#this has been my background music for studying for the last month lol

[munsons-melody]

starchild’s competition

18+ Minors, DNI.

summary: dustin’s noticed your odd behavior and takes it upon himself to figure out what’s going on. little does he know, you’ve fallen in love with the dungeon master of his dnd club.

pairing: eddie munson x female!henderson!reader

cw: almost smut? implications of sex, kissing, etc. bit of fluff / bit of smut

word count: 5.1 k

a/n: this is one of my favorite things i’ve ever written, definitely thinking of making a pt. 2… also apologies for the spacing on this one, it didn’t like me pasting my writing from wattpad to tumblr lol

masterlist

i do not consent to having any of my works republished, translated, or posted to any other site except here. if you see my works anywhere but tumblr, it has been republished without my knowledge, consent, or permission.

—

dustin henderson never snooped... okay that was a lie, he only snooped when he knew he needed to, like today

you and dustin had grown up as close siblings. without your dad in the picture, moving to hawkins when you were 14 and he was 9, and living with your single mom, you knew you had to take care of each other

obviously, you two had run-of-the-mill spats with each other as every sibling has with one another, but you two still loved each other very much

even the times when he's tackled you in order to get the last pop tart, in which you would snatch it back from him, just for him to say 'no collarbones' to tug on your heartstrings and you'd end up giving it to him anyways

but these past few weeks had been very different, you were different

you were always out late, and if you weren't already out late, you were pretending to go to bed early just to sneak out of your window to be out late

you were never really in the house anymore, and when you were, there would be an odd smell coming from your room

dustin was became confused on why you never had much time to drive him to hellfire or bother steve together at family video anymore, and he was confused on why you would always finish dinner quickly then go straight to your room or why you'd always have some metal song playing in your walkman (a genre he didn't even know you owned cassettes of)

but little did he know the reason why was because you had accidentally fallen in love with one of his best friends and the dungeon master of his dnd club... eddie munson

and truth be told it was an accident.

you and eddie had always inconspicuously flirted with one another. it occurred whenever you would drop off dustin at hellfire, or when eddie would come up to the kitchen during one of the campaign's breaks to see you before the rest of the party would come up from the basement of your house

the two of you would talk, laugh, make jokes, and much to dustins knowledge, he knew that neither of you would try anything, i mean you couldn't right?

wrong. after a few weeks, eddie formally asked you out. it was for a nice romantic picnic out by lovers lake. you said yes, seeing as the cute metalhead in front of you already had you wrapped around his finger, and one date couldn't hurt...

but more dates did occur- watching corroded coffin play at the hideout, sneaking out to smoke at his house, making out in the back of his van with music blaring in the background, and having him over to study since you two "had the same history class and were made partners by your teacher" - which is what you always told dustin

you couldn't help it, the two of you just naturally gravitated toward each other, but you still didn't tell dustin, or really anyone for that matter. you loved your little bubble that you built together over the past couple months and the fear of scrutiny from other party members, especially your little brother, would burst it

but nonetheless, dustin grew suspicious of his sister, suddenly acting secretive and dodgy

you had left to go to the mall with nancy and robin earlier in the evening and it gave dustin his opportunity. he quietly walked out of his room and into yours

he closed your door quietly behind him, and he scanned your room. he didn't find anything out of the ordinary at first, till he noticed some cassettes and a piece of paper on your dresser

intrigued, he walked over and picked them up. there were four cassettes you had sitting there, metallica's ride the lighting, dynasty and love gun by kiss, and heaven and hell by black sabbath

he picked up the piece of paper that looked a little crumpled and opened it up to read

here's a couple of my favorites, i hope you love them too... p.s., I'm dedicating track no. 1 on dynasty to you -starchild's competition

"starchild's competition? what the fuck does that even mean?" he said out loud to himself

out of curiosity, he took the dynasty cassette and decided to play track number one, seeing as it was dedicated to his sister by a random guy competing with someone named starchild

little did he know, it was a stupid inside joke between you and eddie

you two were smoking in his room and you had briefly mentioned your huge crush on paul stanley from kiss to eddie, to which he decided to tease you with, saying he was in competition with the huge star for your love and affection

at the time you didn't realized he signed the note with that, being a little too busy as you were high out of your mind, and he shoved the note and his cassettes into your bag for a cute surprise when you got home

dustin heard the familiar tune of 'i was made for loving you' ring through your room and he gagged

who is dedicating songs to her? he thought

continued to look around your room, finding a photo album peaking out from the side of your desk, hiding under a couple of school books

but his actions were soon interrupted as your door opened, and you spotted him

"what are you doing in my room" you asked with an annoyed tone

"oh uh... your stereo turned on and i was going to turn it off for you... good song choice by the way" he said stiffly as he awkwardly shuffled out of your room and into his

you shook your head at his weirdness and shut your door. you tossed the shopping bags you had onto your bed and shimmed off your jacket, tossing it onto your desk

you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, a few hickies on your chest were showing that your jacket covered earlier

that was a byproduct of going over to eddies a few days beforehand. the two of you were going to try and do some homework but that soon turned into you on eddie's lap as the two of you feverishly made out

but it was soon interrupted by wayne who wanted to make sure the two of you had a proper dinner to "keep your studying energy up" so the two of you had to pull yourselves together and go eat the dinner wayne graciously made before he left for work

but, you were a little grateful for the interruption since it gave you an opportunity to buy a new and exciting piece of lingerie to surprise eddie with

-

the next night, you did your usual eat dinner fast then run back to your room routine, which you did in order to call eddie and talk to him

you two surprisingly never ran out of topics to talk about, and he never failed to make you laugh, which would end up with him wanting to see your "beautiful smile in person" and you would arrange for him to sneak into your room after your mom went to bed

the two of you were well into your honeymoon phase but neither of you minded

this particular evening, dustin and your mom were watching some movie and eating some ice cream for dessert when he heard a loud giggle from your room

"i'm going to go see if y/n wants some ice cream" dustin said, setting his bowl down and walking down the hallway

his steps were slow and quiet, your voice getting only slightly louder as he got closer to your door

"no baby i cannot tell you the surprise, you're gonna have to wait" he heard you giggle causing him to make a disgusted look on his face

okay, she clearly has a secret boyfriend which is why she's been acting so weird, he thought to himself, but he wondered who could it be for her to not tell anyone about

you're usually open about boys you like, especially the celebrity crushes you had which seemed to change every other week, so what's so special about this guy that she can't talk about him?

"mhm, yeah try and see if that works this time, cause it worked sooo great last time" you said with a sarcastic laugh

dustins ear pressed a little too close to the door causing it to creak open a little bit, catching your attention

he stood up straight and cleared his throat, knocking lightly to make it look like he had just got to your door. you muttered a "hold on" and lightly pressed the bottom half of your phone to your chest

"yes?" you questioned, and dustin blinked his wide eyes

"oh uh do you want ice cream for dessert?" he said and you smiled "sure, I'll be out in a sec, don't eat the rest of the chocolate please" you told him

he responded with a smile and nod, and closed the door to the way it was before and he heard you say a "it's my favorite flavor! it's not boring!" followed by another giggle

-

the next night was friday night

your mom had some PTA meeting and dinner meaning she would be out till late and dustin said he was going with lucas and mike to the arcade and then to mike's for a sleepover

you invited eddie over while the two of you were standing next to your locker

"yeah and my mom will be out all night at some PTA meeting and dustin's going to sleepover at mike's house, so it'll just be me... all alone... in an empty old house," you dragged the last part out causing a smirk to arise on eddie's face

"oh we can't have that now, can we?" eddie responded, taking his pointer finger and hooking it gently under your chin to pull you in for a kiss

"get a room you two" robin said arriving next to you

"its already booked" you rebutted back with a chuckle

you stayed there near your locker for a good few minutes, continuing to talk to robin who was just about to leave to catch her evening shift at the store. eventually the two of you said goodbye to her, walking out into the parking lot from the school

you drove home separately from eddie, telling him to come over at 5 and to park down the street not to draw attention and he gladly agreed

the clock was ticking down to 5 pm when your mom headed out the door

"i won't be back till late, bye sweeties!" she said as the door closed. now all who was left was dustin, standing next to you waving goodbye

"don't you have a sleepover at mikes or something?" you questioned

"yeah but i'm in no hurry to get there, i'll leave in a few minutes" he said when you noticed eddie's van drive past your house in order to park down the street causing your heart to drop

"you sure? didn't you guys want to go to the arcade too?" you asked, wanting him to leave already

"we're going but lucas can't meet us there till 5:15 so i have some time" he shrugged, sitting down on the couch causing you to mentally groan

your eyes widened as you saw eddie start to walk up your drive way

shit shit shit you said to yourself as he knocked on the door

dustin sat up "bet you 5 dollars mom forgot something" he joked, going towards the door before you even stepped your foot out

he quickly opened the door to reveal a very handsome eddie munson standing there with his dio t shirt and usual black jeans

"eddie? what are you doing here?" he asked. eddie looked like a deer caught in headlights. he quickly looked to you then back to dustin

"oh i uh just came by to uh... borrow your sisters history book... uh.. i lost my copy and we're partners for the class so..." he stammered out

dustin seemed to buy it as he let eddie into the house, and eddie gave you a smile

"well since you're here and i don't have to leave for a few minutes, can i ask your opinion on my new campaign?" dustin asked sweetly. eddie shrugged and muttered a sure before he was motioned to go down the hall to dustins room

you gave a sympathetic smile to him, and decided to head to the kitchen to get some water while you waited

you heard talking from the two of them down the hall, a few laughs here and there, when eventually the two of them emerged from dustins room, the clock reading 5:25

"oh shit I gotta go- hey since you're just here for a book and you're probably about to leave anyways, could you drop me off at the arcade? my bike should fit in the back of your van" he questioned and you could see the mental groan in eddie's eyes

"uh yeah sure" he said, looking to you. you giggled and walked past the boys, grabbing a random book from your desk and walking back to the living room, handing it to eddie

"thanks" he said. you could tell he was annoyed dustin was cockblocking him, and you tried not to laugh

"c'mon eddie i'm already late" dustin exclaimed, swinging a bag over his shoulder

"coming" he grumbled, looking at you once more before walking out the door, book in hand

you saw the two conversing as they walked down the street to where eddie's van was parked, dustin walking his bike next to him. you saw this as a chance to go change into your outfit for eddie's return.

you happily skipped into your room, shutting the door behind you. you went over to your underwear drawer where you stashed your new lingerie set, the red lacy fabric soft in your hands

you normally wouldn't wear a bright color such as this cherry red, opting for blacks since its what you felt most comfortable in, but you figured it'd be a nice change and such a surprise for your boyfriend

you quickly changed into the lingerie, taking a look at yourself in the mirror

"damn" you muttered out, feeling a new sense of confidence wash over you. you touched up the little bit of makeup you were wearing, and decided to fix your hair down, your hair cascading to your shoulders.

slight waves in your hair emerged from the bun you had it in earlier but you didn't mind since it added some life to your hair. you applied some of your favorite perfume to your wrists and behind your ears, and once you were satisfied with your look, you threw back on your sweatshirt and shorts.

you heard knocking at the front door, signaling eddie was back from driving dustin

you walked out of your room and opened the door to reveal an annoyed eddie. "that little fucker" he mumbled, walking in past you

"well hello to you too" you said jokingly. eddie turned to face you.

"hey sweetheart" he breathed out, before continuing his little rant

"he kept asking why i was parked so far from the house, so i told him it was cause i didn't want to block your driveway, then he asked why i had an English textbook if we were doing a history project together," he continued, handing you back the book you had previously handed him

"then he was annoyed when i said i was busy tonight and couldn't come to the arcade with him and his friends and he just kept on questioning everything i-" you cut him off by kissing him, catching him by surprise

"eds, calm down, he's gone now, its just the two of us, and it's not his fault he doesn't know what's really going on" you soothed, trying to calm your amped-up boyfriend

"you're right I'm sorry, it's just i wanted to be here with you like an hour ago but that little cockblock-" you cut him off by kissing him again, this time actually shutting him up

the book you had in your hand dropped to the seat behind you causing a thud. you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. his hands slid under your shirt and up the sides of your torso, his rings were cold against your warm skin causing you to gasp, and eddie took this an opportunity to sneak his tongue into your mouth

you moaned in to the kiss causing him to smirk, when he started trailing his lips from yours down to your neck sucking on that sweet spot behind your ear

"eds" you breathed out, "yeah?" he mumbled, continuing to leave his mark on your neck

"my room" you stuttered out and he pulled away

"lead the way princess" he said with a smile, extending his hand for you to walk past him. you giggled, still stuck in a little bit of a haze, lacing his hand with yours in the process of walking past him

"did you bring it?" you asked as you entered your room. "condoms or weed?" he asked, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it

you giggled, "the weed but good to know about the condoms as well," you said with a wink

the two of you got into your usual positions, eddie sitting at your desk rolling a couple of joints while you lit some incense to cover the smell in case your mom came home early

once situated, you laid on your bed, side by side, passing the joint. you watched as eddie brought it up to his lips, and carefully sucked on it, lighting up the end, and breathing out the smoke

you watched his plush pink lips form in to an 'o' shape as the smoke blew, and you were mesmerized

and you stayed like that, smoking, staring at eddie, talking, but eventually by the end of the second joint, you didn't need anymore

"eddie" you whined, sitting on his lap, rolling your hips in attempts to get some friction for the heat pooling in your pants

eddie knew you had levels of being high, it would go from chill to giggly to horny to sleepy, and right now, he knew that all you cared about was him fucking you senseless

"yes baby?" he purred, hands gripping onto your thighs, your faces almost touching

"i need you" you whine again, starting to kiss his neck, and you moved your hands up the sides of his torso, lightly tugging on his shirt to get him to take it off

he loved taking his time with you while you were in this state, taking it as an opportunity to tease you. he loved making you a whining, moaning mess, hungry for his cock

he slowly moved your head from his neck so his lips met yours, kissing you with passion, his tongue fighting with yours

you broke apart for a second, taking off your shirt and tossing it across the room

"jesus christ y/n" he breathed out, absolutely enamored with the sight in front of him

"oh i forgot about that" you giggle, "you want to see the rest?" you ask in a sultry tone

he nods furiously and then gulps as you manage to wiggle off his lap

he watched intently as you flicked on the stereo, 'lick it up' by kiss blaring through your speakers as you moved your hips along to the beat of the song

"holy shit" eddie said, his eyes widening

you continued to move to the beat, flipping your hair and turning around, moving your body around in the most sexual way you know how

you dropped the shorts, tossing them beside you, and he smirked at the full sight of you

he sat up a bit as you started to slowly crawl onto your bed towards him, and he bit his lip in anticipation

you laid down next to him, and he took his opportunity to kiss down your neck and onto your collarbone, taking his time to leave his mark all over your chest and your neck

his hands traveled down your thigh, gripping your your backside as you grinded again his hard bulge

"i think you're wearing too many clothes" you said, lips almost touching

"yes m'am" he said with a light laugh and kissed you before he got up from the bed

the song had changed a couple times from the one you put on, and your speaker was blaring the chords of 'all hell's breakin' loose'

eddie tried to move his hips around in the way you did, but failing miserably causing you to laugh

he whipped off his t shirt, tossing it in your direction, and you watched intently as your boyfriend tried to give you a lap dance

he undid his belt, tossing it to his left side, and slowly undid his zipper

he looked at you, as you were holding back giggles as he was purposefully trying to be bad at this

he finally pulled down his pants and stepped out of them and kicked them over before jumping on to the bed next to you

"maybe we should stick to you performing on the stage and me performing in the bedroom" you giggled as he scooted closer

"yeah maybe that's for the best" he laughed, pulling you in to a deep kiss

he was on top of you and you were a moaning mess underneath him until you finally found the strength to flip the two of you over, wanting your turn to leave a few love bites down his neck

you knew everyone would see you together, see the hickies, and put two and two together but in this moment, you honestly couldn't care

you grinded down on his lap as you kissed the sweet spot behind his ear, causing a delicious moan to emit from those beautiful pink lips

——

"shit!" dustin yelled in an annoyed tone. he was in mike's basement with lucas, mike being upstairs grabbing a couple of snacks.

"what?" lucas asked towards the frantic curly haired boy

"i forgot my toothbrush" he said, grabbing his jacket

"where are you going?" mike asked walked down the stairs, arms full of junk food that would soon cease to exist, at the threat of being in front of three hungry teenage boys

"i need my toothbrush" dustin said, putting on his shoes

"just skip tonight, it's not a big deal" mike shrugged and dustin shook his head

"not a big deal? i just got these pearls and you expect me to not take care of them?" he held a hand up to his chest in offense

"just let him go, it'll only take him like 20 minutes tops" lucas said, opening a can of coke

"whatever but we're starting the star wars marathon without you" mike said and dustin looked at him with annoyance

"oh damn! it's not like i haven't seen the beginning of a new hope like 50 times" he said sarcastically before running up the stairs

he briefly told mrs. wheeler where he was going and that he was going to be back, and out the door he went, grabbing his bike

he started on his way to his house which wasn't too far from mike's, enjoying the cool breeze on the oddly warm spring night

he finally made it to his driveway, hearing the crickets outside and music coming from inside the house

dustin made his way up the stairs and opened the door which he found unusual since whenever you were home alone, you always made sure to lock everything up as you knew the only people who should be entering would have a key

the music traveled from your room and down the hall and he shrugged, assuming you were just listening to music loudly but then he smelled that oddly familiar smell wafting from your room

he went to the bathroom, grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste and shut the door when he figured he should at least ask you about it

-

"oh fucking hell, you are so perfect" eddie muttered out as you licked the spot on his neck you had finished working on, proud of your accomplishment

one of your hands traveled down his hips and to the waist band of his boxers, starting to palm his rock hard bulge and he moaned, his fingers digging into your ass and thighs

your lips met his once more as you went to pull down his waist band, and you were so drunk on him, you couldn't focus on anything else

"hey y/n what's the- JESUS CHRIST" you heard a scream from your door way, causing you and eddie to jump apart

"dustin what the fuck are you doing here?!" you yell, grabbing your sheets to cover yourself up, eddie attempting to do the same

"what the fuck are you doing??" he screamed again

"what's it look like? now get out!" eddie yelled, throwing a pillow at him causing him to immediately step back and shut the door

your heart was pounding and your breathing was unsteady

"oh god" you groaned, leaning into eddie's chest

"well at least now he knows?" eddie said with a laugh

—

dustin, horrified at the sight, ran out of the house, toothbrush in hand and ran to his bike

he believed it was a record for how fast it took him to get back to mike's house from his

out of breath, he stumbled down into mikes basement seeing both mike and lucas staring intently at the movie

"why are you so out of breath?" lucas asked with concern

"i just saw my sister having sex with eddie" he managed to get out, still trying to catch his breath

"what?" mike asked

"I JUST SAW MY SISTER HAVING SEX WITH EDDIE" dustin screamed, repeating himself

"what the fuck?" mike asked again

"wait what so what did you even see?" lucas asked dustin

"i went to get my toothbrush and i heard music from her room and there was some smell so i decided to ask her what the smell was and i knocked- a few times, and she didn't answer so i assumed her music was too loud so i opened her door and i saw them half naked kissing on her bed!" dustin said with disgust

"jesus that's rough" lucas agreed

—

you finished putting back on your shorts, sitting on the edge of your bed with a gnawing feeling in your stomach

after what just happened, neither wanted to continue your plans for the evening so the two of you calmly got dressed and turned off the music.

"you okay?" eddie asked, sitting next to you and you shrugged

"i feel bad for having dustin find out about us that way" you said, playing with the hem of your shorts

"i know but now that it's out in the open you can always actually talk to him about everything tomorrow" he said and you nodded

"yeah i guess, plus i hate the fact that my surprise was wasted" you said, and he wrapped an arm around you as you leaned your head on his shoulder

"i wouldn't say it went to waste because jesus it definitely surprised me" he lifted your head gently to make eye contact with you

"i love you y/n and we'll have plenty of more opportunities for you to show me that, i already forgot all about it, you were wearing something blue right?" he joked and you laughed

"i love you too eddie" you said, wrapping your arms around him. you cuddled into each other, enjoying each others company. you also felt an insane amount of sleepiness wash over you and eddie could sense that

"you seem tired, so i should probably get going" he said with a sigh and you shook your head, pulling away from the hug but keeping your bodies pressed close

"no please, i want you to stay" you said to him and he nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear

"what about your mom?" he questioned and you smiled

"i'll just lock my door and if you'd be so kind, sneak out my window in the morning and come round to the front door, tell my mom you're taking me to breakfast" you suggested and he smiled

"god you're smart" eddie responded, kissing you softly

"and i have some extra clothes of yours from a few weeks ago for tomorrow" you said, getting up to the dresser and pulling them out

you had washed and dried them for him, planning to return them soon but thanking yourself you didn't

"thanks baby" he said, getting up and wrapping his arms around you

"you know i was actually wondering where this shirt went" he said and you giggled

the two of you decided to change out of your clothes, you sleeping in another one of eddie's shirts you had 'borrowed' and him changing into his clean boxers from the dresser

the two of you brushed your teeth in the bathroom, smiling at each other with toothpaste filled smiles. eddie left the bathroom back to your room, and you finished up washing your face and applying some moisturizer

once you made it back to your room, you admired the sight in front of you

eddie was laying on top of the sheets, legs spread and one arm on top of his head, showing off his tattoos

"take a picture it'll last longer" eddie smirked when he noticed you standing by the door

"might have to, you're too pretty" you said, shutting the door and locking it behind you

you walked over to your bed, crawling in, the only light emitting was from your lamp, the other lights eddie turned off for you

you snuggled close to him, his arms wrapping around you right and he reached up and turned off the light

"i love you y/n" eddie whispered, kissing your neck lightly and you smiled, rubbing his arms lightly

"i love you too eds" you said, falling asleep in his arms

fin.

#eddie munson #stranger things #dustin henderson #munsons-melody #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson blurb #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson angst #eddie munson fluff #eddie x y/n #eddie x you #eddie stranger things #eddie x henderson!reader #eddie munson headcanons #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x y/n

[weirdkpopgirl]

Stronger Together | Haechan Fic #2

Title: Stronger Together

Genre: College AU, exes to lovers (sort of)

Warnings: mentions of mental health issues like anxiety and self-harm, bullying. the story gets very emotional

Word Count: 14k

Author's Note: Omg I've been working on this story for way too long. This has been on the backburner of my drive for months. And somebody sent a request, asking me to write something with Haechan where the reader has a hard time being vulnerable with him. So I thought I might as well finish this story since it fits that request? I apologize for how long and cliché it is. I was also heavily influenced by the k-dramas that take place in universities lol. Thank you guys for reading and I really hope you like it ^^

─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─

~ prologue ~

Everything felt like some tragic scene from a romance movie gone wrong. One that left the audience holding their breaths, afraid of what the character’s next move would be. Meeting at a café, the one close to your university. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the air. The dimmed ambiance, as it was no longer daytime. Soft music playing in the background. Then there was you two in the corner of the room. The warm drinks set atop the wooden table remained untouched. The carefree smiles faded gradually.

At last, the silence was broken. When you met his eyes, all the courage you mustered up dispersed. Then the words you never thought you’d hear yourself say fell from your lips.

“Let’s break up.”

The sun receded behind the somber, gray clouds as the storm took hold, leaving behind the absence of the once cherished feelings of warmth and radiance.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter one ~

“Yeonsung University’s Hae-Dal Couple Seen Sharing a Cute Moment Before Class,” Jaemin read aloud to the group.

You held back a grimace when you scrolled through the snapshots, most likely taken behind the school bushes. One of Donghyuck gently removing an eyelash off your cheek. One of you smiling fondly at him. One of him giving you an innocent kiss on the forehead. What began as a quiet exchange with your boyfriend had turned into morning gossip eagerly devoured by the students of Yeonsung.

“We look cute don’t we?” Donghyuck proudly swung an arm around your shoulders. Unlike you, he wasn’t bothered by the post at all. 

You shrugged in response. “I guess.”

Maybe you were just being sensitive. At the start of university, you had a lot of goals. Study hard, get good grades, and find a nice internship. Love and leisure? Those were not on the list. Yet somehow Lee Donghyuck, one of the most popular freshmen, just had to pursue you out of all the other girls who fawned over him.

A little over half a year has passed since you agreed to be his girlfriend—after numerous rejections, and you still haven’t adapted to your elevated social status. The way everyone stopped to look in awe at the two of you when walking by. How there always seemed to be someone with a phone to capture a single moment of your day and post it to the UniYeon, your college’s community site. The endless stream of comments praising you both as the epitome of couple goals and being jealous over your relationship with the one and only Lee Donghyuck was unrelenting.

Maybe you were crazy for disliking the attention, even though it wasn’t necessarily bad. Being a campus couple—with Lee Donghyuck much less, meant taking all the pressure that came with it. Your boyfriend seemed to have no problem ignoring what everyone else thought. So why was it so hard for you?

“Hey, guys!” Your best friend, Ahryun, snapped you out of your thoughts. “There’s this new fried chicken place that opened nearby. We should check it out. I heard there’s a special discount for university students there.”

Your lips parted, hesitant to respond, as a sense of wariness washed over you. Fortunately, Donghyuck spoke up, saving you both from the need to answer.

“Can’t. (Y/n) and I have a date for our 200-day anniversary,” He said proudly. You couldn’t help but smile when he turned to you with such loving eyes.

Although it felt like the whole university was watching your relationship like it was a reality show, you could handle the inconvenience. The love you had for Donghyuck allowed any wary thoughts to temporarily shift to the back of your mind. 

You never pictured yourself dating someone like him, honestly. To say the least, you and he were quite the opposite of each other. He was a social butterfly, who made everyone around him laugh. You were the more reserved type, sticking with small groups of friends, and hiding your face behind the thin rose-gold glasses you always wore. Donghyuck often left you wondering what made him like you in the first place.

The anticipation in Ahryun’s eyes dissolved into disappointment. “Ah, I see. What about you, Jaemin?”

“Sorry, I can’t either. It’s my turn to cook for Jeno and me,” Jaemin replied, rolling his eyes at the mention of his best friend. He peered up from his phone and shifted his attention to the group. “Also, it’s been 200 days already? Time flies.”

You and Donghyuck nodded in agreement. The dark-haired boy leaned back in his seat with a nostalgic look. “Ah, it felt like yesterday when Donghyuck followed (Y/n) around like some lost puppy.” 

Ahryun set her chin on the palm of her hand. “How did you handle him, (Y/n)-ah?”

“He just grew on me, I guess,” You shrugged, turning to look at the boy who gave unamused looks to the two people sitting across from you.

You reached your hand out to gently pet his head. “And it turned out he was very sweet and cute.”

Cliché words like this were rare from you. But seeing the pleased smile on Donghyuck’s face was sort of worth the minor embarrassment.

“See? (Y/n) loves me, thank you very much.” He childishly stuck his tongue out at your friends, earning a head shake from them. He stood up and offered his hand so you could walk out together.

 “Now if you excuse us, we have a reservation to prepare for.”

▃▃▃

Despite being seated not long ago, the fluttery feeling in your stomach had yet to leave you. Since you had planned your 100-Day anniversary date, Donghyuck took responsibility for this one. That’s how you find yourself at a classy Italian restaurant. When looking at the other tables, you felt underdressed in your powder blue dress that was quite plain.

“How did you find this place?” You asked conscientiously.

A part of you wanted to ask if you guys could afford this place, considering you were broke college students. But you didn’t want to cause any tension when his effort into planning this special day was clear.

He casually glanced up from the menu in his hands. For a moment you forgot you were also holding one. “I just came across it, when I was searching for restaurants we should try someday. This one has the rose pasta you like.”

“Oh, really?”

Finally, your eyes dropped down to your own menu. The slight nervousness you had began to fade as a small smile stretched across your lips.

You loved witnessing the rare moments where your boyfriend’s subtle consideration peeked through. He often pretended not to pay attention when you talked about a food you liked or an activity you’ve always wanted to try. But in reality, he secretly saved those small details in his pocket for future surprises. Honestly, you were lucky to be one of the few people to see this side of Donghyuck.

Once you adjusted to the new setting, dinner with Donghyuck was quite delightful. Dates with him often started with feelings of nervousness and hesitation. But Donghyuck’s humor and charm always managed to melt away your anxiety. It was in those times when you allowed yourself to relax and enjoy the present moment.

During the date, the topic of conversation mainly revolved around school. Since his major was music production and yours was creative writing, your schedules didn’t align. Some may hate the distance throughout the day, but you and Donghyuck truly didn’t mind.

Though the boy occasionally complained about how he missed you, having something to talk about when you were together was nice. You loved listening to him share his experiences, and learn about the classes he was taking. Donghyuck always had the most amusing stories about something that happened to him or one of his friends.

The bright blue sky disappeared as the evening settled in, just as your dinner came to a close. You may or may not have reprimanded Donghyuck when he went to the “bathroom,” but instead paid for the meal at the counter. 

“We could’ve split the check.” You crossed your arms in disapproval.

Knowing how stubborn your boyfriend could be, chastising him was futile. Yet you still did it. Which caused you to insist, “At least let me pay for drinks later.”

“Deal,” The boy agreed. “But before we go, I have a little something for you.”

Unsure of what to expect, you eyed him curiously as he reached into his jacket pocket. He brought out a cream-colored box and pushed the small item toward you.

“Open it.” 

Hesitantly, you took the box in with one hand and opened it with the other. The slightly smug smile on his face changed to one of satisfaction when you gasped.

Inside the box revealed a necklace and not just any necklace—one with a sterling silver chain, and a crescent moon pendant made of white gold. Instantly, you recognized the gift as a reference to your couple name, Hae-Dal. That was what your fellow peers started calling the two of you at the beginning of your relationship. This given title was probably the only thing you honestly didn’t hate about being a campus couple.

Hae was a word for sun, and dal meant moon. Donghyuck was the sun because of his bright and extroverted nature. On the other hand, the moon represented your cold and pessimistic demeanor. Despite your contrasting personalities, the balance between you two was nothing short of marvelous.

“Hyuck, you shouldn’t have…”

Leaning back in his seat, the grin on his face didn’t leave. “I know. I’m amazing aren’t I?”

His teasing response was out of instinct. However, it was also his way of covering up the warm sensation that filled his heart when you called him by his nickname. You were the only person who did.

“It’s perfect. Thank you, really,” You breathed, allowing yourself to smile at him.

Before you guys parted ways for the night, Donghyuck didn’t let you leave without helping you put on the necklace. You couldn’t control the blush on your cheeks when his fingers grazed your neck as he connected the clasp. Especially when he used his other hand to cup the side of your face to bring you closer to him. His lips connected to yours in one of the most tender kisses he’s ever given. The exchange left you feeling as though time had stopped and nothing else in the world mattered.

“I love you, (Y/n). Let’s stay together forever.” His tone was lighthearted. However, the intensity of his gaze and the unmistakable spark in his eyes revealed just how deeply committed he was.

Agreeing wholeheartedly, you gently pressed your forehead against his and whispered. “Yes, let’s do that.”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter two ~

For once, all of the negative thoughts in your mind quieted down. Despite having to wake up early for class, you felt more cheerful than usual. Even Ahryun noticed you had more energy today. The two of you met up in the library to do some homework.

“Okay, you’ve been acting like some lovestruck teenager all morning.” She gave you a weird look. “All because of Lee Donghyuck?”

You glanced up from the notes you were taking and smiled sheepishly. “Is it that obvious?”

Ahryun nodded and gestured to your neck. “Very. Did he give you that necklace?”

Almost instinctively, your hand reached to hold the pendant. You hadn’t taken it off since last night. Which was outstanding, considering you rarely wore jewelry.

“Wah, Donghyuck must really like you,” Ahryun smiled. “I wish I had a boyfriend to buy me expensive gifts.”

You shook your head. “That’s not why I like him though. The more I get to know Donghyuck, the more I see what a thoughtful person he is.”

Ahryun’s eyes widened with interest.  “Tell me more about him.”

Out of habit, you folded your arms self-consciously when she leaned forward on the table. Maybe your lack of experience in relationships was the reason it felt so weird to talk about, now that you were actually in one. Back in high school, Ahryun was the one who’d be going on and on about her past boyfriends. You were pretty sure all the boys in your grade crushed on her at least once.

A part of you used to envy her. Ahryun had the type of beauty that didn’t require much effort. She always had the best features, the best fashion sense, and the best social skills. Once you started university, you thought Ahryun would end up being one of those campus couples. So even now, you were still surprised how things were the other way around.

“We’ve been dating for almost seven months now. But it feels like he and I have known each other forever,” You spoke honestly, twirling a pencil in your left hand. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, but I’m ready to open up to Donghyuck about…you know.”

The intrigued expression on Ahryun’s face disappeared. “Oh (Y/n), are you still…?”

A part of you wanted to hide under the table when her eyes darted to your right arm. Despite it being fully concealed by your white sweater, you instinctively pulled the sleeve down further out of paranoia. Almost no one knew about the dark secret that hid beneath the fabric.

Ahryun was the only person at the university who knew about your history of mental illness. Due to the toxic environment, you grew up in, you’ve always been an anxious child. As you matured, you constantly doubted yourself, convinced that you were merely fabricating everything within your own mind. It wasn’t until high school that those insecurities sought to completely destroy you.

The present you still hated yourself. But back then, the self-hatred stored inside of you was immense. Eventually, a box cutter came into your possession. Tenth grade was the beginning of your long, messy history with self-harm. Things got so bad in the last year of high school that you recklessly ran into a busy street. You could still hear the sound of the car horns blaring.

Unfortunately, your attempt to end your life failed. Your actions led to an unwelcome reputation that spread like wildfire through the entire school. You became labeled as the "crazy suicide girl," attracting gawking students in the hallways and the judgmental gazes of teachers. Amidst this turmoil, Ahryun remained steadfast as your true friend, standing unwaveringly by your side, providing much-needed support throughout it all.

After going through that trauma, you knew that anxiety would be a lifelong battle for you. But since starting university, you were in a far better place than you were at seventeen years old.

“I haven’t done it since I met Donghyuck,” You answered honestly. “But I still think he deserves to know, don’t you think?”

Ahryun leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, pondering on how to respond.

“To be honest, I don’t think telling him is a good idea.”

Confusion crossed your eyes. “Why?”

“Most guys leave their girlfriends right away when they find out they’re…mentally ill,” Ahryun slowly explained. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Donghyuck walked out on you right after you told him.”

The small bubble of optimism in you burst. You have heard stories in relation to what Ahryun was talking about. 

“But not all men are like that, right? Donghyuck isn’t the type to--”

Ahryun cut you off quickly and exhaled in frustration. “Seven months might seem long because this is your first relationship, (Y/n). Donghyuck might not get angry now if you tell him about your anxiety. But he’ll eventually get tired of helping you, and leave. Do you want that?”

No, that was the last thing you wanted. Ahryun was right. Your relationship with Donghyuck was the longest you’ve experienced, but it was also the only one. Though you knew him well now, there was no way of knowing what he might be like in the coming years. 

“Besides, Donghyuck is a busy person,” Ahryun continued. “He has to balance his studies with all the clubs he’s in, and his internship. Telling him his girlfriend has anxiety would just add more stress to his life.”

Your friend’s words left a sting in your heart. But you found yourself agreeing with her. You knew—possibly better than anyone, how much he had on his plate lately. On top of all that, he managed to make time for you too. Maybe you were being too selfish.

“Yeah…I don’t know what I was thinking.” You brushed the conversation off. “Just forget I said anything.”

When you defeatedly went back to taking notes, you missed the satisfied smirk on your best friend’s face.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter three ~

Even though a few days had passed, that conversation with Ahryun kept replaying in your head. You felt like an ongoing battle was being fought internally. Your heart wanted to open up to Donghyuck. But your brain kept reminding you of Ahryun’s warnings. You hated yourself for overthinking things like this.

Your distraction left you a little dazed, and you found yourself zoning out throughout the day. In chemistry class, you made a conscious effort to push those bothersome thoughts aside. You listened attentively when the senior TA, Jaehyun explained today's lab procedures at the start of class.

Fortunately, you had Huang Renjun as your lab partner. He appeared to know what he was doing, a lot better than you did. At the beginning of the semester, the two of you were both a little shy and kept to yourselves. It wasn’t until you met him outside of class that you became more acquainted with the male. Coincidentally, Renjun turned out to be your boyfriend’s roommate and good friend. So the two of you naturally became closer after discovering this mutual connection.

“I think we’re almost finished.” Renjun’s gentle voice stole your attention away from the data table in front of you.

You tried to hold your pen steadily, watching him carefully mix the measured solutions into one beaker. Once he did, you quickly wrote down your observations in a lab journal. Thanks to Renjun, your experiment for the day ran pretty smoothly.

It wasn’t until after completing the lab that something went wrong. While Renjun was washing his hands, you took it upon yourself to return the supplies you guys used. The class was bustling around, cleaning up their stations. You gripped the slightly heavy tray in your hands tightly, trying to not let the crowded environment overwhelm you. 

Jaehyun, looking to offer some assistance, came up from behind you. “Do you need help (Y/n)—”

You jumped at the sudden sound of the TA’s deep voice, and the tray in your hands dropped onto the floor with a clang, shattering a beaker in the process. A not-so-nice word immediately shot into your mind thereafter. You could already feel the stares of other students and tried to ignore them. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!” Jaehyun quickly apologized, seeming just as alarmed as you were. 

You shook your head with a faint smile, and instinctively bent down to clean up the broken pieces of glass. “N-no it’s my fault, Sunbae. I should’ve been more careful.”

Jaehyun took a step back when Renjun rushed to your side with an apprehensive expression.

“Wait (Y/n), don’t use your bare hands to clean that. You’re going to hurt yourself,” Renjun said, reaching his hand out to stop you.

It was only after you registered his warning that you caught sight of crimson spots on your lab coat. You glanced down to see the palm of her hand bleeding profusely from a small cut. The previous shard of the glass must’ve been sharper than you anticipated.

Renjun cursed when he saw. “Oh no, that looks bad.”

Your brain went into panic mode when he took your hand to examine it. In doing so, your sleeve was accidentally pushed up, revealing several faded pink lines just below your wrist. Immediately, you tried to pull your arm away. But the look of dismay in Renjun’s eyes told you it was too late.

Before you could say anything, Renjun’s hand delicately enclosed around your wrist so that no one else would see what he saw. He cleared his throat and turned to Jaehyun.

“Sunbae, is it okay if I take (Y/n) to the nurse’s office?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flickered between you and Renjun, then gave a brisk nod. “Yes, take her. Make sure (Y/n)’s hand is properly cleaned and bandaged.”

“Don’t worry Sunbae, I’ll take care of her.” Renjun bobbed his head. “Let’s go, (Y/n).”

As Renjun escorted you out of the room, your front teeth anxiously sank into your lower lip. Neither of you said anything on the walk to the nurse’s office. Renjun politely asked the nurse for a first-aid kit. After obtaining it, he brought you to a secluded area to tend to your cut.

The silence between you continued, as he meticulously wiped the blood from your palm with a damp cloth. You had to use a great amount of willpower to prevent yourself from flinching as he applied ointment to the cut and then proceeded to bandage it.

Your breathing quickened when you felt his hand come in contact with your wrist. It was evident that he wanted to investigate further into what he saw earlier.

“Renjun, please.” You put your hand over his. “You don’t want to see them.”

Renjun’s eyes brimmed with melancholy. He’s never heard your voice sound so…fragile. Actually, he wasn’t certain if anyone had seen this side of you.

“You can trust me, (Y/n). I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he spoke with reassurance. 

You withdrew for a moment, debating whether or not to let him see. After taking a deep breath, you slowly rolled up your sleeve, revealing the marks which varied in different shades of pink and white.

The composed expression on Renjun’s face contorted into one of shock, an expected reaction that failed to quell the fear coursing through your veins. His fingers brushed over the scars, as he inspected them with a non-judgemental gaze.

But his words were still laced with worry. “(Y/n) these are…”

“Please don’t tell Donghyuck,” You cut him off with a whisper. 

Renjun’s brows knit together. “He doesn’t know about this?”

“He can’t.” Your head shook hastily. “If he finds out, he’ll see the truth and realize how crazy I am. He’ll leave me.”

The look in Renjun’s eyes softened as he placed a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“Listen to me, (Y/n). I don’t know what you’re struggling with. But I know that Donghyuck would never leave you for something like this. He’ll want to help and support you.”

You let Renjun's encouragement sink into your head. Could it be true that Donghyuck wouldn’t judge if he found out this dark secret of yours? Or would it be wiser to pay attention to Ahryun’s advice, and keep it to yourself like you were used to?

“I…I just don’t know.” Your voice faltered.

Renjun gave you an understanding smile. “You should tell him when you’re ready.”

You let out a shaky breath, allowing the weight of the conversation to settle on your chest. A part of you wanted to believe Renjun was right about all of this. After a moment of silence, you glanced up and gestured to your wrapped-up hand.

“Thank you. I’m sorry you had to see all this,” you said, feeling a twinge of guilt.

Before you could add anything, Renjun embraced you in a warm hug, catching you off guard. His actions came as a surprise, given that he was typically the least physically affectionate person in your friend group.

“Don’t apologize. You’re my friend too, Kang (Y/n), and I’m here for you.”

You had to force yourself to look up at the bland ceiling to keep the tears at bay. But just as they began to prick the corner of your eyes, the sound of sneakers creaking against the floor stole your attention. Both of your heads turned to see a light-haired boy dashing down the hallway.

“Yah, Kang (Y/n)!” 

You sprang away from Renjun’s arms and checked to make sure your scars were concealed before standing up. Donghyuck’s sprint came to a stop and his eyes widened with panic as he saw your bandaged hand.

“I was so worried when Jaehyun Hyung told me what happened. Are you okay?” He moved towards you, immediately pulling you into his embrace. 

You released a small breath, surrendering to the comfort of Donghyuck's embrace. Even though you would never confess it, his hugs were always a source of warmth and tenderness that could soothe any pain. It was in moments like these when you cherished his comfort. Even if he didn’t know what was going on.

“It’s just a scratch, Hyuck. I’m sorry for worrying you,” You insisted, glancing at Renjun with a pleading look.

Renjun understood you were silently asking him not to say anything. Honestly, his care for your mental state made him not want to listen to you. But at the same time, he knew he had to respect your decisions. 

After a few moments, Donghyuck pulled away to gently place his hand over the left side of your face. His eyes searched yours momentarily, before dropping down to your right hand.

You held it up for him to see. “Renjun helped wrap it up for me. So I’ll be fine.”

The tension in Donghyuck’s shoulders lessened a bit. He gave his friend an appreciative smile. “Thanks for looking after her, Renjun-ah.”

“Anytime,” Renjun hummed. He grabbed his bag and closed the first aid kit. “I have to go return this. See you guys later, take care (Y/n).”

Once Renjun left, Donghyuck focused his attention back on you. He used the soft padding of his thumb to gently caress your cheek.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He asked with a slight pout. 

You nodded and squeezed his hand reassuringly.  It was endearing to see how worried Donghyuck was for you, and almost sickeningly sweet. You weren’t even that injured, but he still ran out of class. His actions only made you feel more loved.

However, Renjun's words from earlier lingered in your mind, and you realized that Donghyuck was your safe haven in moments like these. Although Ahryun's words still weighed heavily on you, you knew you couldn't keep your secret from Donghyuck any longer. He cared for you deeply, and as your significant other, he deserved to know.

▃▃▃

Later that day, Donghyuck and you decided to head back to your apartment. After an hour of studying, he suggested getting some takeout and continuing the drama series you’ve both been hooked on. The two of you sat at the far end of the sofa, snuggling underneath a fluffy white blanket.

As you rested your head against your boyfriend’s chest, you had to admit that being in his arms felt especially comforting that night. With the events of the day still weighing on you, the steady rhythm of Donghyuck’s heartbeat provided a soothing backdrop and eased the tension in your body.

Toward the second half of the episode, the female lead got into a heated argument with her boyfriend. The tension had risen after she reluctantly revealed her ex had been engaging in abrasive behavior in a poor attempt to win her back. 

“How long has this been going on for?” The man looked at her with a betrayed expression.

The woman crossed her arms insecurely and replied hesitantly. “The past two months.”

“Why did you wait so long to say something?” He demanded, slamming his wine glass on the table.

“Because I knew you’d react like this!” She retorted, frustration flashing in her eyes. 

The man scoffed in disbelief, running his fingers through his hair. “That’s not good enough! You shouldn’t have kept this from me.”

A feeling of unease filled you, as you witnessed the man stand up and storm out of the restaurant. You subtly glanced up at Donghyuck, wondering what he thought about the scene.

“Do you think he was overreacting?” You asked softly. 

Donghyuck tilted his head slightly, “Yeah, a little. But I understand why he’s upset at her for hiding something like that.”

“Well, I think she just didn’t want to worry him.” Your voice trailed off.

“I get that,” He said. “But he’s her partner, and keeping secrets from one another will only hurt their relationship.

“What would you do if I was keeping a secret?” You questioned hypothetically. “Like if I didn’t say anything because I thought it might hurt you?”

Donghyuck paused for a moment before answering honestly. “I would be more hurt if you didn’t trust me enough to be truthful. It’s important that we share things, even if it may be hard to hear at times.”

Listening to your boyfriend’s thoughts only caused a small knot of apprehension to form in your stomach. 

“You wouldn’t judge me or abandon me if I confided in you then?” You hoped he couldn’t hear the timidity in your voice.

He brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The touch he left sent a tingling sensation down your spine. “Never. Whatever you’d be going through, I’d be by your side.”

You felt something catch in your throat as his sweet words sank in. When you first met, Donghyuck’s humorous behavior made you think he never took anything seriously. But talking to him now, you didn’t think you’d encountered a person who was more genuine than he was.

Taking his response as a confirmation to trust him, a rare feeling of determination consumed you. Reluctantly, you removed yourself from the comfort of Donghyuck’s arms and turn to face him.

“Actually Donghyuck, can I tell you something?”

A gentle concern filled the sun-kissed boy’s eyes as he sat up with you. His hand already reached out to grab your bandaged one, quelling the nerves that had quickly built up inside of you.

“Of course, Jagiya,” He responded patiently. “Whatever it is, I’m here to listen.”

You couldn’t think of a better moment to let Lee Donghyuck fully into your heart. The fear of what might or might not happen was not going to hold you back this time. He waited patiently, as you mentally pieced together what you were about to say. Your heart felt like it was about to jump out of your chest, but you tried to shake off the feeling. You haven’t been this nervous since the first time Donghyuck confessed to you.

After releasing a single deep breath, your lips parted to speak. “Hyuck there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you—”

However, your sentence was cut off by the sound of the front door being unlocked. Bursting through the door came your roommate, Yuna, her eyes wide with panic. Her ragged breathing made it evident she had rushed over here.

“Eonni, have you seen the latest post on UniYeon?” 

The mention of Yeonsung’s community site left you puzzled, your brows furrowing in bewilderment. You and your boyfriend exchanged looks of confusion.

“What are you talking about?” You tried to appear composed and unbothered by the disruption. When in reality, you were just trying to conceal the growing unease within you.

Yuna kicked off her sneakers before walking across the room. She pulled out her phone to show what she was referring to.

“I was studying in the library with my friends and some guys were talking about an article posted about you…” 

Donghyuck leaned in beside you to catch a glimpse. His actions prompted you to narrow your eyes in an attempt to decipher the tiny black Korean characters at the top of the screen. The headline read, Kang (Y/n) Spotted Holding Hands with Huang Renjun! 

You blinked a few times, wondering if you were hallucinating for a second. But the accusing words didn’t disappear. You tried to search for the name of the student who wrote this. But the post was anonymous. 

“What the hell?” Donghyuck hastily grabbed the phone. 

He scrolled down, revealing photos of you and Renjun in the hall earlier that day. The hall was usually empty, which made the situation look suspicious. The angles at which the photos were taken created an illusion that you were holding the boy’s hand as he knelt in front of you. When in reality, Renjun was only tending to the cut on your palm. 

“This is ridiculous. How can anyone believe this crap?” He scoffed. 

“Are you okay Eonni?” Your roommate’s voice was barely audible to you. An overwhelming feeling of dread was already beginning to consume you.

But you managed to plaster on a light-hearted smile. “It’s fine, Yuna. Thanks for letting me know.”

Yuna gave you an apologetic look as she accepted her phone back before excusing herself from the room. After she left, you reached for your laptop to pull up the article and stopped at the comment section. 

What an ungrateful b*tch! How dare she cheat on Lee Donghyuck?!

Omo, who does she think she is, going after her boyfriend’s close friend?

Aish, it’s always the sneaky quiet ones that are the devils in disguise.

Donghyuck put his hand over yours before you could scroll any further. Despite the anger simmering about the situation, he recognized the difficult position you were put in.

“Don’t listen to the garbage spewing out of their mouths.” He said firmly, closing the laptop. “We both know the truth, and that’s all that matters.”

“But still…I should’ve been more careful,” You muttered warily, running your fingers through your hair. 

He quickly reached to take your hand in his. “Hey, none of this is your fault, (Y/n)-ah. Don’t waste your energy on people who have nothing better to do than spread rumors.”

Your shoulders sank, taking in his words. His response was so natural and confident, leaving you in awe by how he didn’t place any blame on you. 

“Yeah, you’re right.” You return to your previous cuddling position and rest your head on his chest.

You felt the boy smile as his arms encircled your waist. “Oh, right. Weren’t you going to tell me something?”

Your mind raced back to what the two of you were talking about earlier. Hesitation filled you, and that small bout of courage you had was gone. 

“Oh—um, it can wait,” You brushed him off.

Donghyuck noticed your gaze shift downward, and he was about to encourage you to just tell him whatever it was right then. But then you snuggled closer to him, gently squeezing his waist.

“I just want to stay like this for a little longer,” You murmured into his t-shirt, trying to push away all the bad thoughts.

His heart quickened, and he couldn’t stop the stupid grin that formed. He wondered how someone could possibly be this adorable. While a part of him was still curious about what you were saying earlier, he was content with having you in his arms for now.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter four ~

Ahryun glanced at her reflection on her phone screen anticipatingly, as she stood under the camellia tree at the heart of the campus. Earlier this morning, Donghyuck asked if they could meet up. Receiving a text from the popular male was enough to make her heart skip a beat. Her mind instantly overflowed with all the possible reasons why he asked to meet her. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long, as he showed up in his favorite blue drawstring hoodie and a pair of black ripped jeans.

“Hey, thanks for responding so fast.” He quickly greeted her.

“Of course. What did you want to talk to me about?” She asked sweetly. 

Donghyuck was too distracted to notice the dreamy smile that graced Ahryun’s lips. He wasted no time in getting to the point. “It’s just…(Y/n). You saw the post yesterday, right?”

“I did,” Ahryun slowly answered. Her smile faded as a tinge of disappointment quickly clouded her previously optimistic disposition. 

“People have been making a lot of stupid comments,” he male shook his head. “And even though she might pretend to be okay, I know this is affecting her. So I wanted to ask if you could keep her occupied?”

“Keep her occupied?”

Donghyuck’s eyes fell to the ground, before nodding. “I wish I could be with her, but my internship is today. And I thought since you’re her best friend, you could try to distract her from looking at her phone too much?”

Ahryun inhaled, trying to suppress her outrage. She should’ve known he would bring up her. What was so great about you that made Donghyuck feel like he needed to protect you from the real world? 

Holding back the urge to scoff, Ahryun masked her emotions behind a forced smile.

“Silly, I was already planning to take her out today,” She said. “But I would’ve done so even if you didn’t ask me to.”

The boy in front of her visibly relaxed, a look of relief washing over his face. “Yeokshi, Min Ahryun. I knew I could count on you.”

Her heart fluttered when he gave her an appreciative smile. He certainly wasn’t one of Yeonsung’s prince charmings for no reason. 

Donghyuck checked his watch and let out a soft curse under his breath. “I gotta go. My class starts in 11 minutes.”

Ahryun nodded understandingly before holding her hand out to stop him from leaving.

“Honestly, I’ve been worried about (Y/n) too, and not just because of the community post,” She admitted.

He turned to her with a confused look and waited for her to continue. She hesitated briefly before speaking up.

“She got diagnosed with anxiety last year. But I’m sure you already knew, right?”

His heart instantly sank to his stomach upon this revelation. A part of him wanted to believe Ahryun was joking. But you had been acting strange yesterday. Was this what you were trying to tell him about?

Ahryun fought back a sly grin, finding it hard to contain her amusement at his dismay. She pretended to be shocked with a feigned gasp. “Oh my, she probably didn’t want you to find out. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Anxiety? She didn’t…she never said…” 

Your friend grabbed his wrist in panic. "Please, Donghyuck-ah, you can't let her know that I told you. It's a sensitive topic for her, and she must have hidden it from you for a reason."

Based on the dumbfounded expression on his face, it was evident that the boy was rendered speechless. Ahryun had achieved the exact reaction she wanted. Donghyuck would never see you as that sweet and shy girl anymore. You resembled a fragile Jenga tower, seemingly growing taller. But it would only take a single block for you to collapse.

▃▃▃

You had thought about skipping class today. However, the rational part of your brain that wouldn’t allow anything to disrupt your academic focus, screamed a resounding “no” to you. Donghyuck offered to walk you to class, not wanting you to go alone. But you kindly declined, knowing his class was on the opposite side of campus. You weren’t going to trouble him with the extra distance.

However, the regret of that decision slowly crept up on you as soon as you set foot on campus. You didn't know what part of you believed you could handle the relentless gazes and barely restrained whispers all by yourself. Each passing minute in class felt like an eternity, with lingering glances directed your way. You felt as though you were under a microscope, a new specimen being scrutinized.

You released a quiet sigh, redirecting your focus to the professor's lecture. Aware that this was your last class for the day, you reminded yourself that enduring it for a mere fifty minutes was manageable. 

However, by the time the lecture was over, you had barely taken five steps when the buzzing of your phone disrupted your escape plan. Letting out a small sigh, you reached into your bag to take out the cellular device. The notification turned out to be a text from Ahryun four minutes ago. She had sent a message asking if you were out of class and wanted to meet up after.

On any other occasion, you would have readily agreed. But in that particular moment, all you wanted to do was retreat to the comfort of your apartment. You began to type a polite decline to her, as you made your way out of class. Coincidentally, the male you were currently caught up in a scandal with, approached you. 

“Hey, can we talk for a second?” He spoke in a hushed tone.

You mentally groaned at the icy reception students gave when they saw the two of you in the same place. Although you were pretty sure you were the one they were rolling their eyes at. Renjun shot a condescending glare at anyone who looked for too long.

After moving outside, Renjun let out a heavy sigh. “I’m really sorry about this, (Y/n). It’s unbelievable that someone would take photos of us like that.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” You replied with a faint smile. “Remember the threats I received when Donghyuck and I first started dating? I should be used to this by now.”

Your boyfriend’s roommate glanced at you with a mixture of concern and frustration in his eyes. “But that doesn’t make it right. Especially when it comes to invading your privacy and spreading rumors,” He deadpanned. 

You didn't anticipate Renjun being just as furious as Donghyuck about the situation. It warmed your heart to know that you had people in your life who cared deeply for you and were ready to stand up for you. It made you wish you could be as strong-minded as them.

Just as you were about to respond, your conversation was abruptly cut short. 

"There you are, Kang (Y/n). I've been looking for you!" You turned towards Ahryun, who was swiftly making her way down the hallway towards you and Renjun.

“Oh sorry. I was just about to answer your text,” You said sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck. 

A look of understanding flashed in her eyes before she noticed Renjun standing beside you. She warily gestured between the two of you with her finger. “Won’t it be suspicious if people see you together right now? Unless you guys are actually…”

“No, it’s not like that,” You stopped her from finishing her sentence, your brows furrowing in puzzlement. Did she seriously believe that you and Renjun would go behind Donghyuck’s back like that?

Renjun promptly came to your defense. “Yeah, I was just checking if (Y/n) was alright.”

The slightest trace of irritation could be heard in his voice as if he felt no need to provide Ahryun with an explanation when nothing was going on.

In response, Ahryun chuckled and playfully tapped you on the arm. "Wow, you two got so serious all of a sudden. I was just teasing," she said with a lighthearted tone.

You breathed a small sigh of relief, silently reprimanding yourself for entertaining the thought that your closest friend would think so low of you. 

 “I was thinking we should go see a movie today,” She said, linking her arm through yours. 

To which you responded with a hesitant expression, contemplating the idea. “I don’t know…I kind of just want to go home.”

“Oh come on, going out on a day like this will help take your mind off things,” Ahryun persisted. “You can join us if you’d like Renjun-ssi.”

Renjun declined with a polite smile, “Thanks, but I’m supposed to meet up with my group for a project this evening. You guys have fun though.”

You nodded understandingly, giving a friendly wave to Renjun before Ahryun took the lead, guiding you away.

▃▃▃

You zoned out during the movie, barely noticing when it reached its conclusion. Your mind seemed elsewhere, and you were only vaguely aware of the film coming to an end. Ahryun went to get a refill on her drink, while you waited for her near the entrance doors.

“(Y/n)?” A voice called out, capturing your attention. As you turned, your gaze fell upon a boy wearing a black hoodie adorned with a charming cat design. He was holding a half eaten bucket of popcorn.

“Oh hi, Jeno. What are you doing here?”

Jeno approached you with a friendly smile in return. “Jaemin dragged me here to watch this action movie with him. How about you?”

“I came here with Ahryun,” You replied. Jeno nodded in acknowledgment.

“How are you and Donghyuck?” He asked. “I heard you two recently celebrated your 200-day anniversary.”

You couldn't help but blush at the mention of such a seemingly trivial milestone. “It’s not that big of a deal,” You said, lowering your gaze.

“Well, I’d say reaching day 200 with Lee Donghyuck is quite an achievement. His relationships in high school barely made it past 20 days,” Jeno teasingly remarked, earning a laugh from you.

Jeno laughed along with you before adding, “But seriously, Donghyuck is lucky to have you. You guys have something special.” 

His words carried a genuine warmth, which you appreciated. It surprised you every time when one of Donghyuck’s friends showed genuine acceptance toward you. They had been so quick to welcome you into their friend group when you two first started dating.

“Thanks, Jeno,” you said, hoping he could feel the sincerity in your words. 

Why should you care about the opinions of others when you had all the encouragement you needed? The unwavering support from Donghyuck's friends and the strength of your bond with him made any external judgments or remarks seem insignificant.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter five ~

"Okay, you have got to be kidding me," you groaned in frustration as you glanced at your phone. 

The sight that greeted you was a series of pictures of you and Jeno from the other day, and now the online community site was blowing up with speculation. The comments were even worse than the last time. Before you could go down a rabbit hole of scrolling, Donghyuck swiftly snatched your phone out of your grasp.

“Hyuck,” you softly protested, extending your hand to retrieve your phone back. But he pulled his arm back, keeping the device out of reach.

“Nope.” He shook his head. “I’m confiscating this for today.”

“But–”

Donghyuck placed a quick peck on your lips before you could finish that sentence. “You shouldn’t care about what they think, babe.”

He glanced back at the article with an annoyed sigh. He didn’t understand why people were going after you. Couldn’t they just leave your relationship alone?

“Are you alright, though?” He asked, placing a hand over yours.

You nodded, “Of course I am.”

Of course, you were lying. The recent posts and the increased gossip bothered you more than they should. A part of you blamed yourself for all this happening. But you couldn’t tell Donghyuck that. Worrying him wasn’t going to make things better.

“Well if you are struggling, you can tell me okay?” He gave your hand a gentle squeeze.

For some reason, you sensed a subtle undercurrent of concern in his words. But you brushed it off as your tendency to overthink things, convincing yourself it was nothing.

Later that day, you were hanging out at Ahryun’s apartment. You lay flat on the floor in her bedroom, staring up at the ceiling while countless thoughts swam in your head. 

“I just don’t understand why this keeps happening,” you sighed, venting your frustrations. “It’s like no matter where I go, someone is watching.”

Ahryun cast a glance back at you through her vanity mirror. "Someone must really not want you two together.”

“You think?” You frowned. 

A lot of people didn’t like you being with Donghyuck. But whoever kept posting photos of you on the community site was clearly targeting you, leaving you apprehensive about the situation.

“Well I’m sure there are plenty of girls who find it difficult to accept you and Donghyuck being together,” Ahryun spoke nonchalantly, as she picked out a pink lip tint to wear. “They just can’t stand the fact that the popular and charming Lee Donghyuck is with someone so different.”

You pondered whether you truly were that different as Ahryun said. Sure, you might not come from a privileged background or possess the most striking physical appearance. You were ordinary, just like everyone else. What was so wrong about that?

“But seriously, you shouldn’t let it bother you (Y/n). There will always be people who will hate on you,” Ahryun said.

“Yeah you’re right…”

She did have a valid point. As long as you remained a college student navigating a judgmental society, criticism would inevitably be a part of your experience. Dwelling on it wasn’t going to get you anywhere.

Letting out a sigh, you sat up and directed your gaze towards the clock on Ahryun's nightstand, realizing the time.

"Hey, can I borrow your phone for a moment?" you asked, breaking the silence. "I should message Donghyuck to let him know I'm here."

"Of course," Ahryun smiled warmly, extending her hand to pass you the device.

Mouthing a quick thank-you, you received Ahryun's phone and swiftly began searching for your boyfriend's contact information. Just as you located his number, a notification popped up, drawing your attention. Your curiosity piqued, you briefly glanced at the preview, which read: "Someone commented on your post, 'Kang (Y/n) Seen Out with Lee Jeno at the Movies'." Having a weird feeling, you clicked on the notification, leading you to the UniYeon app. Scrolling up, your disbelief grew as you discovered that Ahryun…was the owner of the post

Overwhelmed, you decided to investigate further and opened her photo gallery. To your astonishment, you discovered numerous pictures of you and Renjun, followed by images of you and Jeno. 

No, you couldn’t fathom this. Ahryun was your closest friend. She was someone you trusted wholeheartedly. She would never…

"Ahryun... what is all this?" you asked, confusion evident in your voice. A part of you desperately hoped that none of this could be true.

Ahryun spun around in her chair and met the look of betrayal in your eyes. She cursed when she saw you had the post open on her phone.

"(Y/n), I can explain—," she began. 

You stepped back, unable to fully comprehend the situation. "Wait, so it was you all along? Why…" 

Ahryun turned away, averting her gaze for a moment. Amid the tense silence, you caught the faint sound of a laugh slipping out from her lips.

“You know, you’re really pathetic Kang (Y/n),” She sneered, her words cutting through the air with a sharp edge. “Yes, it was me.”

You were startled by the sudden change in your best friend’s demeanor. “Why would you do that? The whole school is talking crap about me because of those posts.”

Ahryun fixed her gaze upon you, her expression lacked any remorse. There was an unsettling absence of any regret in her eyes, almost as if she were relieved to be exposed in this way. It was as if she had been waiting for the moment to discard the pretense of caring about you.

“Because I’ve liked Donghyuck long before you did,” she confessed. “I got tired of seeing you with him.”

Her resentful words revealed the depth of her hidden emotions. Your heart sank further, as you processed things. The revelation hit you like a tidal wave, making sense of Ahryun’s actions. 

“So you wanted to sabotage me?” You shook your head in disbelief. “Why…we’ve been friends for so long.”

A smirk tugged at the corners of Ahryun's lips, her eyes gleaming with a hint of cruel satisfaction as she observed the wavering in your voice. Witnessing you in such a vulnerable state, after so long, seemed to gratify her.

“No matter how many times I thought about it, I just don’t get why he had to be with you, of all girls,” she said bitterly. 

You took a deep breath, trying to process the magnitude of Ahryun’s actions. Seeing this new side of her left you questioning the authenticity of your friendship. Doubt crept in, as you considered the possibility that she had been pretending to be your friend this whole time.

“So you thought going behind my back and spreading false information about me would make us break up?”

"We both know how fragile you can be," Ahryun said slowly, her words carrying a calculated edge. "Like you were in high school."

The implication of her statement cut deep, resurrecting memories of past vulnerabilities. It felt as if she was exploiting your past struggles to justify her actions, further fueling the hurt and confusion that consumed you.

Before you could counter her words, Ahryun forcefully took hold of your arm. You gasped when she yanked your sleeves up, exposing the scars that held too many painful memories.

“Just remember that if he sees these hideous scars,” She threatened. “And when he does, he’ll see how broken you are. Nobody wants someone who is mentally unstable.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, as you’ve never felt more defenseless. She was using your past struggles as a weapon to tear you apart. Then to further sting to her words, she placed her hand on your shoulder as a twisted display of false comfort.

“If you can’t handle the facts, maybe you guys shouldn’t be together,” She said.

You stood up, gripping your bag tightly, and met her icy glare.

“Donghyuck isn't who you think he is,” you managed to say, your voice quivering. “He loves me, and nothing you say or do will ever change that.”

With a heavy heart, you turned away, a rush of long-forgotten emotions flooding through you. You didn’t bother to stop the tears from falling as you walked away. As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you could already sense yourself slipping back into the depths of a dark place you hadn't visited since your teenage years.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter six ~

A week had passed since your fallout with Ahryun, and you were doing your best to not let things get to you. But it was hard not to. You spent sleepless nights thinking about how things went wrong, and the subtle indications you failed to notice. Like her evident intrigue whenever you spoke about him, or the way her eyes lit up whenever his name was mentioned. 

Nevertheless, you buried yourself in your schoolwork in hopes to tune out everything that was happening. Donghyuck noticed you seemed more withdrawn lately. You could see the concern in him growing, but you insisted that everything was fine.

One day you were on your way to meet Donghyuck after his class and stopped in the cafeteria to buy drinks for the both of you. You were inserting a dollar bill into the vending machine when a group of girls approached you unexpectedly. Their focused glares at you were filled with disdain and judgment.

“Look at that, it’s Kang (Y/n) the cheater.” one of the girls said, her voice dripping with hostility. “First it was Huang Renjun, and then Lee Jeno. Who’s next, Na Jaemin?”

You shrank back slightly, clenching your fists as you fought to maintain your composure. Despite them being three harmless girls, any sort of conflict easily intimidated you. Your heart raced, and a surge of anxiety threatened to overwhelm you, but you were determined to stand your ground.

 “Please, you don’t know anything,” you said, your voice firm and steady. “So stay out of it.”

“You see, no one believes that quiet nice girl facade you try to uphold,” the girl beside the first one, scowled. “If you’re smart, you’d break up with him. I’m sure you’re aware that you don’t deserve him.”

You tried to not show them how their words pierced through you like a needle. The hate comments were bad enough. But being confronted in person made the situation ten times scarier.

Determined to not succumb to their empty threats, you grabbed the beverages from the vending machine and made the move to leave. But before you could escape their presence, the third girl twisted the cap off her soda bottle and spilled it on you. In mere seconds your clothes were drenched in the sticky liquid.

“Oops, my bad,” she laughed mockingly. 

A wave of humiliation crashed over you, as you felt the weight of the stares and the whispers echoing through the cafeteria. Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted Ahryun standing from a distance, watching in amusement. Was this all some twisted joke to her?

Back in high school, she was the only one who defended you. Now knowing her support and loyalty had been fake, made the sight of her standing idly by more painful.

Just as you were ready to break down, a voice yelled from behind you.

“Yah, what the hell do you think you’re doing to her?”

Turning your gaze, you saw Donghyuck storming into the cafeteria. His eyes were blazing with anger. 

“Hyuck—” You tried to stop him before he could make the situation worse. But he was too angry to listen.

“You think it’s acceptable to gang up on someone based on false information?” His eyes glowered intensely. “You have no right to harass her or make judgments without knowing the whole truth.”

The cafeteria fell into an uneasy silence, the whispers fading into the background as his words reverberated through the space. The girls who had targeted you were momentarily taken aback by Donghyuck's unyielding defense, their expressions shifting from arrogance to uncertainty.

Deciding he had enough of this, Donghyuck firmly grasped your hand and guided you away from the prying eyes and tense atmosphere. He let out a sigh of concern as his gaze fell upon the stained fabric of your shirt, prompting him to remove his hoodie and put it on you.

“I’m so sorry (Y/n),” he mumbled, even though he wasn’t the one who should be apologizing. “Are you okay?”

You shook your head. “I’m fine, Hyuck. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure though?” he asked, extending his hand towards you.

But you took a step back, feeling frustrated. “Yes, I already told you. I’m fine.”

“(Y/n)—”

“I just… I just want to be alone right now, okay?” You placed the drink you bought in his hands and walked past him.

Later that night, you found yourself once again unable to fall asleep. It felt like the troublesome thoughts in your head were slowly killing you, weighing heavily on your conscience. The weight of self-blame consumed you, as you couldn't help but think that all of this was your fault. It’s been so long since you felt this way, completely worthless. You didn’t deserve to have someone as sweet as Donghyuck in your life. 

Without thinking much, you sluggishly sat down in your desk chair and absentmindedly opened the drawer. Inside lay an old friend you hadn't laid eyes on in ages. Ignoring the creeping sense of dread, you lifted the gleaming box cutter from the drawer.

Holding your breath, you tightly gripped the handle and pulled up your sleeve. You barely felt it when the cold blade punctured your flesh, tracing a diagonal line across your pale skin. Tears streamed down your cheek as you repeated the same incisions, mirroring the first one. The sensation of hot blood seeping out became palpable with each new cut.

You honestly didn't know how you would react if Donghyuck were to witness you in this state. The fear of him discovering the depth of your brokenness was more terrifying than the fresh scars that adorned your skin. Perhaps Ahryun was right, maybe you couldn’t handle this.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter seven ~

You kept your gaze locked on the steaming cup of hot chocolate, anxiously waiting for the arrival of your boyfriend. He rushed into the café with an apologetic smile, as he sat down in the empty chair across from you.

“Sorry, I’m late. Renjun needed my help with something,” he said.

In response, you slid the other drink in his direction with an understanding smile. “I got your usual.”

"You are the best," he praised, lifting the cup of coffee to his lips for a sip.

You listened quietly as he shared about how busy he’s been lately with school and his internship. However, the gnawing sensation in your stomach kept you from fully focusing on the conversation.

“Oh, right!” Donghyuck’s eyes lit up as if a light bulb suddenly went off in his brain. “Your birthday is coming up, babe. What do you want to do?”

It was at that moment, you recognized the pressing need to speak up before your courage slipped away.

“Donghyuck…there’s something I have to say,” you spoke cautiously. 

The confusion in his eyes, when you used his full name, was almost unbearable for you to see. But he waited expectantly to hear whatever you were about to say. The fact that he was oblivious to the reason you asked him to meet you here made you feel nauseated. You were aware that you couldn't continue to tiptoe around the issue for much longer.

Taking a deep breath, you locked eyes with him once more. Without allowing any room for hesitation, you uttered the next three words with unwavering determination.

"Let’s break up.”

You witnessed his face falter, a stunned look settling in as he struggled to comprehend the gravity of the situation.

“(Y/n)...what are you saying?” he chuckled half-heartedly. “You’re not being serious, right?”

Biting down on your lip, you used the explanation you had carefully prepared. “I realized that I can’t do this whole campus couple thing anymore. It feels suffocating, like every moment we spend together, people are watching and waiting to criticize me for something."

“I…I had no idea you felt that way,” Donghyuck swallowed, his voice tinged with surprise at your confession. “But (Y/n), we can work through this. I promise—”

“No, we can’t,” you deadpanned. “You should find someone better than me.”

You’ve never despised yourself more than you did in this moment. The hurt in his eyes reflected your own, a stark reminder that you were the source of his new pain.

In dismay, Donghyuck reached for your hand in desperation. “(Y/n) please, don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve already made up my mind,” your voice trembled with a mix of despondence and resignation.

Slowly you reached behind your neck and unclasped the necklace he gave you a while ago. Holding back tears, you delicately placed the shimmering moon pendant in his hand. Returning this symbol of your connection was far more heart-wrenching than you had anticipated.

The weight of the decision pressing on your shoulders, you gathered your belongings and rose from your seat, your determination masking the cracks in your resolve. The distant echoes of his anguished voice calling after you tugged at your heart, but you ignored them. With quickened steps, you hastened out of the café, your eyes fixed on the path ahead, knowing that if you allowed yourself even a moment of hesitation, you’d give into your selfish emotions.

You never cried so hard in your life as you did that evening when you returned to your apartment. You had just pushed away the one person who had brought so much joy into your once gloomy life. But as long as your mind continued to waver, you understood the importance of keeping everyone at a distance was safer.

Even though it meant bringing an end to a love that was incredibly precious to you, deep down, you told yourself that things were better this way.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter eight ~

The next month following your breakup, felt like a self-imposed prison sentence. As the days blurred together, you had become a shadow of your former self. With the absence of your best friend and boyfriend, you found solace in isolation, confining yourself to the four walls of your apartment. It felt as if you were bound to your living space, only leaving to attend classes or go to your part-time job at the library.

The mere thought of encountering Donghyuck outside filled you with an overwhelming sense of unease, making it unbearable to step foot beyond the safety of your apartment. The idea of facing him, of seeing the pain reflected in his eyes or the awkwardness that would surely follow, was something you couldn't bring yourself to confront.

With your mental state continuing to deteriorate, you found yourself falling back into old habits. The blade in your drawer became the sinister companion you turned to when the emotional pain became too much. At some point, you stopped feeling anything as you wiped the crimson trails that traced down your arm.

Despite the tireless efforts of several friends, their attempts to reach out to you were met with distant silence and evasive responses. Renjun had repeatedly urged you to call him if you wanted to talk, while Jeno and Jaemin tried their best to cheer you up. However, their kind gestures only served to make your heartache worse. You knew that they were deeply concerned for both you and Donghyuck. 

Secretly, you harbored the hope that the breakup wasn’t affecting Donghyuck just as deeply as it was for you. In a bittersweet twist, now that he was no longer tied to you, all you wanted was for him to move on swiftly and find happiness without you.

On a Friday night, Jaemin had made his way to your apartment. He sat with you on the couch, saddened by your withdrawn state. The toll of your emotional turmoil was evident in your appearance. 

You had forsaken the delicate hues of your wardrobe, the creamy whites and light blues that once adorned your form, for a monochrome palette of darkness. Your complexion had lost its natural radiance, leaving your skin pale and lacking its usual vitality. Dark circles had etched their mark under your weary eyes, evidence of the sleepless nights and internal struggles you had endured.

“Come with me to the spring festival,” Jaemin suggested. “It’s your favorite event of the school year.”

You looked up at him with a weak smile, your eyes reflecting a mix of gratitude and despair. Subconsciously, you tugged down on the ends of your sleeves, afraid your scars might show. 

“I’m sorry Jaemin. But I really can’t...right now,” you mumbled. “It wouldn’t be right for me to go out and have fun.”

Jaemin’s expression filled with genuine concern, as he reached to put his hand on your shoulder. “Don’t say that (Y/n),” he said softly, his voice laced with empathy. “I understand that you’re having just as much of a hard time as Donghyuck is right now. But shutting yourself out from the rest of the world isn’t healthy. You know he wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

The mention of his name was enough to cause your lip to quiver. You raised a trembling hand to press against your watery eyes. 

Shaking your head, you lamented, “No, I don’t deserve your kindness or anyone else’s. I’m a terrible person. You don’t even know, Jaemin.”

It hurt Jaemin to see his friend so distraught. While he had a faint understanding of your tendency to self-criticize, he didn’t think you’d be this harsh on yourself. He had a hunch that you didn't truly desire to end things with Donghyuck.

You cried into Jaemin’s shoulder a bit, feeling oddly better after letting out some of your emotions. Once you calmed down, Jaemin tried to convince you again about the spring festival.

“Come on, it’ll be good for you to step outside for a bit,” He insisted. “You don’t even have to stay that long. If you’re not feeling it, I’ll bring you back here.”

Just the thought of stepping into a crowd after the recent events sent a shiver down your spine. But Jaemin’s unwavering support and effort to help you reclaim some sort of normalcy, made you feel guilty. Deep down, you knew you couldn’t keep hiding forever. Maybe, just maybe, you could go out this once for a little distraction.

With a hesitant nod, you gathered the strength to pull yourself off the couch. “Okay, Jaemin. I’ll try, but no promises.”

Jaemin jumped up with excitement, his face lighting up as he urged you to the door. Once you arrived at the festival, you were greeted by the enchanting glow of the hung-up lanterns and spring-themed music playing in the background. The sight of cherry blossom petals dancing in the air reminded you of why you liked the festival so much in the first place.

“Kang (Y/n), you made it!” Renjun waved to you from one of the booths. Jeno stood beside him and gave you a kind smile.

Seeing familiar faces reignited a small flicker of joy you haven’t experienced in a while. Gradually, you allowed yourself to be swept away by the night. You let the guys guide you through the vibrant booths, adorned by colorful decorations. The air was filled with the aroma of sizzling fishcakes and the subtle fragrance of peach-flavored soju. You made a conscious effort to ignore the icy stares that people directed toward you.

Amidst the bustle of the festivities, your eyes caught a glimpse of a certain two people seated on one of the benches. Donghyuck appeared to be slightly drunk, and Ahryun was sitting right beside him. Ignoring any feelings of unease, you discreetly walked closer to where they were. 

“I miss her so much. Nothing feels the same anymore without her,” Donghyuck blubbered. “I should’ve been there for her more and realized she was hurting.”

Ahryun reached out to tenderly hold his hand. “It’s not your fault, Donghyuck. (Y/n) made her own choices, and you shouldn’t be miserable because of her.”

She paused before gathering the courage to continue. “You know, I’ve liked you for some time now Donghyuck-ah.”

The boy’s expression shifted, caught off guard by Ahryun’s abrupt confession. He might be a little intoxicated, but his senses were still intact.

“I know how it sounds. But I liked you long before (Y/n) did,” Ahryun persisted. “And since you guys broke up I thought…”

“So what, you thought you could step in and replace (Y/n)? Is that it?” He started to question her intentions.

Ahryun’s eyes cried out with desperation. “I…I could be better for you than she was, Donghyuck. (Y/n) was just weak, unable to handle the challenges of being in a relationship.”

Donghyuck's eyes hardened, his protective instincts kicking in. "Aren't you her friend?" he asked. "Why are you talking about her like that?"

Ahryun's desperation heightened as she felt her chance slipping away. Ignoring his question, she leaned in closer, her voice now a seductive whisper. With a determined grip on his jacket collar, she tried to pull him closer to her.

"Donghyuck, if you just let me," Ahryun murmured, her voice filled with an unsettling mixture of desire and urgency.

That was when you reached your breaking point. The sight of Donghyuck and Ahryun, coupled with the flood of conflicting emotions inside you, became too overwhelming to bear. Slowly, you began to backtrack, stepping away from the scene that brought you so much pain. Each step felt heavier than the last as if the weight of your emotions was pulling you down. You turned in the opposite direction, determined to leave it all behind.

Just as you left the scene, Ahryun leaned closer to kiss Donghyuck. You missed seeing him push her away in outrage. He quickly stood up from the bench, his face contorted with anger and disappointment.

"Are you kidding me right now?" he exclaimed, his voice filled with disbelief. He locked his gaze with Ahryun, his eyes burning with a mix of frustration and disgust.

"Kang (Y/n) is the person for me," he declared firmly. "Not you or anyone else."

He left Ahryun feeling torn, with not even the slightest bit of sympathy. However, his path was interrupted when he spotted Jaemin standing nearby, his face filled with panic.

"Hold on, Hyuck," Jaemin spoke urgently, his voice quivering. "You need to know that (Y/n) saw Ahryun try to kiss you. She... she didn't look too good.”

Donghyuck took a step back, his heart sinking, and let out a frustrated curse. As if his night couldn't get any worse. "Where did she go?" he asked Jaemin, his voice tinged with worry. 

As soon as Jaemin pointed him in the right direction, Donghyuck swiftly turned and hurried in the path you had taken. His heart raced as he desperately tried to catch up to you.

"(Y/n), wait!" he called after you.

Your body tensed at the sound of his voice and you froze in your tracks. The last thing you wanted was to see him right now. But Donghyuck wasn’t going to let you slip away so easily.

He approached you, his breath coming out in labored gasps. “Please, can we just talk?”

The pleading tone in his voice was what caused you to give in. Cautiously, you turned around to face him.

“What is it?” You were almost afraid to ask.

“Did you…did you know that Ahryun liked me?” He asked in disbelief. “Is that why you broke up with me?”

You looked at him, feeling lost and unsure of how to respond. Donghyuck sighed, closing the distance between you, his eyes filled with sincerity.

"(Y/n), I would have never gone to her. I never had any intentions of moving on or being with anyone else," he said earnestly. “You know that, right?”

There was a part of you that felt a glimmer of gratitude, knowing that Donghyuck still held feelings for you. It puzzled you how he could be so sweet, especially when you were the one who hurt him.

Feeling overwhelmed by your own guilt, you took a step back, distancing yourself from Donghyuck. Your voice trembled with a mixture of emotions as you spoke.

"Why are you being so kind to me? You should hate me.”

His eyes glistened with tears. “I could never hate you, Kang (Y/n). Please don’t think you’re unworthy of kindness or love.”

You felt a surge of frustration welling up inside you, pushing back against his words.

“No, I’m not,” You snapped. 

Whatever had transpired between him and Ahryun didn’t matter. Despite Donghyuck’s reassurances, you still clung to the belief that you were damaged and broken. If he knew about your past, if he saw the scars beneath your sweater, he would never be able to love you.

Mumbling a quiet apology, you pushed past him, your mind clouded with self-doubt and regret. The weight of the evening bore down on your shoulders, and you couldn't help but blame yourself for stepping out into the world once again. Going to the festival now felt like a mistake, amplifying your insecurities and highlighting your perceived inadequacies.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ chapter nine ~ 

Ahryun seethed with anger and resentment as she refused to accept Donghyuck's rejection. In her mind, she saw you as the sole obstacle standing between her and the possibility of being with him. The rejection fueled her bitterness and the desire for revenge brewed within her. All she yearned for was to witness you suffer once more, to see you hurt as deeply as she believed she had been hurt. It was time for people to see you for who you truly were.

The morning sunlight painted a gentle glow across the campus as you arrived for your poetry class the day after the festival. However, as you walked by, you noticed a peculiar shift in the way people looked at you as they passed by. Whispers filled the air, and bewildered gazes followed your every step. You wondered if Ahryun posted another rumor about you again. Had she secretly captured photos of you and Jaemin this time?

Feeling paranoid, you paused to take out your phone and quickly navigated the UniYeon site. As the page loaded, the color drained from your face when you were greeted by the headline post. 

“‘Kang (Y/n)’s Horrific Past Exposed,’” someone read aloud as they scrolled through the article on her phone. The person walking with them peered over the person’s shoulder to get a better look. 

“Wah, did she actually try to kill herself?”

No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. With trembling fingers, you clicked on the post, your heart pounding. As you scanned the text, it mercilessly revealed all the painful details about your past suicide attempt in high school. The weight of each word intensified your feelings of shame and vulnerability. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, there it was—the video capturing the haunting moment you ran into traffic, displayed at the bottom of the article.

You felt like you were reliving your trauma in high school, all over again. The piercing stares from those around you felt like a repeat performance, a mix of pity and judgment intertwined. There was only one other person in this university who knew about this incident. Min Ahryun.

Now the whole university was aware of what kind of person you were. Which meant that he knew too. Suddenly, the thought of attending your poetry class faded into the background. Overwhelmed with panic, your feet instinctively moved in reverse, and urged you to retreat.

▃▃▃

The second Donghyuck saw the UniYeon post, he abandoned everything else and set out to look for you. He sprinted to the location of your class, only to discover that you weren’t there. Panic consumed him as he realized that you must have left the campus.

Reading the post was emotionally excruciating for him. He couldn't fathom the depths of your anxiety and the overwhelming pain you must have experienced during that dark period. This had to be what you were trying to tell him that one night after you had cut your hand. He was angry with himself, thinking about how you have been suffering alone in silence this whole time.

“(Y/n)!” He pressed the doorbell, once he got to your apartment unit. When you didn’t come to the door, Donghyuck punched in the passcode to your door and let himself in.

You weren’t in the living room or the kitchen. So he darted over to your bedroom and was met with a closed door. He banged on it anxiously, calling out your name.

“Please, (Y/n),” He pleaded desperately. “Let me in.”

The sound of his voice barely registered, as you tried to collect yourself. It felt like all your fears were coming true. You just wanted all of it to go away.

Somehow, Donghyuck managed to break open the lock on your door forcefully and rushed into the room. The sight of you slumped on the floor, tears staining your cheeks, shattered him inside.

Donghyuck approached you carefully, kneeling before you. “(Y/n)...”

“You saw it, didn’t you?” 

He nodded silently in response and tried to take your hand. But when you flinched in response to his touch, a look of suspicion crossed his face. His eyes searched yours, trying to understand the reason behind your reaction.

That’s when he glanced down and noticed the splotch of blood on your hand. His worry deepened, as he started to wonder about the desperate measures you had taken to deal with your pain.

Without saying anything, he reached again for your arm. You didn’t say anything this time and looked away when you felt your sleeve being rolled up. A deep sense of shame crawled up your throat as more tears blurred your vision.

Donghyuck couldn’t control the tears that cascaded down his cheeks when he saw your arm covered in angry red marks.

“(Y/n), why…?”

“I’m sorry,” you wept brokenly, “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

In the next moments, Donghyuck pulled you into his lap, engulfing you in a tight embrace. Your fingers instinctively gripped onto his shirt as sobs escaped your lips. He never felt so powerless, hearing your heart-breaking cries and feeling your body tremble against his. Tears streamed endlessly as he held you close, silently sharing your anguish. All he could do was cry with you.

“I’m so sorry,” the boy fretted. “I didn’t know you were in this much pain. I wish I had known, (Y/n). I wish I could have been there for you when you needed someone the most.”

“There were so many times I wanted to open up to you,” you managed to utter through your messy tears. “But I was so afraid of losing you, Hyuck. I didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

Donghyuck, in response, leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to your temple. He stroked your hair softly. 

"Oh (Y/n), you could never be a burden to me," he murmured, his voice filled with tenderness. His eyes glistened with tears as he looked at you, his heart breaking for the pain you had endured alone. "How could you ever think that? You mean the world to me.”

You wrapped your arms around him tightly. Your voice was muffled as you spoke into his hoodie. “I’m sorry, Donghyuck. I’m sorry for pushing you away and not letting you in.”

"It's okay," he cooed soothingly, his voice filled with compassion. He continued to rub gentle circles across your back, offering comfort and reassurance. "It's okay, babe. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere.”

Once the both of you calmed down a bit, Donghyuck retrieved some medical supplies from your bathroom. You were surprised to learn how skilled he was at cleaning and bandaging wounds. 

After he finished up, the two of you found solace in each other’s arms, spending the rest of the day in bed. Donghyuck listened attentively as you finally confessed everything that had been weighing on your heart. You didn’t detect even the slightest hint of repulsion from him. Witnessing how empathetic he was with you, allowed you to see that Donghyuck’s feelings for you were sincere. 

The stormy gray clouds of despair gradually disperse, allowing rays of warmth and hope to seep into your heart. Your former friend had tried to tear you apart again. Everyone at the university knew your secret. Mentally, you were weaker than ever. But with Donghyuck by your side, you felt like everything was going to be okay.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

~ epilogue ~

In the coming days, Donghyuck and you walked hand in hand across campus. You chose to ignore the curious looks and hushed voices of speculations. The strength of your bond radiated in your intertwined fingers, symbolizing a resilient unity that could not be shaken by mere judgment.

“I just thought you should know,” Donghyuck said, glancing over at you fondly. “You look beautiful today.”

His flirtations still made you blush profusely, your cheeks tinged with a rosy hue as you subconsciously reached to hold the delicate crescent moon pendant around your neck. The necklace served as a reminder of the love and tenderness you found in each other’s presence.

Deciding you didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of making you flustered, you playfully stopped walking and pulled the boy closer, surprising him with a swift yet passionate kiss. His lips met yours eagerly, his handing finding its place on your waist as the intimacy of the moment deepened. In that fleeting embrace, the world around you seemed to fade away, leaving only the warmth of your connection and the electric chemistry that sparked between you.

"I love you, Lee Donghyuck," you said confidently, your eyes filled with sincerity and affection, after pulling away from the kiss. Hearing you say those words first was rare, and it took him by surprise.

His gaze softened as he pressed his forehead against yours. "I love you too, (Y/n). More than you'll ever know."

The two of you might have faced some challenging obstacles. And you knew that life would continue to present its share of difficulties. However, you were certain now that the bond you had with Donghyuck was very much real and unbreakable. Knowing you were stronger together, you believed you could overcome anything.

─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─❀*̥˚─

#nct dream #nct 127 #nct dream fics #nct dream x reader #haechan x reader #lee haechan #lee donghyuck #haechan fic #kpop #nct dream angst #college au #nctzen #czennie #haechan scenarios

[achilleslyre]

🅱️lease tell us more about jobie paulinho and carlito im very interested 🥺🥺🥺

EEEEHEHEE :3333 okie okieee… u don’t know the can of worms u just opened……. this is gonna be long ajshsjsh i’m gonna put everything under the cut

an overarching simple intro into what’s going on in my ocs world (so that some things i say about paulinho carlito and jobie make sense) is that it’s about this group of young adults that go to a specialized university together— jobie doesn’t actually attend the university, but she does live relatively near and she did go to high school with the rest of the main/side characters (plus she doesn’t lose any importance by not being there ☝️☝️ the whole crew would have been screwed without her ajhsjshsjs). i’d go into detail about the uni and high school but hehe maybe i will another timee :pp so this isn’t such a hugee info dump. to simplify though so you can get a rough idea, kids from around the world are given the option to take a “test” of sorts in order to see if they’ll be accepted into the high school. IF they are accepted into the high school then once they graduate they are hand selected by the uni funder to attend his university (i plan on changing his name ajhsjsjjs so for now i’m just calling him the funder). so that’s your quick background information hehee

paulinho and carlito are twin brothers! they’re around 23-24 when the story takes place :pp (they age throughout so when they’re introduced they’re 23 but the story goes thru their birthdays). they’re afro indigenous and they live in brazil. their dad is black and was born and raised in brazil, and their mom is also afro indigenous— she’s taíno and was born in cuba, but moved to brazil at a young age. paulinho is cishet (srry 😔😔) and carlito is gay + trans. they also have 4 other siblings apart from each other— their older sister (24-25) clara, their adopted younger sibling (15-16) salome, their youngest sister (10-11) márcia, and their younger brother (5-6) murilo.

paulinho is studying chemistry (i *think* specifically biochem but i have to do some more research into that to make sure… i was not into science so i don’t know enough about the specifics… but off my basic knowledge of it i’m p sure he’s going for a biochem major). he’s not in a relationship by choice, he’s not aspec but he kinda just would rather to get through school first before finding someone he actually cares enough for to be in a relationship. so he doesn’t get into anything serious while at uni. the story ends within roughly a yearish from introduction, but i kinda know how they all live thru the rest of their lives anywayss and tbh.. i don’t particularly see him getting into a long term relationship. he definitely doesn’t get married but i feel like most of his partners are just flings or last a handful of months. i see him living with his parents for quite a while tbh— i think he moves out in his 30s but moves back in with them once they’re really old and need some help with keeping up the house n daily activities :’) paulinho is a very family-oriented guy, he loves his parents and loves his siblings. they’re the most important thing to him c: the whole story kinda kickstarts as a way to protect his sister clara, if that situation never happened the whole story would have just been pablo and mawiyah ajsjhssj. but uhh yea, paulinho has aspd (given to him, not born with), when he’s not in school he works two jobs at a grocery store and a restaurant, he’s heavily into boxing— both watching and practicing— and likes to do matches with his dad!

carlito is studying graphic design and fine arts/illustration. he’s autistic and gets into a relationship with another autist throughout the storyy :p “spoilers” ig lol. his main special interest is apples lol— the different types and history and how each type came to be ect ect. he’s also suuuuper into musicals as well— i don’t listen to many but based off vibes i think west side story and newsies would be a fave of his. altho this may change if i ever decide to listen to them hehe. he has a part time job on a boat as a fisherman with some other guys, he doesn’t dislike nor love it but he definitely prefers it over anything retail. he rlly likes video games and movies in general, and he spends a lot if time with his mom c: they are very very close. she’s who he typically likes to watch stuff with, and he enjoys learning recipes from her and just following her around/helping her with daily activities. he definitely moves out once he’s done w uni, he looves his fam as well but it’s a very busy household so it’s v overstimulating for him.

annnnnd best for last is some jobieee info :3c she’s 23-24 as well and she’s bi+cis (she has a gf charlie who goes to uni w the others. they met in high school). she’s inuk (specifically inuinnait) and lives in a house with her mother, grandmother and her best friend barrys family! her father passed away young and her brother has been missing for several years, so that’s why it’s just her mom/grandma. as i mentioned she doesn’t attend the uni with paulinho+others, she doesn’t end up going to uni at all. she did attend high school with them and had been focusing on history before she decided not to attend uni. she was in a really bad car crash in high school and has a permanent limp bc of it (so when you see me making jokes about jobies driving that’s why T.T), she works as a carpenter (altho this mayyy be subject to change— it’s the idea i’ve had for her the longest tho). she’s also very much into crotchet (and knitting but she crotchets more) and she sells some of her work :p she like’s to bead with her mom but she doesn’t sell her stuff, she normally makes for herself or gifts them to those she cares about (her mom sells though!). she’s super community based and she also goes fishing and hunting with barry a lot (and his older sister sometimes) to be able to get stuff for her fam and some of the other families around her—specially for the elders. she’s a very busy person but she rlly enjoys anime and she watches stuff with her best friend elio (she’s a two best friend kinda gal) whenever she cannn :DD oh and between her fam and barry they have 5 dogs 😳😳

i’ll stop there cause otherwise i could go on about jobie forever and ever T.T i mean the others too but jobie is my fave so i think about her the most hehe. srry this is kinda vague/random and not story based— i just really do hope to someday publish a graphic novel about them so i don’t want to give away much of the story 😳😳 uhhhh this was so long but if you enjoyed reading about them n stuff i’m gonna be self indulgent and link my oc moodboards and spotify playlist. don’t feel like u have to look/listen tho lol i’ll never know ajshjshs

my moodboards are right here, it’ll take you to the whole board but there’s specific sections for each of them (so if u want to look at it u can pick out the ones you wanna see hehe)

and here’s paulinhos playlist, here’s carlitos, and here’s jobies. the songs added all remind me of them plus each song is from a genre/artist they like :D carlitos is the least finished of these three but i’ll get around to adding more stuff to his in the future lol.

#thank youuu for asking :333 #🫶🫶🫶🫶 #eventually i’ll try to figure out a way to talk about them during the story without giving too much away #at least publicly.. i’m more open to talking about the story in messages n stuff LOL #idk its not like im worried anything will happen if i talk about stuff in the story but i still feel nervous about it lol

[shed0kryptz]

(You have been given: 1x Ramble Pass!)

-> 🎫

(This item allows you to ramble on about music or whatever you'd like!)

thank u anon ur a real one fr :3

ive been listening to a lot of things the past few months. it all started after i wanted to try and expand my music taste, and it’s worked out pretty well hehe. one artist ive been listening to a lot lately is masakatsu takagi. hes a japanese musician and filmmaker, and he makes really neat stuff ! ik he’s worked on a few movie soundtracks, such as wolf children and mirai, but ive been delving into his other projects. his album kagayaki was my first introduction to his music, and i fell in love with it pretty easily. it has wonderful instrumentation with piano, strings, etc, and a lot of field recordings. there are sounds taken from nature, people talking/singing, children playing/laughing, and all sorts of stuff. unfortunately i don’t speak japanese, so i cannot understand a lot of what they’re saying, but i still love the vibe it has. i believe the album was made when takagi had moved to a small, rural village in japan, and the village inspired its creation. i definitely recommend it if you like movie osts, field recordings, and emotional stuff (idk it makes me emotional.. lol). or if you want something different to listen to! my fav tracks are prolly amamizu, ooharu, utagaki pt. 2, and nurse them make a fire.. (it’s a long title) but all of it is great! it might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it’s mine :)

takagi has some other albums that are great too. there’s this one called sail that has a lot of fun, pop-electronic beats with lyrics here and there. something i find interesting about this album is that there are a few tracks that appear in other albums, specifically a track called rama, but it works very well in this one. it honestly feels like a casual-style video game ost, kinda reminds me of animal crossing/nintendo. it has a nostalgic quality to it, and it’s good to listen to while studying. also! most of lyrics are in english from what i can tell, which is neat. my fav tracks are rama, dig down, kimmy, and pimrico but the whole thing is lovely!

takagi also has his marginalia albums, which.. ive only listened to the first one but there are 5 + 2 misc comps. the first one is a lot of piano tracks with some singing occasionally, it’s nice background music for studying or sleeping. very pretty melodiesss

lastly, another album i particularly enjoy is coieda. it’s a mix of electronic, ambient, and classical pieces. not really classical, im just trying to think of a word for pieces made with physical instruments… traditional? idk. it’s been a while since last listened to it in full, but there’s this one track that i absolutely adore called exit / delete. it’s featuring another person singing and it’s so… oug comforting. this version of it imo is the best one, there is another version in private / public but it doesnt hit the same to me. it has a really nice guitar and a simple, yet super effective melody. it feels like a hug to me, even tho the lyrics seem kinda sad- point is, i love it to death. anyways thats enough for now. masakatsu takagi is wonderful :]

#i do have more albums of his to listen to tehe #these are just the ones ive fixated on #asks #ren music time #masakatsu takagi

[journalbye]

[ playlist ] : you're studying near laszlo as you listen to some classical music that he loves. you see him smiling as he hears his favorite part of the song...

#here have this #this has been my background music for studying for the last month lol #it's quite perfect for studying sociology #it really makes me think of him #anyway i'll keep this updated!!! #obviously THE mozart song is included #have a nice day zimpz ♡ #daniel bruhl #daniel brühl #kreizler #lazlo kreizler #laszlo kreizler #netflix #the alienist #zemo #classical aesthetic #classical music #spotify #playlist #aesthetic playlist #dark academia #laszlo playlist

[shinahbee]

December favorites 2020!

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

GREETINGS

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

 Hello,

 So we have finally reached another year happy 2021! let's all hope this year will be kind to us, as I have mentioned in my previous favorites post, I finished my work term and now will be working on my art more

so please look out for more art coming soon!

also this maybe a little too early to think of but I was thinking of opening an etsy store to sells stickers/ keychains, this was a project that was on my mind for many years actually, but I have never really considered starting it

Please let me know if any of you would be interested if I do start one.

I would also like some ideas as to what type of characters from what show would you like to see merchandise from. I know there are some franchises that are not well known and most people wouldn’t be able to find so much as a fanart of that particular character/show

so if you could all let me know what you’d like to see in the shop I will highly consider it, with that being said I don't have any anime recs this month, mainly cause I was very busy in the month of December and have not watched any dramas or anime in a while,

so just a heads up, that part will not be included this month. The only thing I was watching is bunch of end of the year award shows, so like the drama awards and melon music awards and MAMA awards...haha that seems really boring to discuss so i'll skip that.

My friend and I were discussing and thought that they should rename these music awards as the BTS awards because they won so many lol.

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

MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS

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

 This section of the favorites is on fire! you don’t even know how far deep the rabbit hole i`ve dug myself into.

I finally was able to save my progress and crawl back up to list a few of my favorites/ updates of the old favorites and a special segment to ones that triggered a raging response due to utter frustration

Let’s start with a review of the manhwa I have read and discussed so far

 Recap:

 1) Whose baby is it? (ongoing)

2) Social temperature (ongoing)

3) Salad days (ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (ongoing)

5) Path to you (completed)

6) Here u are (completed)

7) BJ alex (completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (ongoing)

 so some updates on the previous ones that I have listed out so far, with the exception of the completed ones.

 1) Who's baby is it? ; last time I read up to chapter 72 and now they have up to chapter 126 and I have to say so much more has happened in terms of story and relationship development and I especially love the development between

yi yun and his relationship with jinyao, they are acting more and more like a married couple without even knowing it. You see a gradual change within the two of them that shifts from being very comfortably being able to talk about their problems to one another to

physical touches that would make them  both nervous, I don't mean physical in a sexual way...it's not at that point yet, it's just holding hands and being near each other makes them, nervous and as an audience I felt that nervous energy

and it makes as the audience appreciate the development even if it is slow, it becomes more realistic over time.

Needless to say, I am still a giant fan girl of this author and her story and I can't wait to see this week’s chapter

 2) social temp; I said that I have read the novel so I pretty much knows what happened in the new chapters that were just out, this manhwa is updating a little slow so I have to wait to really comment

When they go further, there is a scene soon that will be the turning point of their relationship so I am excited to see that in the manhwa

 3) salad days; There is also a slow development here as well in terms of relationship building, so far they are working on their careers as professionals and dealing with bullying and jealousy from their peers

But it's all part of life so I appreciate that the author included these aspects as an important part of the story and not just focusing on romance alone.

 4) To be or not to be; you'd think a person who had studied Chinese for 8 years would be able to read the raws....nope,LOL

So far the story is going into a good direction so I'm hoping to see how this new development will play out in their relationship

 5) no way vampires don't exist; I have and fanart and long post dedicated to this alone, so please refer to those for more details. I am happy this is updating again and hopefully all of it will be translated in no time for others to enjoy

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

Welcome to heaven

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

Okay so that is all for the old ones that I have read, I will include updates throughout my favorites now and then if it is still ongoing.

now let's look at some new ones that I have found this month, these are just a few of the ones I selected out to talk about, but I have read much more as I have said and these were the ones that were the most memorable

 1) Unintentional love story- "Wonyoung gets unjustly suspended from work after getting caught up in a corruption scandal. But when he accidentally discovers the chairman's favorite artist Yoon Taejun living under an alias, he is tasked with a tricky new mission. Could this be Wonyoung's chance to get his job back?"

 This is the summary from the licensed lezhin website, and it pretty much sums up the story, it is still ongoing right now so I can only comment on how I feel about it so far.

I really like this story its really straight forward and focuses mainly on the two characters and how their relationship went from business partners to eventual lovers

it has minimal drama and works on moving the relationship buildup between the two main characters and I really appreciate that, it makes me less frustrated, since you know there is always that one a-hole that will never take no for an answer

i will discuss that later for the other ones I plan to discuss. But so far the story is straight forward and cute, and I really like wonyoung he is really adorable. This is a manhwa but not in the form of a webtoon, so it's black and white and read in traditional manga style

if you like a straight forward story and development please give this a read, you will enjoy it.

 2) Karasugaoka Don't Be Shy!! - "Sou Izuhara, the leader of the crime prevention group "VOICE" that protects east Karasugaoka, realizes he's in love with the man he keeps butting heads with and leader of the rival group "Karasukai," Tetsuji Shinba...!?"

 omg finally a manga recommendation? lol. you have no idea how much trouble I had remembering the title of this manga, I didn’t save it into my bookmarks and I usually did that if I was going to talk about it in the favorites.

I went through 5 websites to figure out the name but at least it was found. This story is both comedic and cute and it was a perfect break from the dark stuff I have been reading, I don't believe it has been updated in while so I'm not sure if it will ever be picked up

but there is a decent amount of chapters to get started on. But as the description says that it is a story about two crime prevention group leaders, they look like thugs but they prevent crimes from happening, so like an anti bullying campaign that recruits volunteers. two of the leaders from the largest groups apparently doesn’t get a long

on the surface but one of the leaders Izuhara really in fact admires the other leader Shinba. they start to get along after shiba went to izuharas territory to take care of some suspicious activity on that side and accidentally discovers a whole new side to izuhara due to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t know he was talking to shinba

and invited him to hang out together for that day. lol. You probably know the direction this is heading; it all starts from interest in a person right?

anways, I never recommended a  manga yet so this would be a good one to read,it has a balance of a good romantic comedy.  

 3) Semantic Error- "Computer science major Chu Sangwoo is the epitome of an inflexible and strict rule-abiding person. While working on a liberal arts group project with freeloaders who don’t put in any effort, Sangwoo reasonably decides to remove their names from the final presentation. But he didn’t imagine how involved he would become with the person whose study-abroad plans were messed up because of that project. The involved person: the campus star who everyone knows, Department of Design’s Jang Jaeyoung. He has everything from skills, looks, family background and good relationships except for 1 big problem: Chu Sangwoo. What happens when an engineer and an artist whose personalities are like oil and water have to work together? Jang Jaeyoung is like a semantic error in the perfect world of Chu Sangwoo. Will Sangwoo be able to debug this?"

 this has got to be one of the most accurate portrays of an antagonist relationship start off ever, it was really comedic and relatable at the same time, if you are in current group assignments and are or have suffered the same as sangwoo, please let me know cause I know I have.lol.

there’s only 16 chapters so far and I believe it hasn’t been updated in a while either so I don’t know if it is discontinued or not.

I can't wait to see the development between the two male leads, because their relationship right now in the manhwa is really hilarious and worth the read.

side note, not that this will ever be considered as a k-drama but I would like to see sangwoo being played by kim soo hyun, because he looks like him in the drama it's okay not to be okay.

 4) Tied up in twins- " The story starts off with three friends Jiwoo, sohee and woojung who had been friends since high school began to developed complicated feeling towards one another, woojung had been in love with sohee and sohee had been in love with jiwoo who was in love with woojung, things turned for the worse when jiwoo got drunk one night out and decided to confess his feelings to woojung by going to his apartment, he found 'woojung' standing outside and invited him to go drinking, he finally was able to let out his feelings and 'woojung ' accepted them without hesitation. Jiwoo felt like he was on cloud nine at the moment and slept with 'woojung' that night after thier feelings were made mutual. Turns out 'woojung ' was not actually woojung himself but his twin brother sarang, not knowing this fact he spots sarang with a man from his past eunji that used to bully him during his military service which made him confused and angry that 'woojung ' might be playing with his feelings. Sarang then confessed that he is the twin brother  of woojung and both of them decided that that night was a mistake and that they should just forget about it as it didn't happen. Of course fate had other plans as they keep running into each other during difficult times and decided to become friends. It didn't take them long to be attracted to one another which lead them to end their previous relationship, sarang especially was suffering from his cheating boy friend's abuse and jiwoo with his one sided feelings for woojung. After a series of events sarang and jiwoo found that their feeling for each other were mutual and started to dating, which poses a lot more obstacles than either of the two had bargained for...."

 This is actually my very own summary since I can't find one for this manhwa, I also did and fanart and discussed why i really like this story in that fanart, so please check out my art for my thoughts on it! Shameless self promo....

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Welcome to hell

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ooo now it's time for the fun part.LOL. Now let me just say that there is sometimes a fine line that defines what shounen ai and Yaoi are, sometimes stories is listed as both because one story that starts off like shounen ai will suddenly become yaoi

I define yaoi as a story that includes all the things that i'm uncomfortable with, which is emotional trauma from sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape, physical abuse, suicide etc

 these stories usually include some or all of the listed above and could make you uncomfortable in many ways, so as a warning if you are bothered by any of that even a little please don't read the ones I’m about to list, because there is a lot of it and there are situations that made me really sick while reading them. on the upside there is a lot of whole heartedness from the love scenes between the two main characters, although it’s like pages of sex scenes, you know from reading that it is between two people that love and trust each other.

 so you have been warned, i'm not going to spoil it in terms of story but there is something these ones i chose out have in common and that is a SICK A-HOLE THAT EVERY PERSON WANTS TO KILL.You should have seen all those comments about calling sangwoo (killing stalking) to kill theses mofos and I could agree more, these disgusting human beings made me sick.

 so let's begin...btw these are in no particular order, I was going to list these from the least worthy of dieing to most worthy of dieing but you know in the end they should just all die...lol.

1) My Suha -"A skillful secretary by day and choosy cruiser by night, Suha is a young professional who’s in search of some no-strings-attached action. He hasn’t had much luck lately, though, since a handsome face doesn’t always match what’s in a guy’s pants. This might be why he finds himself wondering about his dreamboat boss, Director Park Jiwoon. But there’s no way he can mix business with pleasure… That is, until Jiwoon and Suha run into each other in the gay bar bathroom."

 so where to begin, um this pretty much includes all those listed above but it mainly focuses on the relationship between jiwoon and Suha, and it is not abusive and very loving in fact,I'm glad that they show the contrast between how suha's previous realtionships don't work out because of his trauma

and how jiwoon despite being an unwanted heir in his grandmother's eyes was able to give love and protection to the person that matters to him the most. So there's this scum bag...I even forgot his name but the red haired dude in this story he`s the legitimate heir to the family, who is the absolute worse and not only sexually abused Suha when they were younger and also emotionally scar both jiwoon and suha

making them feel incapable of being loved. I didn’t get a good feeling form him when he was first introduced and I was right...lol. But at least the comments section was in agreement; let me sum up my feelings in the form of this gif alone...

 you get the point...

I heard it was going to finish soon so hopefully these emotional scars can be resolved and that suha and jiwoon stick together to get through it all. That would be a good ending for them after everything they have been through.You really need to read it in order to under stand why these events happen the way they do but please remember that suha`s inability to feel love stems from the all of his previous relationships not lasting long yes...but started with this red haired mofo. I am never going to let this dude live, let`s just say that.

2) Crash into me- " Seung-chan is stressed. He has enough on his plate with the long hours at work, and now he can’t even get any rest at home! Every night, the lustful moaning and violent banging from the apartment upstairs keeps him awake. Just as he’s at his wits’ end, he chances upon the gorgeous, enigmatic Hyesung outside his building. Surely all those filthy sounds couldn’t be coming from such a pretty mouth? But as Seung-chan soon finds out, there’s a lot more to Hyesung"

 from that little description you’ve probably figured out what’s going on with the neighbour next door keeping seung chan awake right? well no surprise sexual abuse, after hyesung was forced to suffer from a ordeal that wasn't his fault the brother of the person that died made it seem like it was his fault and sexually assaulted him

and so this ongoing sexual abuse progressed for several years which lead hyesung feel like life is meaningless and he should just die, until he locked eyes with seung chan walking back to the apartment and thought of jumping out the window, because he had a strange feeling that seungchan who he has not met before would catch him if he did.

I just almost cried from what I just wrote...to think there’s is some a-hole out there that would drive a person to suicide like that just to satisfy his own needs or whatever...i don't even know cause it’s still ongoing...i don’t think any amount of back story will justify any kind of sympathy for this person..

from what I have read so far it seems so be going ending soon so i hope seungchan and hyesung will be able to get through all this and live in peace because of suengchan, hyesung was able to love again and find his worth and is able to fight for himself and I’m sincerely glad that he had met and trust him whole heartedly.

3) Dine with vampire- "Caught in the clutches of an abusive relationship, Sooin longs to escape. A vampire who finds human blood repulsive, Chi-hwan only drinks the blood of other vampires. When chance brings the two together, Chi-hwan makes Sooin an enticing proposal. Chi-hwan will help Sooin get out of his living hell, and in exchange… Sooin has to let Chihwan drink his blood. Will this proposal change both their lives for the better?”

 y'all don't even get me started on the mofo in this story....I’ve never felt so much rage from staring at a 2D character on my screen, the amount of times I hissed at him...you don't even know

like I have mentioned before ever since my twilight phase I didn’t consume anything vampire related in a while, I don't really care much for the vampire aspect but I guess it's still important over all

once you start the first chapter you will immediately know why I hate the harry potter a-hole in this story..he is despicable and that’s putting it lightly...but you know he doesn’t last long cause vampire tsukiyama (lol, not his name but they look alike) shows up and kills the mofo

and saves sooin who is the person who harry potter had been sexually abusing...to the point where you guessed it, he wanted to die.

chi hwan agrees to grant any wish sooin wanted in exchange for his blood because being vampire by nature he had not been drawn to anyone’s blood for some reason and had only consumed the blood of other vampires.

of course it was a small price to pay for sooin considering all the misery he had gone through. slowly sooin discovered that love was not abusive through the many times chi hwan...lmao i almost called him tsukiyama again...and he had sex, he discovered that it was safe and gentle and enjoyable

nothing that he had ever felt before, and so they became drawn to each other more than they thought they would to the point where they genuinely care for one another, though of course chi hwan knows that one day sooin will die and he will have to live on forever alone, thus the fate of his vampire blood.

 but here’s the catch..it's not a spoiler really cause you knew it was too easy when main villain dies in chapter 4...and he’s on the front cover...which means yes harry potter mofo is back...ugh...he should have burned his body...WTF and as a vampire no less..

i'm like great now look what happened, you should have chopped him up and threw him into the incinerator!

you know that saying " mistakes were made..."

anyways, now he's back meaning shits about to do down and i'm not ready to see it happen, right now they are going through his back story and i’m like sorry author...whatever you try to feed me there’s no way i can have any sympathy for this dick...

 so that's all i'm going to rant about for these yaoi titles...i had to go back and read some it again to know what i'm going to write about and i revisited a lot of things i’d rather not.I think the rage I felt was ignited again all of a sudden and I felt utter frustration to finish reading it again, what I am trying to say is, ya`ll need to read this once and that`s it...these aren`t stories you`d want to revisit.lol

so if you like this hell segment let me know and i'll continue it cause there’s an endless supply of content for this genre, I have a few more but i'll save those for next month.

and i'll probably come across more in the mean time to discuss, but I guess this is where fiction and reality divides, cause you know in real life if this crap exists absolutely no one will take this bull crap!

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MUSIC

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 I have been listening to the Start up soundtrack and found a lot of songs i like from it, I don't like the drama and have not finished it, but the soundtrack is bomb

I have also been liking some old pop songs and went down the rabbit hole of 90`s pop songs...Britney spears especially

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 so that is all I have for this month, I'm sorry its manhwa and manga focused, i'll have time to watch anime that I need to catch up on and start some drams now so i'll have more

to discuss in the next month hopefully, so please take care of your selves in the new year as well!

take care,

sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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INSTAGRAM: shinb_art

TUMBLR: shinahbee

DEVIANTART: she-be.deviantart.com

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#monthly favorites #shounen ai #yaoi #manga review #manhwa review #manhwa #manga #my suha #dine with a vampire #crash into me #karasugaoka don`t be shy #tied up in twins #unintentional love story #korean manhwa #anime and manga #semantic error #manga recommendation

[thelovelybitten]

welcome 2 a blues drabble (1)

(a list of stuff that lives in my head rent free)

So I’ve grown up with the powerpuff girls since i was about 7 years old and i got a Blossom plushie for my birthday and now I’m 22 and it still sits on my desk. They’ve always been a part of my life-- in some form. 

the one thing I never got was the ignorance of the blues (boomer/bubbles) and how they’re written and perceived; they have so much more complexity than just being the “cute and happy” couple, so here’s a drabble on how they started:

- boomer is the one who has a crush on bubbles first, and It’s all because of how selfless she is when it comes to helping other people out even when she’s overworked. The whole scenario was wild at first but Boomer and Bubbles are both part of the Musical Theatre class and she’s just a stage props artist (art girl things) while Boomer is on the tech / sound team. She consistently asks him if everything looks okay and he’s always giving her feedback. They grow closer as time goes on, and he offers to help her whenever he can so she can still be doing all of her other activities. 

(side note: Bubbles is in ballet and works a part time job baby sitting so being also in Musical Theatre and keeping up her grades is ALOT thank u she is constantly stressed thank yew)

-it just so happens that with helping with all the costume making and the time she spends doing everything and anything, the main lead for the play ends up sick and so. She goes up in her stead, being super nervous as hell but “everyone thinks she the prettiest person and shouldn’t have a problem doing it” yeah she’s not okay but she wants the best for everyone so here she goes

(side note: Bubbles might be the most adored person in school (next to Blossom), but she really doesn’t like the spotlight too much since she secretly hates being known as just “pretty” and “cute” so yeah she likes to do things in the background lol she’d rather have the spotlight on either her sisters or someone she cares about. ) 

- so you just imagine Boomer’s shock when he sees Bubbles on stage being the main character and trying to focus the lighting on her while she’s acting. After helping her for the last couple months and how much she had to do in her other tasks, she still showed up. She smiles at him unintentionally and that’s the thing that causes Boomer to miss his lighting cue for the end scene. 

- Bubbles is extremely oblivious to boomer’s crush. like y’all thought Blossom was bad.... Bubs just thinks everyone likes her (and can’t tell the difference) so anything he does goes over her head. 

-Boomer keeps trying though. 

-Bubbles and Boomer hang out at the coffee shop Robin works at almost every Monday after the play to study and chat... but 60% of the time it falls through if Bubs has any sort of stress and has to focus on homework or helping out someone else. She always makes it up to him though. 

- Eventually Robin and Blossom tell Bubbles about Boomer (after tons of speculation and him constantly being around her) and she freaks out 

-and not in a good way.

- she is extremely self conscious and thinks that Boomer only likes her for her looks and becomes sad about it. Blossom and Robin try to tell her it’s not like that but she tells them that “he’s just like the rest of the boys who say they like me and just use me to brag about their pretty girlfriend” 

-she pushes him away after this and it KILLS BOOMER because she has been one of the only nice souls in his life since his family life SUCKS (his brothers help him but he needs another outlet and that was her.) 

-ANGST

-They push each other away for like. a whole 6 months and in that time Bubbles has moved on and solely focuses on her schooling and ballet while Boomer takes up guitar and continues in Musical Theatre and starts to hang out with Robin a lot more (since she is in it too and she is BOMB at it) 

-Bubbles doesn’t mind at first but over time she sees his true colours and starts to like him back 

-WHILE BOOMER IS OVER HER NOW AND USED THE SIX MONTHS TO GRIEVE BYE 

-They might be the first to get together but it’s a LOT OF BACK AND FORTH thank you 

-Bubbles tries to hangout with Boomer more but he just can’t deal with the shit she put him through 

-Long story short, Bubbles confesses the day before she leaves for University in the POURING RAIN and explains to him her insecurities and he’s like “what the hell no i loved you for the way you were- are.” and Bubbles is an emotional wreck 

-”but if you’re going to abandon me the way you did before this isn’t gonna work” -Boomer

- Bubbles is like.... completely backtracking, sobbing and brings up Robin in which Boomer tells her that Robin is just a friend-- and how badly he was hurt that Bubbles suddenly disappeared that he found sanctuary in being Robin’s friend.

-MORE ANGST

- They find each other a year later when they are in the same Minor in University (HAH MUSICAL THEATRE) and the feelings just come tumbling back 

-BOOMER GETS THE LEAD and it shocks Bubbles because she always saw him as tech but he was WAY BETTER THAN SHE THOUGHT HE WAS 

-Bubbles is just doing props again but also hops into the chorus like the iconic soprano she is 

-basically Boomer and Bubbles are a slowburn friends to lovers to enemies to lovers and we are HERE FOR IT ANYWAYS

-might continues this if it gets love idk

#otp: blues #ppg blues #ppg boomer #ppg bubbles #ppgz x rrbz #ppg headcanons #viv writes #DAMN THIS WAS LONG GBSJBGJHBSGK #i just have so much love for the blues pls

[bnha-scenarios]

Okay, so, first thing first. The second half of September and the whole October has been a wild ride.

Apparently this game blew up on TikTok (and probably some other platform or something?), and now I could see that there are tons of you who downloaded the game. That's just... so... unreal, at least to me. I didn't think this project would get so much attention. Even now, I’m still waiting to wake up from this dream 🙃

Anyway, if you’re new here: welcome! Sit back and relax, ‘cause this is gonna be a long ride!

I want to take this opportunity to say that due to the amount of comments, especially on itch.io page and my Tumblr, I won’t be always replying personally one by one to everyone anymore. I'll still try my best to answer questions and all, but I think by now everyone's common questions should already be answered in the FAQ page. So, moving forward, questions I have already answered inside that page will be ignored.

Still, I want you to know that I do read and treasure every single one of your comments. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, support, and suggestions! I'm sorry I can’t reply to those writing in languages other than English and Indonesian. While I can throw simple comments into Google Translate, every now and then the translator butchers long sentences and gives me garbled translation which I can't understand 😥

  ☕️ Special Thanks ☕️ 

I'd like to also take this chance to say, many, many thanks for the coffee, you all amazing, generous people:

M.L. | Dominique | Genki | Sara | 1 Anon

Even in this hard time, you’re all so kind. Again, I can’t really do much, but as my way of thanking you, your names will be put under Special Thanks in the game ♡ 

Alright, now, to the real essence of this post: progress update.

My work had been pretty demanding nearing the end of this month, and it made me get really sick of doing coding in general. Still, there is some progress on the game, and that’s good enough for me!

More details below ↓

Character Sheet: You / Player / Main Character

Before I get to anything else, let’s talk about ‘you’ first, shall we?

Although the main character's name is changeable, if you don’t wish to pick a name for them, ‘Suzuki Kaede’ is set as the default name.

Why Suzuki? I figured I would just take from one of the most common Japanese surnames.

Why Kaede? I chose it because I wanted a common Japanese unisex name, because the main character themselves is supposed to be gender neutral. So, the name came up as one of the results in Google, it has a somewhat nice and neutral meaning (maple), and I find that it sounds pretty nice, I decided to use it.

To reiterate, throughout the game, I try my best to not mention any physical characteristics and avoid elements which leans heavily to a specific gender in the story. All the characters in the game will also call you with your last name, and only neutral suffix (-san) is used at first. But you could get an event where you would be able to pick how the love interest will call the player, starting from that point in the story (on top of neutral options, there will be choices with gender-specific suffixes which you could pick if you want to). Other than that, all characters will always refer to the MC as ‘they/them’.

Now, moving on to the thing which people has asked about -- the player's Quirk. Here's a text version in case you couldn't see it in the image above for some reason:

What happens when a woman with Enhanced Learning quirk and a man with Camera Vision procreates? A child with exemplary learning ability and a pair of exceptionally observant eyes, apparently! The hereditary Vision you got from your father enables you to focus or scan an object or landscapes. With all the cues and information from your eyes, it seems that you're able to analyze and 'see' particular details of your object of interest in the form of numerical data. Due to the mainly passive nature of your quirk, you have to rely on the traditional weapons for offense, which might not be useful at all depending on your opponent's quirk. It's a plain and nonoffensive ability which isn’t so suited for a hero according to most people, but whatever - you’ll show those noobs the power of a gamer!

In other words, the information in 'Stats',  ' Weapon Proficiency', 'Special Moves', and even the 'Affection' meter, are actually part of the MC's Quirk. This also means, the more you hone your Quirk, the more it could affect your gameplay. I'll talk about that on the Gameplay section below.

There is one thing that’s kind of related to the MC's Quirk and I wanted to clarify. Bakugou did call you this in the demo, and yep, you might have guessed it: “crosshair eyes”. Reticle, crosshair, whatever you want to call it -- it’s that symbol you usually see in the center of your screen whenever you play FPS games. This is the only physical feature of the player's character that I specified (and yes, canonically, Hatsume has a pair of similar looking eyes in the original work). In relation to this, the icon for ‘activating’ your Quirk matches the same symbol.

Gameplay

Introducing: Stats, Special Moves, and Video Games!

Stats

There are 5 basic Stats for all of the characters in the game (brownie points if you recognize where they're taken from!): Speed, Technique, Power, Intelligence, Cooperativeness.

Your own Stats start off low, but you will be able to increase it by doing various activities, such as studying, playing games, winning on Heroics lessons, going to certain places, etc. Different activities raises different Stat, and you're free to choose which particular Stat you want to develop.

What are Stats being used for?

Certain Stat will increase a certain character’s affection, though it won’t be as much as if you hang out with that character.

There are certain places which you can only unlock when a specific Stat reaches a certain point. I’ll talk about hang out places and characters’ schedules in another post.

Weekly one-on-one training matches in Heroics lessons will test a specific Stat or Special Moves each time. Depending on who you chose to become your opponent, that specific Stat will determine the outcome of that match. On one hand, winning these matches can increase your Stat, but on the other hand, there are also special events you could possibly unlock when you lose. Again, I’ll probably talk more in detail about this in another post, since I still don't have the coding part down, so things might change.

Special Moves

Every hero has a Special Move in this universe, and so does the player’s character! While they might not be as flashy as All Might’s iconic United States of Smash, some of your Special Moves will have a direct effect on the gameplay. For example, a certain Special Move could unlock more answer choices for certain scenarios. Another Special Move could be activated to give you hints on how many affection points will be added to a character for the available choices.

You have a total of 5 unlockable Special Moves, and it will be up to you to use this feature: do you spend your time trying to unlock all of it in hope to make your gameplay easier, or ignore them completely in favor of balancing your Stats while pursuing the affection of your chosen love interest? It’s your choice!

(More brownie points for you if you got the reference in that picture lol)

Another use for Special Moves would be in the Heroics lessons, seeing as it might test how your Special Move fares against the opponent you picked.

Video Games

I would say that this particular element plays quite a big role in this game, since the MC learns and develops themselves by playing games. While you do have a set of games which you’ve owned, you’re able to purchase new games from the Video Game store. I would recommend doing this, as there are some neat ones which will help you greatly in your playthrough. But if you're not interested to explore them, that's fine too!

Each video game has a different effect, and it’s up to you to discover them! Or, perhaps, you could unlock a Special Move that allows you to know what effect each of the game has? 😉

What are Video Games being used for?

Most games will only increase specific Stat(s), but there are also others that can unlock Special Moves.

There is one game which helps you to unlock Stats or Special Moves of your classmates, which you can use in the Heroics lesson to pick a suitable opponent based on your current Stats.

In addition to all that, there are 2P games which require more than one person to play, and you could play them with your romance target when they’re available. On top of building your Cooperativeness, choosing the right answers during the gaming session will increase that character's affection.

Others

The basic functions behind some activities like studying, buying video games, and playing video games are done. I will probably move on to code the functions handling the Heroics lesson’s battles and the behind-the-scenes of when the player chooses to go to certain places.

I've also finished the two main custom screens, which is the Quirk and Games page. If I have time and the motivation, I'm guessing I'll be adding the two other additional screens I had thought of doing. We'll see.

Assets

This part is my nightmare, because I’m a perfectionist who’s far too picky when gathering resources…

But no assets = no game, so I did find several assets which I did like. This includes backgrounds, audios, background musics, and some sprites I was planning to use for developing the phone call function. I’m not going to list down all the things I found here, because I don’t think any of you would be interested in a long-ass list, but here’s an amazing background picture which I stumbled upon searching the dark abyss that is the internet:

Full credits to the artist: https://arsenixc.artstation.com/

Writing

I would have to say there isn't too much progress on this side yet, but I did decide on some story elements I want to insert into the game and scripted in a few scenes for the first day. I also managed to code in the dialogs for some common activities / places, like the video game store and a small part of school lunch time.

Honestly, I should probably create a sheet to identify how many scenes I would have to write? So all of us know the progress for this part of the development? ..... Let's see how it goes when my OCD flares up...

Disclaimers

All assets included in the devlogs are not mine, and credits to the asset owners / websites will be included in the game! My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia ⓒ Horikoshi Kouhei

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #heroaka #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #wnha #devlog

[annab-nana]

Stupid Cupid - Colby Brock

Normally, y/n and Colby spend Valentine’s Day together because they are both single, but this year, y/n has a boyfriend. Her Valentine’s date takes an unexpected turn, ending with her night spent crying in Colby’s arms.

Warnings: some curse words

Word Count: 2.7k+

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"Colby likes skittles, right?" I ask Sam as I hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder. My hands were full of a few stuffed animals and a cute basket that I had found and filled with several kinds of candy. Normally on Valentine's Day, Colby and I both are single, and we stay in, order some food, and go get discount chocolate the next day. This has been our tradition for the past few years, but last March, I started dating Josh and we've been together ever since. I decided to get something together for him since all his best friends have girlfriends and I have a boyfriend. I think it will brighten his day and make him happy.

"Yes, he does. Who doesn't like skittles, y/n?" I hear Sam's laugh bellow through the speaker of my phone. I giggle along with him at myself.

"Leave me alone, Samuel. I just wanted to make sure, so I decided to call his other half. You two are basically married at this point." We chuckled together before I heard a beep on my phone. I sat down my basket before looking at my phone. Josh is calling me.

"I got to go, Sam. Josh is calling me." I say quickly.

"Okay, bye," Sam says before I end the call to answer Josh. I press the green button and place my phone back where it was so that I can grab my basket and continue shopping.

"Hey, babe!" I say excitedly. I haven't talked to him since last night when I fell asleep on him on FaceTime.

"Hey princess, I was just calling to let you know that I am picking you up at six tomorrow for dinner." I heard his sweet voice tell me. A blush rose to my cheeks at the nickname. He calls me that all the time and every time, I feel butterflies.

"Will you please tell me where we're going?" I whine into the phone as I look through the Valentine's Day cards, trying to find one that's perfect for Colby.

"Nope but dress nice." He's been aggravating me all week by not telling me where we're going, but tomorrow night, I will finally find out.

"I hope you know you're annoying," I inform him, and he chuckles in response.

"I know, but you love me anyway." I smile and nod my head, forgetting he can't see me.

"Yes, I do. I do love you." I tell him as I smile like an idiot in the middle of this store.

"I love you too, but I got to go. Jackson needs help getting his Valentine's shit together for Ava. I'll talk to you later, princess." He tells me before we say our goodbyes and hang up.

I love how Josh is always there for Jackson. Those two didn't have the best life growing up, but Josh was always there for Jackson no matter what. Jackson is Josh's younger brother. Jackson is a senior in high school and Ava is his first serious girlfriend, so I know Jackson wants to make it special for her. Ava is a super sweet girl in Jackson's math class. He asked her for help on a problem that he already knew how to do just so he could talk to her. They started studying together and eventually, he asked her out. They are so cute together. I love it.

After a while of looking around, I finally got everything together and checked out at the store. I loaded it all into my car and headed back to my apartment building. I got off the elevator and passed the guys' apartments to get to mine which was right next to Colby's. I quickly ran into my apartment, in case Colby decided to walk out right then. I didn't want him to know it was me. I want to surprise him.

I pulled everything into my office and set the basket up, filling it with all of the little things I got him. Once I was happy with how it looked, I took a picture of it and sent it to Kat.

Y/n: Do you think he will like it?

Kat: Of course, he will y/n! You know he will love anything if it comes from you.

Y/n: I know, I guess I just feel bad because we aren't doing Valentine's together this year 😩

Kat: Yeah but this will really brighten his day. We both know he hates Valentine's Day.

Y/n: He does lol. What are you and Sam doing for Valentine's Day tomorrow?

Kat: Idk, he hasn't asked me to be his valentine yet 😠

Y/n: Really? Valentine's Day is tomorrow. He doesn't have much time left lol. Josh won't tell me what we're doing. He just said dress nicely. Should I wear my black or red dress?

Kat: THE BLACK ONE!!!!!!!! It looks so good on you. And if you wear red lipstick and your red heels with it too, I don't think Josh will be able to resist you.

Y/n: okay 😂 thanks girl!

Kat: you're welcome babe!

...

I walked into my office and grabbed the basket I made for Colby. I tiptoed to his door and sat the basket down. I rang the doorbell and dashed down the hall, so I could watch him open the door. I could see him, but he couldn't see me.

He opened the door and a smile spread across his face. He looked around outside his door and then looked around in the basket for any indication of who left it for him. He pulled out the card, but I didn't write anything in it because I knew he would be able to tell my handwriting. After seeing that there was nothing to give away who sent the secret Valentine's gift, he shrugged and picked up the basket, taking it inside.

I giggled lightly to myself and took the long way to my apartment, in case he was spying through his peephole. As soon as I walked in, I got a twitter notification. Colby had tweeted. It said, "to whoever left a basket of chocolates and teddy bears at my door.. i 🖤 u" A small smile crept its way into my face. I left Twitter and started to play music as I got ready for tonight.

After my hair was curled and makeup was done, I slipped into my black dress and put on my red heels like Kat suggested and let me tell you, she was damn right when she said I looked good in this. I couldn't stop looking at myself. I've never looked this good before. I can already imagine the things that Josh and I will be doing later.

A knock at my door broke me from my thoughts. I hurried to the door and opened it to reveal my handsome man with flowers in his hands.

"Awe Josh, you didn't have to do all this," I told him as he smiled widely.

"Yes, I did. Wanna know why?" He giggled.

"Why?" I question as he hands me the bouquet.

"Because I love you, princess, and there is more where that came from." He tells me as he takes my hand. "Now let's go put those in some water in a vase and then we can go to dinner." I do as he said, and we leave for dinner.

"Hey guys!" I hear and my eyes meet my best friend.

"Hey, Colbs!" I say as I run up to him to hug him. I haven't actually seen him in a few days. We've texted and stuff but that's it. We pulled away from our embrace and I stepped back, grabbing Josh's hand. Seeing Colby made me ten times happier if that was even possible.

"I know this is a weird question, but did you see anyone out here earlier today?" Colby asked me as he leaned against his doorframe. It looked like he was coming back home from somewhere. I couldn't help the sneaky smile that showed up on my face, but I shook my head.

"No, I've been in my place all day. Why? What's up?" I asked. Maybe that would help him not think it was me.

"Someone left something at my door earlier and I was wondering who it was, but I don't know," Colby informed us. By the look on his face, he appeared to be pretty confused.

"Sorry, I haven't seen anything," I tell him. I feel a tug at my hand and look up at Josh. He bends down slightly to reach my ear.

"I hate to break you two up, but we need to hurry." He whispers in my ear and I nod at him.

"Okay Colby, we have to head out, but I'll see you later, okay?" I tell him as I go in for another hug. He smiles and nods before waving at us. We head down the elevator, to the car, and then to the restaurant. When we arrived, we were set off in the back away from everyone else. It was beautiful back here. Little string lights illuminated the place with a soft glow. Nice music played lowly in the background and being here with Josh made it all the better.

We talked about many things as we ate. He told me about helping Jackson yesterday. We talked about old memories of when we first met and started dating. As we laughed, I felt a buzz comes from my phone. I pulled it out to see a text from Colby.

Colbs: it was you wasn't it?

Y/n: maybe 😉

"Who is it?" I looked up at Josh who was looking at me strangely. I could hear a tinge of jealousy in his voice. I don't know why I felt a sudden surge of guilt run through my body, but I felt like I was doing something wrong or that Josh thought I was doing something wrong.

"It's Colby. You know how he said someone left something at his door earlier?" I asked him and he nodded. I explained to him that I got Colby something for Valentine's Day and left it at his door because we weren't doing anything together this year like we always have.

After that awkward moment, we continued to eat and talk until Josh pulled out a cute gift bag and handed it to me.

"Happy Valentine's Day princess!" He said as he gave me the gift. I shot him a huge smile before going through the bag. It was filled with candies, stuffed animals, pictures of us from the last year together, and a card. I opened the card and began to read it out loud.

"Y/n, these past eleven months with you have been amazing and I can't wait to see what our future together holds. As you know, love hasn't been an easy thing for me to acquire, but you have shown me that I am capable of being loved and I can show that I love someone too. I love you princess and I will continue to love you for as long as I can. I want to love you for the rest of my life if you will let me. So, will you let me?" My brows furrowed over my teary eyes and I looked up to where Josh was sitting previously. But he wasn't there. He was beside me, on one knee, with a ring in his hand.

"Y/n, I love you so much so will you do me the honor of marrying me?" He asked me. My tear-filled eyes met his and I don't know why but I hesitated. What should have been an easy question became so hard. I love Josh with all my heart, but I don't know what's stopping me from saying yes. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

"Princess?" Josh looked at me, worried. He was probably very sure I would say yes too. Damn it, y/n say yes. Just say it. It's not a hard word to say. You probably say it every day. Just say it.

"I- I don't know," I choke out. I regret it instantly when Josh's face falters. He looks so upset.

"It's not that I don't want to. I just don't think I'm ready for that yet baby. I love you. You know I do. It's just I don't think now is a good time." Josh gets up and sits in his seat.

"Are you sure that's the reason? There isn't anything else?" He questions me. What is he getting at?

"I don't know what you mean, J. What do you think it is?" I ask him, kind of pissed at him. Does he not believe that I'm not ready for that yet? That is a pretty big step to take with someone.

"Damn I'm an idiot. I should've seen what was right in front of me. Y/n, you're in love with Colby. I thought I was wrong, but I don't think I am." He confesses.

"I am not. I love you, Josh. I'm just not ready to get married. I'm 21. I don't want to get married now." Anger, sadness, and confusion swirled through my body. I'm not in love with Colby. I love him because he is my best friend but I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with the man sitting in front of me. Maybe I should've just said yes to save all this trouble.

"Y/n, I love you too but something's not right. You love both me and Colby, but something stopped you from saying yes to me. If you were really in love with me, we wouldn't be having a problem right now. I think you are in love with him, whether you see it or not." He seemed upset but I could tell he was speaking exactly what he felt.

"Can you take me home or should I call an Uber?" I say as I stare off through a window in the side of the room. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to be at home.

"I'll take you home if you want me to, princess." The nickname that used to make me feel like the best person in the world is now bringing more tears to my eyes. I just looked at him and nodded. We left the restaurant and got back into his car. The ride home was silent and thought-filled. I'm guessing that our relationship is over, but I don't want to lose Josh. I want him to stay in my life. We pull up to the outside of my apartment complex and Josh grabs my hand.

"I want you to know that I still love you princess and I will always be here for you." A few more tears slipped out as we shared one last kiss together. A kiss goodbye.

"I love you too," I whisper before opening the door and walking inside. Once I get on the elevator, the tears I had been holding back for so long came flowing out. I reach the fifth floor and the doors open, revealing my best friend.

"Y/n, what's wrong?" That question broke me, and I fell into his arms, crying. He held me as he pulled me out of the elevator.

"Let's go to my place, okay?" He asked and I nodded. Once we were in his apartment, we sat on his couch and I explained to him all that occurred tonight.

"He thinks you're in love with me?" Colby questioned.

"Yes," I answer quietly.

"What do you think?" He asks me and I look up at him.

"I don't think I'm ready to get married," I tell him.

"Yeah, but if you wanted to marry him, you could be engaged to him for however long you needed until you were ready to get married. I think he's right. You didn't want to marry him."

"You think I'm in love you too?" I ask him, sitting up straighter to get a better view of his answer.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping you are. Y/n, you are gorgeous, kind, funny, everything that a guy wants in a girl. And did you see the way you looked tonight? If you were mine and you came out looking like that, we wouldn't have made it to the restaurant. You are beautiful. How could I not want you?" His honesty took me by surprise. I never knew he felt this way.

"Maybe you and Josh are right," I whisper without thinking and Colby's eyes light up.

"Maybe stupid Cupid shot his arrow at the wrong people?" I chuckled at his response but nonetheless agreed.

"Maybe"

#colby #Sam and Colby #colby brock #cute colby #colby brock imagine #colby brock x reader #fanfic #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fanfiction #cute colby brock #cole robert brock #y/n #katrina stuart #sam golbach #TRAPHOUSE #xplr

[time-is-standing]

my top 10 songs from June

1. Alligator Skin Boots by McCafferty this song is something else. the part "alcoholics don't get far unless they drink and drive, let's go for a ride" left me speechless... this song makes me proper depressed though, so I banned it from my playlists. it's really hard to listen to even though I want to do it every second of most days.

2. idfc acoustic by blackbear this is one of the best things that ever happened to humanity. I heard it somewhere and was still working when I started singing this version of the song to some of the kids staying in late, and I searched for it for days. this song fueled me when I thought I couldn't survive the last weeks of work before our summer break.

3. Last Resort (Reloaded) by Papa Roach, Jeris Johnson it feels like i've been listening to this one for a while. let me double check. yup, I listened to it at the beginning of may. this reminded me about my birthday, it was such a fun month.❤️ I love my friends.

4. Real Life Sux by Justus Bennetts I still hate "adult life" and I'm working hard to be able to quit it by studying coding and writing in every spare hour I have. it connected me to one of my best friends and it made our relationship much better so it's a win-win... unless I go crazy and "quit." "quit what?" "life, if it's an option"... lol

5. Sara by We Three I've been feeding my depression some real bangers recently. this song had several layers I had to go through to understand it fully and every time came with a crying session (mostly in various assortments of bathrooms). I couldn't relate more to a song in this topic. "People think she's complicated and never wanna look inside, cause she's a little too R-rated and they're a little too damn blind" I struggled this past month really badly with the fact that when I was in an abusive mindset & realtionship, not a single person said anything about it. I hurt myself like daily and tried to cover it up but people saw too much for it to stay a secret... also someone else hurt me regularly, and yet nobody said or asked anything at all. and this was one of the hardest things for me to accept. not to mention forgiving them.

6. Two Moons by BoyWithUke I found this on tiktok and it's the coolest little song ever. the "fuck no, I go where I want to" made the first half of my vacation enjoyable and so much more fun than what I originally thought.

7. I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE by Måneskin oh, I don't think, there's anything to see here. a masterpiece straight from the rabbithole of eurovision. I have a love-hate relationship with that show but luckily my country didn't preform so I wasn't watching. somehow this particular song made it's way into my life and I'm not mad about it in the slightest.

8. Three by Sleeping At Last this is my go-to song when I need to relax and chill out without making myself a crying mess dealing with a sudden mental breakdown. sleeping at last has the best songs when it comes to calming & soothing ones! 10/10 would recommend.

9. u love u by blackbear & Tate McRae I didn't realize I listened to this song this much. I loved it for the first three times and somehow hated it for the rest of the month. but while I'm studying or concentrating on writing, I always listen to music on shuffle so it must've been playing in the background of my days.

10. BETTER OFF DEAD by jxdn I just love this man. I don't know what's about him that makes me turn into a literal fangirl when I hear his vocie/see him but I'm just gone, no rational thoughts stay in my head.

#this month was #something else #actually #my top 10 songs #top 10 songs #june #mccafferty #alligator skin boots #blackbear #wethree #sleeping at last #jxdn #maneskin

[okayoonoh]

clumsy joy

“This clumsy little joy that giggles oh so brightly in his arms makes everything that pains him worth it.”

---

- PAIRING: johnny seo x reader - GENRE: cute, tooth rotting, family fluff - RATING: E for everyone - WORD COUNT: 3,284 - WARNINGS: other than the possible heart attacks of imagining johnny seo as a dad? no warnings whatsoever

a/n : i wanted to take a quick break from writing the descriptions of the kids because i’ve been writing so many descriptions, i need to take a sec to keep things original lol 

also! here’s the masterlist to all things nct dad related! i hope you guys like this little scenario :)

---

---

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Johnny thanks the staff that helped him get all the way upstairs with all of his stuff.

He just finished a tour with his group, equally rewarding, equally hectic. Don’t get him wrong, Johnny loves his group: his fans, his music, his members, but sometimes, the hectic life of an idol is too much for him. Sometimes, NCT’S Johnny just wants to be Johnny Seo: husband and father of three beautiful children. 

He takes out his keys, a smile on his face. He’s excited; after 3 months of only seeing you, his lovely wife, and his adorable little children through a screen, he’s excited to finally see them in person.

He steps inside, completely ready to hear the natural noisiness of his family, but a beat of silence rushes over him instead. He checks his phone, 2:30 PM. 

Oh, Noah and Leo are still at school.

Only a couple lights throughout the house were lit, the gentle buzz of the A/C hums in the background. He walks towards the living room, about to call out your name to see if you’re home. He stops right before he does though, glad he stopped when he did. His heart flutters at the sight he sees in the messy living room: you asleep on the couch with your daughter sleeping on your chest. Her fist is clenched near her mouth, drool leaking out of her mouth onto your shirt. Her long lashes rest against her cheeks, her nose, which resembles your own, sings a sweet whistle displaying the life within her lungs, her chubby cheeks squished up against your chest, moving up in down in a calm pattern. Your hand rested on her back, reassuring your daughter that you were there. 

Everything about this moment in time is perfect in Johnny’s eyes.

He takes out his phone from his back pocket, snapping a quick picture of his two girls. He leans over, kisses your temple, kisses his daughter’s head, then heads off to your room to unpack. Of course he wanted nothing more than to spend quality time with his two girls, but he also knew that waking the two of you mid-nap is basically a death sentence. 

Besides, he has two boys who’ll be home in less than an hour. Johnny waited for 3 months to see his family, he doesn’t mind waiting another hour.

---

“Mom! I’m home! Kaleb is here, too!”

You jolt awake to the sound of your oldest son, Noah, opening the door. You feel the little sleepy Luna on your chest begin to stir, but you shush her and lull her back to sleep. You yawn as you gently move her to the little tent sitting on the side of the living room that Johnny set up for the kids, pulling her favorite blanket over her as she remains asleep.

You walk over to your son and his best friend, greeting the both of them. “Hey you two! How was school?”

Noah and Kaleb both give you a hug, “It was fine. We played soccer today and they put Kaleb and I on separate teams.”

“I won, Auntie!” Kaleb beams with pride, a wide smile on his face. You smooth over his long hair, smiling down at the happy kid.

“Good job, Kaleb! I’m sure your dad is going to be very proud of you!” Kaleb giggles at your praise while Noah rolls his eyes on the side.

“You totally cheated though!” Noah crosses his arms. 

“Are we seriously still on this?”

“Yes! Last time I checked, when the ball goes out of the line, it’s out.”

“It didn’t even go out of the line though!”

You chuckle under your breath with how far this little argument is escalating. Kaleb and Noah’s dynamic is just like their fathers, even down to the smallest details. 

You lower your voice to a whisper, acknowledging the sleeping toddler in the side of the living room. “Alright alright, you boys can settle it on another game of soccer later, but right now, you have to be very quiet. Luna is still asleep, okay?”

Noah and Kaleb nod at your request, immediately lowering their volume as they still argue about who truly won. Both boys decide to let bygones be bygones, knowing that their science project is way more important than this argument. 

“Kaleb and I need to finish up our science project. Is it okay if we move to the kitchen after we prepare everything?” Noah asks. 

You nod, “Just as long as you guys clean up when you’re done. I’ll go ahead and make you guys some snacks for now.”

Noah then whispers to you, “Okay! Thanks, momma. Oh, by the way, is appa home? I thought I saw his shoes…”

“I’m not sure, is appa home?” a voice whispers from behind you.

Noah, Kaleb, and you all turn around to the source of that voice. Johnny stands behind you, a wide grin on his face. Your heart jumps as you return that smile, hugging the tall man. Noah then runs, hugging his father. You are a little confused: last time you talked with your husband, he said that his flight won’t land until late at night. The fact that he’s standing in front of you is genuinely a serendipitous surprise.

“I thought you weren’t coming home until--”

“--My flight left earlier than expected. I got here like an hour ago.” He replies, his wide smile still plastered on his face.

“An hour ago?” You gape, “I’ve been home since then… I’m so sorry, how did I not notice you?”

“You and Luna were both out. Don’t worry about it; it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.”

You all break away from the hug, then Johnny squats down to his son's height. Noah smiles at his dad as Johnny holds his face in his hands, giving him a big kiss on the top of his head. 

“You’ve grown so much, Noah!”

Noah giggles at his dad, wrapping his arms around his neck, giving him another hug.

Kaleb then walks over, greeting the tall man, “Hello Uncle!”

Johnny gives him a hug as well, “Hey Kaleb! How are you doing?”

“I’m doing well,” he replies, “My dad is having a little bit of a hard time with Shawn and Aria, but with mom’s help, he’s just fine.”

“I bet. Do you like being an older brother?”

Kaleb doesn’t miss a beat, “I like being able to tell Shawn what to do. Aria is still too little and she doesn’t understand me. But Shawn listens.”

You and Johnny laugh at his response. Kaleb is definitely Ten’s son. The two boys then excuse themselves and head over to Noah’s room.

You head off towards the kitchen, making the snacks you promised as Johnny crawls into the tent his sleepy daughter rests in. She starts to get a little fussy in her sleep, Johnny shushes her gently and smooths over her growing hair. He then finds a pacifier resting on the table right outside of the tent, putting it inside of her mouth. She falls asleep peacefully again. Johnny could watch his daughter for hours and he would, but then again, he is a bit peckish and his loving wife is in the kitchen. He stands up and with long strides he easily reaches you while you work, chopping away on some carrots.

He digs his head into your shoulder, placing a heavy kiss on your cheek. “I’ve missed you.” 

You gently place the knife down and smooth your hands over his arms, relaxing into his embrace. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“Europe was fun, but almost everything I saw reminded me of you and the kids… speaking of, where’s Leo? I thought he was coming home with Noah?”

You turn around in his arms, looping your arms around his neck, “Leo went on a playdate with Jaeseok and Jaehun. I was going to go and pick him up later, but since you’re home now, do you want to?”

“That’s no problem.” He smiles. “I see that Leo has taken up acting now?”

“He spent one afternoon with the twins and they watched their Uncle Renjun in his drama once and now they want to dedicate their lives to it. I’ve been looking into some auditions for some commercials for him and he seems pretty excited for all of it.” You look up as you list all ideas you’ve been thinking of to help out your second son. Johnny gives you a smile filled with pride.

“Really?” he exclaims, “That’s so exciting!”

You nod, now digging your head in his chest. You missed this, feeling safe and secure in the arms of your husband. He presses a long kiss the top of your head, taking in a deep breath. 

“What time does he need to be picked up?” He says, breaking the silence.

“Around 5:30. He’ll definitely be excited to see his dad.” you squeeze him one last time then he lets go, you go back to finish snacks you promised for your boys. 

Johnny’s ears perk at the sound of Noah and Kaleb leaving Noah’s room, arguing again about Kaleb’s win as they head to the table, laying out all of their equipment to work on their science project together. He takes a step back to look at this one point in his life. He’s happy.

---

“Dad… dad, wake up, this is the best part!”

Johnny takes in a quick breath, feeling a tiny but mighty shake on his left arm. He wakes up from his 2-minute micro nap, attempting to take in what he’s missed. Leo sits on his left, Luna gnawing on a cracker to his right, Noah and Kaleb sit at the dining table working diligently together and you’re in the kitchen getting dinner ready. Leo watches the screen with intensity, seemingly trying to take in every subtle detail in the acting on screen. Luna watches too, but she definitely takes more interest in her cracker than the handsome man on the screen.

Johnny rests his hand on his son’s head, “Do you want to be an actor when you grown up?”

Leo looks up at his dad, his big eyes full of excitement. “Yes! Jaeseok and Jaehun want to join me too! They said that we'll be the best in the world! That’s why I want to study up, I don’t want to miss anything the professionals say!”

“Well, the best way to learn acting is to watch it,” Johnny smiles, “I also need to study up to improve my acting too, I’ll study with you!”

Leo returns his father’s smile with one almost identical to Johnny’s own, excited to have his father’s support in this. 

Luna looks at her big brother and her father, chewing the last bits of her cracker. She then huffs, she wants to be on the ground so she can work on her newfound ability of crawling and standing up on her own. She cooes and raises her arms, which catches Johnny’s attention. He then picks up his little one, placing her on his lap. She huffs again; this isn’t what she meant. She wants down, not up. Luna attempts to wiggle out of his grasp, frustrated that she can’t vocalize what she wants. 

“Oh, you want down?” Johnny asks his youngest. Yes, appa. She wants down. He then helps her to the ground, keeping an eye on her to make sure this is what she really wanted.

Her fussing ceased as she crawled around on the padded floor, heading straight towards the tent to grab her favorite toy. Johnny and Leo both bring their attention back to the drama, letting Luna play on her own for a little bit. 

Luna enjoys each and every single one of her toys, from her brother’s old trucks and dinosaurs to her very own plushies. She decides to occupy herself with her current favorite toy: her red soft chewing circle. Almost all of her teeth have grown in, but her insatiable hunger constantly needs her to at least chew on something. She grabbed the toy and crawled her way back in front of the TV, now gnawing on the red circle rather than her cracker. This will have to do for now.

She looks up at the people trapped behind the screen. She can’t really understand what they are saying and she doesn’t understand why they are not dancing in colorful costumes. As quickly as she gained interest in this drama, she lost it. Luna decides that now is as best time as ever to practice her newfound skills.

She drops her toy. It’s now or never. She leans forward until her palms hit the ground, she huffs again, putting all of her might in this motion.

She adjusts, planting her sock clad feet on the padded surface and takes a final mighty push up, taking her stand. It’s a little wobbly, but she did it, she’s up on two legs. She stands for a mere beat more, but then the strength of her legs can no longer hold her up as she falls on her diaper covered bum. She giggles, enjoying her small accomplishment.

No one notices Luna do her thing; Johnny and Leo focus the drama, Kaleb and Noah work on their project, you working hard to make sure the house doesn’t burn down. Luna doesn’t mind, she knows that everyone in this house already witnessed her do this before. It’s the next stage that she wants her family to acknowledge.

She’s happy, but not satisfied. She knows she can do more. Luna wants to take her skill a step further. She readies herself, preparing everything so she can successfully stand up.

Step one: standing. Complete.

She balances with determination; she can’t fall. It takes too much energy to fall and reset, she must keep pushing with elegance and poise. 

She then moves her right foot, stomping in the motion she watches everyone in her life move with. Okay, that wasn’t so bad. She does it again, but she slips, her balance gone.

This fall was louder than the previous, catching the attention of her father.

“Oh no, Luna,” Johnny coos, “Are you okay?”

“Oh, don’t worry dad. Luna likes to stand up on her own and fall on her butt. It’s her new favorite game.” Leo informs his father, his eyes never leaving the screen. Johnny nods, then turns his attention back to the drama.

She’s fine. She’s okay. Sympathy is not what Luna needs right now. What she needs right now is a break, so she can gather up her strength and go again.

Okay. It’s go time. This is the one. Luna will take her first steps tonight.

She repeats the process and stands mighty and tall, this time easier than the other times. She stomps her right foot; easy peasy. She presses her weight on her right, balancing herself out.

“Hey, I’m gonna grab my water, I left it in your room,” Kaleb says, standing from his seat. Noah nods, too invested in coloring the water droplets for their water cycle project.

Kaleb begins walking towards Noah’s room, passing by the living room where Leo and Johnny watch their drama. The TV grabs his attention first, but a small, wobbly thing moves in his peripherals, causing him to look towards the foreign thing in his vision. He sees Luna on the ground, wobbling back and forth, but on two legs?

He looks at Johnny and Leo on the couch, trying to see if they notice this two but both of their attention is on the screen, captivated by the actor’s performance. 

Is this Luna taking her first steps? Surely Noah would have told Kaleb about this milestone, but Kaleb can’t recall Noah even mentioning anything like this. He watches Luna again, seeing her lean too far to the left. He rushes over to her, catching her before she falls. He squats behind the toddler, his hands hovering on her sides just in case she loses her balance again.

“Uh… Uncle Johnny…” Kaleb starts, uncertain with this entire situation. Luna still marches on, or at least, tries to. “I think Luna is taking her first steps.”

Everyone’s attention is now on Kaleb and Luna, Kaleb steadying Luna again as she starts to lose balance, this time, to the right side. Her arms grab onto his hands as she steadies herself, determination fills her features. She is sure as heck not giving up, but she’s glad she has assistance now.

Johnny audibly gasps and rushes over to Luna and Kaleb, stepping a little further from Luna, expanding his arms.

“Babe! Come here! Luna’s walking!” He exclaims to you, excitement prevalent in his voice. “Come here Luna, walk towards appa!”

Luna giggles. Yes! Of course! This is the exact determination she needs! Her arms spread wide as she waddles towards the outstretched arms of her father. 

As realization hits, you quickly turn off the stove and run towards the living room, Noah trailing behind you. Leo and Noah stand to the sides of Luna, both helping Kaleb steady her. You kneel beside Johnny, clapping and cheering on your daughter.

“You can do it, Luna! Go to appa!” you cheer. Luna giggles again, stumbling to the side. Leo catches her and helps her steady herself.

“Don’t worry, Luna! We’ll catch you if you fall! Keep going, you can make it to appa!” Leo says to his baby sister. She grunts in agreement. This has to be the one. She knows that she’ll get there eventually. But, Luna lives in the fast lane. What she’s doing right now is far too slow for her. And frankly, Luna knows that she will waste all her energy if she continues it at this pace. She knows there’s only one thing left that she can do.

With all of her remaining strength, she sets out to do what she sees her brothers do every single day. She suddenly moves her feet in a faster motion, using every last ounce of her strength to land in the comforting arms of her father. The boys are caught off guard, being left behind by the determined toddler. They quickly catch up to her, their hands ready, again, to catch her if she falls.

She clumsily runs (more like stumbles) towards her dad and right before she falls, her father reaches over and scoops her up, standing up and tossing her in the air.

“You did it Luna! You took your first steps!!” he cheers, tossing and catching her. You and the boys clap and cheer on the side, all so happy to witness this milestone.

Cheers are yelled from everyone in the house, everyone so proud of the youngest member in this household. Everyone is jumping with joy, all eyes on Luna. She giggles. Luna knows that soon, she’ll be running alongside her brothers, now able to keep up with them. Johnny brings her down and gives her head a million kisses. His heart is so full with happiness and joy.

Moments like these are what Johnny lives for, what makes him work harder with every new comeback and performance, because he knows that at the end, he’ll come home to this, his true happiness. This clumsy little joy that giggles oh so brightly in his arms makes everything that pains him worth it. Every late night, sore muscle, lost voice, everything. 

His life may be loud and busy but he is sure as heck he wouldn’t trade it for anything. This clumsy joy that everyone in his life gives him is really what he pushes for.

He’s happy, he’s satisfied, and he can’t wait to see what comes next.

---

johnny would really be one of the sweetest dads :,)

i wanted to take a little break with the descriptions and have a scenario out there!

now since i have more kids described and stuff, i will start to write more scenarios! the second i have a complete group, i’ll write a scenario with that completed generation :)

oh and i’ll also make a list with all of the kids with their bdays (i honestly just chose random dates lol) and which generation they belong in as well as a chart with who their best friends are! 

last thing! requests are open! you can request anything and everything under the sun; it doesn’t have to be related to nct with their families (but i’m totally down to write more scenarios about this) and i’m don’t mind tagging people if you want to stay updated every time i add to this growing series!

i hope you guys liked it! let me know what you thought or if you wanna just come by and chat, i’d love to make new friends!

- amy <3

#cznnet #nct #nct fluff #johnny seo #seo johnny #seo youngho #johnny fluff #johnny imagine #nct imagine #nct as dads #dad!nct #dad!johnny #johnny as a dad #dad johnny #fluff #kpop fluff #kpop imagine #seo family #taeil #johnny #taeyong #yuta #kun #doyoung #ten #jaehyun #winwin #lucas #mark #xiaojun

[2telluthetruth]

before i watch some shit i gotta know how the story ends. if not, ima critically analyze the whole movie until i figures it... it usually takes me 30 minutes to figure out the whole plot but that’s besides the point. knowing the ending of a movie allows me to pay attention to alll the little things leading up to the end. the directors choice in lighting, the way that certain actor did a certain movement to portray a certain feeling, setting, like camera work, basically everything i just the last 4 years of my life studying get applied to my enjoyment of a film. 

I wish life was like that... you get to like google how it all ends for you. like what will happen in your life all the way to the end. you can always have what you envisioned for yourself, your plan, your schedule of things but then life has a funny way of letting you know that shit happens. and you learn whatever it is you need to from that incident, apply the lesson, and keep going. it’s actually pretty simple. like looking both ways before you cross the street and still almost getting hit by a car because a person felt the need to speed thru an intersection because maybe he had a family emergency or he had too much to drink. regardless life will thro curveballs, ain’t that fucked up? like bitch. lemme read my book of life so i can move accordingly. but i guess that’s not fun anyways because God would just tell us what to do and there would be no free will. and we all know how people hate being told what to do with there life from a higher up lmao

....but idk none of this shit really applies to me. I guess I’ll just share my testimony here since I'm only people who really give a fuck about me would give a fuck about this post. ( Which i recently found out is ME, i’m the only person who opinions/decisons matter when it comes to me life)

SO HERE IT GOES

Since a child, I always knew i was going to be a very wealthy person. I’m smarter than my peers, i’m stronger than my peers, and way more wiser than most of people i meet. It’s very rare I met a person who’s intellect is as diverse as mine in terms of emotional knowledge and regular book smart shit. Like i’m sort of a hood intellectual, but like different because my Dad is a foreigner who comes from i guess what you would call a decent background, My grandfather was an engineer in Germany lmao. Like wtf. That’s very hard to do. Them mfs got some history of disrcrimnation if you know what I mean. And another ancestor of mine on my father side was adopted by the priest of a missionary because he was so smart, hence why my last name has french origins. and you know what i found out this year during my research dives on the different religions in the world..

There is a Saint in the catholic religion named St. Malo and his birthday is the same birthday as mine. He’s french as well. LMAO SO like i said I AM BUILT DIFFERENT. But that’s not what i really wanted to go talk about so let’s talk about how I’ve always knew I am dying a extremely rich woman. First of my name type shit.

So yeah. 

I LOVE PERFORMING AND PUTTING ON A SHOW OKAY! SINCE BIRTH!

I’m not even dramatic. I remember dancing in front of my family all the time.   Ask my auntie teena and she’d tell ya I would dance in front of anybody at any place in a drop of a dime. There’s literal footage of me dancing at every function at BayBay (Vivian) house. Lmao I still dance with all my family members at the bbqs I attend. Dancing really is my shit.

 Singing is too.

 I remember going to church with my daddy, some spot in LA/ the Jamaican jawn with uncle Jerry, and singing “Because of who you are” in front of everybody. No fucks given, And i kid you not I felt the holy ghost. That’s the best feeling in the world. Happened to me a couple times but I’ll tell ya bout it later some day when it matters. i remember one time coming home and singing and HITTING THAT HIGH PITCH ASS MARIAH CAREY NOTE! ( we got the same birthday too)

and i always loved music. the only time i didn’t cry was in my daddy cars listening to the reggae and bass booming thru the fucking trunk. 

During school I remember performing all the time. School plays, I got the lead role. School assembly, I’m putting on a show. Shit even for my 5th graduation I choreographed the whole MJ we are the world dance routine. Lol for hispanic heritage month I always was the girl who had the authentic skirt for the folklore dance. it was black and red. Very pretty. Mrs. Sanchez was enamored with me girl. She was like your the star you gone be centerstage in the middle only black girl while everyone else wonder why your on stage lmao. We were so good we entered a competition and got a trophy. 

Basketball was fun. I do not like team sports so that ain’t work out. Plus i think i suck. Well I couldn’t have been that bad because in middle school I made the All City team. I didn’t play because my hair wasn’t done I kept the jersey though LMAO. They was hot. HS was whatever. Lowkey only did it because of the niggas and cheer was boring/got too intense for me. I had commitment issues back then like crazy lmao.

Track was fun too. Made championships when I ran. Heart really wasn’t into to it if I’m keeping it G-Real. Didn’t fuck with the track meets plus the girls on the team hated me. I was always with the guys but the weren’t like the guys i hung out with all the time. them niggas was squares, homeschooled and all that. i hung out with delinquents lmao. Shit they always more fun. I know why Jesus hung out with the sinners mmkay. They loyal and know how to have a good time.

In middle school, I won a poetry contest about this poem I had about being a tree and not falling despite what happens. I also got like  award for being the top 3% of scoring in the whole district a couple times. Moms got me a iPod touch lmao.

High school ASB President, got accepted into more than 20+ colleges, in AVID. Cheer team. Basketball team. My drama Teacher, Mrs. Borek called me the baby Viola Davis. I directed and produced my own play lol. Boy, when I graduated I was on stage with admin and faculty. 

But anyways overall, 

I’ve always been the cream of the crop in any arena I apply myself. And I’ve never ever experienced a situation where I’ve been down bad that I didn’t plot and maneuver my way out of it (besides the shit that happened this year 2020 but i’ll give my 2020 review later ). I’m continuously blessed. Even when  I shouldn’t be. 

In elementary, I could’ve caught a case because I punched this boy in the head and he hit the tetherball pole then the floor. Buddy was knotted up lmao

In elementary school during after school day care I banged this girl head on the table and a pole lmao. 

In the carmelitos i gave this girl the business at auntie meanies house. Abri said beat her ass so I did. Trust me daddy, I’m always on go lmao. Her family was from some type of hood. They ain’t retaliate. 

Middle school I was beating boys up after school never got in trouble. LMAO None of the girls wanted to fight with they scary ass. 

High school I did the dumbest shit freshman year but didn’t get suspended. \bro i’m tired. i’ll tell the rest later.  but closing statement life’s a gamble for people who don’ t know the code. once you figure out your role play to the best of your ability and pray to God to constantly look out for you. *  4:48 

[fourdaysofrain]

Working Imperfectly

Summary: Peter struggles with his workload. 

(This is a (late) Valentine’s Day exchange fic for the incredible and talented @ephemeralstark! I hope you enjoy!)

Read on AO3

Tick, tick, tick, tick. 

Peter doesn’t know how it started. 

Tock, tock, tock, tock. 

He’s been staring at his ceiling for hours. 

Tick, tick, tick, tick. 

He doesn’t even want to look at the clock, knowing he’d hate what he saw. 

Tock, tock, tock, tock. 

---

Peter’s eyes burned as soon as he opened them to see the sunlight cutting in through his window. He groaned as he flung a hand to his nightstand to turn off his phone alarm. The silence that followed was music to his ears. He closed his eyes again and breathed in deeply, savoring the warmness of his bed. 

“You’re going to be late!” May’s voice cut through the final strings of sleep tying him to his bed. 

He groaned out a response and threw himself out of bed. Everything was sore. He was sore in places he didn’t even know he could feel. He had been up late fighting some… electric guy. He hadn’t stopped to get his name, but he still felt like lightning was zapping between his toes.  

Thankfully he still had some fresh laundry. He threw on some clean clothes and went to the kitchen to eat something before he left for school. May watched him from over her phone as he came in.

“How’d you sleep?” she asked. 

Peter rubbed a hand on the back of his head. “Fine! You know, I slept great.”

“Really?” She turned her phone around so he could see the screen.

Peter took her phone and read through the short article. It was a quick description of the fight from last night. Okay, so the guy’s name was Electro. That’s good to know. 

“That was from the weekend,” he stammered, handing the phone back to May and turning around to shove some bread in the toaster. “They must have been waiting to publish it on a school day.”

“Peter,” she said slowly, standing up and turning him around so she could put her hands on his shoulders. “You can’t do this to yourself. I worry about you.”

Peter shrugged her hands off and turned back to the toaster. “I’m fine, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“And would you say that if you weren’t?” May sighed at his silence. “I love you so much, babes. It’s my job to worry about you.”

“May, I promise.” He took his phone out of his pocket and started to send a text to Ned. “I’ve got it. Spider-Man’s got it. We all got it.”

May sat back down at the table and hummed as she picked up her coffee mug. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he said. 

May turned off her phone and put it back in her pocket. She cleared her throat. “Tony’s coming over for dinner tonight, by the way.”

Peter looked up from his phone cautiously. “What happened to hating him?”

“Well, it’s funny. He has a way of winning people over.” She paused to look at Peter’s raised eyebrows and smirked. “But Pepper’s who finally turned me around.”

Peter laughed and looked back at his phone. Ned finally replied. 

I’m here lol, the text said. did u do the study guide for warren?

He was going to do that last night, but then Electro showed up. Shit.

He flinched right before the toast popped out of the toaster.

---

Peter went through school mechanically. Sit next to Ned in classes, ignore Flash’s quips, zone out while looking at MJ, the usual. He even had time for Ned to info-dump to him about what was on the study guide before he went into Mrs. Warren’s class. 

“And then you have to remember to change the variables, but you already know that,” Ned finished just as they walked through the classroom door. 

Peter sighed as he threw his backpack by a stool. “Thank you so much, man. I owe you one.”

“That’s okay,” Ned said as he claimed the stool across from him. “You probably owe me like, five hundred by now. I’ve learned to not keep track.”

Peter groaned and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting a little long. “I’ll get you one of Mr. Stark’s ashtrays next time I visit. You can sell it on E-bay or something.”

“That’s good, ‘cause I’m totally in it for the money.”

Peter and Ned shared a quick, small laugh as the bell rang and Mrs. Warren started to hand out the tests. 

Peter tried to ignore the clock as he finished his test. Each time the second hand moved sounded like a gong. 

---

“It’s not my blood, don’t worry!” Peter called through the apartment as he climbed through the living room window. His bedroom window was blocked by a few tough-looking birds and he didn’t want to disrupt their meeting. 

He was stopping a mugger on the way back from Decathalon, but the mugger somehow ended up swiping the knife across his stomach while trying to do some knife trick to intimidate him. The person he was mugging ran away, and Peter ended up having to call an ambulance and apply pressure to the wound for a while. What a weird day. He ended up with a few small bloodstains, but thankfully everyone would be okay, mugger included. 

He slowly lowered himself from the ceiling and cringed at the faint bloody handprint that stained the white paint. He’d be hearing about that later, surely. He tugged his mask off and turned around to walk to his bedroom before freezing suddenly. 

“Hey, kid,” Tony greeted nonchalantly from the couch. 

Tony and Pepper were sitting on their couch. Right, May had said they were coming over for dinner. Tony’s eyes were crinkled with mirth behind his tinted glasses. Thankfully Pepper remained cordial. 

“Nice to finally meet you, Peter. Tony’s told me a lot about you,” she said, standing up and offering her hand. 

Peter vigorously wiped his hand on his thigh to get the blood off of it before shaking her hand. He didn’t feel too much stickiness when they separated, which was a good sign. He tried to give her a smile that didn’t look deranged. 

“Nice to meet you too, Ms. Potts.” He leaned around Pepper to look at Tony, who was still sitting on the couch. “You talk about me?”

Tony shrugged and removed his tinted glasses. “When you’re not covered in blood.”

“When am I covered in blood?” Peter looked down at his suit and then at the professional chic outfits Tony and Pepper were wearing. “I’m just going to go change real quick.”

He got a few feet past the couch before almost running into May, who bringing Pepper and Tony snacks from the kitchen. She jumped, almost spilling the crackers. 

“Peter,” she sighed, “I love you so, so much, but you’re all over the place today. I set out some nice clothes on your bed, go get changed.”

Peter nodded and left to change out of his suit, but not before grabbing a few crackers and cheese slices from May’s plate. 

---

The clinking of silverware seemed to fill the room. Tony and Pepper were perfectly polite, the food was great, but it was weird to mix his Spider-Man life with his personal life. It would be like if that weird lizard dude from last month started teaching his science class. 

“May, the chicken carbonara is lovely,” Pepper said, breaking the silence. 

May smiled at the compliment. “Thanks, it’s one of the few things I can make. It’s my mom’s recipe.”

Pepper and May’s chatting slowly faded into the background of Peter’s mind. He focused on the pasta he was twirling on his fork. 

His mind went to school. He had a project for Spanish due on Friday, some math homework slowly piling up in his notebook, and a history assignment he had to get done. He knew that by the time he finished everything, he’d have a whole new set of homework assignments to stress out about. 

He hoped everyone in Queens could just take it easy on the crime for the next few days so he could get caught up on everything. 

May nudged his ankle with her foot from under the table and he looked up from his plate to see Tony and Pepper looking at him. 

“Uh… what?” 

Tony chuckled and asked, probably for the second time, “How’s the suit holding up? Dubious blood stains aside.”

“Oh, it’s great, Mr. Stark. Really nice. It stretches in the right places and… everything.” He shoved some pasta in his mouth so he didn’t keep rambling. 

“Good to hear,” Tony said with a laugh at the edge of his voice. He makes eye contact with Pepper before looking back at Peter. “Pep and I wanted to invite you to come to the lab upstate and work on a new suit. It’d be good for you to get some input on the new design.”

Peter stopped chewing and looked at May incredulously. 

She smiled and said, “It’s fine with me.”

He swallowed his half-chewed pasta. “Yeah, that’d be-- that’d be really cool, Mr. Stark. That’d be great.”

“Great,” Tony said with a smile. “Happy can pick you up after school on Friday.”

“Wow, thank you, Mr. Stark,” he said, trying to ignore his ever-growing to-do list that had to be done by then. “That’d be awesome.”

May nudged his shoulder with hers. “As long as you get all your homework done. Spider-Man can’t be failing any classes.”

“Easy-peasy,” he said, squinting at her. “Piece of cake. Homework’s easy.”

He joined in with the slow wave of laughter that spread across the table. 

---

Before he knew it, it was already Thursday night. He was sitting at his desk, staring down his Spanish project as his clock kept moving forward and forward. 

Cuando tenía ocho años, me gustaba ver las películas Star Wars con mi tío. Íbamos al cine juntos. 

The imperfect tense would never make sense to him. Neither would the formulas he was learning in calculus. Or the war he was learning about in history. He sighed and put his head in his hands. 

If he turned his head just right, he could see the corner of his Spider-Man suit peeking out of his backpack. He started to smile and shut his laptop.

---

This is what made it all worth it. Swinging through the fresh night air and feeling his gut lurch with adrenaline at every downswing. He felt like nothing could touch him when he was like this.

A tone rang in his ears and he looked to the corner of his UI where Tony’s face was currently flashing as he ran along a rooftop. 

Almost nothing could touch him while he was like this. 

“Can you accept the call, Karen?” he asked, flipping backward over the edge of the building and falling into a swing. 

He only had a moment of the wind rushing past him before Tony started talking. “Got a sec, Pete?”

“Yeah, I’ve got plenty of secs.” He screwed up his face as he swung up and planted himself on a rooftop. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

He heard a small sigh over the line. “I’m going to do us both a favor and ignore that. What’re you doing up so late?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, swinging his feet off the side of the building. “Just swinging around. Stopping crime. All that stuff.”

“I seem to remember May giving you a curfew of 11pm, is that still in place?”

Peter checked the time at the side of his UI. It was past midnight. “Uh, no. She decided to take a more… flexible stance on that.”

“Let’s pretend you told the truth just then. Why are you out past curfew?”

“Who says I’m out past curfew?” He stood up and started pacing. “Why are you up so late, anyway?”

Peter blinked when Tony suddenly hung up the call. He only had a moment to react before he heard the Iron Man suit land on the other side of the rooftop. The suit parted to let Tony step out, dressed in a faded band shirt and oil-stained jeans. 

“I was field-testing some ideas for tomorrow when I got a little blip saying you were still out,” he said, clapping his hands together. “So what’s the deal, kid? Are you nervous to check out my lab? Totally understandable, but you shouldn’t worry too much. I let DUM-E roll around, and he’s more of a mess than you.”

“It’s not that at all, it’s just--” Peter tugged his mask off, feeling strands of hair fall at the base of his neck. He rubbed them between his fingers. “Do you think I need a haircut? I feel like my hair’s been getting really long and I know I need to get one, but it’s just that there’s a million different places to do it and I don’t even--”

Tony walked towards him with his hands up, as if approaching a wild animal. “Hey, woah, kid. Your hair’s fine. I’ve got a barber I can send to your apartment if you need.”

“It’s not even that. It’s--” Peter ran a hand through his hair. “It’s just stupid, is what it is. I’m Spider-Man, right? I should be able to handle this--” He slumped against the concrete barrier around the edge of the roof and cradled his head. “This! High school, classes, friends, all of it. It’s not hard! I can just-- can see everyone else doing it. Betty does everything I do and she does the announcements and has a job to save up for college.”

“Betty isn’t also moonlighting as Spider-Man.”

Peter made a noise that sounded almost like a growl. “That’s not the-- She could! If she was Spider-Man, she would be able to, is the thing! I just don’t know what everyone else has that I don’t! That’s it!”

He heaved out a sigh. When he spoke again, it was much softer. 

“I just feel like I’m drowning.” He looks up to Tony from where he’s sitting. His eyes are glazed with a thin veil of tears. ”And every time I get close to breaking the surface and getting a chance to breathe, the water level just rises again. I never get a chance to stop moving.”

Tony carefully sits next to him. After a second, he places a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “We can work with this. You’re feeling overwhelmed. That’s… That’s a normal teen thing.”

Peter choked out a laugh and rubbed his eyes. “I guess. It sucks.”

“Yeah, I remember it sucking quite a bit,” Tony said. He motioned between the two of them. “But this is good. Communication. Asking for help. That’s good. That’s all you.”

Peter shrugged and hummed in response. 

“You know what’s not good, though?” Peter looked up at Tony. “Using your suit as a way to escape your issues.”

“Sorry,” Peter mumbled, looking down at his lap. 

Tony sucked air through his teeth sharply. “No, you-- You don’t have to apologize, kid. This is normal, what you’re doing. I’m warning you about the suits as a preventative measure.” He looked up at the stars and exhaled softly. “It can be hard to have such an easy escape route. Who needs to worry about the lowly issues of the people when you can just fly away from it all, right?”

Peter joined Tony in watching the stars. Even though the smog of the city covered a lot of their view, they could still see the lights twinkling in the distance. 

“But you’re too young to worry about all that yet,” Tony said, giving Peter’s one last squeeze before removing his hand. “So hit me, stripling. What’s got you down?”

“Um… homework?” he offered after a moment.

Tony scratched his jawline. “Let’s narrow it down a bit, eh? Anything due tomorrow?”

“Well,” Peter sighed, “I’m supposed to write a paragraph in the imperfect tense for Spanish, but I never know when to use it, even though Mr. DiPaolo has explained it a million times.”

“Okay.” Tony paused. ”Well, that’s doable.” He stood up and walked over to his suit. “Italian’s got a similar quirk to the past tense. I might not be as good as your teacher at explaining, but I know the ropes. Sit tight.”

“Wait, what?” Peter pushed himself up and followed Tony. “Are you teaching me Spanish?”

Tony detached the helmet from the suit and moved to stand in the center of the roof. “Got nothing better to do at midnight on a Thursday. As long as you promise to keep this to yourself. Your aunt is a force to be reckoned with.” He paused to think. “On second thought, you can tell her how good of a mentor I was by teaching you Spanish, just leave off the fact that it happened past curfew.” 

Tony placed the helmet down on the surface of the roof and minutely adjusted the angle it was facing. After a moment, he stood up and moved in front of it, wiping his hands on his jeans. 

“Sit,” Tony said, pointing at the ground a few feet from his helmet. 

Peter sat. “Mr. Stark, you don’t have to do this. I can look up a Quizlet or something.”

Tony waved him off. “Nonsense, kid. You’ll be back home and practically fluent in less than an hour. You can even hitch a ride back on the suit if you promise not to use your taser webs.” He checked his watch and frowned. “Not that this is going to be a thing between us. This is a one-time offer. Don’t form a habit of staying up this late.”

“Yeah, of course. Of course.” Peter scooted himself closer and looked up at Tony. “This is so cool,” he said, almost to himself.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” Tony said with a ghost of a smirk. He clapped his hands at the helmet. “Hit it, FRI!”

A holographic screen coming from the helmet flicked on to the side of Tony. He used his finger to write el imperfecto on one side and el pretérito on the other. 

Peter still had a lot of homework to do. He knew he would still have trouble managing his life with Spider-Man. But sitting on the top of a building past midnight, being taught how to use the Spanish past tense by Iron Man, he realized he would always have people to help him if he needed it.

Tag List: @ironfamjam @addi-is-amazing @mysterio-is-a-little-bitch @wellplacedbanana @night0seven @unfathomable-universe​ @bibbidi-bobbity-booyah @spideynamu 

#ok but if anyone needs help with high school spanish PLEASE hit me up #i WILL love you #art writes #irondad #iron man #spider-man #marvel #mcu #peter parker #tony stark

[britishchick09]

sherlock s2 ep 3 livewatch

it’s time for the sherlock s2 finale! i’ve been keeping lockie alive for as long as possible, but I can’t stall any longer. let’s fall into the reichenbach!

here it is:

the last masterpiece ep! :D

it begins with rain! *beatles ‘rain’ plays*

john’s back with the therapist from study in pink! :o

does this take place after the fall and the rest of the ep is a flashback?

it’s been 18 months!

john called tv ‘telly’:)

OMG HE’S CHOKING UP NO POOR BBY :’(

he called sherlock ‘my best friend’ IN THE SADDEST VOICE IN THE WORLD :’(

john: “sherlock holmes... is dead.” or is he? ;)

BAM INTRO!

guy: “falls of the reichenbach...” you dodged a credit roll with that one! ;)

sherlock: “diamond cufflinks. all my cufflinks have buttons.” john: “he means ‘thank you’. ...just say it.” awww what a parent :)

sherlock isn’t one for thanks and publicity!

the iconic hat! :D

EVERYONE WANTS HIM TO PUT THE HAT ON

he reluctantly put the hat on:)

the transitions from a scene to a newspaper is so cool! :D

john’s tabloid nickname is BACHELOR OMGGGGGG

john: “what do they mean by that?” oh you know what that means buddy ;)

CONFIRMED BACHELOR OMGGG VICTORIAN GAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! (or in his case bi)

john: “we need to be more careful-“ johnlockers: “NO!!!!!”

sherlock is criticizing the hat lol :D

john called it the ‘sherlock holmes hat’ eyyyyy!!!!! ;D

john’s voice has a hint of deep love it ;)

there’s so many people touring at the castle! :o

this sneaky guy has this on his phone and i’m guessing that’s what all apps in the uk look like lol

OMG HE HACKED INTO THE SYSTEM

is it moiarty?

lestrade said ‘bloody ‘ell!’ and it was so british of him :D

he’s dancing to the background music YEP IT’S MOI ALRIGHT

YEET

OMG MOIARTY YOU DRAMA QUEEN

also is this an abominable bride reference? :o

john’s text notif sound sounds apple WHY

he has a windows laptop and an apple phone how chaotic

the smiley face!!!! :o

ooh cool american song playing in the background! :o

john: “ready?” sherlock: “yes” *PRESS CHATTER* how would anyone be ready for that?

sherlock wants to be himself but john’s like ‘no smartass’ LET HIM BE A SMARTHOLE JOHN

it’s the bbc! :D

OMFG A FAN FOLLOWED SHERLOCK INTO THE RESTROOM WTF

i bet johnlockers have actually done this because they were craaazyyyy back then...

THE FAN WANTS HIM TO SIGN HIS SHIRT WTFFFFF

sherlock knows she’s not a fan lol :D

wait is someone peeing in the background wtf

fan: “you and john watson, platonic, have you there as well!” mofftiss totally based this girl off of real johnlockers!!!!

can they please leave the bathroom I SWEAR SOMEONE IS PEEING BACK THERE IT’S SO AWKWARD

sherlock: “you... repel... me.” YAS!!! :D

HOLD UP what if this is mofftiss’ way of saying they don’t like johnlockers :o

now lockie’s in court bor-ing!

moiarty is a spider great metaphor sherlock! :D

judge: “how long-“ sherlock “not a good question.” lol :D

sherlock and moiarty knew each other for 5 minutes lol

who ate the wafer

SHUT UP WIG MAN LET SHERLOCK SHOW OFF

aaand he kicked them out

john: “you’re doing The Look again.” omg so married ♥

he finds The Face annoying lol MARRIEEEED

epic wallpaper! :D

OMG MOIARTY WAS CHEWING GUM DURING THE CRIME AND THE COURT THING DORK

and he looked at john... ;)

moiarty’s out and sherlock beeps john away,,,

he be making tea WITH HIS VIOLIN PLAYING YYYAAAASSSS!!!!!!!!!

omg there’s a shadow...

AN A CREAK

I KNEW IT WAS MOIARTY!!!!!!

sherlock lets him sit down wowza kind to a criminal! :o

moiarty: “every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain ;)” omg HE KNOWS HE’S A STORY CHARACTER AHHHH :o

moiarty to sherlock: “you need me.” no he needs john THANK YOU VERY MUCH

moiarty thinks sherlock’s boring SHUT UP FUNNY MEAN MAN >:(

moiarty: “that’s the problem... the final problem.” eyyyy roll s4 credits! :D

moiarty: “i didn’t tell you... but did you listeeeennnn?” lol sing-songy moiarty is funny :D

he’s doing the hand thing ♥

moiarty: “i own secrecy” who do you think you are bish brother

MOIARTY CALLED SHERLOCK ‘HONEY’ :o

WHY IS MOIARTY SAYING ‘DADDY’

THE FALL HE SAID THE FALLLLLLLL

sherlock: “i never liked riddles.” *maddie hatter rages in the distance*

he’s having a row with the machine again ;)

also that’s literally my dad with his card lol :D

ooh antiques roadshow! :D

john’s meeting mycroft why

OMG HE WAS TAKEN HOSTAGE

it’s just mycroft’s way of saying hello?

what happened in 1972

mycroft’s giving john an unrelated case... s1 finale flashback!

john’s loooong groan lol :D

sherlock is moiarty’s ‘only rival’... >:)

awww john fed some crumbs to birds :)

another unrelated case and lestrade is at the flat! :o

lestrade called lockie ‘a celebrity’ awww :)

SHERLOCK DON’T YELL AT THE CRYING LADY :(

oh he wanted her to ‘speak quickly’ ok

not ok but thaaat’s lockie!

it be moi...

sherlock SNIFF

sherlock: “brilliant, anderson?” anderson: “really?” sherlock: “brilliant impression of an idiot.” OHHHHH!!!!!!! :D

sherlock 2 NOW

john: “don’t do the smiling thing. kidnapped children..?” oh he always does the smiling thing! ;)

molly was going on a lunch date but sherlock said she’ll go with him and her little ‘what?’ is so cute! :D

sherlock’s like ‘look at all the fricks i give’ :D

aaand he left her!

sherlock: “the chemical footprints will lead us to moiarty!” all roads lead to rome, and all the footprints there lead to moiarty ;)

SHERLOCK CALLED MOLLY ‘JOHN’ OMG :D

b r i c k   d u s t

molly: “you’re like my dad. he’s dead- no, sorry-” lol :D

oh no molly’s telling a sad dad story :(

i can kind of see why people ship sherlock and molly they’re nice together :)

BUT JOHNLOCK IS BEST SHIP

although molly’s super awkward she’s so cute! :D

SHERLOCK GOT THE FAIRYTALE REFERENCE AFTER I DID YAS!!!!! :D

lestrade: “brick dust!” b r i c k  d u s t

he’s the google in 360 website! :D

they burst through the kidnapper’s door and it was like ‘someBODY once told me’! :D

omg mercury chocolate wrappers! :o

sherlock: “the more they ate, the faster they died... neat!” ...neat? :o

they found the kidnapped kids! :D

lestrade doesn’t want lockie to be himself awww :(

THE KIDNAPPED GIRL SCREAMED AT SHERLOCK NO :(

lestrade to sherlock: “i feel like screaming when you walk in!” ooh noice ;)

the jerk lady said sherlock was ‘unbelievable’ coolio she’s a bit nice! :D

MOIARTY HACKED THE TAXI TV OMG :o

also there are tvs in taxis OMG :o

lestrade called sherlock and john ‘csi baker street’ lol :D

moiarty’s connecting sherlock to sir bostalot hmm... ;)

hmmm....

sherlock: “what was that on the tv?” cabbie: “no charge...” *drives away* OHHHH

OMG SHERLOCK ALMOST GOT HIT BY A DAR

OMFG WAS HE ALMOST SHOT WTF WAS THAT

john to the rescue!!! :D

the guy was shot not lockie coolio

sherlock uses a mac WHYYY :(

sherlock: “dust is eloquent” mrs. hudson in a whisper: “what’s he on about???” lol :D

lockie vlogs! :D

sherlock: “this is a game, lestrade, one i’m not willing to play.” so the game is not on, then?

john: “i know you for real.” sherlock: “100%” awww :)

john: “no one could fake being suck an annoying dick all the time.” OHHHH!!!!! :D

guy: “yer a bloody idiot, lestrade!” and yer a bloody brit aren’t ya?

mrs. hudson said ‘ooh hoo’ just like oaken! :D

OMG fairytale!!!!

lestrade and the lady knocked on the door and mrs. hudson’s like ‘don’t barge in like that!’ :D

OMG THEY’RE ARRESTING LOCKIE

WHY IS THE LADY THINKING LOCKIE DID IT HE DIDN’T!!!!!

awww sherlock and john were arrested together so romantic just girly things ♥

OMG GUN SHOT????

they’re running omg!!!!!

sherlock: “take my hand!” FRICK YES

john: “people will definitely talk!” FRICK YAAAAS!!!!!!!

just two bfs running around in handcuffs ♥

they need to coordinate while getting up the stairs... easy enough for them! ;)

THEY JUMPED IN FRONT OF A VAN JUST CRIMEY THINGS ♥

i thought the van thing was part of the drunk ep in s3 but it’s cool that-

GUN SHOTS????

they let go! :o

OMG IT’S THE CREEPY FAN!!!!

moiarty: “they didn’t have any ground coffee so i just got-” *SUSPENSE CHORD* out of context that’s hilarious :D

moiarty’s richard!!! :o

wait he’s a hired actor the frick???

THE FRICK ARE THEY ACTING??????

just because it’s in print doesn’t mean it’s real...

ok technically moiarty’s an actor BUT THAT BE KNOCKING DOWN THE 4TH WALL

an actor playing a person playing an actor... wild actorception! :o

moiarty: “i’m the storyteller! it’s on dvd...” but is it on blu-ray? ;)

sherlock: “stop it STOP IT NOW!!!!” yoda seagulls...

fan: “i can read you and you... repel... me...” DON’T USE HIS LINE BOI

sherlock: “there’s only one way to complete his game...” is it on? ;)

OMG he’s admitting his feelings to molly AND HE NEEDS HER awwww!!!! :D

the sherlolly fans loved that i bet! :D

john to mycroft: “you and him go out for coffee? you and jim?” sarah z be like ‘YAS!’ :D

OMG WAIT DID MYCROFT WORK WITH MOIARTY????

mycroft tells john to tell moiarty ‘i’m sorry’ and john just gives this ‘please’ wheeze lol :D

julie albright bouncing her basketball against her bedroom wall in ‘meet julie’ (colorized)

oh CRAP

lockie’s fidgeting with the ball awwww :)

OMG MRS. HUDSON WAS SHOT THE FRICK????????

john: “she’s DYING.... you MACHINE!!!!!!” YEAH LOCKIE YOU BISH

john: “friends protect people!” true that!

THE FRICK WHY IS BEE GEEZ PLAYING

this is the music video lol :D

omg are moiarty and lockie gonna have a dance battle like in despicable me 3 lol :D

moiarty: “our final problem... stayin’ aliiiive!!!!!” HE SO PLANNED THAT

there’s about 28 minutes left will the battle take that long?

oh he turned the song off :/

aw man moiarty has to play with the ordinary people :/

MOIARTY SAID ‘atta boyyyy’ TO SHERLOCK WHYYYYYY

ooh sherlock’s doing binary code with his fingers! :D

moiarty: “first one to sherlock is a sissy” oh SHUT UP

moiarty: “there is no key DOOFUS!!!!” WOAH MAN CALM THE FRICK DOWN

“look at ALLLLL THE FRICKS I GIVE SHERLOCK!!!!”

moiarty: “nice you chose a tall building! great way to do it!” sherlock: “do- do- do what?” oh you know what lockie :(

moiarty: “i read it in the paper so it must be true!” no!!!!

john’s here for mrs. hudson!!!! :D

she seems fine tho?

moiarty: “for me? pleeeeeaaaseee?????” OMG THAT ‘PLEASE’ WAS SO HIGH LOLOLOL!!!!!!!

toss him sherlock TOSS HIM!!!!!

moiarty’s little ‘woah woah woah!’ tho :D

aww sherlock has only 3 friends :(

moiarty about sherlock kermiting: “you gotta admit that’s sexier” WUT

NOOOOOOOOO

sherlock’s breath is so shaky :(

he said ‘privacy’ like ‘pri-va-cee’ why

he’s gonna call john!!!!!

awww smile!!!! :D

he knows that this is fake right?

moiarty’s like ‘WHAT?? WHAT DID I MISS????” BOI CALM DOWWwwwwnnnn

sherlock to moiarty: “i am you. prepared to do anything.” save that line for john plz

sherlock is ‘on the side of the angels’ awww :)

moiarty said sherlock’s not ordinary RIGHT HE’S A SPECIAL SUNSHINE ANGEL

moiarty: “you’re meee!!!!!” NOT WHAT I MEANT

they’re holding hands and standing close NOOOOO

HOLY FRICK SHERLOCK JUS SHOT MOIARTY IN THE MOUTH THE FRICK THE FRACK???????

he’s not really dead right or is that just a theory

sherlock’s like ‘oh god what have i done’ SAME WHAT DID YOU DO

it sounds like the thx theme!

oh no

i know it’s not a legitimate kermiting sewerside but DON’T FREAKING DO IT

HE’S CALLING JOHN OH FRICK

HE WANTS JOHN TO SEE HIM FALL THE FRICKKKKK

sherlock: “look up, i’m on the rooftop.” ♫ up on the rooftop, click click click, HERE COMES SAD OL’ KERMIT CLAUS ♫

CRAP

sherlock: “i can’t come down so we’ll have to do it like this.” it was only a kiss :(

an apology????

‘IT’S ALL TRUE’ THE FRICK????

is this just for moiarty’s game?

sherlock sounds like he’s gonna cry NOOOOO :(((((

john: “shut up, shut up, shut up.” SAME WTF ARE YOU SAYING LOCKIE???

sherlock: “no one could be that clever. you could.” OMGGGGG

FIRST WINSTON & JULIA AND NOW SHERLOCK & JOHN WHYYYYY

sherlock sniffled omg :’(

he researched john to impress him OH MY HEART!!!!!

it’s not a trick sherlock is legit amazing!!!!!!!!

sherlock wants john to ‘keep his eyes fixed’ NOOOOOOOO

if sherlock knows this is fake he’s doing a pretty good job at it BUT WHY JUST TO PLEASE MOIARTY OR ESCAPE THE SPOTLIGHT OR WHAT

sherlock: “goodbye john.” NO

NO

NO

OH GOD THERE WAS A CRACK

if sherlock’s alive THEM HOW WAS THERE A CRACK

WAIT JOHN JUST FELL THE FRICK IS GOING ON????

john: “i’m a doctor, he’s my friend!” yes you are AND YES YOU FREAKING ARE

it’s fake he’s not really dead OH HOW I WISH I COULD TELL YOU THAT JOHNNY :(

OMG NO :’(

THE SAD VIOLIN I CAN’T

everything is slow NOOOOO

i can’t believe mofftiss made the fans wait 2 YEARS TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT i know there was ‘many happy returns’ in 2013 BUT HOW DID THE FANS SURVIVE THAT LONG WITH THAT ENDING????

it’s raining now perfect

gun????

therapist: “he didn’t say it. say it now.” john: “sorry, i can’t.” he said ‘i love you’ :(

awww john and mrs. hudson! :’(

omg she’s crying no!!!! :(

john to sherlock’s grave: “you were the best man and the most human i’ve ever known.” awww :’)

john: “one more miracle for me, sherlock. don’t. be. dead.” miricale granted my friend ;)

OMG WHAT HE WAS STANDING THERE THE WHOLE TIME WITH JOHN SUFFERING LIKE THAT THE FRICK?????

that’s the end of s2! that was a much better finale than s1 and it’s definitely the best ep of the series so far. there’s a lot of exciting turns AND WHAT EVEN IS THE ENDING??? you knocked it out of the park mofftiss! i can’t wait to see what s3 has in store besides mary, drunk times and the wedding!

and to quote the blog... ‘#sherlocklives #johnwatsonlives’ ♥

#livewatch #i know it'll be a great season finale! :D #and it's the first s2 livewatch without any technical issues ;)

[whumphoarder]

¿Cómo se dice ‘I’m in Deep Sh*t’?

Summary: Due to unforeseen circumstances (and a bit of procrastination), Peter runs out of time to prepare for his Spanish presentation and ends up faking sick to buy himself some more.

He just wasn’t really counting on Tony being the one to pick him up from school.

Word count: 2,997

Genre: humor, fluff, whump

Link to read on Ao3

A/N: Based on a prompt from @coconutknightshade! 

Apparently it takes a village to write a story lol—thanks to @xxx-cat-xxx, @sallyidss, @fandomsficsandfeels, & @seek-rest for beta-reading and ideas, and @lunannex for Spanish help!

“What if I just like… fake my death?” Peter suggests as he hands his mentor a different sized wrench. “They can’t mark me down for not doing it if I’m dead, right?”

Tony, who is currently bent over their latest project (replacing the timing belt in May’s car), snorts. “As someone who’s been officially presumed dead more than once, can’t say I recommend it. Way too much paperwork.”

Peter sighs. “Can we stage a kidnapping then?” he says hopefully. “Or an alien abduction?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “It’s a four-minute speech, not the end of the world—though I have some experience with that too.” He holds out a hand. “Half inch ratchet.”

“A four-minute speech in Spanish,” Peter emphasizes, passing him the requested tool. “Which is a language I don’t speak.”

“Hence why you’re in Spanish class,” Tony counters. “With all the other kids who can’t speak Spanish.”

“But it’s also like ten percent of my grade,” Peter goes on as his mentor loosens the timing belt and removes it from the engine before handing it to Peter to set aside. “And I have to talk about what I do in a typical week, and it’s not like I can say I go patrolling or come over to the compound, so I’m gonna have to make stuff up—”

Tony interrupts, “Yo veo mucha televisión,” he says sagely.

“—and then what if I get up there and forget everything and just sound stupid?” Peter continues his rant. He groans and passes Tony the replacement belt. “Maybe I should just conveniently get the flu on Wednesday.”

Looking up from the engine, Tony raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you really this stressed about it? Because if you need to focus on school, I could just finish this up myself.”

Peter sighs again and runs a hand through his hair—he hadn’t meant to complain this much, he’d just kind of gotten on a roll after Tony asked him how school was going. “No, no… I wanted to come over—really. And I’ve got three more days to work on it, it’s just like… ugh. I should have taken German instead.”

Tony huffs out a short laugh. “Pretty sure they have to speak in German class too.”

“Yeah but MJ’s not in German…” Peter mutters under his breath.

“What was that?” Tony asks, elbow deep in the engine block.

Peter expels a breath. “Nothing, it’s fine,” he says a bit more audibly, trying to convince himself as much as his mentor. So what if the most observant and shrewd person in his year also happens to be in his Spanish class?

(And so what if he might have a bit of a crush on her?)

Tony chuckles. “You’ll do great, kid,” he assures. “Just make sure you practice.”

Peter forces a smile. “Right, yeah, of course.”

X

Practicing, however, turns out to be easier said than done.

With finals fast approaching, it’s crunch time for all of Peter’s classes. Whatever spare moments he has over the weekend are spent finishing up his Animal Farm essay for the English summative and cramming for his geometry test Monday morning. The upcoming Spanish presentation hangs over his head, but it’s more annoying than anything else. He figures it should be fairly simple to actually bullshit something and translate it if he just sits down and does it (which, ironically, somehow makes it easier to push off).

He’s intending to work on it Monday evening, but a winter storm hits that afternoon, dumping eight inches of snow and ice on the city. Peter spends most of his patrol assisting with minor traffic accidents and helping stranded motorists scrape ice from their vehicles or shovel cars out of parking spaces. By the time he gets home late that night, he’s too exhausted to do much more than sit on the couch with May and drink cocoa while she watches Grey’s Anatomy reruns.

Oh well. He’s still got time.

Peter tries to make good use of his study hall on Tuesday, but the period ends up being kind of a wash. He spends half the time attempting to come up with something to say that is both interesting enough to make him seem not totally lame while still believable enough to fool MJ, and the other half messing around on his phone and trying to recall the name of the annoying song stuck in his head.

(It was ‘Goodbye’ by The Spice Girls.)

He’s intending to finish the presentation Tuesday evening after he gets home, but then Ned throws an unexpected monkey wrench into his plans just before the final bell rings.

“So I gotta be there early for warm ups, but my mom will pick you up around six, okay?” he tells Peter as they pack up their book bags.

Peter frowns, confused. “...Pick me up?”

Ned tilts his head. “Unless May can give you a ride after all? But I thought you said she was working tonight, right?”

All of a sudden it clicks—tonight is Ned’s first band concert. He’d taken up percussion a few months back in an effort to beef up his extracurriculars for his college applications. Peter agreed to go to the performance weeks ago.

“Oh right right right,” Peter quickly covers. “Six is great. I’ll see her then!”

Ned beams. “Awesome! My sister and her boyfriend are coming too, so we might go out to celebrate afterwards!”

“Yeah, awesome!” Peter agrees, forcing a grin. “That should be really fun.”

(Oh yeah, he’s screwed.)

X

The concert was cool. Ned hit that triangle with all the required enthusiasm whenever his parts came up, and Peter flashed him loads of encouraging thumbs-ups from the audience. When it was over, they all went out to Denny’s for some mediocre late-night pancakes and the usual Leeds family banter. All in all, a pretty fun night.

When Peter gets home a little after ten, he opens his Spanish doc in one tab and promptly falls into a YouTube hole in another while looking for background music. He’s still grinning when he closes out of his fifth vine compilation video in a row until he checks the time a second later and the grin dissolves. It’s 12:03 a.m.

Oops.

Study hall Wednesday morning will be his saving grace, he’s sure.

X

So, of course, a fight has to break out right outside of the library.

It’s not too bad—the two instigating students are hauled away by security with a couple bloody noses and black eyes, and a few other kids are taken down to the office for questioning. Peter was far enough removed from the action that he doesn’t have to come along, but the whole debacle eats up all but the last ten minutes of the period so when the bell finally rings, he’s got precisely five words written down:

Hola, me llamo Peter Parker.

(Suddenly all those jokes about faking his own death are starting to sound a lot more appealing.)

Or if not my death, he thinks as he trudges down the hall in the direction of his Spanish classroom, cold dread pooling in his gut, then at least…

He stops walking, glancing sideways into the brightly lit office just off the hall. The elderly nurse is sitting at her desk, glasses half-way down her nose as she reads a paperback novel with the picture of a Christmasy log cabin on the cover.

No. He can’t. He doesn’t lie.

...Unless…

No. May’s at work. She’d have to leave early to come and pick him up.

Okay, but it’s not like you do this often, his brain counters. Hell, you came to school with a concussion and two cracked ribs last month and didn’t say a word about it. May can take one for the team just this once.

Peter slips into the bathroom across the hall and waits there until the bell rings to signal the end of passing period, and then an additional five minutes on top of that to add some credibility to his act. He splashes a bit of cold water on his forehead and around his neck, and then works himself up with some heavy breathing before exiting the bathroom.

Folding his arms over his stomach, Peter moves shakily across the hall back toward the nurse’s office, making an effort to look as unwell as possible. A passing student eyes him suspiciously and gives him a wide berth, so he figures he must be doing something right.

Steeling himself with a shuddery breath, he steps into the office.

“Hall pass?” the nurse asks without looking up from her book.

“Um, no, I don’t have one, uh…” Peter’s heart is fluttering in his chest. “I just… I’m not feeling good.”

Eyes still on the page, the nurse silently taps a finger to a sign on the wall just behind her desk which reads: PASSES REQUIRED FOR ALL STUDENTS.

Peter swallows hard. C’mon, Parker—commit. “Right, but, uh, I came from the bathroom.” He hugs himself a little tighter and looks down. “My stomach really hurts. I was throwing up and, uh… stuff,” he concludes, deciding that in this case, less is more.

The nurse’s expression softens. She lowers her novel and gets to her feet with a small sigh. “Well, there is a bug going around,” she concedes, gesturing for him to sit down on the cot in the back of her office.

Peter keeps his responses vague when she requests more specific information on his symptoms, mostly offering shrugs or short, mumbled answers. She checks his temperature and seems slightly suspicious at his lack of fever, but he makes up for it by getting up suddenly and darting into the nurse’s bathroom.

When he emerges—exactly seven minutes and two new levels of Candy Crush later—Peter makes sure to keep his eyes averted from the nurse’s gaze and his movements slow and a little unsteady, one hand hovering over his stomach. She gives him a bottle of Gatorade and a couple of crackers and tells him to lie down until May comes to pick him up.

“I got ahold of her,” the nurse informs, sounding more sympathetic now. She slides a small garbage bin beside the cot. “She says she’s just finishing something up at work and then she’ll be right over.”

“Thank you,” Peter mutters tiredly. He doesn’t even have to act for that part—between the stress of his upcoming finals and his last couple of late nights, he really is exhausted and he has a bit of a headache. It makes him feel just the slightest bit better about pulling May away from her shift that there’s at least something physically wrong with him, even if it isn’t what he’s claiming.

Under the thin fleece blanket the nurse gives him, Peter manages to drift off to sleep.

X

But it turns out, today is just really not his day.

“No fever yet, but sometimes with these kinds of bugs that doesn’t come until later,” Peter overhears the nurse explaining in a low voice. He’s lying curled up on the cot, face toward the wall. “If that happens, just remember that he needs to be fever-free for 24 hours before returning to school.”

“Oh, I have a feeling that won’t be a problem,” a familiar voice that definitely does not belong to Aunt May replies.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter’s eyes snap open fully and he sits up in a hurry.

Tony and the nurse are standing together beside her desk, chatting quietly. Tony turns to look at Peter, face straight but eyebrows raised in amusement. “Oh would you look at that—he lives,” he remarks. “Feeling any better, Pete?”

Immediately, Peter wraps an arm around his stomach and does his best to look ill. “Uh, no, not really... but, um wh-what are you doing here?”

“The hospital is a little short-staffed today and your aunt was having trouble finding someone to cover her shift,” Tony explains, keeping his expression perfectly neutral. “She called to ask if I minded picking you up. You know”—his eyes narrow—“since you’re so sick.”

(Peter gulps. He’s starting to wonder if maybe he’ll be sick after all.)

“So of course, I told her I would,” Tony goes on. “I mean, if you’re feeling this bad, we could hardly just leave you here...”

Peter has to force himself to meet Tony’s gaze. “Right. Um, thank you. That’s super nice of you.”

“Well, you know me, Tony Super-Nice Stark,” his mentor says with a small chuckle as he steps closer to the bed.

“Now, with stomach bugs, the biggest concern is going to be dehydration,” the nurse continues. “So you’re going to want to push fluids, especially if he’s having di—”

“Fluids, got it,” Peter cuts her off, feeling his cheeks heat up. He gets to his feet and starts moving toward the door, but Tony halts him by grabbing his arm.

“Hey, hey, slow down, kid,” Tony tuts at him. “You were just looking like you might pass out a minute ago.” He presses his palm to Peter’s forehead and glances over to the nurse, eyebrows pinched together in the semblance of concern. “He’s kinda flushed, right? Maybe we should check his temperature again.”

“It’s fine,” Peter mutters, barely managing to suppress an eye-roll. “I think I just need to go home and sleep.”

“Sleep is probably the best thing for him,” the nurse agrees, nodding. “But going back to dehydration, if at any point it’s been more than five hours since he’s last urinated—”

“Mr. Stark, c’mon…” Peter whines quietly, nudging the man toward the door.

Tony holds up a finger to shush him—there’s a twinkle in his eyes that’s honestly driving Peter mad. “Hang on, kiddo. This is all very important information. In fact”—he pulls out his phone and opens the notes app—“let me just write this down. So you said if he hasn’t peed in five hours…?”

The nurse goes on to happily share her wealth of knowledge regarding stomach viruses with his mentor. Tony nods along to her advice, looking genuinely interested the entire time, occasionally interrupting to ask pertinent questions. Meanwhile, Peter just stands there, quietly dying a little inside.

Finally, she concludes her little spiel and Tony thanks her politely, then asks, “You wouldn’t happen to have a bin or bag or something we could take with us, would you? I just got the car detailed recently—hate for that to go to waste.”

Peter lets out another low groan. “Mr. Stark…”

“Ah, I have just the thing!” the nurse says. She bustles over behind her desk and produces a plastic sand pail with assorted Paw Patrol characters on it. “I get these from the dollar store,” she informs. “They don’t look like they hold too much but you’d be surprised!”

Tony grins. “That’s perfect. Thank you so much, Alice.” Looking to Peter, he asks, “Need the bathroom before we leave?”

Rolling his eyes at his mentor, Peter takes the bucket from the nurse with a muttered “thanks” and strides directly out the door.

X

Tony doesn’t say anything for the entire walk to the car, but Peter’s mind is happy to fill the silence with dread and anxious thoughts as he imagines all the various ways his mentor might chew him out about this. Stupid Spanish presentation—he should have just winged it after all.

The moment that both he and Tony are seated in the vehicle and the car doors are shut behind them, Peter sets the bucket down on the floor and covers his face with a groan.

“Alright, let’s get it over with,” he mutters into his hands. “Lay it on me.”

“Just to clarify,” Tony begins, sounding a bit more serious. “You’re not actually sick, right? This was just to get out of your presentation?”

“Yeah, I dunno...” Peter admits, feeling defeated. “I was planning to work on it—I swear. Just, well, there was all this stuff due for my other classes, and then the snowstorm, and all these commitments just kept coming up, and I just kinda... ran out of time. Figured if I got sent home I could buy myself an extra day or two.” He sighs deeply, lowering his hands to look up at his mentor. “Are you gonna tell May?”

Tony huffs out a short laugh. “Honestly? I think you’ve suffered enough.”

Peter blinks at him, surprised. “Wait, seriously?”

“You listened to a school nurse describe the BRAT diet for three whole minutes,” Tony says with a snort. “I don’t think any lecture May or I could give would top that.”

“God,” Peter groans, running a hand over his face. “If I hear the word ‘binding’ used one more time…”

“But,” Tony says, holding up a stern finger as he starts the car. “As soon as we get back to your place, we’re finishing up that presentation in time for your miraculous recovery tomorrow, got it?”

“We?” Peter raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you even speak Spanish?”

Tony waves a hand dismissively. “I know French and Italian—close enough. More importantly, I am fluent in the language of bullshit, kid. I once convinced an entire board of investors that not adding a clock feature to the new Starkphone prototype was a philosophical statement about the ‘futility of time as a construct’ rather than an embarrassing oversight caused by deadline crunches, no sleep, and more caffeine flowing through my veins than red blood cells.”

“And how did that go?” Peter asks.

“Sold twelve thousand shares that day. And I got to meet the Dalai Lama.”

Peter just snorts.

“Oh, and there was this other time,” Tony goes on wryly, “when I helped my intern play hooky to get out of a school presentation by convincing the nurse he had the shits.”

Peter leans back against the seat with a heavy sigh. “I’m never doing this again, Mr. Stark,” he mumbles.

X

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[glossiestrawberry]

rating walpurgis night / gfriend’s latest comeback :)

i’m a new buddy! nothing i say in this post is meant to insult the girls. i love them with all of my heart and i would never try to hate on them or hurt them with my opinions. checking through the comments of the videos, apparently they have sub-unit songs so i’ll make sure to look out for those!

1. MAGO (6/10)

I listened to this song yesterday, so listening to it again might change my opinion. Already, it gives me very disco and like 2016 American pop vibes. Not too into it, but it’s still a decent song. I love the outfits and the choreography is alright. The aesthetic of the M/V was super cool from what I remember and the STRIPPER POLE! LIKE SLAY QUEEN (correct me if this is wrong) YUJU! The bridge of this song was probably my favourite bit of this song but overall it’s pretty good.

2. Love Spell (4/10)

Already not too into the opening of this song. It’s getting better the longer the song goes on, though. It’s different, but not really my kind of song. I don’t have much to say for this song because it’s not getting better or worse for me.

3. Three of Cups (5/10)

Funky opening, I’m lowkey kinda into it. It definitely still gives me a disco vibe, with a part of it that reminds me of their older songs and the sound that they used to associate themselves with. For some reason the pre-chorus and parts of the chorus remind me of Mario haha? Once again, another song that I’m not too into, but it isn’t getting any better or worse.

4. GRWM (7/10)

Loving it already! The beginning is so nice and I’m definitely liking it a bit more than I’ve liked the other songs so far. It’s definitely getting better the more it plays. It’s another song that gives me like 2016-17 American pop vibes, but I really like it. I’m actually kinda surprised that they actual sing ‘let’s get ready with me’ in the chorus, like I thought the whole ‘GRWM’ thing was just one of those random song titles that people throw in sometimes. Overall, I’m really liking this song!

5. Secret Diary (3/10)

Okay, so I heard this one is a Yerin and Sinb sub-unit? I liked the first few seconds but once the verse began, it slightly went downhill for me. Not much to say. Secret Diary is just not really my kind of song, unfortunately. This isn’t anything against Yerin and Sinb, of course, it’s just not my style. Their vocals are on point, like always, of course. The last few lines were nice, though.

6. Better Me (5/10)

So second sub-unit song with Sowon and Umji, I think people are saying. Really liking this song already. The opening was great and I’m still invested in listening to this song throughout the first verse and pre-chorus. Chorus isn’t as great, but it’s not awful. I’m really vibing with this song a lot more. I’m really just liking this song a whole lot better than the others. Better Me and GWRM are both on an equal level for me. Overall, I would definitely listen to this on the bus and sometimes when doing school work, so it’s less likely to be skipped than other songs.

7. Night Drive (3/10)

Last sub-unit song, with Eunha and Yuju. Already just not really enjoying this song, unfortunately. Once again, Night Drive is just not a song that suits the style of music that I enjoy. It’s a very aesthetic and chill song, so I can see myself possibly putting it into my chill study playlist or something in the future, but it’s not a song I would listen to for the enjoyment of it.

8. Apple (9839757398759/10)

Well let’s just not pretend that we all haven’t heard this song before. Apple is absolutely one of my favourite GFRIEND songs of all time and I listen to it all the goddamn time. It’s just SO good in my opinion. The dance is fun, the possible theories behind the M/V are cool and interesting, the outfits are immaculate and AHH I JUST LOVE APPLE SO MUCH! I swear this song will never get old for me. I loved this mature concept for GFRIEND and overall, I loved this comeback. Getting to listen to it again whilst going through this album was a nice surprise :)

9. Crossroads (5/10)

Unfortunately, Crossroads was just another one of those songs that I didn’t vibe with. No matter how many times I listen to it again, it’s still just not that interesting to me. I’m going to sound like a major bitch when I say this but it does sound quite similar to some of their other songs - like in a way, it’s a mix of them. However, despite me enjoying a lot of their other and older songs, I just didn’t really like Crossroads.

10. Labyrinth (10/10)

If I remember correctly, I really enjoyed listening to Labyrinth when I heard it a few months back, but never got round to putting it in my playlist and I eventually just forgot about it! I’m in love with the opening of this song and it’s beat. It’s such a great song and I’m glad I’ve been reminded of its existence because it will definitely be put into my playlist now. Labyrinth does sound a tiny bit similar to some of the other songs, but unlike Crossroads, I feel like Labyrinth just has it’s way of still sounding unique and I just like it a whole lot better.

11. Wheel of the year (5/10)

A small pre-listen commentary, from what I’ve been seeing and hearing, people have been saying that this song sounds a lot like an anime opening or ending - can’t remember which - so I do have high expectations from this song lmao. Beginning of this song reminds me a tiny bit of like the background music of like a semi-emotional scene in like an early 2000s animated film hahaha. I wasn’t too interested in the beginning of this song but it is getting better. It kinda sounds now a little bit like a song you’d hear in Frozen...? It’s an alright song but not something I’d put into my playlist. Was kinda expecting something a bit better, but that doesn’t mean Wheel of the year was a huge disappointment or anything, because it was still good. Jokes on me for going in with such high expectations, I guess lol :)

Final Thoughts: (5.7/10)

Was a little bit disappointed by this album, but the title track and the tracks from earlier in the year were good though.

Overall: 63/110

(i counted numbers above 10 as a 10)

#gfriend #gfriendmago #gfriend mago #gfriendcomeback #gfriend comeback #comeback #eunha #sowon #yuju #sinb #yerin #umji #mago #回:walpurgis night #gfriend walpurgis night