it's gonna get better (teaser)
(this is the final part to brave it together)
pairing: jay x reader
genre: suggestive, angst, slight humor
summary: your tumultuous tryst with jay might have ended, but your relationship with the karma club and its members has only grown more entangled. a winter trip to the swiss alps tests your friendships, your willingness to lie, and your resolve in staying away from jay. despite your previous inclinations towards isolation, you're starting to realize, a little too late, that being around people isn't too bad.
content: drinking, drug usage, sexual themes, rape mentions, murder mentions, suicide mentions, threats, more to come.
estimated word count: 20k
taglist: @moon7jay @belowbun @bambangan @praliliaaa @jjklvr9 @iveivory @magicshop1913 @sseobonggs (if i forgot you, please let me know!)
It took you until evening to gain even a semblance of your composure. You had spent some time working on your scarf, mindlessly purling and knitting. You had tried to watch a movie, but your eyes grew unfocused. Finally, you had decided to lie on your bed as you did at the motel, staring at your ceiling. If you focused, you could still smell Jay's woodsy, spicy scent, as though it had permeated the very walls of your room.
When dinnertime approached, you stripped down to your underwear and examined yourself in the mirror. Your body was a patchwork of fresh skin and mottled bruises that Jay had given you over the past month. When you raised your arm, you could see the nail marks he had made. As usual, bright red hickeys adorned your neck. You’d have to cover them up again so no one would get any ideas.
Then you realized that this was the last time you’d have to cover up a mark that Jay had given you. After this, the evidence of what the two of you had had would fade away, your cells would replenish, and it would be as though he had never touched you in the first place.
It didn’t seem right, that you and Jay were finished. At any second, as you rummaged around in your closet for an outfit to wear, you imagined that Jay would burst inside of your room, demanding something. He’d lie on your bed again, smoking your cigarettes while complaining about how they tasted. He’d tell you that he had been joking, that he had never intended to leave you, that you were his. He would kiss you again, choking you in his grip.
Instead, the minutes dragged on, and Jay never showed up. You pinched the inside of your arm and once again, you didn’t feel a thing. Just a dull register of a sensation.
After you got dressed in your usual sweater and long skirt, you checked your phone. You had gotten a text from Riki.
Riki: how’s my favorite traitor 😂
You: Not a traitor. Didn’t betray anyone.
Riki: when you give me an explanation for saying one of my friends raped you in a group chat literally called “anti-kc”
Riki: then you can be not a traitor
You had to admit, the evidence against you was stacked.
Riki: are u ready yet
Riki: i’m hungry
Riki: i’m thinking i’ll get the “she lied” salad with the “our friendship is ruined” combo
Riki: the “i can’t believe i was going to take her to cliffside laser tag” meal
You: That was never going to happen.
Riki: stop
Riki: haven’t u done enough
Riki: maybe a side of “lying wench” chips
You: Are you done?
Riki: not even close.
You: I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.
Riki: good
Riki: that’s plenty of time
Riki: the “hoes mad” burger with the “she’s a bird” fries
Riki: crisp waffle fries with extra salt
Riki: ketchup representing the shed blood
He kept going on like that, so you turned your phone off. It bothered you that you couldn’t tell Riki the truth. Well, you could. But if you told him that Jay raped you, and Riki somehow found out that you had been hooking up with Jay for the past month, you would look insane. Or like an idiot. How could you explain something that you didn't even understand? No, you’d rather have Riki hate you than tell him the convoluted truth.
You were used to Karma Club members hating you, anyways.
–
Dinner with Jake and Riki at Stoker’s cafeteria was as insufferable as you had imagined. Bundled under a coat and a high-necked sweater that masked the marks made last night, you wordlessly ate your meal while Riki and Jake talked. Riki sat on the right side of you, jostling you whenever he would gesticulate wildly as he recounted some story. You weren’t really paying attention to anything he said. Your focus was on Jake, on the way he bit his lip as he looked between you and Riki.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Jake said slowly, setting his fork down, “but are you and Wednesday, uh…”
Riki winced, and you marveled at his acting prowess. “It sort of just happened,” Riki said. “ We were at the party, and she came to see me, and well, I just went for it. It wasn’t like I meant to steal your girl or anything.
“No, no, no,” Jake said, waving his hands furiously. “No, it’s fine. She wasn’t my girl, never was, never…haha. You guys are cute together, honestly. Same age and everything.” Nervously, he started folding his paper towel into small, neat squares.
“No, I really should have told you,” Riki lied, swallowing a bite of chicken breast.
“It’s cool,” Jake said through gritted teeth. “Why would I want to know if my best friend and the girl I, uh, know, have a thing? That’s none of my business.”
“Glad you understand,” Riki said, beaming at Jake.
Jake got up from the table. “Gonna take a leak,” he muttered before staggering away from the long bench.
As soon as Jake disappeared from view, Riki’s face fell.
“What are you doing?” you asked. “Why are you telling Jake we’re together?”
Riki leaned towards you so that he could whisper. The Stoker dining hall was relatively full at this hour, mainly by students from other dorms, and you were beginning to learn that there were eyes and ears all over Sadame University. “Because,” he began, voice thick with anticipation, “things were getting way too dicey in our dorm. “For whatever reason, things between Jake and Jay got worse after last night. Jake’s skittish as fuck, and Jay’s acting like he wants to kill Jake. I figure this has something to do with you.”
You winced.
“It’s no good,” Riki continued. “Jake’s been going to Jungwon’s room and pacing around and shitting himself and whatever. Remember how I told you that there has to be a balance to shitstirring?���
“I do recall that.”
“This is it,” he said. Riki used his hands to mimic a scale, one hand representing a plate dipping too low. “Right now, tensions are too high. That’s no fun, you know? So I have to even things out.” Riki brought both of his hands to the same level. “If I redirect their attention, make myself the target, then they’ll both hate me instead. But they like me, so nothing bad will happen.”
With your index finger, you pressed down on the palm of one of his hands, forcing it downwards. “What if something bad does happen to you?”
Riki pushed against your finger, steadying his hands once more. “It won’t. I know you and everyone else loves to pretend like the Karma Club members have their own special brand of evil, that we’re just, like, complete sociopaths, but I know them.”
“It’s been three months…”
“A lot can happen in three months,” Riki said. If you reflected on the path your life had taken in merely one month, you would be forced to agree with him.
You pulled your hand away from his and sighed. “Why do you like bad things so much? What about good things?”
“That’s not true,” Riki said. “I love good things. I like bad things too. I’m a very deep person.”
“As deep as a kiddy pool,” you said.
“Don’t make me laugh,” Riki said. “I’m still mad at you for trying to fuck us over.”
You thought about arguing with him, but you decided against it. Riki felt like a true friend to you - at least, he had felt like a true friend - but the thought of baring your soul to him only for him to be unreceptive to your sorrows made you feel sick. You pushed your plate of food away.
“You know, for a while there I almost thought Jay had like a weird thing for you,” Riki said offhandedly, cutting another piece of chicken breast and spearing it with a fork. “I know, I know, it doesn’t make much sense considering he hates your fucking guts. But the dedication with which he hates your guts was scary. Elite hatred. What did you even do to the guy, anyways?”
“Nothing,” you said, “which seems to be the problem.”
Riki chewed his food, staring into space with a thoughtful expression. “He still hasn’t brought Isa over,” Riki said.
“Maybe you just haven’t noticed,” you said. Memories of that night with him in his dorm room, sex tinged with a faint hint of romance, your limbs tangled together in post-coital bliss, spun through your mind.
“No, he explicitly said, ‘Don’t let that bitch Isa get near my room or I swear to God I’ll kill you all,’” Riki said, mimicking Jay’s voice perfectly.
You shrugged. “I don’t know, then.”
“I just always found it weird,” Riki said slowly, “I’ve never seen him be nice to her at all, besides when I would come to the library to pick you up to get a smoothie and I would see them flirting or whatever. Isn’t that so weird? Like, why would Jay get close to Isa in public? Specifically, at the library.”
The hickeys still marring your neck felt as though they were burning, and you scratched at them absentmindedly. “Yeah, weird…”
“Hey,” Riki said in an unusually light voice. “How did you get home last night?”
Riki’s long bangs had fallen into his face, obscuring his eyes. For the best, as you didn’t know how you’d be able to look into them. “What?”
“How’d you get home?” Riki repeated.
“Uber and a bus,” you said.
Riki nodded and leaned away. “Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Jake asked. He swung his legs over the bench and settled into his spot again.
“Interesting she’s okay with us sharing a room, considering she’s just so, so shy,” Riki said, putting his arm around you in a constricting half-embrace. “The third-floor bedroom has two single beds, right?”
Jake’s lips twitched. “Uh, yeah,” he said. “It does. Jungwon and I were thinking about taking that one, though.”
Riki waved his free hand dismissively. “Just sleep together, Powerpuff girls style.”
“Fuck off,” Jake said with a smile, playfully pushing at Riki.
“You’re going to knock your soup over,” you said, but it was too late. Jake’s chicken noodle soup sloshed over the table, staining the crisp, white tablecloth.
“Aw, man,” Jake said, pouting slightly.
Riki shoveled the last of his chicken breast into his mouth. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “This is the second tablecloth we’ve fucked up.”
“Third,” Jake said, picking bits of pasta off of himself. “When we left Sunoo alone with the chili and he fucking-,”
Riki laughed. “Oh shit, yeah.” Riki stood up and held his hand out towards you, his gaze imploring. Reluctantly, you loosely joined hands with him, and he pulled you to your feet. “Come on, let’s go watch the Scream movies.”
“No,” Jake whined. “I wanted to watch the Amazing Spiderman.”
“No one asked,” Riki said, pulling you along with him. You stumbled after him, disappearing into Stoker’s dorms. Despite yourself, you scanned every possible corner for a hint of Jay, a trace of his breath, the sound of his sardonic laughter.
He wasn’t around.
–
Halfway through the second Scream movie, Riki announced that he had to take a massive shit.
“And why did you choose to tell us that?” Jake asked, slapping Riki’s leg as he got up from his plush bed.
Riki shrugged, shimmying between piles of laundry he had left on the floor. “I thought you might need to know about my bowel movements.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, that’s up to you,” Riki said, leaving to use his ensuite.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Jake scrambled on top of the bed to sit next to you. He had been sitting cross-legged on the floor; Riki had insisted that you sat next to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jake asked.
“Tell you what?”
Jake gestured wildly. “That you had a crush on Riki. I guess I could have guessed, but like, come on. Instead, you sort of made me feel like, I don’t know, I might have had a chance at some point…”
Had you? “Uh, it sort of came out of nowhere,” you said, belatedly realizing that you had copied what Riki said almost verbatim.
Pushing his tousled hair back, Jake licked his lips and sighed. “Right. Right, yeah. It’s just that I feel like kind of a dick now.”
“You didn’t do anything,” you said awkwardly.
“I mean, I don’t want to seem like I’m being pushy or that I’m entitled to anything, but you could have told me. Or Riki could have told me. I mean, like, you guys were pretty close and everything, but I didn’t think he was into dating…”
The name “Sieun” came to your lips, until you remembered that no one knew that Riki had dated Sieun. “Well-,”
“Like, you didn’t lead me on, I knew you had your own issues and all to sort out, but if you were going to date one of my best friends, I think it’s only fair to tell me. You know, out of…respect for my feelings? And so it wouldn’t be like I was hitting on my friend’s girl.”
If this was how Jake reacted to the mere idea of you and Riki getting together, you didn’t want to know how he’d react if he found out about you and Jay. “Sorry, Jake.”
Jake sighed again, his entire being seeming to deflate. “It’s fine, whatever. It’s cool.” After a period of silence, Jake said, “I don’t even care, you know? I mean, it wasn’t like it was serious. Like I like you and all, but it wasn’t serious.”
“Right.” Then you recalled what he had said at the party, when he had came out of the bathroom so flustered. “You said you had something to tell me, back at the party?”
“Oh. Yeah, that.” Jake slowly made his way to the floor again, one knee tucked into his chest, the other leg spread straight. He looked at the plasma-screen TV mounted to Riki’s wall blankly. “Well, I was going to ask you to go on the KC trip with me. I was going to pay for everything, but I guess Riki is going to take you now…”
You nodded, then realized he couldn’t see you. “Yeah.”
Jake bobbed his head up and down slowly, his lips pursed together. “Cool.”
When Riki came back, Jake stood up as though being pulled by strings. “I’m gonna head in,” Jake muttered. “I’m still a little hungover.”
Riki clapped Jake on the back. “See you, Jake.”
Jake made a little wave, bid you goodnight, and left Riki’s bedroom. Riki sat down beside you and smiled. “So, what’d you guys talk about?”
“He had an episode,” you said flatly.
“Perfect,” Riki said. “It’s all going according to plan. Now get out of my room.”
You didn’t have to be told that twice. “Good night,” you said, gathering your long skirt up and standing.
“Good night,” Riki said, zipping his hoodie all the way up and covering his jet-black hair with his hood. “I mean, just night. Bad night. I hope your night is shit.”
You squinted at him. “You’re really bad at this.”
Riki had turned the lights out to fit the gloomy atmosphere of the movie, but you could make out his features via the light from the television. Suddenly, he looked older than his age. “I’m bad at it because I genuinely liked you a lot,” he said quietly. “I saw you as a friend, like a real friend. Everyone knows I really liked you. But you lied on one of my friends, and not something petty. You lied about something really fucked. I thought you’d be above doing something like that. It’s something… something I would probably do.”
“Riki-,”
He pointed at the door. “Out, before I lose my nerve.”
You wouldn’t tell him the truth, couldn’t tell him the truth. He wouldn’t respect you at all if he knew what you did with the man who sexually assaulted you.
With some horror, you realized that Riki didn’t know that Jake had a problem. If Riki kept pushing Jake, who knew what he would do? The only thing you could do is trust that Riki knew how to balance the scales of his bizarre game.
The walk to Fawcett left you with far too much time to reflect. You knew that you had never fully had Jay, that he wouldn’t allow you to possess him in a tangible form. But you hadn’t realized that you would lose your friend, too.
70 notes
·
View notes
Our english teacher made us watch Percy Jackson, the movies (I cried when she announced it) here are my thoughts
Dear god it’s worse than I remember
Perce is a terrible nickname
Why did they make Grover a player?? He’s not a player!!
“This is a pen. A pen!”
He didn’t even kill Mrs. Dodds???
The fact that he just didn’t react at all when his mom dies
Why is Percy sword fighting Annabeth, he’s supposed to be on her team??
Chiron just watching Percy getting beaten the shit out of by Annabeth, Sir you are in charge here!!
And then he laughs when Percy knocks a kid to the ground. The favoritism is alive and burning
The way they never established Luke and Annabeth’s friendship
Why did they make it about the pearls, it wasn’t about the pearls
Highway to hell, okay I can work with this
“I used to date your daddy.” why?? Was this supposed to be comedic relief?? It just made me uncomfortable
Why is Medusa flirting with him? wtf
A truck??
why are they keeping the head in the bathroom
In the books they never visited the Parthenon why was that added?
Plz, I prefer the inaccurate Louis Arch thing than this
Grover is jumping to conclusions
They said the shoes would be hard to use and then he preceded to use them correctly on the first try
The graphics are killing me
Annabeth literally never touched a bow in the books but okay
Annabeth’s dagger erasure
Annabeth’s personality erasure
So they could have just used the head the whole time to kill them?? This is the most pointless-
I WANNA HOLD EM LIKE THEY DO IN TEXAS PLEASE
Why are they doing drugs??
FOLD EM LET EM HIT ME RAISE IT BABY STAY WITH ME
Why did Grover become a sheep there for a second
LOVE GAME INTUITION PLAY THE CARDS WITH THE SPADES TO START
That poor lady that just carries Grover’s crutches around 😭
AND AFTER HE’S BEEN HOOKED UP PLAY THE ONE THAT’S ON HIS HEART
Get it Grover I guess??
Why did Poseidon wait so long to tell Percy about the hotel?? He’s a god, he could’ve told him at any point in time, why wait?
stealing a car is sooo piper of them
WATCH WHERE YOUR GOING
why is the underworld in Hollywood, it’s genuinely annoying me.
Now why is Grover being the dumb one
Persephone flirting with Grover is the worst thing that has happened so far
why is hades evil, he’s just a depressed old man
Why?
Not them just leaving Grover behind
They forgetting Percy has a fatal flaw
and a personality
Everything about this fight is uncomfortable
“I’m pretty sure I’m the son of Poseidon” whatever Peter Johnson
How is Luke supposed to live after that?
Someone yelled “HE’S DEAD” Immediately after
Why do the gods look like that???
They are supposed to be dressed modern
nothing about this is right
Worst part is that Gabe didn’t die
I didn’t pay attention after Gabe didn’t die so I have no other thoughts
This movie deserves jail time
I’m so glad we got another adaptation
98 notes
·
View notes