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magicfootballstuff · 6 months

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Best Mate (georgia stanway x reader)

Summary: Georgia is your entire world, the love of your life. But you’re probably never going to be more than just her best mate.

(aka 12k words of angst and pining)

———

You’ve known Georgia since you were eleven.

Thirteen years in which you’ve been the closest of friends, through ups and downs. Thirteen years of playing for the same football teams, of carpooling to training and movie nights after matches and sharing rooms on away trips. Thirteen years, basically, in which you could have fallen in love with each other.

There’s a strange kind of irony, a punishment from the fates, that the first time you start to think of Georgia as anything more than your best mate is about three weeks before she moves to Germany.

You blame the Euros, naturally. That’s where you start to catch feelings. A long pre-Euro preparation camp, followed by weeks of heightened emotions as the Lionesses progress further and further into the tournament. It’s been a bonding experience for you all and you’re far closer to all the girls than you were a couple of months ago, but there’s been a shift in your relationship with Georgia specifically that you can’t quite explain.

It’s after the game against Spain that you first notice it. After coming back from behind, Georgia is the one who scores the winner to send you through to the semi finals and it might be the best goal you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing live. It’s not just the goal - you’ve seen Georgia score screamers from outside the box on countless other occasions in your thirteen years of friendship - but the significance too.

It’s after this game that you actually start to believe you can win the whole tournament, that nothing is going to stop you until you get your hands on the silverware. And that belief starts with Georgia’s goal.

“I fucking love you, G!” you tell her in the dressing room after the game, still riding the euphoric high of beating Spain in such dramatic fashion.

Georgia grins at you.

“I love you too.”

Her words make you feel warm inside but you put it down to being happy about the result.

It’s not until later, lying alone in your bed back at the team hotel, unable to sleep because you’re still so pumped up from one hundred and twenty minutes of difficult football, that you hear Georgia’s words over and over again in your head and realise what it means.

I love you too.

Shit. You’re falling in love with Georgia Stanway. Your best mate.

What a cliche.

But you’ve spent thirteen years of friendship not being in love with Georgia. It should be pretty easy to brush any hypothetical feelings aside. Right?

———

It’s not.

Actually, it turns out that acknowledging you have feelings for Georgia only makes them grow more.

You sit next to her on the coach on the way back from Bramall Lane after beating Sweden in the semi final. Around you, the whole team is jubilant, but all you can think about is how you can smell Georgia’s shampoo and feel the warmth of her thigh pressing into yours.

Shit, you’ve got it bad.

“We’re going to Wembley,” Georgia says. “Can you believe it?”

“Stuff of dreams, right?” you grin at her.

“And I get to do it with my best mate.”

The words ‘best mate’, while true, are like a knife to your heart and you’re reminded that you’ll only ever be Georgia’s best mate.

You try to shake yourself out of it. You’ve been Georgia’s friend for over a decade, you can keep being her friend, no problems at all. Because surely it’s better to be her friend than to risk messing things up and being nothing at all?

Except that she moves to Munich in two weeks. What if she loves it there, what if she prefers her new teammates to the old ones, what if she has such a good time there that she completely forgets about her old life in Manchester?

And you hate yourself for even thinking that. Georgia deserves to be happy. You know how excited she is to move abroad, how much she’s looking forward to the challenge of playing for a new team in a new league after spending so long at Manchester City. As her friend, you want the best for her, you want her to thrive in the new environment and be happy with her Bayern teammates as she settles into life in Munich.

You just hope that she doesn’t forget about you in the process.

“You’re quiet,” Georgia says, drawing you out of your own thoughts. “Wanna talk about it?”

You shrug, then give a half truth.

“Just trying to soak this moment in,” you tell her. “This feels special. No matter what happens in the final, I don’t want to forget the feeling of being part of this team.”

“I’m never gonna forget this,” Georgia says, sinking into your side and when she lets her head fall against your shoulder, you allow yourself just the briefest moment to imagine that she’s talking about this exact moment on the bus with you, not the summer of incredible football. “Would be pretty cool to win the damn thing though, right? One more trophy together before I leave.”

You never want this summer to end. Because as soon as it ends, Georgia leaves and you lose your best mate. You lose the person you’re in love with.

You have a feeling that this moment is going to be one that you come back to over and over again when you’re missing her, and you try even harder to commit every detail to memory.

———

Inevitably, the tournament does come to an end, but in the blur of playing an intense final at Wembley, winning said final, and the celebrations that continue long into the night, you almost forget that this is one of your last nights together with Georgia before she leaves for Germany.

Eventually, you and Georgia find your way back to each other, as you always seem to do. You have no idea what time it is, no idea how many drinks you’ve had, but it’s the early hours of the morning and most friends and family have either left or gone to bed, leaving just the players to continue their celebrations. You can still hear distant music and the occasional shout from downstairs, but you end up on the carpeted floor of a deserted hallway, side by side with Georgia. You’re sitting so close that the thighs of your outstretched legs are touching, and Georgia leans her head on your shoulder. You're holding hands too, though you don’t know who initiates that. Maybe it just happened because it felt right.

“I’m so proud of you, G,” you tell her, tracing your thumb across the back of her hand. “For everything - for today, for everything you did at City, for choosing to take a leap in your career.”

Georgia has hardly spoken about her impending transfer since it was announced, not while she’s been so focused on the tournament, and other than a couple of jokes this evening hoping that her new teammates will still welcome her after beating so many of them today, it’s been easy to pretend that she’s not about to move to another country. But now that the tournament is over, you have to face up to the reality sooner or later that your best friend is about to spread her wings and embark on a new journey that doesn’t involve you.

“Stop it, you’re gonna make me cry. And we’re supposed to be happy right now. We’re supposed to be celebrating.”

“I’m gonna miss you though. Bayern are lucky to have you.”

Your hand is still in Georgia’s, fingers linked together, though you don’t remember how it happened, whether it was you who took her hand or her who took yours. But her skin is so soft, especially on the back of her hand where you trace mindless patterns with your thumb.

“You’re still gonna be my favourite though, you know that right?” Georgia promises you.

“I am?” you ask, turning your head to look at her.

“Yeah, you’re my day one. Even when we live in different countries. I’m still gonna be talking to you every day.”

“I’m gonna be thinking about you every day,” you confess. “Every second, even.”

It’s only after the words slip from your lips that you realise you might have said too much, that you’re getting dangerously close to telling Georgia about the feelings that you promised yourself that you were going to keep secret.

“Yeah?” Georgia asks, her voice barely more audible than a whisper.

And just like the hand-holding, you have no idea who initiates what comes next, you’re just aware that your lips are on Georgia’s, or maybe hers are on yours, but who the fuck cares who leant in first when it feels this damn good.

Her lips are as soft as her hands, softer maybe, and she tastes like a combination of the free beer you’ve been drinking all night and something else, maybe optimism, if such a thing has a taste. But you’re very quickly unable to process much at all, senses overwhelmed, because Georgia is kissing you. Georgia, who you’ve been friends with since you were awkward teenagers with spotty faces and bruised knees, whose kisses are like a drug that you’re surely going to get addicted to because how could you not want to do this forever?

Just when you’re considering the logistics of pulling Georgia into your lap to continue this further, she pulls away from you, giggling as she wipes at her lips with captivating fingers.

“Shit, I’ve had way too much to drink,” Georgia says. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

She leans her head back against the wall behind you both, her eyes closed, and you try to keep yourself together, though your heart feels like a fragile sheet of glass that could shatter under even the tiniest amount of pressure.

“It’s fine,” you tell her, even though your lips still burn from her kiss. Even though you’re probably never going to be the same again. “We’re both drunk.”

———

The next morning, Georgia is wearing the most ridiculous pair of sunglasses you’ve ever seen, so huge that they mask half her entire face, but maybe that’s the intention because when she sits down next to you on the coach that’s supposed to take you to Trafalgar Square, she lets out a groan and says, “I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungover in my life.”

“I think I’m still drunk,” you admit. Your head isn’t pounding, it’s just swimming, the alcohol not yet worn off out of your system. It’ll hit you at some point today, you’re sure of that, and it’ll be torture.

“Did I kiss you last night?” Georgia asks, pushing the sunglasses up onto the top of her head and frowning quizzically at you.

The way she asks, it’s almost like she doesn’t quite remember, and that stings a little. It’s pretty much the only thing you’ve thought about in the five drunken hours since it happened.

“Oh,” you say, trying to sound just as casual about it as Georgia does. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about that until you mentioned it.”

The lie is easy because there’s no way that you’re going to admit how affected you are by something as simple as the memory of her lips on yours.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Georgia grimaces. “Emotional day, and all that. We’re still cool, aren’t we?”

“Course we are,” you answer, and it’s mostly the truth - Georgia could commit a serious crime and you’d still think she was the best person on earth.

She’s got no reason to know the depth of your feelings for her, no reason to understand that kissing you might have done more damage than if you’d never got the chance to feel Georgia’s lips against yours at all.

———

You decide to confide in Keira.

“I think I’m in love with Georgia,” you confess, during pre-season, still ignoring the rumours that Keira might be moving abroad soon too.

“Our Georgia?” she asks for clarification, as if the idea is so ridiculous that she can’t quite believe what you’re telling her. “Georgia Stanway?”

You nod, and Keira presses on with her next question.

“Have you told her?” she asks.

“Why would I do that?” you scoff.

“Why wouldn’t you? What have you got to lose?”

“Only thirteen years of friendship,” you point out.

“Obviously it’s your decision, but worst case scenario she doesn’t feel the same and things carry on as normal.”

“Worst case scenario I lose one of the longest friendships I’ve got,” you interject to correct Keira.

“G’s not like that though,” Keira dismisses your worries with a wave of her hand. “She wouldn’t just cast you aside because of something like this. Anyway, she’s in a different country now. By the time you next see each other she’ll have forgotten all about it and things will be back to normal.”

“I’ll think about it.”

———

You do think about it. In fact, it’s pretty much all you think about.

One international break passes, then another, without you saying anything to Georgia about how you feel. You’re practically glued to her side for the whole of both camps, or maybe she’s glued to yours, because you somehow seem to end up alongside her even when you’re making an effort to not seem like you’re obsessed with her.

That plan clearly isn’t working, because on the penultimate night of the second international break, Keira brings it up when the two of you are alone.

“You’re not being subtle,” she tells you.

“Huh?”

“About G,” she explains. “If you think it’s not obvious you have feelings for her, you’re wrong.”

“Yeah but I’ve told you,” you point out, in a half-hearted attempt to justify the way you’ve probably been staring at Georgia with huge puppy dog eyes for the last week. “You know what you’re looking for.”

“Have you told Leah?” Keira asks, arching an eyebrow. “Because she asked me yesterday if you and Georgia were closer than usual so she’s noticed something too.”

“What did you say?” you demand, your eyes widening in panic.

“Don’t worry, I told her you used to be inseparable at City and that you probably just missed seeing each other every day. I think she bought it.”

You relax, or at least you try to, because if Keira says it’s obvious and even Leah has noticed your heart-eyes, then it can’t be long before Georgia herself realises, and then she’ll surely want to distance herself from you.

“Just talk to her,” Keira pleads with you. “You’re one of my best mates too and I hate seeing you like this. Even if nothing happens between you and Georgia, at least you’ll get closure by talking to her.”

You know that Keira is right. You’ve known Georgia for so long that you’d like to hope she won’t make things weird if you tell her how you feel and she doesn’t feel the same. You need an answer, so you can get over your feelings if nothing is ever going to happen.

And you fully intend to talk to her on the last night of camp. But you have a game tomorrow so you decide not to say anything for the risk of somehow upsetting the equilibrium of the team, and then before you know it Georgia is on a plane back to Munich while you return to Manchester and still nothing has been said.

Another time.

In the meantime, your heart continues to ache for something you’ll probably never get to have.

———

You’ll tell her when she comes home for Christmas, that’s what you decide. No England camp, no training or matches to use as an excuse for not telling her how you feel. Just two old friends catching up on what’s been going on in their lives - and so what if one of the most important thing that’s going on in yours is the depth of the feelings you currently have for your best friend?

You’re nervous for two full days before you see Georgia, your heart pounding each time you think of the enormity of the conversation you need to have with her. Telling her how you feel could change everything for better or for worse and even right up to the moment when you’re on your way to meet her, you’re still not sure if you have the courage to actually tell her.

You meet Georgia for lunch at Jill’s coffee shop, because Georgia’s only in Manchester for a few days before she jets off to Barcelona to see Keira and she wants to see as many people as she can while she’s back, but once you’ve both shared a bit of playful banter with Jill when she brings you your food and drinks, the two of you are left alone in a quiet corner of the shop.

“I’ve been dying to tell you something,” Georgia says, almost as soon as Jill leaves you alone. “I was gonna text you but I really wanted to tell you in person.”

She loves you too. That’s the first conclusion that your brain jumps to, because you can’t think of anything else she might have to tell you that’s important enough to be said face-to-face rather than over the phone.

She loves you too. She loves you t-

“I’m seeing someone,” Georgia announces.

And just like that, your heart shatters into a million tiny pieces.

She doesn’t love you.

“You are?” you ask, trying not to let the pain show on your face - this is supposed to be your best friend telling you that she’s found somebody, after all, and if you weren’t hopelessly in love with Georgia yourself, you’d surely be happy about this development in her life.

“Yeah, a guy back in Germany. His name’s Nico - he’s one of Syd’s mates so I met him through her. It’s still really new, like he’s not my boyfriend or anything, but we’ve been on a couple of dates and I think it’s going pretty well.”

“Cool,” you say, and then immediately kick yourself, because what kind of heartless idiot says cool when their best friend announces they’re dating someone, which is why you add, “I’m so happy for you.”

There’s a degree of truth to your words. Though on a selfish level you want Georgia to reciprocate your feelings and be happy with you, that’s not very likely to happen when you’re too much of a coward to tell her how you feel and obviously the most important thing is that Georgia is happy with whoever she chooses. You just hope that if it can’t be with you, that this Nico guy at least treats her well and gives her the happiness she deserves.

“Anyway, what’s going on with you?” Georgia asks, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. “Any big life updates?”

If there was ever a moment to tell Georgia that you’re in love with her, it would be now, when she’s inviting you to open up about what’s been going on in your life. But Georgia is clearly excited about this guy that she’s dating, or else she wouldn’t have waited until she saw you in person before making it the first thing she brought up, and what kind of friend would you be if you tried to ruin that for your own selfish reasons?

“Nothing much,” you answer with a shrug. “Nothing as exciting as your news. Anyway, tell me about Munich. Are the German lessons still kicking your arse?”

———

Keira calls you a few days later, when you know that Georgia is in Barcelona too, probably sharing the same news about her dating life with Keira that she told you the other day.

“You’ve seen G, then?” she asks, once you’ve caught up on your own lives.

“Yeah, we had lunch together a few days ago.”

“Did she tell you…?”

“About her new boyfriend?” you interject, completing Keira’s question. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Keira asks.

You can practically hear the pity in her voice and it cuts you almost as much as Georgia’s news about her dating life.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you try to dismiss it quickly, before you end up getting upset, or angry, or both. “She’s happy, that’s all that matters. I missed my chance.”

“Did you ever tell her?”

Keira doesn’t need to elaborate on exactly what she’s asking about and for that you’re grateful.

“No,” you answer. “But it’s too late now anyway.”

“I don’t think it is,” Keira counters. “It doesn’t sound very serious yet with this German guy.”

“Keira, if there was any chance she felt the same she’d have told me.”

“You mean like you’ve told her how you feel?” Keira asks.

Though you can’t actually see Keira’s face, you can picture it, one eyebrow arched at you and mouth twitching at the corners as she calls you out.

“It’s different,” you try to argue. “She wouldn’t be dating someone else if she had feelings for me.”

“Well if you aren’t ever going to tell her, maybe you should think about dating someone else. You know, a couple of the Barca girls are single. If you don’t mind the distance, I could put in a good word for you.”

There’s only one person you’d be willing to put in the effort required for a successful long distance relationship, and it’s Georgia. Besides, while Keira’s right that you’ll have to think about dating someone else eventually, it doesn’t feel fair to mess with somebody else’s feelings before you’ve at least tried to put your feelings for Georgia behind you.

“I’m good, thanks Ke,” you promise Keira.

“Well if you change your mind…”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

———

You don’t change your mind. Not about being willing for Keira to set you up with one of her club teammates, at least. You do, however, reconsider your decision not to tell Georgia about how you feel.

What can the harm be? If anything, the German boyfriend is a safety net because you have less optimism that Georgia feels the same, fully prepared for her to let you down.

You phone Georgia when she’s back in Germany in January, entering the conversation with your heart already wrapped in bubble-wrap, in theory protected from being broken.

“Hey G, are you busy?”

“I’m never too busy to talk to you,” Georgia replies.

Your heart soars, giving you the courage to say, “Cool, well there’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Go on, I’m listening.”

“I was gonna say something when you were back in England but then you … well, you had your news and I didn’t want to ruin that.”

You pause and take a deep breath, glad that you’re doing this over the phone so that Georgia can’t see the sheer physical anguish you’re going through to psych yourself up to tell her this.

“I love you.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then Georgia speaks.

“Aw, you big softie,” she teases you. “Love you too.”

You close your eyes and pinch the bridge of your nose. Part of you wants to leave it there, the idea of having to correct Georgia’s misunderstanding somehow even worse than having to admit you love her in the first place, but you can hear Keira’s voice in your head telling you to grow a pair and tell Georgia how you really feel.

“No, I … I mean that I love you,” you clarify. “Not just as a friend. Like, I’m properly in love with you.”

“Oh,” Georgia says. There’s silence on the other end of the line as she processes what you’ve told her, before she eventually repeats, “Oh. Shit, okay.”

It’s not exactly the reaction you were hoping for and though you’d prepared yourself for probable rejection, you couldn’t actually have prepared for the punch in the gut that is the pure surprise from Georgia, as if the idea of there being anything more than friendship between the two of you is so far-removed that she’s never once even considered the possibility.

“Forget I said anything,” you say quickly, eager to put this torturous ordeal behind you. “I’m just being stupid. It’s nothing I can’t get over.”

“No, wait!” Georgia blurts out. “It’s not stupid. It’s just … unexpected, I guess. You’ve surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry,” you mumble.

“No, don’t apologise! I’m glad you told me. The thing is, I do love you too. Just as a friend.”

And despite all the preparation you did beforehand to try to protect yourself from the pain of inevitable rejection, hearing Georgia confirm aloud what you already knew still causes your heart to splinter into tiny pieces.

“Okay,” you say, trying to swallow the lump that’s formed in your throat. “That’s what I needed to hear. Now I can move on. And I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me-”

“Are you kidding?” Georgia interrupts you. “This doesn’t change anything. It takes courage to tell someone how you feel. I’m not gonna punish you for that. Anyway, you’ll always be super important to me. So unless you need a bit of space…?”

“No,” you’re quick to say. “I don’t need space.”

“Then you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon,” Georgia reassures you.

A single tear spills from your eye and you wipe it away quickly, even though Georgia can’t see you, because you’re worried that if you let it trickle the whole way down your cheek, it’ll be followed by a flood. The only thing that could make this more embarrassing that it already is would be if you burst into tears and Georgia heard you crying.

“Thanks, G.”

———

“I hate to admit it, but you were right,” you tell Keira, as you make your way out to the training pitch at St George’s Park on the first morning of the February international break, a few weeks on from telling Georgia how you feel - how you felt. “I just needed closure.”

“From Georgia?” Keira asks for clarification.

“Yeah. It turns out that finding out she doesn’t feel the same was a really quick way to shut down whatever stupid feelings I thought I had for her.”

“I think you’re being hard on yourself. It’s not stupid to catch feelings, especially for someone like G.”

“It was just emotion from the Euros,” you try to explain. “Then the distance. I was missing her. I got a bit carried away, that’s all. Anyway, she’s got her German guy now.”

“Not anymore,” Keira tells you. “That fizzled out a while ago.”

“It did?” you ask, your head jerking up in surprise when you hear the news. “She never told me that.”

“Yeah, well…” Keira trails off with a grimace, and you don’t need her to finish her sentence to understand what she’s saying.

“Right.”

You probably sacrificed your right to hear about Georgia’s personal life when you attempted to insert yourself into it by confessing your feelings for her. And if you’re completely honest, though you still talk to Georgia pretty often, there has been a slight shift in what you talk about, more superficial football chat and fewer deep conversations about all the other stuff going on in your lives.

Not for the first time since telling Georgia how you felt, you wonder if admitting your feelings was the wrong decision after all.

You hear footsteps behind you, the telltale sound of studs against concrete, and you turn to see Georgia, who inserts herself between you and Keira and drapes an arm around each of your shoulders.

“Hey guys, whatcha talking about?”

“The weather,” Keira is quick to save you the turmoil of having to come up with a lie yourself. “Thought it was cold in Barcelona at this time of year but I’d forgotten how much worse it is in England.”

“This?” Georgia scoffs, gesturing at the bleak grey sky above. “It’s tanning weather. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

“You’re mad,” Keira says, shaking her head as she eyes up Georgia’s bare arms.

“Not mad,” Georgia counters with a grin. “Just happy to be back in England with my best mates.”

You don’t know how it makes you feel, hearing Georgia refer to you as a “best mate” again. She’s clearly making an effort to make sure you know that nothing has changed, that your sudden confession of feelings a few weeks ago hasn’t made Georgia think any differently of you than she thinks of Keira. But it still stings a little, all those hours spent wondering what if and picturing a hypothetical parallel universe in which Georgia returns your affection coming to nothing.

In the back of your mind, it registers that a public friendzoning shouldn’t hurt if you were as over your feelings for Georgia as you claimed to Keira that you were, but you push that thought down for now.

———

You don’t actually speak to Georgia alone until later, hanging out in one of the communal recreation areas during the free time you get between a gym session and dinner.

“I meant what I said earlier,” Georgia says. “It’s good to be back together again. And we haven’t seen each other in person since…”

Georgia trails off, leaving you to fill in the rest yourself.

Deciding that the best way to get past the slight awkwardness is just to acknowledge exactly what happened and laugh it off, you say, “Since I told you I liked you?”

Georgia’s eyes widen, slightly surprised that you’re so blasé about the situation, but she passes it off quickly and says, “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry if I put you in a weird position,” you apologise. “I just needed to say something, even if you didn’t feel the same way, for peace of mind, you know? Just feelings that had been brewing under the surface since the emotion of the Euros…”

“Since the Euros?” Georgia interjects, surprised once again.

“Yeah, but I don’t feel that way anymore,” you continue, fully aware of the fact that your cheeks are starting to heat up with embarrassment. “I got closure and I moved on. I hope things can go back to normal between us.”

Georgia hesitates for a second, like she’s still trying to process everything, before her face splits open into a huge grin.

“Yeah, of course. Nothing’s changed at all.”

You try to remember what normal friends who haven’t admitted feelings for each other talk about, and your mind immediately wanders to the guy she told you about when she was last home. The guy that, if Keira is to be believed, is no longer in the picture.

“How’s it going with that guy you’re dating?” you ask, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Georgia too.

“Nico? I’m not seeing him anymore. Like he was nice, but he was … I don’t know, he was just nice. There was no real spark, or nothing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

It’s partially true. If you can’t have Georgia yourself, you want her to be happy with somebody, though you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t done some social media stalking after she told you about him and he didn’t seem like anybody particularly remarkable. In a way, it’s a relief to hear that confirmed by Georgia herself.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Georgia says, dismissing your words with a casual wave of her hand. “It wasn’t serious anyway. And I wanted to tell you it was over but I didn’t know how. I didn’t want you to think I was messing with your feelings, or anything.”

“I get it,” you assure Georgia. “But you don’t have to worry about that. There aren’t any feelings to mess with anymore. That’s all behind me.”

Georgia narrows her eyes just slightly, like she’s not quite sure she believes you, but it passes so quickly that you might have imagined it.

“Cool,” Georgia says. “Anyway, did you see that worldie I scored in training earlier?”

And so the conversation moves on, back to normal with your best friend.

———

It does go back to how it was before, for which you’re relieved. Your biggest worry about admitting your feelings for Georgia was that it would ruin your friendship if she didn’t reciprocate, so you’re glad that you’re still just as close as you were before Christmas.

The problem is that now you’re back to talking to Georgia all the time, whether that’s messaging each other, ganging up together on Leah in the group chat, or FaceTiming to have a general catch up about life, you’re starting to realise that maybe you’re not over your feelings for her after all.

Can you really be blamed? Georgia is like a human ray of sunshine, lighting up your world with her silly jokes and beautiful smile, even from another country.

Surely everybody who meets Georgia falls a little bit in love with her?

Still, Georgia has made it pretty clear that your relationship is never going to move beyond friends, and you’re content to have her in your life in whatever way she’ll allow you, even if you’re still harbouring feelings for her.

You don’t tell Keira either. She asks you about Georgia a couple of times, just casual questions in passing which you respond to with reassurances that you’re getting along like old friends again, that her rejection was enough to extinguish your feelings. If there’s one thing that’s more humiliating than admitting to your best friend that you’re in love with her only to be turned down, it’s having to deal with the constant pity of another friend concerned about a possible broken heart. So you tell Keira that everything is fine and she seems to believe you.

It is fine. You are fine.

(And if you tell yourself that enough times, one day it’ll eventually become true.)

———

You have a plan.

And it’s not a plan that you’re making because you’re in love with Georgia. It’s a plan for your best mate who lives abroad and you miss dearly.

So when Georgia’s Bayern Munich team draws Arsenal in the quarter final of the Champions League, you go straight to the airport from training on the day of the match and catch the next flight to Munich to watch her play.

As you sit next to Georgia’s mum in the stadium, who makes a comment about how nice it is that her daughter’s best friend has flown all the way from Manchester just to support her in one game, you try telling yourself that you’re not just here for Georgia, that you know Leah and Lotte and several of the other Arsenal girls and you’ve come to watch them too, but as the game progresses you’re only really watching one person.

You’ve always known that Georgia is good - you’ve played alongside her for more than a decade at England age groups and then at City, watched her put in tackles that others wouldn’t dare to try and score goals from outside the box that would make anybody drool. But there’s a big difference between seeing Georgia play in training or when you’re on the same team as her, and actually watching her play. It’s an exciting match, a close match, with good performances from players on both sides, but you watch Georgia far more than any other players, your eyes tracking her even when she’s off the ball.

Bayern come away with the win, though only just, and you’re already trying to figure out whether you can make it down to London and back in a single night next week for the second leg that promises to be as exciting as the first. For the quality of football, you tell yourself, not just for another chance to see the best friend that you miss terribly.

You watch as Georgia greets the fans, smiling for pictures and signing shirts in the process, slowly making her way along the edge of the pitch until she reaches the area where you are. Her eyes search the crowd, no doubt looking for her mum, but she does a double take when she spots you and you carefully manoeuvre your way forward until you’re close enough to talk to her.

“What are you doing here?” Georgia asks, disbelief in her eyes.

“I’m here to see Leah,” you joke.

“Oh, I’ll just go and fetch her for you then, shall I?” Georgia grins at you. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Have you never heard of a surprise?”

Georgia just rolls her eyes.

“How long are you here for?” she asks.

“Just tonight,” you answer. “I managed to convince Gareth to let me have tomorrow off training so I fly back first thing. I wish I could stay longer, but we’ve got a league game at the weekend.”

“Are you coming next week?” Georgia asks. “To the second leg? At the Emirates?”

“Do you want me to come?”

Georgia nods enthusiastically and says, “Yeah, course I do.” She pauses, then adds, “Only if you want to, though. I know it’s a long way to travel.”

“I’ll be there,” you promise. A wicked smile spreads across your face as you add, “To see Leah again, of course.”

Georgia rolls her eyes and says, “Dickhead.”

“Be nice, Georgia,” Georgia’s mum interjects. “She’s come all this way to see you.”

“Relax, mum, it’s just banter,” Georgia protests. “She knows I love her really.”

Love. That word again. Because Georgia does love you, of that you’re certain, but not in the way you want her to.

But as you look down at your best friend over the barrier that separates the players from the fans, her brown eyes alight and a smile on her face as she stares back at you, you realise that you’ll take Georgia’s love, however much of it there is and in whatever form it comes in, just to see her smile like this.

———

The weather is terrible. Unrelenting rain turns the four hour drive from Manchester to London into a five and a half hour drive with limited visibility on the motorways. The prospect of spending an evening in this torrential downpour for at least the two hours of the match, possibly longer if the game goes to extra time and penalties, is brightened only with the knowledge that you get to see your best friend again just a week after you last saw her.

Unfortunately the game doesn’t go Bayern’s way. Despite bringing in a one goal lead from the first leg, that hard work is quickly undone by two Arsenal goals in quick succession in the first half. You’re largely neutral to the outcome of this game, except that you aren’t because you want to see Georgia succeed, and she seems to double her efforts when Bayern go behind, putting even more into every challenge, every pass, determined not to lose.

You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re a neutral fan in this game because when the final whistle goes and the Arsenal fans start celebrating a hard-fought victory, your heart aches for Georgia and what could’ve been. But Georgia is a ray of sunshine, even in defeat, and still makes time for all the fans.

When you finally get to see her, inside the stadium after she’s showered and changed out of her wet kit, you’re actually more disappointed than she is about the outcome of the game.

“That’s football, isn’t it?” Georgia says with a shrug, after you’ve exchanged a long hug and offered her your commiserations. “Thanks for coming down though. It’s good to see you again. I missed you.”

Her words make your heart flutter and you play it off the only way you know how - with humour.

“It’s only been a week, G,” you remind her, rolling your eyes.

“A week is a long time when we used to see each other every day,” she points out.

“And whose fault is that?” you tease her.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Georgia rolls her eyes at you. “What are you doing now?”

It’s already late and the drive back to Manchester will be a long one so as much as you want to hang around and cherish every moment with Georgia, you know you need to get on the road soon.

“Gotta drive back home soon,” you tell her.

“To Manchester?” Georgia asks her eyes wide. “Nah, no way I’m letting you drive back through the night, especially not in this weather.”

“But…”

“No buts,” Georgia interrupts you. “I’ll text you the address of our hotel and you can stay with me. Drive back in the morning.”

You’re supposed to have training in the morning and you don’t want to imagine the trouble you’ll get yourself into if you don’t show up. But this is Georgia, and is a bit of a telling off from the coaches not worth spending a bit of extra time with her? Besides, can you not just set an early alarm and drive back home straight to the training ground in the morning? You’re not needed until ten anyway…

“Fine,” you nod, trying to pretend that the decision was harder than it actually was, pretending that you wouldn’t jump off a cliff for Georgia with very little hesitation if she asked you nicely enough.

———

Georgia meets you in the lobby of her hotel just over thirty minutes later, already dressed in pyjamas with a battered pair of sliders on her feet. She grins when she sees you and reaches straight for your hand, not even bothering with a proper greeting.

“Come on,” Georgia says, dragging you into the lift and pressing the button for the fifth floor. “Before anyone sees you.”

The lift doors rattle shut and it starts to rise. You turn to Georgia and ask, “Is this gonna get you in trouble?”

Georgia grins at you, then replies, “Only if we get caught.”

Your heart is pounding in your chest, so loud that Georgia must be able to hear it echoing around the confined elevator too, and you’re not sure if it’s racing from the thrill of trying not to get caught or because Georgia’s hand is still in yours, her warm palm pressed against yours and your fingers tangled together.

Does Georgia even realise that she’s still holding your hand, or the effect that it’s having on you? Because it’s pretty much all you can think about as the lift ascends, your heart hammering away until the rush of blood in your ears is so strong that you might faint.

The lift can’t reach Georgia’s floor soon enough, but eventually it does arrive and the doors slide open with a soft ping, and then Georgia is dragging you along the carpeted hallway until she reaches the door to her room.

“Shhh,” Georgia hisses as she unlocks the door, ushering you inside as she finally lets go of your hand. “In you go.”

You enter Georgia’s hotel room and she closes the door behind the two of you. It’s a pretty standard room, a large double bed in the middle, a tv screen hanging from the wall beside a door that leads to the adjoining bathroom. Georgia’s suitcase is open on the floor, a few clothes strewn across the floor and the chair in the corner.

“Do you want a shower to warm up?” Georgia asks you. “I can lend you some spare clothes to sleep in.”

“Yeah, sounds nice,” you nod, shivering as you’re reminded that you’re still wearing your rain-soaked clothes from earlier.

Georgia kneels beside her suitcase and rummages around in it until she pulls out a spare pair of shorts with the Bayern logo on them and an oversized t-shirt, which she passes to you as she stands up again.

“Spare towel is on the rail in the bathroom,” she explains. “Pass us your wet clothes when you’ve taken them off and I’ll hang them up to dry.”

You smile your thanks and wander into the bathroom, turning on the hot water of the shower before stripping out of your wet clothes. Wrapping a towel around yourself for warmth and modesty, you open the door just wide enough to pass your clothes through to Georgia, who promises to hang them up by the radiator to dry overnight, before shutting yourself in the bathroom and stepping into the shower to warm up.

You spend longer than you probably need to in the shower but the warm water cascading over your head is more than welcome and it gives you time to think. To think about the fact that you’re here in Georgia’s hotel room, about to spend the night in her bed, wearing her spare clothes, when you should really be halfway up the motorway back to Manchester right now.

For some reason, your conscience warning you against this appears in the form of Keira’s voice.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Keira’s voice asks you in your head. “You’re still trying to get over her. Is this really going to help?”

“It’s fine,” you whisper aloud into the empty bathroom, your words masked by the sound of water hitting the tiles. “We’re just friends and that’s fine.”

It’s far from the first sleepover you’ve had with Georgia. You’ve known each other for well over a decade and spent your teenage years sleeping over at each other’s houses gossiping and giggling well into the night until a parent came in to hush you and urge you to get some sleep. You’ve shared rooms on countless camps before, during tournaments with England or on away trips with Manchester City. And since growing up and getting your own places, there have been movie nights that ended late where it was easier for one of you to stay over instead of driving back late.

In short, you’ve shared a bed with Georgia many times before.

You haven’t shared a bed since you realised you had feelings for her last summer, and definitely not since you admitted those feelings a couple of months ago.

But if Georgia’s comfortable with it, then you shouldn’t have a problem either.

You finally get out of the shower, when you’re completely warmed through and your fingertips are starting to shrivel from being under the water for so long. You dry off and change into the clothes borrowed from Georgia, then spend a bit of time drying your hair with a towel and brushing your teeth using the spare hotel-issued brush still in its plastic wrapper, before you eventually unlock the bathroom door and return to the bedroom.

Georgia is sitting upright in bed looking down at the screen of her phone, bathed in the yellow glow of the bedside lamp. She glances up when she hears the bathroom door open and smiles, whether at the sight of you in her clothes or some other reason, you’re not quite sure.

“You still like to sleep furthest from the door, right?” she asks, shuffling across to leave plenty of room for you in the bed beside her.

“You gonna protect me from intruders?” you tease her, as you clamber into the empty side of the bed.

Georgia is a few inches shorter than you, but you’ve seen the way she tackles on a football pitch and you have no doubt that she’d do better in a fight than you.

“Course I will,” Georgia grins back at you. “Ready for bed? Can I turn the light off?”

You nod and settle yourself down, adjusting the pillow and pulling the covers up over your shoulders as you roll onto your side. Georgia flicks off the light, then there’s some shuffling on her side of the bed, before you both fall still.

With your eyes not yet adjusted to the darkness, you can’t actually see Georgia more than just a shadow on her side of the bed, but you’re pretty sure she’s lying on her side facing you.

And that’s when it truly hits you. You’re sharing a bed with Georgia, close enough to touch her, close enough to be able to hear her breathing, but knowing that you can’t do anything about the ache in your chest.

You have no idea how you’re going to calm your mind or your heart enough to be able to fall asleep tonight.

You shiver - whether that’s because you’re still cold or for some other reason like Georgia’s proximity - but it’s enough that she notices.

“Shit, are you still cold?” Georgia whispers into the darkness.

“No, it’s fine,” you say, but your body betrays you again with another shiver.

“Come here,” Georgia says, though it’s her, not you, that closes the gap between you, shuffling her body closer until she can wrap her arms around you and pull your body against hers. Your feet intertwine at the bottom of the bed, hers warmer than yours, though she makes no complaint. “Nothing warms you up like a little cuddle.”

It’s not just a little cuddle though. This is a cuddle with your best friend who you’re more than a little bit in love with, who is kind enough to let you stay here despite the fact she could get in trouble, who has lent you her clothes and let you use her shower and now offers her arms to keep you warm. Your best friend who can surely now feel as well as hear the pounding of your heart as you nestle your body against hers beneath the covers.

Your eyes have started adjusting to the darkness and now you can see how close her face is to yours, your foreheads separated by barely an inch, and she’s staring right back at you, her warm breath hitting your face with each exhale.

“G…”

You breathe her name into the space between your lips, ready to tell her that you can’t do this, ready to admit that you still have feelings for her and that you need to leave, drive back to Manchester even though it’s the middle of the night and you’ve got no dry clothes, because otherwise you might do something that you regret.

But you don’t get the chance to say anything, because suddenly Georgia’s warm lips are on yours, soft and unmoving and so incredibly tentative, but also so right.

She lingers for a few seconds, then pulls back, her chest rising and falling more deeply than before with each breath, as she asks, “Sorry, I … was that okay?”

“You shouldn’t kiss me if you don’t mean it,” you say, just about ready to combust into tears, such is the intensity of the feelings overwhelming your entire body for the other girl.

You don’t know what to expect from Georgia, but it’s definitely not what she says next.

“And what if I do mean it?”

Her voice is quiet, her words cautious. You’re so used to Georgia being her usual loud and effervescent self that you barely recognise the tone of her voice, but she sounds almost vulnerable.

“I’m so far gone on you, G,” you admit. “I thought I could get over you but I can’t. I need you to know that you could shatter my heart and stamp on all the tiny pieces and I’d still want to be yours. And if there’s even the smallest part of you that doesn’t mean it, then we should forget that ever happened and…”

You don’t get to finish your sentence because Georgia’s mouth is on yours again, hotter and more insistent this time. You gasp as she kisses you and her mouth opens too, her hand coming up to cup your jaw as her tongue swipes past your lips. The sound you let out is involuntary and you would be embarrassed, if not for the fact that you can’t think of anything except Georgia - her lips on yours, her body wrapped around you, her hands burning your skin.

Eventually, breathing becomes a necessity and Georgia must agree because she pulls back, though only far enough to lean her forehead against yours as she says, “I think I’m in love with you.”

“You think?” you ask, needing Georgia to be absolutely certain before you let yourself hope.

“I’m pretty sure,” Georgia corrects herself. “I’m still figuring it out but I’ve been thinking about it ever since you told me you liked me, and then when you showed up in Munich last week to surprise me … nobody’s ever done something like that for me before. And I can’t imagine anyone else making me feel the way that you do. You’re so much more to me than just a best mate. You’re … you’re everything to me.”

“Do you really mean it?”

Georgia nods.

“Whatever I have to do to convince you I mean it…”

“Just hold me,” you tell her, pushing your body further into hers and nuzzling your face into the crook of her neck.

“Just hold you?” Georgia asks, her hand squeezing your hip, and though you can’t see her face, you can picture the smirk on her face anyway.

You lift your head and use the element of surprise to roll Georgia onto her back, trapping her against the mattress with one of your legs framed on each side of her hips.

“You’ve got other suggestions, have you?” you ask her, raising your eyebrows at her as you sweep your damp hair out of your face.

Her hands settle on your hip tentatively, like she knows what she wants but isn’t quite sure yet whether it’s okay.

“I’ve got some ideas,” Georgia admits, fighting off a mischievous smile.

“Yeah?”

You lean down, still hardly able to believe that this is Georgia telling you that she loves you, that she wants you in the same way that you want her, as you press your lips to hers again. You hope that you’ll never get tired of kissing her because each time feels more magical than the last, as you slowly get used to the way that her lips move, to the things that make her breath catch in her throat as she kisses you back, and you know that there’s a whole other side of your oldest friend that’s now open for you to get to know and explore.

It would be so easy to get carried away, especially when Georgia’s hands, already dangerously low on your hips, start to slide lower, but there will be plenty of time for that, you hope. You’ve waited long enough, thirteen long years, for this to happen. You can wait a little longer.

You reluctantly detach your lips from Georgia’s and settle back against her side, one of your legs slung over her hips and her hands coming up to wrap around your back as you lie half on top of her.

“Another time,” you tell her, as you let your eyes flicker shut, knowing that sleep will be easy to come by with Georgia’s arms around you.

“That’d better be a promise,” Georgia murmurs, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You don’t say anything, just laugh softly, and snuggle into her until sleep takes you both.

———

You wake in a different position, spooning Georgia from behind, but no less content than you were when you fell asleep. Georgia is still fast asleep, body rising and falling with each deep breath, and you manage to carefully extract your arms from around her so that you can reach for your phone on the bedside table to check the time.

You let out a soft groan when you see the time because you’re supposed to be at training in Manchester in less than two hours, and as perfect as last night was, finally getting an admission from Georgia that she feels the same, you now have to deal with the consequences of staying overnight in London instead of driving back home last night after the match.

You slip out of bed as quietly as you can, intending to go into the bathroom to call Gareth and give him some kind of made up excuse about why you’re not going to be at training. Something that doesn’t involve having to admit that you prioritised a girl over your career, even though Georgia is so much more than just a girl and last night will hopefully be the first of many that you get to experience falling asleep in her embrace, but you’re not so sure that your manager will understand or approve.

But before you can make it as far as the bathroom, you hear a sleepy voice from behind you.

“You’re not sneaking out on me, are you?”

You turn to the most adorable sight, a sleepy Georgia rubbing at her bleary eyes as she pushes herself up onto one elbow, her hair sticking up at an awkward angle on the side she slept on.

“No, of course not,” you promise her. You hold up your phone and explain, “I just need to make a call. I’ve got training today and obviously I’m not going to make it.”

“Come back to bed,” Georgia pleads with you.

“One sec,” you say, calling Gareth and lifting your phone to your ear as you sit down on the edge of the bed.

When it rings through to voicemail, you’re a little relieved that you don’t actually have to talk to him in person, and you wait for the tone before leaving your message.

“Hi Gareth,” you say, deliberately rasping your voice as you try to sound as sick as you possibly can. “I’m really sorry but I don’t think I’m going to make it into training today. I’m not feeling well and I’ve already been sick once this morning. Sorry again. I’ll catch up with you soon when I’m feeling better. Bye.”

You hang up and toss your phone aside, ignoring the amused look on Georgia’s face as you get back under the covers.

“Pulling a sickie, eh?” she teases you.

“Shut up,” you grumble, though you still cuddle back into Georgia’s side, tangling your legs together beneath the covers once more.

From this close, you’re taken aback by just how pretty she is. Not that it’s the first time you’ve thought that, but seeing her like this, still slightly heavy-eyed from just waking up, looking back at you with adoration mirrored in her dark eyes, and being able to take it all in without having to worry about whether you get caught staring at her, is brand new. And with whatever limited time you have left before you inevitably have to get up and leave the blissful sanctuary of Georgia’s bed, you just want to kiss her, to feel her body against yours so that you have something tangible to remember this by when she has to go back to Munich.

“Can I kiss you?” you ask.

“You don’t have to ask.”

“I do,” you insist. “Because I can’t believe that last night actually happened. I’m still kinda waiting for you to tell me it’s just a prank.”

Georgia presses forward and her lips meet yours. It’s slower than the kisses you exchanged last night before bed, but you sigh happily into the kiss and bring your hand up to cup Georgia’s cheek. She lets out a little noise that you capture with your own mouth as your fingertips brush against a sensitive spot just below her ear and you make a mental note to revisit the spot later, perhaps with your lips and teeth instead, and vow to find every other spot that makes her whimper and melt into putty.

You make out for a while, a lazy exploration of each other’s mouths without any real destination. Having spent at least the last eight months dreaming of getting to spend quiet mornings in bed with Georgia, kissing until it’s hard to tell where you end and she begins, you’d be quite happy to keep doing this for the rest of eternity, but she eventually pulls back.

“I wish I didn’t have to go back to Germany,” Georgia says, echoing your own thoughts.

“But you love it there,” you remind her, trying to be the voice of reason, even though you wish you could both just exist in the cocoon of this hotel room for the rest of time.

“I love it here too.”

“Here being…?”

“With you,” Georgia clarifies, and your face cracks open into a big grin.

“Didn’t know you were so soppy, G,” you tease her.

“Neither did I. I guess you bring it out in me.”

“Charmer,” you say, snuggling into her shoulder and sliding your hand under the hem of her t-shirt so that your fingertips can brush across the skin of her hip bone.

“We should really get up,” Georgia says, though she makes no move to do so.

“Five more minutes?” you ask, nuzzling your face into Georgia’s neck and pressing your lips to her pulse point.

“Go on then. Five more minutes.”

———

It’s another twenty minutes before you eventually drag yourselves out of bed, which means you have to rush to get ready and any chance you might have had to slip out of the hotel before any of Georgia’s teammates see you is ruined when you hear a knock on the door.

You’ve redressed in last night’s clothes, now mostly dry, and grab the last of your things as Georgia opens the door, revealing three of her teammates standing out in the hallway.

“Breakfast?” they ask her, before three pairs of eyes look past Georgia and fall on you, slipping your feet into your trainers.

“I should go,” you say, checking your coat pocket for your car keys and wandering over to where Georgia stands at the door once you’re satisfied you’ve got everything. “Text me when your flight lands.”

“I’ll text you before then,” Georgia says, her hand coming up to rest on your waist as she tilts her head up to press a sweet kiss to your lips. It’s far more chaste than the ones you shared last night and this morning but it’s still enough to draw some sniggers out of her teammates.

“Bye,” you whisper against her lips as you pull away.

“Love you,” she says.

“Love you too.”

As you leave the room and walk down the hall, you can hear Georgia’s teammates starting to tease her loudly behind you, and you enter the lift fighting off a smile that has everything to do with the development of your relationship in the last ten hours.

———

Luckily you don’t have to wait long to see Georgia again because just a few days after the Champions League match, she returns to England for another Lionesses camp as you prepare for the Finalissima against Brazil.

Naturally, you smuggle Georgia into your room almost as soon as she arrives on camp and spend the night trying really hard to keep your hands to yourself, because you’ve waited so long for Georgia to be yours that you’re determined to wait a little longer so that your first time together isn’t at St George’s Park while your teammates are trying to sleep in the rooms on either side of yours. But you settle for kissing her heatedly well into the night and waking up with her head resting on your chest and one of her arms draped around your waist.

You’re in such a good mood when you go down to breakfast on the first morning of camp, that you completely forget that nobody else knows about the new development in your relationship with Georgia. Specifically, you forget that Keira, who knows pretty much every other up and down of the last few months, doesn’t yet know that Georgia reciprocates your feelings.

You sit at your usual table for breakfast, Keira opposite you and Georgia setting her tray down next to yours.

“I’m just gonna get some juice,” Georgia says. “Do you want some?”

“No thanks,” you reply, taking a sip from your mug of coffee.

You watch as Georgia wanders over to the jugs of juice, your gaze following the swish of her ponytail before dropping to appreciate her legs and the shape of her butt in her training shorts. It’s only when Keira kicks you under the table, hard enough to surely leave a bruise on your shin, that you snap out of your trance.

“What?”

“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” Keira hisses across the table.

You pause for a second, glancing between Keira and Georgia, who is on her way back to the table with a glass of orange juice, and then you laugh. You can’t help the way that it spills from your throat because Keira is looking at you like being in love with Georgia is the worst thing in the world, and while it might have been painful a week ago, you don’t know how to begin to explain that in the space of just a few days it’s become the best thing that’s ever happened to you.

“What did I miss?” Georgia asks, as she returns to the table and sits down beside you. “What’s so funny?”

“Keira thinks I’m in love with you,” you explain.

Keira’s eyes widen, and now that you’ve got over the initial surprise of her question, you start to wonder if you can have a bit of fun before actually telling her the truth.

Georgia is clearly thinking the same, because she nudges your thigh with hers and says, “Aw, you love me? That’s lame.”

Keira looks even more panicked - understandable given that she’d probably expect Georgia to be a little more considerate towards your feelings if she didn’t reciprocate.

“Can we talk after breakfast?” Keira asks. “Because I’m worried about you. I thought you’d…” Keira’s eyes flit across to Georgia, then back to you, giving you a deliberate look as she says, “… you know.”

“You thought she’d moved on?” Georgia fills in the gap. She puts down her fork, then reaches for your hand, lacing your fingers together and resting them on the table where Keira, and anybody else, can see. “Fat chance of that. She’s obsessed with me.”

Keira looks more confused than ever, and you realise that you probably owe her an explanation.

“G’s my …” You pause, realising that while you’ve both admitted you love each other and there seems to be an understanding that you’re together now, you haven’t actually had a conversation to put an official label on what you are. You turn to Georgia and ask, “Are you my girlfriend?”

“If that’s your way of asking me, it’s not very romantic, is it?” Georgia teases you.

Rolling your eyes, you turn back to Keira and say, “She’s my girlfriend. We’re dating.”

To emphasise your point, you bring your joined hands to your lips and press a kiss to the back of Georgia’s fingers.

Keira’s eyes look like they might pop out of her head at any second.

Leah sits down in the empty seat beside Keira, taking one look at your joined hands, before she says, without a hint of surprise in her voice, “You two have finally got your shit together, then? About bloody time.”

“How are you not more surprised by this?” Keira asks Leah, apparently exasperated by the new development. “I’ve spent months listening to this one,” she jabs an accusatory finger in your direction, “whine on and on about how much she loves Georgia and how Georgia is never going to love her back to the point where I’ve genuinely had sleepless nights worrying about it, only for them to hard launch their apparent relationship by rocking up to breakfast and just holding hands like it’s completely normal!”

Keira is usually so cool and composed, even when under stress, that it’s weird to see her have an outburst like this, but she’s the only one who knows the extent of how much your feelings for Georgia not being reciprocated until now has really affected you over the last few months, and for that she deserves an explanation.

Georgia leans closer to you and whispers, “Babe, I think we broke Keira.”

You’ll have time to process the way that Georgia’s use of the pet name babe makes your heart do an actual somersault in your chest, eager to revisit the subject later, but you probably owe Keira an explanation before she actually combusts.

“I love her,” you tell Keira and Leah. “And it turns out G loves me too, it just took her a while to figure it out. But we’re serious about giving this a go. It’s brand new, which is scary and exciting, but…” You turn to Georgia now, almost forgetting that the others are here too as you get caught in the adoration in Georgia’s eyes. “But she’s my girlfriend, my best mate, the only person I’ve ever felt like this about. So yeah, I’ve been a bit of a mess over the last few months trying to get my head around what I felt for her. But she’s worth it. You’re worth it, Georgia. And I’m lucky I get to call you mine.”

Your words come from the heart and it feels for just a second like the two of you are caught in your own little bubble of blossoming romance.

That is, until Leah bursts it by sarcastically saying, “Well thanks guys, I really didn’t want to keep my breakfast down this morning.”

It doesn’t matter if Leah ruins the moment. You’ve waited for Georgia for far too long to care. And as the news of your relationship filters through camp until the rest of the team knows, met with some surprise, some cries of “I knew it!”, and plenty of teasing, the only thing that matters is Georgia and the fact that you finally get to call yourself hers.

#woso x reader #woso imagine #georgia stanway x reader #georgia stanway imagine #angst

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capricorn-season · 11 months

Text

Homophobia in drag

When I was a young boy, I loved spending the night at my grandmother’s house. There, I could stay up as late as I wanted, and in the morning, there would always be Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. But the best part was raiding the closet in her basement, which was full of the gowns she had worn in the 1960s and 1970s – frilly pink and purple confections made of lace, chiffon and silk. I would put them on and watch The Golden Girls, sophisticatedly sipping Coke from a wine glass.

When I was nine, my dad bought a video camera, a giant monstrosity that my siblings and I struggled to balance on our shoulders while we filmed home videos. Alone, I’d prop the camera on the coffee table and record myself modelling various outfits, explaining to the camera why this plaid shirt went with these cargo shorts, or why this teal Starter jacket complemented these acid-washed jeans so perfectly. I captured on camera the dance I had painstakingly choreographed to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s ‘Good Vibrations’.

As a kid, I followed my two older sisters around like a shadow, mimicking their mannerisms – the way they tucked loose strands of hair behind their ears when they were concentrating on their maths homework; the way they jutted their hips whenever they were talking to cute boys. Like them, I was a naturally athletic kid. My favourite sport was lacrosse, but I much preferred to play with the girls instead of the boys. The boys were quick to push and shove, and they loved to whack each other with their aluminium sticks. Girls relied more on their speed, their reflexes and the skills they’d honed to keep the ball securely cradled in the shallow mesh of their wooden sticks.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian community – most people would call it a cult. From kindergarten to the sixth grade, I attended the community’s tiny school. Because enrollment was so low, there was no in-crowd, no separate cliques of jocks and geeks. In retrospect, I’m sure my classmates and especially my teachers noticed my gender-nonconformity – all of my home videos prove that it was glaring – but it went largely ignored. All that mattered was that we were good Christians, that we loved Jesus and evangelised God’s Word to as many people as possible. When I learned about homosexuals in Bible class, or about AIDS (which we were told God had created to punish homosexuals for their sins), I didn’t think for a moment that I was one of them. Sure, my first real crush, when I was 11, had been on a boy – Elijah Wood, an actor about my age whose performance in the 1994 B-movie, North, had captured my heart. But at the time, before sexual maturity, I mistook the longing I felt for Elijah with the more sanitised desire to simply keep his company and be his best friend. I indiscriminately absorbed all of the lessons I learned about homosexuals, as if they were and would always be irrelevant to my life.

The summer after my sixth-grade year, my family left the community and we moved to a neighbouring town. I began seventh grade in a large public school, where there was definitely an in-crowd. My new classmates wasted little time informing me how unacceptable it was for a boy like me to behave the way I did – the way I enunciated my s-words, the way I brushed my auburn hair, which I had highlighted the previous summer with Sun-In. They called me a faggot, delivered me notes that said everyone knew my ‘dirty little secret’. They asked me frequently, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’. Well, of course I was a boy, I would respond, trembling.

Meanwhile, I was beginning to sexually mature; I was soon developing crushes that inspired more than just a desire to keep a boy’s company. With horror, I realised that I might actually be what the kids were calling me – which, I knew in my bones, guaranteed me a tragically short life and a one-way ticket to hell. That, after all, was what the old form of homophobia entailed. Self-loathing.

To survive the onslaught, I defeminised myself. I lowered my voice, started wearing baggy jeans and sweatshirts, cut the highlights out of my hair, and replaced my Mariah Carey CDs with Nirvana. Soon, the fear and the anxiety became too much to bear, and the only refuge I found was in alcohol and drugs.

In high school, with each passing year, my drug use got worse. After graduation, I lasted one semester in college before dropping out. Two months later, at the age of 19, I had my first of several stays in a local psychiatric ward. I was delusional, addicted to drugs and suicidal.

It was during my second stay in the psychiatric ward that I was introduced to a 12-step programme, which was how I would eventually get sober in my early twenties. It was slow-going in the beginning of my sobriety to accept my homosexuality. I began to reconnect with the young boy I had once been, the boy whose interests expanded beyond what was typical for males. I experimented with bronzer and mascara, and got French manicures and pedicures.

Engaging in these behaviours felt liberating for a while, but eventually the novelty wore off. In fact, they started to feel performative. I realised I didn’t need those things to be my authentic self. My ideas, my voice, the way I treat other people – these are the things that make me the person I truly am.

In 2011, when I was 28, I fell in love with a man. The following year, I joined the fight for marriage equality. After we won that campaign, I knew I wanted to become a gay activist. I wanted to help create a world in which feminine boys and butch girls could exist peacefully in society. A world in which gender-nonconforming people were accepted as natural variations of their own sex. Minorities, sure, but real and valid nonetheless.

The trans question

In 2017, at the age of 33, I enrolled at Columbia University, New York to complete my undergraduate degree. There, I was shocked to discover how gay activism had evolved since marriage equality became the law of the land. The focus was now entirely on personal pronouns and on being ‘queer’. My classmates labelled me ‘cis’, short for cisgender. I didn’t even know what it meant. All I knew was that they called me ‘cis’ in the same cadence that the seventh graders had called me ‘fag’.

Soon, I learned about nonbinary identities, and that some people – many people – were literally arguing that sex, not gender, was a social construct. I met people who evangelised a denomination of transgenderism that I had never heard of, one that included people who had never been gender dysphoric and who had no desire to medically transition. I met straight people whose ‘trans / nonbinary’ identities seemed to be defined by their haircuts, outfits and inchoate politics. I met straight women with Grindr accounts, and listened to them complain about the ‘transphobic’ gay men who didn’t want to have sex with women.

All around me, it seemed, straight people were spontaneously identifying into my community and then policing our behaviours and customs. I began to think that this broadening of the ‘trans’ and ‘queer’ umbrella was giving a hell of a lot of people a free pass to express their homophobia.

At Columbia, I took classes on LGBT history, but much of that history was delivered through the lens of queer theory. Queer theorists appropriate French philosopher Michel Foucault’s ideas about the power of language in constructing reality. They argue that homosexuality didn’t exist prior to the late 19th century, when the word ‘homosexual’ first appeared in medical discourse. Queer theorists proselytise a liberation that supposedly results from challenging the concepts of empirical reality and ‘normativity’. But their converts instead often end up adrift in a sea of nihilism. Queer theory, which has become the predominant method of discussing and analysing gender and sexuality in universities, seemed to me to be more ideological than truthful.

In my classes on gender and sexuality in the Muslim world, however, I discovered something else, too. I learned about current medical practices in Iran, where gay sex is illegal and punishable by death, and where medical transition is subsidised by the state to ‘cure’ gays and lesbians who, the theocratic elite insists, are ‘normal’ people ‘trapped in the wrong bodies’. I privately drew parallels between the anti-gay laws and practices of Iran and what I saw developing in the West, but I convinced myself I was just being paranoid.

Then, I learned about what was happening to gender-nonconforming kids – that they were being prescribed off-label drugs to halt their natural development, so that they’d have time to decide if they were really transgender. If so, they would then be more successful at passing as the opposite sex in adulthood. Even worse, I learned that these practices were being touted by LGBT-rights organisations as ‘life-saving medical care’.

It felt like I was living in an episode of The Twilight Zone. How long were these kids supposed to remain on the blockers? And what happens in a few years, if they decide they’re not ‘truly trans’ after all, and all of their peers have surpassed them? Are they seriously supposed to commence puberty at 16 or 17 years of age? These questions rattled my brain for months, until I learned the actual statistics: nearly all children who are prescribed puberty blockers go on to receive cross-sex hormones. Blockers don’t give a kid time to think. They solidify him in a trans identity and sentence him to a lifetime of very expensive, experimental medicalisation.

I wondered how different these so-called trans kids were from the little boy I had been. Obviously, I grew up to be a gay man and not a transwoman. But how could gender clinicians tell the difference between a young boy expressing his homosexuality through gender nonconformity, and someone ‘born in the wrong body’? I decided to dig deeper into the real history of medical transition.

Medicalising homosexuality

What I learned validated all of my worst fears. I learned that for decades after their invention, synthetic ‘sex hormones’ were used by doctors and scientists who sought to ‘cure’ homosexuality, and by law enforcement to chemically castrate men convicted of committing homosexual acts.

I learned about actress and singer Christine Jorgensen, one of the first people in the US to become widely known for having ‘sex-reassignment’ surgery in the early 1950s. Jorgensen may now be celebrated by the modern ‘LGBTQIA+’ community as a trans icon, but he seemed more concerned with escaping his homosexuality, which he said was ‘deeply alien to my religious attitudes’. As Jorgensen put it, ‘I identified myself as female and consequently my interests in men were normal’.

I learned that of the first adolescents to be treated for gender dysphoria (or what was then called ‘gender identity disorder’) with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones in the 1990s and early 2000s, the vast majority were homosexual. And I learned that these studies inform current ‘gender-affirming care’ practices.

Soon, I met detransitioned gay men who had sought an escape from internalised and external homophobia in a transgender identity. They continue to suffer severe post-surgical complications, years after their vaginoplasties.

I began to fear we had reached a point of no return a couple of years ago, during a conversation I had with a supposedly ‘progressive’ friend. I told her that, if I had been a young boy now, I likely would have been prescribed puberty blockers and gone on to medically transition. ‘And you don’t think you would’ve been happy as a transwoman?’, she asked me. Her question left me speechless. I couldn’t find the words to state the obvious: that I am a gay man, not a transwoman; that statistics tell me my medical transition may not have been successful; and that I would suffer severe medical complications. In any case, if I had transitioned, I wouldn’t be living an authentic life. After all, isn’t that what this is supposed to be about? Living authentically?

Sylvester, an androgynous disco icon of the 1970s and 1980s, was once asked what gay liberation meant to him. He answered, ‘I could be the queen that I really was without having a sex change or being on hormones’. Perhaps I belong in an earlier era, when newly liberated gays and lesbians rebelled against the medical and psychiatric experiments they had long been subjected to. Perhaps my early aspiration of expanding what it means to be a boy or a girl was nothing but a pipe dream. In Europe, there is hope that these medical experiments will cease, and that gay and lesbian adolescents will be spared from a lifetime of medicalisation. But in the US, nearly eight years after same-sex marriage became the law of the land, it is full-steam ahead with these homophobic practices.

For voicing my concerns about gender-affirming care for minors, I have been called a transphobic bigot. If that’s what speaking out against the medicalisation of homosexuality makes me, then so be it.

#gender critical #jk rowling #twitter #artículo

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beomgyucoded · 2 months

Text

Genre: friends to lovers, fluff, teeny bit of angst

Word Count: 19.8 k

Summary: a collection of diary entries turned love letters that tell the story of how you fell in love with Choi Beomgyu

*previously released as a series

*regular text is present day

*bold text are the diary entries/letters

*italic text are flashbacks

Note: I live in the U.S. so I based the school years on how mine went. Parts are going to vary in length, some will be super short and others will be long with multiple diary entries. They become more complex as the reader gets older. Also, all the members are the same age in this story!

Right now, a smile tugged at the corner of his rosy lips, and his eyes turned to look down at the ground. His fingers twitched as he twirled the wispy ends of his shoulder-length hair and pulled them through his fingers like he was soothing himself. The shy, sweet smile on his face brought one to yours. He was so beautiful, and you know you weren’t the only one to think so. You were positive everyone either wanted him in any way they could have him or wanted to be him. It was a bet you could easily win, because for as long as you could remember, people would come up to you and ask if you knew the pretty boy with the shy smile.

To this, you always answered, “I do, but not well.”

Which was mostly true. You’ve been acquainted with the boy since you were six years old, and started elementary school. You could never forget the day you met and he gave you a small wave, his face mostly hidden because he was hiding behind his parents. That was the day you started to adore him. Being a simple minded six year old, when you went home that day, you wrote in your little notebook about him.

Years have gone by since then, and you're now in your late teens. You've watched him grow into an even more beautiful person, his features sharper and more defined, his hair still just as long and wispy as it was when he was a child. It seemed like everyone in your small town knew him, but he remained just as shy as ever, preferring to keep to himself or stick close to his group of friends.

You've continued writing since that first meeting, mentioning him in your notebook more times than you can count. All of it was words of admiration at first, before you became friends. The only interaction between the two of you was polite and brief. You were even shyer than him, so you stuck to just admiring him from afar, a simple smile or gesture of acknowledgement from him enough to make you blush a warm pink. As you got older, your friendship began to bud and now in high school, you were part of the same circle of friends.

You continued to watch him twirl his hair between his fingers, and you couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to have those soft locks teasing your own fingertips. But you quickly brushed the thought aside, feeling your face heat up with embarrassment. You couldn't believe you even thought of doing something like that, let alone actually being able to do it. You looked away, casting your eyes downwards towards the open notebook in front of you on the lunch table.

Glancing back up at him from under your lashes, you saw that he was still lost in his own thoughts, his smile fading away slowly as he continued to twirl his hair absentmindedly. You wondered what he was thinking about. Perhaps he was contemplating something important, or maybe he was just lost in his own world as usual. Another thing, he was always writing. You often found him deep in thought and writing in a little black notebook. One that matched yours, except yours was filled with pretty words and poems and love letters you won't send.

September 4th, 2007

Today was my first day of school. I made a new friend that’s a boy. He was shy just like me. He hid behind his mommy and daddy but he waved at me. He looked kind of like a circle.

It was your first day of school and you were beyond excited. You woke up bright and early that morning, putting on the outfit you picked out the night before just for the first day.

Your parents dropped you off and you walked into class with a smile on your face, feeling nervous and shy but ready to start going to school. As you settled into your seat, you looked around the room and saw the other kids with their parents, either crying or holding onto them for dear life, not wanting to be left alone in a new environment without them.

But then you saw him.

He was standing behind his parents, hiding behind them. You tried to catch his eye and give him a friendly smile, hoping to make him feel welcome, despite feeling just as shy as him. Eventually, he saw you and waved back with a small smile. You felt happy that you had made a new friend and curious about him at the same time. The boy and you sat side by side during the morning assembly. Even though you were too shy to make conversation, just sitting next to each other felt comforting. You made slight attempts at communication. Glancing furtively at each other whenever your teacher wasn’t watching, and smiled ever so slightly when your eyes met for a brief moment before looking away again with blushing cheeks.

You learned his name was Beomgyu.

September 5th, 2007

I thought Beomgyu was my friend. When I got to school today, all the boys stayed with each other and all the girls stayed with each other while we were on the playground. He said the other boys said he couldn’t have friends that were girls because girls were icky. That hurt my feelings, if I’m icky, then he’s icky.

Beomgyu's interaction with the rest of his peers on that day started off well enough. He talked more today and tried to joke around with the other boys, trying to get over his shyness. But when the boys started grouping up together in one spot while the girls stayed by themselves in another, he suddenly stopped talking to you entirely and acted like you weren't friends at all anymore.

No matter how hard you tried to approach him or get his attention again he clearly sent out a message that felt like "you're not one of us" so it got harder for you to try again - especially after hearing those distressing words about how icky girls were. That was the last time you were talking to him, you decided.

As the school day went on, and being the pouty six year old you were, you found yourself avoiding Beomgyu at all costs. You didn't want to be associated with someone who would abandon their friend so easily. When school was over that day and you were waiting for your mom to pick you up, you felt a small tap on your shoulder. It was Beomgyu.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into your ear as he held onto your hand tightly.

"I didn't mean what I said earlier. You're not icky."

You looked up at him, a frown on your face.

"Why did you say that then?"

"I was just trying to be friends with the other boys," he admitted.

"it's okay," you forgave him easily.

He smiled.

"Can we still be friends?" he asked sheepishly, extending his pinkie towards you.

It was then that some of the other boys in your class saw the two of you and started teasing, calling Beomgyu a sissy for being so close to a girl or mocking him for even attempting to make up with you after what had transpired earlier today. He lowered both his head and his pinkie, feeling hurt by their comments. You wanted to do something, but you knew if you said anything that they would just tease him more. So, you walked off, deciding to leave him alone and wait for your mom somewhere else. That was the last time the two of you spoke.

You didn’t try to be his friend after that.

May 28th, 2011

I went to my first boy/girl party today. It started so late too. I showed up at 6 pm but the invitation said 5. My friends said it's better to be “fashionably late”, whatever that means. Beomgyu was there too, he smiled at me and I smiled back. My friends saw when this happened and they started squealing and making “ooh” sounds. That was annoying. Beomgyu and I aren’t even friends. The rest of the party was spent with everyone practically checking each other out, girls on one side of the room and boys on the other. We’re all ten now, I guess double digits means girls aren’t icky to boys anymore and the other way around. After all the craziness that happened at this first party, I've decided that I don't like parties. Even if boys will be there. (Even if Beomgyu will be there). Oh, and I had my first kiss tonight. (Almost had my second one too).

Today was an exciting day. A classmate was celebrating his tenth birthday and everyone was invited to the party. He promised it would be just like the ones we saw in movies. His parents would stay in their room, leaving us to have fun and play games until it was time to cut the cake. There would be pizza, video games, and lots of sweets for us to enjoy. He made sure to invite both boys and girls, and there were even rumors about kissing at the party. When you and your friends received your invitations, they suggested that you all go shopping together at the mall to find new outfits for the occasion.

After your dad picked you up from school that Friday, he dropped you off at the mall. A few of your friend's moms would be chaperoning your group as you all went shopping together. You spent most of the day wandering around the mall, trying on different clothes and listening to your friends giggle about boys. You didn't really care too much about boys or kissing, so you just listened to them, softly giggling and sometimes blushing at their words.

On the day of the party, you put on your new dress and met up with your friends in front of the birthday boy's house. As soon as you walked in, the sound of laughter and music filled your ears. The boys were playing video games on one side of the room while the girls huddled together in the opposite corner. You spotted Beomgyu across the room and he looked different somehow.

He wasn't wearing his usual clothes, and his hair was parted showing his forehead. You didn't know that boys could do that too. He was wearing a blue shirt with black jeans, and his hair was styled neatly to the side. You felt a strange stirring in your chest as your eyes met his, and you quickly looked away. When you met his gaze again, you greeted him with a smile, and he smiled back warmly. Your friends were quick to start making teasing comments, but you ignored them.

The two of you smiling at each other wasn't anything new. It was always a smile and wave when you two would see each other in school, as a form of acknowledgment. You always wondered if the two of you would be best friends if you decided to just ignore the stupid comments from your classmates when you were younger. There was no animosity between you, but it's not like the two of you talked aside from a simple hi or "you dropped this".

At some point during the night, a game of Truth or Dare began, and you found yourself sitting next to Beomgyu. The other players were daring each other to do ridiculous things like climb trees and sing at the top of their lungs.

"Beomgyu, truth or dare?" one of the boys asked, snapping you out of your thoughts and looking at him.

"Truth," he responded with a smile.

"Do you like anyone?"

All eyes turned to Beomgyu as he blushed and looked away.

"Maybe," he said shyly.

You felt your heart skip a beat as the other kids started teasing him. You didn't know why you were feeling like this, maybe it was because you were sitting so close to him and he looked so cute. The game quickly ended after that, and people started to break off into groups around the room, groups of boys and girls this time. You stayed with your friends and a few other boys, but your eyes kept wandering. You noticed how Beomgyu stood close to a girl and she would giggle and smile up at him. When this happened, the others standing with them started making “ooh” sounds and it made you feel uneasy in your stomach.

The cake was cut eventually, and the birthday boy decided he wanted to play another game. Everyone huddled around the middle of the room for a game of spin-the-bottle. You took your place in the circle awkwardly, not really wanting to participate but feeling like you had no choice at this point. The bottle spun around and landed on a girl who giggled loudly as she leaned in to kiss one of the boys in the circle. You watched as everyone took their turns, feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second. When it was Beomgyu's turn, he spun the bottle nervously, and it landed on you. You felt your heart race as he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours softly before pulling away. It was a quick peck, but it was enough to make your head spin.

After the game ended, you sat down on the couch, feeling flushed. Beomgyu sat down next to you, looking at you with concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

You nodded slowly, trying to process what just happened.

"I don't like parties," you blurted out suddenly.

Beomgyu looked at you quizzically. "Why not?"

"I don't know," you said honestly. "It's just...there's so much pressure to be someone else. To fit in or do things I'm not comfortable with."

You felt oddly comfortable with him right now though.

Beomgyu nodded slowly, fidgeting with the ends of his shirt.

"I feel the same way sometimes," he admitted.

You looked at him in surprise, wondering why he would feel that way when he seemed so popular.

"Why?" you questioned quietly.

"Because sometimes it feels like I have to be someone I'm not for them to like me," he said carefully.

"Sometimes I just want to be real and not care what anyone else thinks."

"And who is that?" you asked him, turning to fully face him now.

He looked at you confused and you just laughed.

“Who’s the real Beomgyu then?” you clarified.

Beomgyu just smiled at you, his eyes sparkling just like they always did.

“He’s someone a lot quieter and to himself. I’m not sure anyone would like the real Beomgyu,” he said softly and dropped his head.

“I would.”

The words slipped out of your mouth before you even realized what you were saying. Beomgyu looked up at you, surprise etched on his face. For a moment, neither of you spoke, just looking at each other in silence.

"Really?" Beomgyu finally asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded, feeling your heart race with adrenaline.

"Really," you repeated, a little more confident this time.

A small smile spread across Beomgyu's face, and before you knew it, he was leaning in to kiss you again. However, before your lips could touch, one of his friends called out for him. He gave you an apologetic look and you gave him a small smile in return, telling him to go. You were still flustered over the first kiss and there was about to be a second one.

September 6th, 2012

Today was the first day of middle school. I wasn’t nervous for the first day, even though it was a new school with new people. A lot of my friends from elementary school applied to the same school as me, so I knew some people. I was surprised to see Beomgyu and some of his friends though. I didn’t know he applied here too. I only found out because his locker is right next to mine and will be for the next three years. He was still a little shy and it was still cute. I met a lot of new people today and my friends said the boys in middle school were much cuter. They talked about who would look good with who in our little group and even I got curious. I heard things about eighth graders dating, but did sixth graders do that too? I won’t tell my friends, but Taehyun in my math class is cute, and really smart too. I saw Beomgyu with a girl today, they looked like they were flirting and I felt weird. Middle school is like a whole new world.

Today was the first day of middle school, your friends and you were now in the 6th grade and things were changing. You weren’t one to be nervous for the first day of school ever, but your friends were. You spent last night on a video call with them trying to help them decide on what to wear today. You didn’t understand why it mattered so much and they would reply with, “it's middle school (y/n).”

As you walked into school, you could hear the chatter of students and the sound of lockers slamming. But something caught your eye, someone you didn't expect to see here, Beomgyu. Your heart raced as you realized you would be seeing him every day for the next three years and at the fact that your locker was right next to his. Beomgyu caught your gaze and gave you that same small smile, the one he always did.

Returning his smile, you gave a small wave and pretended to fiddle with your locker, unsure of how to act in this situation.

"Hey, (y/n), do you remember me?" Beomgyu asked shyly.

"Of course I do Beomgyu, I didn't know you applied to this school," you replied softly, finding it adorable that he thought you’d forget about him so easily.

“It’s a good school and was the closest to home,” Beomgyu said, as he started to open his locker and put his books in.

You couldn’t help but steal glances at him, noticing how he changed since the last time you saw him at graduation. His hair was a little longer and he got taller. He was still pretty scrawny though. The bell rang shortly after and you both walked to your first class. Seeing that you two were walking in the same direction, Beomgyu started softly talking about his summer vacation and how he spent most of it playing video games. You nodded along, but your mind was elsewhere. He was still shy, you mentally noted, and it was even more endearing to you now. He waved to you when he got to his class and you smiled, not really sure of how else to respond, and kept walking.

When you finally arrived at your first class, you were relieved to see that some of your other friends from elementary school were in the same class as you. You greeted them with hugs and excitement, trying to push the awkwardness with Beomgyu aside. Throughout the day, you kept encountering him in the hallways and found out that you shared a few classes. Every time you'd see each other, you'd smile and wave, like the routine you developed in elementary school. It was familiar, in a comforting way, and the awkwardness you were feeling towards him started to dissipate as the day continued.

At lunch you saw him sitting with two new boys that didn't go to elementary school with you guys. You recognized them, since they were in a few of your classes too. Their names were Kang Taehyun and Huening Kai. Taehyun sat next to you in math, he had big, round, pretty eyes. Kai sat at your table in social studies and he was really friendly. His laugh was really loud but it made you want to laugh with him. Kai was animatedly talking about something with Taehyun, and Beomgyu had a hand resting on his cheek, a pen in the other hand writing something in a little book. You couldn’t help but wonder what it was that he was writing. When he noticed you, he gave you a small wave and went back to whatever he was writing, the small encounter causing you to blush for some reason. You shook your head slightly and looked around the cafeteria trying to spot any of your friends, going over to their table when you did. You pulled out your own little book and started to doodle, while listening to your friends gossip and talk about boys they thought were cute.

The rest of your day went by in a blur, nothing exciting happening since all your teachers basically did the same thing today. You walked to your locker when the last bell rang, stopping in your tracks when you saw Beomgyu at his. He wasn’t alone though, there was a girl next to him and she was leaning against your locker, twirling her hair a little too forcefully as they talked to each other. You recognized her, she went to elementary school with you and was fairly popular. You remembered all the boys in your class having a crush on her. You felt strange as you watched Beomgyu laugh with the girl, his hand resting on her arm. You decided to gather your things and just go home, not wanting to see whatever was happening between them.

“Excuse me,” you muttered softly, and she looked at you annoyed.

You pointed to your locker and she moved, quickly going back to giggling at Beomgyu, which caused you to roll your eyes. Beomgyu looked at you when he heard your voice and gave you a small smile, like he usually did, but it felt different this time. You managed to give him a tight smile before walking away and going home.

November 2nd, 2012

Today was my first school dance, it was a halloween dance. Halloween was on a wednesday this year, but they didn't think it was convenient to have the dance on a wednesday, so it was pushed to today. It was weird to dress up in a costume in November, but I suppose costume parties aren’t just for halloween. I dressed up as an angel. My friends seem to make a big deal about a lot of our first experiences, like today, they decided we should all get ready together and then show up to the dance together. When they first heard about the dance, they immediately thought we should try to get dates. Sometimes I wonder why I’m friends with them because our interests and the things we prioritize are so different. They kept their word and managed to get dates, I didn’t, because I didn’t even want to go in the first place. Even though I didn’t have a date to my first dance, someone did ask me to dance and their costume paired well with mine. It was sweet of them to ask. Beomgyu was there and he had a date. It was the same girl I saw him with that one day by our lockers, and almost everyday since then. Are they dating now? If they are, good for them. I don't care…

Today felt like it was dragging along. You felt like it was always like that on Friday’s, but today was especially slow and not just to you, but to everyone. Tonight was the Halloween Dance, and everyone’s anticipation and constant staring at the clock only seemed to make time move slower.

As the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, your classroom erupted with a chorus of relieved voices. Students rushed to their lockers, grabbing their bags and shoving any and all books into them with eager anticipation of the evening ahead. But as you made your way through the crowded hallway, a sinking feeling settled in your stomach. The excitement buzzing around you only served as a stark reminder of your own lack of enthusiasm for the dance. Parties and gatherings were not your thing, anyone that knew you, knew this. Yet, for some reason you had a costume picked out and waiting for you at home. Your friends made plans to meet up after school to get ready together, however you were left out of these plans and weren’t told until today. Your friends knew you had to tell your parents at least a day ahead before asking to go out. It felt like they didn’t want you to join them. After saying bye to your friends, you took the bus home. Your parents weren’t able to pick you up today, and luckily they taught you how to get home using public transportation in case this happened.

You got home shortly after, trudging up the stairs to your room. Slipping into your angel costume, you couldn't help but feel a sense of detachment from the festivities. Glittering wings adorned your back, and a halo perched lightly on your head, you looked at yourself in the mirror. You didn't recognize the person staring back at you. You felt like you were wearing a disguise, hiding behind the façade of an angel, when you felt anything but angelic. The heaviness in your chest and the weight of loneliness settled upon you, casting a deeper shadow over your already lack of excitement. You wondered if this was really worth it, the discomfort of pretending to enjoy a party you had no interest in attending. You were going because your friends were, and they said you had to be there. With a sigh, you decided to make the best of the situation. Maybe tonight would surprise you, and you'd find some hidden enjoyment somewhere in the midst of your stagnant melancholy.

The evening air was cool as you stepped out of your house and made your way towards the house your friends agreed to meet up at. The moon hung low in the sky, casting an eerie glow on the deserted streets. Halloween decorations still adorned houses, their flickering lights and grinning jack-o'-lanterns showing more of an expression than you were. It was a stark contrast to the emptiness of the night, and you couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding.

You arrived at your friends' house, the designated meeting spot for the evening. As you walked up to the front door, you could hear the faint sound of laughter and music echoing through the walls. Taking a deep breath, you knocked once and pushed open the door. The living room was transformed into a makeshift dressing room, with clothes and makeup strewn about all over the room. Your friends were gathered around a full-length mirror, each one meticulously perfecting their costumes. They didn't seem to notice your arrival at first, too engrossed in their own reflections. You stood there awkwardly, feeling like an outsider in your own group. It was moments like these when you questioned your friendship with them. Their shared enthusiasm and excitement for the dance seemed foreign to you, and you couldn't help but wonder if it was your fault for not fully embracing their interests or if they were to blame for excluding you from their plans. None of them made the effort to acknowledge your presence. The realization hit you like a punch to the gut; they didn't really care if you were there or not. You were just an afterthought, someone they had to invite out of obligation.

“(y/n)! You’re here! When did you come in?” One of them asked, still not looking directly at you, snapping you out of your thoughts and shooting them a forced smile.

“I just got here,” you said quietly and looked down.

That wasn't true, you had to have been standing there for at least five minutes. But you didn't want to make a big deal out of it. You didn't want to draw attention to your own insecurities and feelings of exclusion. So, you brushed it off and joined them in front of the mirror. As you joined your friends in front of the mirror, they finally turned their attention towards you, their eyes widening in surprise as they took in your angelic appearance. A mixture of awe and excitement filled their faces, momentarily putting your doubts at bay. They complimented your costume and eagerly asked how you managed to look so ethereal. It felt good to be noticed, even if it was just for your outfit. Part of you felt like they were only being half-hearted in their words, but a compliment was a compliment and it made you feel good nonetheless.

As the group finished getting ready, you all made your way to the school. You walked slightly behind the group and just listened to their chatter like you always did. They talked about how they couldn’t wait to slow dance with their dates and potentially kiss them. Your group arrived at the school after a short walk and the moment you stepped through the doors, the atmosphere consumed you. The gymnasium had been transformed into a haunted castle and it looked better than you thought it would. The dim lighting and haunting decorations created an eerie but magical ambiance. The chattering of students and the thumping bass of the music reverberated through the air. You scanned the crowd, searching for familiar faces amidst the sea of costumes.

Your friends quickly dispersed, finding their dates or joining other groups. Left standing alone, you hesitated, unsure of where to go or what to do. So you took a seat on the bleachers, just sitting and observing the scene in front of you. You sat there for a majority of the evening, only getting up occasionally to get something to drink or accompany one of your friends to the bathroom. Since it was a school dance, there were sixth, seventh and eighth graders there. It was easy to tell who was who. The eighth graders tried to carry an air of maturity and do things they thought would make them look cool in front of the underclassmen. The seventh graders mostly kept to themselves, trying not to be awkward, yet they still looked more comfortable than you did here. And then there were the sixth graders. They were all buzzing with excitement, making a dramatic spectacle of every song that played, every “couple” that came together. They were still divided, with girls in one corner and boys in another, despite most of them having dates. Right then, the melodic tunes of a slow romantic song washed over the gymnasium, beckoning couples to take each other's hands and attempt to sway in harmony. It was then that you noticed Beomgyu standing across the room, his eyes locked on his date. She was absolutely stunning in her costume, and you watched as he took her hands awkwardly and they started to slow dance. You felt a pang of envy wash over you, but you weren’t sure what you wanted. Did you want someone to dance with you like that? Did you wish you were as pretty as she was? Did you want to just go home? Did you want Beomgyu to- You tore your gaze away from them, a feeling of loneliness settled deep within you once more. But just as you were about to descend further into your isolation and self-doubt, you felt a tap on your shoulder. Surprised, you turned your head to find Taehyun, one of Beomgyu’s friends, and one of the cutest boys in the sixth grade, standing in front of you with a shy smile on his face.

"Hey," he said softly. "Would you like to dance?"

You looked up at him, and saw that he was wearing a pair of devil horns on his head, his big warm eyes looking at you with genuine kindness.

“M-me?” You stammered, taken aback by his unexpected invitation.

Taehyun nodded, his smile widening as he held out his hand for you to take. A mix of surprise and anticipation swelled within you, and you hesitated for a moment before placing your trembling hand in his.

"Yeah," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "I'd like to dance."

As Taehyun led you towards the dance floor, a rush of nervous excitement coursed through your veins. You could feel the eyes of the other students on you, curious and intrigued by the two of you together. One of your friends drew your attention and she shot you a “you go girl” look, which caused you to blush and turn your attention back to Taehyun.

"I'm surprised you came here alone," Taehyun said and gently placed his hands at your waist.

He was a natural.

"What do you mean?" you asked shyly and put your hands on his shoulders, keeping your gaze glued to the floor.

"Well, I've been watching you sit here all night, and it just didn't seem right for someone as pretty as you to be alone," he replied confidently and started to sway the two of you to the music.

His words caught you off guard and you blushed at the compliment. His words were simple, but they seemed to hold a sincerity that made you feel seen and appreciated.

“Did you come here alone?” you asked him, finally looking up to meet his eyes.

“I did,” he said and laughed, his hands were holding you as gently as he could.

You were visibly surprised at his response, Taehyun was popular, smart and extremely cute. You thought he’d get asked a number of times, or at least ask someone, who would no doubt say yes.

You heard him laugh again, “Is that really that surprising?”

You nodded.

“I should've asked you.”

“Well if you did, I would have said yes.”

“Our costumes even go together, it was meant to be,” he jokes and you giggled as he attempted to twirl you.

The song came to an end and you thanked him for the dance, quickly being pulled away by your friends for the first time that evening. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Taehyun retreat back to his friends and one of them kept their eyes on you.

Beomgyu.

January 3rd, 2015

You were late today. I heard Kai and Taehyun talking about whether or not you’d show up. I kept looking at your locker, as if you’d just magically appear. This was a small thing that I looked forward to each day. Our little interactions at our lockers. It’s usually a small smile or a soft “good morning” but I really looked forward to it. It hasn’t really been happening since you’ve been hanging out with her more though.

January 3rd, 2015

I heard them. They were talking about you. The girl you like I mean, she and her friends were talking about you. Usually, one would be happy by this. Even outsiders would be thrilled witnessing love. However, this wasn’t very thrilling. She was making fun of you and your feelings. She knew you’d fall at her feet and wanted to play with you for fun. She has been playing with you for fun since we started middle school. For some reason that tugged at my heart.

January 3rd, 2015

You did end up coming today, but you didn't look anyone in the eye. Not even your friends. I saw you though, at your locker. Your eyes were red and they looked empty, like someone pulled the rug from right under you and there was no sparkle.

You couldn't help but feel a pang of worry as you watched him from across the hallway. Curiosity drew you closer, your footsteps light and cautious. You didn't want to intrude on his solitude, but you also couldn't bear to see him suffer in silence either. With hesitant steps, you approached his locker, unsure of what to say or do.

“Beomgyu?” you called out to him softly.

He turned to face you, but still didn’t meet your gaze, though you knew he was listening.

“Here,” you said and gently placed something in his hands.

It was a bag of gummy bears.

You watched the way his eyes widened slightly and he looked up for what was probably the first time today.

“I didn’t realize that I bought two, and I know these have been your favorite since we were kids, so I’d like you to have them.”

His fingers gently gripped the bag in his hands and his eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them and looked at you again, you saw the sparkle. It wasn’t as bright as it usually was, but it was there, slowly flickering back to life.

“You remember that?” he asked, the surprise clear in his voice.

“I do,” you confirmed.

“Why are you nervous right now?” he questioned, his voice as soft as ever.

“H-how do you know that I’m nervous?” you stammered, tugging slightly at a strand of your hair.

“You’re doing that thing with your hair. You’ve done that since we were kids.”

It was now your turn to be surprised.

You giggled softly, slightly embarrassed with a mix of relief and amusement bubbling up inside you.

"I guess some things never change, huh?" you replied, tucking the strand of hair behind your ear.

It was true, whenever you felt nervous or uncertain, you had a habit of fiddling with your hair. Beomgyu's lips twitched into a small smile, faint but genuine. The tension that had been shrouding him seemed to dissipate ever so slightly.

"Yeah," he murmured, his voice still tinged with sadness.

"Some things stay the same," he said and looked down again, this time fiddling with the bag of gummy bears.

He tore it open and held it out to you. A smile spread across your face, warmed by the small gesture. You reached out and took a gummy bear from the bag, popping it into your mouth. The two of you stood there in silence, chewing on the gummies and just looking at each other with shining eyes.

It was a simple moment, but it held a weight that words couldn't capture for both of you. At this time, Taehyun rounded the corner, a very familiar little black book in his hands and a small smirk adorned on his face. But when he saw the two of you, his smirk turned into a wide smile and he let you be.

He’ll give Beomgyu his book back some other time.

September 8th, 2015

Today is the last day of summer vacation. I’d be starting high school tomorrow, and I was really looking forward to how the changes over the summer would transfer into the school year. A lot changed. Like a lot. Mostly good changes. I think I have real, genuine, friends now. But I’m afraid that my old group of “friends” will try to torment me throughout our high school years. I realized a lot of things about myself over the summer too. I can feel my face getting hot recalling them as I’m writing this.

A lot had happened over the summer. A lot had changed. Your supposed friends had decided you would only bring them down, and despite them wanting a dramatic parting of your years of friendship, it ended quietly and expectedly. You weren’t hurt, and that seemed to bother them. You hung out with Taehyun a lot over the summer, Kai joining you two often. You found that you shared a lot in common with them, it was easy to get along with them and you never had to force yourself to go along with their plans. You learned that’s what friendship should feel like.

Beomgyu would sometimes join you, his presence a comforting and familiar one. He seemed to carry a weight on his shoulders and you couldn't help but feel a sense of empathy towards him, especially after knowing that he had fallen for someone who didn't appreciate him. It was also strange how the two of you always seemed to show up around each other at just the right time, as if drawn together by some unseen force.

There was an instance where some random guy had been following you around on one of your evening walks and Beomgyu showed up then, catching on to the situation, pretending as if he’d been waiting for you. There was another time when you felt like having ice cream and when you went out to get some, you found Beomgyu walking out of the convenience store holding one of those ice creams with two sticks that you could split in half. He gave you the other half and joined you on your evening walk that night. You tried to brush them off as mere coincidences, but deep down, you knew there was something more at play.

After the “gummy bear incident”, as you like to refer to it as, there has been a subtle shift in your dynamic. Your interactions were never lacking in chemistry or politeness before, even with both of you being naturally shy individuals. But now, whenever the two of you found yourselves alone, neither of you could barely get a word out without stumbling over your words. Eye contact was practically non-existent between the two of you now, the air thick with unspoken tension and unfulfilled desires. The summer had brought you closer, yet somehow he still felt far away. And although you were hesitant to admit it out loud, your feelings for him had grown stronger with each passing day.

You liked him.

You’ve always liked Choi Beomgyu.

September 9th, 2015

Today was the first day of high school. You and I are attending the same school again. You look really different now. Even though I saw it gradually happen over the summer, I’m pretty sure I spent most of today just looking at you. How tall you got, how deep your voice is now. Taehyun said you had a crush on someone, and it's good that you feel okay enough to feel like that about somone again I guess. I also met two new boys today, and we got along well. I'm looking forward to getting to know them.

As you entered the bustling hallways, sleek and gleaming under the bright fluorescent lights, you couldn't help but get lost in the sea of faces. There were whispers of excitement and trepidation that filled the air. Today was the first day of high school, a milestone that held both promise and uncertainty. You could feel the nervous energy radiating off the other freshmen as they hurried to find their lockers and compare schedules with friends that joined them from middle school. Taking a deep breath, you tried to steady your own racing heart, reminding yourself that everyone else most likely felt the same way you were feeling.

As you navigated through the maze of lockers, you caught snippets of conversations. Excited chatter about summer adventures, worries about making new friends, and anxious whispers about the infamous teachers they were told to look out for. You saw a few familiar faces, including your former friends. Before any sort of interaction could happen between you, someone's frantic waving caught your attention. You sighed in relief seeing that it was Taehyun, and he was frantically waving at you to call you over.

Grateful for the familiar, friendly face, you quickened your pace and made your way towards Taehyun. He was leaning against a row of lockers, his hair falling into his eyes as he scanned the crowd. As soon as he saw you approach, a wide grin spread across his face.

"Hey, you're finally here!" Taehyun exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine relief.

"Yeah," you replied with a nervous laugh.

"Just trying to figure out where everything is."

Taehyun chuckled, brushing his hair back with a casual flick of his hand.

"Don't worry, I've got it all figured out," he boasted playfully.

"I'm sure you do," you laughed and looked around.

"Where's Kai?"

"He's at his locker, did you find where yours is yet?" Taehyun asked, leaning closer to look at the schedule in your hands.

"No, I haven't. Want to help me find it since you got it "all figured out"?"

Taehyun grinned and nodded, tucking his hands into his pockets as he fell into stride beside you. Together, you weaved through the bustling crowd of students, scanning the numbers on lockers until you finally found the one that matched the number on your schedule. With a sigh of relief, you spun the combination lock and swung open the metal door.

As you began to organize your books and supplies, Taehyun leaned against the locker next to yours, observing you with a twinkle in his eyes.

"So," he began, "nervous about any particular classes?"

"Not really."

"Are you going to join any clubs or teams here?" he asked, though you could tell his attention was now somewhere else.

You were going to look up and jokingly ask why he wasn’t paying you any attention, but instead your heart started to beat really fast. Across the hall was Beomgyu, standing at his locker and you're only now noticing that Taehyun left your side to approach him. You watched as Taehyun sauntered over to Beomgyu with a mischievous glint in his eye. The two of them exchanged a few words, their conversation drowned out by the surrounding chatter. Beomgyu looked surprised at first but then broke into a shy smile, nodding in agreement to whatever Taehyun had asked him. The sight of both of them approaching you snapped you out of your daze and you quickly went back to organizing your things.

“Hey,” Beomgyu greeted you softly.

“Hi,” you slightly blushed, voice just as soft.

Watching this, Taehyun couldn't help but snicker because of what he knew. Taehyun stepped closer, now joining you and Beomgyu, his chuckles escaping his lips. You glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, curiosity tugging at your thoughts.

"What's so funny?" you questioned, tilting your head to the side.

"Oh, nothing," Taehyun replied coyly, a mischievous glimmer still lingering in his eyes.

"Just enjoying the sight in front of me."

Your cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink as you exchanged a look with Beomgyu.

"What are you going on about?" you asked cautiously, trying to hide your flustered state.

Taehyun chuckled again, nudging Beomgyu playfully.

"Well, it just so happens that Beomgyu here has a little crush on someone," he teased, winking at Beomgyu.

Beomgyu's face turned several shades of red, and he shot Taehyun a playful glare. Your eyes widened slightly at Taehyun's words and you casted your eyes down to the floor, the only thing on your mind now was a simple question:

Again?

With a shy smile, Beomgyu glanced at you before turning his attention back to Taehyun.

"Hey, don't go spreading rumors," he mumbled, trying to hide the blush creeping up his cheeks.

Taehyun chuckled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Who said anything about rumors? I'm just stating the truth." He grinned mischievously, clearly enjoying the reaction he was getting from both of you.

Taehyun looked at you and smirked.

"You see, he's got this little black notebook and-" he was cut off by Beomgyu practically pouncing on him and covering his mouth shut.

You couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Beomgyu trying to silence Taehyun. It was clear that there was more to this story than Taehyun was able to say. You glanced between the two of them, biting your lip to supress your laugh.

"What's in the black notebook, Beomgyu?" you finally asked, a genuine glimmer of curiosity in your eyes.

Beomgyu's face turned an even deeper shade of red as he released his hold on Taehyun, who immediately took the opportunity to tease him further.

"Oh, just a little collection of poems and doodles," Taehyun said with a smirk.

"They aren't poems," Beomgyu mumbled, looking down now.

"They're just silly scribbles," Beomgyu continued, his voice barely above a whisper.

His embarrassment was palpable, and there was a hint of vulnerability in his eyes. With a gentle smile, and a small burst of confidence, you took a step closer to him and reached out to touch his arm.

"I have a little black notebook too," you said, hoping to lessen any embarrassment he was feeling.

Beomgyu's eyes widened in surprise as he looked at you, his blush fading slightly.

"Really?" he asked, his voice filled with both excitement and curiosity.

You nodded, your own embarrassment now surfacing.

"Yeah," you replied softly.

"Yeah, and it's my diary that's practically filled with love letters I can't send to you," you thought to yourself.

Before any more words could be exchanged, Kai approached you guys with a loud "hey" and the four of you started to compare schedules. You looked to Beomgyu one more time, finding that he was already looking at you, and you both looked away blushing yet again. Taehyun only shook his head in amusement and continued to point out the classes you all shared together.

The rest of the day went by quickly, and as the final bell signaling the end of the school day rang, you found yourself walking alongside Beomgyu towards the exit. The air was filled with a comfortable silence, a warmth settling between you two.

"I can't believe Taehyun spilled the beans like that," Beomgyu muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.

You giggled softly, feeling a surge of contentment wash over you.

"Well, at least now I know I'm not the only one with secrets."

You two found Taehyun and Kai outside by the school's entrance, along with two other boys you've never seen before. As you approached the group, you squinted your eyes, trying to get a better look as if that would help you recognize them. One of them, with his tall stature and warm smile, extended a hand towards you in greeting.

"Hi there," he said, his voice friendly and inviting.

"I'm Soobin. It's nice to meet you."

You shook his hand, returning his smile with one of your own.

"Nice to meet you too, Soobin. I'm (Y/N)."

The other boy, on the other hand, had an air of confidence about him. His dark hair was styled effortlessly and his gaze, though piercing, was still inviting and held a hint of mischief.

"Hey, (Y/N). I'm Yeonjun, nice to meet you." he introduced, giving you a charming smile.

You nodded in acknowledgement, feeling the spark of curiosity ignite within you. There was something magnetic about these two new faces, something that made you want to know them better. After the small introduction, you waved your friends goodbye and made your way home, looking forward to the next day and the rest of your years at this school.

February 14th, 2017

Today was Valentine’s Day. I wanted to mark this as a milestone. Although it’s not the first Valentine’s Day after I acknowledged my feelings for you, it’s the first one where I acknowledged them and have money of my own to buy you a present. Did I do that? Of course not. But something else happened, something better. I think you’d agree. I also think we were set up, which reminds me that I have to thank Taehyun and Yeonjun tomorrow.

February 14th, Valentine’s Day. You never really understood the point of the holiday. Never understanding why a day needed to be dedicated to love. You thought love should be expressed everyday, through big or small gestures. In elementary school, it seemed like another excuse to be able to eat candy and chocolate, which you didn’t mind at all. In middle school, people started to use the day as an opportunity to confess, that way if rejected they could play it off as an obligatory present. In high school, it seemed more serious. People planned to confess with the intentions of a relationship, not like in middle school where you would confess just to get it over with. As you walked down the halls of your high school, you took notice of the flurry of red and pink decorations adorning lockers, walls, and even the ceiling. Couples exchanged heartfelt gifts and whispered sweet nothings to each other, while others eagerly awaited their own moment to confess their feelings. Shaking your head, you made your way to your locker, finding Beomgyu at his.

"Beomgyu, good morning," you called out to him, your voice small and cheeks getting warm from the sight of him.

He turned slightly and gave you a sweet smile in acknowledgement.

"Good morning," Beomgyu replied, his eyes sparkling with warmth. He closed his locker and leaned against it as he looked at you.

"Happy Valentine's Day."

You couldn't help but blush deeper at his words, feeling a mix of excitement and nervousness bubbling inside you.

"Happy Valentine's Day to you too," you replied, mustering up all the courage you had.

Beomgyu chuckled softly, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that made your heart flutter.

"Do you have any plans for today?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

The tilt of his head caused his hair to fall into his eyes, and without thinking, you reached out and brushed his hair out of his face. Beomgyu's eyes widened slightly at your touch, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink. He seemed momentarily taken aback before a smile slowly graced his lips.

"Thanks," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper.

The way he looked at you, with such gentle adoration, made your heart skip a beat.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that. I wasn't thinking," you stammered, your face burning with embarrassment.

Beomgyu shook his head, still smiling softly.

"Don't apologize," he said, his voice gentle and reassuring.

"I liked it."

Your face flushed even deeper at his words, but a shy smile tugged at the corners of your lips. As the two of you stood there, caught in a moment of unspoken connection, the sound of laughter and chatter echoed down the hallway. You both turned to see Taehyun and Yeonjun approaching, their faces bright. Taehyun had a mischievous grin playing on his lips, while Yeonjun had a glint of excitement in his eyes.

"Hey, lovebirds!" Taehyun called out with a teasing grin.

"Did we interrupt something?"

You felt your face grow even hotter, embarrassed by the attention, but Beomgyu's presence beside you gave you a sense of comfort.

Yeonjun nudged Taehyun playfully.

"Leave them alone, Tae. Can't you see they're having a moment?"

Beomgyu chuckled softly, shaking his head.

"It's fine, guys. We were just talking."

You immediately nodded in agreement.

“Right, can’t two friends just talk?”

You can tell that neither of them were convinced, but they decided to drop the teasing and turn their attention to their own plans for the day. Apparently all six of us were going to hang out after school, since none of us have a Valentine. Soobin, being as boyfriend coded as he is, thought it would be hilarious to plan something sickeningly sweet for us all to do after school. Taehyun, Yeonjun, and Kai were all on board with the idea, finding it both humorous and enjoyable. They offered to handle the arrangements.

After that, the rest of the day seemed to stretch on endlessly. You witnessed numerous confessions, with some leading to a positive outcome and others resulting in unnecessarily harsh rejection. By your lunch period, you saw your friends walk into the cafeteria holding multiple boxes of chocolates. You weren't surprised in the slightest, they were all incredibly charming and attractive.

As you and Kai walked to your next class after lunch, he explained that both he and Taehyun couldn't make it to the group's afternoon plans. When you asked for a reason, all he said was "something came up". You didn't press any further, even though you were confused, but you figured that Kai had his own reasons for keeping things vague.

When the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, you found yourself walking alongside Beomgyu towards the designated meeting spot. The meeting spot was a quaint little café tucked away in a quiet corner of town. The air was filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and soft jazz music played in the background, creating a cozy ambiance. You looked around for any sight of Yeonjun or Soobin, and saw Beomgyu doing the same. But to your surprise, neither Yeonjun nor Soobin were there. You exchanged a confused glance with Beomgyu, wondering where they could be.

"I thought they would be here already," Beomgyu said, furrowing his brows.

"Maybe they got caught up with something."

"They'll probably show up soon. Let's just grab a table and wait for them."

Beomgyu smiled at you gratefully, the corners of his lips lifting up. Your heart started to race at the sight, and you couldn't help but return the smile, feeling a warm sense of comfort settle in your chest. You found a small table near the window, and Beomgyu pulled out a chair for you, his gestures filled with a gentle tenderness. As you settled into your seats, the anticipation of the afternoon plans mixed with a hint of uncertainty lingered in the air. You glanced at Beomgyu, who was lost in his own thoughts, a faint furrow still etched on his forehead. He pulled out his little black notebook and started to scribble. A soft smile played on your lips as you watched him, and you recalled that he was writing in the book earlier today too.

Curiosity getting the best of you, you leaned in a bit closer, trying to catch a glimpse of what Beomgyu was writing. However, as if sensing your prying eyes, he quickly closed the notebook and looked up at you with a grin.

"Oh, so you're interested in my little secrets now?" he teased, playfully raising an eyebrow.

You blushed and shook your head, feeling a mix of embarrassment and intrigue.

"I was just curious. You wrote in that book a lot today."

Beomgyu's smile softened, and he slid the notebook back into his backpack. Before he could respond, the sound of an incoming text notification went off and you picked up your phone.

"it's from Yeonjun," you announced, reading the message quietly to yourself.

You frowned slightly, disappointed that Yeonjun wouldn't be joining you. But the text message left you with more questions than answers. What could be so urgent that he couldn't even explain? And why did he add that playful winking emoji at the end?

Beomgyu, who had been waiting for your response, leaned in to catch a glimpse of the message. His brows furrowed, mirroring your own confusion.

"That's strange," he murmured.

"Yeonjun usually doesn't leave things so vague."

Then, another notification came in, Beomgyu picking up his phone this time.

"It's Soobin," Beomgyu read, his eyes narrowing as he read the message. He let out a soft chuckle and shook his head.

"What is it?" you asked, leaning closer to see the message on his phone.

You exchanged a bewildered look with Beomgyu, the pieces of the puzzle not quite fitting together. It was too much of a coincidence that at this point, you didn't believe that any of this was a coincidence. You were starting to feel like you and Beomgyu were being set up. The sound of another text coming in on Beomgyu's phone brought you back to the present. Beomgyu glanced at his phone and his eyes widened in surprise, a faint pink now dusting his cheeks. Sitting up a little straighter, he cleared his throat and looked at you.

"Should we just go home...?"

His voice trailed off as if he didn't want to ask the question.

“I-I mean, we’re already here. But they never exactly said what we’d be doing so..” you stammered over your words, not expecting him to ask that.

Did he want to leave?

Beomgyu sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly as if he was trying to make himself smaller out of nervousness.

"Are you okay with it being just the two of us?" he asked, his voice tinged with a mix of nervousness and hope.

"I think we can still have a great time together," he added, mustering a small smile.

Your heart started beating faster at his words, the warmth in his eyes reflecting the genuine desire for your company. You found yourself nodding, unable to form words as you simply smiled at him. Beomgyu's face brightened at your response, a genuine grin spreading across his features. He stood up from his seat and you followed, both of you walking out of the cafe.

“Is there anywhere specific you want to go?”

He asked as he checked his phone.

“I’m okay with anything really. Just walking around like this is nice too.”

He gave a slight nod and put his phone in his pocket, “how about an arcade? There’s one nearby.”

Your eyes lit up and you nodded, “I love arcades. I haven’t been to one in a long time.”

Beomgyu smiled, looking at you, “was the last time when we went to one in fifth grade? For that school trip?”

“Yeah, it was then. I think I spent all the money I got on the claw machines,” you said with a small laugh as you recalled the trip.

“The claw machines are probably my favorite.”

“You know…” Beomgyu started, “I’m known as the king of claws,” he said with as playful smirk.

“Is that so? I’ll have to see it to believe it,” you replied giggling.

You arrived at the arcade shortly after and he did prove it. His first try, he won a small teddy bear. You watched as he kneeled down to retrieve his prize, then stood up and handed it to you.

“Believe me now?” He asked with a grin, running a hand through his hair.

You gently took the teddy bear and hugged it to your chest.

“I think you got lucky,” you teased, even though you did believe him.

He raised an eyebrow as if to say “oh yeah?” and tried a different one. This time he won a prize in two tries, retrieving it and turning around with his arms crossed. You bit back a laugh and clutched the teddy bear in your hands a little tighter.

“Okay, I digress. You’re the king of claws,” you admitted to fuel his already growing ego, and just to see him feel good about himself.

He grinned, satisfied with your words and then brushed the imaginary dust off his shoulders.

“I was only teasing you know, I believed you from the start,” you said softly, adjusting your backpack on your back.

“I know, I was playing along and trying to impress you,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling shy.

You blushed at his confession, feeling a warmth spreading through your chest. Beomgyu's vulnerability and effort to impress you made your heart flutter. You reached out and gently nudged his arm with your elbow.

"Well, you succeeded," you said, your voice filled with sincerity.

Beomgyu's cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink, and he couldn't hide the bashful smile that tugged at his lips.

You kept wandering through the arcade, trying out different games and amassing more tickets. Rather than exchanging them for prizes, you opted to give them to a group of young children also enjoying the arcade. You didn't want to carry all your winnings and your backpacks, it would have been too exhausting. It was also nice to see the way their eyes lit up when you gave them the tickets. You made sure to hold onto the teddy bear Beomgyu won for you when you first got there though.

As the afternoon turned into evening, you and Beomgyu decided to leave the arcade. The two of you walked side by side on the bustling streets, occasionally bumping into each other playfully. There was a comfortable silence between you, no need for constant conversation. It was enough just to be in each other's presence. Beomgyu checked his phone and suggested finding someplace to have dinner. You nodded in agreement, your stomach rumbling in anticipation. Together, you searched for a nearby restaurant, eager to continue the enjoyable day you were having.

As luck would have it, you stumbled upon a cozy little diner with the inviting aroma of comfort food wafting through the air. You entered the diner and were immediately greeted by the friendly chatter of other diners and the clinking of cutlery against plates. Beomgyu led the way to a booth near the window, and you slid in across from him. After scanning the menu, you glanced at the teddy bear that you put to sit neatly on the table.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like a teddy bear?" you asked him suddenly.

He chuckled softly, reaching across the table to playfully poke the teddy bear's nose.

"Well no, no one has ever compared me to a teddy bear before," he replied, his voice tinged with amusement.

"But I guess I can see why you'd say that. Is it because of my fluffy hair?"

"Your hair is part of it," you started to say, but stopped and wondered if you should continue.

You thought for a moment, considering whether to share your feelings with Beomgyu. Not confess to him, you weren't ready for that. You looked into Beomgyu's eyes and found comfort and reassurance staring back at you. Encouraged by his presence, you decided to open up.

"Actually, it's not just your hair," you confessed, your voice filled with a mix of nervousness and sincerity.

"It's more about how being around you makes me feel. You have this warmth and kindness that reminds me of a teddy bear. Whenever I'm with you, it's like being wrapped in a comforting embrace."

Beomgyu leaned back against the booth and looked at you, his eyes filled with warmth and affection. A soft smile graced his lips as he took in your words, and you could see the genuine joy sparkling in his eyes.

"Thank you," he said, his voice soft.

"That's honestly one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to me."

"You know," he continued, his smile growing wider, "I feel the same way about you. Whenever I'm with you, it feels like all the worries and troubles disappear, and I'm just surrounded by this incredible sense of happiness and comfort."

"I wonder if it would've been like this still, if we decided to ignore those stupid boys when we were six," he mused aloud, a sense of nostalgia now surrounding your booth.

You chuckled softly, reminiscing on the memory of the day you first met and the day after.

"I'm surprised you remember that. I only left you alone so they would stop calling you those mean names," you said, fondness in your voice.

"I didn't like seeing you so disheartened and I thought that was the best thing to do," you explained, a hint of sheepishness coloring your cheeks.

"You were really considerate for being six years old," he replied, a wistful smile playing on his lips.

The waitress approached your table, interrupting your conversation as she took your orders. As you waited for your food to arrive, you found yourselves lost in each other's company, talking about everything and nothing at all. When your food arrived and you dug into your meals, savoring the taste and coninuing to enjoy each other's presence. The diner was filled with a comforting ambiance, the soft buzz of conversation and the clinking of cutlery providing a soothing soundtrack to your moment together.

You excused yourself to the restroom and came back to find that Beomgyu already paid for both of you. He stood up upon your return and you left the diner.

The night air was cool against your skin as you continued your stroll down the streets. The city lights illuminated the path ahead, casting a warm glow over everything. You looked up at Beomgyu and found him checking his phone again.

"Is everything okay?" you asked, noticing the slight furrow of his brows as he scrolled through his phone.

"Yeah, it's nothing," Beomgyu replied, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

"Do you still go on those evening walks?" he asked in a clear attempt to change the subject.

You smiled at the question, recalling the habit you had developed long ago.

"Yes, I do," you replied.

"I find them quite calming, especially after a busy day. It's a chance to clear my mind and appreciate the beauty of the world around me."

"Then, would you like to take a walk now? Before we go home?" he asked, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

You nodded, feeling a surge of excitement coursing through you. You didn't want whatever this was to end just yet, and his question allowed you to believe that he didn't either. You walked side by side, not really following a specific path. As you strolled through the city streets, the sound of your footsteps harmonized with the rhythm of your conversation, a sense of serenity enveloping you both. The bustling chaos of the city seemed to fade into the background as you wandered aimlessly, and soon the two of you found yourselves in a small park.

The park was mostly empty, save for a few older couples scattered on benches. You noticed a beautiful gazebo standing gracefully in the distance. You immediately walked towards the gazebo, Beomgyu following closely behind. The moonlight filtered through the intricate ironwork of the structure, casting delicate shadows on the ground below and you stood there for a while, Beomgyu right by your side, taking in the scene before you and looking up at the moon. The night was getting darker, and both of you had to wake up early for school the following day.

"Should we get going now?" you asked, glancing at Beomgyu.

"Yeah, we probably should," he replied softly.

As you started to leave the park, Beomgyu kindly offered to walk you home. You accepted with a grateful nod and a gentle smile, walking in the direction of your house together.

You watched as he checked his phone once again, his eyes widening and he shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief of what he read.

"Are you sure everything is okay?" you asked, concern lacing your voice.

"Y-yeah, everything is good," he said, his voice tinged with nervousness. He slipped his phone back into his pocket and took a deep breath, trying to compose himself.

"If you say so, it's just- you've been checking your phone since we left the cafe," you pointed out.

"I promise, it's nothing to worry about. I was just checking something," he assured, and you believed him for now.

Little did you know, he'd been checking a list Soobin had sent him of all the things they were supposed to do after school, though he thinks they altered it. He knows for sure they altered it. Still, he made sure to do all of them (he didn’t feed you though, he’d blush too much trying to).

Except for the fourth thing, it wasn't time yet.

March 13th, 2017

Today’s your birthday, your 16th birthday to be more specific. I was the first of our friends to turn 16, then Taehyun, and I think Yeonjun made turning 16 a bigger deal than it is. Though, it was nice to see you excited for your birthday. I hope your excitement is still as big today. I debated a lot on what to get you, or if I should even get you something at all. In the end I did, the beaded bracelet on my wrist that you got me for my birthday, gave me an idea. I really hope you like it. If I had the courage, this is how I would give it to you: I imagine going on a walk with you. Planned this time. Either under the moonlight or early in the morning. Taking in the fresh, crisp air and getting a chance to breathe. I’d listen attentively and answer all your questions wholeheartedly, and ask you some of my own. You’d surprise me by bringing up something I thought was too minuscule to remember and then you’d probably let out that precious giggle, followed by that pretty smile. It would quickly be replaced by your own surprise because I would bring something up about you too, and let out a small giggle of my own. It would feel like we were away from the real world for a while, surrounded by warmth and magic- cause that’s what you’re made of in my eyes. Then we’d stop somewhere, maybe by the Han River or the park we went to on Valentine’s Day and that’s where I’d give you my present. However, I wouldn’t be able to do this, so I’ll have to settle for lamely giving it to you when I see you in school.

Today was the warmest day of the week, and your nervousness was making you feel even warmer. The bracelets on your arm jingled and clinked as you nervously fiddled with them, the sound catching the attention of your friends. Yeonjun and Kai noticed your anxiousness and playfully teased you for it as you walked through the school hallway. Their laughter only fueled your nerves, and you blushed, desperately trying to hide your embarrassment.

"Come on, it's just a birthday present," Kai said with a grin.

"Yeah, don't be so nervous," Yeonjun added, nudging you playfully.

"I'm sure he'll love it."

You managed a weak smile, grateful for their support. Deep down though, you couldn't help but doubt yourself. What if he didn't like the present? What if it wasn't good enough? Your mind swirled with insecurities as you made your way to your first class, not even bothering to stop at your locker. Beomgyu would probably be there, across the hall at his, and you wouldn't be able to give him the present, let alone see or talk to him right now.

March 13th, 2017

It’s already lunch time and I still haven’t been able to give it to you. I also think you’ve caught onto the fact that I’m avoiding you. The guys were teasing me earlier but Taehyun realized just how nervous I actually am and has been staying by my side. After Valentine’s Day, it felt like we were both holding something back. I knew I was, but what could you be keeping from me? Do you like me too? That’s probably impossible. Did you pick up on the fact that I like you, and you don’t know how to tell me that you just want to be friends? I’m overthinking again…

Taehyun nudged you gently to get your attention. You looked up from fervently writing and saw his eyes filled with concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked softly.

You sighed, closing the little black notebook.

"I don't know, Taehyun. I've been avoiding Beomgyu all day, and I can tell he's noticed. But I just... I can't bring myself to give him the present."

Taehyun tilted his head, his expression thoughtful.

"Why not?"

You looked at Taehyun, uncertainty clouding your eyes.

"I guess I'm just scared," you admitted reluctantly.

"What if he doesn't like it? What if it's not good enough?"

Taehyun's gaze softened, understanding flickering in his eyes. He placed a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

"Listen, I get it. It's natural to be nervous about this kind of thing. But Beomgyu is not the kind of person who would judge what kind of present he gets. And take it from me, he'd be over the moon to get anything as long as it's from you."

You took a deep breath, trying to absorb Taehyun's words of encouragement. He was right, you knew Beomgyu well enough by now to know that he wouldn't judge your gift. Still, the anxiety gnawed at you like a persistent itch.

"Thank you, Taehyun," you whispered, appreciating his unwavering support.

"I needed to hear that."

He squeezed your shoulder gently before releasing it and giving you an encouraging smile.

"Anytime. Now go find him and give him that present. I'm sure he's waiting for it."

March 13th, 2017

Despite what Taehyun said, I still didn’t do it. It's eighth period, and the bell signaling the end of the school day will ring in a few minutes. I know I’ll see you before going home, cause I have to go to my locker. I don’t need all these books. Maybe I can prolong going to my locker for as long as possible. Just until you, along with everyone else in the school leaves.

As the final bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, you found yourself lingering in the classroom, pretending to organize your books. Each passing minute felt like an eternity, and you couldn't shake off the knot of nervousness that had settled in your stomach. The classroom slowly emptied out, leaving you alone with your racing thoughts.

Ten minutes passed, and you peeked out of the classroom to find the halls nearly empty. This was your chance to pack up your books and head home, without the worry of bumping into anyone, especially Beomgyu. As you turned the corner, you spotted Beomgyu leaning against the lockers, his eyes casted down to the floor. Your heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, and you couldn't help but feel a mix of anxiousness and fear.

And a little bit of guilt.

What was he still doing here?

Beomgyu looked up as the sound of footsteps echoed through the empty hallway. His eyes met yours, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still. You watched as a flicker of surprise and disappointment passed over his face before he quickly masked it with a small smile.

"Hey," he said, his voice filled with warmth but tinged with a hint of uncertainty.

"Hi," you replied, your voice almost a whisper as nerves danced in your stomach.

Beomgyu seemed to sense your unease, taking a step closer to you, his expression filled with concern.

"Is everything alright?" he asked softly, his gaze locked with yours.

"You've been avoiding me all day."

"oh, you noticed," you mumbled, your voice barely audible.

Your eyes darted away from his gaze, unable to meet his penetrating stare. Beomgyu reached out, gently placing a hand on your arm.

"Yeah, I noticed," he said gently.

"Did I do something wrong?"

His touch caused you to jump, and he quickly retract his hand. You could see the hurt flash in his eyes, and guilt washed over you.

"No, no, it's not you," you stammered, finally mustering the courage to meet his gaze.

"It's just... I've been feeling overwhelmed today."

Beomgyu nodded, his expression softening with understanding.

"I'm sorry if I added to that. I didn't mean to make you feel overwhelmed."

You shook your head quickly, wanting to reassure him.

"No, it's not your fault, really. It's just... I didn't know how to give you something."

Beomgyu's brow furrowed slightly, confusion evident in his eyes.

"Give me something?" he repeated, his voice laced with curiosity.

"Happy Birthday," you whispered, your eyes squeezed shut as you held out the present you made for him.

Beomgyu's eyes widened as he took the gift from your trembling hands. For a moment, he simply stared at it, as if unable to comprehend what was happening. Then, a warm smile spread across his face, and he pulled you into a tight embrace.

"Thank you," he whispered, his voice filled with genuine gratitude.

"You have no idea how much this means to me."

Relief flooded through you as you melted into his embrace, feeling safe and secure in his arms.

"It's a bracelet. Like the one you gave me for my birthday. I added a teddy bear charm, cause well... you remember what I said," you whispered, your voice trailing off.

A tenderness settled over Beomgyu's expression, and he nodded in understanding.

"I remember," he replied softly, his fingers tracing the delicate charm on the bracelet.

"It means the world to me."

"I'm sorry for avoiding you," you murmured, your voice barely audible.

"I was just scared, clearly for no reason."

Beomgyu put the bracelet on, holding out his wrist for you to see. You gazed at his wrist, the bracelet snugly hugging his skin. The sight brought a smile to your face, and seeing you smile caused Beomgyu to smile too.

"Can I walk you home?" he softly asked, his voice filled with a newfound warmth.

You nodded, your heart fluttering with relief and excitement. As you walked side by side down the deserted school halls, you found yourself sticking closer than usual to him. The two of you strolled down the familiar streets, sharing lighthearted banter and laughter. Beomgyu's hand brushed against yours occasionally, sending feelings of electricity through your veins. As you reached your front gate, silence fell between the two of you.

"Thank you for walking me home," you said softly.

Beomgyu smiled, his eyes looking you over with pure adoration.

"It was my pleasure," he replied gently.

"I'm sorry again for avoiding you on your birthday," you said quickly, not wanting him to leave just yet.

"Don't apologize," he said, his voice filled with sincerity.

"Thank you again for the bracelet, I'll treasure it."

"I'm glad you like it," you whispered, your voice filled with genuine happiness.

A sudden burst of courage overtook you, "there's another thing I forgot to give you," you said almost confidently and made sure to meet his eyes.

Beomgyu's eyebrows raised in surprise, curiosity taking over his features.

"Oh? What is it?" he asked, a playful smile now tugging at the corners of his lips.

You took a deep breath, your heart hammering against your chest. All that nervousness was resurfacing but you weren't going to back out now. You slowly stood on your tippy toes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

Beomgyu's eyes widened at the unexpected gesture, his cheeks turning a faint shade of pink. He stood frozen for a moment, processing the gentle touch of your lips on his skin.

"Thank you," he whispered, his voice barely audible. His hand instinctively reached up to touch the spot where your lips had touched his cheek.

"I'll see you at school tomorrow," you whispered, a shy smile playing on your lips.

Beomgyu nodded, still slightly stunned by the unexpected kiss.

"Yeah, definitely," he replied, his voice filled with a mix of surprise and anticipation.

"I'll see you tomorrow."

You waved goodbye, feeling a newfound sense of confidence as you walked towards your front door. As you closed the door behind you, the confidence turned to slight embarrassment and you felt your face get hot.

You can't believe you just did that.

May 18th, 2018

It’s hard to believe that junior year is almost over. Then we’ll be seniors. For some reason, today felt like one of those “hey let’s reflect on my life” days and I decided that I’ve been really happy lately. No I haven’t confessed to you, but we’ve definitely gotten closer. To the point where we hang out after school or even on the weekends, just the two of us. Sometimes (a lot of times), you’ll even ask to join me on my walks and it’s nice to have company on them. Or should I say your company. Aside from that, something a little strange happened this morning. Someone from the basketball team asked me out. I told him I’d think about it.

Even as you grow older, there’s something about Fridays that never loses its appeal. This particular Friday greeted you with a sense of optimism and well-being. The sun was shining and the sky was clear, almost like it was a sign of good things to come. You got to school earlier than usual, none of your friends are there yet, except for Kai because he's on the basketball team and they had practice before school began.

"Hey," Kai said with a smile as he approached you.

"You're here early today."

"Yeah, I woke up earlier than usual," you replied, returning his smile.

Kai leaned against the lockers beside you, his gaze fixated on the empty hallway.

"Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something."

Curiosity piqued, you turned to face him fully.

"Sure, what's up?"

Kai took a deep breath and his eyes darted around the hallway, almost as if he was hesitant to say anything.

"You know, Taeyang right? Our point guard?"

"Yeah, I know him," you replied, wondering where this conversation was headed.

Kai continued, his voice slightly hesitant.

"Well, he asked me to talk to you on his behalf. Since you and I are good friends and all. He... um... well, he wanted to ask you out."

You blinked, taken aback by the unexpected proposition. Taeyang was popular and well-liked, but you never considered dating him. You let out a nervous laugh, trying to process the sudden turn of events.

"Wait, seriously? Taeyang wants to ask me out?"

Kai nodded, a sympathetic smile on his face.

"Yeah, he's been talking about you lately."

"Wow, that's... unexpected," you spoke honestly, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

"Well, what did you tell him?" you asked Kai, your heart pounding with a mix of nerves and what felt like excitement.

Kai sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"I told him I'd talk to you about it. And honestly, I think you should consider it."

Kai wasn't exactly sure why he was telling you to consider it. He knew about Beomgyu's feelings towards you and even helped orchestrate the setup on Valentine's Day.

As you listened to Kai's words, a swirl of emotions filled your chest. On one hand, the idea of going out with Taeyang intrigued you. He was popular, charismatic, and undeniably attractive. Anyone would agree to go out with him in a heartbeat. But, your mind also couldn't help but drift to Beomgyu. You thought about how gentle, kind-hearted and attentive Beomgyu was. You liked Beomgyu, really liked him, but Kai didn't know that. You only told Taehyun, and Yeonjun somehow picked up on your feelings too. Taeyang may be popular and attractive, but he didn't evoke the same warmth and comfort and thrill as Beomgyu did.

Taking a deep breath, you looked at Kai, determination flickering in your eyes.

"Thank you for telling me, Kai. I appreciate it."

Kai's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Wait, you decided already?"

You nodded, your voice filled with certainty.

"Yeah, I have. I don't see myself going out with Taeyang. He's probably a great guy, but there's someone else I've been thinking about."

Kai's eyes widened in surprise and he couldn't help but ask to confirm his suspicions.

"Do you mean... Beomgyu?"

A blush crept up your cheeks, confirming Kai's suspicion.

"Yeah, Beomgyu. I really like him. I have for a long time, but only came to terms with it when we got to high school."

A knowing smile tugged at the corners of Kai's lips as he leaned closer to you.

"I had a feeling," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

You looked at Kai, relief and nervousness flooding your heart.

"You knew?"

Kai chuckled softly, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"Let's just say I'm good at reading people. And it became more obvious with the way you were acting on his birthday last year."

You couldn't help but blush at Kai's observation, remembering how nervous you had felt that day. It seemed that everyone had picked up on your feelings for Beomgyu except for Beomgyu himself. And maybe Soobin.

"Yeah, I tried my best to hide it," you admitted with a sheepish smile.

"But I guess I haven't been doing a very good job."

Kai shrugged and nudged you playfully.

"To be fair, it's hard to hide with the way your eyes light up whenever he's around."

You laughed softly, feeling a weight lift off your shoulders as you openly discussed your feelings for Beomgyu with Kai.

"So what are you going to do now?" Kai asked, his eyes filled with genuine curiosity.

"I think I'll wait and see if Taeyang talks to me himself. Cause I find it a little hard to believe that a guy like that would have someone else ask someone out for him," you said, your voice laced with a hint of skepticism.

"If he's interested, he can approach me directly. But as for Beomgyu, I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell him."

Kai nodded understandingly, his gaze sympathetic. He knew Beomgyu liked you, but he swore not to say anything.

Kai let out a soft sigh and reached out to give your hand a reassuring squeeze.

"I understand your hesitation. It's not easy to confess our feelings, especially when we fear the possibility of rejection. But sometimes, taking a chance is worth it."

You looked at Kai, his words resonating deep within your heart.

Taking a chance... Was it really worth it?

The fear of rejection loomed over you like a dark cloud, casting doubt upon your every thought. You shook your head, pushing all the negative thoughts away, and the sight of more students entering the hallway caught your attention.

Among the students making their way through the bustling hallway, you caught a glimpse of Beomgyu. He was talking and laughing with Soobin and Yeonjun. Your heart felt warm, and you couldn't help but smile at the sight of him. Kai followed your gaze and noticed Beomgyu too. His eyes twinkled mischievously as he leaned in closer to you.

"You know," he said, his voice low and conspiratorial, "there's no harm in taking matters into your own hands."

You looked at Kai, intrigued by his suggestion.

"What do you mean?"

Kai grinned, a playful glint in his eyes.

"Well, if you're hesitant about confessing directly, why not drop some subtle hints? See if Beomgyu picks up on them."

The idea both excited and terrified you.

"I-I'll consider that," you murmured.

The day progressed as usual, but you made the choice to sit outside during your lunch period. You found a quiet spot under a tree, the gentle rustling of leaves providing a soothing backdrop as you mulled over Kai's suggestion. The sun bathed you in its warm rays, and you took a deep breath, pulling out your little black notebook. Flipping through the pages, you came across several doodles and snippets of poetry and letters that you had written over the years. Lost in your thoughts, you absentmindedly traced the words you had written about Beomgyu.

Unaware of the passing time, a shadow fell over your notebook. Startled, you looked up to find Taeyang standing before you. He had a small smile on his face, his eyes reflecting curiosity and something else you couldn't quite place.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked, gesturing to the empty space next to you.

You blinked, momentarily taken aback by Taeyang's unexpected presence.

"Uh, sure," you stammered, quickly moving your backpack aside to make room for him.

Taeyang settled down beside you, his gaze lingering on your notebook for a brief moment before focusing on you. You quickly closed the notebook and put it back into your bag. Nervously, you fidgeted with the strap, unsure of what to say. You were the first to break the awkward (at least for you) silence when you mentioned that you and Kai had talked this morning. He leaned back against the tree and let out a small laugh.

"I didn't think he'd talk to you for me," Taeyang admitted.

"I also wanted to talk to you myself."

You looked at him, surprised by his straightforward honesty.

"Really?"

Taeyang nodded, his eyes searching yours.

"Yeah. I wanted to see if you'd be interested in going out on a date with me."

Your heart started beating faster, caught off guard by Taeyang's straightforwardness.

"Is it okay if I think about it?" you asked, trying to steady your racing thoughts.

Taeyang's smile faltered for a moment, his eyes filled with a hint of disappointment, but he quickly regained his composure.

"Of course, take your time," he replied, his voice gentle and understanding.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'm interested in getting to know you better."

You nodded, grateful for his patience.

"Thank you, Taeyang. I appreciate your honesty."

Afterwards, you collected your belongings and went in search of your friends, joining them for the remainder of lunch. You found them sitting at a table that was not too distant from the tree where you had just been sitting.

"So, what did Taeyang want?" Soobin asked, nudging your shoulder playfully as you sat down in the open space next to him.

You blushed, feeling a rush of nerves as all eyes turned toward you.

"Um, well... he asked me out on a date," you admitted shyly.

You noticed the way they all looked to Boemgyu before erupting into a chorus of excited exclamations, their enthusiasm coming off a little forced. Soobin clapped you on the back, causing you to nearly spill your water.

"That's amazing!" he exclaimed, his eyes wide with delight.

"Finally, someone recognizes how incredible you are!"

Blushing even more, you laughed at Soobin's exaggerated reaction.

"Thanks, Soobin. You guys are too much."

Yeonjun smirked and leaned in closer, his voice dripping with playful teasing.

"Well, I guess now we have to give you some dating advice. Remember, confidence is key."

Rolling your eyes, you playfully nudged Yeonjun back.

"Oh please, like you're an expert in dating."

Yeonjun feigned offense, clutching his heart dramatically.

"Hey, I'll have you know that I'm a smooth operator when it comes to matters of the heart."

"Before any dating advice, you guys should know that I didn't say yes. I told Taeyang I'd think about it," you explained, trying to temper their excitement.

"But why would you need to think about it?" Kai chimed in, a mischievous glint in his eyes as if he didn't remember anything you told him just this morning.

"Taeyang's a great guy and he likes you. What's there to think about?"

You sighed, realizing that your friends weren't going to let you off the hook easily.

"It's just... complicated," you murmured, avoiding their intense gazes.

You looked up from your fidgeting hands to see Beomgyu looking at you. His expression was unreadable, a mix of concern and something deeper that you couldn't quite place. It made your heart ache a little, the way he had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation.

"I think you should go for it," Beomgyu spoke softly.

The chatter from everyone else suddenly stopped and they all turned to him looking either confused, shocked or both. You looked at Beomgyu surprised, your heart sinking at his words. You felt a pang of disappointment at Beomgyu's response. His words weighed heavily on your heart, stirring up a whirlwind of emotions that you struggled to make sense of. It felt like a knife twisting in your chest as you realized that Beomgyu, the person you had secretly (not so secretly) harbored feelings for, was encouraging you to pursue someone else.

With a forced smile, you tried to brush off the sudden heaviness in the air.

"Thanks, Beomgyu. I appreciate your input," you said, your voice wavering ever so slightly.

The rest of your friends exchanged glances, sensing the tension that had seeped into the atmosphere. Soobin, always the peacemaker, cleared his throat and tried to lighten the mood.

"So, who's up for some ice cream after school?" Soobin suggested with a grin, hoping to distract everyone from the brewing awkwardness.

The suggestion seemed to work, as the tension in the air eased and your friends nodded eagerly, already planning which flavors they would get. You silently thanked Soobin for his quick thinking, grateful for his ability to diffuse any situation. Despite the lighthearted conversation that followed, the weight of Beomgyu's words still lingered in your mind. The bell rang shortly after, and even though you had your next class with Kai, you walked quickly to the classroom by yourself, needing some time alone to process what just happened.

May 18th, 2018

It’s the end of the school day and even though you didn’t say much, your words were all I could think about. You wanted me to date someone else… That has to mean that you don’t like me any more than a friend. I guess I’ll have to just deal with that-

Beomgyu closed the little black notebook.

He should've done so when he realized the notebook belonged to you, which was when he read the very first entry. He shouldn't have read any of your personal thoughts and feelings, but he couldn't help himself. He found it on a desk while looking for you after the final bell had rung. Thinking it was his own notebook, since he had the class earlier in the day and hasn’t been able to find his, he picked it up and sought out a blank page to write on, needing an outlet for the complicated feelings that surfaced at lunch today.

Beomgyu hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether he should confess his accidental discovery or simply leave the notebook on the desk without mentioning it. He was certain though that he had to be completely truthful with you about his feelings now. He didn't want you to go out with Taeyang, but he knew you might not believe him after the way he had encouraged you before.

He was in a state of panic, desperately trying to figure out how to make you understand his feelings without actually saying it, because he can't seem to say the right words around you. Rummaging through his bag, he pulled out his identical little black notebook, finding it at the very bottom, and put it on the desk where he found yours. He looked back at the book and let out a deep sigh before leaving the classroom.

Now he just had to wait.

When the last bell rang, you tried to get yourself out of the school building as quickly as you could, not bothering to stop by your locker. You were lost in your own thoughts, still replaying the conversation from earlier. The hallway was bustling with students, but everything around you seemed to blur into background noise. You continued walking, as if you were on autopilot, until your legs began to ache and you stopped. As you survey your surroundings, you realize that you somehow ended up at the park where you and Beomgyu spent Valentine's Day. The memories flood back and tears begin to well up in your eyes.

Why were you crying?

You didn't tell him how you felt, yet it still felt like you got rejected.

You take a seat on the nearest bench, resting your bag on your lap and frantically search for your little black notebook. It holds all of your thoughts about Beomgyu, but also serves as your diary, which you desperately need at the moment. Panic began to take hold as you hurriedly emptied your bag.

It wasn't there.

Your little black notebook was missing from your bag.

How could you have lost it?

The notebook held not only your innermost thoughts about Beomgyu but also all of your secrets and fears. Your mind races with possibilities. Did you drop it somewhere? Did someone take it? The thought of someone reading your most intimate thoughts and feelings made you feel sick to your stomach.

You feel a lump forming in your throat as tears threaten to spill from your eyes. The weight of the situation, combined with the emotional turmoil of the day, became overwhelming. Taking a deep breath, you put everything back into your bag and went back to school. The first place you checked was the lost and found in the main office, asking the teacher behind the desk if anyone turned it in. You heard the teacher rummage through a box of forgotten belongings, emerging with a solemn expression, "I'm sorry, no one turned in a notebook."

Your shoulders dropped slightly and you thanked her before quickly making your way to the classroom where your eighth period class was located. Walking into the classroom, your eyes anxiously scanned around the room, and you almost cried again upon seeing the little black notebook sitting on your desk. Relief washed over you as you hurriedly snatched up the notebook, clutching it to your chest.

It was still here, safe and sound.

But then, a flicker of doubt crept into your mind - had someone read it? Or did they just pick it up and put it on your desk for you? You shake your head in disbelief as you put the notebook back into your bag and begin your walk home. Your phone had been going off since the last bell rang, but you didn't bother to check it, already knowing that they were messages from your friends who had made plans to get ice cream after school. You'd talk to them tomorrow, you needed time to yourself.

Walking home, you couldn't help but feel a whirlwind of emotions. The sun had begun to set, casting a warm orange glow across the sidewalk. The familiar sights and sounds of your neighborhood seemed distant as your mind continued to replay everything that happened today. The events of the day had left you feeling vulnerable and exposed, and you once again thought about someone potentially reading your innermost thoughts. You arrived at your front door, feeling a mix of exhaustion and anxiety. Taking a deep breath, you inserted the key and opened the door, stepping into the comforting familiarity of your home. The silence enveloped you like a soft blanket, soothing the inner chaos that had plagued you most of the day.

You made your way to your room and immediately collapsed onto your bed, grateful for the privacy it offered. The weight of the day's events pressed down on you, making it hard to breathe. Retrieving your small black notebook and favorite pen from your bag, you sit up to record today's entry in your diary. As you flipped through the notebook, searching for a blank page, you came across handwriting that was both unfamiliar yet strangely familiar at the same time, causing your heart to stop.

This wasn't your book.

You furrowed your brow, confusion and curiosity intertwining in your mind.

How did this notebook end up on your desk?

You cautiously flipped through the pages, your eyes scanning the words before you. It was filled with beautiful prose and heartfelt musings, but they were not your own. Each word felt like a glimpse into someone else's soul. As you continued to read, your own name caught your attention. It was written delicately, in most of the entries, as if it was a whisper on the page. Your heart pounded in your chest as you read the words that followed. The way this person described you, your quirks, your smile, and the way your eyes sparkled when you laughed. It was an ode to your existence, penned by an unknown admirer. You couldn't believe what you were reading.

This notebook was one that matched the contents in yours, except it was about you.

Overwhelmed by the emotions flooding through you, you sat in stunned silence. The realization that someone had been writing about you with such depth and appreciation, the way you wrote about Beomgyu, left you feeling a mix of emotions.

You continued reading, even though you knew you shouldn't, a sense of longing and familiarity washed over you. The way this person described your interactions, the shared moments and inside jokes, it all resonated deeply within your soul. Oddly enough, reading this notebook felt like flipping through the pages of your own diary. The realization caused goosebumps to form, trailing down your arms.

This was Beomgyu's notebook.

With trembling hands, you slowly closed the notebook and carefully reached over to retrieve your bag.

As you were trying to put it away, a photograph slipped out from between the pages. You immediately recognized the photo as one taken last week. Beomgyu had joined you for an evening walk and brought his polaroid camera along.

As you strolled along the Han River, a kind stranger offered to take a picture of the two of you together. The stranger had taken a few, but this one in particular was beautiful. It captured the essence of that moment perfectly, the way Beomgyu's laughter lit up his face and the way your eyes sparkled with genuine happiness. Neither of you were purposely posing for the picture, but that's what made it feel authentic.

You held the photo delicately in your hands, studying the smiles on both your faces. It was evident how happy you were together, and yet, you couldn't help but wonder why Beomgyu had kept this notebook a secret from you. Probably for the exact same reason you kept yours a secret from him. Closing your eyes, you tried to process the new whirlwind of emotions that engulfed you. The discovery of Beomgyu's hidden admiration for you felt like stumbling upon a forbidden treasure. A myriad of questions swirled around in your mind and it felt overwhelming.

Amidst all the questions and overwhelming emotions, one thing was undeniable: you liked Beomgyu and he liked you too.

Sitting on the edge of your bed, you've been staring at the closed notebook in your lap for what feels like hours. The buzzing of your phone drew your attention away from the emotional whirlwind that started during lunch. With a heavy sigh, you grabbed your phone and saw that it was flooded with notifications from your friends. They ranged from asking you what ice cream flavor you wanted to the everlasting debate on mint-chocolate. The most recent message was from Taehyun, expressing his concern for you and letting you know where they were in case you decided to join them. As you scrolled through the notifications, you noticed that none of them were from Beomgyu.

Your heart sank a little at the realization that Beomgyu hadn't reached out to you. It had been hours since you had discovered his notebook, and the weight of the unanswered questions was becoming unbearable. Why hadn't he said anything? Was he waiting for you to say something? Taking a deep breath, you decided that enough was enough. You couldn't keep dwelling on these uncertainties and waiting for Beomgyu to make the first move. If you wanted answers, you had to be brave enough to seek them out yourself.

When you glanced at the clock, you saw that it was the time you typically go for your evening stroll. You grabbed his notebook and slipped it into a canvas bag, carefully stepping outside. The evening air was crisp, carrying with it the scent of blooming flowers and a sense of anticipation. The streets were bathed in the warm glow of streetlights, casting long shadows on the pavement as you walked. You arrived at the location Taehyun had sent you, and through the window of the ice cream parlor, you saw them sitting at a table in the far corner.

Your friends looked up in surprise as you entered the ice cream parlor, a mix of concern and curiosity evident on their faces. Taehyun, ever perceptive, noticed the canvas bag slung over your shoulder and the determined look in your eyes.

"You made it!" he exclaimed, his voice filled with relief.

"We were worried about you."

Taking a seat, you responded with a small smile, though your mind was still preoccupied with thoughts of Beomgyu. Your eyes searched the crowded parlor, hoping to catch a glimpse of him somewhere amidst the sea of faces. But he was nowhere to be found.

Lost in your thoughts, you barely noticed when Yeonjun nudged your arm gently.

"Hey, are you alright?" he asked, concern etched into his features.

You blinked, pulling yourself back to the present moment.

"I'm... I'm fine," you replied, your voice betraying a hint of uncertainty.

"Um, where's Beomgyu?" you asked, mentally facepalming at your voice faltering slightly.

Yeonjun exchanged a glance with Taehyun before answering, his voice laced with sympathy.

"He... he left a little while ago."

Trying to hide your disappointment, you mustered a smile and nodded, pretending that it didn't bother you as much as it did.

"Oh, I see," you replied softly.

"Did he say where he was going?"

Taehyun cleared his throat, exchanging another glance with Yeonjun before answering.

"No, he didn't mention anything. He just said he had something important to take care of and left in a hurry."

Something important?

Your mind raced with possibilities, then your eyes widened in realization.

"Wait, what time did he leave?" you asked, a sense of urgency creeping into your voice.

Soobin checked his watch and furrowed his brows.

"I think it was around thirty minutes ago," he replied, his eyes filled with concern.

"Is everything okay?"

You stood up abruptly, the canvas bag slipping off your shoulder and hitting the table with a soft thud.

"I need to go," you announced.

Without waiting for a response, you hastily picked up the canvas bag and rushed out of the ice cream parlor. This morning, Beomgyu had asked to accompany you on your evening walk, and you had agreed to meet at the park.

That park.

Heart pounding, you picked up your pace as you made your way towards the park. It was a familiar route, one that you had walked countless times together with him. The anticipation in your chest was overwhelming, and all you could hope was that he was there.

As you entered the park, you scanned the area, searching for any sign of him. Your eyes fell upon a figure sitting on a bench near the pond and relief washed over you as you recognized the familiar silhouette. Beomgyu was there, his head bowed down, engrossed in deep thoughts. You approached him cautiously, not wanting to startle him.

"Beomgyu," you called out softly, your voice carrying both unease and longing.

Beomgyu looked up, surprise flickering in his eyes as he met your gaze. His expression quickly transformed into one of relief, and he stood up, a mix of emotions crossing his face.

"I didn't think you'd come," he said, his voice soft.

"I had to," you replied, your own voice trembling slightly.

You pulled his little black notebook out of your bag and clutched it tightly.

"I found this," you started, holding out the notebook towards him, "when I went back to school to look for mine."

Beomgyu reached out and took the notebook from your hands, his fingers brushing against yours for a brief moment. His fingers traced the worn edges, the pages filled with his words and thoughts. He looked up at you, his eyes shimmering with unspoken emotions.

"I was hoping you would. I left it there on purpose," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I wanted you to find it, to know how I felt."

"Then... then that means-" before you could continue, he pulled your notebook out of his bag and nodded.

Yeah," Beomgyu interrupted, a small smile gracing his lips.

"I found yours."

As you reached out to take your notebook from Beomgyu's hands, your fingers brushed against each other again, and a tingling sensation coursed through your veins.

"Did you-" you started to ask, but then stopped yourself.

The answer was already clear. If he didn't read your book, he wouldn't have left his for you to find. The unspoken understanding between you and Beomgyu hung in the air, as if time had frozen in that moment. Without a word, Beomgyu stood up and took a step closer to you. The air crackled with anticipation as he reached out, his hand gently reaching out to hold yours. His touch was tender, a tenderness that spoke volumes.

"I've been wanting to tell you for so long," he whispered, his voice barely audible.

Your heart skipped a beat at his words, and you found yourself unable to form a coherent response. You took a deep breath, trying to steady your racing heart.

"I've wanted to tell you too," you finally managed to say.

Beomgyu's eyes searched yours, his thumb gently caressing the back of your hand as he leaned closer.

"Do you remember that party? The one we kissed at?" he asked softly, his voice filled with nostalgia and vulnerability.

"How could I forget?" you replied softly, your gaze locked with his.

"That was my very first kiss."

"When you told me you'd like the real me, that's when I knew. Since then, it's always been you " he confessed, his voice barely a whisper.

"You've liked me for that long? But then-" you cut yourself off, realizing it wasn't the appropriate moment to bring it up.

Beomgyu smiled as if he knew what you were going to ask, "all the other boys liked her, so I followed the crowd. Stupid, I know."

"I've felt the same way," you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper.

"I've always seen you, Beomgyu. I've always loved you. It just took me a long time to realize and then accept it."

Beomgyu's eyes softened, relief and adoration shining in them.

"I'm sorry it took me so long," you murmured.

"Don't apologize," Beomgyu whispered, his voice filled with delicacy.

A gentle breeze rustled the leaves around you, as if nature itself was acknowledging the significance of this moment.

Beomgyu leaned in closer, his lips just inches away from yours.

"Can I ask something else?" he whispered, his breath warm against your skin.

You nodded, anticipation coursing through your veins.

"I didn't get to kiss you that second time, can I make up for it now?"

The question hung in the air as you looked into Beomgyu's eyes and felt your heart race. A smile tugged at the corners of your lips, and you nodded, giving him permission to make up for that missed opportunity.

Beomgyu's eyes lit up with delight and nervousness as he closed the remaining distance between you. His lips met yours in a gentle, sweet kiss. Time seemed to stand still as you melted into each other, the world around you fading away. It was a moment of pure bliss, a culmination of emotions and desires that had been building up for far too long. The kiss was everything, full of promises and possibilities. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer to him, while yours found their way around his neck, tangling in his soft hair.

And then, as if the universe had conspired with your group of friends, the sound of clapping and cheers caused you to pull away. You glanced over Beomgyu's shoulder and saw your friends standing there, huge smiles on their faces, applauding the two of you.

Taehyun and Yeonjun were grinning like they had just won the lottery, and Soobin and Kai pretending they had tears welling up in their eyes, wiping them away. You couldn't help but laugh at the sight. Beomgyu turned to look at your friends, his cheeks flushed from the kiss.

"Guess we've been caught," he mumbled and pulled you closer.

Your friends approached, still clapping and cheering, their laughter echoing through the park.

Taehyun gave you a playful wink while Yeonjun threw an arm around Soobin's shoulders, teasing him about his "emotional" display.

Kai, always the romantic, applauded the loudest and shouted, "Finally! Took you both long enough!"

You blushed looking everywhere but your friends , feeling a mixture of embarrassment and joy. Beomgyu squeezed your hand reassuringly, a silent reminder that this was real, that it was happening.

As the laughter subsided, Yeonjun cleared his throat and glanced at the others mischievously.

"Well, I think it's time for us to give these two some privacy," he said with a sly grin, playfully nudging Beomgyu.

Beomgyu chuckled, a hint of pink dusting his cheeks.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," he replied, his gaze never leaving yours.

Your friends exchanged knowing glances before making their way towards the park's exit, leaving the two of you alone. The park was now quiet, the only sounds being the soft rustling of leaves. The tranquility of the moment wrapped around you like a comforting embrace, allowing you to fully soak in the reality of what had just transpired.

Beomgyu took a step closer, his eyes never leaving yours. The intensity of his gaze made your heart skip a beat, and you felt a wave of vulnerability wash over you. This was uncharted territory, a new beginning for both of you.

"What now?" you asked.

Beomgyu reached out, his hand trembling slightly, and gently brushed a strand of hair behind your ear. His touch sends shivers down your spine, igniting a spark deep within your soul. It was a gesture so simple yet so intimate, conveying a depth of emotion that words could never capture.

"Well first," Beomgyu whispered softly, "I think I should ask you properly."

"Ask me what?" you replied, your voice barely a whisper, afraid to break the delicate spell that had woven itself around the two of you.

Beomgyu took a deep breath and looked into your eyes, his gaze unwavering.

His voice quivered slightly, “Can I be your boyfriend? Will you let me love you and cherish you, like you deserve?"

The vulnerability and sincerity in his voice made your heart swell with love for him.

You reached out to cup his face gently, your fingertips grazing his cheek.

"Yes," you whispered, "as long as you'll let me love you the same."

He pulled you into a tight embrace, holding you as if he never wanted to let go. The weight of his feelings enveloped you, filling every corner of your being with warmth and contentment. You pressed your cheek against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

"Just so you know," you murmured, "I still plan on writing you love letters like in the book."

"Will you send them to me this time?" he asked, a playful glint in his eyes.

"Of course," you replied, a giggle escaping your lips.

"I'll send them straight to your heart."

a/n: thank you for reading, I really hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did while writing it! I've been working on this story since October of last year and it's crazy how the idea stemmed from a little joke I made. As always, reblogs and comments are appreciated and thank you again for reading!

Beomgyu Masterlist

Main Masterlist

#✎˖ᝰbeomgyucoded✧˖°#choi beomgyu #choi beomgyu fluff #choi beomgyu x reader #txt beomgyu #beomgyu #beomgyu fluff #beomgyu x reader #txt #txt fluff #txt x reader #tomorrow x together #⇢ ˗ˏˋ beomgyu 🧸 ࿐ྂ

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 2 months

Text

Dirty Work 43

Joyous Walpurgisnacht: Part I

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: Here we go!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

As you stand from the table, your name draws your attention from your plate. Mr. Laufeyson mirrors you as he peers over at his mother. You notices how his fingers twiddle by his side.

“You’ll come get ready with us, dear,” Frigga says, “Trina is coming to do our hair an makeup. Be sure to grab your dress.”

“Oh, uh…” you look at Laufeyson and he shrugs with one shoulder. “Okay.”

“Don’t worry about my brother,” Hela snorts, “I’m certain he’ll be torturing himself over the proper shade of white; shall I go for the ivory or the pearl?”

“Quiet,” Laufeyson sneers under his breath before he turns to you, “go on then,” he looks at his watch, “we all have much to do.”

He strides past you and you watch after him. He’s still upset. It’s your fault. You’ve been errant in your duties. You will make it up to him. At Walpurgisnacht, you won’t dare leave his side.

“Come,” Frigga beckons to you, “Hel, you too.”

“Yes, mother,” she drones and rounds the table.

You follow them to the door, only noticing as you approach that Thor’s done the same. He keeps a step back as he waves within, “after you, lady.”

“Er, thanks,” you eke out and step in ahead of him.

He’s quick to tail you, his fingers sending a shiver through you as he touches the back of your arm, “happy birthday, little one. How old are you now?” He asks.

You wince and hug yourself, keeping your chin down as he matches your pace. Frigga reaches to flick a strand of Hela’s black hair as she gabs on about it. You chew your lip and crane to look over your shoulder. You don’t see Odin, he must’ve stuck behind to chat with the staff.

“Thirty-two,” you answer as you face straight.

“Mmm, not too old,” his hand brushes across your back, “you look much younger.”

“Thank you, uh,” you stutter as his touch ventures further, tickling the top of your ass. Your panic swells and you bat him away, “I… have to go.”

You don’t know how to make him stop, but you can control yourself. You rush ahead to catch up to Frigga. As you come up at her side, Thor’s low rocky chuckle rolls through the air. You don’t look back as your blood runs cold. You don’t know why he won’t leave you alone.

“Ah, dear, I think we could put some flowers in your hair,” Frigga remarks as she waves you ahead of her up the stairs, “to go with that pretty dress of yours.”

“Sure,” you agree.

“She’ll look like a bride,” Hela scoffs, “perhaps just some diamonds around her neck–”

“Pearls,” Frigga argues.

“Pearls? She’s not an old lady yet,”

“Eh? Pearls are nice,” Frigga counters.

“Perhaps for you,” Hela rebuffs, “babe,” Hela swoops around her mother and drapes her arm over your shoulders as you turn down the hall, “what do you prefer?”

You blink, finding it hard to breathe through the tension. You don’t dare pick a side.

“I like the dress on its own,” you say.

“Ah, yes, she’s right, it is so nice, it would be ruined with too much,” Frigga hums, “how about just the petals,” she reaches to touch your hair, “a small accent but not garish.”

“Mm, yes, like a little fairy,” Hela muses as she retracts her arm, “I’m afraid I’m going for more of a witchy vibe.”

“Oh dear,” Frigga mutters, “Hel.”

“A good witch, mother, never fear.”

✨

You look in the mirror, swept away by your own reflection. The small white flowers in your hair are placed so delicately and just so, matching with those on the dress in their fluttery display. You skin seems to glow from the precise application of makeup, your lashes are long and curved but not too heavy. Your lips are painted a natural hue with a glossy finish and a touch of blush lends colour to your cheeks. It feels like a lot but looks like less.

The dress is just as wonderful as you remember. The outer layer decorated in carefully cut flowers over the simple dress of white beneath. The skirt flows to your lower calves, ending just above the straps of your heels, a bow on the back of each. You blink and tilt your head at your reflection, is it really you looking back?

“Absolutely gorgeous,” Hela growls as she steps up behind you, “uh, so darling.”

“You look amazing, dear,” Frigga calls over.

You turn to watch the older woman pin on large dangling earrings. She wears a white dress hemmed below her knees with large fanned bell sleeves. Her necklace is strung with pearls that get large towards the centre and her silver and gold hair is spun into loose waves pushed back behind an elaborate headband with golden points.

Hela is dressed much less elegantly. Her jumpsuit is taut to her figure, the neckline cute so deep you wonder how it stays up. She wears a sort of cowl, sparkling with diamond as it goes from chin to shoulders, a larger gem dangling down her cleavage.

“Well, I think we’re almost there,” Frigga announces breezily, “come, come.”

She ushers you and Hela from the room into the hall. The house is buzzing with activity. As you come downstairs, you’re lost amid the flurry. The kitchen is bustling with furor and workers flit around like bees in a hive. You stay close to the other women as they walk unfettered through the rush.

You come out to the veranda, clutching the sides of your skirt as you watch your feet, careful not to trip on your heels. In the sunlight, Frigga sighs, and calls to someone. You look up and follow her down the steps.

The lush green flat of the yard is entirely changed. A white floral arch, white cloth draping over the roofs of newly erected tents, tables in similarly silky ivory, petals scattered all around as stems are capped with full blooms atop posts, in plinthed vases, and around tables. A stage stands, blocking out much of the garden, a bar along an edge of the expanse with several workers behind it arranging glasses and bottles.

“Yvonne,” Frigga trills again, “come, come, we should like some photos.”

A woman in a white suit approaches with a large camera in hand. She is tall with full hips emphasized by the cut of her clothing. Her strawberry blond hair is twisted into a high bun with two pin straight pieces framing her face.

“Hello, Von,” Hela purrs at her familiarly. The women glance at each other and an eyebrow twitches. They know each other. Everyone does but you.

“This is our photographer,” Frigga introduces you to Yvonne, “she’ll be taking pictures so don’t mind if you see a flash or two through the night.” She turns back to the strawberry blonde, “hm, where are the men? They must be here…”

You fold your hands and sway back and forth. Surely you won’t be included. This is for the family. You’ll just stand to the side.

“Ah, Odin!” Frigga throws her hands up, greeting her husband as he approaches in a white pressed shirt beneath a matching stiff vest and white slacks. He wears a golden chain around his collar and cufflinks at his wrists. His shoes also bear golden buckles. “There you are. Where are your sons?”

“So quick to disown them,” Odin kids, “they were…” he looks back.

Thor clamours down from the veranda, combing out his long blond hair which he’s let loose from its usual bun. The waves fall to his shoulders, just along his open collar, unbuttoned to boast the thick muscles of his chest. He beams in white just like everyone else. A gold medallion hangs from his neck and his fingers are stacked with rings.

Loki follows last, shoulders high, hands staunchly tucked into his pockets. He looks at the sky as he appears in his simple attire. White shirt, white tie, white slacks cute perfectly to his sleek figure. White loafers with plain silver buckles. His black hair is swept back, the front pieces drawn back into a clip behind his head as the tails curl out behind his ears.

As he takes the same path as his father and brother, his eyes search and find you. His irises flicker and his brows arch. You avert your gaze and look at the grass, fidgeting as you wait awkwardly to the side. Frigga preens at each son and tells them how handsome they look.

“Alright, alright, we’ll get a few photos before the guests arrive,” she claps her hands.

There’s movement along the edge of your vision. You keep your head down as Frigga orders her family around. You flinch as she grabs your wrist suddenly and pulls your hands apart.

“Right here, dear,” she guides you next to Odin before she stands at his other side. “Okay, everyone, no scowling.”

You look up, wide eyed and the camera flashes. You bat your lashes and put on a smile as Odin bends his arm behind you, resting his hand on your lower back. The gesture calms you as the photographer counts down.

You stand frozen as the camera shutters, wondering why you’re there. What will they do with the photos when you are irrelevant? Finally, you’re allowed to disperse as Frigga struts over to Yvonne to have a look at the photos.

You turn nearly collide with Mr. Laufeyson before you can even think to look for him. You back up as he stares at you. He raises a hand as if to touch your arm then thinks better of it. He clear his throat and tugs on his skinny tie.

“That is a beautiful dress,” he remarks, “very on theme.”

“Thank you, Mr. Laufeyson,” you sniff and rub your palms together.

“Stay close,” he says tersely, clearing his throat, “or…” you hear his tone soften, “I might lose you in the flowers.”

His lips curve, just a little. Is he joking? You’re not sure.

“Come,” he jabs his fingers through the air, “let us get a drink before it is too busy.”

“Yes, Mr. Laufeyson.”

You walk beside him and he sighs. No, you’re not sure he was being funny. He’s still unhappy.

As you reach the bar, he greets the workers in white behind it. He orders whiskey on ice, then turns to you. For a moment, you’re taken back to the night you found him with the same drink… that was the first, maybe the only time, you saw him so human.

“What would you like?” He asks.

“Um, I don’t… know,” you murmur.

“Our cocktails,” a worker points to the standing list of drinks. You lean in and read each.

“Oh, uh, could I get the lavender lemonade, please?”

“Yes, miss,” the worker replies and sets to mixing the drink. Laufeyson takes his and holds it tight.

“Lokiiiii,” a familiar brogue rumbles through the air.

You turn to face Bragi as he approaches. A pocket watch swings from his vest, though he wears no shirt beneath it. You greet him with a tight-lipped smile.

“And his lady,” he smirks at you, “you haven’t seen Fossegrim, have you?”

“You brought that creature?”

“Ah, he tagged along. He chased off a chickadee and I’ve not seen him since. Never to worry,” he snaps his fingers, "I'm all set up.” He nods towards the stage, “and look at you too, pretty in white.” He looks at you pointedly, “I must say, you look like a goddess. I was also let in on a secret,” he declares, “it is your birthday. Happy birthday, did you have a favourite song? I might fit it into my set.”

“Um…” you think. “I don’t…” you look over as Mr. Laufeyson reaches back to take another glass from the bar and offers you the purple drink. You take it with a meek nod before facing Bragi again, “there was this song… from a movie… Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She sings it on the balcony but I can’t remember how it goes.”

“Oh, yes, I know the one. Beloved Hepburn, what a treat she was,” he purrs, “I think I can figure out the chords.”

“You don’t have to…” you shrug.

“I want to,” he insists, “oh and watch for dark shadows, Fossegrim will surely return once he smells food.”

“Sure,” you agree and squeeze the glass tight. Laufeyson just hums in his throat.

“Anyhow, I need water,” he sidles past you, “happy Walpurgisnacht!”

You return the sentiment before you step away. You peer around, uncertain what to do next. Your heels sink into the grass and you pull them out, teetering. Laufeyson glances over at you.

“Shall we sit?” He asks.

“Erm, okay.”

He waves you ahead of him and you weave over to one of the tables. You sit and put your glass down without tasting it. He sips his own as he lowers himself. He’s tense, setting it down with a heavy clunk.

You look around and see new faces arriving. It’s beginning. Your stomach churns as each guest appears. It really is a big deal.

“You are nervous,” Laufeyson intones, bringing you back to the table.

“A little.”

“Mm,” he pokes his tongue in his cheek, “well, then, even more reason to stay by my side. I’ve navigated these waters all my life, I can stave off the sharks.”

“Yes, Mr. Laufeyson.”

His lips slant and he spreads his hand over his chest before dragging it down, “and…” his throat bobs, “happy birthday, if I forgot to say.”

“Um, thank you,” you squeak, “it isn’t a very big deal.”

He inhales, “it isn’t? By your choice or… his?”

You shrug, “I never made it one. Really, just another year.”

“Certainly, time does keep on now matter what,” he mulls.

You’re quiet. You take the drink and look at it. It’s a lovely colour. You take a sip; it’s tangy but nice, a little kick under the citrus notes. Your cheeks pinch as you put it back down.

“Too strong?” he asks.

“No, it’s good,” you assure him, careful not to drip any on your dress.

He taps his fingers on the tabletop, “I must say, you do look rather… rather nice.”

“Oh, yes, um, Trina, your mother’s friend…” you utter, “she did it.”

You look at him, finding his eyes rapt upon you. His gaze almost takes your breath away. He reaches to touch your hand, leaning in just a little. His eyes flick past you suddenly and he stops, his hand lightly over your as he sits frozen.

You turn to peek over your shoulder. You hear Thor’s thundering voice as he greets someone. A perfect swoop of dark hair bounces before him and he embraces the tall, slender woman. You know, even without seeing her face, who it is. Sif.

You bring your other hand over Laufeyson’s and press it down firmly as you face him, “are you alright?”

His eyes skitter back to you and he slips his hand free. You deflate as he instead takes his glass and slurps with a scowl. Walpurgisnacht will not be a new beginning, only a reminder of old wounds.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #dirty work #series #au #maid au #mcu #marvel #avengers #thor

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anonymous-dentist · 26 days

Text

Or: Cellbit runs an alchemy shop with his family, and he's also the lost prince of the Gato Kingdom, but he isn't, but he really really isn't, you've gotta believe him, he isn't, really, he isn't, you've gotta-

For day seven of @smallchaoscryptid's Spiderbit Week - Royalty/Family

The day starts off normally:

Cellbit wakes up to find himself alone in bed, Roier having already gone to work downstairs in the store.

He lazes beneath the covers before hearing his son shouting in the other room. Grudgingly, he gets up, slides on his slippers and his bathrobe, and he goes to get Richarlyson settled with a new coloring book because, according to Richarlyson, Pepito ate the last one.

(Pepito did not eat the last one.)

Cellbit goes back into his bedroom to change, and then he goes to the wash basin in the hallway to brush his teeth and wash his face. He goes to the kitchen, shoves a singe slice of bread in his mouth for breakfast, tells the kids to behave, decides to live in ignorance and believe that they actually listened to him, and then, finally, he goes downstairs to help Roier with the shop.

That's when things get weird because, instead of the normal dozen or so customers they usually get in the mornings before things get busy, there are a handful of people in shiny armor with pointy swords, and there's a woman with cat ears leaning against the counter talking at an indifferent Roier.

Cellbit freezes on the stairs. Absently, his hands raise to his own ears, thankfully pinned down today with his alchemical goggles. He tends to have them out more days than not now, but. Well. Old habits die hard.

"I really don't know what you're talking about," Roier casually say. He isn't even looking at the woman, he's, instead, inspecting his nails- recently painted by Jaiden and absolutely adorable, just like he is. "But we do have a sale on luck potions if you wanna try one of those."

The woman's eyebrow twitches, and, for whatever reason, Cellbit doesn't think that she's here to buy something. Between the fine quality of her clothes and the literal knights with her and her entire aura, she just screams royalty, and that's a bad thing.

That's a really bad thing.

But Roier seems to have it under control, so, silently, Cellbit starts sneaking back up the stairs. If Roier needs him, he'll scream, and then Cellbit will rush down and kill everybody in the room and blame it on a sudden alchemical reaction gone wrong. Easy.

Except:

The door to the living quarters slams open and Pepito comes rushing out of it with tears streaming down his face.

"Apa!" he cries, leaping into Cellbit's arms and nearly sending him stumbling back down the stairs. "Richarlyson ate my crayons and now he's dying!"

(Richarlyson is not dying.)

Cellbit can practically smell the irritation coming off of Roier, even if he can't see him with his back turned to both him and the store and the really annoying royalty inside.

And, sure, Cellbit is annoyed, too, but he's also a father. So he just sighs and holds his son and lets him cry into his shoulder.

"Who's there?" one of the knights asks.

There's the sound of a sword being drawn, and then there's the sound of another sword being drawn and, really, is a peaceful retirement too much to ask for? Pac and Mike got one. Bad got one. Even Etoiles has some sort of retirement plan he's supposedly following between father-daughter dungeon-busting field trips.

The way Pepito is being held has him looking down the stairs and at the very rude people about to kill his parents, so Cellbit turns around so that Pepito is facing the door instead. He's always preferred looking danger in the face, anyway; it's much easier to be stabbed in the back than the front, after all.

Cellbit passively looks from one knight to another. He skips his eyes over the woman entirely. He catches Roier's eye, subtly rolls his own eyes, adjusts his hold on Pepito.

"Sorry," Cellbit says, "but my son is dying. I'll be right back."

"He's dead!" Pepito wails, ever-helpful. He's such a good kid.

The woman frowns. Cellbit doesn't think he likes her face. It's too... uncanny, like a doll come to life. Or, rather, like an image escaped from the mirror above the wash basin, and Cellbit does not like the implications of that, thanks.

As the knights start to advance, the woman holds up a hand to stop them.

"Hurry up," she says.

"Yeah," Roier agrees. "Tell Richas to die quicker, we have company."

Pepito screeches right into Cellbit's ear, making him wince very angrily in Roier's direction; all Roier does is wink and motion with his fingers for Cellbit to hurry up.

Cellbit quickly takes Pepito back into their living quarters and puts him down on the sofa.

Richarlyson is on the floor, very calm, very much not dying, and very much using Pepito's crayons in his own coloring book.

Pepito gasps, tears gone and replaced with wide, shocked eyes.

"But you ate them!" he exclaims.

Cellbit sighs, "Your brother is a magician, now can you two please behave for ten minutes while Roier and I deal with those people downstairs?"

Richarlyson's head perks up. "There are people downstairs?"

Cellbit nods. "Bad people, probably. If you hear glass breaking, you know what to do."

It's Richarlyson's turn to nod.

They have a plan. If things go down in the shop, Richarlyson and Pepito stay upstairs and hide until either Cellbit or Roier goes to get them. If the kids hear glass breaking, they are to escape out their bedroom window and climb down the tree outside and run to their Uncle Bad's house until Cellbit and Roier can get rid of the bad guys and save the day.

(Roier's words, not Cellbit's. Apparently, calling unruly customers or the police "the enemy" is bad. Go figure.)

Cellbit makes the kids both pinky promise him to follow the plan before letting out a long, stressed-out breath and starting back downstairs.

First, though, he dips into the kitchen and grabs his favorite butcher knife from off of the counter and tucks it into the custom-made sheath hidden beneath his jacket. Just in case.

Once downstairs, he's immediately manhandled by the knights until he's pushed up against the counter. Unfortunately, he isn't pushed behind the counter. But at least he can act as a shield... just in case.

On instinct, Cellbit reaches behind himself and takes Roier's hand. Roier takes it and squeezes gently, his thumb rubbing little circles into the skin by his thumb.

"Well," Cellbit says, looking from the knights to the woman, "you want something. What is it."

It isn't a question. It's more of a demand, really, and maybe he's stupid for demanding answers of royalty, but, like. Fuck the monarchy. What have they ever done for him?

The woman speaks: "We're looking for whichever one of you is Cellbit."

If they weren't already pinned down, Cellbit's ears would be flattening themselves to the top of his head. He bites back a hiss and instead just squeezes Roier's hand.

The woman continues with, "I'd like to bring him back with us to-"

"Yeah, okay," Roier casually says. "I'm Cellbit, hello."

Out of the corner of his eye, Cellbit can see Roier waving; he stifles a smile. He's so stupid...

Cellbit turns around and gasps dramatically. "Gatinho, no! You can't leave us!"

Roier bites his lip and looks away, turning his head to the side.

"But guapito," he says, dropping his voice an octave just for effect, "if I don't go, then... what about you and the children? They might-" (He moans and bows his head.) "-kill you. And then what would I do with myself?"

"Oh, don't worry!" the woman quickly says. "We won't hurt your family! That's why we're here, actually, to bring you and your family with us."

Cellbit ignores her. He reaches across the counter and cups Roier's cheek with his free hand, gently nudges his face until he raises his head and looks Cellbit in the eye; Roier's eyes are already wet with unshed tears, wow, he's good.

"But what will I do without you?" Cellbit demands, pitching his voice up just slightly. "Don't be stupid! I love you, pendejo!"

(They do this a lot, believe it or not. It drives Richarlyson crazy every time they do it because it somehow always ends up with them kissing until they're out of breath and shaky in the knees.)

"Não!" Roier cries. He squeezes his eyes shut and rips himself away from Cellbit entirely, staggering back and leaning against a display shelf full of anti-gravity potions. "Don't say that!"

"Say what?" Cellbit asks. "I love you!"

Roier screams and flinches against the case. "Não!"

Cellbit leans over the counter. "I love you."

Roier moans his time, his hands flying out wildly and grasping onto seemingly-random bottles on the shelf. "Não!!"

Cellbit extends a hand. "I. Love. You. Te amo, guapito."

One of the knights asks, "What the fuck is going on?"

And then the knights all start shouting as Roier opens his eyes and lunges to shove a potion into Cellbit's hands.

Cellbit grins and yanks the cork out of the bottle and chugs the potion and slams the empty bottle against the floor. It shatters, and he jumps.

"What the fuck?" the woman demands.

Cellbit twists mid-air and lands on the ceiling. He waves down at Roier, blows him a kiss, and takes off running for the back potion room. The door is closed, but the ventilation window above the door is open because he was supposed to be making potions right now. Silver linings.

He dives through the window, just barely managing to squirm through. He grunts, frowns, regrets getting this old, makes it through.

His goggles are nudged off of his head, though, leaving his ears on full display as he escapes into the potion room.

The woman gasps, "Get back here! Cellbit!"

But Roier just cheers, "Corre, gatinho!"

The potion room's door thuds and shakes in its hinges as the knights all slam against it. But, like, fuck those guys.

Cellbit runs down the length of the ceiling until he's reached the wall facing the alley behind the shop. He steps onto the wall, and then he runs down that until he's by the window. Again, ventilation, he should be working right now, but no, he can never know a moment of peace.

The potion starts running out just as Cellbit crawls through the window and lands on the shop's outside wall. He wrinkles his nose at the smell, but it's fine. Just trash, it's fine.

There's shouting from the front of the shop and the sounds of more bottles shattering. Roier sounds fine, though. He's even laughing, of course he is. He's badass, and Cellbit loves him, and Cellbit just wishes he was there to watch Roier swing his sword around like the sexy piece of shit he is.

The potion's effects wear off as Cellbit's feet touch the ground; two minutes, just as he'd made it to be.

He can see Richarlyson and Pepito running for it at the far end of the alley. Good, they actually followed directions for once.

Cellbit turns to run after them and get Bad's help, but he's stopped by a firm hand grabbing his shoulder from behind.

He snarls and pulls his knife out of his coat, spinning and slashing and just narrowly missing the woman's throat.

"Cellbit!" she shouts. "Calm down, it's just me!"

Cellbit responds by lunging at her with his teeth bared. He's been filing his teeth down for years, but he knows that he still cuts an intimidating figure when he's pissed enough.

The woman doesn't seem afraid, though. If anything, she just seems angry. And sad. Mostly angry.

She easily sidesteps his attack and yells, "It's me! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Oh, that's cute. Royalty asking why someone would want to hurt them, that's funny. They have the self-awareness of a walnut, all of them.

"Stop shouting 'it's me'!" Cellbit snaps. "Why should I care who you are?"

The woman's face starts turning red from frustration. "Because I'm your sister!"

Oh, that's rich.

"I don't have a sister," Cellbit sneers.

He swipes at her. Of course he does, he doesn't have a sister. He didn't have a family before he and the others found Richarlyson, and he only has one now that he has his kids and his husband.

"Then why do we have the same ears?" the woman demands.

She ducks under his knife and sweeps his legs out from under him. He falls and hisses and growls and does all sorts of things that princes might do because he isn't royalty. He knows that for certain. His first memory was him eating the corpse of a soldier on an empty battlefield, and it's with that image in mind that he snaps his teeth at the woman's throat.

"Only the royal family of the Gato Kingdom is born with feline features," the woman snaps. "Idiot!"

"Fuck the Gato Kingdom," Cellbit spits. "Your war destroyed everything I had!"

The woman's eyes turn sad. "It destroyed everything I had, too. It took my family from me. My friends. My home. We're just now starting to rebuild, and-"

She shrieks as Cellbit manages to flip their positions so that she's the one being pinned to the ground.

"So you show up and try kidnapping someone to fill in for your lost prince?" he snarls. "You people haven't changed."

The woman's mouth thins into an angry line. "I'm not trying to kidnap you! I just want to bring you home!"

"I don't have a home! This is my home!"

"You really don't remember, do you?" she asks, voice low. She isn't even struggling any more, not really. "It's me, your sister. Bagi."

The name stings Cellbit's brain in a way he doesn't like.

"I don't know you," he firmly says. "You don't know me. Leave my family alone."

He stands, hands shaking, head spinning. He doesn't like this.

Roier calls his name from the front of the building.

Cellbit, sure that this Bagi won't do anything while she's busy crying, turns and starts running towards the store.

He doesn't make it three steps before getting thwacked in the back of the head with something large and heavy and metal.

"Sorry," Bagi flatly says.

As he falls to the ground, his knife falls from his hand and ends up just out of reach.

He lands on his stomach and immediately tries standing again.

But he's stopped by a foot on his back pressing him down.

"I'll be sure to bring your family with us," Bagi tells him. "I'm not here to hurt you."

"Could have fooled me," Cellbit mutters.

Darkness takes him at last as Bagi smacks him again with her weapon, and all Cellbit can think is that he hopes that the kids ended up making it to Bad's after all.

#catboy in the village au #a.d.'s fics i suppose #a.d.'s fics i suppose.#guapoduo #spiderbit #sorta #SPEEDRUNNING BC I HAVE A BUSY AFTERNOON BYE

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justabigassnerd · 1 year

Text

I'm Right Here

Pairing - Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell x daughter!reader

Word count - 3,515

Warnings - mentions of kidnappings, angst, but mostly fluff/comfort

Summary - You wander off during Maverick's volleyball match sending both you and him into a panic

A/N - it's a Maverick fic y'all!!!! I really enjoyed getting to explore what Mav would be like as a father, especially during the events of '86 Top Gun and I've also learnt that writing Goose and Mav's dynamic is my new favourite thing I love them. This was a request I was sent in and I hope I did it justice! I also just wanna say that watching the volleyball scene back showed me that they weren't actually on the beach so I set it kinda near the beach but not at the beach if that makes sense? Anyways I'll stop rambling now. As per y'all please send in requests, feedback and enjoy!!

“Alright squirt, are you ready to see me and Uncle Goose beat Ice and Slider in volleyball?” Maverick asks with a grin as he scoops you up, making you squeal happily as you hug your dad tightly.

“Uncle Ice!” You cheer happily, excited at the thought of seeing Iceman. Maverick chuckles lightly at your words.

“You’re well on your way to breaking Goose’s heart, darling.” Maverick laughs before pressing a kiss to your temple. Since moving to Miramar to attend Top Gun, you’d decided Iceman was one of your new favourite people and Maverick saw how Ice looked out for you and appreciated it, regardless of their rivalry. Now, it meant that Goose was facing competition for the title of best uncle and Maverick thought it was hilarious.

“Let’s make sure we have everything packed so we can go to the beach once we’re done.” Maverick says and the second the beach is mentioned, you’re squirming to get out of his arms to gather the things you want to take with you to the beach. Maverick grabs a bag and lets you pack what you want while he packs some food to take to the beach. Once the bag is packed, Maverick helps you put your shoes on and as he straightens up and slings the bag over his shoulder, a knock at the door rings out.

“Hey, Goose.” Maverick greets his RIO with a smile as he opens the door.

“Hey, Mav.” Goose beams, giving Maverick a high-five as you notice Goose’s presence.

“Uncle Goose!” You yell excitedly, running to him as quickly as your legs could take you.

“Hey, pipsqueak! How’s my favourite Mitchell doing?” Goose says as he picks you up when you hold your arms up. Goose laughed when he saw Maverick’s narrowed eyes at his question.

“Those are brave words coming from someone whose position of favourite uncle is being threatened by Iceman.” Maverick says cockily as he slips his aviators on and grabs his keys before he brushes past Goose to exit the house, leaving Goose shocked as you giggled at his expression. Maverick would usually take his motorbike to the volleyball court but with you coming too he opted to walk instead. He didn’t live too far from the court and Goose offered to walk with you, so it was decided that the trio would walk.

“Mav is that- y/n, you prefer Uncle Goose to Iceman, right?” Goose asks desperately, maybe too desperately given that he was begging for approval from a three-year-old but being your godfather and had been your favourite uncle since you were born, he was willing to fight to hold on to that title.

“I love Uncle Goosey!” You say with a grin, making Goose nod in approval as he follows Maverick down the path.

“And I love Uncle Ice.” You admit which makes Maverick double over laughing when Goose’s smile drops from his face instantly. He quickly recovers and smiles at you once more.

“You’re going to break hearts when you’re older.” Goose says with a chuckle as you gesture that you want to be put down.

“We are not thinking about that Goose, stop talking.” Maverick says quickly, covering Goose’s mouth to stop him from talking any more. You were barely three years old, and Maverick was already dreading the day you’d grow up and start dating. As the three of you walked to the volleyball court, you kept running ahead, distracted by your surroundings and as Maverick turned his attention back to you, he found you almost wandering off.

“y/n/n, come here please!” He calls for you and you run right back to him. Maverick knelt down just before you reached him and he took your small hands in his.

“You can’t wander off, sweetheart, okay? Make sure you’re always in my sight, or Uncle Goose’s. Does that sound okay?” Maverick asks, his eyes searching yours as you nod.

“Okay, daddy.” You say with a large Cheshire cat grin that Maverick can’t help but mirror. Maverick then stands up to his full height and takes your hand once more, continuing the walk. When the three of you reach the court, you see Iceman and immediately, run up to him, demanding you get a hug as you greet him and of course, Iceman complies. As Iceman gives you a hug, Slider gives you a high-five, both men doting on you as Maverick puts the bag down and takes his jacket and top off, ready to play volleyball.

“Iceman, Slider, I thought we were here to play volleyball not to fawn over my kid.” Maverick calls over to the two as he puts his shirt and jacket on the bleachers that the bag is sitting next to.

“Don’t be jealous just because you’re not the centre of attention, Maverick.” Slider taunts as Iceman places you back on the floor, letting you run back over to Maverick who scoops you up and sits you on the bottom bleacher, next to the bag and his shirt and jacket.

“You stay right here and guard my stuff okay kiddo?” Maverick asks with a smile as Goose ruffles your hair lightly. You nod at Maverick’s words and attempt to slide Maverick’s jacket on, both of you laughing at the sheer size of it compared to you.

“It’ll fit you one day, kid.” Maverick grins, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before he and Goose cross to the court to begin the match against Iceman and Slider.

At first, you watched the match diligently. You laughed when your dad and Goose would happily celebrate scoring a point with a double high-five. Your attention slowly slipped away from the match and onto your dad’s jacket you since had taken off, tracing the images on the patches until something fluttered past you, tearing your attention away from the jacket completely. You see a small bird staring at you, head tilting as it flicks its tail. Entranced by the bird you hopped off the seat and walked towards it. The bird fluttered away slightly before landing back on the ground again, turning back to face you and flicking its tail once more, seemingly instigating a game of cat and mouse. You continue to follow the bird, giggling as it flies a few meters away and yet still turns to see if you are following it. After a while, you and the bird came to a standstill, staring at each other and as you waved at it, the bird hopped a little closer to you, inspecting you curiously as it chirped, flicked its tail once more and then finally took off into the sky. You watched it fly high into the sky, waving goodbye at it as it joined its fellow birds who soared in the sky with it. When you finally tore your eyes away from the birds in the sky, you looked around you and had a sudden and horrible realisation that you had no idea where you were, or where your dad was.

Back at the volleyball court, the aviators had just wrapped up their match, with Iceman and Slider securing a strong victory as they celebrated loudly. Maverick had grumbled about how he was going to beat Iceman and win the Top Gun trophy to prove that this volleyball match meant nothing. When he approached the bleacher to grab his shirt and jacket so he could go to the beach with you and Goose where you’d meet with Carole and Bradley. When he reached the bleacher, he noticed that you were nowhere to be seen. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked around as he pulled on his shirt and tugged his jacket on, the panic in his eyes hidden by his aviators.

“Goose, have you seen y/n?” Maverick says when he senses the presence of his RIO, turning to face him. Maverick’s worry only increases when Goose shakes his head.

“Last time I saw her you sat her here before the match.” Goose’s response made Maverick’s breath hitch in his throat. He felt panic rising within him as he looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of you somewhere. Having heard Maverick’s panicked breaths, Goose placed his hands on his pilot's shoulders, getting Maverick’s focus on him.

“Mav, we’re going to find her, okay? She can’t have gotten far. We’ll find her.” Goose said reassuringly. As a father, Goose understood Maverick’s panic. There was one time Goose lost sight of Bradley in a store and Goose nearly had an aneurysm thinking someone had taken him. Thankfully, he found Bradley in the sweet aisle, his little hands grabbing at as many colourful packets as he could. Goose had never felt a relief quite like finding Bradley again and he scooped his son up in his arms and held him tight, instructing him to never do that again. Iceman and Slider, noticing the panic between Maverick and Goose, came jogging over to the two after throwing their shirts on.

“What’s going on?” Iceman asks, eyebrow raised as he glances between Goose and Maverick as he tries to assess the situation.

“We can’t find y/n.” Goose says, hardly removing his focus from Maverick so he could focus on keeping Maverick from hyperventilating. At Goose’s words, Iceman and Slider exchanged a worried look before turning back to Goose.

“Come on Slider. We’ll look around for her.” Iceman says to Goose who nods quickly before resuming his focus on Maverick. The pilot and RIO duo take off in a random direction, calling your name and looking around for you or anyone who might’ve seen you. Meanwhile, Goose was still focusing on keeping Maverick with a clear head so he could focus on finding his daughter.

“Deep breaths, Mav. We can ask around while Ice and Slider look for her.” Goose says as Maverick takes his aviators off, wiping at his eyes fiercely.

“What if someone took her? Or she gets hurt? I can’t lose my little girl, Goose.” Maverick says worriedly, more tears working their way down his cheeks.

“We’ll find her. Come on, let’s ask around and see if anyone has seen what direction she went off in.” Goose says with a gentle smile, encouraging Maverick to follow him so the pair could ask fellow navy personnel if they had seen where you might’ve gone.

You were still confused and lost. You hadn’t moved from where you realised you were lost, too scared to move so you stayed put, bawling your eyes out as you hoped your dad would find you. There was no one around to help you. In your fear, you sat on the floor, not knowing what else to do other than cry.

“y/n! y/n, where are y-” Iceman cut himself off when you came into his line of sight. Your head shot up at hearing Iceman’s voice, but your cries didn’t slow.

“Ice!” You managed to cry out as the blond pilot ran over to you, kneeling down and assessing you for any injuries before you threw yourself into his arms, tears pouring down your face.

“Slider, go and get Maverick, now.” Iceman instructs his RIO as you bury your face in his shoulder. Slider nods and without hesitation turns to run back in the direction of the volleyball court to track down Maverick.

“I want my daddy.” You whimper into Iceman’s shoulder as he moves to hug you.

“I know sweetheart. Slider’s gone to find your dad, okay? They’ll be here soon.” Iceman whispers reassuringly, glancing around as if that would bring Maverick to you quicker. You hadn’t wandered massively far from the court, but Iceman understood that what is a simple path to him would not be the same to a three-year-old. After a couple of minutes of Iceman whispering words of reassurance and promising you that your dad is coming, Maverick appears with Goose and Slider hot on his heels.

“Daddy!” You cry out when you see Maverick, quickly wiggling out of Iceman’s arms and into Maverick’s as he bends down to pick you up, setting you on his hip as you cry against his shoulder. Maverick allowed tears of his own to fall as he let out a shuddering breath of relief when he felt your tiny arms wind around his neck.

“I got you; y/n/n. Daddy’s got you.” Maverick whispered as he pressed repeated kisses to your temple as you cried, clinging to him. Maverick’s free hand came up to rest on the back of your head, running a hand through your hair as you sobbed in relief.

“I was scared.” You whine, making Maverick’s heart break as more tears roll down his cheeks at your words.

“I know sweetheart. But I’m right here. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.” Maverick assures, squeezing you tighter before pressing more kisses to the side of your head. Just as Iceman and Slider went to leave, Maverick turned to face them.

“Thank you.” Maverick says to the two who nod their heads in acknowledgement at his words.

“No worries, Mitchell.” Iceman says, the two men now seeing each other in a whole new light. Iceman was now seeing a devoted father who would do anything for his daughter instead of the reckless and cocky aviator he saw at Top Gun. While Maverick was now seeing someone who dropped everything to look for a kid that wasn’t his and without being asked instead of seeing the man who lectured him after every training session for flying dangerously. After sharing a curt nod with Maverick; Iceman and Slider headed back to the volleyball court, leaving Maverick and Goose with you.

“I think we’re going to head home, Goose. Just let Carole and Bradley know we’ll catch up with them another day.” Maverick says to Goose who nods in understanding.

“No! I wanna see Brad!” You exclaim tearily when you hear what your dad says, pulling away to look your dad in the eye. Maverick raised an eyebrow curiously while he lifted a hand to wipe your tears away.

“We don’t have to go to the beach sweetheart.” Maverick says, worried that you’d either wander off again or felt you had to go just because Bradley was going too.

“I wanna see Brad and Auntie Carole.” You whine, burying your face in the crook of your dad’s neck as he looks over at Goose who shrugs.

“Your call, Mav.” Goose says, not wanting to intervene. Maverick turned his head to look at you as you pulled away again, giving him the best puppy dog eyes you could as Maverick cursed internally. He could never say no to your puppy dog eyes.

“Okay, we’ll go to the beach with the others. But you are to stay in my sight at all times.” Maverick instructs, his expression conveying every ounce of seriousness that he could as you nod, understanding every word he said clearly. Maverick glances over at Goose and gestures for them to head back to the volleyball court to gather up the beach stuff before heading down to the beach. You refuse to let your dad put you down so Goose takes the bag and the three of you begin the short walk to the beach. When you reach the beach, Goose crosses to his wife quickly and captures her in a sweet kiss before sweeping Bradley up into a hug. Just as Goose puts Bradley down, he quietly explains to Carole what had happened earlier and she felt her heart break for the Mitchell’s knowing how terrifying the thought of losing a child was. Carole immediately moved to speak to Maverick as he attempts to lay out a beach towel while keeping you in his arms.

“Hey Mav, how’s she doing?” Carole asks sweetly as she helps Maverick lie out the towel and smiling at you as you wave at her.

“She’s pretty shaken up. I also feel like I gotta buy Ice’s drinks for the rest of his life for finding her.” Maverick admits with a slight chuckle as he moves to carefully sit down, freeing one of his hands to ease himself down.

“She’s not hurt physically either, thank god.” Maverick says as you settle yourself into his lap, your once teary eyes lighting up when you see Bradley come running over. Goose sets down another towel alongside Maverick’s and sits down on it, opening his arms and gesturing for Carole to sit in between his legs which she does with a laugh, snuggling back into his chest. Once Bradley has dropped his toys on his parent’s towel he launched at you for a hug, pushing you into Maverick as he dramatically fell onto his back, causing a pile of children on his chest as he wraps his arms around the both of you.

“Uncle Mav! y/n!” Bradley giggles, wrapping his arms around you in a hug you reciprocate a bright grin covering your face.

“Hey, kiddo.” Maverick says, ruffling Bradley’s hair as he swats at his hand, protesting loudly as you giggle. When Bradley finally clambers off, Maverick sits up, adjusting you so you’re sat in his lap once more as Bradley rushes to his parents, his little hands digging through Carole’s beach bag to find his bucket and spade.

“y/n, do you want to build a sandcastle with me?” Bradley asks, his eyes shining with glee as he grins at you. At first, you don’t respond, wrapping your arms around Maverick and cuddling into him.

“Oh, y/n might not be in the mood to build sandcastles right now, buddy.” Goose says, noticing your reaction and looking over at his son who looks between you and his dad curiously.

“Why not?” The five-year-old enquires, not understanding why you didn’t want to join in on building sandcastles.

“She’s just a bit tired, sweetheart. But you can build sandcastles if you want.” Carole says, smiling sweetly at her son.

“But it’s no fun without y/n.” Bradley whines, his bottom lip jutting out as he complains.

“Bradley, come on buddy, you have plenty of time to build sandcastles with y/n another day.” Goose says, trying to lighten his son’s dampening mood. Noticing Bradley insist that building sandcastles is better with you, you feel more in the mood to build sandcastles with Bradley. But you were also terrified to be out of your dad’s arms in fear he’d disappear and you’d be alone again. Maverick noticed you looking at Bradley and loosening your grip on him so he looked down at you with a gentle smile.

“You want to play with Bradley, sweetheart?” He asks, giving you the freedom to decide whether you wanted to or not.

“Yes, but I don’t want to be far away from you.” You admit, looking down at the towel and Maverick’s face softens as he moves to hook a finger under your chin to lift it so you’d look at him.

“I got an idea.” Maverick says with a small smirk. He shuffles forward on the towel until he’s right at the end of the towel, barely sitting on the towel. He then stands you on the sand, still holding your hand as he reaches his spare hand back to the bag to dig out your bucket and spade, handing them to you with a smile.

“Okay, take two steps forward.” He says and you do as he asks, looking back at him after each step to check he’s still there and to your relief he is, grinning at you.

“There we go! You’re doing so well! Now, hold your hand out towards me.” Maverick then instructs gently, waiting for you to do as he asked and when you do, he reaches out and takes your hand in his.

“See that? If you feel worried while you’re building your sandcastles you can just reach for me and I’ll grab your hand, yeah? But if it feels like too much you can always come and just cuddle and chill out with me.” Maverick says, making sure you know you have options as he speaks and to his joy, you nod and immediately kneel down in the sand with Bradley and begin making sandcastles.

“You’re good with her Mav.” Carole says with a smile as the parents watch their kids playing in the sand.

“This was a win-win for us. She didn’t want to be too far away from me and I wanted her in my sight. It seemed like the best solution.” Maverick shrugs as if what he did wasn’t a big deal, barely glancing Carole’s way as he focuses his attention on his daughter, waiting to see if you reach out for him. Every time you looked over at him to make sure he was still there, he was sure to send you an encouraging smile and took your hand whenever you asked for it. But mostly you were kept occupied by Bradley, the two of you building rows of sandcastles and decorating them as you happily chat with each other.

“Twenty bucks says these two get married when they’re older.”

“GOOSE!”

#justabigassnerd #justabigassnerd writes #top gun #top gun fic #top gun 1986 #pete maverick mitchell #maverick #pete mitchell #pete mitchell x reader #pete mitchell x y/n #pete mitchell x daughter reader #maverick x reader #maverick x daughter!reader #pete maverick mitchell x reader #pete maverick mitchell x daughter!reader #pete 'maverick' mitchell #pete 'maverick' mitchell x reader #pete 'maverick' mitchell x daughter!reader #x daughter!reader

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bambisnc · 2 months

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he's the one that's livin' in my system baby! [01]

pairing : sungchan x reader genre : fluffy roommates au <3 lil angst bc reader is really out here questioning their whole existence (js like me fr) cw/tw : none! wc : 516 w 0.0

10 days to go till finals. you are not holding up as well you would have liked. it's not as if you're not studying it's just.. the need to achieve near perfect status in each subject leads to anxiety which in turn leads to procrastination. shocker.

you sigh, pushing your chair away from the desk and stretch in an attempt to provide relief to your sore muscles - a result of being hunched over your notebook, doodling away mindlessly. you were supposed to have completed 4 chapters by now, but the 20 minute turned 3 hour break you spent watching random videos on your laptop very generously gave you a aching throb behind your eyes. hence the doodling, in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

..needless to say, it wasn't very successful. okay, you think, time for the last resort. you walk out of your room to the one adjacent to yours, and knock on its door lightly.

"'s open"

peeking your head in, your heart can't help but feel a little lighter at the sight of your roommate, sungchan, lounging on his bed with his back against the wall as he cutely frowns at some game on his phone, having already been through the hell that is finals about a week ago due to being in a different uni.

"i really don't know why you even borrow to knock anymore, not like i'd ever say no to you - even if you're just going to stand and stare at me~", being charming always comes naturally to him, unfortunately for you.

huffing a bit, trying to think of a witty reply, but that headache really just hates your entire existence huh? you wordlessly move to his bed. somehow sungchan understands what you're trying to do and complies with your wish without a single complaint because, in his own words, how could he ever say no to you?

pulling you closer to him, he lays your head on his thigh, draping a throw blanket over you with such gentleness that one could easily perceive the concern in his actions, maybe a bit too much considering you were just roommates.. because he refuses to address his feelings, preferring instead to hide behind flirty remarks - you've emphasized their friendship one too many times. he adjusts his crossed legs, phone long forgotten, as he tucks that one strand of hair that always falls on your face behind your ear.

you hear him mumble something about resting well. and then a feather soft, barely there brush of his lips against your forehead.

the slumber that follows after is heavenly, you swear you always sleep better around (or on) sungchan. not that you would ever breathe a single word of this to him. he's your roommate for god's sake - you'd rather suffer under the weight of unrequited feelings than to confess and damage the beautiful relation you've managed to form with the star athlete, who believes teasing you is a daily goal that he must fulfill.

on second thoughts, you're not sure how long you can keep your facade up...

old notes : so so self indulgent.. i'll make a prettier layout as soon as my exams r done frfr... [edit- doneish !] new notes : its a series now !11!!!! + [series m.list] [m.list]

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lovelettersfromluna · 10 months

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You mystify me {Ellie Williams X Reader}

Summary: A new family moves in down the street from Joel, and Ellie just so happens to be home for the holidays. What better way to welcome the newbies than to drag his daughter to their house with a half burnt pie?

Warnings: MDNI, Smut, drug use (marijuana), afab reader, Ellie is horrible with feelings, slight angst if you squint?, Ellie is in college, fingering (r! receiving), scissoring, let me know if I missed anything pleaseee.

an: Hello angels! Welcome to my very first post, it's so nice to have you here. I will admit, I've been going back and forth with my first fic for quite a while now, but I think this may be the one. I don't mention any specific body types/skin tones/eye colors/hair colors/hair types, just to ensure that its inclusive for everyone to insert themselves into. I truly hope you all enjoy, and please feel free to give any tips or pointers for things you'd like to see change for the future. Love, Luna. p.s Happy Pride Month!!!

Word count: 6.7 k

Ellie hated the holidays.

She didn't want to sound miserable, or ungrateful, but she hated everything that came with it. She preferred times like summer or spring, where she could just go home for the break without having anything she needed to be there for. Those times meant she could just lounge around in her childhood home until her dad got home, and they could watch football and drink beers until they both passed out on the couch. No stupid holiday events to attend, no painstakingly long dinners to go to, it could just be them, with no distractions.

But no, the holidays made it painfully aware that those dreams were but a far off memory that she couldn't have for the next five months.

She was home for Thanksgiving break, back pressed up against the soft sheets of her childhood bed as she faced the ceiling, her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply. If she wasn't so miserable over the fact that she was in fact home for the holidays, the scent of warm apples and cinnamon would have caught her attention.

Wait...apples? Cinnamon?

She frowned as she sat up, her soft brown locks brushing against her forehead and cheek bones as she shifted a bit. The kitchen at her dads place went pretty much untouched, seeing that neither of them were great in the kitchen at all. Ellie was raised off of cheap takeout and boxed Mac and cheese, and truthfully she wouldn't have it any other way.

Ellie got up with a low sigh, adjusting the grey hoodie that hung on her skinny frame before she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. The old floorboards creaked underneath her sock clad feet, reminding her of all the times she'd slipped and fallen on the godforsaken floor before.

When she got downstairs, the image of Joel in an apron made her furrow her eyebrows in confusion. He was mixing something in a bowl, his narrowed eyes darting back and forth between the oven and a small timer he had placed next to him on the counter. The sound of the floor creaking caught his attention, and his head shot over towards the direction of his daughter.

"Was just about t'call you down here...need your help with this..uh..." He groaned softly as he motioned towards the cook book he had propped up against another spare bowl he had.

Ellie snorted softly as she pushed herself off of the wall she was leaned up against, watching her father struggle in amusement before she hummed, bringing her attention to the cook book. She squinted a bit as she leaned in, eyebrows furrowing, looking far too similar to her farther before she nodded.

"Apple pie?....Since when do you bake old man?" She teased gently, looking down into the bowl he was mixing. She had to admit, whatever he was working on didn't look half bad. She wasn't exactly an expert, but she had gotten stuck on the cooking channel far too many times when she was too high out of her mind to switch it to something else, and whatever her dad was working on looked....like he was doing something right.

"I don't....not usually at least..." He grumbled out softly, giving the contents in the bowl one last good mix before he squinted at the cook book once again, sighing before he placed the bowl down. He gave the timer one last look before he walked over to the oven, opening it and pulling out the golden pie crust.

"Need you to go and get dressed, you and I are going out" His eyes are focused on pouring the contents into the pie crust, which Ellie had figured out was in deed the pie filling. Ellie frowned as she watched her father work on the pastry, her arms crossed over her chest as her eyes darted up to look at him.

"What? I thought...I thought we didn't have anything to do this week. We were supposed to watch the game tonight, remember?" She practically whined out, sounding far too much like a small child who was not getting their way. This made Joel chuckle softly, because for a moment it reminded him of Ellie when she was much younger, his little soldier.

"Didn't say we weren't watchin' the game kid...just not watchin' it here" He hummed out before he finished filling the pie, and pushed it back into the oven. He took his apron off, hanging it on the handle of the pantry door as he began cleaning up the monstrosity in the kitchen that had came about through his adventures with baking.

Ellie on the other hand, was fuming.

She had a strict 24 hour warning policy before she had to go anywhere, and it was especially important for this policy to be withheld during the holidays. She needed time to prepare, to put herself in the headspace of socializing for the night before actually doing so. It was like she had to charge up her social battery longer than usual for things like this, and it sort of hurt her feelings to think that her dad would disregard that.

Especially when she was under the impression that he felt the exact same way that she did in instances like this.

But instead, he was happily baking a pie for god knows what, with his silly little apron as if he were Martha Stewart herself, and to be quite honest, Ellie was a little pissed off.

She let out an annoyed huff as she circled around Joel, who was leaned up against the sink washing the last set of mixing bowls and measuring cups. She stared at him with pleading eyes, as if begging him to cancel on the ominous force that was pushing them out of their home for the night.

"But you never even said anything about leaving tonight...I...Im not going to Shirley's house again. Her kids look like they fucking bite and her food sucks" She breathed out, causing Joel to laugh softly.

'No. no...I know you're not too fond of her El...." He hummed softly as he turned off the sink, grabbing a nearby towel and drying his hands. He began walking off to his bedroom, to which Ellie promptly followed behind, clearly not done with her whining.

"Then where are we going?" Ellie asked once again, the tall girl leaned up against the entrance door to her fathers bedroom as he disappeared in his closet, most likely changing into a suitable flannel shirt for whoever it was that they so desperately needed to visit for the night. "We've got new neighbors down the street...caught em' movin in when I was comin' home from work last week"

Joel's words made Ellie frown even further, and her eyes trained on him as he moved around the room, grabbing different things from his dresser before moving to the bathroom to continue getting ready. "And? What does that have to do with us"

A low sigh could be heard from the bathroom, the tone in Ellie's voice already letting Joel know that she would not be letting this go without a fight. "It's nice to be neighborly, kid. Plus, it's the holidays....least we can do is bring them somethin' nice". His words were a bit muffled by the towel he pushed up against his face, most likely freshening up a bit. Ellie rolled her eyes, pushing herself off of his door. She was annoyed, she wanted to spend time with her dad, and not some strangers. She knew that moments with him during the fall and winter months were sparse, so she looked forward to them more than she did usually.

She knew there was nothing she could do to convince him to cancel, or to even avoid all of the formalities and let her deliver the pie. And by deliver, she would most definitely drop it at their door step with a sticky note that read "From Joel and Ellie down the street", a sorry excuse of a welcome, but enough so to get the message through to them.

So, she simply turned around and shrugged her hoodie off, stomping her feet against the wooden stairs a bit too loud for comfort to change into something a bit more sensible.

"Your pie is burning by the way" She called out before she slammed her door and promptly began rummaging through her messy closet for clothes.

And thats how they ended up here, at your doorstep with a half burnt pie held between Joel's old, scarred hands. They didn't leave without a small argument, Joel scolding Ellie for giving him a hard time, complaining that she was the one that made him screw up his timer. Ellie would never admit it, but she secretly hoped it would push her dad to cancel last minute.

But it didn't, and she was standing next to him with her fists shoved in her pockets. The fall air had been growing colder and colder with each passing day, and her mouth was already opening to let out another string of complaints to her father about how "fucking cold" it was and that this was "really stupid".

But before she could, you were opening the door. A bright smile splayed across your plush lips that were painted the prettiest deep berry shade. You're shirt was the exact same color, a corset style top that hugged your mid section perfectly, black lace peaking out at the edge of it near your hips and at the top of your cleavage, a simple pair of blue jeans that hugged your hips and ass deliciously, and a tiny blood red heart hung on a thin chain that was around your neck, falling right between your soft tits.

Ellie blinked a few times as she stared down at you, her throat practically closing up, any slick complaints she had ready to fire at her father had died down the second she laid eyes on you. She couldn't stop her eyes from shamelessly traveling down your body, taking in every aspect of your outfit, which caused her cheeks to burn red.

A soft gasp from your lips cut right through her racing thoughts, and you were looking down at the pie that Joel held. "Mr. Miller, I didn't know you baked. This looks amazing!". Despite the state of the pie, you words were genuine, quickly taking the pie from the man and stepping aside so the both of them could step in.

"Your dad mentioned you liked apples...had a few I needed to get rid of....where is he by the way?" Joel mentioned casually, a low chuckle leaving his lips as he thought about the fact that he did in fact make a specific grocery trip just for all of the ingredients for the pie in the first place. He shrugged his coat off, to which you quickly put the pie down in the kitchen before rushing back to the both of them.

You took Joel's coat from him before having it up on the rack. "He's trying to fix a light in the living room, he might actually need your help" You sighed out, watching as Joel nodded before giving Ellie a look, silently urging the girl to introduce herself before he set off to find your father.

You gave her a sweet smile, extending your hand for hers as you gave her your name. "You must be Ellie, my dad said Joel mentioned you when they met the other day. Im really glad you came"

Ellie froze as she looked down at your manicured hand. Your nails were black, and short, painted almost perfectly, a few rings perched on some of your fingers. She swallowed nervously, nodding slowly before she brought a cold hand up to shake yours. "Yeah...yeah im Ellie..." She mumbled out, hating how fucking good your warm hand felt wrapped around your smaller one.

You furrowed your eyebrows a bit at her strange behavior before you nodded slowly, letting go of your hand as she began shrugging off her brown leather jacket. You smiled sweetly, stepping closer to her as you held your hands out for it "Here, I can take that".

Ellie looked down at your hands before looking back into your eyes, her breath hitching in her throat before she nodded slowly, shrugging off her jacket and handing it to you. You gave her a reassuring smile as you hung it up, her eyes following you the entire time shamelessly.

"I don't know about yours, but my dad hasn't stopped talking about you guys coming over all week. I was really happy when he told me Mr. Miller had a daughter, I'd be miserable if I had to listen to them talk about building a deck or mowing the lawn" You huffed out, smoothing down the leather of Ellie's jacket as you hung it up. You turned around, giving her a smile before you nodded your head towards the kitchen, "Well, we might as well head in there, not that they notice us being gone, they were outside for almost an hour when we were moving in" You giggled softly at the memory, trying to ease some of the tension in the air.

Ellie on the other hand, didn't want you to stop talking. The sweet melody of your voice was making her forget all about the irritating rage that was screaming for attention in the back of her head, counting down the minutes until she could leave your house. Now, it was like she couldn't get enough of being in your warm home.

"Tell me about it, he spent the entire afternoon on that damn pie" She sighed out, her hands taking their usual spot in her pockets. You giggled softly, making Ellie's chest burn with pride.

"Is it just you and your dad by the way?" Ellie asked softly as she looked around in your home, looking for any trace of information that revealed any other family members that you may have. You nodded your head as you began walking to the kitchen slowly, leading her behind you.

"Yep. My mom left when I was a baby, so it's been him and I for as long as I can remember" You nodded to yourself, thinking back to your childhood growing up with a single dad. Ellie couldn't ignore the wave of panic wash over her when it began settling in. You were living there now, right down the street from her. You weren't just a hot girl that she could embarrass herself in front of one time and then never have to see again, you were permanent.

Your conversation was cut short once both Joel and your dad caught sight of the both of you walking into the dim kitchen. "There you are, thought you two got lost", your fathers words made you giggle, and you shook your head as you made your way into the kitchen. "Just getting to know Ellie, dad. You had your turn getting to know Mr. Miller, remember?" You teased playfully as you pulled out various dishes from the oven that you had been keeping warm.

Ellie watched as you moved everything to the table, her eyes going wide at just how much you were putting out for them. "Did you make all of this?" She asked quietly in disbelief, to which you nodded with a shy smile on your lips.

Your dad and Joel moved to stand in the kitchen near Ellie, "She takes care of all the cooking, no matter how much I try and help" Your dad chuckled softly, causing you to roll your eyes a bit. "You're just no good at it dad...plus, I don't mind it" You hummed softly as you set the table, stepping back and making sure the placements were enough before you nodded to yourself. "if you two are done talking light bulbs, we can eat".

Ellie couldn't believe she was admitting it, but dinner went well.

She spent the entire night quietly munching on your delicious food, and watching you. Her heart would beat a little bit faster every time you noticed, and gave her a sweet smile, which made her brain short circuit for a few minutes before she smiled back. Both her dad and your dad went back and forth all night about work, their latest projects, and bragging about the both of you.

"Ellie does great in school, she's just started her second year over at UEC" Joel casually bragged, causing Ellie to groan softly. She hated when he did it, regardless of the fact that she knew it came from a place of love. He was always eager to gloat about how smart his daughter is, how much she had achieved and how proud of her he was for it.

Your father raised his eyebrows at Joel's words, the excited expression written all over your pretty face too clear to go unnoticed. "No way, I start my first year in the spring" You smiled excitedly, to which Joel gave Ellie a gentle nudge.

"Would'a look at that, you'll have to show her around, won't you Ellie?". Ellie licked her lips, cracking a half smile as she gave a slight nod, allowing the rest of you to fall into friendly conversation. The familiar sense of panic settling in on her again. Not only would she have to see you every time she was at her dads house, but you would also be fluttering your way around campus. She could only hope she would be able to fly under your radar at least a little bit.

Once you were all finished with dinner, both your dad and Joel had made their way onto the back porch after you had shooed them out of the kitchen, insisting that you and Ellie had everything handled. That's how you found yourself in your current situation, which was Ellie drying the washed dishes, and handing them to you so you could put them away to their correct spots.

"So, how do you like UEC?" You hummed softly as you pushed the last plate into the cupboard. Ellie raised her eyebrows at your question, drying her hands with the towel she had before she hung it on a nearby rack. "UEC is good....pretty chill if you ask me....although im not the greatest person to ask. I only really go to and from class before going back to my apartment and crashing" She mumbled out all too truthfully, which caused you to giggle. "I feel you...im honestly not looking forward to picking up after the break and moving into my apartment."

Your words set off a lightbulb in Ellies head, and before she could even stop herself, she was speaking again. "I could help you move in if you want...Im pretty good with...boxes" She mentally kicked herself for how fucking awkward she sounded, but the excited twinkle in your eye made up for it.

"Really? I mean...you seriously don't have to but...it would mean the world if you did". The soft tone of your voice had her practically swooning, her tongue darting out to lick her lips before she gave you a firm nod. "Yeah, yeah...it's no problem at all. It'll problem even get me out of holiday stuff anyways so...more than happy to" She breathed out.

You smiled excitedly, nodding quickly before you were pulling your phone out of your back pocket, and pushing it towards her. "Here, put your number in. We could hang out or something before break is over". You gave her a reassuring nod before gently pushing your phone towards her once more. Ellie didn't hesitate to type her number in and save it for you.

And no more than a week later, you two were texting every day. Ellie truly could not remember the last time she had been so obsessive with texting someone, the girl always leaving her phone on her bed for hours and ignoring almost every notification that came through to it, either too lazy or too tired to give it any attention.

But now, now she couldn't go ten minutes without rushing to her phone to see if you were messaging her back. Either replying to the stupid TikTok you sent her, or asking her opinion on what outfit you were wearing that day, her phone was glued to her hand. Joel picked up on it rather quickly, the usual whining and huffing that emitted from his daughter every time they had to go somewhere had come to an end, her phone pacifying her completely. He had asked about it one day, curious as to what it was exactly that had her so enamored practically overnight. He received a small mumble of your name, to which her simply smirked and never asked again.

It was another boring Tuesday morning at home, Ellie lounging around her house while her dad was at work, texting you of course. She whistled to herself as she finished making her coffee, until the familiar ding of her phone caught her attention.

ellieeeeee

hm?

whatcha doin today loser

She caught herself smiling softly at your messages far too often

nothin, dad's at work. wbu?

hmmm mine too

wanna come over nd smoke?

Ellie felt herself freeze once she read over your message. In fact, she found herself reading it once, twice, three times, just to make sure she was reading it correctly. It had already been a week since she had been at your house for dinner, and not a day had gone by where she didn't think about you, but she was ashamed to admit that she had been avoiding seeing you in person. She had done a great job so far, finding easy ways to circle around your attempts at bringing it up, but this had been the first time that you outright asked, and she was freaking the fuck out.

And fuck, it wasn't even because she didn't want to, of course she wanted you. She had bee texting you every day since she met you, it was just that...Ellie became so fucking stupid around pretty girls, she always did. She preferred to avoid it if it wasn't in a party setting where it was easy to pretend she was someone she wasn't. But she would be with you, in your home, in your room, and it was pretty damn hard to pretend when it was that....close.

um or not

if ur busy its okay dont worry :P

The next string of messages that came from your end had her panicking, and she knew if she was going to make a decision, she had to make it quick. She inhaled deeply, her thumbs still hovering over the screen of her phone, before she began typing.

nah sorry

not busy today

I can come over now?

plsssss

come come

Ellie let out the breath she had been holding, the air coming out as a loud exhale once she read your responses. She sighed, looking at the time on her phone before she groaned, peeling her body off of the counter and making her way upstairs to get dressed.

Before she knew it, Ellie was at your door.

Her tattooed hand rapped at your door, inhaling the cold air deeply as she promptly brought her hand back to the warm pocket of her jacket. She sighed out, looking down at the little 'welcome' mat that she stood on. She was positive any homey touches were of your doing, and something about that made the corner of her lips tug into a small smile.

When you opened the door, the warmth of your home was wafting onto her freckled face, causing her to audibly sigh in relief. You smiled excitedly up at her, face far too happy and fresh to belong to someone who had been texting Ellie up into the wee hours of the night prior. You quickly grabbed her arm, tugging her inside and out of the cold before you closed the door behind her.

You exchanged little words, eagerly pulling her jacket off and putting it on the same rack that you had the last time she was there. She chuckled softly, looking down at you with a raised eyebrow. "Woah, slow down...your practically bouncing off the walls" She chuckled out, which prompted you to huff softly.

"Are you kidding me? You're the first person im hanging out with that isn't my father, you're lucky im not jumping your bones right now" You giggled softly.

Ellie was secretly hoping that you would.

You gave her a moment to gather herself before your hand was wrapping around her wrist and dragging her up to your bedroom, your lips going a mile a minute about all the things you wanted to do with the day that you would be spending with her.

Your room looks exactly like Ellie imagined it would.

She figures that deep, maroon, berry shade might be your favorite, because it's everywhere. It's the color of your sheets, and your curtains, and you managed to only choose band posters that matched with that dark aesthetic as well. Your room smells like you, like vanilla and violets, mixed with the strawberry candle that you had burning. Its warm, and inviting, and it feels like you.

Ellie finds that it's her new favorite scent.

You hummed softly as you crawled onto your bed, turning around so you were laying with your back against your pretty pillows. Ellie thinks she's died and gone to heaven at that point, because your hair looks so pretty splayed underneath you, and your eyes look so dreamy looking up at her, and your cotton shorts are hugging your thighs so well, and-

She realizes you're talking to her, and she hasn't heard a word you've said, because she is gawking at you.

"Huh?"

You giggled softly as you sat up, crawling over to the edge of your bed and grabbing a black box with dark red roses and tiny stars painted all over it. You pull out a neatly rolled blunt, which is of course rolled with none other than rose petals. She laughs, watching in awe as you bring it to your lips, perching it between them before cupping your hand around it, and lighting the end.

Ellie doesn't think she's ever been more jealous of a fucking blunt before.

You sighed softly, crawling over to your window and opening it up before you blew the smoke out, passing the blunt to her before you moved back to your spot on the bed.

"I said, come sit with me. You look like you're gonna cry" You giggled softly, smiling once she took the blunt from your fingers.

She stared down at the girly looking joint, sighing as she shook her head.

She brought it to her lips, taking a deep inhale before she moved to lay next to you on the bed. The heat filling her lungs cleared her head, and in an instant she was already feeling more comfortable around you, less scared of the fact that you'd think she was a fucking pervert or something.

"Girliest fucking blunt I've ever seen man..." She breathe out, smoke clouding her features as she blew out. You scrunched her nose at her words, taking it back and bringing it to your lips. "S'not girly...just..tastes better than regular papers...plus, its way better for you" You nodded to yourself, moving up the pillow and getting in a comfortable spot next to Ellie.

Ellie rolled her eyes, taking it back from you as you both feel into a comfortable conversation.

Ellie isn't totally sure when it happens, but within an hour, you're both high out of your minds.

You were a giggling mess, finding anything that left Ellies lips to be comedic gold. Your legs were splayed over hers, and she had her hand on your thigh, massaging and squeezing the skin ever so often. You'd be lying if you said it didn't feel good, her hands were so warm, and so big, you wanted them all over you.

Once your laughter died down, you hummed softly. Your hazy eyes traced her features, heart fluttering at how fucking pretty Ellie was. It was clear to you that she was pretty when you first saw her, but her hands on your thighs, and the fact that she was sitting on your bed, looking good enough to fucking eat, it was smacking you right in the face.

Your hands traced her tattoo gently, fingertips leaving feathery touches on her skin. “This is pretty…when d’you get it done?” You hummed out, scooting a bit closer to her.

Ellie hummed softly, welcoming your new position closer to her as she let you position your legs closer on her own. “My ex did it for me like a year or two ago..”. The squeeze on your thigh had your heart fluttering, a soft hum leaving your lips as you continued tracing along the intricate patterns of her tattoo.

"You still talk to them?" Your words were breathy, sounding desperate and needy in your head. To Ellie, you sounded dreamy. Your words were light an airy, and she found herself counting down the seconds until you'd speak again, wanting so badly to hear those pretty words fall from your pretty lips.

She shook her head, her eyes focused on the way your lips were swelling up from how often you bit them. "Not anymore...not talking to anyone right now.." she hummed out, giving your thigh another squeeze.

She felt like she had to let you know that there was no one on her mind right now, not when she was in your room, with your legs splayed over hers, squeezing your thighs with every word that she spoke.

Your eyes twinkled a bit as you stared up a her, swallowing down the whine that was stuck in your throat. Your thighs were on fire underneath her long fingers, your mind clouded with a thick fog that made it hard to see past any better judgment. Ellie was in your bed, touching you and making you feel so nice, and she was telling you that she wasn't talking to anyone.

The cloud fogging your brain wasn't thick enough to distract you from how badly you wanted Ellie, your teeth nearly broke the skin of your lips with how much you were biting down into them, the overwhelming need for the girl nagging at your brain with every passing second.

You decided you didn't want to ignore it anymore.

Without another thought, you were crawling onto Ellies lap, your thighs straddling her waist as you pressed your chest against hers. Ellie let out a shaky breath once she noticed that you were moving, fully expecting you to get up and go to the bathroom or something, and not at all to settle your ass against her lap. Despite her surprise, her hands immediately went to rest on your hips, giving them a gentle squeeze as she stared into your eyes.

"Fuck..." She breathed out your name, her words coming out mumbled as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. You let out a soft sigh, your fingers going to her neck to toy with the soft ends of her hair as you stared at her lips.

"Is this...okay?" Your words were so soft, barely above a whisper. Ellie felt her core throb at your tone, wanting nothing more than to wreck you completely, turning you into a babbling mess underneath her. Her nod was eager, probably too eager but she didn't have enough in her to even care at that point. Her hands were pulling you closer to her body, desperate to feel more of you. "Fuck...yeah...yeah this is more than okay...Jesus..." She mumbled out quietly, causing you to giggle.

You nodded, humming softly as you studied her face. It was nice to see her this close, taking in all of her little freckles, the little wrinkle in her forehead, you were close enough to even hear the way her breath quickened with you perched on her lap. "Can I kiss you Ellie?..." Once again, your words were soft, and gentle.

Ellie felt like she was going to lose her fucking mind.

She let out a low groan before her lips were pressing against yours, a soft moan leaving your mouth once you finally felt her against you. The kiss was needy, and heavy, and messy and breathy, and it was everything Ellie wanted from you. You simply let her in, letting her kiss you however she wanted, touch you however she wanted, and that stirred something deep inside of Ellie.

Your little whines and whimpers egged her on to do more, touch you more, feel you more. Her long fingers were slipping underneath your t shirt, massaging the skin of your hips as she pulled you in closer. The sounds that bounced off the walls of your bedroom were filthy, low groans and moans and Ellie, breathy little whines from you, and the wet sound of you tongues rubbing together all came together to make the sweetest symphony that was strictly for the two of you.

Your thin shirt did a terrible job at keep your hard nipples discreet. Ellie moaned at the way your tits felt pressed up against hers, and it made her want more.

She broke the kiss, her breath heavy as she pulled your t shirt over your head, and tossed it somewhere else within your room. She sucked in a harsh breath once she caught sight of your pebbled nipples. She immediately pushed you back to lay down, slotting herself between your legs before her wet mouth was wrapped around one of your nipples, and her other hand was rolling the other between her fingers.

Your mind was fuzzy, and she was making you feel so fucking warm. The feeling of her skilled mouth flicking your nipple back and forth with her tongue made all of the blood in your body rush to your core, your pussy throbbing underneath the constraints of your shorts. You whined, your hips moving against her body, desperately searching for some form of friction as your hands came up to thread in her soft hair.

"F-fuck...Ellie..mmpph..ah...need you Ellie...please" You sounded so desperate, so needy, so fucking sweet. It made Ellie smirk against your soft skin, letting go of your nipple with a pop before she looked back up at you. In no time, her lips were pressed against yours again, swallowing your whines as she hummed softly. "Yeah? Need me to play with you baby? Where do you need me, hm? Go on..." She smirked teasingly, her words muffled with her lips smooshed against yours.

Your eyebrows furrowed with frustration as you huffed out, one of your hands coming down to slip underneath her t shirt, tugging at the waist band of her jeans.

"You're so...mmm..fuck...annoying...please fuck me Ellie..." You struggled to speak, especially when Ellie began rocking her hips against you, teasing you with the attention you needed most. You let out a soft moan, giving her shirt one more tug before she chuckled, pulling away so she could pull off her t shirt, followed by her jeans. "So needy...looks like ill have to sort you out then, won't I" She smirked softly as she grabbed you by your hips, pulling you closer as she tugged off your shorts and your panties.

You whined softly as you watched her strip in front of you, feeling the wet spot between your legs grow more and more with every new piece of her that was revealed to you. It was pathetic, how vocal you were being without even being touched, but you couldn't even care, not when she was giving you everything you wanted without so much of a fight.

She hissed softly against your lips, her fingers swiping back and forth between your glossy folds. "Fuck...lil pussy is just weeping for me, huh? Been long since you've been fucked baby?" Her words were taunting, filthy, and they made you huff as your cheeks burned with embarrassment.

"Just...come on El....need to feel you.." You whined, tugging her hand gently to pull her back to her spot in between your legs. She smirked softly as she watched you, her hand cupping your cheek gently before she pressed one more kiss to your lips. "I'll take care of you angel..dont you worry" She hummed out before she slotted herself between your legs.

She gripped your thigh in her hands, positioning herself so that her pussy was pressed up against yours. The feeling had you moaning before she could even move, her wet folds pressed up against yours made your eyes roll back, made your back arch, and if Ellie didn't know any better, she'd think you came just from that alone.

"Fuck...feel that baby? Feel how wet you've got me? thats it...thats a good fucking girl.." She moaned out, her words caged behind her gritted teeth as she began rolling her hips back and forth, her pussy gliding across yours, clit bumping against your own in a way that you had never felt before. It was almost as if she was designed for you, and you her, and it had you like putty in her hands.

"Ah!...y-yeah! Right there Ellie, oh my god" Your moans were breathy and needy, and Ellie couldn't help by smirk down at you, enjoying the show you were putting on for her a little too much. It was like a work of art, the way you just let the pleasure take you, the way you let her take you, it had her wanting to do more, go further, bring you the most pleasure you'd ever felt in your entire fucking life.

And you felt it. In the way she began speeding up, your moans egging her on to keep going. Her hand gripped your thigh tighter, giving her a better grip on your body to allow her to go faster. Your moans mixed together, and the wetness of your cores created a pornographic sound that you would most definitely feel embarrassed about tomorrow, but not now, not when you felt this fucking good.

Ellie moaned loudly, her head falling back as she went faster, feeling her stomach coil in that delicious way that she loved so much. And yours did too, you stared up at her in awe as she fucked her pussy down onto yours, and you whined, eyebrows furrowed with utter pleasure.

"Gonna cum...p-please cum with me Ellie..fuck...please" You didn't even have to ask, because Ellie was nodding her head the second she heard the pleas leave your swollen lips. "Yeah...fuck...yeah baby...gonna cum with you...gonna fucking...oh my god!" And as if timed perfectly, she felt white hot pleasure wash over her, and you felt the exact same.

Your back arched almost painfully, hands fisting the sheets beneath you as you came hard, the wet noises of your pussy's amplifying as Ellie slowed down, riding both yours and her orgasm out.

The sensitivity made you whimper, and Ellie breathed hard as she looked down at your worn out body. Your eyes were heavy, and she knew exactly what it meant. She placed her hands on your hips, pushing herself off of your wobbly legs before she walked off to the bathroom, grabbing a wet rag and cleaning herself up before grabbing another and coming back to do the same for you.

When she returned, you had rolled over onto your side, and your heavy eyes were fighting the drowsy, post sex nap that you so desperately needed. She smiled softly as she watched you, spreading your legs despite the soft, sleepy whine you let out. "I know baby...just gonna clean you up, then we can sleep, yeah?". She took the small noise you made as a response before she carried on cleaning you, taking the dirty rags after and putting them in your hamper before she returned to the bed.

She sighed out softly, gently pulling your sleepy form to lay with her underneath the covers, and almost immediately you were hiking your thigh over her leg and cuddling into her body. A soft, sleepy sound left your lips once again, and before she could even blink, soft snores were leaving your parted lips.

Ellie sighed softly as she stared down at you for a moment before she looked up at the ceiling, a familiar sinking feeling settling in on her stomach as she held you close. She decided shed ignore it, and instead focus on the warm feeling that you brought instead.

She would cross that bridge when she got to it.

#ellie x y/n #ellie williams smut #ellie williams x you #the last of us #ellie williams x female reader #tlou #ellie williams x y/n #the last of us 2 #ellie williams #tlou 2 #the last of us part ii

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