#Best of luck to everyone else whose giving exams too

[jakette]

Guys I have my last exam 3 days later! Pleaseeee pray for meeeeee! It's been sooo difficult studying for it. And if all goes well; YALL GET READY! Cause I'm gonna bless your time line with soooooo many peraltiago fics I've been thinking of and been waiting to write!!!

#b99 #Pls pray #Need em rn #Best of luck to everyone else whose giving exams too #My rants

[raslolin]

۞𖣔 𝗍𝗐𝗈 𖣔۞

Silva walked through the hallway silently with his footsteps while holding the lightweight box in his hand.

No matter what's happening in the manor right now he doesn't care.

Even when his partner was calling for help.

The more he walked the louder Kikyo's scream is.

'Listening to her screeching is like satan propose her a marriage by torture.'

Thinking back about what Kikyo said and how she behaved.

Kikyo screams to his face to his back for a week after his son's runaway.

"Killua just ran away! At least do something instead of watching he ran off!"

"The hell were kind of thoughts are in your mind that time do something! Tell me at least!!"

"THIS IS DISAPPOINTING!"

"Hunter exam!? What is he doing there."

"WHAT?! There's for fun!?! What kind of-"

He shuts his mind off about his wife it seems to make him less stressful for now.

'About Killua.. Illumi will deal with him.'

'This will get more and more annoying..'

Narrowing his eyes slightly as he reached the outside in seconds.

'Time to visit.'

He feels the book was the main problem of it all when in reality it's the opposite.

'This must be solve.'

Zeno fastly reach for the knob of the library door slammed it open as the butlers followed him inside.

To the butlers horrified expressions, he know it's time for him to step out and never mind about this business again or maybe just get out of this household full of nothing but his daughter in-law screams.

Ready to walk out of the library he stops.

'In the end I can't avoid it.'

Signing to himself he turned to the staffs and ordered them out.

"All of you get out."

His raspy voice were filled with nothing but dissatisfaction, disappointment and the irritation he's feeling began bubbling inside his body faintly.

After all of them out of room he waited and waited.

'Where's Milluki? I heard him I'm sure..'

"Mama!"

Milluki arrived with sweats and breaths hitching every seconds his eyes still on the ground.

It took a minute to bring himself back together again. His eyes widened in surprise.

"She's dead."

His grandfather said his face still the same as ever.

"What do you mean grandpa? Mama's still breathing."

Milluki's voice sounds relieved after he saw his mother's body twitching for help.

Silva's now arrive in front of the destination he supposed to be visit two time years ago.

Ready to knock on the door only for the door itself opened by a mere maid.

"Master is expecting you mister Zoldyck."

Without anymore words the maid leads him to the beautifully decorated detail wooden door.

Hands up to knock on the door.

*Knock*

*Knock*

*Knock*

No answer.

He knocked again three times louder.

Still no answer.

Without hesitation he opened the door only to find a grey haired man sitting in the chair facing his way to the door.

"Why didn't you open the door?"

Silva asked clearly still confused and not used to his friend's weird behavior.

"Why? Well if you came here before marry that hysterical unstable bitch everything would go fine!"

"That golden child of yours won't runaway from home if you were here six years ago but.. something important must be an exchange for an unfit able heir."

The man slowly whisper the last part quietly that Silva can't make out other than his stupid endless rumbling insults for the pale blonde hair's man.

'He needs to stop saying this.'

Sighed to himself disappointingly seeing his old friend look interest or with suspicions to the object in his hand.

"That's what you want me to talk about?"

The grey hair man stood up from his chair walked past him only to lock the door behind Silva.

In the blink of his eyes only to see his friend sat on the same chair again with another chair on the opposite side of the table.

Walked up to the another side of the table by his large two steps pulled the chair out and sit.

"Have you had any breakfast yet?"

"No.."

"Great you god damn son of a bitch!"

"..."

"And tell your wife to learn her manners about getting into people business and being persistent."

"Of course."

"Let's have some breakfast first before we get to the point."

His friend whose seemed happy after leashed out his raged to him for not teaching his wife step out of the line.

Silva could only nod in agreement hoping his friend wouldn't talk about much he himself made wrong choices in his life.

A needle man face who's running at steady speed in the boring looking group of people.

The sounds of the man's phone ringing loud enough only for his ears, as the crown he's in spilt up suddenly.

What a luck he has today! The perfect time to report as he feels the vibration of his phone ringing once more.

He slows down his running as examiners in front of him all vanished to the air.

Leaving him and the other boring looking examine who looks ready to give up on everything.

Pulled out a needle from his ear suddenly appears in front of the young girl who barely feels her surroundings.

'Perfect around my height.'

Pierced a needle on her head as he speed up taking out all of his needles around her neck to her whole face.

"Follow the examiner-"

"Oh! And use the radio when you're near the destination act your best behavior."

Throw the radio at the zombie like pose person as she catch it.

The disguise girl who walked like a zombie slowly developed to humanly robotic running.

He walked to the other side of the forest find a perfectly spot for a private talking in the trees.

Pulled his phone from pants pocket he push the round button accepting his family's member call.

"Hello?"

"Oh finally you answered!"

"You do know where I am right now. What is it?"

"Uhh we need you to be here as soon as possible after the exam."

"That's doesn't matter after the exam I have business to go."

"Well forgot about your business with that annoying clown or with the brat, mama's not in good shape however it's like god's favor her a miracle she's survived."

"Of course Killua went too far with her than you."

"That's not what I meant, her neck literally twisted to the other side and still breathing."

"What do you mean mother's neck was distorted but she's still alive?"

The monotone voice were hinted with confusion.

"That's what I mean. I don't know how she's alive either-"

His younger brother voice filled with fascination.

'Mother's not in good shape, Milluki shouldn't be thinking about that cartoon show he always watch and compare the situation with it.'

Frowning to himself dissatisfaction clearly showed what kind of emotions he felt.

Before he open his mouth tell his brother to get straight to the point.

"And don't worry she's in good hands."

The sounds of the younger one voice now filled with relief.

"Really? Thank god, tell me more."

"Well yes while mama's screeching were covering someone's chanting."

"Chant?"

"Yeah, grandpapa said it was like echoing the hallway if it's possible the whole mountain could hear it."

"Then?"

"Then- uhh I can't tell you because I don't know. I meant we don't know and after the exam we need you to be here."

"What's the hurry?"

"I don't know okay! At least act like the brat is now your second priority that's dad's order!"

"Of course if what that's father says so, anything more?"

"Grandpa said it himself and he said he heard me shouting before I'm at the library. He said my voice were either inside the library or outside but not too far from the room and I can't shout too loud or my throat gonna be sore."

The younger sibling spoke fast but enough at least for him to catch on.

"After Gotoh investigated the others it seems only everyone's heard my shout not what grandpapa heard."

"You know father said to not believe in what grandfather says."

"I do. What about Killua?"

"He's fine."

"Okay."

The call between two eldest siblings ended.

'Oh I forgot to asked about father. But from Milluki's voice I think it's enough.'

'If it more possible instead of what something unbelievable like a woman who dressed in laced as they say. It's just illusion but what if it's not? There's proofs especially the ones that had been confirmed by Nen-users and science.'

'The time Killua ran from home I wasn't there.. From what I heard the wounds are deep enough but he only managed to hurt her face. Killu's height are not enough to reach her face probably her neck and chest.'

He then took a deep breath long enough to relax his body after the news he had been informed too.

'I wasn't informed correctly am I? I'm sure I am. The butlers aren't stupid enough to break any rules. If her neck twist to the other side but instead like almost cutting down a tree and Milluki always use words that's not fitting the meaning when he's angry.'

'As much as I remembered grandfather conversion between chairman's Netero...'

'Looks like it's something more important than Killua. Impossible. Unbelievable.'

'If he knows Nen before mother could've die.. and possibly Milluki too. A double edged sword situation.'

Lean on the tree he's been standing for almost 10 minutes letting out a hot breath from his mouth.

"This is troublesome than I thought."

"Hm~"

His attentions is now on the bright pink haired man who just carried the other man on his shoulder steadily.

'Killua's friends? Not good.'

"Looks like your house is full of problems now ❤︎ "

The clown magician whose now full of joy seeing his motionless friend struggles.

"Do you need any help, Illumi?"

The bright pink hair man chuckles loudly.

"Can you not interfere my business?"

"Well I can't help it when you talked about that."

Sounds of multiple footsteps past them quickly, Illumi took it as a sign to give himself privacy somewhere else.

"Hisoka, we will talk about that later private matters."

With that the jet black hair man gone only to find him running in the crowd of examiners blending perfectly.

"Okay~"

'Time to pick new toys ❤︎ '

Hisoka looks up the sky only to find the weird cloud shapes display to his own golden eyes.

He pulls out a card from his pocket pants flip the card pattern side to his eyes.

The beautiful pink pattern make him feel at ease like it always was in the past.

Slowly life his hand up to sky challenging himself by keeping the card's pattern blind his sights.

As his arm reached it's limit stretch he flipped the card symbol side to his view.

'Hearts?'

Slowly slide the card to the other side of his view comparison seeing the shape hearted cloud in white to black colored that's above him everywhere he stands.

'Will it be other shape next time I wonder..'

A card were sent to his way fastly but not fast enough to hurt him.

'Someone's watching!'

'First time every been attacked by a card..'

'But who would use it as a weapon against me?'

He pull the card that's stuck in the tree he’s leaning on.

"Oopsie~! almost hurt you ❤︎"

He glanced at the unconscious glasses man whose on his shoulder.

"But-! You're not important that much right now ♠︎ "

Pull out the card by his hand that support his arm holding the small glasses young adult.

Throw the beautiful pattern card to his other hand's up to the sky.

Much to his expectations eyes widened in shock.

A person wearing a lacy card symbols dress swaying on the swing happily.

The ropes that's on both of person hands are torn suddenly by pulling down the forced to the ground.

Gender of the person fastly revealed as the cloth from her head can't keep up sensitivity falling from the sky.

There's no scream of panicking. No laughing. No crying. Nothing just nothing.

As the woman falling now nearing Hisoka she's use her two hands cover his eyes before her head smashed to the soft grass ground.

*TNGH!!!*

𝙶𝚘 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔? 𝚈𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚛 𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝? 𝚈𝚎𝚜

#hxh x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #yandere hxh #yandere hunter x hunter

[lacielre]

circles over circles, 2 (m)

SUMMARY  Your life has been pretty stable from any university task to your social life and love life, everything has been set perfectly like a plate to a dining table. but that changes when you encounter the one person you remember to feel indifferent the most—Jungkook.

PAIRING  jimin/reader, jungkook/reader

RATING  mature

GENRE  college au | smut, romance, heavy angst, friends to “enemies” to lovers, childhood friends, established relationship 

WARNINGS  lots of dwelling in the past (again), pining, smitten!jk, cocky taehyung, a light touch of dirty talk

WORD COUNT  8k

PARTS  1, 2

FIRST DAY OF PLAYOFFS…

Time is quick and unforgiving.

You realize this when you take a swift sweep of the sixty-person-filled room you’re in and catch the hanging wall clock. Time’s almost up. Everyone’s striving to finish the examinations that will determine the fate of the scholars in this tense chamber. For some, the exams are for the fifty-percent off scholarship grant. For you, however, you’re aiming for the month-long education in New Zealand, which based by the overheard pre-exams conversations is almost everyone else’s aim.

In a few minutes, everyone, you included, submits their papers.

All you’re thinking about is that you better fucking get in. Those dreadful hours in the quiet of the libraries and the fears of walking alone at night better pay off.

Today is also the first day of playoffs and because of the thousand-item test you had, it’s impossible for you to catch up to any game. Even the final minutes of the day’s last game, ice hockey, are not granted to you. Having arrived at the venue, you only witnessed the university’s team winning hoots and cheers, sonorously booming in the stadium from the ice rink while the audience clears up the seats.

And like every college that exists, there’s a house party and it’s only blocks away from your dorm. You’re in the middle of untying your shoelaces when your phone rings with Seulgi’s contact name flashing on your screen so you answer.

Before you could even speak, a voice beats you to it.

“Hey? I’m Yeri, Seulgi’s classmate. Um, you’re on Seulgi’s speed dial so I just figured to call you—”

“Wait—what-why? What’s going on?” you ask instead, not wasting a minute.

The other line is too loud and thank God, the girl—Yeri—you’re speaking with has gone outside to lessen the noise and actually communicate.

“Seulgi is drunk and none of us could drive her home,” she sighs then gets to the point, “she’s wasted.”

“Yeahyeahokay,” you say, tying your shoes back. “I’ll be there in five. Don’t leave her alone please.”

“Yes! Of course, of course! Thank y—oh, my God, tie—put her hair back!”

In no less than five minutes, you arrive to the house party that shows exactly what it is: a Friday night house party. You feel like even if your university didn’t win ice hockey tonight, something like this would still happen.

But hell did you miss going to parties like this.

Sadly, you aren’t here to party; you’re here to pick up your roommate who you caught puking in the last seconds of your call.

Fuck it.

You enter the vibrating house, licking your lips dried-up from the hints of winter soaking and slowly freezing the autumn air. The interior looks exactly how you expect it to from how it presents itself outside.

“Ayy! _____!”

Someone shouts your name over the blasting music and you know it’s Namjoon. You turn to find him but it’s difficult when the inebriation of people around you is also clouding your vision. There’s too many people moving around.

“On your left!”

You turn so and you see Namjoon with spread legs on a wide grey couch, balancing a red cup of what might possibly be beer on his left thigh. He eases comfortably between Seokjin and an awfully good-looking guy with a perfect side profile.

Your lips heartily form a wide smile.

“Joon!” you shout, approaching him.

“Drink?” Namjoon offers, holding the cup to you.

You’re right—beer.

You shake your head.  “No, thank you.”

“Alright.” He nods. “I didn’t expect you here tonight.”

“Just here to pick up my roommate.”

Namjoon laughs, not failing to pick up the subtle hint of frustration in your tone. “Been there,” he consoles.

“Why are you even here… drinking? Isn’t your game tomorrow morning?”

“Before lunch, yeah,” he corrects. “I’m not getting drunk by the way. Just here for a few drinks then I’ll bounce. Our coach told us to relax.” The last word hotly grazes against his throat.

“And we did,” Seokjin continues, leaning back. “Nice seeing you, _____. You look great.”

“You know I doubt that but thanks.”

“So, what, I’m just not here or…?” the guy with the perfect side profile says.

“Ignore him, _____,” Seokjin mumbles.

“So, _____.” The perfect-side-profile man catches your name. “I’m Hoseok.”

“Ignore him,” Namjoon repeats Seokjin’s sentiment.

You smile at Hoseok anyway, to be polite. Now he has a name. “I’d love to catch up with you, guys, but I gotta go look for my friend,” you say in a hurry, withdrawing in tiny steps. “Bye! Good luck tomorrow!”

“Yeah, your boyfriend won’t really approve of that,” Namjoon teases.

Instead of replying with a witty remark, you already run off to another, emptier corner of the house and you even heard Hoseok double-checking Namjoon’s statement, asking something like, “How the fuck do all girls in this party have partners?”

Your phone vibrates and lights up with a message from Seulgi or well, Yeri who’s handling her phone, telling you to go to the backyard.

When you spin, time doesn’t construct itself much from your rapid recognition of whose back is facing you right now but meters away.  

It’s Jungkook.

It’s Jungkook whose arm is leaning flatly on the wall, caging a girl with his body. It’s Jungkook in the kitchen with a girl giggling in his company and by the way his back bounces, he too must also be sharing the laughter. It annoys you that you could recognize him so easily, and worse, you could recognize him smiling from the looks of his back.

That’s Jungkook, alright.

Fuck it.

It has you reeling how you’re feeling this way but Joohyun’s words from last time ring in your head. They’ve constantly been.

This is a burden you never lifted off your shoulders.

And things like that – they come full circle.

Do they really?

You faintly shake your head.

You pass by them in speedy steps, getting a whiff of Jungkook’s cologne along the way. Some things never change.

It only takes probably half a minute for you to spot Seulgi being forced to stand up by her friends. You hear her say something to them but you couldn’t pick it up since she slurred her way through it. She lifts her head and probably sees you.

She does.

“_____!” Seulgi shouts, barely pronouncing out your name correctly.

“Oh, thank God!” Yeri groans as she follows Seulgi’s gaze.

You help Yeri and two other girls with Seulgi.

“God really is a woman,” Yeri declares in a pained whisper, squeezing her eyes shut when you take Seulgi’s arm from her shoulder.

She groans from relief, rolling her shoulders.

“My car is parked right outside,” you state, wrapping Seulgi’s arm around you instead.

“Whaaayoudyoin…” Seulgi asks, pushing her head back with closed eyes. “Donnbrimehome pleaaa! Jaacallmywoommey. I haa! A woomate!”

Now Seulgi is being a pain in the ass.

Seulgi doesn’t make it easy for you to carry her with her thrashing her body sideways at almost every step you make.

“Hey! _____! I’ll help,” Namjoon shouts from the back door, jogging lightly to your destination. “Saw you from the window,” he adds. “You didn’t tell me this was your roommate. She’s been like this for almost half an hour now.”

You shrug, passing Seulgi’s arm to Namjoon’s shoulder. “Well, that’s for her to remember in the morning.”

“She’s wasted as fuck”—Seulgi kicks and almost gets to Namjoon’s leg—“and stubborn as fuck too. Goddamn.”

“That’s my roommate, alright,” you sigh, words barely under your breath. You watch Seulgi move around and Namjoon could only back off when she turns and sways, but he tries his best to steady her, alternating holds from her shoulders, arms, and elbows. “So, can you…?”

He gives off a nervous laughter. “Yeah, fuck. I’ll just need…” he looks around, “some help.” And he catches Hoseok who’s chilling on the doorstep. “Hobi! Help me out here!”

“What, can’t carry a girl only half your size, Joon?” Hoseok provokes but comes closer.

“How ‘bout you fucking try, then?” Namjoon lets go of Seulgi and Hoseok almost backs off when your drunk friend pushes them off with her arms.

“Oh, fuck,” Hoseok says.

“Are you guys really gonna help?” you ask, frustration pent up, helping Seulgi stand on your own.

“Anything for you, princess.” Hoseok winks.

God, you are so familiar with this type of talks. The sigh drawn from your lungs is probably an adequate answer but Hoseok probably failed to catch that as you do not receive any reaction from him.

With the help of Namjoon and Hoseok, you arrive to your car in no time. The other girls have already gone back to the frat house and rekindle with whatever activities Seulgi disrupted them from. Tonight is a failure to feminism, you think.

“Drive home safe,” Hoseok reminds, tapping your scrolled-down window.

Although unaccustomed of the gesture coming from him, you slowly nod.

“Okay, between the two of us, only I get to tell her that, a’right? Move,” Namjoon interferes, pushing Hoseok aside. He nods to Seulgi who’s dead asleep on the shotgun. “You sure you can bring her up yourself?”

You could only nod. Fuck, you haven’t thought of that.

Fuck it.

You swallow.

With a determined sigh, you say, “Yep. Thanks for your help, Joon.”

He flashes his deep dimples at you. “That’s nothing,” he genuinely says. “It’s nice to see you again, though, _____. Seeing you back there felt like high school, when you were still with that shithead Yoongi—fuck, sorry.”

“I’m fine! You can call him shithead as much as you like.” You laugh and he does too. “Also, yeah, it’s really been a while, huh?”

He agrees by wiggling his brows. “You took your exams today?” he asks.

“Yep! Missed all the games for that one.”

“Sucks,” Namjoon comments, his forehead furrowing in comfort. “Did mine yesterday. See you in New Zealand, baby!”

He raises a palm up and you reciprocate the high five.

You think, right.

He’s both an athletic and academic scholar. Of-fucking-course.

“You can’t be too sure.” You shake your head.  “I’m not as smart as you.”

He scrunches his nose to brush off your comment. “Eh,” he deadpans, shrugging. “I’m sure you did well, _____. You’ll get in.” He takes a pause then he exhales, gripping onto the bottom windowpane of your car. “Jungkook also took his yesterday. Hopefully, we all get in.”

You could only nod and Namjoon must’ve seen how that made you tense for a second. He clears his throat and knocks a tin of your car. “Drive home safe. Hope to see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, you will.”

“Text me when you get home.”

“Oh, I will.”

He chuckles and repeats, “I really did miss you.”

“You too. Need to catch up with… everything.”

“And ignore Hoseok, by the way. Hasn’t gotten his dick wet for a week, excuse him.”

“I’m literally standing right next to you.”

SECOND DAY OF PLAYOFFS…

Sans the library studies from your morning routine, you take into account to visit Joohyun’s shop, Irene’s, every morning for whatever you need. It could all stem from buying sweets or drinks to reheating lunch boxes to borrowing cash.

Today is for the former.

You’ll be needing to replenish energy and the way to do that is through sugar. Loads of them.

“You getting nervous?” you ask.

Amid your morning walk, you are on line with Jimin who you swear is nervous but tells you otherwise.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I feel… alright?” Jimin sighs.

“That doesn’t sound confident,” you tease. “Where’s my cocky boyfriend?”

“When have I ever been cocky?” he scoffs.

“A few times—mostly in bed—but I’ll take that point,” you goad.  

You hear him laugh on the other line. “Can’t wait to see you.”

In that, you feel the syllables stretching with the way he smiles. Before you were with him, you found it corny how you read things like hearing someone’s smile from a call but fuck do you get it now. You get it. And it feels nice catching details like that.

You bite your bottom lip. “Me too,” you reply. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited in weeks. Probably months even, for something. And all I’ve ever been was… tired and annoyed. Mostly, tired.”

“Mhm,” Jimin hums. “I forgot to ask you last night about your exams. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“That’s fine and you know what, I don’t think I did that well.” You pout. “Before you yell at me, I’m not just saying this. I swear I feel this way.”

“That can’t possibly be right.” You hear a shuffle from his line, probably him shifting on his seat. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

You couldn’t help the laugh the blooms from your chest. “Okay, now you’re just lying to my face.”

“Not to your face. And no,” he emphasizes his decline, “I am not lying.”

“It’s either that or you don’t know that many people which is impossible, by the way.”

Jimin laughs again then he composes himself. “You’re getting that grant, babe. I’m sure.”

You raise your brow. “You’re ‘sure’?”

He laughs. “Okay—maybe not sure, but you get me.”

“Whatever, Park Jimin,” you sass.

It only occurs to you that you never actually told Jimin that you’re looking forward to a month-long exchange trip in New Zealand for winter, not a fifty percent off scholarship grant. You aren’t sure why you didn’t tell him in the first place. It’s probably because you applied for it just when Jimin started his training. Then weeks went on and on.

It’s difficult for you to tell him because then, after barely seeing each other for about three weeks because of his training and your preparation for exams, it’s again another month of bare absence, of almost concrete silence between the two of you. It’s again another time for uncertain developments and yearning for lingering touches on your skin.

You’re scared that he’ll think you don’t think much about spending time with him because you do. But the New Zealand trip will be a box full of opportunities too, and you cannot risk not being able to go.

But after this for sure.

Fuck it.

Inhaling sharply, you repeat previous sentiment, “Can’t wait to see you.”

“Cheesy.” His voice is flirty, its rasp sticking to the word.  

“What do you want me to say then?” It’s a challenge you don’t want to lose. “I’m ready to suck you like a champ,” you say, tone lacing in feigned seduction before spared milliseconds of bursting into laughter. “How was that? How does that sound?”

“Sexy,” he muses, grinning. “And what if I lose then?”

“Don’t say that.” You click your tongue on the roof of your mouth. “Well, I’ll make you feel like a champ then.”

“Yeah, okay. I gotta admit, that sounds kinda hot,” Jimin laughs.

You grin. “Today should be all about you, babe. Do well and I’ll text or call you when I get there. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

When the line disappears into the plainness, into thin air, it’s just on time with Joohyun noticing you from the counter through the glassed walls of the cozy shop, allowing the central color of brown in different schemes to the exit, displaying itself for people to see orange-turning furies from the islands to the select bricked walls and to the waxed wooden floors. She does her usual routine every time she sees you: untie her apron, leave the counter, and pull her phone from her pocket.

You enter, rolling your eyes at her.

“Good morning to you too, _____,” Joohyun exclaims with a wide smile.

“Get back to the counter,” you say.

“What?” She frowns. “But I just got out.”

“Your shop opened literally fifteen minutes ago.”

“I know. I opened,” she says, mocking you with her tone. Barely. “Contrary to what you think sometimes, I do work here.”

“Exactly,” you say sharply. “I’m gonna order something.”

She rolls her eyes, reties the ribbon of her apron, and slip her phone back into her pocket. “What do you want?”

Your eyes land on the untouched blueberry cheesecake caged in glasses as an answer. Joohyun is quick to her senses, crouching down to have herself almost face-to-face with your dessert.

“How many of this do you want?”

“Four slices, please,” you declare, excitement evident in your phrasing.

She straightens her back once all the slices are neatly placed in a small paper box for you.  “Aren’t these too much for a morning?”

“Don’t shame me. Also, I have a roommate to feed.”

Her eyes widen at your response then she presents you a tight smile. “Okay.” Then she announces the price of your order. “Will you tip your cashier?”

“No. When can I get like a friend discount in here?”

“You won’t,” she says curtly, processing your order and payment into the slim machine. “Look at you getting all sugar-high for the game later.”

“Well,” you shrug, “I need all the help I need. I barely slept last night. I had to pick up Seulgi from a party then I had to bring her up to the room—it’s all such a mess last night. She almost puked in my car too.”

“You went to a party and you never told me?”

“Joohyun,” you say through gritted teeth. You point your fingers to your ears for emphasis. “Listen. I said I had to pick Seulgi up.”

“Sorry. All I heard was… party,” she says, whispering the last word into a short-lived outbreath. “So, saw anything interesting? Flaring testosterone levels? See any of my ex making out with someone? Or maybe your ex?”

“I saw Namjoon and Seokjin,” you interrupt. “Jungkook was there too.”

“You two talk?”

You shake your head. “You know what, I feel like you messed with my head, Joohyun. Because last night, I honestly felt like there was this part of me—just a small, small, small, tiny part of me—that was just ready to call his name and talk to him.”

She pushes the box with an attached receipt to you before raising her hands, admitting a defeat you never declared her to do so. “Hey, don’t blame this one on me. I was just saying.”

You look away and you could feel your forehead scrunching up to a concerned look. Without feeling the need to, you sigh.

“Well, you saying it,” you bite your lip, “just did something. Opened wounds.”

Joohyun shakes her head, not entirely getting your point. “Can I just ask? Am I okay here? Like, you’re not mad at me or anything, right, for telling you something that I’m sure you already know?”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, good. Because you don’t sound good. That didn’t sound good.”

“Is it bad that I feel this way?” You swallow and continue, “About him?”

“It’s not a crime to miss someone, _____.”

“I never said I miss him.”

“You didn’t have to, though,” she counters, not bothering to pause a little. “I think you’ll only know whether it’s a good thing or if it’s a bad thing once you start talking to him. For now, I don’t think it’s… you know, something—or anything, but you know, don’t miss the chance to turn into something.”

You nod slowly. “You’re right. Not sure about that last part though. I feel like you’re just planting stuff in my head again.” A beat for how ludicrous it sounds and you continue, “Fuck. I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. In fact, I don’t want to. Maybe I’m just missing high school in general.”

Her brow raises and you’re already so well-aware of what she’s about to say. She really has a way of making you want to eat back the words you just spat to avoid being embarrassed by her teases.

“Oh, you miss high school, huh,” she starts. “Is it because of Jungkook or… maybe Yoongi? Aw, shit. It’s been a while since I even said his name.”

“Fuck you.”

“Are you still in contact with him?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“Of course, not, Joohyun. Do I look like I don’t respect myself?” You don’t wait for her answer and beat her into speaking by saying, “Okay. Don’t answer that.”

“Do you wanna know some classified information?” she asks, shifting the topic. On her note, at the control of the conversation, she says, before you could even answer, “Jungkook and you must have pretty similar tastes—andandand before you yell at me, I can say so because he frequents here ever since he started ordering here. Thanks to you.”

“Again, fuck you,” you hiss. “I didn’t want to know that.”

She scoffs, ignoring your statement. “Whatever. Enjoy your stuff and see you later.”

The venue is already packed with people when you arrive, many of them are students. The student division of the two universities can be clearly seen from afar. Outsiders are even dressed up to support whoever they’re supporting and it, without doubt, shows. The cheering squads are already up on their feet, performing their bone-breaking choreographies, shouting on top of their lungs to make out their cheers for the players.

You text Jimin about your arrival and where you’re seated. You’re sure he’ll easily spot you later. He does it every time you attend his games.

Instead of proceeding to a crowded spot among the seats, you go to where Seulgi is and she’s sitting beside Jennie, a mutual friend, chilling at a rather bald spot in the seats, but still only a few seats far from others. Between you and Seulgi, you’ve known Jennie longer although you two weren’t that close in high school.

College really couldn’t pull you from high school.

“Finally, you’re here,” Jennie squeals. “I barely see you around anymore. Park Jimin’s really taking all your time, huh?”

“Girl, I wish. Was busy with the scholarship stuff,” you correct, yawning.

“And girl, you better get it,” Jennie proclaims before biting onto her chip. “Seulgi told me about her drunk night. I salute! Thank you for saving our fallen soldier.”

“You owe me. You owe me big time,” you sternly hiss at Seulgi and she nods adamantly. “So what you two been up to?” you ask, shifting comfortably on your seat.

“What have you been up to, huh?” Seulgi teases. “I didn’t know you were friends with most of the guys in the baseball teams! What the fuck, _____? You never gave me this information!”

Jennie faces you with a mischievous smile. “Ooh, looks like Seulgi wants an introduction with the boys. You’re freshman year ‘bout to get spicy, Seulgi! You don’t know the land of opportunities _____ is going to show you.”

“Jennie, stop planting ideas in her head!” You glare, shaking your head. “I’m not introducing anyone to anyone. And Seulgi, c’mon, now,” you say, a bit disappointed. “Them, really?”

“What? You’re friends with them! Why can’t I be?”

“Okay, fine! Whatever. I’m not your mom. But Jennie will do that for you.” You turn to Jennie. “Right, Jennie? Since this is your bright idea anyway.”  

Jennie’s smile fades but she blurts a “yes,” anyway after long negotiations with Seulgi.

Soon, the teams arrive in their team jerseys and whatever gears they need, and the volume of the cheers even turn up to a certain extent that has the seats vibrating a bit. The crowd follows the chants through and through. Of course, the cheers are louder from the home team aka your university.

The loudest is probably when Jungkook’s name was announced. But it’s also hard to make that decision when Seokjin, Namjoon, and Hoseok start to make their entrance one-by-one and the cheers seem to get louder and louder. It has your head reeling, that even when the stadium seats are not completely filled, the clusters of small groups have it in them to shake the plate.

“Holy fuck,” Seulgi chuckles as she covers her ears. “My ears!”

“Jungkook. Golden boy,” Jennie states.

The visiting team then makes their entrance and even if they’re the visiting ones, Taehyung gets his share of screams too.

Your friend, Jennie, on the other hand, chooses to sing-shout a romantic song about how time should go back, an homage for your past with Taehyung which was as shallow as it gets. She does that instead of doing what normal people do in a game—cheer. And you could only slap her leg to shut the hell up.

“Imagine you and Taehyung, what it could’ve been.”

“You know what, Jennie? No. And this is getting old.”

“No, I don’t but I’ll keep doing it.” She raises her brow and you could only shake your head. “Lighten up, _____. I was just kidding.”

“Taehyung’s hot,” comes a direct whisper on your ear, making your hairs stand.

“Fuck! When the hell did you get here?” you ask, startled, while Joohyun hops from the back bleachers and take the empty seat beside you.

“I was looking for you and I was contacting you but you weren’t answering your phone,” Joohyun complains, then she winks at Seulgi then Jennie. “Long time no see, girls!” She wiggles her brows. “Isn’t this exciting?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely! It gets more exciting every time one player comes out and we tease _____ about him,” Jennie says, chuckling.

“And so far, who? Just one. Taehyung. That’s right,” you say dismissively.  

“And Jungkook,” Joohyun points out.

“We were friends. We didn’t do anything.”

“Looks like you did, though,” Jennie backs.

“Yeah, definitely,” Seulgi agrees.

“You too? Really?” you moan.

“I don’t know—I just thought…” Seulgi defends without an drop of confidence.

“Sometimes, try not thinking.”

Joohyun groans. “We tease you because we lived boring lives, _____. Mundane. Dull. Humdrum. Monoto—”

“Got it, thesaurus,” you interrupt.

And Jimin finally comes out and you’re sure he winked at you, making you bite your bottom lip to suppress your smile. The crowd roars with the announcement of his name and you’re too flustered to even mingle in with the shouts.

“Aw, is _____ wet yet?” Jennie teases, making Seulgi and Joohyun snicker.

“Shut up,” you hiss but you’re smiling.

Fuck it.

“God, we get it, _____. You have a boyfriend,” Joohyun mumbles.

“Damn right, I do.”

Everyone gets to their position and the game starts with Hoseok pitching while Jimin twirls his ankles and gets ready to bat.

A competitive atmosphere envelops the stadium. Throughout the game, even with your few-minutes-spaced reminders to keep your eyes on Jimin, you couldn’t help but allow them to drift to Jungkook. He just plays so damn well. It’s no wonder this university recruited him when it had a chance.

That’s Jungkook, alright.

CUSP OF SUMMER, FOUR YEARS AGO…

“You free on Saturday?” Jungkook had to ask.

It looked like he wasn’t paying attention to you—or to anything really. He was busy fidgeting over your fled and crazed application papers on the counter, while managing an itch on his nape that never seemed to disappear. Crooking his head to the right as his fingers lightly lifted few pages of your forms, he took a peek.

“Hmm,” you hummed, stretching your hands heavenward with an eye closed, moaning at the delicious stretch. “If this is you asking me to go see you play then…”

He cleared his throat. “Then what?”

“Of course, I’m there. Are we even friends or what?”

“Good. I was starting to doubt that.”

“I don’t see you for like three days then you start saying shit like this to me.” You sneered before rolling your eyes.  “You’re the one on training, mister.”

“Okay—okay. You win this one.”

“Mhm. There’s a teeny, tiny problem though.”

Jungkook’s brow raised in concern. “What?”

“I forgot to buy tickets.”

“Luckily for you,” he slid a ticket from his back pocket next to your cup of coffee, “there’s this.”

“Aw, no,” you cooed. “You have this reserved for me?”

He nodded then he processed your facial expression. “That’s it. That’s the face of someone who thinks the world revolves around them.”

You ignored him with scoff. “You really can’t live without me around you, huh?”

You pressed your hands to your chest for emphasis while your brows drown a quarter span of your forehead. Your teeth couldn’t even release their bite from your bottom lip, doing their best to suppress your jokey beam. But what came next – you hadn’t expected.

Never.

And it will be in your head for quite some time.

“Of course I want you there. You’re my lucky charm,” Jungkook stated without hesitation, shifting his gaze from the ticket then to your eyes. His were earnest.

Yours were something else but they softened. Fuck it.

You did not expect it and it came worse to you. Because now, you were flustered. Flustered like the times he would envelope your hand in his when crossing streets without telling you beforehand. Flustered like when he had kissed the top of your head because you were crying. Flustered like this.

He flashed you a smile, one that only cared to lift the corners of his mouth, before leaving your sight, attending to the game he abandoned on your computer.

“Lucky charm,” you repeated in a small voice. “Lucky charm, huh.”

Not even your boyfriend said stuff like that to you.

As if on cue, your phone lit up with a message from your boyfriend, Yoongi, asking you if you would be free on Saturday.

You didn’t reply, did not even bother tapping your fingers on your phone screen. You didn’t even bother to draw your phone closer to you to read his message. You just wouldn’t and couldn’t.

You sighed. “Jackass.”

If asked to describe your relationship with Yoongi was like, the first word that would pop up in your head was – messy. That itself was enough to tell how problematic your relationship was with him but you couldn’t end it. Yoongi would fuck it up; miss out on significant events of your life, make you wait for hours for a date, leave you on read for days—weeks even, then contact you back – like today. But you took him over and over again in your arms.

“Heard that,” Jungkook announced, clearing the silence between the two of you.

“Don’t worry. It’s not you, Kook.”

“I know it’s not. It’s always one person when it comes to you and that word, _____.” He scoffed, followed by a short chuckle then his conclusion: “That was Yoongi for sure.”

“Damn right.”

When Jungkook’s game ended or after his team won, his time was quickly occupied by some guy you weren’t familiar with. He was dragged to the corner of the stadium, near the entrance made for the players.

Even then, you did your usual routine after every Jungkook game, wait by the doors of the guys’ locker room. As Jungkook was kept busy by some guy, practically all his teammates had exited the room and bid goodbyes to you along reminders of “party at Namjoon’s later” when they caught you leaning on the wall beside the doorstep.

Almost every one of his teammates were out and about in preparation for the party later, getting doses of alcohol in cans, glass bottles, and even those gigantic jugs, and also probably, well most likely, weed, when Jungkook finally gone to shower. Great. You’d be waiting for another set of dread minutes.

The door once again opened while you were busy formulating a reply to Yoongi, the classic type-and-delete approach over an apology for leaving him on read until Saturday—or today arrived. Actually it was the classic type-and-delete-and-curse approach. You were thinking this was all too late because Saturday was almost over anyway.

This was you giving in again and you surely wouldn’t be telling Jungkook about this.

You were doing so well.

Fuck it.

You started typing.

“Hey, _____,” was the greeting of a deep voice from beside you.

“Hey, Tae,” you greeted back, locking your phone.

Taehyung stood next to you, peeking from the small opening he made with the door. But he was close. Close enough for you smell his mint shampoo and a bit out-of-character baby soap. The scent matched well with his fresh face and sodden dark locks, however.

“There’s a seat here,” he noted.

“Great. My legs are killing me,” you said in relief and he opened the door wider for you.

You followed him to the lockers and it was only him left and of course, Jungkook in the showers inside.

Taehyung closed his locker then leaned his back on it, looking down on you as you sat on a bench across him, only a meter away.

If you were asked to describe your relationship with Taehyung, it’d be very easy to do so. It was as shallow as it could get. Things with him were the epitome of almost’s. He’d make a move then nothing happened next.

“You have plans after this?” Taehyung started.

“Is this your pick-up line?” you teased.

“I guess pick-up lines are my bottom-of-the-barrel approach to finally get it on with you then.” He chuckled, making you take note of the fact that his voice even sounded deeper when he did. “So, what are you up to?”

“To wherever Jungkook goes,” you answered. “It’s his day anyway.”

“So you’ll be at the party later then.”

You scoffed. “With or without Jungkook, I’ll be there for sure. Won’t miss it for the world.”

“Would you mind if we pick up where we’d always left off?” was his brazen request.

That made you stand up from being seated, meters closing into bare inches when you branded the floor with your footsteps.

Taunting to be as bold as him, you smirked.

“And where is that?” you asked breathily, grazing your fingers on the loose part of fabric clinging on his waist.

He smirked, aiming to tear down your dominant demeanor with how he towered over you but you contested, keeping your eyes locked with his. “Pretty,” he merely commented, clearing your face from the stands of your hair.

“Pretty?” you repeated.

Taehyung got a hold of your wrist but he kept his touch merely centimeters above your skin. He skimmed to your elbow and upwards, upwards, upwards until he reached to swipe his thumb on your bottom lip. “So pretty,” he repeated bending down his neck to whisper them in your ears.

He claimed a spot on your neck with a small peck just when you thought he’d claim you in for a kiss.

“You letting me take you home tonight?”

And fuck were you ready to just jump on his request.

His voice dripping honey didn’t help at all.

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” you swallowed when he nipped on your jaw to hide your panting, “right now.”

“Uh huh. Why is that?” He placed a hand on your back, dangerously close to your ass. His other hand cupped your cheek into his palm, making it easier for his lips to fan hot breaths over yours.

Again, you swallowed.

“You’ll have to convince me better,” you said weakly.

Fuck it.

“Later, yeah?” He leaned in and right when you hoped he would finally enclose his lips with yours, he only kissed the corner of your lips, making you yearn as if minutes of him playing with you weren’t enough.

You lifted your head, trying to catch his lips which after two quick attempts, he allowed with a smug chuckle.

It wasn’t a deep one. It was open-mouthed, wet. A trial for what comes later.

“Doesn’t look like you need much convincing though,” Taehyung teased, giving your ass a squeeze.

The only answer you could give him was a moan and another kiss which ran a few seconds before he pulled away.

“What now?” you whined in a shy voice, annoyed, making him chuckle.

“You’ve got to tell me though.”

“Tell you what?”

“What’s up with you and Jungkook? I need to know so I don’t fuck up,” Taehyung elaborated sharply. “I mean, you’re always together and shit.”

Your lips were left agape and you ran your tongue behind your teeth as you contemplated. You didn’t know what to tell Taehyung because you didn’t know the answer for that in one statement. You could say your best friends though but why couldn’t you?

“Jungkook!” you shouted instead, startling Taehyung.

“What?” Jungkook shouted back from the showers. “I’m coming out!”

“Okay! Good.” You turn back to Taehyung. “We’re friends.”

“So, I wouldn’t be fucking up anything then? Great,” Taehyung said that had your heart beating faster. “That’s what I liked to hear.”

“You’ve got to know though,” you added. “I’ve got a very complicated relationship with someone right now.”

Taehyung shook his head, laughing. “Yeah, I’m not really worried about getting in the middle of that,” he said, a finger sliding on your lips.

“Taehyung, back off, please,” Jungkook interrupted, a bit of frustration hinting in his tone. “I already told you; she’s taken.”

Taehyung untangled his hands from your waist but his smirk lingered.

You withdrew from Taehyung, walking up to Jungkook who stood at the boundary of the locker room and the shower room. You mouthed to Jungkook inaudibly with an annoyed expression, “Really now?”

He raised a brow at you as he tongued his cheek. “Yeah, _____,” he said sarcastically, nodding his head. “Anyway, let’s go. I’ve got something to tell you.”

The only thing you could do was follow him. He, who was walking in a real hurried pace with his gym bag. Before the two of you exited the locker room and left Taehyung alone, you looked back at him and he gave you a wink.

You two didn’t really move too far from the locker rooms anyway. Just by the doorstep when you waited for him earlier.

“Okay, what’s up?” you asked with a smile, hoping for some good news.

Before he opened his mouth, he gave in to a wide smile he must’ve been biting on his cheek to repress.

Alluring features of him smiling were of different earthly gifts.

“Oh, my God. It is good news! Wait—wait, let me guess! Is this about the guy outside?” You waited for his nod which he gave. “Okay, wait—no. I don’t wanna guess. I give up. What is it? Who was that?” were your shooting questions, putting him on hot seat.

“So that guy is the baseball coach of the national university,” Jungkook introduced slowly but he didn’t continue.

“Well…?”

“He’s asking me to try-out for them.” He paused to exhale. “And if I get in, which he kept telling me I’ve got a great chance in, I’ll go to college there. Free.”

As if it was your triumph to celebrate, your eyes widened as you jumped to hug him tightly. “Oh, my God! That’s so great! I’m so happy for you, Kook! Oh, my God! This is big!”

He let go of his gym bag to fully wrap his arms around your waist, almost completely burying his face to the crook of your neck and shoulder. “It’s still not sure though. Only if I get in—”

“Shh,” you hushed. “One thing at a time.”

“Okay.” He surrendered to you, into the embrace.

“Okay, maybe two things at a time,” you recounted. “First, your win. And this, second. Fuck, I really am your lucky charm, aren’t I?”

“You have a way of making things about you, _____,” he countered instead. But again, he surrendered to you. “But fuck yeah, you really are.”

“Everything’s falling into place for you, damn.” You hugged him tighter, leaving your cheek on his chest. “I’m so happy for you I could honestly cry but to save face, I will not.”

“Thank you, _____,” was his straight reply.

The vibration of his chest suddenly became the beeping alarm in your head on the proximity you two share. But no one was pulling away. Not you. You couldn’t.

Not when hugging him like this felt so good, so warm. So perfect.

You looked up to tease him about the fast beats of his heart, but as if you were caught in act, as if captured to an arrest, you stiffened when his eyes were already onto yours.

But no one was looking away. Again, it was not you. You couldn’t.

It didn’t take long ticks of seconds for you to feel the burning of your cheeks, pinks finally looming to your face. Yet still, you couldn’t, wouldn’t dare look away. And all this time, you were only thinking about how it was you who should look away, not realizing that he wasn’t moving either.

Because it couldn’t be him who would look away too.

It couldn’t be him who would unwrap his arms and pull away finally.

Despite all these thoughts, Jungkook knew that if no one let go, he could lean in. Fuck, he could. You were only a few centimeters away. He really would. He would yet he couldn’t so he stayed the same way you did.

Today was special. This was special.

Today was his.

“You guys have a ride?” Taehyung’s voice suddenly echoed from the locker room, making the both of you jump.

It was you who had to let go.

“Y-Yeah, Tae!” you shouted back.

“Alright,” Taehyung noted, exiting the room and moving past the two of you. He looked back to wink at you. “See you there, _____.”

You bit your lips.

“Really, ____?” Jungkook asked.

“He’s joking,” you defended.

“What is it you see in him anyway?” Jungkook still asked, ignoring your statement.

“Kook, you ask that about every guy I’ve been with,” you stated. “Nothing’s even happened between me and Tae. I just wanna fool around with someone. And everything I have with Yoongi is so close to coming to an end. So, I guess that one’s out the window.”

You waited for Jungkook to speak.

“For real, this time.”

“For real, this time?”

Your statements overlapped, except that Jungkook’s was a question. It was clear that he had enough of you saying the same thing over and over again.

You chuckled.

“Yes, Kook,” you assured. “And you know what? Let’s not talk about this. Today is your day!”

Jungkook chuckled at that, certain that you were only trying to move the discussion away.

“Get drunk as fuck and fuck who you wanna fuck tonight,” you kidded.

He looked down. “You’d think I would,” he mumbled under his breath so silently you barely heard something and you didn’t question it.

In bare silence, the best thing you could bring out was a wide smile on your lips you couldn’t bring to stop. It was enough for Jungkook to feel like he was on top of the world and he could only mentally curse at himself for feeling like this. It was just a smile anyway. Nothing big. Nothing big.

But his chest that barely caged his pumping heart could only do so much. He felt that even with you only a few inches away, you could feel the vibrations in the small space between the two of you.

He hoped it did.

All this over a smile which wasn’t anything big.

Nothing was ever a big deal until he felt your touch. Your fingers pulling at his fingers then upward to wrap them around his wrists quickly, gripping lightly higher and higher until you held onto his arms for balance, in order to tiptoe and kiss his cheek. You felt him tense.  

“Congratulations,” you said as you levelled with his stare, as if it was so simple.

It hadn’t been clear to Jungkook that it was you who leaned in.

“I hope you don’t mind,” you said when you figured he remained silent.

He shook his head. “Of course not.”

You bit your lower lip and indulged him into another tight hug, crossing your arms over his shoulders. And his, followed around your waist.

There were two chests hammering at that time.

No one could tell if it was their own or the other’s.

PRESENT, SECOND DAY OF PLAYOFFS…

Once the game is over, your arrival outside the visiting team’s locker room is one that could be classified as “a minute too late” but it’s the best thing you could do. The floods of college students and outsiders at all entrances and exits have made it impossible for you to get to the lockers as soon as the game ended.

You are left with an opened door, allowing you access to scan whoever’s left inside and no, Jimin’s not there anymore.

“Hey, _____.”

However, Taehyung is.

“Hey, Tae,” you greet back. “Is Jimin there?”

“I thought he left to come see you…” he trails, “but I do realize that that’s wrong now because you are here.”

“Nice,” you comment curtly.

“Hey, c’mon, now. Cut me some slack. I’m tired,” he says with a chuckle. “You don’t even look like you’re happy to see me.”

You quickly feel bad for how you responded to him. “Sorry,” you apologize.

He raises a brow then leans on the doorframe with crossed arms.

“For being rude,” you continue. “And for you know, the game.”

“Well, what can I say?” he says, ticking his head to the side. “You really are Jungkook’s lucky charm.”

You don’t answer, not really in the right state of mind to do so. Especially when Jungkook’s declaration of you as his lucky charm – that specific moment of your life –  is the one thing that’s been keeping your senses awake, having been replayed in your head for so many times amid the game until now.  

“Here I thought you could’ve been my lucky charm. Turns out, it’s just because we were on the same team back then,” he quips with a chuckle, wrapping a towel around his neck.

“Okay, Tae,” you breathe out, not knowing how to respond to him. “I gotta go look for him. Also, I am happy to see you.”

Taehyung gives you his most charming smile. “Go find him and tell him not to sulk.”

Meters at a turn of your heels, you see the doorstep for the home team’s locker room and some players are out there, loudly conversing. Before you could even pass by them, Namjoon, being apparently one of the players outside, doesn’t waste a second calling you.

“_____!” Namjoon shouts, making you turn. “Thanks for the good luck last night.”

You cringe. “Yeah, well…”

It doesn’t take him a full sentence to understand why. “Oh, yeah, fuck. I forgot. Sorry. And thank you. But also sorry ‘bout that. Sorry it turned out that way—which is a good thing for us but you know, sorry. Okay—I’ll stop.”

You shake your head. “That’s fine, I guess.” The best you could give is a small smile. “And congratulations, by the way!”

“Thank you!” is his quick response. “I’d hug you but I really haven’t… showered.”

“That’s fine,” you says, snickering a little.

The locker door opens and the players outside hoot because finally, it’d be their turn to shower. Of course, as though the universe has a way of telling you things, the locker room spews a newly-showered Jungkook. A Jungkook of red-tinted cheeks and drenched curls from the hot shower.

Suddenly, it’s quiet and Namjoon isn’t doing any saving.

So you try.

“C-Congratulations,” is your nervous congratulatory attempt.

And just as you think Jungkook would answer you, he doesn’t, not when his teammates round up to him and carry him on their arms to celebrate his successful contributions to the team. As it’s many of his runs that concluded their win.

You shift your gaze to Namjoon who’s just as dumbfounded as you. When you shake your head, he shrugs—the contributing factor to your decision to leave abruptly and find Jimin who still, hasn’t replied to any of your texts.

Fuck it.

#f: circles over circles #bts smut #jungkook smut #jimin smut #taehyung smut #jungkook x reader #jungkook x you #jungkook x oc #jimin x reader #jimin x you #jimin x oc #by:lacielre

[keig-hoe-takami]

Chapter 2

Chapter 1

MASTERLIST

‘Did you get in?’ Mina all but screamed down the phone, ‘Please tell me ‘rou, please!’

‘Yes, I got in.’ Ichirou replied as calmly as possible, laughing at her friends impatience.

‘YES! I’m so excited I cant believe it. We’re gonna be hero’s Chirou!’

‘I know, I’m excited too- did you talk to Kiri?’ Ichirou responded, smiling warmly at the thought

‘Not yet- do you wanna call him now?’ Mina asked,

‘We better had, I’m sure we’ve all got i-‘

As if on cue, the dark haired boy stormed through Ichirou’s door, running towards her with a huge smile on his face.

‘Kiri what are you doing?!’ The confused girl exclaimed as she was pulled into a crushing hug.

‘I did it- I got in, did you?’ Kiri barely breathed as he questioned his friend, looking around the room for her acceptance letter.

‘Yes, I did Kiri- Mina too,’ Ichirou smiled at the excited boy, holding her phone up to his face as Mina waved at him.

‘This is so cool, I think I’m gonna die.’ Kiri cried, finally sitting down on Ichirou’s desk chair,

‘Me too Kiri- Mina we’ll come see you later okay?’ Mina held up a peace sign as she ended the call, Ichirou turned her attention to the exhausted Kirishima, “This is exciting, huh?’

‘Just exciting? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ Kiri put his head in his hands in disbelief,

‘Sorry Kiri,’ Ichirou was excited too- the girl had burst into tears when she had opened the message from All Might- but her brain couldn’t help overthinking the next few years of her life and how hard she’d have to work to become the thing she’d always dreamed of being. She new it would be hard and she was willing to work for it but- what if in the end it wasn’t worth it? What if she wasn’t good enough for the real thing?

‘Hey,’ Kiri pulled her from her thoughts, ‘I know that face, you’re going to be fine.’

‘You’ve known me too long.’ Ichirou replied, not addressing Kiri’s pointed reassurance,

‘I’ve known you long enough to know you’re going to do great, you’ll be an amazing hero.’ The boy persisted, poking his friend in the side,

‘Thanks Kiri. You’re gonna be amazing to- better than Crimson Riot.’

‘Hey- too far, no one will ever be as good as Crimson.’ Kiri joked, narrowing his eyes, Ichirou laughed at her best friends adoration of the old hero.

‘Alright then ‘Red Riot’, lets go see Mina.’ Ichirou said, pulling the boy to his feet,

‘Hey, I kinda like that one.’ Kiri smiled at his friends attempt to make fun of him,

‘Urghh, shut up. You’re not supposed to like my nicknames.’ The girl rolled her eyes, heading out of her room,

‘Whatever you say, puppy.’ Kiri followed his friend out the door.

‘Kiri? Is that you?’ Mina shouted out to the spiky head of red hair ahead of the two girls,

‘oh, hey guys,’ The newly dyed head of Kirishima turned to look at the girls coming towards him,

‘What the hell Kiri, I literally saw you the other day!’ Ichirou exclaimed in shock, ‘What did you do to yourself?’ She brought a hand to her mouth as they finally caught up with him,

‘I dyed it. Look, just don’t tell anyone, okay?’ Kiri replied seriously,

‘Oh I am so using this as blackmail- you have to do all my homework or I’ll tell everyone you wanted to look cool for high school.’ Mina said when she finally stopped laughing at the irritated red head,

‘Don’t even think about it.’ Kiri furrowed his brow in annoyance,

‘Whatever!’ Mina stuck her tongue out at him,

‘Well I think you look cool Kiri.’ Ichirou intervened before the two declared war on each other, ‘You look just like him.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about puppy, I just wanted a change before high school.’ The boy narrowed his eyes at her, though she could tell he was silently begging her not to tell Mina he had modelled his hairstyle off his favourite hero,

‘Sure you don’t Red Riot.’ Ichirou said pointedly,

‘Oh my god guys, I can see it!’ Mina cried out excitedly as they turned the corner. The UA high school came into full view. Ichirou’s heart began hammering in her chest, her tail began swiping rapidly behind her.

‘You’re gonna take my eye out, puppy.’ Kiri winced as he was hit in the face by the strong, fluffy whip.

‘Sorry guys! I’m just excited!’ Ichirou apologised, grabbing at her tail to calm it down, Mina giggled at her friends excitement,

‘Come on, lets go!’ Mina grabbed at Ichirou’s hand, pulling her into a run as they approached the huge glass building.

‘1-A, its here!” Kiri shouted back to the girls. Unlike the other two, Kiri hadn’t stopped running when they reached the school building; his excitement had gotten the better of him. Ichirou threw him a thumbs up as her and Mina finally caught up.

‘Open it then, dummy.’ Mina said,

‘I’m kinda nervous.’ Kiri replied, looking up at the huge door,

‘I’ll open it then,’ Mina rolled her eyes, dragging Ichirou with her as she opened the door,

The sight inside was somewhat underwhelming, not that the three friends should have expected anything else except a regular classroom. Ichirou’s eyes narrowed, there was something weird about the room, a strong smell filled her nose, one she wasn’t a fan of. Cats.

A few students had arrived early including the two boys Ichirou had rescued at the entrance exam and some others Ichirou hadn’t met yet.

‘Hey! Sato!’ Kaminari exclaimed, waving the students over to him,

‘Hey Kaminari- how are you?’ Ichirou smiled at the boy as she led Kiri and Mina over to him and the short purple headed boy with him,

‘I’m pretty good- how cool is this huh?’ He replied, eyes gleaming,

‘It’s awesome. Oh, this is Kirishima and Mina, they’re my friends from middle school.’ Ichirou introduced her friends,

‘Best friends!’ Mina chimed in, giggling,

‘Well hey, I’m Denki Kaminari. Its so cool you all got in the same school- especially UA.’ Kaminari exclaimed, surprised at the luck of the three friends,

‘Yeah its totally cool.’’ Kirishima said, Ichirou could tell he liked Denki, hopefully the two would become friends,

‘Nice hair by the way, bro.’ Kaminari noted, gesturing to the spikes on to of Kiri’s head, Ichirou could practically taste the pride radiating off the boy, she shared an amused look with Mina

‘Thanks man, yours is cool too. You know, with that stripe’ Kiri replied, slightly flustered, pointing to the zigzag of black through Kaminari’s blond hair,

Suddenly, the door was kicked open aggressively, causing every students’ head to turn. The ash blond boy Ichirou had argued with stormed in, assessing the room. His eyes met Ichirou’s for a moment, a moment long enough for him to bare his teeth and almost growl at the girl in anger- seriously who was the wolf here? And how the fuck was he so angry at like 7 in the morning?

‘Woah, whose that?’ Kirishima whispered as the brash boy sat himself down in a random seat, putting his legs on the desk.

‘He was in our group.’ Kaminari replied,

‘Yeah, he called me a runt.’ Ichirou groaned. ‘But he was so good, of course he got in.’

‘Poor puppy.’ Kiri patronised, ruffling her head as he so often did.

‘Shut up, weirdo. Just don’t talk to him, I don’t like him.’ Ichirou lied through her teeth, fuck he still looked hot.

‘I think he looks pretty cute. Bad boy type.’ Mina replied

‘He’s not cute. Don’t say that.’ Ichirou whipped her head round to face her friend, becoming embarrassingly territorial, another downside to her quirk. Ichirou decided to blame it on the damn cats, making her wolf senses act up.

‘Okay, I’m sorry.’ Mina put her hands up, slyly raising her eyebrows at Kirishima, who tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh, having to disguise it as a cough.

‘Whatever, look more people are here, lets go say hi.’ Ichirou said, practically dragging her friends, poor Kaminari included, around the groups.

‘A quirk assessment test?!’ The whole class exclaimed in confusion, Ichirou included, it was only their first day but already they were being trialed to examine their weaknesses.

‘What about the entrance ceremony? The orientation?’ Cried a petite, brown haired girl in anguish. She was clearly feeling just as nervous as Ichirou at the thought of being tested in front of the whole class so early on.

‘If you’re going to become a hero, you don’t have time for such leisurely events.’ Their dishevelled homeroom teacher, Mr Aizawa mumbled his reply, barely looking back at the girl. ‘UA’s selling point is how unrestricted its school traditions are, that’s also how teachers run their classes.’ He continued, finally turning towards his baffled students, ‘You kids have been doing these since junior high, too, right? Physical fitness tests where you weren’t allowed to use your quirks.’ He held up his phone to reveal the categories to the students. If it was just like junior high, perhaps this is going to be easy- Ichirou thought to herself as she scanned the crowd of her fellow pupils,‘The country still uses averages taken from results for students not using their quirks. It’s not rational. Well, the Ministry of Education is procrastinating. Bakugou,’ The strange man suddenly turned to the blond dummy stood at the front of the group. Finally, there was a name to that irritating face, ‘you finished at the top of the practical exam, right? Of course he had, Ichirou rolled her eyes as other students gawked at the boy in amazement. ‘In junior high, what was your best result for the softball throw?’ Aizawa continued,

’67 meters.’ Bakugou replied, looking towards the floor,

‘Then, try doing it with your quirk.’ Aizawa suggested, the meaning of this test was becoming clear, their teacher wanted to understand how adaptable their quirks were, as well as weaknesses. ‘You can do whatever you want as long as you stay in the circle. Hurry up, give it all you’ve got.’

Bakugou began to stretch, mumbling to himself about god knows what (probably some unnecessary rude remark) before he planted his feet in position and prepared to throw the softball.

‘DIE!!!’ He screamed at the top of his lungs as he launched the ball into the air using his boisterous quirk to create momentum. Ichirou stifled a laugh at her classmates looks of shock towards Bakugou’s manner, after fighting alongside him- though she used that term loosely- Ichirou wasn’t as surprised at the fact that the boy definitely didn’t sound like a wanna-be hero.

‘Know your own maximum first,’ Aizawa said as he learnt the distance the ball had traveled, ‘that is the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero,’ He held up his phone, the screen read 705 meters. Holy shit- Ichirou may not have gotten off on the best foot with Bakugou but she could appreciate that he had an amazing quirk, no matter how much it burst her eardrums.

‘What is this! It looks like fun!!’ An astounded Mina turned to Ichirou, grabbing her by the shoulder and bouncing,

‘We can use our quirks as much as we want! As expected from the hero course!’ A black haired boy next to Kirishima exclaimed.

‘It looks fun, huh?’ Aizawa mumbled, Ichirou placed her hand on top of Mina’s as a warning, ‘You have three years to become a hero. Will you have an attitude like that the whole time?’ Mina’s face went white with the expectation of being punished on the first day of school, ‘All right, Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be punished with expulsion.’ An evil smirk plastered the tired mans face as he turned to fully face his class. Ichirou’s eyes widened- expelled! On the first day of school? Suddenly everything became more serious, eyes narrowed in determination and fists clenched, nobody was willing to just back down. The equally determined girl braced her body, tail bristling in anticipation. She wasn’t going to lose. Not yet.

Ichirou looked over to the frog- like girl crouched besides her, her now glowing red eyes narrowing as she let the possessive, competitive wolf inside of her free. Her hands braced the ground beneath her as she positioned herself as low as possible, hoping to use little energy to complete the 50 meter sprint. The shot sounded and Ichirou leapt into action, arms burning as she pushed herself from the ground, legs pounding as she raced towards the line, barely thinking as she tried desperately to stay in her lane- controlling her wolfish traits was often difficult in open planes like this, her mind begging her to run off into the distance.

‘3.76 seconds’ a robotic voice caused Ichirou to stop abruptly, rubbing at her temples in slow, circular motions to regain control of herself.

‘You okay there puppy?’ Kirishima asked, ‘Need to go for walkies?’ he jested, before noticing that the colour of the girls eyes was still red,

‘Just got to go grab my lead.’ Ichirou replied sarcastically, words muffled by her now protruding canines,

‘Hey you did really good though.’ The red head reassured her, ruffling her ears and pulling her into his shoulder, ‘Plus Mina’s up next so just chill out and watch.’

Waiting for Mina’s race to begin, Ichirou looked around at the other people who had also finished their races. Her heart fluttered embarrassingly as her eyes met a pair of flashing red ones staring right back at her, an action that seemed to be recurring, though this time, there was no baring of teeth or narrowed eyes. He was just looking at her, with such intensity it could have been a glare, but Ichirou felt her cheeks warm up again, unable to turn away. She didn’t know what to do, they’d held eye contact for so long it almost felt wrong to look away, and she knew even after only knowing him for this small amount of time that Bakugou was not one to back down from a challenge. Decisively, the girl smiled at him, fangs peaking out of her lips, feeling as if it was the only rational thing to do. Apparently she was wrong, the boys eyebrows raised into his hairline as his entire face turned almost as red as his eyes, he looked away quickly, turning his attention back to the race and leaving the poor girl completely astounded.

The rest of the test had gone well. Ichirou hadn’t come last in any of the activities so far and had won the long distance run by a mile which meant she was saved from expulsion no matter what happened. She couldn’t say the same for some of her other classmates- most importantly a green haired boy she had heard Bakugou calling Deku who had only used his quirk during the ball throw.

‘Okay, I’ll quickly tell you the results. The total is simply the marks you got from each test.’ Aizawa explained, ‘It’s a waste of time to explain verbally, so I’ll show you the results all at once. The person with the lowest total score will be expelled.’ Aizawa pressed a button on his phone and the results were revealed to the hopeful students.

Ichirou searched for her name, 7th – Ichirou Sato followed closely behind by her friends. She turned to the two with a smile as Kirishima gave a thumbs up.

‘By the way, I was lying about the expulsion’ Aizawa said offhandedly, everyone’s jaws dropped, eyes widening, ‘It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your Quirks.’

‘Of course it was a lie,’ The winner of the test, Momo, said, taking in everyone’s shocked expressions, ‘It should have been obvious if you just thought it through.’ Ichirou hadn’t even noticed how absurd it would be to expel a student on the first day.

‘That was pretty nerve wrecking, huh.’ A black haired boy turned to Kirishima,

‘I’ll take up the challenge anytime!’ he replied, causing Ichirou to laugh at his new and improved manliness. Bakugou turned to her at the sound, eyebrows drawn in as they had been since Deku had used his quirk. Ichirou responded by raising an eyebrow in question, to which Bakugou turned away eyes rolling as he crossed his arms, Ichirou mirrored him, feeling equally as confused as before.

‘With that we’re done here. There are handouts with the curriculum and such in the classroom so when you get back, look over them.’ Aizawa mumbled, turning to leave his class,

‘That was pretty wild, huh puppy?’ Kirishima nudged the girl as they headed back to class,

‘Yeah, I cant believe he lied to us!’ Ichirou replied, kicking at the sand beneath their feet,

‘Hey, would you watch out!’ Mina covered her face dramatically,

‘Sorry pinky.’ Ichirou apologised,

‘It’s okay, we did really good guys! I’m so glad no one was expelled.’ Mina exclaimed as the three began walking, ‘And did you see Momo! She’s so cool, I think she was one of the recommendations.’

‘Yeah she was so good!’ Ichirou replied,

‘I wonder if she’ll be friends with us.’ Mina sighed,

‘What do you mean? Everybody likes you, we’re gonna be friends with everyone!’ Kirishima reassured as they entered the building to get changed.

tag list : @jazzylove

#katsuki bakugo #bakugou x reader #bakugou x oc #bnha #bakugou katsuki #mha bakugou #bakugou #bakugou fanfiction #bakugou matsuri #bakugou scenarios #mha oc #bnha oc #mha eijiro kirishima #eijiro kirishima #mha ashido #mha mina #mina ashido #bnha fluff #mina fanfic #kirishima fanfic

[airlock]

so! Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a game that delves deep, although not very deep, in the complexities of politics and administration... and so, people get to talk about how these things happen, both in Fódlan and, as a token of comparison, in the real world!

which is why I, some college student with no background in polisci whatsoever, have decided to write this whole post on the realistic reasons why people should not want a meritocracy, whether it’s being brought about their favorite white-haired girl in a fictional world or being promised by a politician in real life who is probably swindling you

sounds like a bit of a trip, right? meritocracy is a compelling idea on paper -- eliminate entrenched privileges, give everything to the people who deserve it. we especially find such ideas inspirational when we live in times of ridged inequalities, where some people are born with everything and others with nothing, and the former continue to take everything even as they repeatedly prove their failings, while the latter toil no matter what qualities they might have. nonetheless, it’s just not that simple, and the meritocratic ideal is even one of the things that got us into this mess to begin with!

let’s go blow by blow, shall we?

merit is subjective

as it turns out, meritocracy is a very fancy way of saying “I want the people who are in charge to be good people” -- which is what we’d all be supporting if it were just that simple! you might have noticed the snag, though, in that it looks a lot more ridiculous when you replace “meritorious”, “accomplished”, “competent”, etc. with “good”, despite those being equally vague descriptors of value.

I’ll get to the point: what is merit? who decides what is merit? who decides what is meritorious?

you might quickly find out that these questions have haunted not only governments but every form of administration for millenia now -- schools, companies, recreational competitions, the artistic world... and no one, no one, ever arrives on a one answer that always works.

since Edelgard never puts forth ideas of a system through which merit might be determined -- like, say, exams, which have their own failings -- the assumption is that she’s intending to handpick whoever she might want in charge, which is a common way of implementing meritocracy. and also a terrible one! now, your position in society is dictated by the extent to which you can impress the emperor -- who, however discering, isn’t perfect, or capable of giving everyone the clinical eye. if a system of “impress the person in charge to get in” were capable of living up to the meritocratic ideal, most of us would be having far less trouble with jobs.

although not all of us, anyway, since so many of us are neurodivergent -- and oh yes, those of us who are should know from a mile away that meritocracies have this particular problem...

the meritocratic ideal is ableist

callout post for the- ahem

have you perchance seen Edelgard and Linhardt’s support conversations? the one where he repeatedly frustrates Edelgard by being too neurodivergent to put his gifts to the efficient streamlined methodology that she favours? the one where he makes it clear that he can’t thrive in a result-oriented environment, so Edelgard busts her rump to figure out some way to give him a job that makes use of his talents?

well, he was lucky that he got to personally befriend the emperor and weasel her into some distincitvely unmeritocratic policy, because anyone else who cannot thrive in a result-oriented environment will have no such luck. and that’s precisely what a meritocratic society is: a result-oriented environment of society itself.

hell, you could even take a moment to notice that a lot of the insults that are routinely hurled at disabled people are also the criticisms that people make of those they wish to eliminate through meritocracy. y’know, “lazy”, “weak”, “moocher”, the works.

now, would this be any better if our Supreme Arbitrer of Merit were exceptionally woke and able to mitigate this, be it through assistance or by implementing metrics of merit that better suit the neurodivergent? perhaps. but as we think through these utopias, we ram a separate problem...

meritocracies cannot be implemented in a vacuum

the meritocratic narrative has us constantly thinking of the incompetent privileged vs. the competent underprivleged, but those simply aren’t the only types of people who exist in society. in fact, we’d have to expect that privilege would mostly make people more competent -- this doesn’t sound great until you realize that the alternative is to claim that poverty is good because it builds character and other similar kinds of nonsense we very much know to be untrue.

when it comes down to it, anyone can sit on the throne and say “I declare meritocracy to be happenning right now”, but saying that doesn’t erase the inequalities previously existing in the system. if I decided to make the whole world participate in a race a month from now, everyone starting from the same starting line and running the same course to the end, who do you think would win -- someone who eats well everyday and has as much leisure time as they want to practice running, or someone who has to continue working three jobs? sure, every now and then you’d have an exceptional runner out of the unexpected end, and you’d also have lots of privileged people who just don’t feel like runnin’, but systematically speaking, most of the winners would still probably be the ones who can throw more resources at winning.

and that’s to say nothing of the fact that pre-existing privileges also make it a lot easier to perform merit. I’ve mentioned both schools and exams so far in this post about meritocracy, right? there’s something in that topic that my mind keeps coming back to, actually -- entry exams for universities in my country.

right now, my country is experiencing an elusive demographical phenomenon where the majority of the population is college-aged; in a good country, this would mean college-level education would be thriving, but in this country, it means that each university has become far more selective with who gets to enroll. thus, all the universities with any sort of prestige above the level of “pay to get your Instant Diploma (Just Add Water) here” run yearly entry exams and enroll the people who get the best scores. sounds meritocratic, right? except now, there’s also a rash of cram schools dedicated to training people to do well on these exams, and with the high demand, they tend to be somewhat costly. in other words, if you’re born into money, you’ll have an opportunity to be taught the rotes necessary to pass the verification of merit.

people haven’t yet figured out a way to prevent meritocracies from just completely corroding under the weight of that problem, given enough time. whatever the metric you set for merit -- even if it is, in fact, the metric of “impress the emperor” -- someone will start selling better prospects for fitting that metric, and the ones buying will be the already privileged ones.

but even if it weren’t for all that...

meritocracy is discrimination

so far, I’ve mostly exponded on the issues with “merit”; however, the real gaping one actually lies in “kratos”, power.

“everything to the people who have earned it” sounds like good mote, if you don’t think too much about the converse -- “nothing to the people who have not earned it”. however successfully you might address all the other problems I’ve brought up so far, the fact is that meritocracies, inherently through their design, build societies of haves and have-nots.

and the thing is, there’s no turning back once you do that. eventually, a generation will pass, and the haves and have-nots will have passed the torch to their children; whose children will be best prepared to perform merit? and besides, giving power to the meritorious means they get to make decisions, set policies, write laws -- what’s stopping them from decreeing, blatantly or subtly, that society should favour their own and disfavour their enemies?

in other words, meritocracies can’t create societies with more equal opportunities, because they are inherently unequal themselves. in fact, basically all the notable unequal systems we’ve experienced historically were born as meritocracies of some sort. you know the nobility system that edelgard hates so much? in real-life Europe, the nobles were mostly the far-flung descendants of the most meritorious roman generals. and as for us, living under the boots of the 1% who can do whatever they want? once upon a time, these people had all the same rights as a peasant. and when the day comes when we finally topple these buffoons in the name of not just a better society but also an extant planet, the only way we can break the cycle is by not buying into the idea that meritocracies are a good thing -- be it in fiction or in real life.

#my stupid text posts #Fire Emblem is tagged in this post #Fódlan FE is tagged in this post #FE16 spoilers are tagged in this post #the text proper also touches on ableism and inequality so yeah that happens

[une-pomm3]

:o How did I not know that the list of prompts was pinned on your profile?? I can request one?? Little ol’ me???? You are far too generous. I’m a simple girl who loves when Spirk look into each other’s eyes and go OH. So, here ya go: 1. There’s people chasing us and I pulled you into the alley with me and wow you’re close

Listen, I took the request and didn’t exactly follow it, but I was inspired by a thought so, yanno... I hope it counts. 

And yes, I love doing prompts! I encourage them because they encourage me to write! Especially over the weekend!!

--

Captain Kirk surprised everyone by selecting Ensign Xu to join the landing party. Though her Fleet Academy records showed remarkable promise for a well distinguished Security Officer, she was green and could barely speak a sentence that didn't abort halfway into a stuttering conclusion. Jim had heard her speaking to other officers in wonderfully complete and flowing sentences, so he had simply assumed she was shy when it came to the command team. He was of the opinion that there was no better way to get someone used to their role aboard the Enterprise than to throw them directly into the fray. 

The mission on Cignii VI was not considered to be overtly dangerous, but neither was it expected to go simply. Commander Spock and an accompaniment of eager scientists were anxious to collect samples of a rare fungus that only grew on the planet's surface during the first few days after its rainy season. The fungus had shown promise, after previous expeditions to the surface, to further the research of a potential cure for the Crestian Flu - as well as many other fascinating properties, as Mr. Spock had explained, eyes shining with barely concealed interest. The preliminary results even had Dr. McCoy's curiosity piqued. 

As the Ensign had not minored in any scientific areas of study during her tenure at the Academy, the Captain enjoyed the prospect of having at least one member, along with himself, of the landing party whose attentions would not be solely focused on the ground beneath their feet. Unlikely to become fascinated by green lichen, there would be at least someone else focused on the horizon and prepared for potential danger. 

Given the nature of his luck, combined with the likelihood of a conflict-free expedition, the Captain was not surprised when their crew wandered, quiet by accident, up to a well-shielded encampment of Romulans. 

By some stroke of good fortune that Jim was unsure he had at his disposal, they had not been immediately detected. He hissed for the team to get low, down into the underbrush. He unholstered his phaser, setting it to stun. He heard the corresponding clicks of phasers on either side of him as the two security personnel flanking him followed his lead. 

Warmth came up behind him and he knew without turning that Spock had crept closer, leaning into his personal space. 

“They did not appear on my tricorder, Captain,” he murmured, answering Jim’s question before he could even think to ask it. He hummed and chewed on the inside of his lip. “They appear to have some sort of shield technology to mask their presence here.”

“They look like scientists,” Jim mused, “don’t they look like scientists?” He chanced a glance back at his First Officer in time for him to look up from his tricorder and meet his eyes. 

“Affirmative, Captain, likely here for the very same reason as us.”  

Jim sat back on his heels, frustration mounting as he realized that this was the moment where he was not quite sure how to proceed. He had faced obstacles, too many to count, and yet this one left him thinking of nothing but static. There was a potential for danger here that they had not anticipated, especially given the planet’s hospitality to a multitude of terrifying, carnivorous creatures… but at the moment they were not facing it. How should he proceed? They needed to vacate the area - yet they were also presented an opportunity to potentially glean some insight into an enemy that was normally held at arm’s length unless you were about to be killed following painful questioning. However, backtracking their steps might reveal just how closely they had come to discovery without even knowing danger was present. How narrowly had they missed meeting the wrong end of a disrupter?

“What do you think, Mr. Spock?” He shifted, looking again to his First Officer and desperately hoping he had a logical conclusion. Beside him, Ensign Xu was quivering, the tip of her phaser dancing in the air, a very weak expression of the steady readiness he knew Officer Gark held on his other side. They were awaiting his orders. 

“I think it might be best to--” Jim never had the opportunity to hear what wonderful insight Spock was about to bring to the situation - a phaser whined next to his ear and discharged at the same time a nervous shriek was let loose. 

Ensign Xu’s phaser single-handedly alerted every single Romulan in the area to their presence. 

The Captain had seen the results of her phaser accuracy exams, he had vetted this with his Chief of Security before signing her to the landing party. Her shot was excellent. Even with the stress on the first away mission and an active situation, he was still more than a little confused when her phaser discharged in his direction. The completely horrified and confused expression that tore across her face mirrored his own sentiments as pain seared in his shoulder when the blast hit, knocking him back into Spock behind him. His body seized violently, teeth clenched painfully, and his lungs refused to draw breath. The only thing that saved him from crumpling to the ground in a stunned heap was the arms of his First Officer circling around him faster than Jim could comprehend that he had been shot. In a fit of clarity, he was very thankful that the phasers had been set to their lowest intensity. 

Then, the clarity vanished. Like he was not fully existing inside his own body, and was indeed very far away, he realized he had been scooped up and cradled. He distantly heard Spock call the order for immediate retreat, and the group dashed back through the foliage the way they had come. Hopefully, he thought as the greenery whipped past, before the Romulans realized what had happened and did not give immediate chase.

Good fortune, however, was disinclined to smile down on them after the first burst of positive luck, and the enemy aliens did immediately give chase, weapons drawn and firing rapidly. As they ran, Jim felt his mind resettle back into his own head and he gradually became aware of all of his limbs; he wrapped his arms around Spock’s neck to steady them as his First Officer zig-zagged between trees. He wished for his phaser, left behind in the dirt, so he could fire back at the aliens that were swiftly closing the distance between them. 

“There!” Officer Gark called, “we might be able to lose them in that canyon.”

The group swerved, slip-sliding down a shallow embankment and Spock’s arms tightened around Jim who was immediately assaulted by the realization of exactly how closely their bodies were pressed together. He suppressed the desire to demand to be let down, knowing the action would slow them down and uncertain as to how well his own legs would support him - his toes were still tingling and he wiggled them in his boots. 

They burst into the opening that cut into the hillside, trees and bushes giving way to packed dirt and rock. They dodged around boulders, and slipped unseen into shadows, the shouts of the Romulans behind them growing more and more distant as they pushed further in. And, because Jim was the only one looking behind them over Spock’s shoulder as they ran, he was the only one that noticed one particular boulder hid a very convenient cave.

“Wait - stop!” he hissed into Spock’s ear, who immediately ground to a halt, calling the rest of the group to do so as well. “Double back, there’s a place we can hide.”

“Oh my gods, oh my gods, o-oh gosh--” Ensign Xu repeated, panicked, eyes wide with fear and probably guilt. She stared at her Captain as they ducked into the jagged outcropping of stone that widened into a fairly substantial cavern, hidden from view and the back of which was shrouded entirely in shadow. Apologies, awkward and jumbled, began to pour from Xu’s mouth in a confused tangle of syllables and sentiment. 

“Ensign,” Spock spat, gently setting the Captain back onto his own two feet, hands resting on Jim’s shoulders - just in case. “I am fairly confident the Captain heard your apologies the first time you uttered them and now would be an opportune time to cease if you do, indeed, desire to prevent our rediscovery.” Her mouth snapped closed. The small group of Spock’s team of scientists filed past them, further into the recess of the cave and away from the mouth as the shouts of enemy aliens drew closer again; Officer Gark posted himself at the entrance, leaning just out of view, phaser held steady and at the ready. 

Jim faced Xu and sighed, kindly, smiling. He said, “it’s quite alright, Xu. If anything, this will be something to laugh at later. Besides, how many people can boast of shooting the captain?” He tried to laugh, but Spock was tugging him further into the darkness against his chest. Xu swallowed audibly and opened her mouth to speak, but the Romulans suddenly appeared, in a flurry of activity, dashing through the canyon and right past their hiding place. 

Spock grabbed at him, yanking him back and Jim reached out, taking a firm hold of Ensign Xu and pulling her with them. She stumbled, falling against his chest and he held her there, securely, willing her to be silent as the aliens ran past without a second glance, shouting. 

The cave was a collective of held breaths, tense and quivering with anticipation. The thundering of heavily-booted feet roared past their hidey-hole, the sounds ricocheting off the stone walls. Eyes ever forward, the Romulans kept up their chase and passed by without looking back.

When the angry voices faded into the distance, Jim looked down at the officer pressed up against him; she was staring up at him with very wide eyes.

“Oh wow,” she breathed out, “you are very close.” 

Had there been more lighting, she would have seen how his cheeks heated. He released her and she took two steps back. Spock, he noted and his cheeks grew warmer still, did not relax his own hold and instead his fingers tightened, ten painful points of contact on Jim’s arms. 

There was only one thing to do, and he reached for his communicator and flipped it open, turning in Spock’s grasp to look up at his First Officer; his expression was as stone as the cavern walls around them.

“Kirk to Enterprise.”

“Scotty here,” came the crackled response. 

“We require immediate extraction - can you get a hold on our location?” He paused for the affirmative; Spock’s fingers relaxing only minutely, “beam us up, Scotty.”

*

Despite the lack of physical evidence of an injury, the Doctor was on him, medical tricorder in hand and whirring, the moment he rematerialized on the transporter pad. 

“I know you Jim,” he said through gritted teeth, “when you request an emergency beam-up, something’s slipped sideways and you’ve probably been injured.”

“I’m fine, Bones,” he said at the same time as Spock, “he was shot by a phaser.”

The Doctor cried out in pained disbelief as Jim pinned his Officer with a soured scowl. 

“Traitor,” he said as Bones pulled him away, very likely towards the Medbay. Spock followed, hands clasped behind his back. 

"Why am I surprised? Only you, Jim, would be confused by which end points out." 

The Captain met his First Officer's eye and very deliberately did not correct the doctor as he said, lightly, "oh you know how it is, panic in the moment. Surprise Romulans is not an exercise available in the combat training holodeck." 

"Maybe it should be," Bones muttered, pushing the Captain into the turbolift. Spock's eyebrow reached astronomical heights as he followed.

“I shall commission the program to be created this evening, sir,” he said, stepping beside the doctor. 

“You do know I’m actually fine, right?” Jim sighed. 

“You’re not a medical professional, Jim.” 

“I concur with the doctor, Captain.”

Jim pouted, but resigned himself to a complete medical workup. Spock stayed nearby then escorted him back to the Bridge once Bones gave the all clear. 

“You do not intend to pursue disciplinary action against the Ensign,” he said as they walked. It was phrased as a statement, but Jim knew him well enough to hear the ‘why?’ at the end of it.

“Having Xu disciplined for an accident will not help her,” he paused as they rounded the corner before the turbolift bay and Spock also stopped walking when he realized the Captain was no longer at his side. “She needs encouragement, not harsh words from me. Besides, I’m fine!” He spread his hands by way of demonstration and Spock frowned. He could not disagree, they both knew, but his concern was heavy between them.

“Ashayam-” Spock started and Jim stepped into his personal space, grinning brightly.

“I’m fine, Spock,” he said, taking one of Spock’s hands and holding against his chest where he would feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “A little sore, but I’ve had much worse.” 

“That is what troubles me,” the admission was spoken quietly and only because they were alone in the narrow corridor. He did not offer up such proof of emotion idly or in the presence of others. Jim pulled Spock’s hand to his face and pressed it to his cheek, turning so he could kiss the palm of it. There was nothing he could say that would dampen the disconsolation of the unknown, only offer assurance that, right now, in this moment, all was well.

#i mean this counts right? right??? aaaaah #spirk #ficlet #apple writes #star trek #i feel its not my best #but i had fun writing it haha and really #thats the friend we make along the way - enjoyment #at least i hope #that's what im always aiming for... hmm #btsmee

[straynstay]

Hyunjin - Hybrid AU!

being popular wasn’t something you looked forward to when entering college, but it happened

now here you were making necks twist to watch you walk down the hallway

that’s what you get for being one of the few humans in a hybrids-inclusive college

most people wouldn’t even consider applying to study here after it became pretty much ruled by hybrids, but you didn’t mind

you like your course, you like your teachers, and your colleagues, even though they follow you around making you look like an idol or something

you entered your classroom already knowing that your favorite seat will be vacant with candies or a snacks on top

“oh, there’s cards too” you smiled reading the cheering words from your admirers

since day one boys and girls go out of their way to please you somehow

need a pen? here’s seven! hungry? let me buy you the entire menu! need a ride? you can have my car!

it’s been a year and a half, but you’re still not completely used to it

they’re so nice to you because you’re human, sometimes you wonder if that’s the only reason for it

hybrids were created to be men’s pets and obey their orders, but after decades of evolving they began conquering their own space

yes, some still prefer to be companions, but others are trying to live life in society like normal human beings

however, their genes still make them bow to human’s will, and it bothers you because you feel like you’re taking advantage of them most of the times

“good morning” your Medieval English Literature teacher entered the classroom and you put your stuff down to start your day

“I’m dead tired” Lia, a sheep hybrid and one of your closest friends, said plopping her head on the library table

you both decided to study together for your Shakespeare on Contemporary Media exam, which would be in two days

“I’m seeing Shakespeare everywhere, I’ll probably won’t even flinch if his ghost shows up in front of me”

“thou comest in such a questionable shape” you quote Hamlet in a funny voice, earning a laugh from Lia

“hopefully he won’t tell me to murder anyone” Lia’s ears were hiding in the curls of her black hair and you knew she was really tired

“go rest, Lia, we can study more tomorrow”

“yeah, guess I’ll do that” Lia gathered her belongings “you’re staying?” she asked

“uhum” you sighed, stretching your arms above your head  “I still need to finish my paperwork for Mrs. Ray”

“good luck” Lia raised her eyebrows “see you tomorrow”

“see ya” you smiled seeing Lia leaving the shared study room

you decided to move to the single tables on the common area of the library because they were closer to the bookshelves

you shoved your stuff quickly into your backpack and left

fortunately there was almost no one at the library at night, so you could choose which table was best, setting your backpack on it

not far away from your table, though, someone was thoughtfully observing your every move

Hwang Hyunjin was the librarian’s assistant this semester

he was a shy and awkward alpaca hybrid, but in love with you, like everyone else in this college

although he doubted anyone liked you more than him

he felt his heart beating faster when you walked towards his counter, but you turned right on the English Literature aisle

Hyunjin let out a short breath, running his fingers through his hair to calm him down

you didn’t even notice him, why was he so nervous?

you returned from the aisle with two books and sat down, allowing him to admire your profile

Hyunjin could only stare from afar, wishing one day he’d be bold enough to say hi

you were so beautiful, your skin so smooth without any fur or scales

his fingertips itched to touch you, to feel your warmth, to caress your hair and be intoxicated by your scent

Hyunjin muffled a wail watching you so close yet so far from him

it was slowly killing him inside knowing that it wouldn’t take long for another hybrid to ask you out

and what if you say yes? what if the hybrid asked to be your pet? or even worse, what if you become their partner?

oh, Hyunjin was dying thinking about these things

but there you were, focused on whatever work you had to do, unaware of your effects on the poor boy

you were so smart, so dedicated, Hyunjin felt himself falling harder in love

not too long after, you got up again to adventure yourself on the the same aisle

Hyunjin tried to take a peek at your table to see what you were working on, but his counter was a bit too far for that

he did, however, draw what he could see from the two books you got on a random piece of paper just to check them out later

maybe if he read what you’re studying, he might have a topic of your interest to start conversation someday

he was waiting patiently for you to show up with another book, but that didn’t happen

you were taking too long for a simple task such as grabbing a book, Hyunjin got worried

he got up from his seat and went after you

he entered the English Literature aisle only to see you on your tiptoes, right arm stretched out, struggling to grab a yellow book from the top shelf

the boy let out a funny noise unconsciously, calling your attention to him

“I-I’m sorry” he said looking at his own feet, babbling “I didn’t mean to spy on you, but you’re here for quite some time, so I came to check on you, and, well, you’re short and I’m sorry again but it was really really cute seeing you try to reach that book over there, and I’m really tall, so maybe I should grab it for you?” he moved towards you, still staring down, and easily pulled the book you wanted, handing it to you

Hyunjin was embarrassed, but with your cheeks burning from the proximity, you were even more

“thanks” you replied sweetly, finally being able to see his face because he was brave enough to look at you

“you’re even more adorable up close, oh God, I’m going to die” Hyunjin placed his hand on his heart, closing his eyes and holding his breath

you would laugh at his dramatically cute reaction if it wasn’t for a wild boar hybrid interrupting you two

“yo, llama boy, where’s Kafta’s books?” the guy towered over you two, but you didn’t feel intimidated at all

“i-it’s o-over there in the-the-the German section” Hyunjin stuttered a lot, but pointed to the right direction

“I’m gonna need help with this paperwork, alright?” his words actually meant: you’re doing it for me

Hyunjin only nodded in fear, trying hard to stop shaking and humiliating himself even more in front of you, ruining any tiny chance he ever had with you

that’s when you saw the dude’s smile of satisfaction, and you couldn’t take it anymore, you had to confront him

“hey, idiot, he’s an alpaca, not a llama, can’t you see his small ears and fluffy hair? Besides, it’s Kafka, not kafta, you uncultured swine”

the wild boar hybrid was taken by surprise and lowered his ears in respect to you

“I’m sorry” he said almost whispering

“you better be! now go write your own paperwork and leave Hyunjin alone” your glare made him go away in a blink of an eye

“y-you didn’t have to…”

“it’s okay, I know he’s been an asshole to you, I had to do something about it”

“you know?” Hyunjin’s neck got red “wait, you know my name too?”

“yeah” you replied holding the book tightly against your chest, blushing even more

no one knew, but he was your long time crush and you were getting tired of just stalking him around college, so you thought it was the right time to finally confess your suffocating feelings for him

“is it weird if I say that I sometimes go to the coffee shop at the Arts building just because I know it’s your favorite place to hang out? and that I’m studying at the library almost everyday this semester because you’re here?” you let out an awkward laugh

“aaand that I’ve been trying to find any excuse to talk to you, but I never think of the right thing to say, so I end up giving up? and that maybe I’m dying to go on a date with you if you want to?”

was Hyunjin hearing things right? you were not only saying that you like him, but you’re asking him out?

oh, this is probably the best day of his life!

out of all of the hybrids you liked him? the shy alpaca whose special trick is spitting long distances?

the one who cries every night for being away from his family group?

who whines all the time to himself for being too awkward to have friends?

who dies everyday seeing his crush walking around the campus thinking he’ll never have a chance?

he was nothing special compared to the other hybrids, but here you were in all your adorableness confessing your feelings

he could at least muster up some courage and say something, right?

“how about…” Hyunjin cleared his throat to avoid stuttering, he was so nervous, he felt like his heart would leap out of his chest

“how about we go grab a coffee, then?” as soon the words were spoken, his eyes got sad “oh… nevermind, I forgot I have to close the library tonight”

you wouldn’t let this golden opportunity pass by so easily, so you smiled at him

“it’s fine, I’ll go first and order for us before they close too”

“are you sure? I mean…”

“yeah, don’t worry about it” you smiled again to reassure him

“oh, okay, well, I usually have-”

“a hot chocolate with extra toppings and a slice of quiche” you interrupted him

Hyunjin’s eyes were wide

“I notice you, Hyunjin” you shook your head “I’ve been noticing you for a long time… too long, to be honest” you admitted

the boy was at loss for words

how was this happening? was he dreaming? the person he likes likes him back? what? what was he supposed to do now? he never thought his biggest wish would come true

“can you wait a bit?” Hyunjin left the aisle quickly, running back to his counter and screaming at the top of his lungs that the library night shift was over

you couldn’t believe Hyunjin was kicking everyone out thirty minutes earlier

you laughed seeing him smiling so brightly for the first time, and your heart was filled with joy for you were the reason behind it

Hyunjin was exultant, barely able to contain his long awaited happiness

he was on cloud nine, over the moon, on top of the world, on seventh heaven… he was feeling it all!

you not only notice him, but want to be with him, the shy, awkward alpaca hybrid

what else would Hyunjin wish for besides being loved by you?

#i almost didnt post this today #my wifi sucks #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids blurbs #stray kids drabbles #stray kids AU #stray kids hybrid #stray kids #skz #hyunjin #5/9 #190518 #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop AU #kpop hybrid

[avmisworld]

BTS when you cry:

Kim Seokjin:

Sometimes life sucked, and today was apparently one of these days. You had the worst day possible: You did horrible at your mid-final exam, you spilled scorching coffee all over yourself, you fell asleep in class due to the lack of caffeine, and your professor scolded you in front of the whole class.

The only thing you really wanted to do was go back to your apartment and cuddle with your favorite blanket with chocolate (and some alcohol maybe), and cry over your shitty luck.

Luckily, Seokjin, your boyfriend, wasn't supposed to be home till the late night, so you didn't have to be afraid of him coming into your apartment and seeing you in your pathetic state.

Dropping your bag at the door carelessly, you let the door of your house close behind you as you kick off your black sneakers, yeeting them to the other side of the living room as you drop on the blue cushioned sofa with a sigh.

The tears almost immediately flood to your eyes, and you clutch the comforting red wool blanket around you tightly as the first sob erupts your mouth quietly, your body shaking lightly as you let out all the negative feelings you've been harboring the whole day.

You don't know how much time you lay there, crying, but eventually the toll of the day overcomes you and you close your eyes, still sniffling. Sleep catches up to you quickly, and you fall asleep, streaks of tears still leaving paths of sadness along your red cheeks.

~

"Y/N~~ Sweetie, get up and get to bed, it's late."

Your eyes blink open slowly at the sound of Jin's soft voice, burning slightly from the long time you spent crying. Your eyesight is still blurry, your mind in haze, and you're positive you look like shit, with your red eyes and runny nose.

Wait.

You freeze when your eyes finally focus on your boyfriend, whose eyes slowly turn concerned as he sees your current state, quickly putting two plus two together.

He looks tired, his brown hair covered by a mustard colored snapback, nearly drowning in his oversized white and green striped long sleeved shirt. His eyes that were half closed just seconds ago are now wide and worried as he rushes to your side, sitting in the empty space beside you.

"Hey, what's wrong, love?", he says gently, cupping your face in his big hands and wiping your tears with his thumbs as he hugs you tightly, rearranging the blanket to cover the both of you.

You honestly don't have any more energy to do anything, including making up an excuse for how you look. Jin could easily see through you anyway.

So you tell him. He doesn't say anything the whole time you talk, simply humming here and there to indicate he's listening, while he continues to cuddle you close to him, pressing his lips into your hair.

When you finish, you have to admit that you feel slightly better, Jin's secure arms around you and the warmth he radiates making something in your heart heal slowly.

"Y/N, you know I'm always here for you, right?", Jin says gently, making sure not to sound too demanding as he runs a hand down your back soothingly.

You nod, burying your face in his neck and breathing in the comforting smell of his skin, an addicting mixture of flowers and spice.

"Please don't hide from me, sweetie. I don't promise I'll always be able to help you, but I'll always listen and do anything to make you feel better.", Jin's voice is serious, unlike usually, so you know he thinks this is very important, and that makes something in your heart melt just a little more.

You smile against the skin of your boyfriend's neck, unable to hide the immense love you feel for the man holding you, and you nod once again against his warm skin.

"Okay".

Min Yoongi:

"Can you please talk to me, Yoongi? Please.", you beg, unable to hide the desperate tone of your voice in front of your boyfriend, who's standing in front of you, dressed for another night of working till the light comes up.

Your boyfriend averts his eyes, sighing once again as he runs a frustrated hand through his night black hair, cursing under his breath quietly.

"I'll come back in the morning, okay? We'll talk then", he promises, like he's been doing for the last week and half, and something in your heart cracks at the sound of another empty promise.

You watch with a dumbfounded expression as your boyfriend turns to leave the room, his black hoodie making him seem even more mysterious and unreachable than he already felt to you, hand twisting the knob of the door to your apartment.

"Yoongles".

Your voice cracks as you say his name, and a tear rolls down your cheek slowly.

You were never much of a crier, but you could feel all your insecurities coming back to you now, the insecurities you've been concealing and silencing since you start dating Min Yoongi.

Feelings that told you that you weren't good enough, that Suga will hide from you like he hides from everyone else.

Yoongi never gave you a reason to feel this way, until now. Until he started going out every night and avoiding you like the plague. Until he started lying to you and telling you he was fine instead of giving you the truth.

Suga turns around, eyes widening slightly as he sees the shining drop of water below your eye. He too, knew how rare it was to see you cry, and the panic slowly surfacing on his face revealed that.

Your boyfriend lets go of the handle slowly, eyes showing pity and care and you hate it, hate feeling like a little kid who needs to be taken care of.

"Y/N", he says gently, walking towards you slowly, as if he's scared you'll run away if he reaches you too fast.

You shake your head, wiping the tears on your cheeks with the back of your hand angrily, and turn around to walk away, cause you hate yourself for stressing Suga even more than he already is.

"Y/N", Suga grabs your wrist firmly, yet gently, stopping you in your place. "Don't walk away from me, just like you didn't want me to walk away from you."

You lower your head, feeling defeated because Suga was right, you can't run away from your problems. You turn around, letting your lover lead you to your blue couch, his hand still clasped around your wrist delicately.

It's silent for a moment as the two of you sit down, none of you knowing where to start, but to your surprise, it's Yoongi who opens his mouth first, still staring into your eyes in a way that assured you that you were going to be okay, if you just talk this out.

"I'm sorry", he starts gently, "I won't go tonight, I'll stay here, and we'll talk this out like you wanted to", he looks down for a second, "Like I want to".

"Just, please don't cry".

Jung Hoseok:

You: Hey, can I come over to the studio?

You stare at the text, blinking away the angry tears filling your eyes. You were close to crying, but the last thing you wanted was to be sad and alone.

Hobi💞: Babyyyyy

Hobi💞: Yeah of course, come right now!!! I'll take a break from work♥️

You smile through your tears at the sight of your boyfriend's excited response, closing your phone and making your way to the waiting taxi outside your apartment.

~

You knock on the door of the studio, running a hand through your hair as you wait for your boyfriend to open the door.

"Comingg~~", the familiar cheerful voice you love so much, and then Hoseok is opening the door with a smile and an enthusiastic squeal, grabbing you by your arm and pulling you inside the comfortable room.

J-hope's smile drops terrifyingly fast when he sees your glassy eyes and hurt expression, previously squinted eyes widening with worry as he grabs your face gently between his warm hands.

"Y/N/N, why are you crying??", your boyfriend asks in an alarmed voice, wiping the tears that were now flowing freely down your cheeks, unrestrained and warm.

You can't answer, simply shaking your head that rests in J-hope's palm and letting him gather you in his arms, pulling you in his secure embrace.

Your boyfriend sits down on his maroon colored chair with you still in his arms, straddling his lap with your legs on either side of him.

"Aw, baby, please don't be sad! I hate seeing you cry!", Hoseok says with a pout, making you let out a wet giggle and lean your head on Hobi's strong shoulder, calming down slowly as he kept rubbing your back gently, humming a tune under his breath.

When the tears finally stop flowing from your eyes, you raise your head up to kiss your lover's cute button nose gently, making him smile sweetly, eyes crinkling at the edges.

The two of you stare at each other for a few more seconds, foreheads pressed together, and you can already see the question in Hoseok's eyes, even if he didn't say it out loud, the worry and care evident in your boyfriend's honey brown eyes.

So you tell him. You tell him about the horrible fight you had with your life-long best friend, how you both shouted at each other and said hurtful things that both of you knew you didn't mean, but still left long scars in your hearts.

You knew you would eventually make up with her, you were both too important for each other to let such a stupid fight mess up your relationship, but you were still sad and scared all the same.

J-hope listened attentively as you explained the whole story, rubbing circle with his thumb on the inside of your upper thigh and leaving occasional butterfly kisses over your face when you had a hard time talking.

When you finish the story Hoseok assures you that you'll come back to each other very soon, and that he's very willing to go talk to her if you're too afraid to make the first step.

"So don't be sad anymore, baby!", J-hope exclaimed with a comforting smile. "I promise it'll be okay! And to make you feel better, I'll dance to 'Baby Shark'!"

You laugh when J-hope puts the children's song on full volume in the small studio, dancing in the most exaggerated way possible, limbs flailing all over the place. He was always willing to do anything, ridiculous as it may seem, to make you happy. That's just one of the million reasons you love him.

Kim Namjoon:

You groan in pain as another round of cramps hits you mercilessly, making you curl into a pathetic ball on the soft leather couch in your apartment.

Periods always affect you a lot, even after taking every step possible to lessen their negative side effects, like taking pills for the pain or putting a hot packet on your stomach.

You took a day off from work today, knowing yourself and how impossible it was for you to go through a day of continuous sitting with nothing to take your miserable state off your mind.

You slept the majority of the day, your time awake revolving around eating and watching anime, nothing more and nothing less.

The only thing that really kept you going though, is the knowledge that Namjoon, your boyfriend, will be here soon. You told him about your problem, and he promised to come over as soon as he can, always willing to change his plans, as busy as he is, for you.

The knock on the door of your apartment is what wakes you up from another restless sleep, and you groan lowly, raising yourself on your elbows as you stare at the door angrily, hating it and whoever the hell is standing behind it and interrupting your much needed sleep.

You get up slowly, wrapping the thick wool blanket around your body as you trudge towards the door, making faces at the jolt of pain you felt every time you took a step.

You open the door, expecting to shout at some very pitiful neighbor who wanted a cup of sugar at the wrong time, but your heart melts too quickly at the sight of your boyfriend at the door, smiling sheepishly.

He's holding a bucket of your favorite flowers, a random assortment of tulips, and in his other hand is a box of your favourite chocolates, Ferrero Roshe.

On his back is a bag which you are sure is filled to the brim with every type of tampon and pad possible, topped with twenty different pain reliving medications.

Your sweet boyfriend rubs the back of his head awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot as if afraid you'll kick him out any second now, a small, slightly scared smile, on his face. "Can I come in?"

You don't know why the sight of RM standing like that outside your doorway, all soft blue hoodies and grey sweatpants, with all your period supplies, makes you so emotional. He literally does this every month, yet it still makes your eyes tear up and an ugly sob erupt your throat.

Namjoon's eyes widen at your unexpected crying, walking a few steps forwards, probably to comfort you awkwardly like only he knows, before pausing and walking backwards, eyes filled with regret.

"I'm sorry, do you want me to go?", he asks frantically, obviously confused with what he did wrong, hands reaching out desperately as if to stop your crying just with the force of his will. "Please don't cry".

You shake your head, more sobs erupting your mouth quietly, and wipe your runny nose with the back of your hand carelessly. "No, I just", you pause, still finding it hard to talk. "I just love you so much".

Namjoon sighs visibly at the sound of your answer, smiling in disbelief before shaking his head lightly and coming forward to press a soft peck to your mouth. "Oh, thank god. I love you too, baby."

Park Jimin:

You muffle your sobs with the back of your hand as you watch Hazel Grace cry brokenly at the news that her love, Augustus, died after battling cancer.

You can't count how many times you watched the movie "The Fault In Our Stars" on a two hands, yet this heartbreaking scene still manages to bring you to tears every single time.

"Babe, I'm homeee~~", you shift your gaze from the shimmering TV screen to the door of your apartment at the cheerful voice of your boyfriend, tears still streaming down your face rapidly and face contorted in sadness.

Jimin walks through the door with his usual teeth-filled grin and eye smile, dirty blonde hair a mess on his forehead and white mask hanging loosely under his chin.

Your boyfriend halts after a few steps towards you, noticing your red eyes and trembling bottom lip. For a second, his expression is filled with alarm and worry, but he calms down significantly after seeing the crying girl on the screen in front of you, understanding filling his eyes.

"Augustus died again, didn't he?", Jimin asks gently, voice slightly amused yet still caring, as he pulls his leather handbag over head and places it on the floor by your dark blue couch.

You nod, biting your lip to stifle another sob threatening to escape as your boyfriend slowly slips under the soft baby blue blanket you were tucked in, pulling you into his strong arms.

"Baby", Jimin starts sweetly, "life is full of obstacles and hardships, but most people get through them, unlike the movies that like to make everything a lot more dramatic and painful then was it really is", he says carefully, placing his chin on the top of your head.

You bury your head into your boyfriend's neck, breathing in the scent of his cologne, a mixture of pine wood and clean mountain air that always calms you down. "I know, but- they just- loved each other so much. It's not fair.", you whine angrily, wiping your tears with the sleeves of Jimin's oversized hoodie that you were wearing.

Jimin laughs at that beautifully, pressing a soft kiss onto the crown of your head as he hugs you tighter, stroking your spine with his fingertips.

"You're so cute, baby", he says, voice filled with fondness as he tilts your chin up to look at you, his deep brown eyes sending chills down your back.

You don't even have time to respond before Jimin is kissing you delicately, hands wrapped around the frame of your body tightly, molding you together, his soft full lips making you melt completely, practically turning into a puddle in his hold.

You sigh into the kiss, forgetting the movie you were just watching and the reason you were crying, forgetting everything because of Jimin and the warmth he radiates, tangling your hand in his hair, the strands fluffy and nice to the touch despite continuous bleaching.

Your tears are slowly drying on your face, disappearing one by one when Jimin pushes you back to lie down on the couch, swallowing your giggle with his lips as he places his hands on the side of your face securely, protecting you from the world, from yourself, like he'd always done.

Kim Taehyung:

You're holding Taehyung's hand tightly in yours, your finger laced together as you wait for your boyfriend's manager to send him the very secret link of the 'ON' music video.

You were the first to see it, along with the rest of the BTS members of course, and you and your boyfriend had gotten ready for the occasion, connecting Tae's phone to the big TV screen in your shared apartment in order to watch the music video in the best quality possible.

"It's up!", Taehyung says with excitement in his voice, squeezing your intertwined hands tightly as he presses on the neon blue link with urgency.

You jump a bit in your spot as you watch the Bighit logo appear, scooching closer on the sofa to be even closer to Taehyung, who smiles at you gently and wraps an arm around your shoulder securely, making sure you're comfortable.

The music video was, obviously, jaw dropping in a way that only BTS and Bighit can create, and you watch the nearly five minute long film with fascination, eyes glued to the screen and not moving for a second.

The whole production is insane, from the choreography to the scenery, the background dancers and the members, of course, standing out with their outstanding visuals and stage presence.

And maybe your eyes were focused a bit more on a certain dark curly headed guy, but are you really to blame? Taehyung was even more amazing than he always was, and even in your biased opinion, you knew he slayed this comeback.

Taehyung was just as focused as you, completely silent, his eyes trained with alarming concentration on the figures on the screen, hardly moving or even blinking.

When the video finally ends, you both stay silent for a few seconds, still speechless, before Taehyung turns to you, a wide smile on his face.

"Hey, I think it came out really we-", your boyfriend's boxy smile drops quickly at the sight of the crystal tears on your cheeks, and he immediately leans forward, brushing the small droplets from under your eyes.

"Woah, what's wrong?", he asks, fear underlying his tone as he picks you up like a feather and places you on his lap, eyes studying your form for any injury or discomfort.

"Sorry", you blush at Taehyung's care and your own stupid behaviour, averting your eyes from the soft chocolate ones of your lover. "I'm just really proud of you. All of you.", you admit, fingers playing with the collar of Tae's checkered pyjama top awkwardly.

Taehyung laughs at that, not in a mocking way, but in a way that told you that he thinks you're absolutely adorable, and the deep melodic sound sends warmth throughout your whole body, tingling up till your feet.

Your boyfriend cups your jaw gently, making you look him in the eye once again, and kisses your pouty lips with a chuckle. "You're sweet", he mumbles, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

You smile shyly at that, and lean forward to place your head on Taehyung's broad shoulder, looping your arms around his neck loosely. "I really am proud", you say once again after a few seconds of calming silence, because you are, you truly are, and words can't really express just how much.

Taehyung laughs one more time, and you think to yourself that your life is complete as long as you get to make Kim Taehyung laugh so cutely.

"I am too", he says in a whisper, pressing his lips to your temple as he strokes your waist soothingly, his soft black curls brushing your forehead and lulling you to sleep, a small smile still present on your lips.

Jeon Jungkook:

The phone call from your mom wasn't unexpected in any way. She calls you almost every day regularly, and even though the hour was unusually late, it didn't make your heart skip a beat like it should've.

"Hey, mom", you say cheerfully into the phone, pressing the small device into your ear to hear your mother's familiar voice better.

"Hi, sweetie", you mother's voice is soft and a bit scrapy, as if she's been shouting for a while and then decided to call. Your eyebrows furrow at the hesitant tone in your mother's voice, gripping your phone slightly tighter.

"Hey, is everything okay??", You ask, confused as to why your mom is so quiet and not complaining to you about the weather and the kids like she usually is.

"Honey...", Your mother pauses, sighs, and the dread in your heart grows even more. "Coco died. From a heart attack this morning".

For a second the world stops, and the air around you turns to fire, burning in your lungs and scorching your throat until you feel the need to claw for oxygen.

Coco was old, you had her since you were 5, nearly 7 years ago. But she was such a strong little animal, that you always forgot how old she really was. Your whole life is filled with memories of her: playing with you in the yard, licking your face when you were crying over another guy, eating the pieces of chicken you passed her secretly under the table.

And now she was gone.

The tears blur your vision and you grip the table in front of you as if it's the only thing keeping you up. The hand holding your phone is shaking, and you don't even hear the worried voice of your mom, repeating your name frantically in your ear.

"I'll- I'll call you back", you manage to stutter out, finishing the call before your mother could say another word.

You don't know how long you sit there in silence, staring at the mettalic device in your hand, but eventually you dial the number you know by heart, pressing your tear stained face to the screen of your phone.

"Jungkook?", you whisper, afraid to raise your voice as if it'll break the fragile state your mentality is in right now.

"Babe?", Jungkook's voice is worried and confused, probably noticing the shaky tone of your voice and the shallow breathing. "Where are you?"

"I'm sorry, but can you come home?", You stifle a sob in the back of your hand, your resolve slowly breaking as you come to terms with the reality. "Please."

~

Jungkook's reaches your apartment in five minutes flat, something you're not even sure is possible considering the horrible traffic jams in Seoul.

"Y/N?", the frantic voice of your boyfriend reaches you from your place in the kitchen, where you still haven't moved from since you got the news of Coco's death.

Jungkook almost passed the kitchen before he sees you, coming to a halt quickly and quickening his steps until he reaches the doorway to the kitchen.

He's wearing all-black, like always, and judging by the sweat soaking his white vest, he was working out when you called him. His ivory hair is matted to his forehead, sticky like glue, and there's a trail of sweat going from his temple to his chin, threatening to fall on the floor.

His dark eyes read the room quickly, noticing the long forgotten milk you had taken out to make yourself a cup of coffee, the phone in your hand, and the semi-dry tears staining your cheeks.

"What-" "Coco died.", you interrupt him, watching the confusion and fear in Jungkook's eyes replace with shock, and then sadness, and finally pity.

Your boyfriend doesn't say a word, simply walking over you, crouching down to your height, and wrapping you in his arms gently.

There is something in that hug, the way Jungkook holds you as if he wants to be your personal anchor, that makes the barrier inside you break, and the first sob erupts your mouth, loud and ugly and grief-filled.

You cry in your lover's arms then, letting yourself break down because you know Jungkook's there to pick up the pieces. Jungkook doesn't say a word except the occasional "I'm here", "It's okay", but his arms are firm around you, one hand cupping your hair and the other around your waist, keeping you close to him.

Your energy runs out eventually, and the screams and cries turn to pitiful whimpers against Jungkook's neck. You're covered with his sweat and he is covered with your tears, and the two of you are a mess, but when the raven-haired man you love presses his lips to your slowly shutting eyelids, so gently it almost hurts, you think you're complete.

#bts jin #bts jungguk #bts imagines #bts fic #bts namjoon #bts taehyung #bts rm #bts jimin #bts icons #bangtansosodone #bangtan #bullet proof vest #bulletproof boy scouts #bts jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #bts jung jungkook #bts joonie #bts jhope #bts suga #bts sunshine

[xsteriism]

Good luck on your exams!!!! And WELL DONE ON GETTING 30O FOLLOWERS YOU DESERVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!!! I have a prompt if you wanna do it? Peter likes to take a lotta photos but doesn't tell anyone and one day Tony finds his camera and it's full of all these amazing pictures of himself and the ironfam and ned and MJ and loads of other pretty things so he buys him a camera and one day Tony gets a picture of everyone asleep and hangs it up! Do it if you want!! Good luck with everything! 💕

hello!! im SO SO sorry i took so long to write this prompt, i havent been feeling myself lately, but i wanted to write something after two months, so here! 

i would like to tag @technically-a-little-dragon because i hope this makes you smile :) and @officialtonystarkprotectionsquad because you always support me!

(click on the title to read on ao3)

——

Peter’s Camera

——

Tony is one of the best people to photograph, in Peter’s opinion. Once the genius gets into the mood, there isn’t much that can be done to stop or distract him, which makes him the perfect candidate to photograph. Peter has gotten snaps of him where sparks are surrounding him as if he’s some kind of angel descending from heaven or where he’s sleeping peacefully after days of intense creating, with Dum-e prodding him but to get no reaction in return. 

Peter got the camera from Ben as a birthday present, a small second-hand Canon camera. It was old, a little broken, but with his genius brain and some stray parts he found in a dumpster, Peter managed to fix it within a night. However, it was at the expense of neglecting his homework, which he had to rush through the next morning. He didn’t care if the camera had buttons that weren’t working or if it glitched at the worst timings— the camera was Peter’s camera, gifted by his Uncle Ben, and that was all that mattered. 

The camera rarely left Peter’s being since he got it, so it was usually always accessible. After he became Spiderman, Peter would bring it on patrol, taking scenic pictures of the city or himself in action. He takes pictures of anything and everything and has to transfer the pictures to his computer every month because of how quickly he fills the memory card. 

Maybe it was because he didn’t talk about it, or maybe it was because he only took pictures of people when they weren’t looking, but nobody has found out about his hobby yet. He isn’t ashamed of it, just doesn’t see the need to talk about it when he already has so many things going on in his life. Peter wouldn’t deny it if someone found out about it someday, but for now, he likes that photography is his little secret. 

——

Tony isn’t sure what he’s looking at. 

Is that a camera from the 1970s? Do those still exist? What on earth is this doing in his lab? 

Frowning unconsciously, he picks the camera up, feeling it in his hands, examining it like some specimen. Just as he’s about to put the camera down and leave it, his finger brushes over a button, showing the pictures in the memory card. Eyes widening with mild shock, Tony clicks through the pictures of his family.

He sees himself, surrounded by tools, the light illuminating his face, making him seem otherworldly. He smiles at the picture of Ned, in which he’s grinning at Lego, with his face stuffed full with food. He huffs out a laugh when a picture of Harley teaching Morgan how to use his potato guns pops up and snorts when a picture of MJ smiling softly at a bird shows up. The billionaire snickers at the pictures of Pepper, who looks like the CEO she is as she glares at Clint and Scott or when she’s reprimanding grown adults (see: The Avengers) about safety and rules. 

Tony lets out a tiny gasp when he sees Natasha, the notorious Black Widow, smiling softly at a kitten. He chuckles lowly when the picture of Thor, on the verge of tears at the sight of a mouse, appears. And he smirks when he sees Bruce, who looked like he was in the middle of panicking, with a wildly out-of-control specimen in the background. He beams as he sees Bucky and Steve, roleplaying a scene in a book to Morgan, who has a wide grin on her chubby face. 

All these pictures, yet not one of Peter. Could it be that… this camera was his? 

Of course, it’s his. Whose else could it be? 

Tony sets the camera back onto the table, dialling Happy as he exits the lab. 

“Let’s go camera shopping.” 

——

“Boss, where do you even find the time for photography?” Happy asks as he begrudgingly follows Tony into the camera shop. Why was he always dragged into stuff he didn’t want to do? Better yet, since when did Tony like photography?

Tony rolls his eyes, not that Happy could see. “You wouldn’t get it. Now, which camera do you think is best?”

Happy gapes at the billionaire, looking to and from between Tony and the cameras on display. “How would I— Why would you think—”

“Oh, look at this… Leica S… Typ 007?” Tony sounds unsure— unusual, but not unexpected since this was something he wasn’t familiar with. “What? What does this mean?”

Based on what he knows, this camera is for Peter. Tony cares about him so much that he’d willingly go out to buy him stuff and risk himself running into paparazzi. Sighing in resignation, Happy glances through the specs and the prices of the cameras because Tony obviously wouldn’t and if he accidentally buys a $27k camera, then Peter will definitely freak out. 

“Boss, look at the price,” Happy sighs again, “do you really think Peter would accept this?”

Tony almost had whiplash from how fast he turned his head to face Happy at the sound of Peter’s name. “How did you know I was getting this for the kid?”

Happy rolls his eyes, walking past the nervous saleswoman who had been staring at them with a wobbly smile for the entire time they’ve been at the store. He picks up a relatively light camera, something he knows Peter would like and shows it to Tony. The clueless billionaire takes the camera, inspecting it as if he knows everything about it and nods approvingly. 

——

Tony isn’t going to lie. He’s a little excited and a little nervous— something completely new from what he usually feels when gifting. He did snoop around in his camera, after all. 

Jumping a little when the doors to his lab open suddenly, Tony tightly clutches the box in his hands, forcing himself to face the sweet, sweet teenager and hopes he won’t get mad. 

“Hello, Mr Stark!” Peter greets with a chirp in his voice, beaming at the billionaire. “So, I was thinking about some updates I want to do for the—”

Tony interrupts him before the kid can immerse him into his ideas as well. “Pete, I have something for you.”

Innocent, brown eyes bore into his and Tony offers him a nervous smile. He beckons Peter over with a wave of his hand and forces the wrapped box into small arms. The teen cocks his head to one side, looking at him in mild confusion and all Tony’s thinking is, ‘why is he so cute?’

He motions for him to open his very impromptu gift, uncharacteristically wringing his hands in anticipation. Peter gently undoes the tape holding the wrapping paper in place, unwrapping it diligently, unlike how it was wrapped. 

“Mr— Mr Stark!” Peter splutters as soon as he sees the camera. “This— isn’t this too much? You already give me an allowance on top of my salary as an intern. I can’t—”

Tony grins, secretly happy that Peter isn’t angry with him for snooping around and discovering his secret. He frowns playfully, sitting on his hands so that the teen wouldn’t be able to force his gift back. “Well, your camera is an ancient relic, and we can’t have that in my very futuristic house, now can we? Besides, why didn’t you get a new one if you had the money?”

Peter smiles, a little forlorn, a little reminiscent. “Uncle Ben gave me that camera and I just never really thought of upgrading it.”

“Hey,” the billionaire holds back a wince at the mention of Ben, knowing it was a sensitive topic. “You can display the camera in your room, no need to get rid of it. Heck, I’ll even make a glass display box for it if you want.”

The teenager smiles again, this time a little brighter, happier. He hugs the camera to his chest, before shyly thanking Tony, as if the billionaire checked the price before paying for it. 

A few weeks later, after Family Friday Night, Tony finds a printed picture of the whole family— Avengers and Non-Avengers alike— sleeping in the makeshift blanket fort, on his table. And if he encases it with a handmade frame, hanging it up where everybody can see, then it’s nobody’s business but his. 

——

please ❤️ if you liked it! comment if you want? follow me for more, i guess?

#marvel #irondad #spiderson #soft #Send prompts #fluff #Peter Parker fluff #tony stark fluff #celestial-irondad

[ciarawritesmarvel]

hide and seek (and cheat) - bucky barnes x reader

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: There’s some language but like you already know that I swear

A/N: Welcome to Day Eight of Hello Spring by @ibwhellospring! It’s incredibly late and I am incredibly sorry, but I have exams next week and so I’ve been very busy. I’ll continue to write these as and when I have time! Lots of love to you all, and I hope you're doing impeccably well. 

Prompt: In their closet, he/she found...

masterlist in my bio and tags in the reblog! please drop me an ask to be tagged in bucky, steve or all the hello spring pieces!

---

It was time.

All your training, everything you’d ever done in your life worked up to this. As you stood in a circle surrounded by your teammates, looking at their determined faces, the fire that burned brightly in their eyes, you knew they were all thinking exactly the same thing.

It was time.

For the annual hide and seek competition.

Tony had introduced a number of important competitions over your years as an Avenger, competitions designed to boost morale and encourage team building and bonding with members of the team you may not work with all too often. This was a brilliant idea in theory, however he hadn’t particularly thought through just how competitive his teammates were and how willing they would be to turn a friendly competition into all out war. The latest laser tag day proved that point perfectly.

“We’ll quickly go over the rules, since its Scott and Peter’s first time playing,” Tony announced and everyone’s eyes turned to the two; Peter whose cheeks were slightly red as he gave a little wave and Scott whose silly grin couldn’t be contained. Neither of them stood a chance today, “Everyone gets a chance to be the seeker. You count to 300 whilst everyone hides. People are allowed to keep moving around whilst the seeker is seeking. You have half an hour to find as many people as possible. Once the timer is up, which I have synced with the watches you’re all wearing, you come back here and we start again with the next seeker. Points both for finding people and for not being found. Most points at the end of the day wins. Are we clear?”

Peter put his hand up. You bit back a groan.

“What do we do once we’re found?”

“You trudge back to where we’re standing right now with your tail between your legs, kid,” Tony answered and Peter nodded solemnly. You were almost impressed. It seemed someone had briefed him on just how serious today was.

“Oh and usual special rules apply too: Loki, no apparitions, Clint, stay out of the vents, Thor, don’t trap yourself in with Mjolnir and Wanda, power down.”

The four grumbled, something about natural advantages and fairness, but Tony wasn’t listening. Vision, who had been standing motionless in the corner of the room, suddenly walked forward and entered the circle, whispering something in Tony’s ear, to which he nodded. Vision promptly returned to his position in the corner.

“New rules: Peter, no webs and Scott, stay the same damn size you are now.”

Both of the newbies protested, but they fell on deaf ears.

“Worst adjudicator ever,” Scott mumbled, giving Vision a side eye that he didn’t really understand.

“First up, Banner.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be joking Tony, everyone has the best hiding places on the first go,” Bruce whined but Tony shrugged, claiming that it was alphabetical order and that he’d just have to be good at seeking. It was when Bruce started protesting that Tony’s real name was Anthony that you stopped really listening. Already, you were choosing from the hiding places you’d been scoping out all year, deciding which would be the best one to pull out against Bruce.

“300, 299, 298-”

“RUN!” Peter practically screeched and you all paused, looking at him searchingly before scattering in different directions, pushing past people and heading towards your separate destinations. Today would be a long day.

You were more than ready.

---

So far, so good.

You’d managed two rounds without being found, the first time hiding in one of the washing machines in the laundry room and the second hiding in the vents, since it was only Clint who wasn’t allowed inside them. As it turned out, everyone else had the same idea too and so Clint ended up finding nobody and was incredibly angry about it. Nobody would tell him where you’d all been.

Now it was Bucky’s turn to seek and you grinned as he turned from everyone, covered his eyes and began counting. You had the perfect hiding place for him.

Minutes later, you were inside Bucky’s closet, amongst the henleys and the leather jackets. The smell was strangely comforting, mainly because it was just so distinctly Bucky. You had just a slither of light through the crack between the doors but it was almost total darkness and there was only just enough space for you to stand with your back against the rear wall and the top half of your body covered by the clothes hung there.

There was no way he’d check for someone hiding in his own room. Genius. Even if you did say so yourself.

It only took a few minutes to hear the whining of Scott echoing through the corridors, who’s clearly been found first. You heard footsteps coming towards the room you were in and assumed they were Scott’s own, returning to the base point of the game.

But then the door opened.

Shit.

You held your breath.

The footsteps wandered around the room and you heard him stop by the bed, which you assumed he was looking under. And then the footsteps began to walk towards where you were hiding. You pressed yourself as far back into the wardrobe as you could and squeezed your eyes shut.

He opened the closet door. There was a beat. You briefly wondered if he might shut the door and walk away, if maybe he couldn’t see you behind the clothes.

“Hi baby,” came his voice, whispered and teasing and light, and you let out all your breath at once in a strong huff. He held out a hand to help you out of his cupboard but you smacked it away and pushed your way out on your own. Pushing hair out of your face and smoothing down your jeans.

“How’d you know to look here?” you pouted and Bucky smiled lovingly at you, reaching up to cup your face with one hand.

“I know you better than you know yourself. You thought I wouldn’t check in my own room because who would be stupid enough to hide in my own room. Right?”

It would have been flattering that he was able to read your thoughts so well if it hadn’t been the most annoying thing in the world right at this moment. You groaned.

“Right,” you conceded and then suddenly your eyes widened and you jumped back away from him suddenly, leaving his hand to drop uselessly by his side, “What are you doing?!”

“Relax, doll, everyone’s hiding. Scott’s back at base. It’s just us,” his last sentence had a hint of something else in it, something low and playful. You glanced towards the door, just to make sure, before taking the step forward and pressing your lips to his. It was fleeting, nothing like your usual heated moments in a cleaning cupboard or languid moments in the morning before you snuck back to your own room. It was sweet and familiar, and Bucky tasted like the cinnamon swirl he’d had for breakfast.

You pulled away again, but left your hand on his chest, only just noticed that his own arms had wrapped themselves loosely around your waist. Bucky grinned at you, using two fingers to hold your chin.

“You want me to pretend I haven’t found you?” he asked seriously and you gasped in mock offence, pushing yourself away from him with force.

“You taking pity on me, Barnes? I don’t need anyone’s help to win this bloody game,” you argued back fiercely, only really half joking but you knew he was teasing and that you would never dare to cheat in such an important contest.

“Was jus’ offering!” he held his hands up in surrender, “I just don’t want you too upset when you lose.”

You glared at him. Saw him trying to conceal his laughter. Narrowed your eyes. Before he could blink, you had him by the collar and were pushing him into his closet, closing the doors with a slam and grabbed the large katana sword on the wall and slotting it through the handles. You saw the doors rattle. But he couldn’t get out. You grinned triumphantly.

“Y/N!” he exclaimed, the shock in his voice only instilling you with more pride. You looked through the tiny crack between the doors and saw just Bucky’s eye peering out at you, completely taken aback with a spark of panic.

“Good luck seeking from in there, punk,” you said nonchalantly, because if you couldn’t win today, you sure as hell weren’t going to let him win. You walked out of the room and closed the door, ignoring his pleas for you to let him out. Instead, you turned on your heel and sauntered back to the base to wait until the end of Bucky’s seeking time.

You guessed that nobody would be joining you there for a little while.

“So you and Y/N, huh?” Bucky screamed, actually screamed, as Scott appeared beside him the cupboard and his movements backwards and away from him almost sent the closet falling to the floor.

“What the fuck, Scott!”

“Sorry,” he said, and Bucky could see the blush travelling across his whole face even in this dim light, “When you found me, I shrunk down and climbed up onto your shoulder to watch you find people and get some hiding ideas. But this is way better honestly.”

Bucky closed his eyes and let his head rest against the wardrobe wall.

“Get out,” he said softly and Scott nodded.

“I mean, that’s fair,” he admitted as he shrunk down again and ran out of the gap in the wardrobe, leaving Bucky alone and contemplating the life choices that had brought him to this exact moment.

#IBW: Hello Spring 2019 #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes drabble #bucky oneshot #bucky imagine #bucky drabble #marvel #marvel x reader #marvel fanfiction #marvel imagine #ibwhellospringday8 #hellospring

[artificialqueens]

Hello, is it tea you’re looking for? (Branjie) - athena2

A/N: Brooke is stressed out over school in the coffee shop where Vanessa works, and Vanessa cheers her up (with extremely awful puns). This is basically just pure fluff I wanted to write for Writ. They’re the absolute best and I just love them, and they deserve this soft fluff. Please leave some feedback if you’d like!

Brooke’s bluebird mug is empty, the berry tea sweet with honey still sticky on her lips, the heading on her word document waiting expectantly for her to fill the page. The blank white screen mocks her, telling her that she’ll fail if she can’t get her paper done by tomorrow, and the normally soothing tea churns around in her stomach while the cafe’s blend of soft pop music hammers nails into her skull.

The cafe is normally one of Brooke’s favorite places. The inside is cozy and comfortable and she often trades smiles with the workers, who know her name and usual order. But even the calming pale blue walls decorated with a rainbow of teacups and the largest collection of 90’s rom-com posters Brooke has ever seen outside a movie theatre weren’t enough to calm the raging tide of finals week.

Whose idea was it to make a final exam and papers due for five different classes, in the same week–

The rattle of a tiny plate snaps her head up. One of the workers–the new one, short with a smile that takes up her whole face and a booming laugh that rings through the cafe–stands next to Brooke’s chair. Brooke’s only talked to her a few times, each time losing her grip of the English language and resorting to communicating with nods and ‘yeahs’ while turning a flaming shade of crimson. The worker slides a giant chocolate chip muffin across the table, the chunks of chocolate soft and melty around the edges, the rich smell reminding Brooke of Saturday morning breakfasts when she was a kid.

“Oh, um, I didn’t order–”

“I know,” the girl–Vanessa, according to the sloppy scrawl on her name tag–replies. “It’s on the house. You look like you could use a muffin.”

Brooke’s face rushes with warmth the way it did after a sip of tea. “Oh. Thank you.”

“It was muffin,” Vanessa says smugly. “Get it? Like nothin’.” She raises a delicate eyebrow, bright white teeth exposed in a grin.

And in spite of herself, in spite of the pile of books and notes taller than a skyscraper next to her and the lack of words on her laptop, Brooke finds a smile spreading across her face.

“You’re funny,” she admits.

Vanessa runs a hand through her brown waves. “I know I am. You just challah if you need anything, okay?”

“As long as you’re not talking about knead like dough,” Brooke replies, her introduction paragraph flying out of her head to make room for Vanessa.

Vanessa points approvingly at Brooke. “I like you, Miss…”

“Brooke.”

“Miss Brooke, then. Just call me Vanessa.”

Brooke nods and turns back to her textbooks, her already-wavering focus fading even faster as she keeps whipping her head around to get glances of Vanessa behind the counter. Brooke watches Vanessa’s tiny arms replace the scones in the display case, watches her pull her long hair up and secure it with a red scrunchie, watches her smile to herself as her apron gets splashed with whipped cream.

Brooke’s face burns when she meets Vanessa’s eyes, and she turns her attention to the muffin instead, still warm, chocolate chips soft and gooey. It’s true that it’s the only real food she’s eaten all day, but Brooke thinks it would still be one of the best muffins she’s had either way.

Focus, Brooke. She gives up on her history paper and instead pulls out her notes from the stupid, mandatory math class she was forced to take, the numbers swirling around and looking like another language. Brooke can handle basic math, but having to know three months’ worth of formulas is making her leg bounce furiously, knee smashing into the table, mug rattling.

This final is almost half her grade, and if she fails, she doubts there’s hope of her passing the class. If she grovels for extra credit she might be able to scrape a C-plus, but Brooke didn’t even like seeing an A-minus, that tiny dash meaning she wasn’t quite good enough for an A.

Brooke forces herself to take a deep breath like her roommate Nina always tells her to do, but it’s not working. She’ll fail, and then everyone will know. She can just imagine the family Christmas dinner: her little cousins teasing her, her nosy grandmother interrogating her, the disappointed furrow of her father’s eyebrows. She usually dodges her family’s rapid-fire personal questions like a superhero dodging bullets, but she doesn’t think she’ll be able to dodge the fact that she failed her first semester of college.

Before she knows it, her eyes are watering, a product of too much stress and not enough sleep. Brooke has always been a crier, shedding tears over everything from sad movie scenes (she still has to look away when Mufasa dies) to leaving her cousin’s house after a sleepover to worries over the part she would get in a ballet performance. She’s reined it in over the years, avoiding the embarrassment and red cheeks that came with crying over everything, and yet here she is, sobbing in the middle of a cafe because of homework.

“Hey, what’s wrong? The muffin wasn’t that bad, was it? This is the first day they let me make ‘em, I don’t want somebody dyin’ on me.”

Brooke looks up through tear-blurred eyes and sees Vanessa next to her, holding out a tissue. She takes it, body hot with embarrassment and something else she can’t identify that this girl she barely knows is not only seeing her cry, but also trying to cheer her up. Brooke wipes her eyes hastily and blinks back every last tear.

“The muffin was really good, actually,” she reassures Vanessa. “I’m just stressed over school stuff.”

“Oh.” Vanessa’s eyes brim with concern. “Anything I can do?”

“I don’t think so. Thank you though.”

Vanessa nods, rubbing her hands together before clapping them. “I bet I can get you to laugh.”

Brooke shrugs. She’s barely smiled–though Vanessa already made her do that too–since finals week started. “You can try.” Brooke finds her posture straightening in response to the challenge she’s posed, and from the cocky sway of Vanessa’s hips as she plops into the red chair across from Brooke, she’s feeling the urge to prove herself.

“Why couldn’t the teddy bear eat dessert?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because he was stuffed!” Vanessa answers.

“If I could make cricket noises, I would,” Brooke says, but Vanessa doesn’t lose heart.

“What’s a ghost’s favorite muffin?” Vanessa tries.

Brooke shrugs.

“Boo-berry.”

Brooke’s teeth dig into her lip and she shakes her head. Vanessa just nods, smile widening.

“Don’t you worry, Brooke, I got you.” She pauses. “What dinosaur likes to drink tea?” Vanessa asks.

Brooke stares at her blankly.

“A Tea-Rex! Get it?”

Brooke tries to fight it, but a snort reluctantly escapes her lips. “That was awful,” she groans, tossing her napkin at Vanessa.

Vanessa smiles. “I got you to laugh, though.”

“Yeah, you did.”

There’s an awkward beat, and Brooke glimpses her laptop enter sleep mode, telling her that she’s not doing enough, and her face falls.

“You really worry about this school stuff, huh?”

“Yeah,” Brooke admits. She’s always worried too much about school, staying up all night to get the highest grade she could, sacrificing sleep and tying everything to a letter on a report card, giving it more value than she knew she should give it. But she just couldn’t stop it.

Vanessa leans in closer, her fingers brushing against Brooke’s, sending a lightning bolt up Brooke’s arm. “You’re probably sick of the ‘don’t worry’ shit, but just…take a breath. I know it’s hard, but school isn’t everything. I’ve been watching you. You always put a tip in the tip jar, and I know I messed up your coffee last week but you didn’t even say nothing, you just drank it like it was what you wanted. That’s more important than grades.”

They’re words Brooke has heard several times, from her friends, from her cousin, from guidance counselors. But there’s something about Vanessa’s warm eyes, the conviction in her voice, that makes Brooke listen this time. And the fact that Vanessa has noticed her, has thought about her, makes Brooke see past her cloud of stress and doubt, the worries weighing her down suddenly lightening.

“You’re right,” Brooke agrees.

“I know I am,” Vanessa says. She picks at her cherry red nail polish, then says, “So you’ll be going home after finals, right?”

Vanessa sounds oddly sad, and Brooke finds the sadness reaching her reply. “Yeah, but I’ll be back in a month. And I’m sure I’ll have a lot more homework to do here.” She smiles as she says it, eager in the prospect of seeing Vanessa again.

Vanessa brightens up like the sun, bathing the world in its joy. “I got a study tip for ya.” She reaches for one of Brooke’s index cards and her favorite blue pen with the fuzzy pom-pom on top. She scribbles something on the index card and slides it across the table with a blush. “I gotta get back to work. Good luck with school.”

“Thank you.” Brooke meets her eyes and they mirror each other in one last smile, and then Vanessa is back behind the counter.

Brooke peeks at the card and sees a phone number written in that messy, looping handwriting, and she vows that she’ll put that study tip to use tonight.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #fluff #angst #coffee shop au #athena2 #concrit welcome #submission

[noxxy-boxxy]

Hetaween, day 5. Anything you like.

And my favorite trope has always been nyos and mains as siblings, so.

Nyos and mains as siblings, but headcanons and humanverse, and in college. Nice.

Tw: small mention of an abusive parent, does not go into details. Mentions of medications against anxiety.

----

Amelia and Alfred have been together since day one. Being twins has it's perks. They probably share everything but food, obviously. They are both good at sports, Alfred is on the baseball team, Amelia is a cheerleader, they probably have many followers in Instagram too. They are like the stereotypical american, but with a little spin. Alfred usually is competing against the president of the newspaper, the deal? Who is better on electronics. They could (and probably they already did it) create a robot from scratch to compete. Since the same person taught both of them, they are head to head. Amelia, on the other hand, looks petite, but hell she's strong. She rises in the air the whole cheerleaders team while smiling. Also, they are probably disaster bisexuals.

Alice and Arthur are something different. They live with Alfred and Amelia, and they are almost in the last year of college. So, they are older. They enjoy tea together, enjoy reading together, and they probably have some weird deals with pagan magic. Or that's what Alfred says. Alice is a good looking woman, but no one can cope with her attitude. Same with his brother. They have a weird club with some other students, and no one really wants to know what's going on there. Also. Eyebrows. They have eyebrows for days. And they usually tend to act like they are older than they look, even though they are not the oldest pair. That's another one.

Francis and Francine are the cookers. No one rejects their invitation to eat. Period. They are also the flirts, and they probably have slept with, at least, three quarters of the people in the college. Being almost leaving the college too has left them a lot of things, they look like those kind of people who only want sex and chocolate from another person, but they are very good advisers. They always know what to say, and people with lovesickness usually search them for advice. Also, they had something with a woman once, that didn't ended well. Everyone knows about this, but they look so sad when asked, so it's just a rumor.

Ivan and Anya are the creepy ones. They always know someone's dirty secrets, so, no one really wants to mess with them. Many times, guys asked Anya for a date, because, even though she's scary, she's beautiful. Ivan always says that if they can pass the first date, they are strong enough to maintain and support her, and he'll not approve anyone without that ability. And, he doesn't approve anyone in the school. Take that into consideration. About him, too, he looks really weird, but he always defends every woman in school when she's with a bastard. He knows them all, and he knows some of them don't have manners. Everyone says that he can either teleport or something like that, because he's always on the spot when a woman is in danger. Some bold ones have asked him to help them with the ex boyfriend who's not willing to accept the no. He always takes care and makes sure they're not coming back. Also, it's kind of a rumor, something shady, but some people say that their father was aggressive towards their mother and him. And apparently there is something weird under his scarf. Shady stuff, you know. Also. Ivan probably knows about the electronics teacher.

Yao and Ling-Ling are the oldest ones in the group. They are not in the school anymore, they work in their own restaurant, and everyone can be seen there having a good time. They usually say they are too old to deal with their friends. At the end, though, they'll usually laugh and help them. Yao is the only one who knows Alfred's old electronics teacher too, and oh my God he laughs so much because, Alfred remembers him as the devil in the earth and all that stuff, and he really is when he's tasked with someone else's education (Alfred would have nightmares if he knew who is his brother), but he's such a dumbass too, you just have to learn to deal with his humor, and learn about boundaries when talking, if you don't want the skeleton out of the closet. Also, people says Ling-Ling has the secret to go in a good date with Anya. No one really knows the truth, tho.

Now, the other group.

First, Feliciano and Felicia, the Italians. People are really jealous of their pasta recipe. They still have a remaining year until they graduate, because they slept in math, and they didn't do the exam. Feliciano is the most beautiful baby, everyone says. He's such a good man, every girl's desire, but apparently he's already dating someone. No one knows who, tho. Felicia is Amelia's best friend, and they usually give people a stroke, because Amelia is strong and can carry her with one hand, but she's the reckless one who wants to be carried. No one understands if it's luck or magic, but she always nails the trick.

Kiku and Sakura were students in the exchange group, and they ended staying after all. Because of that, they still have something from their home. They had to go back to their country once, then they graduated, and came back to be counselors. Guess what, they know the electronics teacher too, but they were there before everything... That was- whoops, running out of time, we'll have to leave that to the next time. So. Sakura is the cheerleaders trainer along with being counselor, so, she is always with Felicia and Amelia, and she always brings sweets to their trainings. Those are the best sweets ever.

Ludwig and Monika, they are not even halfway through, they are really, really young, and they are either loved or hated. No middle point. Mostly because they are almost perfect. Ludwig is a gentleman, who has perfect scores, and it's fucking body goals, and even though he doesn't deal that much with Ivan, when you need help with the ex, they can really scare him. Really. They deal is, his father was in the military, he attended military school too some time (Something weird happened at that moment?...), so, he didn't had time at that moment for feelings, and the dumbass can build a robot to face Alfred's own, but doesn't understand a woman. What a twist. Monika is the same, but she understands her gender a little more. Also. Don't say anything, but apparently she has something with Feliciano. But you didn't heard that one from me.

+Bonus, the electronics teacher.

Gilbert, Ludwig's older brother. A soldier, almost. Now, an engineer. He taught Alfred, Ludwig, and other many, and also, he raised Ludwig all alone. Don't let him stay in the sun, he will be a tomato in a second, and he'll whine and cry and he'll be a pain in the ass, in general. He looks like he has everything in control, but don't be fooled, if you take away his structures, he will break down like glass. And you'll be shocked because he looks like he had the best life, the best childhood, he is quite wealthy too, but no one knows it, so you would expect him to be happy, but anxiety pills and anti depressants can make miracles. His father was a soldier, with a high rank, his mother was a lawyer, and Jul... She wanted to be one too.

He doesn't like Ivan, but they can agree on the same thing, they have a lot in their background, but Ivan's father was aggressive, his father, and his mother, and his sister, were victims.

People says they found, once, an old newspaper talking about an accident, and the newspaper said something about someone whose last name was quite difficult?...

Now, try to light fireworks at Ludwig's side without him noticing. You would expect him to be perfectly fine, but he's the counselor's best friend for a reason, they spent a lot of time together. Apparently, anxiety pills are hereditary.

-----

#hetalia #i dont know if i shoud put a trigger warning... #hws america #hws england #hsw france #hws russia #hws china #hws prussia #hws germany #hws italy #hws japan #aph america #aph england #aph russia #aph france #aph china #aph prussia #aph germany #aph italy #aph japan #smol writes #smol escribe #hetaween #hetaween 19/20 #probably i should #so

[dxlansfxck]

Saints & Sins [G.D] Part 08

Even days later, Y/N still couldn’t decide between Grayson and Luke, she even tried to avoid both of them. She saw Luke during their classes but didn’t respond to his longing glances. Grayson’s and her room kept quiet until midnight, when Grayson decided to come home to sleep. Both were trying to catch her attention with loving gestures, she got flowers from Luke and each morning a lovely joint from Grayson.

She knew she couldn’t avoid her decision much longer – neither to hurt her lovers nor hurt herself. It strained her nerves to stand between two fronts. Sure, she liked Luke, he was nice and thoughtful, always listened to her problems and distracted her from Grayson, but he was kind of boring. Grayson on the other hand was the spirit that burnt her insides. She loved him and she knew that, but he was a dangerous person. But what was it she was looking for? Harmony and a daily routine or rather the charm of danger? Something that kept her alive but didn’t excite her or something that gave her life sense, but could end it decades earlier?

She saw Grayson and Luke wherever she went, everyone in the smoker’s corner looked like Gray, her gym class was full of boys like Luke, wearing tight shirts that show off their biceps. But neither were really them. And Y/N was still lonely like she was before. But this time, she didn’t enjoy it at all.

___

Days came and went by. Days where she wanted to be hold, wanted affection but didn’t want to cheat on either of them. When she wanted to cuddle Luke, she would want to kiss Grayson. When she wanted to kiss Luke, she would want to make out with Grayson. When she wanted to make out with Luke, she wanted Grayson to fuck her.

She compared her possibilities with them, a future would be easier with Luke, she could finish college and move in with him, marry him and have his children. She wouldn’t have this opportunity with Grayson, she didn’t even know if he’d be still alive after college. They wouldn’t be able to afford a house if they’d keep taking drugs. Of course, she thought about making Grayson to take part in a drug withdrawal. Cold Turkey. No medicine, just pure pain. He could do that for her. For their future. He promised her. He loved her. Luke wouldn’t take any risk for her, his life was perfect. He didn’t need anything to hold on to survive. Grayson did in fact need her. She was his anchor, his lifesaver. He needed her. And Y/N decided against Luke, for Grayson, for their future, for their love.

 Luke,

I can’t talk to you face to face, that’s why I’m writing this letter for which you’re maybe going to hate me. But I’m promising you, I won’t let you suffer. I know, you might be right. I might regret my decision, but I had to make it. I think we both knew it from the beginning. All three of us knew. I’m sorry. It’s breaking my heart to tell you that I chose Gray. Can I even call it a decision if both ways break my heart?

Luke, I’ve never had so much fun before, you made the last weeks such a pleasure for me. I think you brought up feelings I’ve never felt. Maybe even love. But nevertheless, Grayson needs me. I know you’ll find someone else quickly, you’re such an amazing person. Your future girl won’t destroy you like I would, you’ll have the perfect future together which I may not even have. You’ll be happy, Luke.

Don’t cry after me, don’t be sad, you’ve earned someone better. Don’t think I didn’t love you, somewhere deep inside me is a spot just for you. But it’s too small to change anything.

Do something with your life. For me. For yourself.

Y/N

 Y/N didn’t hand Luke the letter herself. She was way too scared of him changing her mind. But after she knew he received it, he never talked to her again. She waited on top of her bed, drawing and listening to music until the door opened. She got quite anxious while Grayson walked into the room and let himself fall into his own bed, not giving her any attention. “Hey.” Y/N didn’t know what else to say, but he didn’t mind to answer anyways. “How are you? Don’t you wanna come back to our classes?” Damn, what kind of bullshit was she actually talking about? “Okay, mom.” Stubborn and dismissive like always. “Call me mom once again and I won’t be able to hold myself back, baby”, she tried to loosen up the mood, but he didn’t even laugh. “Okay, sorry”, then he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Y/N alone and she was close to giving him up.

­­­­­____

One night, Grayson came back quite early and didn’t seem to be as high as he used to be. Without hesitating, Y/N tried to take her chance, slipping under his blanket and hugged his body. “I chose you, you know that, right?“ He didn’t look at her, but didn’t remove her arms either. “Grayson, I told Luke that I love you. I want to be there for you, want to be your anchor.” Grayson just snorts.

“Can you just shut up, Y/L/N? I’m so tired of your crying. I know you chose me, but you did because you felt guilty. Do you understand that I don’t need your help? God, just go to Luke and live the life you want, I don’t even have a future, I’m letting myself live for another year then I’m gonna die anyways”, she was about to say something, but he just shakes his head, “Just let it be, angel. I’m fine, really.”

Their door opened and Y/N automatically skids, turning her head to the new arrival in their doorframe. She thought it was Luke, but she couldn’t remember that face at all. “Y/N, that’s Jaidon, but everyone calls him Jai. Hey, Babe”, he stands up and walks over to Jai, kissing him in front of her. She was either going to cry or to vomit, but smiled for them. “I’m glad you found someone and completed our relationship. Good luck you two”, she claps Grayson’s shoulder before heading out, leaving the campus and walking straight into some corner of the city she came to every single day a few weeks ago. She bought some of the pills she used to take and swallows a few of them on her way home. Her eyes were already closing as she comes back into her room, so she just lets herself fall under her blankets without even taking her pants off. She didn’t care about them. But what she actually did care about were those noises coming from Grayson’s bed. She turns her head once again, just to see Grayson and Jai. Jai on top of him, his tattooed arms next to Gray’s head, a thin layer of sweat on both of their foreheads. “Fuck, Gray”, Jai moans. Grayson didn’t respond, his mouth hung open and his eyes were closed. They didn’t even realize they weren’t alone anymore. Y/N on the other hand decided not to disturb them, swallowing two more pills before dozing off in a deep sleep.

­­­___

“Fuck, babe, keep on going”, muscular arms were wrapped around Y/N’s tiny waist while she moves her hips I a steady rhythm. Deep growls and moans leave the mouth under hers, sweat dripping from her forehead on his chest while his nails were dragging lines across her body. Soon enough she collapsed on top of him while gasping for air. She laid her head on his muscular chest, long fingers were brushing through her hair. Soon enough she was under the shower to wash off the typical sex smell, just to head back to class, to sit next to Grayson, to ignore him and to keep on flirting with his affairs twin. She really gave up on Grayson, was living her own life and shares her bed with Shawn. He was currently winking in Y/Ns direction while biting his lip to hide a smile. Laughing, Y/N shakes her head and flips him off, making Grayson groan in annoyance. “Jealous?”, she smiles. “Dream on, I’ve got the hotter twin.”

 Even though they weren’t really a couple, Shawn and Y/N spent most of their free time together. She couldn’t help it, once he opened his mouth she was lost in his accent. Shawn and Jai were from Canada, their mom sent them to this college because they hat a similar past to Grayson’s. Even if she wasn’t spending time with him, she was ongoing high. Shawn had the best connections to get the best drugs in here, Dope, Weed and even Shore. Y/N was happy with trips and weed, but Gray didn’t seem to mind Jai’s stash of opiates. He changed, resembles a corpse more and more each day. Pale, skinny and no expression left in his eyes. She was somehow regretting breaking up with Luke for him, because the only thing she had left for Grayson was hate.

Back in her room she saw Grayson and Jai with a rolled banknote in their hands and blood dripping noses. She just snorts while sitting down at her desk to learn, trying to get done with everything as fast as possible to get out of this hell, to move away from the person that destroyed her. Away from Grayson Dolan.

___

“C’mon, don’t act that dumb! It’s just maths, how can you not understand anything from that? I even understand that stoned!” Jai shakes his head while fanning the math book in front of her face. Shawn sits next to him and rolls his eyes. “Not everyone can be a math pro like you, brother. Be patient with my girl or I’m telling mom that you’re on H again”, Shawn smiles at his twin whose face got directly softer. “Sorry, Shawny. Okay, again. What haven’t you understood so far, Y/N? Do you know how to get to the scalar product?” Y/N nods while thinking about this awkward situation. Jai was trying to help her with her math problem, while his twin was sitting next to them, sometimes stealing a kiss from her. Shawn made her ask Jai to tutor her, just to spend more time with him and to get to know him better. Even though she’d prefer Shawn teaching her, Jai wasn’t too bad. If he wouldn’t be with Gray, she could maybe even like him.

­­____

"Good luck, Y/N. It’s gonna be the last exam, after that we’re getting wasted!”

4 ½ hours later they were sitting at the lakeside, beer in their hands and smiles on their faces. “Fuck, we made it”, Shawn laughed while taking a deep sip. “Not yet, babe. Exams, yes. Results, no. But for now, that’s it, you’re right”, he kissed her cheek while emptying his bottle. “Thank you too, Jai. I thought I had to hate you ‘cause of Gray, but you really helped me. If I didn’t have Shawn, I’d maybe hook up with you”, Y/N laughed while checking him out. Jai smirks. “Don’t worry about Grayson, he doesn’t give a fuck about relationships. We’re just fucking, but I wouldn’t want to love him.” She raises her eyebrow, almost feeling like she had to defend Grayson. But right in that moment, he was weaving in their direction and letting himself fall next to Jai which rolls his eyes and smirks at me before pressing his lips onto Grayson’s.

#Grayson dolan #graysondolan #Dolan twins #Grayson Dolan fanfiction #fanfiction #blurb #smut #Dolan twins fanfiction

[ssnakey-b]

FF8 English-French translarison, part 23: Battle of the Gardens

Welcome back, everyone! We are nearing the end of the CD2 content and beginning one of my favourite parts of the game: the Battle of the Gardens.

And immediately we’ve got some interesting stuff as the dialogue between Nida and Squall:

In English, Nida asks “The sorceress is with them, huh? So this is going to be the final battle?”. However, French Nida is more assured, stating “The witch is with them. This is going to be the ultimate battle.”

Also, as you may have noticed, we once again have an example of the French version going back and forth between using the words “sorcière” (witch/sorceress),  prêtresse” (priestess) and most confusingly, “nécromancienne” (necromancer) for Edea/Ultimecia. I know the English verison sometimes uses “witch” instead of “sorceress” as well, but the French version really likes to change what it calls them, although it does usually settle on “prêtresse”.

Anyway, back to the dialogue, English Squall replies with “I hope so,” but again the reply is quite different as he says “(yes, for whom?)” and indeed, it’s between parenthesis, implying he’s muttering it to himself, and making it very clear that he fully expects at least one of them to die.

Next, in English, Squall wonders “What should I do first? I have to give orders to everybody. It’s my responsibility.” in the French version, he’s more straightforward, thinking “I have to distribute tasks and give everyone orders.” Gotta say, I do like the way the English version emphasize Squall’s sense of duty a little more.

Geesh, we’re still on the first screen and we have yet more stuff to cover when it comes to Squall’s orders:

First, in English, Squall is pretty solemn about Seifer being there, as he says “As you may all know, Seifer is with them. I plan to settle everything, once and for all, with this battle.” French Squall is being a lot less cute about it, saying “One of us, Seifer, is fighting on the enemy’s side. Count on me to eliminate this traitor.” DAMN, French Squall ain’t fucking around!

Next, we have a bit of a strange difference in... lore, I guess? In English, Squall orders “1st and 2nd class Sabers” to go in the parking lot. In French, however, he orders the “grenadiers” to do so, which is rather odd for two reasons. First, as far as I’m aware, SeeD doesn’t use grenades (which would seem redundant hen you have magic anyway), and explosives seem to be more Galbadia’s speciality. And second, “grenadiers” as a specific unit isn’t a thing in the French army any more, and is usually associated with Napoleonic times, so that’s a bit of strange reference. Of course, I guess it could be kind of a non-literal term and refer to fire magic specialists.

Next, while giving orders to protect the quad and main entrance, English Squall splits the students between even and odd ID numbers. In French, it’s a bit more complicated, as he tells the “first year students” to get the quad, and the “candidates” to get to the entrance. I’m guessing “first year students” refers to new SeeD graduates and “candidates” to the ones nearing the end who can apply for the final exam but haven’t graduated yet.

Or maybe it’s kind of the opposite, and “first-year student” means people who just entered the cursus to join SeeD (as opposed to younger students who are getting a general education) and “candidates” are again the ones eligible for the final exam. Not that I really have any evidence backing it up either way. :P

And similarly, instead of telling students with an ID ending with 8 (which id a bit confusing considering he already gave students with even-numbered ID orders) to take care of the junior classmen, in French, they do follow through on the previous orders by having Squall tell the second year students to do so.

After the girls and Irvine tell Squall Zell is sleeping, English Squall is quite disbelieving an asks them whet they’re talking about. And in French, he’s actually extra snarky by asking “Are you kidding me right now?”.

And after Quistis says it’s their little secret, instead of wondering “... What’s he doing? We don’t have any time!”, he wonders “Are they drunk or something?”. Seriously, French Squall is so done with anyone’s bullshit.

Here’s one of the more amusing ones. In English, this guy says his status is “Indirect magic operative, level 2″. In French however, he says he’s in charge of... the film club. Now it’s clearly not meant to be a joke, I just find the contrast between the two version funny in this case.

Also, in English, Squall makes him a 1st class MG, as in Major General, presumably, which seems quite a high rank for someone whose background Squall doesn’t know (especially since I’m not even sure that’s how SeeD ranks work but whatever). In French, it seems a bit more plausible as he tells the guy “From now on, you’re the section B lieutenant”.

One thing I do like about the guy being in charge of the film club in the French version is how it shows how suddenly these kids’ lives can change in an instant in this game’s universe. It’s clear that for the most part, education in Balamb Garden is fairly standards, so one minute you could be minding your own business, hanging out with friend, engaging in normal high-school activities when suddenly bam! War gets dumped on you and you gotta adapt or die. Pretty of scary when you think about it.

There’s also a slight difference with these three guys. In English, the boys are part of the “Fire Platoon”, which make me wonder if it means they use guns (which again seems odd for Balamb Garden, but maybe it’s a thing) and the girl is a medic.

In French, however, one of the boys is explicitly a gunner (so I guess it really IS a thing), the other boy is a “nurse-fireman” (because one of these jobs just isn’t stressful enough on its own apparently) and the girl is a regular nurse.

Either way, I always loved Squall thinking quickly under pressure and making sure everyone has a role. It’s funny, there are many high-ranking (para-)military characters in video games, but it’s the only time I recall one actually acting like a leader.

The talk with Zell goes pretty much the same in both versions, I just find it funny that in English, Squall goes out of his way to encourage Zell & co by saying “Zell, I’m counting on you. Good luck, everyone.” whereas in French, he is much more laconic, merely saying “Good luck.”

Probably the smallest difference I’ll mention, but still an interesting one. In English, after the Galbadian forces invade, Squall tells the quad team to watch out. In French, he tells all “BGU Soldiers” to get ready. Both make sense, though I do like Squall giving more specific orders in English a little more. It gives the sense that he’s observing everything from the bridge and uses that to his advantage for tactical decisions.

Here’s another funny one. After Squall tells Zell to do whatever it takes to rescue Linoa, English Zell replies “Leave it to me!”. In French however, he seems less confident as what he says literally translates to “(Poor me!)” and it’s basically him going “(Oh, boy)”. This is especially funny when coupled with his confident-looking chest pat. I love the moment that imply that Zell is often not nearly as assured as he looks, but he puts on a brave face as to not demoralize his teammates.

Back in the headmaster’s office, where Kadowaki is once again proving herself to be the best NPC in gaming history by taking charge instead of Cid, there’s another amusing difference. In both versions, she tells Squall that it’s his destiny to fight Seifer, but while she’s pretty straightforward about it in French, I love that in English, she goes “It’s kind of like your destiny to face him”. Yeah, sort of or whatever. Look, just go kick his ass.

Another Irvine speech, another surprisingly big difference.

English:

Listen... Do me a favor. YOU... go help Rinoa. It may be too late, but don’t give up until you’re CERTAIN that there’s nothing more you can do!

French:

No way you can just leave her like that! Nobody abandons such a pretty girl, as long as there’s really nothing left to do...

By the way, that awkward phrasing at the end (as it should have been “UNTIL there’s really nothing left to do”) is indeed present in the actual text, so don’t blame it on me! And generally speaking I do like the English take on it better, especially as he goes “YOU help Linoa”. It’s like he’s saying “look, you gave the orders, we know what to do, but if YOU don’t rescue her, no-one can”.

And it really goes to show that in spite of the image he wants to give of himself, Irvine is surprisingly thoughtful. He knows Squall won’t be able to forgive himself if he doesn’t try to rescue Linoa, even if someone else rescued her, he’d feel like shit for not going for her.

There’s also a bit of an odd quirk in the English version a bit later, as Quistis says “we’ll clear a path. Once Squall arrives, we’ll move in.” which is a bit weird considering she’s talking to Squall. Even if you want to say she’s speaking to the group as a whole, it’s still a bit strange, especially as she’s still looking right at him. In French, she does address him directly saying “We’ll clear the path. Don’t worry about us.”

And so we get to Squall’s speech and while it’s very moving, I want you all to picture Linoa dangling off the side of Balamb Garden the whole time. Anyway, the first half of it is actually very similar in both versions. But then things get quite different:

English:

SeeD was formed to fight the sorceress; at least, that’s what I heard. And Garden was created to train SeeDs. So this battle is Garden’s destiny and also our destiny. It’s a grueling battle, and I’m sure you guys are all exhausted. But I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t want anyone to look back and regret this day. So just this once, I want you guys to give everything you’ve got! For yourselves and for me!

French:

The battle we fight has many things at stake: everyone’s life, of course, but also the future of BGU and our democracy! This is why I ask each of you for one more push, non just for yourselves, but for everyone else. I count on you! I ask you to do your maximum, for you and for others.

And finally, I don’t know about you, but this is the moment I’ve been looking for. After Squall goes all tsundere on Linoa and claims him saving her was purely professional because they have a contract and it was everybody else’s idea and ti was a coincidence anyway and it’s not like I keep saving you because I like you or anything, so don’t get the wrong idea, baka, we get some small differences at first.

For example, while throwing Zell under the bus, instead of “Zell gave it to me, see? I’ve been holding on to it”, she says “Zell gave it to me. That was nice of him, wasn’t it?”. Rest assure that Squall swears to kill him either way. Also, I really like the animation of Squall’s shoulders tensing up and him rolling his neck while he thinks that. I don’t remember seeingt hat specific animation anywhere else either, so I lvoe that they gave him one for that of all things.

Also also, in both versions, he specifies that it’s his favourite ring, implying he owns many more. Behold Pimp Squall, blowing his cadet allowance on bling. Oh and while in English, he adds “You’d better give it back,” he doesn’t say that in French, which is yet another small detail that makes him come across a bit nicer in the French version.

People also noted that on top of lions in the FF8 universe not resembling our Earth lions, Linoa sounds out the the word like she’s never heard of it before, implying they’re fairly obscure mythical creatures. Well, that doesn’t happen in French and thinking about it, that’s a bit of a shame as that is an interesting subtle bit of lore.

But the question is: does this L I O N of his have a name? Sure does:

Yep, Griever is known as Cronos in French, tying it back to the time theme. Oddly, it’s lacking an H to really fit, so it might be a reference to the king of Titans as well.

So in both versions, Linoa says that it’s such an accident that people might think they’re together once she gets a copy of Squall’s ring. But what’ interesting is the specific terms used:

In English, she says “That’d be crazy, huh!? I mean, everyone might, y’know, get the wrong idea about us.”

In French, she says “The problem is that everyone will think we’re together!”

What makes this seemingly small difference have such significance is how it leads to Squall’s reply a bit later as in English, he tells Rinoa “You sound like you want everyone to get the wrong idea.” teasing her a bit while kind of calling her out.

In French however, it take son a whole other meaning as he says “I don’t know if it’s really a problem...”

And this to me really sounds like Squall openly admitting that he does have romantic feelings for Linoa. After all, why else would a guy like him be okay with people spreading rumours about him being with a girl? If nothing else, he’s certainly admitting that he’s comfortable being paired up with her by people and that he’s got some things to work out once the battle is over.

Oh and Linoa’s reaction in each version also speaks volume about what Squall just said. In English, she just vehemently denies being up to anything, going “No-no-no-no-no!”. In French, she seems much more flustered, going “Huh? What... What do you mean?”

We’ve got one last difference to end on. And once again, it’s quite a meaningful one. It happens as Squall ends yet another rousing speech. In English, it goes like this:

Squall: “We’ve come this far. I guess there no need for me to say anything.”

Rinoa: “We’re still listening. Squall, we want to know how you feel.”

Squall: “I’ll tell you later... After we all get out of this. Let’s go.”

In French, it goes like this (note that Squall uses the pronoun “tu”, showing he’s addressing Linoa specifically):

Squall: My little memories don’t interest you, huh?

Linoa: Of course they do! Tell me what you really think.

Squall: I’ll tell you that, if we’re still alive after this trial. Let’s go!

I find it very interesting that Squall make sit more personal here, by talking to Linoa directly. It’s a good way for him to tall the rest of the orphanage gang that they can’t put the rest of humanity in jeopardy because of their childhood memories.

But really, I like this part in both versions. And in both, you once again have Squall basically admit that he wants to get closer to Linoa. So even if you don’t take it as a love confession, then it certainly shows that he wants to figure out how exactly he feels about her, that he definitely wants their relationship to be more than professional, and that he intends to work out how far he wants it to go. And on top of that, it’s also a good motivator for her to give it all she’s got. “Don’t you die on me, I’ve got stuff to tall you about.”

Hhhaaa, I really enjoyed that one! And I hope you did too. Next time, it’s the second and final battle against Edea, the end of the CD2 content and the beginning of a new battle. In the meantime, feel free to ask questions, either by replying to this post or through my “ask” thing, or to just make comments or add your two cents. I always love to see people’s reactions and their own interpretations of various elements. And it would be really nice if you could give this post a reblog to help spread awareness. I know some people think their own blog is too small for it to matter but I assure you, every reblog helps.

See you around for part 24!

#final fantasy VIII #FF8 #FFVIII #Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy 8 #Translarison #translation #comparison #english #french #localization #localisation #variation #difference #language #Balamb Garden #Galbadia garden #Squall leonhart #Linoa #Rinoa #Heartilly #Quistis #Trepe #Selphie #Tilmitt #Zell #Dincht #Irvine #Kinneas #Xu

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 109: Rescue Exercise

Previously on BnHA: Bakugou and Deku’s groups met up after passing phase one of the exam. Bakugou eyed Deku and was all, “I see you made that *~*~*BORROWED POWER*~*~* your own,” which caused me to lose my shit, but then he walked off without saying anything further. Aoyama and Iida were big damn heroes, but Aoyama really took the cake, firing up his laser and using it as a beacon to draw in the remaining class 1-A strays so that they could all regroup and pass. Which they did, with not a second to spare. Back in the anteroom, the 100 remaining examinees were directed to watch as the examiners demolished the testing field with a series of explosions, and then announced that phase two of the exam would be a rescue operation.

Today on BnHA: The exam guys explain that the second part of the test will involve rescuing old folks and little kids from a mock disaster site. The “victims” are professional actors who basically do this for a living. While the group waits for phase two to begin, Sero gossips to the others about Deku and the Weird Naked Girl from Shiketsu Academy. Meanwhile a polite Yeti from Shiketsu comes to apologize to Bakugou on behalf of his dick classmate (the meat lump guy from a couple chapters ago). Shouto goes up to Yoarashi and is all “is it just me or do you hate my guts” and Yoarashi is all “yeah I do, cuz your eyes remind me of Endeavor’s.” Phase two begins and the kids set off a-rescuin’. Deku gets chewed out for not being smiley enough, but recovers. Ochako decides she’s going to stop acting like she’s in a shoujo manga for the time being, which, finally!! The exam continues, with a plot twist or two very clearly on the horizon.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’ve read up through chapter 148 now, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

~new volume time~!

oh. yeahhh

now that’s the shit I do like. my boys being two sides of the same coin

and in the background it looks like Yoarashi and Todoroki are indeed being rivals, and Todo looks to be embracing his fire side at long last!

and is that Gang Orca just randomly there in the background also or what

anyway

“IT’S ABOUT YOUR QUIRK FUCKWIPE”

(ETA: after this volume, FA got a new translator, and I feel like this was the original translator’s last hurrah lol. to be fair, the guy apparently had a ton of impact on early BnHA fandom. he was even the one who came up with “quirk” as a translation for kosei which obviously stuck. but all the same, I’ve definitely noticed a steep drop in the number of profanities uttered in FA’s translations since he left.)

oh my god shit’s gonna hit the fan. fucking finally. they wouldn’t have brought it up out of the blue in the previous chapter unless things were about to come to a head! I smell another Kacchan essay coming on before these next nine chapters are done

wow look at this title page though

Todoroki looks very ~moody~ here and I can’t help but feel more daddy angst is on the horizon. there’s got to be some reason why the otherwise stand-up guy Yoarashi keeps looking at him like he smells something bad

yay the character page has the characters in action again instead of just profile pictures of them! for a little while I was afraid Horikoshi was running out of steam to keep doing these. I really like them every time he does one and this is no exception

Bakugou looks like he’s gotten more jacked. been hittin the gym

is Tokoyami using Dark Shadow to fly...? can he do that?

Rat Principal’s just sitting there in All Might’s lap. interesting to see him here; I assume this means more plot stuff is on the horizon. WHO IS THE TRAITOR

poor Kirishima, shown here a split second away from falling flat on his face

Jirou is perfect as always, I wonder if she’s ever not been perfect

go away Mineta

anyways. on to the chapter

so the first thing I wondered upon reading this opening panel (“we’ll be having you conduct rescues as ‘bystanders’ at this disaster site”) is, what the fuck do they mean by “bystanders.” but thankfully the kids are asking the exact same thing

oh, you did it as a lesson once. REMEMBER? no I don’t fucking remember because I wasn’t there. I can’t believe you did a bystander rescue lesson without me. fuck you guys!

they’re saying that they won’t be acting as ordinary citizens, but as people who’ve already secured a provisional license. so basically, heroes who happened to be onsite during the disaster

and there are the old men and kids we saw earlier

I wonder if they’re going to purposely make things as difficult for the rescuers as possible

wow, apparently they all do this professionally. they’ve got fake blood and everything

the exam guy is saying they work for the “Help Us Company” or HUC for short. haha I love this

so okay, the examinees have to rescue them and do it as professionally as possible. but are there any other crazy requirements for this exam like there have been with all of the other ones

wow, apparently not. “this time you and your rescue efforts will be graded via points.” how curiously normal. almost suspiciously so

Iida and Deku are staring at the field

if that’s the case, I wonder is it just a rescue operation then, or did they hire any actors to possibly play villains as well...? like, exactly how realistic are they going for here

anyway, the resemblance seems to make this more personal for them. Deku’s looking serious and determined. “let’s give it our best shot”

hoh boy Sero is coming over to Kami and Mineta and says he has something to tell them, and immediately you know it’s gonna be about that naked chick from Shiketsu

I’m so torn on this because. basically they think Deku was fooling around with her and they’re like “WHAT, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EXAM??” and caught somewhere in between outraged and impressed. but like, they’re horny teenage boys and of course they’re gonna be interested

really, if it was just Sero and Kaminari (a.k.a. the two that actually respect their fellow students and haven’t groped and/or attempted to peep on and/or raid their underwear and/or all of the other disgusting things Mineta has done or tried to do), I wouldn’t mind it, because really they’re just gossiping and fantasizing. but as usual Mineta ruins everything

ffff okay screw it, this is pretty funny. I mostly just like that they all think Deku’s got game now. and this girl is not helping at all

now they’re all disappearing in a cloud of angry fight smoke (as one does), and Ochako is staring

c’mon Ochako you know he wouldn’t do you like that. you know him better than that

over by the refreshments table, some guys from Shiketsu are coming over to say hi to Bakugou

they’re asking did Seiji go after him and he’s like “yeah and I knocked his punk ass out”

this sasquatch-looking guy is apologizing for Seiji’s behavior. hmmm

hmmmmm. is this sincere? I don’t fucking trust anyone from any of these other schools until the exam is finally over

everyone else is skeptical too lol

Todoroki is remembering Yoarashi’s >:( face from earlier and is like, then wtf was up with that

Shouto they all have hats. be fucking specific

obviously he’s talking to Yoarashi though

so he’s asking if he did something

Yoarashi’s turning to him like

“no. absolutely nothing at all”

haha. no, actually he’s addressing him as “son of Endeavor.” so yeah I’m starting to get an inkling here that he doesn’t like Todoroki’s dad

okay, whoa

okay, HOLD UP. you come into my house and you come up to my son who’s already been through enough dad-related trauma for a lifetime and who already has ten thousand hang-ups about being too similar to his dad, and who is actually THE SWEETEST BOY WHO EVER LIVED, TRUFAX, and you go up to him and you say you don’t like him because HIS EYES ARE THE SAME AS ENDEAVOR’S? Yoarashi, I’ll have you know that I liked you. but if it’s going to be like that, I WILL MAKE YOU MY ADVERSARY IN A HEARTBEAT and don’t think for a second that I won’t!!

AND HE’S REALLY GOING OFF NOW WITHOUT EVEN FUCKING EXPLAINING WHY HE DOESN’T LIKE ENDEAVOR AND WHY HE’S CONDEMNED SHOUTO TO NOT BEING LIKED JUST BECAUSE OF HIS JERK DAD

ARE YOU TRYING TO UNDO ALL THAT SHIT DEKU WORKED SO HARD FOR DURING THE SPORTS FESTIVAL ARC?? DEKU’S ARMS DIED FOR THIS

and I’m not sure if Deku actually saw all of this happening, but now he’s asking if Todoroki is okay

or at least he starts to, but then this girl whose name I unfortunately forgot (hold on I’ll look it up again... Camie) is bidding him farewell and he’s getting distracted by that. and then immediately Kami and Mineta are tearing into him again

meanwhile Ochako is staring at Camie with a weirdly contemplative look

jealousy!?!??! like, is it not obvious?? there’s a whole shipping thing that Horikoshi is trying to do with you and Deku here, but I’m really skeptical of his ability to pull it off even remotely gracefully. but it sure doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere so I guess WE SHALL SEE

whoa now all of a sudden a voice is blaring over the speakers and interrupting all of their teenage shenanigans

finally. Todoroki angst aside, that was beginning to get tiresome

and here they go!

I wonder if they’re also going to be tested on their ability to work with the kids from the other schools here. because in a real life rescue effort, they’d have to put aside their differences. and that scene just before this sure did a good fucking job of establishing that various people here all have various beefs. I hope they don’t get sidetracked by that

so they’re all setting off, and they’re wondering how they’re going to be graded. well, my speculation is that the ones who bring the others together and work cooperatively will get the highest score. in other words, I think this test is going to weed out the ones with too much ego, among other things

so, Bakugou... lol. good luck kiddo

(ETA: sob)

like two seconds in and they already stumbled upon a crying little kid

oh shit these instructors are not fucking around

DEKU YOU FUCKED UP SOMEHOW

he’s screaming at him why didn’t he check if he was okay first, look at all the blood on him, etc.

he says heroes with provisional licenses need to be able to judge the victims’ situations at a glance. well thank you for the helpful hint dude

someone from another school is saying that they’re going to mark the area as dangerous, and someone else is saying no, make it a wider area because we don’t know if the damage might spread

someone else is making roads and helipads

and some of Ms. Joke’s kids are setting up a temporary refuge and triage station

Aizawa’s rubbing his head and says he knew his kids would fall behind when it came to this sort of thing. well how much training have they had for this?

okay this is actually really interesting. this is something we haven’t gotten into at all yet

and that kid that was yelling at Deku says that most of all, a hero’s first words upon arriving at the scene shouldn’t be, “OH NO THAT’S TERRIBLE,” but rather...

wow Deku you really did fuck up, huh. wasn’t this the entire reason you wanted to be a hero in the first place?

but thanks again HUC kid for your free advice

so now Deku is snapping himself out of it and getting his game face on

I kinda wish his game face wasn’t so cuddly, but I’ll take it

now the HUC kid is immediately getting back in character and telling Deku to go save his grandpa

so Deku’s directing the others to go help gramps while he takes the kid to the first aid station

Ochako is just STANDING THERE WATCHING HIM

I don’t know but get a move on, girl, I need you to get your license too so you can become even more of a badass

she’s thinking that she needs to push aside all of her DO YOU LOVE HIM??? feelings

and that whenever she sees Deku acting like that and never giving up, she thinks it’s just so cool

well, good, because this is the provisional license exam arc, not the Can These Two Crazy Kids Really Make It After All arc. we’re barely a hundred chapters in; there’s still plenty of time for that shit later down the line

and thankfully the last page seems to be introducing some sort of twist, because things were getting a little too straightforward for a finale lol

is that Todoroki? I can’t tell what’s going on. I GUESS I’ll just have to keep reading, oh well

 BONUS:

  Chewbacca here is first mate on a ship that might suit us

whaaaaaaaat he’s the class rep?? okay then, I guess that was a sincere offer of friendship. this guy seems like a solid bro

apparently he can freely manipulate his hair and make it longer and such. “though it’s tough how often it tangles up on him.” that sounds troublesome

I like him. Nagamasa... I’ll try to remember that

#bnha #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #yoarashi inasa #todoroki shouto #uraraka ochako #moura nagamasa #makeste reads bnha #todoroki shouto: [walks up to a group of students who all have absolutely nothing in common] #[other than the fact that they all have the same hat] #todoroki shouto: 'hey you with the hat' #in the anime he's more specific #but oddly enough I think I prefer this version lmao

[philomathstudies]

Introduction: Hi! I’m Annie, I recently graduated as valedictorian of a class of almost 700, and I’m about to be a freshman at Johns Hopkins (go blue jays!!). High school was some of the best and worst moments of my life, and looking back, there are so many things that I wish I’d done and things that made me successful, so I wanted to share them! Of course, disclaimer, these tips may not apply to everyone!

(These tips generally apply to all classes, but if you have a specific subject you want tips on, I’ve taken these AP courses: european history, world history, us gov’t, macroeconomics, lang, lit, calc ab, chemistry, physics 1, physics c, environmental science, art: drawing, biology, human geography, chinese, and art history. Feel free to message me!)

College applications are a crapshoot- I can’t begin to tell you the number of incredible, brilliant people with extraordinary, international level achievements that got denied at top schools in favor of those lacking those accomplishments. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean those who got in don’t have qualities that earned them a spot, it just speaks to the unpredictable nature of the college application process. When deans of admission at top schools openly say they could reject all admitted students and build the same exemplary class from the waitlist, or that they have enough qualified applicants to fill 3 or 4 classes with, there’s a certain amount of luck involved. Therefore I urge all rising seniors to go into this process realizing that the odds are not in your favor. I went into the process with too much blind hope, too confident in my ability to be that lucky 1 in 10 (or less) that would gain admission, and I was sorely disappointed. So that leads me to my next tip…

Don’t do things just for your college application- Those slim acceptance rates are the exact reason I urge you not to join things solely for how good they look on a college application. It seems counterintuitive; wouldn’t they give you a better chance of acceptance? However, my point is not to dissuade you from extracurriculars, but rather to commit to ones that genuinely make you happy. As I wrote above, the process is so competitive that even international achievements may mean rejection, so don’t waste your high school experience by dedicating so much time and effort to something that you feel obligated to do.

Try everything your freshman and sophomore year- My biggest regret is not joining clubs where my passions lie simply because I was too lazy or scared of things like public speaking my freshman year. It’s much more intimidating to join as upperclassmen, and you may not be able to participate at all the levels/in all the ways people who have dedicated 3-4 years can. Even if you don’t think its for you (like debate for me because of my fear of public speaking), I urge you to expand your horizons and push yourself out of your comfort zone. Many clubs give you great opportunities to build leadership, public speaking, etc. skills and to find your passions.

Know both sides of the flashcard- I learned this tip from my organic chemistry class, and I’d never though about how useful it is. For example, if you’re memorizing polyatomic ions, it’s extremely important that you know both the formula and the name, as either version may show up on the exam. Not doing this also makes the weaknesses in your memorization evident- whenever I study vocab, I tend to glance at the side with the term and only memorize the definition. This meant that when I was given only the definitions, I couldn’t remember the word they defined, because I was so used to being given the vocab word and responding with the definition. 

The first lecture of the unit is one of the most important for STEM classes- I know the beginning of the unit can often seem like the perfect time to tune out, as it goes over information you’ve previously learned or the easiest material of the topic, but it often forms the foundation for everything else in the unit. For example, the first lecture on a stoichiometry unit will probably teach you dimensional analysis, a skill integral to calculating molecular or empirical formulas, moles or grams of a substance, etc. 

Buy/sell books secondhand- Everyone knows how expensive college textbooks are, but between SAT and AP prep books, and books for English, high school books can cost quite a bit of money too. Unless they redesigned the exam recently, you absolutely don’t need the newest edition of the review book, so buy from upperclassmen and then sell it to underclassmen the following year.

Learn to self study- Unless you’re really lucky, you’re guaranteed to have a teacher who doesn’t teach, teaches badly, or whose teaching style just doesn’t work for you. Personally, I find that self learning, especially if I’m struggling because resources such as textbooks and online explanations, and videos seem to contradict, really helps me understand the topic throughly. In AP bio, my teacher had us create claymation videos on the processes of cellular respiration and photosynthesis independently. It was incredibly frustrating and confusing because all the resources described the cycles in varying degrees of details, but I felt like I genuinely understood the topic, instead of having been spoon-fed the information and memorizing it. Obviously, this method isn’t very efficient for frequent use, but the key is to try to understand the material independently instead of going to the teacher the moment you hit a snag. 

Keep your backpack/binders/notebooks reasonably organized- When teachers ask for homework to be passed up and you have to dig through mountains of papers in your backpack, not only is that super stressful, but a lot of teachers won’t let you turn it in after they have already collected all the papers. I was definitely guilty of being lazy and just stuffing papers, once I got them, into my backpack instead of taking a few seconds to slide them into a binder, and as a result I got 0s on lots of homework because either I couldn’t find it at the time or because everything was so messy I didn’t remember there was homework. Try to have some sort of organization system going on or at least a homework folder, because those 0s add up and can be the difference between an 89 and 90. 

You’re gonna get senioritis, badly, and that’s ok- I’ve always been the type of person who did every homework assignment and was very focused on grades, so the idea that I would completely let myself ago seemed absurd to me. Don’t underestimate what senior year does to you. I can honestly count on one hand the econ worksheets that I actually turned in during senior year, and I made my first B in a grading period during the spring. I was very stressed about how awful my grades were, but unable to muster the energy to do anything about it. And you know what, it’s ok. It’s senior year, you can give yourself a break. Yes, your senior grades are still important for college applications, so don’t go from straight A’s to straight C’s, but for the most part, all the hard work is behind you. Do keep in mind that these habits may haunt you when you’re a college freshman. I haven’t started classes yet, but based on how little I studied for the math placement exam for my college, senioitis doesn’t magically end when you graduate, so don’t let it get completely out of control during the year. 

Learn how to do math without a calculator- If you take either of the AP Calculuses or the SAT, you need to master this skill because there are sections of the exams that are strictly non-calculator.  Beyond that, when you get to calculus, you’ll be introduced to complicated concepts, where not being able to multiply by hand will drag you down. 

Keep old notes- Not only for finals, but some topics are very interdisciplinary, like biochemistry, so it’s very important that you have a working knowledge of both biology and chemistry. As you take advanced classes, such as for me, taking physics c after physics 1, it will be assumed that you have completely mastered the basics, and they will be skipped or referenced very quickly. It is very useful to look at notes on the basics, which provide the foundation for the advanced material you learn. 

Invest in a whiteboard- Whenever I was learning about processes or cycles, from the Krebs cycle to organic chemistry mechanisms, it was really useful to practice drawing the steps over and over again. Then when it came to the test, I could do a brain dump and draw out the information as a reference. 

Understand formulas instead of blindly memorizing- This basically has physics and calculus written all over it. In physics, you should be given formula charts during exams, and in any case, something like F=ma isn’t terribly hard to memorize. The problem comes when there are a multitude of formulas that are derived from one of the fundamental equations. Of course, deriving from scratch each time is incredibly tedious, but I want to dissuade you from simply memorizing it or storing it on your calculator, because that means you probably don’t understand the physics behind it. What makes physics so difficult and different from any other subject you’ve taken is that every problem will have a slightly different scenario that tests your understanding of the physics behind it. 

Use all the time given to you during tests- I know I hate looking back through my test because I just get so bored halfway through, but missing points because of silly mistakes is honestly the most frustrating thing ever when you had plenty of time to check. Depending on if I have time, I like to cover my original work and resolve the question. If checking answers is not your thing, try slowing now when you first see each question, and checking your work briefly each step. 

Form study groups- Talking about something, especially teaching it to someone, always helped me remember something so much better than reading it on paper. It’s also so important to have second interpretations of the information you’re studying to ensure that you don’t make a huge misconception.  

AP students: released/practice exams are your best friend- Obviously, they’re the best resources for studying for the AP exam, but they’re also a great tool for a hint at what your teacher’s tests may look like. AP teachers have access to tons of College Board material and will often use questions directly from old exams. 

If you start getting confused during a lecture- Many times this is because I didn’t pay attention during the very beginning, so I’m missing that important foundation I talked about in the previous tip. Of course, I typically wouldn’t recommend doing things other than listening to what is currently being taught, but in this case, I would just get more confused and it’s a waste of time. So I discretely go back to my previous notes and focus on understanding them. 

The most stressful part of schoolwork is just thinking about your assignments- There’s always specific period of time that threatens to kill me- a week where I had two competitions simultaneously, in cities 3 hours apart. When you’re taking 7 AP classes at the same time, just reading over your to-do list will make you want to cry. Even on a normal day, as I go to classes throughout the day and my list of homework gets longer and longer, it makes me so stressed to where I’m planning out how to finish everything and I’m no longer listening in class. It overwhelmed me so much that I just wanted to take a nap and avoid school. But every single time, stressing about the work I have is 1000x worse than sitting down and actually going through each task. I find that what had seemed impossible before was very doable, and many times I even finished early enough to relax before bed. Keep a positive mindset, don’t underestimate your abilities, and have the discipline to start working immediately on the hardest days, and you’ll be fine. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the workload that is able to be handled by one person can work for another, and things like mental illnesses are things I have no experience in, so this is definitely just something that worked for me and is not applicable to everyone. 

Best of luck with high school! If you have any questions, feel free to send me an ask!

My AP World masterpost

Asks I’ve answered about school

#studyblr #studyspo #studyquill #heysareena #tbhstudying #elkstudies #academiix #eruditekid #etudiance #studybuzz #p #acadmia