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iraacundus · 4 years

Text

International Relations

arrangedmarriage!hendery

genre: fluff, angst, smut words: 21k Warnings: sexual content; mentions of terrorism, death and injury; swearing

he was the president’s son, you were the ambassador’s daughter, forced into a marriage, the success of which, world peace quite literally hinged on

********

The news was unavoidable, every night it got worse and worse, your parents had advised you not to watch it, but you never listened. The tensions between the two countries had been rising for years and though they did their best to cover it up, those in the know, like your father, knew that you were on the brink of war.

“The proposed trade deal and boarder agreement between the two nations has fallen through,” said the newsreader who looked as calm as ever despite the potentially terrifying consequences of what she was saying.

You heard a knock at your door, so you fell leaned back on your bed, switching the TV off.

“Come in,” you called out, the door opening to reveal your father. You didn’t see him often, though you both lived in the same house, he had always been busy as ambassador to a county that your whole nation hated. So, when you saw him walk in, you knew it was important.

“I guess you have seen the news,” he said, spotting the remote that was still in your hand.

“We’re in serious danger, aren’t we?” you asked, but it wasn’t really a question, you knew the answer before you had asked.

Your father didn’t reply, he just sat down slowly on your desk chair, exhaling slightly.

“Your bodyguards will need to accompany you at all times now, even to university.” He said. It was your turn to sigh. It wasn’t that you disliked your bodyguards, or that you weren’t used to them, but university had always been a place you had a bit of freedom, without being watched all the time.

You didn’t argue though, you understood the gravity of the situation.

“I’m working on a solution, I think the issue can be resolved…” he cut himself off, looking more distressed than usual, “Just… I need you to meet me tomorrow afternoon in the Embassy Dining Room.” He said getting up again.

You wanted to ask why, but you also didn’t want to trouble him, he looked exhausted. The Dining Room was only used for official matters so the mere mention of it had inspired your curiosity, but you knew the situation wasn’t really about you, so you kept your mouth shut. A few minutes after he had left you put your slippers on and crept outside the door.

You had four bodyguards in total, two for the nightshift and two for the day, sadly your favourite mostly worked at night, so you rarely got to chat, but that night you took it upon yourself to go annoy him.

Jeno was by far your best bodyguard, all of them were the same age as you so they didn’t stand out in a crowd and so over the last few years Jeno had also become your close friend.

You found him standing just outside your door drinking milk tea, sometimes you couldn’t believe what his job was the way he acted.

“Hello bestie,” you called out to him, Jeno smiled when he saw you.

“Hello y/n,” he greeted back, “how are you this evening?”

It was always nice to talk to Jeno, not just because he was your friend but your bodyguards were the only people you knew except your family who were from your country, spoke your language, in every other aspect of your life you had to speak the language of a nation you resented.

“Stressed out, I think we are about this close to war,” you joked, putting your fingers as close together as possible while still leaving a gap. Jeno already knew this of course, while he was your bodyguard, he was also technically a member of the army, an important member at that.

He had joined at 16 and was so impressive he was almost immediately assigned to you.

“It will be fine,” he reassured, “Your Dad is a smart man, he will have a plan.”

“That’s what I’m stressed about,” you explained further, “he says I have to meet him tomorrow in the Dining Room, which has to be part of his plan,”

“Maybe you will get to meet the President,” Jeno laughed, you threw a mint at him.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I think the President hates us all enough to just shoot us on site,”

“That would really cause a war,” Jeno said, throwing the mint back at you, but you managed to catch it in your mouth, “Impressive,” he commented.

“It also means I have to have Chenle and Jaemin follow me around all day which I just don’t think I can take, are you sure you can’t switch to the day shift?”

Jeno shook his head, you stopped him before he could start his spiel of how he was the best out of all of them and you were statistically more likely to be targeted at night and so that’s when he was on duty, he told you this almost every day when you asked him to switch shifts.

“Just don’t say it,” you warned.

“But I am the best,” Jeno said proudly.

“I take it back I’m happy to have the other two,”

Jeno pouted,

“So much for bestie.”

You couldn’t help but smile, Jeno had managed to do exactly what you knew he would, make you smile, and forget about the impending doom of a war your country couldn’t win.

You talked with him a while more but when your brother came out and told you to,

“stop being annoying losers and go to bed,” - he was twelve - you went back into your room and turned the tv on again.

They were showing an interview with Hendery from earlier in the day. Hendery was the son of the President and you wondered how someone who seemed so nice could be the son of someone so evil.

He was sitting opposite the interviewer talking about how he hopes to start a project with his friends to help disadvantaged children and when they asked about the current international tensions, he said that he hoped a peaceful resolution could be reached.

You scoffed slightly at that; he should tell that to his father.

You had spent half your life on TV wondering what Hendery was like in real life, it was a weird obsession that Jeno regularly made fun of you for.

You just couldn’t figure out how much of his persona on TV was an act, how someone in such a strict family really lived, who were his friends, what did he do for fun. You had to think that like you, he had led a relatively isolated life.

If there had been one person you could have invited to your fantasy dinner party, it would have been Hendery. Chenle always picked Stephen Curry. It would have been a weird fantasy dinner party.

You had actually seen Hendery a few times in real life, you both attended the most prestigious university in the country, and he was only a year older than you. He was always with the same two people, one was Lucas, son of an important politician, the other was his main bodyguard, well at least you assumed as much.

You had never seen him on the news, his name was never mentioned alongside Lucas and Hendery in magazines, you assumed that the state was blocking his personal information from the media, to hide that he was a bodyguard.

Hendery had real bodyguards as well, two or three always followed behind the trio, but something just didn’t add up about that third guy being a normal college student.

You switched the TV off once again when Jeno sent you a text making fun of you for watching the Hendery interview again, you must have had the volume up too loudly. You were worried and stressed but you had never been one to struggle sleeping, so when you turned the light off and pulled the duvet up to your chin you fell asleep almost immediately.

*******************

Chenle and Jaemin had followed you around all day at university as planned, luckily no one had tried to attack you, but the paparazzi had been there taking as many photos as they could.

“I hope they got some good pictures of me, I actually have quite the fanbase back home as the cute bodyguard,” Jaemin tried to brag as you hid in the student café as far away from any windows as possible.

“Your wrong,” Chenle objected, you were about to agree with him when Chenle continued, “I definitely have more fans.”

You banged your head against your textbook.

“I hate you both, I should have made Jeno come,” you said causing Jaemin to pout and Chenle to just laugh.

You were about to kick him when Jaemin nudged you.

“He’s here,” he said ominously,

“Who?” you asked, “Please let it be Jeno to save me from you losers.”

“No, Hendery and Co.”

You fell silent, noticing Jaemin was right. Hendery, Lucas and the guy you didn’t know had just walked in and sat down a few tables away. You forced yourself not to stare.

“Not only am I stuck with you two but I’m also being followed by the enemy.”

“I don’t think he’s following us,” Chenle said, ‘Probably he was just hungry.”

“No, he’s definitely staring at y/n,” Jaemin said,”maybe he found that she watches him on the news over and over again.”

This time you did kick Jaemin, causing him to shout slightly. All three of them were now definitely looking at you.

Luckily at that moment Hendery seemed to get a call so you whispered at the two boys to get up.

“It’s almost three o’clock, we need to go meet my dad,” you explained as you all half ran out of the dining hall, entering into a full run when the cameras spotted you.

You didn’t think three people could have reacted anymore suspiciously than you just had.

A car was waiting with the diplomatic flags to pick you up, Jaemin shoved you and Chenle into the backseat, before shutting the door and climbing in next to the driver. The car had shaded windows so you could finally relax.

“Who do you think is going to be waiting in the Dining Room?” Chenle asked you. You hadn’t told either of them exactly where you were meeting your dad, Jeno was such a gossip.

You pulled up at the Embassy only ten minutes later. Cameras were once again outside but none of them seemed interested in you when you got out of the car and walked up to the gate. You thought it was strange, but you also weren’t complaining.

The guards saluted as the opened the gate to let you in. You walked along the drive and around to the back entrance that led into your family’s part of the house. Your dad had texted for you to wear something semi-formal, so you pulled out one of your favourite flowery dresses, found a nice pair of low heels and slid a bracelet onto your wrist.

It was your lucky bracelet. Jeno had given it to you for your 18th Birthday, it was a traditional bracelet made in your home country. Apparently by an old lady had cast a spell on you that made it lucky, while you highly doubted it was true, you still wore it every time you were nervous, believing it would help you.

You heard a small knock at your door,

“Are you dressed?” You heard Jeno call out, you quickly opened your door to let him in. His face looked grey.

“I volunteered to go with you to the meeting, I figured you had dealt with enough of the other two for one day.”

“But you were on duty last night, aren’t you tired, I’m sure Renjun could do it,” he was your fourth bodyguard.

“It’s okay, I slept all day and also I know you are nervous, so I wanted to be able to support you, even if it is silently from two meters away.”

You smiled, giving him a small hug before leaving the room and heading towards the dining room. Jeno seemed more nervous than you, you guessed your father had told him what was going on in advance. You could have asked Jeno, but you almost didn’t want to know.

You fidgeted outside the door, procrastinating your entrance. Jeno put his hand on your shoulder lightly.

“You look great y/n, and you do well at everything, it will be fine.” He said.

When you opened the door to the Dining Room you almost fell over. You had no idea what you had expected but to see the President, his wife and Hendery, sitting across the table from your own parents was a shock.

You glanced back at Jeno who gave you his best attempt at a reassuring smile.

“Y/n,” your father called out, motioning for you to come and sit in the empty chair in between him and your mother, opposite Hendery. You don’t know who you were more scared to see, the evil President or Hendery. Hendery wasn’t smiling like he always did on TV, like always seemed to be with Lucas. A frown was firmly settled on his lips and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there.

You sat down carefully in the chair after bowing your head in respect towards the President. Because he wasn’t a normal president, he had been elected once but that was a long time ago, he hadn’t held an election in twenty years, as long as you had been alive, so to you he wasn’t a president but a dictator.

Unlike Hendery, the President smiled at you, his smile seemed genuine unlike the slightly forced smile on both his wife and your parents’ faces.

“It’s lovely to meet you, y/n,” The President said, offering his hand out to shake, his grip firm and unwavering, “This is my wife and my son Hendery, I’m sure you’ve probably seen him around at university.”

You smiled the best you could,

“Yes, I’ve heard he’s quite popular,” you said, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, his mouth still resting in a firm line.

The President laughed. An intern came in and poured some tea before anyone continued speaking.

“The ambassador and I are both worried about how the tensions between our two countries are developing. We have been unable to find a traditional solution, yet we seem to have found an agreement that will solve the animosity so that eventually trade deals and boarder disputes can be settled.” He began.

You noticed Hendery hadn’t drunk any of the tea but was gripping the handle tightly, as sinking feeling arose in your chest as you began to guess what was going to be suggested, you were an intelligent person.

“It would require a large sacrifice on both your and my son’s behalf and to that extent we both know we cannot force you to agree but warn you of the consequences of this agreement failing.”

You tried to drink your tea as calmly as possible.

“Neither of us would suggest this if we felt there was a better option your father added.” They were both avoiding the main point.

“Marriage,” Hendery said all of a sudden, “That’s what they are trying to suggest.”

You knew what they were suggesting but the fact Hendery said it out loud almost caused you to choke on your tea.

“Yes,” the President continued, “as my son not so eloquently put, we feel that a union between the two countries would help people from both sides understand each other better through supporting a couple. We will pose it as if you had both met at university and fell in love naturally and we hope it means people will learn to love you, it might not work straight away but we hope it can win over the hearts of those who oppose on both sides eventually.”

You swallowed. It wasn’t like you had someone else you wanted to marry, you had never had a crush, you figured you would never be able to marry for love anyway, however you hadn’t banked on Hendery, on marrying into a family you resented so greatly.

“Hendery has already agreed but of course you do have a choice, I’m not in the business of making people do things they do not wish,” He said. You had to stop yourself from snorting with laughter.

He was blackmailing you into marriage with the threat of war, so his statement was just rather ironic, especially as blackmail was how he maintained power in more aspects of his life than not.

“Anything to ensure peace,” you said graciously. The President clapped his hands together with a grin.

“I knew you were a smart woman,” He said. You father breathed out a visible sigh of relief, you were offended he ever thought you would let your country down.

“We won’t announce the engagement right away, we will give you both some time to get to know each other, sometime to back away, in a month or so, if you are still both willing, we will hold a gala to announce the engagement, by then we will need you to have come up with a water-tight backstory, I can get someone to help create it if you wish, but all this can be discussed later.”

Another intern came in seconds later to inform the President and my father of urgent business for them both, causing them to both give their apologies and leave quickly.

You were left with Hendery, your mother and your future mother in law. Your mothers began to chat, both gushing about planning a wedding. It wasn’t that they were insensitive, they just both wanted to make the best out of a bad situation, you could tell from their earlier faces that they both worried for you.

Hendery’s eyes remained fixed on the tea, glaring at the cooling liquid.

You had never wanted to ask him a question more than right now. But you were scared, it wasn’t that you were afraid of Hendery in general, but you didn’t want to upset him. He was clearly nervous, playing with his fingernails.

You didn’t know why you felt so calm in comparison, you didn’t think Hendery could have had plans to marry for love, like you he must have always known he would marry for politics.

Yet something seemed to scare him. You had more reason to be scared, you were joining his family as his family was more powerful, you would have to live in his country as part of a dictatorship, but he seemed more scared.

“Too shy to even talk to each other, how cute,” your mum cooed. You wanted to throw a pen at her, you were starting to think you were a slightly violent person.

“We will fix that soon enough, why don’t you both come over on Saturday and we can talk for longer, so they can get to know each other better.” His mother suggested.

Yes, because all best conversations between fiancés happen in front of their mothers, you wanted to say to Jeno, but you had to pretend he wasn’t there, that was his job.

A few minutes later your mothers had exchanged phone numbers and were getting up to leave. You thought Hendery would at least acknowledge you, but he seemed to not even see you when he stood up to leave. You followed him out to the entryway, you could tell the mothers had tactically waited behind a few seconds.

“My name’s y/n,” you said to him loudly enough that he had to look over at you. He nodded.

“I know my father said, and also I have seen you at Uni, you were in the café today, you kicked your bodyguard and ran out,” he said.

You blushed red, cursing your violent nature, you were going to marry the son of an evil dictator who had only ever seen you act strangely. You must have committed so many sins in your past life.

“I’m Hendery,” he said, still not smiling.

“I think we both know I know who you are.” Your statement sounded slightly more accusatory than you had meant, but I didn’t seem to make Hendery seem anymore unhappy than he already was.

Neither of you said anything further in the two awkward minutes it took for your mothers to finally emerge.

“It was lovely to meet you,” His mother said wrapping her arms around you, far more personal contact than you had hoped for, but you understood she was just trying to be nice.

“You too,” you said with a grin, hoping you didn’t come across as disingenuous. The guard at the door opened the door for them to leave. Before Hendery did, he turned to give you a small smile,

“See you soon y/n,” he said. Before walking out towards all the flashing lights of the media storm that hat gathered.

You were not sure whether he had been nice to you for the sake of his mother or if he had just felt obliged but you were grateful nonetheless as it had made the whole experience seem less dire and it also had allowed your mother to smile from relief.

“He doesn’t seem too bad,” she said.

“He’s better than a war,” you replied before excusing yourself in the name of homework but really your aim was to get some peace and quiet.

You started walking up to the roof, Jeno close behind, you were waiting for him to shout at you and tell you that it was easy for you to be shot from the roof like he usually did but the words never came.

Even as you lifted yourself off the ladder Jeno said nothing he just came up and sat beside you, having texted Jaemin, Renjun and Chenle who also appeared moments later.

“You don’t get to marry evil Hendery that you’re obsessed with that’s not fair,” Jaemin whined as he sat down next to you, “you were meant to marry me.”

You shot him a confused look,

“In what world was I marrying you, if I was going to marry any of you it would be Jeno, but I would never because we are quintuplets.” You say to him to which he just sticks his tongue out.

“Chenle’s only like three years old,” Renjun protests. You laugh sadly.

“I will miss you all,” you said.

“Absolutely not,” Jeno replied, “we are not doing sad hours tonight.”

“What are we doing then?” asked Chenle while simultaneously fighting Renjun for calling him three years old.

“We will find me an outfit to wear for Saturday so that I’m so gorgeous it knocks Hendery out and I don’t have to talk to him, and he also forgets our weird café behaviour.” You said.

“Weirdly specific but okay,” Jaemin replied. The other three sighed, all of the boys hated outfit time, not because they were against fashion, but because you were so indecisive.

*******************

They may have complained but it worked, by the time you turned up at the front door of the Presidential House on Saturday you looked drop dead gorgeous. Your mother and Jeno had come with you and you all stood just behind the door waiting for it to open.

You were ushered through a series of rooms and up some stairs until you reached a bright sunny sitting room on the third floor. Inside Hendery’s mother was pouring some tea there was, however, no sign of Hendery himself.

She rushed over to great you, making sure you sat down, passing out cakes.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I told him to be ready for eleven.”

Just at that moment Hendery entered, wearing a suit, something he rarely did. You hated to admit how attractive he looked; you didn’t want Jeno to be right about your obsession.

He was followed by the third guy, the one who wasn’t Lucas. You had been right; he must have been a bodyguard as he went and stood next to Jeno.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Hendery interjected, “My suit wasn’t dry,” he explained, his face flustered. At least that humanised him somewhat, you could live with Hendery, you just had to believe he was a real person deep down somewhere.

He sat down on a chair across from you just like before, yet this time his eyes stared right at you.

“So, what do you study?” Hendery’s mother asked you, trying to get the conversation started.

You pushed a smile onto your face.

“Modern Languages and International Politics” you replied. You liked to think you were an impressive person, at least in some respects. You could speak four languages fluently and were learning two more at university. You knew almost as much about world affairs as your parents and your mother had always taught you excellent manners.

“You could study with Hendery,” she suggested, “he studies International Politics and History,” she said, after he didn’t offer up the information himself. You saw her try to nudge him and had to hold back a giggle.

“We certainly could, that would be lovely,” you said, looking Hendery dead in the eyes, daring him to stay silent. You couldn’t marry someone who didn’t speak to you, “What do you do for fun?” you asked him.

“I like playing basketball and watching films,” he said. His voice was cold, it may have dissuaded anyone else, but you refused to give up.

“Ah maybe you could teach me how to play, one of my bodyguards loves basketball and has tried his best to teach me but I’m a failure at it, I prefer tennis if I’m honest.”

Hendery didn’t reply.

“That’s great, I must challenge you to a match sometime y/n,” his mother replied, “that is if you don’t give up on marrying my son here, I do apologise he isn’t usually this… shy.”

You certainly didn’t believe being shy was his issue. You also didn’t understand what his issue was. He must have had a girlfriend you decided, made the mistake you never had and fallen in love with someone he could never marry.

But you were only guessing you had no idea.

“Don’t worry,” you replied, “Hendery isn’t bad enough to destroy international peace for.” A statement that caused both of your mothers to laugh somewhat nervously.

Hendery looked down and back up again.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “I really just am a bit nervous.”

You were a bit sceptical of this excus, still you decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and take pity on him.

“Why?” you asked, “I don’t bite,”

Hendery laughed slightly, shaking his head.

“It’s not that, I just want to make a good impression I guess, you are my future wife and also…” he didn’t finish, “I’ll explain some other time,” he said, his eyes flicked to our mothers next to him.

He was right that it was hard to connect with four other people in the room, but the mothers particularly. Jeno you would have told later if he hadn’t been there, but the presence of parents made the meeting feel formal.

However, Hendery did seem to make more of an effort as the meeting continued. You learned that he likes cats and that his favourite colour was pink. Nothing ground-breaking, he still seemed like Hendery on TV, picture perfect and somewhat shallow. Not in the sense that he was self-obsessed but more that he was like a cartoon character 2-D. He lacked any sense of humanity or connection, he said all the right things, never saying anything particularly meaningful.

On reflection he probably thought the same about you.

You only saw Hendery once more properly in the following weeks. You were both busy with university and it was hard to find a time you could meet with your mother’s present, something they insisted on until you were both officially engaged.

Only three weeks after the marriage was first suggested Hendery asked his father if the marriage could be announced sooner rather than later, despite having a week left to decide. You guessed he partly did this to avoid any more awkward teatime chats with your mothers. The President rang you to ask if you were also okay with making a decision early, you agreed. Also, partly to avoid any more of those chats.

It was decided that your engagement would be announced two weeks later and a ball to celebrate would be held the night after that

Your last night of normality passed quickly, you went out to play mini golf with the four boys. You were usually only allowed out a few times a month to large places such as the crazy golf one, but your parents had let it slide seeing as you were a 20-year-old woman about to get engaged.

The next morning your alarm rang at five. You sat up, questioning whether you should take up Renjun on an offer he had given to smuggle you out of the country. If only world peace hadn’t been so important.

You kicked off your duvet in a mood and dragged yourself over to your dressing table. You didn’t have to get ready particularly, you had been assured state media would take care of hair and makeup, however you had still felt it was vital to at least brush your hair.

Ten minutes later Jeno arrived at your door with a McDonalds breakfast.

“Breakfast for M’lady,” he joked, kneeling down to pass it to you. From behind him you saw a girl’s head pop out from around the corner. You almost jumped backwards from shock. Jeno laughed.

“This is Chanmi,” he introduced, “she is your state provided assistant.”

“Why do you make it sound like communism Jeno,” she complained before jumping round him and holding her hand out for you to shake. She looked at her own hand and before you had a chance to shake it, she put it down and pulled you into a hug instead.

“I may work for you, but I also hope we become life-long friends,” she said. You appreciated that at least one person was excited for today.

“I’m y/n,” you smiled back, “I also hope we get on well.” You offered her a hash brown, but she refused.

“I already ate, I’m here to run through today’s schedule,” she pulled out a very large folder from her bag and opened it to the first page, “we have hair and make up at eight, wardrobe at nine and the announcement will be at around nine-thirty, but before that we have a rehearsal with Hendery, that’s why we are here so early.” Chanmi seemed to speak with out breathing.

Jeno looked down at his watch, five twenty-five.

“We need to go,” he said, “you can eat in the car.”

You grabbed your lucky bracelet from the side and clasped it round your wrist, there was no way you would have gone on television without it.

Jaemin, Chenle and Renjun stood at the door with your mother and little brother. They had gathered to wave you off even though you would be back home by the afternoon.

“I love you guys,” you managed to say half-way through eating your meal. Jeno continued hurrying you towards the car. You wanted to laugh how seriously he was suddenly taking his job, not that he had been messing around before, but he had never cared so much about being punctual.

He sat in the front so Chanmi could climb in next to you.

“Who is that good looking boy who was closest to the door?” she asked. Jaemin would have loved to hear her say that. But before you could tell her it was him; she had already carried on talking.

“You will meet with Hendery so you can both firm up your stories about your romance.” She explained.

“You know it’s fake?” you asked her.

“All key staff know, but not everyone who works in the Presidential House, so don’t mention it when other people are present,” she said. You nodded. You were starting to get nervous. It was not your first time on TV, you had filmed programmes for your home country about what it was like to study abroad and you had done work for the young ambassador’s programme run by Hendery’s country.

But this was… something else.

The drive was only ten minutes as usual, there was also no traffic in the morning, so you barely had time to contemplate your impending fate before arriving at the house.

Jeno and Chanmi ushered you out of the car and into the house, there was only one reporter waiting to hide you from, though you were surprised anyone had been there before six in the morning.

Hendery and his bodyguard, who Jeno had informed you was named Sicheng, were waiting for you just inside the door.

“Good morning,” you said as brightly as possible, taking another sip of your coffee, hoping it would help in some way. You were half expecting Hendery to change his mind at the sight of your tattered appearance before you remembered he wasn’t really marrying you for your beauty.

“Nice to see you again,” he replied, slightly less brightly. You all stood slightly awkwardly waiting for someone to lead the way.

“Why don’t we go somewhere to talk?” Chanmi prompted.

“Oh yes,” Hendery said, seeming to remember what was going on, “let’s go to the family dining room, I got someone to prepare some drinks and snacks.”

You felt a bit bad for standing there with your McDonalds coffee, there was worse crimes you could have committed than assuming he wouldn’t have provided food though you supposed.

You followed just behind Hendery with Chanmi as Sicheng fell back to walk with Jeno, both of them exchanging friendly glances. At least Jeno had made a friend.

The kitchen/dining room you entered looked somewhat normal compared to the rest of the house, though still elaborate and high class it was clearly somewhere a family lived, it much less resembled the home of a 16th century king.

Hendery seemed to notice your impression of the kitchen.

“A lot of the house is normal compared to the rest, it was remodelled for a modern family to live in, with proper central heating and all,” he joked, you politely gave him a small smile.

You looked over at the dining table. When he had said a few drinks and snacks he had been making a massive understatement. There was fruit, cereal, biscuits and hot food of all kinds. There was five types of juice, tea, coffee and even hot chocolate.

You really wished you hadn’t eaten the McDonalds.

“Help yourself,” Hendery said shyly, his hair falling over his eyes as he looked down. You couldn’t help but think about how cute he looked in the morning. You internally slapped yourself. This was a marriage of countries, not people.

“You guys too,” he said looking at Chanmi and the two bodyguards behind who had already began to hover by the pancakes. Sicheng high-fived Jeno and you couldn’t help but laugh.

Hendery looked over at you smiling when he saw you laugh.

“Shall we sit down?” he said. You grabbed an apple juice and a banana, as to not look impolite and sat down opposite where Hendery was. Chanmi sat down next to you, pulling out her massive folder once again.

“I assume we have to come up with, and learn a fake backstory,” he said to Chanmi, she nodded,

“Yes, you don’t have to be super detailed yet, it will be better to build in more details over time, but you do need to agree upon a basic timeline yes. It works best if you say you met at university and started dating sometime after, but you can both decide the details.”

You wished that she had just done it for you and printed it off but Hendery’s mother had explained weeks ago that if you came up with the story yourselves you were less likely to forget it.

“I think it’s best if we say we were friends for a while first,” you began, “I’ve been at the university for two years so we could perhaps say we met a year ago and started dating a while after?” You proposed.

“I agree,” he said, “We can say we started dating two months after we met. That we were introduced by our mutual friend Lucas…”

You cut him off,

“But I don’t know anything about Lucas,” you objected. Hendery shook his head,

“Doesn’t really matter they won’t be interested in the details of that yet, Lucas has many friends so it’s believable and by the time they ask about that I’m sure you will have met Lucas many times.”

What he said made sense. You paused for a moment, when he mentioned that you would meet Lucas, it started to dawn on you that your whole life, however you had seen it playing out, wasn’t going to be that way, your life would be dominated by your marriage to the son of a dictator you barely knew.

You almost dropped your cup at the thought of it, Chanmi saving it from falling by steadying your arm.

Her once infallible expression now looked somewhat anxious.

“Sorry,” you said, “You’re right Hendery that works.” You placed your cup down. Chanmi started to scribble down what Hendery had said once you confirmed he had a good idea.

“What else do we need to be able to talk about?” you asked, Chanmi scanned down her list of questions.

“Well just reasons you like each other, you can make that up on the spot though basic things, maybe agree on the location of the first date and proposal and that’s about it, most of it will be a prepared statement given by Hendery and only a few questions by reporters.”

“Study date,” Hendery said, “for the first date, we should say we studied together, we have to explain in a way that explains why we haven’t ever been seen together, it plays up the star crossed lovers angle,” he said, “You can answer that one, I will talk about the proposal don’t worry about that.”

You nodded, hazarding another sip of your juice. Chanmi smiled.

“All set then, I will go and make sure everything else is set up well, you have another half an hour or so to just hang out or whatever,” she said.

You had been hoping she wasn’t going to leave you alone with Hendery which you knew was stupid because you had to live a whole lifetime with him, however you were postponing that until the last minute.

Chanmi ran out the door and the other two were still enjoying the food, watching a video in the corner, thankfully nobody was attacking at the current moment.

“We are finally left alone,” Hendery joked, “well at least mostly.” You looked up and smiled politely again, playing with your bracelet nervously.

“That’s pretty,” he commented, “where did you get it?”

“Jeno gave it to me when I turned eighteen, it’s from our home country.”

Hendery glanced over at Jeno who looked up from his phone and waved back. Hendery’s face changed slightly but you couldn’t read his expression.

“It’s meant to be charmed by a witch” you continued, “I wear it for luck.”

“Ah cool,” Hendery replied as he continued to watch you play nervously with the bracelet, “you don’t have to be so polite, if your nervous you can say, if you want to scream obscenities at me I wont stop you.”

You exhaled, the tension you held inside releasing slightly.

“It’s not your fault either, it isn’t an optimal situation for either of us so it would be unfair for me to scream obscenities. I’m not angry anyway. But nervous… that I am.”

“About the announcement?” he prompted. You glanced up at the ceiling, looking at the intricate pattern in the paint.

“Not in particular though it does unsettle me slightly. It’s more of an overall nervousness I would say…” Hendery seemed to want you to continue, “Well you seem polite and all, but I don’t know you and so giving up my life to marry you is somewhat scary. But sometimes in life you have to make sacrifices, and this is mine, as it is yours.”

Hendery kept looking at you before he got up, he walked round and sat down in the chair next to you where Chanmi had once been.

“I suppose I understand that better than anyone else ever will,” he said his face serious, “but I really mean it when I say I don’t want either of us to be unhappy, so I really will try my best, not for the sake of international relations but for the sake of ourselves.”

You smiled genuinely at him.

“I’m sure at worst I will only hate you a little bit,” you joked.

A text came through on your phone from Chanmi, you didn’t know when she had acquired your phone number, but you pushed that thought aside.

Makeup Time!!! Upstairs third room on the left

“I have to go, my beautification awaits,” you said.

“You’re already pretty,” Hendery said, you were going to laugh but Hendery seemed serious. You blushed slightly. You put your phone in your pocket and grabbed a water bottle of the table.

“Well thank you and see you later for the end of our lives,” you said.

“It’s not the end it’s the beginning!” Hendery called after you as you hurried out. Jeno saw you leaving and almost fell over running after you.

“I see you have made a new best friend,” you said to him, on the way to where you hoped you would find Chanmi.

“I can’t be stuck with the same four friends my whole life, can I?” he said, “And anyway you and Hendery seem pretty close, you were always obsessed with him.”

“I was never obsessed with him,” you shout whispered back to him, clearly not quietly enough as Chanmi, who was waiting at the top of the stairs intercepted the conversation.

“Obsessed with who? I don’t think I’m up to a secret boyfriend scandal, let’s make that clear now.” She said.

“It’s nothing,” you said, glaring at Jeno. Chanmi seemed happy to accept that and a few seconds later had you seated in a chair in front of a large mirror.

For the next hour you had to endure several people pulling your hair and prodding your face. By the end you did look better than you ever had but you were not sure if the sweat and tears were worth it.

You had no time to ponder this as Chanmi was already pushing you towards a clothes rack. Jeno decided it was time for him to wait outside the door, leaving just you, Chanmi and the clothes.

“Jeno isn’t the secret boyfriend, is he?” Chanmi asked, searching through the rack. You coughed, water almost dribbling out of your mouth.

“No. He’s my brother practically, in all honest he was making fun of me and Hendery. I used to watch Hendery on TV obsessively, not because I had a crush on him but because I thought the son of a dictator was an interesting character. I didn’t believe he could be the same person in life as he is on TV, so I watched him over and over hoping to catch him out.”

“I want to say that’s cute given the situation but really think we will just need to find you a hobby to take up,” Chanmi decided, her face determined, “you can pick from any of these three,” she handed you three similar dresses, you picked a flower one, similar to the ones you had at home but clearly more expensive.

Chanmi smiled,

“Your mother told me you loved flowers,”

That must have been where she got your phone number.

“It’s a beautiful dress,” you complimented her for finding it,

“It should be at the price it costs.”

You pulled your makeshift outfit off and put on the outfit. She gave you some earrings and a necklace.

“Don’t I need an engagement ring?” you asked her.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said with a knowing smile. Jeno knocked on the door at the same time.

“You need to get going,” he called. You smiled at Chanmi before following her out and back down the staircase. She led you into the room next to the conference room where a team of people were waiting.

A lady started explaining how the microphone worked and that you didn’t need to stand up to answer any questions. She fell silent when Hendery walked into the room, his father and yours right behind him. Your father gave you a quick smile before turning back to the President.

Hendery walked up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder lightly,

“Can I borrow you for one minute?” he asked, and you followed him into an empty room across the hall. It seemed to be a rather large bathroom. Hendery locked the door.

“Is this the part where you murder me?” you asked, trying to make a joke. Hendery didn’t seem to understand, he looked shocked,

“I would never hurt you, let alone murder you, y/n, I hope you know that,” he said earnestly.

“I was joking,” you said, trying to laugh to ease the tension but it sort of sounded more like you were having breathing issues.

“Okay good because we don’t have a lot of time,” he said. You smiled back at him.

“What did you want to tell me then, if your plan wasn’t murder?” cursing yourself for bringing the murder joke back as soon as you had said it, luckily whether out of politeness or genuine humour Hendery chuckled.

He started to get down on one knee,

“Oh no… you don’t need to do this,” you said to him, shaking your hands. Hendery just grinned.

“But I want to, I should at least propose to my fiancé,” he pulled a box out of his pocket to reveal a ring that must have cost a large fortune, not a small one, “Will you marry me?” His face now serious as he looked up at you with a certain hope in his eyes.

You were more nervous now than you had been all day, you clutched the ends of your dress, your nails digging into your skin. The reality of the situation ever increasing.

“Yes,” is all you managed to say, but it was all you needed to say, Hendery stood up and placed the ring on your finger, his own fingers cold. The heating was certainly lacking.

He was wearing a much nicer suit than before, this time it wasn’t at all damp looking either. He wore a black tie and a badge with his country’s flag on it.

“We need to go,” you managed to say, very aware of how close Hendery now was to you and how you didn’t need another reason to be nervous. An attractive man standing that close made you nervous.

“Let’s go then,” Hendery said unlocking the door and holding it open for you which you thanked him for, quickly walking back across the hall.

Chanmi grabbed you, clearly checking that Hendery had given you the ring, once she had seen it, she was satisfied.

“Time to shine,” she said pushing you towards the door.

The conference room had been set up with four seats, Hendery and the President in the middle, you and your father seated either side. You saw both your mothers watching from the front row with Chanmi. Jeno was standing with a line of bodyguards at the back, Chanmi had let you keep your bracelet on and so you felt somewhat calmer because of it.

Hendery sat down first and you walked across to sit next to him.

“You will be fine,” he whispered to you. At the same time his father began to speak.

“Today the Presidential House would like to make an announcement regarding the recent engagement of my son Hendery and his fiancé y/n, daughter to an ambassador to this country.” he said, “My son would like to read a short statement to this effect.”

“I would like to express to everyone who is watching my happiness on my engagement to the love of my life, y/n. Although we come from different countries, two that have not always agreed in the past, we have still managed to find each other and that is something I think is beautiful. I hope that all of our citizens can respect out forthcoming marriage and grow to love y/n just as much as I do.” He said smiling down at you at the end.

It made you feel sick, the words he said, lies.

Lies to a nation who would love to see your country burn, just meters away from a President who would let that happen if other countries wouldn’t condemn him for it.

The President then spoke again, of how this had allowed the two nations to come to a trade agreement and therefore how it must have been fate, though he was suspicious at first, he now recognised the power of true love.

In that moment you hated him. He may have given you an opportunity for peace but only in a manner that would cause your father to suffer through losing you to him. You hated him for how he used his own son to achieve this, it made you feel more sick than anything Hendery could ever say.

Yet the conference continued, and you sat with the same fake smile on your face, trying desperately to ensure a nation loved you, to ensure it was all worth it.

The questions began, the same ones Chanmi had promised, first date, favourite things,

“I love how hardworking he is,” you said,

“She is very determined and passionate,” Hendery said.

“Where did your engagement occur” they asked,

“You won’t believe me Jungwoo,” he began, of course he knew the reporter, “but I actually proposed here in a bathroom,” a shriek of laughter went up.

“Why a bathroom?” Jungwoo the reporter replied incredulous.

“Well actually we first met in a bathroom, y/n was with Lucas having dinner with some friends and he had invited me to come join, I walked in to see the bathroom door open and y/n crawling on the floor trying to find her earring and so I helped her search, so I suppose jewellery in a bathroom is sort of a fun joke to us.”

Though the story was false you felt calmer that Hendery somehow had not lied about the location of the proposal, he had made your relationship seem not one-hundred percent fake to you, for which you were grateful.

The interview ended shortly after. You filed out of the room and back into the hallway.

“That went brilliantly,” the President asserted, your father agreeing strongly, eager to please him. You loved your father, but you hadn’t realised he was a slightly weak man until that moment.

You turned to Hendery,

“Thank you for working in the true location of the proposal, its hard to explain why but it means a lot to me.”

“I get what you mean, it is the one thing about us that is true and that does mean something,” Hendery agreed, “that’s why I worked it into that ridiculous story, also its so ridiculous no one would ever believe I was lying.”

You started to notice Chanmi hovering, it was time for you to leave.

“I suppose I will see you for the ball tomorrow then?” you said. Hendery nodded.

You were about to leave when Hendery remembered something.

“Ah yeah, here’s my phone number, in case you need anything,” he said handing you a piece of paper from his pocket.

“Thank you, and thank you for the ring, it’s beautiful.”

“I picked it myself last week… the ring not the phone number,” he said. You laughed, properly, not out of any obligation.

“Bye Hendery.”

“Bye bye future wife.”

And with that you walked to Chanmi who lead you back out of the building and away.

You cried when you got home. You were understandably upset about the whole situation but when you pulled out your phone and the number Hendery had left and texted him saying

This is y/n btw

You felt somewhat better, it wasn’t Hendery you objected to, he seemed nice and maybe in another life you would even have chosen to date him.

It was the lack of freedom and the lies that upset you, it was the smile on the Presidents face when he announced he was suddenly able to agree to the trade deal terms. You could have punched a wall.

You didn’t even want to talk to Jeno.

But when Hendery replied with a screenshot of his phone where he had saved your name as ‘fiancé from the bathroom’ with a heart, you wanted to punch the wall a little less.

*******************

“Just breathe in more!” Chanmi shouted as she struggled to close the final clasp on the corset of your dress.

“Could you not have found a dress that fits a normal human?” You replied, red in the face from all the breathing in. Jeno and Jaemin were in fits of laughter in the corner watching, clearly finding your struggle rather amusing.

The dress Chanmi was wrestling you into was a beautiful lilac ballgown, one of the famous colours of Hendery’s country, he was going to wear a red tie, the colour of your own nation.

With one last breath in, Chanmi managed to secure it properly and you were able to breathe again, though not at full capacity, the dress had perhaps permanently destroyed your lung functionality.

“Right shoes on, we are almost late,” Chanmi continued running around, shoving one last hairpin into your hair.

It was the night of your engagement ball, even the name of the event sounded elaborate even to you.

Your phone told you that you had about three minutes to run to the top of the ballroom, to walk down the stairs, like something out of Cinderella.

You threw Jeno your phone and started to run, Chanmi running just as fast next to you.

“If that stupid dress had fit this wouldn’t have happened, now you’re going to be red in the face,” Chanmi complained, “I will fight that tailor.”

You had never heard such anger towards a dressmaker before so you refrained from making a statement about how the dress had made you red in the face, late or not.

You reached the door that led to the ballroom balcony with about a minute to spare. Chanmi started viscously fanning you with her schedule to an extent you couldn’t help but laugh.

Chanmi was so passionate about her job it was amazing, it took your mind off your nerves. You were about to walk down the stairs with about three hundred people watching you, you had to not fall, look graceful and most importantly make them love you.

And make them think you and Hendery were in love, there was also that.

Your face had almost returned to a normal colour as Chanmi raised up her fists to cheer you on and the balconey doors opened.

It took a second for your brain to remember what to do, but finally you stepped forward. You could see the ballroom below, filled with important people in expensive clothing. But at the bottom of the steps waiting you could also see Hendery.

You kept your eyes fixed on him as you descended, he was the only person in the room you recognised except for your own parents and therefore he was the only face you could look at without passing out due to nerves.

Peace between nations rested on the important people here liking you, believing you were worth the love of the President’s son. That was a heavy burden to bear and it weighed down on your shoulders that you had to keep perfectly upright even as you reached the final steps.

Hendery’s eyes looked in awe of you. You thanked God that at least one of you was a good actor.

He walked towards you, offering out his hand as you reached the ground. You reached out to meet him, his hand touching yours softly. It was the first time you had ever had physical contact with him.

It wasn’t like a movie, sparks didn’t fly when he touched your hand, but it did reassure you slightly that he hadn’t run away yet.

He leaned down and gently pressed his lips to the top of your palm.

“You look beautiful y/n,” he said, his eyes shining due to the reflection of the chandelier light above.

“You don’t look too bad yourself,” you said, forcing a giggle. It wasn’t that he didn’t look handsome, in truth he was possible the most handsome man you had ever seen at that moment in his black tie suit. You were just too nervous to laugh naturally, to act naturally.

Hendery smiled back up at you as the string music began to play.

“Shall we dance?” he asked, putting his other arm around your waist and pulling you closer. Luckily as the daughter of the ambassador you had learned to dance from a young age and therefore weren’t going to embarrass yourself.

“I fancy myself quite a good dancer,” you said smiling. Hendery nodded in agreement.

“You’re quite right about that, but I have to ask, am I really just not bad looking,” he said, leaning in closer to whisper the last part. You blushed slightly,

“I’m sure you know your very handsome Hendery,” you said before leaning in yourself to whisper in his ear, “and I agree with you, leaning and whispering is a good tactic to make us seem close.”

His eyes narrowed before he chuckled.

“You’re a smart woman y/n.”

You carried on dancing until the song ended at which point the President came over.

“May I cut in?” he asked, Hendery stepped back, the smile from his face immediately gone. In contrast you plastered a fake smile onto yours.

“It would be my honour,” you affirmed, when really the thought of dancing with such a horrendous man repulsed you. Physically the President was almost attractive as his son just many years older, yet you hated him so much so just the thought of touching him made you want to flee.

The music started up and you began to waltz.

“You and Hendery looked happy dancing,” he remarked.

“We get on reasonably well,” you replied simply. It wasn’t a lie.

“That pleases me to hear, I wouldn’t want to make either of you unhappy.” He also didn’t seem to be lying, and maybe he wasn’t but he was still willing to risk his own son’s happiness to make a point and so every word he said to you was like poison.

“Your son is a very smart and kind person, I am sure we will be a happy couple.” You said it because you had to make him happy but you did also wish it would be true. You hoped one day you and Hendery could be happy together for real.

You just had to fall in love with him first.

You danced until the end of the song, then you danced with about five state officials before you finally had to sit down. You were good at wearing heels but dancing for such an extended period of time was tiring.

You watched Hendery as you sat, dancing with the wives of the officials, his face smiling casually. He was instantly likeable just like on TV, yet you still didn’t believe he was really like that all of the time. You still wanted to find out if he had any cracks.

Lost in thought you didn’t notice Hendery standing in front of you, his hair slightly sweaty from all the dancing.

“Why are you sitting alone?” he asked.

“I don’t know many people here and I’ve always been a pretty solitary person, symptomatic of having to be guarded twenty-four seven,” you said, nodding back to where Jeno and Jaemin were at the edge of the room only metres away.

“Well lonely lady, we need to make a toast,” he said offering his arm for you to take. You stood up, the pain of your shoes starting up once again and linked your arm with his.

“We can’t all be sociable Mr. Perfect,” you joked back. Hendery looked away grinning,

“That’s not how I come across is it?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know, you always seem perfect, dancing just now, in all your TV interviews..”

He cut you off,

“You watch me on TV?” he asked, seeming genuinely surprised.

“Don’t think to highly of yourself, I can’t help that you are always on the television, you’re the joy of a nation, there is whole magazines that basically only write about you and Lucas.”

Hendery chuckled again.

“And now they will only write about you and me,” he said. You had reached the top of the balcony where a member of staff signalled for the music to stop.

Hendery had just stepped forward to speak when it happened. At first you couldn’t be sure, all you heard was a loud bang and the sound of people screaming, then another bang occurred and Hendery let go of your arm, grabbed your hand and started to run pulling you behind him. You saw a group of men start to chase you up the stairs.

Your feet were in the most pain you had ever felt from wearing shoes but you kept running behind Hendery, holding onto his hand as tightly as you could, not knowing where he was running to but knowing that if you stopped the men behind could potentially try to kill you.

Hendery suddenly stopped by a door and flung it open, letting go of your hand to shut it quickly and locked it as soon as you were inside.

You opened your mouth to speak, Hendery shook his head raising his finger to his mouth indicating you should say silent. He turned the light off and got his phone torch out. He seemed to be searching for something but you couldn’t help him because you didn’t know what it was.

Seconds later you saw him lift some of the bathroom tiles that were fixed together to create a secret trapdoor. He pressed his thumb to the top corner of the tile which flashed green. Despite your fear you couldn’t help be impressed by the James Bond level tech this house seemed to have.

Hendery lifted the door up and motioned for you to climb in, you stepped back into the hole, your feet finding a ladder and you began to climb down as fast as you could, Hendery following, he managed to close the door just as you heard people attempt to kick the bathroom door down.

The ladder led down to what seemed to be a secret bunker. There was a final door which Hendery opened this time with his eye. The bunker was a small room, it had a bed and bottles of water but not much else.

Hendery sighed out once he had shut the outer door. You slumped down on the bed, your back leaning against the wall. Hendery walked over and handed you a cup of water.

“You can talk here, it’s soundproof,” he said but you were too shell-shocked to get any words out.

The first thing you could clearly think about was the pain in your feet, the running had caused your feet to start bleeding, something you noticed as you pulled the shoes off.

You ripped part of your dress and put the water on it, using it to wipe the blood from your feet.

Hendery sat down next to you, almost as shocked as you were, even if he was trying his best to hide it.

A bomb must have gone off, was your first thought, the ball had been attacked, probably in protest. You felt hot tears fall down your face at the realisation. Your parents had been down there, you didn’t know if they were safe.

Hendery seemed to snap out of his own thoughts, staring at you with concern. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to ask if you were okay.

You wiped the tears from your eyes furiously,

“Sorry,” you said, “I’m not usually such a baby.”

Your words seemed to cause Hendery more concern.

“Given the situation I don’t think crying makes you a baby,” he said. You shrugged.

“It’s not the first attack on my life in this country,” you replied, which was true, it was the fourth. People on both sides really did hate the other.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve… You have the right to be upset, to be scared, those are all normal emotions.”

“You’re not crying, why should I,” you countered. In any other situation you thought Hendery probably would have laughed.

“I don’t have the right, it was my father who got us both into this situation.”

“Your father,” you said, “not you.” The thought Hendery saw the situation as any way his fault, made you feel so much worse. You couldn’t stop your tears from flowing silently down your face.

Hendery looked at you with sad eyes, before he shuffled closer to you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, bringing your head down onto his shoulder as he held you.

“I don’t ever object to my father, I’m not any better,” he mused sadly.

“I could have said no,” you whispered in reply, “but I didn’t in the hope that marring you would stop attacks like this, not against me but against my people and against yours. I like to believe Hendery that what we are doing is not in fear of your father, but creating peace in spite of your father.”

“Why has it ended with your cheering me up?” Hendery said, staring down at you.

“We are helping each other, a team for life right? You have a right to be scared an upset.” You quoted him on the last part.

“Are your feet okay?” Hendery asked, suddenly worried again. You looked down at your cut feet, the bleeding mostly stopped.

“I don’t think it’s life threatening.”

Hendery chuckled.

A moment later you heard the door bang. You both stood up, your worry for your feet gone again. Hendery held your hand, pushing you to stand behind him protectively, the door banged again before opening, your nails digging into the skin of Hendery’s hand.

“Are you okay y/n?!” you heard Jeno’s voice. You sighed with relief when you saw him standing at the door with Sicheng right next to him.

You ran over and threw your arms around him.

“What happened? What’s happening?” you heard Hendery ask Sicheng.

“Terrorists, protesting the trade agreement and demanding war, two bombs, luckily not strong but there was still five dead and twelve in critical condition.” Sicheng reported.

“Who, do you know who is dead?” you said letting go of Jeno and turning to face Sicheng.

“Nobody you would know Miss y/n,” he said, “Both of your parents are fine, your father has suffered a few minor injuries but nothing worrying,” he added. You breathed out a sigh of relief, something you felt terrible for given the tragedy.

Sicheng and Jeno led you both back out into the open and along to where both of your parents were waiting. Your father had a sling around his neck and the President had a large cut on his cheek, he had clearly been hit by a bit of shrapnel.

The President came over and started to apologise as your mother ran over to hug you.

“Hendery took me to an escape shelter,” you explained to her as she sobbed into your chest. You could tell she wanted to say she wished she had never let this marriage go ahead.

“I hope that what happened today doesn’t change your mind about anything?” was all the President asked. Hendery looked like he wanted to punch him, but his mouth stayed shut and he didn’t hit anyone.

You managed to remove yourself from your mother’s grip.

“It only reinforces the need for this marriage to go ahead.” You said.

“Then we think it is best for you to move in here for safety reasons. You can still have two of your own bodyguards but we feel the added protection would help. As you have seen we have many precautions in place in times of emergency.”

“Obviously you can have your own room,” Hendery’s mother added, “We can even work together with Chanmi to decorate it the way you like.”

Your heart dropped, you had forgotten about Chanmi, though Hendery’s mother mentioning her must have meant she was fine.

“Is she okay, Chanmi?” you asked to nobody in particular.

“She just had to get stitches in her arm,” Sicheng said, “Not the bomb but she was stabbed by an assailant looking for you.”

You wanted to bs sick, all of these people hurt because of your fake marriage. You put your hand to your head, almost falling over as your legs wobbled. Hendery managed to catch you, helping you stand straight, not letting go of you.

“Can we discuss this tomorrow father, I think y/n needs to rest, this has been a rather traumatising day,” he said.

Before you could protest that you were fine his father nodded.

“Let her sleep in your bed until we can get a room ready for y/n tomorrow, you can sleep in Sicheng’s room,” he said. Your parents didn’t protest. So Hendery helped you walk from the room, Jeno following behind, now with Jaemin and Sicheng.

“Five’s company,” you joked. Hendery didn’t laugh or say anything in return, his mouth set in a firm line. He didn’t say anything at all until you reached his room.

His room was at the end of a long corridor filled with doors, it really was a massive house. He opened the door and walked in with you, shutting it behind him, the three guards waiting outside.

He sat you down on his bed that was perfectly made. You stared around his room, all of it neat and tidy, you hadn’t expected otherwise. He had some photos of Lucas and him hanging on the wall and one of him with his parents.

He had an Xbox under the tv and a bowl full of keys to expensive cars, you thought it was funny how the things he liked were such stereotypical boy things.

The one thing in the room that surprised you was his bedside tables. One had a stack of books by the lamp, but the other had a picture of you and him, the one of only a few that existed, taken on one of your visits to his house in order for a press release later on.

Hendery saw you staring at it.

“That one was my favourite, so I told my mother she couldn’t give it to the press, something has to be sacred to our fake marriage.”

The word fake hurt to hear, even if it was true. You really wished you had met Hendery under any other circumstance but this.

“Get some sleep, we can talk in the morning, I’m really sorry all this has happened.” Hendery said, turning to leave. You grabbed his arm softly to stop him.

“Hendery,” you said standing up, “thank you for saving us,” you said with a sad smile, “apart from Jeno you’re the only person to ever save me from an attack.”

Hendery bit his lip,

“Of all the things that I wish made me equal Jeno to you, I really wish it hadn’t been having to save you from being killed,” he said it somewhat jokingly but you knew he had said it in earnest.

You stepped towards Hendery and wrapped your arms around him, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I wish we had met in another life, in another way,” you began, your words partly muffled by his shirt against your lips, “I don’t know you well, but I think you are a person I will be proud to marry,” you moved your head back to look up at him.

“I hope you’re right,” he said before wrapping his arms around you in return. You stood like that for a moment longer before Hendery let go.

“Try and sleep,” he said, before leaving, the door shutting softly behind him.

You woke up from nightmare after nightmare through the night. You stared at the photo of you and Hendery in the frame, you looked so happy even if the happiness was fake. You finally fell asleep soundly dreaming of a life in which you and Hendery were truly happy.

*******************

You woke up to the light shining through the gap in the large curtains as you realised you had forgotten to close them properly.

It was your second week in your room at the President’s House and yet you still weren’t used to it. You heard a knock at the door, the repeated nature of which told you it was Chanmi. She had come back to work shortly after being released from hospital even though you had begged her to take a month or so off.

She was unfortunately not a month off type of person. She walked in without waiting for your answer, sighing when she saw you still hadn’t gotten out of bed.

“You know you have your first live TV interview today, get up!” she instructed. You laid back down pulling the duvet back over your head.

You still weren’t really able to think straight all the emotions of the last month were still processing in your mind, you didn’t know how you felt never mind how to pretend to convey how your pretend self felt on national television.

“It’s just one interview, I’m sure Hendery can do all the talking on the attack related questions,” she said clearly trying to cheer you up but you didn’t feel any better. You felt bad that the explanation seemed to rest on Hendery’s shoulders by default, you were sad that you were the cause of the attack and worst of all you knew you had to tell a whole country they shouldn’t attack you because you loved Hendery when that wasn’t really true.

While you had grown closer on that night, you hadn’t properly talked to him since. He was always busy with work, he worked for his father in his free time, training for a high up government position.

You had spoken to him briefly at meals but you really just didn’t know what to say to him, how to talk to him when at the same meals he agreed with everything his father said about politics, most of which you silently disagreed with.

Politics wasn’t everything but in a political marriage it meant a lot.

So you had been left alone with your thoughts mostly, you had gotten a few lessons from the publicity about how to deal with the media and lessons on the countries culture but it wasn’t really anything you hadn’t learned as the ambassadors daughter.

“I’ve thought a lot about what I want to say, I think I can really help if I speak about the attack,” you said to Chanmi. You had spent a lot of this free time thinking, thinking about how to save the political marriage, about how to save everyone around you from the fallout it would cause.

“Well then even better,” Chanmi replied smiling but the apprehension on her face at your words was clear.

So an hour later you found yourself knocking on the door of Hendery’s study.

“Come in,” he called out, you turned the door handle and pushed the door open, “I was just about to come and find you y/n,” he said.

“I was thinking about the interview,” you began, “I know the plan is for you to speak about the incident and ask that people respect me and so on, but I really think it would help if I speak for myself.”

Hendery didn’t say anything which also wasn’t an objection so you continued.

“I agreed to this marriage to avoid conflict, I don’t want to create it, I don’t want to just wait around carrying this weight of the decision I have made without even being able to speak myself on it. I want to take responsibility for the weight of my own actions.”

Hendery stood up from his chair and walked around the desk leaning back to half sit on the front so he wasn’t talking to you from so far away.

“You are braver than I will ever be,” he said, “if you want to speak for yourself then of course you can.”

“I don’t think being responsible for my choices is brave, it’s a requirement to me. You were prepared to take responsibility for our marriage too, I don’t see why you think it’s brave,” you said.

Hendery looked up at the ceiling, twisting his pen back and forth between his fingers.

“I thought if I was going to be responsible for one choice I made in my life it was going to be marrying you.”

“How so?” you asked, taking a seat in the armchair at the side of the room.

“I see how you look at me at dinner when I agree with my father and the atrocious opinions he has. You hide it well but I can tell. I agree with my father even though I know he’s wrong and that’s partly because I didn’t know how wrong he was until he forced this marriage. I realised that he had been manipulating me my whole life. He always used to say the decisions he made were for the best, for the people for me but when he made us get married I finally understood that he was just playing games.”

“Then why do you agree with him still?”

“Maybe I am a coward, maybe I still believe that he wants whats right deep down but I don’t really believe either of those to answers. I just don’t see the benefit in disagreeing with him.” He explained.

“If you did then maybe he would question his own opinions,” you suggested, “hearing it from his own son.”

“His own son who he would marry off just to win a political game. I can’t win against my father but if I obey him I can try and make some good, marrying you will do good in the long term, even if it is part of his game, so that is what I choose to be responsible for because I believe in the power of it.”

You could hear the pain in Hendery’s voice as he spoke but also the determination. You started to understand him a bit more.

“Maybe he wins the short game, but we will win the long game,” you said, Hendery looked about to ask you to elaborate but you didn’t let him, “Interview time,” you got up and opened the door, “time to pretend you love me.”

*******************

You looked in the mirror just before you went to sit next to Hendery on the set, your makeup was perfect, your hair done, you looked amazing. You had gotten rid of the flowery dresses that you loved for this interview though, today you wore a tailored suit, today you were going to show the country you meant business.

You sat down uncomfortably closer to Hendery but you knew it would look weird if you had sat half a foot away.

The interviewer was a woman who didn’t seem to like you very much as she scowled at you but you didn’t let it affect you. You answered all her questions about your ‘love story’ and smiled up at Hendery as you told the gushing details.

“So what do you say to people who disagree with this relationship, clearly after the terrible act of terrorism that occurred at your engagement party it would be better for everyone if you just broke up?”

“We will not be intimidated by haters or people who write mean comments online or even despicable criminals. We love each other and we will get married. We feel our love conveys how it is possible for both our nations to come to love each other also so that senseless violence will no longer occur, to us our love is about more than just us, it is our love for each other yes, but also everyone on both sides of the border.” You answered.

“How lovely,” the reporter said with a fake smile, “well I think we know one way to appease the viewers,” she said.

“And what is that, we would be happy to oblige,” Hendery said, reminding you exactly of all the times you watched him on TV. He was too perfect on TV you found it unnerving now you had started to get to know him.

“a kiss between the happy couple to be,” she grinned. If you hadn’t known it was impossible you would have thought she knew your marriage was fake. You tried not to look alarmed, Hendery didn’t seem to be phased.

“Is that proper?” you asked, trying to see if you could wiggle your way out.

“It’s the twenty-first century I’m sure it’s fine,” the reporter said. Before you could continue to argue Hendery leaned in and placed a quick peck on your lips.

“How sweet,’ the reporter cooed, “that’s all we have time for today, thank you to Hendery and y/n for joining us, see you next Tuesday for an interview with everyone’s favourite chef.”

Your face burned red and when you looked over you saw the same blush come over Hendery’s face just not to the same degree. He thanked the reporter before grabbing your hand and pulling you up. He led you out into the open air where cameras flashed as you walked quickly towards the car.

Hendery wrapped his arm around you pushing past the reports until Jeno could open the car door allowing both of you to climb in. Once they had gotten in the row of seats behind and all the doors were shut you breathed out a large sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Hendery said quickly, “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable I just…” You shook your head.

“No its fine, I’m not mad at you I just struggle with the situation as you already know.”

Considering Sicheng, Jeno and the driver were all also in the car neither of you took the conversation any further until you had gotten out of the car and were standing in the empty kitchen drinking water.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t like you,” you said to Hendery, “you’re a really nice person and if we had met under any other circumstance…”

It was Hendery’s turn to shake his head,

“You don’t need to explain.”

“I want to. You told me your feelings earlier I will return the favour.” You took a sip of your water, your mouth feeling dry all of a sudden.

“I always knew I would end up marrying for political advantage, I never let myself like boys, not that I had the chance to meet any, I just thought maybe I would have a pick of three or something.” You stopped yourself, “Sorry again I really don’t mean that as an insult to you.”

“No I get what you’re saying…” he thought for a second, “That wasn’t your first kiss, oh I’m so sorry if it was… live on TV as well.”

You laughed.

“Don’t worry not quite the first, I kissed Jeno once actually a few years ago to see if we had feelings for each other, we realised very quickly we didn’t, we were mostly just bored I guess.”

You knew the same wasn’t true for Hendery, while he wasn’t as bad as Lucas he still had a reputation for girls leaving his hotel room at 3am. While you had abstained from romance all together, he had gone the other way and thrust himself into meaningless sex. You understood his choice even if it wasn’t the one you made.

“So you’ve never had a boyfriend?” Hendery asked, he wasn’t judging he was just curious.

“Nope, I’ve never liked a boy and so maybe that’s why all this with you is a bit harder but it doesn’t mean I’m mad you kissed me, you had no choice and we are engaged after all.”

Hendery took a few steps towards you, putting his drink down on the table. His eyes searching your face.

“Would you be mad if I kissed you now, when I did have a choice?” He asked. You thought about to for a second, while you weren’t in love with Hendery you did find him attractive and he was a caring person and you were going to spend your life married to him. So you made a choice.

“No, I wouldn’t be mad,” you said slowly, your heart beginning to beat faster. Hendery took two more steps forward, he reached over and took your drink out from your hand placing it down on the table.

He smiled,

“I think I like you y/n,” he said, his gaze flicking between your eyes and your lips and before you knew it he was kissing you. Tentatively at first, clearly trying not to overwhelm you but as you began to kiss him back more urgently he followed suit, his hands tangling in your hair as your own arms slid round his waist.

It was different to when you had kissed Jeno, it was so much more enjoyable, you realised that was because you liked Hendery. It felt like your whole body was on fire as his tongue played with yours gently, when he bit down slightly on your lip you let out a soft moan causing your ears to burn red.

But it didn’t dissuade Hendery, instead he smiled into the kiss, before going back to kissing you just as passionately before, pressing you up against the kitchen wall.

A few minutes later he pulled away.

“I think if I don’t stop now we will end up somewhere we don’t wanna go just yet, we do have a lifetime,” he joked, pecking your lips again.

“I think I like you too,” you said to him, your cheeks still red as he beamed at you.

*******************

You started to chat more to Hendery, meeting him in the garden after dinner sometimes, seeing if you were able to hide from Jeno and Sicheng, something you quickly realised was impossible.

You also quickly realised how stressful Hendery’s life was. While your father’s job had isolated you it had never been something you personally had to be involved with. Hendery’s work for his father was hard, especially on top of the university work you still both had, even if the professors were emailing it for safety reasons.

You had arranged to meet Hendery in the garden after lunch but he never arrived. You wondered around the house looking for him, eventually spotting Sicheng standing outside the library.

“Have you seen Hendery?” you enquired, Sicheng nodded his head lightly.

“He’s working in there, I guess he forgot to meet you… I wouldn’t take it personally the President is expecting a lot from him lately.” You truly felt bad for Hendery and how he was treated. All the President expected from you was to learn to sit straight, something you already learned at the age of four. The misogyny of the upper classes.

“Tell him he has to stop working by six, the doctors’ orders,” you said, “tell him to find me in the kitchen!” and before Sicheng could argue you had already raced back down the corridor to sort some things out.

You asked the people who worked in the kitchen where you could find the ingredients to make cookies, the immediately offered to make some for you but you assured them making them yourself was the point.

You stashed the cookie ingredients in the family fridge before racing off again. You had hours to set up your plan but you wanted it to be perfect so you wasted no time. If you weren’t allowed to be involved in state affairs you could at least support your fiancé who was.

Only a few doors down from your room was a little sitting room with a sofa and a tv that was seldom used. In the whole month you had spent in the house you had never seen another person in there.

One of the reasons setting everything up took so long was because you weren’t sure where things in the house were kept. You could have asked someone but you wanted it to be a secret between just you and Hendery.

So when Jeno asked why you were forcing him to run after you like a maniac you refused to give a reason.

You eventually found a cupboard where spare blankets and pillows were kept, chucking as many as possible on top of Jeno whilst picking up just as many yourself.

On the sitting room floor you laid out all the blankets and pillows until it looked as cosy as anything.

Working out how the TV worked was a half hour task in itself, it was so modern you weren’t sure how it worked or how the remote worked but eventually you found Netflix.

Sooner than you expected it you were standing back in the kitchen waiting for Hendery. He arrived not soon after at six-fifteen, his face slightly pale and a tired look on his face.

“Sorry I didn’t come meet you in the garden earlier I was just so busy…” you cut him off, placing a finger over his lips.

“No apologies, just fun relaxing activities,” you explained, pulling the cookie ingredients back out of the fridge.

It turned out neither of you had any clue how to bake but cookies were simple. Flour ended up everywhere and you couldn’t help but think how cute Hendery looked as he smiled, butter smudged on his cheek.

“We have to cook them for ten minutes, so they are still gooey,” you said, going over to the sink and grabbing a cloth, “your face is dirty come here.”

Hendery walked over to you and crouched down slightly so you could clean his face, you chuckled at how cute he was.

“All better,” you said, wiping the butter away, your eyes lingering on his cheek. Hendery caught your gaze and smiled.

“Come here you have something on your cheek too,” he said, you were confused you had checked in the reflection of the oven just a minute ago and there hadn’t been anything.

Hendery leaned in closer to your face before placing a quick kiss on your cheek. Your face blushed slightly pink as Hendery stood up straight again grinning.

“Oh maybe there was nothing there after all,” he said. You shook your head in mock disapproval, saved from your shy embarrassment by the noise of the cooker beeping.

You carefully removed the cookies from the oven and slid them into a bowl. Hendery reached in to take one but you swatted his hand away.

“You will burn yourself if you touch it now, and anyway they are for later.”

Hendery seemed confused. You didn’t bother explaining, you picked up the cookie bowl in one hand and took Hendery’s hand in your other and starting leading him to your blanket extravaganza.

You had gotten some staff to leave actual dinner in the room, you hadn’t been confident enough in either of your skills to make a whole dinner, it probably wouldn’t have had the light-hearted fun vibe you were after if you ended up with raw chicken.

“Pick a Netflix movie,” you said as you settled down into the blankets, eating your food as Hendery found a movie to watch.

By halfway through the film both of you had turned your focus away from eating and solely to the movie. But without the food to think about you began to notice more how close Hendery was sitting next to you.

He seemed to be slowly moving closer and closer to you, his hand resting nearer to yours by the minute. So when the movie reached a slightly scary part you felt no shame and hiding your face in Hendery’s arm.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he said, you glared at him jokingly.

“Says the man who is scared of frogs,” you teased back. Hendery’s mouth opened wide,

“How did you, how, what?” he asked.

“I’ve been asking around about you,” you said in your best attempt to flirt. Your isolated lifestyle hadn’t given you much practise.

“You’re cute,” he observed, looking down at you, taking the opportunity to place his arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him, “thank you for doing this,” he said over the sound of the movie playing in the background.

“If you ever need a break just call me up, I’m nonstop fun,” you said, immediately regretting how the statement had come across more sexual than it had in your head. Hendery just grinned.

“But seriously, I can tell your stressed and so if you ever want to talk about how stressed you are or just get things of your chest, I’m willing to listen.”

Hendery sighed lightly. He didn’t speak for a while, his hand fiddling with the corner of one of the blankets, his muscles slightly tensed.

“If… If you would be happier not marrying me, I want you to tell me, I will talk to my father, I will find a way. You’re too kind and beautiful a person y/n to be stuck marrying someone for politics. I want you to be happy.”

His words shocked you but you couldn’t help smiling but not for the reason Hendery thought. You wriggled out from under his arm moving to sit directly in front of him, your legs crossed opposite where he sat, hugging his legs.

“Meeting you has been the one thing that has seemed like real life to me, even if this is an orchestrated marriage, The fact that you would be willing to talk to your father to make me happy, is the exact reason I am willing to try marrying you. Even if there is another way, I still choose this way.”

Hendery still looked conflicted.

“But what if, in the future, you don’t feel the same way, you regret making this choice, choosing me?” he asked.

“While I still don’t consider this marriage a choice, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t chose to date you under different circumstances. And you are correct, I cannot see the future and someday I may not feel how I feel now. But I know two things that are true. One is that your father is unlikely to listen to you no matter what and so this marriage is still necessary. Two, right now the thought of marrying you doesn’t scare me, it makes me somewhat happy, even if the circumstance doesn’t. Even if marriage for us is like dating for others, I chose right now to take responsibility for not even letting you try to convince your father.”

You looked straight into Hendery’s eyes. The hope that you saw appear in his eyes was enough to make you want to cry. This marriage to Hendery, the chance to make you happy, it was his hope, the only hope he felt he had of doing something positive.

Your marriage to Hendery was going to bring good to the world, to his world and your own. You knew that was something to be proud of, you knew that you wanted to love him.

You kissed his lips briefly before pulling away again.

“You should sleep,” you encouraged him, “you are handsome but tired looking.”

“It would be a better sleep if you slept with me,” he joked with a wink. You pushed him lightly on the shoulder.

“Whilst I may have kissed someone before you, I have not shared a bed with a guy before and will not be starting today,’ you asserted. Hendery nodded, getting up,

“Well my door is always open, I’m a great at cuddles.”

He leaned down and kissed your forehead softly.

“Goodnight y/n,” he said, “I will sleep better dreaming of you.”

You blushed in the darkness of the room as he walked away. The man was to charming for his own good.

*******************

You saw it on the news first,

“Breaking story, five tourists from our neighbouring country have been arrested on suspicions of undisclosed crimes, they are currently being held by the state government, a decision that is being viewed with mixed reactions.”

You stood up, your first instinct to go to Hendery’s study and ask him if he knew what was going on.

But when you tried to leave your room you found it looked from the outside, something you hadn’t known was possible. You began to bang on the door, shouting at whoever had locked it on the other side, but to no avail.

You eventually sat back down and turned the news back on, having no other real plan of action. The news revealed that the tourists had supposedly robbed a bank but it was an accusation you were very suspicious of.

You tried ringing Hendery but every time the phone went straight to voicemail and you didn’t bother leaving a message. You tried searching the internet but you didn’t have a 3G signal and the Wi-Fi seemed to be broken.

You rang your mother next to ask if she knew anything, she said that all she knew was that there had been no bank robbery and they were being held as political leverage. You wanted to scream, you picked up the closet item to you, a shoe, and threw it as hard against the wall as possible.

At the same time you heard the lock on the door turn and Sicheng enter,

“Are you all right?” he asked, “I heard a bang.” You couldn’t believe Hendery’s personal guard was the one keeping you locked up.

“Why can’t I leave?” you asked, “Why won’t Hendery pick up my calls?”

“The President doesn’t want to risk the chance you could talk to the press… as for Hendery I don’t know… as soon as he heard what was about to happen he insisted I tell Jeno we swapped guarding duty for the day.”

After seeing you were okay Sicheng left again, locking the door once he was outside. You wanted to believe that Hendery played no role but the changing of the guards so that Jeno couldn’t let you out was suspicious.

A few hours later Sicheng opened the door and passed you some food into the room but you felt too sick to eat. What was the point of the marriage if it didn’t even keep your country people safe.

Finally your phone rang, Hendery was calling you back. You wanted to ignore it out of spite but you knew the situation was more important than that.

“What the fuck Hendery,” was all you said when you picked up.

“I’m sorry,” he replied.

“Don’t be sorry, just explain to me what the actual fuck is going on here.”

“My father will let them go… he just needs your father to agree to one of the more controversial trade terms. I asked him not to do this, I really tried but,”

“You didn’t have to get Sicheng to guard me,” you countered. Hendery paused for a second.

“I… I just don’t want my father to get angry at you, Jeno would have let you leave and then he would have been fired and my father… he would have made life harder for you and your country,” he tried to explain.

“I’m not seven Hendery I can make my own choices. Your choice to ensure I’m locked up means you don’t trust I won’t do anything stupid any more than your father would.”

You were really angry, to an extent you understood Hendery’s motivations, you understood he was trying to help you. Yet you also disagreed with his methods and you were angry he didn’t trust you.

“I’m smart enough to know that talking badly about your father to the press wouldn’t help achieve what we are trying to with this marriage…” you didn’t have the energy to argue with him.

“I’ll send Jeno back,” Hendery said, his voice barely a whisper, “I never want to upset you y/n that will never be my goal, I know your intelligent, probably more so than me. My father is a scary man and I let my fear of him overpower my trust in you and for that I really do apologise.”

“If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?” you replied.

“Is it really time to quote Confucius?” Hendery asked. You smiled to yourself.

“I was just proving I really am intelligent, and anyway I mean it, you are a good person Hendery, trust me, yourself, our marriage will outlast your father and then maybe things can change.”

“My closest ally on the advisory board thinks they will release the prisoners tomorrow and call the situation a misunderstanding, just wait until then,”

“Goodnight,” you said before hanging up the phone. You were still angry, but not at Hendery. You had never made a habit of disliking people never mind hating them, but the President was a man you really hated.

The next afternoon at around 4pm the tourists were released and a short statement was made about a cultural misunderstanding. One the President hoped would not be repeated in the future after the joining of the two nations.

You wanted to stab him through the TV, but why waste a perfectly good TV.

You heard a small knock at the door, you thought it was Jeno telling you that you could come out now, roam free, inside the prison of a house.

Instead stood Hendery, eyes as tired as ever, his face as defeated as your own. He said nothing, merely walked over to where you were perched at the end of your bed and sat down.

He opened his mouth to speak but you shook your head.

“Nothing we can say makes it better, so it’s better to say nothing at all,” you said, before wrapping your arms around him and pulling him towards you. For those few minutes where you just hugged him you thought of nothing. You worried about nothing, you just felt the peace that holding him close brought you.

*******************

“You look beautiful,” Jaemin said to you, you think it was the nicest comment he had ever said to you, it was your wedding day after all, “I’m still sad you wouldn’t let me be a bridesmaid.”

You resisted the temptation to chuck some hairpins at him. You hadn’t thought your bodyguards would have looked good in dresses so you had convinced Hendery to make them the other three of his five groomsmen along with Sicheng and Lucas.

“I think Chanmi looks prettier in pink,” you replied, which was only followed by more protests of ‘”she’s wearing blue, not pink,”- a technicality.

Speaking of Chanmi,

“Five minutes,” she called out. You pushed your earrings in, your hands trembling slightly as you got up and saw yourself standing in front of the mirror dressed in white. The gown was beautiful, expensive, everything you could have dreamed of.

You felt so sick. Jeno walked over and grabbed your hand. He was going to walk in front of you the whole way with Chanmi, the male bridesmaid Jaemin wished he could be.

Chanmi held your other hand and squeezed tightly, reassuring you as they led you down the stairs and out to the car in which your father was waiting. Jeno sat in the front as Chanmi gathered up your dress, making sure it all fit in the car before sitting down beside you.

“What a beautiful day for it,” your father remarked. You nodded back but didn’t open your mouth to speak, you thought you would throw up if you did.

The car drove on in silence, you clutched at some vow cards Chanmi had prepared for you. Reaching over and rolling down the window you chucked them out.

“I’ll just wing it,” you said to her horrified glance, but she never let go of your hand.

The car pulled up outside the church moments later, you could hear the low murmur of the guests inside as Jeno opened the door and helped you out.

Sicheng who was waiting by the door for the rest of the groomsmen looked less anxious to see they had actually arrived just in front of you. They headed inside the church as you tried your best not to hyperventilate outside on the church steps.

“Being your best friend has been my honour,” Jeno said to you, leaning down to kiss your cheek. Through your panic you still managed to look up at him confused.

“You will always be my best friend, getting fake married doesn’t change that,” you replied. Jeno held both of your hands,

“You are not getting fake married though, it may not be a marriage of love but it is a real marriage and for that reason I really hope for you, that he becomes your best friend, that he can take my place and support you like I always have. We never loved each other like that but I hope he loves you like that because you will always be my almost sister and I love you. Don’t be afraid, you’re saving a nation, be proud, and love him too,” he said, a tear fell from your cheek, “no crying, someone worked hard on that makeup.”

You let go of his hands and hugged him.

“I love you too almost bro,” you said as the wedding march began to play and some flower girls that you didn’t even know entered through the doors. Chanmi ran over and gave you a quick hug.

“You will rule the world one day y/n,” she laughed as she let go, handing Jeno a bouquet as they both walked in after the flower girls.

Just you and your father were left, you wiped the tear from your cheek and walked over to him, putting a smile on your face. You could tell he was already sad, you didn’t want to make it worse.

“Time to get married,” you whispered, linking your arm with his and staring onwards.

The doors opened and you stared down the aisle in front of you. You saw Jaemin, Renjun and Chenle standing next to Sicheng and Lucas on the stage. You saw the reverend, you saw your mother, Jeno and Chanmi sitting in the front row, you saw the president and his wife sitting on the other side.

Finally your eyes focused on him as you got closer, step by step.

The sickness you had once felt, gone, the moment you locked eyes with him. His eyes held the same trepidation as yours but the shone through the church as he looked at you.

Your father let go of your arm, kissing your check, before you took Hendery’s hands instead.

The reverend read out a whole spiel but you weren’t really listening, you just stared up at Hendery, trying your best to focus on him and not falling over.

“Today, I promise you this: I will laugh with you in times of joy, and comfort you in times of sorrow. I will share in your dreams and support you as you strive to achieve your goals. I will listen to you with compassion and understanding, and speak to you with encouragement. Let us be partners, and friends, today and all of the days that follow,” Hendery said. His words were the first ones you had really heard.

You took a sharp breath inwards realising it was your own turn to speak.

“I had prepared something to say, but I wanted to speak from the heart instead. I promise to do my best to love you and live harmoniously with you as long as we both shall live, to take on the challenges life gives us together. I hope that our marriage can serve as a sign of peace and that the world can feel compassion as deeply as I know you feel it,” you said.

“Do you, y/n y/l/n, take Hendery Wong to be your lawfully wedded husband,” the reverend asked,

“I do,” you replied, your voice thankfully not shaking.

“Do you, Hendery Wong, take y/n y/l/n to be your lawfully wedded wife,”

“I do,” he said, staring down at you with a smile.

“I know pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride,” he said and so Hendery leaned down, kissing you. Only for a few seconds, there were children present, but it was enough to make you blush.

You pulled Hendery into a hug and whispered in his ear,

“I wish I could have chosen to marry you,” you said. Hendery shook his head, still smiling for the crowd.

“I’m feel lucky to get to marry you y/n, whatever the circumstance,” he said, causing you to genuinely smile. Hendery let go from your hug and threw your clasped hands in the air as you walked back down the aisle and out of the church.

The reception was actually quite dull to start off with, you had to greet many political figures, most of whom you didn’t personally know, there was also the ordeal of extended family which hardly ever went well for anyone.

It got a bit better when Lucas and Jaemin got so drunk they started to perform karaoke standing on tables as Chenle cried with laughter watching.

Your first dance with Hendery had been sweet but after that you and Hendery had mostly decided to sit at the side together, exhausted by the whole affair.

By about midnight your head was resting on Hendery’s shoulder as you began to doze off, partly from tiredness, partly from alcohol. Hendery chuckled at how cute you looked.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he said, about to pick you up when you insisted you could walk. Hendery put his arm around your waist, supporting your drunk figure as he lead you to the elevator. You walked along the corridor before he pulled out the key card, letting you both into the presidential suite.

It had two bedrooms and so he walked you towards the bigger one, helping you sit down on the bed.

Chanmi and Sicheng had made sure you both had stuff there and so she had left you a pair of pyjamas to get changed into. Hendery handed them to you and turned around so he didn’t see you getting changed.

“I can’t do the zip,” you complained, tapping Hendery on the shoulder.

“oh yeah right sure,” he said, turning back around and unzipping it for you, blushing when you pulled the dress down before he could turn around again.

“Don’t be silly, we are married,” you said, making fun of him in your drunken haze.

“Doesn’t mean I cant still respect you,” he said, “I’ll go get changed myself and come back in a sec okay?” he said to which you nodded. You took your underwear off and replaced them with the white satin pyjamas Chanmi had left.

Hendery walked back in with a matching pair. You went and brushed your teeth together before Hendery urged you to climb into bed.

“Goodnight, y/n,” he said about to leave before you sat up and stopped him.

“Married couples sleep in the same bed,” you protested.

“You’re drunk, y/n, I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Snuggling is definitely fine,” you said, something which Hendery struggled to argue with. He put his phone down on the bed side table and shuffled in beside you, wrapping his arms around you.

“I think I could get used to this,” he said, his chin resting on your shoulder. You rolled over to face him.

“You have a good face,” you said. Hendery burst out laughing,

“You’re so cute,”

“Can I kiss you?” you asked.

“So this was your tactic then,” Hendery laughed back, placing a small kiss on your lips, “try and sleep y/n,”

Your face became sad,

“Do you not want to sleep with me?” you asked.

“I’m here, I’m going to sleep right next to you,” he said, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. You shook your head.

“No sleep with me sleep with me,” you clarified, your words slurring together. Hendery’s eyebrows furrowed. When he saw your sad expression through the darkness he smiled slightly, laughing.

“It’s not a question of wanting to, you’re beautiful and I really like you y/n of course I want to do all those things with you, but I’m not having sex with you for the first time when you are drunk, when you can’t give proper consent. Especially for your first time.”

It slowly dawned on you even as drunk as you were that Hendery was much more experienced with relationships than you were, it wouldn’t have been hard.

“You don’t mind that I have never had a boyfriend before, that I have never had sex before,” you said, whispering the latter part.

“You don’t have to whisper it’s not a bad word,” Hendery laughed, “And of course I don’t mind, as I said, I’m fully committed to you and we have the rest of our lives, for now we can just cuddle and sleep okay?”

You seemed satisfied with his answer, falling asleep moments later with his arms around you and waking up the same way nine hours later.

You didn’t feel embarrassed in the morning when you remembered the conversation because Hendery didn’t make it feel like something that was at all embarrassing, he just made you feel calm and safe.

*******************

By that afternoon you were on a flight to a private island, owned by Hendery’s family. His grandfather had owned a brewery there and his own father had worked there before he became president.

Other people lived on the island, local people who would have recognised the two of you and alerted the press with photos.

So before you went to the beach you both put on ridiculously large hats and sunglasses on.

“James Bond has nothing on us,” Hendery remarked as you laughed at his stupid pineapple sunglasses.

“No one would expect the President’s son to dress like this.”

You spent the day on the beach, building a not so impressive sandcastle, jumping through the waves, splashing each other.

Once you had somewhat dried off, Hendery grabbed your hand and led you over to a little ice cream stall where an old man was selling ice cream. Hendery ordered you both one.

“You are a very cute couple,” the man remarked, “is it a special occasion?”

“It’s our honeymoon,” you replied, “we just got married yesterday.”

“Congratulations to both of you,” he said with a smile.

“That’s a rite of passage, isn’t it,” Hendery said as you walked home,

“What is?” you asked,

“Being told we are a cute couple by an older person.”

You giggled as you licked your ice cream,

“I suppose it is.”

You showered after you got back, changing into an outfit Chanmi had packed for you, the dress was lovely, the underwear choices slightly racy.

You walked out onto the patio where Hendery had laid out a fancy table for the two of you. There was a rose in the middle and he held out your chair for you to sit down.

“I have to admit, I didn’t cook the food, I didn’t think that would impress anyone,” he said.

“You don’t need to impress me, I already think you’re great,” you said, sitting down. The food really was good, but you made sure not to drink too much wine to avoid a repeat of the night before.

Your conversation died down comfortably after a while and you both took a moment to stare out at the orchard and the sea that was behind it. You really hoped you and Hendery could move to the island permanently one day. Instead of returning to the Presidential House.

You turned back to see Hendery who was staring at you, a dopey smile on his face.

“I love you,” he blurted out, your heart skipped a beat, “I wanted to say it to you yesterday but I wasn’t sure if you would remember but I love you and I hate my father sometimes but marrying you is the best thing that has happened in my life. We may have married for the sake of international relations but I love you for you.”

You smiled, standing up as he stood up and walking round to stand in front of him.

“I love you too,” you said, “after meeting you I realised I hadn’t really been living real life before, it sounds cliché but you brought colour to my lonely monocoloured life.”

You snaked your arms around his neck, pulling him in to kiss you,

“Will you let me have sex with you know?”

“You don’t know how long I have dreamed of this moment y/n,” he said, staring down at you with love in his eyes,

“The confession of love or the sex?” you joked,

“honestly, both,” he said laughing before bringing his lips back to yours. His lips trailing kisses down your neck before you grabbed his hand and pulled him back inside towards the bedroom.

You barely made it inside the bedroom door before he was kissing you again, your back pressed up against the wall. He gasped slightly when you moved your hands under his shirt, your finger touching his nipple briefly, before pulling off his shirt.

He reacted by unzipping your dress,

“is this okay,” he asked, not pulling it off you until you nodded,

“It’s all okay, Hendery, I want you.” It was all the confirmation he needed. He couldn’t help but admit that it turned him on, being the first and most likely the only man to ever get to touch you like this, now you were married now you were his and he was yours.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said as he unclasped your bra, letting it drop to the floor. One of his hands massaged your breast, the other placed against the wall as your lips met.

Your attention sprung to the growing length underneath his black jeans. You had never seen a dick before in real life.

“Take your jeans off,” you asked him slightly breathless, he was happy to oblige, pulling his jeans off over his legs.

He picked you up bridal style, literally sweeping you off your feet, before placing you back down on the bed,

“As hot as it would be I’m not gonna fuck you for the first time against a wall,” Hendery explained, you nodded,

“Less talking more touching,” you demanded, Hendery grinned a wicked grin.

“That I can do.” Before you knew it he was placing kisses up your thigh, his finger grazing over the top of your soaked panties before pulling them down and throwing them behind him. It was your first time so he knew he had to stretch you first as he inserted a single finger but it was enough to make you let out a sharp moan.

You wriggled slightly in pleasure as he began to pump his finger in and out, before you knew it he had added a second, which was slightly painful at first but at the same time you felt his tongue over your clit, moving in circles and pleasure took over.

“Shit Hendery,” you called out, you could already feel your orgasm building so when Hendery began to move his fingers faster, you let go, your walls clenching around his fingers.

“Such a good girl for me,” he said. You looked up, regaining your sense to see Hendery was still wearing his boxers. A small wet patch had formed at the end of his hard length. You sat up pushing Hendery down.

“My turn,” you said.

“You don’t have to, you know,” Hendery replied.

“But I want to.” You pulled at his waistband, letting his cock spring free. It was slightly bigger than you had imagined and defiantly not as repulsive, in fact the thought of sucking his dick made you wet all over again.

“Tell me how,” you asked him, kneeling down.

“Well start by touching me,” he encouraged, guiding your hand with his own until it was wrapped around the top of his dick, “now slide your hand down and put your mouth where your hand was.”

You leant over and placed your tongue on the tip, licking slightly before putting it into your mouth. Hendery moaned lightly as you began to suck, taking in as much of his dick as possible before moving your mouth back up,

“yeah, fuck, like that,” Hendery groaned.

You tried to take a little bit more into your mouth each time until eventually it caused you to gag slightly, at which Hendery’s dick began to twitch, you kept sucking as his breath quickened and he finally came in your mouth, cum shooting down your throat as you swallowed.

“Jesus,” Hendery said, bringing his lips to yours, the taste of his cum still on your lips, “you are something special y/n,”

He brought his hand down to your folds, checking you were still wet enough for him. He propped himself up with his arms before placing his cock at your entrance.

“Tell me if it hurts, I will go slow, I wont move until you tell me to okay and if you don’t like it we can stop.” He said.

You nodded though you doubted after the first part of the experience that you would want to stop.

When he first pushed in it did hurt, as he moved in and out slowly it stung slightly but with each small thrust the pain was replaced with pleasure. When you finally let out a moan, Hendery started to thrust deeper,

“You’re doing so well for me y/n, you’re so fucking tight,” he hissed, his own pleasure preventing him from talking further.

Neither of you were going to last long and Hendery’s dick was beginning to pulse inside of you.

“I love you,” he managed to say as he came, filling you up with his cum, the feeling of it prompting your own orgasm as you moaned his name loudly.

Hendery kissed your lips softly, hugging you for a moment, before offering to help you clean up, wiping his cum from beneath your legs softly.

“I really do love you y/n,” he said as you both settled back into bed to sleep.”

“I love you too,” you said. What had started out as a sick game between politicians in the name of peace had ended up as something beautiful, as love.

*******************

In the years following life wasn’t always the easiest, the President wasn’t a good man and he made life tough sometimes and you struggled, but you struggled together. You were happy with each other.

You got to know each other more every day and you fell in love more every day. You had two children together and two years after that you renewed your vows in secret with only your children and your closest friends present, to make it clear you did choose to love each other, even if you hadn’t chosen to marry each other.

Ten years later when the President died of a heart attack, came the hardest choice for you both. Most of the country expected Hendery to take over from his father, to become the next leader. He could have, he would have been a brilliant and fair President, but it wasn’t something either of you wanted, you didn’t want the dictatorship to go on. Hendery allowed the people to choose a new president, elections were held for the first time in many years.

Instead of becoming a dictator like his father Hendery moved back to the villa with the orchard with you and your two children. You went to the same beach and built sandcastles with your kids as you had on the first day of your honeymoon.

The orchard where you had both confessed your love was so beautiful. The island didn’t belong to his country or yours. It was on an island that belonged to both of you.

You bought Chanmi and Jeno the house next door, they had gotten married just three years after you, something that had brought you immense happiness. Jeno didn’t guard you anymore but you both lived close enough to watch out for each other, still the closest of friends.

Your children grew up and played together, went to school together. You lived a life that was happy. You had married to bring the world peace but you had also found peace in your heart. Marrying Hendery had once seemed like a cursed fate but really it had been the most blessed fate of all.

You didn’t think people would ever believe such a happy story could come out of an arranged marriage in which the proposal had occurred in the bathroom. It summed up you and Hendery, neither of you knew exactly why you worked but you did. From the day in the bathroom, to the night of the attack, to your marriage to then. You realised you had always seen yourself loving Hendery.

Your love was the only possible outcome.

#hendery #hendery scenarios #hendery smut #wayv smut #nct smut #wayv scenarios #hendery fluff #wayv fluff #hendery fics #wayv fics #hendery imagine #wayv imagine

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fawad-khan · 3 years

Note

Me! With Peter hehe🙈

Ahh I knew you'd be the first one to request hehe love you sisso 😘

Me!

Pairing- Peter Parker x stark!reader (coz it's just better that way amirite?)

Warning- none, some swearing, shouting, enemies to lovers?

Word count- 1.3k whoops

Masterlist ☆ Blurbs

"Peter why do you have to bring up such atrocious ideas? Why can't we just go about it in a simpler way?"

"Because, I'm not your fucking puppy alright? For once let us just do this my way!"

No matter what the situation was, Peter and you always ended up having a first class row with five to ten minutes of being together in a single room. Be it missions, be it a movie to watch, be it suit improvements, he always managed to counter your opinion in some way or the other, and you hated him with your guts, your rage would rise and you'd end up shouting at each other till one of the avengers ripped you apart. He always had to find something to point at and criticized every single thing in your life, just to annoy the hell out of you.

Now, you maintained your composure when it came to school, as you did not want to get into trouble in school, and so did Peter. But this time, he had crossed the line.

You both had unfortunately been partnered up for your chemistry finals project. Normally, you wouldn't worry about passing it as chemistry was one of your strong subjects. However, the teacher just had to pair the two of you together, and none of you were eased about it.

You always liked to be as creative as possible and loved to integrate some art and splash of colour to intrigue your audience and to add creativity to your projects. Which is why you had come with a simple, yet effective plan to do a project on chocolate analysis, something that would catch everyone's attention, and at the same time with the fusion of chemistry be a very interesting experiment indeed.

Peter would rather die than admit that he actually thought this idea was pure genius. He had never really thought about something like this which was actually not very hard to do. But his arrogance got the better of him. He kept on giving stupid excuses on how this and that could go wrong, and how they could instead do something machine related. Of course, doing that wasn't easy as you required various complex tools to make a project related to machines and wiring which weren't easy to procure and neither your dad nor Bruce would give them, they themselves getting blasts of messing around with them.

"Peter this is not the time, okay? I've never once just brushed your idea by the side and went ahead with my thing without your consent. I came up with this idea for the both of us and I thought you'd be more interested in this, but clearly you have to go against every single idea I have." Your voice was now very loud and practically the whole tower could hear you..

"can you just shut up? Just calm down for fuck's sake."

"No no I am calm, alright? Here I am, trying to plan out a project with a guy who always disagrees with me, will find fucking faults in every little thing I do when I'm trying to score a grade for the both of us, yeah sure I am CALM!" You shouted the last word and picked up your stuff and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind you.

He let out a frustrated groan, and held his head in despair. Tony saw you storming out yet again, and decided to take matters in his own hands. He entered your room, where Peter was still there.

"Another fight, huh kid? What is it this time?"

"it's nothing, Mr Stark. Just between (y/n) and me."

"Kid I've seen enough of you both bickering and almost at war at each other to say that it's nothing. It is something, isn't it? What's the matter?" He asked calmly, taking a seat beside him.

"I don't know, I just, every time she suggests something, and they're good too, I don't know, I just find myself counteracting towards them, you know? Like my brain somehow decides to just disagree and shout at her for everything. And it hurts me when I realise that I hurt her each time, you know? I really don't know what to do about it." Peter took a deep breath followed by this rambling, his face holding an upset expression.

Tony knew his protege very well and could sense that he did not want to go on like this. There was a high chance of why he always behaved like this.

"Kid, there is a possibility as to why you're behaving like this." He said, patting his back.

"Really? What is it?" He asked, perplexed.

"Normally when a guy and a girl argue a lot everytime they see each other, it usually means that they like each other. But sometimes they don't want to express it and so it comes out as rage and end up fighting."

"What? I- uhh" Peter had no words. He was thinking of how your cheeks always were flushed red and your hair wild and toussled whenever you two fought. The way your lips pursed together, made you look like a tornado and even then, he never failed to notice your beauty. Oh god Tony was right, he liked you!

Judging by his expression, Tony realised that what he said was true. Without uttering a word, he pointed his head towards the door, silently urging Peter to go to you.

He got on his feet and rushed out of the room, searching for you. He climbed downstairs to the kitchen and walked towards the storage cupboard where all snacks were kept, as this is where you usually came to eat from your secret snack stash whenever you were upset or angry.

He knocked on the shut door and waited. He could hear some shuffling inside, indicating that you were going to open the door. You opened the door, revealing your tear stained face, sniffles escaping your mouth. He had made you cry. He was now internally kicking himself for upsetting you. Yet how did you manage to look beautiful even when you cried?

"What happened, Parker? Come to tell at me more? Because I can't take this anymore." You said in a quivering voice, looking down at your feet.

"I -uh, don't know where exactly to begin, but uh I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. I just shouldn't have. You know better, and I uh- how do I say this?" He let out a breath and continued, "your idea wasn't that bad, y'know? I think I kinda liked it." He shrugged.

"Uh that's actually different than what I expected. Anything else?" You asked curtly.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I hurt you. I don't have any right to treat you how I treated you, and now that I look back, I was such a dick, it's a wonder you didn't run for the hills." He laughed at this.

"Oh, Peter uh, that's, uh really sweet of you." You paused, thinking of what to say next. "Actually, I uh am sorry too. I shouldn't have shouted at you like that today or all the past times I've shouted at you. It was just wrong, and I should've been more calm, I guess."

"Yeah, but also you look pretty cute when you're all flared up like that you know?"he said in a cute shy voice.

"Wait what? You really think that?" You asked, playing with a loose hair strand coming out of your ponytail.

"Yeah" he said, scratching the back of his neck.

"Well what would you say if I said that I think you're kinda handsome too?"

"Really? Are you serious?"

"No I'm (y/n)" you giggled.

"Shut up." He laughed.

"Well I'm the only one of me, and that's the fun of me."

"Well you're right about that. Maybe wanna go on a date sometime?" He shrugged.

"I'd love that Peter."

Spotify Wrapped Blurbs Event

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Add yourself to my taglist

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drarrymybeloved · 3 years

Text

a gift for @isamijoo as part of the Wheel of Drarry Mini Exchange🥰💞thank you to @curlyy-hair-dont-care for the beta!

wc: 1.7k | rating: G

Not All Heroes Wear Capes, But Mine Sure Does

Draco Malfoy, Editor in Chief of Witch Weekly Magazine, eyes his watch and then the stack of paperwork on his desk. He knows he should stay and get through at least half the pile before lunch, but there is also a photoshoot going on in Studio B right this very second that he wouldn’t mind overseeing. Only because the photoshoot is such an important project for the magazine. Not because of the presence of a certain someone at said photoshoot, not at all.

I’m the Editor in Chief of the damn magazine and I can go wherever I like, he decides. He nods his head as if confirming his own thoughts and exits his office to head towards the studio.

Draco had begun working at the offices of Witch Weekly soon after he finished his community service sentence. Starting as a lowly clerk, his ability to charm and enamour as needed, had him slowly but surely climbing the ranks.

Now, at twenty-five, Draco is the youngest Editor in Chief in the history of Witch Weekly. Soon after his promotion, he had recruited Pansy as a columnist and Blaise as a photographer, both of whom are involved in today’s shoot.

And what a shoot it is, Draco thinks with more than a little satisfaction. Featuring the Golden Trio, the rest of the Weasley clan minus Percy who was “just too busy to make it”, Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, the Patil twins, and Lavender Brown, it’s going to be printed as a special edition with all proceeds going to the War Orphan’s Trust. Incidentally, it’s also one of the most— if not the most— star-studded spread in the magazine’s history. Blaise will photograph all the volunteers in various costumes and get-ups, while Pansy will interview them on the side.

When the idea was first proposed, Draco had been sceptical. While the others were less recalcitrant, Potter was well-known for his dislike of modelling of any kind. He hated being in front of a camera, and everybody in the press corps knew it. Without Potter, the venture wouldn’t necessarily fail, but it would definitely not generate as much profit. Draco had meant to ask formally, perhaps through an official letter bearing the magazine’s seal. Instead, he found himself asking Potter at the weekly inter-house pub night, a tradition started in eighth year that— inexplicably— continued well past Hogwarts. Surprisingly, Potter had agreed with minimal fuss. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had agreed nonetheless.

Reaching the studio door, Draco takes a moment to brush non-existent dirt off his suit jacket and straighten his already straight tie, before pushing open the door. There are a fair amount of people milling around, talking and laughing. He can see Weasley, Finnegan and Thomas near the refreshments table. Charlie Weasley is talking animatedly with Luna while Longbottom listens with a bemused expression. Ginerva and George are slowly turning singular strands of Hermione’s hair purple as she talks passionately with Lavender. The Patil twins are having their makeup done, and Bill Weasley is being interviewed by Pansy.

Draco takes all this in with a cursory glance, his attention instantly drawn towards the man currently posing for the camera, like a compass finding true north.

Harry Potter stands in front of the camera, wearing a gladiator’s skirt cinched with a belt adorned with a golden lion, a red cape adorning his broad shoulders. A sheathed sword hangs at his waist. On his feet are black leather sandals, the straps of which rope around his muscular calves. Without his trademark glasses, his eyes look impossibly brighter. His bronze skin practically gleams under the lights. Presumably, someone had applied oil on him at some point. Draco hastily pushes away all thoughts of hands and oil and Potter out of his mind. Potter’s hair looks artfully tousled instead of its usual mess— a near-miraculous feat if you ask Draco. He makes a mental note to jot down the name of the hair stylist for future photoshoots. The thought is there and then gone because just then, Potter draws the sword hanging at his waist, and Merlin and Morgana, Draco was not prepared to see Harry bloody Potter looking like a hero out of a Greek legend.

Draco lets out an involuntary whimper.

“Hello, Draco.”

Draco quickly snaps his gaze away from Potter to find Hermione looking at him with an amused expression. The purple streaks are gone from her hair— she’d probably known what Ginerva and George were up to the whole time. Meanwhile, Draco had been so busy ogling Potter, he hadn’t even seen Hermione approach him. He flushes faintly and attempts to sound like the Editor in Chief of a major publication rather than what he actually feels like— a schoolboy with a pash. “Hello, Hermione. I hope everything is going smoothly?”

Hermione grins. “Yes, it’s all been rather fun actually. Reminds me a bit of Sunday lunch at the Burrow, what with so many people around.”

“Good, that’s good to hear,” Draco says distractedly, attention already straying back to Potter.

“Harry’s looking rather good, isn’t he?” Hermione asks nonchalantly, following Draco’s gaze.

“What? Oh, yes, yes of course. Now that you mention it, he is. That is, I mean, the stylists did a brilliant job. Especially with his hair, it usually looks like a bird's nest,” Draco lets out a strained chuckle, his cheeks burning. He never should have come down here. Merlin.

Hermione presses her lips together, her eyes bright with amusement. “You should tell him that yourself, he’ll like it,” she gestures behind Draco.

Draco turns, and sure enough, Potter’s coming off the set towards them. He doesn’t even stop to change into regular clothes, for fucks sake. How is one supposed to hold a conversation with him looking like that?

“I’ll leave you two to it then, got some catching up to do with Parvati,” Hermione says, grinning wickedly. Before Draco can say another word, she’s already gone.

Cursing internally, he turns to face Potter, determined to keep his attention on Potter’s face and his face only. Not that that’s not distracting enough. Pushing the unhelpful thought away, Draco opens his mouth to greet Potter. What comes out is, “That’s quite a get-up you’ve got going on.”

Oh joy, already off to an excellent start. Draco cringes internally but forces himself to smile in what he hopes is a pleasant manner.

Potter laughs sheepishly. “Yeah, I do feel pretty ridiculous in all this. They’ve even strapped a bloody sword on me. I barely know how to handle it.”

“Looked like you were doing alright, actually,” Draco says before his mind can catch up with his mouth.

“Oh, er, thanks Draco,” Potter smiles bashfully, bringing his hand up to ruffle his hair. Draco’s eyes helplessly follow the flex of his bicep.

Snapping back to attention, he grasps for something other than Potter’s sword-wielding skills to talk about.

"I have to say though, I was quite surprised when you agreed to this. It's no secret you dislike photoshoots immensely," is what he lands on. It’s something he’s been wondering about and he wouldn’t mind knowing what made Potter agree to do this.

“Yeah, I don’t much like being treated as if I’m some celebrity and I’ve never been good in front of a camera. I would have said no but well…” he trails off, looking at Draco intently. “You’re the one who asked, so,” Potter shrugs as if that clears everything up.

Draco blinks. In a dazzling display of eloquence, he says, "What?"

Potter flushes, but he looks determined. "I agreed to do this because I know this photoshoot is important to you. Not just this shoot, the magazine as a whole. I know that you’ve worked hard to make it into something much more than just another gossip rag. So, um, you know, I did it for you,” he rubs the back of his neck, his face flushed crimson. “It also helps that it’s for charity,” he adds, chuckling awkwardly.

Draco gapes. “But...why?” he manages, bewildered.

“Draco,” Potter huffs. “Because I care about you. As in, I have feelings for you. I thought you would have guessed by now, it’s not like I’m great at subtlety. Pretty much everyone else knows,” he smiles nervously.

Oh. Oh.

“You have feelings for— wait, everyone knows?” Draco demands. “And no one thought to tell me?” He hates his friends, really truly despises them all.

Potter’s eyes crinkle with the force of his smile. “Wait so, what are you saying?”

Draco rolls his eyes, attempting to sound cool and collected even though he feels practically giddy. “I’m saying, Potter, that I have had “feelings for you” as you put it, for an embarrassingly long time. And everyone knows,” he says, cheeks pinking. “Well, everyone except you, apparently,” he amends.

Potter laughs delightedly. “To be fair, you didn’t catch on to my feelings for you either.”

“We’re rather ridiculous, aren’t we?” Draco says, laughing ruefully.

“Well, we’re both in the know now, so how about we go for a celebratory dinner?” Potter asks, eyes bright.

“Good idea,” Draco says, attempting— and failing— to keep a straight face.

“Potter!” Pansy’s voice cuts across the room.

“Time for your interview it seems,” Draco says.

“Yeah, although I do have some questions for her myself,” Potter says, squinting at Pansy.

“Oh, I will absolutely be having words with her. And Hermione,” Draco huffs.

Potter smiles at him, and it’s such a wide, unrestrained thing, Draco’s heart misses a beat. “I’ll see you after, then?” he asks.

Draco nods, smile softening. “Pick me up at seven, you already know the address.”

Potter flashes him one last smile before walking towards Pansy’s corner.

Draco watches him go with what is most definitely a besotted smile on his face before turning around to leave. His steps falter when he sees all of their friends staring at him, expressions torn between unbridled glee and despair. He frowns— until he catches sight of Ron glumly handing over a handful of Galleons to a triumphant George.

“You absolute pillocks, did you place bets on Harry and me?” he asks in disbelief.

“It’s a lucrative business,” George winks.

“Sorry Draco,” Lavender says, not looking sorry at all as she pockets the coins Padma grudgingly hands her.

“I hate you all,” Draco informs them cheerfully as he heads towards the hallway, professionalism be damned. He hears them laughing as he steps into the hallway, but he’s too elated to be properly pissed off at their machinations. He’ll get back at all of them soon enough, but for now he has a stack of paperwork to finish— he can’t be late for his date after all.

read on ao3

#am i posting this solely bc i got excited about making a banner?#yes. yes i am #drarry #drarry fic #wheel of drarry mini exchange #fluff and humor #ty to the microfic discord for enabling me😌

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peekbackstage · 3 years

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Hello. At first let me thank you for your blog. I mean your posts and opinion as an insider is so interesting to read, it’s like you let us see a little more in this entertainment industry. After reading some posts I can now clearly see why so many stars live hard life, often have anxiety and even suicide thoughts. I mean their life seems to be fully controlled until they become really “someone” in this industry. Does it mean that until it happens they will do anything their company want and have nothing to do. I mean even if they get hate, they should pretend like they don’t care and can’t even say something against haters. My question is so random, I’m sorry. I also wanted to know, why so many singers and idols go acting even if they know many will hate it, they know they will get comments like “idols don’t let real actors to play”. I’m not sure about c-ent as I’m new. But I saw many such comments and reactions in Korean media. So why do they do it? Will they earn more money than being a singer or? Why not to try acting then? Why do they try to become idols? I mean there are so many talented singers and trainees who want ro sing. But eventually we see that many people who debuts as idols soon or later give up singing and try acting. I was just wondering. Thank you in advance, sorry if my question is too obvious. And better late than never. Happy New Year :)

Disclaimer: The following post is informed by my own experience working in the music industry. Chinese industry practices might vary.

In Asia, the world of entertainment tends to be pretty tightly regulated. It’s generally pretty difficult to get a foot in the door and even more difficult to actually “make” it. This post is going to mostly discuss Korea and Japan’s industries, as I am most familiar with those two markets.

LET’S TALK A BIT ABOUT IDOL HISTORY!

(Skip this entire section if you aren’t interested in history.)

In 1962, Johnny Kitagawa, the CEO of the entertainment company, Johnny’s & Associates, launched Japan’s first boy band, Johnnys. While this group saw some minor popularity, it paled in comparison to the group that is often considered to be Asia’s “first” idol group, Four Leaves, who debuted in 1967.

Four Leaves was a project composed of bishounen (pretty) boys who sang and dance but didn’t play any instruments. They were hand-selected and trained by Johnny Kitagawa himself, who largely focused on the artists’ personalities, attributes, and physical characteristics.

Four Leaves’ success was so great that Johnny’s sought to replicate it, creating the first idol (aidoru in Japanese) training camp system which is the foundation of all idol companies these days. Just like idol companies today, Johnny’s selected young bishounen boys who were admitted via an audition process, and then placed them in a dorm together. There, they would train as Johnny’s Juniors (aka trainees) until they were ready to debut.

By the 1980s, Japan had quite a few idol management companies (jimusho) that wanted to replicate Johnny’s success. By that time, the idol industry had matured, and the training camps had become extremely rigorous, Olympic-style singing, dancing, acrobatics, etc. all for the sole purpose of improving stage performances. By the time SMAP debuted in 1988, the system was already in place. But what SMAP did changed the game entirely: they launched their own variety show, effectively putting themselves into every Japanese household and endearing themselves to every single Japanese housewife.

This caused their popularity to skyrocket, which in turn led to the creation of the ecosystem we now all know: the all-encompassing idol who sings, dances, and acts in tv shows, variety shows, plays, and films. Brand deals and endorsements also really took off during this time, especially with the most popular member, Kimura Takuya.

(It must be noted that SMAP became very popular not only in Japan, but also all over Asia!)

By this point, South Korea was taking notice, and by the 90s, debuted their first generation of idol groups, which included the likes of H.O.T. and Shinhwa, who all went through more or less the same style of training that Japanese idol jimushos put through trainees through.

It must be noted that during this time, South Korea was pretty invested in trying to find the right secret sauce to also debut their artists in Japan, given the mature idol market there. S.M. Entertainment succeeded in doing this with their second generation artists, BoA, Super Junior, and TVXQ, by partnering with Avex Entertainment in Japan. (They even went as far as debuting a visual kei idol group, TraxX, which was actually produced by Yoshiki from X-Japan, to capitalize on the entire visual kei market in Japan.) JYP followed suit with Se7en and Rain, and YG Entertainment debuted BIGBANG and 2NE1.

During this period of time, it must be noted that the big talk of the town was surprisingly not pop internationally - it was actually Jrock, which had a big surge of popularity in overseas markets between 2007-2009. (Hence S.M.’s desire to debut a visual kei idol band in Japan.) The Hallyu wave hadn’t really started yet, but within a matter of a few years, Kpop was suddenly the hottest new thing just about, well, everywhere.

In fact, it was so popular internationally, that by 2013, Kpop had become the #1 biggest contributor to South Korea’s GDP. It was so important to South Korea that the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism established KOCCA (the Korean Content Agency), which began heavily investing in the export of all things “Hallyu,” but especially Korean music. International industry conferences worldwide suddenly started to see the rise of Korean showcases, which took place literally everywhere. KOCCA was determined to export their idol culture all around the world.

To capitalize more on international success, companies such as S.M. Entertainment and JYP began to incorporate Chinese members into their groups. This was specifically to give them a foot into the massive Chinese market, which, until the Hallyu ban in 2017, had a massive demand for all things Kpop.

It was around this same time that TFBoys in China debuted. The industry largely considered them to be the first real homegrown mainland Chinese idol group that rose out of a similar training system used in both South Korea and Japan.

HISTORY LESSON OVER!

Why did I feel the need to explain all of this history, you wonder? Couldn’t I just answer the question in a straightforward way?

Well, not really. It’s pretty important to understand that oftentimes, in the industry, idols aren’t seen as true artists - they are actually seen more as manufactured cultural products. The more products there are (i.e. music, acting projects) the more money there is, which in turn leads to more opportunities. When they are just starting out, idols never get to pick what activities they actually participate in - especially if they haven’t yet established themselves as very successful artists.

And even when they are established, oftentimes, an idol company will push an artist to try expanding/broadening their various creative outputs with acting. Why only sell music, when you can make money through tv and film?

Add in the additional benefit of not having any risk at all involved in said tv/film project and it’s win/win for the company - because they aren’t putting up any money upfront to produce and market the project.

Companies want their idols to pursue acting gigs because it increases the market share for the artist and more opportunities for their artist to create new fans who might discover the artist through the drama or film. This tends to be a big part of the idol ecosystem, though it must be noted that not all idols do go down this route if their company determines that their music products might generate far more money than their acting products.

This is especially true for rappers in particular, whose solo musical releases might not generate as much fanfare (or as much money) as an acting gig - especially in South Korea, where there is already a very mature, established Korean hip hop genre with plenty of very established hip hop artists. (There’s also a very popular hip hop competition show, Show Me The Money, that regularly features celebrity Korean hip hop artists.)

Sometimes, it just makes more sense to take acting opportunities, as they can generate better income than music.

Talented singers sometimes might also choose to go the acting route for the same reason - also because opportunities keep coming across the desks of their managers, who sometimes talk them into the projects. Other times, it may simply be that once an idol tries their hand at acting, they realize they have a real knack for it and end up wanting to pursue more acting projects.

In any case, there isn’t a single, universal reason why idols choose to go from singing to acting, but there is a universal reason why all idols inevitably do make the switch: money.

And for companies in particular, acting projects their artists star in are 100% pure profit with zero financial risk.

In any case, quite a few artists started out in music, tried their hand at acting, and then continued to do both. We see this especially with artists such as Vanness Wu, IU (Lee Ji-eun), and BLACKPINK’s Jisoo, who are all still active in both acting and music.

I hope this massively long post was informative and also helped answer the question, “Why do idols go from singing to acting?” (I also hope I helped explain the way the idol ecosystem works and how it all started!)

Thanks for the questions and for reading.

Edit: Oops, I totally forgot to answer the question, “Why do some people become idols?”

The answer is pretty simple: it’s really hard to get into the entertainment industry, and many people see idol factories as a straightforward roadmap into a career in entertainment. While it isn’t the only way into entertainment, it often is the path many artists do ultimately choose to take.

#Anonymous #ask #history of idols in asia #jpop #kpop #cpop #idols #music industry #entertainment industry #acting #peek answers

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bard-llama · 3 years

Text

Thronebreaker homophobia headcanon?

Me: why would I add homophobia to my fantasy when I don’t have to? Also me: wow, there would be SO much angst potential in this!

As it says in the title, this headcanon has a LOT of homophobia, so don’t engage if that’s not something you can deal with rn. Also, to be clear: most of the continent is chill with homosexuality, and Rivia’s neighbors mostly view them as backwards. But like, this is feudalism. Human rights are pretty low on the agenda for any ruler, so they don’t much care.

Anyway uh... Rivia is now very historically homophobic and when King Reginald and Queen Meve married, it became law in Lyria too. Unlike Reginald, Meve isn’t actively homophobic - hell, she even encourages Reynard to bone Gascon - but she also isn’t aware enough of the impact of those laws to repeal them.

And then she gets betrayed and Nilfgaard takes over and they change the laws, because the Empire is fucking awful, but progressive in a few surface ways (you can marry anyone! And now you and your spouse can BOTH get drafted into the army and go die in the swamps of Velen!).

After she gets Lyria back, Meve is gonna have to deal with that, but that’s a whole other story. For now, what I’m thinking is that Reynard has known since he was young that he had interest in other knights and that that interest was unacceptable. So he always hid part of himself, especially once he entered the King’s service (and really learned to keep his mouth shut).

Problem is, Reginald himself has a LOT of internalized homophobia going on. And... okay, we don’t get a lot about him in canon beyond him being kinda dumb, but good at seeing cleverness in others and utilizing it. And also responding with overwhelming force when a threat emerges (like the Brossard family).

So like, Reynard is in his early 20s and is serving as aide and advisor to the King. But King Reginald notices the way he watches other men and definitely projects some shit on Reynard. But he approaches it like he’s a concerned friend. Like, “you know you can never act on such things. Someone will find out and I will be forced to punish you.”

It’s always warnings - “oh, don’t do that, what if someone sees?” and “you fool, if you do that again, I will be forced to punish you” or some such. And Reynard doesn’t really understand what he’s done wrong, because he DOES try to follow the rules, but he always works to adjust his behavior anyway, because he knows his King doesn’t WANT to punish him. But if he’s forced to...

(TW for violence and serious homophobia)

Not sure what drives things to a breaking point - maybe Reginald gets jealous at spotting Reynard “flirting” with some foreign knight or dignitary or something??? - but the lesson Reginald teaches is one Reynard will never forget. Because he doesn’t know what he did wrong, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve punishment, especially when it’s the King carrying it out, because his King is just... right? (wrong)

The official sentence for homosexuality is flogging, castration, and execution, but Reginald says something like that because it’s Reynard, he’s worked hard to lighten the sentence or some such. Like, he makes it clear that Reynard is getting off easy when Reginald simply has him whipped nearly to death.

Reynard doesn’t die - but it’s a close call, especially when some of the wounds get infected and he doesn’t get them treated the way he should, because he deserved this punishment. His King had said so. So it’s important that he returns to work and serves his King as best as he can, even though he’s a disgusting deviant.

I think he probably collapses at some point and Reginald deigns to send him to the royal medics and they save his life, but he’s out of commission for a good while, because he got whipped extensively and then infection took hold.

But when he finally returns to work, Reginald is just kinda like, “where have you been!? Work has piled up without you, get to it!” and never talks about the punishment he metted out.

But as years go on, it becomes a warning. If Reginald’s skewed vision sees Reynard getting too close to other men, he’ll call Reynard to him and touch the small of his back as a reminder. Like ‘don’t make me do this again’.

So Reynard folds pieces of himself up tight and tucks them away where they can never emerge. And while other knights are going around wooing women and getting married, Reynard is focusing on his work. It gets him a reputation - that’s he’s too stuck up for romance, maybe that he’s deviant because he ISN’T girl crazy, etc. The rumors are too bad, but they also never die, even as decades pass.

And then King Reginald of Rivia and Queen Meve of Lyria are married and their realms are merged - which makes homophobia the law throughout Lyria (and believe you me, a LOT of people are unhappy about this. but they have enough sense not to speak out, because royals are scary and homicidal).

When Reynard first starts developing feelings for Meve, he’s actually almost relieved. Because if he can feel this way for a woman, then maybe he isn’t broken, isn’t a complete deviant. He’d still never make a move, though, because in addition to being married, Meve is Queen. And his experience with Reginald has taught him that you should always keep your private life (what exists of it) out of view of royalty.

But I think for a while, he has hope. And then Reginald dies and he HATES that he’s relieved, but he is. And there are people who hope that Meve will repeal Rivia’s homophobic laws, but in honesty, it’s not even on her radar as something to deal with. Meanwhile, there’s 10 billion other things to deal with - and so she never gets around to it. She probably doesn’t enforce it - but that doesn’t mean that garrison commanders under her army don’t.

So Reynard serves Meve for 8 years, always keeping part of himself hidden out of sight. And he has never trusted anyone enough to reveal this part of him, so aside from rumors, the knowledge of his deviance died with Reginald.

Except then Meve is betrayed. And she never doubts Reynard’s loyalty and she’s right not to. But now they’re traveling as fugitives to try to make it to the Aedirnian border with the assistance of the fucking Duke of Dogs and his Strays of Spalla - aka criminals. (Though, technically, Reynard has no room to talk - and maybe he knows that. Maybe that’s part of why he’s kinda chill about serving alongside “deserters and bandits and peasants” whereas Meve feels like they’ve fallen low)

At first, Reynard HATES Gascon. He’s an obnoxious little shit who openly flirts with the queen - and even with HIM! Mostly just to get a rise out of him, he’s sure, but like, the audacity!!

Except, weirdly, whenever Gascon smiles or laughs, Reynard’s heart goes doki doki and he doesn’t understand why. In the current fic I’m writing, Meve clues him in, but also triggers a downward spiral, because if Meve KNOWS he’s a deviant, then obviously he deserves to be punished again. Plus like... Gascon is a fucking baby. Reynard (and Meve a little bit) would DEFINITELY have mixed feelings about wanting someone less than half of their age. (Meanwhile, Gascon is just like ‘oh sweet, sugar daddy. Can we go kill people now?’)

Anyway, I don’t really know where this would go in different fics. In the one I’m writing right now, Reynard is expecting them to hurt him, because that’s what Reginald would do. Meanwhile Meve and Gascon are very confused and trying to figure out wtf is going on. But there will DEFINITELY be lots of comfort for Reynard.

I also want stuff like... idk, scar worship for the whip marks on his back and Gascon and Meve trying to help him heal, but idk exactly what that will look like.

tl;dr: this is definitely the backstory for at least 1 fic. But I’m torn on if I want to make it my canon backstory for Reynard/Thronebreaker. Because I do like writing escapist fantasy without homophobia, but also, I think this offers a lot of interesting things to explore, especially on the angst side of things.

If it IS canon for my Thronebreaker fics, then I promise that it would only be such for fics where it’s relevant/explored as a concept and not like, included in a PWP or something out of nowhere. I’ll always tag appropriately so you can choose how to engage, but... idk. I’m very torn.

Thoughts?

#homophobia #reynard odo #meve x reynard #reynard x gascon #thronebreaker #The Witcher #headcanons #fic planning

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kunstpause-archive · 3 years

Text

Read on Ao3

Day 7: Speculate

small continuation from day 5 and 6

“Working late again?”

A tiny spark of excitement runs through you as you hear the familiar voice coming from your doorway. You hadn’t seen Hades again for the past two days. Then again, the last two evenings you had actually taken is advice to heart and gone home at a regular hour. Not today, though. Today you are swamped with work.

“I think my boss hates me!”

“Pardon me?” he asks, and as you look up, you are greeted by an utterly confused look.

“Well, maybe he doesn’t hate me,” you admit.

You haven’t even met the man in charge yet. At least not personally. Busy as he seemed to be, all your communication had been via the internal emails and memos.

“But maybe he just has it in for me,” you claim with a skeptical look at your to-do list.

“Why would you think that?” Hades murmurs, and with a sigh, you shake your head.

“Well, the task lists are all over the place, there is absolutely no system behind what is due when, and I don’t think his way of referencing past projects is in any way compatible with the actual filing system the company seems to employ,” you explain what has you so busy on this evening.

“So you’re saying he’s really bad at organizing?” he asks with a raised brow.

“That would be the very polite way to say it, yes,” you chuckle as you tear your eyes away from your laptop. “But don’t tell anyone I said that,” you hurry to add, as you realize that complaining about your boss in a company you’re new in might not be the wisest thing to do.

At your suddenly worried look, Hades lets out a soft laugh.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” he says with a small wink. “Your secret is safe with me.”

It’s only now you see he carries a tray with two cups with him, and your eyes widen as he takes one and hands it to you.

“I saw the light on my way down and thought you could use a coffee if you’re still up here and working,” he explains. “And the coffee cart outside is far better than anything you can get in here, I promise!”

“Thank you, that is very kind of you,” you murmur as you take the steaming cup. It smells absolutely fantastic, and for a moment, you close your eyes, savoring the scent. “You know, I actually took your advice the last few days,” you add when you open your eyes again.

“Oh, that’s why I didn’t see you around,” Hades comments with a smile, and though it sounds like an aside note, it makes you perk up.

“You were looking for me?”

The thought sends a small spark of giddiness through you as you try not to look too eager at your question.

“Keeping an eye out for a fellow late-worker,” Hades says with a casual shrug, but there is this way his eyes linger on your face for a moment that nearly makes your stomach flutter. Hastily, you take a sip from your drink to keep yourself from thinking too much about it. It tastes indeed much better than any office coffee you have had.

“Damn, this is good coffee,” you say with a smile at him before you wonder, “So, do you actually ever leave this palace?”

Hades snorts before he gives you a slightly indignant look.

“I do; I just went to the coffee cart,” he points out. “It’s outside!”

At his completely dry tone, you can’t help but laugh.

“No, I mean really,” you try again, looking at him expectantly. “Nobody’s trying to drag you away from work, ever?”

For a moment, you worry you sound like you are prying into his personal life, but luckily he doesn’t seem to take it that way at all. Instead, he simply smiles and shakes his head.

“You know I have a friend upstairs who regularly tries,” Hades says with a grave nod. “He sends me pictures of everyday things and explains them in detail to me like I’m some kind of hermit.”

He rolls his eyes, but his tone is fond and not at all put out.

“Really?” you grin at the amusing thought, and with a nod, Hades puts his own coffee aside for a moment to reach for his phone. He adjusts his glasses as he scrolls through his messages until he seems to find what he is looking for.

“Listen, just today, he sent me a picture of a duck and wrote: Hades, this is a duck, it’s a local species of waterfowl one can observe when going outside and to the park for longer than two minutes. Sincerely, Hyth.”

You can’t help but start laughing as he reads with a slightly changed voice, probably imitating said friend as he relays the message.

“I think he’s trying to tell you something…” you point out with raised eyebrows, and Hades gives you a grave nod, looking almost utterly serious, except for the spark of delight in his eyes.

“I know, but what might it be?”

His again utterly dry tone makes you chuckle again, and this time, before you can think any better of it, you ask what’s really on your mind.

“I’m guessing you live alone then?”

You think you did a thoroughly fine job of sounding casual, but from the way he pauses briefly, it doesn’t seem like all that. A slow smile spreads over his face.

“Are you asking if I’m single?”

You count yourself lucky that you are not drinking your coffee at the moment, for at the blatant way he looks at you at his words, you would have certainly spluttered and made a fool of yourself.

“I am not,” you claim hastily, but the slight flush in your cheeks is something he most likely notices if the way his eyes still sparkle at you is any indication. Something in you just gives up the pretense, and you smile at him. “Are you, though?”

“I have not had that many opportunities to meet new people lately,” he says with a slight shrug, and you try hard not to read into his eyes what you would like to see in them.

“No shit,” you reply with a laugh. “How would you if you never leave work?”

“Actually, I got a message about that too,” he says, and then he is back to scrolling through his phone.

A moment later, he takes a step closer and holds it out for you to see. On his screen is a message from said ‘Hyth.’ It’s a picture of a crowded street, and underneath it says:

Hey, Hades! These are other people. They can be found outside and in nearly almost any location that isn’t your office! And no, looking out the window into the park doesn’t count!

You chuckle again at reading the message. It seems that your first impression of this man being a complete workaholic has been absolutely spot on.

“Wow,” you murmur when something else catches your interest. “Wait, you have an office facing the park?”

When he nods, you let out an impressed whistle.

“Lucky bastard!”

“Well…” he starts, but what he is trying to say, you don’t find out, as something else is on your mind, and the words are out before you let him finish.

“Oh, you work higher up, don’t you?” you ask, and for a moment, he gives you a slightly thrown look before he scratches the back of his neck.

“Uhm, yes, you could say that,” he answers, and a broad smile appears on your face.

“Brilliant,” you exclaim, only for him to frown, and immediately you try to tone down your exuberance. You certainly don’t want to give off the impression like you want to… No!

“Wait, that sounded awful,” you murmur. “I’m not… I wasn’t trying…” For a moment, you splutter, looking for the right words before you shake your head once to clear it.

“Here’s the thing,” you start again, sounding much more leveled. “I have some ideas on how to make some of this more efficient, streamline it a bit, you know?” Broadly, you gesture on the open task lists sitting on your laptop. “It would certainly also make the process easier for my boss. Less effort for everyone means everyone wins, right?” You look from your plans back to where Hades regards you with a curious look now, and you wince slightly.

“But I feel kind of awkward just writing an email going, ‘hey, let’s change everything you do because it’s bullshit!’ - I’m the new girl, after all,” you point out before giving him a winning smile. “Do you think you could hook me up with someone there that I can talk this through and not come across as rude?”

His earlier frown is completely gone as he regards you with a thoughtful look.

“Bullshit, huh?” he asks, picking up your phrase. “It is that bad?”

Maybe you should have phrased this nicer. You don’t even know if he is perhaps on excellent terms within your boss, but to your relief, he doesn’t look put out at all, just… thoughtful. And slightly amused?

“Well, I could sugarcoat it,” you murmur, but Hades shakes his head with a small laugh.

“You could give your ideas to me, and I could slide them into a conversation perhaps,” he suggests, before he assures you, “I’ll make sure you get all the credit, of course.”

“Really?” You perk up; this seems like a wonderfully straightforward yet easy solution. “That would be such a great help, thank you!”

“If you turn them into something on paper I can have at hand to reference, that would be great,” he suggests. “I’m afraid if you email things to me, they might get lost in my day-to-day schedule.”

At his almost apologetic look at that, you have to chuckle again.

“Oh, so you are also organisationally challenged then?” you tease. “Or you really don’t want to give me your email…”

At that, his eyes spark again as he puts his phone away at picks his coffee back up.

“Or, perhaps, I want a perfectly valid excuse to show up tomorrow night at your office again, my dear,” he says smoothly and with an accompanying look that has you actually taking in a sharper breath.

“I guess it will remain a mystery,” you reply after a long moment before you add with a smile, “I’ll have something to show you tomorrow then?”

“Same time tomorrow then,” Hades agrees before he wishes you a good night and leaves you to your own devices.

It’s about work, you fiercely remind yourself, and yet everything about the way the two of you had talked feels like it is definitely more than that. It doesn’t even bother you that same time tomorrow means you’d have to stay late again.

#FFxivWrite2021 #FFxivWrite #Kunstpause writes stuff

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keijikunn · 3 years

Text

Rivalry ── Chapter III

── A @babythotshq collab “To All the Boys I’ve Loved”

Old feelings

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x gender neutral!reader Tags: college!au, angst, it’s kinda fluffy??? i don’t know, it’s not that angst either Summary: Tsukishima Kei had never imagined that you, his forever rival in high school, would write him a letter confessing your feelings. Does Tsukishima feels the same way? Word count: 3.7k

Author’s note: I’m dividing the last chapter in two, so I won’t be too long (trust me, it’s over than 6k and I wanna spare you all lol). Hope you all enjoy the chap III and I swear by the end of the month I’ll post the final part! Biggest thank you to @kaitycole and @newfriendjen that helped me out a lot, I love you two so much 🥺

WARNINGS: swearing, tsukki being salty but what’s new?, makeout (???), hints of anxiety

RIVALRY MASTERLIST

BECOME A BOOKWORM!

Ever since that… eventful day, you managed to avoid Tsukishima like the plague. It helped the fact you had classes in different buildings, not to mention the fact the college campus was huge. You were about to forget about the letter issue, as the courses have started a few days earlier and you dedicated most of your time to get things settled into a nice routine. Things were too good to be real, though.

You couldn’t believe in what you saw the first time you stepped inside the extracurricular class, after the first week since classes started. Not only your love letters were sent to all your previous crushes (who seemed to attend the same college as you), but the person you dreaded to see again would spend the next semester with you during your afternoon activities.

Tsukishima Kei smirked at your distressed expression, waving at you as if you were long time friends. He wants to irk you, Y/n, don’t give him this pleasure. You are better than him anyway, you repeated it as many times as possible before the bell rang - indicating the class was about to start. Fortunately you managed to sit on the opposite side of the room as Tsukishima, though you could feel his eyes burning holes on the side of your head.

“Why is he so annoying?” You muttered to yourself, sighing in annoyance. The professor entered the classroom, quickly introducing himself and the upcoming project you would work on. You were excited for it when you researched about the university, it was as if a dream was coming true, and you made up your mind to not let Tsukishima Kei ruin this experience.

“As always, we randomize the duos, so be prepared to work with someone who does things differently than you.” The old man at the front announced, and your guts were telling you that this wouldn’t be good. “Raise your hand if I call your name so your partner can find you.

The longer he took to call out your name, the more convinced you were that fate wouldn’t play nice with you. When the other two people left were paired up together, leaving you and Tsukishima without a partner, you had to hold the urge to scoff. As much as you tried your hardest to not bump into your old crush, the whole universe made sure to go against your will.

I should have gone to another extracurricular activity, damn it.

“So… guess we’re a duo, now,” Tsukishima snickered at your disgusted face, laughing at your dismay. “It’s not that bad be paired up with me, Y/n, c’mon”

“You’re right, it’s not bad.” You started, sending him a sharp glare. “It’s the worst thing ever”

With that, you turned around to pay attention to the further details the professor addressed the class. You knew Kei would try to make your experience in this project a literal hell, but you weren't going to let his antics distract you from getting anything less than the best result. You internally hoped that the tall boy also aimed for that, despite his annoying demeanor around you.

If not, you’d have a long semester ahead of you.

“For God’s sake, Tsukishima, this is not how we’re supposed to do it!” You whisper-yelled at the blonde boy, angrily gripping on your hair, holding yourself back from screaming at his face. It has been two weeks since you two started working on that stupid project, and it’s been two weeks of complete hell and anger. Being at the college’s library didn’t help as well, since you couldn’t externalize your frustration. “Can’t you read what I wrote down? Professor said we should follow this!”

“Yes, I’ve read it and decided that it sucks.” Tsukishima shot back, pushing away your notebook, writing a few words on your draft. “C’mon, Y/n, you should know by now that we don’t follow any professor’s instruction. We’re not at high school anymore, be more independent, won’t you?”

You hated to admit, but he was (at some instance) right. What hurt your pride more was that his suggestion was actually good- not that you would admit that, you’d rather die than say it out loud. This idea could easily work out with what you have thought previously, not to mention it would make more sense.

The lack of response made Tsukishima’s shit-eating grin grow on his features, irking you the exact same way he knew he was able to. He proceeded to add a few details on the paper and neatly placed it inside his folder, collecting his materials from the table. You two have been workin for almost two hours non-stop on the project after the whole morning classes, you had to admit your energy wore off at that point.

“Give me the paper, I want to add a few extra things.” You demanded, holding out your hand for him. Tsukishima arched his eyebrows as if he was surprised by such a request, then he scoffed at you - like always. “I’m not joking, I do want to modify it a bit.”

“The point of this being a group project is that we work on this together.” He stressed the last word, zipping his bag and shoving it over his shoulder. “And you wouldn’t do anything, judging by how tired you are.”

“I’m not!”

“Then care to explain how you didn't think about what I suggested earlier?” Suddenly your mind went blank at his response, what in the world does that mean? “You can think about this tomorrow, try not to melt your tiny brain.”

The tall boy left you without sparing a second glance, fumbling with his intertwined earphones as he walked. To say you were confused by his comment would be an understatement. Was he worried you would overwork yourself? No way, Tsukishima Kei would never care enough about you of all people.

Yet he’s still your partner.

“Fuck off, Tsukki.” You muttered tiredly, focusing on putting your belongings inside your backpack to (finally) head to your dorms.

The first time you’ve ever heard Tsukishima’s name was after the first exam of your freshman year in high school. Everyone was crying about their low grades, groaning at the prospect of having to study a lot more to the upcoming test. If you were not mistaken, a boy in your class named Yamaguchi commented how “Tsukki was smart” and he wasn’t surprised he aced it.

“Hey, L/n!” The girl who sits next to you approached you, paper in her hands. “How did you do?”

“I got 96%.” You answered quietly, trying not to drag attention to yourself due to your great performance. People in middle school didn’t like when you mentioned your grades, claiming you did that just to brag.

“Ehh? You’re so smart!” She said smiling. “Please, help me study! From what I heard just you and a boy from class 3 had such a high score. And Yamaguchi-kun said Tsukishima-kun doesn’t help anybody.”

“Of course, we can study at the library if you want to.” The offer seemed to appeal to her, given the fact she nodded quickly and proceeded to write down her cellphone number to you. “By the way, who is this Tsukishima guy?”

“He’s a tall, blonde boy. He uses glasses and if I’m not wrong he’s part of the volleyball club.” She answered, waving at you as she went back to her circle of friends, leaving you to think about who this boy is. “He’s not nice though. Always treats everyone as if he’s superior.”

You were able to put a face to the name you had in your mind after a couple of weeks, when another private school had a volleyball match against the male team of Hakone Academy. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the middle blocker with a poker face was Tsukishima, and you were surprised that he was actually good looking. Something that lacked in him, though, was passion in the sport - or rather in anything, according to your classmates.

Ever since that game, it seemed like you started to see Tsukishima every day in the corridors. You’d see him walking down the halls, his headphones always placed on the top of his ears, muffling the loud noise caused by the other students. He was cold to everybody, even rude if you were to be honest, but he was something else. His interests were inviting, itching your curiosity to get to know him better.

You realized you had a crush on Tsukishima Kei when you noticed how you paid attention to whenever you saw him around school, hearing his steady tone (usually talking to Yamaguchi) and his snarky smirk. All information you knew about him was, being honest, too little to grow intense feelings, but what got you hooked up was exactly this: you wanted to get to know him.

Things, however, didn’t work out the way you planned. The very first interaction you had with him was a disaster. You sounded way cockier than you wanted, you’ve never planned on teasing him and you have never imagined that it would backfire on you and lead him to dislike you.

After that incident, you discovered the aversion quite a lot of students had against him. Most of them claimed the same thing: Tsukishima Kei was mean, smug, had a superiority complex and always treated everyone poorly. A part of you didn’t want to believe in that, but how could you not when he mocked you in front of everyone?

Things didn’t get easier as the project progressed, not because it was too technical or that it required too many details. Yours and Tsukishima’s endless arguments and bickering always ended in screaming matches, hurtful comments and you two not on speaking terms. The premise of group projects was to create something together, but at this point you were doing your own thing while thinking about what the other was working on.

“Are you a dumbass or do you just pretend to be one?” Tsukishima angrily asked, dropping your notebook on the table. “This is horrible, Y/n.”

“You think it’s horrible because you’re doing things as you wish, not considering what I have to suggest!” You responded, your voice tone a few octaves higher due to your stress. Currently you two were at his dorms - the library was not an option anymore, the librarian kicked you out after you were shouting at each other - both awfully close as his dining table was tiny. “This is a fucking group project, you said it before! So you have to listen to what I have to say.”

“I’m not listening when you suggest stupid things like this!” He retorted, ripping the page out and crumpling it to toss on the floor. You widen your eyes, shocked at his recent action.

“Wow, Tsukishima, you are really being this petty.” A humorless laugh escaped your lips, you shook your head in denial, getting up to collect your paper off the ground. The tension in the air grew thicker and the man’s intense gaze burned holes on your back. “People were right, after all. You are unbearable.”

Tsukishima’s smug facade cracked a bit, you noticed, after hearing what you just said. His smirk left his face for a brief moment and his eyes mirrored mixed feelings, could they be sorrow, insecurity? You didn’t have enough time to decipher them as he quickly recomposed himself, offering you a snark grin.

“That’s why you liked me, huh? Did you want to correct the horrible, mean, malicious person that I am?” Tsukishima teased, hitting your emotions with ease. Your mind was empty, only his words echoing inside it, bumping into your skull with force.

You couldn’t understand him, honestly.

One time he is all worried about you overworking, passively aggressively implying you’re capable of suggesting better ideas; and now he’s being childish and not sparing a single offense towards you. You knew Tsukishima Kei was a hard person to handle if you’re not as quick witted as him, but this? This level of pettiness and stubbornness? For a young adult like him, that claims he’s better than everyone else?

“I’m done.” You stated, too burnt out to respond to his teasing comment. Your temples hurt due to the confusion the blond man was giving you, the constant push and pull between you two worn you out.

“What do you mean ‘you’re done’? We’re not done yet.” He stated as if it was a matter of fact - which was, he wasn’t wrong.

“Do I look like I care? I’m doing this shit by myself, you can do whatever you want, I’m done with you.” Silence engulfed the room, and you mentally thanked this peaceful moment. It, however, didn’t last long, because Tsukishima always finds ways to make things worse.

“Are you giving up that easy, Y/n? Couldn’t handle a bit of teasing?” That was it. The mocking tone he used against you was enough to snap the last string of sanity inside you, freeing a rage you never knew you had against him. The angriness burned your chest as you slammed your hands on the table, making Tsukishima flinch at the sudden outburst.

“Yes, I can not deal with your teasing ass.” You admitted shamesly, your mind ran a thousand miles a minute, not registering the words that left your mouth. “What I can’t deal with is a petty boy that can’t take this goddamn project seriously!”

“It wasn’t me who suggested stupid ideas.” Kei spat back, leaning in your direction, inviting you to answer him - almost like a dare.

“You always say my ideas are vain, stupid or whatever, but you never offered anything great or fucking brilliant,” it was indeed true. Tsukishima proudly belittled everything you said for the past few weeks, but never came up with something new. Instead, he modified everything you’ve given to him. “So please, before you put yourself above the others, do something that makes you actually the best-”

Any and every train of thought you had was interrupted by the aggressive contact of Tsukishima Kei’s lips against yours. Everything seemed to melt with the heat coming from the kiss, your hands sneaking behind his neck and gripping rather harshly at his blond hair. In between the feverish moment, Tsukki managed to sit you on the table and place himself between your legs. Gasps and soft murmurs interrupted the kiss every once in a while, your mouth occasionally made its way down his jaw and neck, nibbling and sucking his skin.Only until one of you reconnected them, tongues sliding against each other.

You honestly don’t know how long you two spent making out, but it was enough time to leave a few hickeys on each other's necks and clothes lightly pulled up. Tsukishima’s ears were as red as his swollen lips, the blond hair was a mess thanks to your roaming hands and the white t-shirt wrinkled.

“Still think I don’t suggest brilliant ideas?” Tsukishima teased, but the embarrassment he was feeling was written all over his face. To say you were speechless was an understatement, you’ve just had a full make out section with your biggest high school rival, the one you knew hated you the most. “Cat got your tongue? Or should I say- did I get your tongue, Y/n?”

“What the fuck did you just do, Tsukishima?” You demanded flustered, the feeling of his body close to yourself fading away. "Why have you done this?!"

"Don't tell me you didn't enjoy, Y/N, I can feel the spot you left a hickey on." His comment made you groan in annoyance, because you knew you wouldn't be able to retort it.

Not paying attention to your surroundings, you pushed Tsukishima away from you, quickly grabbing your bag to leave his dorms. You didn't mind if you forgot something at his place - you would see him the next day, anyway. All you wanted was to get away from him, to finally think straight.

The cool air of the end of the day would help you come back to a reasonable state of mind.

You kept acting around Tsukishima after the first encounter. Whenever you had the chance to irk him you did it, initiating an unnecessary banter. You felt stupid to say the least, how low could you go?

Yet, you continued. Just to have his attention. Pathetic. However, you had a limit. And Tsukishima managed to trespass it with such facility you were surprised.

It happened during your second year, exactly one year after you got so interested in that mean boy. Things weren't easy for you, many reasons were behind your unstable state. School was overwhelming like never before, you could barely juggle between regular activities and your club's.

The stress weighted on you to the point you let your grades slip at one exam. You knew you had your worst performance so far, and the subject didn't help you as well.

"I'm going to hand back the exams." Your homeroom teacher announced, earning heavy groans from the whole class. A sigh escaped your lips, knowing how screwed you were if Tsukishima knew how poorly you did. "L/n Y/n"

As you got up from your desk, you felt a familiar pair of eyes burn holes on your back. The moment you read the barely 50% score written on the top of the paper, you blanked out. You missed how your teacher kindly smiled at you, reminding how this one performance didn't define you. The words didn't make sense to you, because for you it didn't matter. You failed.

Tears pricked the corner of yours eyes, shallow breaths escaped your parted lips as you sat down once again, barely sparing a glance at the paper on your desk. You truly didn’t know if someone tried to approach you, mind far away from reality, engulfing itself in a spiral of self doubt, worries and self depreciation.

“Well… looks like the top 2 student failed miserably on the test.” The steady, yet teasing tone of Tsukishima’s voice broke you out of your own head. “You’re fake, couldn’t even get more than half of it correct. You’re a lie, Y/n.”

“Not now, please.” It took most part of your will to mutter these three words without letting your voice crack. Tsukishima arched his eyebrows, amused by the scene unfolding in front of him: you lowering your head against your forearms on the table, shielding your tears from anyone. “Tease me all you want, but please do it another time.”

However, he kept going. Tsukishima pointed out every single question you got wrong, rubbing in your face how he aced another stupid paper while you were a failure. The classroom was noisy, the end of the period let the students talk freely, but you only heard Kei’s voice, adding to your pre-existent stress and pressure.

As far as you could remember, you’ve never underestimated him in any interaction you two had. Sure, you threw a teasing comment every once in a while, but always bragging about yourself, how you’ve outsmarted him. But you were sure you never humiliated him - and you’d never do such a low blow like this.

“Enough, Tsukishima!” You raised your voice, everyone now was paying attention to you two. The embarrassment heated your entire face and your tears finally ran down your cheeks, the blond boy seemed startled with your sudden outburst, though his smirk quickly returned to your face. “I got that you’re better, now can you please shut the fuck up?!”

Thankfully the bell rang, indicating classes were over for the day. You quickly shoved your test on your bag, throwing it over your shoulder as you turned to head to the door. With the sleeve of your coat, you wiped the reminiscent tears from your eyes and left the room. Not only you exited that suffocating place, but also you left behind the stupid crush you had on Tsukishima Kei.

Since that day, you couldn’t stand being near him, all teasing interactions reduced to none and you’ve never checked the scoreboard as soon as the grades were out. You focused on your own stuff, trying your best to clear your thoughts from Tsukishima - which didn’t work as well as you planned.

Every once in a while, in the middle of a studying session, you found yourself pushing your limits like you used to do to get a higher performance than him. As much as you hated to admit, Tsukishima was a great incentive to do better, to set higher goals academically speaking. And though he caused you a lot of pain, a part of you (the stupid one, in your words) still thought he was attractive, you still had a tiny interest in the true guy behind that acting.

That’s why you decided to write him that letter. Perhaps admitting your “crush” on him would make you realize you’ve created almost an entire new person using his name and face. In a way it actually helped, you truly thought you have moved on from him and college would give you a new beginning away from Tsukishima.

Fate, on the other hand, had other plans for you and here you are: walking slowly towards your dorms, emotionally drained and confused. The prospect of Tsukishima Kei having the slightest interest in you was shocking, especially after all those three years of. endless insults.

Are those feelings coming back?

“Oh, no.” You muttered to yourself, immediately stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, frightened about your last thought. “Oh my, there’s no way I’m crushing Tsukishima once again!”

If you concentrated enough, you could still feel his chapped lips against your skin, his large hands roaming through your body. He was right about you enjoying it- in reality, you did more than you’d like to admit. Tsukishima Kei was annoyingly filling your mind with both his smart and arrogant ass and that unexpected (but surprising) heated moment.

You needed to get to your dorms and take a long shower to put your thoughts in order, because there’s no way you’re having feelings for Tsukishima Kei once again.

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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ok alright alright alright kingdom episode two

kinda disappointed that they only showed half the stages, but that's just an editing thing to draw out the content so you can air for longer, i'm not super surprised about that. i would have liked to evaluate them all at the same time, but at least this gives me time to go more in depth for all of them since they're full stages this time and I wrote 3000 words for last episode when they only had 100 secs. so this format will probably keep me sane for longer, i think.

solid stages all round for them, none had especially glaring flaws on the whole. i'm not gonna do a full ranking for this episode since we haven't seen them all, but i will say that btob’s was my favourite from this set and both ikon’s and tbz’s stages were about equal; they both had things i liked and disliked in equal measure so i'm tentatively giving them the same ranking. full opinions and analysis on each stage below the cut, plus another section of general notes because hey what the fuck did you do to that stage mnet???

and for anyone that’s wondering yes i do have the qualifications. also seriously grab a drink or something because this is LONG.

some general notes

and here i thought this section wouldn't be as big as it was last time because mnet was going to get their shit together about the stage design, but noooooooooooo they had to go and make it worse! thanks mnet i hate it! remember how i said you shot yourself in the foot last time? well ya fuckin kneecapped yourself AND all your idols with this one ya dumb fuckin idiots. alright folks welcome back to stage design 101, my recurring segment where i explain the different types of stage layouts and their effectiveness for kpop idol survival shows, i guess.

ok so last week i covered the basics on theatre in the round and traverse staging, which i’ll link here if there’s anyone new or just wants a refresher. i mentioned that its likely that mnet will switch to an in the round style staging because it offers a lot more freedom for camera movement and also for directional blocking. well, i was wrong. so i'm gonna give you a quick rundown of prosceniums. a proscenium, proscenium arch, or just prosc, is an architectural feature that sits around the front ‘opening’ of the stage that delineates the stage from the audience. if you've ever been in or seen any pictures of old european style theatres it can be quite ornately decorated with scrolling, but it's almost always there in most western theatres. it basically provides your ‘wings,’ which are where you exit off into to get offstage, they provide cover from the audience sitelines. pretty much any theatre where the audience is directly opposing the stage across the 180 degree line is a proscenium stage, even if it doesn't physically have the arch. hell, movie theatres are prosc stages. now, there's a secondary architectural feature/device called a false proscenium, where you set a second, smaller archway inside the first prosc, usually done for a specific effect. think of it like a literal framing device; it's often used to visually signify that ‘this is a play, we are telling a story, please be aware that this is a play thank you.’ but sometimes, it can be a semi-permanent structure that’s set in place to narrow the prosc opening. we had this at my university, there was a false prosc set just inside the actual prosc because the stage had a hilariously big prosc opening for a university that never had casts larger than 24 people. so they set false prosc in to make the stage slightly narrower and to widen the wings, because it doesn't matter what size theatre you're in, you always need more wingspace. makes sense? ok, now here’s a very quick drawing of what i'm pretty sure the kingdom stage looks like:

before you get lost: stage directions are oriented to a person standing on the stage, hence SL and SR being reversed. a quick tip for remembering which way is upstage and which is downstage: if you go too far downstage you fall down (most stages are raised between 2-4’ from the floor, so if you step off the end you will actually fall.) the arrows on here signify the entrances i observed during the performances, which is not necessary in this explanation but i just thought it was interesting to note. still not entirely sure what the surrounding architecture is but it appears that the stage is a raised platform inside a room, and not actually built as part of the building. the ‘house’ is just a technical term for where the audience is, and in this case it's where it looks like most of the film crew and the producers/staff are. there’s pretty clearly a platform upstage centre, and i think there may be some others but i don't care about those right now. what i want to talk about is this dumbass false prosc they set IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE. now i suspect that they did this to solve some problems that they could have had that i don't know about, since i don't know who the stage designer was and what the actual limitations of the space are. but basically they've built two stages and stacked them on top of each other to create one very deep stage, and then separated it off with a false prosc in order to control the size of the space a little better, and possibly to add some visual interest. this stage is functional for its purpose, absolutely, and i think, if mnet actually gave a shit about point of view and camerawork, it could produce some really interesting performances. however, because this stage is so deep, it kind of has the same properties as the traverse stage from before, but just with some big led screens in the middle for reasons. you extra have to pay attention to the directionality because you have all the staff and cameras concentrated in one specific cardinal point, so you have to get creative if you want to crossover between the two sides frequently. again, this is not necessarily bad; restrictions often produce some of the most creative decisions. but! we have not seen a lot of consideration for camera and sightlines and audience pov, hence why i think this setup is dumb: it’s not facilitating the best performances it could.

ok now to the actual performances

btob

this is my favourite of the group because it's very clean lined and utilizes a few simple devices to pretty good effect. i realize these reviews are making me sound like i only like simple performances but i promise this is not at all true i'm just very critical and very picky. let’s start with the costumes, because why not.

costumes

i like these very much, i love modernized traditional clothing in all forms, and these are very well tailored and well coordinated. they do the bulk of the work establishing the theme for the performance, along with the costumes on the backup dancers. personally i would have liked them to be a bit more colourful, à la the teal detailing that was on minhyuk’s final look. i'm getting a bit tired of the whole trend of having groups only wear all dark or all white, or maybe sometimes red if they're feeling spicy. obviously uniform colour is the easiest way to tie a group together visually, but on a show like this i think the groups would actually benefit more from looking distinct from each other internally rather than establishing the group as whole.

i liked that minhyuk had a costume change but i didn't really care for how it was how it was broken down. this is a very personal quibble because i literally have spent years prepping quickchanges but the method it broke down wasn’t the most visually compatible with the garment and felt kinda clunky. please ignore this anecdote it's just me being picky.

set

i loved the forest! a very excellent way to divide the stage area and obscure the weird stage lines/architecture that mnet has made. plus the snow, flowers, and fog? makes a really sharp and immediately indicative atmosphere, a very good use of visual shorthand to establish place.

i didnt love the screens, they reminded me a bit too much of rolling whiteboards from grade school, but they are thematically relevant. also, i feel like we didnt actually get to see about half the choreo for them? fuckin mnet and idiocy again. fun use of rear projection with the dancers’ shadows, and also good use of them to direct traffic, if you will.

personally i think that the sheet gimmick from tbz’s performance would have been a better fit here instead of the screens, especially since the fabric motif was already established at the very beginning of the performance. plus you can do some really fun shadow work with a stretch fabric screen.

personally i think there could have been a little bit more integration between the forest area and the screen area, or they could have done the whole thing in the forest space, but that would require a bit more consideration of camera and choreo maneuverability

sound

really liked this arrangement, obviously the song is iconic but they added a more traditional instrument sound. has good structure for the loose narrative that they had and they were well to label this as ‘theatre’ version because this did follow very closely to a traditional musical theatre sound and style

lighting

no complaints. the overall theme for this episode is apparently blue and red? again with them i like their dedication to a limited colour palette and i especially like the blossoms at the climax

staging

there was pretty clear camera choreo and a minimum of nausea inducing moves. i think some of the effectiveness of the staging got chopped by the editing but that’s not really btob’s fault.

i was just saying i wanted them to give minhyuk some time to shine, i was not expecting to get it so soon! this is a very smart choreo that proves you can be interesting without doing a lot of tricking. minhyuk obviously did a lot of practice and work with that sword, his movements are very fluid and he knows how to handle it. and it looks like its either a blunted proper blade or a correctly weighted replica. a lot of the times when sword choreo looks fake it's because the person either hasn't had enough practice or the weapon is not weighted/weighted incorrectly. only complaints are that you would never hold your fingers/palm that close and un-anchored over the edge of the blade, which is just a safety thing. also you would never scrape your blade on the ground like that, nor toss the thing like dead fish but that's a respect thing with a live blade and this is clearly done for dramatic effect so i’ll forgive it. please ignore this anecdote also it’s just my third dan getting uppity.

ikon

costume/set

smart thematically to go with the sort of miscellaneous 30s-40s (western) aesthetic because it's the fastest way to make it look like you built a theme with mnet’s weird pseudo art deco nonsense they've inexplicably got going on in the set dec. however, they should have stuck the theme all the way through, it would have been more visually cohesive and more interesting. we expect more hiphop/electronic sounding songs to come with these kinds of 4th gen costumes, it would have been anachronistic in a fun way to have them do that second half in 40s style suits. here’s a performance from sdc3 that uses that kind of anachronistic play (this was a combo stage with two ballroom dancers and it has a 20s aesthetic but close enough.) also here’s another routine from sdc3 that does a similar effect on a much more abstract scale, and also it’s a fucking incredible performance and it got slept on by the captains. also yes i know these are incredibly experienced career dancers but they way they construct narrative within their routines and their stage presence is SO GOOD.

do not speak to me about the backup dancers costumes, holy shit i hate them. i hate them so much. how do you manage to hit too shapeless AND too fitted in the same fell swoop? i'm so mad at these. i'm neutral on bodycon dresses on the best of days but these were absolutely the wrong choice for this stage. generally kpop has abysmal costuming for female backup dancers on the whole but this is just like.....especially lazy. the point of the costume are to help give an indication of where and when you set your performance. they started off with a vaguely 40s theme and then jumped abruptly modern. why? also skirts like that are the literal worst choice for dancing in, hello?? the men’s looks are just sloppy, when you have a garment that big you want it to serve a purpose within the choreo, whereas with this it's just hiding the dancers’ movements.

as for ikon themselves, see everything ive said about black on black on black styling in the previous two reviews.

the actual set is minimal and that's tragic. i mentioned mnet’s weird art deco theme and it was smart of them to try and play off that with a lack of stuff. definitely a mismatch of stuff pulled from yg’s prop storage, but they made it work as well as they could. no other meaningful comments i’m just kinda sad about it.

sound

the arrangement is fine, no complaints from me. they keyed up the old hollywood style musical theatre sound in the beginning which i really liked. i didn't mind the song/tone switch, i think they pulled it off.

staging

same as btob they learned more towards a theatrical style, which is smart for this particular format of show. i think this was the smartest staging of these three, and also i think the only ones to not get the crew in shot.

despite seemingly leaning into a more old hollywood style the narrative was a bit too loose for my taste. i'm not sure what i would have done to make it clearer at this moment since they had so little to work with, but i did get by on my previous knowledge of the songs. that shouldn’t be the only indication of narrative though! all elements need to support it!!

also like btob they had a pretty intentional point of direction and there weren't a crazy amount of spins. they also used the camera cuts the most effectively that i've seen so far. the first half is actually all in one take!!! incredible!!! thank you!!!! this is how you do it!!

the lighter flick gimmick was well pulled off and a good example of how to use a couple of simple tricks to good effect.

ikon as a whole has really great stage chemistry with each other, and they're extremely cohesive performers. this is a really strong physical performance from them, the dance was very solid and clean. good use of levels without verging into acrobatics. this might be the best group choreo i've seen so far, but we’re not very far so that's not a very high bar to clear.

it's a shame they had the budget of 1 banana.

tbz

i liked this stage better than their intro stage, but i still think they have a long way to go and they're still over ambitious. personally i find stages based on specific pop culture properties to be kind of twee and ineffectual, because it requires a specific knowledge of that pop culture property to work. sometimes the specificity can help with a narrative but you're at risk of alienating a larger portion of your audience out of sheer non-knowledge than anything else.

costumes

again, interesting garments physically, but not much clarity of relation to the theme other than the colour. also the backup dancers???? another case of backup dancers being from an entirely different stage, what is up with those coats/dresses? looked more like they belonged in either sweeney todd or a vampire movie.

hands in front of the camera again, but these were used much more effectively. i'm not the biggest fan of mixing metals and i’m partial to silver on the whole so i didn't love the jewelry, but at least it was vague and stereotypical enough to denote ‘fire magic’ even if it does rely on a derivative middle eastern shorthand.

set

the stage set itself is fine, although definitely feels a bit haphazard to me. doric columns and frozen rocks and whatever that cover for the pyrotechnics was at the front, combined with the candles and the chaise lounge? like ikon, it felt a bit like they were pulling out of the props/set storage. not that all these things do not work together, it's just that you need a thread to tie them together, and this didn't have that for me.

sound

it's a crime they have a song called ‘no air’ and its not a jordin sparks cover. just saying.

i didnt really like this arrangement, again like their intro stage it didn't have a strong structure that suited the narrative, because they were pretty clearly trying a narrative on this one. also were most of the adlibs playback? they were singing live but there were so few shots of anyone specific singing.

lighting

probably the weakest of the three. the projection design was a bit too tacky for me, and although i appreciated the small amount of variety in colour, it felt way too concert-lighting for me.

staging

the editing on this stage is wack and did no one any good. the hands leading/pov was a really smart device and they should have stuck out the one takes like ikon did, it would have made the whole stage feel a bit more cohesive. a lot better directional camerawork from them this time around, well done. again with the hands in front of the camera gimmick which i actually preferred this time, since they were a part of the narrative. the stretch/silhouette fabric i think they pulled off quite well, even if it didn't really fit thematically with the piece. i actually worked on a show a very long time ago that used this exact same effect with dancers and also rear shadow projection, and it requires a lot of rehearsal and trust to pull off well, so props to them. i think it was the wrong choice because there isn't an established motif for the fabric, so it kind of appears out of nowhere for one specific visual moment and then disappears, and i think that time could have been better served for something else narratively relevant.

again, these 4th gen groups are overly focussed on gimmicks as a way to make up for the lack of experience. personally i think this will be detrimental in the long run, and a reliance on gimmicks means that you don't trust your performers. tbz have the manpower to be doing some pretty cool collective dance work and i dont think its being trained or utilized correctly. they are suffering from a lack of cohesive stage presence right now and that can be fixed with training and time.

this might be because the group sizes are so different between these three but this choreo is very directionless. mnet is also providing to be absolute garbage at editing and i feel like i can't see the choreo at all.

this is a thing i've noticed with kpop camerawork in general, there’s very little regard for actually viewing the choreo as a singular work. and for some reason the camera always needs to be moving???? people do actually want to see what’s happening on the stage. the choreographer can only see from one spot, so from that spot is how they are intending it to look. you wouldn't need to upload full cams of every music stage if you just filmed the choreo properly in the first place. if you watch the two sdc3 clips i linked you can see a clear difference in maintaining the integrity of the choreo, even though both shows use several cameras and a lot of cuts. obviously for kpop you want the money shots of idols’ faces but i definitely think there’s a healthier middle ground than what we have now.

ill wait for full subs but i want to know where in the fuck in sk you can rent a tank thas clearly been custom made for underwater photography, because that’s extremely cool even if it was absolutely unnecessary to the actual stage itself. i can think of several ways off the top of my head that would have achieved that same freezing effect without any of that wasted time and effort.

mnet decided to drop full cams while i was writing this and despite watching those my opinions are the same.

in conclusion, some more general thoughts:

i think ikon and btob got it right by leaning more into the theatrical than the cinematic, if that makes sense. i might be talking up my own ass here but these are theatre performances, and they should be treated as such. trying to do things that you can do on film isn't going to do you any favours in the long run, and it makes it harder to make a cohesive performance. i’m harping a lot about narrative but it is so important to performance. although it is not technically necessary, when doing big theatrical performance stages like this it does help with clarity of intent and general success. humans have brains structured around storytelling, it is literally the way our history has been passed down for tens of thousands of years. the atlantic published an article recently on narrative and memory, and it's a really excellent read for maybe after you've taken a break from this behemoth, oh dear god.

tldr: the stages were good but disappointing in their own ways. mnet continues to sabotage via weird stage design decisions and bad editing. see you next week! (or in my ask box if you have questions)

#kingdom review #kpop analysis #kingdom #oh dear lord this is almost 4k #to anybody that actually reads this thank you and im sorry #text

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commander-yinello · 4 years

Text

Guardian (Jumin x Zen)

Happy Birthday @maniart1o9!!! For you, I wrote some JuminZen with one of your favorite themes (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ I hope you will enjoy it! Read more under the cut ♥♥ ~_^

Word Count: 1945 Warnings: Mild swearing, smoking, references to a car accident

Jumin knows he’s seen him.

Even upside down, with the airbag so closely pressed to his chest that he couldn’t move, his vision spinning, and the overwhelming scent of gasoline making him dizzy, he sees Zen outside the front window. And he’s glowing, so bright his eyes water. Then, as someone pulls him out of the car, he’s gone.

That’s not possible, assistant Kang insists next to the hospital bed he’s sitting in, both waiting for the doctor to come back. Zen was nowhere near C&R International, and she only just warned the RFA 5 seconds ago of the crash. He could not have possibly arrived here that fast.

Ah. The crash. The car crash. The one Jumin was in because Driver Kim had his day off, and Jumin saw no issue driving to the client himself. The one where Jumin had to swerve to dodge another car cutting off his lane, and caused his own car to topple over and crash against a tree.

She’s right, Jumin thinks, there’s no way Zen could have been at the crash. Most likely stress from the crash, a concussion, his panicked imagination going in overdrive.

Yet, not a minute later, the doctor tells him he doesn’t even have a bruise. As if he never was in a car accident. That should not be possible, the doctor says, and assistant Kang is equally confused. Jumin however, is not.

He is certain now, he’s seen Zen.

And he has a suspicion why.

~~~~

Jumin Han:

Do you sometimes find yourself in places you weren’t before when you travel?

ZEN: Dude it’s 1 AM why are you messaging me

Also wtf are you going on about

Are you high???

Jumin Han: You still replied.

ZEN: Go to sleep and leave me alone, asshole

~~~~

He’s always wondered what was up about Zen. He knows about albinos, they often took great care of themselves when going outside, and sometimes had other health issues. Not Zen, who is so handsome, not that Jumin would admit it out loud. Who is so fit, he jogged daily. Who has no problem taking selfies in broad daylight with no sunscreen or sunglasses in sight. It had been only after Jumin made the last comment, a year ago, that Zen suddenly mentioned jogging at night, or an extensive skincare routine.

Back then, he stopped caring very quickly. It wasn’t any of his business, of course, what the narcissistic man did.

Now he cares again. He remembers how Zen had gotten into an accident, and V told him in full detail how Zen had healed insanely fast.

A handsome albino with super fast healing skills. How very strange, he tells Elizabeth, and she meows in agreement. He pets her while leaning an elbow on his mahogany desk, laptop showing a website of occult creatures.

Maybe he is a vampire. The ones in that one teenage movie sparkle. Which is not a glow, his brain reminds him. Plus the whole sun thing would still be an issue.

He entertains the sexy albino vampire idea a bit too long, before he realizes and cuts his thoughts off on purpose.

Maybe he is too paranoid. Maybe Zen is human. Zen’s allergy for cats seems real, at least. Even though Zen is an actor, Jumin thinks, he hides his emotions poorly.

And then Zen mentions that, sometimes, he has prophetic dreams.

Strange. Very, very strange.

Too many things don't add up for Zen to be human. And Jumin wants to know who he truly is - very much so.

~~~~

Jumin Han: Do you often glow?

ZEN: Of course I do, my beauty is radiant Blessed by the Gods themselves

Jumin Han: Gods. Interesting. Tell me all about them.

ZEN: What? What do you mean? You’re creeping me out Also why are you messaging me again what the hell

Jumin Han: You always reply to me.

ZEN: No I don’t, stupid jerk

Jumin Han: And yet you did it again.

ZEN: Argh! I can’t with you! Screw you!

~~~~

Zen is calling him a weirdo in the chat again. Jerk. Freak. The words have never mattered to him, but now Jumin wonders if it’s a smokescreen. He’s paid very close attention to all of the chatrooms with Zen in it, to the point it felt like stalking. It’s interesting how often Zen brings him up as a topic, even when it’s completely unnecessary.

He starts to understand why Luciel thinks Zen is obsessed with him. Perhaps because there is more than Zen shows.

But Zen denies everything he asks. He denies whatever screenshots Jumin sends him. He insults and denies and rants, and Jumin doesn't get any closer to the truth. At some point, Zen mentions that his behavior is akin to his older brother, but it comes over as an excuse to make Jumin shut up.

To the outside world, it seems that Zen truly despises him. Jumin is just not convinced.

There’s only a few things Jumin knows for sure. Zen was there when he crashed. And it had to be connected to the fact that Jumin came out of the crash completely unharmed. That’s it.

It drives him mad that he is denied more knowledge.

So he makes a decision. He tells assistant Kang to watch over Elizabeth. Heads down to the garage. Opens the car door. Takes a deep breath and wonders if he’s gone insane.

He gets behind the wheel again.

~~~~ Yoosung☆: Hi Zen!!

Jaehee Kang: Hello Zen, good to see you!

ZEN: Hey guys Where’s Jerkmin?

707: Lololol why do you ask~ Could it be.... You miss him??! (~˘▾˘)~

ZEN: What?! Of course not Why would you say that I’m glad he’s not around to spoil the mood! I just find it suspicious he’s not here

Jaehee Kang: Mr. Han said he had something important to do Now I have c-fur on my suit again T_T

Yoosung☆: Poor Jaehee, hopefully you’ll be free soon - Zen has left the chatroom -

Yoosung☆: Ehhhh????

707: Zen suddenly leaving? Now that’s suspicious ರ_ರ

Jaehee Kang: I hope nothing happened to him. ~~~~

Jumin never crashes. The moment he turns on the engine, Zen is there, in front of the car lights, scaring the hell out of him. In a split second, the lamps in the garage flicker, and Jumin swears he sees a faint glowing outline of feathers behind Zen.

Zen is wearing his trademark turtleneck and holds a cigarette in his hand. He takes a drag and blows out the smoke, looking bored, as if he had been waiting.

“You're such a jerk, you know that?” Zen’s voice echoes in the large garage. They are alone. He hears nothing in the background, as if time stands still.

Jumin is too stunned to reply. Zen sighs, and walks to the side of the car, opens the door and takes his place in the passenger seat. He grabs the key from Jumin’s fingers and turns the engine off. The smell of tobacco and cologne fill Jumin’s nose, yet he doesn’t find the will to tell Zen not to smoke in his car.

“If me sitting here will stop you from killing yourself, then so be it,” Zen says, and takes another drag after closing the door.

Jumin realizes his hands still grip the wheel, and he slowly lowers them to his lap.

“What… what are you?” he asks.

“I can’t answer that. You already know way too much because I fucked up. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you,” Zen replies, and the smoke surrounding him makes him look more human.

“And to you?”

Zen looks out the open window instead. “It’s fine,” he finally replies.

That isn’t what he wants to hear. But if nothing would happen to him, then possibly Zen’s punishment wouldn’t be too severe.

Zen’s words do confirm other things - there is some higher power at work keeping Zen in check. And Zen did protect him, he’s sure of it now, from dying. So much so that Zen is in trouble for it.

“You protected me… too much. I should have had some damage,” Jumin says, inadvertently licking his lips. He’s nervous, because the bratty vain actor had been the one standing between life and death for him.

Zen runs a hand through his hair. Maybe Jumin is projecting, but he feels Zen is nervous too.

"I know that, trust fund. I just… couldn’t deal with… that." Zen waves his cigarette-free hand at the air in front of them, trying to stay as cryptic as possible.

He cares too much, Jumin instantly realizes. He watches Zen cross his legs - a defensive stance, Jumin notes - and wonders how much Zen has said in the chatroom is real.

“For someone like you, you aren’t exactly good at keeping it a secret.”

Zen chuckles. “You’d be surprised how much people accept. In fact, the stranger you seem, the less likely they suspect.”

Jumin hates to admit that it made sense. “Are you always fighting me because you have to distance yourself from me on purpose?”

“I can't answer that.”

Can't or shouldn't? Either way, Jumin is content with the answer. Yet, he can’t stop asking questions.

“Does everyone have… someone like you?”

“Not me specifically.”

Jumin makes a mental note to check all sun-loving albinos in the country. “Do you know who else is like you?”

Zen shook his head. “I know there are others. No idea who.”

“Sounds… lonely.”

“...It is.”

Jumin knows all about loneliness. He imagines Elizabeth on his lap, and sees the photo of V, Rika and him on his desk, and hears his father’s voicemail on his phone. So many days he’s convinced only Elizabeth would be there to catch him, when he comes home tired from work and falls down the abyss in his mind. Awful, lonely thoughts.

He wants to ask more. Menial questions like is Zen truly allergic, or deeper ones asking about the forces unknown. Jumin decides that he doesn’t want to push it.

“So… what now?”

“You,” Zen points at Jumin’s chest, “Will stop trying to drive, you menace. I actually like it here, so don’t make it worse.”

Jumin grins. “You like it here? Even with me?”

“Yeah, I know, must suck being guarded by someone you hate.” Zen rolls his eyes.

“I never hated you.”

Zen whips his head towards Jumin, eyes wide.

“Never. Not even when you tried your worst. And now, knowing it is you watching over me… It is a blessing. Thank you, Zen.”

He means it. There is a happy light feeling in his chest, knowing there’s a very logical reason for Zen to act so irrationally towards him. And he knows that he’ll have to act irrational back in order to keep up the facade, so Zen can stay.

He wants Zen to stay.

Zen blushes, and tries to hide it poorly by looking out of the window again. Jumin can’t help but find it endearing. “When you say things like that, people will think you’ve gone crazy.”

Jumin smirks. He doesn’t care what people think of him. Wasn’t there still that rumor of him floating around?

Zen flicks his cigarette stub away and sighs. “Well, I need to go. Take care.”

“Should I, when I have you?” Jumin sasses. It’s too close to flirting to be misconstrued otherwise.

“Wh- N- Whatever, just don’t drive!” he yells. His cheeks are redder, and Jumin notices before the car is filled with a bright light.

Once again, Zen is gone. A very typically Zen to do. Jumin smiles, and sits in the car for a while.

He still has no good excuse when Assistant Kang finally finds him there.

#juzen #juminzen #zumin #jumin x zen #mystic messenger #mysme #fanfiction #my fanfic #omg it's been too long since I wrote fanfic #pls forgive anything OOC #also I wanted this to be longer but no time T_T #why is real life so cruel #still it was v fun to write!#I love supernatural themes *_*#ty mani for ur talent and ideas <3

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volucris-liga · 3 years

Text

Okay, the book came out in February so it’s been long enough that i assume anyone who cares about spoilers for Pathfinder’s Quest has already obtained Pathfinder’s Quest, and i have a lot of Excited Thoughts to share so I’m rereading the last chapter and writing some notes. I’ll still put it under a Read More in case anyone is still avoiding spoilers for it, but I figured it’s safe to post now at least.

The majority of this post is probably gonna be about Ash.

This post is also probably very long.

Anyway. Let’s go:

First of all, the Project Iris story stuff starts in 2658. Since the current year is 2733 (maybe 2734 by now? idk) and Horizon came back 87 years after she was left at the black hole, that means she disappeared in 2646-ish. So this is around 12 years after Horizon was lost.

Since the last chapter mentions that Project Iris had been around for 15 years, I went back to Horizon’s chapter to confirm that it was already technically Project Iris before she left (it was, yes), and found this bit:

“Lilian set me up with a laboratory on Olympus to test my theories and find a solution to the crisis. I brought my whole family there… I miss them.”

She specifically is talking about more people than just her son. I’m so curious about who Newton’s father is lol, and why it’s only Newton that we see in her Story From the Outlands and the rest of her lore.

Okay now I’m finding more stuff in Horizon’s chapter, i’m glad i went back to reread this too.

“Years and years went by with nothing. Financiers were getting impatient; Lilian was kind about it, but I knew even she was doubting in me. My own assistant thought I was failing.”

Whiiich means before they discovered Branthium, Reid already had sort of an antagonistic thing toward Horizon and didn’t trust that she could succeed at the project (though, as seen shortly, Horizon didn’t realize how bad it was). I’m guessing she was resentful that Horizon was getting all the recognition for the project and she was always seen as her assistant, not an equal scientist on the project.

And then there’s this bit:

Horizon: “My assistant, Dr. Reid, joined me on my mission.” Path: “The one who thought she was better than you?” Horizon: “Aye. Didn’t know it then, though. She was a good friend. We were close. Came to dinner with my family. Even babysat my son a few times. That’s why it’s so hard to ken what happened…”

Oof. I’ll come back to this point later; there’s some stuff about Newton in the last chapter that’s important.

As a side note, I think Horizon didn’t know a lot of the people in Project Iris, and most of them were recruited after she was already gone -- she’s not able to tell Pathfinder much about the group that actually solved the energy crisis.

Anyway, moving on. I appreciate that Reid’s first name is Ashleigh, lol, makes sense why she’s called Ash as a simulacrum later.

I really like that even in this storyline there’s connections to the other legends -- Wattson’s grandmother, Amélie Paquette, and Gibraltar’s grandfather, Aleki Gibraltar, are both on the team. There’s a bunch of other scientists as well, but as far as I can tell they’re all new for this lore with no prior connections.

There’s a scene where yet another experiment with refined Branthium fails, and Reid calls out Amélie for it -- “Your plan was wrong from the start. I pointed that out, must have been, twenty times?” Reid is clearly quick to judge others’ ideas and shut people down (and has been all along, like when she thought Horizon would fail before the discovery of Branthium). Reid and Amélie also reeeeeaaallly don’t get along.

There’s this exchange:

‘“Excuse me? And what have you done, Reid?” Paquette pressed, moving face to face with Reid. “Besides stand by and critique our every move while ze rest of us do all ze work. Is zis how you treated Somers?” “You’re not half the scientist she was.” Reid smirked.’

Even though she was resentful of Horizon, enough so to betray her, she did apparently respect her more than she does the rest of this group, which i think is interesting. She also just… really hates Amélie.

And then there’s Newton!!! aaaaa!!! I love that he’s an intern for the group now that he’s a teenager. And his personality is adorable.

Newton finds something that none of the rest of them saw, which is that someone needs to be in the refinery to continuously recalibrate the process. Which is impossible. Aaaand then it’s Reid, of all people, who comes up with the idea to reprogram a MRVN robot to do it. Which is painfully ironic, given what happens later.

While they’re trying to figure out how to actually do the MRVN thing, Reid mentions that she has contacts at Hammond Robotics. I’m assuming Hammond are the ones who eventually rebuild her as a simulacrum (though for all I know that’s been confirmed somewhere and I’ve forgotten. I have trouble keeping all the corporations and factions straight in my head, and i’ve barely played any Titanfall, rip). They’re definitely the ones who made Revenant (which has already happened by this point in the lore).

All the scientists putting part of their personality into Pathfinder is just so good. Especially cause of Newton; I love that it’s Newton’s influence that has Path being so friendly to everyone. Please give us in-game voicelines between Horizon and Pathfinder next season, now that Pathfinder knows Newton was one of his creators.

Aaaand here we go, stuff about Newton. Reid obviously helped raise him after his mom was gone. I wonder if she ever felt guilty about what she did to Horizon? A few interactions that Hurt:

‘Paquette paused and looked at the MRVN. “He’s our fail-safe.” “Whatever… I’ve got other work to do. Let me know when you’re done fooling around,” Reid huffed as she stormed out of the lab. “Should I go after her?” asked Newton. “She seems sad.”’

‘“A lot of what I have to offer is what my mom had, and I think most of that’s already in here, but there’s one thing that was always important to Mom: she loved her friends. It’s important to me, too. You’re all my friends. But especially you, Dr. Reid.” Newton looked over at her. “You were always there for my mom. Just like this MRVN is going to be there for the Outlands.” Reid did her best to smile, but it ended up as more of a quick nod. “Thanks,” she said hesitantly.’

I appreciate that Amélie is suspicious of what happened to Horizon. Like, Reid managed to fool most people, but not everyone.

‘As Stay started to pack up the tools, Paquette joined her. “I’m assuming you added some precautions to ze program in case anything was to ‘appen,” she whispered. “He can’t be hacked, if that’s what you’re askin’, P,” Stay assured her as she packed away a welder. “Zat’s not what I’m talking about.” Paquette’s expression showed a deep look of concern and hesitation. “You really don’t trust her, do you?” “Do you? Somers was ze best astrophysicist in ze entire Frontier. It doesn’t make any sense what happened to her. Ze stories don’t add up. I just want to make sure we cover all our bases.”’

More of Ash’s voicelines from the Broken Ghost quest! I thiiiiink this is almost all of them covered now, if not all?

Path says “Who doesn’t like ice cream? Every kid likes ice cream!” when he first wakes up.

Delgado says “All roads lead to Branthium!”

Reid herself says “Fail-safe, fail-safe, who’s got the fail-safe?” during the whole big Thing at the end.

When Reid betrays everyone to try to divert the first Branthium shipment through the Phase Runner to the IMC, both she and Newton disappear from the party first. And she and Amélie have this conversation:

“I knew it. I knew it from ze start. You killed her, didn’t you?” “I did nothing.” “Yeah, right. You killed Somers. You put yourself before every innocent life in ze Outlands.” “Innocent life? Please. The Outlands are filled with nothing but war and greed. No one cares for anyone but themselves. I’m just playing the game.” “Have you told zat to Newton? Where is he?” “He’s not a part of this. Not anymore. I took care of him. Right now, it’s just us.”

So Newton’s fate is a bit uncertain. I’m guessing she got him out of there to save him, actually, which I think is really interesting.

Anyway, Reid then cuts off Amélie’s hand with a sword cause deactivating the lockdown requires two of the scientists to authorize it. Which I guess explains why Amélie’s arm is in a sling in Pathfinder’s Story From the Outlands video.

Pathfinder had managed to get out, so Amélie’s able to set the lab to self-destruct with his help. Path’s able to fight the mercenaries and Reid and get to the Phase Runner. And then there’s this that Reid says to Pathfinder:

“No one is your friend. You’re a machine. Nobody cares about machines. Nobody loves machines. You’re no different than that Phase Runner. You’re a MRVN. We use you and turn you off when we’re done. You’re nothing.”

There’s probably a lot she has to work through when she ends up as a simulacrum, oof.

She almost stops Path, but then gets stabbed in the back with her own sword by Amélie, which is fitting. The mercenaries Reid was working with are attacking so it’s basically impossible for the scientists to escape, but Pathfinder’s able to program the Phase Runner to send the Branthium to all the various Outlands planets instead. And, at their request, to send himself through as well before the self-destruct (and he then eventually wakes up with amnesia). aaaaaa this is so sad

“I don’t want to say goodbye. You’re my friends. I’d be sad without my friends.” “You’ll never be without us. You’ll never be alone.”

I’m assuming that after the explosion, Reid’s body was found and turned into Ash. Also everything about the season 6 comics is so ironic now help. After Hammond Robotics get what they need from her after the Legends find her head, she’s just left behind somewhere deactivated, and Pathfinder finds and rebuilds her. And she has no memory (until Blisk shows up, anyway). So like, it was her idea to create him, and then he completely ruins her plans which leads to her death, and then he saves her life later. Great. When she had no memory and was living with him he called her his girlfriend and everything, he’s gonna be so sad when he finds out who she is, rip.

There’s this bit of dialogue in the intro conversation for the chapter:

Path: “I can’t be weak and the person who killed the people who saved the Outlands.” Blisk: “Heh. Very true, mate. That’s why it wasn’t you.” Path: “Are you sure? How do you know?” Blisk: “Pretty damn sure, because I know ‘em.” Path: “You know my creator?” Blisk: “I know who killed your creator. Or, well… creators.”

This implies that Blisk is fully aware of Ash’s history. Makes sense, and I assumed as much anyway, but given the season 6 comics that means he also absolutely knows that Pathfinder knew Ash and he’s purposefully not telling Pathfinder that Reid and Ash are the same person.

There’s also this part at the end of the chapter:

Blisk: “Oi! One more thing… Did you ever find…? Eh. Forget it.” Path: “What? Did I ever find what?” Blisk: “Actually, I, uh…” Path: “Tell me! Is there more to the story than what was on the chip?” Blisk: “Just one small detail. But why don’t you turn that recorder off. This one’s just between us, eh?” Path: “Okay. You’ll tell me after I turn it off--”

Now, my first thought when first reading this was that it was gonna be about Ash. But I’m sure it’s not, cause in Pathfinder’s last log entry after that he’s very happy and optimistic about finding his creators, and he would have been affected by finding out that Reid was the same person as his missing ‘girlfriend.’ Sooooo I’m still 1) very curious about what Blisk talked about after the recording and 2) very excited for whenever Path finds out the truth about Ash.

On a related note, I am so ready for Horizon finding out about Ash. And to a lesser extent, if Wattson finds out about her grandmother’s role in what happened and her history with Ash (also Gibraltar about his grandfather, but anyway). I’m assuming Ash would know they’re related to her former team, since she’s working for Blisk and likely would know all the basic info about all the legends, including real full names. So Ash interacting with Wattson would be interesting, especially at a point where Ash knows who she is but Wattson doesn’t know about Ash’s history.

Also depending on how things develop with Ash and the other Legends, it’s interesting to think about Loba’s perspective, since it’s technically her fault Ash is back at all. I wanna see a conversation between her and Horizon cause Horizon wasn’t around for the Broken Ghost stuff. Plus, Loba agreed to get everyone to go get the components that turned out to be Ash’s head because in exchange she’d be given the location of Revenant’s source code. With Loba later deciding to send the source code away as revenge instead of killing Revenant, her need for revenge on him is definitely gonna come back to bite her later, now that Revenant’s resolved to destroy everything she loves (maybe he goes after Bangalore?). Horizon’s still definitely very angry at Reid, probably even more so if/when she finds out what Reid did to the Project Iris team, and when she finds out Reid is Ash, well… both she and Loba certainly have strong vendettas against the two simulacrums lol. It’d be neat, though unlikely, if there’s a plotline where Loba ends up facing consequences from the Revenant thing and then because of her own experience she convinces Horizon not to go too far trying to get revenge on Ash.

Oh right there’s also the question of Newton’s messages to Horizon near the end of season 7. He’s still a little kid in those, even in the last one where a future Horizon who got back to him has sent a message to herself. And obviously, that didn’t happen -- Newton’s there, as a teenage intern for Project Iris, and the characters mention his mom being dead multiple times. Soooo then what’s the deal with the messages? I’m thinking there are three options: 1) Horizon eventually going back in time creates an alternate timeline/dimension 2) those messages are for/from a Horizon and Newton in another dimension entirely (look, the Phase Runner is weird, Wraith’s tech is weird, etc.) oooorrrr 3) the messages were faked somehow and are connected to Ash -- some of her voicelines in the Broken Ghost quest were the codes for those messages.

In conclusion: a a a a a a a a a a

#apex legends #pathfinder's quest #pathfinder's quest spoilers

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imanativeofswlondondahling · 4 years

Text

Becoming A Stark? (2) Peter Parker x Stark! femReader

A/N: In celebration of finishing a class that has literally been six weeks of hell, I thought why not post chapter two. I had a blast writing this chapter because I love Natasha. Anyway, enjoy, and as always, let me know if you want to be tagged or your thoughts:)

Word count: 4596

Warnings: swearing, think that’s it

Chapter One (If You Missed It) || Master List

You’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours. You had told Tony you were heading to bed at ten, mainly because you couldn’t stand him looking at you any more, especially since he looked at you like you were going to disappear most of the time. It was straight up creepy. Add to everything, you’re starving. A grumbly stomach and a mind that doesn’t want to shut off makes it impossible to go to sleep. You check Wallace and you’re sitting at 136, which isn’t surprising since you didn’t really eat anything but veggies at dinner since Tony didn’t realize that you were vegetarian so there wasn’t much besides veggies that you could eat of the food that Steve had made. You need real food though or you’re never going to sleep. In your mind you trace through how to get to the kitchen and you think you can get there without getting lost or waking up the other Avengers.

Opening your door, you peak your head out just to see if you spy anyone down the hallway. Seeing the coast is clear, you step softly onto the floor outside your door, almost waiting for an alarm to go off yelling that you’re leaving your room. But after a few heartbeats thudding in your ears and nothing happening, you decide to make your way down the steps to the kitchen. “Jarvis?” You whisper.

“Yes, Miss Y/N?” The voice booms over the speakers that you haven’t seen.

“Shhhh. Take it down a few levels. And turn the lights on in the kitchen.”

“Certainly Miss Y/N.” The lights are blinding after being in your room in the dark for so long.

“Jarvis, dim the lights by uh 75%.”

“Certainly Miss Y/N.” The lights drop drastically and you feel more comfortable. Walking to the pantry, you look for something easy to make. There are ingredients for fancier dishes that you have no patience to make, so instead you reach for a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and then make your way to the fridge to look for jelly. Setting your ingredients on the counter, you grab a paper towel to make your sandwich on before setting on your way of making your sandwich.

“Midnight snack? Or well two am snack?” A voice suddenly comes from the other side of the island and you nearly jump out of your skin.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Your hand slams to your chest as you knife clatters to the counter. “Do you try to scare people to death?”

“To be fair you did move in with an ex-assassin.” Natasha says with a soft smile as she sits down on the bar stool across from where you stand.

“It wasn’t by choice.”

“I had a feeling.” Natasha’s red hair is pulled into a low ponytail. Her eyes rome over you, seeing the bits of Tony that are in you even though you didn’t know you were related until this morning.

“Want a sandwich?” You offer, trying not to be rude. The other Avengers, you don’t have anything against personally. Just the one who stripped you from your house with his fatherly claim.

“If your sugars are low, I’m not taking your food away from you.” Natasha holds up her hands, trying to show she comes in peace.

“Is there anyone he didn’t tell I’m diabetic to?” You roll your eyes as you slide the sandwich in her direction, grabbing another paper towel to make another. “Wallace says I’m fine for now. I can make another.”

“Wallace?”

“My blood sugar monitor. It’s actually called a Dexcom, but I named it Wallace so that I can say things like Goddamn it Wallace when he wakes me up in the middle of the night. My pump is named Queenie. I think it’s more personal when they have names.”

“I like it.” Natasha lets a small smile escape her as she takes a bite of the sandwich you made. “And to answer your question, he told us all the emergency information about it that your grandmother shared with him. He just wanted all of us to be prepared in case we’re here and he’s not. But if you feel better we can not mention it.”

“It’s fine. It’s been a part of my life as long as I can remember.”

“He’ll probably try to invent something to make your life easier.”

“Seeing as his last thing to make my life easier stripped me of everything I’ve ever known, I’ll turn down that option.” You say with a sneer.

“He means well. Tony just doesn’t always think everything through before he acts.”

“That doesn’t make it any better.” You finish making your sandwich and after throwing the knife in the sink, you enter the carbs into Queenie.

“It doesn’t, but don’t hate him just yet ok?”

“Fine.” Natasha leads you to the couch, where you and her sit, talking for what feels like hours about trivial things until you fall asleep. She wraps a blanket around you, then falls asleep next to you.

Waking up in the morning feels different for Tony. For starters, it’s his first full day of being a dad, even if said kid hates him. True yesterday was probably his first full day, but today is the first full day of having you under his roof. Leaving his room, he makes his way towards the kitchen, thinking he’ll check in on you on his way to get coffee. However when he finds an open door and an empty bed, his heart starts racing. Not even 24 hours into this and he’s lost his kid. “JARVIS find Y/N.”

“Miss Y/N is in the living room.” Are you that early of a riser that you are up at 6:30 on a summer day? Like he himself is only up because he has an idea for your pump that he wants to work on. Bypassing the kitchen and coffee, he makes his way to the living room, needing to calm his heart down. What he finds is not what he’s expecting. The sight in front of him is you, wrapped in a white knitted blanket curled into the side of the deadliest assassin in the world. But you were asleep and safe, that’s what matters. He tries to steady his heart before turning back towards the kitchen, not wanting to wake you yet, since he wasn’t sure when you actually went to sleep. Looking in the sink as he passed to grab a coffee mug, he spies a knife with peanut butter and jelly smeared along the tip. He’s going to have to figure out what you eat since you don’t eat meat. Steve has been cooking for everyone a lot, but with you not eating animals and him cooking a lot of meat and potato meals, there needs to be a compromise. Tony will figure something out, it’s the fatherly thing to do.

Filling a coffee cup up with the liquid he was craving, he starts to type up some of the ideas he had on his Stark Phone so that he can get the ideas down without having to go all the way down to the lab. With you sleeping on the couch, this is the closest you’ve been to him without a grimace plastered on your face since he met you.

“Sir, you said to alert you if Miss Y/N went below 100.” JARVIS’s voice speaks out.

“The actual fuck.” Your voice fills the kitchen as you pad into it from the living room. Tony spins around to look at his daughter, the knit blanket wrapped around your shoulders.

“What?”

“You have your AI monitoring my blood sugar?” You spat out before Tony can respond.

“JARVIS monitors a lot of things for me.”

“That’s fucking creepy. And also you have it set way too high. There’s nothing to do if it’s at 100. That’s a good blood sugar. Have Dexcom send you alerts to your phone like a fucking normal person.” You turn and storm out of the kitchen. You had been used to constant monitoring when you were a kid. But you had been allowed to be the person watching your sugars for years. Having an AI watching your sugars was too much.

You throw your book, your headphones and your wallet into your backpack before pulling on a pair of ripped jean shorts and a black graphic t-shirt that says ‘Sorry I’m Late I Didn’t Want To Come’. Slipping on a pair of galaxy high top converse that you love and sliding a pair of black and gold could have been Ray Bans if you had the money into your hair, you figure that if you slip out the back end of the hallway, Tony won’t see you leave. Checking Queenie before you walk out the door, you have plenty of insulin so you’ll spend the day out of the eye of your overbearing father and in the city you love. Peaking your head out you see no one out in the hall, not even Natasha. So you slink down the hallway towards the elevator and get on it without anyone noticing. “Jarvis, take me to the ground floor.” You wait for him to say no, but are surprised.

“Certainly Miss Y/N.” Once on the ground floor you pull the sunglasses down, already seeing that there are a few vultures waiting with cameras outside. But when they see it’s just a kid and not one of the Avengers, they let you walk on by without snapping anything. Taking your phone out of your pocket you type a quick message in your group chat to your two best friends, letting them know you’re taking a day off of social media and texting before flipping your phone to airplane mode. No creepy AIs for you today.

Taking your metro card and headphones out of your backpack, you make your way towards the closest station. If you hop the four or the five train you could head to your favorite coffee shop and even hit up The Strand before making a next move. Swiping your card, you hear the sounds of a train pulling into the station.

Tony throws the screw drive across the bench in frustration. Maybe Y/N was right. Maybe having JARVIS monitoring your sugars was too much, but he doesn’t know how to be any other way. Especially when his child that he’s only known about for two days has a life or death condition. “JARVIS what’s Y/N’s blood sugar?”

“I don’t know sir. I can’t read it.”

“What?” His project is forgotten, his child the only though in his mind.

“Her phone isn’t connected to the internet.” And your monitor has to link through the internet to connect to JARVIS.

“Is there something wrong with the internet?”

“No. Internet is functioning at 100%.”

“So why is her phone not connected to it?”

“I can not say sir.” Tony pushes away from the bench and makes his way up the stairs to see why your phone isn’t connected to the internet. He looks in the kitchen for you before looking in the living room. He finds only Clint on the couch.

“Have you seen Y/N?”

“Not today. Maybe she’s in her room?” Tony turns and moves quickly through the kitchen and up the stairs, finding your door open. He moves down the hallway to Natasha’s room, hoping she might know where you are. He pounds on the door.

“What?” The response is short as the door is pried open.

“Y/N, have you seen her?”

“Not since this morning. Why?” Ignoring her, Tony calls out for JARVIS.

“JARVIS, where is Y/N?”

“Miss Y/N left the tower at 9:46 this morning.”

“Why was I not told?”

“You didn’t ask to be told.”

“Tony, do you think she went home?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t get a reading on her blood sugars though.” Tony is pacing in the hallway. “What if she’s hurt?”

“JARVIS can you override her phone?” Natasha asks, not counting on it.

“No I can not. It is not a Stark Phone.”

“That changes immediately.” Tony mutters, but Natasha ignores him. Instead she pulls out her laptop.

“JARVIS can you pull up the security camera footage from the front door from when Y/N left?”

“Of course. I’ll send it to your computer.” The images of Y/N sauntering past the paparazzi, smirking as she pulls her sunglasses on makes Natasha let go of a breathy laugh. She watches as you walk towards the downtown subway station.

“She’s not heading home?” Tony says looking at the screen.

“She’s not?” Natasha asks.

“Her grandparents live in Queens. She wouldn’t take a downtown train to go home.” Natasha hits some keys and runs your face through some camera recognition until she finds where you get off, but shuts the laptop before Tony can see where you got off. “Natasha-”

“If I let you see where she went, you two will get in a screaming match in the middle of the street. Is that really how you want the world to find out that Tony Stark has a child?”

“At least get her to turn her phone on so I can see she’s not dying?”

“I’ll try.”

When you read, you fall so deeply into a book that you don’t have to even think about it. Hours pass, coffee is drunk, and the day rolls away from you. The argument, if you could even call it, with Tony seems days ago now. You’ve always loved the atmosphere of The Bean and would stay there for days if they didn’t have to lock up at times. Turning the page, you push Tony from your head, and just focus on your music. You could live in this moment forever, but out of the corner of your eye you notice a redhead sitting down at your table. Glancing up, you shouldn’t be totally surprised that Natasha found you. “I know you’re an assassin, but like stalking is a crime,” You say as you pull the earbuds from your ears.

“Tracking a runaway here, not stalking.” Natasha says softly as she places fresh coffee in front of the two of you.

“I didn’t run away. I just needed to get out of that tower. It was suffocating me.” You say as you pick up the cup sitting in front of you.

“You turned your phone off.”

“I didn’t turn it off. I put it on airplane mode.” You can’t help but smile.

“Tony thinks you’re lying passed out on the side of the road because he can’t read your blood sugars.”

“Well let him live like that for a bit. He deserves it after programming his AI to shout my BGs all over the tower.”

“You know Tony doesn’t check his phone right? JARVIS is his phone essentially. So telling him to just send notifications to his phone wouldn’t do much different than having JARVIS tell him stuff.” Natasha reaches a hand across the table to grasp yours. “He’s trying.”

“He’s suffocating me.”

“It’s going to take him a few tries before he gets this right. He could have flown out here in his Iron Man suit to make sure you were still alive. Pretty sure that’s what he wanted to do.”

“Ugh, no! That’s worse than having you stalking me here.”

“Again, not stalking. This was a recovery mission.” Natasha takes a sip from her own mug. “So you going to come home or am I going to have to kidnap you to bring you home?”

“I still have things to get done today.” You say with a non committal shrug.

“Y/N, you’re fourteen. You have to at least tell your guardian when you’re going to run around New York City.”

“He doesn’t even-”

“Don’t say he didn’t care before yesterday, because that’s not fair to either of you. He didn’t know about you before forty eight hours ago. I was there when he got the call.” You think back to last night when Tony introduced Natasha as Nat and things start to make a lot more sense.

“If you were there, tell me about it.” You say, finally marking your page in the book and setting it aside.

“He was pretty shocked to say the least. He was confused on why a school was calling him, but then to be told it was his daughter’s school, well he basically went into shock. He was listening to them talk about you while I tried to find out what I could about you. When we hung up he shot into a Tony rant about needing to find you and know you. To not be like Howard and to show you that he was going to be there for you.”

“Who’s Howard?” You ask, not following.

“Your grandfather, Tony’s dad. But if you want to know more about him, you’ll have to talk to him.” Natasha takes another sip of her coffee.

“What happened after his rant?”

“He spent most of the night on the phone with his lawyers. Trying to figure out the best plan of attack and what to do for you. Also spent a fair amount of time talking with Pepper about the situation.”

“Who’s Pepper?”

“His girlfriend, but also the CEO of SI.”

“He’s dating his CEO?”

“Technically they were dating before she became CEO. She’s put up with a lot of his shit before and after being placed in the position.”

“Why?”

“Because she loves him.” Natasha says it like it’s an easy answer. “Maybe you should talk with her when you have a chance. She knows that Tony isn’t easy to talk to but he’s worth it more than any of us.”

“Maybe.” You take a sip from your coffee, not wanting to admit that meeting your new to you father’s girlfriend wasn’t something that you were all that interested in.

“You don’t have to decide right now, but you’ll probably meet her eventually.”

“If it happens, it happens I guess.”

“You’d like her I think.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she doesn’t put up with Tony’s shit either.” Not wanting to hear about Tony much more you shrug.

“Do you want to see my favorite place in the whole city?” Natasha doesn’t ignore the fact that you’re changing the topic, but nods. You throw your book in your backpack, along with your earbuds, before swallowing the last bit of your coffee. “Come on! It’s right over here.” You motion for her to follow. Across the street, the red banner awaits you. You ignore the carts sitting by the door, wanting to show Natasha the inside beauty of The Strand.

“Wow, you know who would love this place? Steve.” Natasha says as she looks at the shelves that line the walls. Thousands of books fill the store and you could take hours looking at each and everyone.

“My Pops brought me here when I was like six and I’ve been coming here ever since. It’s the best place to find amazing books.”

“Where do you start looking?”

“Queer YA, always.” You answer without a second thought. “They always have something I haven’t read waiting there for me.”

“Lead the way.” Natasha motions forward, towards the rest of the store, not knowing where that would be, but is willing to follow you.

“Really? I’m not going to force you into seeing what I look at-”

“I want to see the things you’re interested in.” Natasha lets off a soft smile, similar to the ones she had given you last night when talking with you on the couch and you decide to just trust her.

“It’s upstairs.”

“Let’s go.” She follows you up the winding staircase towards the YA section. Even though both of you could have easily made jokes about the Avenger end cap that was meant to inspire reading about ‘Heroes Just Like You’, neither of you point it out as you walk towards the Queer YA table. Looking at the table, it’s easy to fall into the habit of looking at books and picking up ones that interest you- Love Simon, Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets Of The Universe, The Disasters, More Happy Than Not, Every Day, Darius The Great Is Not Ok,and so many others. Natasha eventually takes the books from your arms so you can pick up more.

“I need to pair down. I can’t afford all of these.” You say looking at the pile that has accumulated in her arms.

“Tony can. It’s fine. Ready to pay and head home?” Natasha asks.

“Wait what? I’m not letting him buy these.” You say defensively.

“It’s ok Y/N. You’re his kid and the price of these are pocket change to him.” She starts to make her way towards the staircase to head downstairs to pay.

“Natasha, no. I’ve known him for less than twenty four hours.

“He honestly would demand to pay for them if he was here. I promise, it’s ok.” Natasha steps down the first couple of stairs. “You coming? Or are there more books you want?”

“I’m done.” You say, not wanting her to purchase more stuff in Tony’s name. During the checkout process, you find yourself unable to find your voice as the total just climbs. The number is higher than you’ve ever seen it. Nana and Pops never would have let you spend this much money, but Natasha swipes a black credit card without second thought. You have a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach because of it. That much money could have paid for your Nana’s medicine for a month. And as much as you want the books, you know so many other people it could have actually helped and to Tony it was no big deal to drop this amount of money on this stack of books.

Walking outside of the Strand, you turn to make your way back to the four train when Natasha catches your arm. “This way Y/N.”

“The subway’s this way.” You point down the street.

“Happy’s picking us up.” You don’t say anything, but follow her. Private chauffeur when you have a perfectly working metro card makes no sense. You’ve been using the metro since you were a child, so stopping now makes no sense to you. Honestly, even though there can be weirdos on the subway, you love the feeling of the train moving beneath you. It’s a part of being at home. But maybe this is part of Tony’s whole not touching things that he doesn’t like public transportation? All you have to do is make it through the next two weeks of summer and then you’ll be back at school and hopefully he’ll cool off.

“Romanoff, Y/N.” Happy opens the door for the two of you to slide into the back seat. Natasha gives him that tight smile. And before you know it you’re in the elevator headed back up to the suffocating hellhole that is the tower. You shouldn’t be surprised to see that Tony is waiting for you when you step off the elevator.

“Never, ever shut your phone off like that again.” You roll your eyes, but start to walk away from him. “We’re not done talking Y/N.”

“I’m going to my room. Or is that not allowed now?”

“We’re having a conversation about the fact that you left without telling anyone and that you shut off a major communication device, so no you may not leave right now.” Tony’s face gets red as his anger enters his voice.

“I’ll put these in your room. I think you and Tony need to talk Y/N.” Natasha lifts the bag of books as well as takes the backpack from you. Instead of running to your room like you want to, you slam onto the couch, knowing that even if you did leave to go to your room, Tony would probably follow you.

“I know you’re not ecstatic about this new living situation, but we have to put some ground rules in place.”

“Ecstatic is the last word I would use to describe this.” You motion between Tony and yourself. “You’re treating me like I have no clue how to deal with the disease that I have been dealing with since I was four on top of the fact that you won’t let me walk around the city that I have lived in and traveled in since I was a child. You’re treating me like I’m new to all of this when really the only new thing here is you to my life.”

“Ok maybe I’m not handling your diabetes well. And I’ll work on that. But what you’re not understanding is that you are no longer Y/N Y/L/N. You’re Y/N Stark and there are a lot of people who would do anything to get their hands on you. Which means you can’t just wander the streets of New York without at least telling us where you went and shutting your phone off because it’s a safety issue. If you get hurt, that’s on me. And I’m not letting that happen.”

“People don’t want to get their hands on me. I’m a nobody.” You scoff.

“You’re the heir of Stark Industries. That doesn’t make you a nobody.” Tony runs a hand through his hair. “I didn’t explain that well enough but on your eighteenth birthday you come into a large fortune and then on your twenty first birthday or on the completion of college, whichever comes first, you have the opportunity to take over SI. That puts a large target on your back and I’m sorry about that, but I’m not sorry that I’m going to put your safety first.”

“I don’t want to run Stark Industries.” You say, the disgust at the idea filling your mouth.

“Then we will figure something out, but right now, keeping you safe is my number one concern. So you can not leave the tower without Happy. No more metro hopping, no teenage angsty storming out of the building, and 1000% no turning off your phone so I can’t read your blood sugars. Also your new phone will be here tomorrow.”

“What new phone? My phone works fine.” You casually don’t mention that you’ve had the same phone for three years, but that it’s worked just fine that whole time.

“I can’t have you using competitors’ products. You’re getting a Stark Phone tomorrow.”

“You just want it so your tech can override my settings.” You imply with a scoff.

“Not at all. I can’t have you running around with competitors’ products, especially when it’s being announced on Monday that I have a daughter.”

“What? Why?”

“Because there’s only so many times you can be seen leaving the Tower before people get suspicious. Plus Monday gives Pepper and the legal team to pull together an official statement from SI too.” You drop your head into your hands. “Talk to me kiddo. What’s with the defeated look?”

“We can’t wait until school at least starts?”

“Pep thinks the sooner we announce it the better.”

“Yeah well she never had to go to high school a week after it was announced that she was Tony Stark’s kid and the supposed to be inheritor of SI. I’ll never have a life again. I haven’t even told my friends yet.”

“You have time. Invite them over. They can come over for dinner tomorrow or something.”

“Ugh, fine.”

tags: @persephonehemingway @iamaunicorn4704 @furiouspockettoad @daughter-of-stark @eternalharry @huntective-kyeo

#peter parker #peter parker x stark!reader #peter parker x reader #peter parker fan fiction #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker fanfic #peter parker fan fic #Tony Stark #Stark Industries #stark!reader #tony stark can't be dead if you just don't let yourself believe it #peter parker x you #tony stark x daughter!reader #tony stark x daughter!you #imanativeofswlondondahling #becoming a stark?

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