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is-the-thing-actually-jewish · 3 months

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is Jewish Voice for Peace actually Jewish? I've heard a couple different things about that but no sources

@gryphistheantlerqueen also asked:

Whooo boy. So this has been sitting in the inbox for a few months, I wrote up a draft, and then it just sat... until this past week, when some new JVP BS hit the fan and gave me the kick to finish it.

Sooooo...

Verdict: Not Actually Jewish

(updated verdict after finding out about the “self-managed conversion” and “teacup mikvah”) Jewish, technically, and that "technically" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, and is actively debatable without access to a detailed breakdown of JVP’s actual membership rolls.

In general summation, JVP is a far-left radical antizionist group that is headed by a few visibly antizionist Jews and whose membership rolls are either a strong minority or outright majority of non-Jews, based on variable statistics that they've released. Although they claim that the “majority of their members and staff are Jewish”, this seems to be both statistically unlikely and actively suspicious due to their noted tendency to instruct even non-Jewish members to speak #AsAJew on social media, and their instructions to do “self-managed conversions”. However, due to their title, they are very popular with people who want a Jewish Stamp Of Approval for demonizing Israelis and Zionist Jews as a result. In effect, they are Jewish in the same way that people like Candace Owens and Hershel Walker are Black—as self-tokenizing minorities who throw the rest of their ethnic group under the bus in exchange for power and political access.

And despite the claims that they are “inspired by Jewish values and traditions” (as put on their website) and “oppose anti-Jewish hatred,” JVP routinely engages in antisemitic rhetoric, up to and including blood libel and antisemitic conspiracy theories, and acts as a shield against non-Jews who also engage in antisemitic rhetoric so long as the non-Jews in question remember to shout "For Palestine!" first. This is not an exaggeration.

The primary example of their in-house antisemitic rhetoric is their "Deadly Exchange" program, where they explicitly and conspiratorially blame Israel as being responsible for American police brutality and militarization. However, for all of their fearmongering and blame-casting on the subject—as if American cops needed outside help in brutalizing minorities or gaining military-grade handmedowns from the Pentagon, both of which are explicit claims of the "Deadly Exchange" program—they have a hard time actually identifying specific deaths associated with the international training seminars they're holding up as responsible.

One of the the closest they've come to a specific allegation is claiming that "former St. Louis County police chief Timothy Fitch trained with the Israeli military three years before Michael Brown’s killing and the Ferguson uprising." (Note: this was in a video that appears to have since been made private.) But Darren Wilson worked for the Ferguson PD, not the St. Louis PD, and Fitch retired months before the killing. So he was in a completely different police department, and this is the closest JVP comes to pointing to specific deaths or acts of brutality that they blame on Israel. Everything else is literal fearmongering--up to and including the classic conspiratorial tropes of "secretive Jewish governmental influence".

JVP has also happily supported the words of white supremacists like Richard Spencer, taking his “You could say that I’m a white Zionist in the sense that I care about my people," statement at face value, using it as the basis for entire articles where they compared Zionism to White Supremacy as a deliberate misrepresentation of the ideology that is common on the extreme political Left (you can compare that treatment again with how Candace Owens treats the word "Woke" on the Right). Even when the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" march happened, JVP wasted no time in comparing Zionism with the very ideology fueling the people chanting "Jews Will Not Replace Us," saying that Zionism is "Jewish racial supremacy" and calling for a universal condemnation of the ideology as a form of White Supremacy... which was the exact sort of message that many of those same White Supremacists would have happily agreed with. So JVP is essentially siding with literal White Supremacists, even as they claim that "Jews are not the primary victims of White Supremacy."

JVP also engages in Holocaust revisionism, such as with this lovely quote from Cecilie Surasky, the deputy director of JVP, “I believe it is critical to situate the genocide of Jews in a broader context, and not as an exceptional, metaphysically unique event. Some 6 million Jews died, but another 5 million people were also targeted for annihilation.”

(another quote, from an article by Surasky, which compares Netanyahu to Hitler.)

This is just straight revisionism of the entire Holocaust and the unique fixation the Nazis had on the Jews. Literally, even when they were losing, they were diverting resources from the war just to kill more Jews. Quote Hitler himself, "Jews must be prevented from intruding themselves among all the other nations as elements of internal disruption, under the mask of honest world-citizens, and thus gaining power over these nations." The very basis of the Nazi ideology paints Jews as an existential threat to the human race's peace and security—a far cry from JVP's claim that the Jewish suffering in the Holocaust wasn't unique or exceptional.

Additionally, JVP ignores or re-envisions Mizrachi Jewish history. They call the very term Mizrachi “Zionist rhetoric,” and refer to Mizrachi “immigrants,” (“Deadly Exchange,” pg. 16-17), and claim “the Israeli government facilitated a mass immigration of Mizrahim” (“Our Approach to Zionism”) as though those weren’t the direct result of the mass expulsion of and violence against Jews in MENA countries. These weren’t immigrants, these were refugees.

And as for the question of “Are they Jewish?”, well...

Statistically, they are not representative of the Jewish population as a whole, 90% of whom identify as some degree of Zionist in the sense of “Supporting Jewish self-determination.” One does not need to be Jewish to join JVP, as they proudly state on their website. Their membership rolls are also extremely obfuscated, and the fact that they encourage their followers, whether Jewish or not, to post and speak “as Jews” on social media makes it even more difficult to figure out what percentage of their membership is actually Jewish. Furthermore, they have instructions for their members to engage in “self-conversions” that are not acceptable to Jewish law or tradition, and misuse/appropriate other sacred Jewish traditions to the point that “blasphemy” is an accurate description, with their instructions on the mikvah (a sacred bath) being outright offensive.

(note that one has to be completely nude and bare of any adornment or makeup to use the mikvah, which is a pure pool of collected rainwater to be immersed in, for context on the above... misuse. Trying to claim this as being “in line with sacred Jewish tradition” is like trying to claim to be Catholic while also saying that the Pope is the Antichrist and that using beer and a doughnut for the Eucharist is acceptable. For more information on mikveh, see: The Jewish Virtual Library, Aish, myjewishlearning, or Chabad.

There's also no altar.

The irony of asking people not to appropriate while doing this is astonishing.)

It’s also telling that they straight up say they are “claiming” the practice as their own.

Furthermore, JVP has hosted panels on “antisemitism” in the past... headed by people who are not only not Jewish, but who have been credibly accused of antisemitism in the past.

JVP has also endorsed The Mapping Project Boston, which was a Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) subsidiary, listing every “Zionist” organization in Boston, Mass. This included Jewish schools, elder homes, community centers, disability centers, and more; all of them painted with scary and misleading “links” to non-Jewish organizations to insinuate Jewish control of the state and city governments, invoking age-old antisemitic tropes of a conspiracy of Jews as they did so:

(first image is the Mapping Project, the second is a 1938 Nazi political cartoon)

The Mapping Project also, and this is my personal favorite, accused Harvard University of doing “racist science” for engaging in archeological and genetic studies of Jews and Jewish history. Tellingly, BDS actually disavowed The Mapping Project (albeit for bad optics, not for the rank antisemitism they were promoting)... but JVP has not, even though the Mapping Project’s entry for the ADL reads as follows:

Masquerading as a “civil rights” group, the ADL is a counterinsurgency and espionage organization whose mission is to protect the mutual interests of the US and Israeli governments, and to eliminate solidarity among oppressed peoples, especially concerning Palestine. The ADL spies on and criminalizes activists (using its connections to governments, police, schools, and corporations) while undermining their work by pushing its own state-sanctioned, pro-“Israel” agenda. And while the ADL claims to represent Jews and to fight “antisemitism” on their behalf, the organization has supported anti-Jewish state violence and sanitized Nazis. The ADL cannot be reformed: it must be dismantled and whatever resources it has should go towards repairing the many harms it has done. (Emphasis added.)

Of course, JVP has also engaged in similar conspiracy-toned antisemitic dogwhistles, such as this fun bit from their first Deadly Exchange video:

So clearly (to me at least), they have no problems with The Mapping Project’s tone and presentation.

And this isn’t even going into JVP’s routine promotion of blood libel, their egregious double standards, their approving of pogroms, their active support for Hamas terrorists and demonization of Hamas’ victims, their attempted revisionism of Jewish history, their abject rejection of Jewish culture, and their other actions that show not just bias, but outright hatred for 90% of the world’s Jews.

As one commentator put it, JVP as an organization is very much like Autism Speaks is to Autistic people--a thinly disguised hate group that views the people they’re supposedly speaking for as the problem, and themselves as promoting the Solution. To this moderator, they’re the equivalent of the Association of German National Jews, who were also known as the Jews for Hitler; they wanted to abandon Judaism and embrace Naziism... and they got sent to the gas chambers anyway.

Mod Joseph

Sources:

www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/jewish-voice-peace

www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Mikveh-Guide-for-Jewish-Voice-for-Peace-Outlined.pdf

(and also just... a general experience/exposure to them on social media, where even the most progressive actions taken by Israel, such as the recent ruling regarding queer Palestinians being able to claim sanctuary in Israel, being labeled as “pinkwashing”)

#jumblr #jvp #not actually Jewish #appropriation #avoid

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barblaz-arts · 1 month

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As someone who ships Chaggie as well, I want your opinion on this.

Someone made a kinda good point about Charlie and Vaggie’s relationship; the point being that there’s a power imbalance between them. Charlie is the princess of hell. She wouldn’t physically loose anything or be hurt physically if she breaks up with Vaggie. But Vaggie would loose both the love of her life and her home and friends if they break off. And so they see this toxic dynamic because Vaggie is “walking on eggshells” in order to stay in Charlie’s favor and not getting on her bad side.

So….thoughts?

The problem is people who say these things treat the terms "power imbalance" and "toxic" and "unhealthy" as the same things when they are not.

There is a power imbalance, yes, definitely. I constantly make jokes about the fact that Charlie and Vaggie have a forbidden love story in a Boss/Employee HR violation kinda way for pete's sake. It's just a lot more funny thinking about the fact that that probably has more weight than the demon/angel situation.

But the thing is, no matter what Charlie will ALWAYS have a power imbalance with whoever she dates because she is literally the princess of Hell, as they have said. Even if she dates a fellow hellborn royal, the fact that Charlie is in a higher position of power will always be a fact because her parents are literally the only ones above that. So what? Should she just not date anyone??? Also, isn't the one has a higher position of power but still loves the other a super popular ship trope? Rich x poor. Royalty x commoner. Goddess/immortal x normal human. Popular in school x the social loser. The list goes on. So why is it a problem now?

The fact that they think Vaggie "walks on eggshells" around Charlie is a bit...? I'm just a little confused you know? Vaggie is definitely not afraid of Charlie. When they had their fallout, she wasn't afraid of losing the things she was dependent on Charlie if they ever broke up(i.e. a home, her safety, money etc) because Vaggie damn well knows Charlie wouldn't do that. Everyone in hell knows Charlie goddamn Morningstar wouldn't do that. Vaggie was merely afraid of losing their relationship, which is a perfectly normal thing to be afraid of. Vaggie's dedication to Charlie isn't rooted in fear, it's rooted in devotion in the name of what she thinks the person she loves deserves.

The thing that makes Chaggie so great despite that power imbalance is the fact that Charlie is an absolute sweetheart. She isn't the kind of person who would take advantage of that power and Vaggie, as someone who knows her so well, is perfectly aware of that. Vaggie is safe with Charlie in every way that matters, and this is where toxicity and the unhealthy elements come into play.

Charlie and Vaggie as individuals have all the ingredients for an unhealthy relationship. As Husk so plainly pointed out, Charlie would rather fix everyone else's problems than help herself. Meanwhile Vaggie has deep self-hatred that seeps into how she feels about everyone but Charlie. They're both the type of people who would rather think about others rather than themselves. This is the root of their codependency, and why their relationship can be quite unhealthy. It's extremely evident with Vaggie, which makes perfect sense since she probably never saw herself as a person before Charlie.

Those flaws can so easily be taken advantage of in a relationship, but the thing is, do they do that? Do either of them think the other ever would? As Rosie did say...

While Charlie likes to shoulder everyone else's problems, Vaggie looks at the love her life and decides she'll take some of that load so she doesn't get crushed under the weight of the world. Vaggie reels Charlie in by being the realist to Charlie's dreamer. Vaggie used to essentially be Heaven's living weapon, but she has now sworn to be the armor for someone who looks out for everyone but herself.

On the other hand Vaggie's self-worth is shrewed because she's an ex-soldier who thinks she should always be under someone's service to be deserving of anything. But here Charlie is who constantly calls Vaggie her partner and blatantly treats Vaggie as an equal and still loves Vaggie "more than anything" and doesn't doubt that Vaggie loves her in return even after finding out Vaggie's lie and true origins.

So are they good for each other? Maybe not, but there's still more of the show to see. They can be unhealthy, but not to the point that being together damages each other in any significant way. Their relationship is imperfect, which is fine. No relationship is. Especially not in fucking HELL. And perfect for a story because, yunno... They are still in an ongoing story. They aren't a lost cause yet. It's something they can develop from, something we can get to SEE them develop from.

Are they toxic though?? Are they harming each other physically, emotionally, sexually, or financially? Definitely not. Because although whether they're good FOR each other still remains to be seen, it is an undeniable fact that they are good TO each other, despite all the ways they could not be. The unhealthy elements are due to how they treat themselves, but their relationship can't be deemed toxic because of how they treat each other. And for now, that's what matters and that's why I love this ship.

#asks #hazbin hotel #chaggie #as fun as writing this all down was #and it was it really was #I can't help but think about how frustrating it is that this needs to be said #we can't just say that we think this canon ship is cute and that's why we like it and have the conversation end there #instead we have to make an essay to explain ourselves 😞#like dang it aint even that complicated

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metanarrates · 3 months

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there are a LOT of things you can speculate about regarding what twsa was actually like as a novel but what's most interesting to me is that you can make the argument that twsa was an "unpolished" version of what orv is. it's a version of a similar novel that likely dealt with a lot of similar themes but was seemingly bogged down by poor structure, pacing, expository handling, and focus. (all of which are things that orv is shockingly excellent at.)

and of course, han sooyoung's novel, sssss-grade infinite regressor, is the "polished" version of the idea. it's well-written, probably well-plotted, and was successful enough to make han sooyoung rich and famous. we don't know what sssss-grade infinite regressor is like as a novel either, but we sort of get the impression that it's not very emotionally rich even if it is good on a technical level. han sooyoung herself doesn't seem intensely attached to it despite being proud of her work, and kim dokja of course doesn't hold it in high regard. (though of course he's a gigantic unreliable narrator and also a hater.)

what's interesting is that despite orv very strongly emphasizing the ways these works are flawed from the outset, orv itself functions as an argument in these works' favor. both twsa and infinite regressor are stand-ins for the "mass-produced" genre of webnovels. they are popular fiction, relying on a very familiar pool of tropes and clichés in order to deliver on a relatively predictable story to appeal to a wide audience. it's not a coincidence that they are so similar - both literally and in a meta sense, they are drawing on the same exact story-building and genre material. twsa is just the unsuccessful version, and infinite regressor is the successful one.

orv is what I would consider the most "impressive" version of the genre. it's well-structured, thrillingly plotted, interestingly written, has fascinating ideas and characters, and is even "literary" - that is, it has deeply considered themes and is often drawing from the realm of literary, postmodern fiction in order to express its ideas. a less sincere story would disavow itself from its pop-fiction origins and claim to be the best version of its genre. nothing else could be like it, so the worst versions of its genre wouldn't be worth considering.

but orv, while technically functioning as an argument that the genre can be "good" simply because it's a great novel that is deeply rooted in its genre, goes much further. it argues in-text that any sort of story, even those that are bad on a technical level or those that were somewhat cynically produced for a mass audience, are worth finding value in, simply because stories have meaning to their readers. the most uncritical reproduction of a genre's conventions can still mean something to someone who likes it. twsa, if it existed in our reality, would still probably be considered a very bad novel, but it wouldn't need to be polished up and turned into infinite regressor or orv in order to have value. orv itself is telling you that you should find value in twsa as it is, and by extension, every badly-done work of fiction that twsa could be a stand-in for!

#narrates #orv #all of this is Fascinating for in-universe texts to have as relationships to the actual text btw #scratching at the walls like I KNOW ITS THE POINT THAT WE CANT READ THEM... BUT I WANNA READ TWSA AND INFINITE REGRESSOR...

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hotvintagepoll · 2 months

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Propaganda

Ginger Rogers (Swing Time, Top Hat)—Look I’ll level with you, I’ve never seen her in a musical and I know that she’s an amazing dancer and she’ll be even hotter when I finally watch Top Hat but I’m not submitting her as a dancer I’m submitting her as an ACTRESS. Her comic timing is impeccable!!!!! She’s full to bursting with life and in every role she seems to be having FUN, you can practically feel the twinkle in her eye. With her natural warmth it’s like she’s letting you in on the joke, y’all get to have this fun together! Making me laugh is hot!!! [If you'd like to see Ginger dance, videos below the cut]

Dorothy Lamour (The Jungle Princess, Road to… movies)—Ok, to be honest, I get if no one wants to vote for her--she's kind of like my ~problematic fave~ because she started in the Road (Singapore, Bali, Hong Kong, etc) movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, which are full of all sorts of exoticism tropes and usually have her playing very side-eye type roles..island princesses and things...yeah. also she banged J. Edgar Hoover. not very hot. but your honor i still think she's pretty despite all that she's pretty please look at her and tell me she's prettyyy

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Dorothy Lamour propaganda:

She started in jungle and South Seas movies and became famous in the Road series. She learned quickly to improvise when facing Bob and Bing. Road to Bali almost has her character marrying both of theirs, since she's island royalty and nobody had a problem with it - a nearly poly relationship, an epiphany for a viewer who didn't even know that that could happen! She was a popular pinup girl during World War 2, and was the first singer for the popular standard "It Could Happen to You". She sang often in her movies and has a lovely voice!

Ginger Rogers propaganda:

She needs no introduction! An undeniable powerhouse on the dancefloor, and no less talented an actress. I once watched a compilation of cinema's greatest dance scenes and one of her and Fred Astaire's dances was featured, and one of the talking heads said he pitied her for 'having to keep up with him' - or something to that effect. Bullshit, I cry. Ginger Rogers was his absolute equal, and underplaying her incredible skill is downright criminal. I want the 'Cheek to Cheek' sequence from Top Hat to be permanently burned into my memory.

"Backwards in high heels", as the saying goes (though the pedant in me must point out that she in fact spent her fair share of time leading or dancing side-by-side). One of the earliest twinkle-toed ladies of the silver screen, and in terms of acting/persona, her balance of wide-eyed cuteness and movie-star glamour has never quite been replicated.

we all know her beloved string of musicals with fred but ginger also has an extensive and varied non-fred filmography that she's great in! a few ginger moments that are important 2 me personally ginger singing “we’re in the money” in gold diggers of 1933, complete with a verse in pig latin bc this whole movie is kinda mocking the concept of anyone actually being in the money in 1933; ginger and una merkel singing a verse of “shuffle off to buffalo” in 42nd street, providing some statler & waldorf-esque commentary on newlyweds from the upper berth of a railway car (interesting that belly was apparently a risque word in 1933 - maybe its bc the lyric is innuendo-ing about out of wedlock pregnancies - and that panties was a term for men’s underthings!); a favorite fred & ginger number

Ginger Rogers could do everything! She could sing, dance and act. She was hilarious in comedies, moving in dramatic roles (she won an Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940) and absolutely gorgeous!

Listen, no shade to Fred Astaire at all, but she both kept up with him step for step and then later went on to WIN AN OSCAR FOR ACTING. (which he did not.) truly a double threat!!!

One of the best dancers in Hollywood! Her work with Fred Astaire is just incredible.

ONE LINE: "Everything Fred did, Ginger did backwards and in heels" AND THEYRE RIGHT! Rogers was a total dance badass, and a lot of movie buffs know the story, but the Never Gonna Dance number from Swing Time took almost 50 takes, and allegedly by the end of filming it her white shoes had been stained pink because her feet were bleeding. As a note, she looks crazy gorgeous in this number. Watching these two dance is insane. They match up to each other in a way my mom describes as "divine" and she's right. DANCE NUMBERS!

youtube

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off (Shall We Dance, 1937, dancing starts at 3:14, they're in ROLLERSKATES)

youtube

(Ginger Rogers is the hottest woman ever to live in this number. seeing this as a teenager altered my brain chemistry)

youtube

(also watch her feet and how she moves opposite Astaire in this one. We all know our boy Freddie had that precision demon but jesus christ Miss Rogers, let a girl live!)

Pick Yourself Up, Swing Time 1936 (Everyone's seen this one but by god you are going to see it AGAIN!)

youtube

Shall We Dance, 1937 (duet begins at 2:34)

youtube

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Roberta 1935 (There's just something about Ginger Rogers in a slick black dress man)

youtube

The Continental, The Gay Divorcee 1934 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjv6nmF7wdk God she's MAGIC in this one.

youtube

Gay Divorcee's Ending Montage 1934The infamous table and chairs spin happens at about 0:49. Pay CLOSE attention to her in this bc it looks like witchcraft and I feel lightheaded whenever I watch this movie bc shes THAT awesome.

youtube

She is a miracle to watch. Sorry for the sheer amount of clips. My entire family is like madly in love with Ginger Rogers.

#dorothy lamour #ginger rogers #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 1 #Youtube

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paradisedumpling · 3 months

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Rosy Cheeks and Warm Jackets

trope: quarterback!minji x shycheerleader!reader; fluff; tiny bit of angst if you squint really hard

content warning: yeonjun is a bit of a perv here sorry (he checks reader out twice); brief mention of making out; reader is a bit insecure; some curse words; minji calls reader hot like once; some grammatical errors; not proof read

a/n: I wrote this a few months ago and my knowledge about american football sucks, but this trope was stuck with me for so long I had to do something about it so I hope it's not that obvious (I'm also very bad at making synopsis lol)

synopsis: you never planned to do anything about your life long crush on the quarterback of your school's football team, but fate seems to be against you and it puts you together again and again....

---------------------------------------------------

You turned around as loud whistles resonated within the school halls. The football team walked down with pride in each of their steps. Have won a very important game just the day before, who wouldn't?

You yourself had a small proud smile on your face as people cheered on them. Being part of the cheer squad, you knew a part of the win was also yours and it made you happy to know everyone's spirits seemed to be high after yesterday's game.

And because you were a cheerleader, you knew the football team personally, even going as far as to say you had friends in there. Although with being a very shy person, you were only really close with a few of your teammates. But your nice personality and popularity by simply being in the cheer squad managed to have you know a lot of people, despite your shyness.

A familiar loud bickering averted your attention from the overall image of the football team to two specific girls upfront, walking between and ahead of the entire team with big smiles on their faces; Kim Minji and Pham Hanni, the star duo of the football team.

You knew the two best friends not only from the games, but also from being in the same year and class as them and because Hanni was your best friend Danielle's girlfriend. You all hangout in the same group most of the time, but your shyness forbade you from getting too close with the duo.

Your eyes finally settled on the quarterback of the team, Minji. Tall, beautiful, easy-going, gorgeous, funny, pretty, talented at everything she touches. Minji was the definition of perfection, if someone was ever to ask you to define it. And she wasn't a mean person or thought of herself as above others, as the perfect girl in every movie did. No. That's what made her even more perfect in your opinion. Minji was perfection, the perfect one. And you wouldn't lie if you said she makes your heart skip a few beats everytime you see her or hear her voice.

It had been like that for a while, too. You and Minji had shared classes for as long as you can remember. The two of you always being in the same friend groups and were always at each others birthday parties, but you never got closer than that. You only came to share phone numbers after you got into the cheer squad. Still, Minji seemed to have always captured your heart. Since the moment you two met in kindergarten when you lost your figurine in the playground and she was the only kid who helped you find it, to all the moments you hangout together with your friends today and she buys you your favorite slushie even though she never asked your favorite before.

"Take a picture so it lasts longer." A voice beside you startled you, making you jump and turn around with a blush on your cheeks.

Kang Haerin, your best friend and a cheerleader, stood by your side as she eyed you with an annoyed expression. Haerin was the only close friend you had that knew about your not so small crush on the quarterback. Not that you didn't trust your other friends, but Danielle would eventually spill it to her girlfriend accidentally and Hyein would try to set you two together in a very obvious way. So it was better like this.

"Shut up!" You turned around, closing your locker and grabbing her arm to start walking towards Danielle's locker, face not looking at the football star players direction anymore knowing they were also going in that direction. "And I don't want to hear a word about it."

"I wasn't even going to say anything." You stopped to look at her, raising your eyebrow. She had a grin in the corner of her lips, eyes darting around as she faked uninterest. You scoffed, rolling your eyes and tugging her arm again.

"Hey, girls!" Danielle greeted you two as you approached her. You and Haerin said your greetings before she was engulfed in a hug by a certain football player. "Baby!"

You watched in amusement as the couple greeted each other and shared affection as if they haven't seen each other in ages. A giggle left your lips once you heard Haerin gagging at your side. "I'm gonna look for Hyein." You nodded at her words, still watching the couple, this time with longness in your eyes.

"They're so gross, ew." You turned to your side to be faced with Minji, a face of disgust directed at your friends actions. "Don't you think so, Y/nnie?" Your eyes widened as she turned to you, catching you looking at her.

She smiled down at you, giggling at your surprised expression. You only nodded, cheeks blushing a light red as you stared at Minji's eyes.

"Good morning, Minji-ah." You greeted shyly, eyes darting down to look at the books in your arms, clutching them tightly to your chest. "You did great yesterday."

"If it wasn't for your cheering, I wouldn't have gotten the energy to win the game." Your face got impossibly redder and you didn't know if she was laughing at you or not, but you would never complain about hearing her laugh. "You're cute when–"

"There's our star player!" Minji was cut off by a loud voice and a smack on her shoulder. You both turned to look as a tall boy smiled at her with pride while you tried to calm your racing heart as you caught Minji's attempt of complimenting you. "You were seriously amazing yesterday! We need to have more practices together cause I have to learn that pass you did to get us the match point!" You watched as he excitedly engaged into a conversation with Minji, who simply nodded and smiled at him.

The boy was none other than Choi Yeonjun, the captain of the masculine football team and a starting eleven player. You.... were very acquainted with Yeonjun, if you could call it that. Yeonjun was the type of person that knew everyone in and out of school. He was very popular and social and it wasn't uncommon for him to hop between friends in the school halls. Still, he had his group of close friends. And one of these close friends was Huening Kai, a tennis player in your school who had a younger sister you were friends with, Huening Bahiyyih. One time last year she invited you to their beach house for a gathering with a few athletes in the school, and Yeonjun was there. You didn't interact much at the beginning, but after Bahiyyih dragged you to dance one night you seemed to have caught his eyes. For the remaining time at the beach house he openly flirted with you and tried to get you to go on a date with him, but you always turned him down. After all, you had eyes for another football player. But that didn't prove much efficient as to this day he still tries to date you.

"And when you grabbed the ball and started running–" Yeonjun's eyes flickered towards you for a slip second as he was passionately talking about yesterday's game with Minji and he finally seemed to notice there was someone else with her before he approached, you just couldn't decipher if he had also seen Hanni and Danielle making out behind the three of you or not. He faltered in his speech as he stopped to check you out and you suddenly became very conscious of the revealing cheer uniform you were wearing. "Oh, hey there Y/n. I didn't see you before, sorry." You tightened your grip on your books, smiling politely at him. You shifted uncomfortably as he bluntly checked you out. "Nice fit."

"Thanks." You mumbled with a tight smile, bringing a hand down to pull your skirt down. It wouldn't do anything, but it was an effort. You mentally cursed yourself for not coming with a pair of sweatpants like Haerin and Danielle did. You see, you normally don't wear your uniform around school like that, unless you have practice during the first periods of class. But as per tradition, you always take a group photo after big games. Yesterday you couldn't because of the after party so you were going to take it today during lunch time, and your coach insisted you all came with your uniforms so it wouldn't take too long. You were not expecting to deal with Yeonjun or any other of your admires before you could change to your normal clothes though.

"So." Minji cleared her throat, eyeing Yeonjun with disgust as she leaned closer to you and wrapped her arm around your shoulders. That seemed to snap Yeonjun's eyes from your exposed legs. "We can talk with our coaches about the joined practice later, right?" Yeonjun nodded as he eyed Minji's arm around you, blinking a few times before he looked up to look at her in the eye, a bright smile on his lips.

"Totally!" He put his hands inside his jacket's pockets, standing carelessly on his heels as if the action didn't affect him, but both you and Minji knew it did.

"Great!" She smiled at him and if you were looking you'd see the threat in her eyes. "We have to go fetch the other girls right now, if you don't mind. See you later!" Not giving him any time to reply, she grabbed Hanni by the back of her collar and started dragging her away, gently rubbing your shoulder and ushering Danielle. "Come on Dani, before Haerin let's Hyein buy that gross candy again."

"Damn bro, no need to choke me." Minji let go of Hanni when you were far away enough from Yeonjun and you watched the poor girl rub her neck as she stared at Minji judgely. "What was that for?" Hanni asked, wrapping her arm around Danielle's waist as the four of you walked towards the interior court where you knew Haerin and Hyein were.

But the oldest girl simply ignored her best friend. Instead, she turned to you, gently whispering in your ear. "Are you okay?"

You nodded, blushing at her breath on your ear. "Yeah, thanks." You sighed, looking down at your exposed legs and arms. Probably the only thing you hated about cheerleading was the summer uniforms. "I should've come with leggings or something at least, that's on me. Sorry." You looked up as you apologized, staring into her beautiful eyes that held nothing but concern. You didn't fail to notice the pout on her lips.

"It's his fault for being a creepy perv, not yours." She grumbled, arms pulling you closer as she practically hugged you to her chest. Suddenly, her eyes light up as she let go of you. You couldn't help the pang in your chest as she did so. "Here." She started taking her varsity jacket off and you eyed her with curiosity. "It's not much but I hope it helps." Your eyes widened once you realized what she was doing and you couldn't help the blush on your cheeks as she gently helped you put her varsity jacket on. Minji smiled proudly as she stared at you.

"Thanks, Min." You smiled shyly at her, averting your gaze and missing how her eyes softened at the nickname.

Minji didn't put her arm back around your shoulders as the four of you continued on your way to meet up with the rest of your friends, but she remained close and kept an eye for anyone else glaring at you.

Finally, you reached the interior court. "There they are!" Danielle pointed to your usual corner, where you could clearly see the two bickering about something. You let a small smile rest on your face as you watched them, shaking your head as you approached calmly.

"Unnies!" Hyein jumped as she saw you four approaching, running to grab you by your hand and drag you to where she previously was. "Can you help me with my arts homework? I forgot to do it yesterday and Haerin doesn't want to help me." She pouted, looking at you with pleading eyes.

"You know your teacher will eventually realize I'm the one doing your homeworks, right?" You sighed as you sat down beside Haerin, waiting for Hyein to hand you her homework.

Danielle and Hanni came to sit behind you three, engaging into a conversation with Minji, said girl remained standing and she put one of her feet on the bench on the other side of Haerin for support and crossed her arms on her chest. You momentarily lost yourself as you watched her laugh at whatever nonsense Hanni said, her head falling back as her eyes grew into crescent moons. God, she's beautiful.

"Here, unnie!" You turned to Hyein, trying not to blush as your eyes came down to your lap to scan her homework.

You two quietly worked on her homework as your other friends chatted. It wasn't an uncommon dynamic for all of you. Hyein was smart and dedicated, but she often used her status as youngest in the group to have any of you help her with her homeworks. In her words "Since you already did it before, it should be easy right?" And it normally was. None of you ever minded helping each other with anything. But the lingering perfume on Minji's jacket had your mind wandering more times than you'd like to and you took longer to complete Hyein's homework than you do on other days.

After you finally finished it and let the girl to gather her things in her backpack, you grabbed your cellphone to look at the time. You only had fifteen minutes before your classes begin, so you turned to the chatting girls as they seemed too engaged into their conversation to notice the time passing.

Your eyes darted between the two football players and your cheermates, feeling too shy to abruptly interrupt their conversation. So, you eyed Danielle. You tapped her leg, leaning closer as she turned to you confused. "We need to go, class is about to begin." Her mouth gained a oval shaped and she nodded, smiling at you and patting your head.

You watched with slightly flushed cheeks as she warned the other girls and you all got up to walk to class, Minji and Hanni still engaged into their conversation as you made your way out of the internal court.

Once you were approaching the point were you'd all split up to go to your perspective classrooms, Haerin pulled you back by the arm. You eyed her with confusion as she stared at you amused. "What?"

"What?" She mocked, looking down at your torso. You eyebrows furrowed deeply as you looked down, blushing in realization as you took notice of Minji's jacket, not that you ever forgot it was there. "What happened while I was gone?" She wiggled her eyebrows at you, quietly giggling at the blush spreading all over your face.

"Shut up, Rinnie!" You shushed her, looking away at anything but her face and the quarterback walking in front of you two. "Yeonjun was flirting with me again." You heard her groaning and you could imagine the immense eye roll she did. "Minji was simply trying to make me comfortable because I'm stupid and forgot pants."

"I knew I should've brought spares." She mumbled, cursing Yeonjun under her breath as you approached the hall where all of you parted ways.

You watched as Hanni and Danielle kissed and hugged goodbye, turning to give your own hug to Hyein. The younger girl waved to you all before skipping down towards her classroom and you waived to Danielle as she went on her own way too.

"I swear if that asshole–" Haerin still mumbled and you couldn't help but giggle at your friend's protectiveness. You pulled her into a hug, shushing her as she realized you had all stopped walking and Hyein and Danielle were already gone.

"I'm okay, Rinnie. Don't worry." You whispered in her ear, pulling back to give her a smile. That seemed to calm her down enough as she waved to Minji and Hanni and hurried towards her classroom.

"Why is everyone so grumpy today, man?" Hanni asked as she pulled you to stand between her and Minji, the three of you walking calmly to your own classroom. "First Minji and now Haerin. Is the water tasting like shit again?"

"Stop being gross!" Minji returned grumpily and you giggled as Hanni looked at you with an 'I told you so' face.

"Stop being a dick!" You laughed as the duo kept on bickering all the way to your class and in your tables, shaking your head.

"I'm not being a dick, your ass–"

---------------------------------------------------

"Alright girls, take five!" You heard Danielle groan in relief as Chaewon, the cheer captain, announced the break.

You and the rest of the cheerleaders have been practicing for a few hours now, the new routine being a bit more tiring than the ones you've been doing for the past few months. Theoretically, you all had a break until next week due to the win in the game the day prior. But your coach wasn't satisfied with your performance this season and she wanted to polish your routines as soon as possible, so here you all were practicing.

You walked towards the bench and grabbed your water bottle, quietly laughing as Danielle and Hyein laid down on the floor with wet cloaks on their foreheads. Haerin came up to the three of you and sat down on the bench, taking the bottle from your hands before you had a chance to take a sip of it. "Hey!"

"Not my fault you're busy staring at other people." She teased, laughing at your annoyed face before downing the water.

"Don't you do the same?" Hyein asked, looking at you two with a tired face. You smiled sympathetically at her, walking to crouch down besides her head and brush the hair sticking on her face due to the sweat away.

"That's why I can comment on it." Haerin replied, tossing you the water bottle. You grabbed it with a yelp, scolding her for not warning you beforehand. "At least I talk to Minji unnie instead of just staring." She mumbled, trying to hide her smirk as you looked at her with disbelief.

"What did you say?" Danielle asked, opening her eyes to look at the three of you with curiosity. "I didn't hear it."

"She said nothing." You glared at Haerin, silently daring her to repeat her words. She looked away, pretending to be interested in something else. "Anyways." You turned to Danielle, standing up and drinking your water. "What are you guys doing tonight? It's Friday."

"Oh! I'm going on a date with Hanni tonight!" Danielle's energy suddenly came back as she sat up quickly, the cloak falling from her forehead. But she didn't seem to mind as her smile only grew bigger, her eyes staring at the sky as she seemed to be getting lost in her own head. "She said there's this nice restaurant she's going to take me!" Her voice was dreamy and you smiled longingly as your friend kept talking. "And then later we're going to my house and watch some movies!"

"I have homework to do." Hyein groaned loudly and you all laughed as you watched her annoyed face. "Why do they give us so much homework?"

"Welcome to highschool." You, Danielle and Haerin groaned, rolling your eyes. "Good luck, Hyennie." Hyein whined at your guys words, pouting.

"I'm going to the cinema with my mom and my sister." Haerin said her plans for the night, getting up from the bench. "But we'll probably have dinner somewhere before too." She walked up to Danielle as you could see Chaewon and your coach slowly gathering the other cheerleaders. "We might run into each other if I'm lucky." She told Danielle with a sly grin as she helped the older girl stand up.

"Oh please, no." You laughed at Danielle as you helped Hyein get up. "The last time you guys crashed my date it didn't end up well." The australian's eyes widened in fear as she remembered the fateful date.

"It wasn't that bad." Hyein said as you three tried not to laugh at Danielle's expression of disbelief. "We just got banned from that restaurant for what? Three months? Nothing serious."

"You embarrassed me in front of my girlfriend!" Danielle exclaimed as you started to walk back to the middle of the court, hands going up as her body expressed her emotions. "And that was Hanni's favorite restaurant too! She was so sad." The girl pouted and Haerin and Hyein laughed at her as you laid a hand on her shoulder sympathetically.

"We apologized and she said it's all good now." You tired to comfort your friend, glaring at the two youngests that kept laughing. "She laughs everytime someone mentions it, even."

"You're right." Danielle smiled, nodding and turning to face you. "What about you, Y/n? You were the only one that didn't say what you're going to do tonight."

"Oh." You blinked at her, shrugging as you turned to your captain. "I'll probably just go home and do nothing important."

"You should go out with Minji." You choked on your own spit as the words left Danielle's mouth, turning to look at her with an evident blush rising on your face. "She's not doing anything as far as I know and neither is you, it's a perfect idea." You looked at Haerin behind her with wide eyes, silently asking her if she told the australian anything about your crush on Minji, but she seemed as surprised as you were.

"W-Why?" You cursed yourself mentally for stuttering, looking away so Danielle wouldn't see the embarrassment and shyness in your face.

"Because you're friends and you both have nothing to do on a Friday night?" You were glad she sounded genuinely confused at your question, but you couldn't help fear that she had figured out you liked Minji. You loved and trusted Danielle with your life, but if Hanni and Hyein ever found out about your crush the three of them would become the most obvious and chaotic cupids to date. And that thought horrified you. Minji deserved someone social and cool, and you didn't want to ruin your entire friend group's friendship over a stupid crush you had on the quarterback.

"We'll talk about this later." You mumbled, straightening you back as your coach yelled that the break was over.

---------------------------------------------------

You sighed as you tied your shoes, feeling relaxed after a cold shower in the locker rooms. Practice ended about an hour ago and you took your sweet time showering and dressing up. Haerin and Hyein had already left, the younger taking the opportunity to take a ride with the catlike girl. Danielle on the other hand, was still putting her shirt on by your side in front of her locker.

Talking about the australian girl. "Dani!" Kazuha, one of your cheermates, yelled to your friend, making the girl turn around while she pulled her shirt down her torso. You simply resorted to finishing putting your shoes on. "Hanni's here!" Your friend squealed in excitement and you giggled at her, shaking your head.

You tuned their conversation off, shifting your attention to a certain quarterback that seemed to always plague your mind. You clutched Minji's varsity jacket to your chest as you finished tying your shoes, a small smile resting on your lips as you reminisced about how beautiful she looked during class, laughing at whatever nonsense your classmates and Hanni said. You brought the jacket to partially hide your face when your memories brought you to a moment during bio class where the teacher assigned you all a group activity and as per tradition at this point, the football players and the cheerleaders stick together on the same group. Yunjin, a football player, was blocking your way towards your seat and she was so engaged into the activity with Kazuha that you felt too shy to ask her to move, so you waited patiently behind her. But Minji noticed you behind her and instead of asking Yunjin to move, she lifted you up so you could pass above the tables instead. To say you were a blushing mess after that was an understatement, and to make matters worse for you, or better, Minji kept an arm around your waist during the entire class, always smiling down at you and giggling at your rosy cheeks. Gosh, you loved that girl.

"I hope you're thinking about me." You jumped startled, hand gripping on the jacket as whoever just spoke to you giggled at your reaction. You looked up to see Minji looking down at you with her beautiful smile, eyebrows quirking up as you finally knowledged her. "Hi, Y/nnie."

"Hey, Min. What are you doing here?" You smiled at her, fighting back your blush as you got up and put the jacket in your hands on, finally noticing how quiet the lockers room had gotten. The others must've already left, but you didn't want to tear your eyes from the football player in front of you.

"I'm giving a ride to the girls for their date, so we came to pick Dani up." You nodded and your eyes locked for a few seconds, before you averted your gaze and went to grab your gym and school bags. "Are you going somewhere tonight too? I can give you a ride if you want."

"Oh, it's okay." You shaked your heard, looking away to see Danielle and Hanni in their own little world, giggling with each other. "I'll just go home and figure out what I'll have for dinner because no one's home for a while and there's nothing in the fridge..." You accidentally rambled, trailing off as you caught Minji smiling at you.

"Wanna go out?" You blinked at her question. Was she asking you on a date? I mean of course not, why would she? She's just asking her friend to go out because you have nothing to do and she has nothing to do so she must want to go out with her friend. Just that. Nothing else. Of course Minji wouldn't be asking you on a date why would she– "Y/n? You're cute when you get lost in your head like that." She giggled and you were certain your entire face was very red.

"What?! I am not!" You playfully slapped her shoulder, leaning into her as you both laughed, you more because of embarrassment than anything else.

"So." She held your waist with one hand, brushing a few strands of hair from your face with the other. "Wanna go out? We can go that convinience store close to my grandparents house." Your eyes lit up at that. That convenience store was one you'd go often when you were kids to buy ice cream and watch cartoons because her grandparents never let you watch them at their house.

"I would love to!" You smiled a her, big and genuine. Minji smiled down at you, caressing your cheek as she nodded. "How have they been, by the way? I haven't seen them in so long!"

"They ask about you a lot, actually." You looked at her in surprise and she only nodded, giggling. "You know they love you." You shaked your head at that, blushing slightly. "My parents miss you too. You should come over more often, I feel like we barely talk outside school or when we are not with the girls." You nodded, feeling a bit guilty. You wouldn't lie in saying that your crush had strained your friendship with the girl because of your shyness around her. But you were glad she wanted to see you more often.

Before you could engage deeper into your conversation, Hanni and Danielle came up to you two holding hands and with big smiles on their faces. "Dani's ready to go. Oh hey, Y/n." You waved at Hanni, smiling at your friends happiness. "Let's go, Minji. We have reservations, we can't be late."

"Ready to go?" Minji looked at you and you nodded. The quarterback smiled and laced her arms with yours, starting to walk away with the couple to the parking lot.

"Oh, you told her about my idea from earlier?" Danielle asked as she noticed you were following them to Minji's car.

"What idea?" Minji and Hanni looked between the two of you with curiosity and you couldn't help but look down embarrassed.

"Nothing–"

"Y/n had just said she would be doing nothing tonight so I suggested she should go out with Minji since she was also doing nothing tonight." Danielle cut you off before you could dismiss her and you were glad it was dark otherwise as Minji looked down at you with amusement she would've seen the blush spreading over your cheeks.

"Seems like us going out today was destiny." She said in a deep voice, pulling you closer and giggling at you before she let go of your arm to round the car and go towards the driver's seat. "Y/n's taking the front seat!" She glanced at Hanni who was about to open the passenger's seat door.

"Why?!" You and Danielle muffled your laughs at the girl's genuine offense. "You ask her out once and now she has passenger princess privileges?" Hanni huffed as she walked to the backseat with her girlfriend, closing the door behind her a bit harsher. "I thought we were mates, bro." She continued complaining as you all got inside Minji's car, buckling up before the older girl started the vehicle.

"Shut up and enjoy your free ride, Hanni." Minji shaked her head, giving you an reassuring smile as she saw you were feeling a bit panicked by Hanni's reaction. "She's just being dramatic, don't worry." She whispered to you before turning to face the street.

After turning on the radio, you all fell into a comfortable ambience as the couple in the backseats talked about their plans for the night, while you and Minji silently laughed, teasing them every once in a while for good laughs.

When Minji parked in front of the restaurant Hanni and Danielle would be having dinner at, she opened the window and peaked her head outside to look at the couple getting out of the car. "Remember to call your parents when you get home!" She said as she looked at Hanni, pointing an accusing finger at her. "I don't want your mom at my door at 3AM again because you forgot to text her you got at mine's safely!"

"Damn bro, that happened once!" Hanni mumbled angrily, having a bickery staring contest with Minji before Danielle broke it with a quiet laugh.

"We will, unnie. Don't worry." Danielle smiled, lacing her fingers with Hanni's. "Have a good night you two!" They waved at you two goodbye, and you turned to Minji as she mumbled.

"It was three times, actually." You giggled, and looked around faking uninterest as Minji looked at you puzzled. "Well... Shall we go to our date now?"

"Y-Yes!" You squealed, face becoming more red as Minji laughed at you. You were rigid in your seat as her hand lightly squeeze yours in your lap before shifting the gear from parked to begin driving away from the restaurant.

---------------------------------------------------

"I think I'll just have these." You handed Minji the items you wanted to buy from the convinience store: two tuna onigiris, a strawberry sandwich and a bottle of strawberry juice. The girl put the items in the basket she had looped on her arm, smiling at you sweetly. "Are we going to eat here or on your car?"

"Actually, I was thinking–" But before Minji could finish her phrase, she was interrupted by the sound of your phone ringing in the pocket of her jacket you were still wearing.

You smiled at her apologetically before grabbing your phone, looking at the familiar name popping on the screen. "Oh, it's Haerin." You were a bit confused on why the girl was calling you so late at night without warning, but you brushed it off remembering she had gone to the cinema and was either excited about it or bored by it.

"You should pick it up, Haerin doesn't usually call people." You nodded, knowing very well all the habits of your best friend. You once again smiled apologetically at Minji, but she simply gave you a sweet smile. "I'll finish grabbing my things and meet you outside?"

"Thank you, you're amazing." Wanting to rush out and answer Haerin's call before it went to voicemail, you stood on your tiptoes and kissed Minji on her right cheek as another thanks before rushing out of the store and answering the call. "What's up, Rin?"

"The movie was good but now mom's complaining about how it wasn't 'realistic' and now I'm annoyed, so I decided to annoy you too. What are you doing?" You laughed at her annoyed tone, pulling the jacket tight around your torso as a chilly breezy ran past you.

"Out with Min." You giggled at Haerin's loud gasp, feeling the warm on your cheeks, but you told yourself it was because you were cold. "She invited me to go to a convinience store close to her grandparents house. And don't be weird about it! We used to come here as kids."

"What happened after I left?!" The annoyance she had seconds ago was long gone and that made you laugh at her, lightly pacing back and forth on your reels to warm your body a little. "So, have you two kissed yet?"

"Shut up!" The warm on your neck was definitely not from the cold and you had to bite your lower lip to stop yourself from smiling at the thought of kissing the quarterback. "It's a totally platonic outting. Nothing else. And stop being weird."

"Dude, you're so dense it's frustrating sometimes." You could hear the roll of her eyes in her voice and that made your eyes roll too. "Just tell her you like her already!"

"Stop!" You squealed, looking back afraid Minji might be near, but you saw her attentively looking through the freezer for something to drink. She looked cute. "She doesn't feel the same anyways, so there's no need for that."

"You don't know it until you confess!" You rolled your eyes once again, sighing in annoyance. "Come on, Y/n! Don't be a coward for once!"

"Why are you so insistent on this? Can't I just like her from afar?" You could never understand why Haerin was so insisted on making you confess to Minji. Was it so hard for her to understand the football star would never return your feelings for her?

"No, you can't!" The girl groaned on the other side of the line and you heard some movement before she spoke again. "Use this date as an opportunity to finally bitchen up and tell her you like her! What's the worse that could happen?"

"Loose Minji's friendship?" You said that like it was the most obvious thing ever, frustration starting to build up in your chest. "Which I already am by the way, because I'm a stupid coward."

"Then stop being one!"

"Can you stop instigating me for once, Kang Haerin?!" Your voice raised a little, gripping your phone as your fear of rejection surfaced from the depths of your heart. "I'm not telling Minji I like her! End of story!" There was a loud groan from the other side of the line and you where about to tell her you wouldn't do what she wanted you to once again when a voice from behind you stopped you from doing so.

"You like me?"

Your eyes widened, body going rigid as Minji walked in front of you, looking you direct in the eyes. Suddenly, the firm grip you had on your cellphone loosened and your phone slowly fell from your hands. The loud sound it made as it hit the floor made you jump a little, but you didn't move to pick it up. You didn't blink as Minji eyes stared deeply into your own. You could feel your entire face going red and your hands start to shake from fear. This was it. The secret was out. She was going to reject you and you were going to loose one of your closest and best friends and she was going to–

"Why didn't you tell me before, silly?" She laughed. Minji laughed. Her eyes were crescent moons, just like they always were when she was happy. You'd know that much, you're always staring at her. And she had a faint blush on her cheeks. You were confused, and still locked in place. "Oh, Y/n." She stepped close to you, her voice dropping two octaves, making goosebumps go through your entire body. She brought both of her hands to your cheeks, gently caressing them. You couldn't get any redder than this. "You're cute when you're blushing."

"M-Minji I- What are you doing?" You said in a whisper, gulping down as her body was practically flush to yours. You could feel her warm breath hitting your face.

"Can I kiss you, Y/nnie?" Your eyes went wide at that and your vision became a bit blurry. Your breath got stuck in your throat and you nodded eagerly before your hazy mind could understand what you were doing.

Minji giggled at the confused and awestruck state you were in, before looking down at your lips and leaning in, the phone on the floor long forgotten by both of you.

Your mind went blank before beginning to register things again. Minji's lips were soft and a bit cold, but they felt so incredibly good. They tasted faintly like the milk chocolate you knew she loved. You took a few seconds to relax from the shock, closing your eyes and sighing into her lips before wrapping your hands around her neck. You felt Minji smile into your lips before she let one hand go of your cheek, pulling your closer to her by the waist and deepening the kiss.

You both pulled back when air was needed and you rested your head on her shoulder, giggling quietly as she gently caressed your back.

"I like you so much, Y/n." You pulled back just enough to look at her, your eyes shining with love as you bit your lips in slight shyness from her affectionate gaze.

"I think I've liked you since I met you, Minji." You took all of your courage to say that confidently, smiling brightly at her as she smiled back at you.

"Hmm, that's good." She mumbled, leaning in smiling before she captured your lips on hers once again. You were already getting addicted to the feeling of them.

This time, you were both interrupted by your phone ringing, Haerin's familiar ringtone making you remember your phone.

You pulled back with a quiet 'Sorry', crouching down to pick your phone up, that was luckily not broken, and quickly texted your best friend that your data was almost over and you'd talk to her later. You looked back at Minji, suddenly feeling shy under her sweet gaze that held a new meaning in your eyes and heart.

"So, wanna take this date to somewhere else? I don't wanna ask you to be my girlfriend in front of a convinience store." She eyed the glass sliding doors with an awkward smile, but your mind focused on something else. Girlfriend... Minji wanted to be your girlfriend. Holy shit Minji liked you! "Baby? Let's go?"

"Yes!" You squealed at the pet name, blushing brightly as she giggled and grabbed your hand, dragging you towards her parked car.

"By the way." She turned to look at you once you stopped in front of the passenger's seat, looking down at you with a sweet but mischievous smile. "You look very cute and hot wearing my football jacket."

"Kim Minji!" You squealed in disbelief as she rounded the car laughing loudly.

---------------------------------------------------

You closed your locker with a sigh, turning to face Danielle and Haerin as a few of your cheermates bid you goodbye. It was Monday again and the three of you had just changed your cheer clothes from practice before classes to your normal school ones.

"What is taking Hyein so long?" The australian mumbled, looping her arms around both yours and Haerin's arms to begin leading you towards the youngest's locker.

A few of the students waved at you three, but everyone seemed to be in their own little world. It was Monday, and most of the clubs were on a small break, so the mood around the school was a bit more chill than usual. And no sight of the two football star players like you used to see every morning.

You spotted the tall girl you were looking for speaking to a few of her classmates. When she spotted you the three of you, she waved and smiled brightly. But wishing to let Hyein speak patiently to her classmates, you pulled Danielle back to slow her pace and allow the three of you to walk slowly towards the younger girl.

Once you were close to reaching her, a loud voice seethed through the peaceful atmosphere of the hallway calling out your name. "Y/n! Wait!" You looked back confused, letting go of Danielle's arm to be greeted with the sight of Yeonjun running in your direction with a football in his hands.

"Oh, hey. Good morning, Yeonjun." You gave the boy a tight but polite smile, grateful that this time you were wearing clothes that covered your body. You could feel Haerin's intense gaze at him from behind you. "You seem excited."

"I heard well have a joined practice tomorrow!" You nodded, folding your arms in front of your torso as you hugged yourself, starting to feel uncomfortable under his intense gaze. You might not be wearing revealing clothes, but the way his eyes traveled down your body made you feel exposed just as much. "So, I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me after it." You blinked at him, not failing to hear the growl Haerin let out from behind you.

"Yeonjun..." Your voice was serious, and a bit annoyed if you were being honest, but you remained your politeness, feeling shy about making a fuss in front of so many people. "No. You know I don't see you like that."

"Just give me a chance!" He slapped his ball in frustration, looking pleadingly in your eyes. "Why not?!"

"Because she doesn't want to!" Haerin angrily answered for you. You turned to give her a stern look, turning back once again to look at Yeonjun, feeling small but annoyed under his gaze.

"I don't like you like that, Yeonjun." You sighed frustrated, fingers slightly fidgeting with the necklace you had under your shirt, the necklace Minji gave you while you didn't have official rings yet. "Besides, I'm not even sin–"

"Hey, babe." Familiar arms looped around your waist, a sweet kiss being planted on your cheeks as a big smile immediately formed on your lips. "Good morning."

You turned to look at your girlfriend Minji, standing on your tiptoes to give her a sweet kiss on her lips. "Good morning, baby. How are you doing?"

"Great, now that you're here." She smiled down at you and was about to say something else when a shocked cough interrupted her. Minji turned to look at Yeonjun, giving him a not so subtle annoyed expression. "Oh hey, Yeonjun. Were you and my girlfriend talking about something important? Sorry to interrupt you." You loved how she said girlfriend in a protective way, pulling you closer to her and tightening her hold on you.

"Oh, it was nothing." You interrupted Yeonjun before he could answer her, feeling a bit more confident in the safety of her arms. "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah, it was nothing." He mumbled, smiling awkwardly. "See you two around." He skipped away quite quickly, mumbling something under his breath.

You turned to look at Minji as she cursed him quietly, giggling as you gently caressed her nape to calm her down. You were about to lean in to kiss her again when a loud squeal interrupted you.

"I'm sorry?! I think I missed a chapter!? Girlfriend!?" The two of you turned to look at your friends, all plastering shocked faces, but Haerin was the only one smiling between them.

"Oh, did we forget to tell you guys?" Minji said nonchalantly, blinking at them before a big smile appeared on her face as she turned to look at you. "We are dating!"

"You fucking asshole! I knew your data was fine!" Haerin slapped your shoulder, quite strongly, as she recovered from her surprise. "I told you it'd go well!"

"Wait, Haerin knew about this?!" Hanni pointed accusingly at the catlike girl, still looking between you and Minji in shock.

"She knew I liked Minji..." You trailed off shyly as you looked between Danielle and Hyein, waiting their reaction to the new information.

The australian girl seemed to finally snap out of her shock, jumping excitedly on top of you and your girlfriend, squealing loudly. "You have to tell me everything! I can't believe it! I can't believe it! You two look so cute together!"

"What are your intentions with my unnie?" Hyein pointed at Minji, trying her best to look intimidating, but she looked toi happy to be taken seriously.

"Don't worry about her, kid. I'll take good care of Y/nnie for you." Minji laughed at Hyein, patting her head.

"What the fuck, bro!" Hanni also joined her girlfriend in the hug, pulling you and Minji's faces close to her. "Congrats, man! You finally got the girl!"

"Okay, wait." Danielle pulled back, looking at her cellphone. "We have thirty minutes before class, you have to tell us everything!"

You all laughed, beginning to walk towards the court to your usual spot, your girlfriend's arm securely wrapped around your shoulders, and you were still wearing her jacket.

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a/n: this is honestly kind of very bad but if you read it once and then think about the scenario in your head it's kinda cute so it's okay I guess

#newjeans x reader #newjeans imagines #kim minji x reader #newjeans x fem reader #newjeans minji #kim minji #minji x reader #newjeans #gxg imagines

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kaznejis · 10 months

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Love is lost on you- Bucky Barnes x Reader

Sam hummed, eyeing you as he nodded slowly, “He’s been to therapy, gone on a date with some girl apparently.”

Your heart stuttered, eyebrows shooting up as you failed to hide your expression from Sam- the shock and subsequent heartbreak present in your features. “Oh,” you spoke slowly, refusing to meet Sam’s eye, “Yeah, well, good for him.”

A/N- I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing! Please feel free to send any requests for Bucky- I have a lot of free time right now. :)

Word count: 3,862

Read it on AO3!

“Have you seen Bucky recently?”

Your lips twisted at Sam’s question, a lump forming in your throat at the name. Whilst you loved spending time with Sam- breakfasts, jogging together, late night drinks; the topic of your relationship with the Winter Soldier remained a taboo, an unspoken topic that lingered within every etched line of your conversations. You tended to skirt around his questions, opting to forget the time in which Y/N L/N and Bucky Barnes had been the pinnacle of a dynamic duo; both inside and outside of the battlefield. Constant speculation surrounding your relationship made you popular within the public eye, even as active fugitives- the perfect, star-studded friends-to-lovers trope, the bad boy and the good girl next door. Natasha had joked about the two of you being a couple- just to appease the general public who had kept up with any of your appearances.

Bucky had laughed in her face, mocking the idea of even being seen with you, ridiculing the idea of recognising what you believed to be true. You had laughed too, as sincerely as you could with the swirl of rejection in the pit of your stomach. You had realised then that despite your prayers, your wishes, you and Bucky Barnes would never be more than friends.

Sam was the only avenger you were constantly in contact with, having both opted to remain in Washington- you would join him in visiting Steve every now and then; now a dwindling old man, a shadow of the former super-soldier you had looked up to. He remembered very little of his time with the Avengers, the wide span of time his life had consisted throughout caused memories to intertwine and muddle together. But he still laughed, still carried that jovial optimism he carried towards life; you could only smile along, holding his hand as he lived out his final days. You envied Steve at times, he had known exactly where he belonged and had taken the chance to go there.

You hadn’t quite worked out your place in the world post-Avengers, post superhero glory.

Maybe that was why you had clung to Sam, meeting with him regularly and joining him on outings to his hometown; he felt the same way. You couldn’t blame him when he gave away the shield- it was too much of a responsibility, a burden to hold for the rest of his life as he would constantly live in Steve’s shadow. You understood, you couldn’t fault him for it- but part of you knew it would have landed in the wrong hands.

“No,” you shook your head, running a finger along the rim of your beer bottle as the new ‘Captain America’ pranced around on the bar’s television above you. “Why, have you?”

Sam hummed, eyeing you as he nodded slowly, “He’s been to therapy, gone on a date with some girl apparently.”

Sam hummed again, a blatant smirk upon his lips as he drank from his beer bottle, “There’s something else.”

“Go on.”

“He’s coming down here, to help confront the flag smashers issue,” his voice faded out as your heart thudded, “And to probably cuss me out for letting the shield go.”

“He’s coming here? Bucky’s coming here?” your voice wobbled slightly, your facade of strength instantly fading at the thought of being in the same room as him, seeing his face, smelling his scent. It was a feeling you’d once been accustomed to, seeing him everyday- sparring with him in the gym, fighting alongside him, collapsing into his arms as the both of you had faded back into existence- gripping the sides of his face, foreheads connected as you’d cried. Your lips had collided on that fateful day, tears mingling together as you’d gripped at each other, holding fistfuls of his long hair in that Wakandan jungle. You had thought that was it, it was finally happening. But then the portals had opened, the fight had ended and the clarity of the situation had become all too real- Tony and Natasha were dead, Steve was no longer the young super-soldier he had been only seconds earlier. Bucky had left then, disappeared without a trace leaving the kiss you had shared merely adding up to the heat of the moment.

It had broken your heart, more so than the day Bucky had laughed at the thought of a relationship. You had finally grasped it, everything you had ever wanted- you were alive, you had won, you had Bucky. But within minutes it was over, rendering you helpless, empty, alone. You had been left with nothing post-blip, no family to return to, no home to return to. You joined the billions that simply rode the wave of life, unable to return to their previous selves; unable to gain back the years upon years lost to Thanos.

Sam had continued to eye you, pity sitting deep within his eyes, “You know, maybe now could be the time to discuss what happened between you two.”

You shook your head once again, a sardonic chuckle erupting from your gut, “I don’t wanna do that to him, Sam.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You literally just said that he’s been on a date, I don’t want to disrupt his life now with reminders of the past. He’s put it all behind him and I respect that.” You continued to work in favour of America, utilising your skills in order to aid the government. You and Sam had co-ran multiple military focused missions- threats were ever prevalent, so at least you could be occupied on that front.

Sam sighed, rubbing at his forehead, exhaustion prevalent within the crease of his brow, “Well, the two of you better not be awkward as hell the whole time, we have a mission to complete.”

Smiling, you raised your beer bottle to clink it against his, a toast to whatever was to come. “Can’t make any promises.”

You pitied Sam, sitting on the other side of the plane, grasping at any semblance of a coherent conversation in order to escape the thick tension within the air. It was awkward as hell.

Bucky had stormed over to the two of you, opting to ignore you entirely and cuss Sam out for losing the shield. You had been too stunned to acknowledge him- his once long locks had been chopped, replaced by cropped, buzzed hair with the slightest fluff on top. Your body practically yearned for him as you took in the tight leather, light stubble and dominant demeanour he now wore- the quiet, isolated Bucky that you had rescued and harboured was no longer present; he had been replaced by a real soldier- all hard muscle and perfected accuracy. You had stood to the side of Sam, switching between avoiding Bucky’s gaze and gawking at his new appearance. Upon the chance that he had taken to try and acknowledge you, you had already walked away- much to Sam’s dismay as he side eyed the both of you the entire walk towards the plane. Despite Sam’s endearing attempts to include you in the conversation, you had merely hummed and nodded- too nervous to engage with this new Bucky Barnes.

So, now, you sat side by side in the back of the plane- waiting, begging, for the instruction to jump. As soon as it did come, Sam was gone- practically leaping from the plane as he flew towards the target. Bucky had faltered, glancing back at you momentarily as you had remained stoic; refusing to meet his gaze as you checked your weapons.

He cleared his throat, glancing downwards from the exit of the plane, “We got any chutes?”

“It’s too low.” Joaquin replied from the opening, gripping the handle as he remained stable. Bucky glanced back at you once again, a tinge of worry present in his features as he calculated the expanse of the drop before you. You rolled your eyes back, crossing your arms as you waited for him to jump. Clicking his tongue, he nodded- before throwing himself from the plane.

“Impressive,” you snorted as he screamed, grinning at Joaquin who attempted to stifle his laugh, “Good thing I thought to install gliders in my stealth suit instead of opting for a leather jacket.” At that you swan-dived from the entrance, allowing your suit to expand and form makeshift gliders. With feline-like precision, you landed on your two feet beside Bucky, splayed along the grass.

“Well, that was majestic.”

You scoffed, turning to jog after Red Wing as it began to lead the way to Sam’s location. Though, before you could; a weighted hand grasped at your sleeve, “Whoa, whoa. Hold on.” Bucky gasped, presumably exasperated from the fall, “Are you gonna talk to me or are you giving an old friend the silent treatment right now?”

Scoffing, you snatched your hands from the metal arm- an action only possible with his allowance, “What do we have to talk about, James?”

“Oh- come on Doll, James, seriously?” your heart sped at the nickname, your cheeks filling with heat as you turned your face away from Bucky, beginning the long run through the forest. You heard a sigh behind you, to which you ignored, you had nothing to discuss with him. He had obviously moved on, with no intention of using this meet up as a chance to potentially rekindle what had about to have been- right person, wrong time and all. But instead he had gone on a date. He had probably bought her flowers, drinks, and put on a nice outfit for her. The thought made your stomach churn, the polar opposite of butterflies swarming in your stomach. Jealousy. Out of curiosity, you just wanted to know who she was- check that she was a viable replacement, made him happy, was good looking and all. Though you couldn’t ask Bucky about it- why should you care anyway? The two of you had kissed once. Bucky probably didn’t even remember it, you thought to yourself.

The two of you jogged in silence; the heavy weight of what lay between you creating a dark cast upon your conscience. You well and truly pitied Sam. The Falcon came into view within the warehouse, crouched behind a shelf and watching the targets. As him and Bucky argued petulantly, you observed the group ahead- they were just kids. All young, fighting for what they believed was right; you saw a mirror image of your own young self. You watched as they entered the trucks- Sam scanned the trucks before realising that a hostage was potentially present within one of the vehicles. You swore, sprinting after Sam and Bucky.

“Wait!” you shouted, causing the others to come to a halt; both sharing confused looks, “Sam I need you to lift me so we can get extra eyes from the sky- I’m not as fast as the two of you on foot and I’m definitely not about to make James give me a piggyback.” Sam nodded, ensuring that he could lift you and fly at the same time- but not before sharing a confused look with Bucky, mouthing ‘James?’ to which Bucky only shook his head, shrugging. The two of you flew off, allowing you the opportunity to unholster your handguns and deliver a number of shots to the top of the truck.

“Drop me off on top!” you yelled up to Sam as you watched Bucky be thrown from one van and dragged to the top of another. His super-soldier strength inflicting damage upon each vehicle.

“Are you serious?” Sam shouted from above, “You’ll get yourself killed, look at them holding Bucky back right now.”

“Do it Sam.” you ordered, squirming in his arms until he deposited you on top of the trucks to which you instantly unclipped your throwing knives, depositing two into the necks of the two soldiers holding Bucky back. Though- it only angered them, allowing them to turn their attention to your human form. You swore, your hair whipping in the wind as they advanced towards you.

“Y/N!” Bucky yelled, fighting against the men holding him down, “Y/N, no!”

Delivering a fatal kick, the soldier finally reached you, grabbing you by the hair and slamming you into the top of the truck. Screaming, you mustered every tactic you’d ever been taught: elbows, legs, arms- any brutal bone was thrown against the soldier pinning you down. The man tutted, his anonymity within the mask only increasing your terror as cold eyes glared down at you. You realized that you had become used to fighting alongside super soldiers instead of against them.

You heard Bucky’s yell before you felt the impact of the floor- the trucks speeding away as you laid at the side of the road; each breath hitching with the intense pain within your body. Gritting your teeth, you rolled to your knees and crawled to the roadside; only to lose momentum and roll into a ditch. The fall would have been fatal if not for the protection of your suit- but the high velocity impact had still broken a number of bones. Licking your lips, the taste of acrid copper prevailed as you began to cough up flecks of blood; turning only to see that the grass around you was stained red.

“Shit.” your vision blurred dangerously- the pain merged into an unfocused haze, rendering your ability to identify your injuries useless. Fading in and out of consciousness, you listened to the wildlife around you and thought of Bucky. He would never know the origin of your anger- only remembering the cold mirage you had enacted towards him; opting to ignore him instead. Sobbing, you prayed for anyone, anything to find you; for Sam and Bucky to break free from the soldiers and come and find you, save you. You would apologise then- talk to Bucky, talk to him about whatever he wanted to say to you. It didn’t matter if you were just friends, if you met his new girlfriend- you just wanted to see him again.

Blood stained your chin at that point; the coughing and choking a constant motion as you couldn’t muster the strength to sit up; to allow your throat some reprieve. Your leg felt wrong, broken in different places and bent backwards at the knee. As your vision faded, you only thought of Bucky.

“Shit, shit Y/N,” a gust of wind hit you as the whoosh of wings closing sounded above, “Buck! I’ve found her, she’s over here.”

The sound of knees hitting the ground beside your head could be heard next, the impact causing your head to jostle, “Doll? Y/N, can you hear me, tell me you can hear me.” warmth surrounded you as you felt your head being lifted into a lap, a rough sleeve gently wiped the blood staining your chin, “Come on Y/N, don’t do this to me. Wake up.”

“Get her in the truck.” A foreign voice sounded, deep and arrogant in its timber.

“Get away from her,” the voice above you snapped, “we don’t know the extent to her injuries yet- we may not be able to lift her.”

“We need to get her to a hospital, Buck,” a voice that sounded like Sam’s spoke, “there’s still a heartbeat, we’ve got a chance.” Throughout the conversation above you, a trembling hand had caressed your face; smoothing the blood-matted hair away from your face and distracting you from the pain throughout your body. The hand was calloused but gentle- the feeling of it against your cheek vaguely familiar in your unconscious state. You faded in-and-out of consciousness from there, an ache resounding throughout your body as you were lifted and held against a firm chest; warmth radiating through the harsh material. Sweet nothings and comforts were whispered into your ear as the body stayed close, the hand firm against the side of your face; creating a comforting pressure. Reminding you that you could still be alive.

Eventually, you woke- the harsh lights of a hospital room blinding as your eyes adjusted; the last thing you had seen being the country roadside. Coughing, you retched at the sandpaper texture to your throat. A straw was quickly coaxed towards your mouth, Sam’s worrisome eyes staring down at you. You sipped from the straw, blinking as you truly adjusted to being conscious.

“Hey there,” Sam spoke as he gave you a watery smile, his eyes filling with tears, “We thought we’d lost you for a minute there.”

“Can’t lose me that easily,” you croaked, smiling at your best friend and reaching for his hand; to which he obliged.

“Thankfully not,” Sam laughed shakily, his gaze still clouded with emotion, “Y/N, I was the one to see you first and- we really didn’t know if you were going to make it. I mean there was so much blood and your leg-” you squeezed his hand tighter, you were alive, you were okay. Sam’s vision darkened suddenly, his hold on yours tightening. “You should have seen him Y/N.”

Furrowing your eyebrows, you cocked your head at Sam, “Who?”

“Buck, he- the soldiers held him up so he watched as you were thrown. The scream he let out I- I’ve not seen him lose it like that during a fight in years, not since-”

“The Winter Soldier.” you finished, turning your gaze to your hands. Sam could only nod.

“He cares about you, Y/N. So much. He held you to his chest the entire journey here and we practically had to tear you from his arms when we arrived.”

“Why isn’t he here now then?

Sam’s face took a different cast then, one of confusion. “I- I’m not sure actually, he said he wanted to give us some space?” You reflected his look of confusion.

“Is he still in the hospital?”

“I assume so, it wasn’t too long ago that he left,” Sam stood then, giving you a kiss on the cheek and jogging towards the door- still in full Falcon gear, “I’m gonna send him in.”

It was only a number of moments later that Bucky rounded the entrance to the doorway, his expression stricken as he froze- staring at your opened eyes, at your steady breaths. A beat passed and he sighed, moving to occupy the vacant seat that Sam had been sitting in only moments earlier. “Hey, Doll.”

“Buck,” you sighed, reaching for his twitching hand that lay at the edge of your bed, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows, a glint of anger and confusion in his eyes, “I’m okay? Y/N I watched you fall from a moving truck.”

Rolling your eyes, you sat straight; wincing slightly at the pain, “I was just say-”

“No, Y/N,” Bucky snapped, “you shouldn’t even have been there in the first place, I mean what were you thinking, jumping onto a truck and taking on super soldiers that were holding me down.”

“Wow, thanks-”

“Seriously. This easily could have been prevented if your boyfriend hadn’t agreed to carry you 100 feet into the air.”

“My what-”

“I mean, come on, surely he should have your best interests in mind. The whole thing was reckless from the beginning, if I was in his position I wouldn’t have brought you.”

You sat, shell shocked, Bucky thought you and Sam were together, “Is that why you weren’t here when I woke up?”

Bucky nodded then, hurt in his eyes as he scrubbed at his stubble, “Yeah- I mean, I wanted to, you know, give you space. Let you work things out I don’t know-”

You cackled, laughing right in his face- leading to an entirely unattractive coughing fit to which Bucky was forced to clap you on the back. “Why are you laughing at me?”

“You’re ridiculous,” you chuckled, wiping at the tears rolling down your cheeks as you stared at the silly man before you, “Bucky, me and Sam aren’t together.”

Bucky paused, seemingly halting in his tracks as he gaped at you, “What?”

“We aren’t together.”

“But-” he shook his head, having seemingly lived a lie for however long he’d believed this, “but you two have been so close I mean- every time I talk to Sam he mentions things the two of you have been doing and you’re just so close and in tune with each other I thought-”

“We’re just friends Buck,” your mouth twisted, the clarity of the situation hitting you, “Why do you even care anyway? You have a girlfriend.”

“Oh for goodness sake.” Bucky was laughing now, standing and opting to pace the room, his face filled with mirth as he continued to scrub at his stubble, “I do not have a girlfriend.”

“Sam told me you went on a date.”

“Sam told you- yeah and he conveniently missed the part where I did that in an attempt to get over you.” Bucky threw his arms up then, his expression defeated as he spoke. You could only stare back, lips pursed, eyes wide.

“Get over me?”

“Yes.”

“But, I thought-” you shook your head, “after the battle, you-you left and we never spoke again. I thought you regretted what happened. I thought-”

“Every waking moment is spent thinking about that kiss, Doll,” Bucky sighed, circling the bed to sit back at your side, taking your hand in his, “I was mourning, my best friend was gone and I knew he was going to do it but I just- I would never be ready for it, you know. Sam found me later and he was telling me all of these stories about you and- God, I’m so stupid- I presumed that the two of you had gotten together so I kept my distance. I mean, I was so in love with you that I didn’t want to ruin that for you even despite what had happened between us and- I’m so sorry Y/N.”

Tears trickled down your cheeks as you stared at the ridiculous, gorgeous man before you; you laughed again, softer and tearier this time as you reached to grab Bucky’s face, mirroring the action that he had done to you during your unconscious state, “We are so ridiculous.”

Bucky laughed too then, moving to sit at the edge of your bed and tuck the loose hair behind your ears- his cheeks were crumpled; red with embarrassment and love and longing. He leaned forward then, careful in respect of your injuries, in order to capture your lips between his. This kiss was different from your first, it was slower, less urgent- your thumbs tracing figure-of-eights into his cheeks as you didn’t carry that same weight of uncertainty as you had last time. You smiled against each other's mouths, hands trailing each other’s bodies- the back of his head, his cheeks, his back, his neck, the brass of his metal arm.

You finally felt complete, like you knew where you belonged.

#bucky barnes x reader #mcu #mcu fanfiction #bucky barnes #falcon and the winter soldier #extremely self indulgent #sam wilson #marvel #thunderbolts #use of the doll nickname iktrrrr

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sailoryooons · 3 months

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I am going to say something that has really been bothering me that not everyone may agree with, which is totally okay, everyone is entirely valid to disagree with me: There is a fast fashion problem in fandom, specifically fanfiction.

Disclaimer: This conversation is not about broadly writing the same tropes, genres, and ideas. I am not talking about people writing fics with similar themes or the same name. I am specifically talking about people writing fics that are very obviously heavily influenced by other fics. This is not me talking about: I wrote __ character as enemies to lovers vampires and so did this person so they stole. Please do not trivialize this conversation with instances that are very obviously not what I'm talking about.

As someone who exists in the fanfiction space, I want to express what I have seen specifically in this space in my own experience, my mutuals experiences, and random experiences I have seen on my dash.

Recently, it seems like there is a reoccurring theme of writers (often new writers) taking "inspiration" from fanfics that they love and value and essentially creating their own version of that story to the point it is bordering on plagiarism. I say bordering on plagiarism because while people may not be copying line for line or entire scenes in order, you can tell that it is a re-arranged duplicate of another story.

I am not talking about writing similar tropes and dynamics. No one owns a trope or a dynamic. I am specifically talking about people taking the plots, scenes, concept and core of fanfics and recreating it and changing some plot elements or placing it in a different alternate universe and calling it their own, when at the heart of that fanfic, it is taken from someone else's creation.

This to me, reads like people who read a work, fall in love with it, but think 'this is easy to do, I can do this myself' and they end up making a replica of a fic that you can tell is a replica of another fic, despite adding some changes. Nine times out of ten, these inspired fics lack the obvious thought and heart the original writer put into it.

Which, begs the question: How is this different than fanfic writers taking inspiration from media (i.e. published books, movies, music, shows)? Because fanfiction is meant to replicate a specific something from published media. It is not meant to duplicate an already established fanfiction contribution.

I know that the nuance between that line is very ambiguous and it brings up the discourse on 'should there be fanfiction of fanfiction' - to which my response is it is, generally, pretty obvious what the difference between being inspired by a fic and copying a fic are.

In the last few months, I have lost count of how many times I or mutuals have a) discovered someone has been writing a story based off of their fic 2) have been asked to use an already written work to make their own or 3) already have started writing works modeled after an already written work and in hindsight asked the author if they could keep doing so (this third instance almost always happens after someone accuses them of stealing another work).

This feels like the fast fashion industry. Someone finds a story that is popular (whatever that means to the individual), takes all of the elements they think makes the story works, rearranges it, posts it as their own and and says they were 'inspired' (if they credit the original story at all).

This is why so many works that readers are coming across feel like they are the same thing. It is the same A + B + C = D over and over and over again, because people are outright just taking what they think works from other stories and using it.

Again - I am not talking about people who come across a trope, AU, genre or dynamic they like and add something similar to their story. I am talking about the people who are very intentionally and obviously writing the same exact fic with their own 'twist' (whatever that means).

Why is this a problem (beyond the fact that it's essentially roundabout plagiarism)? You're taking the heart, soul, and creativity someone poured into something and posting it on your own and robbing it of the originality, the essence, and the intention behind it. You cannot replicate a writer's feelings and obvious emotions that they have poured into the original work, and it shows. And it is gutting to the original authors who are finding remixes of their work across the fanfiction space.

Please consider whether or not you are inspired by a story or if you are redoing it in your own image. If you find yourself worried enough about your story that you feel like you have to publicly credit someone to avoid scrutiny, perhaps the question needs to be asked of whether you're just redoing what someone else already wrote.

Please do not confuse inspiration and recreation. 9 out of 10 authors will love that they inspired you to write, but would not love to find that you wrote a fic inspired by them that is a rearranged or hollowed-out version of the fic they wrote.

The fanfic space wants and needs more writers, but it does not need people unwilling to create their own art, instead taking bits and pieces from others and calling it a success.

Also adding: This problem also directly contributes to 'smaller' writers or more niche (often queer and bipoc) stories not getting the hype, readership, or recognition they deserve. On more than one occasion I've seen stories that had explicitly queer or bipoc characters taken and turned into heteronormative or white-presenting stories.

Note: This 1000% goes for actual visual art as well, including gifs etc. in fandom but I'm not well-versed there and thus, did not include it.

#i genuinely have very much like been pushed to the edge this week #and i feel like getting this off of my chest #and i don't think i am crazy but maybe i am #this is also a VERY broad rant of what i'm talking about and does not cover all the nuances of this

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celepom · 11 months

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It’s Pride 2023! Time to put up some more comic recs!

This time I’ve put together some stories about discovering one’s own queer identity, outlining a family history of queerness, and several stories where being queer isn’t the focus - queer characters are simply allowed to be.

Belle of the Ball By Mari Costa

High-school senior and notorious wallflower Hawkins finally works up the courage to remove her mascot mask and ask out her longtime crush: Regina Moreno, head cheerleader, academic overachiever, and all-around popular girl. There’s only one teensy little problem: Regina is already dating Chloe Kitagawa, athletic all-star…and middling English student. Regina sees a perfectly self-serving opportunity here, and asks the smitten Hawkins to tutor Chloe free of charge, knowing Hawkins will do anything to get closer to her. And while Regina’s plan works at first, she doesn’t realize that Hawkins and Chloe knew each other as kids, when Hawkins went by Belle and wore princess dresses to school every single day. Before long, romance does start to blossom…but not between who you might expect. With Belle of the Ball, cartoonist Mariana Costa has reinvigorated satisfying, reliable tropes into your new favorite teen romantic comedy.

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The Moth Keeper By Kay O’Neill

Anya is finally a Moth Keeper, the protector of the lunar moths that allow the Night-Lily flower to bloom once a year. Her village needs the flower to continue thriving and Anya is excited to prove her worth and show her thanks to her friends with her actions, but what happens when being a Moth Keeper isn't exactly what Anya thought it would be? The nights are cold in the desert and the lunar moths live far from the village. Anya finds herself isolated and lonely. Despite Anya's dedication, she wonders what it would be like to live in the sun. Her thoughts turn into an obsession, and when Anya takes a chance to stay up during the day to feel the sun's warmth, her village and the lunar moths are left to deal with the consequences.

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Hollow By Shannon Watters, Branden Boyer-White & Berenice Nelle

Isabel "Izzy" Crane and her family have just relocated to Sleepy Hollow, the town made famous by—and obsessed with—Washington Irving's legend of the Headless Horseman. But city slicker-skeptic Izzy has no time for superstition as she navigates life at a new address, a new school, and, with any luck, with new friends. Ghost stories aren't real, after all.... Then Izzy is pulled into the orbit of the town's teen royalty, Vicky Van Tassel (yes, that Van Tassel) and loveable varsity-level prankster Croc Byun. Vicky's weariness with her family connection to the legend turns to terror when the trio begins to be haunted by the Horseman himself, uncovering a curse set on destroying the Van Tassel line. Now, they have only until Halloween night to break it—meaning it's a totally inconvenient time for Izzy to develop a massive crush on the enigmatic Vicky. Can Izzy's practical nature help her face the unknown—or only trip her up? As the calendar runs down to the 31st, Izzy will have to use all of her wits and work with her new friends to save Vicky and uncover the mystery of the legendary Horseman of Sleepy Hollow—before it's too late.

---

Until I Meet my Husband By Ryousuke Nanasaki & Yoshi Tsukizuki

The memoir of gay activist Ryousuke Nanasaki and the first religiously recognized same-sex marriage in Japan. From school crushes to awkward dating sites to finding a community, this collection of stories recounts the author’s “firsts” as a young gay man searching for love. Dating is never ever easy, but that goes doubly so for Ryousuke, whose journey is full of unrequited loves and many speed bumps. But perseverance and time heals all wounds, even those of the heart.

---

Is Love the Answer? By Uta Isaki

When it comes to love, high schooler Chika wonders if she might be an alien. She’s never fallen for or even had a crush on anyone, and she has no desire for physical intimacy. Her friends tell her that she just "hasn't met the one yet," but Chika has doubts... It's only when Chika enters college and meets peers like herself that she realizes there’s a word for what she feels inside--asexual--and she’s not the only one. After years of wondering if love was the answer, Chika realizes that the answer she long sought may not exist at all--and that that's perfectly normal.

---

M Is for Monster By Talia Dutton

When Doctor Frances Ai's younger sister Maura died in a tragic accident six months ago, Frances swore she would bring her back to life. However, the creature that rises from the slab is clearly not Maura. This girl, who chooses the name "M," doesn't remember anything about Maura's life and just wants to be her own person. However, Frances expects M to pursue the same path that Maura had been on—applying to college to become a scientist—and continue the plans she and Maura shared. Hoping to trigger Maura's memories, Frances surrounds M with the trappings of Maura's past, but M wants nothing to do with Frances' attempts to change her into something she's not. In order to face the future, both Frances and M need to learn to listen and let go of Maura once and for all. Talia Dutton's debut graphic novel, M Is for Monster, takes a hard look at what it means to live up to other people's expectations—as well as our own.

---

Golden Sparkle By Minta Suzumaru

Himaru Uehara’s first year of high school is off to a good start, minus one problem—he keeps having wet dreams. With only his mom and sister at home—and having skipped health class in middle school—he thinks it means there’s something wrong with him. Thankfully, a new friend has just the remedy and teaches Himaru exactly how to deal with those pesky dreams! But his solution only leads to more confusion, and the two find themselves navigating feelings they’ve never felt before.

---

Thieves By Lucie Bryon

Ella can’t seem to remember a single thing from the party the night before at a mysterious stranger’s mansion, and she sure as heck doesn’t know why she’s woken up in her bed surrounded by a magpie’s nest of objects that aren’t her own. And she can’t stop thinking about her huge crush on Madeleine, who she definitely can’t tell about her sudden penchant for kleptomania… But does Maddy have secrets of her own? Can they piece together that night between them and fix the mess of their chaotic personal lives in time to form a normal, teenage relationship? That would be nice.

---

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic By Alison Bechdel

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

---

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat By Sakaomi Yuzaki

Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation...?

Kasuga and Nomoto promised to spend their Christmas and New Year’s together. Now, they find themselves learning more about each other’s families through the food sent by Nomoto’s mother. Cute character bento, salmon and rice, stollen, fruit sandwiches, roast beef…Nomoto and Kasuga warm up to each other over a cheerful holiday season.

#Pride 2023 #book rec #comic #graphic novel #autobio #fantasy #science fiction #high school #queer #lesbian #gay #asexual #intersex #bisexual #romance #book recs #pride #LGBTQIA #LGBT comic

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jenscx · 5 months

Text

BET ON IT — ahn yujin x f!reader

stereotypical jock ahn yujin is given a bet by her friends; take you, one of the smartest students in school, on a date. too bad you’re aware of the bet.

TAGS — literally all fluff, jock!yujin, yuj gets rejected a lot, popular x kinda nerd trope, ice hockey players r so fine, cursing

WORDCOUNT — 4.3k

when you first stepped into your new class, the tall brunette girl sitting at the back had caught your eye. she was wearing a varsity jacket and on her face adorned a boyish grin.

your cheeks had heated up when she sent a glance your way, and that’s when you realised, you had just found your newest object of infatuation. ahn yujin was just another hallway crush, blending into the crowd of high schoolers and standing out when she passed by your locker. she was eye candy for you and whenever you would see her, your day got significantly better.

once you were more settled in the school, you found out that yujin was unobtainable. way out of your league. a typical jock with a scholarship to an ivy league school. one that cared for neither studies nor academics. her only passion? playing ice hockey and with people’s hearts.

you had realised the latter when passing by a toilet cubicle. the sobs inside were too emotional and excruciating to ignore. despite your best efforts, your fist ended up knocking on the door and you had asked, “are you okay in there?”

inside of the cubicle was a girl, sobbing her eyes out. apparently, ahn yujin had promised to take her out on a date and even invited her back to her house but ended up ditching her. you had frowned, you could never have imagined the puppy-like girl you saw on the first day doing such a thing.

your infatuation for her slowly disappeared as you heard more and more stories of the atrocious things she would do to people. stomping on flowers, laughing at confessions and spreading rumours about people. ahn yujin was an asshole and a jerk. unfortunately she was an attractive one.

“y/n,” jiwon whispers, “is the answer x equals to negative five?”

you look up from your worksheet, for which you had doodled ahn yujin’s familiar smirk and quickly covered it.

“no. my answer is positive five. i think you made a mistake in the quadratic formula,” you explain, taking a peek at jiwon’s working. jiwon frowns and a shadow appears next to your desk.

the shadow actually startles you slightly. since the end of year examinations were nearing, lessons meant for teaching content were swapped to self-study sessions. normally, not a single person would move around, in fear of jeopardising their grades to fool around with friends.

thus, you were extremely confused as to why ahn yujin stood next to your table, eyes crinkling in a smile.

“hi,” she says, “i wanted to ask, how did you get a positive five for your answer?”

you can only stare at her in shock. due to her scholarship being on the line, you had thought yujin would have the top students tutoring her, as she had to keep an average of 70% for every semester.

so why was she talking to you now? wasn’t jang wonyoung a better option to ask?

“uhm, i think you forgot to…” you stare at her worksheet, “times 2 to the denominator.”

yujin’s eyes widen and you can’t lie that it’s adorable. jiwon shifts next to you nervously and you place a hand over hers, comforting her nerves.

“thanks! i owe you one!”

“oh… there’s no need…”

before you can even complete your sentence, she bounces back to her seat and smiles brightly at you. a quick whip of your head faces you with jiwon.

“did ahn yujin just talk to you?” she mumbles.

you rub the back of your neck, “i guess she did.”

for the first time in three years, you felt your feelings of infatuation resurface. ahn yujin, the girl at the top of your school’s social pyramid, just talked to you? and looked adorable while doing it?

and what does she mean by ‘she owes you’?

you just hoped it wouldn’t interfere with your studies. yujin was an enigma, one that would need countless hours of observation and detailed assessments to figure out her true colours. was her playboy act all a facade? or was this nice and cute classmate that you had actually just another one of her acting personalities to get what she wanted?

there were so many questions in your head that you didn’t even notice the bell ringing.

jiwon pulls you up and links your arms together, flashing a smile which snaps you out of your daydream.

“let’s go meet rei,” she says. you nod in agreement and let yourself be pulled all the way to the cafeteria. only at the table, you realise that you had left your phone back in the classroom.

rei had soon joined the table and you stood up abruptly.

“i left my phone in class, i’ll be back soon!” you inform your friends who wave you off. a quick few steps and you had arrived back at the classroom. notably, it was empty as students had all crammed to the cafeteria for a quick break before going back into revision.

except for the trio that sat at the back.

you raise your eyebrows and instantly recognise the smirk and brown hair of ahn yujin. she had kim gaeul and jang wonyoung sitting beside her, both of which had questioning looks on their face.

without much thought, you were planning to just walk in and take your phone swiftly. yet, the mutter of your name had made you pause in your steps.

“what was that with y/n during class?” wonyoung asks, head tilting in curiosity.

“what was what?”

gaeul scoffs, “you definitely knew how to do that question.”

“hm, did i? didn’t i look more like a stupid jock just needing assistance from one of the top scorers?” yujin laughs.

“you literally have me, the actual top scorer. y/n isn’t so stupid to buy your whole act. she’s actually a challenge,” wonyoung says. despite them discussing your intelligence in the open, you felt pride simmer at wonyoung thinking you were too smart to fall for yujin’s tricks.

“watch me.”

“okay… if she agrees on a date by the end of this month,” gaeul picks at her fingernails, “lunch is on me for the rest of the year.”

yujin chuckles, “it’ll be too easy.”

“and don’t fall for her,” wonyoung adds.

“still easy. this will be the easiest bet of my life.”

you hear the chair scraping against the floor afterwards. still debating on whether to retrieve your phone, you decide to ponder on what the bet entailed for you.

so one, yujin was definitely still a jerk. two, you would have to agree to a date by the end of the month for her to win. and three, she had no idea that you knew of this secret agreement.

huh.

you smile, finally having the upper hand over yujin for once. maybe this bet would teach yujin a lesson and help you live out your young fantasies.

“y/n!” you almost instinctively start to walk faster at the sound of yujin’s voice. all eyes turned to look at you and jiwon’s grip on your wrist tightened.

“good morning,” you nod. in one hand, a chocolate milk carton and in the other, a chemistry textbook.

yujin smiles sheepishly at you, “i was wondering… were you free this afternoon to tutor me in chemistry? i heard you were the top student of our year—”

“i’m not. wonyoung is,” you reply firmly. yujin falters for a second before bouncing back, “she isn’t free today since she has student council duties. i already tried asking her!”

if you didn’t know about the bet, you genuinely would have believed her convincing act.

“ah, well, i’m not free today.”

“oh? why?”

you gesture to jiwon, “going on a date!”

at that point, you hadn’t realised the impact of your words. those four words changed the trajectory of your life.

“d-date?!” yujin gapes.

you thought she looked like a fish. meanwhile, jiwon was desperately trying to drag you away from the crowd that was forming to witness ahn yujin being rejected.

“yup. so i can’t help you,” you say and wave goodbye to yujin, who stays rooted to the ground, almost jaw-dropped. truly, this was amusing. her reaction was terribly funny, considering that she had never once in her life been rejected before. and for you to be the one to do so? amazing.

yet, jiwon didn’t find it funny and began cursing you for ruining her school year. once word got out that her best friend was the one who rejected yujin, she would not be able to live a peaceful life.

this cycle of rejection only continued despite jiwon’s attempts to hide you from yujin. the requests ranged from, “can you help me with calculus?” to, “there was a new tteokbokki store that opened near school, wanna go together?”

you soon realised that yujin was determined to win this bet. with the countless amount of sweet post-it notes taped to chocolate milk cartons that appeared on your desk every morning… how could you not?

yujin had willpower, you acknowledged that fact. it was just a shame that you had overheard the conversation. maybe she would have actually won the bet by now.

while you were gloating about yujin’s loss, the jock was almost heartbroken with the number of futile attempts.

“she just isn’t falling for it!” yujin exclaims.

wonyoung raises an eyebrow, “i told you she isn’t that stupid. and your methods are so lame.”

“i thought they were cute,” yujin sniffles, pouting. the mere thought of her not being able to persuade a girl was devastating. this would mess up her reputation! she wasn’t the one who chased others!

“you’re not winning this bet,” gaeul states, snickering at yujin’s misfortune.

yujin, despite their claims, was still persistent in trying to get a date. it didn’t matter what she needed to do, she would do it. anything to win this bet.

she couldn’t lose her hard-built reputation as a heartbreaker. that was crazy. if she had to get down on her knees to beg…

well yujin might just consider it.

unbeknownst to the things yujin would do for a date with you, you walk with jiwon peacefully, almost reaching the front gate when your best friend halts.

“ah,” jiwon says out of the blue, “I can’t go home with you today. i need to show the new exchange students around school.” you frown but nodded anyway.

“i’ll see you tomorrow then?” you ask. jiwon sends a smile and quickly walks back to the school doors. you sigh, taking out your airpods when a tap on your shoulder spins you around.

ahn yujin again.

“hi,” she flashes a grin, “mind if i walk with you?”

“don’t you normally go that way?” you point in the opposite direction. yujin turns her head and laughs, “so you’ve been observing me?”

you think for a moment. “no, but your fanclub is waiting there for you.”

like you said, a group of girls and boys alike were standing at the other gate, eyes darting around for yujin. she tilts her head, reminiscent of your puppy back at home, and says, “i’m walking this way so i don’t get bombarded by them.”

“fair enough,” you take out your airpods again and try to drown out yujin’s attempts at conversation.

“hey!” she continuously taps you on the shoulder. you ignore her.

“don’t ignore me!” you do that.

“y/n-ssi..!”

ugh. you think. who the hell said that yujin was like a puppy? (you.) she was more like a parrot that couldn’t shut up.

“yujin-ssi,” you huff, “keep quiet.”

said girl just turns to you with a pout. eyes glistening with hope when you falter ever so slightly. with a sigh, you take out your airpods and raise an eyebrow.

“okay, i won’t ignore you anymore.”

“great! i was wondering,” yujin pauses, a hint of hesitation in her voice that you’ve never heard before, “do you wanna grab lunch together? wonyoung heard from jiwon that you liked the cafe nearby, i’ll pay.”

your voice wavers, “uh, sure.” no one could blame you; your favourite cafe paired with a free meal? anyone would have accepted (regardless of the puppy-like girl who shrieked in excitement).

“great!” yujin discreetly grabs your wrist, pulling you to walk faster. slightly taken aback, you willingly let yourself be pulled away.

on the way there, the typically chirpy yujin doesn’t say a word and instead keeps quiet. it’s only until you both find a seat in the cafe that she speaks up.

“y/n-ssi, do you hate me or something?” you watch as the jock twirls the fork in her hand, eyes gleaming with curiosity. perhaps she’s never experienced being rejected before.

“you’re just too much for me.”

“oh? what do you mean by that?”

you choose your next words wisely, “it’s a bit strange to have someone popular talk to someone so mediocre.”

yujin’s head snaps up, fury in her eyes. you think she’s about to storm out, offended by your words. yet, she grasps your hands into hers, passionately saying, “how could you be mediocre?! y/n-ssi, you’re like the most intelligent person in our grade, and you’re super nice and helpful too!”

you feel relieved. her outburst was just defending you. giggles escape your lips as you reply back, “nice and helpful? after rejecting you so often?”

the sight of yujin’s cheeks being flushed makes you marvel. it’s a rare sight to see the jock so flustered. she’s usually so composed and witty.

“ah… i was a bit insistent and annoying, i understand why y/n-ssi avoided me…” yujin mumbles shyly, letting your hands drop onto the table. your hands feel cold without yujin’s warmth but you quickly diminish that thought.

stop it, yujin is just playing with you.

you straighten up naturally, catching yourself before replying with anything flirty. you had to remember that yujin’s primary reason for talking to you was because of the bet.

unfortunately for you, yujin notices your change in demeanour.

“are you okay?”

“yeah,” you eye her carefully, “i’m just hungry.”

yujin sends you a toothy grin and starts another conversation. you end up talking about her puppy, azzo, her ice hockey training and your art portfolio before the food arrives. you realise even though ahn yujin was a stereotypical jock, she was probably smarter than most.

“y/n-ssi, can i call you unnie?”

you raise your eyebrow, “how do you know my birthday?”

yujin looks startled. frazzled, she quickly replies, “i just asked wonyoung… she’s close friends with jiwon…!”

“doing background checks on me?” you say, stuffing your mouth with the red velvet cake in front of you.

“no… maybe, yes? i was just curious!”

“you just want to talk informally, don’t you, yujin?”

the jock bows her head down, you hate how you find it cute.

“yeah… you caught me.”

you smile, “okay, you can call me unnie.”

it’s like yujin just won the lottery with the way she’s grinning. you would tease her even more but it’s better not to get attached to her.

after this month, she wouldn’t even bat an eye at you.

soon, you finish up your cake and yujin does too. when paying, you sense yujin’s impatience and chalk it off to being her realising that you wouldn’t wield so easily. shrugging it off, you try your best to make a quick exit before yujin drags you to somewhere else again.

after paying, you swiftly leave the cafe, only to be caught in yujin’s grasp again.

“unnie, can we exchange contact info?” her eyes are shining now. you hesitantly nod and hand her your phone.

yujin 🐶 [4.38pm]:

yn unnie! ^^

“there! i sent you a message,” yujin exclaims, “where’s your house? i’ll walk you home!”

“huh?! no… yujin, you should go home, i can walk by myself…”

the puppy-like girl only pouts. you’re mostly helpless to her, unable to really say no to a face like hers.

“unnie, i need to know if you reached home safely! bad guys would obviously kidnap a girl as pretty as you!” yujin scoffs. you try to hide your blush as you finally nod again.

yujin brightens up and takes your hand into hers, “let’s go!”

you feel bad for the younger girl; she was usually the one who played with other people’s feelings and now, she didn’t even realise that she’s the one getting played with. you wonder if yujin has ever seen the aftermath of her entertainment. would she be shocked that she caused someone so much pain? or would she just laugh?

the closer you got to your doorstep, the more you didn’t want to leave yujin. fuck, you think, that’s a bad sign.

how did yujin manage to attract you in only a day?

what the hell type of sorcery was she using?

“thank you for walking me home,” you bow, “send me a text when you get home too.” yujin nods but she stares at you expectantly. maybe she wanted you to invite her into your house?

that wasn’t going to happen though.

“uhm,” you mumble unintelligently. not even giving it a second thought, you quickly plant a kiss on yujin’s cheek and run into your house, slamming the door behind you.

what the fuck! you and yujin both think, your hand covering your mouth, shocked that you even did that. meanwhile, yujin traces the outline of your lips on her cheek with her fingertips, her face resembling a tomato the longer she stands outside your door.

yujin 🐶 [5.02pm]:

unnie…? ㅠㅠ

yn unnie 🤍 [5.03pm]:

IM SINSORYR

I DID IT WITHOUT THINKJNG

yujin 🐶 [5.03pm]:

ure too mean…

kissing me then slamming the door

yn unnie 🤍 [5.03pm]:

im sorry yuj

yujin 🐶 [5.04pm]:

ur lips r so soft tho?

do u use the laniege lip mask? ㅋㅋ

yn unnie 🤍 [5.04pm]:

what are u saying…

go home…

yujin 🐶 [5.04pm]:

yes ma’am!

(￣^￣)ゞ

ah fuck, you flop onto the couch, cheeks aflame, ahn yujin, i think you’re winning that bet.

it’s an early morning, gaeul hums happily, bathing in the sunlight. sometimes she’s glad that she has the window seat, when the sun rises and sets, she gets to watch it all. other times she’s not so grateful. like when it rains heavily and the raindrops splash at her.

life is great—

“yah, kim gaeul.”

the girl opens her eyes, facing an irritating sight; an ashamed ahn yujin. she only looked like that when her suitors yell at her, or when her mother nags her for her grades.

having known yujin for years, it was probably the former.

“which girl was it now?” gaeul huffs.

“y/n unnie.”

gaeul almost falls off her chair, did yujin win the bet? already worrying about her pocket money for the year, gaeul ignores everything yujin says, not until she hears, “i want to call the bet off.”

“what?!” she shrieks, “she didn’t agree to a date?”

yujin shakes her head, deflated but not for the reasons you’d imagine.

“i didn’t ask her on one,” she explains, “because… it didn’t feel right to do something so reckless.”

gaeul widens her eyes, naturally gesturing for yujin to continue. how could something like asking a girl on a date scare yujin? it was second nature to her at this point!

“asking y/n unnie on a date…” yujin’s gaze feels dreamy now and gaeul thinks she’s staring at a different person, “ah… it feels wrong to do it now..?”

“why? you wanted to win the bet though?”

yujin’s gaze hardens, “the bet isn’t as important as her.”

“y-yujin?! you’re saying that…”

“gaeul unnie, i like y/n.”

there’s no need to further explain. ahn yujin, the typical high school jock, falling for a girl that she only talked to for her own entertainment. how did she even manage to fall for you? yujin doesn’t know it herself. maybe it was after that day at the cafe, when you actually showed interest in her life. maybe it was the many online conversations you had with her, talking about mundane things. maybe it was the first day you locked eyes, yujin subconsciously always kept an eye on you afterwards.

or maybe it was all of that combined.

you tap your feet nervously on the bench. after you had kissed yujin’s cheek, she always brought it up, genuinely asking why your lips were so soft or even boldly declaring that she wanted another. maybe because it was rare for you to be so affectionate. even with jiwon and rei, skinship wasn’t so common. honestly, you weren’t sure what you were even doing with yujin. after many midnight conversations, you would consider you two friends. or perhaps even close friends.

yujin had forced you to wait for her to finish practice so she could walk you home. it was almost a routine at that point. there was some speculation of you two dating and you could imagine how happy that made yujin feel. yet mysteriously, yujin hadn’t made any super flirtatious advancements on you. the month was ending soon and the bet would end in her loss. so why wasn’t she doing anything? (not that you wanted her to do anything).

“y/n,” you turn your head. why on earth was kim gaeul and jang wonyoung staring at you from behind?

“yes…?”

the two girls glance at each other and rush up to you. you were currently standing outside yujin’s ice rink, watching her play hockey with her teammates. sometimes while playing a game, she would score and send you a wink. even through the helmet, you could see her mouth, ‘this is for you!’ it was embarrassing and cheesy but you still ended up flustered, covering your red face with your hair.

“we have something we need to tell you,” wonyoung starts off.

gaeul nods earnestly, “we’re very sorry but…”

you realise where this is going.

“ah, is this about the bet you guys and yujin made about me?”

wonyoung and gaeul both have their mouths agape, eyebrows furrowed. you almost laugh at their reaction.

“h-how did you know?!”

“i overheard you guys that day, i was going to get my phone but then i heard my name. sorry for eavesdropping.”

“no! we should be sorry for making that bet! but, if you already knew about it, why are you still hanging out with yujin?” wonyoung asks.

you chuckle, “i just wanted to see what she was planning to do. it was plain curiosity.”

“ah! but yujin likes you!” gaeul blurts out.

huh…?

“what?!”

“yeah! she told me a few days ago, that’s why she called the bet off,” the girl says. wonyoung groans, muttering about how gaeul shouldn’t have revealed that.

you absentmindedly say, “i like her too…”

the subject of your conversation immediately butts in, “you like who?”

you instantly clamp your mouth shut, heartbeat in your ears as you turn to face yujin. luckily you weren’t so out of it yet, if you were, you wouldn’t be able to control blurting out how handsome yujin looked in her gear. even brushing the ice off her jersey looked attractive to you.

“gaeul unnie, isn’t it time for us to leave?” wonyoung briskly drags gaeul out of the ice rink, leaving just you and yujin inside.

“aren’t you going to change?” you ask, facing a different direction from the jock before she manages to fluster you.

“i saw my two idiot friends talking to you, so i came here first,” she says, plopping down on the bench too.

“what were you guys even talking about?”

“oh… we were, uhm,” you stare at your lap, on top, your fingers playing with each other.

yujin senses you hesitate and places a hand on top of yours, holding it tightly.

“talking about… the bet you made about me,” you gulp, anticipating a huge, overblown reaction. you close your eyes but you don’t hear anything from yujin.

the silence begins to become worrying and you open your eyes, only to see yujin barely breathing, her eyes blown open and a pale face.

“unnie, i’m so sorr—”

“i’m not mad!” you quickly say, “i sort of had a crush on you on the first day of school, so having you interested in me, regardless of the bet, i mean, it made me feel good.”

“you had a crush on me?” yujin questions.

“yeah? like a hallway crush.”

“you’re seriously not mad about the bet?”

you shrug, “i was at first. but then your friends told me something.”

the girl’s body becomes stiff, more stiff than when you told her about your knowledge of the bet.

“they told me you like me, that’s what we were talking about before you came over,” you turn to her, “yujin-ah, is it true?”

yujin nods shyly.

“they’re so annoying… i wanted to have this cool confession but, ugh, unnie, i really wasn’t expecting myself to like you. is it crazy to say i’m happy that i made that bet? because it let me become closer to you?”

“yujin, before i accept your confession…” her eyes light up again, “can you tell me why you treated all those girls like that?”

“you mean…”

“you played with their hearts, how can i be sure that you won’t play with mine?” you ask.

yujin sighs, “honestly, i don’t know either but unnie, i need you to trust me that i like you a lot. i like you so much that i don’t know how to live through a day without thinking about you. everytime i experience something, i want to share it with you. please let me show my love for you.”

love… you smile, gently removing yujin’s helmet.

“you’re already thinking about love?”

yujin’s hair is unkempt, her bangs are swept messily, blocking her eyes slightly. yet, you can still see the whole galaxy in her eyes.

reaching out for her jaw, you pull her closer.

“ahn yujin, if you ever play with me, you’re dead.”

your lips are almost touching and you can feel her breath. almost panting already, yujin breathes out.

“there’s no point living if you’re not by my side.”

#ive #ive x reader #ahn yujin x reader #yujin x reader #ive yujin

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hwaightme · 3 days

Text

Cliché

(masterlist)

🥂pairing: jongho x gn!reader 🥂genre: fluff, acquaintances to lovers 🥂summary: normally, you are not one to enjoy clichés, but what can you do when the best man at your best friend's wedding is choi jongho? 🥂wordcount: 1.6k 🥂warnings/tags: unedited, reader is 'maid of honour', puns, jjong-rizz, dancing, much pining, it's giving 80s/90s romcom, flirting, lmk if anything else 🥂author's note: 'chella jjong. that's the post. thank you so much <3 any reblogs/comments appreciated!

It might be cliché. Something you had seen in films and shows many times over. You had scoffed at the pairing and labelled it as a trope tied by tradition and the general public desire for happy endings to everything - despite it rarely ever being the case. But here you were, catching yourself staring a little too long at the best man, and discovering that your heart was beating just that little bit faster, fluttering whenever he whispered one thing or another to you so as to not attract attention from other people who shared the table.

It wasn’t that you did not know Jongho, hell, you knew him very well - or at least the on-stage Jongho, the ace performer Jongho, the legendary vocalist Jongho. Having seen his achievements on the news and having heard stories about him travelling across your social circle, you were well aware of his professional capabilities. You, however, could not say much beyond that. Past common courtesies and the occasional nod in recognition, you had never shared as much as a couple of sentences with the man. Even though he was the groom’s closest friend and your best friend’s, the bride’s, recent but trustworthy acquaintance, he was a mystery to you. A mystery with an infinitely precious smile and a sense of humour that was too similar to yours to be able to hold a poker face.

It all started with a pun on an item in the set course menu for dinner. And then another. And then another, completed by yourself much to his delight. Soon enough, both of you were dissolving into a fit of giggles, sharing the jokes that others either had not quite understood or heard. It did not matter. They were not addressed to them anyways. At least not when Jongho was fully turned towards you, a glimmer in his eyes and a softness so indescribable painted across his features that you struggled to regain your composure.

You were quick to connect over the many things you had in common, and spent some time simmering in each other’s passions, enjoying the stars in one another’s eyes as you delved deeper into details. He was kind, attentive. A listener. But at the same time, no matter what topic you ventured into, even if just tentatively and temporarily, he remained just as transfixed by you as you were by him. Whenever you were worried that you had over-talked your welcome, he would encourage you to continue with a gentle question. In a rapidly descending spiral, you got addicted to his melodic laughter and how his nose would scrunch up occasionally, far too adorable to resist.

Jongho reminded you of old classics, golden autumn sunshine and the sensation of when you get to rest after a long day in your favourite cafe, with a warming cup of the finest brew; perhaps this was because you found out you shared an appreciation for coffee with him. Be it ‘Roman Holiday’ or ‘Singing in the Rain’, Jongho retained a certain something that could not be defined by simply taking in a snippet of the present day. While you referenced recent trends and popular videos spreading online at each other, nonetheless there was something timeless about him. You wondered if this was exactly why his voice was so enchanting. The aura spread from the way he carried himself, to the way he made you feel, to the way he made you wish you did not have to look at anyone else. Dark locks that were elegantly styled to highlight him as every bit a gentleman, pretty espresso-coloured eyes that you had memorised by now, a tailor-made suit and infinite charisma that made you forget you were at somebody else’s wedding.

“I do wonder why we had never spoken before,” you mused out loud as Jongho led you to the dance floor to catch the pace slowing down to gentler, more loving tracks.

“Good things take time,” he took no time in answering, almost startling you as you caught his words.

“Ah I see, needed time for interest to build,” you teased, earning a shake of the head and a shy smile.

“Or perhaps,” he snaked his arm around your waist, and waited for you to position yourself comfortably to join in a slow dance, “to muster up the courage.”

“Hm? Pray tell,” you tilt your head, floating to the music and the sound of Jongho’s voice.

“Well I hardly think that gawking across the room is a good way to get to know someone,” you felt blush rising to your cheeks as you thought back to the times when you would study him or sneak glances at different gatherings where both of you just so happened to be - rare, but astonishingly memorable, at least the times when you could capture him in your vision and imprint him in your mind. When you looked away, just for a split second to regain your composure, you heard a soft exhale and were met with a cheeky grin, “I was referring to myself, but I am glad to know that the intrigue was mutual.”

“Hm- so, what made you want to change things up?” you swore that if he were to let go of you right this second, you would probably collapse on the floor.

“A kind piece of advice from your friend in white. Told me that I should probably take my chances,” he tilted his head in the direction of the bride and groom before turning in time to the song.

“Wise words,” for what had to be the first time in your life, you decided to be grateful that your friend had a penchant for matchmaking.

You never quite let yourself drift in daydreams too deeply, be it out of a fear that they would turn into regular escapist paradise or out of despising the sensation of disappointment that often proceeded after entertaining even the simplest idea. But now, you could not bring yourself to avoid anything. If anything, you desperately wanted to dive in, see where the duet could take you.

One song replaced another, and you were still in his embrace, allowing yourself to enjoy the moments trickling by. Butterflies were replaced by a novel serenity, as though no matter what happened, Jongho would still be around. It made you remember something you had read about one time: the premonition of love, the feeling that in the future, you could love a person with your mind, body and soul. And, funnily enough, the realisation did not make you want to bolt in the opposite direction like it usually did. Instead, you leaned closer, and spotted the glints of that same new beginning in Jongho’s gaze.

Were you confident? No, far from it. If anything, you knew that the chances of things working out were rather disconcerting, but you did not mind trying. You could not deny the spark that was between you, nor could you ignore the realisation that this was not a spontaneous meeting of two strangers. If there was something you could choose to regret, it would be not attempting to get to know Jongho earlier; but then again, was it time lost, or a necessary pause that led you to where you were now? As the song blended into another and the two of you stepped away from the dance floor, you noticed you were still resting your hand in his. Shyly, you pulled away, your actions only to be mirrored by an equally flustered Jongho. His airy, melodic giggle made you beam; you struggled to hide it by studying the floor. It was easy to conclude that your efforts were in vain when he reached out to brush his hand over your upper arm, and carefully uttered your name. In the span of the evening, how he said it became your favourite sound.

“I’m not a fact, but I’d love it if you were to face me,” he joked, making you purse your lips in an effort to not crack so quickly.

“Jongho, come on-”

“You must be floored-” you looked up, met with a smug and mischievous grin that melted into relief and an unparalleled radiance. Oh this man and his silly puns. How you were fond of it all.

“Careful, you might just steal the show,” you gestured around you, reminding both him and yourself that you were, in fact, supposed to be celebrating somebody else. Not that you minded the attention and the way in which your heart twirled.

“Mmm, fair. Then, how about… this is our first meeting. First real meeting, I mean. We can be the main event elsewhere, if you agree to join me,” he was hopeful, gaze locked with yours. Music barely reached you, drowned out by his proposition and the steady beat of your growing feelings.

“Are you asking me out, Choi Jongho?”

“Mm, I do believe so. So, will you do me the honour and agree to go on a date with me?”

“How can I resist?”

You smiled as you felt Jongho guiding you into a spin before rejoining the dancing crowd, and happily followed. As you returned a hand to his shoulder and delicately repositioned the other to be palm to palm with his, you could not help but recollect your now archaic musings. Perhaps some clichés were more than welcome, and some things did make you wholeheartedly believe in and hope for your... and his... happy ending.

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