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#this is very negative but i dont care because the au sucks
quillandink-tmblr · 3 years
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The "din/darksaber's haunted" people realize that like, having an important NEUTRAL object that's incredibly symbolic to an oppressed, warrior minority be haunted in a bad, evil, violent way is like... not good, right? And also that the "bad voices telling me to kill or hurting me" horror trope is really fucking ableist and as such (OBVIOUSLY) something that is REALLY BAD and SHOULD NOT be in the horror genre? They get that, right? Are they ignoring it for the aesthetic, or are they truly oblivious? Because they're all grown adults as far as I can tell, so my belief that they're oblivious is basically nonexistent and that hurts more than obliviousness would.
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amuelia · 3 years
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Got any fun Woose head cannons bouncing around in your head ? :) or about anyone else. you have such neat insight into asoiaf and I love reading it
Hello, thank you that's so flattering! 🥺❤ I'm glad you enjoy my meta posts!
I do have many Woose headcanons :D I am going to try and focus this post more on headcanons that i can somewhat closely support by text, so i'm sorry if i mentioned some of these already!
Since Domeric squired in the Vale under Lord Redfort, i headcanon that Roose' mother was a Redfort as well since that would explain the connection the easiest... The way Roose talks about Lord Redfort doesn't necessarily sound like theyre close or related, but that might just be to keep the information simple for the reader. Either way we will likely find out in Sansa's tWoW Vale plot how that connection came to be, since she will probably interact with relevant characters like Mychel Redfort.
[Domeric] served four years as Lady Dustin's page, and three in the Vale as a squire to Lord Redfort. [...] Redfort said he showed great promise in the lists. - Reek III, aDwD
Roose not only has a son who loves horses, but he himself also has some quotes alluding to him liking to ride and being knowledgable about horses, which makes me hc that Roose is an able rider as well; So Domeric would get it from both sides of the family (explaining why he's such a horse boy). This hc is inspired by analysis from Bran Vras
"...on our way back to the Dreadfort my favorite courser came up lame..." - Reek III, aDwD
"The clans of the northern hills come with him on their shaggy runtish horses. " - The Prince of Winterfell, aDwD
He's likely so pale from all that leeching (since they cause regular blood loss), and would probably have a normal skin color if he didn't do it so often... His quiet voice might also be caused by it (fatigue). I also assume his "unwrinkled" face is at least partially due to him having such an emotionless expression; if he showed an intense emotion (like a very genuine smile) there might be more wrinkles visible. I also don't get the impression his "unwrinkled"/"ageless" face makes him look unnaturally young, since none of the older PoVs (Cat, Jaime) comment on it; He probably just looks like he aged very well.
He is described as having a "hairless body" during the leeching scene, which makes me think he might shave his body hair so the leeches can apply easier (which ive seen recommended online for leech therapy).
Him having dark brown hair is unfortunately still a headcanon, since his hair is not described in the books... But it seems likely to me because it would contrast his pale features and make them stand out more; and if his hair was grey that would have probably been pointed out as a contrast to his unwrinkled face. I'm usually excluding blonde/red hair as a possibility since I assume grrm would have described that explicitly.
He'd probably wear sunglasses frequently in a modern au, his eyes seem sensitive to me because their color is so light (less pigmentation making eyes more sensitive to sunlight)... I also hc him as nearsighted + needing glasses in modern au, though obviously we don't have anything in the text referencing this.
He and Barbrey share a long history, yet we see that she talks negatively about him to Theon... I hc that she probably started having a lower opinion of him due to the way he handled the Domeric situation (or that the situation at least heavily contributed to it); My assumption is that Barbrey quickly suspected Ramsay of murder and hates Ramsay because of that, so if Roose takes Ramsay in as his new heir this would make Barbrey think that he's really callous/emotionless and "does not love/hate/grieve".
"Those leeches that he loves so well sucked all the passions out of him years ago. He does not love, he does not hate, he does not grieve." - The Prince of Winterfell, aDwD
Roose doesn't seem to care when it comes to various cruelties and illegalities (telling Ramsay he will not chide him for his "amusements" and Ramsay just needs to be "more discreet"; and also being guilty of many crimes himself), but due to the long Bolton-Stark animosity i feel he would probably see warging as an abomination and oppose it on "moral" grounds (similar to how he says a kinslayer is "accursed").
He is usually described as clean-shaven; i hc he shaves his beard partially out of vanity, partially because he doesn't want to look like his father... He probably also takes a while to grow a good beard/has weak beard growth. (No textual evidence for any of these statements, just hc; sadly we don't know about any of his family beyond his sons/wives. I also wonder if he was always shaving his beard, or if he had a beard phase when he was younger)
I get the impression he is not that strict a father, and is more someone who tries to get to his kids verbally than through punishment... In both Ramsay's and Domeric's case we see that he gives them advice that they dont much care for, and neither appear to fear disobeying him or arguing with him much.
"He wanted a brother by his side, so he rode up the Weeping Water to seek my bastard out. I forbade it, but Domeric was a man grown and thought that he knew better than his father." - Reek III, aDwD
“It should have been you who threw the feast, to welcome me back,” Ramsay complained, “and it should have been in Barrow Hall, not this pisspot of a castle.” [...] “Is this why you left Lady Dustin and your fat pig wife? So you could come down here and tell me to be quiet?”- Reek III, aDwD
I do also have more "fanfic-like" headcanons, but im shy about posting them since they could easily be deconfirmed in future books :") Of course i try to do them as "in-character" as i can, but in some aspects grrm just hasn't given much info yet.
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trashcanmando · 2 years
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RepCom fandom be like the female characters are all wives [negative] because there's something bad about being wives/mothers I guess? then proceeds to write endless brother-brother incest related content where the ships exist almost exclusively for the man pain. Fi repeatedly thinking or saying he wants a wife/family but forget Parja ship him with Sev because angst. The fandom loves to shit on both the female characters and KT so they should just admit they hate women.
the repcomm fandom is such a complicated hot mess.... i'm not saying kt is a perfect author, but her stuff really resonates with me, and its so clear to me that 90% of the fandom didnt even like the books
like, its been a few years since i started blocking the REALLY bad ones, and i try not to make a habit of hate reading but here's some of the impressions i got:
-almost everyone who hates kal is inserting things into his character that arent there in the books. i'm pretty sure they latched onto a religious boomer stereotype and are holding on for dear life. ive seen people claim hed disown his kids for being gay?? when hes never anything but accepting of his sons even if he doesnt get it??
-all the takes ive seen seem very Performative Woke, like you said theyll make wild off the wall crack aus and the most implausible fix-its. karen wasnt playing with that. in repcomm, bad things happen. every character has massively screwed up somehow. they keep trying their best to do what they can anyways. not to mention she called out the republic for the same kind of Performative Wokeness thats a big problem on tumblr- the republic is crumbling, rotting and using a slave army while they talk big about justice and democracy.
-i really get the feeling the tumblr fandom hates the books. and then they create based off of hate. and that sucks and it doesnt even seem like fun.
-i feel like part of the hate for besany is claims that shes nothing but a hot wife for ordo.... which. sure. if you dont think that the small things matter, if you dont think quiet commitment is valuable... besany represents the Civilian, the place most of us readers are in- angry about the army but no real way to help. i love her so much because she seized her chances to do something, to change what she could, even though most of the time she was scared spitless
-these books are a love letter to messed up people who care. literally no character is purely good, not in the classic star wars way, not even bardan, and thats deeply comforting for most people. but if you have a rigid, idealized, demanding, frankly radical leftist view, then its very, very uncomfortable.
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chateautae · 3 years
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Hi sammy
Sammy you are my most most favourite author here. I love your fics. I loved "maybe i do" and still waiting for next chapter 😘😗
I dont know how you will perceive it, but there are some parts of your ffs which are uhm.. somewhat problematic.
Ya ya i know it may sound wierd , and i dont want to be rude here. As i said you are my favourite , so like why would i upset someone who is my favourite you know 😗
Okay so before i start , i really want to appreciate your fics. I loved how you wrote mid yn's character , she is fierce in her opinion and doesnt take any bullshit. I also loved how you wrote mid taehyung's character he is loving and caring, a bit rude but knows his boundaries.
Which is great
But you know there are some parts
Like when there were two random girls in the washroom who bullied yn because she married taehyung(??)
I know it is your story and you have every right to portray your characters anyway you want .
But why is it always gonna be a woman , who are insecure of each other.
Cant we be supportive ? Cant we be acceptable?
Just like the girl that barged in taehyung's cabin and yn felt insecure (??)
As if women just want to show down each other.
But we both know this , that how women generally are the most supportive people we have ever met. They cheer us, motivate us . They aren't like how the mainstream cinema portrays them , they are much more.
They are not just someone's love interest they have a character , like yn she has a character of her own , she is written with so much depth.
It is also beautiful to see how her character developed into a more secure lady.
Also a special mention to Hana. She is my favourite , i love how she is so chaotic but is always there for her best friend.
Like she will beat up anybody who tries to trouble yn.
I am not telling you to what should you write and what should you not. They are your characters you can portray them in anyway you want , but the point here is can we like acknowledge woman for being supportive rather than some people who dont know what they want and their only goal is to get into a rich man's pants.
Okay - that was a bit rude.
Sorry i didnt meant to be rude. But I will still stand to my point . I love your fic and will continue reading them. Your work is amazing and you know it 🌝
Common you do know that you are brilliant.
The only thing is that how you show that the goal of most female characters other than yn is to get in mid tae's pants.
And you may think , it is not a big deal. But it is , it shows that how us women see each other , do we see each other as gold digger no hell not. Never.
Right?
Then why shows these type of women and degrade them to some sort of gold digger?
I hope you will see into this.
Also your fic is so much better when we compare to the other fucs here on tumblr ,where the character of yn is so hollow and someone who just cant survive without the support of a man and like how other women just try to make her life hell :(
Trust me your fic is a ray of hope:)
Again i am sorry if it came Out as rude. But i wanted to tell you this like from a month but didnt had the courage. But then your blog is an actual safe place so finally i am writing it to you ☺️
First off, I would like to make clear to this anon that when I meant this blog is a safe space, it's a safe space first and foremost for me, not just anyone in random, and sending an ask like this quite invalidates the idea of a safe space. Though I'm answering this ask to clear things up, so please feel free to scroll past it if it bothers you, everyone knows I hate drama on my blog.
My answers to this ask will be a) female characters also include people like namjoon and seokjin's wives, hana, his mother, y/n's mother and even the mention of tae's grandmother, I do not recall them wanting to get into Tae's pants, and I have only mentioned 3 actual women from Tae's past.
b) I usually don't entertain asks like this, but I found it quite ironic how you verbally "do not intend to be rude" and yet, you go on to be rude.
c) You have only mentioned 3 female characters, and none of those women actually verbally mention that they loved Tae for his riches. If you read the story carefully, any assumptions of that kind are all in Y/N's head.
d) Taehyung only ever mentions that he's a bit used to being asked for things after sex, which makes complete sense since he's a handsome, young, and rich CEO. I get your concerns about how women are "portrayed by me" in this story, but I don't think you're considering that this is a high-class au, it's meant to portray the world of rich people, where it's very common for NOT JUST WOMEN, but men to also use people as well. I very much mention Y/N's father being pushed around and used for having a start-up until he finally made a name for himself. I'm unsure if you remember Alex and Kiseok, her ex in the story, but they're also portrayed as men trying to essentially "get in the pants" of a high-class woman, Y/N.
I really did not appreciate the lecture about how women should be portrayed, because trust me, I get it. Of course, I fucking love women and stand for them standing with each other, fuck dudes man. But to think that is the case all the time is also a fatal mistake, people IN GENERAL suck. I've had plenty of negative experiences that have come from women, and I know myself that they're not all the sunshine and rainbows, all people aren't. I see your criticism and I understand it, though I think it needs to be understood it's simply the nature of this au, not how I see women in general.
People, IN GENERAL, use people for money, it's something unfortunately common, and in this story it's only mentioned to capture the scene of the au. If you hold on until chapter 13, you'll very much see that I've portrayed BOTH men and women to be quite awful, gold-digging people.
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yamagucji · 3 years
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matchup request. hiii can i request a matchup? i go by she/her, i’m straight, i’m an isfp (with some isfj characteristics, mbti is never rly accurate for me) and a sag! i’m very optimistic, humble, peaceful and calm, i guess i you could say i’m kinda shy. an introvert, i hate confrontation and in general i tend to avoid conflict/negativity. i get along easily with people, i’ m very nice and tend to take responsibilities on myself, even if i suck at decision making. 1/3 (SORRY ITS SO LONG) i have many hobbies (i have the tendency to take up a new one every week). i like to paint (watercolors), i play the piano and i sing. i have spotify playlists for everything. i can be quite adventurous (i love planning fun activities with my friends) and i love to travel. i rarely get angry and always try to laugh things off. i am very touchy with people i’m close with. i’m quite insecure, i get reaaaally nervous in social situations, especially if i have to meet new people. 2/3 (AGAIN SORRY) i don’t really have a type or a specific dream date, i do have a thing for coffee shop aus tho. i also love nature and staying outdoors, walking in nature parks and camping. 3/3. SORRY IT WAS LONG. i don’t know where i was supposed to send this so i sent it here... hope it’s alright! thank you in advance! - @butwordsarethekey
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-ˋ✰ You matched with...
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Oikawa Tooru!
i hope you’re prepared for this outgoing, romantic fool
oikawa loves the fact that he’s one of the few that can get a rouse off of you— and really get you off of your shell more
he will crack up jokes, play around with you, mess with you. it’s all fun to this lil meanie >:(
his secret weapon: tickling you
“pretty bird~ the sides of your stomach look like they want something”
you: dont you dare !!
oikawa: hehe >:D
but as much as you hate getting tickled, every tickle session always ends up in cuddles. so... win-win situation for you i guess?
“hm, darling. you feel so comfy against my chest y’know?” 🥺
“toru, you say that every time”
as fun as staying indoors and cuddling with you is for oikawa, he also enjoys spending his time with you outdoors
if there’s a good scenic area or a hiking spot, he WILL take you there
but don’t forget to take lunch with you!
sometimes if it’s appropriate for the occasion, oikawa suggest that the two of you bring a basket to have picnic at wherever the two of you are going to
oikawa: you know what this calls for? picnic!
you: but what will we bring? :(
oikawa: don’t worry love, i’ll have everything set up for us
yes he is a romantic. a BIG romantic that preps the perfect picnic basket
(also has to be picture perfect because this bean always loves doing whole photoshoots)
oikawa enjoys making fun memories, especially with you🥺💞
when the two of you go out to camp, he’ll bring a telescope for stargazing. he’s familiar with a bit of astrology, and he very much likes showing off his knowledge to you
“there are so many stars out there, it’s so hard to pick a favorite,” oikawa said as he pulled away from the telescope. “but you know which i love the most?”
you ask, “who?”
“you, my angel.”
GKFJHD AHHH THIS SMOOTH BEAN
anyway if the two of you aren’t on a daye outdoors, your go-to place is a coffee shop
(oikawa knows your drink, it’s literally engraved in his mind)
it’s such a change of scenary, especially in oikawa’s attitude
something about the mood of the place really brings him to have really genuine conversations with you, like:
“y/n, what do you want in your future?”
or “there’s so many more places i’d like to go to, with you”
please he can be a soft boy too😖
okay i spoke too soon because oikawa has a lot of chaotic moments
ESPECIALLY if he’s with his team members or just iwaizumi
oikawa: *doing something stupid* 🤪
iwaizumi: 😡😤👊 *BONKS him*
you: 🧍‍♀️/🧍🏻 (bc idk ur gender)
honestly it’s up to you whether or not you wanna save your boyfriend from a fat scolding
besides the fact that oikawa does a lot of stupid things in front of you, he also looks out for you a lot
he’s familiar with the little things that indicate your anxioussness and when you’re uncomfortable
so he makes it his job to help you by leading the conversation or whispering,
“are you uncomfortable? do you want to leave?”
and if you say yes, he’ll escort you out without question😌
if the situation was big oikawa will see to it that he’ll comfort you with his words and touch
once the two of you are home he’ll definitely pamper you🥺
“feeling comfy, my love? anything else you want?”
very very affectionate with you. expect a lot of forehead kisses and ones on your hand
oikawa: “hmm... more kisses. i heard that a kiss can make you feel better”
ok now we have wild oikawa, soft oikawa, and caring oikawa. but we also have...
oikawa: *curious, and oggling at you”
“toru, what are you staring at?”
“the way your hand moves as you paint,” he mumbled, still not blinking his eyes, “it looks so relaxing”
YES HE HAS DEFINITELY SAID “draw me like one of your french girls” AND STRUCK A POSE
once... twice... many times
he’s also very enthralled by the way you move your fingers as you play the piano
if there’s a piano nearby you don’t even have to think about it because oikawa, the magnet, is already reeling you towards it
he will force ask you to play a song
it’s because you’re his s/o and he just likes seeing you do your stuff🥺
oh and... please do sing to him too
whenever oikawa needs to relieve some stress or has trouble sleeping, he’d always kindly ask for you to sing to him
hearing your voice in soft melodies never fails to put him at ease
he obviously likes giving to you, but it never hurts for him to receive, especially when it’s from you
so please do pour your heart for him, just as he does for you too🥺💞
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just-zenitsu · 4 years
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Zenitsu should've had an arc where he slowly learns how to love himself with the help of his friends and realizes he's not weak and has worth and doesn't deserve pain and doesn't deserve to be treated like shit- I just want him to have some shred of confidence please please please please please ple-
ok so every time i had an ask like this ive always just said ‘but look at the bright side! what are hc and aus for! gotoge had problems,, etc etc’ and i feel like ive always just glossed u guys over and maybe even made it seem like these opinions dont matter so im gonna take the time to try and answer this a smidge seriously (under read more bc its long, also im not tagging bc tumblr might fuck up the formatting again rip) (also warning for manga spoilers)
(also disclaimer sdjfhksd i havent read the manga! so im gonna go off of other people’s claims about zenitsu having wasted potential. and to be fair ive read the few last chapters, or at least PARTS of them) 
im not new to having a favorite character whose more or less claimed to have had a lot of potential but losing it in canon bc of, for a lack of a more general term, ‘’bad writing’’. and im not saying kny has bad writing, i dont think im one to judge that JUST yet but for comparison yall should know that i have a fav character in another series that is written so badly that he has the personality of cardboard and was only given life thanks to fanon content. and i dont blame people when they say they dont like said character! its the same as zenitsu, only that this guy, this yellow idiot, actually has a much more solid grasp on how he acts/feels/does things! but more often than not, this linear perspective does damage to how deep his character actually goes, thus just making him the stereotypical ‘pervert’ in an anime. ive seen people say that he’s just the same as mineta!!! which is just. very sad for me
i understand why they’d think like that though, maybe there wouldve been a difference if kny became more popular b4 bnha, but who knows! anyways, back to zenitsu. now, i understand if people ever found his actions uncomfortable or annoying! but when people say that he’s just a crybaby and that he’s literally just dead weight that’s when i get,,, well, iffy. and this is kinda where the frustration comes, we see zenitsu overcoming these obstacles off screen, apparently it was even only just mentioned in a passing comment that zenitsu had stopped having to fall asleep to do missions and cried less when he was going on solo missions. these are the tidbits that i wish was shown more explicitly in canon, showcasing his growth and such. MAYBE it was touched upon once kaigaku came up, but thats another problem, literally kaigaku only showed up once in a flashback and then suddenly he’s a demon? sure a brief flashback that showed him being in gyomei’s orphanage wouldve been enough to put some light, but i think there was still some things that wasnt touched upon when we discuss how kaigaku was portrayed in canon. i think he’s even MORE misunderstood compared to zenitsu. they have (arguably) been in the same situation in their childhood, have drastically different personalities and dealt with it in their own way, but in the end i think he was just used so that zenitsu had a big bad he had to defeat. i think there wouldve been more impact if we were shown thunder fam interacting more, imagine how cool that wouldve been, ESPECIALLY if kaigaku just wasnt thrown into the manga and was given a chance to interact with kamaboko before hand. just, a lot to think about.
and now we have what happened in the last few chapters, w tanjirou becoming a demon and after all that zenitsu just says something along the lines of ‘ill make u pay for hurting me and my future wife (nezuko)’ which sucks to a degree. but count the fact that gotoge was inching towards zennezu, as i mentioned in a previous post, he was worried about nezuko getting hurt by tanjirou. im also a bit disappointed that he didnt really do much in terms of, well, caring for tanjirou, but one GOOD thing that i really liked happening was in the previous chapters bEFORE tan got turned to a demon, the part w him assuring inosuke that he can still hear tanjirou’s heartbeat, and then consecutively screaming at tanjirou that he had to stay alive, he went as far to say that he hears nezuko’s human heartbeat and that he has a family to return to, which was, surprise surprise, apparently somewhat a LIE! i cant confirm this unfortunately since ive long since lost the explanation but someone said that zenitsu wasnt actually able to hear nezuko’s heartbeat then, meaning he lied for tanjirou’s sake bc he knew that if he’d pull through something, he’d pull through it for nezuko. (there’s also that part where zenitsu fought hard to keep this family alive since well, he doesnt have one to return to, which is just. ouch) another thing i liked about this part is that he wasnt!!! crying!!!, but both inosuke and tanjirou were and dont u just love the irony. dont u just love it when zenitsu, resident crybaby of the demon slayer corps, is the one who shouts at the both of his friends, who are usually the ones pushing him, yelling at him to stop sniveling and fight, to raise their chins up and to not give up? i think these few moments are JUST ABSOLUTELY TASTY. 
but. unfortunately, they are glossed over once we have what happened in chapter 203.
tl/dr; zenitsu’s character is something much more than a crybaby who’s a pervert and annoying. these points overshadow the fact that he’s a kind person, who was willing to protect nezuko despite knowing she was a demon just BECAUSE he trusted tanjirou that much and that he had a kind sound! he’s willingly THROWN HANDS when someone talked bad about kaigaku, a person he ADMITTED HE HATES, because he respects them as a person! zenitsu is much more than a crybaby who’s a pervert and annoying. if only canon were able to explain much more clearly than these few tidbits that we were given.
//im crying at the club im so sorry this is so long oh god oh fuck. anyways ive been disappointed time and time again and ive long since really stopped looking forward to the best to my fav characters and ive been p negative in previous fandoms so its why i avoided complaining like this in this blog but yeah kjfhkjsdf thank u for reading,,, 
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bahrlee · 4 years
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Suck the Blood From my Wound - Beok AU
Sorry for the late post I'm lazy
🦇🦇🦇chapter 19: Questions🦇🦇🦇
"What the hell is on your arm!?" Mitzi screeched, pulling him over and looking at the healing scars on his arm.
   "Yeah, long story." He said. He was completely unphased by her yelling. He tried to teach her not to, as they didnt want to draw attention to themselves, and he could be a bit sensitive to it too even though he was used to her loud voice, but she seemed cursed to use her outside voice forever. He told her of the break in, and Rolfes rampage, and that Dook safely tended to the wound, and that everything was okay now.
   Only it wasnt to her, and it caused her to freak out. "Beach, what if the silver thing didnt work?! I never heard of that before until now!" She exclaimed, offended she didnt know everything.
   "It felt like it worked." He put his hand over the wound. 
   "I sure hope it did, you can't be a werewolf, or I will kill myself---"
   "Now Mitzi, we dont say that." He warned. 
   "Oh whatever." She splashed at him. He was used to getting soaked every time they saw each other too. "Anyways, he told you he was a vampire?" She asked.
   He nodded.
   "So it's an open secret now?"
   He shrugged. "More or less, I guess. He told me everything you know, basically."
   "Huh. I thought he'd keep that secret until he exploded or something." She said. "Is thst your only injury?"
   "Yeah."
   "Okay. Did Dook get hurt?"
   "Yeah, but hes fine now."
   He was surprised how worried she was. She seemed so apathetic at times, so when she actually showed compassion, or concern, it always caught him off guard. 
   "I fucking hate werewolves." She uttered, looking up at him with a look of pity.
   "Do you want a hug, is this what this is about?" He smirked.
   She pulled him into the water and hugged him tight, getting him even more wet. "I couldnt lose you like my parents, okay?"
   He hugged her back, laughing solemnly at her awkward ways of showing affection that he has come to enjoy.
   "Werewolves are jerks." She said.
   "I know, I know." he said to her softly. "If I turn into a werewolf, which I feel like I wont, but just to make sure, go into my house, take the fork above the sink, and do what you have to do."
   "What?" She gasped, letting go of him.
   "I've seen what being turned into something you dont wanna be does to a person. Look at Dook, he hasn't had a peaceful moment in his life, even when he followed instruction. I would rather die than go through that. Even as a lone wolf." He explained. 
   "What if… you actually started a relationship with him and then Dook asks you if you wanted to be a vampire? What would you do then?" She asked.
   "Dook wouldnt force me to be one, so if I dont want to be, I'd just walk away." He answered. He still wondered what it would be like to be a vampire, especially the part where he basically had to disappear from the earth without a trace, and leave behind the people he cared about, just like that. There werent many people, but the few whom he was close to meant a lot to him.
   "Would you ever want to be supernatural or mythical?" She was very serious.
   He shrugged. "Depends."
   "God, you're so vague." She pushed him away.
   "So?" He said back. Now they were back into their normal dynamic.
   She glared at him. "I hate you."
   "And?"
   She pushed him into the water.
   "Jesus fucking christ, Mitzi, you gotta stop doing that!"
   "Well you're making me angry!"
   "You make me angry, but you dont see me doing random mean shit to you!"
   "Well it would help if you gave me real answers to my questions!" 
   "Fine, fine!" He held his hands up in defeat. "For now, I'd like to stay human. Not saying if never, but for now. Thats what I meant, okay?" He explained.
   She nodded, satisfied with the answer. "Human life doesnt interest you much, from what I can tell, so you'd probably adjust well. At least better than Dook." She thought aloud. "Youd make a hot werewolf. Or vampire. Heck, with that voice, you would make a hot polar bear or something."
   "Who would be attracted to a bear?"
   At this point, there would be a pan to the camera and the two main characters would be looking at the reader knowing full well that there are people out there attracted to him as a polar bear.
   "I'm just saying, alright? You could be Jacob from that twilight movie thing. Hes a hot werewolf, right?"
   He made a noise to himself. "Twilight fucking sucks. I've read the books. I still own the books. It's awful, and I love it."
   "I dont understand. If something bad, why do you like it?" She asked.
   "Because of the joy you get from hate watching. It's like how you hang around someone because of their punchable face and you get joy from how much you want to punch it." 
   She still didnt seem to understand. 
   "I'll show it to ya, you'll understand. True Blood, too. That shit is wild." He thought back on the adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and her plethora of sexy vampire boyfriends throughout the series.
   "I'm starting to think you're a vampire enthusiast." She said.
   "And…. What do you mean by that?" He asked.
   "You read literature, watch movies and shows, and just know almost everything about vampires. Plus you seemed a little too thrilled when learning they were real, especially when you learned Dook was one. You also like rock music and turn the radio to a different station whenever an Ed Sheeran song comes on…." She said. "So I gotta ask, Were you one of those edgy people, like, the ones that listened to screaming music and stuff and had the floppy hair and wore ripped jeans?"
   He cringed and turned away, her striking a nerve. He didnt like to think about that.
   "Oh my god. You better show me pictures the next time I come over!"
   "They're all at my parents house. The only one I have is my…. Highschool senior band photo." He made a face of disgust thinking about it.
   "You need to show me. I cant believe it! No wonder you like Dook, you used to be one of them! How are you all soft and pastel now? I need to know your lore! Tell me!" She was giggling quite a bit, but Beach wasnt the slightest bit amused. That was honestly the most embarrassing years of his life, the badly dyed hair, the eyeliner, the chokers and Green Day posters…. but he explained it to her anyways, and how it sadly, was in fact, just a phase, because Mitzis spiteful curiosity, though a bit morbid at times, being fulfilled, made her the happiest.
🦇🦇🦇
   Now that the vampire thing was an open secret between them, his inner fascination with horror and cryptic creatures that he thought left him in highschool came back to him. He didnt want to overwhelm him with questions, but he had to ask what has always been on his mind since he first cracked open Dracula in the 8th grade to show off to the teacher how smart he was. It was the middle of the night, Dook was at his house, hiding from Rolfe inside the walls only he was welcome in, and he wanted to take advantage of this time they had together to learn.
   "Okay. This bugged me for the longest time. Do vampires pee?" He decided to start off with a silly one.
   Dook made a noise of disgust.
   "What? This has bugged me forever! You drink blood, so, do you pee?"
   He rolled his eyes, his grin slight. "No." He answered. "And no, I dont know why."
   "Im..m guessing that it's because you're a lot dryer than a humans body, and it uses up all the moisture, so theres nothing to filter out."
   Dook looked rather unamused by his query.
   "What? I had a binder dedicated to this stuff." 
   He knew the whole vampire thing was Dooks favorite part of himself by the way he ignored it and didnt think much about it, and only spoke about it in a negative light, but his want to know more about being a vampire from an actual one manifested in him and wouldnt leave until it was fulfilled.
   "And I thought you were cool." Dook chided.
   "Oh please. I was not. Now…. I heard somewhere that vampires can get nourishment from semen." He couldnt help it, part of him wondered all the time if Mitzi was pulling that out of her ass just to mess with him.
   "What?! How'd you find that out?! The internet?"
   He paused for a moment, remembering Mitzi in the back of his head. "Yes."
   He could see Dook was embarrassed by this fact as he blew a puff of air out of his nose and turned red. "It doesnt have as much uh…. Nourishment as blood---i know that, I've tried to live off of it---but we can."
   "How many guys have you've slept with?" He asked light heartedly and jokingly. 
   "A lot." He answered quietly. "Well, maybe not a lot a lot, quite a few."
   "Hey, it's okay, I dont care. Hey, that brings me to my next question. Do…. Vampire get STDs?"
   "Honestly, I dont know. I dont know most of these." He shrugged, slightly frustrated. "I didnt want this. I wanted to get my life together, that's what I wanted." He grimaced, frustrated. "I-I hate how stupid I was to get dragged into their world. That's why I didnt wanna tell you, it's not a good place, I wanna keep you safe." He looked at him glumly. When he was sad it reminded him a lot of those paintings of the sad clowns. The look of his downturned mouth and the woe in his eyes, it was pitiful whenever he made this face. Maybe vampirism is an STD, he thought to himself, knowing saying it out loud to him would be a terrible idea. Sometimes jokes had to stay in your head due to tonal shifts. He learned that the hard way 
   "It was my birthday a week ago." He said, after a long, sad, silence.
   "Really?" 
   "Yeah, but…. No real point in birthdays when you live forever. What's there to celebrate?" He looked at the ground, looking like he hoped Beach wouldnt make a big deal out of it.
   "Us." He blurted.
   He looked up, his expression neutral. "Well sure, us…. But you know what I mean. Its…. Nothing now. holidays dont mean anything when you have nobody to celebrate em with." He stretched his arms out. "I have a big family, so… holidays were a lot of fun." He bittersweetly reminisced. "Theyd make me lead all the sing alongs, ever since I started a band."
   "Funny, my parents always wanted me to shut up if I tried to lead."
   "Well because I can hear you singing them right now, you suck at christmas carols."
   "Christmas Carol's suck anyways, after two weeks of them, I'm burnt out. Winters a miserable time for me anyways, so christmas isnt my most favorite holiday." He explained. 
   "It never was for me either, but…. I liked seeing our family together, you know? I-I liked seeing my nieces and nephew opening their presents, and scaring my sister by turning on that, uh, that creepy robot singing Santa we had in the corner…. we had one of those, and my sister was deathly afraid of it." He half-heartedly giggled to himself. "I miss them a lot."
   "Now…. That's something I always wondered. How does a vampire deal with things like that? Being so far away from family? Never seeing them again, watching them pass on, stuff like that?" He asked. "If it's not too much for you to answer."
   "Lonely. I feel lost without knowing the people around me. Scared. I'm not good with strangers, or talking." He began playing with a curl again, wrapping it around his finger and tugging at it like he always did, maybe for comfort, though it was a rather self destructive way to comfort yourself, maybe to warn himself not to unbury his tears from his eyes. "I mean it's not too bad when you move around a lot, but…. I still wanted at least someone  besides Rolfe."
   "Its really scary, not knowing anyone."
   "I feel so alone all the time. I also feel like I'm missing out. My nieces and nephew are growing up, everyone's changing, and I'm not there to see it. That's why I had such a hard time telling you. If you choose to become a vampire, you'll lose everything. I dont want to be that reason you have to do that." He explained. "I should pursue vampires, really, but…. I dont feel like I'm one."
   "I mean it affects you daily, or in this case nightly life, how do you not feel like one?"
   "I mean, sure I-it changed my life a lot, but since I never wanted to be one in the first place, I never felt it. If I could just go back in time and prevent it from happening, I would." He blinked and a few tears fell, which he quickly wiped away in hopes that Beach didnt see. He crawled over and settled into his arms when he opened them up and gestured for him to come over from his little corner.
   "I'm sorry." He said.
   Dook closed his eyes and let the relaxing feeling of the embrace engulf him.
   Dook wasnt really a vampire to him, either. Sure there were points he looked the part, but there was something missing from him. Vampires usually carried themselves with a malicious pride. They usually took joy in who they were, and embraced and flaunted their vampiric selves, at least thats what the classic vampires did. But he didnt consider Twilight vampires real vampires anyways, but sparkly pasty abominations, so he took the original depictions as the most truthful. And from what hes heard, it was. But Dook felt disgust towards this aspect about himself. All it did was cause constant strife, pain, and fear in his life. He was sickened by it.
   "We can celebrate holidays together now, though. Itll only be the two of us, maybe Roxy, but…. You arent alone anymore." He said. 
   Dook looked up at him, a solemn smile on his face. He put a hand on his face and stroked his thumb against his cheek. "We both arent alone anymore."
   He was right. He forgot how lonely he was sometimes, because it was just a part of his every day life. He lived alone, did lots of things alone, and even when around people, he felt alone. But he was, and Dook was here, actively diminishing that aspect of his life. They were quickly becoming inseparable, and it was something he could ever hope for. Hes never tried to have this kind of closeness with someone---he hasn't pursued a relationship since highschool---and it was just as amazing, and hard, and confusing as everyone at Roxys made it out to be.
   He sighed, smiling sleepily back at him. "I'm gonna go to bed. You can stay out here if youd like." He took Dooks hand off of his cheek and kissed it, Dook moving off of him so he could get up.
   "Okay." He said. "I'm gonna go out for a little bit then, if you dont mind."
   They left their separate ways, Beach going to bed, suddenly not used to having Dook in his arms, suddenly excited for Halloween, and a bit more anxious about keeping Mitzi from him so they could stay together long enough for Halloween. He tried to stop himself from imagining his image of the future to include him, as this imagining could get his hopes up too high. but maybe it was okay to think. At least for now. Just for a little fun. Just to give him good thoughts before he drifted into sleep.
🦇🦇🦇
   Those thoughts appearently, didnt work as the dreamcatcher he was promised they would. He awoke from a nightmare, in a sweat, the dark leaving him disoriented and confused. He almost began crying and screaming, like he did as a little kid every time he had a nightmare. Hed keep crying, and crying, for his dad and then for his mom, and then about whatever he dreamed about, until someone came in and carried him into their room so he could sleep. But then he remembered he was an adult, and Dook was gone at the moment, or so he assumed, so nobody was there to pick him up and comfort him, so he quietly just sat in bed, dazed, before getting out and stumbling around in order to turn every light on in the house, still believing that the lights eradicated the monsters. He even sang to himself "God is bigger than the boogie man" from veggietales, trying to lighten himself up. He came downstairs to furn on the light, but he saw it was already on. Maybe he left it on or something. He went downstairs anyway, and stumbled backwards in fear when he saw Dook sitting on the couch with a laptop in his lap, a pair of glasses on. 
   "Jesus fucking christ!" He yelped.
   "Oh, hello." Dook said. "Nice song." 
   "Oh, you…. Heard that." He smiled nervously, hoping they wouldnt talk about that.
   "Are you okay?" He asked. 
   "No." He shook his head, still smiling. "Bad dreams."
   "Aw, not one of those. Seemed like a very scary one, too. I mean it set you into song." 
   "I'm used to living alone, so I sing to myself a lot." He shrugged. "What are you doing? Are you doing your scam thing?" He asked.
   "I was." He said. "You wanna come over here?"
   Beach was nervously rubbing the palms of his hands together, still shaken to bits by the nightmare. He nodded and padded over like a little kid, taking a seat next to him and resting his head on his shoulder, Dook lifting his arm over and stroking his hair. 
   "Glasses." Beach said, another wave of disorientation overcoming him.
   "Yeah. You good? So sound like you're a novocaine right now."
   "I'm tired, shut up."
   Dook giggle and kissed the top of his head, closing the computer and setting it aside so he could fully cuddle him. 
   "What was your dream about?" Dook asked.
   "Um… I was in a dark room, and there were paintings on the wall. And I turned the light on, and the paintings began to fall. So I went over, and picked up the paintings and hung them back up, but every time I hung back up the paintings, the light would get dimmer and would soon go out. And then it would go out and then I'd run back and turn it on again, and the paintings would fall. So I had to go back, and the same thing happened." He explained. "And then someone opened up the door just…. Screamed at me. It was like a high pitched one, too. And then I woke up."
   "Wow. Thats…. Abstract." He said.
   "It was loud." He whined. 
   "I bet. Are you worried about something?" He asked.
   "A lot of things, yeah. I hate the fall, and it's coming up real soon, and I just really hate the dark for some reason, like, it's an irrational fear I've never grown out of."
   "Like my fear of bugs." He said.
   "Why do you hate bugs? Bugs are cool."
   "Bugs are just…. Gross." He made a face. "Moths especially. I fucking hate moths."
   "Jeez. What did they ever do to you?"
   "Lay eggs in my room, and then hatch and fly everywhere for 3 hours while I had to whack em all to the ground with a shoe."
   "Okay that is kinda gross." He agreed. He felt himself getting tired again, the anxiety and fear finally wringing out of him. His body was heavy with exhaustion, and he couldnt move. "I wouldnt like being a vampire." He said. "A whole life in the dark would be too scary."
   "Glad you feel that way." He said, sighing and giving him a light squeeze. "You're tired. Go back to bed, alright?"
   "Okay." He said with a sleepy smile. He got up and stumbled for a few moments before gaining his footing and walking back upstairs. "Wait. Dook."
   "Yeah?"
   He leaned over the staircase. "I love you."
   Dook beamed up at him, amused by his loopy state. "I love you too." He said, waving goodnight. 
   Turning all of the lights off that he frantically turned on when he first woke up, Beach feel into bed, falling almost immediately asleep, his wish of having a dreamless sleep for the rest of the night come true. 
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st-eve-barnes · 4 years
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I'm upset with Seb too, backtrack all you want, dont throw fans under the bus (when you're promoting things you want them to watch!). But I feel like this has solidified my choice - if we're months out, and they're already doing damage control, I shudder to think what FATWS is going to do to two of my fave characters (Bucky & Sam). I've spent too much time & money trying to rationalize these movies, to realize what I loved was a concept not the actual product. I wont be watching or supporting.
I absolutely get that and I share your fear. I still don’t know what to do with Falcon & Winter soldier tbh. It’s not like I watch every single thing Seb is in but I usually watch everything that’s Marvel and this is Bucky, I care so much about this character. I’m still trying to get my mind to a place where I can watch the show as some AU that doesn’t relate to the Bucky I knew, the Bucky that belongs to Steve, if that makes sense. I think I’d be okay watching it if they just never mention Steve. Then on the other hand it would totally suck for Bucky not to ever think of his best friend again and just leave that out of the show. But I know if they do address Steve’s ending or dwell on Endgame too much I’m just gonna get angry again with how they left things, so I’d prefer that AU where Bucky just fights crime with Sam and see that friendship develop, I could enjoy that a lot, I think. But of course we have no way of knowing what road Marvel is gonna choose, canon rarely gives us what we want.
As far as Seb’s words go, I’m disappointed but I’m also not 100% sure what exactly he meant by this “the internet made it into something it wasn’t”, I wish that context was clear because I really don’t believe Seb would ever throw his fans under the bus like that. It’s just a shame it came out sounding rather negative towards Stucky fans and he’s contradicting things he said earlier about that ending. I know we all have our opinion too and the more we think about something the more that opinion shifts sometimes or we start seeing things in a different light so I don’t wanna be too hard on him for that, people are allowed to change their mind. On the other hand I can’t fully ignore the fact that it stings, especially because Seb has never defended Endgame like that before but always sort of questioned it and seemed to understand fans’s concerns. 
Maybe Marvel snipers finally got to him, I guess being in the crisis we are now we can’t blame the guy for wanting to keep his job.
I think you’re very right in saying what we loved is a concept, canon gave us such a great concept to work with but the best and most beautiful parts have always been created by fandom❤️
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terribluh · 4 years
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i wrote this for me
ive got this zadr au in my head ill never do anything with and its not particularly special bc every iz fan comes to this inevitable zadr au lmao
this got very long and probably ooc lmao rip dont worry u dont have to read it in fact please dont read this i did not format this at all and i did not proofread 
basically dib and zim are dating and dibs home situation has deteriorated, and in light of irkens managing to escape the florpus hole, they kinda go, “lets be young and free and run away together” and so they go to space!!! i feel like these self serving jackasses probably wouldn’t join the resisty straight up?? theyre too dumb for that, like yea dib has a hero complex and zim would probably love to be incharge of people but alas, dibs actually an asshole and zim probably wont hurry to align himself with irken enemies despite kind of being one himself.
so they float through space. things r kinda bad kinda good, but theyre surviving. the irken armada isnt exactly after them, but i imagine they probably have a run in with irkens who just start trying to kill zim and realize avoiding irkens is something they should do. the idea that zim terrifies the tallest is hilarious bc then they operate on a, ill avoid u if u avoid me basis and thats such a concept bc im thinking dib and zim become space pirates. will be honest, got a lot of inspiration from ravagers in gotg bc thats an aesthetic and i was way into kragdu at some point in my life. also im a slut for space operas.
they r in space, kinda keeping to themselves and stealing things. they become space cryptids. i love the idea that they become space cryptids lmao. zim is just such a small irken and dib is this tall gangly human and no one knows what the fuck a human is. lots of humans are fucking weird to other aliens stuff. also i love the idea of them in a fight with space bounty hunters or something, and dib gets shot and just keeps going. this strange lanky figure in a dark coat with blood spilling from his injured shoulder just not going down. and zim as an irken is functionally immortal anyway so theyre like an unstoppable team. i love battle couples! 
i like the dynamic they could of had in canon, someone made a post once, where zim wouldve been the one to fight and dib wouldve been mission control, but i think in this au, it would be the other way around? or more equal idk. zim has to learn to do the talking bc dib dont speak alien, and dib has to protect zim a lot. and then over time they just pick up each others slack lol. i just like the idea of dib being kinda intimidating looking, which when paired with zims shit eating grin is such a combo. 
theres probably a scene where an alien is like ooh scary bounty hunter that even the fucking irken armada avoids and is scared shitless but its just dib. and dib, never having seen this kind of alien before, starts asking a million questions and is just kinda offputting/adorable lmao and then zim has to drag him out. 
anyway things keep like this, they hash out a living on stealing and trading. their number 1 priority is avoiding the massive and any irkens out there. maybe dib misses earth. maybe zim misses… something. the ship they have is kind of scrap and very much homebrewed, all stolen parts and mishmashed pieces and it was originally zims voot lmao, but zim is a genius and dib is a membrane and it still works. zims house computer is in the ship now and minimoose lives in the vents.
and then theres gir. i love gir but also i feel like theres a lot of untapped gir related angst like, gir is essentially scrap??? shit breaks 
they shut him down a lot for his own good bc he malfunctions sometimes and its awful bc zim loves gir. 
and then one day, zim and dib making a run for it, dib scooping zim up and hoofing it with the alien in his arms shooting over his shoulder and yelling at dib at the same time. and someone or something hits gir hard enough he shuts down, eyes dimming into black and collapsing mid giggle and zim loses it, destroying the attacker while dib grabs for gir and checks his internals and has no idea how to fix him because nothing seems wrong. 
and this is something like the breaking point. things were ok, but now things arent. maybe zims pak is broken, has never worked properly, is dying, and they get by with scraps and parts but its very borderline. and the ships basically scrap and supplies are always tight but they make do. 
but then gir shuts down, and suddenly they cant keep living on scraps and avoiding the armada. bc they need to fix gir no matter what  
maybe theyre like theres no parts enough to fix him oh no, but look theyre right around the corner from the massive and it just so happens the resisty are attacking so zim and dib are like. “were really doing this arent we” and the computers like sigh ok 
they really intend to grab a random sir unit and cannibalize it for gir and jet but zim cant keep his mouth shut and suddenly theyre arguing, fighting their way through some irkens that are really just doing their jobs and had the misfortune of running into zim and dib making their escape and its really strangely easy. zims kind of an op destructive force and dibs so used to fighting zim at this point these irkens are like ants and theyve been in space for like a decade at this point, and theyre always in danger anyway, and its easy to get into the swing of it. shoot shoot stab kick yell at zim blast an irken. 
and next thing they know theyve busted through the door to the bridge where a showdown is happening between the tallest and the resisty leader and everyone deer in the head lights. 
both parties yell “ZIM????” like the beyonce meme and zim instinctively goes “yes it is i ZIIIIM” and dib facepalms behind him the tallest are like panicking and the irkens milling around start gunning for zim and the resisty in equal amounts and theyre severely outnumbered and zim and dib start fighting for their lives foreal this time 
and zim yells, “computer! bring the ship around!!!” and dib is like “zim if i die like this-”, “you won’t zim guarantees it.” and its kind of romantic but theres plasma beams everywhere and a deactivated sir unit in zims arms and theyre both hurt but thats what its like, thats what its always like for them and honestly they wouldnt change it for anything. 
maybe dib gets zim to go on ahead and escape without him with the sir unit, or zim goes on ahead himself all i have a plan. and dib is mistaken for a resisty agent bc he obviously isn’t irken and unwittingly teams up with then and then all hope seems lost and dibs like “we’re screwed- “
and gir blast through the glass of the ships bridge all, “Maaaryyy i missed you!!!!”
“gir youre ok!”
and then gir barrels into dibs arms, dib jolting back from the impact with an oof 
“i died but im ok now!” gir screams as he cuddles into dibs neck  
and its v cute but dib is kinda preoccupied with not dying and hes just like “thank fucking god get us out of here” and girs eyes flash red and he salutes “yes sir!” and jets off by grabbing onto dibs back with his tiny hands and thats when the ship pulls up. zim is in the drivers seat and everyone fucking sees him because hes screaming, why is he screaming? hes zim, of course hes screaming. they get away all well and good but lmao their interference was enough that the resisty was able to escape with far less casualties than they wouldve had. 
bc they were losing, real bad lmao zim and dib saved them but they dont even care because that wasnt what they were going for but to the resisty theyre heroes and to the irken armada theyve declared war. and dib and zim are just like “our actions will not have any negative reprecussions no siree.” bc theyre idiots!! 
their actions have negative reprecussions. 
and then they join the resisty. 
and at some point dib goes home and reconciles with his family and gaz kicks his ass 
anyway i just love the idea that zim and dib dont do nothing on purpose but every damn thing they do affects something big. like some kinda cosmic karma, i amn jus standing herr kinda thing lmao a lot of coincidences and pure luck shenanigans. 
an overarching theme of “everything in zim and dibs lives suck except for how much they love each other” 
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xiuhnny · 5 years
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a montage of love / mark lee
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genre: college!au, acquaintances to lovers!au, slow burn, fluff, a lot more angst than anticipated
pairing: mark lee/female reader
word count: 26.5k jesus christ
warning: alcohol and drug abuse, explicit language, suggestiveness, a bit of heart-wrenching angst
summary: High school was a time in your life you didn’t like to think about, especially when the present days were the best ones you had ever lived. But when Mark Lee shows up in the form of blast from the past, you’re left with emotions you never planned on experiencing.
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author’s note: i’ve been working on this for almost a year. amid the mess that is my life, i poured my heart and soul into this project, which is the first official piece of writing i do for the kpop community. it has taken longer than i expected, and i apologise to everyone who had been waiting for this to be published since i posted the preview quite some time ago. however, it is here! i’ll never be the person who can put out a short story because my need to go into fully specific details about every single thing is stronger than anything else. pleathe be mindful of the fact that this is fiction and i dont think any character in this work resembles their real life counterpart besides their physical appearance. also, i’m aware that i mix british terms with american ones, mind you that i’m neither so bear with me for a sec lol
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High school was a time you weren’t particularly fond of. 
It was just a clustered mess of stillness-infused events happening one after the other, never having anything really good coming out of it. It was either neutral or downright disastrous and embarrassing, so sometimes you pretended it either didn’t exist or it was a foggy, distant memory in the back of your mind. 
Everything had been just plain, normal, detached, never good enough to think of it fondly.
You supposed being the new kid was probably one of the causes that made your attempts at fitting in with the others fail miserably. The people you hung out with were the type of people you knew your friendship wouldn’t stretch further than the last day of high school: you relied on each other for convenience. That didn’t hurt you at all because it was something you did too. And it wasn’t like you were the best version of yourself back then. 
The best came when you entered college.
The college you was the person you had always dreamed to be. Liked by people who genuinely cared for you and your wellbeing, with whom you shared good and bad moments. Carefree in the sense that you were no longer afraid of sharing your opinions and being yourself yet carrying all the same struggles every other college student did. This was your peak. You were at the top of your game in every aspect possible. And even if you were still flawed, like you would always be, the life you lead was still worth it.
However, not everyone shared the same path as you. Some people just had it all since the beginning: they were consistent in the way they presented themselves to other people throughout the years, and consequently that in itself appeased the masses no matter the environment they inserted themselves into. It didn’t help at all if they were truly nice people, which was the case.
You weren’t sure why the fact that Mark Lee was as loved — if not even more — in college as he was in high school surprised you, but the truth was, it did. 
Going through a blast from the past was something you were expecting, seeing people from your old school navigating through the halls of a place you really liked became second nature. You saw Sicheng every once in a while, the Chinese guy you had to become acquainted because both of you had transferred to your high school closely after each other. You saw Dahyun who was from your Math class though you never really made an effort to be friends, neither did she. You saw a variety of faces with whom you had shared tiny speckles of basic interaction.
But Mark Lee wasn’t just any person. 
Mark Lee was the cool guy who looked like he had everything without even trying or working hard for it. He had reliable friends, good looks, good grades, recognition and respect from pretty much everyone surrounding him. You were sure there wasn’t a soul capable of hating or so much as even having hard or negative feelings towards him. And rightfully so, for while Mark looked like someone who breezed through life without a scratch, he was severely passionate and strived hard for good results on whatever he put his mind in to. To top it off, he had luck on his side.
You couldn’t hate the guy, you’d give him that. He was too much of a good person.
It was nearly the end of the first semester of your second year of college when you saw him for the first time after you had ended your senior year of high school. With Mark being younger than you by one year, you had been swept away out of that hellhole before him. But as luck would have it, you were back to sharing an education facility. Not that it bothered you that much, except you had to be shocked not only by his presence, yet also by the happenstance he was talking to one of your best friends with whom you were supposed to meet up fifteen minutes ago.
You were the one who was late, of course. So many years had gone by and you still weren’t able to be on time whatever the circumstance was. And when you tried to be responsible and leave your dorm early, the universe seemed to be against you. It remained a mystery why public transportation would fail you on only those specific times. 
At that moment, being late was the least of your worries, because there, in front of you, stood two people who represented completely different times of your life colliding with one another, while you watched in the sidelines and wondered why something like this was even happening to you.
 It truly felt weird to you seeing the out-of-reach Mark interacting with completely-approachable Jungwoo. 
Pursuing a friendship with one of the school’s most popular people did not charm you in any way back then. You thought about it sometimes, what would happen if you were to befriend Mark, or his best friends Donghyuck and Yeri, but reality brought you back before your imagination pulled you in too deeply. Besides that, you were never interested enough in that kind of people, the ones who seemed like they were known by everyone and their mothers. The difference between you and them was ghastly, bound to never work out.
“___!” A voice shook you out of your memory lane themed thoughts, your eyes blinking into focus to the image of the two boys now looking at you, one with sheer happiness to see you and the other surprised. For what reason you couldn’t decipher why. He had always been like that. Not that you had paid Mark Lee too much attention in high school. It was just inevitable once in a while to look over to where he was sitting and analyse his behaviour for a tiny bit. You had that habit.
“Hey, Zeus,” You smiled softly, “Sorry for making you wait. Traffic sucked balls.”
Jungwoo rolls his eyes, clearly sensing your politeness had a reason. You had stopped apologising for being late after the first ten times. “Don’t even bother, you talk like I’m not used to it. Oh!” He seems to remember something by the way his eyes jump a little, and then he looks to his left where Mark Lee is, for a fraction of a second before looking back at you again, “That’s right. How rude of me. Remember that guy I told you about named Lucas? The one who is Kun’s cousin?”
“Tall, loud boy?” 
“That’s the one.” He grinned, “This is his friend, Mark. We’re heading together to Lucas’s. They invited me over for a game night! How cool is that, uh?”
“Very.” You deadpanned, completely averting the fact Jungwoo was introducing Mark to you. He would have a field day if he knew you knew who Mark was. Because there was no way in hell Mark would know who you were. Moreover, you couldn’t believe he asked you to meet up just because of a measly textbook which you could have handed to him another time. You were still going to meet up with other friends, but the fact you had to take a last-minute detour when you were already late to your original plans stung just a bit. “Here’s the book, by the way.”
“Thanks, you’re a gem.” The sad thing about your best friend was that he knew you couldn’t resist how cute he acted. It worked every single time, including this one. “Why don’t you come over too? If Mark doesn’t mind, that is.”
Mark immediately becomes flustered, eyes widening as if he’d just heard wrong, but you beat him before he can even utter a word in response, which could destroy your nonchalant façade, “Thanks, but I already have plans. The girls and I are actually sleeping over at Eunwoo’s today, and we’re going to the movies in about…” You take your phone out of your pocket to check, the numbers that stared back at you zipping you back into full awareness that you should probably leave if you wanted to make it on time. “Half an hour. We’re watching Venom.” There’s a strange heaviness in your chest making it hard for you to breathe. Being the centre of Mark’s attention felt so alien to you, so unreal and wildly unimaginable. “And I’m sure Lucas and his friend wouldn’t really be comfortable with having a stranger in their home.” You laugh at the end to soften the truth behind your words. 
As fun as it is meeting new people, bringing them unannounced in the last minute was never recommended, and it could seriously deflate the comfort in those who were present. Jungwoo had good intentions, but that’s all it was.
(You’re not a stranger, Mark thinks, I’ve had a crush on you for embarrassingly too long.)
“That’s a pity, really.” Your best friend pouts adorably, and you chastise yourself inwardly before you changed your mind, “Let’s set up something as soon as possible, though. I feel like we all will get along well if we get the chance.”
His determined enthusiasm was cute, almost contagious if you willed yourself to let your guard down. You’d let him get away with it this one time.
“Of course! Just let us know when and where, and we’ll be there.”
Mark goes back to looking like he could be feeling every type of emotion possible, chewing on his lip with his eyes unreadably stoic, and the three of you part ways at the school’s garden but not without the thought of how well Mark had grown between the last time you saw him and now infiltrating and contaminating your brain. 
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Turned out Jungwoo’s ASAP was earlier than you would have ever imagined. 
Actually, if things had gone according to the way you had planned, he would forget about the whole ordeal and you would go on with your merry little way without any unfortunate recollection lurking around and probing into your life. You truly didn’t feel the need to meet many new people; everything was already perfect as it was, so why would you even ask for more?
Clearly, your best friend thought otherwise, seeing how seriously he had taken those words, and in the following week, prompted everyone to hang out at his place a Thursday night after classes ended. Much to your surprise, most of your friends seemed okay with it.
Vernon and Kino were just ecstatic over the prospect of meeting and chilling with new people since their social circle was always willing to expand no matter who tried to come in. Eunseo already spent most of her time in Jungwoo’s house to load off of his Netflix subscription and free food so having three or four more people coming over didn’t bother her at all as long as she had her spot on the couch. Yeeun and Eunwoo seized every moment Eunseo wasn’t home to suck each other’s faces off and do God knows what.
And you… Well. You wouldn’t normally mind under other circumstances, really. It wasn’t like you were actively seeking other friendships per se, but you also didn’t avoid them. So you decided that you weren’t going to scheme your way out of a meeting where half of the people there were people you cared about. Mark made you feel a tad uncomfortable because he was someone you had never thought of interacting so closely with — and by interacting you meant standing within a few metres radius while you looked at Jungwoo’s totally unnecessary yet nonetheless appreciated large 4K TV. 
What were you supposed to do? Confide in someone about it?
It felt overall illogical to tell one of your best friends about the issue, especially when you knew they would say you were blowing things out of proportion. You could already imagine Eunseo saying something along the lines of ‘High school is shitty for everyone’ and Kino agreeing with a stern look that totally said ‘Just because you had a hard time it doesn’t mean you can project those feelings onto people who don’t deserve it’ because Kino was just the kind of introspective person who would lecture you about how to detach yourself from the problematic behavioural ways you possessed. And you would do nothing but stay quiet, because the truth was, whatever words they deemed fit to tell you were going to be true. Furthermore, you knew you had no reasonable explanation as to why you clamped shut every time someone from your past popped up in your line of view. It just happened. Like the invisible string you had around you tightened every single time, and stupidly, you just let it happen. It was wearing you out little by little.
So for today, you were going to suck it up a little for everyone’s sake and relax around a person whose presence felt so foreign and unreal.
The walk to Jungwoo’s was filled with a 00’s hits playlist blasting through your earpods as a way to let yourself loose and calm down your stupid nerves, your steps matching the beat of whichever song came on shuffle. This whole situation was affecting you so absurdly that for the first time in a really long time you had left the confines of your dorm room earlier than you were used to, so you could get to your destination on time, if not before what had been scheduled. Arriving late meant everyone’s attention would be on you as you awkwardly waved to everyone, and you weren’t really in the mood to be the centre of attention to people you weren’t close to. You would fling yourself from the nearest window if you had to go through what happened when you saw Mark, having his gaze burn uncomfortable holes along every single visible surface of your body. Being fashionably late was not on your plans. Not today.
“Uh,” You should’ve guessed Jungwoo was going to be confused when he saw you standing on the other side of his front door at 19:45, your backpack slung over your shoulders and your university hoodie almost covering you entirely because of how large it was, “___… You’re early.”
You snort, “Yeah, I like to keep you guys on your feet from time to time so you never underestimate me.”
He lets you in with a scratch on the nape of his neck, and when you glance around expecting to see the entire expanse of his lengthy living room littered with known and unknown faces, you’re faced with only Eunseo sitting on the sofa with her computer perched on her crossed legs, face too close to the screen as she typed away.
“Wait,” You frown, craning your neck so his kitchen was visible to you, “Why isn’t everyone here? Am I too early?”
Eunseo suddenly chokes, looking up from the screen, “___! What are you doing here?”
“Don’t tell me you guys…” Trailing off your words, you begin glaring at your friends with a hand perched on your hip indignantly, “You guys… Wow! What time did you guys plan with the others? Let me guess—”
“Before you strangle me to death,” Jungwoo raises his hands over his shoulders in surrender, “We never thought you’d be here so early!”
“I don’t even remember the last time you were on time, ___,” Eunseo is pouting exaggeratedly, pleading her case alongside the other traitor in the room, “We just didn’t want the other dudes to have that first impression of you.”
As much as it pained you to confess, they had a point. If you were planning on actually appearing somewhat likable to these other people you didn’t know, several measures had to be taken. Even if deep down you felt stingy about it — about how your mind seemed to only focus on the fact that they probably had done something like that several times — you understood it. Time was precious, and some could even interpret your lateness as valuing your time more preciously than theirs, which wasn’t really the case because you never did it maliciously. It truly felt like it was apart of your nature, being like that.
“I thought it was one fake bitch in this house, but there’s two.” You sniffle dramatically before going into the kitchen to fetch food to eat in the meantime.
Jungwoo fist-bumped the air in victory. Something was up, he was pretty sure.
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Until now things had been going amazingly well, as always. Having Kino, Jungwoo, Vernon, and Eunseo together inside the same place was as familiar to you as the way you recognised yourself in the mirror, so the inside jokes and jabs you threw at everyone were comfortable, homely even.
You were peeking into Eunseo’s laptop with your head against her shoulder, your glasses perched on the bridge of your nose to top off your lazy outfit of the day as you proofread the essay she had been working on for the past three days when the doorbell rang and your attention diverted. 
It was incredible how you heard Loud Boy before you could even see him or whoever was accompanying him. A cacophonous, high-pitched symphony of unintelligible screams filled the whole vicinity, Jungwoo’s softer voice practically muffled underneath it all.
“Well,” Eunseo closed the lid of her laptop before putting it back inside her bag, shrugging, “I was expecting this.”
“I don’t even know why you brought it with you, this is supposed to be a chill night,” Vernon quipped from his spot on the floor, the deafening sound coming closer and closer until it was blaring ridiculously loud in your eyes, “Oh, there they are!”
You weren’t sure why you were expecting not to see Mark amongst the other two unknown faces, yet alas, there he was indeed. Looking like a Sim waiting for instructions, stoic with his bugged-out eyes absorbing his surroundings until they land on you. And then he just observes you like he’s trying to make a point you’re unaware of coming across, just until the messy reunion between the other guys dies down. An intense stare-down between the both of you that ends with you averting your gaze not even five seconds later because you’re a little bitch when it comes to eye contact. You swore you would rather gauge your eyeballs out rather than stare at someone for a really long time, and if that someone was Mark Lee, even five seconds was too long.
Lucas, the boy you had coined as Loud Boy, was just as handsome as he was extroverted. The way he carried himself and the atmosphere around him left you with a good impression of him, just like the other boy who was next to him. Minhyuk — “Call me Rocky,” he said, like the discrepancy between his real name and his nickname wasn’t that big — looked like he was a fun person to be around by the way he reacted pertinently to everything that happened. Mark, however, waved at both of you and Eunseo with what looked like a strained, forced smile, a stark contrast to the ease he seemed to exude when he did those weird handshake guys always did, despite the fact it was the first time he had interacted with either Kino or Vernon.
The way Eunseo gripped your hand tightly against hers when the boys fell into a never-ending conversation about the most recent PlayStation 4 games was a foreteller that tonight was going to drag through painfully slow, the emerging testosterone spreading through the air as the themes of their talk rarely strayed too far from gaming. Which wasn’t normally something you would find so boring if it was just your group of friends talking about it. Because Eunseo and you also played, avidly, as a matter of fact, so the fact your friends were getting lost in the hype of having new gaming buddies was reason enough to put a damper on your mood.
You had her there, though, and that was more than enough for you. These kinds of situations never failed to leave you unsure how to act, afraid of looking like an antisocial snob who looked down on others. Together, the both of you looked the way you felt, a bit ostracised and uncomfortable with the undesired and unintentional division between gender, but you accepted it begrudgingly like the other things that had happened so far.
Half an hour into their bickering and fooling around you decide to go somewhere else within the house, dragging Eunseo with you, and it’s the lack of shuffling behind him that alerts Mark of what’s going on in the back scene. It’s then that it clicks — you. You were still there, alongside your friend sitting on the sofa while the rest of them laughed and talked without even thinking about how you must have been feeling. His chest suddenly feels heavy with guilt, mind flashing back to the way the hem of your sweatshirt almost touches your knees and how much he wanted to roll your sleeves.
He’s reminded of past times, times where you were both just a little younger and surrounded by a completely different group of people, but he thinks the way he looked at you back then hadn’t changed at all in comparison to the way he looked at you now. Like he wants to get to know you so much it strangely makes his heartache from time to time. Like he can’t find a way inside your world when he had been given the chance to see you again after two years of desperately agonising over whether he should send you a friend request on Facebook or not. Yet there he was now, just a breath and a half away from speaking to you and just like the God damned fool he was, Fortnite, of all things, cockblocked him into getting distracted by a conversation which he couldn’t get back on the groove because of how truly shitty he felt. 
“Uh,” He clears his throat, “I think we forgot about…”
“Shit,” Vernon says, and Jungwoo flings his head back to the now empty space on his sofa, eyes widening to the point of almost looking like an exaggerated animation. 
Lucas is shrugging indifferently, “They probably went to drink some water or something like that,” And then he’s back to telling the rest of the story he had been telling before Mark interrupted the flow. That doesn’t deter Jungwoo, who gets up from his spot and goes through the same path you had gone a few minutes before. 
“They were sleeping,” He announces when he comes back, “Said we should catch up while we’re at it, and to wake them when we decide to be… inclusive.”
Kino hisses, his face contorting a little at the blow, “That’s something ___ would say.”
“That’s because it was her who said it,” Jungwoo snorts. Mark feels a pang in his chest at your choice of words: they were words said to cause an impact, to bring awareness, to hurt those who were inconsiderate. You didn’t like these type of things, and now he was not even in the mood to be roped back into a setting where he knew it left you uncomfortable.
“Let’s just play two or three rounds, and then let’s watch the movie,” Lucas suggests, still trying to revive the situation.
“It’s not cool to leave them out,” Mark frowns, and he means it. There were many instances in the past where he really wanted to find a way to bring you into his circle of friends, maybe befriend one of your friends just so he could have you around, but as good he was in some things, Mark was disgraceful in everything related to crushing on someone else. He knew he would make a fool of himself, akin to everything he had done ever since he saw you last week. The closest he had been to you before had been in the cafeteria line, and even then he was cockblocked; you looked at him briefly in the eyes and trapped him there, and when he was ready to smile at you, a sign of friendliness which he hoped was inviting, one of his friends calls him and that bubble involving you two was burst just as quickly as it was formed.
That had happened the last days of his junior year, your senior year. And that was the last time he physically saw you. Until last week, what he considered destiny brought you two together. Or Jungwoo brought you two together. He supposed Jungwoo would be absolutely elated if he knew the extent of his thoughts concerning his best friend.
“Yeah guys,” Mark hasn’t known Kino for that long, but he just knew the guy had a serious and righteous aura surrounding him like a superhero cape. “Let’s keep the game talk for another time. This is a movie night for a reason.”
No one seemed bothered about it, as if the original plans weren’t watching a movie, and Jungwoo once again took it upon himself to go call you and your friend, disappearing once again from their eyes, and then returning some minutes later with a very grumpy looking you with said friend rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“This better be good if you felt so compelled to wake us up,” You huff, pushing the bunched up sleeves of your hoodie over your fingers, and Jungwoo pouts from beside you before throwing his arms over your shoulders. He’s hugging you close to his body and you don’t seem uncomfortable by that: you’re neither recoiling in his arms nor freezing, you just roll your eyes at his antics and even go the extra mile to hold the hand that’s dangling pretty close to your chest. Rub your thumb against it. Lead him to somewhere on the sofa where he leans against your chest so freely it stings Mark’s heart for a moment.
He’s unsure of what to make of this. When he saw you last week, Jungwoo didn’t really make an effort to introduce you to him at all. He didn’t say you were his girlfriend, but he also didn’t say you were just his friend. He’s pretty sure the way he’s looking at you both is obvious, because Vernon nudges his shoulder to catch his attention, and whispers, “It might look weird, but they’re friends.” And just then, your other friend — Eunseo? Eunhee? — sits down and cuddles right against Jungwoo, the three of you doing this really strange yet endearing three-way spooning Mark could never think of doing. 
The mood is somehow better now, he thinks. You are all watching Coraline — your choice, because ‘it’s only fair we choose it’ — and Mark’s friends don’t seem bothered by it, neither do yours. Maybe it’s an occasional reoccurrence of yours, watching animated movies, or maybe it was just pure coincidence, but Mark is storing all of this information inside his brain greedily like a man starving for life, because it’s information concerning you, and he’ll take whatever he can get if it means it lets him get a small glimpse of who you really are. He had always doubted you were that quiet and neutral.
When the movie ends, almost everyone is sleeping. Lucas was knocked out cold against Rocky halfway through, and little by little eyes start closing and fights are lost against tiredness. The only exception to this is, of course, you. You’re still awake, looking at the TV screen with the palm of your hand propped against your cheek, squishing it so cutely Mark has a hard time concentrating on anything else. It’s stupid, he thinks, how you’re somewhat of a badass — or at least that’s the way he sees you — yet you’re still very capable of melting his heart to a dripping mess without even meaning it. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose, to appease him or something of the sort; you’re just… Being you. Minding your business. And he likes that a lot already. He wonders how he would react if you ever directed your energy towards him to offer him a smile, or caress the back of his hand, or even hug him. He’d combust on the spot.
 But you’re not even giving him the time of your day, and for now, he’ll take that. You probably don’t know who he is, can’t remember how you two go way further back than everyone else thinks. He wonders how he can get close to you when it seems like ten million miles are separating the both of you as opposed to the fact that you’re actually sitting close to each other.
You shake him out of his reverie when you meticulously and carefully withdraw yourself from the tangly mess of limbs you had been for the past two hours. Your friends don’t wake up if anything they snuggle even more against each other like two baby otters hugging as they sleep. Mark’s heart is crawling up his throat with the desire to follow you to wherever you had gone, probably the kitchen, and for the first time ever he doesn’t let the opportunity go to waste. There’s no one to stop him from his quest, he’s a man with a mission and he will knee kick whoever tries to stop him on the throat.
As predicted, you’re in the kitchen. Your back is turned to him, the billowiness of your large sweatshirt — the colour this bright orange that immediately caught anyone’s attention — engulfing your frame, making you look so tiny and huggable it’s no wonder Mark imagines a scenario where he just approaches you and hugs you from behind, cheek poising on your shoulder before your own arms reach back and stroke his hair. It was ridiculous of him to let his mind run so wild when the reality was that you two had never spoken to each other directly. But that was about to change, even if he was on the verge of peeing his pants because of how nervous he was.
A sound startles you, seemingly someone clearing their throat from behind. Much to your dismay, it’s the person you least expected to be there.
 Mark. 
You’re stunned beyond words to see him standing with his eyes trained on you and nothing else. There was no apparent reason for any interaction between the both of you, nothing was tying you together expect the fact that you both had gone to the same high school. But you were sure he didn’t remember you. You weren’t that recognisable. Just a normal looking face amongst the crowd.
“Um,” He starts off, blinking twice as if he’s gathering his thoughts and pondering how to word them correctly, “Sorry ‘bout… What happened out there.”
Now, this was interesting. Verging on the edge of uncomfortable if you really tried to apply some logic and let your mind take over. Though the mild curiosity plaguing you felt more enticing. You really wanted to know why he was here, apologising on behalf of the others for something you had decided wasn’t that deep. Annoying, perhaps, but deep down understandable. It had already washed out.
“What do you mean?” You cross your arms against your chest and lean back with the bottom of your spine against the counter. 
“I, uh. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sorry that we ruined your night.” He sounds strained like he’s not proud of the things he just said, but had to do it because that’s how normal conversational situations worked.
It was cute, you thought. His words. His stance. The way he was jiggling his foot up and down in what you assumed was nervousness. Him, in general. 
Mark Lee was an attractive boy, and the stiffness you felt at the absurdity of what was happening wasn’t enough to stop you from acknowledging that. He just had to be absolutely handsome, because being perfect in almost every other aspect probably was insufficient to him. No matter the circumstance, even now — looking like he would rather pop off his head like a balloon instead of standing there — he looked divine. 
If you could bet he was unaware of how heartbreakingly good-looking he was, you would. He looked like that kind of person.
“You don’t have to apologise, Mark. It’s whatever.” His name slips out of your mouth so unfamiliarly you’re taken aback. This is the first time you’re addressing him personally, hell — this is your first conversation. You almost want to discreetly pinch yourself to see if it’s true, but you don’t. Mark was apologising to you for something you no longer cared about as a way to spark a talk between you two, and if that was just a figment of your imagination then so be it.
“Really?” He’s surprised, that much you can tell by the way his irritatingly cute lips round up. “You looked pretty pissed…”
“I was,” You shrug, “It was a bit shitty of you guys, if I’m being honest, but I’m over it.” You meant those words. It wasn’t something you were saying as a means to sweeten him up. You wouldn’t do that. Not to him, not to anyone else.
“I still feel bad… But I promise we didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I know.” Words cease, because you truly don’t know what to say other than that. What were you supposed to do? Instigate something that wasn’t related to the current topic? You felt weird even contemplating it.
Seconds go by, the sounds coming from the TV in the living room muffled yet audible, and voilá, there it was.
The uncomfortable silence you knew would happen if you ever were to speak to someone like Mark. It was there, and it made you inwardly wince at how obvious it was. You were looking to everywhere but him. Feigning interest in the speckles of black in the marble countertop of Jungwoo’s home was better than looking to him. Deep down you were planning your escape route. You were ready to gulp down the rest of your glass of water and flee to the living room, maybe grab your stuff, go home to your bed where you could think about whatever you wanted without fearing someone peeking into the mess your head was. 
And then,
“I’m… I’m not sure if you remember me, but we went to the same high school.” His voice is soft, so soft but still so capable of boggling you to the point of silencing your inner thoughts. 
Mark Lee knew who you were. He knew you, and not just because you were Jungwoo’s best friend, but he knew about your existence since the time you had always dreaded. The heavy feeling in your throat resembles bile, and you try to push it down for the sake of looking presentable and okay in front of Mark, despite feeling completely the other way around. Your hands are clamming up, you can sense them and the urge to fidget with something, the urge to shrink in size to the littlest you possibly could. 
But you couldn’t just disappear out of thin air. Unfortunately. So once again, you suck it up, remember who you are and where you are, and reply with a meek, gentle, “I know.”
He laughs dryly, a hand scratching the back of his neck, “I thought you didn’t know who I was.”
You’re somewhat befuddled by his statement, “What?” A chuckle leaves your throat, and abruptly you’re no longer feeling mortified by all of this, just bewildered, curious, intrigued. He made the leap, opened a path where you both could meet in the middle, and you weren’t going to let this one go without prodding it to its bone and core. “Mark… Everyone knew you. How could I not know you?”
“Not everyone knew me,” He sounds exasperated, and you deadpan at his reply, calling him out on his bullshit. The hue of the lights in Jungwoo’s kitchen must be completely fucked up because you swear if you squint there’s some lovely baby pink dusting Mark’s cheeks. “I was just… trying not to let the conversation die. Also, you’re the only person I have recognised so far that went there. It’s nice to see someone familiar.”
You almost choke at him calling you familiar, “Your best friends go here too, though.”
“That’s different.”
You want to roll your eyes but decide against it. “How so?”
They’re…” He trails off, “My best friends. I know them. I’m with them all of the time. And you’re…”
He must have a habit of not finishing his sentences, you realise. Either that or his brain cells are trying their hardest to formulate coherent, plausible thoughts so he can say them. If that’s the case, they’re failing miserably.
“A stranger.” You quip. It’s the truth. You racked your brain for a more appropriate word, but the scan you did for approximately two-thirds of a millisecond failed you. He bites his lip and looks away like he knows you’re right but he’s afraid of confirming it. Great, you muse privately, now I’m focusing on his god damning lips. “You know something? I think I should be the one saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“I thought you didn’t know who I am,” Dropping the tone of your voice by an octave, you mimic what you think Mark’s voice sounds like. As a response, he bursts out laughing at your silly imitation, even going to the point of lowering his upper body against the island separating the both of you, and covering his mouth a few moments later because of how loud it was in comparison to your tranquil surroundings.
His laugh starts low but then ends high-pitched, and as surprising as it is, it doesn’t overwhelm you like you thought it would. It’s kind of ridiculous how something so absurdly normal is capable of making your night, but it does. Also, his face looked kind of cute when he laughed, but you weren’t dwelling too much on that.
“Sorry… That was funny as hell.” He lifts his head, scooting his body closer so he’s closer to you, so he can see you better, so he can be more attentive. There’s still that island blocking him from being too close to you, and for that you’re thankful. Having him where he was already proved to be nerve-wracking if he was mere centimetres away from you… You’d take your previously forgotten escape plan in consideration. You note that it’s the first time you can physically recognise how he’s feeling. “But to reply to what you said, I saw you around school a lot, so it’s normal for me to know who you are, I guess?”
“It’s not, Mark. Okay, let me see if I can explain it to you the best I can.” You sigh, hopping onto the counter behind you. This boy had to be oblivious of all things. “You were popular in high school. A lot of people liked you because you were cool and funny, and good-looking, and a plethora of other annoyingly good qualities.”
It’s too late before you can fully grasp what you just said. 
Because being the normal human being you were, you had just revealed to Mark you thought he was good-looking. To his face. On the first conversation you two were having.
This was one of the reasons why you had always steered away from people like him. They were dangerous, but your idiot of a brain, which was known to be very quick when thinking, was worse, and subsequently, it left you with a variety of unfiltered, unbridled voiced opinions you should keep to yourself from time to time. 
It didn’t happen this time. And if Mark is aware of it or not, you can’t really say. The weird lighting is still playing tricks on you, making his cheeks appear flushed. But you know he’s not. His expression is as confusing as it had always been.
“You have to at least know that,” You giggle nervously, “It’s okay to acknowledge it. It’s not bad to be popular.”
“So a lot of people knew who I was. What’s the big deal about it?”
“Nothing,” You shrug, “I just find it weird how someone like you recognises someone like me, that’s all.”
He furrows his brow, “I don’t follow.”
Of course not.
“I was the most ordinary person in that school. I guess I’m just surprised you know who I am from back then since we pretty much were on opposite sides.” He sends you a look, silently asking you to explain further, and with a grumble, you add, “You ran with the cool kids. I ran with… normal kids.”
He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms against his chest. You’re impressed with the range of emotions you’re pulling out of him. “We ran with different crowds. That doesn’t mean I can't know who you are. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Pausing for a dripping second, he eyes you intensely, the same kind of look he gave you earlier when you saw him. So he was trying to make a point come across after all. “I’m not an asshole… or a fuckboy if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“That’s exactly what a fuckboy who’s an asshole would say.” You’re obviously joking. Mark was a wonderful person, you heard it a lot through the grapevine back in high school. How much of a selfless person he was. How caring he acted towards his friends. How serious he took things. It was simply impossible to hate the guy. You tried to hate him for being so nice, back in your sophomore year when you moved, but that just said more about you than him, really. 
He’s grinning at your choice of words, so you know he took it as a joke. You’re thankful for that. You already felt stupid enough trying to clarify your point of view in this whole You-Know-Me fiasco, it felt childish now that you thought about it, but if he wasn’t able to detect your sarcasm it’d be awkward time anew. “No, but really. I’m not that kind of person, ___.”
It’s the first time you have heard him say your name, and it floors you so inexplicably you can’t help but scratch the non-existent itch you were feeling in the back of your hand. 
Mark Lee was dangerous, you already knew that. He was that person who was able to lure you in without even wanting to, to make you feel important because you were on the receiving end of his attention.
You were dipping your foot, testing the waters. Seeing if the temperature was ideal. Like you’re standing above a swimming pool, buzzing with the rush of wanting to dive in, but holding yourself back because you don’t want to suffer a shock.
Curiosity gnawed at the frays of your being. You wondered if you would back out because you’re lazy and scared if you would submerge yourself in it, little by little as not to spook. 
Above all, you wondered if you would leap intrepidly into it and let yourself drown without a care in the world.
You smile, genuinely, “I know. You’re a good person, Mark Lee.”
Jungwoo pops up in the exact moment you finish saying Mark’s name, rubbing his fists over his closed eyes as a child does. Your heart swells at the sight. “Hey guys, what’s up?”
You grin. His timing was impeccable, as always. You were thankful the conversation ended that way.
One hour later, when you’re in the comfort of your own home, huddled underneath your warm, fluffy blanket, you put on your big girl shoes and do something for once. 
You were going to add him on Facebook.
Mark had the initiative to talk to you, which you were somehow grateful for, even if you were positively puzzled by his effort. So taking a big breath to calm down the incessant knock of your heartbeat, you click on the little Add Friend button before locking your phone quickly and shoving it under your pillow.
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Turns out the prospect of never befriending Mark because you two were too different was embarrassingly ludicrous.
Your friend request on Facebook had been accepted not even five minutes after you sent it, your grubby, anxiety-ridden hands clutching your phone as soon as you heard it vibrate against your pillow. And when you woke up the next morning and checked your phone for notifications, one of them belonged to him, standing out and asking you to click on it while the others blurred in the background.
Did you get home safely? He texted, followed by a smiley emoji. In the haziness of the morning, where your senses weren’t still quite acute, your heart pounded intensely. It wasn’t like it was something out of the ordinary, but the fact it showed an inkling of worry and courtesy left your mind reeling and aware of your surroundings.
That was the beginning of a long string of texts that just never seemed to stop. From genuinely getting to know each other through questions to tagging each other on funny memes you saw on Facebook and reminded you of each other. You finally understood and were experiencing first-handed the hype about Mark Lee. And even if you didn’t hang out that much in person, the way you two had connected through messages was satisfying to you already.
Your schedules didn’t exactly match most of the times, so you could only see him in fleeting appearances when he popped up in front of your classroom, waving enthusiastically with a smile so cute it made you melt a little. Or when he went to lunch with your group of friends on Wednesdays instead of going back to his dorm room to study because he wanted to spend time with you. You supposed he was also speaking about Jungwoo, Vernon, and Kino too. He had gotten close to them as well.
On Christmas break, Mark goes back to Canada. The brief thought that floated through your mind about distance being an obstacle to your friendship is quickly washed away when he calls you through Facetime at 1:27AM, daylight clearly radiating in his surroundings while only your forehead showed on your side of the screen.
He wanted to show you the snow.
There were these instances in your conversations where your heart almost leaped out of your chest because of him. You weren’t going to make a big deal out of the first time he tagged you on Facebook until you saw the thought about you lol comment that was right after your name. 
It was annoying, the way he was making you feel.
You try to convince yourself you’re just thrilled over the prospect of being so close to him because your high school friends would be jealous of you. You tell yourself over and over it isn’t deep at all, that you have a greedy, superficial, and mean reasoning behind befriending Mark. But every time your phone dings with a notification, it feels like your heartbeat is crawling on your throat, leaving you no room to breathe at all. Like stepping on a seemingly shallow puddle yet it swallows you whole by surprise. Surprisingly enough, you don’t mind being underwater. 
Even if it means you’ll be gasping for oxygen soon.
______
It’s December 31st, and you’re sitting in the middle of Kino’s apartment deep in thought. Drunk, yet pensive nonetheless. 
If your calculations were correct, you still had two more weeks of classes left, and then the semester would be over. Normally you wouldn’t allow yourself to become so inebriated when you had finals just around the corner, but Vernon had told you Mark returned earlier than expected, subsequently confirming his attendance to the New Year’s party your friends had planned. 
Spending some days away from everyone really had put everything into perspective, and that scared you beyond words. 
The truth was, perhaps you were crushing on Mark Lee. It was insignificant, though. Everyone had a crush on him, it was as ordinary and common as liking superhero movies. As singing along to songs you like when they come on shuffle. It was as ordinary and common as breathing. So you weren’t dwelling on it too much. Except you nearly panicked at the thought of seeing him in front of you while your emotions ran high, unfiltered. It left you no choice but to chug three vodka lemonades in five minutes.
It was 11:05PM, there was a random song rumbling through the speakers you neither didn’t care about nor recognised, and you were sitting down on the floor, wondering about your academic life. Not one of your best moments, you reckoned.
But that’s how Mark finds you, anyway. 
He had shaken Lucas off of his back the moment he arrived at Kino’s, the boy clinging to him like a Koala, yelling a much-slurred m’ssed you bro against the shell of his ear, and hugged the other guys quickly. There are a lot of people he doesn’t know or run within his circle of friends. Furthermore, there seems to be a particular spot amongst the crowd that’s void of physical presence, like a black hole of sorts keeping people away from getting near. He doesn’t understand why he’s walking towards it until he gets there, sees you, siting crisscrossed and completely zoned out.
The most irrational chunk of his being wants to blast someone’s ear off for leaving you unattended and alone while you’re clearly not in a position to be so, but he’s Mark and you’re you. So he kneels beside you like he’s on autopilot mode, touches your shoulder to get your attention, and when you look up to him he just knows.
It would truly be an understatement to say he didn’t miss you.
You blink twice at him as if you’re in disbelief. He tightens his hold on you ever so slightly, just enough to make you realise he’s not a figment of your imagination. It’s obvious you’re questioning his presence. The way your eyes are glossed over so heavily plus the inconvenience of being sat on the floor rather than a normal sitting surface. They indicate your lack of sobriety. 
And when it dawns on you, amidst the fog of your thoughts, that he’s really there, you’re looping your arms around his middle, spooking him beyond words as you pull him into a hug. “Marky!” 
This is uncharted territory. Public display of affection wasn’t something you two ever did, well, except the occasional shoulder bumping or once when you grabbed onto his wrist because he was going in the wrong direction. There was no logical reason behind what you were doing, Mark was aware of that, you were drunk after all. But you have your forehead against his chest — awkwardly, if he really thought about it — and your arms are crushing his back, and yeah. In times like these, all logic flies right through the window.
“Hi.” You’re beaming and Mark feels nauseous.
“Hi, you okay?” He says in your ear, brushing away a small strand of hair. Not even the loud pounding of his heart could overtake the worry he was feeling. “Do you need anything?”
“I’m good, Marky boy! Now that you’re here, I’m even better.” 
There it was. That jolt in his chest.
It was much like a constant whenever he was with you. Whether you were with friends or not held little to no importance, it happened every time you said or did something that left his mind reeling with unrealistic possibilities. Normally, these things would be mildly dubious, like that one time where you wiped some sauce he had on his chin with your thumb — he dubbed that your motherly nature, you did similar stuff to pretty much everyone in your group. But you had hugged him, indicated his presence was a positive aspect in your life. He was about to overthink the hell out of that for the next two weeks.
“How much have you drunk?” You blink at him, pat the spot in front of you. He’s so focused on everything concerning you he doesn’t even feel the strain on his thighs from being on his knees. But he humours you anyway, sits across from you and mimics your position.
“M’drunk.” You shrug, “Not too drunk, but drunk. My feet hurt so I sat here, there’s nowhere else to sit.” 
“Kino’s room?”
“Yeah,” She snorts, throwing her head back, “That was my plan until I saw Jungwoo and Eunseo aggressively making out. I’ll pass.”
Mark’s eyes just about grow twice their size at your statement, “Jungwoo… and… Eunseo?” He pauses for some time, “Is it surprising that I’m actually not that surprised?”
“I’m not either. It’s like you’re expecting it but when it happens you’re surprised that it actually happened… It was a matter of time, I suppose.”
“I mean, she spends so much time at his place. I’m surprised, but not shocked.” He says, “It seems like everyone is getting a significant other, don’t you think?” His attempts at flirting are lame, yet he was going to try nevertheless, considering the circumstances you two were in, of course. 
“Everyone but me, m’forever alone.” You’re pouting dramatically, wringing your fingers together. He wishes he dared to say you didn’t need or were fit to be forever alone because right in front of you was someone who would die to make you his. 
But Mark was a coward. He would sooner shit his pants than say that out loud.
“Let’s cheer to that.” You take him seriously, rejoice at his suggestion, and drag him to the kitchen to get alcohol into his system. He doesn’t mind the implications of what he was about to do at all, you held his hand all the way through, only letting it go so you could grab a cup and mix a concoction you promised he wouldn’t regret drinking. And it wasn’t those palm in palm kind of hand-holding. You had your fingers laced in between his.
There’s a bitterness in the drink you hand him, yet he can still feel the sugar rush in the aftertaste. It’s something acidic, a mixture of passionfruit and lemon, and he winces at the first gulp only. It gets progressively easier when your eyes seem to make him burn a lot more than the alcohol.
One cup turns into two, two cups being enough to make him way past the tipsy stage. To make matter worse, Kino drops by the kitchen, slobbers a kiss on your cheek and offers you a blunt before skidding away. You get giddier than you already were, jumping around in your seat like a small child. It’s actually endearing.
Mark already knew Kino and some of the other guys indulged themselves with weed, and even if deep down he already knew you were one to do that too, it still shakes him a little.
It was kind of hot, the prospect of you smoking.
And he was about to witness it.
“This place is filth. Let’s go somewhere else.” You say. And by somewhere else you mean the floor. The one you two were sitting before you came here. But this time you find the rug in the living room empty and take him there, claiming you two should be comfortable.
His vision is spinning and blurry, the loud voices and music in the background muddled, and he curses himself for being such a lightweight. Mark was never much of a drinker.
You plop down on top of the fluffy red rug and he follows suit, watching you take a lighter from the back pocket of your jeans. You light the joint and take the first hit with calculated expertise only someone who did it way too frequently could pull off.
“M’conflicted.” You say after a while, blowing the smoke far from his face. Mark keeps quiet, just eyes you silently, waits for you. “I want to offer you the blunt because I don’t want to seem indelicate or selfish, but at the same time I don’t want to because I’d hate it if you felt pressured.”
There’s a twitch in his heartbeat. He hates it. “I… I have never done it before.” He gulps, pinching his hand to keep himself sane, “So I wouldn’t know how to do it.”
“I can teach you. If you want.” You quip, the joint still poised against your finger, “Only if you want, though. It’s cool if you don’t, more for me.”
It’s somewhat a dilemma to him. He wants to try it, not because you’re the person he has been crushing on for quite a while, but because he was always curious about it. Lucas was his housemate after all, and getting contact high was inevitable around him. That small buzz he felt those times was appealing to him, it made him wonder how it would be if he experienced it firsthand. He had always been curious, but never really acted upon it. Until now, with you right in front of him, offering him a chance at squashing his curiosity. 
That was his problem. You.
Mark was all for taking risks, and experiencing what life had to offer, but only if the people embarking with him were his friends. His friends friends, who knew how fucking silly and weird he was, and that definitely didn’t make his heart feel like it was about to explode inside out. 
But here you were, right in front of him, being so incredible considerate it was borderline annoying how even tipsy he could feel every nerve end. 
“Okay. Yeah, teach me.” Those are some dangerous words, he realises after he says them. His tummy feels like it’s a pot of lava, burning and waiting until it spills over.
You scoot closer to him until your knees are knocking against his, smiling brightly when he jumps a little. “It’s no big deal, really. Put the joint between your index and middle finger.” He’s frowning in concentration, and to avoid any messy situations — because of your hazy surroundings — you grab his palm to steady it and put the spliff in between his ready fingers. 
“Feels weird…” He says, and you roll your eyes playfully.
“Of course, it’s your first time holding it. It’ll become second nature to you once you do it more often.” You hum a bit, “If you keep on doing it, that is.” You hope he does. You’re nowhere near prepared to see the glorious sight of Mark smoking, and if he decides it’s just not it for him you’ll have to store that mental picture forever in the depths of your brain.
He doesn’t take his eyes away from the blunt, or if he does you miss it, so you continue instructing, “Now, you put it in between your lips, just the tip.” You’re aware of how blatantly sexually charged these instructions could sound to anyone else, and you were feeling it too. The crude images on the back of your lids were truly unnecessary when you were trying to teach the guy how to take a hit, not how to… do other things. You felt too hot in your clothes. “And you inhale. But lightly. I don’t want you to cough to death.”
Mark giggles at that, his shoulders less tense than before, “Okay,” He exhales nervously, “I’m gonna do it.”
“Lightly, Mark. Don’t forget it. After you inhale it, try to keep the smoke in for a little, and then you can push it out.” The hand he’s keeping free is wiped insistently against his jeans. Before the little rationality you have left on your brain kicks in, you put your hand on top of his and squeeze. As a way to comfort him. As a way to maybe let him magically know you had a stupid crush on him without saying it out loud. Who knows.
He inhales just like you taught him, the flame burning alive in front of you for a few seconds. The small cough he lets out is expected, and you laugh way more than you should have, considering it was his first time.
“You’re making fun of me!” He whines, the little pout adorning his lips testing your patience.
“M’sorry, Marky… It’s just cute, that’s all.” You mumble, feeling a blush take over your cheeks at your unfiltered confession. “Was it good? Did it feel nice?”
“It’s… different.” He places the joint back to his lips, takes a drag once again. His eyes widen at the intensity, and the way he exhales the smoke seems like he’s somewhat disgusted. “This shit is strong as fuck, Jesus.”
“Kino has a soft spot for me.” You shrug. 
“It seems like everyone has a soft spot for you,”
“I wouldn’t say that,” You roll your eyes at his statement, “I just feel like I have really good friends. I love them a lot. They mean so much to me I don’t think I can put it in words.”
Normally, you weren’t much of an emotionally forward person. The dullness in your life had never allowed you such novelties. 
Sometimes it truly felt like you were void of them, void of the feeling of showing someone how much you cared, outwardly. That changed when you got drunk, or high. It was as if every repressed emotion you crushed into the pit of your being just spilled out without any warning. You didn’t mind it though, neither did your friends. Jungwoo said it was a very you thing but still berated you constantly with hugs, which you didn’t mind. Eunseo always bragged about being the only person with whom you were affectionate. Kino and Vernon probably didn’t even realise it. Eunwoo and Yeeun were similar to you except when they were alone together.
“I’m glad, really. You deserve it.” He’s looking at you in a way you can’t possibly describe because he’s Mark Lee after all. And he could be looking at you in ten million different ways and you wouldn’t be able to decipher which one corresponds to how he’s really feeling. Sometimes you wished you could crack open his skull and take a peek inside his mysterious brain. 
The two of you keep chatting and passing the blunt to each other, the paper burning at the tip of your fingers as time flew by. Your eyes were droopy and your vision blurry, Mark’s body becoming one with the background. Even if you had important things to take care of, there was nowhere else you’d rather be than there with him. And so the two of you keep passing the blunt back and forth, enjoying each other’s company in silence.
Two minutes or five hours could have passed, and you wouldn’t even realise it. You’re unaware of how it happens but when you come back to your senses you have your cheek pressed against someone’s chest, their hand loosely wrapped around your back. At first, you assume it’s Jungwoo or any other of your friends. But the gentle pout of lips you see when you raise your head slightly tells you otherwise.
It was Mark.
If you were in your right state of mind, your heart would probably be catapulting out of your chest, splattering against the nearest window. Lucky for you, the weed just leaves you calm, and the slow drum of your heartbeat proves it.
There’s a sudden startling commotion in the room, voices rising in pitch as they start screaming a countdown. The countdown for New Year’s, those specific ten (and plus) seconds that held so much meaning for so many people, but to you had always been sort of a silly thing you did with your friends. When it came to the dreaded New Year’s kiss last year, Eunseo had been your partner since both of you were single and close enough to peck each other amid a drunken state.
“10! 9!”
The year was about to end and Eunseo was nowhere in sight. You figured she was finally smooching the hell out of Jungwoo, leaving you alone to kiss the back of your hand. You didn’t even have the strength in you to get up from Mark’s comfortable hold to go bother her about it.
8! 7!
Right. 
The year was about to end and you were cuddling Mark Lee in your best friend’s living room, tucked away in a corner where no one could see you both. You sit up, the arm he had around you sliding to the rug. He only opens his eyes for a second before he closes them, a smile permanently etched on his lips.
6!
These stupid traditions were not your thing. 
You were not getting swayed into kissing someone just because 2019 was six seconds away. Though it had been too long since you kissed someone. To make matters worse, you were a needy drunk.
5!
Sure, you weren’t one to fall through with silly traditions. But then again, you had a crush on Mark and he was a breath away from you, looking so peaceful it hurt you to even disrupt him. And you had liquid courage coursing through your veins.
Maybe you were going to kiss someone this year. 
To keep the tradition going.
4!
The seconds are ticking by, and there’s a foreign weight settling on top of Mark’s thighs. When he opens his eyes, he is almost sure he’s dreaming, the weed he had smoked fabricating cruel inceptions out of spite. Because the prospect of you really sitting on his lap, legs caging his, was so unrealistic he had to prop himself on his elbows, gaze wide and unblinking as if he was being deceived, scared it would vanish.
3!
You don’t have much time left. 
Processing the fact you were about to kiss Mark Lee for the sake of tradition — an excuse you would take with you to your grave, and the excuse you would give to anyone and everyone who asked you about it — was making you sober, the rush of acknowledging your decision clearing up your vision just enough so you could see how beautiful he looked.
He really was stupidly attractive. And you were going to kiss him.
“Mark,” You yell over the voices, scooting yourself closer to his waist and leaning closer to his face, “M’gonna kiss you, okay?”
2!
This was a dream, it had to be. Reality was probably playing sick tricks on his mind. Still, the weak, cowardly part of him was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
So he nodded towards you — the fabricated version of you sitting prettily on top of him.
1!
You were one second from kissing Mark Lee.
Before the last second dissipates you clasp the sides of his face gently, eyes zooming in on his lips. He swipes his tongue over them just then, and it resonates so deep within you it’s imperative to close that space distancing the both of you.
“Happy New Year!”
Calculated plans usually looked and sounded better in theory, when they were just a pencil-drawn draft with little annotations scribbled around it. The end result doesn’t always go exactly as planned. Theoretically, Mark and you were supposed to be passionately making out as others did the same around you. You had envisioned it clearly in the few seconds you had before putting your plan into action.
That’s not what happens.
You miserably miss your aim by a few centimetres and end up kissing half of his mouth instead, the force behind the puckering of your lips so strong he loses his balance, elbows giving out below him. There’s some nose bumping on his jaw, chests touching, a mess of limbs even the non-sober you feels embarrassed about. Mark knocks his head quite harshly against the rug, but his reaction ends up being a laugh. This severely high-pitched squeak like he’s truly in disbelief.
(He wasn’t dreaming, after all.)
“You okay?” He keeps on laughing loudly as you put your hand behind the nape of his neck, “Stop laughing, you idiot!”
His laugh is also stupidly contagious. As if every other quality he had wasn’t enough to make you like him. So you end up laughing with him, put your head on his chest again and listen to the sound of his heartbeat.
You’d worry about the consequences tomorrow.
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You prided yourself for never getting serious hangovers in the past — usually, alcohol ran fast in your system and by the end of each night you drank plenty of water to avoid those terrible happenstances. Being the designated drunk mom of your group didn’t come with many perks after all. But the dull throb palpitating in your temples was a telltale on its own. When you opened your eyes, it only intensified. The blinds had little sits in which the light came in, and they only seemed to worsen your state.
If a pile of shit was a state of mind, it would be exactly how you were feeling.
The kitchen is completely spotless when you enter it, the bottles and snacks that used to be littering every possible surface simply gone. It’s not much of a surprise since Kino abhors having a messy house, his reasoning being one’s personal space reflects one’s inner self. Another thing that’s not a surprise is the fact that Kino is cooking, his back to you as he concocts something you are pretty sure it won’t disappoint you. Vernon is as useless as one can be in the kitchen; if it wasn’t for Kino he would be living off of frozen meals and warm tap water.
“Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.” He only acknowledges your presence when you sit down in one of the kitchen chairs, resting your closed eyes against your palms due to the sunlight hurting them. You don’t even make an effort to look at him.
“Afternoon— Jesus. How much have I slept?”
“It’s almost 3PM.”
“Jesus Christ. Get me some sunglasses, will you?”
He snorts but still obeys. It takes a minute for him to come back, yet when he does he drops not only the sunglasses in front of you — which you scramble to put them on —, but an Advil alongside a water bottle as well. “Can’t believe I’m friends with a real-life vampire. Do you want to feast on me for breakfast?”
“Shut up,” You groan, pausing to unscrew the bottle and down the pill, “I’m a wreck.”
“That you are. We found you last night drooling on Mark’s chest. The boy was positively spooked for life.” You nearly give yourself whiplash with how quickly you glance up to a head-shaking Kino, yet he turns his back on you and goes back to preparing his food.
There are a lot of things you want to ask: if Mark was okay, if he had told anyone what happened, how he had left, if he really had been spooked by your whole behaviour — even the one you prayed only you and him knew about, but you compose yourself before all of those questions tumbled out of your mouth without you even wanting it.
“What did he say?” A seemingly innocent question on your behalf. You couldn’t show too much emotion.
“Not much, if I’m being honest,” He shrugs, reaching upwards to grab two bowls from the white cupboard, “Just told us to get you safe on a bed and to make sure you drank water. He was baked as hell, by the way. I didn’t peg him as a stoner.”
Your heartbeat picked up unconsciously at his display of concern, once again. “He’s not. It was his first time yesterday.”
“Look at you, you little nymph, luring the innocent boy in with your illegal ways.” He’s taunting you, you can feel it. Kino always knows more than he lets on, it’s one of his specialties besides being incredibly insightful and introspective. There’s this little smirk on the right corner of his mouth you are entirely too familiar with. He doesn’t say anything else, just puts down the bowls of rice mixed with vegetables and scrambled eggs on the table, and sits on the chair opposite of yours. 
“I know, right? I’m such a bad influence. Someone tattoo BAD FRIEND on my forehead, please.” You roll your eyes, spoon digging into the mixture, “Speaking of bad friends. Where are Jungwoo and Eunseo?”
“They—”
“I know. I saw them eating each other’s faces off last night, unfortunately.”
He shudders, “They left together. It was painstakingly obvious, but it still threw me the fuck off. If he does so much as comment about what they did, I’ll choke him to death.”
“The fucker would probably like it.” You say in between a mouthful of food.
“That’s what worries me the most.”
The conversation dies down comfortably after that, both of you indulging in your bowls of food and throwing the expected occasional jabs that came along with befriending an idiot. Your friendship and Kino’s was just like that, there was this mutual understanding that neither of you pressured the other into spilling their hidden thoughts or emotions to the other. The glint in his eyes was loud enough, it said ‘I’ll be here whenever you need me. Take your time. Don’t rush things. They need patience to grow, to gain form’. Each one of your friendships was different, distinct in their own special and important way. Kino’s held a dear place in your heart for the eminent trust rooted in its foundation. You would always find a safe haven in his presence.
“Oh, that’s right. Yesterday, Mark also told me you should check your phone after you woke up.”
“You only tell me that now? We should skip strangling Jungwoo, I think you should be the one to go first.” You push the chair back and get up, making your way to the room while your friend only laughs.
“It’s probably on the bed!” He yells.
The blinds are still closed, so you paw around the bed aimlessly until your fingers clutch the glass screen of your phone. You don’t even grab it, you just throw yourself onto the bed and frantically tap the screen twice so it comes to life.
You could swear you had never clicked on something so fast.
[03:09] mark: I know you’d probably say to text you when I got home safe so
[03:09] mark: I got home safe
[03:11] mark: Rocky was the designated driver last night lol Lucas and I were fucking out of our minds
[03:24] mark: I already told kino but make sure to drink a shit ton of water, you’re not getting a hangover on my watch
[03:25] mark: Text me when you get up so I know you’re okay
[03:36] mark: Tonight was a dream
[03:49] mark: Goodnight
[13:33] you: hiiiiiiiiiiiiii
[13:34] you: i’m glad you got home okay!!!! you know damn well i’d freak tf out if you didn’t lmk
[13:42] you: btw i’m sorry i drooled on your shirt. and got you high as a kite. amongst other things……. lmao 
[13:45] you: woke up with a bitching headache but i’ve drunk water and taken an advil so worry not kind sir
[13:53] mark: Good morningg
[13:53] mark: Have you eaten yet?
[13:53] mark: I mean good afternoon lol
[13:54] you: gmornin!! yes kino cooked for me omg:( i love him
[13:54] mark: Also don’t apologize you dummy, I really didn’t mind any of it
Grabbing the pillow from beneath you, you put it over your head to stifle the embarrassing yet necessary scream you let out. Mark hadn’t given you any sign he didn’t remember the sad excuse of a kiss you shared last night, so you would have a little bit of faith in him, pray to the Gods he dared to make the next move since you had already taken quite the leap.
The ball was in his court now.
Or you hoped so.
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For someone who had the ball in his court, Mark Lee did absolutely nothing that proved it. You were dreading for a move on the inside, every single moment you spent with him leaving you analysing in detail all his mannerisms and actions while hoping something would be a dead give away of a smidge of retaliation to your feelings. 
Nothing. Weeks went by, and nothing happened. Nothing. Nada.
The hope you once felt dissolved slowly into plain misery and heartbreak like toxic acid on untainted skin. And still, you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing you bend and break before him, even if you didn’t really believe he was at fault.
At the end of the day, Mark never did anything specific that could be interpreted as flirting or as a suggestion of different intentions other than a friendship. You were foolish to believe he’d look at you in any different way: you had created expectations all by yourself and now you were left to collect the shards of not only your broken heart but the hope you had built up alone as well.
He never mentioned the kiss, never even allowed himself to be presented in any other way than the way he always was, the social, happy-go-lucky boy everyone loved to be around. And you were stuck pretending you felt fine, pretending everything was okay. You should have known better than to even dream someone like him was interested in someone like you. Becoming his friend had already been a marvelous feat considering how much of a disparity existed between you two.
You delve into your studies to take your mind off of him, which works out for the best, really. Getting good grades, as a result, soothes your heart in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.
Before you know it, the semester ends. 
The gang meets up after the last exam at Jungwoo’s house to discuss plans for the holidays. One month was a lot of time, so some of you are expecting to visit your parents for the most part, while saving the last week for the group trip. Not any group trip, the group trip. This was going to be your second year, and you were excited to go back.
“What about you, ___?” Eunseo inquires from her spot where she has only one foot on top of Jungwoo like she was lazily claiming her property. The two had started dating on the first day of the year and since then they had been the grossest yet cutest couple to ever exist. “Jungwoo, Mark, Vernon, and I are staying for the whole month. I don’t really feel like going back to my mom’s.”
You look at Mark to find him already looking at you in the same way he always did. It used to bemuse you but now it only irritates you. He looks dead inside. Averting your sight from him with the most stoic expression you can give, you then hum, “I think I might go home. I really miss my family.”
“No,” Jungwoo moans, dragging on the vowel, “Stay with us, ___. Please.”
“And risk me into getting roped in couple activities with the lovebirds? Thanks, but I’ll pass.” You snort, and Kino joins in.
“We’re gonna miss you, though.”
“Yeah,” Mark adds, “You always make the mood better.”
Your heart still skips a beat for him, there was no denying that. Even listening to his voice was enough to make your mind reel, but now you were no longer on cloud 9. Rationality had taken control of your heart. Getting over this stupid crush was the best for everyone, especially for you.
“Sucks for you, because I can’t wait to take a break from seeing you almost every day.” You looked Mark dead in the eyes as you said it, desperate to make him understand the coldness of your speech had a reason. You were hurting on the inside, though you couldn’t let it show. Words of indifference and annoyance were your defense mechanisms, the armour you had to built to preserve and protect yourself. Before your words felt too personal and too targeted at someone in specific, you quipped, “You guys tire me.”
The laugh was collective, but Mark’s was forced. Maybe his eyes were unable to make you see his true self, but the way he squared his shoulders while he laughed couldn’t fool anyone, not even you.
It seemed like the shoe had fit. He looked uncomfortable.
Good. 
Mission accomplished.
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Seeing your mom smiling at you because she missed you was almost enough to make you sob right in front of her. 
But you don’t do that.
You only allow yourself to break down when you close the door to your childhood bedroom, the secureness it transmitted being enough to break apart the dam holding you together by the seams. It wasn’t like the tears rushing down your cheeks were there only because of how stupid you felt for liking Mark. Sure, part of it was because of that too, but you had the tendency to bottle your emotions until they couldn’t be contained anymore, so everything that had caused you pain during the past few months was being let out after suffering repression for a long time.
Spending three weeks in the company of your family proved to be a better remedy than you expected. Even the inevitable arguments and misunderstandings were welcomed, for they brought a sense of nostalgia which calmed the storm inside of you. In the times you isolated yourself in your room, it gave you a safe space to freely think about everything surrounding you, especially the Mark situation. 
He didn’t want to talk about the kiss, and that was fine. You were sure he had a reason for it, namely not wanting to go through the whole I’m sorry but I don’t see you like that scenario, which once again, was understandable. Mark didn’t owe you anything. You had set up the trap and fell for it all on your own.
You still talked to Mark throughout your time away from the group, because you’d hate yourself even more if you alienated him for something that shouldn’t intervene in your friendship. It was weird at first, the chemistry and dynamic between the both of you didn’t change whatsoever, which was good. Whenever he mentioned doing Facetime you always found an excuse to avoid seeing his face. Hearing his voice in the inevitable phone calls you did was already causing so much damage to begin with, imagine if you tended to his every wish. You would never improve. But you held on and followed through with it, as you knew you would. 
Those three weeks made you rationalise your feelings, swallow them whole and cage them in the depths of your chest. The longer you kept on daydreaming about you and Mark doing mundane couple things instead of focusing on the harsh reality that he didn’t like you back, the more it was going to hurt.
So when you got back in the city you deemed yourself normal again.
Jungwoo gave one of his infamous dramatic speeches about you never leaving his side again otherwise he would commit atrocities, while Eunseo did her best as the supporting role of a sidekick. These two were the closest to you out of everyone else, and the fact that they were dating now used to scare you in the beginning. Scared they would eventually distance themselves from the group like many couples do when they start dating. But that ended up being far from the truth since they annoyed the hell out of each other so frequently they even begged to be away from each other whenever they were with other friends.
The gang only had one week left until the second semester began, and this meant it was time for your group trip.
Besides being several things, Jungwoo was also absolutely loaded. Well, his parents were rich, which technically made him rich too, though he always preferred to say he just lived a comfortable life.
When the two of you met in your first year of college, in a class both of you were starting to abhor, you would never imagine how close you would become in the span of a few months. But little by little, your group began to form — Eunseo and Vernon came next, then Kino — and when the end of the first semester neared, he had suggested for the lot of you to head down to his vacation house, the one he went to every Summer. The prospect of going to a place like that in the middle of February was ridiculous until he said he had an indoor pool. Just like any other person who lived comfortably.
This year, though, there were going to be new additions to the trip. Including, of course, Mark and Lucas.
Everything was going to end up just fine because, at the end of the day, your friends were there. And no matter what happened, they were more than enough for you.
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The downfall of Kim Jungwoo was being too kind and considerate of others no matter what the situation was. He didn’t have it in his heart to say no to most requests, especially if those came from someone who he considered a great friend of his. He really disliked seeing other people unhappy or lonely.
One hour into the drive to your destination for the next week, shit had already hit the fan. Jungwoo breaks the news that some friends of Mark and Lucas’s friends were tagging along because they were going to be left all alone back in the city without anyone else to keep them company. Lucas supposedly mentioned quite aloofly that statement, and Jungwoo, ever the altruist saviour, couldn’t resist but to make a proposal.
Eunseo almost choked on her gum, Vernon was sleeping with his head resting against Kino’s shoulder, Kino made this awfully funny stank expression, and as much as you wanted to, you couldn’t really avoid the poker face after he drops that bomb on the four of you.
“Are you fucking serious? Again?” Eunseo sounds completely exasperated, rightfully so. You were thankful she was taking the lead, as his girlfriend, it was more acceptable if the nagging came from her, and not from you. Even if deep down you were itching to slap the side of his head.
“Listen,” He tries to reason, side-eyeing her to keep his focus on the road, “They were going to be all alone until the semester started! And it’s not like we can’t accommodate two more people. My house is enough for all of us.”
She scoffs, “It’s not about the size of your fucking house, Jungwoo. It’s about how you just said fuck it to a comfortable environment between people who know each other to bring two more people because you pity them!”
“I know, honey,” His voice is soft, a twinge of regret and desperation coming through, “They know Mark and Lucas, though! It will turn out okay, trust me.”
You doubted it, but you couldn’t possibly hold some judgment or impact over Jungwoo invited over to his house. It was his after all, and if he had deemed fit inviting people who weren’t apart of your group of friends, you just had to accept it. Much like when Mark, Lucas, and Rocky came over to Jungwoo’s place for movie night. They were strangers to the rest (except Mark, but well, no one knew about the circumstances of your prior acquaintanceship except the both of you), but your best friend really tried hard to make his both group of friends become one.
If these friends were like Rocky, who unfortunately had gone abroad with his parents for vacations and couldn’t be present, maybe the environment was going to be amicable, fun even. You were willing to keep an open mind, despite the primary discomfort of mingling with people you weren’t familiar with refusing to wear off.
Eunseo slapped Jungwoo’s hand when he tried to hold it across the console, and you closed your eyes, repeating everything will turn out fine in your head over and over like a mantra until it became true. 
Fake it ’til you make it.
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Someone had to be playing some kind of sick, cruel, and twisted trick on you.
Whoever was pulling the strings up there in the sky, God, that abstract deity or deities, were definitely set on making you suffer. Or perhaps someone who was into voodoo had a little stuffed doll version of you, and they found pleasure in pinpricking you whenever they were bored. That person must have been bored to death because nothing had prepared you for what you saw when you stepped out of the car.
You knew it was over as soon as your eyes landed on the two petite, dainty, and incredibly beautiful girls in front of you.
In your stupid, dumb, sad excuse of a brain, these friends Jungwoo was talking about were boys, rowdy, stupid boys, to match the rowdy, stupid energy Mark and Lucas emanated whenever they were together. It never crossed your mind, the possibility of these friends being girls, so unaware yet so powerfully able to destroy your self-confidence and childish hope that something would blossom between Mark and you. One of them, the tallest one with long wavy dark brown hair, has her arm on Mark’s shoulder as she laughs, head thrown back like he had just told the best joke of the century.
You feel sick to your stomach, there’s something akin to bile rising to your throat and you furiously try to swallow it down alongside the feelings you thought you had buried and locked safely in the confines of your chest.
“Guys!” Lucas bellows, and everyone’s attention shifts to your group, “Now the party can officially begin!”
A forced smile breaks on your lips, the kind everyone could see how fake it was. The girl’s hand slides from his shoulder as Mark shuffles forward, eyes on you, towards where you were standing next to Kino. The anxiety makes you grab his arm for safety, to keep you from acting stupid. You can tell Mark knows something is up by the way he scrunches his nose at your small, dismissive wave in his direction, but he neither says nor does anything about it. Thankfully.
The girls — the petty, hungry and jealous monster living inside of you ached to call them intruders — introduced themselves as Yoojung and Doyeon, the latter being the one who had been cosying all up on Mark. Much to your dismay, they’re both incredibly sweet and genuine people, to the point of helping the rest of you set up everything in the house so your stay is comfortable.
On the first night, Doyeon cooks everyone dinner and nothing but high praises are sung to the food she makes. Mark repeats the dish twice, compliments leaving his mouth incessantly, and the dagger piercing through your heart is dug deeper. You were painfully aware that she wasn’t to blame, but when even your friends begin asking for more of it, you were bound to feel the metaphorical blow on your stomach. The cook of the group was you. The person whose food always had everyone raving about was you. You can’t even stomach more than three bites before you say you’re not feeling too well.
 It was starting to resemble like that fateful movie night all over again, with you feeling retracted and alienated. For the remainder of the night, you claim to be extremely tired due to the traveling and withdraw yourself to the room you shared with Eunseo, — since she still wasn’t completely over the stunt he had pulled, but you just knew she was going to trade places with Kino midweek, who was rooming with Jungwoo for the time being — covering your entire body with the duvet. You can hear the cacophony of laughter coming from the living room. It rings in your ears until you fall asleep.
On day two, you wake up earlier than usual. Scoping around the enormous place, you find that no one else is awake, just you. Not even Lucas, who was curled in a ball on the U-shaped sofa, snoring. You tiptoe your way to the kitchen, set on making something guilt-free to ease the relentless growling of your stomach. After last night’s dinner, you were positively starving.
Cooking had always been something you loved to do as a hobby. As a kid, you had watched your grandmother, and your mother too, make the most delicious food with so much gusto it was inevitable for you to follow their steps and prove how cooking ran in your blood. Acknowledging how good you were at it was far from bragging: it was barely the result of kinship. So it was safe to say your ego was bruised at the lack of request from your friends to cook last night’s meal. This particular breakfast was meant to be therapeutic, to settle the sensitive nerves you had clawing inside of you.
You were finishing pouring the first spoon of pancake batter onto the oiled frying pan when the scraping of a chair against the floor sounds behind you, announcing someone else was now with you. The sudden heaviness clutching around your heart is a foresight, it’s like your body had become so in tune to his you were now able to feel his presence without any of your five senses.
“Good morning.” You don’t turn back to look at him, afraid the sight of a sleepy Mark would devastate you beyond the point of no return. 
“Morning,” He hums. You’re floored at how sultry and comforting his voice sounds. “What are you making?”
You were silly to think sharing a vicinity for a whole week with the person you were crushing on was going to be okay. The hand holding the scoop trembled pathetically against the bowl, and you hadn’t even look at him whatsoever. Every little thing concerning him was enough to make your heart grow in size and volume until it occupied the entirety of your chest.
“Nutella pancakes.”
Mark groans, the sound rumbling deep from his chest, and it’s so effective in the way it elicits a shiver down your spine, “That sounds amazing. Care to share some with this boy who feels like crap?”
That’s enough to make you face him. As expected, it shakes you to your very core. You couldn’t even muster up beautiful and coherent thoughts about how good he looked. His hair is obviously finger brushed, yet there’s a cowlick standing cutely stiff against the rest; the urge to put it down is so immense you claw your nails in the meaty part of your palm. “Did something happen?”
“I could say the same thing to you. You barely ate yesterday, and fled so quickly I didn’t even see you.”
You roll your eyes, but inside you’re scrambling to find an excuse while you go back to your main task, “It’s called being car sick, Mark. I’m not used to really long drives.”
“Sure,” His lips twist as a visual cue to show he didn’t truly believe your words. “If you must know, I feel like crap because I didn’t check up on you.” 
You hum once again, taking a dollop of Nutella and dropping it in the middle of the pancake before covering it with another scoop of batter. He continues, “I was going to, though. Then decided against it because I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Maybe you should have.” You say, using the spatula next to you to flip the pancake, “I wouldn’t have minded the company.”
“I’m sorry.” He murmurs. You don’t reply, and the pancake sizzling on the stove speaks on your behalf.
Silence wraps around you so uncomfortably your skin crawls at how awkward it feels. What were you supposed to say? ‘No, Mark, I’m the one who should be sorry for acting all stupid around you’? Or perhaps saying ‘The reason I’m acting this weird is because I have a big, fat crush on you and seeing you act all chummy with an attractive girl makes me want to bash my head against a wall’ would reflect the dangerous tides drowning you better. So you do what you always do best, and place your feelings in front of him in the form of probably the most perfect looking pancakes ever. He would never realise it, and at this point neither did you want him to. The sting of being rejected had over-imposed itself over any fake bravado you could possibly pour out. 
He digs in like he hadn’t eaten for days, the moan coming out of his moan paired with his eyes rolling back into his skull so obscene it propels you to swivel your body so you could actually make something for you to eat.
You sit across from him while you eat your breakfast, and all Mark does is stare at you in the meanwhile. It weighs burdensomely on your shoulders for the first minutes, then disappears when the familiarity settles in. After you’re done, you go back to your room with exhaustion seeping through your pores as if you hadn’t slept in years. 
He doesn’t get up after you, just stays there sitting on the chair.
On day three, you try to keep a more positive aspect about every possible outcome. Sulking around in possibly one of the best occasions had little to no sense. You mingle a lot more with everyone, including Jooyoung and Doyeon. It pained you to admit, but they were really sweet, witty girls, which made it incredibly hard for you to hate Doyeon when she was so likable and genuine.
You didn’t want to be consumed by this restricting feeling of insecurity whenever she was around, because really, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sure, she was extremely touchy when it came to Mark, it seemed like she had to be touching him in any way, whether it was the side of their arms touching whenever they were sitting down — because they always ended up sitting next to each other, leaving you to be sandwiched between Lucas and Kino — or her hand seeking solace in the slope of his shoulder as she laughed and leaned forward, but that could be simply coincidental. Or maybe Doyeon and you were on the same boat, sharing a crush on the most oblivious guy on Earth. Yet the difference between the both of you lied in the fact that she wasn’t afraid to act upon it unlike you. Even if you had kissed him, which was probably way more than she had ever done. 
But Mark either didn’t remember, or he was pretending not to.
By the end of the afternoon of the third day, everyone seemed to be in the mood for a dip in the indoor pool. And your nightmare began to unravel from that moment onwards.
If Doyeon already looked absolutely stunning with loose-fitting, comfortable clothes and minimal makeup, it was no wonder she was five times better with a swimsuit and barefaced. The simple pink one-piece she was wearing outshined your navy striped one by a long shot. You never really stood a chance against her to begin with, but now that everyone was as less clothed as one could be in public, you were feeling insecure beyond words.
Especially because Mark and she kept on splashing water towards one another, the underlying tones of flirting barely visible to anyone else but you. The way he ruffled up his wet hair, his lips parting whenever she spoke, the crinkling in his eyes. It all made nausea boil up in your throat, so you tried to distract yourself by playing silly games with your friends. Pretending was your strong suit.
Or you liked to believe it was.
That night Doyeon huddles in a sweatshirt that is too big to be hers with her head poised delicately on Mark’s shoulder, and whatever resolve to keep being strong you thought you had withered away, the bitter poison of definite heartbreak taking over and spreading like an incurable virus.
This was it.
You had reached your limit, there was no going back. A silent sob tears through your throat, your hand reaching to clamp over your mouth to prevent any sound from coming out. This was too much, even for you. Parading his probable relationship in front of everyone while completely forgetting to acknowledge what happened in New Year’s Eve was proving to be too cruel. Never in your life did you think Mark Lee, the person who you didn’t believe had a bad bone in his body, was capable of crushing your ribcage and whatever was inside into fine dust. 
The waters had completely pulled you under, and there was an anchor strapped to your ankle continuously dragging you down until you no longer could fight back.
You had taken for granted how sweet it was to breathe.
Eunseo is sitting on her bed, back leaning against the headboard when you storm in with your face blearing red and tearful. Her eyes catch yours and your knees buckle under the metaphorical pending weight of your heartbreak, still covering your mouth to stifle the ugly sobs reverberating against your palm. 
It was funny how amid your sinkage, the main thought going through your mind was not to alert anyone but to suffer in silence and alone. But it seemed like she wasn’t going to allow that.
You hear the clicking of your bedroom door closing followed by frantic hands grabbing your shoulders. Your best friend has shock painted all over her face, like this façade you were allowing her to witness was not one she was expecting.
“What happened?” Her voice is shaky, hands shaking your frame, “___, what the hell is going on?” There’s no strength left in you, you can’t even support your own weight, let alone verbalise the tsunami inside your chest. Eunseo lets you drop your body against her, her arms wrapping around you to cradle your head against the juncture between her neck and shoulder.
She doesn’t pry any further, and for that you are thankful. You just keep on crying quietly while her fingers run through your hair, humming a tune so soft and sweet it lulls you to sleep, the now dry tears leaving stain marks in its stead.
You wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself sharing a bed with your best friend. She is latched onto you so tightly it almost glues back the broken pieces of your heart back into place, and the protective streak it possesses brings a fresh wave of tears to your waterline, but you hold it back because you already feel too bad for ruining her — it was Jungwoo’s, actually — shirt. Sleep comes back to you once again, the headache resulting from your mental breakdown dissipating in the process. When the morning comes and both of you are awake, she lets you be the one to open up instead of being the one to poke through your sensitive state.
“I…” Red burns your cheek yet for a different reason than yesterday. You felt so disgustingly embarrassed to confess to another person about your innermost feelings, disregarding the fact this was one of the people you trusted the most. “I like someone.”
“I see,” Her reaction is neutral. She’s void of facial expression as if she’s cautious with the way she should react to your words. “You like someone. And the reason you cried yesterday was because of this person.”
You gulp, “Yeah. It was.”
“This person hurt you.” Eunseo doesn’t ask any questions. She resorts to making blanket statements to help you untangle the mess going on inside of you. As if you didn’t already love her enough.
“He did, but I don’t know if it was intentional.” You laugh low on your throat, shake your head in disbelief. “He’s so fucking oblivious about everything, I highly doubt it was.”
“What happened yesterday was prompted by something you saw, then.”
She was getting closer to unveiling the grand truth. The thrum of your heartbeat picked up as if your body was giving you a sign that even if it felt like you had drowned, it was still beating for you. You were still alive. You weren’t okay, but you hadn’t died because of it. “Yeah,” Confirming it was leeway to compressing the scope of potential people. She now knew it was someone in Jungwoo’s house.
“Okay, correct me if I’m wrong. You like someone so much it made you break down, and that said someone is currently in this house. Therefore it’s a person you and I both know quite well, except if it is either Jooyoung or Doyeon. Which I highly doubt because you haven’t known them for longer than four days, and the fact you said he.”
You scoff, flicking her on the forehead, and Eunseo tries to swat your hand away but fails. “Of course it’s not them. Who do you think I am?”
“I was just crossing people from the list,” She shrugs, “This was the easiest way. I also suppose you’re not in love with Jungwoo.”
“Eunseo! What the fuck!” You shove her now, appalled. She laughs aloud at your reaction, and it only makes you even madder. 
“Oh, bite me, will you?” She huffs before shaking her head with a grin, “It’s called process of elimination. “I have to narrow my options here. Do you want me to take a guess or do you want to tell me who the person is by yourself?”
And there it was again, the stinging of incoming tears behind your eyelids. They don’t come out, however.
You knew to cry meant you had held on for too long, but you couldn’t shake the nagging perception that it somewhat weakened you. Especially since the reason behind it was related to the mechanics of your heart. But this was Eunseo, your best friend. The person who had been there for you through thick and thin, while never belittling you for your complex way of being.
She deserved honesty. 
Even if finally admitting it to someone out loud was beyond scary.
“It’s…” You take a deep breath, “It’s Mark.”
She doesn’t show any major physical reaction to your confession, zeroes in on something behind you and keeps her gaze there for a few seconds. It’s unsettling to you, the anxiety buzzing underneath your skin as you wait for her to react.
“Oh my God,” You whine. It has been too long since she has spoken, and it was slowly getting on your nerves, “Just say something.”
She exhales loudly, her shoulders sagging, “Am I allowed to freak out?” You roll your eyes at her comment but nod nonetheless. Any reaction was better than none. “This is so exciting. I’ve been holding it in since yesterday but now I can finally lose my shit.”
“This is not exciting, Eunseo.” You frown. There wasn’t anything exciting about heartbreak. “He doesn’t like me back. These feelings I have aren’t mutual.”
“And how do you know he doesn’t like you?”
“Because yesterday he was all cuddled up next to Doyeon as if we didn’t fucking kiss on New Year’s Eve!” Thinking about it again made the anger you tried to tamper down close to surface. Mark was cruel.
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. Kissed?! I haven’t had time to process the fact that you even like someone, and you drop the K bomb on me like this? Tell me everything. From the beginning.”
And that’s what you do. You tell Eunseo about how you two go way back, way farther than everyone else thinks you go. 
You tell her about how your high school experience hadn’t been the best, and how Mark was the person you had always aspired to be back then. How popular and versatile he was. About how meeting him two years later had been extremely uncomfortable because a person like him wasn’t supposed to mingle with your people, yet there he had been, laughing at what Jungwoo was saying. About how you had reluctantly given this friendship thing a try, since her boyfriend was so keen on him and his friends, and since deep down you had always wanted to see how he was truly like. 
You tell Eunseo about how well you two match. How every conversation was never-ending, like an infinite, sturdy string that went for miles and miles and never stopped. How caring, and genuine he had always been, even in high school. You tell her about how little by little your resolve wore off, and his company began to feel both needed and appreciated. How on New Year’s Eve you get drunk together, and you teach him how to smoke. 
You tell your best friend how you both ended up cuddling on the rug of Jungwoo’s living room. And you tell her about how compelled you had felt to kiss him when the countdown began. Not because of some lame fucking tradition like you had tried to convince yourself, but because you really wanted to. You had never wanted anything in your life so badly.
Heartbreakingly, you tell her then about how the saddening part of the story unfolds. He doesn’t acknowledge your kiss, he doesn’t make a move, he doesn’t give you so much as an inch of leeway to convince yourself he could be feeling the same thing as you were.
By the time your storytelling ends, her hand is overlapping yours in what you consider empathy. She’s rubbing the back of it with her thumb, and the way she’s looking at you makes the lump in your throat almost lurch. You want to cry, to show how sad you were, though you don’t do it. Yesterday’s shenanigans had proved themselves to be enough — you were mentally tired. There was no more room or strength to do so.
“I can’t believe all of this happened underneath our noses and we never realised it…” She’s incredibly surprised, that much you can tell. Her face scrunches like she’s trying to remember something, and you just keep looking at her in amusement. “I seriously just thought the two of you were really good friends.”
“And we are.” You pause, remember how recently things hadn’t been that okay on your side. “Or were. I don’t know, honestly. I just feel like it will be really difficult for me to pretend that nothing is affecting me, because I have the urge to punch someone every time I see them together.”
“I’m not gonna lie, I noticed that they’re close but I just assumed it’s because they’re friends.”
“That’s such flawed logic.” You roll your eyes, crossing your arms against your chest. “You and Jungwoo were also close but there was nothing platonic about it.”
“That’s differen— Okay. You’re right. So what are you gonna’ do?”
“There’s really nothing I can do. I’ll have to get over him.” You shrug innocently, and Eunseo glares at you. She wants to call you unbearable, you know it. “Three more days to go, and then I can put my distance.”
You can tell she wants to lecture you, tell you to find another way other than giving up. But she doesn’t, in true Eunseo fashion. 
The rest of that day is spent holed up inside your room without contacting or interaction with anyone except Eunseo, who takes one for the team and keeps you company during the whole time. She tells you Mark asks for you when she gets back from getting snacks on the break between the second and third Harry Potter movie you were marathoning on Netflix. You shrug in response, drink big gulps of water as if it would drown your feelings to death.
Sometimes you wished that was possible.
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Day five arrives, and the prospect of things looking up is nothing but a mere pathetic theory. Quite on the contrary, it’s on day five where everything gets worse than worst. 
Throughout the day, the interactions between Mark and Doyeon are so disgusting to your whole system that you actually end up dry heaving against the toilet, retches tormenting you as you try to make sense of the situation. You had reached the lowest of lows, the rock bottom. 
But this wasn’t you. This had never been you. Not even back in high school where you longed to belong somewhere.
The migraines had been the only constant on that trip, and they kept on becoming stronger and stronger as the days went by, much like your mood. You had gotten to the point where the only people you tolerated were Eunseo and Kino, everyone else just contributed to the hammering going inside your head.
Still, you had been able to avoid Mark.
That is until the fateful day six begins, and Jungwoo corners you in the kitchen, a furious scowl etched on his face.
“Would you care to tell me what the fuck is going on with you?” His tone is accusatory, hurtful. He’s not there to be nice, that much you had already gathered.
“Is this an intervention?” You cock your eyebrow at him, leaning your lower back against the counter. He keeps staring at you, stance aggressive. 
“Let’s call it an intervention, if you want. Why the fuck have you been acting so weird lately? Why have you turned your phone off? Why are you avoiding Mark?” He’s firing question after question, not even giving you room to process them. The way he’s handling his energy is so chaotic, it makes your blood boil underneath your skin. Jungwoo had no right to be mad at you when he didn’t make any effort to consult you about your wellbeing during this whole trip, and the moment he does, his only instinct is to spit venomous words instead of choosing a more careful approach.
“And why the fuck do you care?” There’s a fire building up inside of you, the flames licking up your throat. You’re now almost chest to chest with him, your eyes wide and vicious. If it was possible, laser beams would be shooting out of them.
“Are you serious right now? You’re my best friend, of course I care about you!”
You scoff, “Took you long enough to figure out something’s not okay.”
“You’re being so unfair.”
“Am I?” You laugh darkly, eyes roaming around the room. Jungwoo hated being left in the dark. It made him feel powerless like he wasn’t doing enough for those he loved. And you were deliberately doing what you knew would hurt him. Because that was the person you had become. “Or were you simply too occupied to realise it?”
“Now you’re just pushing it, ___.” He grits out, “I don’t know what is going on, but you’re acting like an asshole. Everyone is commenting about how you’re avoiding us. Mark is like a lost puppy wandering around because it’s like he’s the plague to you.”
The thought of Mark feeling miserable because of you is just so absurd you don’t refrain from laughing out loud sarcastically. “Mark looks absolutely fine to me. Doyeon seems to be a qualified substitute.”
“Okay, I get it now. Something happened between you two.” He says, plain and simple. You feel the blistering heat on your cheeks, and words can’t even slip from your lips because he carries on, “Honestly, I’m not really interested in knowing what happened exactly. I care about the fact that you’re being an asshole to everyone else because of it. Don’t take your anger out on someone who doesn’t deserve it.”
Shame is staining your face in such an ugly red shade you can’t even muster up the courage to look him in the eye, and fight back. Mainly because there’s nothing you can really say to him. 
“I’m putting you on shopping duty today with Mark.” He pauses, reaches for the back of your hand, and runs his finger just once against it, “Running away from confrontation is literally the worst thing you could possibly do. It will never fix things.”
He’s right, of course, and it hurts you.
It hurts you, but not because of how bittersweet truth can taste. It hurts because of all people, it had to be Jungwoo. Jungwoo, whose words had always been like rivers of honey flowing through your ears, now felt like they had blasted your eardrums off, leaving nothing but blood trickling down in its wake. This was a side of him you were seeing for the first time. But then again, this was also a side of you nobody had ever seen.
The extremes to which you had taken the situation was destroying everything around you. This vacation was supposed to be filled to the brim with beautiful memories you would never forget. Instead, you were letting your childish emotions dictate your whole persona, and disregard everyone else around you as if they didn’t exist, only him. 
You had nothing left to lose.
Maybe the truth would set you free.
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For a few seconds, Mark thought he was seeing a ghost, the apparition of something supernatural right before his eyes. He was more surprised than the moment you kissed him on New Year’s Eve if that was even possible. But it wasn’t a ghost, it was you making your way to him while he waited for the person who was supposed to help him with grocery shopping. 
Now he understood why Jungwoo was acting all secretive and straight-up refusing to say who that person was.
“Are you going to stand there all day?” You sound annoyed, and he has no clue why. Actually, Mark has been in a permanent state of confusion ever since that day.
He remembers how going home after being so intimate with you felt like he had been floating in a cloud, instead of having Lucas push him by the collar and throw him on the bed. He remembers how soft and supple your lips felt, even if they had missed the initial aim because of how much of a fucking idiot he was. Everything had felt so surreal, like a dream too sweet to come true. 
But you never said anything about it or mentioned it ever again.
And Mark didn’t have the guts to invest further, because he was a scaredy-cat who felt too weak when it came to you.
“Oh. Sorry.” He makes his way to the driver’s seat, spares a quick glance in your direction only to find you staring stoically ahead. You’re wearing a navy blue cap, it sits so low on your head he can barely see your eyes, just the end of your nose and the lips he had been fantasising about for the past month.
The lips which had touched his — kind of — and since then Mark only grew defeated at the lack of response coming from you.
There was such a tense atmosphere between both of you, in comparison to how comfortable you had been around each other at the party. Everything had been going so well, Mark had never been so happy in his entire life, and in hindsight, the end of the night was just perfect. But the truth was, the kiss had been the catalyst to how distant you had become. 
No more facetime calls, no more feeling at ease whenever you both were together. And in Mark’s perspective, this trip was supposed to make the spark from the New Year’s Eve party ignite between you both again.
His expectations paled in comparison to the reality. The person he saw was avoiding him, glaring at him across the dinner table, refusing to interact with other people. Something was going on, and it was killing him not knowing why. Or worse, if he was the reason behind it all.
The eery silence ceases when you’re inside the supermarket, standing awkwardly still in front of the small magazine stall near the registers. 
“Do you have the list?” Your voice lacks any emotion, yet it still startles him. He misses talking to you freely, hearing you laugh through the speaker on his phone as he buries his face against the pillow because he’s smiling so big his cheeks hurt.
“Yeah,” He takes the folded slip of paper from his back pocket. It’s crumpled and frayed at the edges — he had been fiddling with it before he saw you. 
You clear your throat, avert your head to look at the tabloid newspapers, “We should split up, it’s quicker that way.”
“No,” He takes pride in the way his answer makes you look at him, the sternness in his voice showing. Mark wanted to be selfish for once. “I don’t want to lose you.” The pregnant pause is meant to make you think about his words, but he continues before things got too awkward, “This place is huge.”
You say nothing, but still rip the paper from his clammy hand, and storm ahead of him to find whatever was written on it.
Jungwoo’s scrawny chicken handwriting is barely legible, Mark notices once he peaks over your shoulder. You’re deliberating between two brands of rice as if it’s the hardest choice you had ever encountered in your entire life. It’s adorable, to say the least. But he doesn’t say anything, like always, because that’s what people like Mark do: they wallow in self-pity until feelings dissipate within the particles of the wind. They cower behind the false pretense of unrequited affection. They never chase their dreams to the fullest. They let them wither and fall between the cracks in the pavement.
Change scared him. Still, the thought of losing your friendship was enough to sear his heart.
So that’s why Mark was going to tread a very fine line, in hopes of at least getting back what was slipping through his fingers.
“Can we talk?”
You look over at him, a light frown adorning your face in spite of the poor attempt at hiding your face with your hat, grabbing a bottle of Coke at the same time. “We’re already talking.”
“We’re talking about groceries.”
“Are you saying groceries aren’t important enough to be considered a conversational topic?” You muse, laughing dryly right after. This indifference was starting to get on Mark’s nerves.
He strides so he’s standing right on the other side of the cart, hands holding it so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Cut the crap, ___. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Now move.” Scoffing, you try to push the cart in your direction, but Mark tightens his hold even further so you’re unable to take it with you. “Mark. Let go. Don’t make me cause a scene right here in the middle of a fucking supermarket.”
He falters with the intensity of your voice and takes his hand off, sighing loudly, “We’re not done. I’m tired of this.”
Your head flings back violently to stare at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen. Mark finally takes note of the incredibly purple under-eye circles, the tired, dull-looking skin. The deep, heart-wrenching feeling in his gut was slowly confirming what he had been fearing: he probably was one of the reasons why you were like this, if not the only one.
“Oh, you’re tired? How sad, Mark. Maybe take your head out of your ass for once and take a hint. So many things are happening around you and you either choose to ignore it or you’re just fucking dumb enough to not realise it.”
“What do you mean?” Mark feels like he’s being stabbed all over again with every poisonous word falling from your lips. It’s not the words themselves that are hurting him, it’s the fact that he was the person who caused you to become this way and not knowing exactly what he had done.
You let out a low shriek of frustration, “Unbelievable. You wouldn’t see it even if it hit you in the head.”
“Let’s talk in the car.” He sighs. You don’t say anything back, but Mark takes the eye roll you throw in his direction as a small victory for now. The rest of the grocery shopping happens in complete silence sans the squeaky wheels of the cart and the Ed Sheeran song humming throughout the store.
Mark is dreading getting in the car with you, afraid of getting another earful of rejecting comments or worse, not being able to find out what exactly he had done for you to completely shut him out. Was it because he allowed you to kiss him while you were both not in your right state of mind? Should he had been more firm in his morals instead of giving in to what he had been wanting for the past three years?
More silence carries both of you back to Jungwoo’s house, Mark’s hand gripping the steering wheel on the way back so tightly his knuckles are ghostly white against the dark leather. The air felt stuffy, full of resentment and opportunities for new beginnings. You reckon the time to pour your heart out has come: there, inside that parked car, you were going to tell him everything without holding back. This crush had grown to lengths you had never expected, it had turned you into the shell of the girl you used to be. 
Your inferiority complex had never gone away.
“Can I ask you something?” You start off, taking the baseball cap off of your head before running a hand through your slightly greasy hair. Mark’s eyes immediately lock on yours, nods in your direction. “Did it even mean something to you? The kiss?”
“I- I thought you didn’t remember that.” He gulps, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
“You thought or you didn’t want me to remember?” You hate how feeble your voice sounds, how crystal clear the pain echoes with every word you say. “You know, Mark, it’s okay if you don’t like me back, the thing is that I can’t really go on any longer pretending everything’s okay when it’s not.”
Mark’s body coils like a springboard at your implied confession, his muscles tense, and the way he looks at you resembles a madman. You allow him some seconds to formulate some type of reply, yet all he does is open and close his mouth as if there is nothing he could say.
“Yeah, newsflash… I like you, Mark. I thought the kiss made it pretty obvious but then again we were drunk and high so I understand if you didn’t think too much of it.” There’s a lump sitting at the top of your throat and tears brimming in your lash line. The urge to cry is so strong now, you had never imagined that confessing your feelings to the person’s face would be so emotionally and mentally straining. “I guess I’m the one to blame because I expected you to make the next move, to show that this crush wasn’t one-sided but… Yeah… We all know how that one went, uh?”
“Anyway… This is why I’ve been distant.” You chuckle, wiping the stray tear that decided to go rogue against your will, “And as you can imagine, seeing the guy I like acting so close to another girl was bound to make me feel all types of sad. I don’t know if you’re dating or not and if you are I am sorry for telling you this. I guess I just needed to let this all out before I began moving on.”
He’s completely still, zoned out as if his body was there but his soul was absent. You’re unsure of what to make of this since you were expecting him to say something back. But maybe this was for the best, him not saying a word. It would spare you an even bigger heartbreak.
“I’ll ask the guys to come get the groceries.” You smile sadly before opening the door, leaving him confined in that tiny car alongside his thoughts.
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You don’t see Mark for the rest of the day, fortunately. While in the previous days you had been the one acting all weird and evasive, now Mark had taken it upon himself to fulfill that role. It gives you time to reflect upon yourself and your situation.
Dinner that night is made by you and everyone loves it. The conversation flows beautifully between everyone, even with Doyeon: you find out the two of you have a lot more in common than you imagined. Surprisingly, the heavy burden sunk in the depths of your chest is no longer there, only a dull ache which throbbed only whenever your brain conjured any thought about Mark. You’d take that as progress. Except you can’t help yourself but think about what prompted him into isolating himself. Maybe he was too embarrassed to face you now that he knew you liked him. Or maybe he didn’t have the courage to be your friend anymore. All in all, your pride was hurt. Not having your feelings reciprocated sucked.
Later on, you watch Bird Box sandwiched between your best friends, let yourself shed a few stray tears over the sentimentality of the movie. You can hear sniffles and stifled sobs coming from Doyeon and Kino while Jungwoo holds Eunseo’s hand and brings it to his lips to gently peck it from time to time. It’s enough to make you reminisce about New Year’s Eve, about how right it felt to be with Mark in that kind of intimate setting. You want to do it again and again and again until you can’t even remember how many times you have been like that until it becomes second nature to you. But that won’t happen. So you force yourself to eradicate that painful thought from your mind and train your eyes steadily on the screen until it all blurs.
People start going back to their rooms little by little, eventually. The clock is ticking near one in the morning and contrary to what you were expecting, there’s not one ounce of exhaustion in your body. You are awake, you feel awake like there’s a buzz in your bloodstream that’s preventing you from getting sleepy. It’s as if not even your own brain wants you to stop thinking.
Lucky for your brain, you can’t stop thinking. So while everyone else is sleeping soundly in their beds, the cogs in your brain twist and turn desperately trying to formulate any reasonable explanation for everything that had happened recently. And in spite of the sting caused by rejection, your heart still called to him, pathetically so, and during this whole fiasco, you were worried about his wellbeing. You were worrying if he was hungry, thirsty, tired, either if he was crying or in need of a hug. Above your state of passion for him stood a friendship you valued tremendously; you were losing both at the same time.
The blood boiling beneath your skin makes the air around you feel too stifling like you’re in the middle of a heatwave on a July afternoon instead of a February late night where the temperature doesn’t even waver beyond 20ºC. You trudge outside to where the pool is, the moon illuminating and reflecting upon the tiny ripples of water ever so gently, just enough to showcase how beautiful stillness and darkness can be. There’s this urge within you to just dive in, even if the water is not as warm as you want it to be, and you do just that, damned be everything and everyone. 
You’re swimming in Jungwoo’s summer house backyard all by yourself in your underwear and somehow, despite the trials and tribulations of your pathetic life, you wouldn’t change anything about that moment. They are the ones that make you grow as a person, that help you shape yourself into a more mature, better version.
But moments like these are also meant to be changed. Like the way the pitch-black sky is coated with hues of pink, yellow, and orange just as dawn becomes daylight. Those seemingly slow and everlasting shifts in nature you can’t help but acknowledge: they’re meant to happen.
That’s why you don’t even flinch when you hear a small splash behind you, yet that restlessness comes to life, the one where you can feel in every fibre of your being whenever he was around. But you don’t turn around, don’t act surprised. You’re ready to embrace whatever it is that is about to come your way.
“Hi.” Mark’s voice is so soft and faint you can barely hear him. If it wasn’t for the stupid fact you like him so much to the point your chest felt like it was about to split open violently in any second, things like his uneven breathing pattern would go amiss. 
You flip around, see how sunken his face looks. It breaks your heart even further than it already was to begin with. Resisting the impulse you were having of swimming across the pool so you could hold him in your warms was proving to be the most difficult thing you had ever done. 
“Hi, Mark.”
In any other occasion, seeing Mark shirtless would be more than enough to make you go through hot flashes for the following hour, especially when you were only wearing your bra and panties, yet there was absolutely nothing sexual about this moment. You were both near-naked, stripped of barriers, of façades you put on in order to protect yourselves. At that very moment, there was only vulnerability oozing from your pores and his.
This was it. The grand finale was finally about to happen.
“How are you feeling?” You start off, lowering your shoulders inside the water to keep them warm from the breeze. “You look like shit.”
That elicits a snort from Mark’s lips followed by a gleaming smile which you can see from your spot on the other end of the pool. It’s sweet and it sticks to your memory like golden honey, reminds you of how much you have missed him in general. He was your friend before he was the one who could either make you or break you, so you yearn for his friendship way more than any other thing in the world. No one could understand you with the same intricacy and intimacy as Mark did; you would rather not be able to feel the suppleness of his lips than to lose him altogether, lose the gift of his friendship.
“Honestly?” He asks, mimicking your position and lowering his shoulders as well, “I don’t think there’s any way I can convey how I feel right now without it sounding like complete nonsense.”
This statement intrigues you. It sparks something deep within that you know it shouldn’t, but falling in love with someone brings out the person’s most vulnerable state to the forefront. A person in love will go back on their word if that means one step closer to the heart they want. “Try me,” You shrug, “I’m all ears.”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“If this is all because of what I told you… because I like you, then I’m sorry.” You cast your eyes downwards and flick mindlessly the water around you. “I know that it’s a lot to take in and maybe it was selfish of me to let it all build up and then lay it all on you like that.”
“No,” He interjects quickly, treading the pool waters in slow but steady strides until he’s more than an arm’s reach from you. “I was surprised, yes, and it was overwhelming because that was the last thing I was expecting you to say.”
You laugh, “You were malfunctioning back there. I get it though.”
“You don’t,” He deadpans, voice solemn, “You don’t understand at all… What it’s like waiting for years to hear something and then your brain completely shuts down when it does finally happen.”
Your heartbeat is thrumming so loud you can feel it reverberating all over your body, it courses through you like a rush of blood, intensely so, that you refrain from pinching yourself. The nuances in his speech are making you feel like you’re dreaming the sweetest dream and if it was indeed a figment of your imagination, you didn’t want to wake up any time soon.
“I’ve had a thing for you since high school, ___.” He confesses, angling his body to the side as if ashamed or embarrassed or afraid. Deep down you want to laugh because there’s no reason for him to feel like that at all. You’re desperately in love with him in every intricate and complex way possible in the world. Like a galaxy and constellations, and the moons, the planets, and the stars within orbiting in sync yet light-years away from each other.
But the heavy rise and fall of your chest and the tears welling up in your eyes tell a different story.
Mark liked you back.
He continues, “And I know you used to think I was too popular to even become your friend, but that sure as hell didn’t stop me from liking you. Hell, it made me like you even more… I knew it back then and I know it now too… I really, really like you. A lot. Like, you make my heart do these funky, weird flips every time we hang out.”
You’re crying by the end of his little confession, sniffling quietly so he doesn’t notice, yet when he finally dares to lift his eyes towards yours, he sees you wiping the back of your palm against your cheek. As if it was an instinct, he crosses the space left dividing the both of you, pausing right before his hand could touch you. Like you were a dainty marble statue that could break even with the tiniest of touches.
“Shit, I’m sorry— Don’t cry, please.”
“No,” You protest, “I’m crying because I’m happy. I’m crying because I never imagined this moment would actually happen. It’s just surreal.”
His hand stutters when it finally grazes your skin, yet his thumb still spans the surface of your cheek ever so gently, ever so softly. You refuse to believe it isn’t real, these last interactions you two were sharing were so dream-like your own hand reaches up to press against his, to feel the texture of his skin, your eyes closing in the process because of how full your heart was feeling.
Mark liked you. The person you liked, liked you back. You had been torturing yourself for the past week with thoughts of not being reciprocated to the point that you felt the very core of your being dim. And it had been all for nothing because he had a thing for you way before you even considered him a friend. 
Miscommunication was such a fickle thing. This whole situation could have been avoided if the two of you had been more open about your feelings instead of repressing them in fear of the reaction of the other.
“Mark,” You say, his hand still cradling your face, “Can we hug? Is that okay?”
Mark is unable to properly reply with words to your question, only a smile breaking through his lips at the pure disbelief of how happy such words could make him feel. He doesn’t need to say anything at all, he reckons, as he lowers your hand, and his too, before snaking his arms around yours, tumbling you softly into his chest in the process.
There’s a newfound comfort in the way your face is squished against his shoulder, like every single worry that had been weighing him down had completely vanished the moment you stepped into his arms. The pounding of his heart is no longer rooted in venom, it has tiny flowers blooming along each branch and stem, a small, lovely glimpse into paradise on earth. 
A wave of nostalgia hits Mark in the gut and he can’t help but to think about New Year’s Eve, think about how similar this moment feels to the one almost two months ago yet the contrast is so very stark. Back then you were both tiptoeing around your emotions, scared of taking a leap and finding out that there’s nothing but concrete down there. Now you’re worn down, you and him, by the cluster of emotions and the lack of experience on how to handle them. Yet you’re together in whatever this is, may that be navigating through the corridors of young love or finding out what’s on the other side of the door doesn’t quite correspond to what you’ve been idealising. 
“I’m sorry,” You’ve been in an embrace for probably more than ten minutes and Mark’s voice breaks a little, right hand spanning the middle of your back, “For not being so forward… I’m not very good at this— I’ve never been. I tried, back in high school, you know? I tried but it always felt like the universe was against me. Every time I mustered the courage to do something, another person cockblocked the shit out of me.”
You bring your head back to look him in the eyes, “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not very good at this either. I had this crazy way of thinking that you were like… unreachable to someone like me. So I never expected us to become friends, let along like you or have you like me back.”
“Please,” He scoffs playfully, tightening his arms around you, “I liked you first.”
You roll your eyes, stepping out of his embrace and flicking some water in his direction, “Anyways… I’m also sorry. For being too pushy and demanding too much from you. And for ruining this whole trip for everyone.”
“I wouldn’t say you ruined the trip, just… confused the shit out of everyone, maybe?” He tries to reason, voice a little doubtful. You’re aware of how your little jealous stints made the mood a little sour for everyone, and you feel remorseful for letting such negativity consume you. Love really made you do the unthinkable.
“Jealousy is a bitch, I’ll say that.”
“Jealousy? Were you jealous?” Mark asks, curiosity splattered on his face, “Jealous of wha— Oh. No way…”
Mark has a stupid little grin on his face like he already has you all figured out, and you stubbornly, yet playfully, turn your back to him as you begin to tread back to the other end of the pool to try and get him to follow you. Maybe hug you from behind. Kiss your neck or whatever. You’d leave that for him to decide.
A giggle leaves your mouth as you hear the water swishing from behind you. You keep going until you reach the border and when you twist your body to rest your back against it, Mark is hot on your tail, immediately caging you in between his arms.
“Jealous, uh?” He’s coming across as cocky, and given the circumstances you were now, it was far from making you annoyed or turned off.
“Yeah,” You breathe out, focusing on the droplets of water gliding from his neck to his collarbones. This game was getting dangerous. “What about it?”
“What were you jealous of?” He begins, taking another step towards you until you were chest to chest. “Or let me rephrase that. Who were you jealous of?”
You’re beginning to like seeing this new side of Mark. The Mark who unveiled what he was thinking and feeling free instead of masking it behind a façade of confusion. It was making you unravel a lot more from within yourself as well, the way you were reacting to his advances and stance just proved even further the extent of your emotional and romantic involvement. 
“You were all cosy with Doyeon during the whole trip. It was so annoying.”
“Okay, first of all, Doyeon and I grew up together.”
“That’s even worse,” You roll your eyes and Mark is feeling so inexplicably elated over seeing you express something as ordinary as jealousy that he decides to be ballsy and grab you by the waist. He ought to compensate you somehow. 
The blush dusting your cheeks makes it worth it.
“I only like one person, and that’s you,” He rasps, heart skipping a beat when you put your hands on his shoulders, feel the sturdiness of his muscles.
“I know now,” You say, caressing the nape of his neck as you look up to him, a fond smile on your lips. Mark feels so overwhelmed with the urge to kiss you. Kissing you had always plagued him, but now when it was just a breath’s away he felt dizzy with the anticipation of it really happening.
“Can I—”
You don’t even give him the chance to finish his prompt, for you take the initiative and kiss him yourself, too thirsty for something you were sure you were never going to get tired of.
Mark’s lips are exactly what you had always dreamed about being, yet more at the same time. They’re soft and supple and timid, and you don’t really mind taking the lead, spanning your hand across his jaw and tilting it to the side so you can deepen the kiss. You’ve been waiting for the opportunity of properly kissing him since what feels like forever, it shows in how you press yourself against him desperately, turn him around so he’s the one being pinned against the wall.
That seems to shake him out of his shy reverie: he poises his hand against your throat to keep you in place as the rush finally kicks in and he begins to take over, tearing a gasp from you at the sudden change in dynamics. He hums low in his throat then, using it as an opportunity to add his tongue to the mix, bravado fuelled by the desperate nature of the moment.
When the heat of finally being able to kiss each other dies down, the kisses become slow and languid, the touches delicate and sweet rather than frantic and wild, until you both stop completely to catch your breath. 
“Shit,” Mark is heaving as he starts laughing crazily, “If this is a dream I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”
You begin to pepper pecks all over his face to prove a point, “This isn’t a dream, Mark Lee. We like each other.”
“And had one hell of a kiss in the middle of the night at a pool. This is going to be a cool story to tell. After I tell the New Year’s Eve one.”
“First off, this was our first kiss.” You retort, grabbing his cheeks in between your fingers to shut him up when he starts protesting, “That will not account as a first kiss, it was a sad, sad attempt at demonstrating how much I liked you.”
“I can’t believe it didn’t dawn on me back then that you liked me back.” Mark snorts in disbelief, “What can be more clear than a kiss? Jesus Christ.”
“I was honestly disappointed but not surprised, coming from you. Such a dense, dumb ass person.”
“Take it back!” He starts tickling you in retaliation, the giggles coming out of your mouth so loudly you were sure you were going to wake someone up. But that didn’t matter at the moment, the unavoidable sweetness of the occasion is all you could think about.
You and Mark eventually get out of the pool when you notice your fingers get pruney, which in hindsight should have happened way before it did. He goes inside to fetch two towels while you sit on the little deck with your legs crossed, looking at the sky before you and wondering how a little over an hour ago you were looking at the same exact spot plagued with the opposite mindset of the one you had now.
He drapes the fluffy towel over your shoulders and sits right to your left, knees knocking against yours as he gets comfortable. His hair is sticking up in every possible direction and when he turns his head to look at you you notice how dull his skin looks and the tired under-eye circles, an exact match to yours. If this was another time before now, you would feel the itch to smoothen your thumb against them yet refrain yourself from doing so, but this isn’t the then, it’s the now and you no longer feel anxious about acting upon your desires. So you do as you wish and when Mark grabs your wrist to kiss it absentmindedly, you feel like nothing in the world could ever bring you down from the state of mind you were going through.
You and Mark stay together outside just until your underwear stops sticking obscenely to your body, not even saying anything to each other. The comfort in being around someone in complete silence, namely the person you love, warms you to your very core like there’s a fire gradually burning in the pit of your stomach, not strong enough to hurt you but not soft enough to go unnoticed.
“Mark?” You say when Mark slides the patio door open to go inside. He turns back to look at you with that facial expression you had grown to love instead of hate, the one where it truly looked like he was unreadable. 
“Lord knows if I wait for you to do this I’ll be fifty before it happens.” You laugh dryly, gaining momentum and courage, “Do you— Will you be my boyfriend?” 
His eyes widen in response and he stays frozen in place, much like what happened in the car. This was not happening again, not on your watch. “Are you having another mental breakdown? What I meant was— Do you… Do you like me enough to maybe like, want to date me?”
The cogs in Mark’s brain kick back to life the moment your voice becomes small as if you’re beginning to feel uneasy and uncertain about the situation. He really needs to work on how he reacts to positive events.
“Shit, yeah— I, yeah. I do.” He says hurriedly, fumbling for the right words, “Let’s do this thing. Let’s date.”
You duck your head to hide your smile inside the towel, but Mark notices it either way. It makes him all fuzzy inside, cotton-candy hearted. 
“Okay,” You tiptoe quietly until you’re right in front of him, reach for the back of his neck so you can press a quick peck right on the lips. “Goodnight.”
Mark blushing at you kissing him is a wonderful sight you want to see repeatedly. 
Contrary to what you think, you don’t dream about anything at all. It’s like you’re now catching up to all of the sleep that you had lost in the past, blacking out the second your head hits the pillow.
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You were now going back to reality, back to civilisation. Back to having a routine and a schedule and abiding by it. For the first time in a long time, you were actually looking forward to it. 
Since Mark was on your side.
Literally and figuratively. 
To the others, the fact that Mark and you are sitting next to each other in Jungwoo’s car on the way back home was just pure coincidence, but Jungwoo knows what’s up. In fact, he didn’t even need to do much digging. He was such a light sleeper he had woken up in the middle of the night due to some strange sounds coming from his backyard. At first, he was afraid someone had broken in, even going the extra mile to grab the baseball bat from the kitchen.
But when he peeked through the glass door leading to the outside, what he saw left him in a state of disarray for only a few seconds before it settled in and he saw you smiling, giggling, and Mark beaming at you. Deep down he always knew something was bound to happen between you two, and he didn’t know the extent of your circumstances, but he was glad whatever happened before now was a done deal. 
You deserved to be happy.
“No funny business back in there, ___.” Jungwoo says loudly, bumping his arm against Eunseo’s.
“What?!” You gasp, quietly sneaking away the hand you had inside of Mark’s hoodie pocket, “What are you even talking about…”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk later, missy.” He replies, amusement in his tone, “You better not complain ever again about Eunie and I being all up in each other’s business. I’ll revoke your best friend privileges right away. And you,” He glares at Mark, “No breaking my best friend’s heart unless you want to end up like a headless chicken.”
“I…” Mark gulps, his trademark bug eyes widened to the max, “Yes, sir.”
Everyone except Mark (and Vernon, who had fallen asleep the second his head hit the window) start laughing at his response and a few moments later he ends up joining in. He looks at you then, holds his hand in front of you expectingly, and when you interlock your fingers right in the middle of his, he ends up putting both your hands inside the hoodie pocket once again, a big, goofy smile plastered on his face as he drops his head against your shoulder, shuts his eyes close, and snuggles closer.
You peck his temple affectionally, because well, you loved him. A lot. You weren’t afraid of acknowledging it any longer, even if you hadn’t told Mark how deep your feelings ran for him, even if there was a possibility he took a little longer to come to that conclusion as well. You just really, really loved him and everything that entailed being in love with him. Your mind goes back to that time where you tried so desperately to root obstacles between the both of you, for you belittled yourself so much and put him in such a high pedestal, avoiding constantly the slightest chance of interacting with him. Mark wasn’t stuck up or anything of the sort, he had never been that kind of person. It wasn’t his fault your high school experience hadn’t been like his. It wasn’t his fault that he had what he had. And maybe it wasn’t your fault either, but you shouldn’t have assumed he’d be iffy about getting to know you. About becoming your friend. Because those were your insecurities coming afloat and projecting onto Mark what you wanted him to be, so it would be easier for you to detach yourself from him, to not sympathise or like him.
Well, you had failed miserably at that. Gladly so.
You could only be a dumb ass for so long.
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“You’re late.” 
“The bus—”
Mark sighs, “The bus arrived earlier than you expected. I know.” 
“Yeah,” You beam at him, kissing him softly. “Hi.”
“Hi, baby.” He tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear, “Let’s go, the guys are waiting for us.”
You grab his hand as both of you start walking from the bus stop to Jungwoo’s apartment. “We’re still leaving after the movie ends, right?”
“Yes, don’t worry.” He bumps his shoulder lightly into yours teasingly, “You’ve been so frisky lately, Jesus Christ. Can’t wait until you have me all to yourself, uh?”
“Mark!” You gasp, stopping in your tracks to hit him in the chest. He giggles at your feeble attempt at hurting him, “Okay, let’s not go to my house later, then.”
“Noooooo,” He whines, enveloping you in his arms and tightening them so you can’t leave, “I was only joking. You know I, uh… I like it when we’re alone.”
“You seem to like it too much if I remember correctly.”
Three months had flown by in the blink of an eye, so quickly you didn’t even realise it until Mark texted you one day with a screenshot of Lovedays, an app that showed how many days you had been dating with your significant other, and the number 100 was staring right back at you. A lot had happened in the span of that time since it was the first relationship for the both of you a lot of trial and error had taken place during the first weeks. That pent up flame you felt had been completely let out that time at the pool, which was followed up by a bit (read: a lot) of the awkwardness of navigating through intimacy and sentimentality for the first time.
Especially when Mark’s so clumsy and his brain runs one hundred miles an hour. But you had gotten used to it. Just like he had gotten used to your incessant rants about what you’re learning in your most interesting class, even if they leave him confused 99% of the times. Mark said you confused him in general.
You called it compromising.
“Shh…” He puts his hand across your mouth, “You’re being too loud.”
You strike back by putting your tongue out and licking his palm and he yelps in surprise, pulling it back, “Oh, now you don’t want to talk about it.”
He goes back to holding your hand“, You know I’m not very vocal about… that stuff.”
“Oh, you’re vocal alright, Mark Lee.”
“La, la, la!” He screams childishly, and you roll your eyes playfully at his antics, “I can’t hear you!”
When you arrive at Jungwoo’s, only Eunseo is there, as per usual. While getting a boyfriend had changed some of the dynamics in your life, some things would never change, like your friends scheming into making you arrive on time. Or three-way hugging Jungwoo and Eunseo in a way Mark never understood how it was done, yet respected. 
Or how college was proving itself to be the best timeframe of your life. 
Sure, things weren’t perfect, though we can’t expect them to be something that isn’t by all means achievable. You still had a long way to go, growing up and maturing was a never-ending process and every day that went by you learned something new either about the world or yourself.
Yet the very imperfectness of it all was what made it all worth it. In spite of every trial and tribulation that life had thrown or was going to throw at you, you’d face it with vigour and strength.
Because you were happy. 
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noir0neko · 4 years
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sometimes i feel like ppl wanna pretend tumblr's writing standards doesnt exist but when someone actually talk about how trying to reach it tax them out, ppl go 'dont follow it!!! do you!!! be your original self!!' but end up not showing the same amount of support with the notes. and the writer ends up looking ridiculous and pathetic for voicing out their tiredness about the standards (double standards?) idk i've been thinking about this.
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Hey there :) 
I think I understand what you’re trying to say! I’m going to voice my thoughts on this and if it’s not what you meant, please correct me! I’m glad you felt you could share your thoughts with me, I am always here to chat <3 
This is going to probably be a long post so the rest is below! 
This is something that has plagued me since I began this blog almost five years ago tbh. I was super attached to getting notes and gaining followers, especially when I first started posting my work. Which created this cycle where I was writing what my followers requested and only that, and became really upset when a piece didn’t do as well as I hoped. But then I wasn’t always writing what was in my heart and forcing myself to write when I wasn’t into it, which deteriorated my passion for it over time until I took a hiatus. 
As a whole, especially in fan fiction writing, and especially for BTS, there are specific AU’s and ideas that get more attention than others. Certain genres get more notes and attention, and so do stories that center around certain members. Unfortunately, that’s something that I think all fan fiction writers have to deal with, no matter the fandom or band or book series. 
That makes it really hard, especially when first starting out, to NOT fall into the algorithm of putting out works that only fit within that genre. And then it becomes a habit and then a chore and can become not fun anymore. I definitely did that and that was a huge reason why I ended up leaving for so long. 
I have put original works or pieces that I am passionate about, but not requested on this blog and generally, they never do as well as the more “by the book” fics. It sucks and I definitely agree with what you’re saying in many ways. While the sentiment is nice, of writing what I want and being original, that’s not what is typically successful on this platform. Not in my experience. 
I still have to remind myself when I post something original to not be depressed or upset that it didn’t get as much attention as I hoped. I still have to remind myself that when I see another writer with thousands of likes on a fic they posted a week ago that it doesn’t make me any less of a writer. I also have to remind myself that my note count and my follower count doesn’t matter. But I live in a culture, especially as a woman, where those things matter very much. People see others and their worth in terms of their social status, by followers, likes, comments, etc. That mindset is hard to escape, even here on Tumblr. 
I have lost a lot of followers since I came back and made my blog more diverse than just BTS. That sucks and it hurts, because this has been my baby, but if I continued to just be BTS, then I wouldn’t be able to share my diverse passions and other interests with people and would feel constricted and restrained. Before I left, I spent a long time answering ALL of my requests and putting half ass work out and I came to the conclusion during my hiatus that I would much rather put out works I felt SO proud of and have them do alright, then put out works I thought were crappy and have them do great. 
I know I am staying as true to myself as I want to be on here and that matters. 
As a reader and a writer, it’s always easy to encourage other people and not follow through. Sometimes certain topics or genres sing to one person and don’t for another, and that’s completely okay. I do understand what you’re saying and I feel that way, as well. I sometimes post little rants to try and engage with everyone here and to help you guys get to know me better and me get to know all of you. But most of them go ignored from what I can see on my end, and it does discourage me from posting anything personal at all. 
It can be really easy to fall into a cycle of negativity on this platform, especially if I start comparing myself to other people. But I know that a lot of what I would be getting upset over is largely left to chance: people may not see what I posted come up on their dash, I just came back from a two year hiatus, pretty much all of the people I knew here before have left, and I have opened my blog to include other fandoms that some of my former followers may not want to see. There are so many variables on a website, especially one like Tumblr. 
And despite feeling discouraged sometimes, like no one really reads my writing or will care about my next fic, I know I will feel proud of myself for finishing it and sticking with what I am passionate about, so I keep going! 
~Admin Eggplant
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ilovejevsjeans · 5 years
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Dan on In the Pink 2019
Doesn’t watch the news. Finds it very negative and thinks starting the day like that isn’t good for you. Says his year -like the news- was very depressing.
There wasn’t one big thing that made him leave RB, but some little things. Said after Baku was weird.(Didn’t say more on that, sadly) Won’t say more about what went on behind the scenes. Says he’s entering a new part of his life. Lots of things changing. Felt it was the right time to make a big change and leave. Everything at Red Bull is under their conditions, wanted more freedom to do his thing.
Only recently learned what the word catalyst means. He thinks!
Nat says the guys in the team are devastated he’s leaving. And Christian was gutted.
Dan said he’s never gone back to an ex, once it’s, over its over!
Dan said it was nice to see how much everyone cared when he anounced he was leaving. To see how much he was appreciated. He knew it, but it was nice to be reminded it. He thinks he was often to nice. He was fully a part of the team so would often do things which in hindsight he shouldn’t have- like doing events the night before races. Says he will say no a bit more often now. He’s a yes man. Everyone sees him as smiley and bubbly so doesnt think he’d say no to doing things. 
Off track he’s very indecisive. Can’t make decisons at all. He over thought his decision to leave, wanted to make sure 100% that he was making the right decision.
He has an Italian passport. (Always thought he did, but nice to have it confirmed)
Thinks it will still be Mercedes and Ferrari competing for the championship. Doesn’t think Seb or Lewis have the power to stop him from joining the team.
Nat says talking to Max after the announcement he was genuinely gutted Dan was leaving. Dan says their relationship was never like the videos that RB made. Alos says he was surprised how well their relationship worked. Says Max is very vocal and stubborn. Says their very alike in their determination to do their best and often pushed each other. Usually that creates a big division in teams. They were always able to move on from on track incidents. Although “at times he wanted to grab him”. Has no problem with Max beating him fair and square. Implies that Max is pretty immature, says he’ll get better as he matures.
Says stubbornness gets in the way of acknowledging that other drivers can beat you or that you weren’t as good as them which can then lead to excuses and then they start to create tension in the team over nothing. Stubbornness can backfire if you dont use it the right way.
I think the most interesting part for me was talking about how Max and his dad (Who’s Name Will Not Grace This Blog) were very vocal when things went wrong.Says in comparison to the Verstappens he was to nice. Says he needs an more of an attitude of saying no. Says this changed a bit this year. Says he doesnt care about being viewed as an arsehole because he never really is. (I think he’s saying a lot in these two parts without going into details)
Doesnt believe in the conspirace theories. Doesn’t see what the team got out of his car failing on purpose. Says the guys he worked with are some of the best he ever worked with. He had lots of problems in quali like Max had in Mexico but never felt the need to say so publically like Max. (There’s definitely more to this story but he won’t say it!!) Says you can’t always expect it to go perfectly and should accept this.Says he celebrated so much because it was the first nice thing in a while and he knew there was a chance that he’d have a failure on race day. He wanted to enjoy it while he could. He was the underdog. Said it was nice to show when the tension was on he could pull it out of the bag when no one was expecting it. 
Says he was sure there was some people in the team who switched off towards him when he announced he was leaving. 
Monaco was the greatest moment of his career. Seeing everyone on the boat when he got back after it had a huge effect on him. He’d never seen a sea of people so happy. Made him proud. Felt he’d done more than just win a race, says there was a lot behind it. Was such a massive reflief to win it after they had problems too.Jokes that if his car had broken down completly in Monaco he would have walked away. That he couldn’t lose it twice for reasons out of his control. 
Now has a niece too! 😊
Looking forward to the sun (It was recorded before he went to Aus at the end of last year) Complains about the cold. Was tired and ready to switch off. There’s plenty of off track stuff that wore him out. 
Says the year pretty much sucked! But isn’t bitter will learn and grow from it. Its a stepping stone to his championship.
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wintersoldeer · 5 years
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ok here's some totally incoherent thoughts about endgame that i just have to write down or i might explode spoilers: i loved it also actual spoilers spoilers very spoilery spoilers
1. Steve and the goddddamn mjölnir!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!! when thor, iron man and cap were like 'aw yeahhh we're gonna fight thanos' i was like what the heckie is steve even doing there, supersoldier or not he's just a human. then thor drops his hammer and i’m like oh my gods please literally crossing my fingers. then thor’s fight is not going so well and oh no he definitely needs someone to save him! i’m like ohhhhhmygooddss. and THEN IT FINALLY HAPPENS I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR YEARS HELL YEAHHHHH
2. steve & peggy dance. yes. just yes. fucking finally. i love it. it was perfect i cried
3. clint should’ve died. (finally haha) he was my fave since before the avengers and i was so sure he was going to die back then, but then he didn’t and look what’s became of him since.......... i had a violent flashback to watching age of ultron for the first time and for the first time just hoping that my fave character (that would be clint) would just die, bc they’re screwing his character over so badly........ and most definitely it. should.  not. have. been. natasha. who. died.  that was such a bullshit i mean WHAT THE FUCK????  i mean maybe clint and natasha were the only remaining avengers that actually loved each other (?¿¿????¿¿¿?¿ tho that’s just flimsy, i’m just trying to....idek) and that’s why it had to be them on that stupid fuckin death cliff, but why did natasha have to die?? just because clint had a family (still with no actual characterization, not that i even care, or maybe i would if the movies had given me any reason to...) to return to and she didn’t??that fucking sucks and what sucks even more is that not only was natasha the only character that died (i’m not even counting tony, bc that was very Different) but she’s the only original female avenger AND it’s the same stupd fucking rock that the only original female gotg gamora died in such a bullshit way just last movie??? goddddd i hated that so much like maybe if she hadn’t been the first one to die and all the original avengers would’ve died as was i kinda hoping (tho i love happy endings so i didn’t actually hope that it would happen..), maybe then i would be okay with her being dead. now i am very much not okay, and that means very much not okay in a angry way, not in a sad way
4. speaking of death: to me tony’s was perfect. i might not be the biggest fan of how he always got the most screentime and a bigger role than other characters, but i can’t deny that he definitely is the heart of the whole mcu and it had to be him who saves the day in the end and what else could it have been that a very tony-like self-sacrifice..... god i cried. i loved that he got a funeral (even tho natasha didn’t...) and i loved his funeral with all the people and fricking harley and then the kid saying how much she likes cheeseburgers and the frickin ‘proof that tony stark has a heart’ and sfghkklkghhhh
5. i gasped audibly when i noticed that natasha was wearing the arrow necklace
6. i kinda forgot that vision ever even existed..... in the end i first thought that wanda was talking about pietro and then i was like ok well maybe not maybe she’s talking about tony or something WHICH MAKES NO SENSE LOL i don’t even remember what she actually said, but as was pointed out to me, she was probably talking about vision. who was a thing that existed... whoops
7. ugh i hate brucenat, i really thought we were over that shit already. i also very much disliked that they actually decided to go with professor hulk, but idk w/e i don’t care that much. but natasha’s death sucked tho and the one thing i do not want to see is bruce’s pain or whatever when the movie didn’t even give me the time or reason to actually grieve for her goddd that whole thing was such a bullshit
8. i did not like that thor was treated as a joke most of his screentime........
9. that stevepeggy dance tho. love it. it’ll probably take me at least another seven years to get over it
10. i fricking adored the whole going back in time thing, especially the 2012. the callbacks and the humor really worked for me, the elevator scene straight from cap2 but reversed and hail hydra and steve fighting steve and loki’s expressions when things go wrong and goddhhh i loved it all aaaaaaa, that was the moment when i was like ok i need to see this movie again immediately.... also the fact that their time travel rules were that they were just creating new paths or w/e i guess, and not actually changing what happened to them specifically... good. so many aus
11. that final battle was so perfectly epic
12. tho shouldn’t valkyrie’s (who really just doesn’t have a real name, now does she..) horse have died after being shot haha
13. i loved that clint had the gauntlet for so long, like he’s definitely the Least Qualified Person to keep it safe, why would that be his job, it was amazing
14. i hated natasha’s death with burning passion, but i loved how she and clint fought each other over who gets to throw themselves off that cliff. tho i really hoped that their ‘yeahh we know what we have to do’ would’ve rather meant that they decided to just throw red skull down bc who even knows if it even actually needs love sacrifice or w/e, a soul is a soul is a soul
15. i loved the human jarvis whatever-his-first-name-was cameo and i really need to finally watch/rewatch agent carter
16. i really liked the tony howard scene even if i thought it felt a bit iffy, bc i feel like there’s so much more to unpack w/ those daddy issues.... but maybe that scene means that there is that one universe where howard was actually a good dad. i want to believe that. yeah. (maybe not but let me dream)
17. i like how they totally forgot that sharon carter ever even existed
18. damn that moment when black panther comes through that portal
19. damn that moment when gi ant-man is giant
20. damn that final battle was so epic
21. damn that steve with mjölnir
22. this movie was SO GOOD when it was good and so mehhh when it was bad, and i’m really glad that it was just good enough that i can forgive overlook all of its flaws. (tho i will not forgive what they did to natasha, even if i can mostly ignore it when thinking about how good most of the rest of the movie was) but idk if it would’ve been perfect, maybe i wouldn’t have survived like there’s this One Huge Thing (natasha) that really brings down the movie that otherwise would’ve been just Amazing
23. i don’t know if my heart has ever beaten as fast as when steve finally picks up the hammer. never while watching a movie, at least
24. i love that carol has her short haircut, bc it bothered me so much in cpn marvel that she should not have been able to see anything when her hair was just constantly on her face haha
25. i feel nothing but seething resentment towards clint’s stupid family and that stupid family man role he is stuck with
26. why was natasha’s hair so weird and ugly. why can’t it just be red??
27. clint’s hair was weird and ugly too and i think i have finally kinda given up on mcu!clint (tho he has those small Very Good moments and i cry for what could’ve been.....we could’ve have it aaaaaalllll.... i think i’m going to watch swat (2003) again and still pretend it’s the clint backstory movie i deserve haha, it’s been ages since i’ve seen it idk if it would still work for me, i’m gonna try)
28. i love nebula tho
29. i loved the trip down memory lane! frigga!!!! the way the continuation of the avengers capturing loki just felt so natural and like it probably happened just like that! nebula and rhodey judging quill’s singing and dancing haha yes! everything! just as i was hoping it would be!
30. doesn’t really have anything to do with this movie but: i still firmly believe that coulson never died. i still firmly believe that pietro never died. 
31. falcon cap helll yeah!!
32. i guess i’ll never get my strike team delta movie with clintasha best friends soulmates and with buckynat and the red room.........  goddd there really should’ve been a black widow movie after cap2. like that was The Perfect Spot for a black widow movie, it’s really a crime that there isn’t one, and even if they make a black widow movie now, it’ll definitely be too little too late.
33. like..... a for effort..... for that female heroes girl power.... ughhhh.... scene, i guess, but that. does. not. cut. it. when you have just killed natasha
34. things i really wished they would say in some perfect moments: “hail hydra” “avengers assemble!” “i am iron man”. things they did say in those moments: “hail hydra” “avengers assemble” “i am iron man”, gogssgddd that was perfect (ok i also really did wish steve would’ve said the “i could do this all day” in the fight but couldn’t say bc the movie had just made fun of that.. i’m kinda sad but haha it’s not that big of a deal, maybe if he hadnt said it in civil war which i dont like but well...)
35. haha people are already complaining about the steve going back thing and how it’s definitely not moving on and erasing character development or whatever and HA. i finally got my stevepeggy dance i don’t care about anything else i am so happy!!!!!
36. i am so glad i managed to avoid any spoilers bc i hear that there was some pretty massive ones going around??¿?¿?
37. also: ok from here on out i am not here for any of you negative nancys complaining (probably very reasonable complaints idec) about the movie, god i really wish it was 2012 again
38. in final thoughts: i absolutely loved it and i love that it turns out that i’m apparently still very much marvel trash........ if natasha hadn’t died, especially in such a bullshit way, i would’ve been able to overlook everything else that was kinda meh about the movie and just purely and blindly loved it. i still did love it, a lot, but now there’s that bitter aftertaste.....
ok now, maybe that’s enough rambling and repeating myself....... i’m going to need to see it again asap
//EDIT
39. I FORGOT TO MENTION IT BC I FORGOT ABOUT IT but goooooooooodddd i loved nebula and tony playing that game in the beginning and tony letting nebula win ääääää
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wetookanoath · 5 years
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replies from nov. 12, 2018.
historicandgay replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Jesus christ thats horrible im sorry dude that persons just a pathetic asshole dont take their shit seriously theyre not worth it
I guess they are, man. I try my best not to take it seriously but ugh, sometimes it’s just so hard. Thanks for the support, though.
mricg replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Fucking hell. What a bitter, lifeless and friendless asshole. Don't take these words to your heart - I'm sure you're a great writer! Otherwise, you wouldn't be so popular. Anon can suck my ass. Wishing you the best, hon. Never stop writing and contributing for the fandom, unlike some people. ♥️
Thanks, sweetheart, you are very kind to stop and write to me. I feel like I shouldn’t care about these things, but sometimes... I can’t help it. It’s really hard. Thanks again for the kid words!
beachfckerblake replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Woooow they realllly need to just fuck off? That’s so incredibly uncalled for
God, I know.
leylines-on-ao3 replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Objectively speaking, that comment/review/whatever reeks with envy and insecurity. Sounds like it came deep from someone's personal grudge. Personally, I won't take any kind of negative criticism seriously if the critic didn't have the balls to come off of anon. And besides, even harsh criticism can be delivered kindly. That's just plain hate mail. You can write the best thing ever, and it won't stop haters from saying your stuff is shit. Haters always gonna haaaaaaate
I didn’t really stop to think it may be someone who has something against me. That fucking sucks even more, and honestly I hope they either get some friends or help, because wow-- they shouldn’t be giving so much importance to me and my work if they don’t like it this much.
Thanks for the advice, and the support. You are awesome!
occassionalfanficwriter replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
It's an AU anon (╯°□°)╯︵(\ .o.)\
EXACTLY. GOd, this is the best reply to this anon ever. Thank you!
bloodyroses2 replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Bet they are insecure about their own writing. I like to get constructive criticism, but that is just mean and UNNECESSARY
Right? I can shut up and take when someone comes and says they think so and so could had been done better and they tell me why and how, but when they just come and say this kind of bullshit? Sorry, that’s not critisism, it’s hate.
devilessyeet replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Whomst the fuck must I fight
LMAO, Ily <3
waldenbeckboys replied to your photo “You know... I know people didn’t like Gravitation like I hoped, but...”
Your writing no matter what is yours to experiment with and take ownership of. The fault is not of the text you created, because experiments are inherently good. Rather the fault is of the reader who can't appreciate a text that is different to conformist texts. The faults found in your form are faults you decide are there, and thus change stylistically. So some people don't like it? In the end you are the creator of your narrative and how you create is limitless and always a fruitful learning Experience that you decide what to take from it. Its not a mistake. Its not bad. Its different and it's something you tried. If you like it, do it again. You are the author, and the reader chooses to see what they want. Its okay if they don't choose your image. What matters is you and what matters is you keep writing and developing the image
I know I should ignore the person, but it’s just hard sometimes. Especially because I put a lot of effort into that story in particular. I wrote it for an entire year. And I can take people not liking it as I thought they would, but people attacking me for it, it’s just overwhelming in such a bad way.
I didn’t expect actual hate for a fanfiction, it’s honestly something I didn’t ask for.
Thanks for the advice, I’m trying my best to follow.
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missjackil · 6 years
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A Dose of SPN Positivity!
For those who know me, they know I love this show.... flaws and all! im critical sometimes, but not overly. Bottom line, I am addicted to the story and Im in love with Sam and Dean.  With Season 14 about to start, and we’re all getting antsy, too much negativity has been flying around, so I want to share some things i love most about the show, and maybe make some of you reflect for a moment and think “Yeah, that is pretty great” and smile.  Supernatural has been referred to as “The Little Show That Could” and to me, its such a fitting description. Logically, on the surface, it looks like it just can’t. I mean, how can a fantasy/horror show, survive with such a low budget, light special effects, and not very scary most of the time. I mean hell, they dont even have that many monsters that look like monsters, so why has it lasted longer than a season or 2? Let alone, 14 seasons with no signs of stopping yet. First and foremost is obvious. Sam and Dean and the actors who play them.  This essay will be full of gushing about these boys, so if you dont feel like enduring such a hardship, scroll on past. if that interests you.....
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Yes these 2 fabulous men are the life blood of this show. Without them, we’d have nothing. THEY are the reason, this little show can, and does. Even those who like one and not the other, even if they dont realize it, the one they prefer is who they are because of the other. Both of their qualities and flaws can be directly linked to their influence on each other. If for some reason the other was gone for good, the one left will change drastically. As we see when one is dead or in grave danger, albeit temporarily, the other changes. Sam is no longer sweet, laid back and practical, and Dean is no longer funny, charming, and nurturing.  In fact, they both seem to become an amplified version of their brother. When Sam dies, Dean gets quiet, sometimes too quiet. He also gets methodical and focused. You may get lucky and just get shot in the back, but if he chooses to speak, he chooses his words to let you know shits gonna hit the fan. “You have my brother, and you have one chance, just one, to hand him over, and if he isnt in one peice, when I find you, and I WILL find you, I will take you apart” Sam on the other hand is boiling over with emotion. My boy becomes savage. He doesnt always choose a lot of words to say, he gets his whole point across most of the time with “WHERES MY BROTHER???!!!!” This... my friends, is good stuff! These things couldnt be done with such beauty without Jared and Jensen. Their offscreen relationship, whatever it may be, is wonderful. Theres no denying the love and respect they have for each other. They are very supportive of each other, and help make the other better at their job. They’re not typical actors who have a work relationship but otherwise spend time with each other. They genuinely enjoy being together, and this shows on screen. When two people are this good at their jobs, and with each other, you just have to keep watching. Other things I love about the show, are kinda small. Some maybe youve never noticed, but maybe now you will and enjoy them too, like... Brains vs Brawn: At first glance, we all go Sam=brains, Dean=brawn right? But thats not actually the case. Dean is far from stupid, and Sam is nowheres near a wimp. Dean teases Sam about being a nerd, and Sam doesnt mind, he kinda wears his nerdiness like a badge of honor. Dean will never admit to being a nerd, but he is. He’s read Vonnegut, knows every old west cowboy statistic, and likes LARPing. Sam, though a bookworm, is one tough mofo. hes tall and muscular and has shown to be a little freakishly strong. He can also take a great deal of pain. And though Dean is known more to be the fighter, he can be very warm and nurturing. And nerdy Sam can make you shit your pants with just a look if you piss him off just right. I absolutely LOVE this balance!! Its one of my favorite things! Old school vs New; A lot has changed in 14 seasons. The brothers have grown, as well as the story, but their roots are never forgotten. They’re still driving around in the same car. Hell. Baby has become the 3rd lead! Even though they have mom back, they never forgot her, or dad, and both were spoken of often throughout the series. They refer back to old days often, so we can all get a feel of nostalgia when we remember too. Most episodes bring the deep past up in one way or another, I love this! Loss and Death: I know so many of us complain that they die and come back too much, but I have a real appreciation for it, The circumstances are always different, and so are the methonds of coming back. Sometimes the death isnt serious, or they dont “seem” dead, like in First Blood or Dark Side of the Moon, when there may have been an initial “wtf?” we got to see them in heaven, and in first blood, they came right back. However there was deep seriousness in All Hell Breaks Loose, No Rest for the Wicked,  Do You Believe in Miracles, Swan Song, Red Meat and Beat The Devil that you felt the dying brother’s physical pain, and then the emotional pain of the surviving brother.  No matter how many times they die, they still hit these types of episodes out of the park. WE may know theyre coming back, but they dont. it still crushes them and I love this! Sam and Dean’s Sexuality: I love that their sexual natures are different, but theyre both okay. Dean is sexually active, enjoys porn and vocalizes some fantasies, Though Sam can tease him a little, its just brotherly ribbing, its not judgemental or trying to make Dean feel bad. Sam isnt overly sexual, he’s gone many seasons without sex at all. He doesnt appear to enjoy porn, we know he doesnt like strip clubs, and its NOT because he’s unattractive!! Dean teases him but he doesnt try to make him feel bad. When he has heavily suggested that Sam get laid, its just because he wants him to have fun. Dean even said he appreciated that Sam wanted to stay pure and waited. Otherwise, its okay that Sam is (at least kinda) asexual. Neither are shunned or judged because of their sexuality. Winsync: This is one of the greatest things. if they didnt do this, we wouldnt care, we would never say “It would be a much better show if the brothers mirrored each other, or did the same thing at the same time” but for whatever reason, TPTB wanted this, and it works so well! Its an intimacy we can see without the show going OTT bromantic. Its the connection, the closeness, and being soulmates. I LOVE this! Soulmates and Brothers: Normally a show will make soulmates out of lovers. It’s not often they do it with siblings. It helps justify their deep love and devotion. It adds an additional layer to their relationship. It makes them so tied together that they will share eternity in heaven together, and not just in their memories. This was a very good decision made by Kripke and crew, so we will all know they cant live without each other, even if they just lived in different homes. I love this! Meta Madness: Though I dont like all the meta episodes, I do love the fact they can do them, and DO do them. Because the whole premise is the supernatural, nothing is impossible, even AUs and cartoon worlds. Sometimes I might roll my eyes, but its awesome to me that they can experiment this way and see how it goes. I Love this!! The Bros are Oblivious: Sam and Dean have been through basically everything, and have seen and done everything, yet they seem shocked when people say theyre famous, or when they heard people tell stories about them. Occasionally they grasp their importance, like when they tell people they save the world, but they were impressed that Asa fixed killed 5 Wendigo, and had an Angel Blade, and Father Luca met the Pope. I mean God hung out at the bunker and made them pancakes! Their Heads Dont Get Too Big: Every once in a while, TPTB make sure we, and the boys, remember that they are only human. Even if they lock away Satan, kill Death, save God’s life, they’re just men. Remember when Bobby died and Dean was sure he wouldnt because “its just one bullet!” ? I can see how it would seem so silly to Dean, and even to us, that someone who has lived through so much, could die from a stupid little bullet. I think that one of the smartest things the show has done in ages, was to have Sam tortured by Toni and friend. Sam was so bold and cocky (and need I say sexy?) telling Toni he’d been tortured by the devil himself, and what could she do to him... He soon learned Hell torture or not,  cold showers still suck, blow torches to the feet still hurt like hell, and a mortal human can still fuck with his head. And Dean, well he can still be put on the injured reserve list from a jacked up leg. IMO S12 was great for re-humanizing the Winchesters. I love this! Comedy to Tragedy: Some of the best episodes, started out funny and ended in a tear jerker. Mystery Spot, Just My Imagination, and Beat The Devil top my list. I love the emotional rollar coaster, Coming away exhausted from an episode is the bestthing I can ask for! They havent tried it the other way around, tragedy to comedy, and thats good. If you are crying at the beginning and laughing later, it doesnt justify the grief and you may feel let down and hollow after. SPN is great with having some humor in even the most depressing episodes, but they know when using it and leaving it out is best. I love this! Brohugs: My #1 favorite thing, aside from the hug in 6.1, they have all been beautiful. Not once, have the boys lost the love, or even repeated the same hug. Each one conveys a different message, a different emotion, but all say “I love you more than everything” and I wont ever get tired of them! I would do anything for a single hug in my whole life that had such love in it, as any Winchester bro hug! I.LOVE.THIS!! Now I hope if you read this far, you got to smile a few times, and a spark was added to the fire that you fell in love with 14 seasons ago. Here’s to S14, i hope its filled with all of these wonderful things!
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scyre · 6 years
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ayy its ya girl c! i’ve done up a little draft with the slight changes that were made now that we’re living in the moden au!! please read more for ... more.
DESMOND SAYRE
monty might not love social media and technological advances but they changed his life. his family still sucked, always grasping for power and rejecting change, but at least he didn’t feel as alone... not when he could text his friends and get immediate answers back from them. not having the time to dwell and sink in self pity really helped him.
ya boy also didn’t have to live his life thinking something was wrong with him bc he wasn’t sexually attracted to people like he was supposed to. he had access to google, he learned what asexuality and the spectrum was, and he knew more about himself and didn’t have to just ... not know.  i think this made him sleep around less, get to know people a bit more, and while he’s still not an open kind of guy he didn’t really date much. it did however mean he stayed with laurel way longer than he should have... put up with way more crazy than he would have in the past.  
he has instagram but never posts. seriously, he has one post from a year ago. he does like things though and is always commenting on posts. sometimes nice, sometimes not. he doesn’t have facebook, twitter, youtube, or snapchat. he thinks the snapchat filters are dumb and ruin perfectly good pictures. he also hates selfies and thinks they’re dumb.  why does he even have insta? it’s probably the only way to stay up to date on hogwarts gossip. 
i do think because everything online can be so negative, and escalate so quickly, monty never would have came out and admitted that he was bisexual/demisexual except to the people he’s told in canon. it’s still something he plans on taking to his grave and obliviating out of anyone who knew.  the gay shame is real. get a grip boy.  
i think he’s definitely got the aesthetic of like... the guy with gauges in his ears, maybe he has his eyebrow pierced, and he definitely still has the nipple piercing. i think he probably has more tattoos, exclusively wears leather jackets, combat boots, and ripped jeans, and wears a lot of plain colored shirts or black shirts. he still loves black. he will always love black. he wears a lot of it. 
he hasn’t appropriated a lot of muggle culture into his day to day. i feel like he only got a phone in the last year and is awful at remembering to check it.  it’s probably an older model too because he didn’t care what they gave him and it’s slate grey with no case because he lives on the edge. yolo.  he doesn’t have any muggle cars or anything like that but he definitely has a netflix account and television because why not.  his favorite show would probably be something like the good place.
ya boy still flunked out of hogwarts because that’s just how his life goes. he’s repeating his final year and you bet ya ass people tweeted about THAT for awhile. we love vague tweeting.  
PHOENIX VASQUEZ
phoenix’s childhood is still relatively the same; he was adopted by the vasquez family. however, adopting wasn’t as easy as it had been back in the day because lycanthropy wasn’t as frowned upon in this decade as it would have been before. while people didn’t love it, it wasn’t something that meant no other family was interested, or other people weren’t willing to bend red tape.  which means nix didn’t move around as much as a kid because his parents were able to keep working at their jobs in the states!! they only moved to the UK when he was fifteen as his grandmother was sick.  so basically he moved to and started going to hogwarts in year 5 instead of year 1.  
personality wise, nix is very similar. he’s still very awkward, very quiet, and is a genuinely nice person to everyone he meets. he’s more often about his lycanthropy as his parents never begged him to keep it a secret and it’s not uncommon for him to be making werewolf jokes at his own expense. he thinks it’s funny. 
technology!! nix loves snapchat. he’s not huge on technology bc he’s kind of a hipster -- he still uses ballpoint pens and notebooks, doesn’t own a computer and only has a dinky phone that texts and calls. no data. he can only use snapchat when he’s near a wifi hotspot so you’ll sometimes see him getting frustrated with his phone when it starts buffering and flopping. he DOES borrow a friend’s computer to upload podcasts though because he’s a podcaster!!!  he has a podcast called ‘howlcast’ and he does reviews of mainstream media depictions of werewolves and compares them to the reality. he also interviews lycanthropy specialists, advocates, and famous lycanthropes to talk about the werewolf experience. he kind of loves it?? he puts out an episode a week and does a Q&A on twitter straight after the episode goes up for any fans of the podcast. 
nix doesn’t have a luxury broom or any of those fancy toys that the rich kids usually sport. he likes his regular ‘ol magical broomstick and doesn’t think a suped up car is something that he needs in his life. he good. 
modern 2018 phoenix also died his hair a bluey teal color! he thought it was fun and tbh he is living his best life.  
LAUREL DIAN
laurel’s family aspire to be the kardashians.  they have a b level reality show, think something on tlc so they have their little cult following that laurel  l o v e s.   she loves the attention and loves the perks that come with it.  
her aesthetic is probably like.. forever 21 / hipster / hippe chick.  she wears a lot of crop tops, high waisted skirts, floral prints, lace, etc. everything .. and i mean everything ... is accentuated with red lipstick. that’s her aesthetic x 100.  she has an iphone with a bedazzled phone case and probably drives a really compact car.  her broom would be luxury too and she’s definitely on tinder select looking for cute boys (or girls) to bring home with her.  
as for social media.. she has her hand in a lot of different platforms. she prefers facebook over most of the other ones. she also loves pinterest and is always pinning home decor ideas, cooking ideas, etc.  she’s a feminist and sjw when it comes to twitter. it���s not uncommon to see her beefing with someone on twitter because they’re trolling or being rude/racist/sexist/etc.  she loves tearing people a new asshole when they decide to spread their hate online. fuck off trolly boys. 
she’s been in two high profile relationships in her life. the first was with monty sayre and that was a fucking nightmare.  a lot of their relationship was caught on screen and its cringey whenever people tweet her pictures of monty and his new fiancee, or share photos of the two of them from when they were together.  she might have dumped him but that doesn’t mean that she wants to be reminded of it all the time 
she still works with dragons and they are frequently featured on her instagram, snapchat, and on the show.  some of them even have their own little cult followings. its weird but kind of beautiful, 
PIPPA CARSTAIRS
pippa being born in the 2000′s is the best thing that ever happened to her. truly. britney? christina? pink? oh my god she’s living. she loves pop music, loves concerts, and has a passion for professional cheerleading bc it's a legitimate sport now y’all! it’s her dream to be a professional cheerleader. maybe in the magical world if quidditch has them now?? we just dont know. 
her aesthetic is blair waldorf chic. maybe a little more revealing.  she definitely still wears heels, ignores dress codes, and always has her hair straightened perfectly.  she is very very good with makeup -- think contouring and all that jazz.  she looks like a million bucks literlly every day. it’s incredible. 
pippa has a luxury car. i’m thinking it’s probably an suv?? she definitely would want something bigger and not your typical girly girl car.  i’m thinking a black cadillac escalade. she doesn’t have a broom bc she still hates flying and heights. fuck that shit.  as for technology, she’s got it all -- snapchat, twitter, instagram, youtube, etc.  she also definitely has a youtube channel dedicated to beauty tutorials and has thousands of dedicated viewers. she’s done everything from contouring, costume make-up, etc.  her channel is especially popular around halloween as she does a special called ‘the twelve days of pippaween’ where she does different costume makeup every day for 12 days. her most popular to date is ursula from the little mermaid!  she also definitely has the latest iphone, macbook, etc, and it’s probably all rose gold. she’s a rose gold girl. 
currently in the middle of an instagram war with her ex boyfriend. they’re both shady as fuck with their vague posting on finstas and it’s mESSY.  we love a good mess!!!!!   (this good be a good wanted connection if someone wanted to be her messy ex for the AU!!) 
ALARIC ROWLE
i feel like wizards having access to technology changed things significantly for rowle. he was able to track down his birth father’s parents much easier and probably moved back to the UK when he was much younger. he definitely learned more about the war and was drawn into anyone whose narrative reflected what he wanted to hear -- that his parents were martyrs and that the dark lord had been in the right the whole time. 
he definitely kept dueling. when his hand acted up, i think he would have been so desperate to fix it that he would have given into muggle medicines and treatments. he probably wears a splint on his wrist and his wandwork isn’t AS quick as it could be but he’s still one of the top duelists in the country. seriously, ya boy was good. him getting to continue being awesome might make him less of a douche. maybe.  he definitely competes bc glory and loves every minute of it. a rowle who is less grumpy and super cocky? we stan. 
he’s definitely a reddit troll. i feel like there’s a death eaters subreddit or something and he basically lives there and talks to other death eater sympathizers, former, or whatever, and slowly await the return of the ‘great days’.  think alt right but .. y’know magical.. ugly.
he still teaches dada bc initially he needed money to pay off some wicked crazy medical bills for all the specialists and acupuncture and weird shit he did to fix his hands.  even with the money he earns when he’s duelling, he’s in debt up to his ears.
i think he still has the scars that marr his face though bc as much as he will use splints or salves on his hands he is not gonna fucking undergo plastic surgery in the muggle world. he’d rather choke. 
ANSEM WARBECK
ansem warbeck deserves social media. he is living his best life. he is definitely the guy who is constantly using ‘find my iphone’ bc he lost it, has a cracked screen because he forgot to buy the shatterproof screen protector, and changes his netflix password weekly bc he can never remember what it was. he’s also the snapchat king. i’d say he has 100+ streaks with as many people as he can convince to keep it up and he sends angry snaps when you ruin his streaks. they’re like his babies. one time he was running a fever and still managed to make streaks. there’s no excuse. 
he still works as a curse breaker but i feel like he’s really like... stepped up gringott’s social media game. i feel like he took it upon himself to get them an instagram and is always uploading picture of whatever ‘cool’ treasure they can find. griphook keeps telling him they’re going to get robbed if he doesn’t stop bragging but ansem never listens. 
the warbeck family is probably one of the few that have not acclimated to the technological changes at all. they won’t have anything to do with electricity, social media, or anything of the sort and look down on people that do.  so ansem with his luxury brooms and his waffle iron are basically sacreligious to his family and his mom always cries whenever he talks about these things. it’s a whole Thing and just reinforces that arson is the best and ansem is the Worst. 
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