clears the head of Lipton, who is hunched over his desk in the middle of an impressive pile of paperwork. Welch is texting someone on his phone; by the tiny grin on his face, it’s probably not work-related. Babe looks hungover, and is drooling into his palm like a middle schooler asleep in math class.

David sighs and settle down at his desk. Back to work as usual. He wasn’t sure why he thought taking a day off would help clear his head, but it’s only making it harder to get back in the game. He’s not viewing anything with fresh eyes. There are still no new leads in his museum theft investigation, and if the crook’s pattern holds up, he can expect another caper tonight.

He just doesn’t know where, or what, or -- most importantly -- how.

“Hey, Web,” Babe calls. David, mouth wide open and full of bagel, turns to look at him, and barely manages to catch a letter tossed at his head. Past the bags under his eyes, Babe offers him a mischievous grin. “Letter came for you this morning.”

“Thanks.” David takes a sip of his (cold) coffee and carefully examines the envelope. There’s an address handwritten in big, blocky print. He immediately knows that this isn’t a bill or some kind of notice. Who actually sends letters anymore?

His frown deepens when he opens the letter to reveal a folded piece of paper. He recognizes the same handwriting as on the front, and blinks down at the scrawled message in dumb shock before his eyes widen.

WEB --

YOU THINK YOU CAN CATCH ME? YOU’RE NOT EVEN TRYING. IT’S FUN TO WATCH YOU SCRAMBLE AFTER ME. BETTER LUCK TONIGHT.

-- EIN FREUND AUS DER HÖLLE

Webster grits his teeth and slams it on the table. The bastard has done it again, and now he has one more piece of evidence to add to the growing case file that’s getting him nowhere.

Whoever this crook is, the only thing he knows about him for sure is that he hates him.

The fact is that he doesn’t know another way. As soon as they’ve become conscious of each other’s existence, the strange guy -- who, it occurs to David, must have sat outside the same coffee shop every morning without David even noticing -- is impossible to ignore. He’s loud, he’s sarcastic, and always has a passing comment for David whenever he sees him.

After a few weeks, David finds himself looking forward to the guy’s Words of the Day. He starts looking for him. When he goes into the shop for coffee, he’ll say hello; when he walks out, he’ll wish him a good day. He still kind of wants to kick the guy’s teeth in, but his mornings wouldn’t be the same without him.

Only after he realizes the guy is actually on his mind at work does he decide that something needs to be done. He confides in Lipton, and his friend’s advice is simple: start by having a real conversation.

So, one morning, after a sleepless night spent pouring over his evidence file for the museum burglaries, David drags himself out of bed half an hour early and sets off for the coffee shop.

The stranger does him a favor. David doesn’t have to approach him first, because he speaks up as soon as he sees David approaching the shop. "You're here early,” he calls, and David offers a nervous smile."Wasn't sure if you'd be too, but I figured taking a chance never hurt anyone.""It’s Saturday. I’m waiting for the Shabbat service. It’ll be a while before it starts.” The guy inclines his head across the street, towards the synagogue David has never taken much notice of. Then his eyes scan over the man before him, and he sucks on his lower lip. “I guess ‘taking a chance’ explains the look, though.”

David tries not to blush, and probably fails. He was in such a rush to get out of the house that he hadn’t found the time to slip into his usual shirt. He’s just in a white shirt and tie today, a belt holding up pants that are too small anyway. He didn’t even shave; stubble lines his jaw. He looks like a mess, and standing in front of this man now, he feels like it.

Still, he steels himself and takes a deep breath. "My name's David."The guy stares at him for a second that feels like an eternity. David can’t hear anything over the roaring of his pulse in his ears. His heart is in his throat. There’s no reason for him to be this nervous, but he feels like it’s his first day in the field and he’s just come face to face with a suspect. It’s torture, and he hangs off every second of silence before the man opens his mouth.

"Joe,” he says. His lips curl up into that same infuriating smirk. “You feel like grabbing a coffee?"David doesn’t know if he’s heard right; and when he realizes he has, he can hardly believe it. His face breaks into a blinding grin, and his cheeks ache from the force. "Yeah,” he says, offering the guy a hand to help him up. “Coffee would be fantastic, actually."

His hand grasps Joe’s, and he lifts him to his feet. David doesn’t know what this is, but he knows it’s the start of something. He can’t wait to find out more about the mysterious man who’s so unexpectedly become a part of his life.

#Anonymous #webgott #cops and robbers au #david webster #joe liebgott

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byakuya-mioda · 7 years

Text

System Restore - Five.

FF.net link / AO3 link

First / Previous / Next / Last

Five.

For the third time in twenty-four hours, Hinata awoke without knowing how he had gotten to where he was, or even how or where he’d fallen asleep. In fact, he didn’t even know if he had fallen asleep. One moment he’d been standing on the central island, and then he was sure he’d felt some kind of indistinct darkness, and then…

And then he’d ended up in this seat. No, not just a seat – a desk. Why was he at a desk?

He sat up straight, and felt the heavy weight of Enoshima’s chain dragging at his wrist. This struck him as odd at first, given that he clearly remembered handing her off to Togami, but then he looked to his left and saw Enoshima asleep across one of the desks, drooling an exceptional amount. Togami was seated to his right, wide awake and staring straight ahead. The chain had been stretched out across the desks, right over Hinata’s hands.

“Erm…” Hinata turned to face Togami. “We…”

“Weren’t here before we woke up,” Togami finished. “Astute observation.” He didn’t leave much room for Hinata to reply, so instead Hinata stood, looking left and right for Nanami.

As he looked, he couldn’t help but notice just how odd the room was that he was in. It was some kind of a classroom, with desks arranged in neat rows and a podium up front for the teacher, an announcement board and a blackboard, and… metal plates on the windows, just like the ones burned into his memory from the old lodge. And bright, leopard-spotted wallpaper. And stopped clocks, and yellow security cameras hanging from the ceiling…

He finally saw Nanami asleep against one of the walls, curled in something close to a fetal position. She was only a few desk-lengths away from the door, which, compared to everything else in the room, looked fairly normal.

That was the last of Hinata’s concerns, though. He stumbled up from his desk, nearly knocking Enoshima over, and ran for the front of the room. “Nanami –!”

“Keep your voice down,” Togami said.

Hinata didn’t acknowledge Togami, but he did make an effort to be a little quieter as he approached. He knelt by Nanami’s side, and carefully tucked a few stray strands of hair away behind her ear. Even now, after so many days, her scars shocked him every time he saw them, and her shallow, labored breathing filled him with panic. “Nanami,” he said, softly. “Nanami, wake up…”

“Hmmm…” Nanami’s eyes fluttered open, and her brows furrowed. “Come on… five more… minutes…”

She paused, and then her eyes burst open. Hinata could practically hear her heart racing as she attempted to stand. “We’re – what are we… oh no, oh no…”

“Nanami, it’s alright,” Hinata said, cradling her head. “We’re safe. I don’t know where we are, but… I think we’re safe…”

“We’re at Hope’s Peak Academy,” Togami interrupted. “This is one of the fifth floor classrooms.”

Hope’s…

Hope’s Peak…?!

A shiver ran down Hinata’s spine at the sound of those words – and much more at the idea that he was there. He placed a hand on Nanami’s shoulder, as if to say ‘I’ll be back’, and then sprinted to the door and pulled it open.

The classroom opened up into a cavernous hallway, dimly lit and painted in shades of grey and black. There were only a few indistinct doors in Hinata’s field of view; mostly all he saw were several large, open atriums positioned in the middle of the floor, dividing the floor’s pathways with an overflow of gnarled, half-dead vegetation.

“It looks horrible,” he said.

“Of course it does,” Togami replied.

Hinata stepped back from the door, and moved aside to escape its view, apparently forgetting that he could have just pulled it shut. “I don’t understand,” he said. “We were just on the island, and then… everything…”

“Either comprehend that we’ve been transported inside the ruins or stop talking.” Togami stood from the desk he’d been seated at, and then gave the chain wrapped around his wrist a sharp tug. “We need to get to the bottom floor as soon as possible.”

“The bottom floor –?”

“Make sure Nanami’s ready to go.”

Togami tugged again on the chain, and Enoshima jerked to the side before she mumbled, and then stretched with agonizing slowness. “Hmmmm?” she said, resting her elbow against the desk and fixing Togami with a half-asleep look.

Hinata had neither the time nor the patience for whatever Enoshima was about to be on about – or to try and argue Togami on what was really a reasonable plan of action. He turned back to Nanami, and placed his hand at her shoulder again. Even when she was half-awake, he could tell she looked distinctly distressed. “Nanami,” he said. “You doing okay?”

Nanami was breathing heavily, and Hinata was patting her shoulder almost in tune with the heaving of her chest. “This is all wrong,” she said. “Everything… all of this… it’s…”

“It’s okay,” Hinata said. “We’re getting out of here. It’s going to be alright.”

Nanami closed her eyes, and then opened them again, fixing Hinata with a determined sort of look. “It’s where we were supposed to be,” she said. “But not... no, in the end, it was…”

“Nanami?”

“They’re trying to bring us to the end.” Nanami pushed past Hinata and stood under her own power, if on unsteady legs. “We need to be careful. No matter what we do… or where we go.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to say what they’re trying to do,” said Enoshima – or at least Hinata thought she was the one who was speaking. By the time he looked back, she was following a taciturn Togami out of the classroom, with her head pressed down against her neck as she very clearly pretended to sleep-walk.

Hinata followed the pair out of the classroom, and into the hallway beyond. He kept a firm grip on Nanami’s hand, which she returned, though her hand trembled in his.

Togami was walking with purpose toward the far corner of the floor, and Hinata followed after him, a good distance behind. They passed by a couple of doors without so much as a look or any acknowledgement, and when Hinata pointed this out to Togami he reminded Hinata of some “commitment to not wasting my time” that he had at some point made. Hinata had to agree with him on that point, given the circumstances. But still… he would have liked to see some of the school that he’d never had the chance to attend.

As for the foliage he’d seen from inside the classroom… there was no way he could have been able to tell from a distance, but as he moved through the halls and sidestepped the various creeping vines that crossed their path, he realized that not all of them were real.

Most of them were, but some of them were paintings, so richly detailed that they looked as though they might just be very long, very thin living beings. The walls around the classroom they’d just left were still pitch black, with only some errant leaves here and there, but as the walls hit their corners the tips of life-like tendrils crisscrossed into deep cover, enough to turn the entire rest of the hallway a dark, leafy green.

Hinata felt a crawling sensation across his skin, as if the vines were entangling him. “Was... this always here?” he said out loud to nobody in particular.

“Yep!” Enoshima said.

“No,” Nanami said.

“Stop talking,” Togami said, lowering his head and pushing forward. He seemed to know where he was going without looking too hard at his surroundings, which impressed Hinata, given that the hallways were long and winding.

As they continued on, the subjects in the murals began to shift from one step to the next. On one wall a city skyscraper had burst its way out of the foliage, and on another several abandoned-looking torii gates stood close together, nearly choked in vines and thorns. These drawings did not look nearly as detailed as the plants around them; they were perhaps a step up from a child’s scrawl, maybe more like an untrained middle schooler.

The school seemed to go on forever, longer than the length of any of the islands he’d walked in the past few weeks. On and on the murals went, twisting images of vines and buildings together; each of the structures was unique, even if one tower was just a bit taller from another. Hinata wished he could stop and examine them, or try find some rhyme and reason for their presence, but he knew what had to be done. He knew they had to find the stairs...

Except when they did find the stairs, Togami didn’t turn to look at them, for all his talk. Instead, he bowed his head and sped past them, and Enoshima simply shrugged and obliged, following him at the same speed.

Hinata’s eyes went wide, and he exchanged a look with Nanami. “Ah...”

“Togami-kun?” Nanami called more loudly, but he didn’t answer her. Instead, he turned the next corner at an impossible speed... and then stopped short just before the point where he would have disappeared behind the wall, shaking slightly as he caught his breath.

He didn’t look at Enoshima as he stumbled over herself, or at Hinata as he stepped forward more slowly, closely followed by Nanami. He trailed off as Togami came into view. He’d grown very still, and appeared to be staring at some fixed point at the end of the hall. This passage also extended an impossible distance away, and very likely turned a corner at the end, though Hinata couldn’t see down that far.

Slowly, he slid Enoshima’s chain off his wrist and let it fall to the floor. He didn’t look back as Hinata ran to loop it around his hand, or even turn his head when Enoshima snickered.

“Togami,” Hinata said, biting his lip. “Er..."

“I see them,” Togami said. His mouth hung slightly open, and a thin line of drool trickled from the corner of his lips. “I see the people of this world, everyone one of them that passes me... People with thoughts, and people with selves... They think and they dream, they come and they go...”

He sounded exactly like himself, and the cold monotone was only mildly disconcerting. But... somehow, deep down, he knew it wasn’t his voice. It was someone else’s, someone Hinata knew so well. Someone Hinata couldn’t differentiate from Togami by name.

“They are always the person they were born to be, and even when they pretend to be someone else, or change their name or renew their face, they are always the person they were, in heart and mind and soul...”

He tilted his head back and walked forward, looking up with glazed eyes as he advanced down the hall. Hinata only got a split second’s look, but he could swear they were shining - no, glowing with some kind of red light.

He listed to the side and rubbed his fingers against the wall. The friction made an odd thudding sound and the paint smudged off on his fingers, leaving three distinct marks on the mural. “They’re living, and moving. They are coming and going. They have places they are and places to go. Places with papers and places with others. Places with names. People with names...”

Hinata wanted to call out in his confusion, but in the act of forcing himself not to do so, he hesitated. Nanami took the opportunity to push ahead of him, moving slowly but carefully in an effort to keep Togami in sight. “Togami-kun,” she called out, her voice barely a whisper. “Togami-”

“Shhh,” Enoshima said, lifting a finger to her lips.

She was smiling, but her mirth wasn’t something Hinata could parse or share. “What - no,” he whispered. “We’ve gotta-”

“Follow me, Hinata-kun.” Enoshima pushed herself to her full height and began to walk forward, her chains still dragging at her thin, bare legs. Hinata took one look at her as she turned the corner, moving down the same hallway that Togami had, and then looked back at Nanami, who was leaning against the wall, near the stairs.

“Follow her,” Nanami mouthed. Hinata bit his lip, but did turn and follow Enoshima down the hall, about as far away as he could.

She stopped about halfway down the hall, and Hinata stopped beside her. At this distance, he could finally see the end of the hall, which Togami was rapidly approaching. Here, the images of buildings and roads and towns and vines had coalesced into a paroxysm of frenzied scribbles, which fell away entirely as they approached the final wall.

The far wall was a dead end, and empty except for one faint figure drawing. It looked more like a carbon afterimage than a complete human being; something only visible after an explosion had burned the rest of a body away. It was enormous - larger than life and twice as wide. But the silhouette was very familiar. Very, very familiar...

“They are real,” Togami said, and then softly repeated the phrase as he drew closer to the painting. His voice trailed off into a shuddering breath as he pushed himself against the afterimage, and then slid himself down the wall, curling up into a ball at the mural’s feet.

“They are real,” he said, with renewed strength. “And I am not.”

As quickly as it had come, the strange and terrifying light vanished from Togami’s eyes. He blinked once or twice, staring wide-eyed into the wall – and while Hinata could only see him in profile, he could swear that he looked rattled, or terrified, or…

Or something that had almost entirely vanished, if not for the red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks that Hinata could swear weren’t there a second ago. He sat still for a moment, allowing himself a few breaths, and then he stood back up, turned on a dime, and ran back at them, his head lowered.

“Togami?” Hinata said as he passed, but Togami did not respond or even turn to look. As he passed, Hinata saw that the entire left half of his face and his suit was stained black with carbon, and that his features were twisted into an expression of pure anger.

“Togami-kun!” Nanami echoed, but he did not respond to her either. He turned and moved quickly down the stairs, without once looking back to see if the others had followed.

With a clenching feeling in his chest, Hinata turned and ran back to the corner of the hall, struggling against the urge to call out to him again. Enoshima followed after him, silent and apparently docile, and did not make any attempt to add her own spin to the situation as Hinata took Nanami over his shoulders and supported her down the short distance to the stairs.

#dangan ronpa #sdr2 #twogami #system restore

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