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#sometimes i need me a gut punching angst story

roryintheir90s · 8 months

Note

Any fanfictions recomms?

You have not specified what type of fanfiction you're searching for, but I will try to recommend the ones I like a bunch.

And pls do read through the tags carefully before reading! Some of those fics may include violence or mature ratings.

Trust life by Capritarius

STATUS: ongoing

RATING: mature

CHAPTERS: 57/?

WORDS: 275k

MAIN SHIPS: Jimmy/Tango, Jimmy/Scott, Scott/Tango

needs to go first ofc, I don't think I will ever be able to praise it enough 👌

it's just perfect to me. Has everything one needs from a story, drama, complicated relationship, scenes that makes you wanna bawl your eyes out but at the same time it has those sweetest moments ever.

Plus, which is a huge positive for me, no one in the fic is necessarily bad. If you look from the perspective of another person, you can actually realised that ye, maybe what they did or are doing isn't great, but you get why they're like this. Well outside of few people. But for that you gotta read it.

To have and to hold by Green_Life_Lily

STATUS: completed

RATING: teen and up

CHAPTERS: 50

WORDS: 87k

SHIP: Jimmy/Scott

Gen, I love this ff. It's angsty tho. Scott tries his best to help his husband, but it feels sometimes like it never works, and never gets better. It's heartbreaking to be fair. Outside of flower husbands, other relationships are ambiguous. It also gets A LOT worst before it gets even slightly better.

You seriously just feel for the guys, they doing everything they can, only for it to fail or be meet with the gut punching situation.

Everyone struggles there, A LOT.

You looked so good in green by apollothetransboy

STATUS: completed

RATING: mature

CHAPTERS: 13

WORDS: 52k

MAIN SHIP: Scott/Martyn and Jimmy/Scott in p2

I loved this SM. You guys have no idea. Something I recommend to read if you're into a complicated relationship overall. This one doesn't have a happy ending, BUT Apollo is so nice and good and amazing, that we have a p2 to it called

I try to worry for your soul but I forget to

Which is from Jimmys perspective and DO have a happy ending.

It's actually a whole series for this au, and I gen telling you guys to check it out.

It's called the ocean at you door.

One restless summer and hide your heart by StormChaosfox

STATUS: both completed

RATING: mature

SHIP: Scott/Jimmy

Just complicated the relationship between Scott and Jimmy, both of them being dumb and pining, but being scared bc of their past experiences. Lots of regrets and hurt. Plus second book adds skulk and evil sausage to the mix.

Can't say much about this one, because Gen, most of it just just a love drama! So I can't say much because of spoilers.

Tell me one more beautiful lie by apollothetransboy

STATUS: ongoing

RATING: teen and up

CHAPTERS: 11/16

WORDS: 61k

SHIP: tango/martyn/jimmy/scott

Another fic and another slay from Apollo. I love this fic sm. Lots of angst, but also it has it's sweet moments 🥺 it's like my comfort fic.

Truly you guys gotta read it.

Explosions across lifetimes by thed0zyslider (HollowWish)

STATUS: ongoing

RATING: teen and up

CHAPTERS: 22/?

WORDS: 96k

SHIP: fWhip/Jimmy

If you a fwhimmy fan you've probably heard of this one. Gosh, it's such a good one. But what can I say, I'm a sucker for enemies turn lovers. It's sweet, it's cute. It's just AaAAAAAA

A billion amounts to nothing in infinity face by FulminateTheSun

STATUS: ongoing

RATING: teen and up

CHAPTERS: 12/24

WORDS: 43k

SHIP: Jimmy/Sausage

I'm positive that this fic is abandoned, but its still a worthy read. Like gen, its a good fic. I think sausage x Jimmy deserve more attention. They're the moment, and they're just so AAAA could arrange them in the most positive way ever. I just love them

I gen don't know whether you wanted those types of fics, but these are one of my favorite. If you want anything else do let me know I'm more then happy to share!

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myfairkatiecat · 1 month

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Kate Wetherall, Katherine Pulitzer, and your Keefe boy :)

Aaaaaahh yes yes yes these are really good ones ahdkdhsnbdjshssj

Kate Wetherall:

Ok so. The reason I say she works best as a part of a dynamic is because while she’s awesome on her own, she is MOST compelling with the rest of the mysterious Benedict society!!!the four of them together are so special to me

Also I’m a Kate apologist, she’s never done anything wrong and I stand by it :)

(And yeah if you see the way I write Kate you may see me projecting. It might have something to do with me being in sixth grade when I first read the books and going “omg we have the same name!!!”)

Katherine Pulitzer:

Look I relate to this girl SO MUCH you don’t even understand 😭

And the fandom has a tendency to villainize her or make her seem problematic simply for being complex, which… is a problem I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, actually.

I love her SO MUCH. She’s kinda scary but also she’s me

AND FINALLY

Keefe Sencen:

Once again flattered by your interest in hearing me talk abut my interests that you don’t share 🥹

Okay look. I LOVE KEEFE. And I initially colored in “they’ve never done anything wrong” cause I have tendency to be a Keefe apologist, but if I’m being real here he’s definitely done stuff wrong 😭 @phtalogreenpoison has heard me talk about his character in detail and knows EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Why the tiny scribble on “too much screen time”? Well…….it’s technically true. He does get too much screen time, and for not being the MC, he’s started getting a lot of his POV in Sophie’s story. However, I EAT IT UP cause I’m a pretty standard basic Keefe girlie. So while I understand the side of the fandom that’s beginning to want more of some other characters, and I think that’s soooo valid, I also am totally eating up all the Keefe screen time. SO EXCITED for the Keefe book that’s coming out this fall. I love this boy. So much.

Also would I marry him irl?? uhhhhhhh if Sophie didn’t exist then YES he’s mine. But I’m a girl’s girl and he belongs to Sophie <3 they’re so cute together, too!!

Somebody is gonna come at me for saying he’s deeper than he seems cause we actually get quite a bit of insight into his character depth, but I think even what we do see doesn’t fully cover it. Keefe is more open with his friends than he’s ever been with anyone else… but he definitely has a LOT of defense mechanisms in place, which is why he has that cool-kid-doesn’t-care-doesn’t-work-only-flirts vibe going on in the first book, and the first time we REALLY get slapped in the face with “haha you knew he had a facade but here have a GUT PUNCH” is the quote in the beginning of book three when Sophie suggests they stop by Keefe’s house and he just sorta looks down and says “I…don’t bring friends home.”

Like. We knew his parents sucked. But something about seeing him vulnerable like that. Ahdkfhdjshdjdshs

I think the mischief making and flirting is also a real aspect of his personality, but a lot of the sorta bad-boy-ish reputation he’s got going on at school in the beginning books is a front to cover his ✨issues✨ and I don’t think we even see the full depth of how much the reveal of his mother as a villain and her constant attempts to make him “embrace the change” and have a “legacy” tied to her evil thoughts impact him. We know it’s hard for him and we totally see that, but even in Keefe’s POV he avoids thinking about it, and… honestly it’s up to us fanfic writers to really delve into that angst. Shannon sorta tells us it sucks for him, but doesn’t really show us (not fully, at least) cause Sophie is the main character, not him.

And do I project my issues on him? …maybe a little…his particular brand of the “using humor to cover up my problems” trope hits very close to home for me. I deflect with humor in the exact same flippant way, and just like with Keefe, sometimes it works and sometimes it gets me in trouble with my friends when I need to be serious.

(Yes I want to carry Keefe in a hand a like a tiny dog. Not elaborating.)

Wasn’t sure whether or not to say he gets done dirty by the fans. Historically, this fandom is head over heels in love with him, but right now there’s been a bit of a turn towards combating Fitz hate (another character that often gets pitted against Keefe unjustly bc of shipping discourse) with Keefe hate and saying he’s problematic when he’s really just complex.

So yeah I’m not normal about Keefe at all, if you couldn’t tell.

I managed to talk for a very long time about him

You can tell where the brain bees are buzzing rn can’t you

#kotlc #tmbs #keeper of the lost cities #the mysterious benedict society #newsies #kate wetherall #katherine pulitzer #keefe sencen

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vesperewrites · 11 months

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do u have writers u recommend (dnf)? love ur writing btw

Aw, thank you! I do! (Sorry this has been sitting in my ask box for a while since I'm not online much lately). In no particular order, these are some of my favorite DNF writers:

Scoops (ao3): Extremely versatile writer. Engaging plots. Has something for everyone! How are they ridiculously talented? I want to examine their brain with some of the coolest worlds they come up with. They write vividly and pack some gut punches in their fics. When I open a Scoops fic, I know I'm in for a treat.

Extrasteps (ao3): Another extremely versatile writer. I love her fics so much. Delicious. Sometimes dark. Good mix of AUs and the explicit stuff is top tier. Their Blinding Shadows series drives me feral (her other bite-sized fics are great).

Altaneen (ao3): Perpetuam Memoriam is an excellent fic (DNF royalty/political intrigue). The darker themes in her work give me major gothic fairytale vibes.

Dizzy (ao3): Bite-sized fics. Made me fully realize some kinks that I could totally be into. *cough*pisskink*cough* Their writing is cathartic, terse, and captivating. They have excellent George and Dream characterization. They're super unafraid to write what's outside the box within DNF and I am in love with them for it.

Preytall (ao3): Huge writer crush. I've reread their fics multiple times. Their fics are gourmet and I come to feast to satisfy some deep itch in my brain. Gorgeous prose. The tropes they write are mwah, chef's kiss. Their blog is also one my favorites on Tumblr for prime degen DNF sex brainrot.

Maplefound (ao3): Ahhh I like the fics they have up. I really enjoyed the imagery in hunger, bone deep. I find myself clicking on that fic a lot lately just to re-read.

Mieldoux (ao3): Incredible prose and this fic was excellent. Poetic writer, love them.

Alisonsomething (ao3): Their second-person POV fic is so good that I revisit it semi-frequently. I do not care for second-person POV or soul marks AU, but they are proof that a good writer can reel in anyone. Superb writing . They also write angst incredibly well and I am currently reading FIFLW.

Venus43 (ao3): Although they have left the fandom, I still think about Aching Heart and This Thing Called Us. They write tension and longing so well and god it just hurts. I miss them everyday.

SamrieIMG (ao3): Okay they are hands down, my hugest author crush. They do not write DNF anymore, but their prose, world-building, incredible stories hit me a certain way. They are the reason I started writing in the first place and I have a special place in my heart for them. This darkfic (more DSMP/minecraft-ish) DNF series is incredible. READ THE TAGS. Horror thriller-ish. Each fic stands out on its own. It's not a romance (it's even better), but it's a hauntingly beautiful journey. Seriously underrated author. Imo, the tropes listed aren't that bad/overly explicit but ofc, please heed the tags.

In no way is this a definitive list, but just some DNF writers I can think of off the top of my head (and bookmark-ready). It is late and my brain's dead, so I'm sure I'm forgetting more people.

I need to comment on more fics for real though.

#author rambles #author asks #I admire these writers so much #dnf ao3 #DNF #not an exhaustive list

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koraesrambles · 2 months

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GREAT READING ADVENTURE PART 1 (CW: pictures from the Sandman comics may be disturbing to some)

I started with the Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. A legend in comic spheres, and one that I'd been wanting to read for a while.

I found 10 volumes at my local library and have made my way through two of them so far. First off, as a horror book DAMN. DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN these books do not pull punches. They come at you like a gut punch and just keep going. I like to describe myself as someone who enjoys "horror lite" I love monsters, I love angst and crazy situations and some messed up stuff, but I'm kind of a baby about it. Things like Supernatural, Gravity Falls (It's kid friendly, but there's blood!), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that's my jam (wow, that list makes me feel about 5 years old, but whatever! I like what I like!). The Sandman Is Not That.

The Writing

Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful in every way, but it's also a lot for a wussy like myself. I'm enthralled, captivated, unable to look away, but there have been multiple times where I've needed to close my eyes for a second and remind myself that this is a comic book, and the world isn't necessarily this dark all the time. I'm pretty triggered by children in danger/getting hurt/dying and these books don't shy away from that. But they're also just . . . so beautiful.

The writing is annoyingly amazing. I expected nothing less, it is Neil Gaiman, but sometimes as a writer you look at other people's writing and just sit back in awe. I wish I could write something like this. Or, if not exactly like this, something as beautiful and poignant as this. The story flows so beautifully. Every scene perfectly blending in with the next. Every word feels like it has a point, which makes you want to pay attention to everything to make sure you're not missing anything.

Writing is my main background, but comic writing is so different from prose. This is what I struggled with the most while drafting up OUTCAST ODYSSEY, how do I get everything across that I need to when I can't just write it all out? How do I pace it when telling a story with pictures vs words feels so different? But Neil does this so well. It felt lyrical, and I could see his influence on every single page. The art was done by someone else, but the ideas, the imagry, the way the story flows from one idea to the next, is all a result of absolutely phenomenal writing.

It reminded me to trust readers to read between the lines. It's difficult to find the line between "subtlty" and "confusing" and I am often guilty of feeling like I need to spell things out to my readers so that they won't miss anything, but more often then not that just slows down the plot and makes the whole experience clunky. You don't want to go too far in the other direction either, but Neil knew who his audience was and trusted them to at least give things a second glance. I was worried at the beginning that I'd be too dumb to figure out what he was hinting at, but he was able to patiently feed me the information without me getting frustrated or lost.

It's a skill that comes with experience and practice, but I feel like this story really really shines at it. I found myself studying the way he handled exposition and wanting to emulate it in my own work.

The Art

The art is also stunning. It's not "cute" art. It's not something that I would want to hang up in my house or look at for hours. It's amazing from a skill standpoint (which is easy for me to tell just due to my own extremely obvious shortcomings) but it's not concerned with everyone looking like hollywood movie stars.

Which . . . I mean, that's definitely a feature, not a bug. This story is not supposed to be cute, and a cutsy art style would absolutely ruin the atmosphere. It is rough and full of sharp points. it doesn't shy away from nudity or gore. The characters are not attractive, these are not anime stars, but they are compelling, and distinct enough that I was able to easily tell who everyone is, which is more often then not extremely difficult for me (i think I may be a bit face-blind).

The art adds to the horror of everything. Even when things are supposed to be calm, or sexy, or whatever, there's an edge of panic and unease to it. Part of that is the reader knowing that there's more going on behind the scenes then the character knows, but it's also the style. The heavy black shadows, the hard lines, the emphasis on some details while the obscuring of others, it all combines to perfectly compliment the writing. It's not a pleasure to look at, but that's absolutely the point. It's also extremely difficult to look away FROM. How can something simultaneously look jarring, eerie, and unpolished, while also whispering "Yes. This is beautiful art. Look at it. Bask in it."?

I'm a newbie artist. It's way beyond my skillset to even begin to figure out how they were able to accomplish this. But someday I hope I figure out the secret.

The art perfectly compliments the writing, and the two work together to tell the story. I remember feeling a little annoyed on the artists' behalf that the Sandman is always known as "Neil Gaiman's" when the art side of comics is so incredibly important. The art sets the tone and compliments the words. It helps with reading between the lines and helping us know how seriously we should be taking the words.

Characters

All of the characters are great! Except the ones I already knew. I'm not saying they were bad, just bland compared to everyone else. Constantine, the Justice League, every cameo that came up and I was excited for felt . . . not quite out of place, but not quite seamless either. I was most excited for Constantine, and he was fine, but I probably have enjoyed him more in every other comic I've ever seen him in. I know they were all included just to try and sell the first few issues of a new story, and I respect that (the amount of comics that I've read just because my favorite character showed up for a few panels is . . *cough* embarrassing), but I was kind of bummed by how little conflict they added to the story.

Constantine immediately agrees to help Morpheus (which, okay, he can see how powerful Morpheus is and doesn't want to get on his bad side, totally in character. But I like Constantine best when he's being a bit of a dickhead), when I was really expecting a bit of tension or at least antagonism between them. We briefly see Etrigan but he is so quickly outshined by Lucifer that I nearly forgot about him, Scarecrow shows up but I didn't really feel like he added much besides a familiar face, we see Scott Free (who I know very little about) and J'onn (whose reaction to Dream was probably the most interesting) but all they do is immediately tell Morpheus where he needs to go. Why were they so quick to be okay with this obviously terrifying powerful force just grabbing stuff? I guess I understand why J'onn was okay with it, since he knew who Morpheus was, but it still felt weird that there wasn't even a single moment of hesitation or resistance. They basically served as a plot GPS.

Again, there's nothing wrong with any of them, they just didn't feel as vibrant as all of the other characters we were introduced to. Even the woman who gave Dr. Destiny/Dr Dee a ride was more vivid and felt more real and purposeful than the cameos did. At least to me.

The original characters (or at least everyone I didn't recognize. Was Dr. Dee a Gaiman original or had he shown up previously? Cuz he was very much A tier villain for me,) were all amazing and vivid and lively. I cared about them way faster than I normally do, especially at the very beginning of a story. The cameos felt exactly like what they were: Cameos to sell the book.

Final Thoughts

This book is, objectively, better than anything I will ever create. And that's not even a diss on myself, it's just objective fact on the quality of this piece. I learned a lot looking through it, trying to figure out what Gaiman did that worked vs didn't. The lyricism vs crassness of the writing, the way the art complimented the dialogue, how the panels flowed and where it was easy for me to follow vs where I got a little confused. It's a beautiful book and I can absolutely see why it's a graphic novel must read. I'm planning on reading the rest of the series, but I can only read one volume a day, because the horror of it all absolutely follows me after I close the last page.

#reading analysis #reading challenge #the sandman #morpheus #the sandman graphic novel #comics #DC #learning to be a better writer and artist #studying the greats #the great reading challenge of 2024 #neil gaiman #best graphic novels #list of best graphic novels

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maybege · 2 years

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Princess - Part 1

Summary: After having travelled with the Mandalorian for weeks, you finally land on Sorgan, your new “sanctuary”. In order to protect the child, Din gets a job in some village in the middle of nowhere. Too shy to voice your feelings for the bounty hunter you are forced to see the growing connection between him and the beautiful widow.

Pairing: Din Djarin x fem!Reader

Wordcount: 6.5k | Rating: T

Warnings: fluff, angst with a happy ending,

A repost of this wonderful little story! I hope you enjoy it ❤️

masterlist | crossposted on ao3

“I like him. He’s making you soft.”

“I’m not soft.”

“You’re calling him a little womp rat, that’s a pet name. Pet names are soft.”

“Shut up and let me land the ship,” he did not sound annoyed, more amused, really, as he initiated the landing sequence on the Razor Crest, “How’s your head?”

With a sigh, you leant back in the co-pilot’s chair. You had only barely escaped the guild on Nevarro a few days before and even though you had not physically fought (you were not able to land a punch for your life) the battle and subsequent escape had taken its toll on you. A horrible migraine had manifested itself in your skull, a sign that you had been under too much stress which was ironic, considering that you had been living with a kriffing bounty hunter for weeks now.

Thankfully, you had been able to function these past few days – the pain sometimes being more endurable and sometimes being gut-wrenching – but today, oh today was definitely the peak in your suffering, or at least you hoped it was.

“Worse.”

The Mandalorian hummed and flicked a switch somewhere. “Lie down, princess,” he turned in his seat, the child on his lap, and looked at you, “I’ll check out the planet on my own, the womp rat can stay here with you.”

You did as he said without much protest. Talking would only make it worse now, best to get into silence and darkness and sleep it off. The Razor Crest was still in the air when you found your way to your bunk. With a breath of relief, you pulled your boots off and slipped under the blankets. From somewhere you found your sleep shirt and folded it above your eyes, hoping that the added darkness would help to ease the pain a little.

You had refused the bacta spray Din had wanted to waste on you when the pain had first started. By that point, it had been clear as day that the green toddler – the little womp rat according to Din – had put you on the map for some very unfriendly people. There would be enough instances in the future where the bacta spray would be needed for something more severe than your migraine.

Still, your head was pounding so much that even the low rumble of the spaceship around you hurt your ears and eyes. You started to doze away, only noticing that the Crest had landed in a daze. Din was walking around, preparing to leave the ship and you heard him give a speech to the little one up in the cockpit. You smiled to yourself. He would not admit it yet but he had grown soft on the child and you loved to see it.

When he had prepared everything, you felt his glove on your hair.

“I’m leaving, princess,” he whispered, “the child is up in the cockpit and I told him to stay there. If you need anything just use the commlink, alright?”

Your eyes remained closed as you hummed your understanding. The hand on your head left and you heard as the ramp was opened. The womp rat evidently did not agree with what the armoured man had decided. As soon as the ramp opened you heard the Mandalorian scold the child as it was standing next to him and even through your pain, you could not help the chuckle that left your lips before sleep took you again. If you were going to stay here for another few weeks, as Din had planned, that would still leave plenty of time for you to explore this new world.

For now, you just wanted to bury yourself under the blanket and see and hear nothing.

When you opened your eyes next, it was dark outside.

The ramp was open again and noises were coming from outside. Sleep had left you and it took you a moment to gather your thoughts. You had landed on some backwater planet called Sorgan, you remembered. But the migraine that had pained you for so long had only gotten worse so you slept for most of the day on the ship, leaving Din to check out the place. The child had also gone with him.

Sitting up you felt the additional blankets around you. On a create next to your bunk stood a bowl of what smelled like cold soup. Your heart warmed at the sight. This was Din’s doing, it had to be, and to see the way he cared about you made the butterflies in your stomach flutter around like a hurricane. He always took care of you whether you had asked him to or not, not really acknowledging his acts of kindness but never ceasing them either.

That’s why you loved him. You just needed to figure out if you ever wanted to tell him.

This was the moment your body decided to remember that you had not eaten anything today and nothing at this moment sounded better than cold soup. You slurped on the cold liquid, some sort of broth, and it was the most delicious thing you had ever tasted. When the broth was finished you allowed yourself to stand up, wandering around the ship in your blanket until you finally spotted the bounty hunter in the cargo hold.

“Din? What is going on?”

Telling you his name was an accident. He had been shot, badly, and a concussion was certainly in the realm of possibilities when he had started to mumble unintelligible things under his breath. It had been the first time you had ever administered a bacta shot and the thought of it still made your hands shake. But the Mandalorian had trusted you and in his haze, he had gripped your hand and asked you to call him by his name – Din Djarin. You had been pretty sure that it had been unintentional on his part, that he had not really meant to entrust this to you. But his name on your lips was like a drug and you stayed with him the whole night, whispering soothing words and his name – always his name – under your breath until you were sure that he would survive. When you had called him by his name the next morning, he had not corrected you and he had not asked you to stop since.

So now, as you had called for his attention, you wrapped the blanket around you and approached him. He seemed to be packing away most of your stuff and through the open ramp, you could see two young men you did not recognise loading up a vehicle with your belongings. They looked so very out of place next to the beskar-clad bounty hunter and you suspected they might be farmers of some sort. Behind them stood a woman who decidedly did not look like a farmer.

You did not recognize her but she looked like she belonged to Din more than to the soldiers. Her hair was short and her arms crossed in front of her chest, she did not look like someone to mess with. And was that … was that some kind of armour that she was wearing? For a planet that barely held any population, she seemed suspiciously like Din. However, he did not seem to mind her presence which only confused you more. What had you missed out on these past few hours?

“We have a job.”

“And who is she?”

“Cara Dune, she will help us.”

You could only nod, sleep still in your eyes as you watched them loading up the little vehicle. The two young men did not really talk but they seemed keen on getting you back to wherever they had come from. The child was standing on the floor, dwarfed by a bush that was growing next to it, and cooed up at Din as he passed him. With a smile, you watched as he audibly sighed and then lifted the child into the back of the vehicle. Once the child was loaded up into the bed of the vehicle, only its little ears peeking out, Cara hauled herself onto there as well.

Din turned around and by now you had learned how to decipher his facial expressions even when he was wearing his helmet. He tilted his head towards the speeder and you sighed as you made your way towards him.

Only when your feet made contact with the forest floor did you notice that your boots were still missing. You turned around, tired and a little frustrated that had to make your way back to your bunk and put them on. For maker’s sake, you just wanted to sleep.

Next to the speeder, Din lifted his hands, your boots magically already in his possession. When had he gotten them from the ship? Were you still so out of it that you had not noticed his disappearance? Not minding the feeling of your feet on the grass, you walked over to the speeder, the blanket still around your shoulders. With a hand on your back, the bounty hunter helped you up before turning around and locking the Razor Crest up.

The two men did not make any attempts to talk to you and you were grateful for it. They informed you that the journey would take the whole night and that you would arrive when the sun was already up so you might as well get some rest now. Your group did not have to be told twice.

Cara was the first one falling asleep, her head leaning back and her legs stretched out towards you. The child was next, curled up between you and Din, his eyes did not remain open for long and soon little snores filled the air next to the humming of the speeder. You looked up at Din next to you, unsure if he was still awake. Your body was yearning for sleep but at the same time you worried – you always did.

You wanted to talk to him, to have him calm your nerves as he always did. His no-nonsense attitude to life, his very objective way of seeing things, had helped you more than once in the past. He was a warrior, fearless not only in battle but also in his honesty. If there were any dangers on this mission he would have told you about them, right? But he was not moving, probably already resting, and you did not find it in yourself to risk waking him.

So, you did the best thing you could: worry over each and every possible outcome. What if this was a trap? What if Din’s trust in Cara was misplaced? What if something would happen to the child and you could not prevent it?

Din shifted next to you, the length of his leg now pressed against yours, “Worried, princess?”

You turned your head towards him, making sure to keep your voice low so the farmers would not hear you, “Do you really think this is a good idea?”

“They are as far away from civilization as possible and we’d be able to stretch our legs for a few weeks.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” you tried to assure him, “I’m not doubting your skills. I know you’re better than anyone out there. It’s just …”

“Yes?”

But what could you tell him? That the fear in your mind – your fear for him and the child – kept you up and doubting every single decision you had made thus far? It was not even possible for you to pinpoint what exactly was bothering you, the remnant of your migraine still fuzzing up your thought process. So, you just sighed and decided to leave it be, “It’s nothing, forget it. I guess I was just worrying over nothing.”

In the dark, you only heard how he shifted until you felt his gloved hand reach above the child to your shoulder. Even through the leather, you could feel the warmth of his skin (or your imagination was just really vivid).

“I don’t want you to worry,” he replied, “I promise I will keep you safe – both of you.”

“I know you will, Din,” you whispered back and squeezed the hand on your shoulder, “Now get some sleep, I heard the farmers are paying good money for your exquisite skills. Wouldn’t want to disappoint them, now would we?”

He chuckled at your teasing and with the pleasant sound still in your ears you fell asleep again.

You arrived at daylight, just as the two men had promised. The sky was incredibly blue as you blinked up at it with not one cloud to see. Caught in the space between sleep and awake, your head was resting on Din’s shoulder. Your position had shifted during the night, you discovered. The child was now solely resting on Din’s lap, eyes already taking in the new sights. Your bodies had shifted closer together and while your head rested on his shoulder pauldron his arm had moved to lay around your shoulders and press you into him. You could feel your cheeks becoming warm as you realized just how close you were. But he made no move to detangle himself from you. Maybe he was still asleep?

“Morning, princess,” he rumbled into your ear and he was definitely not still asleep. He was awake and he had remained like that. Willingly. With you.

You did not have the time to ponder over the fact as the vehicle came to an abrupt halt. A crowd was already forming around you. Cara was the first to stand up, “Seems like they are happy to see us.”

“Seems like it.”

There was a group of children excitedly talking to the child. Ears perked up as he realized that they were happy to see him. A fond smile formed on your lips as you watched how the child was adopted by the local children as one of their own. This could only be a good sign.

Cara helped you down from the vehicle and now you had the chance to look around and really take everything in. Your first impression of the village was that it was beautiful. The grass was green, the water blue, lush forests were surrounding the village and while the huts were simple they seemed welcoming. All the villagers were so happy to see you, talking over each other and greeting you with big smiles on their faces.

This was a very different experience from what you had encountered these last few days and you relished in the welcome change.

Din was clearly uncomfortable with so much attention so you stuck close to him. Maybe it was just wishful thinking but you liked to believe that your presence eased his mind a little. And apparently, it did. His shoulders dropped and his hand appeared on your back (ignore how warm this feels, ignore it, ignore it, kriffing ignore it!) as his visor lowered its gaze to your feet.

“Still without boots?” he asked you.

You grinned and looked at your bare feet in the grass, “I’m embracing my existence as a nymph of the woods now, thank you very much.”

He chuckled, “If you must, princess.”

One of the farmers that had also driven the speeder introduced himself as Stoke and led you to your lodgings. The other farmers went to work on unloading all the crates that Din had taken with you but you did not worry about leaving them alone with your belonging. They did not seem like the type to steal Din’s countless blasters. Hell, they probably did not even know how to handle them.

The village was rather small and it was easy to remember the layout. Wherever you went you could always spot the ponds where they harvested the krill. They made spotchka with it as Stoke explained, although you were not quite sure what spotchka was. Cara got her own hut, somewhere on the edge of the village. She seemed quite content with it and waved at you with a grin.

Stoke turned to you, a small furrow between his brows, “Now will you need separate lodging as well?”

Din’s hand on your back tensed. Before you could answer he had made the decision, “No, she will stay with us.”

The farmer just nodded and led you further through the village. Din’s hand on you burned and you were sure that it was apparent how affected you were by him. Secretly, his decisions had pleased you. You liked being close to him. On the Razor Crest, you had lived in close quarters and you had gotten so used to it that you did not know how to live on your own anymore. Apart from that, you also liked to be close to him. Not for security reasons – although you always did feel safe with him – but because you liked to just be with him. You liked his Maker, you were truly pathetic, weren’t you?

Stoke finally came to a stop in front of what looked like a … a barn? Confused you tilted your head to the side. There was no door but more of a curtain that covered the entrance to your future lodgings. Inside, there was a woman that seemed to be preparing the unconventional space for visitors. She had dark hair that was braided away from her face. She was quite beautiful and her smile shone as she welcomed the two of you.

“I am sorry that this is the only thing we have to offer,” she apologized, “But we are very grateful that you have accepted the job. My name is Omera. If there is anything you should need, please don’t hesitate to ask one of us.”

Din answered something but you were already too busy inspecting your future living quarters. It was simple, yes, but it still felt very homey. Through the weaving of the walls came rays of sunlight that shone a beautiful pattern on the floor. There were two cots on either side of the room and even a small table and a chair. The table stood by a window that overlooked the space between the huts. Children were playing outside, not a worry in the world.

Yes, this could be your home.

As you had finished your little tour, you saw that he was still talking to Omera. As she left with parting words and a smile he looked at her even after she had gone. An uncomfortable feeling spread in your chest. You had never seen him do that before.

Like the adult that you were, you decided to just ignore it. She was beautiful, everyone could see that, and he was entitled to look at beautiful women as much as he desired, was he not? He is not yours, you tried to remind yourself, no matter how much you want him to be.

“So, what do you think? Do they pass the test?”

You ignored the teasing undertone in his voice, trying to mask the hurt on your face. “It could be nice here,” you decided with a nod and looked around again.

From outside, you could hear the happy chatter of the children. As if sharing the same thought, both of you went over to the window and spotted the little one playing with a group of children. He seemed incredibly happy and it made your heart fly in your chest.

“He looks so happy,” Din marvelled next to you. If you had not been sure about his feelings for the child before now, this would be the moment where it was abundantly clear that he cared for the child – even though he had yet to acknowledge it.

“How is your head?”

“Better, I think,” you shrugged, “Don’t know what that was about.”

A finger tapped against your temple and you turned around to face him, “You worry too much in that little head of yours.”

“Is …”, your mouth gaped open, “Was that a joke?”

You only heard his chuckle as he left to explore the threat with Cara.

You did not really notice the discussion between the villagers and Din. You were not sure what you were supposed to be doing in all this and with your normal occupation – tending to the child and making sure he did not accidentally destroy anything important – gone, you were left to your own devices. Which meant that you could hardly take your eyes off Din, standing broad-shouldered in front of the villagers, saying words you did not hear and looking absolutely gorgeous.

You had never seen his face but you were sure he was beautiful.

The discussion grew more heated and you saw that Cara was getting involved in it as well. But it all came to a stop when Omera started to speak. You could see her eyes fixed on Din, both of them just staring at each other. You felt helpless, seeing how they could barely take their eyes off each other. Had he ever looked at you like that? Would he ever look at you like that or was it too late now?

With a grin Cara slapped her hand on your shoulder and pulled you out of your thoughts, “Ever shot a blaster before?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted Din standing next to Omera. He was teaching her how to handle a blaster. Although from what you could see, she did not need a lot of teaching. All her targets were hit and the approving nods that he gifted her with were more than he had done with the other villagers.

You tried to ignore the little pang of hurt that went through you at seeing him like this. You were not entitled to him spending his every minute with you. He was not yours. Perhaps he was just happy to have a bit of a respite from being stuck with you on the ship for so long?

Still, you had thought that he would be the one to teach you. All these weeks together he had always teased you about it, how you were absolutely useless with a weapon – a true princess. You had always rolled your eyes at him, not wanting to admit that the thought oddly pleased you. No matter how rough he was around the edges you were sure that he was a good teacher. And he was. Just not for you.

Instead, it was Cara whose task it was now to show you the works of a blaster. You liked the woman. She was rough around the edges, much like the bounty hunter, but she was funny and soft – also very much like the bounty hunter. The difference was that you were not hopelessly in love with her and it enabled you to completely relax around her. She was like a friend and you found that you liked it – the camaraderie between women.

The weapon was heavy in your arms and you could already feel how your arms began to tire. You were training the blaster onto one of the targets, trying to remember the different steps Cara had shown you only moments before.

The dark-haired ex-soldier was standing next to you, arms crossed, as she scrutinized your posture, and adjusted your stance by tapping her foot against your ankle. “Why does he call you that?”

“Call me what?”

“Princess.”

A nervous laugh escaped your lips as you tried to focus your eyes on the pot that was hanging a few feet away from you. Ignoring the butterflies in your stomach, you pulled the trigger but the makeshift target did not move at all. You had missed by miles. You sighed defeatedly and lowered the weapon again, wondering if you would ever learn how to properly shoot a target. Preferably before the raiders came to your little village, guns blazing.

“Because she looked like a princess in her twirling skirts floating around the market as if there wasn’t a kriffing bounty on her head.”

Din suddenly appeared from behind you, hands on his belt, casually standing beside Cara. You could hear the fondness in his voice and turned around with a smile. It was one of your favourite memories, how the bounty hunter had suddenly appeared behind you, grasping you by the upper arm and decided that he would not turn you in. That he would take you in.

“I didn’t know there was a bounty on my head,” you tried to defend yourself.

“Doesn’t matter. Still looked like a princess.”

He sounded so serious all of a sudden and his words held that much more weight thanks to it. Your cheeks felt treacherously warm and you averted your gaze to the floor, the Mandalorian being too intense.

Cara did not say anything but she looked like she knew exactly what was going on with you which did not help one bit. Not when you had seen how proud he had looked at Omera, how pleased he had been with her skills while you were standing here missing shot after shot.

“I will take it from here, Cara. Caben and Stoke look like they need some more pointers.”

Cara only smirked and nodded her goodbye before walking to the two farmers who were desperately trying to figure out how to properly handle the blasters in their hands. You recognized them as the ones that had first brought you here and even though it did not help in the preparation of the village, you were glad to see that you were not the only one that struggled with the unfamiliar weapons.

That left you alone with Din. Why did that make you so nervous? Probably because you would not be able to take his harsh judgment once he figured out how miserable you were at all this. Because you did not want to disappoint him.

“I am not very good at it, I’m afraid,” you shrugged your shoulders, eyes on the weapon in your hands.

“Don’t need to be good,” he replied gruffly, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “You only need to survive. Show me how you shoot.”

You assumed the position that Cara had shown you.

“Stop right there.”

Immediately, you froze in your position, muscles locking up. You had not even pulled the trigger yet and already the Mandalorian had found something you did wrong. You took a steadying breath, trying to reign in your feelings of embarrassment, disappointment and just general anxiety. This was Din you were talking about. He would not think less of you for not knowing something you had never learned. That was not the type of man he was. So why did that thought not calm you?

He moved behind you and you were acutely aware of how his chest was pressing up against your back. The closeness made you dizzy and you tried to tighten your grip on the blaster, your arms screaming in protest. Maker, what was going on? Why couldn’t you just get a grip?

His hand adjusted your elbows from behind but once he was happy with your grip he did not move away. Instead, he took hold of your hips and stayed like this. It was like his body was moulded perfectly against yours, his touch igniting a flame in your stomach you were not yet ready to acknowledge. How did this not affect him?

“Shoot,” he instructed, “The kickback will be stronger this time but I got you, alright?”

Not trusting yourself to speak you only nodded and pulled the trigger. Din was right; the kickback was much stronger. Had it not been for him you would have stumbled back a few paces but now you were thrown only ever closer to him. His hands flexed on your hips as you tried to upright yourself again. Your face grew hot and you were pretty sure that you were close enough to smell him now. But your thoughts were washed away when you saw something incredible.

The pot was moving, swaying on the long rope it had been tied to.

You could hardly believe your eyes as you turned to him, enthusiasm washing over you. “I did it. Did you see that? I did it!”, you exclaimed giddily grinning up at him.

The Mandalorian simply nodded, “You did,” he used his hold on your hips to turn you around again, pulling you until you were, once again, touching his chest, “Now do it again. We are doing it until I am satisfied.”

It took forever.

You shot, again and again, sometimes hitting dead centre and sometimes not even close to the target. But you got better.

Din did not leave his place behind you. He would occasionally adjust your hold on the blaster or your stance but he was always right behind you, hands hovering above your hips. By the time you were consistently hitting the targets, you were the only one left to practice, but Din would not let go. Barricades were built around you, holes were dug deeper and the sun continued its journey through the sky and Din would not leave your side, not once.

You grew more and more comfortable with the weapon in your hands but also with him being so close. Now that you were distracted, your body allowed itself to relax against him almost, not constantly worrying about what his close proximity meant.

Sometime later he took a step back from you, now only watching as you shot. You would be lying if you said that you did not miss his touch but it also meant that you got better so you would focus on that.

When he finally moved, the pot was already blackened from the many hits. You doubted that it could be reused again. “That should be enough,” he went on, “We should get back to the others. The sun is already low.”

Silently you nodded, happy that you had not been an utter disappointment and feeling slightly more confident concerning the nearing fight.

Nightfall came quicker than you had anticipated. You had spent the remainder of the day digging the holes for the AT-ST and helping to usher the children into one of the huts furthest from the battlefield. Your arms were sore from the extensive blaster training and the digging had only worsened the dull ache in your muscles. At the same time, your body was vibrating with energy, readying itself for battle – physically and mentally.

Your thoughts were like one of those flying bullets from the Mandalorian. They bounced around your head a few times, too quick to be caught, before disappearing again, leaving you disoriented and insecure. What if you were not good enough? What if people were going to die? What if Din or Cara got hurt? What if one of the children got hurt?

You took a steadying breath. The blaster felt heavy in your hand as you were standing outside the barn, just watching and waiting for anything to happen. You were not ready yet to take your position by the barricades. If you did, it meant that all of this was real. That it was really happening and that you were going to fight.

A few huts over, you could see how Din talked to Omera. Probably just preparations, you tried to reassure yourself. But the way they stood by each other, how she intimately touched his hand, how worried she looked up at him, told a very different story. And Din did not seem to be too opposed to her advances and it hurt you more than the fear of battle ever could.

Annoyed at yourself for thinking this way you looked down at your blaster, making sure it was loaded like Cara had shown you just a few hours earlier.

(Omera was nice. She was a good woman. Din deserved happiness and if he found it with her instead of you that was none of your kriffing business. Just keep it together.)

Their conversation must have ended because you could see Din walking away from her. Cara was waiting by the gates of the barricades and you wondered if you should tell him goodbye. It felt wrong, just letting him leave like that when everything in you screamed to tell him.

But instead of making his way to Cara who was patiently waiting, he made a beeline towards you. Your heart stopped for a second before starting to race in your chest. You tried to straighten your posture, to not let your nervousness show but you were pretty sure that the Mandalorian saw through you like he always did.

He came to stand before you, rifle slung across his shoulders and hands resting on his belt. He looked more intimidating than ever and you were not sure if it was just the fact that he would leave for battle any moment or because you were so nervous to be so close to him now. “Are you ready, princess?”

You swallowed and nodded slightly, your hands shifting around the blaster in your hands, “I think so.”

He remained silent for a second, mustering you up behind that helmet of his, you were sure. “Do you know where Cara put you?”

You nodded again and gestured behind him to one of the wooden structures, “Yes, by the barricade over there.”

He followed your arms and nodded shortly. Then he turned back to you and if possible, his gaze became even more intense. “Good. Now make sure that it’s loaded when we leave. Don’t take any unnecessary risks, stick to what Cara and I taught you,” his hands hesitated before they touched your wrists, fingers enveloping them completely, “I – I want you safe, understood?”

With wide eyes, you looked at him. Was he worried for you? You looked around to make sure that one else was close enough to hear you. “Din,” his name felt familiar and safe on your tongue and you looked at where his hands still rested on yours. There were so many things you wanted to say. Was this now the right moment to tell him? How much you admired him? How much you wanted to be with him, how much you loved him? But Omera popped up in your mind, so you bit your tongue, “just … be safe, alright?”

His shoulders deflated a bit. You were too nervous to think about what that meant. Disappointment maybe? But in what? Or was he just relieved to finally get going? Was his blood pumping in his veins like yours? He nodded his head once and then joined Cara and disappeared into the woods. Seeing them leave led the farmers to assume their positions, weapons in hand. Following their example, you got to your spot behind the barricade, waiting for the moment when Din and Cara would come back bursting through the forest, raiders on their heels.

Din heaved himself out of the water, Cara next to him, a breathless laugh escaping her.

The plan was crazy enough that it had actually worked. They had brought down a kriffing AT-ST and all of that with only a handful of people, not a lot of skill but much more determination than he had ever encountered. The cheers of the farmers sounded like music to his ears – but the one he had his focus on was not a villager at all. He spotted you first, a wide grin on your face and unharmed. His heart felt lighter at the realization and he allowed himself to just rest a moment.

Dead raiders were lying around, some farmers already starting to dispose of the bodies. For a village that had not seen a lot of violence in its day, they were a lot less squeamish than he would have assumed.

One of the Klatooninians had not yet gone down, however, and instead of staying down or surrendering, he got up again.

The straggler made a run for it, battle cry bellowing from his mouth. The villagers cried in fear, caught off guard by the sudden threat. Din’s heart stood still when he realized that the straggler was making his way away from the village cutting down anyone that was standing in his way.

You were there, looking so unsuspecting, grinning at something a farmer had said at you and then there was only a blur.

Din heard a scream, a splash and you disappeared.

He was still lying on the ground, desperately trying to get up and get to you. The farmer you had spoken to did not hesitate to pull the trigger, the raider falling to the floor with a thump. Din ran up the last bit to the pond where you had just stood, eyes flicking back and forth in the darkness to see where you had fallen. Adrenalin was pumping through his veins, heart thumping loudly in his ears and only one question on his mind. Where were you?

“The pond!”, Cara called from somewhere, “She must have fallen into the pond.”

Before he knew what he was doing the water was up to his hips, his arm plunging into the liquid darkness. He felt something soft in his hand and moments later he hauled you up to land by your shirt. There was a gash on your forehead that was still bleeding into your hair. You were unconscious but your chest was still warm.

“Hey, princess,” he mumbled desperately, hands touching your cheeks, “Can you hear me?”

He got no answer and where his heart had felt light and airy before, it was now a stone in his stomach. Cara was standing behind him, he could hear her arguing with one of the farmers. But it did not sound real, more like he was hearing her through tons of cotton.

He cradled your upper body on his lap, pulling you closer and watching for any sign of life. Your body tried to take a deep breath, a wet cough wrecking your body. Gently he turned you to your side and water heaved out of you in violent bursts. It took a while but soon, you took a rasping breath and his heart felt like it was flying. You were alive, thank the maker you were alive.

Cautiously he picked you up, making sure to have you as close as possible. Cara ushered the farmers away from you that now wanted to congratulate the heroes of the hour, not yet realizing that something was wrong with you. “Let her breathe, let her breathe.”

The barn was already in his view when you started moving on your own.

“Did you see me?” you mumbled against his chest, triumphant smile on your lips, your eyes unseeing and half-closed, “I did it, Din. I did it.”

The pride in your voice broke his heart and he shifted you in his arms so you were closer to him.

“I saw you, princess,” he whispered back at you, “I always see you.”

#maybege writes #din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem!reader

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snurgle07 · 7 months

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Say all your psychonauts 2 thoughtS

All of them huh? I think about this game so much, I’d be here all day, but this certainly gives me a good excuse to ramble about some things I love about pn2. :D

- The characters are amazing! 10/10 I care about pretty much all of those freaks. The art style makes them all look so charming in a lopsided weird sort of way, and the game is so empathetic to everyone that even the characters we don’t get much of or who serve a limited purpose still feel well rounded and real.

- Raz is excellent. He’s loads of fun in the first game and continues to be a blast in the second. He’s even more adorable and earnest in the sequel and I love that for him!! He’s definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, I adore him.

- Adoring the characters goes for everyone though. And pn2 has a whole new cast of characters who are all super fun in their own ways. The Psychic 7 especially are super cool. My biggest soft spot is for Lucy, but I love Bob, Ford, and well, the rest of the seven really, a whole lot. Getting to meet the Aquatos is also awesome, and the interns are cool too. Lotsa cool groups of characters to enjoy.

- The story? Awesome. Feels grander than pn1 to be honest, and I like that, but also it’s completely great on its own. It’s got loads of mind shenanigans, drama, great mental health commentary, and manages to balance out all the trauma with enough healing and empathy and even a bit of humor that it all still feels nice and hopeful despite everything. Like yeah there’s a lot of angst material certainly, and as a fan I gotta love that, buuuut sometimes I need a piece of media to punch me in the gut and then give me a warm hug afterward.

- On the note of mental health stuff, I feel it did great. It’s noticeable that they talked to experts and people with personal experience. They were able to convey the mindscapes of certain traumas and mental health issues with more accuracy. The first game was certainly empathetic and kind in regards to that, which was a big deal at the time, buuuut the accuracy was a bit lacking back then. Pn1 shows it’s age a bit in that regard. Pn2 improves on that wonderfully with both kind and more researched explorations into the mind.

-The morals regarding the complexity of the human mind and the messiness of humanity and how we often make mistakes and have more to us under the surface… heroes are often flawed, villains may just be a version of a person we made up in our mind based off of our limited perceptions… aughh good stuff. There are so many good takeaways from psychonauts 2 and I love it!

- Also on a more personal note, I probably owe this game my fascination with psychic powers and psychics in fiction. It’s tangentially what got me into Mob Psycho 100, and has inspired me to make some psychic ocs. The art direction really impacted me and even the way I draw. My style has opened up so much more since practicing drawing such funky looking characters. I genuinely think it has helped me improve a lot and helped me discover more about what kinds of art style I adore and inspired my own. The gameplay too, alongside the art direction, has impacted my aspirations a lot as far as being an artist and hopefully to work in game design— which is to say it’s super inspiring! I think it can inspire people in a myriad of ways, it’s a very unique game like that, and it really reminds me why I love art, storytelling, and games so much. I genuinely feel I owe it a lot for a variety of reasons and I’ve seen many others who play it feel the same. :)

TLDR: Psychonauts 2 my beloved…

Thanks for the ask! I will never not want to talk about psychonauts, this game is sticking in my brain for good.

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #shut up snurgle

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lostfracturess · 1 month

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Heyaaa

I lovedddd the new chapter for symptoms and causes so much!! God I love angst, but as long as they have a happy ending! It's okay to rip open my chest, take my heart out and put it in a Shredder before placing the remains back- I'll accept all that if the ending is worth it (and happy ofc)

I know everyone wants s&c Gojo but I just want to get on my knees and beg him to open up to y/n because it's just so hurtful to see him somehow hold everything together- sooner or later he is bound to crumble, right? And I think we are kinda in that phase of the story- or not. 💁🏻‍♀️

And oh THE SMUT! I think it's one of the best I have read so far and I am not even kidding- it's just that good!

All that being said, as someone who is new to writing (I haven't put anything out there, but yeah I still like to write- thinking of posting something on Tumblr soon🤭) I would really really appreciate some tips on writing angst and smut. I am working on a story that contains a lot of angst, or atleast I am trying to make it angst-y, but I don't really know how to write those scenes. So, would really appreciate some help here!

thank you so much for the sweet message!! <3 it really makes my day to know you enjoyed the chapter!!

and don't say that "rip out my heart and shred it", or i might take this personally!! haha. but i feel u, if a story doesn't make me feel all those ugly emotions then what's the point, right? but yes, the story will have a happy ending, so all that pain will be worth it?? i guess??

you're absolutely right about gojo holding everything together barely. the way he bottles everything up is a ticking time bomb really.

also, SO glad you loved the smut! always so insecure about it, so it makes me SO happy to read that you found it resonated so well! <3

thanks again for your lovely message! <3

regarding your writing advice. i gave overall writing tips here and here. don't know if i have the the best tips for writing angst & smut, but i'll try for my fellow angst-lover!!

ANGST

start with the emotional hook: before anything else, identify the core emotional impact of your scene. is it betrayal? unrequited love? fear of loss? this will drive the conflict and help you shape the scene's events.

escalate the conflict gradually: angst thrives on a feeling of rising pressure. start with subtle disagreements, misunderstandings, or unspoken longing. let frustrations simmer, and then explode in a pivotal moment.

subtext is your friend: don't feel you have to have characters screaming and crying to convey their pain. sometimes, the most powerful angst comes from what characters don't say. use silences, subtle body language, and changes in tone to hint at the unspoken emotions.

show, don't tell: avoid telling the reader how a character feels. instead, show it through their actions, reactions, and the physical reaction of their emotions. describe trembling hands, a tightened jaw, or the way they avert their gaze.

use setting to your advantage: a dark, stormy night can mirror a character's inner turmoil. a cramped, claustrophobic space can emphasize their sense of being trapped.

short sentences: long, flowing sentences are great for fluffy or romantic moments. but when writing angst, short, clipped sentences convey a sense of urgency and emotional fracture. they can be like punches to the gut, making the angst hit harder.

don't overexplain: sometimes, leaving a little room for ambiguity can be even more heartbreaking. don't feel the need to lay out every single detail of why a character is feeling a certain way. let the reader fill in the blanks, making the emotions their own.

get specific: the more specific you are about a character's fears, regrets, and longings, the more the angst will hit home.

beware of melodrama: angst can easily turn into exaggeration. ground your characters' feelings in reality to make the hurt more believable.

balance angst with other emotions: angst can be draining for the reader if it's relentless. even in the most angsty stories, give your characters moments of fluff or hope. this contrast makes the lows even more impactful.

SMUT

don't know exactly what tips to give here really, because smut is as individual as what a writer likes to write and read, and what a author likes to "happen" in those scenes. so it's more general advice for intimate scenes.

build anticipation: what i think is really important for intimate scenes isn't just about what happens, but the longing that comes before. a lingering gaze, a subtle brush of hands, a whispered compliment. each small gesture heightens the tension.

capture intimacy in details: focus on the little things. the way someone brushes a stray hair off their lover's face, the tremble of a hand, the catch in a character's voice. these intimate details make the scene feel personal and authentic.

sensory details: use sensory descriptions to make the scene come alive. don't just tell the reader what's happening–show them! explore textures, scents, the warmth of skin, the rhythm of breathing. draw the reader into the moment.

less is more: also here, leave something to the reader's imagination. a perfectly executed touch can sometimes do more than explicitly describing every intimate act.

consider the scene's context: how does this romantic moment fit into the broader story? does it further character development? does it build tension?

play with contrasts: tension and tenderness often go hand in hand in romance. these contradictions make the scene feel even more dynamic.

dialogue isn't just about words: utilize breathlessness, gasps, moans, and stifled sighs in place of full sentences. these sounds speak volumes and also enhancing the sensory experience.

don't forget about the aftermath: the quiet moments after intimacy can be just as impactful. linger on the shared smiles, the sense of peace, the way the world feels different afterwards.

but really, smut depends on what you like to write. yk smut scenes are so different and that's good, so everyone can find what they like!

also overall writing smut i guess also comes with experience. the first smut scene won't be as good as your 10th of course. but that's like with all writing, so don't push yourself :)

hope these tips will help you in some way! have a lovely day! ♡

#symptoms and causes #inbox #writing advice

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glitxhwayventeen · 2 years

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Two Different Worlds

Characters: Jeonghan x female reader

Genre: angst central, CEO!jeonghan,

Warnings: mentions of sex work, mentions of sex/sexual talk, cursing, self image issues (both male and female), depression/mental illness, addiction talk (sort of?), upper/lower classes collide, societal expectations/tabooness of of sexual work if that’s a thing?, i dont know man I’m tired i just wanted to get this out. I’ll look it over tomorrow. Let me know if there’s more i missed.

Author’s Note: please know that i don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex work. This is modeled after one of my friend’s original thoughts while starting out in the industry. Sex work is real work and should be treated as such! This is not intended to bring the occupation down at all!

Disclaimer: This is just a story! Nothing in it is real not was it intended to harm anyone! This story is just for a good read!

Summary: Sometimes the stars align and people from two different worlds end up together by random chance because fate happened to be on their side. This is not one of those times…

Italics/Red= Jeonghan, Normal Text= Reader, Purple/Bold/Italics= Both

Every night it’s always the same. You got up, put on a sorry excuse for a smile to go with your painfully high heels, and walked out your door wondering for the millionth time if tonight would be the last night you saw the inside of your shitty apartment.

Then again, what would’ve been the point of caring if you did come back or not anymore? It’s not like you mattered to anyone.

As you walked down to the corner of the darkened road to get to your usual spot you worked nearly every night, you couldn’t help but wonder how your life managed to get to that point.

“Would you like a ride my princess?” A bittersweet voice beckoned you from his newly pulled up car, cigarette smoke thickly exhaling from the opened passenger side window like you were both in some sort of dingy dive bar.

“Why don’t I always my prince?”

“Fuck! I-I’m so close!” You whimpered as quietly as you could so that you didn’t have to deal with your own annoying voice, letting the strong male stationed above you pick up his pace to get nearer to his own release.

He loved hearing you whine for him. He loved seeing you so vulnerable and open. He never saw you outside of the few hours you got together a couple nights a week but every time he saw you was like the first time: new, anxious, lustful.

As you felt him punch deeper and deeper into your cunt, you caught your panties and shoes piled into a small bunch on the floor. It was an oddity to you as you were only ever without clothes while you were working with him. You didn’t trust anyone else enough.

Being near you was too much sometimes. There were moments where he felt the need to stop and just stare at you, but he knew if he did that he’d lose you. And he couldn’t lose someone he worked so hard to move into his life.

You told yourself that your work wasn’t hard work, just tiresome work. But with Jeonghan, it never really felt like work at all.

And though he wasn’t an addict, he definitely had an addiction. One he couldn’t get enough of: you. Every time he was with you he felt whole. Every time he was with you he got those middle school butterflies in his gut that he swore would eat him away at any minute.

You felt a set of skilled yet delicate hands bring themselves lower to where you really wanted them and on instinct lifted your back in ecstasy when they began to apply pressure.

“Go on then love, why don’t you come for me huh?” He cocked his head, clearly pushing off his own pleasure to be sure you got your own.

God, how could it feel like work with him? Jeonghan always made you his priority. He always put you first before himself. So with him you felt cared for, protected, and loved. At least, that’s what you told yourself.

“I-I’m coming Hannie!” You all but yelled the magical words he longed to hear in his ear as you lost touch with reality due to a burst of white behind your flawless eyelids. God only knows what he wouldn’t give to have you call out his nickname that only you called him everyday.

You had even made little fantasies in your head about a life you could’ve had with him in another time line while you were with some of your rougher customers.

You always swore you hated your features as they weren’t considered conventional. But he took in every which one with a sense of urgency as though he’d never see them again. He never knew if/when you’d end your arraignment or get bored with him and his inconsistent lifestyle. Your beauty was beyond compare in his eyes, so he did all he could to absorb it for as long as he could.

You pictured a big house with a tall white picket fence in an upscale boring neighborhood you figured he no doubt already lived in by himself now.

He watched your face contort into oblivion while pushing off his own for just a tad longer, anything so he could take in your attractive features for even just a few seconds longer before you left him for the night.

You thought of some cute little kids close in age playing in a playroom not too far from the entry way of your warm welcoming home you shared together.

Because as much as he wanted you to stay with him, you never did. You didn’t like men like him or the suited façade they represented. You didn’t want a family type life, you wanted freedom. As much as he wanted to pretend you’d want a life with him, he knew you didn’t.

You created a little girl who (while looking like you) had her whole life and a bucket full of dreams ahead of her to accomplish and a little boy that was the spitting image of his father (both in handsomeness and in charm.)

Finally, after what seemed like eternity to a desperate man’s falling hourglass, he too lost himself to the pit of no return. But not before thinking about how good you would look under him every night in your shared home when he made love to you.

You saw yourself emerging from your kitchen with a beaming smile on your face with a kiss locked and loaded to greet your loving husband Jeonghan, who you had setting an old timely briefcase down on your expensive mahogany kitchen table after coming home from a long day. And you’d imagine taking him up to your shared room and letting him have his way with you to relax and unwind the both of you. To free you from the restraints you had mentally put on yourselves.

Being with you was the only time he felt free. You always said your soul was just too bright for this world and that was why you didn’t mix well with daytime society. You always told him to be careful so he wouldn’t get burnt.

You even constructed a fake family pet that your wonderful little fantasy family took on little whimsical walks at dusk together, hand in hand with your guards and your own personal bite and flare down to be near nonexistent, because you were just one loving adoring family. Because you were all just so happy and bright.

But being with you was the only time he felt joy. So he gave into your light and he readied himself to extinguish the flames.

You could picture a scene so joyful and so inviting that you were not only excited to wake up in the morning to meet them, but even grateful to a god you weren’t sure you believed in that they existed and cared for you as well as they did. But that was all just pretend. It was all made up and could not/never would be.

It took him a few moments to regain his semblance of self, his earth shattering orgasm still making his head spin and freeze all at once. And just as he came to, he realized his time with you was coming to an end.

You see, he was some hot shot CEO for one of the biggest hot shot shipping companies in the entire country. You stood no chance with a man of his means and should have just considered yourself lucky he even looked twice at you to begin with. You knew if anyone knew how much you cared for him they’d never approve and they’d make his life hell for something that want his fault. If anyone knew about what the two of you did together, he could lose everything. You couldn’t have that.

It didn’t matter though as he knew when he brought himself back to reality, he would still try to make sure you were alright anyways. After all, he only really cared about you and your well being now. He couldn’t help it, he was hopelessly in love with you after all.

See, Jeonghan was a busy man with no family to tie him down. But all of it came with a price he hadn’t expected: stress, limelight, expectation. And with that weighing on him he, like you, began his own personal journey in seeking an outlet to relieve it somehow.

When you flashed back to the situation in his car, you insisted he had to get going and that he shouldn’t bother trying with you. You said he was far too important to far too many people to be missing as long as he had been, that he was far too high class of a person to be spending another second of his time in your low class part of town. Plus, you told him in a dry chuckle as you pulled up your panties yourself and wiped yourself down after refusing his always offered help, someone had to maintain his millions.

It wasn’t that he was stuck in the life like you though. Far from it. Jeonghan came from old money and lots of it, something you couldn’t relate to.

Yet he knew when the sentence came out of your mouth that he would trade every cent of his millions in seconds if it meant he got to spend even one more precious moment with you.

And from the stories he had told you during your many sexcapades together, you knew he also came from happiness, something that was even more foreign to you than the crisp $100 bills inside his money clip.

But he could tell saying that aloud would amount to nothing. After all, you didn’t want to associate with the likes of him or his caste. That’s why you once again reminded him to never mention you or your existence to anyone as you pulled your dress back in place and combed your hair through your hands to make yourself more presentable as you got ready to leave. You didn’t want any of his people, (family, friends, or coworkers) to know of or about you and what you did.

You started your way of life because you didn’t have another way to survive. Growing up the way you grew up and being left with the little resources you were left with left you with far too few options. You had no money, no family, no education, and no future.

Though he’d tell his family about you in a heartbeat if he thought you’d be okay with it. He wanted to tell his mom and sister about you the second he met you. He knew once they met you and pushed past the thoughts and stereotypes that were placed around your line of work by society that they’d love you almost as much as he did.

Your time and your ‘love’ was all you had.

Almost.

So you figured if other people had found a way to market it, so could you. And that’s exactly what you did.

None of it mattered in the end though. You would never agree to such a thing, he told himself.

And as much as you wanted to give into your hopes and reason, you had to be realistic of the situation.

Your life was hectic and exciting to you. Why would you want to change your easy lifestyle?

Your life never seemed to get any better. So why would you even think to try?

You didn’t want the corporate life. You lived on the edge. You wanted a type of freedom he couldn’t offer you.

You wouldn’t be accepted in the extravagant life Jeonghan had. You lived a dirty life. You had nothing you could offer.

But you liked it that way.

You were nothing you could offer.

You didn’t want the boring 9/5 job he would’ve happily offered you in place of your current arraignment at one of the many companies he had at his disposal.

Your life was dangerous and unpredictable. It made you stay up all night in high concern for your life and even then you still never knew if you were truly safe.

He would’ve gladly had payed for you to go back to school like you had told him you originally planned on doing at one point but never got the chance.

Sure you’d have loved the idea of Jeonghan taking you far far away from the current life you lived and creating a new one where you had a better risk free world.

He would’ve even payed all your bills and had you moved in with him rent free for the rest of your life if it meant you’d stay with him for good and be his.

Sure you’d gladly have loved to be a stay at home mom who raised the two gorgeous children you had fantasized about.

But you wouldn’t ever be his.

But that wasn’t the reality.

His little fantasies weren’t going to happen. As amazing of a person as you were, you’d probably have laughed in his face if he told you any of them.

Your little fantasies weren’t gonna happen. As nice of a person as he was, Jeonghan would probably have laughed in your face if you had told him of any of them.

He was a heartless richman in your eyes. In your world, he shouldn’t exist.

You were a used up night girl. In his world, people like you didn’t even exist.

Despite your life style differences he wanted you to be together.

Your life style differences meant you had no chance of being together.

His thoughts of one day bringing you home to meet his parents shattered a little more when you gave him a transactional smile after grabbing your payment from him and got out of his car door. He shouldn’t have been as disappointed as he was. He was just one of your many clients after all. Why would you treat him as something different?

Even still, you felt sick to your stomach when he reached in his perfectly dry-cleaned slacks back pocket and pulled out a wad of cash you both knew you desperately needed to survive. So you took it from his grasp and held back your tears with a smile while closing the car door behind you. You were just a whore after all. Why would he treat you as anything different?

In the end, you were never meant to be. You were both from two different worlds after all.

(Last Edited 12/14/22)

#seventeen #seventeen au #seventeen angst #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #svt au #svt jeonghan #yoon jeonghan #jeonghan #hannie #seventeen jeonghan

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purposelynana · 1 year

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What Did I Watch: #30

This week, I need to love myself first before putting it into danger.

Real depiction of my heart and brain arguing whether to continue watching Moonlight Chicken but descending into madness, or just binging the whole thing later and prolonging my fall into madness.

It doesn't mean bad way. I love Moonlight Chicken. Because it felt close to me. The whole Li Ming thing just like a gut punch. I have a huge dream when I was younger and then now I just to want make money, that kind of people. And for me, it was terrible to watch me being personified by my favorite kid of all time, Forth darling you are a wonder. I was struggling a lot to see well the kid got beaten up, metaphorically, by life and yes it sicken me to the stomach that I saw myself in Li Ming and the fact probably he'll get the happy ending he deserved (because hey it's fiction) and me will probably stuck in this fucking city, I envy him. I hate myself to being jealous of a fictional character, to the point it actually triggered my anxiety.

And yet, Moonlight Chicken probably the first series after so many years that made me feel more human. That's already a great thing by itself.

My week kinda went a little bit more angst-y by decided to binging Never Let Me Go. It went weird. The reason for that is perhaps after watching so many episodes of My School President, I had this big expectation that at least the sound department is bearable enough.

No.

It wasn't.

I kept screaming to the screen "P'Jo pleaseeee you could have find a better music for this scene!!". But yeah it didn't hinder me to watching it. Actually, I kind of appreciate the way P'Jo presented the story without going too much to the lakorn territory. The directing was superb. I giggled a lot because he was doing stuff when no other director, especially on this genre, would do.

One of example of his greatness. Sometimes, shaky cam felt a little bit like gimmick. Because the use of it somehow doesn't support the narrative. But in this clip, the suffocating feeling that Neung going through got represented by how the camera moved. The camera shifted a lot when Palm struggle to hug him. But once Neung slowly relaxing under his arms, the camera also steadily reduced its movement. It was detail like this that make me love to just being an amateur cinephile.

youtube

My School President kept going to a better direction. Oh my god. Like seriously, this has already toppled so many things on my list. Best soundtrack. Best use of instrumental. Best ensemble. Best directing. Best script.

Fingers crossed on next Friday how they are going to end it. It doesn't have to be a happily ever after ending like we kind of live in some sort of utopia. It doesn't have to be unnecessary angst randomly appear on last minute. I just want them to finish with the same feel as they started it. Full of heart.

And for rom-com addition for balancing this week angst-y theme, I decided to watch Love To Hate You. Finally some rom-com without being added by nonsense thriller. By the way can we just get rom-com-only drama?

#moonlight chicken #never let me go #my school president #love to hate you #what did i watch

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yyxgin · 3 years

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lee felix’s guide to hating you

— ♡ FIC BANNER MADE BY THE AMAZING @chogiwow !!

pairing: lee felix x fem!reader genre: college au, tutor au ; fluff, angst, slice of life, slow burn word count: 21 k warnings: mentions of alcohol, mention of weed, swearing, bad family relationships

a/n: this story is very briefly inspired by jaemin’s drama ‘the way i hate you’ :) also this idea has been in my mind for such a long time, so i’m happy i finally managed to write it. this is also my longest fic so far, i hope it’s worth it. uhh yea enjoy <3

taglist: @feyregels @missskzbiased @hyunyin @koishua @crispy-chan @rindomo @soulssung @thatrandomoneinthecorner @90shermione @chogiwow @creatichee @freckledberries @hyunnies-stars

There’s a list of things Lee Felix knew before applying for college-- and that is: 1) he really, desperately needs a degree for his grandparents to value him as an equal adult, 2) college in young adult movies seems like fun and partying and alcohol really does sound like his wettest dream, 3) he doesn’t need to work for another 4 years, which is fun and 5) he is really, horribly bad at studying.

Here’s a list of things Lee Felix, however, did not know before applying for college, and even though it’s fairly shorter, it hits you in the guts deeper, and that is: 1) studying for college means never ending chapters of insomnia and 2) he is always going to feel like the second choice for everyone.

You see, girls don’t like Felix that much. Well, that’s a lie-- girls do go after him, tell him he’s cute and his freckles are adorable, but that’s only after they find out there’s no use in chasing after his best friend Han Jisung when he gets himself a new significant other. Boys don’t go after Felix either. Why, you may ask? Read the paragraph over again-- just change the word girls to the word boys. It’s as simple as that. He’s always the second choice, the back-up plan. It feels silly to drag his grandma into this, really, but the truth is, he’s a second choice in every aspect of his life, and that, too, includes his big (and still growing) family that treats him as something less than a human just because of the fact that his grades aren’t as good as his cousin’s are and he doesn’t have a degree in biological science, although he’s too young for that and his college years only started. It’s hard, living in his shoes.

What is Felix, however, really good at?

Cheating.

Yeah, well, you see-- it’s not funny to be the outcast of the smart Lee family and it’s also not enetaining in the slightest to be the only single one at family gatherings (read as: weddings, because every single one of his relatives decided to fuck up their life with marriage in the past three years for some unknown reason). So Felix does what he’s the best at, and that is going by his favorite life motto: fake it ‘til you make it.

He cheats on every single one of his exams and believe me when I tell you he’s the top of the class just because he’s the best cheater in town. Good cheating techniques equal good grades and suddenly, Felix’s life seems much brighter when he spends his sleepless nights with creating cheat sheets instead of studying and copying essays written in korean, translating them to english and submitting them as his own because no one will ever notice-- his degree is within the reach of his hand and he can already feel all the grandmas of the family clapping in joy, maybe even wiping away a stray tear on his graduation ceremony in a few years with bouquets of flowers in their hands and expensive watches in their gift bags, ready to welcome him back into the family..

What he doesn’t expect, though, is the cute little saying of ‘every lie has short legs’ he swears he heard sometimes in his linguistic class before, coming to life right in front of his eyes as the professor of his Biology class makes him the assigned tutor of the sweet Y/N Y/L/N, because, well, he clearly doesn’t know anything-- what’s he supposed to tutor now?

The best cheating techniques?

The freckled boy sitting in front of you looks at you with furrowed brows and you wonder what’s the matter with him. Is there something on your face? Are you not dressed appropriately for the occasion? I mean, it’s only a tutoring session, so you didn’t put that much effort into it, but judging from the casual outfit enveloping his body, he didn’t really try to look fancy either. So what was it with him that made him stare you down as if you had horns on your head?

“Shall we start?” he asks once he’s done staring, voice sounding determined. You wonder if he sees the hints of nervousness on your face and if he notices the way you shrink in your seat in the mention of biology, but you guess he doesn’t know you that well to know that you fear the subject as much as you fear dying.

“Yeah, sure,” you nod, scooting closer to the edge of your seat so you’re not so far away from the table. Felix-- your new biology tutor-- is sitting opposite of you and it’s quite difficult to read the text book once it’s upside down, but you don’t dare to mention it to him for a reason that’s unknown to you as well. It’s like you don’t want to overstep any invisible boundary on your first tutoring session, and telling the person that is teaching you to turn around the text book so you can actually see and learn something seems to be one of the taboos in your eyes.

You take a quick glance at the waiter that just stopped next to your booth and smile, opening up your mouth to order yourself a meal. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.

“No-” Felix offers her with a shy smile, but you cut him off with a voice a little higher in the octaves, not wanting your tutor coming in between you and reaching your biggest goal you’ve set for yourself.

“Actually, yes. Could I please get the chicken wings? With fries?” you ask, trying to look as innocent as you can, smiling at her in politeness. You ignore the confused look Lee Felix is offering you from the other side of the table. You mentally send him a signal to tell him to mind his own business, watching the waitress leave with a nod and a polite smile.

“Okay, now we can start,” you nod at him and focus all your attention to the boy with sandy hair in front of you.

“O...kay?” he answers, obviously trying to bat away his rising confusion, because ordering yourself chicken wings on your tutoring session is prohibited now, apparently. “So,” he starts, sighing and scratching the back of his neck, “what do you not understand from this section?”

You nervously chew on the bottom of your lip. Well, that’s a sweet question, you think. It would have been much sweeter and much easier to answer, though, if you understood at least a bit from the things you’re supposed to know. You went to university with the urge to prove something to yourself, but the only thing you’re proving to yourself right now is the fact that you are actually kind of useless, when it comes to biology.

“Just like the… whole thing, actually,” you nod, trying not to look as defeated as you feel and also trying not to burst out in a manic laugh as you always do when you feel slightly nervous about anything.

“Cool, cool, yeah,” he nods, taking a deep breath in, turning the textbook around and sighing, “I don’t think I can help you with that.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” you ask, confused.

Lee Felix is the top of the grade. He is the best at biology, he is the best at chemistry, he is the best at his farmacy class. You’re sure he’ll be a fine biochemist in a few years, when his college times are over. Lee Felix is the smartest boy in your biology class and you are, coincidentally, quite the opposite on this spectrum. Which is exactly why your teacher managed to make Felix tutor you in his free time. You weren’t surprised at the fact that the blonde boy agreed to this-- he was quite the sweetheart, really. All the girls in your class fawned upon the way his freckles shined in the sunlight and the way he opened the doors for older professors. He was quite the boy you would want to introduce to your parents. Not quite the one every girl goes after, but the one that you would want to settle down with after your college years are over.

So why is he, the sweet, but also smart boy that agreed to tutor you, now telling you he can’t help you?

“It’s just.. I’m not really good at this section, I mean-”

“Felix, you’re the top of the class. Of course you’re good at this section.” you mumble, gazing deep into his eyes, trying to search for an answer.

“I-” he says and takes a sharp breath in, stopping himself in continuing his train of thought and just opting to shrug, not giving you a proper response either.

You feel like someone just punched you in the gut, and that’s when you realise-- here it is again. Another person that doesn’t believe in you-- another person that needs proving that you really can do it, you just need a little push. You can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t think you’re smart or bright enough to pass the exams, you’re not good enough to get good grades. It’s nothing new to you, but it still haunts you just the same.

“Is it because you know I can’t do it?” you bluntly ask, sighing.

“No! No, no, I never said that-” he says, almost panicking with the way his hands fly into the air hurriedly, waving them around as if it was meant to calm you down.

“You’re acting like it, though. I promise I’m not stupid- well, maybe I am, but-”

“You’re not stupid! It’s me! I’m the stupid one here.” he says, effectively silencing you with his words as you stare at him, dumbfounded. He’s joking, right?

“How can you be stupid when you get only the best grades? Felix, if you just don’t want to waste your time here, tell me, but don’t try to hide behind poor excuses.” you roll your eyes, feeling frustrated at the boy’s antics. Does he really think you’re that stupid that you can’t see right through his lies?

“I cheat.”

You blink a few times as if to reset your brain, gazing at him with pure confusion written in your orbs. He cheats? No. That’s a lie. A person as good at biology as Felix can’t cheat. All his exams are on 100% and he never makes any mistakes. He’s the epitome of the smart kid. The little Einstein. The prodigy. There’s no way it’s all cheating.

“No.” you shake your head in disapproval. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! Look, I genuinely, really want to help you. I really do. The thing is, though, I don’t know how to study. I make cheat sheets and I use them at every exam and every test, that’s why everyone thinks I’m super smart, but that is really not the case,” he shakes his head, staring into your eyes with his wide open in honesty, wanting you-- no,-- needing you to understand. “I would tutor you if I could, really, but I just don’t know how to,” he sighs finally, acting like he’s just given birth or ran a marathon, exhaustion written all over his face.

“So why did you offer to tutor me, then?” you ask.

He takes a moment for himself to collect his thoughts, before he speaks up again. “Well, I didn’t really want to get caught. You see, I would never turn my back to anyone. Really. So I thought I could at least try to learn something? So I could help you? But I failed, as always, so I’m just coming clean in front of you and you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

The moment the last sentence leaves his mouth, you notice the apparent fear in his eyes, realising that he just shared an information with you that nobody really knows. It’s a secret he’s been hiding and keeping from everyone just to appear as the smartest one-- fooling everyone, including you. You feel even more stupid now, under his gaze. You feel played. You came to the tutoring, hoping to finally get a grip, when all you get is a person that is stepping all over the sandcastle of your fragile dreams, kicking every little piece of sand away with his lies. You know you shouldn’t feel so invested in this. You shouldn’t feel so hurt. But somehow, you still do.

“So you just told me you are lying to everyone and cheating on tests and you want me to keep it a secret from everyone?” you ask in disbelief.

“Yes.” he nods, eyes hopeful. He’s been lying for the last year as if his life was depending on it and now he wants you to do the same-- keep quiet in front of everyone.

“And what do I do when the professor asks me why I’m not getting any better? Huh? Ever thought of that?” you leash out, harshly chewing on your bottom lip in nerves. “I want to pass. And I want to do it fair and square.” you get out in between your teeth.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think of that yet, but-”

“Leave.” you say, looking him sternly into his eyes.

“What do you mean, leave?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. And you’re clearly not here to teach me anything, so you can just take your things and leave.” you spit out, crossing your hands over your chest.

“You leave, then,” he mutters, looking rather offended. You’re not sure why he’s the one hurt right now, but you guess that’s just how men and their egos are, there’s nothing more under his hurt eyes and shattered self-esteem.

“I ordered food, I’m not leaving.” you calmly respond. Once you say this, you’re reminded of the little quest you made for yourself. Never once did you feel silly for taking it so seriously in front of your other friends, but now, in front of Lee Felix with freckled dusted cheeks, you feel almost invisible as you realise why you even ordered the chicken wings and how you’re going to write a yelp review about them later.

Well, someone has to do it, and if not you, then who will, right? It’s the only valid way to find out who makes the best chicken wings in the town and not even your traitor-tutor is going to stop you now, when your list is only getting shorter and shorter.

He stares at you for a few moments, dumbfounded, before he sighs and accepts his defeat. “Okay, I’ll just have to text my roommate to pick me up,” he admits.

You nod, just in time the server comes back with your food, offering her a welcoming smile. “Fine. But don’t even think of talking to me from now on. I’m not interested in more lies,” you spit at him, scowling as you take a look at the plate of chicken wings sitting in front of you in their full glory. You sense a very bad review, judging from the way the chicken wings look nothing like wings, rather full on small chickens dipped in oil, but dive in nonetheless.

“Why do you have to be so dramatic?” he asks, voice coated in disbelief.

“Because I was scammed!” you yell out, mouth full of chicken, not caring a second about the way you might look in the boy’s eyes. Yes, you could have at least swallowed before speaking to him, but did you do it? No. No, you didn’t.

“Oh come on-”

“Don’t even try arguing with me!” you spit at him-- quite glad that this time, it’s not literal-- and huff out in annoyance, when the door opens and a short boy with a bucket hat on steps into the bistro, the red fabric of the seats of the booths contrasting with his shoes in a way that makes you feel captivated, your eyes refusing to tear themselves away from him.

The boy is taking quick steps to your booth and you almost choke on your chicken wings as you admire his full glory-- tanned skin and car keys in his hand, but his eyes meet the boy sitting opposite of you and that’s when everything clicks. This is not the boy of your dreams, this is Han Jisung. Your tutor’s best friend and roommate-- also known as the resident heartbreaker. You shouldn’t feel weak in your knees when you look at him, but that’s exactly what happens and you won’t feel ashamed about it. Well, not now, at least. In a few hours when you’re lying in your bed? Maybe. But I’ll tell you then.

“Yo, dude, I texted you like five minutes ago that I’m waiting for you outside, what are you still doing here?” he asks, furrowing his brows at his roommate and slowly moving his eyes to you, scanning you up and down, leaving your heart to do the stupid cartwheel you haven’t felt since, like, middle school.

“We were in the middle of an argument, so I didn’t hear my phone ring.” Felix answers, glaring at you with spiteful eyes. You almost prepare to kill him with yours, but you focus on wiping the oil from the corner of your mouth and smiling heavenly, trying to look like a lady in front of your new visitor.

“Was Felix being absolutely unbearable again?” he asks you, surprising you with his subtle way of engaging you into the conversation.

You giggle, rolling your eyes slightly. “Yeah. You know him too well, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately,” he admits, looking defeated, when he moves his eyes to Felix, looking rather sulky on the red seat in front of you as you chat with his roommate, when Jisung’s tone of voice changes into a more worried one, speaking up again, “does she… did you…?”

“Yeah,” Felix just nods.

Jisung sighs, sitting down next to his roommate, pushing him a little so he has more space in the booth. “What are you supposed to tutor her anyway?” he asks.

“Biology,” you mumble sooner than Felix gets the chance to speak up, motioning to the textbook still sitting at the table in front of you.

The boy takes a look at the papers, his face changing from a focused one to a one more lighter, his eyes scanning the papers with ease. You notice his mouth moving a little as he reads the words under his breath, catching yourself from staring when you feel Felix’s eyes burning into the crown of your head, snapping you back to reality.

“You know… maybe I could help you with that.” he says, looking like a business offering you a deal that you’re sure involves something illegal. He looks like a focused squirrel with his cheeks puffed out a little in what you sense is pride, something in his eyes glowing as you nervously chew on your bottom lip.

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m actually quite good at biology, to be honest. Well, not as much as Felix over here-” he jokes, scowling when the blonde boy punches his arm, “but I think I could tutor you a thing or two.”

“What’s the catch?” you ask, nervously watching him. Something in his composure is telling you he’ll want something in return, but you don’t know what yet. You’re quite sure you’ll sell your soul for the adorable boy in front of you if he asked you to, but it never hurts to ask beforehand, right?

“What do you mean, what’s the catch?”

“Like… what do you want in return?” you muse out, taking a bite of a fry, noticing how soggy it feels under your teeth.

“Woah, you spend 15 minutes with Felix and you already think there’s something illegal behind everything? I’ll let you know, I’m better than that.” he scoffs. “I’m just doing it because I see how miserable you are. And I also don’t want you to tell on my buddie over here.” he adds, smiling warmly.

You take notice of the way Felix’s eyes grow twice their size and how Jisung’s knee lightly bumps into his under the table. It’s subtle, but you think that maybe this is when you fully fell for the short boy in front of you-- when he offered to save his best friend’s ass by helping out a lost girl with biology. And who are you to say no now? I mean, you need the tutoring nonetheless. Who cares if the boy tutoring you is someone else? Maybe it’s even more appealing to you this way, but you’ll never admit that out loud.

“Okay then, sure.” you nod, grinning from ear to ear, feeling satisfied.

“Great. Now, give me half the fries and we can arrange our next tutoring session,” he smiles, “oh, and I’m Han Jisung, by the way.”

He winks.

You should be disturbed, but strangely, you’re not. You grin back at him, offering him the soggy fries you’re sure you’re going to give a really bad review in the evening, watching his composure change into a more laid-back one, engaging you in a conversation and slunging an arm around his best friend’s shoulders.

Lee Felix remains silent. He feels it once again-- he feels the loneliness of being left out.

And he’s sure it won’t be the last time.

Lee Felix knows damn well how it feels to be the third wheel. He’s hung out with Jisung and his potential love interests multiple times, he’s even been on double dates with the said male, yet, he always somehow ends up being left out. So why does it still feel the same? Why does he still feel that restless feeling in his stomach, the emptiness in his chest, just like the first time? I guess you never get used to some things and emotions are one of them. No matter how much you argue that you know a feeling so well it doesn’t even surprise you anymore, it still hurts the same. That’s funny about emotions. Sometimes, they can’t even make you numb.

“Hurry up dude, the bistro closes in an hour and half!” Jisung rushes the taller male (not tall, just taller. Don’t misunderstand.) with his car keys in his hand, twirling them around his fingers in a nervous manner. Felix notices his roommate has put some effort into his outfit today, considering the lemon supreme shirt enveloping his body that he saves only for special occasions, yet, Felix doesn’t realise why he had to put it on when they’re literally just going out to eat some soggy fries in the bistro close to their house. He doesn’t ask, though. He doesn’t want the car key stuck in his forehead. He also doesn’t know why they have to rush so much, since they have an hour and half left before they close, but again, he doesn’t dare to say it out loud.

Felix quickly puts his shoes on and rolls his eyes at his roommate. “I’m ready,” he announces.

Jisung swiftly takes a bottle of cologne from the table in their small hall (it’s so small they don’t even have a mirror in it, because there was no use in taking mirror selfies when all you can see on the picture is your phone case due to the fact that the room is too narrow for you to move further away) and sprays his body wit hit, efficiently confusing his roommate. “You wanna smell great for the waiter there? Because from what I remember, he was a stoner-”

“Oh, shut up. You never know when you’re gonna meet someone cute, am I right?” he asks, grinning from ear to ear like a cat, taking his backpack with him and opening the front door, “gotta look and smell presentable at all times.”

Felix wonders if this is why everyone always goes after his best friend.

No, he thinks, it cannot be the cloud of cologne hanging around his body. It’s heavy and it makes Felix cough a little, but he tries to mask it, because he’s fairly sure Jisung won’t pay for his fries today if he doesn’t. And Felix is a simple man-- if he can get something for free, he will do anything to achieve it.

They arrive at the place in a few minutes and Felix can already feel his mouth watering at the thought of the salty fries and cheeseburger he’s going to get himself, joyfully skipping inside the bistro and waiting in the queue. Jisung follows him, standing next to him, efficiently covering the smell of the oil and all the good things on this earth-- read as fast food-- making Felix scowl. The boy behind the register, is, in fact, Na Jaemin-- the resident frat boy. Felix’s heard all about him from the girls staying at the dorms and to be honest, he’s quite glad he doesn’t have to live the stories of getting caught with weed at Jaemin's party on his own. That, and the fact that hot water runs in his apartment. Na Jemin might have the weed, but he surely doesn’t have that in his college dorm room.

“Three milkshakes, two large fries, chicken wings and a cheeseburger, please.” Jisung orders, confusing Felix in one sentence. Since when is his best friend a bottomless pot for food? Is he really going to eat all of that?

“Coming right at you. Anything else?” Jaemin asks, voice considerate and polite, still turned on his customer service mode, even though Felix is sure him and Jisung have had shared a joint or two on one of his parties before.

“No, that’s all. Thanks, man,” Jisung answers, leaving with Felix right behind him.

“Who’s gonna eat all of that? I hope you know you’re paying, and before you protest, yes, I did purposefully leave my wallet at home-” he rambles, still moving, when his train of thought is cut off by a person in his view.

You are sitting there in your full glory, smiling brightly at the boys approaching you. You’re dressed nicely, he notices-- you look like you put some effort into what you’re wearing. You don’t look that much different, but he can still see the slight changes you made to look neat. You’re glowing, Felix notices. You look excited.

“Hi, Y/N,” Jisung greets, taking a seat opposite of you. He doesn’t even give Felix an answer, he doesn’t even give him an explanation. He’s left there only to take a seat next to his roommate after collecting his thoughts, chewing on his bottom lip.

The conversation never moves his way. He is silenced. Felix wonders why he was even invited, watching the people behind the window laughing with their friends, happy to order some tasty food and have fun on this Thursday evening. He watches his friend and his classmate have fun-- well, as much fun as a tutoring session could be. You’re laughing at every single one of Jisung’s jokes and he swears Jisung’s eyes never leave your face, even when he’s explaining something to you. He wonders why Jisung didn’t tell him where they’re going. He wonders why he even had to come.

Lee Felix knows how third-wheeling feels. Yet, it still makes his little foolish heart hurt just the same every time.

You nervously chew on your bottom lip, cracking your knuckles in a habit your friends always scream at you for, waiting for your tutor-- well, he’s not really your tutor anymore-- to appear in the bistro on the other side of the town. You admire the decorations for a while, liking the way it looks modern here and the purple led lights make the whole place look aesthetic. You can already imagine multiple college kids going here and taking instagram pictures to look cool. It’s nice and you’ll definitely include it in your yelp review-- it won’t make it more stars, though, if the chicken wings don’t taste like heaven.

You tug on the sleeves on your hoodie, as if you were trying to make yourself disappear. I mean, you do feel embarrassing. You feel pathetic that it had to come down to this, but you guess desperate times call for desperate solutions. You’re not here to look put-together anymore. You’re going to show him your full glory and although you regret it a little, you still have a little spark of hope in you that Han Jisung-- the boy you, admittedly, were crashing on real hard right now, won’t find out.

Felix comes into the bistro in his full VSCO boy glory, as always. He is wearing a jean jacket and his freckled cheeks are dusted pink, you’d almost think he’s blushing all the time. He doesn’t quite fit the aesthetics of this futuristic looking bistro, you notice. The retro places you’ve been to so far fit him much more-- his sandy hair contrasted well with the yellow walls and red booths. It was starting to get a little repetitive, though, you must admit.

“Hi,” he greets you as he takes his seat, smiling at you with what you can only describe as a feeling of full uncomfort. You wonder what made him feel this way about you, but you don’t dare to think of it twice as you focus on the main quest of the day-- forcing him to teach you his ways.

“Hello,” you smile.

Felix notices how natural you look-- it feels like now is the first time he’s seeing you in your full glory. You aren’t wearing your neat clothes for a meeting with Jisung and you’re not too casual like you were at your first ‘tutoring session’ either-- you’re just you. The way he doesn’t even see you in classes. He likes the fact that no one else than him can see you like this-- he likes the fact that Jisung is nowhere around, yet, he wonders why is that, exactly, since the two of you seemed to be hitting it off quite well so far.

Felix hasn’t been with Jisung when he last tutored you. He figured there’s no use, he’s going to get ignored all the time anyway.

“So… what’s the matter?” he asks, folding his hands into his lap. He dares to take a quick look at you, noticing your worn-out shirt and dark circles under your eyes, worry washing over him. Did something happen? Was Jisung a jerk to you?

“Well, I sort-of have a little problem,” you mumble out, tearing your gaze away from him. You seem shy for the first time in front of him and he wonders why. He doesn’t understand your sudden change of behaviour. This isn’t the you he’s used to. “Well, turns out, I am really stupid.” you propose, leaving Felix to gaze at you in surprise.

He chuckles. You swiftly look up at him with piercing eyes telling him to stop, and he almost does, but your face looks too adorable when it’s scrunched up like that, so he only giggles once more. “You’re not stupid.”

“I am!” you whine out, finally letting your whole shy facade fall, exposing the true you once again right in front of Felix’s eyes-- direct and fierceful. “Even Jisung’s tutoring isn’t helping and I feel so stupid with him! And I don’t want him to think that I’m stupid, even though I am, and I just… I can’t pass my exams like this, so I need your help.” you say, eyes big, looking almost pleading.

“And I am supposed to help… how? Exactly?” The confusion is written all over his face, and it almost makes you frustrated. You knew he must be smart, if his cheating has been so good he’s getting through college with straight As, but really, is he really that smart if he can’t read in between the lines?

“Help me cheat.” you quickly get out, biting down on your lower lip just as you say it, as if you were regretting it.

The silence that overtakes the two of you feels like it’s slowly going to eat you up alive, angrily biting into your skin. It feels heavy and suffocating, your palms sweating as you watch Felix blink at you with mouth agape, breathing in and out. You pray for him to make up his mind soon, or else you’re going to run out of the bistro without a yelp review, tearing the skin of your cuticles as you see him blink quickly a few times before shaking his head in disbelief, clearing his storage.

“You want me to help you cheat?” he asks for clarification, furrowing his brows at you.

“That’s correct.” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek. You haven’t been this nervous since you took your college entrance exams, and that shows a lot, considering you used to say that has been the most difficult experience of your life so far.

“Because Jisung…. isn’t tutoring you well enough?” he asks again, making you roll your eyes in annoyance.

“Hey, don’t put the blame on Jisung! I’m just stupid, that’s all.” you say, looking down into your lap, because his gaze suddenly feels like he’s judging you and you really don’t feel like maintaining eye contact with him when you’re under pressure.

“If you don’t stop saying that, I will kick you.”

“You wouldn’t dare-”

“I would and I will-”

“Okay, but is that a yes, then?” you look up at him with hopeful eyes, resembling a puppy just a little too much, and, well, Felix can’t just reject you now, can he?

“I.. guess…?” he says, watching your face light up in joy as you clap a few times in excitement.

“Great! Can we start today? We have to start today! I brought my text books and papers and sharpies and-” you are cut off by Felix’s face lighting up at the sight of you, his eyes looking warm and admiring. You quickly shake away the excitement before it goes too far and you actually go to hug him or something, taking a deep breath in and out to calm yourself down.

Just in that moment, the server appears with two servings of chicken wings and two large fries, making Felix look at you in confusion.

“I ordered you food, since I thought we’ll stick around for a while..” you mumble, seeing him eagerly nod and take one fry into his hand, biting down on it with a face full of pleasure.

“Perfect. Just let me eat a few of these and we can get right into work, I promise,” he mutters with a mouth full of food, prompting you to take a bite yourself. It doesn’t taste the worst-- the bistro you went to after prom last year was definitely worse than this, but still, you don’t think Felix’s face quite resembles how the food tastes. He looks as if the Queen of England made it. In reality, it’s just a soggy fry.

“Why do you always order the same thing? Aren’t you tired of eating the same thing over and over again?” he asks suddenly, examining your face with real interest. No one’s ever noticed your eating habits before, just shrugging off what you order every single time. Your little fast food experiment has been a secret so far, even though it wasn’t that hard to cover it up-- nobody really cared until now.

You feel blush creeping on your cheeks as you shrug, feeling a little embarrassed for like the hundredth time today, when you reply to the boy in front of you. You know his secret, so it only feels valid for him to know yours. “I have this experiment… like, I try chicken wings and fries at every single bistro, restaurant and fast food chain in the town to find out which one’s the best…” you mumble, looking into your plate instead of facing him out of the ugly feeling of patheticness creeping up your back.

“Oh, that’s cool!” he exclaims, pointing his fry your direction, a response you didn’t quite expect, “Where do they have the best ones so far?” he asks, genuine interest painting his features.

“Oh,” you get out, feeling your lips unvoliteraly tug into a smile, “I don’t.. I still have a few bistros and the McDonald’s on the highway out of the city left, but I’d say the best ones so far were at Wendy’s. I didn’t quite like the chicken wings there, though, so…”

“Hmm,” he nods, deep in thought, “we just get food at where’s the closest.” he says, munching on a chicken wing. “I guess we could pay a little more attention to the food from now on, because after eating this, I’m never going to eat the food from the bistro right in front of our flat again.”

“Yeah, that bistro’s really awful. I only gave it around 2.5 stars, I think-” you say, before you realise you just spilled out another secret to him, feeling your cheeks heating up.

“2.5 stars? What, do you write yelp reviews or something?” he asks, clearly amused by your accidental spill-out.

“And what if I do?” you defend yourself, glaring at him with fake annoyance. No man will ever make fun of you because you write yelp reviews. Not Lee Felix, even though he seems too nice to actually make fun of you because of something, not anyone.

“That’s cool, though! Those help so much when you travel,” he says, eagerly nodding at you with big eyes and an adorable grin plastered on his face, making you feel understood and happy with just the sudden sign of acceptance. Turns out your little weird obsession isn’t as embarrassing as you thought it was. Or Lee Felix really is the sweetest guy walking on this earth. Either one is fine in your books.

You stay there for a few hours and Felix teaches you the basic cheat codes-- never meet the teacher’s eye, never finish your tests too quickly, always forcefully pick the wrong option before scribbling it out and putting in a correct one to not seem too suspicious. He even takes a piece of paper from you and scribbles down the basic cheat-sheet making structure.

He feels good with you. He feels useful. He knows he shouldn’t be teaching you this, but really, is it really doing any harm? We all have to go through college somehow.

Yet, all evenings always end the same for Felix, with a bad feeling in his gut and a fake smile on his face hiding the true meaning behind his actions. He’ll never be the first choice and you remind him even today, after you leave the ‘tutoring session’ with a quick hug to the male, lowering your voice so only he can hear when you pay him your goodbyes.

“Don’t tell Jisung, okay?”

Of course. It’s all because you don’t want to look embarrassing in front of his best friend.

It goes all how you planned it to-- you’re sitting at your next tutoring session with two males in front of you. One of them is your supposed tutor and one of them is a boy that’s helping you pass your exams for real. You’re into one of them, even though you shouldn’t. You wonder how you even ended up in this mess. You swear you were a good student in high school, always submitting your assignments on time and making sure your tests were on 100%. It was kind of fueling your ego, in a way. You had no other plans in your life to hold on to, no dreams to dream, so you reasoned to do the only thing that you were good at-- getting good grades. You had to prove to yourself that there was a reason, a meaning behind your life. You had to prove to yourself that your existence was valid.

You watch Jisung with interest. You pray to god that he doesn’t catch you in your act, because that would surely be embarrassing. You don’t want him to find out that you’re just fine with cheating, because that meant your tutoring sessions with the male would end and there was no other reason for you to see him. You knew Han Jisung wasn’t interested in you. You were sure you’d see it on him if he was. And even then, you weren’t interested in only a short relationship without any good point. You liked Jisung, but you didn’t like his reputation. One week wasn’t long enough for you to waste your time on him and get your heart broken. You weren’t sure if he was a player, or if he just wanted to desperately find the one by trying all the possibilities, but you weren’t going to find out.

Felix watches you with interest in his eyes-- but you don’t notice. He prays that Jisung doesn’t find out about your secret little ‘tutoring sessions’, because that would mean he wouldn’t have a reason to hang out with you anymore. And Felix really doesn’t want that to happen. For some reason, he doesn’t want you to ever frown. And he’s sure that’s exactly what would happen if Jisung cancelled.

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening inside of his little, foolish heart when he sees you smile at Jisung and his stomach fills with worry.

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening with him when every time Jisung subtly takes your hand in his makes his insides twitch in frustration. He thinks it’s just because of the fact that he’s third-wheeling again, like all his life, and maybe that is partly true, but it’s not the whole reason behind the cloud around his head.

It clicks only when him and his roommate are back home, sitting at the dinner table with the left-overs from the new bistro you three went to, munching on the chicken wings and another pack of soggy french fries and the cola they had in their fridge.

“So… what do you think about Y/N?” Jisung asks suddenly, making Felix furrow his brows in confusion.

“What should I think? She’s smart, I guess…” he mumbles, mouth full of food, not quite grasping the full meaning of his roommate’s question.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung quickly nods in approval, “she’s getting really good. I mean, you can still see she’s having some troubles when I’m tutoring her, but at least she always gets good grades on tests now,” he says, biting down on another piece of chicken wing. Felix feels a wave of pride wash over him after hearing the words-- of course you’re doing well on exams. It’s all Felix’s doing. You’re a quick learner, when it comes to cheating.

“Yeah, she’s good,” he says.

“Well,” Jisung suddenly starts, meaning to sound nonchalantly, but only sounding like he’s determining his biggest life secret in front of his friend instead, “I like her.”

Felix almost chokes on the piece of chicken in his mouth, trying to play it off with a small chuckle. “Oh? You do?”

“Yeah. Should I.. Should I ask her on a date or something?” he asks and Felix swears he can see his friend’s cheeks reddening a little, even though the last time he’s seen Jisung embarrassed was when he accidentally called their Math’s teacher mum in eleventh grade.

“You don’t date, though,” Felix opposes.

“That’s not true-”

“Two weeks long relationships aren’t relationships, Jisung.”

“Not my fault they’re never the one! It gets boring after a while, Felix, I can’t just-”

“Why are you even asking me this?” Felix suddenly cuts him off, glaring at him. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting in such a way. It’s not like it’s the first time Jisung is going to date someone for two weeks just to break their heart, it’s not the first time they’re going to run after Felix a week after just so they can still be around the one that broke their heart. This time, though, he does not want to see another heart get broken.

“Jesus, chill, man… I was just asking, since you two seem closer. Did she mention anything about me? Is she dating anyone?” Jisung asks, eyes lighting up.

Felix could be an asshole. He could tell Jisung that you’re already dating someone, he could tell him to back off and that you’re not interested. However, he does not do that. Instead, he does the quite opposite. He pushes his best friend into asking you out, he tells him he should try it, because that’s just the kind of person he is. Besides, he knows you’re into him. Maybe the smile on your face could make him forget about the fact that you’re going to get your heart broken.

“Sure, go for it.” he shrugs, “I don’t really care anyway.”

“Fine, then-”

“I’m gonna shower.” Felix says, quickly standing up from his chair and moving to the bathroom, quickly escaping the conversation.

Only then he realises what he feeling in his gut means, only then he notices the way his sigh feels like the weight of the world is sitting on his shoulders and he can’t breathe any time you’re around Han Jisung.

He realises he likes you.

And clearly, you don’t like him back.

Emotions are something you never quite get used to. Even the emotion of feeling rejection, the emotion of always being behind his best friend’s shadow. Lee Felix is always just the friend. Never the love interest. This time, though, it feels even more heavy, because in a way, you seem way more special in his eyes than the people that went after him just to get with his best friend.

This time, he does not want to see another heart get broken. Because it’s your heart we’re talking about.

And to prevent his heart shattering to even more pieces, he has to do something.

He has to stop liking you.

As soon as possible.

“Y/N?”

“Mhhm?” you ask, raising your eyes up from the cheat sheet you’re creating with Felix’s help, the grease of the fries you’re eating glistening on your chin. You’re with him in a yet another crappy bistro, trying yet another soggy fries, and even though there’s nothing special on you to a stranger’s eye, Felix’s heart can’t help but run twice the speed of light.

“How do you stop liking someone?” he mumbles, furrowing his brows a little, deep in thought.

“Oh, do you like someone?” you ask, and Felix momentarily lights up at the thought of you caring if he’s interested in someone, but when his eyes meet yours and he notices them glistening and lightening up in curiosity, he realises it’s just because you’re happy for him. As a good friend should be.

“No, no,” he quickly shakes his head in disapproval, snickering to himself, “I’m just asking. Because, think, what if, hypothetically, there’s someone who is into someone else. Easy, right? But what if their best friend likes the same person? And you know you shouldn’t like them because they’re into their friend as well? What is there to do at that point?”

You scan his face for a few seconds, thinking to yourself. “Hmm,” you start, “I guess you have to start hating them. So the feelings disappear.” you nod, satisfied with your answer.

“How’s that possible?” he asks, scoffing.

“Well, I don’t know, since it’s all hypothetical anyway,” you giggle, focusing back on your cheat sheet. Your notes are getting smaller and smaller and Felix notices the improvement in your small lettering, making your cheat sheet less noticeable. You’re learning quickly.

“Oh come on,” he whines, kicking your leg under the table, “talk to me. How can a person start hating someone? Give me a tutorial.”

“Well, since you really need to know,” you roll your eyes, putting away the pen from your hand and resting your back against the seat of the booth, “there are a few steps you can take.”

“For example?”

“Well, you have to stop hanging out with them, first thing’s first.” you start. “Because if you don’t hang out with them, you will eventually hate the fact that they’re not near, which will, logically, make you hate them instead.”

“Is that really logical, though?” Felix asks, furrowing his brows at you. In his books, this made no sense at all, but you seemed pretty satisfied with your answer.

“Of course it is! Then, you have to find something about them that you can hate. Anything. Find even the smallest thing, and blow it up in your mind until you hate it. Easy, right?”

“...I don’t think that’s helping at all,” he says, tone of voice unsure.

“Of course it is! You’re just refusing that it can be true, because you think I’m stupid.” you stick out his tongue at him, focusing on your work instead.

He kicks you under the table, making you scowl. “Ow! What was that for?”

“I told you that if you’ll make that comment again, I will kick you. So I just did right that.” he says. “Besides, your ideas are stupid. Not you. There’s a difference in that.” he smartly points out, making you roll your eyes at him.

“So, who is it that you like?”

“No one. I told you, it’s hypothetical.” he glares at you.

“Right,” you nod, sighing, “well, I’ll just stick to that, since that means Jisung doesn’t like anyone and I still have a chance.” you smile at him, obviously missing out on the way your words just punched him into the gut. Felix laughs it out, kicking you in the shin instead.

“Right. Of course you do,” he nods. He wishes he didn’t mean that.

You two remain in silence for a moment, while you get back to your work and Felix pretends he’s playing a game on his phone. You don’t notice the way his eyes scan you over, admiring you, once in a while. No one ever does. He guesses this is the perk of always being just the friend. The one people are friends with just because they want something from him. The one that gets taken advantage of. He chooses not to think about it more. Maybe if he did, he could hate you over it, if he wasn’t so used to that feeling anyway.

“We should hang out on the weekend,” you say, taking him by surprise.

“Oh?” he mumbles out, “with Jisung?”

“No?” you furrow your brows, “look, I know I look like I’m obsessed with him, but I actually just want to hang out with you alone as friends once in a while, you know.”

“We’re hanging out now, though.”

“It’s midnight, Felix,” you point out, “and we’re working. I want to hang out with my friend, like a normal person, you know.” you shrug.

“Yeah…” he says, when your words resonate in his mind like a broken curse. ‘Don’t hang out with them.’ Don’t hang out with her. You have to hate her. He has to start hating you-- there’s no other way. And so, he turns to taking your words into consideration. He can’t meet with you if he’s not ‘tutoring’ you. There’s no way. “We’ll see. I’ll tell you if I’m free.” he smiles warmly instead, because truth be told, he’ll never tell you no to your eyes. He’s always been a bit of a coward. And he also doesn’t want you to frown. Ever.

“Great!” you smile.

And when Felix comes home that night, at 2am in the morning when his roommate is already asleep-- not knowing of your secret meetings, he lays down in his bed and repeats your advice like a broken mantra. He can’t like you. He has to hate you.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. Only meet her when it’s necessary. If you don’t meet her, you’ll start hating her absence, resulting in hating her altogether. 2. Find a small thing about her to blow up so much you start to hate it.

That’s not difficult. He hates that you like Han Jisung. It’s a small mistake, a small flaw, but he’s ready to blow it up so much he hates you for it. He hates that he’s not the first choice. He hates that you don’t like him.

Maybe he would hate you more if you were dating his best friend for real.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. 2. Find a thing to hate about her. SUCCESS! 3. Set her up with Han Jisung.

Now, this plan is bulletproof, isn’t it?

Felix unexpectedly breaks the first step of his guide only a few days later-- on a chilly friday afternoon, when his body is hurriedly skipping to the edge of the town centre only to meet with you. Just for the record, though, Felix didn’t intend to break the promise he gave to himself. He really wasn’t going to hang out with you if he didn’t specifically need to, but, well… you called Jisung to hang out. Felix’s heart almost skipped a few beats when he was added to a three-person big group chat with you and his roommate and at that point, he wasn’t going to reject an invitation to the fare in town, because he was fairly sure Jisung didn’t like rollercoasters and he wanted to see you laugh your ass off at him in front of everyone. Is it a little spiteful? Possibly. Does he care? Not that much.

Besides, it’s only one time. It will never happen again!!

He finds you with your black leather jacket on, stepping from one leg to the other, looking around like a lost puppy. Felix mentally curses at himself for not coming sooner so you wouldn’t feel so alone and awkward in the mass of people, when he realises he’s already 15 minutes late because of his afternoon class and his roommate is nowhere to be found.

“Thank god! I thought you were going to bail on me as well,” you call out when Felix is close enough, smiling at him.

“Where’s Jisung?”

“He texted me like 5 minutes ago that he can’t make it today. Something about his mum being in town? I’m not sure,” you furrow your brows, “at least you’re here now, though.”

Felix is met with the realisation that he’s left alone with you again, mentally cursing at himself. This surely does not look like a plan to hating you. It looks like a bullet-proof plan on how to fall even deeper for you, with how your stray hairs are flying around your head and you adorably scrunch up your nose and sniffle from the cold.

“Should we go?” he forces out of himself, looking at you hopefully.

“Yeah!” you nod, striding a few steps in front of him like a happy school girl excited to go to school for the first time. Felix can’t surpass the gentle smile forming on his lips, shaking his head in disbelief. You look so cheerful and so joyful, making his heart swell with how easily you manage to make him feel so young again.

He follows you gladly, managing to match his speed with yours, almost forgetting for a moment that he’s not on a date with you, almost forgetting about the fact that you like his best friend and the smile you’re giving him is nothing against the wide grin you offer to his roommate.

“Let’s go on that one!” you cheer, taking Felix by the hand and tugging him your way, not once giving him the opportunity of letting go as you drag him all around the fare. You remind him of his younger sister with how excited you get about the smallest things and he realises he wants to protect your heart from the world just as much as he wants to protect his little sister’s. It’s not the same feeling, though. The affection he feels for you is different.

Felix doesn’t find it in him to tell you no whenever you tug him on another ride, even when his legs are tired and his jaw hurts from smiling. He finds himself wanting to capture your image into his brain forever, imprint the happy memory in there so he can find it and look at it whenever his heart feels lonely. For the first time in ages, he forgets about everything. He forgets that he’s just the friend, the other choice. He completely forgets that Han Jisung was supposed to be there, at his place, sitting next to you on the ferris wheel as you watch the night city under you with cold cheeks and frozen bodies.

“You must be sad that Jisung isn’t here with you right now. That would surely feel much more romantic than sitting here with me,” Felix says bitterly once the reality hits him for a second, once his heart is unsheltered for a short moment and your eyes meet.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” you roll your eyes, “Jisung can’t be romantic. Besides, if I really wanted a date with him so badly, I wouldn’t have asked you to come with us, would I?” you smile at him, swinging your legs forward and backward, focusing your eyes somewhere into the distance again.

“Well, if you really want to go on a date with him, you can just ask him, you know?” he mumbles, playing with the dead skin on his thumb.

“So he can stand me up and go on a date with his mum again? I don’t know, Felix, is that really worth it?” you giggle, not noticing the way you’re messing with the boy’s head, not noticing the way a small spark of hope lights up somewhere in the deep pits of his stomach when you mention not wanting to ask his best friend out.

“I don’t know, is it?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” you muse out, and the spark is gone. Of course it’s not that simple.

Felix just nods and grins at you. The chilly air helps him hide his red cheeks when he thinks of how embarrassing his thoughts must have been in the past quick seconds. He focuses on your face, on the way your eyes crinkle up a little when you stare somewhere far into the distance and your hair flies a little with the breeze. The ferris wheel just reached the top, so he has plenty of time to keep admiring you from so close, but somehow, the moment still feels so short and he wishes he could stop the time. He wishes he could stop the time so he didn’t have to face the reality when he comes down from the ferris wheel. He wishes he didn’t have to see you fall in love with his friend, he wishes he didn’t have to act like he doesn’t care at all.

“Thanks for helping me, by the way. I wouldn’t have passed my exams if it wasn’t for you and that… that would be really hard on me.” you get out, locking your eyes with his sincerely. He sees your eyes shining even so high above the ground, convincing him the sparkles really must be the stars, when he takes a deep breath in and responds.

“It’s no problem, I get it… I mean, it’s what you gotta do. What we gotta do, when we want to pass. And graduate,” he chuckles.

Does he really want the degree, though? Or does he just need it to feel like he has some worth? Does he want to graduate or does he just want his parents to value him as an adult, does he really want to continue working so hard on passing or would he just be so much happier if he just dropped out. And saved himself so much stress. He should have known he was never smart enough for college.

“Yeah. I despise the smart kids in our class. I wish I were them,” you scoff, “I despise Jisung, in a way, too,” you add after a dramatic pause.

“Jisung?” Felix furrows his brows.

“Yeah,” you nod, like it’s the clearest thing in the world, “I mean, he’s smart enough to pass. He’s… he’s got his life figured out, in a way. He’s just fine. Getting all the girls and the guys, getting good grades, going on dinner dates with his mum on Fridays,” you giggle, “I mean, I want that. That sounds nice.”

Felix huffs, staring into the distance, “I guess you’re right.” He knows damn well how jealousy feels.

“I came to college to prove to myself that my life has some worth, but I guess the only thing I prove to myself is that I can’t even pass my exams without help.” you sigh, sounding defeated.

“Hey,” he nudges you a little with his foot, “don’t say that. Life isn’t about grades, degrees and that shit. Of course you have worth and value.”

He sees you smile in defeat, leaning your head on his shoulder. The feeling of acceptance, pure understanding washes over the two of you, when you gently speak up again. “Try to explain that to my brain.”

He lightly giggles. “I’m trying, as you can see.”

You look up at him from his shoulder, scrunching up your nose and leaning closer to him, whispering. “It’s not working.” you laugh.

“I know it’s not easy,” he shakes his head, “I’ve been trying to tell that to my family for the past 21 years.” he slips out. Something about you makes him spill out even things he’s never told anyone before, but he finds himself not caring as you approach his eyes with pure serenity mixed with melancholy.

“Is it all because of your parents?” you ask, “the cheating, I mean.”

Felix feels his eyes giving him out, so he chooses not to look at you anymore. “I mean, I would have dropped out long ago if I didn’t have to feel so worthless around my family then. Every single one of my cousins is smart, has a degree and earns a killing. I’m just me-- living from the money I earned over summer, trying not to lose my mind with biology.”

He hears you humming next to him, your head moving as you nod in understatement. The ferris wheel is slowly reaching the bottom again and Felix finds the fact quite relieving. He doesn’t mind having deep talks with you, he just fears he might spill out something both of you don’t want to hear.

“I’m glad you came with me today, Lix.” you smile at him once the two of you reach the bottom, “wanna hear a secret?”

“Spill it out,” he dares you, grinning.

“I only invited Jisung because I thought you didn’t want to hang out with me alone.” you confess, quickly turning around in your spot as you jog a few steps in front of him, carelessly, as if you just didn’t make Felix’s heart stop and insides twitch in excitement. He prays and hopes it’s not just you giving him false hope, he wishes it’s not his mind playing tricks on him.

“I-”

“And now that I know you don’t mind being around me, do you wanna go to the dog cafe with me next Wednesday? You know, the one I talked about.” you turn around, flashing him a smile worth a billion dollars, taking him by surprise as his breathing hitches and he doesn’t find it in him to reject you ever again.

“Sure.”

Second step of Lee Felix’s guide to helping you: find a small thing about you he doesn’t like to blow up so much he starts hating you altogether.

He was so sure that he found the small thing just a few days ago. He thought that the fact that you like his best friend could be enough for him to start hating you. He could sit on that thought for long enough to pick it up to the smallest pieces and over-analyse it to the point he could start hating you.

And he tries to do just that-- he lies awake at night thinking of how every single person he’s ever been interested in slipped right between his fingers just because of Jisung’s existence. He wonders why he’s never good enough to anyone, why he always has to be the second choice even for tutoring (even though it’s not even tutoring, but we won’t talk about that anymore). He thinks of how you’re so foolish to think your relationship with Jisung is going to last, because Jisung’s feelings never stay the same for long. He over-analyses the smallest things he notices on you when you’re in Jisung’s presence until the point he’s almost sure he can do it, he can hate you for it just a little, in a way, but then, the thought flies right out of the open window as his roommate crashes into his door in the middle of the night.

He startles awake, sitting up at his bed, watching the short male going in with much difficulty, sitting on his bed without a word.

“Jisung?”

“Lixie, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?” Jisung whines, laying down on the bed next to his friend. Felix doesn’t think it’s only due to the late hours of the night that his friend’s words aren’t making any sense, but he doesn’t dare to put his finger on it until he makes sure for himself.

“What are you talking about?”

“Y/N.”

Your name coming out of his lips hits Felix like a baseball bat, hurting in all the right places, as the young male finds it in him to continue the conversation.

“What about her?”

“She asked us to hang out together. And I didn’t go. I know it wasn’t my fault, because my mum was in the town, but still, I feel so bad, because now it must look like I’m not interested in her and that I don’t care and I really don’t want that, you know?” he stummers, making Felix realise his friend talks a lot when he’s under the influence of alcohol just the same second Jisung’s breath catches in Felix’s nose, only proving his point.

“You didn’t fuck it up, don’t worry.” he muses. And it’s true. Jisung could never truly fuck it up with anyone. Even his exes always crumble up around his feet, wanting attention even after getting their heart broken. Will it be the same with you?

“She must think I don’t like her. And that’s horrible-that’s- that’s- I like her. Very much,” he whines again, getting closer to Felix and wrapping his arms around the blonde’s torso in a wave of affection that only washes over him when he’s drunk.

“Sung-” he stutters, desperately trying to push him away, but even though Jisung doesn’t look like it, he is a strong individual when it comes to involuntary cuddling. Felix can never escape his arms.

“I think she’s special, you know? She’s like- I can’t explain it. It’s like with her, I actually want to try. I want to ask her on dates and love her and give her my heart, because you know, I never dared to give my heart to anyone. And no one’s ever made me feel truly special before…” he mutters, forcing his nose to Felix’s neck, “I’m rambling too much, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Felix sighs, nodding. He doesn’t battle his arms anymore. Jisung is his friend, at the end of the day. He can hold him when he needs it.

“Sorry.” he says shortly, sighing as well. The room falls into silence and Felix’s head spins again, his thoughts spiral like a tornado and the eye of the storm is you-- standing there with that stupid smile on your face and he once again realises that he needs to hate you in order to shelter his own heart, because you’re like a hurricane when it comes a to a person’s emotions.

The fact is, though, he could never hate you for liking his best friend.

Han Jisung is too likable for his own good. His heart is too big for this world, and truth be told, he’s been sharing it with everyone for such a long time now, he deserves to find someone he’s willing to give his all to.

He could never hate you for liking Jisung-- the boy who smiles at everyone in the halls, the boy that offered him to live in the flat his parent’s bought for him in freshman year, the boy that helps him hide his cheating secret every day. He could never hate you for liking Jisung, because he himself knows too well how much of a treasure his dear friend is.

He gets it. He gets why people always choose Jisung over him. He could never blame you.

“Sung?”

“Hmm?”

“Ask Y/N out to the dog cafe on Wednesday. She'll love it.”

Felix could never hate you.

Step three of Felix’s bullet-proof guide to hating you is quite simple and actually the only one he completes with success. Setting you up with Jisung on a date is easier than he ever imagined, considering the fact that his roommate decided to finally take things into his own hands and call you on a date after the drunken weeping episode in Felix’s bed.

Jisung invites you on a date to the dog café in town. The two of you go on Wednesday and although Felix feels like he just gave his roommate a piece of him, an invitation that was never meant for him in the first place, he feels at ease, because at least one part of his plan is working. He could never hate you, but at least now, it will be easier for him to ignore his growing feelings for you when you spend all your time with Jisung on dates and ice cream runs. He only has to ignore his feelings in school and at your ‘tutoring’ sessions. He wonders how long these will be a secret in front of your new boyfriend. Jisung’s not your boyfriend yet, but Felix can only imagine how short the time he isn’t is going to last.

Felix does the stupid mistake of opening the instagram app in the evening, when he’s curled up in his bed with an embarrassingly big bowl of popcorn on his bed side table, serving him as his depression food. He sees your post show up, an adorable picture of you from the dog café, a big golden retriever in your lap as you giggle at its face. The picture is candid and looks like the kind Felix would like to keep as his lock screen if he had the chance. He’s sure his best friend took it for you not only from the fact that you went out with him tonight, but also for the fact that he’s tagged in the post’s description with a big blue heart emoji.

He could stop staring at the picture if he really wanted, he could mute your posts and pretend you never existed to shelter his poor heart. He could do everything in his strength to cut all his ties with you. That would make it so much easier for him, wouldn’t it?

But he doesn't. And maybe he doesn’t even want to-- he’s used to the pain anyway, isn’t he? The bitterness, the feeling of being pushed away, ignored and left forgotten.

He was supposed to be in Jisung’s place now, but that doesn’t change the simple fact that he isn’t-- maybe it was never his place to claim anyway.

Felix stares at the picture for minutes, wondering of how things could be if you only didn’t fall for his best friend. Or if he came with you today. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t too late for him to ask you on a date. Maybe he could still change your mind. Felix likes to give up on things too quickly, though, and that is the curse that will follow him his whole life.

Lee Felix is good at cheating. He is insanely good at it, he would also say it’s the only thing he’s ever been good at. Pretending.

It’s his time to shine again. It’s time to pretend he doesn’t like you, pretend you don’t hurt him, pretend he isn’t in love with his best friend’s crush. He’s been always the best at cheating and now it’s time to cheat his way out of liking you.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

“You must be really hungry, if you’re planning to eat all of that in one setting,” Felix mumbles, watching you as you eat yet another plate of chicken wings in yet another pointless bistro in town. Felix wonders how you even know about all of these, since the one you’re both sitting in right now, in the middle of the night, looks rather lonely. It doesn’t even seem that welcoming-- it has graffiti on the walls and the seats are a little torn on the edges, but you don’t seem to care as you munch on the chicken, eyes big when you stare back at your companion.

“I eat a lot when I’m stressed,” you mutter in between your bites, mouth full. You look natural like this and Felix realises this is you in his mind-- cheeks full of food, that little wrinkle in between your brows when you look at him, eyes staring big into his like a loyal dog. This is how he knows you, in your rawest form, and this is coincidentally, also, how he likes you the most. He loves and treasures every single version of you, but your late-night meetings feel of different kind of intimacy to him that he’s sure he’s going to think of even when he’s old and his college years are dusty like an old polaroid picture.

“Stressed?” he asks, tone of voice a little more worried than usual. Felix always worries about you. Even when you quietly take out your cheat sheet from under the table and write your answers down. He doesn’t fear being caught-- he frankly doesn’t care that much, but he knows that you are having a battle with yourself and he really doesn’t want you to feel like you lost. He didn’t know it was so easy to put someone else first when you worry for the future.

“The finals are coming up.” you clarify, the words coming out a little bashful and smitten.

“Oh.” he nods.

You’re both quiet for a while. It would be cheesy to say the silence was comfortable, and Felix knows, he’s seen enough teenage dramas to know these words are used in situations like this, but the truth is, there’s no other way to describe it, and he understands that now. Your determination shines through all your edges and he’s glad you’re doing what you can with the resources you have. You’re not exactly studying for your Biology finals, but it’s still as hard and as stressful as that. It can feel a little embarrassing at times, but there’s no other way around it. You have to battle your enemy, even if it means the game is not fair.

“And those chicken wings are fucking good, dude,” you mutter after a while, offering him one of the paper baskets the server brought you a few minutes ago, looking rather stoned and not interested in your presence at all.

“Don’t tell me this rotten place is winning your chicken wings and fries contest,” Felix snickers, taking a bite that, to his surprise, actually tastes the best out of the amount of fast food chains and restaurants you’ve brought him to. You should never judge a book by its cover and this bistro is clearly one of the examples.

“I have only one place left to go, so we’ll see then, but I guess it might just be the top place right now,” you muse out, a wide grin decorating your features as you glance up at Felix that watches you scribble down your notes on a mini piece of paper.

“Wanna go with me there? After the finals, of course. We can celebrate if we pass,” you point out, licking your lips in nerves, “I don’t think I’ll need these ‘tutoring sessions’ anymore then, but I still want to hang out sometime.” you say, putting air quotes around the words tutoring session, looking at him with expectations in your eyes.

“Oh, sure,” he agrees, nodding. “I have to be there when you finally declare your last yelp review.”

You only laugh at him and shake your head, eating some more as you look down into your notes again, lost in work. “I still don’t get how you can do these so fast.”

“I already know what’s the most useful. You don’t have to copy the whole textbook on there.”

“You can never know! What if I’ll need it all?” you exclaim, only making him laugh harder.

He points his eyes out of the window, watching the empty parking lot. You didn’t come in your car today, telling Felix your house is close anyway, and Felix doesn’t dare to drive his car anywhere unless he doesn’t need to. He has a little bit of a trauma since the last time he drove with his dad and he almost ran the car into a tree, getting a shower of swear words and exclamations from his dear father, so he only drives his small white Renault when he needs to go home. Which is, coincidentally, next week.

“I really don’t want to go home next week,” he sighs.

“Your family is still onto you for the smallest shit?” you ask, tone of voice sympathetic.

“Yeah. Can’t wait to graduate so I don’t have to listen to them talking about a degree anymore,” he rolls his eyes, “I only have to find myself a partner so my grandma can shut up about me being single all the time.”

You softly laugh, making Felix look at you for a moment, his heart skipping a few beats when your eyes meet for a little more seconds than usual. “I’m sorry. You can always text me, though, if you need anyone to talk or gossip with.” you say, averting your eyes from his.

“You’d have to be on your phone 24/7, then. My mental stability comes down by 70% when I’m back home and it’s already only on 15% now,” Felix snickers.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll be staying here anyway.” you say, giggling.

“You’re not coming back home?”

“No,” you shake your head in disapproval, quickly glancing into his eyes before speaking up again, “it’s my parent’s wedding anniversary, so they’re going on a holiday. There’s no use in me coming home if I’m just going to be alone there anyway,” you shrug.

Felix hums, nodding in understatement. “That makes sense. I’m sorry you can’t meet your family on holidays, though.”

“It’s okay,” you say, “I see them often anyway. One Christmas won’t kill me. I have a whole season of Game of thrones to catch up on anyway.” you light-heartedly laugh, sounding like Felix’s favorite song. He smiles with you, shaking his head in disbelief at how positively you can always see the world, when he glances out of the window for a moment again, only to be met with a surprise.

There are white flakes of snow falling from the sky and something in Felix wakes up-- something he’d call happiness, maybe even joy, when he quickly shoots up from his seat and calls you with excitement coating his voice, “Y/N! Y/N! Come on!”

“Come where? Felix, what are you-”

He doesn’t let you finish as he takes you by the hand and tugs you on your feet, tugging you out of the empty bistro out into the dark parking lot, admiring the snowflakes falling onto the ground and every surface in his sight. He sees some stick into your hair, making him giggle as his outstretched hand dusts them off subconsciously, when he starts running around like a happy child, laughter coming out of his throat filling the silence.

“It’s snowing!” you exclaim, when Felix reaches your body frozen in its place again. He reminds you of a golden retriever when he jumps a little in his place, his feet happily crouching in the snow. You laugh at his antics when he starts acting like a little boy, this side of Felix being so new to you, yet you can’t help but feel your heart swell with admiration when he asks you to catch some snow into your mouth.

“Felix! That’s disgusting!” you refuse, laughing.

“Oh come on! It’s just water!” he cheers, leaning his head back and opening his mouth wide, waiting for the snow to fall into his mouth.

“But it’s unhygienic and dirty! You have to be kidding me!” you still reject his idea, standing your ground firmly as always in your life so far, when a face of a boy looking like an angel takes you by surprise and his big eyes plead you in a way that makes you drop all your grudges and all your beliefs down, rolling your eyes when he pouts, leaning your head back as well and opening your mouth with a loud ‘aaaa’ sound to satisfy his foolish heart.

Once you both feel a snowflake hitting your tongues, you look at each other with your tongues out, laughing at how stupid the other one looks, pointing to your tongues. You shake your head. “It melted off, you stupid!”

“You did the same thing!” he bursts out laughing, bending over in the force of his emotions. You watch him with a wide grin plastered onto your face. It feels like watching a movie. You don’t think you’ll ever have a brighter memory with the boy in front of you, with his cheeks red from the snow and smile so wide it hurts both of your jaws.

You instinctively take his hands into yours, looking down on your feet as you start going around in a circle with him, going quicker and quicker as you watch your footprints in the snow mixing with his, the dry skin of his hands making you feel strange. You laugh out when your head starts spinning, looking up at him to find him already staring at you with stars in his eyes, when you wonder,

isn’t this how love is supposed to feel?

All of his life, Felix had thought that family gatherings could always either go two ways, and that is: 1) a normal, boring meet-ups where your grandma asks about how school’s going, when you’re going to finally find a partner and another one of your cousin’s announces their engagement party, or 2) the actual engagement parties-- every single family member including the senile grandma from mum’s side gets drunk and you don’t have to think about more fake reasons why you have yet to lose your virginity.

You see, Felix is wrong in a lot of things. And this was surely one of them-- it’s the December 27th and he’s sitting in his grandma’s old kitchen, the wind blowing through the cracks of her window and the sweets on the table have already melted from the heat being too high, because his aunt is always cold and they can’t compromise. That sounds fine, even usual, Felix would say, however, the fire lights up a few moments later when his head starts to hurt from all the talking and he begins to dissociate a little too much, meaning that his grandma now has to shift her attention from all of his other relatives to him, because how dare he stay quiet on a family gathering where he has nothing to add to the conversation, right?

It starts off as usual, the answers to these questions digged deep into Felix’s brain since the first year of college. He doesn’t even bat an eye when he answers the questions directed at his studies and grades, telling all of his interested relatives that he’s working hard and it’s paying off. Nobody complains or disagrees-- his grades are awesome. His degree is here soon. Felix almost thinks he’s over with when his grandma laughs at a poor joke that comes out of his mouth, but that was only a bad prediction as he moves on to questions about his love life, which are, believe me or not, much more boring and much more ego-hurting for the blonde.

“Do you have a girlfriend yet, Felix?” she asks, tone of voice sounding rather interested, but don’t believe her-- it’s only an act. She’s ready to laugh into his face when he gives her the answer she’s hoping for.

“No, not yet, grandma,” he mumbles, averting his eyes from her wrinkley face as soon as possible. He really doesn’t need to look at her any longer to know she’s silently judging him on the inside, because that’s just how his grandmother is.

“That’s such a shame… I wonder why… You’re such a pretty young boy, aren’t you?” she mutters under her nose, tone almost whiney, “what about your roommate? Jisung, was it?”

Felix takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes for a second to calm his rising heart beat. He could have predicted questions like this coming, because the conversation always somehow diverted to his roommate even when he was at home with his family. It’s crazy, how everyone just seems to adore Jisung much more than their own family member.

“He’s.. Yeah. He’s always with someone, you know him. Not now, though, now he’s single,” Felix nods, explaining.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll find someone soon,” she admits, “he’s such a gentleman. And so handsome as well, isn’t he?” she asks, his aunt from her right side nodding quickly at the mention of Han Jisung.

“He always has so many people around him, he’s so charming. If only you were more like him, maybe then someone would date you as well,” his grandma says calmly, not even noticing the way her words cut deeper and deeper into Felix’s heart, kicking him and punching him like a boxing bag, “you should try to be more like him.”

Felix bites down on his lower lip, rolling his eyes. Frustration coats his voice once he speaks up, the built-up anger living inside of him like an animal kept well in its cage. He doesn’t want to let it out, because he fears what it might do once it’s free, but he still retorts to a dig addressed to his grandma, huffing in annoyance. “Should I send Jisung home instead of me next time?”

“Oh no, Felix, what are you even saying right now?” his grandma looks rather offended, eyes twice their usual size as she glares at him.

“Well, since you like him so much.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was just saying that-”

“Leave it.” Felix says.

The atmosphere is too heavy now, all eyes on him as if he was in a circus, watching him just moments before his breaking. He realises he no longer feels welcome in this place and maybe he never did, he just chose to ignore it by now, because that’s what he always does when a problem appears-- he chooses ignorance. Ignorance is Felix’s best friend, and although it may sound like he’s running away from his problems all the time, it’s always worked so far. He’s just protecting his heart, building walls around it.

He doesn’t want to fight. He hates conflict. So, even though he’d like to snap, even though he’d like to leash out like an animal, he doesn’t. He steps back-- as he always does, taking the car keys from the table and escaping the house, hearing the calls of his mother after him. He doesn’t bother to say goodbye, he doesn’t even bother to look back nor take the Christmas gifts his grandma brought for everyone.

He sits into the small white Renault he drives once a year when he comes back home, starts the engine and speeds up to the limit, driving away from all of his problems. He doesn’t want to hear their complaints, he doesn’t want to listen. It’s the best this way. He wants to ignore the words that came out of his grandma’s mouth, but he can’t find it in him as he hears them resonate in his head over and over again.

He’s the second choice even in his own family. He’s a joke to everyone, isn’t he? Just the side character, the one that never gets the spotlight. It hurts, it hurts him so much, but he pays no attention to his blurry vision, because even though he’s fairly sure no one from his family would miss him, he doesn’t want to drive off the road and kill himself with his escape.

He parks the car in front of his and Jisung’s flat after a few hours. He’s fairly good at it, considering he never drives, and mentally puts up a middle finger to his dad in his head for screaming at him so much. He was in a much calmer headspace when he was driving with his dad than he was now, yet, he didn’t manage to drive anyone over.

Putting his feet into the cold, empty apartment, turning the heating on and plopping down on the sofa, he once again realises how lonely it feels. Not only because of the feeling of abandonment the dark flat resonates, but also due to the fact that it truly feels like now, he’s all alone in this world. The silence screams louder than any words ever could, his ears lowly ringing without any sound in the small room, which makes him wonder if he’s truly the only one that has to spend his holidays pretty much alone. Maybe it’s his fault that he’s fucked it up with his family, who knows-- but that’s a topic for another overthinking session of his, when he decides to let it go once his eyes meet the snow silently falling down behind the window.

The dark mixed with the white balls of fluff in the air remind him of you. Your bubbly laugh, the feeling of your skin on his when you held his hands and danced around with him in the snow. He feels a smile growing on his face, despite everything he’s heard today, his fingers involuntarily texting you to see if you’re doing anything and if you can hang out with him today.

He meets you at the door a few minutes later, your nose runny from the cold and hands dry, smiling at you with a sense he can only describe as belonging, because he realises, maybe you feel just as lonely as him on holidays and suddenly, he no longer feels sorry for leaving.

“Why are you even here, Lix? Shouldn’t you be at home?” you ask him when you’re taking off your shoes and hanging your coat on the hanger by the door. He bites down on his lower lip to suppress a bitter chuckle.

“Christmas got cancelled this year.” he shrugs.

It’s not like he doesn’t trust you. You know better than anyone what his struggles are-- he asked you to keep his secrets numerous times. It’s just that now that you’re here, it’s like his soul finally feels calm and he no longer wants to whine about his grandma or his aunts anymore. It’s just you and him and the empty apartment. If he was anyone else, maybe he’d try to get into your pants. He’s just Lee Felix though, and he’s absolutely, wholeheartedly in love with you, he realises, and believe me, it kind of takes him over the edge, and so he doesn’t try anything.

And you look at him in understatement, no other questions asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s all a capitalistic holiday anyway,” he shrugs.

You follow him into the living room and he throws the remote control into your lap, telling you to choose a movie before he comes back with popcorn.

“If you don’t pick anything before I’m done, we’ll just watch Venom, I don’t care,” he says, seeing you adorably scrunch up your nose at him in response.

When he comes back and you’re waiting for him with Howl’s moving castle paused on Netflix, he can’t help but grin at you. He places the popcorn on the coffee table and notices himself staring onto your body next to his far more often than the TV and wonders if he really drove away from all of his problems or if he just drove away from one problem to another, because now, it’s getting really hard to focus on staying away from you.

And when you shiver and curl up into his side, placing your head onto his shoulder, he can’t help but jolt at the contact, staring at you in surprise.

“It’s cold,” you mumble, pouting.

Felix smiles. He rolls his eyes at you, even though on the inside, he finds you absolutely adorable, taking a blanket from the side of the sofa and putting it over your cold bodies, tucking you both in. You feel warm against his side, your hand resting on his chest. He wonders if you can feel his quickening heartbeat, his stiff body and the nerves rising in his heart. Everything else disappears, the fight back home long forgotten and Han Jisung left somewhere home with his own family, the weight of your body overwhelming him when you fall asleep and that’s when he stops and thinks,

isn’t this how home’s supposed to feel like?

The halls of the university building are empty as Felix stands right in front of the closed door, silently pacing around the corridors and bumping his knee up and down. He just got his final’s results and even though his soul was supposed to be at peace, he finds himself stressing over you, currently sitting in the room behind the closed door in front of him, getting your final’s results from biology back. The professor decided to split your class into two groups for the finals so you can, quote, ‘focus better when there’s less people around’ and even though you managed to cheat on your exams without any problems, he still wonders if you did well and if you passed.

Once the voices behind the closed doors get louder and louder, he figures it’s near the end of your lecture and he can finally see you again and ask you how you did.

The last time he talked to you without the stress of finals breathing onto your back was back on Christmas break-- more than a week ago. Ever since then, you two have been meeting in the middle of the night again, preparing for your upcoming tests. You didn’t really manage to talk a lot about anything else and even though Felix didn’t mind, he still missed your mindless rambles and weird jokes you used to crack when you weren’t stressing your mind off.

The door opens and reveals people coming out, a few of them wearing a toothy grin on their faces as they glance on the paper in their hands, a few of them frowning as they pin their eyes to the ground. It’s not easy to differentiate the ones that passed and the ones who did not do that well and even though Felix feels sorry for them, he wonders why they just don’t cheat their way out of bad grades just how he does. It’s not that hard. It just takes a lot of practice.

Once he finally sees your face, a big, toothy grin decorating your lips, a big stone falls off his heart, a weight lifts itself from his shoulders, because frankly, you wouldn’t look so happy if you failed, right? You’re not a total psychopath.

“How did you-”

His words are cut off from his mouth, all air kicked out of his body once he feels you so close, the soft skin of your lips pressed up against his in a happy kiss. He’s startled, to say the least. His cheeks are reddening in the instance and he doesn’t even know if time stopped or if it’s just the rising anxiety and excitement in his chest, but he bites down the confusion and kisses you back finally, closing his eyes and bringing you close by your shoulders. The kiss is a little sloppy and messy, but he doesn’t mind-- all that’s occupying his mind right now is you, your sweet lips, your mouthy kiss, your excited hands creeping up around his neck, your bag that fell to the ground next to his feet, your exam paper marked with the big red A+ flying around the two of you when you let it fall from your grasp, your hair tickling his cheeks, you, you, you.

There’s only you. In the air he breathes, in the ground he walks on, in his hands and on his mind. You’re everywhere. Intoxicating.

You pull away from him after a while, grinning at him. It still manages to startle him a little-- how just the small gesture can light up his whole world, how your smile can make him feel like he’s the luckiest person on this earth. He sees stars in your eyes and he wonders who put them there, hoping to be the one, believing he could finally be the one, with how you look at him and hold him in your arms-

but it’s Felix’s life we’re talking about. There’s only you, you, you and maybe somewhere, far away in the distance, there could even be him, but who’s always there for sure is Han Jisung.

Han Jisung staring at the two of you from the open door, mouth agape in shock. Han Jisung with trembling hands, Han Jisung with his books clutched close to his chest as Felix’s heart drops and reality finally hits him. You were never supposed to be his to kiss. You were supposed to be Jisung’s-- his roommate’s, his best friend’s -- you fell for him long, long ago and that’s how it’s always been.

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, to comfort his dear friend that looks like he’s heart’s being broken, but he finds no words in him to console his actions. He feels bad, he feels so, so guilty when their eyes meet, but he doesn’t manage to say anything before Jisung turns around the corner and leaves.

The sound of Jisung’s quick steps is the only thing resonating in Felix’s mind like a bell, a signal for him that he fucked up, he did a really, really bad thing.

His insides clutch and eyes water in the empty college corridor when he wonders,

is this how it feels to break someone’s heart?

You kick the small rocks beneath your feet, gazing into the distance. The cold in your bones makes you shudder, your eyes trailing around the neighbourhood so foreign to you, putting your hands into your pockets so you shelter your fingers from the frozen air. You think how this place looks exactly as you imagined it to-- tall apartment complex and a single big tree in front of it, the cars parked in the driveway obviously having their spot as the neighbours have lived together for a long time to know not to park anywhere else, because it’s more efficient this way.

You’re waiting and waiting, hoping to see the one you’re waiting for soon, because you doubt your confidence will last you for any longer if you don’t talk to him now. You could lie and tell yourself it’s okay and that you’re not nervous at all, but after Jisung ran away the other day and his roommate followed him a few moments later, you feel nervousness creeping into your skin after not seeing or hearing from Felix for three days now.

You remember him telling you that he likes to go for late-night convenience store runs every evening to get his favorite snacks. It wasn’t hard to find out where he lives-- it’s the 21st century, for god’s sake. You asked a friend of his friend and here you are, waiting for him to appear in the door of his apartment complex, ready to talk to him about the events of this week.

Once you hear the door opening, you feel your head snap to its direction quicker than the speed of light, knees almost getting weak at the sight of Lee Felix standing there, confusion written all over his face once his eyes meet with yours. The frown forming on his face only deepens your stress as you wonder if he didn’t want to see you today, which, considering the fact that he’s been ignoring you for the past few days, might just be the case, but it still makes your heart break just a little when you hear him sigh once he makes his way over to you, the sound of his sneakers on the ground being the only thing heard in the middle of the night.

All the snow has melted-- as if all the bright things have left just in time with it, leaving you sad and cold, the clouds of your breath hitting the cold air being the only thing reminding you of the weather as you feel your body heating up in his presence.

“Can we talk?” you ask, voice steadier than you expected it to be.

“I- I mean,” he starts, a shaky and husky voice hitting your ears, signaling that he probably hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time now, “you’re already here, so I guess…”

You nod at him, averting your gaze quickly to the ground, when you realise you suddenly don’t know what to say. You try to search for words, yet none come out of your mouth. Your mind is blank and it seems like his presence took away all your vocabulary, but deep on the inside, you know damn well that if you don’t speak up now, you won’t have a second chance and you really have to get it now.

“Why- why…” you mutter, “why did you leave without saying anything the other day?” you ask.

The silence is overwhelming as you start to hate the sound of your own breath, opting to hold it for a few seconds as you await his response.

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?”

You shake your head in confusion, finally meeting his eyes again. “No.”

“Jisung… Jisung saw us. I didn’t feel like it was right,” he explains, cracking his knuckles in a nervous habit you noticed in him a long, long time ago when he first tried to teach you how to cheat in class without getting caught.

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“You two like each other.” he says bluntly, taking you off-guard.

The moment these words come out of his mouth, you realise not one, but two things. One of them is fairly new to you, the fact that Han Jisung liked you back was something you never knew you could experience, but even though you should be flattered, you realise it no longer holds a meaning in your heart. The second thing is connected to the first-- and that is, Lee Felix doesn’t know that you like him now. His foolish, silly mind convinced him you were still in love with his best friend, his confused and frustrated brain didn’t let him realise that for a long, long time now, the freckled boy in front of you has been the only one you thought about when you were falling asleep at night.

You don’t even know when it happened. You guess it just did. You wondered how it’d feel to know what exactly made you fall for Felix, what that moment was, but something inside of you is telling you that maybe, it was even more wonderful this way. Unexpected, but totally reasonable.

“Why would I be kissing you if I still liked Jisung?” you ask, the fear of directly confessing to him and getting rejected creeping up in your shadow.

“I- I don’t know-”

“Exactly.” you cut him off before he rambles and manages to find a stupid, silly reason in his head to justify his wrong expectations. You know how he is-- if he overthinks things hard enough, he’ll surely find an answer. There’s none, though, so you don’t dare to give him time to think about it and ponder on the thought for any longer.

“But that doesn’t matter now anyway,” he shrugs, putting his hands into his pockets.

You wonder what’s going on inside of his head right now. You wonder if he regrets what he’s done-- if he wants to turn back time and never let you kiss him. The nerves make you bite down harshly on your bottom lip and you only catch yourself when you feel iron in your mouth, quickly licking your own wound on the surface of your mouth and take a deep breath in.

“Why?” you ask.

“Why would it?” he says, eyes boring into yours.

“Because… I thought it meant something to you? I mean, it meant a lot to me, at least. That’s why I’m even here in the first place,” you chuckle airly, feeling your throat get dry.

“I’m not saying that it didn’t, I just think it had no point.”

His words feel like knives thrown into your chest, like a fire burning the pit of your stomach. You feel your legs getting weaker at his arguments, your fingers harshly tugging at the skin of your cuticles hidden in your pockets. You don’t trust your voice to sound steady this time when you speak, but you don’t care. Maybe it’s time to show your real emotions. Maybe it will change Felix’s mind.

“And why is that?”

“Because people like you don’t date people like me. You’re supposed to be in love with Jisung. You’re supposed to be dating him, he’s supposed to date you. You’re too good for me anyway.” he shrugs.

“Is this all about Jisung?” you ask, eyebrows furrowed.

You watch Felix sharply inhale in and out, averting his eyes from your figure. The distance between the two of you is unnatural, as if to singal how the two of you are slowly drifting apart. You see him fold his hands on his chest, preparing for what he’s about to say.

“It hurt him, back then. And I hate that. He loves you and I just.. I can’t do that to him, when I know how much he cares about you.” he says.

Love is a strange thing. You hear Felix say how much Jisung loves you, but is that really true? Does Han Jisung even know you? The real you?

Does Jisung know how you look with your mouth full of fries and a greasy forehead? Does he know how you look when you’re stressed out of your mind because of finals? Does he know your favorite bistro, does he know your favorite movie? Did you cuddle up with Jisung on the couch just because you wanted to be close to him, comfort him and tell him you’re there just a few days after Christmas?

Or does he just know the self you put up in front of him when you went to meet him? The put-together you that cares even about the sound of your own laugh, not wanting it to sound ugly in his ears?

Han Jisung can’t love you. He doesn’t even know you.

And you never loved him-- just for the same reason. The feelings you had for him were merely a feeling of attraction, so far away from love.

But now you know how you feel about Felix, how his smile lights up the world and how his presence makes you feel understood. How even the silence with him speaks louder than a million words, how he knows you like the back of his hand and how he treats you like his closest friend. You know that what you feel when you’re with him is stronger than anything you ever have and although it used to scare you for a moment, now you’re ready to embrace it and live with it, if he lets you.

Lee Felix doesn’t tell you he loves you. Maybe you can see it in his eyes.

Why does he have to put everything above love? Why does he care about Jisung more than you? It’s breaking your heart.

“Felix… I’m sure he’d understand. He’s a good person. I’m sure he’d want you to be happy.”

“Y/N, you don’t understand-”

“He’s a grown adult!” you yell out, the built-up emotions coming to the surface in the form of frustration, your words sunding spiteful and angry. Maybe you are furious, maybe you are full of fire right now, but it’s all because of the boy in front of you and the things he refuses to let himself enjoy.

“Why do you even care about it so much, huh? I was your fucking second choice all along anyway!”

You look at him in shock, your eyes watering at the sight of the frown sitting on his face. Something inside of you breaks and you think it’s safe to say it was your heart, choking you up as you shake your head in disapproval.

“Felix-” you protest, but there’s no use.

You see him turn around on his heel, opening the door to the apartment complex and leaving. It feels like you’re losing him, it feels like he’s gone forever. He turned his back on you, refusing all the love you were willing to give him, all the love you were offering to him right here, your heart in your hands.

He gave up on your love.

People in movies go out to party after a break-up to get drunk and numb their feelings. They either go to the club or go to a stupid college party, which is, coincidentally, your case today, but you’re not here to get drunk tonight. You’re not here to drown out your feelings and numb your pained soul-- you’re simply here to try to have some fun.

Your mum told you long, long ago that happiness is a choice. You could argue with her and tell her that depression and heartbreak aren’t a choice and that they, by themselves, are causing people the most sadness, but you had to give your mum a point. If you don’t choose to try, if you don’t do anything to at least try to stimulate your own brain, you can’t expect happiness to find you by itself. That’s just, sadly, not how life works, and you weren’t going to drown out in your own tears just because of Lee fucking Felix, because if you weren’t worth trying for him, he’s not worth any of your tears.

You appear on Lee Haechan’s end of the semester party. You have A+ finals to celebrate and although you would be much happier to drink to them with the one that basically helped you get through the semester, you won’t pass the chance to socialize. You worked hard and you did a good job-- you deserve a party. Alcohol truly isn’t the best for your brain, but you will just decide to call it selfcare. It’s not like you’re getting blacked-out drunk tonight anyway.

You manage to have small talk with a few people from your class. Though it’s not exactly what’s stimulating your brain, you don’t mind it. You barely know these people and you couldn’t care less, but you guess this is the downside of socialising.

The alcohol in your veins doesn’t give you a chance to loosen up, though. You only feel your body warmer with the beer hitting your system, but your feelings still taste of salt, your brain not cooperating with your grandiose happiness plan and you think the people talking to you notice, since no one really tries to keep you in a conversation long enough when you start to absently nod at them and pay zero attention to what they’re saying. You don’t blame them, though. You’d probably do the same in their place.

Your feet move their way to the front door when you decide that maybe your mum wasn’t right, completely ready to go home and pity yourself for a few more days before coming back to life, when a familiar voice calls you from behind, making you freeze in your spot.

“Y/N, long time no see.”

Han Jisung watches you with glossy eyes, yet he tries to look nonchalant at the sight of you. It doesn’t feel like his heart is breaking when he sees you right here and there, chewing on your bottom lip, more or less, it feels numbing to his heart and his head. It’s like he expected it all from the start-- the outcome that once so surprised him. But after all this time he spent overthinking and dwelling on the memory of seeing you kissing his best friend, it made sense to him.

“Jisung…”

He can see your eyes growing worried when you watch over him and he mentally slaps himself for not handling his emotions with more care back then. He could have spared you a lot of pain and trouble if he hadn’t reacted in such a way in the doorway of your classroom, but the truth is, Han Jisung hadn’t really known just how much a true heartbreak feels and nothing could ever prepare him for the physical pain numbing his chest. He didn’t know it could hurt so much.

He doesn’t want to worry you. You are still his friend, after all, right? That’s all you always have been and he should have understood it from the first moment he saw you gaze at his friend so lovingly in the university halls one day. He thinks you, yourself, didn’t even recognise the emotion in you when you watched over Felix with so much care, with so many stars in his eyes and a big grin on your face. He could never compare himself to Felix.

He doesn’t want to worry you anymore, and so he decides to talk to you like a friend would. You looked like you could use a friend tonight.

“How have you been?” he asks, smiling at you. He hopes his eyes convey the emotion he feels-- how after all this time, he still feels comfortable with you and desperately needs you to do the same. He can’t lose another friend. Not to love.

That happens every single time. Truth be told, Jisung used to have a problem with differentiating true love from platonic feelings sometimes. He used to think he falls out of love just as quickly as he falls in, but the truth is that it was never even love at all. Sometimes, it was just pure admiration. Feelings for a friend. And he managed to ruin all his friendships just because he started dating them.

And then, he just kept searching and searching for the right one, because no one ever felt right. No one ever made him feel loved, no one ever made him feel love. It felt suffocating, but so, so addicting. He could never give up on trying to find love.

And then he met you. And it finally made sense-- it finally felt right.

“I’m… I’m fine, thanks,” you say, smiling at him with that smile that still, admittedly, made his heart race and swell with love. He’s not afraid to call the emotion by its name. It doesn’t feel wrong. He used to think he wants it to stop, but the truth is, it still feels nice.

Love feels like loneliness sometimes. It’s a bittersweet feeling. But it’s still so, so addicting.

“Are you sure?” he asks. He knows you. He knows when something’s wrong.

He also knows your eyes have been searching for his roommate for the past few minutes of your conversation. He knows you want to meet him and avoid him all at once, love him and leave him-- it was a paradox.

He knows his roommate way too well, though. He knows he can’t fall out of love with you. He knows, though, that he’ll never act upon it. Lee Felix has always been the sweetest person in this whole entire world-- putting the needs of others before his own. He can’t keep doing this to himself.He can’t keep doing this to you.

“I think you know the answer, Jisung. Why do you keep asking, then?” you bitterly snicker, going around him and escaping the noisy house. Jisung doesn’t know if you want to leave, if you want to escape his presence, but he can’t leave you just like that, and so he follows you outside, seeing you sitting at the doorstep, as if you were waiting for him.

“You don’t have to think of me, you know that, right?” he says once he takes a seat next to you, watching your expression change into a pained one.

“It’s… I don’t know. It’s complicated. And Felix- he doesn’t think it’s right. I can’t force him into anything. It was his choice anyway,” you mutter. Jisung sighs heavily, the feeling your words on his chest heavy and solemn. He hates the fact that he is standing in the way of your happiness. He hates the fact that he is the problem, the invisible wall keeping you two from each other.

“It’s simple, though.” he shrugs.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, a heavy sigh escaping your lips. He takes it upon himself to explain before you begin to tell him that it’s not, opting to open your eyes on his own.

“You two are in love with each other. So you should be together. Isn’t that simple?” he asks, smiling at you subtly.

You scoff and shake your head. “He gave up on us.”

“Did he, or did he just do what he felt was right?” Jisung argues. “You can’t keep hiding from each other. You can’t keep trying to ignore your feelings just because I like you. That’s not fair for either of you.”

You don’t argue with him this time. He wonders what’s going on inside of your head at the moment, with your eyebrows furrowed and your bottom lip trapped in your teeth. You look just like all the times he watched you during your tutoring sessions-- focused and lost in thought. It will feel weird to not see you in that way anymore, but he has to try.

The same way Lee Felix always tried for him.

“You’re too sweet, Han Jisung. What a shame our timing’s off.” you say, bitterness coating your voice. He looks up at you again, wondering what your words mean. “I used to like you back then, you know,” you smile.

Here it is, the strange emotion again. The emotion of almost physical pain, a hand squeezing his heart, a knife stabbed into his back. It feels like his world is crumbling down on him, because he’s stupid-- so stupid. He could have had you back then. He could have been with you all this time, only if he wasn’t late. He missed his biggest chance, the biggest opportunity, the happiest time of his life. All because he was too hesitant.

He didn’t deserve you anyway.

“But now your timing’s right with Felix. Don’t waste that,” he says, biting through the pain.

Because the truth is, if anyone deserved love, it was his roommate. The one that refused you for him, the one that rejected you for him, the one that set him up on a date with you even though you invited him in the first place. The one who gave up on his love only so he wouldn’t hurt his friend. You could say that Jisung was too good for this world, but Lee Felix is the one that deserves the whole entire world, in his eyes.

Maybe these two were just too good of friends. Caring about the other one twice as much as about themselves. And that’s exactly why Jisung will get over this-- he’ll push you to his friend. So he could be happy, finally.

“Jisung, I don’t know-”

“Do it,” he cuts you off, “reach out to him again. Try it. For me.”

y/n: meet me at the 8Bistro at 9

Felix can’t believe himself when he finds his legs moving to the direction of the bistro at the edge of the town. He knows it’s the last one on your list, the one you invited him to so you could celebrate your finals in and he finds himself wondering if he could have gone here with you earlier only if the two of you didn’t share that kiss back then.

That damned kiss he couldn’t stop thinking about for the last few days-- even weeks, every time he opened his eyes in the morning and closed them when he was about to sleep. It kept following him like a curse, a thing he couldn’t escape, as if it was testing him like the snake tested Eve in paradise. Foreign fruit.

You’re sitting there already when he arrives, fingers playing with each other as you gaze at the door in expectation. He sees your usual order already on the table, assuming you got here early, but it’s untouched as your knee bumps up and down under the table and you bite down harshly on your bottom lip.

He takes a seat, allowing himself to look at you again after such a long time. It feels like it’s been ages, yet you still look the same to him-- the same beauty that hit him when he first met you and shared his biggest secret with you.

“Why aren’t you eating? You have to finish off your list,” he mumbles awkwardly, motioning to the food at the table.

“I wanted to wait for you.” you say. Your voice is quiet, almost shy, when you speak to him. He wonders just how much he fucked up that it made you act this way. He knows it’s probably a lot, but considering he’s sitting here right now, he can still fix it.

At least he hopes so.

“Did you.. Do you want to talk to me about something?” he asks, nervosity filling his veins as he feels his hands form a little swimming pool with just how much he’s sweating.

“Yes,” you nod, taking a deep breath in and out. He wonders if you’re just as nervous as he is. The answer is probably yes, considering your tense shoulders and restless legs, but he doesn’t comment on it as he watches you begin speaking again. “I wanted to tell you that I’m- I’m in love with you. And that it’s for real, and it’s for you and no one else,” you start, quickly wetting your lips and continuing again, “and I know you must feel like a second choice, or like you weren’t important to me at all, but that’s not true.”

“You helped me so much, really, but the more I hung out with you, the more I realised just how wonderful you are. And how your heart is so big, how you’re fun to be around…” you ramble, taking Felix by surprise with your heart-felt monologue, “and that Jisung is not the one for me, because, well, it was just.. it was just a crush. I didn’t know him. He didn’t even know me that well. Crushes… they don’t mean anything. They’re silly. But what I have with you, Felix…” you say, drifting your eyes away from him for a second,

“I know you. The real you. And you know me. You’ve seen me at my worst. You’ve seen me struggle and you know exactly how to help. You know me and I know you and the feelings I have for you are much more than a silly crush. I love you, Felix. And I don’t want to just forget about us.” you complete and Felix swears he can feel his eyes watering at your words. He chooses not to speak up, afraid of his voice breaking, afraid he’s going to embarrass himself in front of you. His emotions got the best of him and right here and now, no one else matters.

It’s you. You that feels like home, you, the only girl he’s ever loved. You, the only girl that ever loved him back, you, who he foolishly rejected.

You’re everywhere. In his veins, in his heart, in his foolish, stupid mind.

“Felix… I don’t want you to give up on us.”

He looks up, seeing your sincere eyes and a look full of worry. You seem so wonderful to him, even now. You’re everything he’s ever dreamt of, a home without a roof and walls. With you, he feels at ease. He trusts you. He’s never felt this way for anyone before.

He watches you and he hears your laugh, he hears your whines when he used to tease you so much. He hears the sound of your memories when he chased you around in the snow. He hears the opening song of Howl’s moving castle, reminding him of the warmth he felt when you hugged him so close that evening.

He used to want to hate you. He should have known that could never be the case.

You’re all he needs-- all he wants. You’re everywhere he looks, in every beauty of the world and in everything that’s dear to him.

You, you, you, you.

And so he decides-- it’s time to change his plan.

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 1) hold her hand, 2) get rid of the guilt, 3) lean in and kiss her.

“Does that mean you’re giving us a chance?” you ask, hopeful eyes glaring at him with millions of stars in them, sparkles swimming around in perfection.

“We’ll talk after you eat. You have a yelp review to write,” he laughs.

“Feli-”

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 4) shut her up by forcing french fries into her mouth.

“I love you too.”

2K notes · View notes

winter-soldier-vibes · 3 years

Text

You Aren’t Somebody? (Bucky x Reader)

Bucky x reader

Word count: 2647

Summary: Bucky knows that the reader has struggled with an eating disorder before, but thought they were doing better. Little does he know, they had just gotten better at hiding it. Until one night, he catches her doing something she had promised she had stopped

Warnings: eating disorder, purging, angst, fluff

Tags @abitgryffindorky @buckys2thicc @thatfangirl42 @buckfics @barnesplums @mardema @stucky-on-spiderman @thundering-barnes

Main Masterlist

A/N: It’s finals week and I am running on energy drinks, reading fanfiction, and longgggg hot showers. But the semester is almost over, and then I have no obligations aside from my hobbies. I see the requests and I’m working on them I promise! I have a list of all the requests that I get, and I am working through them I PROMISE!!! Thank you all for all of your support.

A/N 2: This deals with heavy and dark themes of mental illness. The specific warnings are above. If you feel that in any way reading this will be harmful to your mental health and your journey, PLEASE skip it. I write from my own experience and I know what I would’ve wanted to hear in these situations, and writing/reading fics helps me feel comforted. This fic is based on one experience more specifically than most of my fics, so I apologize if it’s not exactly the same as your experience. This is what I would’ve wanted to hear. If you need or want someone to talk to, vent to, or get advice from, feel free to message me, really. I’m here! <3

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Bucky was standing in front of you, blocking the door. His piercing blue eyes were locked on you, your own refusing to meet his.

He wanted answers that you were not ready to give.

“Y/n, please. I just want to talk about this”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Bucky.”

He looked you up and down. Your hair was in a messy bun, a few loose strands sticking to your tear stained cheeks. Your eyes were puffy, and your face was red, voice raspy. He took a deep breath. “You told me you would tell me if it was getting bad again.”

“You promised.”

You closed your eyes. He wasn’t wrong, you had promised. But that was because you never thought you’d see the day when you were purging again. You thought you had gotten over it. You really thought that this time you wouldn’t slip up.

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

You had been struggling with an eating disorder for a while. The cause, you weren’t quite sure. An innocent diet soon turned into a competition for yourself, but the end goal was never there. At first you had thought it was just about the weight and how you looked, but then you found that some of your behavior patterns were tied to your emotional ones.

Stress was the major trigger, you had come to learn.

Whether it was a mission gone wrong, you getting injured, someone else getting injured, or even just basic social interactions you thought could’ve gone better, you found yourself inclined to comfort yourself with food.

Until you panicked, which would lead you to the bathroom with music blaring and water running to cover up the noises of your retching.

You hated it, and every time you told yourself it was the last time. But the more you did it, the more you felt the urge to do it. At first it was triggered by large stressors, but now smaller things could trigger you to want to throw up. You tried to keep it hidden, unaware of the true reasons for why you did it. You were able to help yourself sometimes, it wasn’t worth bringing anyone else into.

You couldn’t explain it to yourself, so how were you supposed to explain it to anybody?

The best way that you had figured out how to describe it was that whenever you felt a negative emotion, you could soothe it in a physical way with food, especially with all the warm comfort foods that are known. But at the same time, that feeling lasted as long as you could taste, and you would feel guilty as you felt full. When you threw up, it felt like you were also throwing up the negative emotions.

But when you said it out loud, it didn’t make sense. When people are sick and throwing up it’s one of the most uncomfortable feelings ever. Inducing it hurts sometimes, but it’s almost not as bad. Like you know it’s coming, and you’re in control of what’s happening and you could stop at any point. And there had been times where you could soothe yourself in other ways, and you knew your own physical limits. You knew when you had to stop for your own health.

Until you couldn’t stop.

Which is what led to you fainting on a mission after purging too much. Your electrolytes had bottomed out and you almost had a heart attack at an age no one should. Bucky, your boyfriend who was on the mission with you, had put it together when the first words out of your mouth upon gaining consciousness were “Is this a glucose drip?” while tugging at the IV.

He hadn’t been mad, not exactly. He wasn’t mad at you but he was furious with himself for not noticing, and for making you feel as though you couldn’t tell him. You assured him that you did trust him, but he wished you had come to him before you could’ve gotten yourself, and those on the mission, seriously hurt or killed.

Nonetheless, you still didn’t know how to talk about it.

“Can you try to tell me about it?” he asked gently, running a hand through your hair. He held you to his chest, you unable to meet his eyes.

“It won’t make any sense,” you had said, tears glazing your eyes.

“I want to understand. Can you help me understand?”

You paused for a moment. “It’s a long story and I don’t know where to start. There’s so much going wrong.” you had said, tears beginning to streak down your face.

“I have all the time for you. And it doesn’t have to make sense, these things rarely do. I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to listen.”

And true to his word, he had. He had listened and held you while you tried to talk about what you could. He didn’t understand everything, he naturally had a ton of questions, but they weren’t for that moment. He had promised to help you the best that he could, and you had promised to try and tell him whenever you felt the urges get too strong. And if you couldn’t, to tell him after.

It was easier to talk to Bucky than anyone else. Not because he was your boyfriend, but because he seemed to understand you more than anyone else could. He had his own share of mental health struggles. Neither of you knew exactly what the other was going through, but you both understood that it was easy to feel alone and guilty even though you couldn’t control it.

It was rough, but he was never mad. He was sometimes firm, and sometimes you had gotten angry with him. Only to later apologize to him with tears in your eyes. He was never mad with you. He understood that this was something internal. Upon research he had done and conversations he had had with Bruce, he understood that this had nothing to do with him. Some people thought eating disorders were about getting attention when it was one of the furthest things from the truth.

All he could do was love you and be there for you.

And to your surprise, talking about it did help.it took a long time, months, of long and hard conversations, panic attacks, slip ups, and really dark days. But it got to the point where Bucky felt that you were doing better, making an effort to tell you how proud he was and how much he loved you.

And you were doing better, in a way. But you had been slipping up more recently, and you hadn’t told Bucky. You didn’t know how. After going the longest you’d ever had between slip ups, you found yourself retching over the toilet. You would have gone to Bucky but he had been away on a mission that was extended a few days. You couldn’t interrupt him because your feelings were too much to handle. People needed his help more than you did.

You were going to tell him, but he had been so tired when he had come back. He needed his time to relax, and it wasn’t the right time to tell him. And the next day when he was rested, you felt that it was irrelevant. Any negative feeling you had felt the day before had since past, and you didn’t see the point in bringing it up today. It would worry Bucky, he wouldn’t want to go on missions, and you weren’t going to do that to him. Besides, it was just one time.

Right?

You soon found yourself purging when Bucky wasn’t around. If he had gone out with Steve, if he was on a mission, or if he was down in the gym you found yourself taking more opportunities to give into your urges. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been, but you were spiraling. But at this point you had been slipping up so many times, you had been so secretive about it.

It would kill Bucky inside to know that you were hiding this from him again. He would feel like you didn’t trust him. You trusted him with your life.

You just didn’t want to let him down. Not again, not when he had explicitly told you to come to him and you had been blatantly ignoring that.

You wanted to tell him, you did. But you couldn’t let him being so proud of you be based on a lie.

One day you were hunched over the toilet, legs sahking and tears streaming down your face from exertion. Bucky was away on a mission, so you didn’t even bother with the music or the water. What you hadn’t anticipated was him coming back hours earlier than he should’ve

The mission had gone much more smoothly than anticipated, which everyone was happy about. Bucky was glad he would get a few more hours with you. He had gone up to your shared room and let himself in, surprised to see you weren’t there. But then he heard you coughing from behind a closed bathroom door.

He felt like someone had punched him in the gut. You had been doing so well, what had happened?

He walked over to the door, knocking on it and calling out your name. He heard you muffle a small fuck before he knocked again.

“Y/n please, let me in.”

He heard the toilet flush and the sink turn on, you on the other side washing your face. You could feel the tears from exertion be replaced by ones of shame and embarrassment, biting your lip slightly. What the fuck were you going to tell him?

When you finally turned off the water, you rubbed your face with a towel, sighing heavily into it. When you took it away, you looked long and hard at the doorknob.

Bucky sighed on the other side of the door. “Y/n please. I’m not mad. We’ve been here before, I just wanna talk to you.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, taking a breath before you made your expression nuetral and opened the door.

Bucky’s eyes immediately saddened when he took you in. your face was still red and there were tears in your eyes. You had tried to put up a front, he could tell that too. Sometimes you got angry with him because you didn’t want to be vulnerable. He was prepared because like he said - he’d helped you before.

Before he could say anything you crossed your arms. “You’re home early,” you said coldly.

“Y/n.”

“How’d the mission go? Well, I assume.” you tried to slip past Bucky but he was blocking the door.

Bucky took a deep breath. “Yeah, yeah, the mission went well.” He wanted to be gentle with you. “But how are you?”

You shrugged, trying to appear oblivious. “I’m fine,” voice wavering slightly as you looked away.

“Y/n please. You’re not fine. Can you tell me what happened?”

“The same thing that always happens” you said bitterly. “Something stupid comes up, I start feeling like shit about myself and I ignore it until I’m puking it up with everything else, alright? It’s the same story, different time, and now I have you looking at me all hurt just like I was worried about which is why I couldn’t tell you!” you exclaimed, eyes filled with anger and tears. Bucky looked at you as if you had just punched him in the face. He would’ve much preferred that you had.

“Y/n.”

You shook your head, trying to get through the door that he was blocking. “Bucky, just let me through the door, forget it.”

“Y/n just talk to me please, I -”

“JUST LET ME THROUGH THE GODDAMN DOOR.” You yelled, surprising Bucky. It had been a while since you had gotten this angry or defensive. But he stood his ground. Bucky was standing in front of you, blocking the door. His piercing blue eyes were locked on you, your own refusing to meet his.

He wanted answers that you were not ready to give.

“Y/n, please. I just want to talk about this”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Bucky,” you said, feeling tears threatening to spill over.

He took a deep breath. “You told me you would tell me if it was getting bad again.”

You closed your eyes and felt a pang in your stomach. “Bucky, I - “

“You promised,” he said, voice cracking.

You shook your head. “Why do I have to talk about this. It’s not like I’m hurting anybody”

“You’re hurting yourself, y/n.” he said calmly.

You shook your head and narrowed your eyes slightly, tears falling. “That’s different Bucky, you know it is.”

“You aren’t somebody?”

You looked at him for a moment before a sob escaped your body, leaning on the counter for support as you brought a hand to your mouth. Bucky quickly came up behind you and pulled you into him, wrapping his arms around you. You started crying harder, embarrassed and ashamed.

“I’m sorry Bucky, I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t know how to tell you, I -”

“Hey it’s okay, it’s alright y/n, I’m here.” Bucky kept whispering reassurances in your ears, rubbing a hand up and down your back.

After some time passed, you didn’t know how long, you were able to calm down enough to take some shaky breaths, hiding your red face in Bucky’s chest.

“When did this start happening again?” he asked softly

“I don’t know… few weeks at least, not really sure.”

He took a breath, trying to stay calm. A few weeks and he hadn’t suspected anything, and you were alone. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were on a mission, I couldn’t interrupt that.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I got back?” he pressed gently.

“You were so tired Bucky - ”

“Y/n.” he said more firmly.

You paused for a moment, knowing he wouldn’t take those answers. If they were truly the reason then you would’ve told him the next day or the day after, as soon as the opportunity came. There was more to why you waited, and Bucky knew that.

“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” you whispered.

You heard Bucky sigh. He was angry with himself, for not being approachable to you. All he wanted was to make you feel safe enough to come to him, and to hear that you hadn’t because you thought he had expectations for you crushed him. “Y/n, I told you you could tell me about this. When have I ever been disappointed or angry with you?”

“You haven’t. You were just so proud and I - I didn’t want to ruin that for you. I didn’t want to tell you that you were proud of a lie.”

“Hey, hey look at me.” Hesitantly you looked up to meet his eyes. “None of this was you lying. You put in the hard work day after day, and I told you I was here to support you. But I never did the work for you. You did that. I’m proud of you and I always will be because you’re a fighter. It’s okay to have bad days, it’s okay to slip up. It’s okay to need a little help too, and that’s what I’m here for. A slip up doesn’t erase all the hard work you’ve put in before. I’m proud of you for the progress you’ve made, and of the work you put in. This doesn’t change anything sweetheart.”

He pulled you back into his chest.

“I’ll always be proud of you.”

#Bucky Barnes #buckybarnes #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barns fanfiction #bucky barns imagine #bucky barns x you #MCU fanfiction #mcu imagine #mcu fic #MCU #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #marvel #eating disorder comfort #tw eating disorder #tw

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the-cult-of-russo · 3 years

Text

The Other Woman

Pairing: Billy Russo x Reader

A/N: Soooo. No one asked for this one and I have prompts in my inbox and a multi chapter Billy x OC story I'm working on. Yet… this happened. I was working on an assignment for uni and this popped into my head. Billy lives in my head rent free and I'm not even mad about it. Enjoy lmaooo

Warnings: cursing, slight angst but not really, lots of fluff (literally and figuratively). It's just a bunch of cute bullshit, don't mind me looool

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Your nails tapped the coffee cup as you sat outside the cafe deep in thought. There was only one thing on your mind. Billy was cheating on you. There was no other explanation for his behaviour the past week and the knowledge of what he'd done was eating away at you. It started a week ago. He'd slip out after work hours saying something came up. Sometimes he wouldn't even tell you where he was going and when you asked, he'd say 'work' as he avoided your gaze before slipping out. Billy couldn't lie to you, you knew him too well for that. You knew his tells and he didn't really lie to you. But you knew when he wouldn't look you in the eye that he wasn't being honest.

Then there was his phone. He'd be on it more than usual and it was distracting him. The night before, Frank had called him and you knew it was Frank because you'd seen the name popping up on his screen. You'd both been watching a movie on the sofa together as you tried to convince yourself that Billy wouldn't cheat on you. But when he excused himself to the bedroom, your curiosity burned. Why would he need to sneak off to speak to Frank?

So you'd crept over to where the door was open by a crack and held your breath as you listened.

"Yeah, I know…. I'll just tell her I need to work again… I don't think she knows… yeah, yeah, I know… I can't wait for you to meet her, man. She's perfect,"

Those words felt like a slap to the face and a punch to the gut all rolled into one. Billy was cheating on you. Billy was cheating on you and Frank knew about it. Frank who was one of your closest friends, the one who introduced you to Billy in the first place. You'd gone back to the sofa as you dwelled in your misery and betrayal and when Billy had come back out with a wide smile on his face you'd felt sick. But you couldn't bring yourself to ask him, to question him or tell him what you'd heard. You were scared of what he might say. Scared of what this all meant.

You and Billy had been together for almost two years now and you lived together. You knew of his past but never once had you felt insecure about being with him. He loved you, and you wholeheartedly believed he did. So this felt like it completely blindsided you and your head was all over the place.

That morning Billy was gone by the time you woke which was nothing new since he often let you sleep when he got up to work. But you'd come to the cafe by lunch because you were drowning in your thoughts back at home. The home you shared with him.

You blew out a breath, grabbing your cell from your pocket as you rang Anvil. You had a gut feeling and you wanted confirmation. His secretary picked up the phone and you sighed before asking something you dreaded the answer to.

"Hey, Annie. Is Billy there? I need to talk to him," you said softly. The older woman cleared her throat down the phone before speaking.

"He's not here, Y/N. He took the day off," she said warily. Well then. You thanked her quickly before hanging up, the lump lodged in your throat getting bigger.

How could it all have gone so wrong? You stood, tossing the half drank coffee in the trash as you made your way home with a broken heart. You hardly expected Billy to be sitting on the sofa when you got home. But there he was in all his glory. A burgundy sweater with his jeans and boots, hair slicked back like always. You felt like you were hanging on by a thread.

He smiled when he saw you, standing up and making his way over.

"I thought you had work," your cold tone stopped him in his tracks as he looked at you cautiously.

"I took the day, had some things I needed to do," he replied easily. Things he needed to do. More like someone he needed to do. Tense didn't even begin to cover how you were feeling.

"Look… there's someone here I want you to meet," Billy said hesitantly, glancing to the closed bedroom door. He really wouldn't just… The string of composure you were holding onto snapped.

"Is this some kind of joke?!" You yelled. He looked shocked, eyes wide and confused as he tilted his head.

"Uh… what?" He asked carefully.

"It's bad enough you're having an affair that apparently Frank knows all about but you've brought her here?! You want me to meet her?!" You were incredulous at his audacity. You wondered if he'd suffered a head injury a week ago or something.

Billy blinked at you with his dark eyes for a moment before he burst out laughing. But when he saw your tearful eyes glaring at him, his laughter died instantly.

"You… you think I'm cheatin' on you?" He asked slowly, like he was talking to a toddler. Your brows furrowed watching him warily as he walked over to you.

"You've been acting weird all week, Billy. And I heard you on the phone last night. I heard you talking to Frank," you muttered, hating how your voice wobbled.

Billy looked stricken at how upset you were and wrapped his arms around you and you melted into him despite yourself. He stroked your hair soothingly with one hand as the other rubbed your back.

"I'm not steppin' out on you, Y/N. I'd never do that," he sighed. He moved away, cradling your cheeks as his obsidian gaze looked over your face like he was searching for the answers of the universe.

"Not gonna lie, I'm a little offended by your lack of faith, but I have been actin' weird so I'll let it slide," he murmured with a soft smile.

"But then… what was that all about?" You asked, deflating a bit as he wiped away the couple of tears that had fallen. He leaned in and kissed you softly, one of the rare tender kisses he'd give you if you were upset. You were incredibly confused and maybe also felt a little guilty that your mind went there.

When he pulled away, he shot you a grin, looking almost like a kid on Christmas which only furthered your confusion.

"Wait here," he beamed, dashing off to the bedroom. You really felt like you'd been transported to another dimension where nothing made sense. But then Billy came back out with what you could only describe as a living, breathing, real life Pokemon in his arms. It was a Pomeranian puppy that just looked like a cloud with two shiny back eyes peeking out.

You made a noise that you couldn't even describe. A mix of a whine and a coo that people often reserved for cute animals and babies as if they couldn't help themselves. Your feet took you over to where Billy was grinning at you and the ball of fluff was nibbling his hand.

"Billy…" your voice was still a little high, a little pout on your face as you reached out and stroked the fluffy fur on the puppy.

"Meet Cotton Ball. Cotton Ball, meet your mom," he smirked, grabbing a tiny paw and making it wave at you. It was something to behold seeing Billy like this and you almost melted right into a puddle.

"Wait so… this is the other woman?" You asked with a snort, feeling so utterly stupid for how your mind went there. Billy rolled his eyes with a laugh as he handed over the bundle of cloud to you.

"Do you like her?" He asked hesitantly, looking almost unsure as he glanced from the puppy to you.

"I love her. Thank you, Billy," you murmured, cuddling the tiny puppy closer to you.

"I uh… I know that you said you wanted a dog," he started, his shoulder rolling a little.

"Which you shot down immediately," you cut in, raising a brow at him. He chuckled, rubbing his beard a little with a nod.

"I know. But… I saw how disappointed you were and I decided I never wanted to see that look on your face again. Especially not 'cause of me. She hadn't been fully vaccinated and stuff so I've been waitin' to bring her home. Been to see her a few times to get her used to me," he shrugged, looking almost bashful which was a strange look for him. It was cute.

"I love her. And I love you," you smiled wide at him. His insecurities seemed to wash away at your bright smile and he returned it, leaning over to kiss your forehead.

"I love you too. Come here, lemme show you somethin','' he took your free hand and led you to the bedroom. On the floor next to your bed was what looked like a queen bed shrunk down. It was a dog bed but a fancy one and the cozy sheets looked expensive too. There was also a basket filled to the brim with dog toys. You looked at him incredulously with a laugh.

"And here I was thinking you weren't a dog person and you're spoiling her already," you teased. He chuckled, a slight pink tint to his face you couldn't remember ever witnessing as he bit his lip and smiled at you.

"Yeah well… my girls gotta have the best. And… I mighta got attached to her," he shrugged easily.

"Billy Russo has a heart after all. Who knew?" You snorted. He gripped your jaw gently, giving your lips a firm peck before smirking down at you.

"Don't tell a soul or I'll have to kill you. I got a rep to keep," he smirked devilishly. You snorted again, shaking your head as you took the now sleeping puppy to her lavish bed and set her down.

When you walked back over to Billy, you wrapped your arms around his middle and he responded in kind and held you close.

"I can't believe you thought I'd cheat on you," he murmured, nuzzling your hair. You felt your cheeks heat up as you moved away and looked up at him.

"I know. I'm sorry, I just… you'd been acting weird and then the phone call, I didn't know what to think," you said softly. He frowned a little, tucking some of your hair behind your ear before resting a hand on your jaw.

"You know I love you, right?" He asked with a furrowed brow.

"I know. Honestly… I've never questioned it. I've never felt like that before. My mind just ran away with itself," you felt bad now and really fucking stupid but he had been acting weird. How were you to know that he was secretly procuring you the cutest puppy to exist?

He kissed your forehead softly, lips lingering a moment before he cupped your cheeks, tilting your head to look up at him. His dark eyes were full of many emotions and you got lost in them.

"You're the only one I want. Ever since I met you, I never wanted anyone else. I ain't ever felt like this before but all I know is… I'm yours. I love you, Y/N. There'll never be anyone else," he murmured sincerely. You couldn't help the dopey smile on your face as you leaned up and captured his lips in a soft kiss.

"I love you too, Billy. But… I will have to share you now with Cotton Ball," you teased against his lips. He chuckled, nipping at your bottom lip.

"You'll always be my best girl," he grinned, rubbing his nose against yours.

One hand dropped to your neck, the other slinking around you and settling on your ass as he kissed you deeply. Just as you were really getting into it, he hissed, cursing and moving away as he lifted his foot. The foot that had tiny razor teeth latched onto it as the dog dangled off his toe. You couldn't help the bubble of laughter that came out of you as you pried the dog away from his foot.

"Feel like I might end up regrettin' this decision," he huffed, eyes narrowed at Cotton Ball who was now happily in your arms. He wasn't really mad though, his lips were slightly upturned as he reached out and rubbed the dogs tiny head.

"Awww. Is the big bad marine scared the lil doggy might bite his ass when he's having sex?" You mocked playfully.

Billy's mortified face had you in stitches. He looked like he'd not considered it until you said it and now he was glaring at the dog like she'd ready done it.

"We're gonna need some boundaries," he muttered to the dog as he pointed at her, then his piercing eyes turned to you and you bit your lip to stifle your laughter.

"And for the record, I am a big bad marine and I ain't scared of a fuckin' dog," he smirked with a raised brow. You rolled your eyes goodnaturedly as you turned, dog in hand, and left the room.

"Mhmm. Just wait until I tell Frank how you're scared of a ball of fluff. Or the guys from Anvil. Or maybe I'll tell them just how much you love her already," you grinned, laughing when he gripped your hips and dragged you so your back pressed against his front.

"What I tell you? You tell and I'll have to kill you. I don't wanna do that, I might just miss you," he murmured with a smile as he nuzzled your neck.

"Russo's going soooft!" You teased with a laugh, squealing when his hands dug into your sides to tickle you.

Honestly, you never really thought Billy would be a dog person. But you never thought he'd be the type to live with someone and here you were. You never thought he'd be the type to use the L word yet he did with you. He was full of surprises and this was way better than you anticipated. You never expected the other woman to be so cute.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #the punisher #billy russo imagine

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cluster-fandom · 3 years

Text

tolerate it

Inspired by the song tolerate it by Taylor Swift

Sakusa x Fem!Reader

Warnings: ANGST NO COMFORT, swearing, food, arguing

A/N: OUCH I hurt my own feelings with this one

“You are so fucking DENSE SOMETIMES SAKUSA!” You yell as you massage your temples.

This fight had been brimming for weeks. You had tried to be rational and subtly bring it up in conversation, but Sakusa, being himself, had kept the conversations quick and to the point.

You had been trying to instigate situations that would make Omi hug you or tell you he loved you more, but they all fell flat. You had hit your breaking point when he literally pushed you away when you went to give him a kiss.

“Why won’t you touch me Omi? Please... Just holding my hand would be okay!” You had pleaded. Yes, pleaded.

“I told you. I don’t want to be touched right now,” he had walked past you to the kitchen, where you had prepared an extra special meal in hopes it would get him in a talkative mood.

“What’s this?” He said looking at the table that was covered in food.

You sighed, “I made a special dinner for you, since-“

“I didn’t ask you to. Something simple would have been fine.”

The words were a punch to the gut. You knew he would get off early today, and you wanted to give him something special since he’d been so stressed lately. You had been working for hours to get everything prepared on time.

“Omi- you can’t be serious?” You couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He said.

“Omi I’ve been cooking all day just for you! I took today off too to spend more time with you!”

“You didn’t need to,” is all he says as he grabs some frozen pizza from the freezer.

“I did it because I love you Omi! You’ve been so distant lately and I thought we could catch up today! I know work has been so stressful for you and I’ve been doing my best to make your life easier! It feels like you’re trying to get away from me,” you say.

“Have you considered you might just be fucking clingy? I never asked for you to do all this! You never needed to! I didn’t want it!” He’s irritated now. He just wanted his food and sleep.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t believe you right now!” You turn on your heel and head to your bedroom.

He followed you, not wanting to leave things like this.

“I don’t understand why you’re upset? Nothing’s changed since when you asked to be my girlfriend!” He’s standing in the doorway as you sit on the bed.

“You don’t hold my hand when we walk, you barely text me during the day, and we haven’t had movie night in weeks! You don’t smirk at my bad jokes or leave a note in the mornings when you go to practice anymore!” You say exasperated.

“Why didn’t you say anything about that then?” He asks.

You gawk at him.

“You are so FUCKING DENSE SOMETIMES SAKUSA! I’ve been trying! I’ve been trying to tell you about all these things, but you shut me down! Every time!” At this point tears are forming in your eyes.

“I show you how much I love you constantly, but you never try to show your love anymore!” You walk up to him, getting closer than you knew he would like.

“Well maybe you’re just too fucking much!” He sneers. He’s angry that you’re accusing him of all of this despite never giving any signs there was a problem with what he was doing.

You still. Your breaths even out as you close your eyes. When you open them again, there’s a coldness in them that Sakusa has never seen and his stomach drops.

“My love deserves to be cherished. Not just fucking tolerated. I gave you my everything Sakusa Kiyoomi. I made you my biggest priority. I’m done begging for you to give me your time, of begging for your attention. I’m sorry I was taking up so much of your energy, when you clearly don’t want to spend it on me,” you push past him.

He’s stunned. He watches as you put your shoes on and grab your keys and are out the door.

“Wait!” The door slams just as he realizes what’s happened.

He stands there for a moment. He’s replaying the past weeks in his head.

He remembers how when you were in bed he would turn away as you went to get closer.

He remembers the nights where he wouldn’t say anything to you at all and you just wordlessly ran a bath while he ate the meal you had cooked him.

He remembers how he’d turn his phone off during the day so calls wouldn’t distract him.

He can’t remember when you last smiled up at him.

He can’t remember the last time he hugged you first.

He can’t remember the last time he heard you laugh.

He didn’t know when he fell to his knees. All he knows is that his fists are curled and that those are hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

The memories were flooding his mind and guilt was lighting every nerve in him on fire.

He had been so deep in his own world he had failed to notice how he pushed you away. How he had treated you like it was certain you’d always stay no matter what he did.

Sakusa didn’t sleep that night. He was buried in covers, but he had never felt colder. The ache and emptiness in his heart made it impossible to relax. He held your pillow to his chest and stared at his phone for hours, waiting for some kind of sign from you. He couldn’t ask you to come back because you had every reason to leave. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t begging to every being he could think of for you to come home.

Sakusa had to go to work the next day and it was undeniably the worst day he’s had in his life. He had never felt so empty and so overwhelmed with emotion at the same time.

When he came home, everything got worse. While he was away, you had returned home and taken most of your belongings with you. Your closet was empty and the makeup and other things you kept in the bathroom were gone. Most of the few picture frames you had were gone too, spare one. When Kiyoomi realized which one his heart broke even more. It was a framed picture of the two of you he had secretly taken on one of your first dates that he had given to you as a gift shortly after you asked him to be your boyfriend.

He couldn’t breathe. He clutched at his heart as sobs ripped through him.

You were really done. He had made the one person he wanted to have forever in his life walk away.

“Please Y/N..... I love you.”

A thousand apologies left him as he begged to the empty room for your return. He couldn’t stop crying. He wanted to be held in your arms. He wanted you.

But you were gone, and he only had himself to blame.

I hope you enjoyed reading this :’) any feedback is appreciated!

*I do not own Haikyuu!! or the characters only the story* *do not repost to any platform*

@kybabi

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narukoibito · 3 years

Text

Fic Recs: Angst

Sure thing, Anon! Glad you are enjoying my lists! Though a lot of my recs in general are angsty, so many of these will be repeats from other lists, but I decided not to re-rec every angsty story since that would be too much. Everything I’ve rec’ed before is indented in case you are only looking for new stories. Saddle up, this is a long one. Enjoy!

Anything with * is a WIP.

Canon-Compliant

Realising by @floreatcastellumposts

Missed Moment: Harry realizes he loves Ginny. It’s so painful and heartbreaking. Note that I also list a bunch of other favorite MM by Flo in my All-Time Favorites List though not all are angsty.

22 by @floreatcastellumposts

Harry realizes he has outlived his parents.

the train station by @ink-splotch

An absolutely chilling story of Ginny’s near-death experience in the Chamber of Secrets. The writing, like most of dirgewithoutmusic’s work is riveting. This is Ginny-centric rather than Hinny/Harry-centric.

Post-War Canon

gone was any trace of you by @annerbhp

Amnesia, Married: Again, one of my all-time favorites because I can’t not rec this for angst. Harry loses his memories. Counting this as post-war canon since there’s nothing in this that contradicts it being part of canon.

i just really need you here right now by @annerbhp

Harry and Ginny, like all couples, have things they need to work on. That doesn’t mean they give up.

as the morning steals upon the night by @could-have-beens

My favorite canon reuniting after the battle story.

Chambers by starfishstar

After the war, everything isn’t okay, but maybe eventually it can be. A Ginny-centric post-war story.

Ghost of You by blacktag189

An incredibly angsty story of Ginny suffering from mental health issues after the war and how she comes to recover (with a lot of challenges to her and Harry’s relationship along the way). The author does a good job depicting mental health issues and long-distance relationship challenges.

A Life Closed Twice Before Its Close by tosca

Halloween comes around again, and Harry can’t shake a feeling of unease. I loved how tosca depicts an established Harry/Ginny in this story.

will you stay by NaruKoibito (me)

“So? What was the verdict? Any Veelas?” Harry and Ginny after the war.

Next Gen

Between Walls and Harvest Moons by @ellizablue

During Albus’s third year in Cursed Child timeframe. It’s heavily focused on the Al’s disconnect with his parents. Ginny pays him a visit. There are heartbreaking moments of Harry angsting over his relationship with Al, but I have such a soft spot for Ginny & Al stories, and this one hit all of them.

Put Your Curse In Reverse by @ellizablue

The second part of the amazing It’s Tea Time* series. It is not heavily Harry/Ginny focused, but there is a lot of angst, great Hinny marriage moments, an epic moment where Harry encounters a Boggart that ripped my heart out, and much, much more.

Alternate Universe

The Changeling and Armistice Series* by @annerbhp

You all must know by now that this is my all-time favorite story, but if you need an angst rec, this is it, my friends. There’s angst everywhere, really, but in my head we do everything right has some of my favorite angst ever.

Keeping Even the Broken Promises* by Summer Potter

Amnesia, Harry/Other is a part of this story: Four years after Harry wakes up with no memory, he begins a journey to discover what he left behind and the promises he inadvertently broke.

you will bleed to death from the pain of it by lullabyknell

Soulmark: This painful, amazing story inverts the trope in the best way.

take what i took and give it back to you by fairytiger

Soulmark: Harry decides to breakup with his soulmate.

The World I Leave Behind by NES85

What if Voldemort hadn’t killed Harry in the forest but everyone thought he had? He traps Harry in the Chamber of Secrets – but what happens when Harry escapes? Oh Harry being Harry in this and his scenes with Ginny definitely are gut-wrenching.

Unravel Me* by NaruKoibito (me)

FWB: My canon-divergence story where Harry and Ginny never got together in HBP. After a drunken night, these two angsty idiots wind up in a friends-with-benefits relationship full of agonizing mutual pining.

Angst-Without-A-Happy-Ending

Okay. Okay. Sometimes I dabble in the dark arts. Sometimes I read stories of such pure, unadulterated angst, just to cry my heart out.

Warning: There are several stories below that contain a major character death. I oscillated between marking them or not, but some of them it’s better that you’re not spoiled. So...you’ve been warned that at least these stories below do not clearly end with Harry and Ginny together. Nothing but PAIN ahead!

Without Love by @captainyellowsturm

Every time I read this, I cry. Every time. It’s such sweet, torturous angst. (No, seriously, I really go to reread this when I want to cry.)

Perpendicular by akissincrisis

AU Harry never goes to Hogwarts. This story. THIS story. Ugh, it packs such a punch. Harry never attends Hogwarts, but meets Ginny through a Muggle party. It’s beautiful, so full of hope and possibilities, the what-ifs, the why, whyyyyyyy... I forever wonder why at the ending. But I love this story (even if I imagine a happy ending).

When the Timer Pings by Alchemilla

I read this story 10+ years ago and it still gets me every time. Ginny is about to get married and runs into her ex-boyfriend, Harry. She’s hoping for closure, but is that what she finds?

Lacking by pinkdigi

If Ginny didn’t wait for Harry. Ugh, so painful. I love the author’s style, the hardness of their Harry and Ginny. My heart breaks and breaks, yet I keep coming back.

Couldn’t Keep Him There by Mad Maudlin

Ginny finds Harry after the war. The mood and tone of this really gets to me. This one moment where she puts a wrapper in his hand kills me every time.

Wednesday Dates by fizzmonkeys

I’m not sure whether this is just angst or angst without a happy ending, so to be safe, I’m putting it here. I loved this story so much that I printed and saved it from 10+ years ago.

–––

Want more recommendations? Send me an ask or check out my:

All-time Favorite recs

Muggle AU / Coffeeshop AU recs

Post-War Canon recs

Missed Moments recs

Pregnancy recs

Outsider Perspective recs

Amnesia recs

In Every Universe recs

#fanfiction rec list #angst #all the angst #angst without a happy ending #hinny #Harry/Ginny #Harry Potter #Ginny Weasley #god i really do love those fics without the happy ending though #they're really good!#at breaking your heart #i added a few of my angsty stories if you're interested

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prose-for-hire · 3 years

Text

Heart-shaped bruise

Part Two

Pairing: Spike x reader

Request: Could you do a Spike x reader, where the reader is In love with him, but he still loves Buffy, but overtime he started feeling the same way towards them as well

Requested by: @wiccanindigo

Warning: Mention of Spuffy. Angst... I think.

A/N: Me? Writing something that isn’t fluff? Is this even possible?!

You were completely in love. Infatuated, in fact. You couldn’t barely think without your mind wondering to him.

Spike.

You were in deep. You adored him, your eyes always on him. No matter where he was in the room you just couldn’t help it.

You wanted him so badly. Found yourself dreaming about him, feeling his body beside yours in that hazy moment between sleep and wake. Reaching for him and finding yourself sorely disappointed.

It got worse, you began to daydream about him. You hid yourself in these fantasy worlds that you created around you and him. Imagining him wanting you. Choosing you. Kissing you and loving you the way you wanted. Craved.

This love that you held, it was unrequited. It was deep and unending. You were completely his and you had no way of even beginning to describe it to him.

It burned you up inside. Made you ache with such longing. Almost physically pained you because you loved him so much.

You were drowning in this feeling. The only way your head ever came up for air was when he interacted with you. When you got all of his attention. You became lost in his eyes instead. At least that way, if he was looking at you there was some part of you with him. In his head. His vision. The way he was in every sense of yours.

He could ground you. Make you feel like it was only you and him.

And some days, that was all you needed. To know that he did like you. That there was potential there. Sometimes you swore that look in his eye meant something. Meant he harboured affection for you.

He always flirted. You knew somewhere in the logical part of your brain that was fast losing to the rest of you that it probably wasn’t real. Nevertheless you clung to it. Held on to even the smallest attention he would give you. You were desperate for any tiny interaction. You felt as if you had withered and died should you miss a day where you didn’t interact with him.

He often gravitated towards you in the Bronze or wherever it was that he found you after he had another run-in with Buffy.

“Alright, love? You wanna watch out givin’ a man that kind of look. Gives a fella ideas.” He would always greet you in this kind of way.

“Are they good ideas, Spike?”

“Downright sinful ones” he smirked and enjoyed the way you looked at the ground a little flustered. His words. His perfectly-crafted stupid words. The things they did to you. The tone of his voice. The teasing quality. He made you want to jump in his arms when he spoke this way, all but tackle him to the ground and finally have your way with him.

But you had to rein yourself in. His personality was like that. You had always known this. He flirted his way around a room, often to get something he wanted. Charmed people to his will. But it never seemed that way with you. Just did it to keep your company. Never really wanted anything from you except conversation. Time spent by his side.

Your heart was beating so hard and so fast that you were sure your heart was causing some irreversible damage. That you would remove your clothing that evening and look in the mirror to find a heart-shaped bruise stamped onto your skin.

A mark that was made by him. For him. It was always him. It was only ever going to be him.

You had hope in your heart, the way he spoke to you. Way he made sure you were safe where he wouldn’t care in the slightest about the others. The way you would leave the Bronze or patrol just to talk. To sit in his crypt together and watch tv.

He enjoyed your company, you had to believe that. Had to believe that he wanted you in the same way. That his flirtation wasn’t just to pass the time.

Maybe his feelings weren’t as strong as yours. Maybe they were hidden, waiting for you. Maybe he was carefully imagining an all-encompassing love story in his mind the way you did. And you had truly thought it all. You even had the musical score to go along with your love story with him, that’s how detailed your need for him was.

One dark day though, your hopes were completely taken from you. Snatched away. You had woken with a horrible feeling and it had only got worse. You had a hole where your heart had been when you saw it. You felt empty inside. Numb.

Your whole life revolved around him, but his now revolved around her.

You saw them together. Spike and Buffy. It was as if someone had punched you in the gut.

You went sour at the thought. About what they were doing together. What they might be whispering. Talking about. And when you considered what they might be doing together… it made you ache. Quiver with want.

You kept your distance for a while, marinating in your own jealousy. The way you craved him, it wasn’t natural. It was more than your heart could take.

He had invited you to his crypt, the usual way. Gestured with his head when you were at the back of the group on patrol. Even with the way you had been feeling recently, the distance. The way your heart had crumbled into a desolate wasteland. You knew you could never say no. You had tried to be stronger. Keep your distance but you had trouble when it came to him.

Your head was so dizzy with the idea of him. With the swell of hope that you could never push down when he offered time alone with you.

He smiled and pulled you onto the sofa by his side. Natural touch he would usually use around you hadn’t stopped just because of how he felt for Buffy. You sat down beside him, as close as you always would.

Sometimes you felt you were sat so close you might as well slide into his lap. You weren’t to know he wouldn’t have complained in the slightest. But you never did. Never dared. Especially not now.

You spent the next twenty minutes sitting in front of the tv in silence. Your face barely moved and he caught it. He always did, as if he had shares in your emotions. He was invested, he never pretended otherwise.

He started to make stupid comments about the characters. Pointing out the plot holes and the stunt doubles that could be seen so clearly just to cheer you up. It made you smile despite yourself.

He could always make you smile.

Eventually you joined in, getting caught up in it. In him. Again.

You both laughed together at something you had said, your humour was so similar. Yo ufit so perfectly…

But with this stupid thought, you suddenly stopped laughing. Your face went blank. You had been doing it again. Pretending this was real. Pretending he loved you. Wanted you.

But he didn’t. He wanted her. Loved her.

“I can’t do this,” You admitted suddenly as you got to your feet, “We can’t see each other anymore Spike.”

“What? I’m not sure I followed you round that particular bend, love-”

“Don’t call me that!”

“What – love? I always call you that-” He frowned, using the remote to turn off the tv.

“It-it makes it so much harder” You said, tears welling in your eyes.

“I’m not sure I’m understandin’ you right” he said slowly, squinting at you and trying to decipher your words.

“You would rather be with someone who hates you than the one that… loves you!” You admitted this, shouting it in his face. Not how you had ever imagined revealing such intimate emotions to him, “And it- it hurts so bad, Spike. So bad. Because I know you’ll never love me. Because you love her…”

He stopped dead at the way you had laid yourself bare. The way you had shouted your love for him. The way that your emotions were so evident on your face. He began to hurt when he saw you hurting. He held affection for you, he had never denied that.

But now he was thinking. Truly thinking about what you meant to him. The way he could talk to you about anything. He had shared some things he thought he could never dare speak out loud.

The way you had cared so much for him you had helped him back to his crypt after another fight with Buffy, listening to him whining about how much he loved her. The way you looked after him so tenderly.

He thought about his own actions with you. How he always flirted with you as much as he did with Buffy. How he lit up when it was you and him together. How you both snuck away from the others to do something fun. Watch tv or swap books that you had enjoyed.

He thought about how he knew he would do anything to protect you. From harm - a demon or otherwise. How he sought to make you smile.

You made him laugh. Made him feel something. Like he was a man, not just some monster. He was finally realising something that should have been so plain to see. That there was something there, between you both.

“I- I do like you in that way, pet…” he realised it as he spoke it.

He got to his feet, closing the space between you. Those eyes scanning your face. Able to read only now the way you felt so deeply. Only now realising this was how you felt. How had he been so blind? So wrapped up in what he and Buffy had going on? In how he felt for her?

He leaned in to kiss you. To give you what you wanted. He only wanted you happy. Wanted you to feel good. Suddenly that was all that mattered to him. You feeling his affection, however small it was. It was there and he was feeling it. It was growing every second he thought about it, he could almost physically feel it. He leant in, his hand reaching for you as he started to press his lips to yours. His eyes began to close as he got closer.

But you moved backwards from his grasp.

“No, Spike” You said firmly and his face pulled into a frown. He hated rejection and at the hands of someone that had just admitted their love he hadn’t been expecting it. Meaning it almost stung more than if he had been nervous about it - expecting to be pushed away.

“Will you bloody make your mind up?! I just said that I-”

“That you like me. I can’t settle for you just liking me, Spike… not when you’ve told me how in love with Buffy you are on so many occasions. I don’t want to be some afterthought to you” You admitted, opening sobbing now as you spoke, “It’s all or nothing, that’s the only way.”

And when he couldn’t reply. Couldn’t tell you that he loved you in the same way, you left. Walked away and didn’t look back.

You didn’t see that his arm was still reaching for you in mid-air. As if now this was all that mattered to him. Having you back. Having you with him in that way. He hadn’t realised that growing affection until you had said those words for him. Managed to articulate it better than he could.

It was only just dawning on him properly. And the idea of losing you knocked him sick. He needed you back here and he couldn’t understand why you weren’t going to stay with him.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed how fond he was for you. How he found himself wrapping around your little finger with just a glance his way. He knew it all and yet he had been distracted.

Because his love for Buffy was so big. Burned so bright and she had allowed him into her bed. She had left you in the shadows. But now you were beginning to glow again.

#Spike btvs #Spike x reader #Spike imagine #Spike x you #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagines #btvs #btvs x reader #btvs imagine #btvs x you #gn #gender neutral #angst #gender neutral reader

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