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#it’s an interesting quote if nothing else

neerons · 2 days

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Some of Clavis Lelouch’s best quotes + Cyran's bonus quotes

"Tell me, Emma, what do you think is the best way to wake someone who's really bad at waking up? (...) That's right, you stab them." (—Clavis talking about Chevalier to Emma)

"Finding such a handsome man in your room is enough to leave anyone breathless. Take your time. I know I'm easy on the eyes. (...) Oh, nice reaction! There's nothing like a good AHHHHH to get me in the mood."

“I didn’t do anything. But next time, don’t be intimidated by these status-crazed nobles. You don’t owe them anything—not even a smile. If someone looks down on you, look down on them in return. Otherwise, your self-worth will start to plummet. Never abandon your self-respect just to calm the situation. I know you’re a wonderful person—I wouldn’t have chosen you as my wife if not.”

"You succumbed to delusion."

"You weren't paying any attention to me at all. I got so lonely, I almost died!"

"...I want to make love to you."

"I'll tell you a secret about Chevalier. You want to know right? I bet you do. (...) He likes romance novels, but the reason for that is... Me. (...) One day, I secretly added to his pile of books... I put a book that boasted its dewy, spicy romance in the pile."

"Haha! When you're as handsome as I am, you look good no matter what state you're in. You just need better understanding of aesthetics." (—Clavis to the "Obsidianite soldier")

"Haha! You don't need to apologize. Who says only kids are allowed to be bouncy? What's wrong with adults being genuine about loving the things they love?"

"Oh, the things you say! Don't you realize you threaten to unleash the beast that hides behind this gentleman's visage?" (—Clavis' thoughts about Emma)

"What a fool I was to think I was done falling in love with you. The depths I could fall for you seem endless."

“We can do it on the table, or by the windowsill again, if you like. Ah, but I don’t recommend the floor—not unless you’re into that.”

"Wait, wait, wait! (...) Chevalier, you cannot possibly be trying to replace the words 'I love you' with that one kiss. (...) Why else would Emma have dressed up so beautifully? It's all so she can hear you say those three words! (...) Yes, not all things need to be said, but there is a purpose in giving words to feelings. That's how you can bring them into the real world. Chev, you can't let Emma guess how you truly feel forever. Just tell her. (...) The average person can't read minds like you do. Don't assume that Emma knows everything just because you do." (—Clavis to Chevalier, in Chevalier's route)

"I would never allow my lovely fiancee to live a life of fear. And so I must take it upon myself to indulge her in a life of joy." (—Clavis' thoughts about Emma)

"I'm charming, aren't I?"

"Here you are, alone in a secret room with a handsome prince. Why are you only interested in those lifeless husks? (...) That's a little offensive, you know."

"Haha! Go to hell." (—Clavis to Chevalier)

"Goodness, I've never visited that bookstore, and to think it was hiding a gem all this time..." (—Clavis' thoughts about Emma)

"Dear me, it looks like they started running the second they spotted me. Haha! That's optimistic of them. " (—Clavis talking about Yves and Licht to Emma)

"You could at least call it artistic. My handwriting conceals talent that would surpass that of a genius artist. (...) It's readable. So long as you take the time to decode it! Haha!" (—Clavis to Jin)

"Ah... Hahaha! I can't believe you headbutted me! You should've slapped me, at least."

"There's no rule that says you have to drink alcohol once you come of age. That said, it might be more romantic to let you get drunk and then take care of you until you sober up. Wait here, I'll just get some—"

"Of course, I'm not trying to criticize your own personal standards for good and evil. But throughout our lives, we're constantly being confronted by our perceptions of good and evil. And there are times when we might regret it later, if we decide to be critical of something simply because 'it's evil'. Our own individual standards for good and evil may not always be aligned with the kingdom's standards for good and evil. And if that happens, wouldn't you want to remain true to your own standards? To what you believe is good and right?"

"So you're comfortable drinking. I'll keep that in mind." (—Clavis' thoughts about Emma)

"(...) I'm well aware that of all the princes, I was the one most loved by his mother. Although I suppose it's not really a surprise, given how adorable and cute I was. (...) Haha! Why are apologizing? There's no rule that says we can't talk about the deceased. And there's no need to feel guilty, either. I'm not some silly child who gets all worked up just from thinking about her." (—Clavis talking about his mother to Emma)

"I love drawing attention to myself, you know that. I wanted everyone in the palace talking about me, so I made it seem as if I'd gone missing." (—Clavis to Sariel)

"...You're surprisingly sweet on Emma, aren't you?" (—Clavis to Chevalier)

"Well obviously, because I like rabbits. And from what I know of rabbits... They may seem aloof, but they're actually very sweet and loving, and if you're lucky, they'll even let you see that side of them. I think they're adorable. And despite being delicate and easily frightened, they won't run from anything—they'll stand their ground and put on a brave face. I can't think of any other creature that instills in me such an urge to protect them. You see? Everything about them is lovable." (—Clavis talking about Emma secretly)

"But that's why Rhodolite is so well-balanced. If we all agreed with Leon, the kingdom would constantly be in danger from outside. If we all agreed with Chevalier, it would end up a dictatorship."

"You're about the only person who willingly visits the brutal beast's lair."

"Just so we're clear, this doesn't even count as a setback to me. I've tasted defeat countless times at the hands of a brother more beastly than anyone in Obsidian. I've never once made the right choice. I'm a loser, constantly making mistakes, and constantly being laughed at for them. (...) When you fail, it's easy to give up. It's easy to think your ideas are wrong, and yield to the right choice. But this is what I do. Every time I fail, I get up again, and I fight even harder, so that next time, maybe I won't fail. I don't care about what's right for the kingdom. I stay true to what's right for me, and that's the only way I've found any meaning in my life. Even if what I believe to be right and true is actually wrong, and even if I'm called evil and wicked for doing what I do... I'll fight against the brutal beast's methods with everything I have in me. And I'm not going to die until I've made him kneel before me, and accepted that my beliefs are just as righteous as his are. (...) And since I've spent my life tasting nothing but defeat, I think I can declare this with some certainty. So long as you go on living, you'll never really be a loser. Because there is no such thing. Even if you lost this time, you just have to win next time to be the winner. And if nothing else, you'd be able to die a prouder man than you will now. (...) Today's failures will lead you to tomorrow's hope. Always, as long as you don't give up. And that's why I'm going to get up and try again. What about you? Are you going to die a dog's death here?" (—Clavis to the "Obsidianite soldier")

"What a shame... Were my hands not bound right now... I'd already be making love to you."

"Haha! Not a chance. I adore her." (—Clavis denying disliking Emma to Gilbert)

Cyran's bonus quotes:

"(...) Prince Clavis lies incessantly, so feel free to ignore everything he says. (...) Everything. You've no need to be worried about his feelings, or even keep him company. And it might be in your best interests to refuse to eat any of this." (—Cyran talking about Clavis and his cooking to Emma, in front of Clavis)

"You're still half-asleep, aren't you? You're a disgrace." (—Cyran to Clavis)

"When we finally catch up to him, I think we should team up and give him a good scolding!" (—Cyran talking about Clavis to Emma)

"Since you left me behind like that, I've decided to hold a grudge against you forever. (...) Do it again and I'll throttle you, master or no. Just so you know." (—Cyran to Clavis)

"My Lady, I'm afraid that Prince Clavis's plan is truly stupid. A prince in his right mind would never even plan such a thing, and the average person would recoil in shock at the very idea of it."

"Prince Clavis, you can't just go casually tossing your head in her lap like that. My Lady, you're more than welcome to slap him awake at this point."

"(...) despite all that, there was one fool prince who stormed into the camp where the prisoners were being held. Yep, I'm talking about the idiot prince currently sleeping like a babe in your lap."

"From the way he acts, it's easy to mistake him for a fool and a scoundrel, but... at heart, he's the kindest, most compassionate man I've ever met." (—Cyran talking about Clavis to Emma)

"...So where is he, this handsome man? (...) ...You're a total mess right now, you realize. You look dreadful. Want me to get you a mirror?" (—Cyran to Clavis)

"My Lady, I truly am sorry, but... I've been ordered to inform you that, and I quote, 'your prince is in grave danger and needs you to rescue him! Ahaha'! (...) ...He insisted I include the 'ahaha' at the end." (—Cyran delivering a message from Clavis to Emma)

"Very well. I'll inform him that you said to die in pain and agony." (—Cyran talking about Clavis to Chevalier)

#as usual I might add more later #clavis lelouch #ikémen prince #ikeprince clavis #cyran rose #ikemen prince #ikemen prince quotes #ikeprince #cybird #cybird otome #otome game

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nykloss · 9 months

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One of the fun things about being a music educator AND being a Homestuck fan is that I have a very useless piece of knowledge in the fact that one of the Homestuck musicians apparently really liked a piece of popular high school band music. Nothing like listening to a Homestuck album and being like what the hell, I've played this.

#its teal hunter and celtic ritual. btw.#nothing wrong with quoting music by the way I think its transformative enough #but in no way a coincidence #at least in my mind #or at least a very very interesting one!#nyklos is typing #its also possible that BOTH these songs are quoting something else that im less familair with

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isabelguerra · 25 days

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Also, since you're taking requests for yule ball outfits, I have to do the obligatory thing and ask for PLEASEEEE if you have any ideas for Violet's yule ball outfit I would love to see them I love drawing Violet in fun outfits it is one of my main hobbies

Yes absolutely!!! I never talk about Violet or the supernormals and it's refreshing to get out of my comfort zone.

What attracts me to Violet is her sharp eyes, cool-and-stuff attitude, and casual goth motifs - like the skull with heart eyes on her gym shirt. So I'm dressing her in something laid back and effortless for an '80's Winona Rider meets menswear' look:

My top pick here is the Lindsey Wixson for Flair in fall 2012. Minus those heels. Yowch.

The patterns here plus the editorial makeup just do it for me, it's almost Bowieish. It combines 'OK how do I dress everyone with swag because they're wizards and it's wizard prom' with 'staying in character = would Violet be super flashy or well dressed in the first place'. Editorial shoots and couture usually work well here because they're outlandish more than stylish, which fits my vision for high wizard fashion. I went with purple because, aside from her name, it matches with how I dress Lisa in this scene and they go together.

The second screenshot selection gives me an idea of her costume if this event were just sliiiightly less fun and formal, aka slouchy ill-fitting suits. Ultimately I don't believe Violet would be too cool to not care how she looks, so I didn't pursue these options. I still like the black top left ensemble though!

#asks #junkthrillz #wizard au #to quote an old ask i wrote about this ages ago. we're not going for soft cottagecore or realistic looks for the illusion of normalcy #we're going for met gala over the top ridiculous. if it looks like i could see it on a teen on tiktok i'm doing a bad job.#yule isnt supposed to look good. yule is supposed to look INTERESTING. and - here i go - this is partially why isabel stands out.#her dress is very normal and is fancy but like in the way a wedding dress is fancy. and not even a cool wedding dress. its boring #so i make sure everyone else looks super cool and weird. because they deserve it #ANYWAY THANKS FOR THE ASK!! I don't know Violet that well so I hope you like it or i did a decent job. nothing beats putting girls in suits #honestly i might go back in with violet. i like this look out of all the ones i saw but i think i can do better. dress her weirder. hmm

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leatherbookmark · 1 year

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okay, it seems reading from the “oh dear all those people are so fucked up” angle paid off, i’m barely 41 pages in (vs the book’s 428, that’s Nothing) but look at this quote (pgs 39, 41-42):

It happened that there was a black mirror stand opposite Yuichi. The round mirror had been knocked askew by the robe of someone walking past it, but there on its back, as it were, it reflected full in the face of Yuichi. While they talked, Yuichi felt as if his own face stared at him from time to time.

(...) All the while Yuichi was taken with the face of the beautiful youth that stared at him out of the mirror in the lamplight. The deep, mournful eyes under the intelligent brows stared fixedly in hsi direction.

Yuichi Minami tasted the mystery of that beauty. The face he had always known, filled with the energy of youth, carved with the depth of masculinity, bearing the unhappy bronze substance of youth -- it was his own. Until now Yuichi had felt only loathing in his consciousness of his own beauty. The beauty of the boys he loved, on the other hand, filled him with longing. As men in general do, Yuichi forbade himself ever to believe that he was beautiful. But the fervent praise of this old man before him now rang in his ears; and that artistic poison, the powerful poison of his words, loosened those inhibitions that had persisted so long. He now permitted himself to believe that he himself was beautiful. Now for the first time Yuichi saw himself in all his beauty. Within that little round mirror appeared the face of a surprisingly beautiful youth he had never seen before. The manly lips exposed a row of white teeth that involuntarily broke into a smile.

#like hm! there is something! there is something there!#the tanizakicore of a man obsessed with a pretty young woman and deciding to guide her/raise her into his perfect woman But ending up #being the one owned/dominated by her... except here it's a young man instead of a woman. shunsuke (the old writer) plans to use yuichi #to take revenge on Women aka have him seduce them and then break their hearts BUT he ends up giving yuichi all his life's money before dying #as an extension there's the young attractive Observed person turning the gaze on themselves and discovering their powers (yuichi later has #flings with other men; when the one he's close with is jealous of the one who's just asked yuichi out and tells yuichi to not come to the #meeting but meet up with him instead; yuichi just... doesn't come to meet any of them)#there's also something i've noticed -- not in this quote but somewhere else -- about how loving men as a man is somewhat placed in #opposition to loving men as women do. there's nothing worse to a gay man than femininity! youichi even thinks to himself that 'if i; who;#though i cannot love women wish only to love women; loved this boy -- after all a man -- would he not become transformed into some #unspeakably ugly; woman-like creature?' this is in particular interesting re: mishima's other more autobiographic-like work of confessions #of a mask in which he talks about dressing as a female stage artist as a child and becoming obsessed with a beautiful knight -- but on the #other hand feeling deep disappointment and betrayal when said knight turned out to be joanne d'arc #so far we're not in Women's Thoughts yet so i don't know for how long i'm going to have patience for this book but. it is interesting #shrimp thoughts #liveshrimping

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roses-r-rosie3 · 3 months

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Buttons

Jason Todd x M!Reader

Warnings: Smut, Semi public sex, blindfolding, handjob, spit as lube,

Requested by anon:

detective reader with jason todd? the readers really good at investigating and have a lot of important intel on a crime boss that jason is also targeting, when the detective is alone in the office jason is waiting there in the dark ready to get some info, but the reader is very reluctant to give sensitive information to a vigilante. so jason fucks it out of the reader over his desk? until the reader is begging and babbling out information so easily also i'd say this is their first time meeting ok thanks have a good day/night

A/n: This was the fic I was talking about when I posted this 😭

Quote: “You know… I was just going to force you to give me the information, but it looks like you want me to fuck it out of you”

✁ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You were one of the best detectives in Gotham. ‘Why?’ You may ask, well it was because your skills at investigating. As a kid you always loved watching shows like scooby doo. You would constantly try to guess who was behind the mask (you were right most of the time). So it didn’t surprise your parents/friends when you got a job at the gcpd.

When you joined the gcpd, you were one of the youngest rookies at the time, so whenever you would try to input some of your ideas, your superiors would immediately shut you down. It wasn’t until you broke a career-defining case that you earned everyone’s respect, even Bruce himself was impressed. Because of that, you eventually became Gotham’s best and youngest detectives that there was.

So when news broke that there was a new crime boss in town, you were first on the case. However, Jason was also interested in this new Crime Boss, and he didn’t really feel like investigating, so he decided why not just try to get Information from you. Of course, Jason could’ve just asked someone like Tim but everyone else was too busy with their own problems that they didn’t have time for the Crime Boss.

Jason obviously knew about you, youngest detective in Gotham blah blah blah… but the problem was, the two of you have never formally met before. But who knows maybe Jason would get lucky and you would just hand over the information, even though Jason knew the chances were very low (but hey a boy could only hope).

You were in your office, staying overtime to investigate. It was currently 4am and your body was basically running on coffee. You were super invested in this case and nothing was going to stop you. However, you eventually decided to give yourself a little break to use the restroom and get some more coffee.

You said your ‘hi’s to your co-workers before walking back to your office. When got to the door you waved to everyone before walking in and closing the door behind you. After you placed your beverage down on your desk sensed someone behind you. You immediately pulled out your gun from your belt and pointed it at the figure.

“Who are you? And what are you doing here?” You asked.

“Damn, not bad detective” the figure chuckled.

“Answer me goddamn it who are you” you growled.

The figure walked forward, closer to the light in the office. The figure was revealed to be red hood. You knew who red hood was, I mean how couldn’t you know who he was! He was a famous vigilante and he made your job a lot harder than it already was.

“What are you doing here?” You asked, with your gun still pointing at him.

“I’m here because of the new gang leader in town” Jason answered.

“He’s a crime boss” you replied snarlingly.

“Yeah, yeah, you know what I meant” Jason rolled his eyes.

“What about him?” You said.

“I need you to give me some information about him” Jason replied.

“I can’t tell you that, it’s classified information” you said, gripping your gun tighter.

“That’s what I thought you would say, but I’m afraid I’m that I’m not taking no as an answer” Jason said as he walked closer to you.

“Stop! Don’t come any closer! I’ll shoot!” You said.

Jason let out a chuckle before quickly knocking the gun out of your hand. Jason started to slowly walk towards you, until you felt yourself bump into your desk behind you.

“What’s your answer now detective?” Jason said as he towered over you.

“No” you said, standing your ground.

“Why are you making this so difficult?” Jason sighed before he put his hands around your throat as he choked you lightly.

You tried not to make any noise, but a moan slipped out of your mouth as his grip tightened a little. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a bulge started to form in your pants too. Eventually you got so hard to the point where Jason could feel your cock rubbing against his.

“Oh, you pervert” Jason smirked behind his mask.

“You know… I was just going to force you to give me the information, but it looks like you want me to fuck it out of you” Jason whispered against your ears as he slowly started to rub your crotch.

“N-no it’s not like that, you’re not getting the information” you tried to say as he started rubbing your crotch at an even faster rate.

“Are you sure about that detective?” Jason chuckled as unzipped your fly and slipped his hands into your boxers.

You moaned loudly as Jason rubbed your tip, spreading your precum. You whined, bucking up into his hand. Your eyes hung low, squeezing shut as he brushed over your tip.

“It seems to me like you’re enjoying this quite a bit” Jason said as continued teasing you.

All of a sudden, Jason started stroking you fast and tight around your sensitive dick. You whimpered as he stroked your cock faster and faster. Just when you were about to cum, Jason swiftly pulled his hand away. But before you could even complain, Jason quickly took the tie around you neck and wrapped it around your eyes.

“Can’t have you seeing my face now can I?” Jason smirked under his mask.

Jason took of his mask and tossed it to the side before sloppily making out with you. You were completely under his control at this point, I mean you were completely blinded what else could you do (and it felt good too).

Before you were being bent over with your ass facing Jason’s direction. You shivered as you felt Jason pull down your trousers and boxers. Jason spit on his fingers and slowly inserted his fingers into your hole, smirking at your reactions.

You huffed, your fingers clawing the table and a tight sound escaping him as Jason pressed his slick fingers into your hole. When Jason felt like you were loose enough he pulled his fingers out and slowly started to pull out his cock.

You were now impatiently waiting as Jason took his sweet time. When you finally heard Jason pull his cock out, he started teasing your hole with his tip. You gasped as you felt his tip teasing your hole.

“Last chance to tell me the information before I destroy your hole detective” Jason said.

“I-I’m not telling you s-shit” you said, still trying your best to stand your ground.

“You brought this on yourself” Jason sighed as he pushed himself all the way inside of you.

Jason slowly started to roll his hips, hearing as you whimpered. He started pulled out slowly, but suddenly he harshly slammed back into you, causing you to let out a loud moan. Jason gripped onto your hips tightly, undeniably leaving bruises as he ruthlessly pounded into you.

Pleasure took over your mind as you were being ruthlessly fucked by Jason on your desk. You were trying hard not to moan too loud because your co-workers were right outside the door, and god forbid if one of them came inside your room. Jason however, did not like the fact you were trying to silence yourself, so he started thrusting faster and deeper, hitting your prostate.

While Jason was pounding you, he hit a particular spot that made you let out a loud moan. He smiled to himself before pulling out and then ramming down on the same spot repeatedly. You were a mess at this point, you were begging for him to fuck you harder as sweat coated your body. And before you knew it, you were mindlessly muttering out the information.

“W-warehouse… Ah! At- p-please~ M-Miller Harbor…” you mumbled.

Jason chuckled to himself. You, a detective with a phenomenal reputation, falling apart and becoming a whiny mess just because of Jason. You could feel ever pulsing vein on Jason’s cock as he fucked you.

You see, before this whole fiasco happened, Jason was doing some research on you. He found out all sorts of things about you, one of them being that you were in the running to be the next captain. So while he was thrusting into you, he thought why not taunt you with this information.

“Do you really think they’ll make you captain after this? Gotham’s best detective giving out information, just because he’s being fucked like a slut” Jason smirked against your neck.

You were as dicked down as one could be, the tie around your eyes was soaked in your tears, flushed cheeks, shaky legs, bruised hips, and covered in your own sweat. But you still managed to cling on to a bit of information, which was pretty impressive.

Jason could tell you were close, but he could also tell you still had pieces of information that he wanted. So he gripped onto your cock so that you couldn’t cum, and pounded faster. He pulled your hair so that your head was up against his shoulder.

“I know you’re close, so why don’t you just tell me a bit more information and I’ll let you cum detective” Jason whispered as licked up and down your neck.

You tried, you really tried to hold on, but the combination of Jason’s thrusts, and his mouth licking and biting at your neck and earlobe made you break.

“His first name is G-Gra-AH-nt, his last name is Mikhail, he came from R-russia and moved over to Gotham for weapon.. ngh… trading a drug deals j-just please let me cum!” You blurted.

“Good job, you earned it detective” Jason smirked as he started jerking you off at the same rate as his thrusts.

Before you knew it, you let out a loud whimper as you spilled your load all over Jason’s hands and your desk. Your brain was complete mush as Jason chased his release.

“S-so tight around my cock” Jason groaned.

Jason pulled your head towards his and pulled you in for a sloppy kiss as his one of his hands gripped tightly around your hips. He thrusted deeply into you, one last time before releasing his load into your wrecked hole.

Jason waited a moment to collect himself before pulling out. He chuckled as he watched his cum trickle out of your hole. He looked at his hands that was covered with your seed and tasted it.

“Damn, you got a pretty good load” Jason teased before cleaning both of you up.

After you were both cleaned up, Jason quickly left, leaving you there with the aftermath. You were too tired (your legs were too sore) to drive home at this point, so you decided to sleep in your office for the day.

When you woke up, let’s just say you were met with one of the worst days of your life. First, you had a really bad limp that would probably last weeks. Second, it turns out Jason took all that information and ended up putting the guy in Arkham Asylum. And third, he was getting all the praise for “solving the case all on his own”.

You were beyond angry. You had to get your payback somehow.

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randombush3 · 13 days

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you're not sorry to go

ona batlle x reader

summary: ona and you are best friends, but it's a bit more complicated than that

words: 4.5k

notes: this one is based on true events x

also let's ignore the result of my poll because i want the next part to have smut and it wasn't fitting with the vibe of this part

oh and the title is a quote from 'this side of paradise' by f. scott fitzgerald

January, nine years ago.

Nothing about today has been out of the ordinary.

The weekend is starting, winter drags on, and Ona is all set to train later on in the evening, provided you confirm whether or not you are willing to accompany her to the local pitch.

Barcelona B usually allows for Fridays off, but Ona isn’t stupid. No one becomes the greatest footballer of all time by not playing more. School is beginning to bore Ona to death, and she knows that she wants what she always has: to go professional.

“I have a plan,” she tells you confidently, glad you don’t mind sitting on the uneven, grassy sideline as she sets up her cones with determination. You hold the ball between your hands, though Ona is amused by how foreign it looks to you, and you seem to be holding her prized possession hostage so that she spills. “It sounds simple and obvious out loud, but it’s that I am going to play for Barça while you go to the university. You can introduce me to your smart friends so I can meet my wife, and you’ll have all the boys after you anyway so–”

“Ona.” Her monologue has led her eyes to the ground, but your voice makes her head jerk upwards, not needing much authority to get her to look at you. “I’ve actually had a… realisation, of sorts,” you say with a bashful grin, chin jutting out the way it does when you are gearing up to tell her something that no one else will get to know. “Your cousin is really pretty.”

“I’ll tell her you said that.” It’s a nice thing to say, and you are partly aware that Ona’s cousin knows who you are because she doesn’t shut up about you ever, but you can’t help the frustration that begins to bubble up inside of you.

“No, Ona,” you try again, “she’s really pretty. Like, I would kiss her.”

Ona frowns, then. “Don’t be one of those.” She means the girls who experiment, who toe the line of liking girls but don’t, not really. She has been warned about them by her older teammates, the ones who go out for drinks and kiss girls in clubs. The budding footballer really admires them, because their advice is always good and she gets to explore her sexuality without feeling like a creep. No one in Vilassar de Mar cares much that Ona does like girls, but it doesn’t stop her from feeling judged all the same.

You are one of her best friends, but Ona isn’t sure she can forgive you if you become someone like that.

“I’m not! I wouldn’t do that.” Your offence is suspicious, and you have been so caught up in destroying her worries that the ball has been dropped and is now rolling towards Ona’s feet, where it is instinctively flicked upwards and caught. “I wouldn’t, Oni, because I know it’s unfair to you guys.”

“But you want to kiss my cousin? That makes you interested in girls in general too, you know.”

You bite your lip.

“Ona, I think I’m gay.”

The ball is dropped, along with her jaw, and you shift uncomfortably in your seated position, not enjoying how big of a deal she is making this out to be.

People realise that they’re gay all the time! Why should it be any different for you?

“Oh,” is all Ona can manage to breathe out, wondering what to do next. Although your friendship cracks the padlocks of most secrets, there is one that hasn’t ever been shared. One that now means substantially more than it did five minutes ago.

“Say something, please,” you groan in mock annoyance, moving aside your textbooks so that you can grab Ona’s hand and pull her down on top of you. She is much stronger – she trains every day – but something about your skin touching hers injects a surge of patheticness into her well-earned muscles, and she falls, of course she does, because she always falls for you.

…

A year passes.

You kiss Ona’s cousin, as intended, and Ona knows the breakup is going to be rough but nothing prepares her for when it comes.

She’s conflicted, and she’s older now. No longer left behind by her teammates, Ona gets to go out with them when they don’t have football; she gets to talk to the girls about their sex lives, she gets to be involved in it all. She has met Alexia Putellas and been treated like an equal, and she made out with her fourth ever girl last week, this time progressing past tongues and confidently letting her hands roam.

Ona would say that she has learnt a lot since you dropped your nuclear missile, and she has managed to forget the initial hope she had felt. The secret had been near-faded.

Until you are calling her, sending her a text when she doesn’t reach her phone quick enough.

‘Ona, I really need you.’

She hears nothing from her cousin – they were closer when they were younger – and that, she reasons, is why she is by your side in an instant, meeting you at the windy beach you go to when you are sad, hair damp from running and eyes a little wide as she tries to wake herself up.

“She said she can’t do it anymore,” you whisper, voice cracking under the strain your sobs had put on it. “She said that she really likes me but that it’s not enough, and she doesn’t want to break my heart but she knows she has to.”

Ona doesn’t get a chance to respond, because you have flung yourself into her chest before she can think of the right words to say.

Your shoulders shake as you cry, devastating howling joining the whistles of the wind and the thrash of the waves. The sand is unsteady beneath your feet and you stumble, but Ona holds you firmly, as though she has only ever trained to hold you up. Though you feel her biceps, hard and significantly larger than the last time she had held you this way, you are too caught up in your first heartbreak to acknowledge the tiny, tiny spark between you.

As you cry and cry and cry, Ona can’t help but feel a little bitter towards her cousin. Clearly, your affection wasn’t false and, though it was working towards the severance of your friendship, you actually cared quite a lot for her.

Ona chooses to abstain from her jealousy because she is embarrassed that it is possible.

She is there for you the next day, ensuring you have eaten and allowing you to sleep, but the sun soon sets and Ona vows one thing to herself: she will not take advantage of it.

“I’m going home,” you mumble when you wake from your restless nap, rolling over into the empty space in your best friend’s bed. The sheets there are cold and unused. Ona must not have moved a muscle since you fell asleep. “My parents must be a little confused, and we have people coming over for dinner. Thank you for looking after me.”

“No problem.” Ona nods and you awkwardly stand up. “I think I’m going out with the team tonight, but don’t hesitate to call me if… Well, if you feel sad again.”

“It’s going to feel shit with or without you.”

You are trying to distance her, to tell her that she can have fun. It might be an issue that your friendship only seems to work when the two of you discuss your recent conquests or latest flings, but it is not one that either of you wants to address for now.

“I’m just making sure you know I’m here,” she defends indignantly, rolling her eyes at the glimpse of your happier self making its return.

“Are you going to be drunk?” Your question is pointed and you should really cross your arms and tap your foot impatiently to match your tone. “Don’t you have training tomorrow?”

“Maybe, and not tomorrow, no. I’ve been asked to join the first team the day after so they’ve given me an alternative rest day.”

“Ona, if you get drunk, you won’t be there for me at all. You’ll have your tongue down some poor, poor girl’s throat and your phone will be dead.” You laugh from experience, having grown accustomed to how she behaves under the influence. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I swear that alcohol is what fuels your hormones. I’m not going to burden you with my fucking pathetic crying, and, well, you know me, I’ll just find a boy to talk to. I am going to be fine.”

No one in the room is convinced.

You swat the air between you two, telling her to get on with getting ready. “Now, enjoy your night, and tell me all about it tomorrow morning!”

Ona wonders if you are over-compensating by insisting to hear about whoever she has gotten off with, but you are practically flying out the door the minute you have said goodbye to her family and she is stumbling around her room trying to find a clean bra. Life goes on.

If time did not tick on its own, one of you would task yourselves with turning the hands of the clock manually.

You try to recover from how much it fucking kills to have a girl break your heart by reminding yourself of your worth in the best way possible: male attention. They hound you, but you enjoy it. You crave it, most of the time, even if the feelings are never quite believably reciprocated.

It annoys Ona to no end, the way you play with the boys chasing after you. She hates the push and pull, fed-up with the constant complaining from your end. Often, because Ona speaks her mind when she can, she tells you that it’s not fair on the ones who hand their hearts to you only to watch you pierce through them with sharp, I-was-never-a-lesbian nails.

You don’t talk about her cousin. At least, not to Ona because you have been informed by some other friend that blood is thicker than water.

Or maybe it’s because Ona begins to avoid you, begins to spend more time with her teammates, who don’t hide their sexuality and who like the things she likes. (Once, in a hateful frenzy, Ona thinks to herself that the only thing the two of you have in common nowadays is that she likes you and you like you too.)

“What happened to your best friend?” Laia Aleixandri asks thoughtfully once after training. Ona is helping her collect the water bottles the other girls had left lying around on the pitch. There have been more injuries than what’s comfortable within the first team, and maybe some of the reserves have forgotten that they are not yet professionals. “You’ve stopped talking about her.”

“We’ve fallen out,” Ona answers, settling on that because she doesn’t know how else to describe the shift in your relationship.

“Over what?” comes Laia’s obvious sequential question, more a due dalliance than genuine interest. Laia is one of those girls who plays to play and can sometimes be too busy to spend time with the team outside of training. Because of this, she is largely unaware of Ona’s growing reputation within the squad. As Ona has grown up, her confidence has increased. Girls like that, and they are in plentiful supply to her. She no longer needs to be drunk, but something almost certainly occurs if she is.

“She dated my cousin and, I don’t know, the way she acted in the fall-out was horrible. She likes girls, I know she likes girls, but I think she has been scarred and her ego has been bruised. No boy has ever made her cry like that, and I think she’s traumatised. And it’s valid! I understand, completely and totally, but she is acting as though she never had a thing with my cousin and it’s annoying. It’s as if being gay is a joke to her.”

Laia senses that Ona’s not done, and she is correct to think so.

The next wave is this: “Laia, I really don’t agree with it, and it is hurting me. It hurts to see my cousin be messed around by a straight girl, it hurts to see my best friend hate part of herself, and it hurts me because, well, it just– it just does! I can’t explain it.” She can; she doesn’t want to. Her secret is still heavily guarded and it is going to take more than Laia asking about you to get her to confess. “I just want peace for everyone involved,” she says after taking a deep, diplomatic breath.

“Peace,” Laia repeats with a giggle. “Ona, the things I have heard about you are the opposite of ‘peace’. Aita’s been keeping me in the loop, and she says that–”

“Okay, Laia, I don’t need a lecture.”

What probably would have been very helpful for Ona to know is lost to the devastating final blow of her eye-roll as she jogs to the water cooler to return the bottles and head home.

…

The reconciliation of a decade-old friendship is fast and natural. Things do not quite go back to normal, and the two of you are not as close as before, but your group of friends at school breathe out a collective sigh of relief when the ice thaws and Ona starts to turn up to their gatherings instead of the ones held by her beloved blaugranas.

It’s a camping trip.

Their first year of bach has ended, and someone – Ona doesn’t know who – has suggested a camping trip because her grandfather’s brother owns a farm and the farm has a field and the field is far-removed enough for the smell of cigarettes and red-label whiskey to dissolve before reaching the house.

“Are we really going?” Ona asks, making you all laugh as you haul your bags and tents along the tractor path.

“I do think we should’ve gotten in the tractor,” you agree. Ona nods at you, thanking you for your support.

Everyone else says it’s good fitness, and then hurls insults at Ona for the remainder of the trek because she should be the last to complain if she is going to become a professional athlete.

It’s not as far as it seems, and the tents are set up quickly, along with some chairs, a foldable table, and a hefty stash of various bottles of alcohol.

You start smoking the minute someone flashes their lighter, and Ona uses that as a reason to stay on the other side of the small campsite for a good hour or so.

She stays away from you no matter how much you stare, but you watch her all the same.

The boys you talk to are not satisfying. Some may have innocent intentions but the majority don’t, and you know that you are pretty but you are not shallow like that. You don’t even meet the boys half the time unless they corner you at school and demand a slot of your in-person attention.

The boys you talk to explain football and the gym and why they have to play FIFA until the sun rises because it will definitely help Barcelona win on the weekend. They take you for an idiot, and they hardly acknowledge that your best friend (sort of) plays for their darling club so of course you know the rules and the positions. You know that Ona is a defender, and that she is good at it. You don’t want to be patronised and you don’t care about this kind of thing unless it involves Ona.

Therein lies the issue, actually.

You don’t care about much unless it involves Ona. Ona, who sways to the music bursting out from the speakers just as stiffly as she always has, not exactly blessed with dancing talent but not for lack of trying. Ona, who declines alcohol tonight because she is following a summer strength and conditioning programme with the hopes of playing in the first team’s preseason matches. Ona, who looks beautiful. Always.

Smoke billows from your cigarette, right towards the point of your focus, and, suddenly, doe-like eyes are staring back at you with a small, small smirk. She waves, as if to say that she has caught you, and you lean back on the camping chair you are slouched in, pretending to laugh at whatever your friend has just said beside you.

Later, when everyone else is knocked out from the bad quality of the whiskey, snoring comfortably in the other tents, Ona and you kiss. And once you start kissing, you don’t stop.

Ona is good at this, you assume, because she knows exactly what to do. Contrary to popular belief, you are far more active in theory than in practice, and she surprises you a little bit. Or maybe she doesn’t, because it’s Ona and Ona is good at everything.

You strive to match her, and you do by the time you finish school.

Sporadic, non-committal, and in complete disregard for your friendship, the arrangement of hooking up when you feel like it sees you out of Catalonia, with Ona naturally in tow.

Madrid CFF is happy to have her, and you quite enjoy the challenge of the Spanish capital. It’s not Barcelona, it’s not ideal, but change is good and you need space to explore who you are without watchful eyes and nosy gossipers.

Homophobia isn’t quite a thing in your family. Your parents are not radically against gay people. In fact, you’d say they are relatively supportive. However, that doesn’t stop you from feeling some discomfort. You lived through Ona’s struggle to come out, and her parents are ever more care-free than yours.

Madrid is a brand-new place, and word about how you are doing is easily controlled. Updates come from either you or Ona, and that means there is a filter easily applied to all anecdotes.

Your friends know about the sex, more or less. They know, they don’t approve, but they let you guys sort it out yourselves because everyone agrees that that is just how you and Ona are. They won’t understand it and they have given up on trying to.

Both of you make half-hearted efforts to separate the arrangement from your friendship. You don’t talk much afterwards until the other has left the realm of I-am-in-love-with-you. It’s nice to be in Madrid together, but you find different social circles soon enough and then you are reaching out more for sex than friendly activities and… You stop sleeping with each other upon the footballer’s request. She wants to focus on her career, on her success. She tells you over the phone because she cannot bring herself to end whatever occurred over the last two years in person, knowing that she’d take back her decision in a heartbeat. Ona really, really likes football, and she knows that she has to become obsessed with it to get to the top; more obsessed than she is now. How can she do that if you are distracting her?

You’re disappointed, but you respect her wishes.

Girls in Madrid stop seeming as shiny. The world is a bit duller, because although there had been no exclusivity between you and your best friend, there had always been that guarantee that the other would be ready and waiting. Your growing misery makes studying boring, and you find answers for your emotions in a science textbook, desperately running away from the obvious truth. Less sex means that you are unhappier. It’s biology.

It’s not a crush.

Not on Ona.

No.

And it’s certainly not this not-realisation that flies you to Milan the minute a modelling agency inquires about whether you have ever thought of, well, modelling. They scout you someplace random, and your mother claims that she could have helped you start your career earlier if only you’d have been interested.

When you explain to your best friend what you are moving for, she is oddly unsurprised and uncaring. Her reaction is sickening, because you’d have rathered her get an ego boost from having slept with a model than be so fucking apathetic.

“I’m going to Milan, Ona,” you repeat, just in case she has not heard you. “I’m moving. We did the trial shoots last week, and they loved me. They want me to update my social media and work on building up a following, and they said that I should start learning English because I might end up in New York.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.” She doesn’t sound like she means it, and you grow annoyed about how she is not even trying to sound enthusiastic.

“Can’t you be happy for me? Or is it only acceptable for you to have dreams?”

“I am happy for you, I just said that.”

“The words left your mouth, but they definitely did not come from your heart.”

“You’re being dramatic.” Ona rolls her eyes and the pent-up sexual tension builds and builds until the bottle it has been shoved into can no longer withstand the pressure. You haven’t argued since you moved to Madrid, which makes no sense considering you literally broke up – even if it absolutely wasn’t dating. Neither of you has processed your broken heart, and you’re pretty sure you are still too traumatised from the first girl you fell in love with to be capable of revisiting those kinds of emotions.

Ona hasn’t had sex in weeks, and it is affecting her performance. She can’t sleep if she has the energy she does, and she can’t get through her workouts because not sleeping makes her lose her appetite and then she does not have the energy to complete them. Her coaches are worried, but they know that she is young and though almost idiotic, they mostly assume that she is repulsed by the idea of playing for a club in Madrid. They get that a lot with the Catalans that come over from La Masia, whose dreams have been delayed because the first team had thought it necessary that they gained more experience elsewhere.

Ona has wanted to shout and scream every minute of every day, and so have you. Therefore, everything explodes.

…

You inhale deeply, exhaling when it feels as though some of the stress has dissipated. This casting is one of the more important ones of the week. It’s odd to be judged on your appearance, to be paid for it, but it has been almost a year since you moved to Milan and you are enjoying yourself.

You don’t miss university, and you don’t miss your parents. Your friends visit you lots, loving the idea of your career, loving the excuse to escape their dreary weekends in where they have always been.

Milan is great. You make friends with a few other models, though they come and go depending on work, and the more experience you get, the more your following count goes up. Brands send you things, nice things, and events start extending invites to lure you into the glamour of the industry.

Milan is great, you tell yourself on repeat.

Milan is great, but it would be better if Ona were here.

Milan is great, but you regret the way you left things and want to take it all back.

Milan is great but–

“Your fitting is tomorrow,” says the assistant, reading off her iPad. You suppress your wandering thoughts, nodding. You need this job, you need the money to pay for a flight. The agency has given you some advancements – an impressive thing, apparently – but not enough to cover the cost of the ticket to New York for the start of Fashion Week. This show will fluff out your experience, and increase your chances of walking at one of the bigger shows.

You’ve been told that you are quite a good model; attractive, funny, with just the right amount of personality to be both a mannequin and an interesting figure.

The lifestyle is different but good, and you realise that you’d never wanted the mundanity of studying and then working and selling your soul to some kind of tall office building. Not everyone gets the concept of living away from home, especially not those from your tight-knit community who think the city is stretching the distance slightly (the train works, you can live with your parents and have a good job – you’ve been told that a few times), but you don’t mind. You can explain it as much as you want and they would still be confused.

You stay in touch, but you don’t stay present.

As your career snowballs over the next two years, you pull away from your home, always on a flight, always busy. You go to LA and Paris and London, and you rent your flat in Milan out as an Airbnb whenever you’re not there. You love the city, you start to think of it as yours, and slowly but surely, everything else fades into the background.

Apart from Ona, of course. Your friends still visit, or you meet up with them if you ever find yourself in Barcelona, and they continue to affirm just how proud they are of you. They talk about her a lot, too; about where she’s playing now, about injuries and fame and representing Spain. They know you are too stubborn to search it up for yourself, but these are the people who have grown up with you: they know you would like to be informed.

When you hear that Ona has moved to Manchester, you don’t quite think your actions through.

You have had enough. You miss her terribly.

Her number has changed, but someone passes it onto you.

You: I saw that you’re playing Arsenal next week. I’ll be in London then. Do you want to get a coffee?

Ona takes her time replying, but that is only because she wants to delay the inevitable.

Her eyes shine and her hair is damp, but the kick-off had been early and you don’t have anything to do today. You meet her in the carpark, picking her up in a black BMW that’s sleek and shiny and 100% not yours. Her laugh is light and free as she knocks on the driver’s window and juts her thumb out, instructing you to swap.

“I’m not getting in a car that you’re driving,” she declares seriously, though you know she has forgiven you because she would not have agreed to meet if she hadn’t. “Come on, I checked on Maps and there’s a place not too far from here that looks nice. And it’s empty, so don’t worry about the paparazzi.”

“The paparazzi are not after me,” you shut down quickly, not wanting her to think you are a bigger deal than what you are. Successful, yes. Famous? Not so much. “One day it’ll be you worrying about them, when you’re all grown up.”

“I’m twenty-one!”

It comes out so whiny and childish that you burst into a fit of giggles. Ona is proud to have made you laugh.

You don’t kiss her, but you’d like to. Then again, maybe it’s better to just be friends.

#woso x reader #woso #woso imagines #ona batlle x reader #ona batlle #barca femeni #randombush3 #pretend it's not all build up #but it is

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megumishotgf · 2 months

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pov: megumi has a crush on you

summary: more megumi headcanons i fear… ya’ll like my texts way more so this is definitely written for me.

warnings: reference to catcalling? other than that sfw + gender non-specified!!

masterlist

reserved! megumi who takes his time getting to know you. he studies all your qualities and aspects personality as if one day he’ll be quizzed on your features. megumi admires your ambition and drive but most of all your tenderness and selflessness. he’s drawn to people with good and expressive hearts. people who like to help others and perform nice gestures just because they can.

attentive! megumi who focuses diligently when you’re speaking, concentrating on every single trivial detail, even those that slip absent-mindedly past your lips without much thought. he listens to you ramble on and on about your interests yet it never bores him (and he gets bored of people alright). speaks so softly with you in a tone that surprises everyone around you (mainly nobara and yuji who have never seen him so interested in another human before… he’s always this soft to animals, though).

nerdy! megumi who prefers reading non-fiction but will pick up your favourite fantasy novels just because he wants to feel close to you. seeing your eyes light up when he mentions the titles to you makes his heart swell. highlights his favourite quotes and annotates in between pages. he’ll share them with you, gaze fixated on you as your eyes scan over all of this thoughtful comments. you feel such genuine happiness knowing he has gone so far to do this for you.

sappy! megumi who picks up one of your romance suggestions next, finding himself relating to the hopelessly enamoured protagonist. again, he annotates his copies and scribbles exclamation marks when he comes across passages that resonate with his growing feelings for you. doesn’t show you these ones, of course. at least not yet.

shy! gumi who admires your kindness from afar. all the little things you go out of your way to do just to help someone else. when you assist yuuji in the kitchen with his high-protein meals or paint nobara’s nails with great precision. when you’re the first to offer your seat up for an elderly woman on the metro or when you bounce out of your seat to help your teachers carrying piles of school documents.

observant! megumi who notices all of your little habits. the kind of things that make you feel so loved and cared for when he mentions them back to you. those things that no one else really noticed even if you badly wanted it to be seen.

love-sick! megumi would configures multiple playlists about you. one playlist containing all your favourite tracks and another with all those that you recommended to him directly. the type to listen to ‘i wanna be yours’ and fall asleep to thoughts of being with you. so many random romantic playlists often come up on his spotify profile. one time he made you a physical mixtape. yes, it was mostly just love songs… you swore it was just a coincidence. mostly.

insecure! megumi who constantly thinks he could never be good enough for you. dismisses your concern when you notice him distancing himself (because somehow you can distinguish between this and his usual quietness) but can never fully push you away. feels his heartbeat accelerate when you offer him physical comfort (with less reluctance than with anyone else). hugs from you are so comforting.

touch-starved! megumi who craves your physical affection all the time and it gets very noticeable. his arms instinctively circle around your waist whenever you greet him, rushing over for a hug. at first it was always you initiating the affection, but it’s starting to feel so natural reciprocating it. your hand will subtly slip into his when you are walking around central tokyo together or you’ll cling onto his side for comfort and warmth. he worries that you’ll be able to hear his obnoxiously loud heartbeat when you do so, but nothing could make him pull away.

annoyed! megumi who glares at his friends when they tease him about your physical affection (or when they hear your nicknames for him). but at least they have the decency to wait until you’ve left, he thinks. i give them one more week, yuuji says to nobara as megumi walks away in the same direction you just went.

if looks could kill… nobody would want to experience angry! megumi. even yuuji and nobara started to feel unsettled seeing him like that after some old loser started to catcall you. you had barely registered what was called out to you before he fearfully disappeared around the corner.

kind! megumi who opens his arms for you when he sees you’re upset. sometimes struggles with verbal comfort, but he remembers how nice it is to be hugged by you, so surely this should help. it does help - and he feels his heart swell when you thank him for being there for you.

even more nervous! megumi who finally musters the courage to confess his feelings for you. rehearses the speech in his head (and surprisingly to yuuji) tens of times only to be left astounded after you make the confession first. finally kissing you felt like the sun rising after months of darkness.

megumi who has infinite amounts of layers!! getting to know him is truly a magical experience. ultimate green flag he is perfect end of discussion!!

haven’t published anything in so long… hey ya’ll. how is everyone doing. pls send requests i am out of ideas!!

#jjk x reader #megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #fushiguro x reader #megumi comfort #megumi headcanons #megumi my beloved #jjk drabbles

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kiirotoao · 2 months

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No but holy shit the implications of “I think there is someone he likes, because he has been acting… weird.”

Just imagine El’s confusion over her brother. California is obviously not that great for the Byers. In that very intro scene, we see El making her diorama (which, as sweet and lovely as it is, it ends up getting nothing but ridicule in school), Joyce getting frustrated with a client, Jonathan hurriedly hiding the fact that he’s smoking weed; things are not picture perfect. But Will? Will’s in his own world, in a dreamland of his own, holding to his friends and his life back home by painting it with a focused and tender look in his eyes.

While everyone at home openly struggles with something, our first glimpse of Will this season is something precious and untainted, a struggle that doesn’t develop until much later when he chooses to face his feelings.

We never see Will acting, quote, “weird.” Will has never really been a character that we see out loud. It all lies underneath. It always has. And when I think about that underlying struggle and yet deep fondness, it just. God, it breaks me.

Imagine Will months prior, starting up this project. He picks out a giant canvas, a page that covers his entire easel. Maybe this is his first time using paint as his medium. Maybe not. But whatever the weather, it’s bigger than anything we’ve ever seen him craft. Ever.

Imagine El’s excitement. She learns that Will is a great artist, and she knows it the minute he shows her a single piece. After that, she’s interested in his art, and yet… it’s at the worst time, because he doesn’t let her into his room, anymore. But she knows that he’s working on his easel day in and day out. The minute he’s home from school, he’s playing music, painting again. Maybe he throws out one or two torn-up drafts. Maybe he skips dinner over it. Maybe he ends up so tired that he’s fallen asleep with paint on his face and doesn’t even know it until she points it out.

She’s impressed and she wants to see what he’s doing, especially because he seems so passionate about it all the time, but he never lets her. He bites his lip and shakes his head. He guards it with his very life. And El is left wondering what has him acting so secretive. So nervous. What is the emotion, where is the energy coming from?

It’s out of place. It’s weird when moving to California isn’t as fun as whatever is on that canvas’ face.

So it must be love. Of course it is. Of course it’s for someone, some girl. What else could it be? What else would make Will seem that out of place, seem that… crazy?

And for all of it to be happening upward of six entire months? That painting didn’t take a day or two, I mean, look at it. It must’ve taken him weeks to get in every detail.

And all of it. Every little smile. Every dreaming thought. Every ounce of passion. Everything. Was because of Mike.

God.

#byler #the screaming and crying genre of byler #I had a good but exhausting day and I guess I’m here now #send help #will byers #byler analysis

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dmbakura · 5 months

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OK so I want to stress that this is NOT a slight against OP of this post or how they feel about the way the game presents certain options, but I've seen sentiments like this before and I feel like people still aren't quite grasping WHY the game doesn't allow the option to do a "slow burn romance where you can show him you truly care about him beyond sex" if you ascend him. So I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about Astarion's route and objectification, and the very intentional limitations of player choice regarding the ascension path.

Objectification is the act of degrading someone to the status of a mere object. It often involves a sexual component, but not necessarily. It's reducing someone to being a tool or toy, as if they have no feelings/opinions/autonomy of their own. In Astarion's case, his objectification is very much tied to his sexuality, but also his own views on power and control, and how that reflects on both him and his romantic partner.

I think people get too fixated on Welch's quote "it's reducing your relationship with him back to being a kink/form of gratification... it's very much admitting you failed to think of him beyond a sex object" and take this as commentary or judgment on the players choices, when it isn't actually that. It's quite literally the story that is baked into the route and Astarion's character as a whole. There are obviously reasons to ascend him that have nothing to do with how you personally feel about him as a character, ie you want stats, you think it's just more fun, or interesting, or you like the tragedy, etc but in regards to the story itself? It's actually more commentary on how Astarion views himself more than anything else. He is an intentional subversion of the seductive vampire trope. You cannot engage with his story without interacting with this aspect of his character.

Even if you had a dialogue option to try and initiate a romance with him without that first night of sex, Astarion wouldn't take it. If you had a dialogue option to "show him you cared and want to protect him" he would either scoff at it or get angry, as he does if you try and express similar sentiments about protecting him from Cazador. He doesn't want to be coddled. He doesn't trust mindless heroism or altruism. He initiates sex because he uses it as a tool for manipulation and insurance of his own safety. You can either play into that manipulation or don't (and he seems to respect you more if you don't, which says a lot about his self worth). You can't initiate a slow burn romance because Astarion is so distrustful of EVERYONE and has no ability to conceptualize genuine care at this point in the game due to his mistreatment as a vampire spawn. This is an incredibly important aspect to his character and to change the foundation of this is to rewrite his character entirely.

(There is ONE exception to this: Karlach. Karlach is the only character that can initiate more of a slowburn with Astarion and won't sleep with him the first night because she quite literally, physically can't. And Astarion doesn't immediately accept this either. He belittles Karlach, to the point of calling her frigid and basically defective, wondering if he's wasting his time, before she chews him out for being an asshole. Again, he has no idea how to approach a relationship without using sex as a transaction and it shows. He only goes along with it because he quite literally cannot do his normal routine. This is the only reason he won't start a relationship with Karlach using sex.)

So anyways, that choice at the start? The way Astarion's romance initiates on the first night? It intentionally parallels the way ascended!Astarion will offer you an ultimatum: become his spawn or leave him. At the start of the game, Astarion intentionally plays into the sexy vampire trope to get what he wants, is highly paranoid, afraid and distrustful of everyone. At the end of the game in the ascended route... he's intentionally playing into the sexy vampire trope, is highly paranoid, afraid and distrustful of everyone, only this time he has power to back him up. Nothing about his views has been fundamentally challenged if you ascend him; he's completely validated in his beliefs about power and control and entirely in the mindset that he has no value without becoming the ascendant.

It's not about whether you personally find him sexy or not. It's not about having sex at this point. It's not about you or your character. Astarion objectifies himself, fully playing the only hand he knows (as he himself puts it) because that is all he knows how to do. In the ascended path, he has been shown no other option. Your character, good intentions or not, has not given him the tools to see himself as anything else. There is no way too make himself see himself as anything else, except by not ascending him! Either you let this man degrade you as he degrades himself, or don't. That is the option provided, and anything otherwise wouldn't make sense without rewriting his character completely.

Do you value what he actually wants (freedom) or do you value what he says he wants (power, because he views it as the only way to get that freedom)? To me the game makes it obvious (ESPECIALLY with the newly added epilogue) that walking in the sun again or gaining the power of the vampire ascendant aren't the keys to Astarion's happiness. Stuff like that, while nice, doesn't magically grant him peace and it's not a substitute for character growth and self reflection. It honestly just feels like people want the personality and development of spawn Astarion but in the ascended Astarion path, which doesn't make any sense with the way the story unfolds.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that objectification can be more than just seeing someone as a sex object, and doesn't necessarily have to do with sex itself. It can tie into views about power and degradation and a lack of self respect. Furthermore, it's not the game telling you you're a bad person or some sex addled freak if you ascend him, it's asking you to engage with what Astarion's personal story can say about sexuality, cycles of abuse, trauma and recovery - for better or worse.

#astarion #ascended astarion #again i feel like people are less interested about what it can say as a story #and more interested in projecting whatever their personal RP is onto the game #which i should clarify i think is fine in transformative work #but if it's to the point where you feel the game is calling you out specifically maybe interrogate why you feel that way?

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scar-lie · 2 months

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Save us [Natasha & Scarlett]

Summary : You're tired of fighting, you're losing hope and giving up for your relationship with your two girlfriends who don't want to fight for you

Pairing : Natasha Romanoff x Female!Reader, Scarlett Johansson x Female!Reader, Natasha Romanoff x Scarlett Johansson

Warning : Arguing

Word count : 1,723

No one has permission to repost my work anywhere, if you see it please let me know.

You rub the side of your eyes, getting stressed by the endless argument you have had with your two girlfriends for four years now, and you're losing hope; you're losing everything you have to give for them the further you three argue.

You're getting tired and drained from giving all you have to them without receiving anything back. It feels like you're playing house with them, where they're going to need to go or get tired; they’ll just leave without considering you or your feelings, while you're left without anyone but your thoughts.

“Why can't you fucking understand that?! There are things that're more important than staying here. To what? ...to stay here, so you wouldn't mope around about how sad you are alone! "Natasha screamed, getting frustrated and irritated by the simple things you're asking, and so was Scarlett.

“I do; I do understand what you're pointing at, but you're not listening." You quickly shut your mount when Scarlett interrupts you, so you put your hand to your face, covering how broken you are.

“I act for a living, Y/N. This is what I do before you come into my life; this is my life. I can't just say to them, "Sorry, I’m going to be gone for a week or two; my girlfriend wants me to stay in.” That's not how fucking works.” They are ready to leave, bags already packed, already dressed up; only this argument is making them stay.

“And I save lives for living, so I can't just stop taking a break; just fucking think before you become selfish,” Natasha screamed, slamming the door shut on her way out.

“Not everything is in your favor, not because you're our girlfriend; you can just decide or dictate what we're going to do; you're just our girlfriend,” Scarlett followed suit, leaving you completely alone in your shared home, the one they bought because of how welcoming it is, how the house welcomes the natural light, how peaceful the place is, the big backyard where you're obsessed with growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables—this house is just perfect for their liking and yours. That's why they surprised you with the house.

This is your mark of a happy life ahead of you, and this is the house. That's why they surprise you with the house. “This is our mark of a happy life ahead of us,” “and this is our house that we will make happy memories,” they quote.

But now you're asking yourself if this house makes you three happy anymore—the same house the three of you are planning to have a family with and grow old with until your grandchildren drag your ass out to the backyard to play or do something interesting.

You're losing hope that this relationship will be the same; you're falling into a deep hole further and further down until you reach the peak, where there's no way out if you keep pushing yourself to them.

You're body collided in the soft mattress, your sobs are getting muffled by the pillow you're hugging—their pillow to be exact—soaking it with your tears, all the pent-up frustrating, sleepless nights, the feelings you're bottling are now erupting, making your body shake while crying, not caring if the neighbor can hear you—it's just all too much.

You have nothing else to give anymore; you're drained and done with months of arguing and please them to give you at least a little bit of their time, to put you in their first priority. You're tired of forgiving them over and over again, and you don't think you can open the door to let them in one more time. You have no cards to give to them anymore; all the best cards are already used.

They are again saying how sorry they are and how they are going to make it up to you—key word make-up "sex"—through text the next day, but you can't find any word to reply, so you stick with “ok, it's fine," laying your phone face down on the couch while watching some random movies, rom-coms, TV series, or just anything that can pass your time since you don't have anything to do.

But this doesn't sit right with Natasha and Scarlett, waiting for further massages that never come, or maybe they are waiting for your caring self to text them how they are doing, asking if they already eat or how's their day, or maybe they are waiting for your rambling or complaining about how’s your day goes, or how boring it is that your friends are being bitchy on the internet.

but that never came even in the following days; all they got was a short reply and a cold shoulder, making them uneasy through the next few weeks until they got home, worried and hopeful that once they step in the front door, you're going to throw yourself into them like you always do.

"Darling, we're home! "Natasha and Scarlett shout, dropping their bags in the hallway and locking the door.

“In the lounge,” you reply back, not bothering to stand up to great them properly, you're just sitting there in front of a TV while scrolling through social media.

“Hey, there's no kisses or hugs? "Scarlett sat down next to you, so you kissed her on the cheek, doing the same thing to Natasha when she sat on the other side, mumbling, “Welcome home,” then go back, scrolling down through your phone.

"Hey, stop giving us a cold shoulder; we're here. Isn't that what you want? "Natasha whispers softly, caressing your exposed thigh while trying to read you while Scarlett lays her head on your shoulder. The moves you know from the back of your hand indicate they want sex.

“I’m not in the mood.” You push Nat's hand and Scar's head gently, then stand up, going up to your shared bedroom.

“I think we should give her some space for now,” Scarlett whispered, following you with her eyes and sighing in frustration.

“She's just being dramatic, Scar; she's come running to us eventually,” Nat dismissed, going in the kitchen to drink some water and hoping there's food but finding nothing, so she looked back, giving Scarlett a smile, shaking her head while chuckling.

“Fine, what do you want? "Nat gives her a smirk, knowing her way to get her to cooking.

" Pasta, please” With that, they both chat in the kitchen, catching up and having a little fun like they always do right before you come on the picture.

Hearing them giggling and chuckling from the bedroom makes you hate yourself because they are happy without you, they can go to their day without you, and you hate how they can just continue their day without bothering if you're okay or include you.

So in the end, you just move to the farthest room, which is the guestroom. You three didn't use it much, but these past few months, Natasha and Scarlett have usually used it since you three were always arguing and they ended up sleeping in the guestroom while you're alone in your shared bedroom.

But as each day passes, you're feeling yourself uninterested. Sure, you three interact, but not like before, and today is another argument in Natasha and Scarlett’s minds since they need to go again.

“We're heading out now; be safe here.” Natasha kisses your forehead, followed by Scarlett, and you hum, continuing to read your book.

"Ok,” you simply reply, which sends a shiver down their spine.

“Ok? Aren't you going to tell us how workaholic we are? How come we don't spend time here anymore? Leaving you alone, aren't you going to ask us to give you some of our time? "Scarlett frowns while standing, and Natasha thinks the same way, waiting for your answer.

"No,” you're unbothered; not even a single emotion is showing in your face; you're just calm.

“Why? "You shrug at Natasha's question, turning to the next page.

“Why? "You chuckle sarcastically, making Scarlett uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to another and picking her skin, making Natasha step forward to stop her from getting herself hurt.

“You mean ‘begged you for your time? ’, what's the point? To make myself look desperate? Needy? Selfish? Self-centered? "You shake your head with a scrawl face.

“No thanks, plus whatever I say or do will never stop you from leaving or doing what you want; if you want to leave, then go leave; I don't care anymore.” Their hearts both sank down to the pit of their stomachs.

“Like you always say, what you do is more important than being with me for a few minutes, so I’m saving both of you and me the energy you needed for something and time.” Scarlett held Natasha's arm tightly, finding herself starting to have an anxiety attack, but Natasha was rubbing her back. Natasha felt hurt and worried that they pushed you too far.

Sure, she dearly loves Scarlett. I mean, they're already in a relationship when you join the couple, but that doesn't mean she loves you any less. You're the heart of this house; you're keeping them in their toes; you're their center; you're their foundation that's keeping everything in their surroundings magical; you're their Alice in their Wonderland; the apple in their eyes; their home in their heart; and their key to their locks.

In short, they couldn't function without you; you're the center of everything to them, so this makes their world turn upside down, but in a bad way.

“I-I wanna stay……I-I’ll just call to have at least 2 weeks leave,” Scarlett mumbles, getting lost of words, and all she can think about is being with you, to cuddle you, kiss you, hug you, and just be with you, and so does Natasha.

‘I-I wanna….stay too,” but before they can dial a number, you quickly stop them.

“Oh no, please don't. Don't let me hold you back. Just because I speak what's on my mind, please do leave and go on with your week.” You give them a tight smile, then go back to reading.

But the two shake their heads no, wanting to be as close to you as possible, but before they can approach the bed, their whole world crashes into pieces.

“Besides, I’ve fallen out of love.”

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanova #natasha x reader #natasha x y/n #black widow #black widow 2021 #marvel black widow #natalia alianovna romanova #natasha x you #natalia romanova #scarlett x reader #scarlett johansson fanfic #scarlett johansson fanfiction #scarlett #scarlett x y/n #scarlett johansson #angst

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nohaijiachi · 6 months

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Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:

1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.

More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.

That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.

So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.

2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.

So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside

A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.

This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.

To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.

It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.

But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.

I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.

I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.

Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.

Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.

I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.

That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.

But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.

For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.

And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.

So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.

He is a contradiction.

This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.

Why is that? Well. He's an angel.

Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.

Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.

So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.

What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.

And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.

What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.

Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".

And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.

Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.

I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.

But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.

If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.

To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.

He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.

He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.

The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.

By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)

Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.

Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.

And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.

To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.

All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.

And I love him for it.

So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.

Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜

#good omens #good omens 2 #meta #aziraphale #I love one(1) hypocritical angel #flaws and all #I want to create an Aziraphale protection squad sometimes

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boyfhee · 11 months

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FAIR AND SQUARE › lhs

SYNOPSIS › one thing about life— it's unpredictable. for example, you made a note to yourself about not associating too much with heeseung for your own peace of mind, letting him stay as the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, except one thing leads to another and you find yourself face to face with the said man with your feelings all over the place. a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition, let the game begin.

WORD COUNT › 20.2k

GENRE › academic rivals / friends to lovers, mutual pinning because they're just competitive and oblivious ft in denial, fem reader, quite the 'he fell first but she fell harder' thing eye guess . . .

WARNINGS › mentions drinking, sheds light on family issues ( mostly on the reader's side ) bruise and injury, slightest of angst, arguments, suggestive ( fourth section, towards the end ) profanities, let me know if you spot more

PLAYLIST › tune in for a better experience

NOTE › i love this fic with all my heart and lungs, even more. anyway, i'm sorry to academic rivals fans, this doesn't have academic blood and gore, as quoted by my dear mai. SPEAKING OF MAI EVERYONE THANK @maiverie FOR BETAREADING THIS FIC!!!!!! im not lying when i say i wouldn't have finished writing this yesterday if it wasn't for her, like thank u for ur super helpful review that got my brain juices flowing :< luv u fr. ALSO both heeseung and reader are taking post grad course so of course, they're aged up ( no ages specified ) have fun reading.

I. BANE OF EXISTENCE

one thing about life— it’s unpredictable.

for example, you’re in the library writing and reading papers on the topic you love, the one that you’re supposed to enjoy and the one that will become the reason behind your earnings in the near future, but here you are, sitting with a headache and a cup of coffee on the side. who knew the subject you've liked since grade one will betray you and become the potential bane of your existence? not you, surely enough. wednesday noons are for basketball matches, which explains why the library and hallways are quieter and emptier than usual. even the teachers make time for the tournaments off their busy schedules, it’s understandable— your university is known for having one of the best sports teams in the league, and the basketball team being the defending champions does nothing but fuel the pride of students and staffs as if they’re the ones on the court, trying to get the ball in the basket.

you wouldn’t say you don’t like being a part of the crowd because you’ve been to the badminton tournaments and know that watching matches is as interesting as playing, if not more. you just don’t have the time to attend any. with assignments piling up and exams ‘round the corner, you’d rather spend your last two months of the semester studying instead of yelling at the bleachers. you can always get the recordings if you ever feel like watching one, as for the results, the word goes around faster in your department than anywhere else, all because of one of the students being on the team.

you try focusing, you really do, but your cup is just as empty as your brain and your phone is going up with notifications. you don’t see the point of miyeon spamming the gc with updates on the match when everyone in the group, except you, is with her, watching and cheering alongside. muting is a choice which you choose not to do, and the reason is between you and god, to be honest. long story short, it’s the lack of motivation clogging your thought process and the realisation that your friends are out there enjoying themselves unlike you is blocking any means of logical thinking. a day or two spent not studying wouldn’t make you fail the classes, and even if the guilt is pooling inside, you pack your stuff and walk out of the library, making your way to the indoor basketball court.

the screams grow louder as you approach, each step reminding you that you still can go back as you choose to ignore it. exams can wait, you tell yourself, a day to myself can’t. your mother would tell you to take breaks and go out instead of studying all day, but being on top is an addiction. it’s no good, you wish other students would believe you, it’s a struggle, on the top, at the bottom, everywhere. you expect to turn a few heads as soon as you walk inside, which doesn’t happen, but you expected it. you don’t watch matches, this could easily be your third or fourth one, and the first basketball match, to be more specific. once you realise that everyone is busy watching the plays instead of noticing who comes and goes from the court, you make your way up to the one friend you manage to spot amidst the crowd— sung hanbin. indoor bleachers feel more compact than the outdoor ones. you've been to the football match last semester, courtesy of miyeon, and everything being outdoors really helps with the crowd and noise.

“didn’t expect to see you here,” hanbin stands next to you, offering you a sip or two from his drink, which you politely refuse, eyes fixed on the court as if it was the home they’ve been searching for. “i thought you hate heeseung,” it isn’t until he takes his name that your gaze averts to heeseung. you don’t even know why hanbin would outright assume you’re here for heeseung. in fact, that man’s name didn’t even cross your mind until he was mentioned.

“hate is a big word, ‘bin,” your words are more of a whisper laced with hesitation, as if you aren’t sure of what you’re saying. hate, actually, is a very big and heavy word. despite its constant usage with your friends, you realise the weight it holds and the impact it has. hate and dislike— they’re different and yet similar enough to be used synonymously at times. not by you, of course, you have a clear distinction between the two, and as of now, you don’t know if what you feel for heeseung is a mere dislike or pure hatred. “i just don’t like him,”

when he successfully shoots a three-pointer, you come to the decision that you definitely don’t hate him. heeseung is, more or less, the typical all-rounder straight-A student, the jack of all trades and fortunately enough, the master of all as well. he's the student teachers use as an example, the son parents wish for, the boyfriend people wished they had. lee heeseung is many things, and one of those is being the reason why you have the second highest score in your department instead of the first position, unlike how it used to be two semesters ago.

heeseung transferred departments about thirty weeks ago, from chemistry to bioinformatics. it had been surprising on your side because not many opted for bioinformatics until they were certain of their goal. the course in itself is vast, like an ocean of several different fields and each and every one of them opens a door to a different outcome. bioinformatics isn’t something students picked overnight just because it had the vacancy and they didn’t like their initially chosen courses. as fun as the subject sounds, it demands consistency and time, something that heeseung lacks. you had seen him attend classes the first few weeks regularly, and then the ghost of him started sitting on the empty seat that belongs to him. skipping classes, arriving late, delayed submission of a couple of projects— you knew he wasn’t here to stay. it was to pass time, or whatever, you couldn’t care, didn’t care, not until he started acing the tests, practically dethroning you from your infamous ‘perfect all kill’ title that you had for getting nothing less than a perfect score, most of the time, give and take a few here and there.

you still get good scores, amazing even, full score in theory and the same in practicals. it’s going well in lab manuals and project works but heeseung seems to get a perfect score in those too, something you started missing ever since he came into the picture. perhaps, it was something in the way he phrased his essays— you hoped it was. rumour has it that heeseung used to be a literature student, which could explain his outstanding english skills and his eloquent way of speaking. you even looked up his debate videos on youtube only to find more evidence on how skilled he is in public speaking.

but above all, heeseung is, actually, just a really damn annoying student, quite literally the bane of your existence. he’s always set on stealing people’s spotlight during lessons, with you being the people, obviously, always answering questions with information that’s unrelated and probably even unnecessary. and for the shortest time, you even considered taking him off your ‘things i hate’ list because you were no different in highschool. when you’re the top student, it becomes a habit to talk about things as if you know them in your bones and impress teachers. hell, you even had rivals in highschool, although none of them got on your nerves the way heeseung does. basically, he has no reason to call you by weird names everytime you both pass each other in the hallways, or remind you that he’s the top student. ‘this is the vice-captain of the basketball team and the best student of the biotechnology department, lee heeseung, informing you on the up—’ seriously, no one wants to hear him introduce himself like that when you’re around. you’re pretty sure it’s engraved inside your brain with the amount of times he repeats it everyday. minjeong even says that heeseung is becoming more and more like sunghoon, and you would not know how or why because you didn’t attend highschool with sunghoon, unlike her.

the court flares up with cheers when heeseung goes for a dunk which ultimately leads to their team winning the match, and you reach the conclusion that maybe you don’t hate heeseung but actually want to bang his head against the walls. your eyes follow him around the court, analysing his conduct during the match, the way he communicates so effortlessly with teammates using hand signs or quick phrases, the way he holds the team together when the ball is with him, despite not being the captain. heeseung might be the most unbearable person you’ve met so far, he’s actually just fine when his target is not you. you’re sure any other player is doing just as good but nothing comes close to how you see heeseung. it’s different, the light he is in, it’s unique, incredible, and inexplicably addictive. heeseung juggles between classes and basketball, you remember sunghoon talking about his part-time job when you passed by their lockers the other day. he doesn’t have it easy, you don’t either, but you had those all perfect kills by spending hours in your study while heeseung does better than you while winning matches, making money.

it doesn’t take you long to realise that what you have for him could be dislike with a hint of jealousy, and you wonder if all the people would react the same way once they know who heeseung really is— a devil behind an angelic face, one who deliberately likes ruining things for you, as if his life depends on it. you still remember the day he personally texted you the wrong syllabus for a test, claiming that it had been updated and the professor had asked him to notify everyone. ‘and as you know, i have not been added in the group chat yet so i’m texting everyone personally,’ he had lied ever so smoothly as if his words consist of nothing but truth, as if lies are something he hasn’t even heard of. kudos to you for studying the original and correct syllabi beforehand, you still aced the test, if heeseung scoring the first rank is overlooked.

you’re dragged back from your thoughts to the reality when a boy bumps into you while hurrying down to the players, hoping to get noticed. half of the students act like the team is actually a boy-band, you can see them on the front page of every single edition of university magazine. usually, you prefer waiting for the crowd to disperse before taking your leave from wherever you are, but a sudden reminder about the tests over text from your professor gives you a reason to leave early, all to make sure you could catch up to heeseung. you rush your way out of the bleachers once the teams start leaving the court, eyes fixed on heeseung to take a note of the direction he leaves. hanbin gives you a confused look before the words find their way out of his mouth. “where are you going?”

“basketball shower room,” and your words could give him, and the other people who might’ve heard you, a wrong idea but you couldn’t care less. the goal was to see heeseung before he leaves the campus, which was highly likely because no one has it in them to attend four hours of classes after an exhausting match, not even heeseung, no matter how amazing he is.

you make your way through the ocean of people, bumping into a few in the process as you make your way to the club room. a silent profanity leaves your mouth once you realise that the club room entrance might be filled with fangirls and boys, left and right, and the thought of shuffling your way out of the crowd to meet heeseung makes you reconsider your actions. heeseung might be a star student but isn’t amazing enough for you to step out of your comfort zone and do things to see him.

“well, this is surprising,” your voice manages to turn his head towards the door. “thought you’d be busy with your fangirls, lee,” and it is surprising indeed because the hallways are unexpectedly empty with only a few people around. you would say they learnt to give the players their space after a game but that would be a lie considering the embarrassing history of students when it comes to people on the sports team.

“they’re probably busy with jake,” heeseung responds with a smile, and even though he turns to his locker just as quickly, you could see the smile dancing on the corner of his lips.

jake is rather a new player, a junior to be specific, and jay personally spent days waiting outside the physics department to get the guy on the basketball team. explains why he’s popular amidst students, he’s talented, good at studies— seriously, you wouldn’t understand how these people manage academics with sports. you couldn’t, and even if you managed to, you would end up passing out every few days. “does it suck to lose your fan-following to a newbie?”

“not really. i still have you here,” heeseung wouldn’t call it ‘losing’ his fan-following because he’s using jake as bait to escape the crowd of students as quickly as possible. a junior has to make sacrifices, in this case it’s to save heeseung by sacrificing himself to the public. although, saying that he still has you looking for him even though a hundred others aren’t makes him feel better about himself. “no but seriously, what did you come here for?”

“oh, it’s for the test on friday,” you pull out your phone, opening the group chat with the professor and the students who took the same course. it’s laughable how the universe put you in the exact same situation twice, although with the tables turned this time, and it takes everything in you to not tell him a made-up, wrong syllabi, and do what is rational. “the syllabi was extended up to chapter fourteen, till page three-ninety-seven. they sent it in the group chat this morning but i’m sure you hardly have time even to think about something else except basketball,”

you’ve known heeseung for two semesters but that’s for the people to say. the truth is, you don’t know him outside what he shows to everyone else. you see him come and go, spot him around the bar with his friends on weekends you pass by it. you know he skips classes and asks students for notes. it’s not necessarily from you, though you’d prefer if he would ask you since you’re the best student in the whole department, after him, as much as you hate to admit it. on some days, you see him in the library, earphones plugged in. if you manage to sneak a glance or two, you’d catch him watching the match recordings and taking notes, you wouldn’t know what notes someone could take from matches. in short, you don’t know heeseung more than how everyone knows him. coming to the shower rooms and notifying him about the test might just be a discreet attempt at striking up more conversations with him, but also, you’re just fine with him being the academic rival slash classmate that he is.

“yeah, semi-finals,” heeseung shuts his locker close, a sigh falling off his lips just like the water drops falling on his shoulder from the tips of his hair, after a shower. “doesn’t help that they’re at the same time as the quarterly assessments. thank you for telling me even though it means you’ll end up losing the first position to me once again,” and of course, the heeseung you know wouldn’t waste an opportunity to strike up a competition. it would be a lie if you claim to hate it because despite the sour look on your face, a part of you loves these little academic races with him. heeseung makes you strive to do better, he’s like the driving force you lacked which made college a whole lot better. after all, where’s the fun in getting a perfect score with the bare minimum effort, without some challenges knocking at your door?

“what can i do, i’m all about fair play,” there’s a subtle shade behind your words, reckoning to the multiple incidents of him ruining things for you. this could take a really nasty turn if you were to resort to his ways, except you won’t because you’re better than him. “good luck, and we’ll see who loses the first position to whom,”

heeseung wipes his hair before switching to texting on his phone, the smile still adorning his face like a jewel. you assume it’s the delight from winning a match, it’s obvious. his eyes couldn’t help but sparkle at every little achievement, always looking forward to something more, something challenging, that’s lee heeseung for you— someone who knows he has an easier way around things but would deliberately walk down another path and test his limits. shocking how it took you one basketball match to see the passion he has for things he’s interested in, that he’s more than a sport jock or a straight nerd, he’s more than someone who takes courses to pass time, more than someone who is just a show-off.

“heeseung,” the dislike, the hatred, the envy, it might all be a lie. “well played today,” because in the end, there’s a minimal possibility that you’re leaving the room with nothing but the slightest of admiration for the guy who is nothing but an obstacle between you and that first position in upcoming finals in two months.

and it would be a lie too to claim that your words didn’t catch heeseung by surprise.

II. RIVALRY, FEELINGS, ETCETERA.

it has been a little over one day since heeseung’s conversation with you outside the shower rooms, twenty-seven hours to be exact. twenty-seven hours of him hearing the same last words over and over again, twenty-seven hours of him failing all and any attempts at straight thinking and twenty-seven hours of him not thinking about anything except you. all of it ends up in three hours of practice and not one good shot from heeseung. the sighs and snickers from teammates fill the court every few seconds— truthfully, they never leave. heeseung is simply too lost to pay attention to them.

“heeseung, you good?” a pat on shoulder from jake and the words following soon after manage to pull him out of his spiral of thought, even if it’s for a brief second.

“he’s not, won’t be anytime soon,” sunghoon replies as if the answer was on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be revealed. “yn came to watch the last match, after all,” there’s a smirk on sunghoon’s face, heeseung can tell it in the intonation of his words.

jay pauses just seconds before going for a layup, joining the conversation. “wait, she did?”

“yep, saw her standing next to that hanbin guy or something,”

“mate, you cannot be acting like this over a girl and that too, four days before finals,” this conversation, as a whole, is beyond jake’s comprehension. a part of the reason could be because he joined the team late, thus missing out on a huge chunk of internal jokes and gossip and goes amidst the players. and no amount of reasons can convince him into thinking that it’s fine to act out-of-character before important matches just because your crush showed up at one of your matches.

“she’s not just some random girl. she never attends matches, but she came to watch my match,” heeseung clarifies as if the reasons behind his antics are valid and acceptable. “you wouldn’t know how i feel right now,”

“you’re on cloud nine, we know, your crush gave you the attention you’ve been lacking but trust me, she would ignore you just as efficiently if she sees you perform like this,”

“she’s not a crush,” and despite it being a well known fact amongst the basketball team that heeseung has a thing or two for you, he always refuses to accept it. one can say it’s the pride thing. you barely even talk to him unless it’s about studies, and your conversations are mostly along the lines of who outdoes whom in tests and assessments. moreover, everyone knows heeseung is the reason why you’re the second best student in the department— as much as you hate to admit it, again— because he transferred and flipped your world, probably even dribbled around with it like a basketball. a word goes around every few days about you glaring at him in class, which is not true, you’re instead focusing your eyes on something in an attempt to think. he just happens to sit right in front of you and be the object of focus. heeseung might as well believe that you hate him, even though yesterday’s conversation was far from how people talk when they hate each other, and his assumptions could account for the constant words of denial that fall off his lips.

jay snickers before landing a hook successfully. “yeah, and i’m a pigeon,”

“oh, shut it, jay,” heeseung turns to look at the other boy. “she’s just someone i admire. have you read her essays? her papers? god, we’re a year away from graduation but she’s already writing mind-blowing papers, one of them was even published in the monthly issue of some magazine. she’s already on her best performance and still tries to do better, always down to guide juniors with lab work and also is on the research team for the paediatrics department at asan medical centre. all this, and she studies all day. if i were her, i’d pass out. i can’t go a day without entering the court,”

“and he says he doesn’t have a crush oh her,” sunghoon rolls his eyes, it’s like if he heard another line of excuses from heeseung, he could see the back of his skull and have a look at hs big, fat brain.

“because i don’t? you guys never had someone you admired so much that they practically became your role model despite being in the same year?” unlike other things that heeseung does, calling you his role model has a reason. first, it can give him a reason to talk to you. heeseung is almost convinced that you hate him, and if this persists, it would get harder and harder for him to approach you, but with the lie— half lie— of you being his role model and so wonderful that he couldn’t help but admire you from afar while trying to overcome his social anxiety gives him a reason to talk to you. plus, it sounds plausible, he doesn’t understand why his brother says it’s bound to fail.

the second reason and more to do with his friend group. no one in his friend circle is capable of keeping a secret— jay ends up spilling tea unconsciously, jake tells one person who he trust and that person turns out to be the most untrustworthy person ever, beomgyu, well he’s on the team but telling him would be like standing on a stage and announcing to the whole campus, and sunghoon, he’s the mother, he cannot digest food without disclosing secrets. even if it’s common knowledge that heeseung has a tiny crush on you, denying it in front of the whole campus everytime one of them brings it up helps him with his reputation and fortunately, ends up keeping it a secret. besides, he’d rather have people tease him for calling you his role model than having a crush on you.

“i surely don’t have someone i admire to the point i read all their papers and know each and everything they’ve volunteered for,” jay argues back, set on proving his point. “tell me what am i gonna do knowing that she’s on the paediatrics research team?”

“i think this is the most i’ve known about yn ever since classes started and that too, because of heeseung,” beomgyu chuckles, earning a side eye from heeseung in the process.

“enough, let’s get back to practice,” heeseung intervenes in an attempt to change the topic. he does not want his closest friends making fun of him for liking someone— it’s supposed to be human nature to have a crush.

“you get back to practice because you’re the only one fucking up because of your silly little crush. i’m done, jay, call me when we’re having a practice match because i need to attend theology or my professor would write me up,” taehyun passes the ball to sunghoon, the latter yelping in surprise at the sudden yet successful catch.

“i don’t have a crush—”

“of course, let’s get you back to practice,” jake cuts heeseung off mid sentence, moving back to take his position as sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung, who, as expected, misses the catch due to lack of concentration.

it’s going to be a long day for the team.

“a little birdie told me you went to see heeseung in the shower rooms?” are the words you hear as soon as your classes are dismissed, miyeon walking up to you and hanbin discussing the set of questions your professor distributed just a few minutes ago.

“i didn’t go into the shower rooms, i was outside, near the lockers,” and there’s a difference. to be in the shower room implies you were there in the shower, which definitely gives rise to several wrong ideas of different levels. specifically, you didn’t even enter the locker room. you were outside, leaning against the door, watching heeseung as he walked freshly out of the shower, a towel around his neck, you both strike up a small talk. yeah, that was the scene, not with you in the shower and whatever miyeon’s imagination leads to after that.

“so you did go!” she claps her hands together as if it’s a celebratory occasion, turning her head to look at the boy next to you. “what were you saying about yn not having a crush, habin?”

“it’s not a crush, miyeon,” and it’s true— heeseung is not a crush. he’s a classmate, a rival, an over-qualified and impossibly competitive student, someone you would want to take your time to study. “what, i can’t even go to tell a classmate about the updated syllabus for a test now? i would’ve done that for anyone, not just heeseung,”

hanbin sighs, packing his bag. “sure, but he’s in the groupchat. he could’ve checked it himself,”

“um, i doubt that,” you’re preparing a powerpoint in your head, multiple slides on why you needed to do what you did. “he’s busy with basketball and i know how he gets when the matches are around the corner. don’t you remember how he skipped two weeks of classes straight because of matches last semester? and it’s the finals this time, i don’t think he even opens texts about anything that’s not basketball. i mean, he responded to my messages six days later because he was busy with practice,”

you say it like you’ve known heeseung for a decade and have been through the ups and downs with him. you wouldn’t care about who does what in the classes, if it’s a paper plane flying right over you, landing just second to the first row of seats or if it’s someone being brave enough and playing music during lectures. biology, in your opinion, is a subject for those who are serious about doing something unique while staying in the academic field. you don’t encounter troublemakers often, once a blue moon if the heavens make a mistake. on other days, it’s quieter than a library, emptier than cemeteries at night.

to think your life as a biotechnology major got interesting after heeseung switched majors is astonishing and equally debatable.

“i don’t see why i should remember all that about ‘just a classmate’ but thanks for telling,” and before you know it, hanbin and miyeon are out of the class, on their way to wherever their next stop is. seriously, they’re having it easier than you. they go to games, movies, drink on weekends— something you haven’t had a taste on ever since the year started. somewhere, you could be blamed for your hectic schedules. studies, lab work, and thesis, they suffice for all the stress a student in post graduation studies can handle. volunteering and writing papers is on you, things wouldn’t have been arduous if you had decided to move slowly, one step at a time. sometimes, the hunger for more leaves you starving— quite literally.

you spend an hour or so in the classroom along with a few other students, going through the same old routine of yours— watch videos, take notes, transfer them to your document in your own words and make it sound as innovative and convincing as possible. heeseung would be better at this than you. you’re exhausted to the point that accepting your defeat to him doesn’t even faze you anymore. he used to be a literature student, had english as a side course as an undergrad, he’s bound to be better than making essays sound they came right out of shakespeare's drafts, phrases and metaphors that would put fitzgerald to shame.

you didn’t care about what went down in your classes until heeseung came along. call it craziness or the weird impression you have of students in your field, heeseung is far from the typical biotechnology student aiming for a postgraduate degree. he skips classes, plays basketball as if studies are a side business, and yet still manages to ace every test like an all-rounder. he shouldn’t even be in classroom, he should be in the labs, being the most important subject of studies. there are days you think of him as a social experiment— how quickly can a robot piss off a straight-A student with its impeccable skills— of course, the subjects wouldn’t know it’s a robot but you do, you’re almost convinced he is one. there’s no way he’s the top student with the amount of effort he puts in. one would claim that he studies after classes, at home slash dorms, but you can bet your life he doesn’t. there have been numerous instances when you’ve spotted him in the background of someone’s picture at a bar. he’s always with people, he has a humongous friend group, god knows how someone can live like that. at first, you were convinced he isn’t real, as worrisome as it sounds, and if he is real then he needs to be studied.

which leads to what you’re doing right now— making your way to the basketball court. you don’t know how or why you’re doing it. you started with your studies, ended up thinking about heeseung, and now you’re on your way to the basketball court. although, it’s not half a bad idea, now that you think about it once again.

your mind goes all the way back to when you watched him play for the first time, which was just a day ago actually. you don’t know anything about basketball, you don’t know much about heeseung either, but there’s one thing you’re sure of— heeseung is class and heeseung on the court, they’re different. you’ve noticed the way he clicks his pen relentlessly out of nervousness when he can’t solve a question, the way his back tenses up for a fraction of a second as soon as he’s asked to explain something. you’ve seen the hints of fear in his eyes when he asked you for notes last semester just three days before exams, scared that he would fail. heeseung isn’t sure of a lot of things and basketball isn’t one of those.

“you’re not practising?” you ask him when you swim out of your thoughts, watching him climb up the bleachers and sit next to you. the court seems much better when it’s empty, free from the loud cheers of spectators, but that could be just you.

“i was, as you see, but i saw you up here and thought it was time for a break,” you could see his teammates shake heads at him in disappointment, proceeding to continue with their practice. “what’s up?”

you don’t respond to him and instead, take your time watching the others practise their shots. you watch the way one of them, who you think is taehyun, goes for a dunk, credits to hanbin for telling you names for a few shots. next to you, heeseung shouts out a tip or two for the boy for him to have an easier and effective approach at the said move. heeseung is good at dunks, you’ve heard it from students, you’ve seen it in the last match as well. just one shot was enough to tell you how good he is at it, it’s like basketball flows in his veins, like he can close his eyes and still manage to get a basket.

your eyes ghost up the court and shift to him— there’s a content smile on his face, a relaxed posture as if there’s nothing for him to worry about. he takes a sip from his energy drink, you wonder if he, or anyone from the team, even gets time to have their meals. the expression on his face, it’s something you’ve never seen on him during lessons. it takes you back to the match, how he looked on court a day before, certain of every move he made, every step, every breath, without doubts, no second thoughts. you’ve done enough lab projects with heeseung to know how his hands shake when he’s preparing a slide or extracting a sample from a centrifuge, afraid that one wrong move and he would mess up the efforts of everyone in the group. that hesitation is nowhere to be seen on the court, gone like it has never existed. as if lee heeseung, the star student and player, has never had an encounter with nervousness and hesitation in his life. there’s a thin line between studies and sport for him, you finally realise it after much consideration. maybe, you’re going beyond your boundaries and making assumptions about a guy you barely know, even if you would never voice all these thoughts to him, you think you know the reason why there’s a different him on the stage when the ball is in hands.

“how did you realise that you like basketball? you know, like it enough to devote so much of your time and have it alongside studies?” because even if biotech is something he’s studying and wants to make a career in, you guess that it’s just a source of satisfaction. in your eyes, through your perception, basketball is what makes him truly happy.

you don’t know why someone wouldn’t pick satisfaction over happiness, especially when it’s coming with its hands full of opportunities to grab that bag.

“eh, i don’t have a sob story about it, if that is what you’re hoping for,” he chugs down the contents of the can before crushing it to the slightest, eyes squinting at the opposite wall before they move back to meet yours. “i never had to sit and think about basketball and studies, you know, as in how am i going to manage both of them. it just happened. i started playing basketball in middle school and it has been with me ever since,”

heeseung’s side of the story is simple— a mediocre guy who was introduced to sports by his older brother and now, it’s one of the most important things in his life. middle school heeseung preferred staying in and playing video games instead of going out. in fact, middle school heeseung resembles you in all the ways that make him different from you right now. he has been good at learning and remembering things, he takes liking to things quicker than others do. basketball was like for him— easy, quick, fun, like a way to release all the stress after a long day at school. in heeseung’s story, there isn’t a main character who helped him choose the path he’s walking right now. instead, all he had was his family who introduced him to the various aspects and opportunities, and he simply ended up joining hands with the ones he liked, deciding to not let it go before the dead end.

“i want to have that passion for things,” a soft laughter falls off your lips, it’s an attempt to make your sob story look less pitiful. “i used to paint and play piano— but painting, mostly, was really good at it. i learnt how to draw before i learnt how to tie my shoelaces. i couldn’t go a day without painting, but then highschool happened, i had pressure to do well, expectations from friends and family, had a dream outside painting, and now, i haven’t painted in years,”

unlike heeseung, art started as more than just a side business to you. it’s not something you were introduced to in the middle of your life but rather is something you grew up with. you can blame or credit your mother for making paintings and having them in almost every corner of your house. it’s one of the reasons why at five years old you were beyond fascinated at all the patterns and colours. no one would’ve guessed that science would manage to sweep you off your feet right from the first grade, given the way your hands danced a duet to their own melody along with a paintbrush, as if each stroke has a conscious life of its own. no one would’ve guessed that your mother would tell you to stop painting and focus on studies, neither would they have known that she would become the reason why you no longer feel the same way about art. as stated before, life is unpredictable— because no one would’ve guessed that sitting here on the bleachers with heeseung and sharing a piece of your life would water the seeds of doubts in your heart, the ones that bloom at the sight of him.

he thinks your story is sad— with all due respect, without sarcasm, of course. it’s the best he can say. “i think it’s more of a ‘connection’ thing. you think you’ve lost the connection but you simply need to pickup a canvas and some colours to relink, if you get me,” because heeseung has had somewhat of a same experience, with music, and sitting front of a piano to play one of sibelius’ symphonies after senior year highschool finals was all it took him to find his lost interest in music. even though it’s nothing more than just a hobby, even if it's just something he considers as a way to pass time, heeseung knows how it feels to let go of something that is an integral part of one’s life.

“it has always been about timing, heeseung,” you shake your head, trying to prove him wrong using your own arguments. “you think i haven’t tried painting again? i still have art supplies stacked up in my cupboard. it’s all about timing. when you like something, you only get a few chances to make sure it stays with you for a lifetime. how many people do you know who have given up on their hobbies because they claim to have lost interest? the thing is, the interest is still there, it’s the inability and fear of not being able to do it again. if you timing is off, no matter how much you try, things won’t work, and what you love will end up becoming a closed chapter of your life,”

a pause. he sits still, eyes admiring your face while his mind is busy replaying your words in the back of his head. heeseung wonders how valid they are when it comes to people. he likes you, despite the constant denial which is only for show, by the way. it doesn’t take a scientist to read him. reading him isn’t even close to rocket science, he doesn’t understand how you haven’t caught up even after being incredibly smart. he has seen you hang out with hanbin— heeseung hates that guy, by the way. there’s no solid logic, it’s just that hanbin seems to be around you all the time and heeseung thinks of him as a leech sucking blood off its host. heeseung would never admit but it’s just his jealousy playing tricks on him, and even though it doesn’t look like you have any romantic feelings towards that guy, it would be fucking embarrassing for heeseung lose you to a guy who isn’t even half as qualified as him. ( yes, he is judging characters based on academic qualifications, no heeseung wouldn’t explain why )

“i like you,” and so, he lets his feelings win for once, deciding to let his heart take control instead, closing doors to any room for rational thinking like it never existed. “you said it was about timing, about trying hard enough and having only a few chances, perhaps, just one bullet, and i’m shooting my shot right now. i don’t want to remember you as a closed chapter of my life,”

it would be such a waste of chemistry if you end up becoming just a closed chapter of his life. heeseung has done his research, more like reading tons of books and watching hundreds of movies to understand the potential that two academic rivals have. no one knows this, not even his closest friends, but heeseung’s favourite genre might simply be enemies to lovers and living that trope doesn’t sound as bad when it’s with you. he has spent hours thinking about the number of productive library dates you could have, working on projects together and brainstorming about the next biggest revolution in the RDT world, changing the public’s outlook at genetics forever. it sounds stupid and makes him sound even stupider, even as a lost cause, but heeseung doesn’t care. in his mind, it’s the best date someone could have. to live and become successful together, it sounds like a perfect plan to him.

truthfully, you have always been a part of heeseung’s future, near or distant. he always always pictures you in his life, standing next to him during graduation, bidding goodbyes at farewell, exchanging shy greetings at reunions ten years later while reminiscing about everything he did to irritate you, that would sound embarrassing a decade later. your presence will always be significant to him, he just hopes to remember you as something more than just a rival, just a classmate he never really got to know, just a person he spent his two years hating upon, just a crush he didn’t get to confess to.

the catch— heeseung has already started picturing his future and you are not even sure of your present— and while he is looking at you for an answer, you’re lost inside your head, looking for words to articulate.

heeseung is someone you planned to stay away from for the rest of your university life. him stepping into your life already costs you a lot, namely: dropping in ranks and losing your infamous title. his actions cost you the time you could use to study, which is actually upon you because you can simply ignore him instead of spending hours on thinking about his hows, whens and whats. heeseung was supposed to be the academic rival slash classmate that he is, instead of allowing him to be something more, but beyond rivalry, feelings, etcetera. you knew the way you felt about him, even though you couldn’t be as certain as him, or even to claim you see him the same way he feels about you.

turns out, heeseung has always been sure of certain things in his life.

“heeseung, i’m—”

“not sure? busy? stressed? i know you have a lot of things going on right now. take your time, study for the finals, finish your papers, sort out your own issues and then come back to me. i’ll be waiting,” it’s like he’s not only good at studying but also at reading minds, because heeseung seems to have guessed a part of exactly what you’ve been thinking. call it timing, jay calls him to get back to practice just a few seconds later— a perfect excuse to leave. “looks like my break is over,”

you sit speechless, watching him walk away like an opportunity that just walked out of your hand. it feels like a slight defeat, like a test you failed when you could've scored better, if not a full score. it's funny because this wasn't a competition, you weren't rejected, more like you rejected him, but it still feels like he has the upper hand. it's funny and equally annoying because heeseung is supposed to be nothing more than just a nobody, somebody you aren't even supposed to spare two thoughts on, but here you are sitting with the guy with your feelings all over the place.

“heeseung,” you stand up, your voice making him turn to look at you, both of you ignoring the sight of his teammates standing motionless in their positions, too stunned at your voice reverberating in the almost empty court. “let’s do this: if you manage to stand first in the finals, i’ll date you,”

a lowkey confession leading to a mere competition. his lips morph into a smirk, the ones he'd pass you before tests, an open challenge offered directly to you. “and if i don’t?”

and you mirror the same smirk back at him, you weren't going to back off simply because it's about the person you possibly have a crush on. “i become just a closed chapter of your life,”

let the game begin.

III. LIAR AND THE LOVER

despite heeseung’s sudden confession, you’re doing quite well, taking it better than expected. you had your moment of confusion back when the words of proposal fell off his lips— anyone would. after all, it’s lee heeseung we’re talking about. you can only imagine the saddened faces of his fangirls once they hear about him confessing to you.

“jay told me you made a bet with heeseung?” hanbin’s question catches your attention as soon as he steps into the cafe, managing to turn a few heads towards you in the process.

“you know jay?”

he sits next to you, pulling out his laptop in a hurry. you can guess it’s because of his essay that’s due before six in the evening, one he could’ve written last night instead of getting wasted at his friend’s birthday gathering. “we share history, also, that’s not the answer to my question,”

“it’s not a bet, ‘bin,” your words aren’t half wrong. “just a silly game, y’know? i didn’t even expect him to agree,” frankly, even you don’t know why or how you came up with such a bizarre idea in broad daylight. usually, people get bouts of excitement or embarrassment while confessing or being confessed to, but in your case, you jumped over the fence and made a proposal that you have only seen in fiction.

“nah, no way you’re setting up your whole love life for failure and calling it a silly game,” the disappointment is evident in hanbin’s voice as his fingers danced over his keyboard, typing with a speed that could leave the trains behind. well, people tend to get like that when you have an assignment due and the deadline is just a few hours to go. you guess that he’s too busy to even listen to your reasoning, which is appreciated considering you have no reasoning as for why you did what you did.

“you made a bet with heeseung,” you turn your head around, making the boy next to you do the same in the process. it’s miyeon— you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. your actions have consequences, as always, and one of them is dealing with her non-stop interrogation as if you’re the prime suspect for some gruesome crime and every question answered wrong opens gates to capital punishment. sometimes, you wonder why she didn’t go with studying law instead.

“how do you know?”

“everyone knows, yn. it’s all they’ve been talking about,” she sighs, sitting opposite to you while taking a look at hanbin’s laptop. “even the football fanatics are talking about attending the game, god, hanbin we better hurry that day or we’re not getting a seat,” you should’ve seen it coming, honestly. miyeon might not be the most social person, but she definitely is the most updated. nothing escapes her, every tiny incident reaches her ears one way or another, and if not, then she just finds out about it using her sources, given you don’t know about her sources. it’s one of the reasons why you’re almost convinced that she runs a shady side business alongside her career in bioengineering.

you take a sharp breath, going through the bunch of papers arranged in your file. “it’s not that serious. he confessed to me and i said i’d date him if he manages to secure the first position in the finals as well,”

“you did that knowing he hasn’t been studying because of games while you’re studying like your life depends on it? there’s no way he’s going to be first, and everything aside, it was a wrong fucking move to play with his feelings,” play with his feelings— a pause, you don’t like how it sounds. you’re not playing with his feelings, that’s far from what you’re doing. it’s a game, a competition, new to your friends but you and heeseung have always been familiar with it. there’s an unspoken rule to test each other’s limits. the last time you and heeseung did something like this, it resulted with you writing ‘lee heeseung is smarter than ln yn,’ in bold on a sheet of paper and putting it on the notice board for the whole campus to see. in your eyes, it's history repeating itself yet again. sure, there is something else at stake, but the rules are the same, and you don’t know why your friends are acting like you’ve done something terribly unethical.

“no one’s playing with his feelings, miyeon, and i know for a fact he’s making time to study for finals,” you clarify your side, slight annoyance evident in your voice. “besides, it doesn’t matter. it’s not like this is serious, i only did this to buy time to figure out my feelings while the game gives me a reason to study and not get distracted. you know how i get when i lose focus,”

that could be the reasoning behind your actions, of course. even while sitting in a cafe with your friends and having a conversation that is about to make your blood boil, you’re thinking of heeseung in the back of your head. his words play over and over again like a broken record player, the image of him on court or studying pops up in your mind every now and then. obsession is a disease and you have it bad. it’s crazy to be thinking about someone so much without being absolutely floored for them.

“so you’ll date him despite the outcome?” hanbin drags you out of the well of your thoughts, a question that leaves miyeon flabbergasted.

“if i manage to figure out my feelings then of course,” a chuckle falls off your lips. “i’m telling you guys, it’s not that serious. i’m sure he knows it too,” and you’re really confident about this— it usually never ends on a good note.

“and if he doesn’t? what if it’s serious for him? yn, you never know how one thing might affect someone, and feelings are not something to gamble on. you should’ve told him you need some time to think instead of giving him a false hope or whatsoever,” it’s now that you start having second thoughts. the next two hours go by amidst silence, a few small talks blooming here and there, but dissolving just as quickly within the ticking clock of deadlines for assignments and exams.

it doesn’t take a scientist to know when miyeon is upset, for she isn’t the best at masking her emotions. through the sneaky glances at her that you’ve stolen over time, you can tell she’d rather spend the evening in silence than talk to you, which is a challenge with herself because she’s really talkative. it takes two to sing a duet, two to play and game, two people to make a relationship work. heeseung and you— the two of you are enough to make decisions for yourselves, decide what’s right and wrong and, something about miyeon questioning your choices doesn’t sit right with you.

too many cooks spoil the broth, it’s the principle of your life, the words you’ve been following to this date. it was your decision to have a few friends instead of a fifty— quality over quantity, as one might call it— and there has never been a moment when you regretted having a handful of people to call friends. instead of consulting too many people about your major in university, you simply went with what your parents and homeroom teacher suggested. life has been good so far. the more the better is something that isn’t applicable in your case. instead of telling everyone about your dilemma regarding heeseung, you decided to keep it to yourself, eventually opening up to heeseung when the time comes. you’re doing just fine on your own, it doesn’t make sense to you why a third person’s opinion is making you doubt your decision making abilities that you’ve been so proud of.

this is not a gamble, you tell yourself, it’s a fair play. you gave him options, he made the choice, it’s consensual. you didn’t force him into this game, he didn’t pressure you to respond, it’s a harmless competition that’s bound to have a positive outcome. you even spend a good fifteen minutes wondering if you should go back to heeseung and take it all back in case he finds it insensitive to put his feelings on the line. doing it in person seemed impossible so you resorted to texts, typing and deleting your message before giving up altogether. in your head, this was an okay decision. a sweet confession, a person with unsure feelings, a harmless competition.

you hope it doesn’t backfire ten times worse.

three days later, you find yourself on the way to basketball club rooms once again. you checked the court, it was empty, and your only option was to check the club slash locker rooms if you wanted to see heeseung. okay, first things first, you don’t miss him— maybe a little, but it’s because you miss hearing his weird ass answers in class even though they’re right. heeseung just has an unique approach to things, in other words he simply knows how to buy time and go in detail about things he’s an expert at to impress the professors. however, that doesn’t seem to be the case for him because he has approached you six times in the past three days, asking if you’re free to hangout.

you like to think he misses you or that his requests were because he wanted to make sure you don’t study and lose to him, either could be true. knowing heeseung, he’s capable of going both ways. whatever may be the reason, you turned him down all six times, and it’s not because you have something against him— of course, you don’t. that’s common knowledge by now— your reason for not hanging out with him is studies, as expected of you honestly. the bet aside, you had way too many chapters to learn before exams and all heeseung ever does is take up your headspace everytime you sit down with your books spread open. avoiding him in thoughts wasn’t possible so avoiding him in person was your last straw.

which leads to the present : you rushing to heeseung, again, not because you miss him but because you need his help, though one of the reasons could be that you feel bad for turning him down six times. you can hear muffled laughter from a distance as you approach the club rooms, a bang against one of the lockers, a loud profanity that follows afterwards. their humour is beyond your level of understanding.

“heese— oh, um—” you greet and turn away just as quickly when you realise that one of them is shirtless. it’s obviously heeseung, you can’t mistake his face for someone else. and you’re guessing he’s the last one to come out of shower because everyone else is dressed, maybe he’s someone who likes to take his time showering— you seriously need to stop thinking before your imagination goes bonkers. “sorry, can you come outside for a second when you’re ready?”

another round of laughter follows, more like teasing remarks because you can swear you heard a few of them refer to you as his girlfriend, and it gets you a little flustered, you won’t lie. you even hear one of them yell ‘ooh, get it, heeseung,’ as heeseung walks out, fixing his t-shirt, responding back with his middle finger up at whoever made the comment.

“hi,” his voice isn’t much louder than a whisper, eyes fluttering between you, the floor, and his teammates who pretend to not look when you peek inside. there’s a soft smile on his face— it’s cute, you think, and then rethink what you just thought. heeseung is, well, not cute— usually. he’s good-looking, handsome, hot, sexy, even, since you’re on the topic of finding adverbs that suit heeseung. cute is rarely one of them, you don’t think you’ve seen him as flustered as he is right now— rubbing his nape, a tint of pink on his cheeks, avoiding eye-contact— that’s far from the heeseung you’ve been seeing for past two semesters.

“hi, can you send me the pdf of the extra set of questions that prof sent last week? i think i accidentally deleted it while clearing up my storage,” you get straight to the point, trying not to waste much of your precious time. “i could’ve texted you but figured you’d be too busy with practice to check messages,” you remember what happened last time; he took six days to reply to your texts. you’re quite a patient person otherwise but in this case, you’re in dire need of questions to practise for tomorrow’s mock.

“ah, sure, give me a minute,” and he pulls out his phone, scrolling through an ocean of files and documents to look for the one you need. you do think he’s gorgeous though, it’s a well known fact that he’s stunning, but you think this look of heeseung surpasses the other ones quite easily— hairs wet after shower, partially covering his forehead, a white t-shirt that’s slightly wet near the shoulders because of the water dripping down— you wish he’d at least dry his hair before catching a cold. “actually, i would have replied to your texts if you had— oh, yes, there you go. do you want me to email it to you or…?”

“oh, just texts would be fine, thank you,”

“done,” a pause, you feel his eyes on you as you go through the pdf to take a brief look at the contents. “do you want to go for a walk? or are you getting back to studies?” at this point, you’re sure that question is a way to tease you about your obsession with studies. heeseung may think you’re overdoing it because you want to win, but it’s no more than the normal amount of hours you spend studying. he never paid you any attention to care about that.

“no, i’m done for today, actually,” and that’s a big fat lie considering you were planning to solve some questions and revise two chapters before leaving the campus, but it’s fine. you feel bad for rejecting him six times either way.

never in your life did you imagine that you’d be going on a walk with heeseung. it’s nothing serious, you just didn’t think there would be a day where you two would have normal people conversation while doing normal people activities instead of trying to disparage each other based on grades and academic performances. to think about it now, heeseung isn’t half bad, it was all in your head. it’s not like you had vile assumptions about him, you did find him annoying and way too prideful— anyone like him would be, actually, and heeseung is still quite humble about his achievements because if it was someone else, they sure would have made it everyone’s problem.

actually, heeseung is insufferable as well. you remember your first encounter with him, first and so far, the worst— in the laboratory. you and heeseung sat next to each other and when the professor asked him to briefly explain his experiment, you realised it’s oddly similar to yours. you had accused him of cheating, like any sane person would, which led to him getting two scores less than a perfect. he only lost one score because of you, actually, and that too because you were professor’s favourite and heeseung was new to the department. the other score, you don’t know where he missed, but that incident led to heeseung deleting your powerpoint thirty minutes before your presentation, which led you stealing his notes and selling it some junior through an undercover twitter account, which led to the professor asking you to help him with notes before exams, and everything ultimately led to the realisation that heeseung is actually quite decent if you behave with decency as well. the give and take is serious for him, because he gave you notes and so, you had to take his offer of going on a walk. even though it seemed like you had a choice, a part of you knew it was a mirage. you would’ve ended up on a walk with heeseung one way or another.

“i come here whenever i’m tired or just not feeling well,” he says and you wake up from your daydream of memories you shared with heeseung. the way he phrases his words makes it sound like he has brought you to one of his most secret locations, one that no one knows except taehyun, probably, considering they’re close friends, but in reality, it’s the playground you pass by every single day on your way from your apartment to university.

“oh, are you okay? are you nervous for tomorrow’s match?” you continue, deciding you shouldn’t ruin his favourite place for him. honestly, no one would’ve guessed that lee heeseung would come to a children’s park on bad days.

“actually, this walk was for you, you looked like you’d pass out if you spent another hour in front of books,” and you’re done, standing speechless with your eyes wide open at his words that he says with a victorious smile on his face. “you should start taking breaks, yn. it’s not a bad thing to go home earlier when you’re tired,”

he’s right, oh, you know he’s absolutely right about everything he just said, from passing out to going home. a part of him probably even feels glad to have you out on his little walk with him, you’re getting your well deserved rest, thanks to him. heeseung might even ask if he can walk you home considering you’re ‘done for today,’ which is very thoughtful of him— but what does this make you? a liar? miyeon was right, you’re gambling, even though it’s not that serious. so far, you’ve lied about being done with your studies and the bet you made with heeseung because at this point, it’s more like a prank, except it’s not funny and that it might end up with him getting upset with you because tomorrow is basketball tournament’s finals and you’re here wasting his time, all because you lied.

a liar and a lover, on a date at children’s park— match made in theatre club, you’d say.

“are you sure this is not your way to manipulate into not studying and losing to you, just so you can date me?” you try to play it cool, knowing very well that it can be one of his tricks or whatsoever. after all, it’s the same heeseung who made you trip in front of your class just three days after being transferred.

“i was being genuine but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” of course, it doesn’t. he gets to win, after all. “can i walk you home?” just as you had guessed.

“i would love to go home but my bag is still in the library,” you had considered taking it with you, actually, but dismissed the thought once you realised you had to come back to the library and continue with your studies. albeit, you’re not studying, that’s on you for lying into oblivion and giving into his requests.

once again, you two are back to walking, this time back to the university campus. it’s nice, having a walk with heeseung, it’s sweet, slow, comforting, like slow music flowing around and engulfing you in its arms. the unsaid words are weighing on your shoulders, you can feel the pressure, but it’s not awkward. above the busy hustle of the city and blaring horns, it’s a quiet world with heeseung, it’s nice, like a warm hug after a long day. you didn’t think you had it in yourself to spend a minute next to him without overthinking and possibly starting a banter. you didn’t think heeseung had it in him either, to make a walk feel so close to home.

“so, how are you coping knowing you’re going to lose once again?” and, it’s back again. everything is a hoax actually— his looks? a trap. his smile? a trap. it’s all a facade because once he opens his mouth, nothing but horseshit comes out of it.

“very well, in fact, because i know i’m the one getting that first spot this time,” call it overconfidence but you really do think you’ll get your title back this time. you’ve been studying well and hard enough, solving questions and going through every extra set of notes and exercises your professor sent. although, you would claim to beat heeseung had you been prepared or not because it’s fun messing with him.

“i’d rather have you show some mercy, in that case,” before you know it, you’re already standing in front of the library. “academic defeat and a heartbreak, it already sounds painful. i hope you go easy on me,” it’s sarcastic, of course, all these saccharine words of confessions made you forget how he is under the layers of smiles and winks that adorn his face. a session full of silence follows, the comforting tranquillity morphing into something tensed as he steps closer, your breath getting caught up in your throat as your mind dysfunctions— it’s the effect he has.

“heeseung,” you put a finger on his lips— the only thing between him and you, the only thing helping you stay sane and composed at the moment, because only you know the struggle of pulling yourself together while standing inches away from heeseung as he grabs your wrist and plants a soft kiss on your finger before removing it from his lips.

“why, that’s unfair. you get to see me anytime you want while i have to wait because you’re busy studying, you even get to see me shirtless, and i can’t even get a kiss?” and you hate the look in his eyes, you hate how close he is standing and how it makes your heart go crazy. this isn’t even the beginning and you hate how you feel like you’ve already lost, and you hate how confident he is with every breath he breathes against your lips. “just kidding, see you tomorrow,”

and you hate how this is where you realise that you’ve fallen deep, and you’ve fallen hard.

IV. PLANET TO A SUN

heeseung has been thinking about the walk for an hour and twenty-seven minutes— actually more, ever since the moment he got home last night, but that is how long he has been practising for, eyes on the ball but mind revolving around you like a planet to a sun. you had texted him about a rule this morning— no kissing before finals. actually no kissing before we start dating, lee— your exact words. they have been holding him back from thinking straight, even made him practise an apology while looking in the mirror if in case his actions offended you in any way. lost in thought, heeseung manages to get another shot in. that’s twenty-third in a row ever since he stepped on the court, which is unbelievable, even for him.

“is it just me or did heeseung’s performance improve overnight?” jake looks up at jay, fastening his shoelace, a chuckle escaping his lips that goes unnoticed.

the latter offers a hand to jake, helping him stand as they share a laugh before jay passes him the ball. “well, of course it will. he has to impress his girlfriend today at finals,”

“she’s not my girlfriend,” heeseung grunts almost as if hearing you and the word girlfriend in the same sentences cuts ten years from his lifespan. he knows it doesn’t, he’d kill to call you his’. the reason behind his edgy behaviour is your text and the weird rule you’ve inserted in an already weird bet— it’s not like he minds it, the bet, obviously. heeseung definitely minds not getting to kiss you for the next few weeks.

“yet,” jay clarifies, emphasising enough for the world to understand that his words are supposed to be in italics. “she will be if you score more than her in finals, which i don’t think is possible because unlike you, she has been studying all day everyday. i don’t know how she’s still alive,” and jay isn’t half bad student himself. juniors in business have his name residing on the tips of their tongues. he simply thinks you’re a freak for being in no clubs and not participating in anything that doesn’t involve studying.

“she’s the top student for a reason,” jake adds.

“i am the top student,” and hearing his friends call you the top students hurts heeseung’s ego a little bit. crushes aside, you’re his rival before his girlfriend, and you’re not even his girlfriend. you’re basically just a rival. “also, it’s not hard to study all day if you’re used to it,”

and jay scoffs in disbelief. “right, you would know something about it, lee i can’t go a day without playing basketball heeseung,”

“hey, everyone,” your voice reverberating in the court is what stops heeseung from responding to jay with a snarky remark. “just wanted to wish you all goodluck. i really hope you guys win the tournament or else, it’s going to be hard for heeseung to deal with two loses after i beat him in finals as well,”

heeseung rolls his eyes in disbelief, you hear taehyun exclaim that he has been team yn since the very first day, a claim that few others proceed to back up, especially sunghoon, with his own lore of how he prays everyday for you to win the bet with heeseung. you’re honoured to receive such support, to some extent. a part of you still wishes for the whole thing to be a secret restricted to just heeseung and you but again, it was your fault for placing bets in court, in front of the entirety of the basketball team to witness, even their coach.

“you’re a little too confident, don’t you think so?” he smirks, taking a few steps towards you with the ball supported between his arms and torso. “let me know where you’d like to go for our first date,” and it turns out heeseung is just as confident about winning the bet as you, perhaps even more. you are not surprised, being defending champions does that to people, or so you believe.

“mhm, let’s have you score a date first, lee,” you would have loved to talk more but decide to bid your goodbyes as soon as hanbin’s message pops up on your phone, the little scowl on heeseung’s face going unnoticed the moment he sees his name on your phone screen. heeseung would never in his wildest dream confess to being jealous— it doesn’t even make sense for him to be jealous of hanbin because he confessed to you, and you seem to like him back. his worries are pointless just like the useless art projects his art teacher used to assign in middle school.

your fingers dance on the keyboard of your phone as you reply to hanbin, the subtle taps synchronous with your steps with you rushing across the quadrangle, taking the nearest flight of stairs to the library. you wanted to spend the day at your apartment since classes are suspended for the rest of the day on account of the match. however, hanbin managed to convince you into coming to the library to help him with a few assignments here and there. you’re not opposed to studying on days-off, in fact you think it’s better since you get all twenty-four hours to yourself instead of investing any of it in classes. the match gave you an excuse to call in for a break, or an excuse to take your time choosing the outfits as if you’re the main character on such a big day.

the librarian gestures to you to slow down the moment you almost avoid slipping on the tiled floor, in the process of holding the door frame to stop yourself, an embarrassed apology makes its way from you to her as you spot hanbin in the further corner with his airpods plugged in. your first instinct is to scare him from behind but the thought leaves your mind as soon as you remember that you’re in a library, and getting kicked out on a day that has been treating you well so far doesn’t sound so smart.

so, you settle with approaching normal, instead of pulling random stunts, pulling out the chair opposite to him quietly to not make any sounds, mumbling a soft ‘hi’ as he takes out one of his airpods. “where’s miyeon?”

“sick, she’s skipping today’s match as well,” hanbin replies, eyes fixed on the notes he's copying from the laptop to loose sheets of paper, before looking up at you with another question on the tip of his tongue. “are you two still not talking?”

“we did, none of us brought up what happened that day, though,” you shrug as if it doesn't bother you anymore, as if you don't want it to bother you more than it already does.

miyeon and you have known each other since university, she was a senior in undergrad course who was forced by financial circumstances to skip one academic year, thus rejoining in third year along with you and hanbin. seeing her was less frequent while she was still a senior, although you're not sure if you've spent more than three days away from her ever since postgrad school started. a heavy tension masks all your conversations with her, over texts or in person, and even though you're trying to act like the small talks with her don't hurt you, a part of you is starting to miss the best friend you used to talk to all night, about wasted matters and sharing useless gossip.

silence fills in for the lack of words between you and hanbin and you allow it to do so, deciding not to disturb the decorum of the library anymore. you scroll through your phone mindlessly, there’s nothing to look at except people going crazy about the evening's match. you even manage to stumble upon a thread of arguments featuring students of your university and the one the team is going against. it’s all empty threats, seriously, ‘kys’ and ‘ur mom’s in my bed’ aren’t even insults at this point. they’re funny, sometimes, but you’ll never understand why or how they ended up being insults. ( honestly, you don’t see the potential )

“are you serious about heeseung?” a crack in the ice, hanbin's question catches you off guard, with a number of questions running back and forth in your mind before you settle with the one to respond with in return.

you blink in confusion. “i guess so, why?”

“nothing, it’s just i never expected it to be him, y’know, considering your history,” you think it's unavoidable, questions along these lines, they would've been asked sooner or later. truthfully, even you didn't expect yourself to fall for heeseung.

your history, what even is there to call history except blood and war? both you and heeseung have been up each other's neck from the moment your gazes collided. it sounds like a stupid beef between highschool students, almost embarrassing now that you both are nearing post graduation. with all the days that you’ve spent thinking about ways to get on his nerves, or worse— ruin his projects, it wasn’t just you who resorted to ruining each other’s hard work— no one would have known you and heeseung would ever end up on this note, with him chasing you and you pinning for him, all under the blankets of a silly bet.

“well, as i always say, hanbin, life is unpredictable,” there’s a smile dancing on your lips, a dazzling hint of factuality in your eyes. “besides, he’s a nice guy behind all the annoying things he does. i think he's pretty serious about me, or us, too,”

hanbin has noticed the way you smile at your phone. it doesn’t always happen, only when you’re talking with miyeon or a few friends from highschool, now heeseung ranks up on that list as well. he’d be lying if the uneasiness doesn’t bother him, it’s bound to surface when he remembers all the nights you spent complaining about heeseung. actually, the rant session included hanbin, you and miyeon, but she would rather go to sleep than listen to you complain like a child for hours on roll, leaving you and hanbin driving the conversation. he has lost count of the amount of times you’ve ended up crying in the process, or the amount of times he has hung up on you only to show up at your place late at night to make sure you’re doing okay, and the nights you two have spent watching movies and falling asleep on the couch, followed by the mornings gone by with miyeon being salty over the fact that none of you invited her to your impromptu nightover.

the thought of heeseung confessing to you still surprises hanbin, it’s one of the things he deemed as impossible since forever. and he can go, warn heeseung about hurting you, dropping all sorts of threats at the boy. hanbin can go on for hours about how he would make heeseung’s life a living hell if he ever broke your heart. he can prove the righteous friend that he is, but at the end of day, he would always be the third person between you and heeseung. hanbin can only assume so much about you two, not even sure if all of it is right. he can only wish so much for you to have eyes for someone else.

and so, all he does is shoot a smile at you. “i hope he is,”

the only time you step out of the library is exactly three hours and thirty three minutes later, to sprint towards the basketball knowing that you absolutely cannot afford losing seats in the first two rows. fortunately, or unfortunately enough, you’re not the only student going crazy about the game. you can swear at least a dozen came out of the library right after you, even though all of them may not attend the game.

you’re already running late— well, still twenty minutes early but that doesn’t give you much time to meet the team and secure the front row seats. and meeting the team is an excuse, let’s be honest. you want to meet heeseung, have a quick private talk, kiss him good luck, you don’t know; you wouldn’t. your head is in a mess, behind you hanbin is yelling for you to slow down as you run down the stairs. half of you is worrying about seats and the other half is wording her sentences out for you to say when you meet heeseung, and the team. you can wish them all the luck in the world, after all, it’s the university team and you would love to see them win. the whole craze about sports doesn’t feel real and worth the hype but things start coming full circle when you’re the one watching. slowly, as one would expect, but you are starting to understand why everyone goes bonkers during tournament season.

“damn, slow down,” hanbin huffs, grabbing your arm for you to slow down. “it’s not like they wouldn’t start without you,”

“that’s the problem. what if they start without me?” but your legs wouldn’t rest before arriving at the court. you know your words sound funny, painting you as if the result of today’s match depends on you. it feels crazy to be this excited about a mere basketball match, nonetheless you know it’s not the match you’re actually looking forward to. “besides, i’m more worried about seats,”

“i asked hao to save two for us. he’s friends with heeseung, i think he will do that much for his friend’s girlfriend or whatsoever,” you see him roll his eyes at his own words, proceeding to slide his hands into yours before continuing on your way to the venue, this time a little slower.

you have heard about hao from hanbin and miyeon a few times. he’s pursuing a masters in music, wants to teach violin professionally according to hanbin. miyeon has even attended one of his recitals last autumn, something from sibelius, if you remember correctly. he is popular, and you see the depths of his popularity as soon as you spot him on the bleachers, surrounded by people left and right, one of them trying to grab a seat next to him before he points at you and hanbin, and the crowd goes mild, ultimately dissolves as the players step in.

“i didn’t know heeseung had a girlfriend,” you don’t know what you were expecting, perhaps a few words of greetings, hi’s and hello’s since you two are meeting for the first time. anything, except that question.

“believe me, i didn’t either,” and why even is heeseung going around telling everyone that you’re his girlfriend?

the court breaks into cheers as soon as the game commences and yet, it feels a little quite. perhaps, it’s miyeon’s absence getting to you. had it been her next to you instead of hanbin and hao— who are busy amongst themselves by the way, talking about anything but the match— she would’ve been eating snacks non-stop, giving you a little talk on every player, like a resume. it’s take her fifteen minutes to give you summaries on players from each team, their achievements, girlfriends and probably even mothers, who knows. although, you haven’t attend many games with miyeon to pinpoint every good and bad thing about her impromptu presentation, her unofficial commentary helped you sit throughout the match. it feels incomplete without her, not just the game but days in general. it’s definitely her absence making your surroundings feel quieter.

so, long story short, you don’t have a clue of what’s happening. well, you do, a little. you know what a dunk and a three pointer is besides the names of players on your university team, but that basically sums up your knowledge about basketball. all sorts of voices are mingling in the air but you’re busy following the ball around the court with your gaze, occasionally cursing and clapping when the team misses a close basket or scores a comparatively difficult basket. the tension between the two teams keeps rising as the game continues. you notice sunghoon groan in disappointment as one of the players from the opposite team gets in a banked shot from the wings, scoring two points for the team. a part of the crowd goes quieter at jay’s failed attempt to save the score for his team, beomgyu patting on jay’s back while muttering something along the lines of ‘good job.’ involuntarily, your eyes travel to heeseung, whose expression stiffens at the sight of the scoreboard displaying a two-point lag.

a time out call follows as the players move back to their respective ends, and it physically hurts you to see the difference in atmosphere between the two teams, or the frowns on the faces of players on your university team. for a second, you even consider walking down to them as they gather around the coach, grabbing water bottles and towels while nodding at the coach’s words between heavy breaths. you catch jake looking in your direction for a brief second, a smile makes its way to your lips before he responds with one as well, proceeding to nudge heeseung’s arm and pointing in your direction. his actions are left with no response— it hurts a little, although you are aware that anything else falls after winning the match on his priority list— and they get back on the court as the game resumes.

“they need to catch up soon,” hanbin mutters, taking a look at the clock. and even if it’s just a two point difference, you’re starting to understand why it creates a huge gap. it’s almost like scores on a test. going from eighty-three to ninety then hundred is easier than going from ninety-eight to hundred. greater differences are easier to overcome; for you have so many rooms for improvisation and thus, so many chances at closing the gap. the closer you are to a perfect score, the narrower are the chances and it’s almost impossible to pin-point and work on every single weakness of yours within those two points. you’re pretty sure your words would hardly make sense to anyone else, but nonetheless you understand why everyone on the court looks more attentive, probably like meerkats on the lookout for preys and predators.

much to your disappointment, the play continues with the rivals dominating the court, giving low to zero chances for the opposition to get their hands on the balls. you even see a few of them trying to provoke heeseung, the latter trying his best to not react but you’re afraid he would start throwing punches if another one of the players passed by him with his middle finger up heeseung’s face. one of them, who you assume is the captain judging from the way he has been directing his team, goes in for a hook, immediately getting blocked by taehyun as the court bursts into loud cheers once again.

“that was a little too far for a hook,” hao comments, and you nod as if you understand his words and know exactly how a hook is supposed to be. you didn’t even know about a hook until now, and you’re still not sure what it is since all the shots look almost the same to you.

from that second onwards, it felt as if the control transferred to heeseung’s teams as they transition quickly from defence to offence, making quick passes and running the court, practically catching the opposite team off guard. jay passes the ball to jake, who takes a leap from half court, driving towards the unguarded basket. a quick layup using the backboard, as you hear hanbin name the shot, and basically everyone runs to jake for scoring two points for the team as the scoreboards displays a sour tie. it’s a seemingly easy match after that, especially when the players look like they’re back into the game. sunghoon passes the ball to heeseung who goes for another layup and fails, much to his despair, before going in for a dunk and scoring yet another basket for the team, leading it by two points. you see him passing a cocky smirk at the player from before as jake pats him in the back with heeseung almost stumbling in the process.

heeseung shoots you a wink before focusing on sunghoon’s words as they get back into position, and even amidst the butterflies you got by his recent actions, you don’t miss the way he stretches his fingers, ring-finger specifically, pointing something about the movements to jay before getting his focus back to the game; and you just hope it isn’t what you’re thinking it is.

it’s a slow game after that, no points scored, four fouls with two of them back to back, one by each team respectively. the frustration increases on the court, evident in each step taken by the players, groans and sighs fill the atmosphere and get louder than the cheers that have gone quieter once again. it isn’t until a few minutes later that all the players run to the front court as soon as they see an opportunity for a fast break with taehyun taking the lead, passing the ball to jay just a few seconds after, who passes it to heeseung— and call it the lack of efficiency or bad timing, heeseung bumps into one of the players from opposite team, an uneven balance, and falls directly on his right knee, as one of the opposite players throws the ball off-bounds to stop the play.

the medics take him to the benches, bringing ice packs and everything else before escorting him inside. you considered following him inside before hanbin tells you that the officials aren’t letting anyone meet him, probably until they receive updates of his situations. you bite the inside of your cheeks in nervousness, palms sweating as if you’re about to appear for an exam you weren’t informed about until five minutes ago, or maybe it’s even worse. the murmurs from the crowd or the group of girls behind you, to be more specific, do nothing but make you feel more anxious. zhang hao, being a sports medicine student, tries to give you an insight on heeseung’s injury, telling you that even if he fell directly on his knee and it could result in a patella fracture, or perhaps just dislocation— words that compel you to yell at him to shut up before he ensures that heeseung will be fine. hanbin does that for you, noticing your slightly panicked state, telling hao to talk about anything but anatomy of how badly a simple injury can affect a player, and when sunghoon and taehyun return to the officials with an update on heeseung and a pale face, you knew you had to run to your heeseung as if it’s the end of the world.

“heeseung,” you breathe out, stepping aside to let the nurse from the infirmary leave before you walk closer to him. the awkwardness between you and other players, namely jay, jake and beomgyu, besides the coach, rings all the bells to remind you that coming here was probably a bad idea. well, of course, you like heeseung and are worried for him, but the tension in the air makes you feel like you showed up uninvited. “are you okay?”

you ask nonetheless, voice close to a whisper, as you stand at a distance, looking at the bruise on his knee. the smell of antiseptic spray fills your lungs, nose scrunching at the way you could almost taste the diclofenac at the back of your mouth.

“not really,” he inhales sharply, exhaling a reply once everyone left, knowing they had a game to get back to. “look at you, are you worried for me?”

“i’m regretting coming here now,” liar. and then you let the silence carry the conversation with itself for the next few minutes. you don’t know what to say— what can you say? all you do is sit next to him, hands brushing against his as his winces at the slightest touch. heeseung opened his mouth to say something before dismissing his words with a heavy sigh the very next moment. you almost hold his hand— almost, thinking of holding it ever so carefully as if it’s glass with thousands of cracks, and then you’d kiss it ever so delicately, you did it— almost, but then, it’s just you getting upset over the fact that he played even after hurting his hand.

“so, they’re benching you,” you say in an attempt to strike a conversation, a little conflicted with your choice of words, wondering if he even wants to hear about something related to the match at the moment.

“of course,” he says it like a matter of fact, a fact whose impact doesn’t seem to touch him. “please tell me they have jeno substituting for me. i’ve barely been getting updates in the group chat,” the least he expected was for one of the substitute players to keep him updated about the game through texts, and heeseung planned to get back to the court until you showed up, taking a seat next to him on the benches in the locker room. you don’t understand why they didn’t take him to the infirmary, and decided to think it’s because locker rooms are closer and if there’s anything heeseung should not be doing right now, it’s moving his injured leg.

you shrug. “i don’t know, i’ll ask hanbin,”

“thanks,” and even though heeseung isn’t really fond of your friend for reasons that are widely known, at least amidst his friend group, he really hopes hanbin is of some use.

it’s quiet now. you can hear faint cheers buried in the layers of walls and rooms that stand between the court and the locker room, a few muffled footsteps filling up any spaces left in the air, here and there. you assume it’s his fans trying to check up on him, as annoying as it sounds to you for you’d rather have this moment with him all to yourself. you hear him sigh heavily once every few minutes, trying to ball his injured fingers up in a fist to allow the slightest of moments and ensure healthy circulation, a soft hiss leaving his lips at the sensation of striking pain shooting up his nerves. unlike heeseung, your attention shifts to his injured knee with a faint chill running down your spine as you look at his bruise, which now looks more bluish than it was when you had arrived, signifying the possibly alarming amount of blood that has now clotted in the tissues.

“you can cry,” nudge him with your shoulders and heeseung directs you to the most disgusted face in return. “what? it’s the finals and you’re injured so you won’t be able to play today. any normal person would sob their eyes out,”

“i’m not a kid, yn,” he nudges back, a chuckle slipping off his lips.

“trying to act all cool but you’re probably going to cry yourself to sleep for days, or even weeks,” he holds out his hand for you to hold it as you stand up, an action you give into without opposition, intertwining your fingers with his. there’s a smug smile on your face and he sees it as well, although only you know the way your heart is somersaulting at the way your hands fit his’ like pieces of a puzzle. “i know what you are, heeseung,”

he scoffs at your words, hands still entwined, a lovesick glow in his eyes— it’s your first time seeing this side of him, you’re glad to be one of the people to see it. silence has never felt so comfortable to you. the distant noise from court feels like it rushed on its way to you and heeseung, and stopped at the doors, as if you two are beyond its reach. you might never say it to him, but everything seemingly ceases to exist when you’re with him, and the world feels timeless. it’s embarrassing, cringe, and it’s making your heart beat faster with the way he looks at you. “you need to shut up,”

“make me?” a quick response, one that was supposed to be a joke, a joke which was supposed to be accompanied by laughter and brushed off as another baseless comment, but another second passes as you continue to look into his eyes, and you realise you’re actually considering it— leaning in towards him while giving his hand a light tug to pull him towards you the slightest, your other hand cupping his face as your gaze ghosts up his eyes and settles on his lips. when it comes to him, rationality is out of the window and your lips are on his’ planting the softest kiss at the corner of his mouth before pulling away like nothing ever happened.

a pause; you could hear the silence ringing in your years, eyes fixed over him as if you’re spilling all your secrets to him, waiting for him to take a hint. “what even happened to the ‘no kissing before finals’ rule?’”

and you realise you had actually forgotten about it, for better and never for the worse, because as you said and as he repeated, it’s all about timing. empty locker rooms, quiet hallways with not a soul around, your hand in his, his eyes on you— the timing couldn’t be better, and you know better than messing up and letting heeseung become just a closed chapter of your life. “yeah, i could care less about that,”

there are a lot of things you could care less about, like the cold metal that stings against your back as he pushes you against the lockers, or the fact that anyone could walk in, any minute; you don’t care, don’t know. his lips are on yours and his hands are on your waist, it feels euphoric the way his lips move in synchrony with yours, fitting like puzzle pieces. heeseung tugs you closer by your waist, a faint gasp escaping your mouth that dissolves immediately into your breaths mingling together. it’s intoxicating and is making you go insane, the way he manages to sweep you off your feet with the smallest of actions and simplest of words— from the very first day.

heeseung was right, and you as well, it’s all about timing. from the day you first looked at him in a seminar, to the day he switched to biotech— you plan on asking him why because so far, all your guesses seem implausible— down to the day he confessed, leading up to this moment with you pressing against the lockers and his lips against against yours. heeseung sighs softly, cupping your cheeks and tilting your head to deepen the kiss, and you could feel the heat of his breath against your lips when you pull away just when it was about to get better, avoiding his lips when he leans in to chase yours barely a millisecond later. your eyes shift down to his hand, one that has been injured during the game, and you proceed to hold it carefully, brushing your lips over the bruise lightly before adorning it with feathery kisses as his other hand travels down to your waist once again, pulling you closer. “you should go easy on yourself,”

you whisper the exact same words he had told you a day ago, traversing your eyes back towards him while your gazes have a conversation so foreign, as if it’s only for the silence to understand. and it’s quite literally just the two of you basking in silence as he rests his head against the crook of your neck, planting a few kisses here and there before pulling you even closer, as if you were going to disappear any second. “i think, i’m in love with you,”

and timing be damned— because heeseung confesses to you once again, and then he’s kissing you once again, slowly, sweetly, in love, and timing doesn’t even matter because every second feels right with him. with the same air of delighted indifference he comes to know well in the gleam of your touch and the curl of your lips, you simply kiss him back as if to say, hate to admit, but i’m in love with you too. and timing really be damned because you hear loud rounds of cheers as you feel his shoulders stiffen. a slight disconnection between you and heeseung makes you wonder if he’s thinking about the results of the game, which is inevitable, but this is about you and him, and nothing else. you hear the notifications from his phone go off, hinting that the match is probably over, and you pull him into another kiss, another round of selfishness guised as an outlet for him to forget about the game, another round of messy make outs, tasting the freedom of ignorance.

and then you don’t hear from heeseung again.

V. OBJECT OF ALL DESIRES

days without heeseung feel like they’re forty-eight hours long.

you think it’s a disease or some sort of withdrawal syndrome. this isn’t your first time without him, in fact, you used to do just fine without him in your life until you let him in. at this point, it isn’t even about not being able to see him— heeseung has been absent for almost seven days. you even asked jay about him to see if he has been in contact with any of his teammates but much to your disappointment, he disappeared off the face of earth like he never existed. taehyun has constantly been reminding you to not fret too much, knowing that heeseung gets a little dramatic after losing matches. you can take his word, obviously, a friend from highschool would know heeseung better than a girl who started talking to him normally barely weeks ago, although you couldn’t help but worry about him as seconds passed like water dripping down the tap, disturbing the silence.

you know how losses feel— like a part of you has been taken out and you’re left to bleed. it’s worse when it’s about something you’ve loved all your life. you’ve walked next to losses, hand in hand. when you know you’ve lost something while having it in the palms of your hands the whole time, the feeling eats you inside. you wonder if heeseung is feeling the same way you think he is, even if he didn’t show it a week ago when you had met him in the clubroom, the feeling starts to sink in when you’re alone amidst the ghosts of nobodies. even though he was smiling and acting like the little shit he is, you felt anger and regret in the way he kissed you. there was a sense of numbness dripping down his fingertips in the way they brushed against your cheeks, cupping your face. you could’ve been a sweet escape— it hurts to admit that the emotions weren’t possibly real, but you couldn’t blame him.

losing a match, to put it in your words, meant failing in a test; and losing because of an injury, it’s like skipping a test you prepared for, because of fever. except tests can be rescheduled for students who missed— a luxury heeseung, as a basketball player, cannot enjoy. even you couldn’t believe your eyes when the students on the forum started talking about the lost match, all sorts of comments going around, though none targeted at heeseung, fortunately. yet, your first instinct was to dial his number— out of reach, the first thing you hear on the other side of the line, and all you’ve been hearing for days now.

you had considered cutting ties with him, not literally, but as in stopping to chase him as if he’s the oxygen you inspire. you could’ve showed up at miyeon’s place with apologies, her favourite snacks and a brief explanation of why you did what you did, and everything that has happened as the consequences of your own actions. with weekends approaching, you could’ve planned a two-day trip with her and hanbin before the winter snow made it hard to commute— just anything to get your mind off heeseung, since apparently, you weren’t on his mind either. albeit, you end up doing nothing, no trips, no plans to see miyeon, it’s just you and your bruised heart with soju on the side. your mind is way too cluttered with thoughts about heeseung to focus on studying and at the same time, it’s way too empty to try doing anything else.

so, you simply venture down the hallways, drowning in all kinds of thoughts, good and bad. you can use the time to study but concentration has been far out of your reach ever since the match, or ever since he went underground, to be more specific. the impromptu make out session was probably his last straw— it makes sense. you kissed someone who had been walked out of a match because of an injury instead of consoling them. you let your feelings get the best of you, making everything about yourself yet again. you won’t be surprised if heeseung decides to ghost you for the rest of his life after that; or maybe, that’s not possible since you see a familiar figure sitting in the outdoor basketball court, spinning the ball with it’s axis on the ground in a directionless manner.

“heeseung?” you notice his back tense at the sound of you calling his name, head down low as if he’s responding with an exasperated sigh. “where the hell have you been? i’ve been trying to reach you— heck, even your friends haven’t heard a word from you in days,”

“not now, yn, leave me alone,” and an exasperated sigh is what it was.

“look, i know—”

“just, what part of leaving me alone do you not understand?” you try to speak but heeseung cuts you off just as efficiently as he does other things, with annoyance heavily evident in his words. had it not been heeseung, you would’ve left already, for you have more important things to tend to, and you’re certainly not interested in matters you’re not supposed to be included in, if only it wasn’t heeseung, and if only you weren’t crazily worried for him.

“oh, i understand it clearly, every part, actually, and i also understand that you’re upset and leaving you alone would certainly not be the best move considering the way you went MIA for a week,” and you understand his impulses about disappearing into thin air, wishing the ground eats him up or for the walls to cave in till he’s entombed in them, but a person as smart as him should know taking out helps better than thinking about wanting to vanish. “we can sit and have a talk if you stop being such an asshole about it. i’m down to listen to—”

“fine, what do you want to hear about?” he cuts you off in annoyances, the ball rolls down to a distance like your heart when you see the unfamiliar emotion in his eyes. “you were right. i went home and have been crying myself to sleep. i haven’t been eating well either. i skipped five out of nine mocks and barely passed the four i gave, let’s add that too. is that enough?”

you don’t like the way he puts it, as if it’s supposed to make you feel better. maybe about the bet, maybe, since he’s supposed to rank above you in finals to get around dating you, and maybe watching him lose is supposed to offer you some sort of relief— seriously, what you’re feeling right now is far from that. guilt, anger, shame, you’re not unfamiliar with those emotions. they eat you inside and it’s not because you’ve met with defeat, it’s because of falling off all the expectations people had, giving them another reason to point fingers and laugh. you could be really over-reacting, but if you didn’t have your parents telling you it’s going to be fine every time you didn’t do well on tests, you don’t know where you would’ve been right now. and you think you can play a part of the same for heeseung, if not all.

you sit next to him, nose scrunching at the sight of dust on the cement laid with cracks. that’s what you get with an outdoor court no longer in use. you can see little plantlets germinating from the soil, emerging through the cracks, the rusted ring catches your eye. heeseung huffs as you settle next to him, wondering exactly how long the court has been unused for, considering its lack of maintenance. “let’s date,”

and your words are not what you were planning to say or what should be said in this situation, but they still manage to extract a response from him. “don’t play with me,”

“i’m not, in fact, that is what i’ve been wanting to say to you for days. of course, this isn’t the best timing, but i don’t know what else to say,” you pause in what feels like embarrassment. too bad, his crush is not good at conversations. sometimes you end up nodding and blinking for five minutes straight before saying anything, after a person opens up to you with tears and blood. “and, i’m not going to tell you to stop acting like a child or whatever because the team lost such an important match and somewhere, you’re blaming yourself for it, which you shouldn’t, by the way. all i need to say is that you still have the next year to make up for what you’ve lost now,”

second chances come with higher expectations from people along with words that end up making one feel worse about their situation. you’ve already heard a few students talk about how heeseung should’ve been more ‘careful’— as if it was his choice to get injured and lose the match. you know it wasn’t going to be easy, especially with his injury that probably requires him out of the court for weeks, but you hope that amidst whatever he’s feeling, between self-loath and regret, heeseung manages to find himself once again.

“actually, i’m planning to drop out of the team next year and focus on studies. my parents were already against me playing basketball during postgrad, i’m finally starting to notice why,” basketball could’ve been his entire career if heeseung’s grandmother had not wished for him to go into the medical field. seeing the insides of a person makes him want to empty his bowel from the mouth so biotechnology was his next option. heeseung thought having two hands would give him the benefit of managing basketball and academics together, unlike how his parents had wished for, but his recent mock scores and lack of time devoted to studies is making him question his choices. “and what the hell were you on about dating, by the way?”

you’re half immersed in your own thoughts until heeseung directs the question at you— brows furrowed, confusion shadowing his face— you realise it’s your turn to do the talking. “oh, you know, dating. i think we should start dating already, it’s quite inevitable after that day in the clubroom,”

it is evitable, really, but you’re down bad— with all due respect.

you haven’t been okay ever since you realised that you like heeseung, and you’ve been trying to act normal about it, attempting to not lose your cool-hard-to-get-girl composure— miyeon’s words, and they make you cringe— while the thought of him is eating your brain slowly and gradually, making you go insane. if you were to narrate from where you opened and closed the door at, it would be a slippery slope, you don’t know how someone ends up falling for the person they despise. the yn from a month or two ago would be knowing, you can see her shrugging and getting back to her books, saying see saw it coming. ( it’s miyeon’s fault for making you even think about having a mind blowing chemistry with heeseung ) the you from two semesters ago, when he first transferred, would hate you and call you a traitor, might even write whore on a mirror while looking at it because you fold at the sight of hot, smart and sporty men who are perfect at everything, even at ruining someone’s life, like he’s ruining yours; and the yn from highschool, you see her squealing on the floor because oh, what a fan of enemies to lovers she was— heeseung wouldn’t even have been in the current picture if your highschool crush slash rival liked you back. the current you, well, she’s a goner, and in denial that she’s a goner. too much pride does something to a person, especially when you’re an over-scorer and an academic weapon. you’ve lost all your abilities of letting your guard down even once, refusing to give up and accept defeat, no matter how tortuous it is on the inside.

the current you is more like a victorian man looking at ankles for the very first time.

“and the bet? what happened to it?” he chuckles, of course, anyone would, considering the way you’ve lost after placing the bet with utmost confidence slash overconfidence. see, it never ends well, anything, with overconfidence, it doesn’t end well, never have and never will. and you, you don’t learn, sitting with the very well known fact that if you were given the chance, you would place the bet with him again.

“ah, i didn’t mean to do that, honestly. i was confused when you confessed, it was so sudden, i didn’t know how to respond. the bet was the best i could come up with,” miyeon was right, you could’ve used something along the lines of ‘i need some time,’ that day instead of pulling out a bet right out of your ass, and now you don’t know how to save face. at least the fact that heeseung confessed first makes you feel a little better about yourself. “c’mon, i know you love challenges. i was just trying to see if it gets you turned on or something,”

and heeseung scoffs in disbelief, eyeing you at your choice of words. “yeah, i feel very turned on knowing my crush dragged me into a bet that i’ve been working so hard for and she wasn’t even serious about it,”

“working hard? from what i saw, the only thing you worked hard for was basketball,” you raise your brows, a taunting intonation in your voice. a part of you regrets the choice of words, knowing that basketball is seemingly quite a sensitive topic to bring up at the moment. albeit, the slight fear evaporates off when he laughs and dismisses your words and nothings.

he leans a little closer, hands touching yours. “you never know what i’m up to at home,”

a pause; you look in his eyes and then at his lips, he mirrors your actions with a smirk on his face. you guess that there’s a second meaning to his words, not sure what, but the look in his eyes tells you something about it. “i think we should get back to when you were talking mental and i was talking you down,”

and you could grab his face and kiss him with no one around, on the unmaintained basketball court for the grey and cloudy skies to see. you could run your hands through his hairs and tell him how crazy he makes you while planting kisses down his neck. you can kiss him till both of your lungs are begging for oxygen, and that's when you'd tell him how he makes you feel— breathless and drowning, a little insane every time you see him flirting with someone that's not you. you can kiss him till the sun goes down and evening takes over, it doesn't matter if you're outside for the world to see. you would've kissed him if heeseung hadn't leaned back, looking at the ball lying stray at a distance.

“by the way, i’d love to date you,” he smiles at the infinite horizon before looking at you, as if waiting for a response already known.

“yeah, i figured that,” you try to play it cool as if you’re all knowing. it’s partially true, he did confess to you first. “let’s make another bet: no kissing before finals, and the one who ends up giving in first has to buy dinner,” you come up with yet another bet, your voice hinting the enthusiasm for no apparent reason.

heeseung squints at you, a little conflicted, quite unsure of your words. it sounds like a moment of deja vu, hopefully on a better note this time ‘round. “that’s not even valid, we made out not even a week ago,”

“let bygones be bygones, hee,” he likes the sound of the little nickname you've given him, unlike bygones, the word you use to refer to your very first kiss with him as if it's an unfortunate memory. “it’s decided then, no kissing before finals and the loser has to buy dinner, and i won’t be satisfied with anything less than a five star meal,”

you squint, index finger pointing at him, a challenging composure. another chuckle from him makes it’s way to you, lips curling into a faint smile. it takes you all the way back to the day you placed your first bet with him, with head empty and no logic, for the entirety of the basketball team to see, hear, and talk about it as if it’s supposed to be on the headlines of the national newspaper. your eyes spark up in anticipation, wondering if the two of you are down for another bet, one that doesn’t proceed towards failure, hopefully.

“the last time you did something like this, you ended up running back to me and asking me to date you,” he scoffs softly, side-eyeing you with a mocking gaze, quite ready to pull out the receipts if you ever deny his words. you hate how correct he is, all the time, actually, and you hate how you don’t have words to argue back.

lee heeseung, a nobody to you till he switched to your department, just some student who was there to pass time until he started ranking above you on tests and flipped your whole world upside down. you tried to not think about him and failed every time— still beats you why. you’ve never let distractions get the best of you, but heeseung, perhaps he’s more than just a distraction, or maybe he isn’t a distraction at all. he’s like a plant in your garden that you could care less about— should care less about, it’s growing without harming your plants, but it’s creeping against a wall with pretty flowers for show, and before you know it, it’s demanding for all your attention that you offer without second thoughts, unwillingly at first.

he’s the bane of your existence and object of all your desires, to put it simply and make it sound cliché. you’ve had your moments trying to run away from him, get him out of your head, annoy him to the point he’d prefer flying to the other side of the globe, or that could be you too, anywhere, far from him. but life, for the thousandth time, is unpredictable. when was the last time something worked out exactly how you had planned— can’t remember, obviously, just like the way you don’t remember when heeseung started occupying a corner of your brain, popping in and out at random times and disrupting your thought process. the more you tried to ignore him, the further he housed in your head, the deeper in your heart, closer, within your reach, as if for you to grab his hands and let him enter your side of the world.

and so, you kiss him again, pulling him towards you with the collars of his jacket. you feel him smile, a triumphant smile, as expected from someone who is used to winning. you don't think you can say you've lost, not at the way he cups your cheeks and tilts his head to deepen the kiss just moments before you pull away. “i always run back to you, don’t i?”

and you're a child infatuated with their favourite sport, a painter falling in love with strokes, a pianist dancing to the melody of rachmaninoff, a student addicted to getting a perfect score, a player addicted to winning. you trace back to things you like, you always run back to heeseung,

and you always would.

TEN MINUTES LATER :

heeseung plants a soft peck on your lips. “dinner’s on you,”

“fuck!”

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celtic-crossbow · 9 days

Text

For You, I'd Bleed Myself Dry

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Setting: Early-ish Alexandria

Warnings: Suggestive (extremely mild); hangover

Summary: You're hung over and don't really remember how you got to Rosita's house the night before. Or what you had said on the way there.

A/N: Just a fun little drabble born of this incorrect quote. Suggested by @marvelcasey05

You didn’t expect to find Daryl still home when you wandered in the next morning. He was always an early riser, and though everyone else still slept, he would usually be long gone and outside the gates. So, when you tip-toed through the door and into the kitchen, your heels in your hand, he nearly scared the life out of you. You flipped the lightswitch and:

“Mornin’.”

“Jesus Christ, Daryl!”

The archer chuckled behind his coffee mug before tilting it the least bit more to take a sip. “Rollin’ in awful late.”

You shrugged “Or early, depending on how you look at it. Any left?” You nodded toward the cup. He gave a quiet mhm and got up to make you a mug. Your head was throbbing. You knew your makeup was a mess and your hair a disaster. You had slept in your dress at Rosita’s, so it was wrinkled and you were almost certain that it was only partially zipped in the back.The party hadn’t been that fun but the liquor had been flowing. That was why you went. Things in Alexandria had been stressful. Your group had been there a while. Long enough for so many problems to come along and be handled. The past week had been particularly eventful. Still, it had been handled and there had been some time to cut loose.

So, you did.

You sat your heels on the counter and muttered a thank you when he slid the mug across the surface, narrowing your eyes across the rim as you readied for a drink. “Do you know how I take my coffee?”

“Guess you’ll need to take a drink an’ find out, won’tcha?” He was perching himself back on the island stool when you realized that Daryl Dixon was barefoot, wearing flannel pajama pants, and a faded Led Zepplin t-shirt.

“You’re wearing people clothes.” You blinked, still holding the mug close to your mouth.

Daryl smirked from behind his own cup. “M’a person, contrary to popular belief.” He took another sip, prompting you to take one of your own. He did know how you liked your coffee. Interesting.

An ache in your left foot reminded you that you wanted nothing more than to go to your room and fall into a coma for a few hours. “I should probably take some—”

“S’behind ya. Got ‘em out earlier. Water too.”

There were two tablets on the countertop by the fridge, along with a glass of water. You warily picked them up, almost as if they would come alive and bite you. “Thank you?”

“Mhm.”

Quickly swallowing them, you downed the water because coffee wasn’t the best tool for rehydrating, but you’d be damned if you’d give up that mug for anything. Collecting your heels and your coffee, you started walking backwards out of the kitchen. “Listen, I’m gonna head upstairs and get off my—”

“Perfectly good chair right here.”

“What?” Now you were looking at him as if he’d grown a second head. There were no other chairs in the kitchen. Carol had the only other stool piled full of kitchen junk she had yet to put away. “Are you sure you’re awake?”

“M’wide awake. How’d ya get to Rosita’s last night?”

Wait. Was Daryl blushing? “She helped—” No, that wasn’t right. Rosita and Tara came back long after you did. You distinctly remembered grumbling at them to turn off the lights. “How did I get there?” You said aloud, though softly.

“I took ya.”

Your shoes hitting the floor echoed through the quiet house, causing both you and Daryl to flinch. After a moment, no baby cried and no adults yelled. You walked forward and placed your mug back on the counter. “What do you mean you took me? You weren’t at the party.”

Cause Daryl’s home. He doesn’t like parties.

He shrugged but the pink tint to his cheeks was now traveling a route up to his ears. “Was workin’ on the bike. Saw ya stumblin’ ‘round in the dark. Didn’t wantcha to get hurt.”

“Did I—did I say anything stupid?”

And if I see him right now, I'm gonna ask to use his face as a chair.

“Nope.” The archer was staring at his coffee cup, rolling the smooth sides between his hands. He absolutely knew what you had said but he was giving you an out. Goddamn that man. He had to be beautiful, rough edged, and chivalrous at the same time?

“Good.” You nodded. “Good. Thanks for the coffee.” You turned to walk out, leaving the coffee mug behind. “And for—you know, getting me there safely last night.”

He nodded with a small, tight smile but didn’t say anything else. Maybe he was just teasing you. No, Daryl wasn’t the type. Well, he was but not with things that were at his expense. He was definitely going out of his comfort zone if the red tint on his face was any indication. Did he want to do that with you? You certainly wouldn’t mind. You’d wanted Daryl for as long as you could remember. Even before he started treating the group more like friends than survival buddies. There was always just something about him that called to you, pulled you in like a magnet, but there was this invisible line that didn’t feel safe to cross. Was he toeing that line with you now?

You might never get the chance again if you were to shut him down.

“Hey, Daryl.” You called from the stairs, barely looking over your shoulder. Your heart was racing.

“Yeah?”

“There’s—there’s no chair in my—what’re you—hey!” You were over his shoulder and being hauled down toward his room in the basement before you could do much more than laugh.

“Weren’t no way ya could make any line ‘bout a chair work.”

“Got a bed, right?”

“Got a mattress.”

“That’ll do, Dixon. That’ll do.”

#murda writes #daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #the walking dead #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon the walking dead #daryl dixon twd #daryl #daryl dixon smut #daryl dixion imagine #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl x female reader #Spotify

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cyclorose · 1 month

Text

[ OLIVERSE ]

more info below !! (I'm still developing them so stuff may change in the future ^^)

• original oliver

- he's just Oliver, nothing changes about him

• him.

- I don't wanna make him fully introverted, so I chose a more ambivert personality for him, with awkward moments

- if I am not mistaken this is kinda Randy?? like in this alternative version they do swap roles, but I decided not to make him fully 'Randy'

(I'll have to watch a playthru about that part again. But for now he's a mixture of them both)

• swap oliver

- this one's personality is Randy's. I wanna keep his slang so there's some resemblance of the og one, aside form the head, and maybe some traits of his, but I am not so sure atm ^^'

• alpha oliver

- this guy at first seems really off and kinda distant, but doesn't mean ill. He probably doesn't have a good relationship with ppl and tries his best, but society seems to be against him in some way

- once u get to know him, he's the sweetest guy ever, he's just a bit silly. He keeps the same interests as og oliver and is a little more introverted

- I also remembered a comparison for him: that one kid in a bullies group that doesn't really wanna be there, but stays for reputation or for benefits. But I am debating on making him the weird kid in class type too- or both

(someone on pinterest said he looked like he'd say slurs LMAO. In my notes app I wrote and I quote: 'he seems like he bullies kids on Roblox or Minecraft, but doesn't know any better')

• P L U S H

- he talks, but only the Olivers can hear him, no one else can

• olipin

- he doesn't talk 💔 some may say he is cursed, but who knows, heehee

I didn't add a flesh head version because the design is subjective, but if I do add him it'll be something like in chapter 3 where they showed ppl with a black cloud thingy

#oliverse #dialtown #oliver swift #dialtown oliver #dialtown fanart #dialtown au #drawing #god I am crazy #if no one does shit with him then I'll do it heh #LIGHTHEADED BTW 😭😭#or maybe I don't search enough

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