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guxciestone · 1 year

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— YOUR FIRST/NEXT RELATIONSHIP ❞

(pick a card reading)

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THIS READING INCLUDES:

— when and where you will both meet. — first impressions. — their personality. — physical appearance. — why you will fall in love with each other. — relationship dynamic. — potential problems. — lessons you will both learn from each other.

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✧ note ✧

hiii guys! ❤️ i’m happy to be back because i’ve made it kind of a new year’s resolution to post more, lol, we’ll see how that goes. this is the longest PAC i’ve ever put effort in. it took me 3 weeks while doing school to finish this. i hope you enjoy the reading! please send me feedback, and there’s a poll at the end of the post, it asks if your pile(s) resonated with you or not, please answer it. it’ll help me improve my readings and accuracy. thank you! :)

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୨୧ pile one ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE YOU WILL BOTH MEET?

You are going to meet your partner around a time where you are getting in touch with yourself. You might spend more time alone than usual for self-exploration and soul-searching, in hermit mode. You could be working on self-love and self-confidence, your sense of spirituality, or creative pursuits such as art, nails, or even music. You’ll genuinely feel you’re stepping into your inner power around this time, even if it feels like no one else notices. You’re doing it for yourself, and you’re happy with that. You will mostly likely officially meet your next partner through social media or through some type of virtual communication. You might have an idea of your partner before you meet them probably though friends, but this is when you will finally speak to them. Another half of you, I am starting to think that you actually know this person, like for real. This could be an ex, but they could also be someone you had a failed connection with, or a situationship that was close to being a relationship but didn’t make it. I’m hearing ‘5am’ and ‘text message’. I’m getting this vibe of you randomly being on instagram or whatsapp at 3am, and someone randomly texts you “Hey beautiful <3” It is possible that the guy or the masculine person will approach the other person through DM’s with the desire to initiate a loving connection. I’m seeing this person scrolling the others’ social media admiring how attractive and hot they are. Your partner could mostly be the one doing this. Again, this person may have known you from mutual friends and happened to have gotten a hand on your social media, contact, or phone number, and wants to take action towards you. I do see that this person might have hesitated a bit on communicating with you because you might not know them too well or they’re scared you won’t reciprocate their energy, but I see them successfully coming through with courage :)

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Again, you and next your partner might know each other already, maybe you two just never made it to the deeper stages of the relationship.

Your next partner might perceive you as someone who is indifferent, detached, and wants nothing to do with them. Perhaps when they approached you through your social media, you might’ve not been that excited or reciprocative to them. You might not be happy about hearing from them, or you just moved on and could care less. Perhaps you two were starting to date, but this person ditched out on a date the last minute, and that caused you to be unforgiving or stubborn towards them. Whatever happened, I feel like they are back and are willing to try this again. They believe that you might be holding a lot of burdens and troubles in your life right now, and it’s causing you to harden up and not open up to them. They think that because of the issues you have going on, you aren’t allowed to fully go with the flow and be soft with life, which is affecting how you approach them. Perhaps they’ve noticed you have been working a lot, and been extremely busy with your money situation. This could be something financial they are thinking about too. Your next partner is going to believe you aren’t secure enough, especially financially secure enough to fully indulge in yourself and relax without any responsibilities or restrictions. They might want to come back and promise you that type of security. It is possible this person walked out on you when you wished for a promising future with them, but they weren’t at the place they needed to be to give you that, so they bounced. Well, now they’re back. And they also hope to give you the strength and resilience too.

You are going to feel extremely disappointed when you hear from your next partner after a long time. You’re going to think from the lack of interaction and not seeing them after some time that they seem better off with you, and that they walked out for a reason (I want to tell you that is not true) This might make you feel very insecure in yourself and what you have to offer to others. You’ll think they weren’t worth the time building a future with anyways, so you are going to try to actively move on from them and work on yourself. You’ll also feel as though you cannot trust them after what they did to you, and you forbid yourself from ever talking to them about anything. You could also view them as unreliable and someone you cannot lean on to in times of need. For a group of you, I feel the impression you have of this person is a huge misunderstanding and there’s more to the story. I feel like you couldn’t see them eye to eye about something specific, perhaps something about finances, structure, and responsibility. That could’ve also been a reason for the previous breakup between you both.

I’m also hearing that this could be someone you planned to marry, or an ex-fiancé, but it didn’t work out.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

Your next partner (or ex) could be someone who usually prefers to be alone most of the time. They could be a lone wolf, someone who loves doing things alone and without anyone’s help. They are someone who is resilient and highly capable of being introspective. I feel like they are someone who is used to being on their own, so they might not be the best at compromising for others or doing things for other people. They can be affectionate, it’s just they are “a man for themselves” type of person for the most part, not necessarily selfish I feel. Which can also explain why I get the vibe that they could be very picky about who they let into their life, whether that be romantically or platonically. Although their pickiness can be a beneficial thing for their mental health and well-being, their pickiness can also be detrimental to their success in relationships. This might have gotten them into some depressive states at some point in their life. Virgo and Aquarius placements are coming through. This person might be someone who sometimes struggles to protect, defend, or exert traits such as bravery or assertiveness. This could be a factor as to why the connection didn’t work out the first time. This person is highly self-aware too. If they recognize something within themselves they need to fix, they’ll fix it. In this case, I feel as though they’ve came back to provide you with some type of security and a reliable figure, something they didn’t bother to have or be until now.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

Black hair for most, brunette hair for a group, and blonde hair for a smaller group. Longer hair; manbun or pony tail; rounder or square-shaped face; tanner or fair skin; prominent lips (could be medium or smaller); alluring and mysterious personality; aries or virgo placements, maybe a bit of libra energy; 2A to 2C hair; thicker body type or bigger, for others, skinnier and taller; might love wearing hoodies, jackets, or caps; curlier or wavier hair.

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WHY YOU WILL FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

You will fall in love with your next partner because they’ve underwent a rebirth where they came back better than ever to give you what you truly want and yearn for—security, protection, and love. It will almost be like they are a different person and they’ve grown into a mature version of themselves. You might even notice that they’ll try to make their mistakes up to you by taking in your responsibilities and obligations for you so you don’t have to worry about them anymore. You’ll love that they didn’t truly move on, and it might even give you clarity about where you two stand with each other romantically. It’ll let you know that they are still into you, and there will be clear communication about everything at all times, because I feel like that big mishap was because of a misunderstanding for some of you. You’ll also admire their priorities. Again, this person might’ve been someone who has always been there for themselves, but now that they are with you and they have something else to protect, they are also focused on you and the ones they care about. And that makes you love them more. You’ll fall in love with how you can make promises with this person and they won’t break them. You can trust them way more than you could have in the past. And there’s potential for marriage or a serious long-term relationship with this pile, maybe even a child.

Your next partner will fall in love with you because of your faith and your determination to make things happen for yourself. They admire your optimism, outlook, power, passion, and hope. They see you as someone who has so much potential. They also love how selfless you are, you are always willing to be there for others in times of need, which could’ve been something that inspired them more to become this new person. You might very good with children, or you could have younger siblings or nieces/nephews you love being around and they think that it’s adorable and they probably can’t wait to see you with their kids in the future. However, they notice that you can be a bit too selfless to the point where you put yourself in danger. They will want you to focus on yourself from time to time. They notice your intelligence and how gifted you are—whatever that talent is, for some of you, you could like doing nails, hair, fashion, or music? They think you desire a lot of more recognition for that talent, and they wouldn’t mind pushing you out there for others to see it.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

Again, you and this person might’ve had a connection in the past, so perhaps the dynamic didn’t start off the best. There could’ve been a lack of communication, maybe a lot of arguing/push and pull dynamic. Maybe even a bit toxic, especially from your side. Perhaps you had an forceful nature towards this person due to their lack of assertion or promises in the connection. There could’ve even be a sense of self-sabotaging on your partner’s side. I’m seeing the past dynamic being the feminine partner having to be extremely aggressive and daunting because the masculine partner wasn’t doing what they needed to do for the person they cared about. Now in the second reconcile, of course there will still be some times where you both need to work on communicating and understanding each other, but this person is way more reliable, protective, trusting, and willing to compromise and provide, which has allowed you to let them take the lead and follow in their footsteps respectively. I’m getting a decent balance of masculine and feminine energy in this connection now. This is overall a positive and progressive dynamic for you and your partner’s development.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

Both of you might need to work on your sense of pride and your ability to be vulnerable. I feel like both of you might have your guards up in the relationship all due to a lack of trust and not making each other feel secure enough to do so. I definitely feel this on the feminine’s side, probably you, specifically. You both need to open up in order for this relationship to be emotionally fulfilling and thrive; and communication and listening is key to doing this. On your partner’s side, they might be a bit careless about others around them, and i’m also hearing for others, their finances, which I think is what they will be progressively working on when they get back with you, but it is important to make sure they stay on track and don’t lose course. If it is about finances, they need to make sure to stay on track or financially instability is possible, and then it’ll lead to the same issue again.

For the other group who did not have a misunderstanding of their judgements about this person from the start, it’s possible that there could be an issue with heartbreak, cheating, deception, or lying. In this case, you already know what’s the solution—leave. It’ll lead to more heartbreak if you stay, it could even leave to unrequited love. Know your worth, please.

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LESSONS YOU WILL LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

From your next partner, you will learn how to step out of your comfort zone. Some of you could have a fire or air north node. I feel like your partner will help you expand your connections with people to further yourself in your career endeavors and life in general. You’ll learn how to network with others properly. You’ll also learn how to trust your intuition as well as trust others. Your future partner will help you embrace your emotions and sense of vulnerability better than ever, which will transform you into a completely different person and even helping you on your soul journey.

From you, your next partner will learn how to not be as impulsive or careless, to take it easy and slowly revise things. You might even teach them how to be persistent and keep going after their goals. They’ll look to your faith and ability to make things happen for you, so they’ll learn how to step into their own power and make things happen for themselves. You might even help with money management skills. This is random, but I’m also hearing you might help them with their fashion sense, appearance, or personal health. Perhaps you might get them on a new diet, type of style, or haircut, something like that.

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile two ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

I’m seeing that you may meet your next partner through a person, specifically a female figure who is particularly masculine or an air sign—perhaps a mother or a close friend. There is a vibe that you might meet this person in an energetic setting such as a party or dance. I’m seeing you being with this particular female or feminine figure and they introduce you to this person very spontaneously. This interaction will definitely be unexpected and in-your-face, and you might even be overwhelmed with the interaction and the environment in general. That’s why I’m getting huge party energy and this friend just grabbing your arm and trying to introduce you to this person through the loud music. I’m seeing around this time, you might be going through a powerless moment. You’re going to feel like you’re out of control with yourself and your energy. It is possible you might’ve underwent a terrible breakup or left a toxic relationship, and it has left you drained and insecure. You might not be expecting a relationship or yourself stepping back into the dating world when you meet your person, and that’s why I’m getting that this interaction might be unexpected and maybe even overwhelming for you. This friend or feminine figure could want you to socialize and explore your options, so they are introducing you to potential love interests, and you may, but mostly may not be fine with that. Another possibility is that your friend might’ve heard that this person has developed an interest in you, and your friend thought it was the perfect circumstance as they believe it is time for you to find a lover again; and this person wants to offer something extremely serious to you (this person may be older or hold a much more mature energy; if it’s a guy, he is in tune with his feminine and well-mannered side, this is probably coming through because you might notice it in the first impression)

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

I want to point out that some of you could be LGBTQ+.

I feel like you will feel conflicted about this person on the first impression, not because they give off bad vibes, but more so you aren’t sure if you are willing to take your chances with them because of what you’ve already been through in your previous relationships. It is almost like you don’t want to stress and exhaust yourself over anyone anymore, and it’s just not worth it. Or you just feel you aren’t particularly ready for it yet. However, you think this person is “a treat”. You view this person as the ideal partner, everything that you or anyone might want in a person. If they are a girl, you’ll view them as caring and friendly, and is always willing to be there for people, and they might seem like an articulate thinker. If they are a man, they seem trusting, and very successful in their work and finances. If they are a man, they might wear expensive clothes or an outfit that makes them look rich or financially stable, which you’ll find pretty impressive. If they are a girl, you might notice that this person seem younger or they look young for their age, they might have a petite and skinny body type too. If they are a man, they might be taller or bigger-framed or they could seem older due to the way they carry themselves.

Your future partner might view you initially as someone who has gone through a lot of heartbreak and troubles. I’m getting the vibe that this friend or feminine figure could’ve told your person about what you’ve been through, and with that information, your person will intend to be more sensitive and understanding towards you and how you feel. They might notice that you seem particularly distant or cold to them. Perhaps even not as talkative as you should be. They might try to ask you questions, but you might give them basic and short answers. It might be hard for them to get decent answers out of you, but they’ll try. They know it’s not on purpose, but it’ll make them want clarity about what you want and how you are as a person. They know that under that mask, there’s someone who is able to offer just as much as they can into a connection, and they want to know what you want from them so they can take the right action. At the same time, they’ll be understanding if it’s not the answer they are looking for. They might’ve already know initially you weren’t ready in the first place, but they wanted to take the chance. They might see you as someone who needs the recovery before stepping into a relationship anyways. This person is someone who is realistic, so even if you don’t admit it, they’ll know that you need time to heal and will let you do so.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

This person might be similar to you; and this could be a twinflame. They are someone who has gone through similar heartbreaks, betrayals, and hardships in the past in regards to their relationships. Over time, it has caused them to be selective with who they allow into their space. However, I feel it’s different with you because you might have completely shut yourself off from the world. This person is particularly more healed than you, but they are still understanding with your situation and this might’ve been the reason why they were attracted to you (because both of y’all’s experiences are similar) I heard this person is a “sweetheart” and they have so much love to give, they might’ve been taken advantage of in the past and has developed thicker skin, but they didn’t let that get in the way of showing love to the ones they want to show love to. This person could be a water or fire sign, with a hint of earth. They are someone who is passionate about their relationships and career. They are someone who holds their ground and is confident in themselves. I heard that they hold a lot of sex appeal, and could even have a high sex drive. This person might have a pet, particularly a dog or cat they hold very dearly to. Again, this person is erringly similar to you, it’s just that they are much healed. Therefore, they understand how you feel and why you act the way you act (this person is highly empathetic) and they want to help you and be there for you because they were the same wounded soul you are at some point in their life. I feel this is what this person is coming into your life to do, this could be a twinflame, high-leveled soulmate, or karmic soulmate. You both might have some karma with each other you need to make up for. I think this person might have to make up for something they’ve did to you in a past life through this calling.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

hot; alluring; prominent hands; thick eyebrows; broader/big-framed; thick; medium-sized lips; medium-lengthened hair; birthmark; sagittarius; smaller button nose; short height; prominent eyes; aries; medium-sized nose; prominent lips; stockier body shape; 2A to 2C hair type; black hair, and a group has blonde hair; athletic body type (they probably do sports or exercise by the way); intimidating; black/brown eyes.

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

Your and your next partner might have had a relationship or connection in a past life with each other. There could some type of unfinished business or karma that needs to be fulfilled. Because of this, your next partner might feel drawn to you for no particular reason. They’ll just feel connected with your energy and want to unite with you. This person might have not been in a relationship in a long while, and they met you and feel like this is allowing them to turn on a new leaf. For a group of you, this person might’ve been someone who has cheated or played other people, but they’ve learned their lesson now, and they believe it’s time to show what they are truly capable of offering in a relationship—with you. There’s also a sense of guilt as well, I don’t know why. This person might feel obligated to show you what love is really about, or they want to prove to you that they can give you true love and understanding. I’m literally feeling like there is a karmic reason for that. They fell in love with you because they feel like you complete them, you’re their other half (twinflame vibes, I swear) They believe that it all ends with you, and you only. I’m hearing “show you the world”; they might want to travel with you and take you to places. I’m getting specifically this person might have felt lonely for a minute, and they feel like they haven’t been able to go to certain places because they don’t have anyone to go to those places with, but they feel like you are the one they can do those things with finally.

You will fall in your love with your next partner because they will introduce you to a new beginning. It is like they are giving a breath of fresh air after what you’ve been through with love. Again, I feel this person will want travel to places with you and explore. You’ll love this person’s humor and their ability to not take things seriously. You’ll love their optimistic energy and their ability to make their loved ones, including you, smile. They will get you out of your comfort shell and earn your trust. You’ll love how they are a trusting person and you can always come to them to talk about personal things. You’ll feel like you can be your unadulterated self around them without any judgment. They’ll wash away all of those limiting beliefs you have about relationships and your own worth and introduce you to a new self-concept. They might be someone who is affirming, always calling you “beautiful, “sexy” or “handsome”. They love making you feel confident, and you admire that. They want to help with healing you and you becoming a better person. You might love how they are the type to hype up your achievements and accomplishments, they might even love funding your hobbies and passions too. They might even introduce you to a new world sexually. You might not be someone who is confident enough in their sexuality, or maybe in previous relationships you never had the opportunity to express yourself sexually. This person will be happily open to that and will build up your comfortability with them to do so. A group of you, this might be your first ever relationship.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

You and your next partner will evolve and learn lessons with each other. You’ll transform and become a stronger soul with your person. You will be a powerful couple who fights through challenges and come out better than before. You and your person will be unstoppable, and no one can get into between you two. You will teach each other a lot of lessons and will not go easy on each other. I’m seeing that you both are very philosophical people, especially your partner. I feel like your partner will always want to teach lessons because they are have more experience. They are definitely older, even if it’s just by a few years. I don’t just see you guys as a good couple, but you will also be great friends. If you don’t last with this person, I see you guys being really good friends and still having love for each other. You’ll hold a special place in this person’s heart and vice versa. I also feel that this person prefers to be the dominant person in the relationship while you follow after them. Not in a controlling way, but this person just likes wearing the pants. They are very collaborative though. This dynamic is also very sexual, I see a lot of experimentation and a lot of sexual activity. Sexual chemistry. You both will feel comfortable with each other to where you want to do everything with this person. You’ll want to learn and explore a lot of things with them. This person will introduce you to a lot of things. For a group of you, this could be your first relationship. I think I said this already lol.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

From the feminine’s side, most likely you, it’s possible that you might struggle with self-confidence and self-love with this person. There might be times where you might even distrust this person due to past relationships. This person will not be okay with this and would want to encourage you to be more comfortable enough with them to confide in them. Lack of trust can ruin a relationship just as easily. Perhaps there could also be an issue with moving on from a previous person or situation from either side, if it’s from your person’s side, it could be about a lifestyle or situation; if it’s your side, it could be about a person. I’m getting a vibe that your person might be someone who can be a bit reckless and careless when it comes how they approach people. For some of you, this person might be extremely attractive and there could be times where you are jealous of the attention they get, in a sense you’re afraid they are going to want fulfillment elsewhere. I do not see that being true, I think it’s just your insecurities. However, this person might need to learn how to be more considerate about how you feel and learn how to approach people in a more stoic way to build more security in the relationship. Because I see this person being extremely generous and easygoing, which is a nice trait to have in a lover, but not when you are in a relationship with someone else and you can easily lead someone on without knowing. I also see that one of you might be a bit confused about what type of future they want to have, which can start a very heated argument. Perhaps one wants a family, but one wants to travel the world and wants dog babies lol. Either way, there needs to be a compromise.

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LESSONS YOU WILL LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Your next partner will learn how to surrender to the divine and have faith in things. Your partner might’ve been someone in the past who was rather stubborn and wanted to make things happen for themselves (which is good) but in this case, they didn’t like others being in control of what they wanted in life and they might’ve not thought that anyone can be trusted to give them happiness or contentment. However, you taught them different. You’ve taught them to put trust into the unknown and put trust into the people they care about. To trust they won’t get hurt. I feel like your person might’ve done the things they’ve did in the past out of self-sabotage and pride. You’ve taught them to also stop running away from their problems, and to take them face on. This is specific, but you could’ve also taught them the value of love, and how truly abundant it is. Your person could’ve been a workaholic or a money-dependent person in the past. This person might stop working less when they are with you because they’ve found someone they can truly be content with, invest in, and build a future with.

This person will teach you about different aspects of yourself you never would’ve thought of, take you to places you never would’ve taken yourself. They are a vital part of your soul journey, and will help you with your life purpose. They’ll teach you how to trust others more often, open your heart up, and express yourself in ways you’ve always wanted to (whether that be artistically, sexually, spiritually, etc.) They might even help with you with learning how to physically and verbally show love to people. How to not hold back when it comes to your love and emotions for other people. They’ll teach you that even in times of desperation, need, tragedy, and destruction, you’ll always have the chance to leap into something new, like them and this relationship. Your person will teach you that your most desired and ideal things can come true because this person is what you’ve always wanted and they’re here. They’ll let you know that you’re capable of becoming the person you want to be. This person is truly someone from heaven I believe. You’ll feel extremely grateful for this person and thank the Gods for them after all. ㅤ

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile three ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

You will meet your person at a place you might see them everyday in or an environment that is intended to be a place that brings in prosperity or a secure future for yourself. This could be work, college, or high school. This person could be an acquaintance or an associate. I’m mostly seeing college and work for this pile, most of you could be young adults, if not, older teenagers. I’m getting this vibe of a regular college student struggling to make ends meet and just trying to study for their degree and graduate. You might meet your person around a time where you exactly do that, you’re working hard to bring in abundance and success for yourself. Starting from scratch type of energy. You might be hustling or working multiple jobs at once, or juggling a job and school at the same time. However, I see there could be some lack of clarity about what you want to do in regards to your passion or career endeavor. I just see you preparing financially for the future, but not exactly working towards a certain career. Some of you could be freshmen or sophomores in college who don’t know what degree they want to major in yet. I’m just seeing stagnancy and confusion. You might particularly meet your person at a job or in school. If you meet them at a job, they could be your boss or manager. If you meet them at school, they could be a student just like you, but they seem more aware of where they want to go in life. I see this person being like a mentor to you, helping and guiding you to the right path. You might go to this person from time to time to ask them questions about your aspirations and personal decisions. This person will help you out of that confusion and guide you into calmer waters; and this can be the case if this is a boss or manager, or even a teacher at your college. I feel like your person will being balance into your life by doing this because you know you’ll have someone to come to to help you through these tough adult decisions. This person may be older, or they could be mature for their age. This connection could start off strictly as friends, and the friendship is full of intimacy and emotion. You both will care for each other extremely. I feel like your partner will love to comfort and reassure you that no matter what you do, you’ll always be okay and come out of it. You might be someone who stresses over decisions or you struggle to make decisions on your own out of the fear of “messing up”. This connection will slowly develop over time, which are the best type of relationships.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

I feel like for most of you, this is your first relationship, or first serious relationship.

Your person might perceive you as someone who is timid and shy. They might believe that you are someone who struggles to assert or defend themselves in dire situations. They could believe you lack the confidence or courage to stand up on your own, and they want you to work on that because they see you as someone who has a whole lot of potential to accomplish great things. They see you as someone who is intelligent and hardworking. However, they believe the potential is all going to waste because you’re not fighting for what you want unapologetically and head-on. They don’t want you to depend on outside influences to know if you should go after what you want. For some of you, this person might’ve seen you get bullied or teased on by peers in some way at your school or job. Due to that, they could feel a responsibility of having to protect you or teach you a lesson about assertion. They also noticed that you seem wise beyond your years. They might’ve compared you to other people your age and admired that quality about you. This person is probably older than you for most of you. They might see you as anti-social or someone who rather keeps to themselves. It is possible that they don’t see you talk to people so often, so they assume you prefer your solitude. They perceive as someone who is always working and serious. There’s always something that could be trying to improve on. They also see you as disciplined on the first impression. They could also perceive you as someone who is abandoned often, or struggles to maintain connections with people due to your hermit-like personality. They believe you should break out of that, and it’ll be detrimental to you in the long run. They also perceive you as someone with a good heart and good morals. Your person believes you prioritize being a decent person, you’re always willing to accept, love, and be fair to everyone unconditionally.

You will perceive your next partner as someone who hold a lot of knowledge and solutions. They seem to know it all, and always know what they are doing. I’m also getting this vibe that you might even look up to or idolize this person. You’ll view this person as enchanting, you might even be very sexually or physically attracted to this person. Perhaps you would want to talk to them more at your job or at school. You just want to learn more about them. They will seem very interesting to you. If I have to be honest, this seems a bit unhealthy because it’s like you literally look up to this person to the point where they could make you do anything you want them to do and you’ll do it. We’ll just see soon in the reading if i’m right or not. This person might be someone who is above you in some way. Again, they could be a boss or manager, perhaps a teacher at your school or college. They will be highly respected and appreciated in their career or workplace. Something like that. Okay guys, I think I’m right. For a decent group of you, I’m getting strong unhealthy vibes. There is a possibility that some of you could have some attachment or abandonment issues from your childhood that could cause you to get abnormally tied to this person. Your person might take advantage of that and get extremely possessive over you. Be careful with this person, for most of you. Also, please heal whatever you struggle with. Whether that be father/mother issues or abandonment issues, please heal that wound so you don’t attract this person. I’m saying this because they don’t give me the best vibes to be honest. I heard this person will take you on a “hellride” if you stay with them, I’m not kidding. However, for another group of you, your partner could just be a student at your college, and I don’t see bad vibes from them. But the other group of you, yeah, stay safe.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

This person could be great with children and extremely humble. I feel like they are always giving to others; they might even do charity. They could be financially well-off to do all of that, perhaps they come from a wealthy family or they worked to become wealthy. They might even want a family in the future. Your person is someone who could be rather impulsive and quick-minded. They could be someone who never knows how to stay still, one day there are at one place, one day they are at another. They might love going out to places for the excitement. This person is always searching for the next big thing. For a group of you, you and this person could pursue a long-distance relationship. I said that because you might text them very often than physically be there. This person has a lot of courage, strength, bravery, and confidence. They aren’t afraid to stand up for themselves and they refuse to back down. One could describe them as stubborn and they might love taking the lead in things. I’m hearing they “are in control of their destiny”. I feel they are someone who wants a lot of things out of life, so they strive to go after it all. I’m hearing you shouldn’t expect this person to stay one place at all times, they are going to move and be everywhere. Guides probably told me that because you might not like that. This person is lucky. They might be someone who started from the bottom and build something amazing that they are so grateful for. For one or two of you, this person could have won the lottery (That was random) Due to the fact they know what’s it’s like, they love giving back to the people. Strong sagittarius vibes.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

you might see this person’s back very often; shorter hair; brown/black hair; medium or short height; big/chubby; pear-shaped body; sagittarius; medium-sized lips; stockier; thick; freckles; pixie cut; joyous smile; feminine-looking; hats and caps; prominent hips; tall height for some of you; virgo; one of you, this person could have a back problem like scoliosis or something.

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

I’m getting the vibe that your next partner might have gotten married before and is a divorcee. They might even have a child, I was getting that hint when I was reading their personality. They will fall in love with you because they feel like can have a fresh start with someone new, they might want to marry you for a new beginning. This person feels guilty about something, about their past marriage. This person wants to break free from the guilt they have? For a group of you, it is possible this person could’ve been toxic in their past marriage, and now they are trying to break from the shackles of their remorse for how they they treated their partner. If that is the case, for most of you, they are still the same. Stepping into that connection will only promise deception, control, and immense order. I see them being emotionally and psychologically abusive. For another group of you, this person was in a toxic marriage with a person and is trying to start over and break free from the trauma. Either way, this person will want to step into marriage with you to build more fortune and abundance with you (although it’s pretty concerning how they are so quick to thinking about marriage, personally) They see you have lots of potential and want to build something with you, they want to be a team. For half of you, this person is toxic; for another half, this person is healthy. Sorry if this reading seems very contradicting, there’s probably a lot of people in this pile.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

You and your next partner’s relationship dynamic could be modest and humble. I feel like you would be the type of couple to give back to others. You or your partner, or both could be financially stable enough to be charitable and humanitarians. Being with each other will be very transformative, you will both dig into each other’s psyche and figure out each other’s dark side. If this relationship is toxic, I have a feeling that your partner could be someone who has a tendency of being tyrannical. They could be the type to tell you when you should come home or leave the house, or even tell you what to wear. Strong controlling vibes. In extreme cases for a few of you, you might even financially depend on this person, and they can use that financial superiority to keep you under their control. For this group of people, your partner seems so abusive, I’m sorry, I don’t want to say that. God bless. This relationship will truly you teach you things about yourself you need to realize and fix so you don’t find yourself in this predicament ever again. This person could be karmic or twin flame, for sure. This person will dig dark parts out of you through their toxic actions. I feel like when you are in this connection, you’ll be in the most lowest and darkest point you’ve ever been. However, if you leave, I see this relationship being the sole event that will allow you to transform and blossom into an entirely brand new person like a phoenix.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

I see that for the group of you that aren’t going to be in the toxic relationship. Again, your person might be someone who is always moving around and always looking for the next big thing. Guides gave me the hint you won’t like that, so you and your partner might argue about that particularly. It seems as though no matter where your partner goes and what they do, you could never catch up, and that will not help the future. Perhaps long-distance will be an issue too. You might not trust your person with long-distance probably, and they will be frustrated with the fact. This person could be pretty questionable with their whereabouts for three of you, and you should confront them because infidelity is possible. However, for the rest of you in this group, this person should be able to value their freedom, at the same time, they should learn how to compromise to your wishes equally. For the toxic group, this person will have extremely control issues, I’m not joking. They will literally treat you like a child. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of you had a father or mother who were controlling or abusive like them. It’s like they will be a tyrannical authority figure to you. They could also ruin your self-confidence if you let them, because I see some co-dependency on your side. You’re also showing some toxicity. You need to learn how to not depend on the opposite gender for validation or confidence, especially if they are older. This relationship probably won’t even seem romantic, it’ll be more professional because there’s a lack of chemistry or compatibility.

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LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

For the toxic group, I heard alcohol. This person might be an alcoholic or drink very often. You might teach this person about temperance and knowing how to balance their alcohol intake. I feel like you will teach this person a lesson about their toxicity. You will make them realize that the things they do to their partners will only make their karma and reality worse. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they drunk a lot to wash away the guilt for the violence in their past relationships. This person will definitely have an epiphany after this connection ends, they’ll realize what they lost and they’ll strive to become better (just hopefully not with you because you’ll probably be through with them) This person might even have mental health/trauma issues and they could have avoided counseling or help in some way for a long time. I feel after this connection, they’ll take time to recover and actually find the help they need. They’ll be out of the dating scene of a significant amount of time. There could some insecurity issues or trauma from their childhood that has led them to that point. For the healthy group, you will simply teach your partner about balance with indulgence. Perhaps they are a bit impulsive with money or they are always moving everywhere and can never find days to settle down and relax. You’ll teach that they can find freedom in other places other than what they’ve been doing to find it. Perhaps they could resort to work very often and you are going to teach them to find freedom and comfort in family and connections.

For the people with the toxic partner, this person will definitely scare you away from relationships for a while. I would not be surprised if they were physically abusive from time to time (I hope not) but you will also take time to heal and step out of the dating scene. You will learn how to stand up for yourself and not let yourself get taken advantage of by others because of how easily a rut you can get yourself into. You might even get offered romantic dates after this connection, but reject them, which is beneficial for your journey when the time comes. You’ll learn to stand your ground and build your own foundation without the need of anyone else’s. You’ll realize that depending on somebody else will only lead to your demise and failure. Leaving this connection will give you a breath of fresh air and allow you to rebirth yourself into a new energy. For people in a healthy relationship in this pile, you’ll learn how to trust and confide in your significant other. To let your guard down and trust that things will happen the way it should. Trust your person.

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile four ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

You’ll meet your next partner at a time where you want to step out of your usual and work on your confidence. You and your future partner might meet in school or in a busy environment. I’m getting grocery store for a specific person in this pile. I have a feeling that someone, probably you, will be approaching the other person for a romantic opportunity out of the blue, because of love at first sight or just for the sake of doing it. Perhaps a friend that is with you will encourage you to do so. This friend might be confident, expressive, extroverted, and passionate—quite the opposite from you. People who chose this pile might be on the shy or inhibited side, and i’m getting a vibe that this friend or person with you at the moment will motivate you to step out of your shell and ask this person out for “practice” (or vice versa) I see you being hesitant and afraid. This person may play hard to get. However, I’m seeing you taking this as them full on rejecting you because I see you being someone who is insecure and takes everything as a personal attack. You’re quite literal and might not pick on cues as well as others. You might think this person does not like you or come off as mean or unapproachable, but it’s far from that. I see them giving you mixed signals on purpose. This person will like you, but they might be iffy on if they want something serious with you because they could have some emotional and personal turmoil stopping them from deciding. I see them giving you their number or some kind of contact. I do see you feeling a bit ridiculous from this first interaction, you’ll think you made an embarrassment of yourself. When in reality, they literally like you. Your friend will probably ramble about how you shoot your shot perfectly and you’re over there panicking thinking you did something wrong, lol. Most of the people in this pile may be males or masculine energies. (Perhaps one or two of you could be neurodivergent)

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Your first impression of your next partner is that they come off as domineering and strong. You might be intimidated by them when you both first meet. You might even stumble on your words. They hold a lot of masculine energy. You could’ve approached this person with a need to expand your horizons and get out of you shell, but when you finally talk to them, you’ll want to recoil back into your shell because they are frightening. Some of you could have social anxiety or struggle in social situations. You’ll feel timid around this person and not be as communicative with the fear that you’ll say something wrong. I also see some self-sabotaging tendencies. You’ll find that you will see some good things about this person, like they are almost too good to be true. You might be someone who struggles to find positivity in some aspects of life, and you might try to find things about this person you won’t like so you’ll have a reason to leave them. However, that’s just your confidence issues getting in the way. For some of you, I’m also taking this “self-sabotaging” as you trying to ignore the red flags of this person, in a sense they have some issues they need to work on. I don’t see them being flat-out toxic, I just see they’ve through some things.

Your next partner’s first impression of you is that you come off as distant and detached. It is ironic, you both have similar first impressions of each other. However, on your partner’s side, they aren’t necessarily intimidated by you and they have some limiting beliefs about you that came from their past connections. They believe that you come off as expressionless or stoic, as though you don’t necessarily show much emotion. Which makes it hard for them to pick up on how you feel or respond. They do sense that you aren’t the most confident, and they adore how awkward you are. And that might’ve given them confidence to play hard to get and give you their number when you asked them out. Again, this person might underwent some relationship problems in the past. I’m seeing particularly cheating or people taking advantage of them for their materials, status, or looks. Something like that. I’m hearing specifically that someone might have been an energy vampire or they “leeched” off their resources, basically partners who depended emotionally or financially in them. They might think that you are the same way and you’re just like them. That’s why I see this person just keeping you around for fun at first. They might seem quite indifferent to you for a while as well. If they are girl, I see them just having an extremely damaged feminine. And they might be very successful. They might be hot and cold with you at the start.

THEIR PERSONALITY?

This person may be an older, much successful woman. They are someone who is passionate and goal-driven, almost no one can get in the way of what they want to do. They are someone who is independent, who makes reality happen for themselves. I’m hearing this person could’ve been in an orphanage. They could be in the military. Strong person for sure, mentally and physically. They’ve been through it all. I’m hearing that they’ve truly built themselves to where they are now and they plan to not let anyone ruin that for themselves (as they should, to be honest) This person might have a knack of attracting people who leech off of their success or energy, and they’ve learned to properly hand out their energy to people who will use it wisely and treat them correctly. This person is extremely giving and humble, as they grew up in an environment in which they expected modesty and generosity from others. “You can’t tell this woman nothing” I don’t know why I heard that, lol. This person’s love language is definitely physical touch, they love sexual contact. That could be something that heals them when it’s with the right person. However, this person is someone who has some issues to work on. They could struggle with being verbal and communicative. And they need to work on that to attract and build healthy relationships. Again, this person can be a bit wishy-washy too. They don’t know what they want in a true partner or they can depend on certain acts to make them feel better, such as sexual activity.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

Red hair; strong or muscular body; petite/dainty body; piercing (i’m seeing specifically an ear piercing); prominent shoulders (perhaps they are broad); wrinkles; gemini; pisces; aquarius; prominent waist; black hair; RBF; freckles; dark/brown skin; 4A to 4C hair type; medium height; athletic.

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

I’m hearing that you guys might not be particularly in love with each other, I just see infatuation or extreme admiration/respect for each other. However, there are things you adore about one another.

You will love how well-rounded and talented your person is. I’m seeing they are someone who has been through a lot in life, and because of that, they’ve learned to acquire different kinds of skills and abilities that you admire and look up to. If you are a guy into girls, I see you seeing this girl as the queen she is. You’ll be grateful for her. You’ll feel as though you truly caught a dime. They’ll also make you feel better about yourself as a person. They might be older or more wiser than you so they might teach you a couple of things, and knowing you are with them out of all people with boost your confidence because a lot of people might want them for their character. You’ll also feel the need to protect them as well. You’ll truly feel you have became the better version of yourself with them. You guys might travel a little bit. I see this person being physically gone a lot, again, this person could be in the military or have a job where they are gone a lot. And you’ll miss them dearly. You’ll admire their perseverance. You’ll feel this person is too good to be true and you’ll feel as though you don’t deserve them, and that’s when the self-sabotage comes in.

It seems to me they’ll love how understanding you are. Even though they could struggle with communicating, you seem to know what’s wrong with them and you try your hardest to help them. It seems like they’ve always needed someone who was patient with them, helpful to them, and you’re here. They feel as though you are one less burden in their life, and that they can depend on you when they need it the most. You take the pressure off of them. They might love how good you are with physical intimacy as well, and how you are communicative in that aspect of the connection. They love how awkward and shy you are as well. They adore how you don’t like that much attention on yourself and you always let others take the spotlight, but they believe you are intelligent and capable and deserve it as times too. They love your modesty as well. They also love their goofiness and how weird you are! You might have weird hobbies, and they find that special about you.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

This person might’ve been used to toxic and draining relationships, and they might step into this connection with a bit of baggage and toxic traits. However, I see them healing while being with you and getting themselves into a better energy. You’ll be helpful to them, you’ll be like their safe haven, and assure them that you are far from their other partners. You might not be this person’s usual type, or you’re far different from their past relationships. And this is something new to them. You’ll be patient with them person, and you might need to deal with their stubbornness but I feel you’ll take care of them and fight through with them. I see a lot of passion, hard work, and sexual energy in this relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a short-term relationship or a long-term relationship that doesn’t last. There is a lot of infatuation but friendship and teamwork. You guys might move around a lot, or you might come along with this person to their job since they could be gone very often. You’ll always be there for them and you might’ve promised that to them. They’ll be like a teacher to you. They’ll let you know on certain lessons and skills they’ve acquired from what they’ve been through. You might be younger, perhaps in your early 20’s when you meet and deal with this person, and they could be in their mid to late 20’s. For some of you, this person could be in their 30’s. You both might exercise and do physical activity a lot, whatever that be may be, lol.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

In the beginning, this person might play games and try to play you off as a fling or as a casual partner. They may or may not be playing with other options when they meet you, and they might not tell you in the beginning because they didn’t see you seriously in the first place. This might get annoying for you, you might not be the most assertive person, but I see you stepping up this person and telling them what you want from this connection and standing your ground. This person might not be used to that, and allow you to have what you want for the sake of seeing what happens. I feel one or both of you could have a mother wound—for you, this could’ve caused to be someone who is emotional and quite vulnerable to people you’ve just meet; and for them, this could’ve caused them to be workaholics and distracting themselves as well as shoving their emotions down and not expressing them. This person might have hyper-independence issues, all due to pride and what they’ve been used to for all their life. They’ve been used to partners who depended them and had to work to where they are themselves. They could also be a bit nasty and domineering at times, always wanting the upper hand.

LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will learn to have confidence in the success of their connections, and to not expect their love life to go to disaster all the time because I’m hearing that they attract what they believe to be true. They could be a strong manifestors. They’ll also learn to cooperation and teamwork, learning how to work with others and not try to take over all the time. They’ll learn to be less hasty and to be more reflective and slow in their approach to what they do with others and their life. To always come to their loved ones and ask what they want before they make the decision. They’ll also learn how to be more open to romantic offers and take chances, because they’ll never know if they would have met their soulmate if they accepted that one person’s date. They’ll also explore their options in love for commitment from now on, and not for casualness or flings. Lastly, they’ll learn how to be intuitive with their money choices. Their hastiness problem could be about money or financial decisions. Some of you guys may get married, and they might have a problem with buying certain things without your permission.

The lessons you’ll learn from your next partner is to learn how to protect your loved ones more and assert in situations in which is necessary. You’ll be protective of your partner and learn how to establish yourself, especially if you are the man in the relationship. You won’t take any crap anymore and hold close what’s dear to you. You’ll also learn to be more grateful for your life and circumstances because there’s people who have been through far worse and you’ll be more open-minded towards how people act and think and understand that how you grew up and the experiences they’ve had determines that. You perhaps might be in a better career when you are with this person for some reason. They could’ve help in some way in regards to your skill or abilities or connections. You’ll learn to establish yourself more in your confidence too, and know how to lead yourself to better place personally because this person has been through it all to know how as well.

A song that came through for this pile:

୨୧ pile five ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

You’ll meet your next partner during a time of stagnation, a period of confusion or stillness. You might not exactly know why you feel this way when the time comes, but this person will appear. This person might be someone you know already. For some of you, this could be an ex-partner; and for some of you, this could be someone from your childhood or adolescence. You might hear about this person before you meet them officially. I heard “tabloids”, this person could be making a name for themselves in some way, and this’ll cause for you to know about them before you actually see them. This person may be an aspiring artist, socialite, influencer or entrepreneur. You might officially meet this person at a family reunion, they could be a family friend, or a sibling’s friend? Either way, I feel you don’t want to deal with this person when they come back. It is possible that if this is an ex-partner, you might have left them due to a lack of commitment or effort in the connection. I’m getting mostly from your side, but it could be theirs too. If it’s on their side, they might have had a lot of romantic options due to their physical attractiveness or status at the time, and left. You may or may not have a child with them. I see you not wanting to have any connection with this person anymore, not wanting to hold the burdens or karma you have with them. However, that long period of stagnation you had is because of the underlying karma you have to resolve with this person, which makes me think this is a karmic partner. They could be a fatherly figure in some way, so yeah, they might have a child. I’m giving “from scratch” type of energy. For another group of you, you could’ve broken up with this person due to their aspirations and their desire to become who they want to be. Perhaps you thought their aspirations were too unserious for the future, or they let their aspirations get in the way of the connection.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Your next partner could view you as someone who is receptive, calm, and easygoing. You’re not the one to argue, yell or shout. It’s easy to talk to you. They view you as someone who is delicate and deliberate in their actions. I’m also hearing “quiet”. They think you are nurturing, emotional, accepting, and caring. Again, you might have a kid with this person. They might view you as family-oriented, which makes think this could be a family reunion of some sort. However, on the other hand, they view you as someone who is restless, but also avoidant. I mean restless in a sense that you are always conscious of your surroundings and how you appear. You might not want to talk and try to deliberately avoid them, for whatever reason. They also see you meditative, always reflecting on things.

Again, I’m getting this vibe that this person might an aspiring artist, influencer or whatever, and you might see them visibly making a name for themselves. Getting off of their feet and becoming secure and successful. Or if not, you see them becoming more well-off and taking up a secure job. You’ll see this, but I see a bit of stubbornness or a grudge towards them for some reason. You would still view this person as immature, wishy-washy and chaotic. You can see them as dreamy and creative, but also always in their head. You see them as someone who struggles to live in reality and actually take action to do things. You could also see them as delusional and deceptive. I’m getting for some of you, this person could have been unfaithful or extremely confusing in the relationship. Deep inside, you will be proud of this person, but I see you still remembering the past. You’ll believe that what this person is doing is incredible, but doesn’t change the past. This person may be younger or have a youthful energy. You might have went to school with this person, grew up with them.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

First thing I heard is that this person is very charming and humorous. They know how to grab attention of everyone when they step into the room. They carry strong energy that could be intimidating to some people. They might be bigger in physical frame or just carry large energy if that makes sense. They are definitely an enterprising and social person. They could be good at networking and making tons of connections with people. They might be popular or just know how to get along well with others. They are probably not the most smart academically, but they are definitely street smart. They might’ve not gotten their school diploma, they could have gotten a GED instead. This person could love being the center of attention, and they can be a bit superficial at times. For one of you, this person might have some slight issues with the law. I’m not seeing this big crime, just like a small misdemeanor or something. This person could be someone who is extremely determined to get what they want in life, and they might even be willing to get what they want if they have to abandon people. This might’ve been what happened with you two.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

virgo; broader/big-framed in body type; chubbier in body type; prominent eyes, hips, waist, and lips; freckles: innocent-looking; bushy eyebrows; birthmark; bigger nose; acne

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will fall in love with you because of your receptiveness, quietness, “purity”, and sweetness. You could be a kind and delightful person. They’ve always admired you and they thought about you until the day comes you meet again. They also love how you care for the ones you care about, especially their kid if you both have a child together. They might also love the fact that you wear dresses or skirts. I also feel like there is a sense of guilt for what they did in the past too, they might have used and left you for career gain or played you. They’ll admire how even though they have became successful, you still treat them as the same person they were before they were successful. You bring them back to earth about who they really are. It’s make them want to share the popularity and wealth with you, especially if you both have a family to take care of. They want to create more ventures with you on the sidelines. They want you to be their motivation, and they want to make it up to you in anyway possible.

First off, I’m getting you’ll fall in love with your next partner because they had a glow-up, lol. Whether that being physically or mentally, you will fall in love with the new them. They might have new money or status, and you’ll find that very attractive now. You’ll love how they are a completely recharged and grown person when you see them again. Perhaps you might seem them on social media or in public actively working on themselves, attending counseling, or just doing things you never would have thought they would do. You’ll feel as though you can start something new and different with this person than you couldn’t do in the past, and I’m also hearing you can “forgive and move on”. You might have gone though a deep depression because of this person’s wrongdoings, and getting closure was exactly what you needed. You’ll admire how they never forgot about you, and came back to pay their dues. You might also love how picky they are with who they let around them now, especially how because of their newfound fame or success, and they are much serious now.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

I’m seeing this relationship with your next partner (or ex) being a sequel to the last time you’ve had a connection with them. Previously in the connection, this partner was reckless and immature, and just someone not to have anything serious with. They were probably selfish and didn’t want to take care of their real responsibilities like their kid (if they have one with you) or the future of the relationship and not getting a real job. Now, they’ve accomplished what they’ve aspired to be, and came back to prove to you that they are worthwhile. You both might have been teen parents for some of you, might’ve struggled financially and dealt with money problems. This person had other goals in mind rather than getting a stable job to secure the family (like aspiring to be in an unconventional career) Now, you both are bathing in luxury, and are able to do the things you both weren’t able to do when younger. You guys are also exclusive—is also what I’m hearing. You are both serious and protective of each other, more likely if this person is famous, or at least popular on a platform. I’m also seeing this relationship being a rather private type of connection, like everyone knows you’re together but you both rather not tell anything about what’s going on in between you guys because you might feel it’s better that way. I’m also seeing this dynamic of you both trying to build a stronger relationship with your child, especially the masculine figure or father. The father might’ve not been around as much earlier. The father might try to help the child with their confidence, assertiveness or self-esteem. I see this relationship being a young type of love, you both might still be on the younger side, which isn’t a bad thing by the way.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

I’m not seeing any particular problems between you and them. However, I do see people in your environment trying to create a problem in your relationship with this person. There could be hate or jealousy in the media trying to push you away from your person, and this might make you feel hopeless and scared, as though you cannot get through this. I even see people trying to humiliate or embarrass you in some way. Such as posting pictures of you out on social media, or sending hate comments. You and your partner are truly a force to be reckoned with, your bond is truly strong because you’ve known each other for so long and no one know you better than this person and vice versa. True soulmate energy. This could be a karmic soulmate. You guys always agree on things. When your person notices the hate getting to you, they will feel terrible and angry because you are probably someone who is usually resilient, strong and calm, but they will hate how the media or the people broke you down, and they are going to want to put a stop to it. I am also seeing a issue with the child too, if it’s not you. The child might be experiencing bullying in school or on the media, and you and your partner—especially you, you’re going to probably be ticked—are going to do whatever is best to make sure your kid is safe (aw, i’m going to cry)

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LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

I feel your partner will learn the art of true love, stability, and commitment. They’ll learn to be a good parent and a better lover. The lesson of structure and order is also coming through, learning how to properly build a foundation not just for themself, but for others. They’ll learn to be more selfless and less flaky as well. This person will learn to work hard for their dreams and to have faith as they’ll know that everything will come together. Lastly, they’ll know that family comes first before anything, and to learn how to prioritize family even at the expense of their own wants. They’ll be more mature and rational, learn how to make decisions that are the best for them and everyone around them, and communicate their desires so everyone can be happy.

The lessons you’ll learn from your partner is that your dreams need a practical plan, so if you’re actually the person who had the dream of becoming an aspiring influencer or whatever, this could be for you. You’ll also learn how to meditate on making the right decisions for yourself instead of going off of your emotions and making some mistakes. Perhaps leaving this person was a huge mistake you’ve had based off of how you felt at the time. You’ll truly bask in abundance and luck with this person, and have faith when one says they have a goal to achieve, even if it’s “outlandish” or “impossible”. You’ll learn to be more supportive to people who want to achieve something, and look on the bright side of things.

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile six ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

I’m getting that for most of you, you might’ve left a toxic relationship or family environment. This particular person or group of people has led you to intense depression, despair, and stagnation. You might feel as though you are stuck, but I see that you are trying your best to turn over a new leaf and start your life over again with a new mindset. I see hurt and betrayal. You might be isolating yourself around the time you meet this person. I feel like you’ve been through enough and you just want to be to yourself, but I feel like this isolation might get out of hand because I see you diving into a further depression. This person could be a toxic or bad ex trying to slither back into your life (Sorry, that’s what I’m getting) I see you having your guard up, trying to have some self-love for yourself and push them away, as you should. However, I feel that you are not healed and you might give in to your feelings, and I see you taking them back. Please know your worth and set boundaries, even if it seems like you can’t. This person will physically try to move their way back into your life. I am getting this feeling that you might need to get a restraining order on this person, it’s giving huge stalker/harassment energy. They are like a mosquito who doesn’t know when to quit. I’m seeing that if you don’t want to attract this person back into your life, you need to successfully focus on your self-worth and set strict boundaries, no matter how persuaded or allured you may feel. This is because I see you giving in to this person because of loneliness or you feeling comfortable in their energy only, like you’re only used to them. I’m seeing that they might try to physically come to your home and ask to be in your life again. You might say no at first, but they might try to come back over and over until you say yes. Again, you should get a restraining order or something on them if that’s the case.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Your next partner, mostly if this is an ex, will view you as someone who is easily to manipulate. I feel like they might come back because they know you’ll take them back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t have any family or loved ones to depend on, and you’re on your own. They probably think that they are all you have. It is possible you may have a child with them, or you financially depend on them. They could even try to manipulate you with their money to control you. You might not have a job, or you might not be in the best place materialistically, and they are feeding off that. “Obtuse”. They think you are someone who is stubborn and always wants their own way in things. You don’t like following directions and you prefer to do things the way you want to do it. They view you as unconventional or weird in the way you go about things. You are believed to be imaginative, wanting a lot of things but may be unable to do some because of your circumstances. You might creative and artistic as well, they notice that. They think you are physically beautiful and know how to take care of yourself in that sense. You might have a pet? A pet cat, bird, or puppy. They believe you to be an animal lover, and you’ll do anything for your pet (If you have one) They could also think you’re “prissy”.

You’ll view your next partner as very successful and financially independent. You might notice that they could have a lot of financial outlets, they could take up multiple jobs or careers. They might be hardworking person in that aspect. You’ll view them as someone who has worked their way up from nothing. This person might have came from poverty and built an living for themselves in some way. You may respect them for that as well. You admire the fact they climbed to where they are. You seem to always be sure of themselves, and that’s because they couldn’t had a childhood where they had to make decisions for themselves and trust no one else. You could be inspired by them in a sense too.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

Firstly, your next partner is someone who is manipulative in a way they know how to turn things around to make it happen in their favor. They are strong and intelligent, who knows how to get people to work with them. If something doesn’t go their way, they won’t stop until it does, which makes them very stubborn and difficult to get along with at times I see. They are someone who always has a chip on their shoulder, they don’t like learning from their mistakes because they believe everything they do is what they should do and is the perfect decision. I wouldn’t be surprised if an argument with this person is a headache. They are a mentally strong person, and they are brave. However, this person obviously has some issues to tend to. This is far fetched, but for one of two of you, this person may be narcissistic or have narcissistic tendencies. They may have a sex drive, and could have a some emotional or anger issues. They seem spiritually undeveloped and impaired. They definitely need some grounding and shadow work. This person is very successful. They could do work in construction, repair, or something that is physically demanding. They may repair cars? This is random, and I hope this isn’t true, but for a couple of you, this person may not have the best sexual health or fertility. I’m getting Capricorn energy. This person may appear like a calm and reserved person on the first impression to other people. Someone who appears as though they are trusting and safe. This person may have a job where they help people such as a doctor, etc. This person is a very structural, they love things to be orderly and properly set. This person may be organized.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

capricorn; piercings (for one or two of you); medium/smaller nose; stockier or lean body type; upturned nose; brown skin, arched eyebrows; different race, culture, or ethnicity; facial hair; prominent thighs or breasts; 3A to 3C hair type; libra: scary-looking; younger (or appears younger)

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

There’s two ways this can go: This person is not in love with you but rather infatuated with you; or they are in love with you, but when you are wounded and broken, you can’t expect yourself to love someone properly. And I feel like you both are broken people, and what you attract is what you are. I feel like you and this person may have some similar past traumas or personal issues that can attract you both to each other, especially on their side. They subconsciously admire that about you. This person may be someone who does exude narcissistic traits, and you may exude more self-effacing traits. Their traumas and psychological issues match yours, and it attracts you both to each other. They admire how fast-minded you are, you have an innovative mindset and you always come up with ideas that are mind-blowing to them. They find you intelligent and “adventurous”, you may want to travel or explore the world at some point. I’m hearing that love your beauty, once again. They admire how you physically carry yourself. You might love getting your nails done, doing your hair, and wearing certain clothes. I see physical attraction for sure. They might admire that you care so much about your physical, and they might feel the need to spoil you or spend money on your upkeep yourself.

This person’s energy to you is almost addicting. It’s like you know this person isn’t good for you, but you can’t help but come back. I feel the reasons why you love this person is coming from your ego and wounds. You might admire how aggressive this person is, you might be the type to like angering them because you like the rush of seeing them upset. There could some sexual reasons as to why you like this about them. They also might like seeking aggressive and conflict in between you two. You might financially depend on this person, and you might admire how you can trust them with that part of your life. You really need to have respect for yourself, truly. I feel like this attachment to this person will only make you more unhappy and unhealthy in the long run. You might even be aware that this person could be cheating, but you still stay anyways because you refuse to leave them. This just feels like desperation and addiction to be honest. I just see your health and enthusiasm for life plummeting with this person. This person may be married. You’ll adore their charisma and sexual attractiveness. This person could physically attractive to you, they may be on the muscular and stronger side if they are a man. You love getting their attention because it helps with your self-esteem, or least it seems that way to you.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

This person may be the type to love introduce new ideologies, belief systems, and different perceptions of the world to you. You both may love going on vacation with each other, and they could love spending money on you. This relationship could seem a bit materialistic at times but this person’s love language could just be gift-giving. There’s some sexual attraction here as well. This person could be a bit controlling in what you do when it comes to work. I see you both actively trying to become a healthier connection, but both of y’all’s wounds are going to get in the way and “wreak havoc”, the next time you get into a connection with this person, it’ll start off good, but it might go back to what it used to be. This person could get a bit controlling in what you do for work. For example, you might get a job as an office worker, they might tell you you can’t do that job because you have to transfer a lot of information through computers, or tell you can’t own a business because it’s too much work for you. This person could be envious of you and your potential in extreme cases, or they just like to project onto you. It is like they don’t mind financially supporting you because it gives them the power, but they don’t like when you realize power within yourself to handle your own. This person is confusing. You and this person could try to start random arguments with each other just because, and I see both of you being unfulfilled in this relationship due to all of this.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

There can be a point in the relationship where you try to blossom and become a better person for yourself. You might get a career you’ve always wanted or get yourself out to make more friends. Due to this person’s insecurities, they might try to sabotage you, or stop you in your tracks. At this point, you might get entirely sick of this person. You might to step into a better lifestyle for yourself. For some of you, this person might have influenced you to engage in harmful substances such as alcohol or drugs (I hope not) And you’re trying to get better. This person will almost project onto you because they know they couldn’t do the same even if they tried. They want to keep you down with them. You might get new attention from the workplace or whatever, or perhaps you might try to dive into a new religion or spirituality. I see you trying to really move on from this person.

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LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will learn to be more proactive in their personal goals in regards to becoming a better person. They’ve learned to not bring anyone else down just because of their own problems. They will learn how to have faith in themselves and their potential. They’ll also need to understand that they cannot have everything at the expense of other people, they’ll learn to heal from narcissistic tendencies. They’ll learn to actually work for what they want and desire out of life instead of manipulating and controlling others. They’ll understand that they now have to carry the karma and baggage of being difficult and abusive.

You’ll learn from the your next partner not to take anyone’s disrespectful. You’ll never be the other woman, or fall for anyone’s distorted thinking. You’ll learn to hold to your goals, passions, and desires for yourself. Never let anyone belittling into thinking you can’t do it. Your person probably took your unique ideas and took credit for it in the workplace. You’ll learn to use your ideas to allow yourself to flourish, to hold boundaries and to show a bit of pride. You’ll also take better care of your health, and never let yourself go. You’ll learn how to be proud of who you are, and not let anyone degrade you into thinking you’re a burden or you’re not amazing. When in reality, of course you are :)

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile seven ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

You will meet your next partner at a time when you feel like you lack of control over your life or feeling lost in your planning. It is possible that some of you might dropout of college/school or work a certain job around the time. There could be someone at your work that could be giving you a hard time such as a toxic or controlling boss. Most of you in this pile might be someone who could be a bit of a pushover, and your boss or manager might take advantage of that and abuse you. You’re going to feel so unappreciated at this job because of them, and you might want to leave and find a job elsewhere. You’ll meet your—i’m hearing “future spouse”—next partner around a time where you start to see reality for what it is and get your head out of the clouds and take action for yourself. You might start communicating your needs with your manager or boss. I see this connection starting off slow, I see friends to lovers. I’m not going to lie, you might meet this person at the wrong time and end up making a bad impression on each other. You might not like each other at first, however, I see you both coming friends and then becoming a slow-burning relationship. This person will be a friend that you make at this job, and they might be the one to help motivate you to communicate your feelings to your superior. They’ll recognize the unfairness and lack of appreciation you’re getting and they are going to want justice for you. I’m also feeling like you will try something with this person, but one of you will want a break due to something personal, and then come back to resume where y’all left off. For some of you, you might meet this person through altercation with them. You might meet them through an argument that was a misunderstanding. Whether that be between you both, or other people. Traffic? Road rage? Parking? Parking Lot? Something with cars, parking, and driving perhaps.

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

This person might notice your hair color on the first impression. Some of you could be blonde-haired, or dyed your hair blonde. Your hair color could stand out in some way. They might view you as someone who is sweet and “gentle to the touch”. You could be someone who is nice, friendly, and dependable. You could also be someone who is a good helper and you don’t mind doing any extra work because you might like being productive. I’m hearing “drama” and “backlash”. This person might feel bad for you on the first impression. You might meet this person through you having a misunderstood altercation with someone else. Perhaps you get a lot of hate in the workplace and people might try to pull you into unnecessary arguments and mistreatments. This person might want to stick up for you or want to protect you from it all. They notice you are also someone who is hard-working and soft-hearted. You might be someone who is also very proactive and positive. However, they see that you are often drained and underpowered because of the bad environment the people, especially your superior, in the workplace has put you in. They could also see you as someone who is seeking remedy in a way. You might be someone who has overcame an addiction or something. Perhaps a few of you have recently been released from rehab. This person could be aware that you may be on the younger side because you seem unsure about where you want to go in life, but you’re hanging in there. They believe that wherever you go, everything will go in your favor because you are a blessed soul.

This is specific, but for a few of you, this person has served the military and may be disabled in some way, or just served in the military at some point. You may view this person as someone who has been through challenging and intense times, but somehow always knew how to look in the brighter side. You see them as motivating and optimistic, someone who is uplifting and positive-minded. This person brings good feelings to the people they care about, and they are ride-or-dies. You’ll see they are also grateful as well, very appreciative people who are blessed to be alive. I am also getting the vibe that this person (if they were mostly in the military) could’ve mentioned that they’ve had a near death experience that changed their entire perspective on life; after that, they were a different person with different morals and values. You also perceive them as realistic. They seem to be a grounded person who has a strong grasp of reality, especially after their NDE. I wouldn’t be surprised if this person may have PTSD (God bless them if they do) They could be trying to overcome that around the time. For some of you, this person could be someone you tried to get with in the past, but someone in the connection needed to focus on other things. For a group of you, this person may be the boss or manager at the workplace giving you a hard time. If so, this could be a misunderstanding, and I am feeling like their traumas or ways of dealing with things could be the reason for it. I see you communicating with them and settling the tension successfully, possibly leading to a good friendship.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

Again, this person may have a past in the army. I feel like their history in the army has led them to developing traits such as aggression, discipline, ambition, and courage. This person might brush you off the wrong way at the start. They could have a louder voice naturally and it might come off as domineering or controlling. However, they don’t mean harm I believe. It is just what they’ve been used to. On the inside, your person is someone who is calming, compassionate, soft-spoken, friendly, and dependable. Similar to you. This person might have had a traumatic event that led them to acting the way they do with people. This person might have been unfairly treated at a job at some point, and I feel like they haven’t gotten their sense of justice yet. This is specific, but for a few of you, this person may have not been treated the best in the army. Perhaps they were underpaid, or they weren’t promised the life they were to be given after they left. I see them being a hardworking person, trying to make up for the work they’ve done throughout the years. This person is someone who is also very forgiving and accepting, and it seems to be that they don’t care about it, however deep inside, they feel a bit disappointed about it. I see you both sharing your hardships and problems with each other, being there for one another, and being each other safe havens. This person is truly an angel. They really are. They are so sweet and selfless. They don’t seem like the type of person to argue or fuss a lot, and if they do, they do it in a slow and deliberate manner. However, for some of you, this person may have been the complete opposite of that before their time in the army, but changed after a certain experience. They love helping others and might love giving back to the people in some way. They might like giving food or drinks to homeless people on the street, something like that. This person may have good karma, and will have a positive next life. They could be a starseed. They are someone who is thoughtful and doesn’t like stressing about things or others. I guess they don’t take life as seriously as they used to. This person could have a pet dog, aw :) I keep seeing dogs. They may a guard dog, or something like that.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

taller height; muscular body type; prominent smile/teeth (they might have a bright and contagious smile); prominent hips and waist; freckles; RBF; skinny; thin eyebrows; libra; minimal style; dark-skinned; lean body type; piercings; about half of you, average height.

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will fall in love with you because they know they can depend on you for anything and everything. They appreciate how you’re always there for them and you’re ride-or-die. This person may have been the one who had to take a break from the connection due to personal reasons, perhaps PTSD or something in regards to trauma or emotional/mental health. They might have waited for them, and they cannot help but be thankful for you for being patient with them, for not walking away when they were in times of despair. They also think that you won’t judge them at their worst or ugliest times. You may seen them been through some harsh problems, and you still loved them through it all. This person may have problems in regards to sleeping or paranoia? Because the moon is prominent. You might love sleeping over at their place to be there for them and make them feel safe and comfortable, they love that. This person may have had been in a connection with someone who was always pushy, demanding, and aggressive towards them. Again, this person seems to be delicate and sweet; and this past partner might’ve been controlling in a sense towards them, especially when they were in a time of financial trouble. This person could have been disabled or at a time when they couldn’t actively work for some reason. This person might’ve tried to force them to do things they weren’t ready for or couldn’t do. I just see impatience to be honest. They admire how you aren’t that way with them, you’re patient, and you actually encourage them to be easy on themselves and do what feels best for them at the moment. If they need to rest, then so be it. They also believe you are very nurturing and caring, especially towards animals. They may love how you take care of their pet, and you might petsit for them. Awww smh stawpp <3 This is too cute! Honestly, I see this relationship going far for most of you.

You’ll fall in love with your next partner (or should I say, future spouse because that vibe is coming in for literally almost all of you) because they give you a sense of freedom and integrity. This person is someone who has developed a bigger perspective on life after what they’ve been through, and I feel like you’ve always been someone who was always stopping yourself from doing things out of fear of failure or “taking the wrong path”. You might be someone who has always struggled with pessimism or feeling stuck in situations dies to lack of assurance. You’ll love that this person shift your whole viewpoint about how you should live your life. You’ll start to see things from the brighter side like them and they might encourage you to take up a completely different career path you would’ve never thought of taking due to limiting beliefs. You’ll adore how supportive they are and how they love others, including you, unconditionally. (I’m sorry, they seem so lovable like aw) They will literally make you cry because of how selfless and dangerously kind they are. They will probably be the type of person to randomly stop on the side of streets to talk to little kids :( I just see you having cuteness overload with this person, you’ll truly adore them and appreciate every single thing they do for others. You’ll also fall in love with how appreciative this person is, they might not have much, but to them, they have the world in their hands. They are the types to believe that as long as they have food on the table and the people they love, they are the richest person in the world (Everyone should be this way to be honest) It almost makes you want them to have everything they’ve ever wanted from the biggest to the smallest. And yeah, you’ll just love how they always have a smile on their face and love in their heart despite everything they’ve been through. This person tries to have love in their heart despite everything they’ve been through. I feel this person follows after a personal philosophy about that: Always have a good in your heart despite what the world gives you—something like that.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

This is patient and slow-moving relationship. I see you guys starting off as friends, becoming the bestest of friends, then officially dating. Therefore, this connection will have a strong foundation of knowing each other, which are the best type of relationships to be honest. I see that this relationship will undergo a lot of hardships in the beginning, not necessarily between you two, but because of what is going on personally in y’all’s lives individually. However, I see you both being there for each other, having patience, and letting the relationship blossom on its own time. I see a lot of communication, methodical dating (For example: If someone needs time for a break, you guys discuss how much time, what y’all will done when you guys don’t see each other, etc. You know, stuff like that) Y’all are that way because I see you both want this connection to work. Specifically, for one of you, you could be an aquarius and this person could be a libra. I’m seeing strong air sign energy. There is a lot of articulating and methodical planning in this connection. You’ll also mentally stimulate each other, always challenging each other in debates and conversations, even to the point of entertaining arguments. This relationship is definitely electrifying and there’s strong friendship. This person will see you not just as their partner, but their best friend :( This is giving such strong marriage, long-term relationship vibes like come on <3 I don’t see you guys holding each other back. I’m not seeing detached energies, but I’m seeing you guys have a lot of trust in each other to the point where you both can go days without being physically there with each other and knowing that everything is alright between the both of you. You both could be comfortable with each other having friendships with their desired gender (If you are straight, your partner could be okay with you being friends with the opposite gender and vice versa on your end) You guys want to see each other grow and expand while being there for each other. Lowkey, for almost all of y’all, this is a long-term (and definitely successful) relationship, but I’m seeing that some of you, you and your partner might agree to not marrying. Some of you and maybe your partner might not believe in marriage like that, and doesn’t think that law-binding each other is necessary. I’m seeing you guys being the types to give each other promise rings instead (Awww! I’m about to cry, for real) Y’all are here for the long-term. But for some of you, y’all might not want to force each other to the shackles of modern marriage, you know what I mean? This is adorable man. However, if you do want marriage, this person will definitely try to find ways to compromise both of your desires, so don’t worry!

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

Honestly, there’s nothing you guys cannot get through. These problems can easily be solved because again, you guys have friendship. Even in times when you are argue or get into a block in the connection, you both always seems to rise back up due for your undeniable collaboration. Plus, I see you two, especially your partner, not knowing how to stay mad at each other. I do see some financial hardships. There might be a point where you both live together and you have to bring in two incomes to the house, and it could become a struggles. However, I see you guys getting through it through teamwork. I see strong communication, so I’m not even worried about y’all. I do see some self-sabotage or feeling like someone doesn’t deserve the other person, this could be coming from both sides, but especially your partner. I see this person not being treated the best in the past, and they felt like they weren’t enough for their previous partner; they could feel that way for you subconsciously from time to time. If you just validate them and make sure to let them know they are do more than enough, everything will be alright. I’m hearing they just need some TLC (tender loving care) after all the harsh things they’ve been through. They are such an angel, like please doesn’t take them for granted y’all. Tell them you love them and appreciate them. I’m also hearing buy them small and meaningful gifts. They might be an action figure nerd, or they love collecting certain things. I’m serious like they are so gentle, they just want a hug. Give them hugs more often guys, when the time comes. They might love cuddles. Their love language is definitely gift-giving and physical touch. Yeah, other than that. Y’all are destined for success. I see you living happily ever after with this person. I see a family, two children. Perhaps y’all are of different race or ethnicity and could have children who are mixed, that’s random. That’s for a few of you. And I see travel! Good luck!

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LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

Lessons your next partner will learn from you is to believe in the impossible, the dream of having that secure and happy future they’ve always hoped for. This person may always wanted to meet and spend the rest of their lives with their soulmate, their person; and have a family with them, pass on their legacy. And they’ve realized that they can do that with you. This person might’ve been used to toxicity and mistreatment, they might have expected themselves to always be in that state, but you, the possibilities together proved wrong, and their life-defining moments proved wrong. All their life, they had to fight and protect for the things they’ve cared for the most. They learned it’s not going to always be that way, and it shouldn’t be that way. This person is destined to have it end in a good way for themselves. This person is divinely protected, and they could have a grandmother or feminine figure they hold dearly to looking over them in spirit to make sure. Anyone and everyone did this person wrong will get justice and karma sooner or later.

The lessons you’ll learn from your next partner is to be grateful, to appreciate the smaller things in life, and you’ll find happiness everywhere you go. Your partner will make you realize that you can find satisfaction in the most unnoticeable places, and that’s enough to make you feel content with where you are. You might be someone who has always struggled to slow down and look at what’s in front of you, this person will help you recognize that and slow down and smell the flowers. In this connection, you’ll learn true companionship, unconditional love, and compassion. You’ll learn to show more love to the people around you, including your partner (I swear I keep wanting to say future spouse) You’ll learn unity and merging with someone you deeply look out for. You’ll learn to listen to your heart and less to your rational mind. You’ll follow your intuition and true desires. You’ll learn selflessness and how to talk things through effectively and deliberately. You’ll also learn how to relate to others effectively.

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A song that came through for this pile:

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୨୧ pile eight ୨୧

WHEN AND WHERE WILL YOU BOTH MEET?

For some of you, this could be your first ever partner. I feel like for a group of you, this could be an arranged marriage someone in your family (specifically a masculine figure, perhaps a father or uncle) is trying to get to you to date, for religious or cultural reasons. For another group of you, this person may be an ex-partner that is trying to come back, and for some of you, a masculine figure could be trying to encourage you to get back with them. You might meet or reconcile with this person around a vulnerable and “embarrassing” time? Your family might be pressuring you to date or put yourself out there for marriage. You’re going to feel like your boundaries aren’t being respected, and your family is putting you out around a time when you’re not ready for any of that. You feel awkward and harassed. Your family might be very traditional with those type of things and it can get irritating. For some of you, I’m getting a masculine figure setting you up on a blind date, and you not looking forward to it. I’m just seeing a father pressuring you to settle down. Most of you guys could be in your early to late 20’s. I’m hearing that one or a few of you are exactly 23 years old (Which, in my opinion, is too young for settling down, like what are they on about guys?) However, I see this person being very successful—perhaps a bit older by a couple of years—and willing and capable of giving you guaranteed success and stability. This person definitely has power, and your family will notice that and will want to get on this person’s side. Some of you could be from South Asia, that’s where most arranged marriage practices happen. Indian, Mongolian, or Malaysian culture perhaps? Some of you could come from a financially well-off family who has connections to meet up with people like your future partner. I don’t see you feeling ready to partake in this connection through, and honestly, sorry. I see this person being understanding though so, go figure :)

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS?

Your next partner will view you as someone who will help them achieve higher status and stability. If this is arranged, I see them seeing you as leeway for better status in a sense of acquiring a stable marriage. If you happen to be the masculine energy being arranged to the feminine energy, I see you seeing them as someone who needs to depend on them for status and respect. This seems like strict business to be honest. They might see you as strict business. I seen them viewing you as someone who needs them in a financial sense. Perhaps your family wanted you to marry to guarantee a good future for yourself. I also feel this person feels a sense of guilt for you, like they feel sorry for you. You might not want to go on with this, but for the sake of tradition and your loved ones, you have to. I see them being completely understanding and I do see compromise in some way. For a small group of you, if this is an ex, I see you wanting revenge for something. I don’t know what it is, but you’re out for them for something they did. There’s something legal coming through for the ones who are dealing with the ex, this ex might’ve have committed a crime involving you being the victim this family might not know about. This is a trigger warning for you guys: This person may or may not have sexually assaulted you and you haven’t announced it yet. This person may trigger you in a way and bring out a vulnerable side of yourself. That is for a small group of y’all through, if this is true, I am so sorry, literally. This person feels shame for what they did, but I don’t see you falling for it to be honest. You wanting justice. I see this masculine figure or family of yours literally forcing you to forgive this person for what they’ve done and move on, but I don’t see you really moving on, you’re still thinking about it. On the brighter side, for the arranged marriage people or the people who simply is just dealing with a random ex, they view you as someone who is confident and sure of themselves. You guys might be a Leo or have Leo energy in your chart. They might notice your hair. They might notice how big, curly, and noticeable it is. They might like your height—you’re probably noticeable tall or short—and how tan you are? They love how you look, they think you’re beautiful, and they might see you two getting along and having a stable future together at first. They might even develop a slight crush on you at first sight. They think you’re cute, aw. They could be on the younger side. They can be a young adult, for sure.

Your first impression of your next partner is that they aren’t initially your type, if an ex, not anymore. You don’t think you can be compatible with them, at least for now. You just don’t see it or feel the spark. You don’t think it’s time. You might view them as indifferent or detached, like you might notice that they do not make much eye contact with you or seem to care less about making an impression on you. I see them being professional and respectful, but you can tell they weren’t too excited or enthusiastic about seeing you. At least that’s what it seems. You might be intimidated by that because you can’t see what’s going on in their mind. I don’t see you arguing because I see you needing “remedy” for your financial situation or whatever your family wanted you to do this for. I’m gettin a bunch of masculine energies coming through, if so, if this is a feminine energy or girl, you might view them as someone who is financially in need, and it’s your responsibility to arrange a marriage with them. I just see you viewing them as someone you don’t see yourself being with in the long run. You will see this person as a burden and you know this connection won’t last. You believe there is a lack of passion and sexual/physical attraction as well. On the contrary to how they see you on the first impression.

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THEIR PERSONALITY?

First off, this person is highly intelligent. I’m seeing this person used to be honors student in school or something. They’ve attended college, and gotten a masters degree in a particular area. I’m hearing computer science or nursing. They could be a nerd and highly invested in the field they study. I’m also hearing graphic design and robotics (Elon Musk type beat) They are very eloquent and professional. This person could come from new money and built themselves up from the ground. They are definitely hardworking and determined, fearless, feared of. They are charitable people, they are well-aware enough they should give back. Yeah, they are definitely planning on marrying someone into money or marrying someone who wants to marry them for their money for strictly professional reasons. This person is solely wanting to marry someone for social climbing reasons, like status in the dating world if they are a masculine energy or male, and status in the professional world if they are a feminine energy or female kind of thing. It is weird to be honest. I see them being very methodical with how they use you, and that's not giving me the best vibes. I'm not seeing any toxic energy though, fortunately. Just not so good tendencies. For some of you, this person may have snobbish vibes. If they do come from money in their family, they can be spoiled and a bit lazy. I don't want to say this, but I do see a fraud for a few of you, or at least they are not all they set themselves out to be. I'm sorry.

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PHYSICAL APPEARANCE?

dark hair color; stockier body type; sagittarius; leo; prominent lips; wrinkles, younger, facial hair, minimal style; medium-size nose; alluring, arched eyebrows, acne; long hair.

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WHY WILL YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will love your beauty. I see them stumbling over their words every time you look at them while they are talking to you because of how “drop-dead gorgeous” you are. There’s a lot of physical attraction on their side. They also admire how prideful and independent you seem. You don’t seem to like submitting to people and you’re stubborn. They find that attractive and almost like a challenge? They could get turned on by that for some reason. They love your hair “and how it smells”? What’s going on? lol. You admire how hard you work and determined you are to accomplish your small goals. You always seem to be busy and dealing with your ongoing tasks. They appreciate that and look up to that. I see them wanting to flirtatiously pursue you by giving you gifts and certain presents, they might want to spoil you and be chivalrous towards you. However, I don’t think they see you as someone who is ready for marriage. They might think you’re too stubborn for it and you’ll be hard to compromise with because of your pride. However, they would try to pursue you in a playful and unserious way. They admire your belief system and morals, your ideology encourages them to become better and work harder. They also admire the person that you’ll become when you get with them, they’ll love to want to help you become a better person with their status and wealth and help you get to a better situation and see you grow.

You might have some slight misconceptions about them at the start or you’ll start to notice some good qualities about this person when you get to know them. You might have judged them too quickly and allowed yourself to create a false picture of them. This person might have turned over a new leaf when you marry them or bind to them. They’ll seem to be a different person. Perhaps this person has been married before but got divorced. And they are trying to make it up but doing better this time with someone different. You might love how surprisingly giving, thoughtful, and receptive they are. I see that you’ll love how determined they are to make this connection work, whether that’s by getting to know you or doing extreme exercises to build trust. I feel like they will try to earn your apology for what they’ve done to you in the past, and they are going to do whatever they can gain that. You’ll find that appealing, and I see you making it hard by trying to prove a lesson. I see that over time, there will some gain in respect for each other. I don’t necessarily see love through unfortunately.

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RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC?

The relationship will definitely be a slow one, for sure. There might not be as much passion, but there’s going to some slow build of liking each other or at least being okay with or respecting each other. I see that you guys might not be seen in public with each other often. It could be something you guys agreed on at the start of your connection. To be honest, I don’t see this connection working out, and if so, it’s not going to be very fulfilling. It’s just going yo be professional. I feel this relationship is solely a karmic relationship for the both of you to learn specific lessons, specifically something about forgiveness and apologizing. I also see you finally giving in to this person’s services, especially if this is an arranged marriage. You’re going to try to cope with the fact that you need this person’s assets for the sake of your family’s name or validation. I do see a power dynamic. I don’t see anything necessarily toxic, but you might not like it. The dynamic could be solely because of this person’s status and respect. You might feel unnoticed or under this person’s shadow. There’s such a lack of passion in this pile, like this just seems like a connection y’all are just in just to be in it. I don’t claim this for you guys.

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POTENTIAL PROBLEMS?

I lied. This relationship is a bit toxic. I feel like a huge problem is a lack of privacy from your person. It’s giving the vibe of them not wanting you to lock doors around their house because you should be comfortable with them and they should know what you are doing 24/7. Yeah, no. Again, a power dynamic of feeling like you’re not in control. It feels as though you don’t get enough attention or appreciation from other people and you’re in their shadow. A lack of passion and emotional fulfillment could be possible, and I do see both of you, especially you, stepping out of the connection and seeking it somewhere else—basically infidelity. I see you both faking happiness with each other. I just feel monotony and, meh. I see that you might be afraid of leaving because you’re scared of leaving the foundation you’ve built with this person financially. This person can make you feel unnoticed and your self-esteem could plummet. It might come to a point where you might try to accept your lot and deal with it. It shouldn’t be that way though. I don’t see any children, I just see an unhappy marriage that’s just in it to look good. I seriously don’t claim this for any of you, for real. Good luck.

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LESSONS YOU WILL BOTH LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

Your next partner will learn that pretending and putting up a facade isn’t going to make them happy. This person may be someone who can be superficial and a social climber, a bit of a puppet master. They are going realize that faking their reality or faking things about themselves isn’t going to make them anymore happier. It isn’t going to authentically complete them. They’ll learn they they cannot hold their facade any longer. They’ll learn to be less self-centered and think about more others and how they feel. They can be a bit controlling and bitter towards the women in their lives. They could have issues with the mother and treat the mother in that way. They’ll recognize that they have issues with the feminines in their life and will have to heal that. They can be spiteful as well because of how truly miserable they are in their superficial life, and they’ll learn that they are the cause of their unhappiness. Your person might learn to dabble into nature and the authentic things in life to ground themselves and connect to their higher selves and who they truly are. Perhaps dealing with animals or plants. Perhaps helping others with the intention of because they truly want to, not for an image.

You will learn to not let pride get in the way of moving on from the tragedies of your life. You’ll learn to forgive simply for yourself to move on and becoming a better person, not just for others. You’ll learn to be proud of yourself and to not be afraid to ask for love, appreciation, and attention. You will recognize you don’t need to be in anyone’s shadow anymore. You’ll have hope for yourself, and I’m also hearing a sense of justice as well. You’ll learn to establish stability for yourself and expand your horizons among others. You might travel more after this person, and even go back to college if you haven’t been to it already! I’m also hearing you might meet someone as soon as you leave this person. You might’ve gotten involved with them while with this person, what I’m also hearing. Your perspective on marriage might change as well. You’ll take marriage more seriously and make sure your real marriage is going to happen with the person you truly have passion and love for, and want a future with (I know that’s right) I do see you meeting someone after this person, like right after for some of you.

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A song that came through for this pile:

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2K notes · View notes

starlightkun · 7 months

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❧ word count: 22.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, inaccurate descriptions of constellations bc this is a fantasy world ❧ genre: fluff, mild angst, slow burn, blind date, strangers to idiots friends to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, werewolf sungchan, human reader, ft. siren shotaro & various magical neos (and another extra special guest appearance!), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: so this is technically the spiritual threequel to my two werewolf jeno fics (pupsick + abh) but you still don’t have to read those to understand this one at all! this is absolutely meant to be read by itself! and this one is also very self-indulgent, from the a.c.e song title to werewolf sungchan, i had a very great time on this one, hence the word count. if you guys have even half the fun reading this as i did writing it, you’ll have a blast. enjoy! ❧ sequel

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

baby i’m your changer, changer, love is not a danger

Reclined on the plush, soft grass of the front lawn of your college with your hands behind your head, you basked in a particularly lovely patch of sunlight. It was January, the very beginning of the year and the semester, meaning that this would normally be a very chilly and unpleasant endeavor. Except you were sandwiched between two dryads. Dryads weren’t in and of themselves extra warm like dragons or werewolves, nor could one dryad on their own change the weather—and would most likely be influenced by it rather than the other way other—but if you got two together, and they were in a good enough mood, they could generate a little bubble of springtime around them. And for some reason, Jaemin and Donghyuck were in exceptionally high spirits today.

You knew the two dryads from Magical Botany Club, which you had joined your freshman year after you’d managed to kill the small cactus that your parents gave you as a housewarming present for your dorm. They were the only ones who didn’t immediately label you a lost cause, and instead saw you as a challenge. Now, your junior year, your apartment was a jungle to rival that of a dryad’s home, and you were even Vice President of the club this year.

After a long, refreshing inhale followed by an even longer exhale, you finally asked, “So what’s got you in such a good mood? It certainly can’t just be finalizing the calendar of club activities this semester.”

Jaemin was club President, and Donghyuck the Secretary/Treasurer, so this little sunbathing session before the start of the semester on Monday was really supposed to be an Executive Board meeting.

“Who, us?” Jaemin replied innocently.

“No, I was talking to the cardinal on Donghyuck’s leg,” you retorted sarcastically, gesturing to said bird that had also settled in to enjoy the cozy rays.

“We’re not planning anything,” Donghyuck said in the same tone as Jaemin.

You propped yourself up on one elbow to look down at your friend properly, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “I just wanted you to share whatever good news you had, I didn’t think you two were planning anything, but now I definitely do. What’s going on?”

“Donghyuck, you idiot!” The other dryad hissed at him.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you and that fairy are going to try to convince your human friend that aliens are real again. Leave that poor guy alone, he’s got enough on his plate just dealing with all of you being real and jerks to him.” You scoffed disapprovingly, remembering when they recounted that story to you at club a couple years ago. You had been tempted to check on Renjun yourself when you spotted him at the library the next day, but you didn’t know him personally, and didn’t think he’d appreciate it in the moment. Especially not since he looked like he was really focused on his work at the time, so you just let him be.

“It’s nothing like that, I swear,” Jaemin promised. “It’s nothing bad at all.”

You sat up all the way to be able to look at both of them at once. “Okay, what is it then?”

Donghyuck sat up too, the cardinal hopping up to his shoulder. “Long story short, we have a friend that we want to set you up with.”

“No thanks, guys.” You shook your head.

“You won’t even let us tell you about him?”

“I’m not really looking for anything right now. Not after my ex—”

Jaemin pushed his phone screen in front of your face then, a picture of a guy on it. It was presumably the friend they wanted to set you up with. He was around your age, tall—if where his head was in comparison to the doorway of this building was to be believed, wearing a black leather jacket. It looked well-worn, though, as if it might not have been his originally, handed down or thrifted at least. And yeah, he was cute, you weren’t blind. But you also knew not to just eat with your eyes, or else you’d get a tummyache.

“Seriously, Jaemin?” You looked at your friend over the phone screen. “You think I’m that shallow? One picture and I’m going to throw everything away?”

“Dude, show her the—” Donghyuck flapped his hand at the other dryad insistently.

“Oh, right, right.” Jaemin nodded as he began swiping and tapping on his phone fervently.

Donghyuck kept talking to you, “Of course we don’t think you’re shallow. We always meant to tell you about him, too. His name’s Jung Sungchan, he goes here, too, he’s a werewolf, he’s really nice, uh… Jaemin? Some help?”

You let out a sound that was a mix between a snort and a scoff. “Yeah, he sounds great.”

“Okay, he’s really more Jaemin’s friend than mine, sorry,” Donghyuck admitted. “Jaemin? What’s taking so long dude?”

“I don’t know! I can’t find it for some reason, I think he deleted it!” Jaemin muttered, his voice panicked. “I’m checking Jeno’s Instagram right now.”

“So Jeno knows him?” You asked. You didn’t know Jaemin’s werewolf roommate as well as you knew the two dryads, but you did know that they were all friends. “Are they in the same pack?”

“No, they actually know each other through Jeno’s… Ha! Found it!” Jaemin yelled out in celebration, flipping his phone around for you to see.

It was another picture, this time of Jeno standing next to the person you now knew to be named Sungchan. They were at what looked like a u-pick strawberry patch, each proudly holding up a large bucket filled to the brim with strawberries. Sungchan was in a white tank top—a brave choice for a strawberry farm—and shorts. Despite the outfit showing off a lot more of him than the last picture, it was his bright, happy grin that caught your eye, and you had to consciously make sure your gaze didn’t linger too long on the picture.

Turning your attention back to your friends, you prompted Jaemin, “Well? Do you know any more about him than he goes to our college and is a nice werewolf that knows Jeno?”

“Right! Yes!” Jaemin sat up straight at attention as you saw Donghyuck do a little fist pump of victory out of the corner of your eye. “He’s tall—”

“I can see that, he’s like almost two heads taller than Jeno; I meant his personality. This isn’t me saying yes, by the way.” You pointed to yourself and Jaemin talking. “This is me gathering data. I wanted to take time for myself after what happened with my ex, remember? I think it might be enough time, but I need a bit more than ‘he’s nice’ to get me out there.”

“Of course, of course. I really appreciate you even considering this for us,” he squeezed your arm for a moment before letting it go. “He’s really smart, Dean’s List every semester, uh, it might take a minute for him to warm up at first, but once he does, he’s funny, and insightful. And he doesn’t have that constant go-go-go energy that werewolves usually do, he’s so much chiller, so if you were worried about that, don’t be.”

“And, sorry, I know he’s your friend, but I have to ask…” You winced. “He’s not one of those werewolf guys that only dates human girls as like… you know… an ego thing?”

Donghyuck snorted, “Oh he’s not, promise.”

Tension you didn’t know you’d been carrying in your shoulders relaxed at that. “Good.”

“We do have to tell you one thing though,” Jaemin grimaced.

“What?”

“This isn’t just a random set-up because we think you guys would be cute—”

“Oh God, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He rushed to reassure you. “Like, that part is true, we do think you’d be a good match.”

“Let me guess: the ‘but’ that follows that sentence is related to the ‘long story’ that Donghyuck mentioned earlier?”

Jaemin nodded reluctantly. “Yeah… long story long, Sungchan made a deal, and his end of it was letting us set him up with anybody of our choosing.”

“You’re using a date with me to punish him?” You stood up, brushing the grass off your back. “Yeah, hard fucking pass. Thanks, guys, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“No, not a punishment!” Jaemin scrambled to get to his feet as well. As you walked off, the air around you turned cold again, marking when you left their bubble of spring. He called after you, “Y/N! I’m sorry! Please!”

You didn’t want to go back to your empty apartment yet though, so you found yourself meandering into a familiar storefront. Jasmine & Pearls, a boba tea shop just around the corner from your college campus. There was only one customer ahead of you in line, and you stared blankly at the menu just to look at something. You weren’t feeling very adventurous today, so you’d probably get your regular go-to order. After the customer before you had been helped, you shuffled up to the counter, messing with your phone case to pull your punch card out of the back of it.

“Hey, Y/N!” Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter today, greeted you cheerily.

The iridescent pink scales under the tip of his button nose and apples of his cheeks shimmered in the fluorescent lights, making him look like he had a perpetual hint of rosy blush across his skin. That, and his cherubic smile could almost make you forget what those scales and his flashing silvery eyes really meant—he was a siren, could lure you to your death if he so wanted to. Obviously, he didn’t want to, had no reason to, and that would literally be a murder charge nowadays, but you nevertheless found it fascinating that such a being was just here serving you boba tea.

A few months ago, you realized that you came here probably too often once all the workers knew your name, but by then it was too late. It was just too convenient, delicious, and pleasant of an atmosphere for you to feel ashamed enough to stop coming.

“Hi, Shotaro.” You smiled back at him. “Just a regular honey milk tea with boba, please. No charms today.”

“On it!” He accepted both your punch card and credit card from you. After handing them back, he spun around to make your drink, and you went to go wait for it at the bartop at the other end.

Curious, and with nothing better to do in that moment, you pulled up Jeno’s Instagram on your phone. From the main grid on his account, all you could see was pictures either with or of his partner. Cute. Then you finally saw one of them at a strawberry patch, Jeno in the same outfit as the picture Jaemin had shown you before. You clicked on that one, and sure enough it was a whole set of photos. You swiped through to find the one of him and Sungchan holding the buckets of strawberries. And Sungchan was tagged.

You looked up at Shotaro. The customer ahead of you still hadn’t gotten their drink. You checked the notifications on your phone. Nothing new to reply to. Well, here it goes. You clicked on his account.

And he was private. Well, good for him. Internet privacy.

You went back to Jeno’s Instagram to check if Sungchan had maybe appeared in any more posts. You just wanted to see if you could glean anything more about him.

You finally found him again in what looked like a big group trip to Cape Solaria at the end of last summer. There were probably fifteen people here at least. He popped up in a few different shots, playing beach sports with Jeno and some other guys that you didn’t recognize; joining in on throwing some poor small guy—who you presumed to be a witch, judging by the ritual tattoos he was covered in from neck to ankle—into the ocean; and sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with Jaemin and Renjun. And in every single one, Sungchan had such a genuine, pure, joyful smile. Like he was fully enjoying the moment and the people with him. Yeah, maybe you were projecting, but... surely it wouldn’t hurt to give it at least one chance?

“Y/N? Hello?” Shotaro was calling for you from the counter, shaking a drink that was presumably yours.

You snapped your head up, sheepishly turning your phone off and stuffing it away in your pocket. The other customer was nowhere to be seen; it was just you and the siren.

“Sorry, sorry.” You rushed up to accept the cup.

“It’s alright, you seemed like you were in the zone.”

You grabbed a straw, punching it out from the plastic wrapping. “In the zone of a little cyberstalking, as much as I hate to admit.”

“No shame here, we all do it. Who was it? Can I see?” He grinned mischievously.

“No,” you said flatly, stabbing your straw through the top of the drink. “My friends want to set me up.”

“Want to? Sounds like you haven’t said yes.”

“Perceptive.” You took your first sip.

“But you were cyberstalking them... So, you’re considering?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why not? Human lives are short.”

“Right. Thanks for that reminder.”

The bell above the front door rang then, announcing the entrance of another customer.

“Always here to help,” Shotaro patted your forearm before walking back to the register to greet the newcomer.

Two weeks later and you were nervously double-checking the name of the restaurant and the time that Jeno had sent you. Yep, this was it, and you weren’t weirdly early. You couldn’t believe how strange this felt, going on a date again. Comparing your outfit to the casual café as you walked in, you felt only a little better that you weren’t overdressed or underdressed either.

Your eyes scanned the building for Sungchan. You’d done enough cyberstalking on your own time in addition to the photos that your friends kept showing you to hype you up that you were certain you’d recognize him easily. It looked like you’d gotten here first. It was seat-yourself, so you might as well grab a table for the two of you.

You’d just come to a stop in front of a little two-seater and took your purse off to hang off the back of your chair.

“Y/N?” A voice came from behind you, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder.

You spun around, immediately face-to-chest with someone. Looking up, you did, in fact, recognize the face of Jung Sungchan. He was admittedly cuter in real life than in the multitude of pictures that Jaemin and Donghyuck had continued to show you in preparation for the date. You didn’t want to know what they’d been doing to prepare Sungchan.

“Hi, Sungchan?” You still phrased it like a question, watching as the man’s features relaxed into an easy smile of recognition.

“Yes, hello.” He raised his arms up slightly at the same time that you did, and you realized that the both of you were now presumably having the same internal debate about if you were supposed to hug your blind first date hello as a greeting.

Ultimately, the two of you did go in for an awkward short hug, and you let out a nervous chuckle, feeling the warmth radiating off of him in the brief contact. You immediately looked down at the table, “Uhm, should we sit?”

“Of course, yeah.”

And as the two of you sat down on opposite sides, you looked up from your fidgeting fingers to your date’s face, not expecting his brow to be furrowed as if he were troubled by something, his gaze affixed on you.

You shifted in your seat uncomfortably. “Is everything okay?”

“You’re not wearing any perfume...” He commented, and you let out a minuscule sigh of relief. That’s all it was, he was just a bit put off that you hadn’t put on a perfume like one might’ve normally done for a date. A detail that he would’ve of course picked up as a werewolf.

“Not that I expect any brownie points for this, but I uh, I didn’t want to overwhelm your nose, in case there were any smells you’re particularly sensitive to,” you explained, picking up the menu that was already sitting on the table.

“You did your research.”

“Oh, I’ve dated a couple werewolves before, actually.”

“Really? You got a type or something?” As soon as the word were out of Sungchan’s mouth, he went to take them back, seeming surprised even at himself, “Sorry, that was—”

“No, no, I get it,” you cut off his apology, your tone reassuring. You knew that there were people who had a disturbing preference for werewolves, so you could understand why you dating now three werewolves might initially look a little suspicious. “Uh, I went to a kind of small high school. Private school. There were a couple of packs in my area that sent like all of their kids there, so my graduating class ended up being like 75% werewolves. It was just kind of statistics, I guess.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry about that, again,” Sungchan apologized once more, relaxing in his seat a bit more as he actually started to peruse his own menu.

“Anyway, that’s not a great first date topic.” You forced out a light-hearted chuckle.

“What’s not?”

“Past relationships? I think that’s third or fourth at least, don’t you?”

“Mm, yeah, of course. Sorry.”

Desperate to redirect the conversation to a much lighter, neutral one, you asked, “So what’s your major, Sungchan?”

“Earth Sciences.”

“Geology or Climatology track?”

He perked up at this. “Meteorology and Climatology.”

“And what made you want to study that?”

“Well, at first I thought I wanted to study astrophysics, but it was too much math and too little actual space. But I really liked my Intro to Weather class I took my first semester to cover a random credit so I switched to that and it stuck.”

“Wait, was it a morning Monday-Wednesday-Friday with Professor- Professor...” Suddenly, the memory struck you. “Oh! Hwang? Fall semester three years ago?”

“Yes, I believe so...” He answered, head tilting with intrigue.

“I think I had it too!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I took it to get that Science credit as well.”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember you at all.”

“It’s okay, I don’t remember you either,” you laughed, just amazed at the coincidence. “It was a big auditorium.”

Sungchan must have figured out what he wanted, as he set down his menu and leaned his elbows on the table to give you his full attention. “So what are you studying?”

“I’m an Interdisciplinary Major,” you told him happily, thrilled that the conversation was going much more smoothly now. “I was a bit indecisive, too. Except I couldn’t find one thing that stuck like you did. So I chose two: Sociology and Magical Creatures Studies.”

His eyes dropped from yours as he scoffed under his breath, sitting back in his seat.

And there went your pleasant conversation again.

“What was that?” You asked tersely.

“I didn’t say anything.” He shook his head like he was trying to clear the unpleasant tone from the conversation, but you weren’t going to let him go that easily.

“No, but clearly you have an opinion. So go ahead.”

“Not really, I was just wondering if you’ve even dated anyone that wasn’t a werewolf.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “You think my major is just me cruising for a new boyfriend or something? Very expensive and essay-intensive compared to dating apps.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Y/N,” Sungchan held his hands up, looking back up at you again. His features turned apologetic. “I just… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“So were you going to actually ask me that if I didn’t confront you, or were you just going to make assumptions?”

“That really was rude of me,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, I mean… how do you ask someone something like that without coming off as a bit rude?”

“I suggest phrasing it like a genuine question instead of an accusation.”

“Right.” He took a second as if to compose himself, then asked, his tone much more conservational, “So, you said you dated a couple werewolves in high school. Uh, have you dated anyone else since coming to college, then? Before this?”

You did your best to return your own voice and manner to civility as well. “Dates here and there, but as for serious relationships, just one, I dated a human guy briefly.”

“And why did you break up? If you don’t mind telling me. I get it if it’s too personal.”

“It’s fine. He cheated on me.”

“So you’re of course looking for loyalty. Like, you know, a dog.” Sungchan fired back spitefully.

“Okay, I think we’re done here, Sungchan,” you declared, putting both your hands on the table to prepare yourself to stand.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he rushed to try to apologize for the umpteenth time that night, but you’d heard plenty by now.

“No, it’s fine, really,” you assured him, still moving to get up out of your chair and grab your purse. “You’ve obviously had some bad experiences in the past, none of which I’m privy to. It’s not fair to you to constantly be suspicious that your date has ulterior motives for being with you. But it’s also not fair to me to have to constantly defend myself either.”

He was quiet at that.

You continued, “We both deserve to be able to relax and have fun, and that’s clearly just not going to be able to happen. It’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work out. So, I’m going to go, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.”

And with that, you turned around and left the café.

The ringing of the bell above the door of Jasmine & Pearls barely registered in the back of your mind as you lumbered right up to the cash register the next day.

“Good afternoon, Y/N!” Shotaro greeted you cheerily.

“Hi, Shotaro...” You couldn’t muster up anything close to his level of enthusiasm, letting out a sigh. “Same old, same old, please.”

“Uh oh. Sounds like the date didn’t go so well?” He surmised, ringing you up then starting on your order.

“No, it didn’t,” you leaned against the counter to keep talking to him. “Barely lasted ten minutes.”

“That’s rough. You end it or did he?”

“I did. It was for the best but still... I thought I was going to really like this guy.” Based off nothing but social media posts and word of mouth from friends, but you really were hopeful. You’d had a good feeling, and had trusted Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck. And it blew up in your face.

Note to self, never fucking trust those three again.

“Don’t feel too bad, Y/N. Seems like it’s going around.”

“What do you mean?”

“My roommate’s date last night was a bust too.”

“We should make a club,” you chuckled cynically.

“Or I can set you up?” The siren offered hopefully.

“Thanks, but I’m good. I said I was going to take some time to focus on myself after my last relationship, and I meant that. Last night was me testing the waters, and I fucking drowned.”

“That special, huh? Or, I guess not, in the end.”

“Well, at least now I know, you know? No ‘what if’s to mess with.”

Shotaro enthusiastically slammed your drink down in front of you. “Hell yeah, Y/N. A clear head.”

“Exactly.” You pulled the cup over to you.

He put the packaged straw down on top emphatically. “Fuck that guy.”

“Bit extreme, Shotaro, but I appreciate the sentiment,” you grinned, hitting the straw against the counter to pop it out from the plastic wrapping.

“You’re coming to our Valentine’s Day event next month though, right?” Your friend asked, pointing to the poster taped to the wall advertising the event. The evening of February 13th at the boba shop, with a special themed drinks menu and activities to do.

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great!” He beamed at you.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go, and you’ve got more customers. See you.” You took your drink with you towards the exit that a whole gaggle of high schoolers had just come through, waving to the siren over your shoulder.

“Bye, Y/N!”

Pulling open the door of Jasmine & Pearls some weeks later, you were immediately greeted by an array of red, pink, and white. The entire store had been redecorated for the event. A short stage was set up against the far wall of the dining area, a small photobooth in another corner, and a station where you could learn to make an origami heart, if the pictures on the instructions taped to the wall above it were anything to guess off. The shop was already bustling and buzzing with energy, filled with couples and groups of friends. All in all, it looked like it was shaping up to be a successful night for them.

You got into possibly the longest line you could remember having waited in at Jasmine & Pearls in a while—you’d learned the rush times and had become a pro at avoiding them in order to get your boba fix as quick as possible—and continued looking around with a smile on your face.

Unfortunately, you were flying this one solo. Your friends were all either working or studying tonight, and you weren’t going to flake after already promising Shotaro just because you couldn’t find someone to come with you. But you could have plenty of fun by yourself. And, you didn’t make any promise to stay the whole night. You’d stay just to finish your drink and maybe make an origami heart or two, depending on how good you were at them.

Finally, it was your turn to order, and you walked up to the register already with a big smile on your face.

Shotaro was manning the register while another employee fulfilled the orders. Your friend’s face lit up immediately. “Y/N! You made it!”

“I told you I would. Did you doubt me?” You questioned in mock offense.

“Not for a second,” he declared. Pointing to the little standee menu that was on the counter, he asked, “So what’ll you have? I recommend one of our specials for the occasion, obviously.”

You looked over the three new drink options that were advertised as for tonight’s event only. One in particular caught your eye, strawberry milk tea with heart-shaped brown sugar tapioca pearls, and an added feel-good charm. “That Lovebug sounds good.”

“Perfect! I knew you’d get that one! Coming right up!” He rang you up, but only took your credit card from your hand. “Sorry, no regular punch cards tonight. Instead, every purchase of a drink comes with a special event-only punch card.”

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows as he handed you a small pink card with four circles on it, one already punched out with a heart-shaped hole punch.

“Yep! If you complete all the activities we have tonight, you can redeem it for a free drink! You’ve already gotten a punch for purchasing a drink, then we’ve got the photobooth—” he pointed to the large box. “Just bring your photo strips up here, and I’ll punch the card for you. And the origami, same thing. They don’t have to be professional, as long as you tried, just show them to me, and I’ll give you another punch. And then my boss, Baekhyun, is going to be hosting Valentine’s Bingo in like ten, fifteen minutes. He’ll punch everyone’s cards who participates.” He gestured to the stage, where you now saw a man starting to mess with a microphone and small table. “Don’t worry, you can play single.”

“Huh. Sounds good to me.” You tucked the card into your pocket. “Thanks, Shotaro.”

“Your drink will be out in a second!”

When you finally heard your name being called out by the other employee, you walked up and took the cup from him gratefully. It was another siren, who you weren’t nearly as familiar with as Shotaro, but you still offered Yuta a smile as you accepted the drink.

You looked at the heart-shaped boba at the bottom of the cup fondly. “Cute. Thanks, Yuta.”

“Of course! Now enjoy the ambiance.” Yuta shooed you away with a smirk.

You saluted him casually. “Heard.”

Meandering around the store, you took in the kitschy decorations in various heart, Cupid, rose, and arrow shapes all around. Despite your own striking out in the romance department as of late, you couldn’t find yourself wanting to muster up any morosity for the atmosphere. It was too endearing, and you were someone who just loved love. And maybe the feel-good charm in the boba pearls was doing its job pretty well.

Legally, Jasmine & Pearls couldn’t sell any charms that had effects as strong as alcohol, drugs, or hexes, or they’d need special licenses for that, but the little charms and enchantments available in some of their boba options could influence one’s mood for a short amount of time. Feel-good, tranquility, energy, focus, that kind of stuff.

A lot of the tables had been pushed to one side to make room for the stage, so you took your drink to the bar seating that was against a window, keeping your eye on the figure on stage. As he was readjusting the microphone, you caught a flash of scales under his skin, realizing that he too was a siren, and suddenly the employment choices felt a bit more intentional than coincidental.

Red and pink heart-shaped confetti had been sprinkled along the bartop, and you brushed some of it aside to be able to set your cup down. You were humming along to the love song playing over the speakers as you scrolled on your phone when you swore you heard your name. Straightening up a little, you listened carefully for it again.

“Y/N?” Someone gently tapped on your shoulder this time.

You turned around atop the stool you’d been sitting on, not prepared for who was behind you. Jung Sungchan was standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn black leather jacket. Honestly, you hadn’t thought much about him since your date five or six weeks ago. Your focus had been on school— with this being your junior year, you had a lot to get together in order to be ready to apply for grad schools, Botany Club, still going to work, and keeping up with friends around all this somehow. One failed date that wasn’t even in your top five worst dates hadn’t really been keeping you up at night. And yet somehow here he was.

You were sure that the surprise was evident on your face, and you probably left just too long of pause hanging in the air before you finally said something. “Oh, Sungchan, hi.”

“I thought that was you. Hey.” He offered a friendly smile.

“How are you?”

“I’m—” He was cut off by a distant shout of his name that only got closer.

“Hey! Sungchan!” It was Shotaro, the siren approaching with a prepared drink and straw, shoving them in the werewolf’s hand. “Dude, you can’t just walk away from the counter like that while we’re making your drink, then I have to come chase you down when you don’t hear your name.”

Sungchan accepted it from the employee guiltily. “Sorry, Shotaro.”

“Anyway! I’m glad you two have met.” Shotaro beamed at the pair of you, throwing an arm around Sungchan’s neck. “Y/N, this is my roommate I was talking about, Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Y/L/N Y/N, she’s a regular here and goes to our college.”

Your eyes widened minutely in alarm as you suddenly connected way too many dots. Oh god, Shotaro’s roommate had an awful date, Sungchan is Shotaro’s roommate, you and Sungchan had gone on a date that night, the very same date you had also complained to Shotaro about. And who knows what terrible things Sungchan might have told the siren about the date, about you. After all, you had been the one to walk out on him.

You felt like you were going to puke as Shotaro gave Sungchan a sharp slap on the shoulder, winked at you behind his roommate’s back, and walked back to his station behind the counter.

After a heavy, long, awkward pause, Sungchan finally spoke up. “So… what did you get?”

“Oh, uhm… the Lovebug. What about you?”

“Me too, same. Lovebug.”

Another pause as you watched Sungchan open his straw and poke it through the plastic seal covering the top of the drink.

“So are we going to address the elephant in the room?” You decided to just get it over with.

“Which one? I feel like we have a whole herd at this point.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, fair. I meant Shotaro. I’ll be the first to admit that I confided in him after our—I’m sorry to say but—disaster of a date.”

“That’s a generous assessment, actually.” Sungchan agreed. “And I told him about it too. I mean, we live together, it was hard for him not to notice when I came back home less than an hour after I left.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“I didn’t say anything bad about you, by the way. I told him it went horribly, because I ruined it, of course, but you were perfectly lovely. Truly way more level-headed than I deserved.”

“Oh, no, Sungchan,” you tried to reassure him. “Really, like I said before— Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

“I know. But still, I treated you awfully, and I am really, really sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

A crackling came from the speakers up front, snapping your attention back to the man on stage. Baekhyun had gotten the microphone connected, and you saw Shotaro darting from the stage to his spot at the register as his boss called for everyone’s attention. “Hello? Hello? Great, this is working.”

He flashed a dazzling smile to the small crowd. “Hi, if you don’t know me, I’m Byun Baekhyun, I own Jasmine & Pearls here. If you’re in line, don’t panic, we’re not starting quite yet. I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out here tonight, this is honestly a much better turnout than we had expected. I, of course, also want to thank my two incredible employees, Shotaro and Yuta, for working tonight too.”

The two sirens behind the counter both waved as they got a round of applause, then everyone’s eyes were back on Baekhyun.

“We’re going to be starting Valentine’s Bingo in about five minutes or so. I just want everyone to know that you will need a partner for this. So if you came out here by yourself, find another single person out there and you know… get talking.” He grinned, and you swore his gaze lingered on you and Sungchan for a millisecond too long to be coincidental. “Okay, awesome, I’ll be back up here in five to get it started.”

Your eyes flashed over to your friend that was working, remembering exactly when he told you that you could play the game by yourself, and now suddenly you needed a partner. Shotaro was contentedly ringing up a customer’s order, though, seemingly not even paying you nor Sungchan any mind.

“So, uh, want to partner up? For the bingo?” Sungchan asked, then rushed to tack on, “Unless you’re waiting for somebody?”

“I’m not waiting for anybody,” you smiled, gesturing to the stool beside you for him to sit down.

“How have things been with you?”

“Good, they’ve been pretty good. Just a lot of school and Bot Club.”

“Bot Club?”

“Magical Botany Club. I’m the Vice President this year.”

“Oh, cool. So that’s how you know Jaemin, then.”

“Yeah, yeah. Him and Lee Donghyuck, we’re all on the board together.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Because I sucked at gardening,” you admitted with a laugh. “My freshman year, my parents gave me this cactus to have in my dorm, and I killed the thing somehow. They can survive in deserts and the most extreme climates in the world, and it perished in my dorm room. I joined Bot Club hoping for some tips, and everyone just immediately thought I was beyond help. Jaemin and Hyuck were the only ones who actually took the time to help me. And it took a lot of time.”

Sungchan was smiling too, genuinely. “You must have grown to really like it, to stick around after getting your cactus caretaking tips.”

“Yeah, I do.” You nodded. “What about you? How’s school been for you?”

He grimaced a little. “Could be better, honestly.”

“Oh no? Why? What’s wrong?” You frowned.

Before Sungchan could answer, another person had approached the two of you. It was Baekhyun, a stack of square bingo cards in one hand and box of markers in the other. His silver eyes seemed to glitter in the lights as he smiled at you, his opalescent scales refracting a whole rainbow of colors where they sat just under his skin along his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead.

“Hi!” He greeted the two of you cheerfully. “Are you two together?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Sungchan nodded, reaching out to grab your bingo sheet and marker before the store owner flitted off to the next pair of customers.

He set them down on the counter in between the two of you, but your focus was still on your conversation.

“So what’s wrong, Sungchan?” You asked, taking another sip of your drink.

“I mean, it’s just been a bit stressful is all,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “One of my professors asked me to do research with him, and then I took an SI position with another professor too, on top of all my classes. Just kind of got a lot on my plate.”

“Oh, okay. But that sounds like a great opportunity, at least. Your professor asking you to do research with him.”

“It is, it’s some seriously cool stuff.”

“What’s—”

Baekhyun clearing his throat into the microphone from the front cut you off, and you gave the werewolf an apologetic look.

“Sorry. But I do want to hear about it later, Sungchan,” you squeezed his arm before turning around to face the stage.

“Alright, we’re going to be getting started then.”

As Baekhyun kicked off the first round of bingo, you found yourself tapping the marker against the bingo card as you sat there. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sungchan awkwardly leaning over as he tried to look at the sheet too, and you realized you’d been hogging it.

“Oh, sorry, here,” you moved the sheet more into the middle, at the same time that you scooted your stool over towards him to lessen the gap between you. “Is that better?”

Sungchan’s shoulder was just behind yours as he looked over you at both the card and the stage. “Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

“Did you want to mark them off? Sorry, I just grabbed it without thinking.” You offered the permanent marker out to him.

“No, it’s all yours.” He shook his head, then tapped his finger to the middle spot. “But you did forget the Free Space.”

“Oh, shit, thanks.” You crossed it off with an X.

Baekhyun called out number after number, and you and Sungchan worked together to search the small card for them.

You clicked your tongue as you couldn’t find the one the shop owner had just called out, and were about to pick your cup back up to take another sip of your drink, when Sungchan spoke up happily.

“Found it!”

“Oh, where?” You hovered the marker over the card, scanning the little letters and numbers.

“Right there.” He’d pointed, but his hand was gone too fast, and you lost it again.

“Wait, where?”

“Right…” he reached over to wrap his own hand around yours that was holding the marker, and dragged it over to the correct square. You giggled as he guided your hand to draw a messy X like you were a toddler learning to write your letters for the first time. “…There.” He finished, letting go of your hand.

“Ahh, okay,” you nodded slowly. “I see… I’m illiterate.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Hey!”

Sungchan laughed as you gave a half-hearted smack against his chest, and you couldn’t help but smile too. After all, it was your self-deprecating joke first.

He patted your back, apologizing through his chuckles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Apology taken under consideration.”

“Oof, I don’t like the sound of that. Anything I can do to better my chances here?”

“Hmm,” you hummed, pretending to think as you tapped the capped end of the marker against your bottom lip.

Sungchan watched you, his elbow resting on the bartop and his cheek in his hand. The only thing separating you two was the bingo sheet, the game which you weren’t even focused on anymore. Your back was entirely turned to the stage now, gaze set only on the werewolf next to you.

Just as you’d parted your lips to make your proposal, you happened to hear Baekhyun announce the next number.

“O13!” The siren’s voice carried well through the speakers. “O13!”

You let your eyes flick down, immediately catching on that open square on your card. And it completed the row. You marked it off, a giddy grin spreading across your face as you went to elbow Sungchan. “Look!”

“Oh damn! Nice!” He raised his hand, as did you, as he called out. “Bingo! We got bingo!”

Baekhyun’s features lit up as he stopped his progress of reaching for the next bingo ball. He practically purred into the microphone, “Well, well, seems like we’ve got our first bingo. If one of you could read it out so I can double-check it, then we’ll see about getting you two your prizes.”

Sungchan called out your five spaces, and Baekhyun nodded with each one, the room erupting into applause when he declared that you two had won that round.

“Alright, come up here so I can give you your prizes and punch your tickets.” The siren waved you up.

You looked to Sungchan expectantly, and he gestured for you to go up ahead of him. Instead, feeling a bit uneasy with the entire café’s eyes on you, you latched onto his forearm and dragged him up right alongside you.

“So you each are getting a gift card to the shop—” He handed you two small cards, then turned around, where Yuta had appeared with a couple more items. Baekhyun then handed each of you a denim baseball cap that had the logo of the shop on the front in lilac purple thread. “And Jasmine & Pearls embroidered hats. Thank you so much for coming here and playing.”

You accepted both prizes from him, feeling over the embroidery on the cap with your finger.

“And if you’d give me your event punch cards, I’ll go ahead and give you your punches now, since you unfortunately, won’t be allowed to play to win again. Fairness and all that.”

You and Sungchan handed over your punch cards, and the siren gave each of you another heart-shaped punch before giving them back.

“Now, we will be playing two more rounds, so don’t worry if you didn’t win this time,” he announced to the rest of the crowd as you and Sungchan headed back to your seats. “I’ll hand out brand new cards to everybody, and we’ll restart. Y/N and Sungchan, you’re free to play again for fun, if you’d like. You just can’t play for profit.”

Sungchan looked over at you in a silent question, and you shook your head. You were happy to play and win just the one time. After all, with everybody else still occupied, this would be the perfect time to do the other activities with little to no lines or crowding.

“No thank you, we’re bingo-ed out for tonight,” Sungchan called out, and the host nodded graciously.

“Very well. Everybody else hold tight while I come around to distribute new cards.”

As the two of you finally sat back down at your seats and looked over your prizes, you realized that you had never introduced yourself to Baekhyun. Not when he had passed out the cards, nor when he was giving you your prizes. But he knew your names. You snapped your head up towards the counter suspiciously again, but Shotaro was once again minding his business, cleaning out one of the machines.

Sungchan was readjusting the sizing of his hat, then finally pulled it on, offering you a lopsided grin. “What do you think?”

“Looks good on you.” You tapped the brim of it, feeling a familiar airiness in your chest, one that you hadn’t felt in some time. “You wear baseball caps a lot?”

“For sure, so I’ll get good use out of this.”

“Wear them for fashion or do you play a lot of sports?”

“Oh, uh, both, I guess? I like how they look, and I usually wear them when I’m out playing whatever to keep the Sun off my face, yeah.”

The pictures from Jeno’s Instagram of Sungchan on their trip to Cape Solaria suddenly came to mind, and you diverted your eyes down to the gift card in your hand as your skin started getting warmer and warmer. At this rate, he was going to be able to hear your heartbeat picking up the pace and the idea of that in and of itself was embarrassing enough to make it gain even more speed.

“So…” Sungchan inhaled, and you looked up with both your eyebrows raised.

Admittedly, you’d completely forgotten where the two of you were in your previous conversation. “Hm?”

“Do you want to finish the other two punches together?” He asked. “I know they’re not partner things, but we’re both here, and everyone else is busy doing bingo, so it’s probably the best time to do them and—”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” You grinned at him, standing up off your stool. “I’d love to, Sungchan. Besides, you’re still supposed to tell me about your research, remember?”

His features lit up as he followed you over to the origami station. “Right, right! Are you sure you want to hear about it, though? It’s on climate change and how it affects human disease, it’s a little doomsday-ish.”

“Ah, perfect for the holiday.” You pointed to the giant paper cut-out of a cartoon Cupid hanging above your heads, then reached for your first square of red paper. “I’m sure, go for it.”

“Okay, cool,” he beamed at you, grabbing a piece of patterned pink paper.

As Sungchan walked you through all the intricacies and machinations of the topic that his research with his professor was on, you were genuinely happy at how much you understood. He didn’t mind slowing down to answer your questions, or explain concepts that you didn’t know already. And you two could have an actual conversation tangential to the topic, because you had taken a Magical Conservation class just last semester that dealt directly with how climate change was affecting a lot of magical creatures, such as sirens who typically lived in and around glaciers that were now losing much of their native habitats due to the lack of year-round sea ice at the poles. And all the while, you both tried your damndest to make an origami heart.

“Okay, what the fuck?!” Sungchan huffed, cutting himself off in the middle of a thought about disease vectors. He smacked his crumpled piece of paper that looked nothing like a heart onto the table. “I’ve taken engineering classes, how am I getting bested by a primary school arts and crafts project?”

“It’s not a—”

“It literally says ages 8 and up on the instructions.”

You pressed your lips together in a line. “Ah. So it does.”

Yours didn’t look much better. It seemed as though you were both getting bested by a project meant for children.

“Well, Shotaro did say we just had to show him we tried and we’d get the punch,” you reminded him.

“No, no, I can get this,” he shook his head, grabbing a fresh sheet. “I just need to focus, and not talk while I do it. You’re too much of a distraction.”

“My apologies, I’ll be quiet this time,” you chuckled, covering your mouth with your hand as you leaned against the table to watch him try again.

He made every fold with precision, but you found that you weren’t really watching him fold so much as you were watching him. His brow was set in concentration, a small crease emerging in the knit of his brows, his eyes narrowed slightly, and the very tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips. It was cute, adorable, endearing, everything in the thesaurus, and you could’ve sat there and watched him fold origami hearts all night if he wanted to, punch card and free drink be damned.

Sungchan stood up straight, his features relaxing into a proud grin as he held his completed piece up for you to see. It was definitely a heart this time, a simple baby pink color, and you were amazed at how straight the lines were.

“Nice, Sungchan!” You praised him. “That’s what those engineering classes were for, huh?”

“I wasn’t going to let some project for ages 8 and up that Shotaro picked out get the best of me!” He declared, and you could practically see his chest puffing out with pride. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “So that’s what this was? Fragile STEM major ego?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Isn’t sociology a science?”

“I think you’re the first hard science major to ever say that.”

“It ends in -ology.”

“So do phrenology and astrology.”

“Fair. But seriously, is it not?”

“It is. But usually, you engineering and whatnot majors don’t like to consider us ‘soft sciences’ like sociology and anthropology and psychology to be ‘real sciences,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“Ohh, yeah… I’ve got better shit to do than tell a scientist that they’re not a scientist.”

“Like make children’s crafts.”

“Exactly.” He gave you another smile brighter than the Sun.

You nodded firmly. “A much better use of your time. Now, are you ready to take these to Shotaro?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

As the two of you walked up to the counter, you continued your earlier conversation, “And I will remind you that I’m actually an Interdisciplinary major, and also study MCS. Both of which are considered humanities, a label that I wear with pride, even more so than the ‘soft science’ one.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sungchan’s mouth as he looked down at you. “Noted.”

Shotaro was standing at the register, hands folded over each other and a smug smile on his face as he watched the two of you approach together. “Well, hey, guys! Congrats on your win!”

“Thanks, Shotaro.” You smiled back, holding your paper heart out to him. “We did the origami too.”

Sungchan held his up too, and you could see the proud look on his face as he did so.

“His is a lot better than mine,” you admitted as the siren took just a second to appraise them. Seeing the two side-by-side, yours was a bit misshapen, folds across parts that were supposed to be flat from you having to undo and redo parts over and over again.

“That’s okay! You guys just had to try,” Shotaro reminded you, picking up the hole punch. “Punch cards please?”

With just one punch left, you and Sungchan headed over to the photobooth in the corner. It was set up so that you didn’t have to pay for any of the films. Sungchan climbed in first, and you watched nervously where his head almost hit the top of the entrance.

“Goddamn this thing is tiny,” he observed as soon as he had poked his head in past the curtain.

“Is it small or are you a giant?” You asked pointedly.

Sungchan had fully entered the photobooth then, and retorted back, “Get in here and find out.”

As you parted the curtain and put just your first foot in, you immediately realized how cramped the two of you were going to be. “Okay, maybe a bit of both.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sungchan was already sat on the bench, and pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could to give you enough space to sit next to him. Your leg was squished in next to his, and his arm ended up around your shoulders. He was warm, as expected for a werewolf, whose body temperatures all ran naturally higher than humans.

As he shifted his shoulders and arm to settle around you, he double-checked, “Sorry, is this alright? It’s tight in here—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you turned your head to give him a smile, but were instead caught off-guard by just how close his face was to yours. If either one of you shifted forward right now, you would hit noses. Your breath hitched in your throat as you made eye contact with him. Oh, he could definitely hear your heartbeat in the tiny space afforded by the photobooth, surely as clear as you could hear it thudding in your own ears. God, you’d always thought he was cute, but something about being so close, and the lights in here hitting the angles of his face just right, he was striking, handsome. You curled your hands into fists in the material of your pants, not trusting yourself not to grab him and do something too wildly out of pocket.

The screen played a short melody at you, knocking you from your trance, and you turned your focus back to your task.

Pressing a couple buttons on the touchscreen, you looked between the height of the camera and Sungchan, squinting. “Is your head even going to show in frame?”

Sungchan swallowed, then cleared his throat before he spoke, as if his mouth had gone dry. “Guess we’ll find out after.”

“Alright, it’s a four-cut.” You announced after skimming the easy illustrated instructions. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay. 1, 2, 3.” You pressed the start button before sitting back in your seat against him again.

You smiled and held up a peace sign for the first one, and in the split second of the flash going off, you heard the werewolf next to you curse under his breath, “Fuck! That’s bright—” accompanied by the feeling of him flinching back, and immediately followed by a distinct thud.

Turning around as much as the space could allow for, you saw Sungchan curled in on himself, his eyes squinted shut presumably both in pain from the flash and from where he had just smacked the back of his head against the wall of the photobooth, judging by the hand he was cradling it with.

“Ooh! Sungchan, are you alright?” You asked through giggles, unable to get over the comical thunk! sound that his head had made.

Another flash went off, startling him into hitting his head again with another bonk! and this time you couldn’t help but burst out into full-bodied laughter, turning back toward the camera to not laugh directly in the poor guy’s face. You could barely see the third and fourth flashes because your eyes were squeezed shut as you laughed, running out of air and having to prop yourself up with a hand on Sungchan’s knee to not keel over.

Finally, you started sobering up enough to squint your eyes back open, and through your tears, you saw Sungchan smiling down at you as well.

“Alright, I don’t know if it was that funny…” he sighed, still holding his head.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your wheezes. “It was the sound, and the two in a row, it was just too much for me. I’m not laughing at your pain, I promise. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Thanks.” He reassured you, dropping his hand from his head and resting it on the one that you still had on his knee. “I… I really like your laugh.”

Your hand suddenly tingled. “Oh. Thank you…”

After a beat, he shifted his gaze from yours. “So where do the films print out at?”

“Uh, on the outside of the booth. Should be two, one for each of us.” You said quickly, getting up to exit the booth and put some space between the two of you again.

Sungchan followed you out, and you easily found the dispenser, where there were in fact two film strips. He grabbed them for you, looking over them first. A smile spread across his face as he continued holding them, and you started getting antsy the longer that you hadn’t seen them.

“What, are they that bad?” You asked with a light chuckle.

“What?” He snapped his focus up to you.

“You’ve been smiling at them for an awful long time. Did I blink or something?” You joked, knowing very well that you were laughing for half of them.

He sucked in air through his teeth, shaking his head regretfully. “Yeah, I think for your own sake, I should keep both of these. I mean, I look great but—”

“Sungchan, let me see!” You reached for them, but he yanked his hand back from you at the last second.

You lunged for them again, but he once again kept them just out of your reach, a sly grin on his lips. The next time you tried to grab them, he held them above his head, and he most unfortunately had a significant height advantage over you.

You were already in his personal space from grabbing for them before, practically chest-to-chest (well, really chest-to-face), and now had to crane your neck straight up to look at them. With a huff, out of breath, heart racing for more than one reason now, you weakly pulled on his shoulders as you pouted, “Sungchan, please!”

“Here, I warned you.” He said melodramatically, handing you one copy of the film strips.

You eagerly held it in both hands, scanning over the four pictures on it. The first one was normal, it looked like Sungchan had taken your lead and both of you were smiling and throwing up peace signs. The second one was where everything went to chaos. Sungchan was wincing in pain in the corner, holding his head, as you had the back of your head to the camera, one hand reaching uncertainly towards him. In the third, you were turned back towards the camera, a little blurry as you laughed, and Sungchan was squinting one eye open to look at you. And in the last one, you were still laughing, leaning on Sungchan for support as there was nothing but simple joy on your face; and Sungchan’s features had relaxed out of pain as he gazed down at you with a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Not as wide as yours was, but no less dim.

“These are so cute! You liar!” You elbowed Sungchan in the side.

“You didn’t let me finish. I look great, but you look radiant.”

“Good save.” You joked, but couldn’t suppress the smitten grin that wormed its way across your face. “And I’m keeping mine.”

Sungchan reached into the pocket of his jacket then, pulling out his pristine, baby pink origami heart from earlier. He held it out to you. “I-I wanted you to have this, too.”

“Aw, Sungchan…” You accepted the paper heart from him.

“Feel free to throw it out when you get home, I get it.”

“Hey, stop that.” You pinched his forearm where the sleeve of his jacket had fallen down. “Don’t do something sweet and then immediately take all the sincerity away by covering it with a layer of self-deprecation. If you’re going to be a sweetheart, own up to it or don’t do it at all.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, and you could see a flush creeping up from his collar to his cheeks. “You’re right. I wanted to give you that, sans trash can.”

You were beaming, tucking it into the inner pocket of your jacket and patting it. “Thank you, Sungchan. I’d offer you mine, but I think it really should go in the trash.”

“Look who’s not taking her own advice, hm?”

“Alright, if you want it,” you sighed, taking your own lumpy attempt at the origami heart out of your pocket and handing it over to him.

Sungchan plucked it from your fingers smugly. “Thank you.”

“I expect you to be buried with that now, by the way.”

“I’ll be sure to write it in my will.”

The two of you were still chuckling as you walked up to the counter again, your film strips and punch cards in hand to show them to Shotaro. Your siren friend reviewed the pictures with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You guys are so cute,” he commented so very subtly. “But uh, what happened here, Sungchan? Did you hit your head on something? How did you manage that one?”

As you covered your mouth to hide your giggles at the memory of the double bonk! resurfacing, Sungchan took his film strip back from his roommate. “Alright, are you going to give us the punches or not?”

Shotaro punched the final heart-shaped holes into both your cards. “And with that you’ve completed all the punches! Unfortunately, you can’t redeem the free drink tonight, but by all means, you are more than welcome to stay and hang out some more. We’ve got extended hours tonight, so you can keep doing the activities if you like, or just, you know… stay and chat or something.”

“Right, thanks, Shotaro.” Sungchan led you away with a hand on your back.

You ended up back at your original seat that you had sat at for the bingo game. The game finished while you were in the photobooth, the other patrons now milling around the shop again. Some were sitting, sipping on their drinks and enjoying each other’s company, others at the origami stations, others lining up at the photobooth, and still others back at the register ordering again. You looked down at the film strip in your hands before tucking it away safely with Sungchan’s origami heart. Looking around, you saw that Baekhyun was making rounds now that he was done hosting bingo, greeting customers and having conversations with everyone he stopped to talk to.

You didn’t want to leave yet, to have this night be over, to have your time with Sungchan be done. At least not without knowing if you’d see him again. This had been fun, really fun, and you wanted to see him again. Every bad first impression of him you’d gotten from your date had been wiped away.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You snapped your focus back over to him at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. You offered him a reassuring smile as you replied, “Yeah, Sungchan?”

He had taken his hat off, and was messing with the seam along the bottom band nervously. “I know I already said this, but I really am sorry for everything I said to you before. I was so incredibly wrong about you.”

“And I’ve already said thank you, so I suppose I’ll say I forgive you this time.” You squeezed his forearm. “So would you stop apologizing now?”

“I know we can’t start over completely, but…”

“Yes?” Your voice pitched up hopefully, your heart soaring along with it.

“Friends?”

Splat. Your heart plummeted back down with tremendous velocity.

It took all your willpower to keep your face from showing the disappointment you’d felt, and even then, you were sure it still fell minutely. You slapped on a rehearsed, customer service smile for him, too shocked that you’d apparently misread everything so badly to do much more than go through a script of what you should say. “Yeah, sure. Friends.”

Sungchan beamed at you, another heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest squeeze painfully. “Okay, great! Thank you, seriously!”

You threw open the door to Jasmine & Pearls the next morning so violently that it swung back the other way and rang the bell twice.

“Shotaro.”

The siren perked up to greet you. “Oh, Y/N! Back to redeem that free drink already, huh?”

“Sungchan here?” Your eyes flicked around the shop warily. You couldn’t see him, but now that you knew that the two of them were roommates, you had to be more careful.

“Oh, I see.” Your friend grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, you just missed him, actually, he had class, popped in on his way to campus.”

“Thank god,” you groaned, collapsing into a stool near the pick-up counter, face in your arms.

“Uh, I’m going to make you a drink. Your usual?”

“Sure…” You mumbled, the sound even more muffled by your arms.

As Shotaro prepared the drink, he picked your conversation back up. “Now, what happened? You two looked like you were having a lot of fun last night. Not to pat myself on the back too hard.”

You lifted your head up just enough to rest your cheek on your arms so your friend could hear you when you spoke. “Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Remember that awful date I went on last month?”

“Vaguely.”

“And Sungchan went on a bad date the same night.”

“Yeah. Did he do some kind of ‘all cards on the table’ confessional with you to try to scare you off?” Shotaro sighed, tossing his hand towel over his shoulder and putting his hands on his hips. “Listen, don’t worry, I know he says he ruined his date that night, but really he’s a big puppy—don’t tell him I said that, he’ll tear my throat out.” He paused, as if realizing what he had just said. “And don’t worry about that ‘tear my throat out’ thing either, I swear he’s super sweet. Honestly, something must have been wrong with that girl, he’s not—”

“It was me.” You cut him off bluntly.

“Huh?”

“Sungchan and I were each other’s terrible date that night.”

The siren slapped a hand over his face with a groan. “Oh my god, what did he do?”

“Now you think he did something? Two seconds ago, you swore there was ‘something wrong with that girl.’” You raised your eyebrows.

“Yeah, but I know you, Y/N. Him saying he fucked up and made you walk out? I can believe that.”

“We don’t have time to unpack all of that, but thanks, I guess.” You settled your cheek in your hand instead. “Anyway, it was all a mismatch at the time. He had his reasons, and I had mine, and I left. I didn’t harbor any ill will towards him, nor had I even thought about him until last night.”

Shotaro snorted, placing your finished drink in front of you. “Oh, well, can’t say the same for him.”

“What?”

“Whatever he did, he felt terrible about it. He kept talking about how he wanted to apologize to you, but he didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

You blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“I just thought it was like when you accidentally say ‘you too’ when the waiter tells you to enjoy your food and then you can’t stop thinking about that interaction for the next six months.”

Remembering the gist of your very short conversation from your one and only date with Sungchan, you shook your head. “No, not quite.”

“But it seems like you two made up last night, right?” Shotaro asked, head tilted.

“Yes, last night was so much fun. It’s what our first date should have been. We got to talk, and get to know each other, and joke, and laugh, and maybe flirt a little bit; and he’s funny, and smart, and a lot of fun...” You explained, trailing off pitifully at the end.

“So what’s the catch?”

“Well, I don’t know why I thought that at the end of the night, when he said,” you dropped your voice to mimic Sungchan, “‘I know we can’t start over completely, but—’ I don’t know why I thought that was going to be followed up by him asking me out, but it wasn’t.”

The siren’s jaw dropped. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. Friends...” You said with weak enthusiasm, giving him two thumbs-up and a feigned smile as if you were being held at gunpoint.

“Ooh, Y/N...” Shotaro grimaced.

You dropped your head into your hands in defeat. “And somehow I feel even stupider than I did leaving that date.”

“I’m going to ask him what the hell he’s thinking.”

“No the fuck you’re not!”

“Y/N—”

“I told you this in confidence, Osaki Shotaro, not so you could you blab how pathetic I am right back to him!”

“But I just did that with him to you.” He pointed out innocently. “Seems a bit unfair.”

“Thanks for just agreeing with me on the pathetic part.”

“Well—”

“You’re not helping!”

“I’m trying!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. With a sigh, he came up to lean against the counter, voice turning sympathetic once more. “Look, Sungchan probably just thinks that you would want nothing to do with him romantically after he ruined it so stupendously last time. So he doesn’t even want to put you in the awkward position of rejecting him again— or, he at least thinks you would reject him again.”

“You really think so?” You asked quietly, watching a bead of water run down the side of your cup.

“Best I can come up with.”

And all the hope in your chest puttered out like a limp, half-filled balloon. “So that was a guess.”

“I’m a siren, not a mindreader, sorry.”

“Ugh, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Shotaro. For the boba. You were useless otherwise.”

“Bye!” Your friend waved to you cheerily.

Being friends with Sungchan was pretty easy, actually. You already had a lot of the same friends (it was sort of weird that you hadn’t met before that date, you realized), and as long as somebody else was there, it was easy to ignore the ever-present, ever-growing crushing pain in your chest whenever you were with him. You didn’t like that it was like this, you hated being that person pining over one of their friends who had explicitly said that they just wanted to be friends. You’d tried to get yourself to feel like this about other guys—the cute phoenix in your Criminology class, or the funny gryphon that you were partnered up with for a project in your Introduction to Interdisciplinary class. But it was useless, your thoughts always came back Sungchan. And you weren’t friends with him in hopes that one day it would be different, either; you really didn’t want to be that friend. You were just enjoying Jung Sungchan, in whatever capacity you got him in.

And right now, that was a rather tenacious study buddy. When you’d off-handedly mentioned an upcoming test that you hadn’t studied for yet, he immediately made you compare schedules so that the two of you could do a study session before it. So now you were reviewing flash cards of some key concepts as Sungchan was hunched over a notebook of his own. Working on his research with his professor, you were pretty certain. He switched between his computer and handwritten notes so frequently that you weren’t sure how he kept it all straight, and all the numbers and Greek letters and letter letters made your head swim trying to decipher it. As long as it all made sense to him.

It all mostly made sense to you when he would explain it to you, if you were actually listening to the words he was saying and not just thinking about how nice his voice sounded, or how pretty he looked that day. Your brain was truly rotting from the inside out.

And you two were alone. You didn’t know if he had invited any of your other friends and they couldn’t make it or if this was a “just us” thing. That was something that he did that always made it so hard for you to keep your rule of never hoping for more. Sometimes you two would hang out and invite Shotaro and Jaemin and Jeno and Jeno’s girlfriend and maybe even some more of their friends that you weren’t as familiar with; and sometimes when you’d ask if you should invite anybody, Sungchan would reply with a shoulder shrug and a casual non-explanation that this should be a “just us” thing. You could never delineate what made an activity worthy of a group invite or a “just us” thing.

You stared at your screen with immense focus. Not on what was on the screen, your thoughts had long drifted from dryad folk tales and were now in an endless rumination on what the hell a “just us” thing was. You’d been to group study sessions and study sessions with just Sungchan. Group movie nights and movie nights alone with Sungchan—those were an especially bittersweet kind of awful, as he liked to share blankets. Group dinners and dinners with just the two of you. So what made something a “just us” activity? What was the—

Something in your periphery caught your attention, and snapped you out of your pensive thoughts that you’d been stewing in. It was a small, white, origami heart being pushed up from the bottom corner of your computer screen. You took it, smiling at Sungchan across the table from you, who sat up straight now that he no longer had to reach so far to deliver it to you.

Upon second glance, it looked like the heart was made out of notebook paper from his spiral notebook with notes on it in blue ink. You squinted to make out some of It in his messy scrawl, but gave up after reading just a portion of a complicated, technical word.

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You ran your fingertip along the crisp edge of the paper heart.

This had been one habit he’d picked up since the Valentine’s Day event at Jasmine & Pearls, he now made origami hearts whenever his fingers grew restless and he had access to a suitable piece of paper that could be torn to size if needed. You were usually the target of receiving them and now had a steadily growing collection in a small jar on your coffee table. You didn’t have it in you to throw them away.

“Something wrong, Y/N?” Sungchan asked. He had presumably noted the intense way you’d been staring at your screen the moments prior. “Or is the material just that bad for your test?”

“Ehh…” You sighed, rolling your neck out. “Just tired. Ready for the semester to be over, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is this made of your notes, by the way?” You held up the origami heart.

“Stuff I had to rip out and redo, I messed it up.”

You then stood up to crack your back, groaning at the cathartic cracking sounds that came with it. “God, I think my spine needs to be folded up like that origami, holy shit.”

“Fix your posture,” Sungchan snorted. “You sit like a little shrimp using a computer.”

Your jaw dropped as you put a hand to your chest, unsure of whether to laugh or be offended. Ultimately, you keeled over with laughter, having to plop back down in your desk chair—hunched over—to catch your breath again. Sungchan was watching you with a fond smile, reclined back in his chair with some not very great posture himself.

“A shrimp?”

“A little shrimp,” he corrected you. “A cute little shrimp using her little computer and fucking up her back in the process.”

“Alright, it’s not my fault you’re literally a tree. Anybody is a little shrimp compared to the man who almost broke a photobooth because he was too tall for it,” you teased him back through the fresh squeezing of your chest at him calling you ‘cute,’ even if it was followed by the words ‘little shrimp.’

“You’re never letting me live that one down, huh?”

“Never. I’ll be telling that story at your funeral, where you’ll be buried with my mangled origami heart, remember?”

“You’re banking on the fact that you’re going to outlive me in this scenario.”

“Right, my bad. Werewolves are the hardier species, so obviously you’ll outlive me.”

“Well, statistically—”

“Statistics say nothing about the power of spite, Sungchan. I will outlive you out of spite, so that I can tell that story at your funeral. And if not, I will have a backup recording of me telling that story, and in my will, have orders that it be played at your funeral.”

“You’re going to put it in your will to make sure you have the last word in case I outlive you? Which, statistically, I will.”

“Yes.”

The two of you held your defiant eye contact for another moment before you burst out in coordinated laughter, all tension fizzling out.

“I do expect that fucked-up origami heart to go down with you, though,” you pointed at him through your laughs, still only half-serious.

“Only if one of the hundreds I’ve given you by now makes it down with you,” he nodded, holding his pinky finger out.

You linked yours with it. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

As you walked out of the library together after you’d finally determined that your studying was over, Sungchan checked his watch.

“You doing anything else tonight?” He asked.

“Nothing in particular.” You shrugged. “Eating dinner. Sleeping. Why?”

“Want to come over?”

“Is Shotaro going to be home?”

“He’s closing at the shop today I think.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Apparently sensing your hesitation, Sungchan nudged your side as he teased, “What? Am I not fun enough for you? You need Shotaro there to convince you to come over, too?”

“Yeah, you’re such a snoozefest, Sungchan,” you wrinkled your nose, elbowing him back. “Taro’s the only thing that keeps me from falling asleep every time I’m over at your place.”

“You hurt me, Y/N.”

With a melodramatic sigh, you relented, “I suppose I’ll make an exception. But I will nap where I see fit if you bore me too much.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can get them.”

At Shotaro and Sungchan’s place, you followed Sungchan into his bedroom. Normally, if Shotaro were home, the three of you would all hang out in their living room. But it was just you and Sungchan.

He toed his shoes off and flopped onto his bed face-first, spread-eagle.

“Oh, and who were we worried about taking a nap?” You scoffed, taking his desk chair. He had a gridded whiteboard above his desk that was mostly taken up by a to-do list of upcoming deadlines. But a small area labeled “Notes” by the company who made it was dedicated to pictures instead: the film strip of you two from Valentine’s Day at Jasmine & Pearls hung there by a magnet in the shape of a hurricane, a picture from the group trip to Cape Solaria from last summer under a tornado, and another of a younger Sungchan and Shotaro (early high school if you had to guess) at an arcade pinned by a tsunami.

Your friend rolled over onto his back. “I’m not napping, just basking.”

“Basking? In what?”

“Being done with today.”

“Have a bad day?”

“Just long. Had a long week, long semester, long three years.”

“Mm, felt that,” you agreed, knocking your own shoes off and folding your legs up in the desk chair.

The two of you were quiet for a while, and you would’ve thought that Sungchan had actually fallen asleep, if you couldn’t see that his eyes were open as he apparently just stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling with even breaths. You let the silence remain, content to just rest your arms on the back of the chair with your chin atop them, and look at him.

“Y/N?” He finally spoke, his voice soft.

“Yeah?”

Sungchan’s head lolled so he could look over at you, his warm brown eyes focused on your face. He had an unreadable expression on his features; not one of sadness, or pain, or really much of anything. It was like he didn’t even know what he was feeling. “Have you gone on a date? Since... you know, the one we went on?”

You blinked. You weren’t sure what exactly you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. After a moment, you shook your head. “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

The corner of his lip twitched, but from your positions, you couldn’t tell if it was pulling towards a smile or a frown. “No.”

Another beat of silence. You continued staring at each other.

“Do you want to?” He asked, his voice so unnaturally devoid of intonation that you once again couldn’t glean the purpose of this discussion.

“What?” The word tumbled out of your mouth fast, defensively.

“I-I mean, are you going to? Like, is there anybody...?”

You looked at him, taking a good few seconds before you answered. He at least seemed nervous now, stuttering, his eyes flitting between you and the ceiling fan.

“No.” You answered plainly. No qualifying statements: any attempts at expounding would just land you in trouble. “You?”

“No...” He echoed. “You would tell me, right? If you were?”

This felt like a trap. Not from Sungchan, you knew he wasn’t like that, but from the Universe, somehow. And no matter what you did, you were going to fall into the spike pit.

“Yeah, Sungchan, of course.” You mustered up your well-practiced casual smile. “Always need approval from the counsel of friends for that kind of stuff.”

He did smile at that—not a full one with teeth, and it didn’t reach his eyes—but he smiled and nodded. “Good. Got to make sure they’re not a weirdo. You know there’s all kinds of magical creatures who will just date human women for the ego trip in bed, right?”

“I did know that,” you chuckled. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

“Always am, Y/N. And I always will be.”

Rocking back and forth from your heels to your toes nervously, you kept your eyes trained on the apartment door in front of you. Sungchan knocked on it. Your actions were stopped by your friend grabbing your arm and pulling you back down to flat feet.

“Y/N, I told you it’s going to be fine, seriously. They’re your friends, too,” he reminded you for probably the twelfth time that day.

When he’d randomly texted you earlier that morning asking if you wanted to go to Jeno’s birthday party with him tonight, you were very hesitant to accept. Mostly because you hadn’t received an invite from the birthday wolf himself. But after some more pestering from Sungchan, you gave in. Maybe if you didn’t have such a weak heart, you would’ve been firmer on your no. But instead, here you were, having signed your name under Sungchan’s on the birthday card the two of you bought on your way over, a gift card tucked inside with enough money pre-loaded on it to cover a nice meal for Jeno and his girlfriend.

“Then why didn’t he—” Your whispered question was cut off by the door swinging open, the bright smile of Lee Jeno greeting you.

“Hey guys, come on in!” The werewolf opened the door even wider, not seeming surprised at all to see you there next to Sungchan. He gave the both of you hugs after closing the door behind you.

You patted his back in the hug, offering a sheepish smile, “Hey, Jeno, Happy Birthday. Sorry to just show up. Sungchan insisted it was fine…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Everyone knows if we’re inviting Sungchan that we’re inviting you, too. It’s cool.” He said brightly. “You want something to drink?”

Trying not to get stuck on that little information bomb he’d dropped so casually, you looked around the fairly packed apartment, recognizing most everyone who was there, including a couple people by the drinks table. “You know, I see Jaemin and Donghyuck over by the drinks, I’ll go get it myself. Thank you, though, and Happy Birthday again.”

Jeno perked up in a different direction as if he’d heard his name being called—which he very well could’ve with his superior hearing—and he took off, disappearing into the kitchen. You’d been to Jeno and Jaemin’s place a few times before, mostly to hang out with Jaemin over the time that you’d known the dryad from Bot Club, and more recently, a couple times for group hangouts since Jaemin, Jeno, Jeno’s girlfriend, and Sungchan were all friends.

“I’m going to get some food,” Sungchan nodded towards the same direction Jeno had gone in. “Want anything?”

You stood on your tiptoes, unable to discern any of the options they had available, other than the fact there would be a lot of it to feed the werewolf guests. “Just get extra of whatever you think I’ll like, I’m not very hungry right now.”

“On it.”

While he went to do that, you made your way across the living room to the two dryads you had spotted earlier, both standing by the drinks table.

“Hey…” You said, still feeling awkward despite Jeno’s easy acceptance of you.

“Y/N! Hey!” Donghyuck greeted you cheerily.

“You made it!” Jaemin gave you a one-armed hug.

“Sounds like you were expecting me then?”

“Well, yeah.” Donghyuck said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (which was bewildering to you, considering you didn’t even know you were coming until this afternoon).

The two dryads exchanged a look.

“I mean, Sungchan was coming, so…” Jaemin shrugged.

Donghyuck peered around the party. “Speaking of, where’d your wolfboy go?”

“He went to get some food. And he’s not. my. wolfboy, you little shit.” You glared at him. “And don’t call him a wolfboy either, you know he doesn’t like to be called stuff like that. Call Jeno ‘puppy’ or whatever all you want but leave Sungchan out of it.”

“I thought he didn’t like dog terms, but wolf terms he was fine with, since he is a werewolf.” Jaemin said.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck nodded.

You put your hands on your hips with a frank sigh, “As if wolfboy isn’t also diminutive and meant to—”

“Woah, abort, abort, Y/N’s going into Renjun-mode.”

Jaemin looked over at the other dryad regretfully. “Worse than Renjun-mode, this isn’t just educational.”

“You two are so obnoxious, I’m going to stage a coup in Bot Club one of these days,” you declared with a scoff.

“Hey...” Another voice entered the conversation from over your shoulder, and you looked up to see Sungchan stepping in between you and Donghyuck, a plate loaded up with food in his hand.

“Speak of the wolf and he shall appear.” Donghyuck had a wicked grin on his face. You were amazed sometimes that he wasn’t a fairy.

“What were you guys talking about? Y/N didn’t look happy.”

“It was nothing, Sungchan, don’t worry about it.” You tried to reassure him, sending pointed stares at each of the dryads with you.

Donghyuck was apparently not going to let up, though. “Hey, Sungchan, you down to do a little thought experiment with me?”

“Thought experiment?” The werewolf echoed.

“Yeah, just real quick. I ask you a hypothetical question, you give me a hypothetical answer. Just for fun.”

“A thought experiment with Donghyuck. Sounds thrilling, sure.” Sungchan agreed humorously, popping a piece of food in his mouth.

“So, if someone were to call you dog-like terms—which we know you’re not cool with and would never do—who would you most be okay with doing that?”

The werewolf narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why would anybody do that?”

“It’s a thought experiment, Sungchan, come on. Play in this space with me!” Donghyuck whined, shaking the other man’s shoulder.

“Let’s rephrase then,” Jaemin joined in, a mischievous glint in his eye. You looked around to make sure Chenle wasn’t secretly listening in or something, because this surely had to be the work of your fairy prince acquaintance. You spotted the fairy very engaged in his conversation with his dragon roommate Jisung and a few other people. It seemed like the two dryads really were just deciding to be the absolute worst all on their own.

“Narrower scope. Would you be okay with, for example, Y/N calling you stuff like that?”

“Why would she do that?” Sungchan asked, confused.

“Yeah, why would I do that?” You asked, angry. They were clearly trying to get at something specific, make him admit something.

Jaemin offered an example, “Well, you know, Jeno’s girlfriend calls him ‘pup’ as a term of endearment.”

“And why would I do that?!” You repeated, feeling your stomach drop to the floor at how exactly he stressed those words.

“We’re getting off-topic here, it’s all hypothetical, remember?” It was amazingly Donghyuck who sort of saved you. “We know Y/N would never do it. But like… if she did, for some reason unbeknownst to us, what would you do? Would you be okay with it?”

Sungchan’s brow was furrowed as he seemed to genuinely contemplate this while he ate another bite of food. You, meanwhile, were plotting how best to kill two dryads. You knew enough from Bot Club, maybe a super-strong version of the magical weed spray you used would work... Were dryads more plant or more person?

“Well…” The werewolf finally began his answer, seeming to choose each word carefully. “Since I know Y/N, I know that if she were, in this batshit, hypothetical scenario, to do that, that she wouldn’t mean it in a derogatory way. So I guess I’d be more okay with her doing it than other people. Definitely more than you two weirdos who are posing this thought experiment that isn’t fun at all.”

“Thank you, Sungchan.” Donghyuck grinned at him, then turned to Jaemin. “I thought that was very fun and enlightening. What about you, Jaemin?”

Jaemin nodded thoughtfully. “I had a great time. Y/N?”

“You guys are so fucking annoying.” You groaned, grabbing a piece of food from Sungchan’s plate. “Leave me out of your thought experiments next time, please.”

The spring semester ended not long after Jeno’s birthday party, and you very thankfully didn’t have to take any summer classes, freeing up a lot of spare time for you. Sungchan, on the other hand, had to take a couple courses in order to make sure he would graduate on time. While you jokingly whined and complained when he told you about it, you were secretly relieved to have extra reasons to avoid him. As terrible as that sounded.

This afternoon, while he was in class, you had gone down to the river with Shotaro and Yuta, who miraculously both had a day off work at the same time. You didn’t even realize Jasmine & Pearls had enough employees to let the both of them take the same day off.

You were sat in your pop-up chair on the small beachy area, pulling your phone from your bag to check it while the two sirens continued lazing about in the waist-deep water. There was a text from Sungchan from a few minutes ago, and as you opened it up to read it, you realized that he was just sending you a funny picture he’d found somewhere online.

[you: aren’t you supposed to be focusing on class right now?]

“Sungchan?” Shotaro called out to you knowingly.

“What?” You yelled back, holding a hand up to shadow your face from the sun. Looking around your chair, you grabbed your baseball cap that you’d won in Valentine’s Bingo, pulling that on now that you were out of the water.

“You’ve got this little smile on your face that you only get when Sungchan texts you.”

“No I do not.”

Yuta stood up from where he had been floating on his back, shaking the water out of his hair as he asked you with a smirk, “So you don’t have a text from Sungchan on your phone screen right now?”

Your phone buzzed then, a welcome excuse to not have to answer that.

[sungchan: allegedly]

[you: i don’t want you whining to me when you fail that class]

You clicked your phone off, showing them the blank screen. “Nope, nothing on my screen.”

“You’re such a liar,” Yuta sighed, saying it as if it were as simple of a fact as the sky being blue or the grass being green. He trudged through the water up the shore until he could join you, plopping down in his chair next to yours. They had both kept their legs this afternoon instead of bringing out their tails, and he kicked his apart as he got comfortable.

Shotaro jogged up from the water too, grabbing the cooler and rooting around in it for a second. After securing the other half of his sandwich from the lunch that you all had eaten earlier, he sat down next to Yuta, taking a big bite from it.

You took Yuta’s lead and settled back in your chair, closing your eyes and just enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon Sun.

“He talks about you all the time, by the way.” Shotaro cut into your peace and quiet. If you had something within arm’s reach other than your metal reusable water bottle, you would’ve thrown it at him.

“Shotaro...” You groaned, rolling your eyes. You didn’t even need to ask who he was talking about.

“Seriously! ‘Y/N and I did this today.’ ‘Don’t wait up for me, I’m going to the movies with Y/N.’ ‘Y/N told me this funny story today.’ ‘Did you know such and such about this or that? Y/N’s so smart.’” He admittedly did a pretty good Sungchan impression. You would’ve laughed at it in any other context, but instead you were just annoyed.

“Yeah, well, we’re friends. We hang out, and do things together. He’s going to be talking about me,” you snapped. “He talks about you a bunch too. Because you guys, you know, live together. He also talks about his professors, and Jeno, and—”

“But it’s not the same.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He insisted.

Shotaro clearly wasn’t going to let up, so you momentarily engaged this line of thinking, hoping you could squash it. “What’s so different, then?”

“He’ll find just any reason to bring you up, for one. We’re grocery shopping? ‘Oh, Y/N likes this flavor.’ ‘We should pick this up for when Y/N comes over.’ ‘Shotaro don’t get that, Y/N doesn’t like it.’” His impression turned more high-pitched and whining. “We’re watching TV? ‘This reminds me of when Y/N and I did this...’ ‘I bet Y/N would love this show, we should watch it the next time she comes over.’ ‘Y/N has a shirt just like that character.’ We’re hanging out with other people? ‘Hey Sungchan, what uh, what are you giggling at on your phone over there?’” He first kept his normal tone of voice, then switched into his over-the-top fake-Sungchan. “‘Oh, Y/N just texted me something funny. But it’s an inside joke, so you guys wouldn’t get it, sorry.’ ‘Man, I wish Y/N could’ve come, sucks she had to work.’”

“Are you done?” You asked tersely, unamused.

“I could go on ad nauseum—”

“One could argue you already have.”

Yuta snickered.

“—but let’s call it there.”

“Thank God.”

Shotaro wasn’t done with his spiel yet, though. “I have had multiple friends, when he’ll first bring you around somewhere, quietly ask me if you’re Sungchan’s girlfriend and they like, missed when you two started dating.”

“I get it, I get it.” You said firmly, bringing a hand up to rub your face.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Y/N, you’re an MCS major, I’m sure you’ve heard about what can happen to werewolves if there’s something discordant in their lives that isn’t alleviated?”

“You think he’s going to get pupsick because he’s allegedly got a crush on me?” You sputtered out in disbelief, your voice caught between a chuckle and a scoff at how absurd that sounded to you.

“It happened to Jeno.”

“Yeah, but he’s Jeno. With all due respect and no intention to kinkshame, he probably lets his girlfriend put a collar on him.”

Yuta shot up as he cackled, slapping his knee and coughing. He scrambled to grab his water bottle, taking a couple sips as he struggled to catch his breath.

Shotaro pushed on like you hadn’t said anything, “Now, I don’t want to have to put up with a pupsick Jung Sungchan, do you? That sounds awful. For me, obviously, since I live with him.”

“Shotaro, you are half-right about one thing.”

“And what’s that?” He asked smugly.

“I am kind of an MCS major. So I also know that Sungchan isn’t overly touchy with me, he hasn’t given me anything of his that smells like him, he doesn’t feed me, or do any other pre-mating behaviors that are ingrained in werewolves.” You ticked them each off on your fingers. “Look, I hate stereotyping you guys by your species. But if he’s apparently so down bad that he can’t help but talk about me every waking second of the day, wouldn’t at least one of these things that are literally instinctual to him have happened?”

Shotaro raised an eyebrow. “You do know that he’s half-werewolf, right?”

“What?” You blinked at him.

“Yeah, his mom’s a werewolf, and his dad’s a human.”

You’d had an MCS class on the Effects of Modern Integration, which had a unit specifically on the subject of cross-species offspring. Some species could have offspring together while others couldn’t, it depended both on genetic similarity and compatibility of their magic. With humans having no magic, that left only genetic similarity as a factor, making them a lot more compatible for producing such cross-species offspring. Werewolves and humans were one of the more common pairings to have such offspring, as they had one of the most extensive histories of living together.

Sungchan’s behavior on your first and only date immediately sprung to mind. His hesitance around humans dating werewolves just because they’re werewolves. “Are they...?”

“Happily married. They helped us move into our apartment last year.” Shotaro apparently knew exactly where your question was going. “But yeah, Sungchan’s half-human. As best I can tell, he’s kind of like a super-zen werewolf. Able to control everything a lot better than full werewolves because all of the wolf instincts and stuff aren’t as powerful.”

“He still shifts?” Despite the estimated number of half-werewolves being greater than the confirmed population of sphinxes, unicorns, and phoenixes combined, there was little actually known about them academically. It was all word of mouth, as no large-scale study had been able to be done on them. They were apparently reluctant to come forward and make themselves known to researchers. And their friends.

“Yeah, every full moon. Which I think is why he really just considers himself a werewolf.”

“I didn’t know,” you admitted, biting the inside of your cheek as you were still absorbing this information.

“Anyway, he can probably control whatever pre-mating instincts he does have a lot better than full werewolves!”

“And he’s probably doing that because he knows that you know what pre-mating behaviors look like and thinks you would get weirded out.” Yuta suggested, finally entering the conversation instead of just letting you two go back and forth over him. “Since you’re kind of an MCS major.”

“Exactly!”

You pursed your lips, an uneasiness creeping up on you about the whole situation. “I don’t know guys…”

“You said he doesn’t feed you?” Yuta questioned thoughtfully.

“No, he doesn’t. And you two are around us plenty, have either of you ever seen him try to?” You asked pointedly.

“No, but what Shotaro was saying about grocery shopping. He always buys your favorite foods, flavors he knows you likes, even makes Shotaro put stuff back that he knows you think are unappetizing.”

“I’ve never asked him to do anything like that.”

“And yet he does. Now, overly touchy is subjective. Does he—”

“No, we’re not doing this.” You cut him off, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Doing what?”

“Dissecting mine and Sungchan’s friendship and putting it up on a conspiracy board. I’m not playing. And if that’s all you guys are going to do, then I’m leaving.”

Shotaro jumped in, “Y/N, why can’t you even consider that—”

“Because he already asked to be friends and I said yes,” you said angrily, feeling your blood finally reach its boiling point. “I knew what I was getting myself into, and having you guys trying to convince me that it’s something that he already said it’s not, isn’t fucking helping.”

They were both quiet for a beat, and you clenched your jaw. You couldn’t keep sitting right now, you had to go somewhere, do something. If you stayed here, somebody’s feelings were going to get hurt. You stood up, stuffing all of your things haphazardly back into your bag. “Actually, fuck it, I’m leaving anyway.”

“Y/N, we didn’t mean to—”

“I know, you think you’re trying to help or whatever the fuck. But just drop it, okay?” You shoved your feet back in your shoes and slung your bag over your shoulder. “I need to go or I’m going to end up saying something nasty that I don’t really mean and regret it. I’ll see you guys later.”

And with that, you took off, leaving the chair you had borrowed from Yuta on the shore. You took your baseball cap back off to mess with your damp hair as you speedwalked down the city sidewalks. All the angry energy from wanting to just go off on your friends was still coursing through you, and despite Yuta having to pick you up and drive you the couple miles or so to the river, you figured that you might as well walk the whole way back home to blow off steam.

A little more than halfway home, your phone buzzed in your hand with a call, and you glanced at it intending to just send it to voicemail. But it was Sungchan. You stared down at it as you waited to cross a street, an unsure thumb hovering over your screen.

Glancing between your phone and the crosswalk signal, it changed to walk, and you rushed to cross. The call went to voicemail.

Just a few seconds later, your phone lit up with the missed call, a voicemail, then a text from him. You sighed, clicking on the voicemail first.

“Hey, Y/N,” Sungchan’s voice came through clearly. It sounded like he was outside, probably on campus and fresh out of class, if you had to guess by the time. “It’s Sungchan. Obviously. Uh, anyway, I just got out of class, wanted to see if you maybe wanted to come over? I know you’re supposed to be with Shotaro and Yuta, but Shotaro just texted me and said—well, it’s kind of a long story. Just let me know if you can come over, and I’ll tell you when you get here, okay? I’m headed back to my place right now. Okay, bye.”

Shotaro.

Still fucking meddling after you asked him to drop it. If you were less than halfway back from the river, you’d turn around and throttle him.

You checked the text from Sungchan.

[sungchan: hey! i’m out of class. are you busy?]

[you: i can be over in twenty. is that okay?]

You shifted uncomfortably as you stood in front of the front door to Shotaro and Sungchan’s apartment. Your hair wasn’t as damp thanks to your long walk in the hot Sun, and your skin was dry, but you still held yourself as you stared down the center of the white door. You hadn’t knocked yet. You didn’t want to know what Shotaro had told Sungchan, having already convinced yourself that it was everything. That you were about to walk into Friendzoning 2: Electric Boogaloo, this time with Letting Y/N Down Easy. It made your stomach churn, your chest squeeze like a vice around your heart, and your head feel like it had been cast in lead.

You shifted your weight between your feet on the welcome mat, trying to muster up the strength to just knock on the fucking door, when it swung open.

Sungchan was in a pair of dark sweatpants and a dark red t-shirt from your school’s astronomy club—dated for fall two years ago. He offered you a familiar smile, stepping back from the doorway to make room for you. “Hey, I thought I heard you. Come in.”

“Hey. And thanks.” You nodded, slipping by him into his apartment.

Wordlessly, he started leading the way further back towards his room. You longingly looked at the wide-open space of the living room as you disappeared down the hallway. In his bedroom, you saw his desk taken up by his laptop and a spread of notebooks and papers. His bookbag was in his desk chair.

“Sorry, I know that’s your usual spot, but I was doing some homework.” Sungchan had noticed where your gaze was focused. He patted the foot of his bed as he went to sit down against the headboard. “Come on, you can sit with me for once.”

You swallowed and nodded, stepping back out of your shoes and setting your bag down. Climbing onto the end of his bed, you sat with your legs criss-crossed, fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.

“So why did Shotaro text you?” You decided to just go straight into it. No small talk or pleasantries about his class or what homework he was working on. “What’d he say?”

“He told me that he told you that I’m half-werewolf,” Sungchan said bluntly. “I figured I owed you a bit more of an explanation.”

Oh. Well that wasn’t what you were expecting at all.

“You really don’t owe me anything, Sungchan,” you shook your head, your eyes trained on his comforter. “You don’t have to explain who you are to me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

It was a touching sentiment, but it felt like a hot knife right in your gut. He wanted to because he cared about you as a friend. Not in the same way that you cared about him.

You could only manage a soft, “Okay…”

“It’s not some big secret, really. I’m not ashamed of my dad or anything. I love him, he’s a cool guy.” Sungchan started, and you felt like that first part was more to reassure you that it was okay for you to know. He was pointing to a picture that you’d seen a countless number of times before, hanging next to the mirror above his dresser. It was of him at his high school graduation, flanked on either side by his parents, proud, beaming smiles on all of their faces. You’d always assumed they were both werewolves when you’d looked at that picture, and only ever noticed that Sungchan got his smile from his mom, and his nose from his dad. The height difference between his mom and dad never really registered to you, as Sungchan towered over both of them, but now you did see that his mom was almost a head taller than his dad. Not a trait intrinsic to either species, just more of a trend.

But then, his tone turned a little more pensive, “I just... don’t tell people at first because I get a whole slew of questions, from the mundane stuff like ‘How was it growing up with one werewolf parent and one human parent?’ Which like... I don’t know, it was like growing up with two parents? To the people who think that I’m some oddity and therefore they can just ask me completely unprompted about what my dick looks like. And then at the end of it, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just some dumb mutt to them, no matter how you look at it.”

“Sungchan—” His name came out of your mouth instinctually, pained, as you could only imagine what he had experienced to ever be able to call himself that, even cynically as he was doing now.

“It’s okay. I don’t really care about those kinds of people.” He reassured you, offering a small smile. “That’s why I don’t waste my time on them anymore. I just say I’m a werewolf, and eventually they’ll find out more if they need to.”

“I’m sorry, that Shotaro just—”

“Y/N, it’s fine, seriously. I’m okay with you knowing. I know you’re not going to be weird about it. And Shotaro knew that too; I’m sure however it came up in conversation, it made sense for him to tell you.”

You thought about the context of when Shotaro revealed Sungchan’s lineage, wincing minutely. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You can ask me questions, I don’t mind since it’s you.” He then added teasingly, “Come on, Miss Magical Creatures Studies, I know you want to…”

“Not because I think you’re some oddity to be studied, but because I care and I want to understand more about you…” You prefaced your question. “Shotaro said that you still shift every full moon. Are your shifts any different than full werewolves?”

“From what I can tell watching other wolves shift, it’s not as painful, for one. So, bonus!” He said the last word with mock excitement. “The shift itself doesn’t last as long. And some wolves, especially younger ones who are going through their first shifts, tend to get kind of moodier in the days leading up to the full moon. I never got that. Just, everything is kind of… less for me.”

“Everything?” You asked, brows furrowed with confusion.

“My senses are more heightened than a human’s but less than the average werewolf, when I’m not shifted.”

“Ah.”

“And I probably wouldn’t fare great in a werewolf arm wrestling championship,” he tacked on lightheartedly.

“Damn, I had you signed up in one for this weekend,” you joked, clicking your tongue in the back of your throat in fake disappointment. “Put money down and everything.”

He played along, “Well, I guess I can still try for you.”

You smiled to yourself, then looked up at him as you took a deep breath. Whether or not you two were here because you cared about each other in different ways, you at least still cared about each other. And you’d be an idiot to throw out that kind of connection. You’d have to suck it up, hunker down, and connect with him on his terms.

“Thanks for being so open about this with me, Sungchan. I know it wasn’t your choice to tell me, and I know you already said it wasn’t a secret either. But still, I feel... very grateful that you would want to share any part of yourself like this with me.” You tried to pick your words carefully, to convey as much genuine emotion as you could without veering too far into romantic territory. You could still easily picture yourself saying something like this to Jaemin, or Shotaro. Maybe not Donghyuck, though.

“Ah, what’s that?” Sungchan squeezed his eyes shut, a bashful smile coming to his face.

“What’s what?” You asked with a breathy chuckle, feigning offense. “Am I not allowed a moment of sincerity?”

“No, you’re not.” He said it in an overly joking tone, so you knew that he wasn’t actually upset with you.

“And why not?” You mimicked his tone.

He sighed, teasing falling from his voice as he fully leaned back against his headboard, seeming to take you in for a few seconds before answering. “Not if you’re going to be looking at me like that when you’re being all sincere.”

“Like what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, no sir. You do not get to start an avenue of conversation like that and not finish it,” you pointed at him accusingly. “What am I looking at you like?”

The werewolf held your gaze steadily as he said, “Like you want something more.”

You felt your stomach drop as you rushed to get up from his bed, putting even more distance between the two of you. “I’m sorry, Sungchan. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He knew, he knew, he knew.

“Y/N, don’t get me wrong, please.” Sungchan stood up after you, grasping your hand before you could run out on instinct. His grip was loose so that you could leave if you wanted, but the presence was enough to let you know that he still wanted you there, to listen to him. His hand was warm as it held yours, but it burned like you’d grabbed red-hot metal. “I-I think you’re one of the most incredible, smart, fantastic people I’ve ever met. And I’m so grateful that you gave me a second chance.”

“But you don’t like me like that. Yeah, I can see where this is going.” You shook him off, searching the floor for your bag and shoes. This was going to be embarrassing, putting sneakers back on after getting rejected like that.

“No, I do.”

Sungchan’s words stopped you in your tracks, and you slowly turned back around to face him again. Your heart was a drum banging in your ears, you couldn’t trust that they weren’t all—your heart and your ears—playing tricks on you.

“You… what?” You were dumbfounded, staring up at him with a mixture of disbelief and thinly-veiled suspicion. You’d spent far too long convincing yourself that he just liked you as a friend to throw it all out over three words.

“I was going to ask you on another date, that night at the boba shop, I really was,” he explained. “But I realized just how lovely and wonderful you were. And I thought that you didn’t deserve... all the hatred that would come with it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love my parents, but growing up I got to see firsthand just the worst sorts of people… The things that my parents would be called, that I would get called, by other humans and other werewolves. It’s gotten a lot better, but I mean, Jeno’s girlfriend got called a knotslut at the park out of nowhere. And you don’t deserve to have that be your life.”

You narrowed your eyes up at him. “You think you’re not worth it?”

It was his turn to be thrown off-guard. “What?”

“You think that you, and being with you, aren’t worth it?” You reiterated.

“I wasn’t really thinking of it like that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“Do you think that? That you’re not worth it?”

“Well now that you say it like that, no, I don’t think that.” He frowned thoughtfully, his brow set with determination.

“And, I know you didn’t mean it like this, Sungchan, but you took the choice away from me. For a very sweet reason, I acknowledge that. But you didn’t give me a say in the matter. Imagine how that makes me feel.” You sighed, watching guilt flicker across his face. “I’m not going to pretend like I know at all what it was like for you growing up. Or what it’s like now. But I can tell you that I want this, that I want you. I want to be there for you, just like I know you’d be there for me if something ever did happen.”

“Of course I would be,” he declared.

Taking a step closer to him, you tentatively let a familiar airiness return to your chest, chasing out the painful squeeze that had been suffocating you since February. “See? We’ll have each other, Sungchan. Someone calling me something won’t matter as long as you’ll be there with me afterwards. You don’t have to prevent everything bad ever from happening, just hold my hand afterwards until it’s all better, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded resolutely. “I can do that.”

“And I’ll do the same for you. Deal?” You held your pinky finger out to him.

He hooked his with yours. “Deal.”

Sungchan lowered your connected hands, and you watched curiously as he unlinked his pinky, only to turn your hand over with both of his and trace gentle circles into the palm of your hand with his pointer finger.

“Y/N?” He murmured.

You snapped your focus back up to his face at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. He was still gazing down at your hands as you replied, “Yes?”

“I know we really can’t start over completely now, but…”

“If you say ‘friends’ right now, even as a joke, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, half-werewolf strength be damned.” You whispered through gritted teeth.

He sputtered out a chuckle, shaking his head fondly and the circles on your palm never slowing. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. That would be a terrible joke.”

“Good.”

“I was going to ask...” He inhaled shakily, finally drawing his eyes up to yours. “If we could try that date again?”

A smile pulled at the corners of your mouth, and you nodded quickly. “Yeah, Sungchan. I’d love that.”

Sungchan beamed at you, a heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest flutter with hope. “Okay! Thank you, thank you!”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm. “You’re welcome.”

Leaping to your feet at the knock that just came from your front door, you ran to answer it. You threw the door open, abuzz with excitement.

It was just about a week later, and you and Sungchan were finally trying that date again. You’d actually seen him once in the intermittent days, at a previously scheduled group movie night at Jeno and Jaemin’s place. The two of you were all knowing smiles and questionably accidental bumps and brushes of skin under the blanket that you shared that night.

But tonight Sungchan was in your hallway, smiling nervously down at you. “Hi.”

“Hi, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your shirt. He had specifically told you to dress casually and comfortable, but you still felt weirdly underdressed, even seeing that he was in a t-shirt and jeans himself.

“These are for you,” he said quietly, bringing out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

As you accepted them from him, you immediately realized that they were made of paper, intricately folded tulips, lilies, and roses of all colors. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp, thinking about how much time it must have taken him. “An origami bouquet. Oh, Sungchan…”

“I figured you had plenty of hearts by now…” He said as he flushed from his neck upwards.

“They’re beautiful.” You got on your tiptoes, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady yourself as you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks were bright pink as you turned around to set them down inside, then looked back to him expectantly. The werewolf led the way out to the parking lot, except you didn’t see his car anywhere around. There was a familiar old blue pickup truck, however, which he was walking towards.

“Your car in the shop or something?” You asked curiously. “Why are you driving Yuta’s truck?”

“Utility.” He answered cryptically, opening the passenger door for you.

“What does that mean?” You questioned with a chuckle, scooting into the middle of the bench seat.

You’d gotten your seatbelt situated by the time Sungchan had walked around and opened the driver’s side. He didn’t seem to have been expecting you to be in the middle, pausing for a second, and looking around flustered as he climbed into the truck too.

“It’s a surprise, like I said,” he muttered, fastening his own seatbelt and starting the truck.

Sungchan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on his leg next to yours. You drummed your fingers on your own knee contemplatively.

“Sungchan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“Wh— Yeah, of course.” He laughed shakily as you laced your fingers with his. “You don’t need to ask me about stuff like that.”

“Well you’re so tense right now that I was afraid that if I just grabbed your hand, you might freak and crash the car.”

He cringed. “So you can tell?”

“Yeah, I can tell.” You patted his arm with your other hand. “What’s got you so wound up? It’s just me.”

“Well, yeah, it’s you,” he repeated. “I’ve already messed up so many times with you. I don’t want to fuck up again.”

You contemplated this for a second, watching the passing streetlights. “Think about it like this: Could you possibly fuck up again worse than our first date?”

“I hope not.”

“Then you’re already off to a great start.”

“Y/N, I think you need higher standards,” he said without an ounce of humor or joking in his tone.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at that. “Sungchan, you made me an entire origami bouquet and organized a whole night out to surprise me. I think my standards are pretty okay.”

“Alright, but you’ve got to promise that this is my last chance. Like, three strikes and I’m out. Seriously, if I was some other guy, I would’ve told you to throw me to the curb a long time ago.”

You looked over at him incredulously. “Are you seriously advocating against yourself right now? Is this some kind of reverse psychology flirting technique that I’ve never heard of?”

“No, I’m just not going to stop being a good friend because you’re on a date with me. I told you I would always look out for you, and I meant it, even if it’s not in my best interest.”

Nodding with a raised eyebrow, you decided to take his advice at face value. “Okay, your input is noted as part of the council of friends’ round table on my new guy.”

You saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “Good.”

“So, did you tell Shotaro what we were doing?” You asked, curious now that the topic of friends had been brought up.

“I told him we were hanging out.”

“Did you tell him it was a date?”

“No. Did you?”

“If I did, do you think you would have gotten out of your apartment unscathed?” You snorted.

“Fair point.”

The car ride passed with mostly idle chitchat, until he made a turn away from the city center, off onto a back road that you were unfamiliar with. The buildings gave way to trees, the streetlights being replaced only with moonlight and the headlights of the truck or any lone car that you would pass occasionally. A while later, the asphalt became a dirt road, the trees around you getting thicker and thicker. You looked around in interest as he slowed the truck to a stop in a clearing.

“We’re here?” You asked, looking over at him. Your eyes had long adjusted to the nighttime, and you could clearly make out his features.

“We’re here,” he confirmed with a nod, turning the vehicle off.

Sungchan climbed out, helping you down with a hand, and you immediately knew why he’d had both of you dress casually. You were in the middle of the woods, being led to the back of the truck by the hand by your date. He opened the tailgate, and let go of your hand to hop up into the empty bed.

“Wait there,” he requested, now well and good towering over you.

You nodded.

He retrieved a large duffel bag from the truck bed, and you looked curiously at everything he brought out of it. Pillow after pillow, blanket after blanket. The truck bed soon looked like a bed bed, and Sungchan came back over to plop down on the tailgate, toeing his shoes off and setting them aside at the end. He gestured to the bedding with little fanfare.

“All done!”

You hopped up next to him, pulling your shoes off as well and putting them away next to his. Looking at him with a knowing smirk, you nodded to the fact that the two of you were still sitting up. “Now what, Sung?”

“Ah, you’re going to make me spell it out?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head awkwardly.

“No,” you laughed. “I’m not.”

He took that as his cue to lay down first, leaving an open space right beside him. You settled into his side with no hesitation, resting your head on his chest as he pulled a final fluffy blanket over the two of you. Being a half-werewolf, Sungchan was pretty warm, but you were grateful for the extra comfort anyway.

Up above you two was a gorgeous expanse of a night sky. A waxing gibbous glowed down at you, stars twinkling and winking in and out at irregular intervals.

“It’s so peaceful…” He murmured quietly, shifting under you, still settling in.

“I don’t know, it’s kind of scary out here…”

Sungchan moved to sit up slightly, looking down at you with concern. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, what if there’s wolves?”

“Oh my god you’re so annoying,” he groaned, even as he readjusted his arms to hold you closer.

You, meanwhile, were giggling maniacally at your incredible joke, hiding your face in his shirt as you tried to recover. “You mean I’m the funniest person you know.”

“In your dreams.”

Looking back up at the sky, you pointed to a random speck of light. “Do you know what star that is?”

“Which one?” Sungchan asked, craning his head to try to get in your line of sight.

“I don’t know, any of them.” You dropped your hand back down to his front. “You’re in astronomy club, tell me about them, you big Earth Science nerd. Which I say with great affection and fondness.”

“Okay, so you see the Moon?”

“That’s not a star. I do know that.”

He chuckled, which you felt underneath your cheek. “I figured as much. So, starting at the Moon, if you go due North—” he pointed, and you tried your best to follow the path of his index finger. “The first and brightest star you can see. See it?”

“Yep!” You nodded, seeing the exact star he was talking about.

“Then go the right, just a little, there’s a pair of twin stars, see them?”

“Mm… mhm! Yes!”

“Okay, down, and over to the right some more, we’re tracing out the top of a head, then we’re going back up, there’s another pair of twin stars, you see?”

You squinted, losing the top of the head he was talking about, but finally found the second set of twin stars he’d mentioned. “Yeah, found them!”

“Cool. Straight down from that pair, we’re going to find one, two, then over to the left to get the chin, over and up to get the other cheek, and up to round out the head.”

You nodded, vaguely able to picture what he was talking about. “Okay… so whose head was that?”

“Oh, I get to teach Miss MCS Major something!” Sungchan teased.

“Interdisciplinary major…” You reminded him under your breath.

“So that was Lykos, the great wolf in the sky. As in, lycanthropy.”

“Back when scientists thought werewolves were humans with an affliction that could be passed on to other humans. The quote ‘condition’ they were diagnosed with was lycanthropy.” You easily pulled a basic definition of it from class. “Of course we know now that’s not true. Like witches, werewolves are an entirely different species, not just a variety of human. And there’s never been any credible account of a werewolf turning a human into a werewolf.”

“Why is it that humans just think everything is also a human, even when it very clearly is not?”

“Well, if I were to give us humans benefit of the doubt? Uh, to relate to it? Empathy? Recognition of yourself in the other? I mean, it’s better than labeling everything a monster and hunting it down. Which, we also did a bit of.”

“Us monsters did plenty hunting of you guys, too.”

“You say as if you’re not also half-human.”

“Hey,” he frowned down at you suspiciously. “Are you recognizing yourself in the other with me right now? I think we should really save that for the second date—”

“Oh, shut up!” You gave his front a smack as you let out an indignant scoff.

Sungchan was kicking his legs under the blanket as he laughed from his stomach, and when you looked up at him, you saw his eyes squeezed shut tight as he cackled. You watched him with a smitten smile, unable to even pretend to be annoyed for any longer as his guffaws petered out to chuckles then to giggles until he eventually sobered up, and settled his gaze with a heart-stopping grin on you.

The two of you were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, then he broke the eye contact, turning his eyes back up to the stars. “Uhm— I didn’t finish telling you about Lykos.”

You settled back into your spot, and with your ear to his chest, you could hear that his heartbeat was faster than it’d been before. You wondered if he was thinking the same thing about yours in that moment.

“So, Lykos,” Sungchan picked up where he’d left off before. “You can easily find him by starting at the moon to find his left ear. According to werewolf stories, Lykos was the very first werewolf that we’re all descended from. Because he was so great and powerful, once he passed, his soul ascended to be in the stars to watch over all of his descendants.”

“Wow…” You looked at the stars harder, willing Lykos’ shape to be a little more visible to you than before.

“In astronomy, though, the two twin stars that make up his left ear are called LK 1C04 and LK 2C04. They’re both red giants.”

“Are they going to explode any time soon?”

“Stars are kind of always exploding,” he explained enthusiastically. “They’re perpetually combusting and performing nuclear fusion. Well, most stars, if they haven’t run out of fuel yet.”

“What about when they run out of fuel then?”

“Depends on how big they are. LK 1C04 and 2C04 are both red giants, so when they run out of fuel, they’ll turn into white dwarves. So instead of being a burning ball of gas, they’ll just be emitting a very faint light from the remaining energy leftover from their previous nuclear fusion reactions that they can no longer perform.”

“So they don’t get to go out with a bang.”

“No, not really.” Sungchan pointed up at the sky again. “Okay, you remember Lykos’ chin?”

“Yes…”

“So that’s actually the end of the tail of a squirrel, according to some dryad traditions, or a gecko in some human ones.”

Sungchan sketched out the next constellation for you, then relayed the accompanying folk tale. Some scientific factoids would be interspersed too, and you loved hearing the enthusiasm in his voice as he told you about something he was very clearly interested in. And at some point, with his legs tangled up in yours, your hand curled around his waist, your cheek pressed against his chest, his hand casually rubbing up and down your back underneath your top as he still spoke so eagerly, you found your attention slipping away from black holes and how legends of ancient wyvern society said this or that about some other constellation. You were suddenly grabbing him by the collar with two hands and yanking him over to look at you.

“Y/N?” He asked, absolute bewilderment in his features.

“Jung Sungchan, I’m going to say this once, and please don’t take this the wrong way,” you murmured, holding eye contact with him very seriously. “You’re very attractive when you talk about things that you’re passionate about, and if you don’t kiss me right now I think I’m going to explode.”

Sungchan didn’t need to be told twice, reaching up to cup your cheek. Despite your rather blunt and unromantic request, he still tenderly guided your lips to his. Your eyes fluttered shut as you melted into the kiss, the grip you had on his collar relaxing. His mouth was soft as he moved it ever so slightly against yours. His thumb stroked over your cheekbone, the hand on your back pulling you even closer to him. One of your hands grabbed his waist to anchor yourself down to something on Earth.

It ended all too soon for your liking, though. You were pretty sure you could kiss Jung Sungchan forever. He pressed one more quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before leaning back to drink you in.

“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured, stroking your cheek again.

“Sung?” You whispered.

“Hm?”

“Do you want to kiss me again?”

He nodded, and you leaned forward to bump your nose against his. A giddy smile spread across your face.

“Good. Me too.”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

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