#u know half the time i’m like i was born for academics then half the time i’m like someone take me out back and put me down | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

marky4l · 3 years

Text

Step by Step / Mark Lee

step by step / mkl

pairing: Mark Lee x Reader

From an innocent childhood friendship to a juvenile high school rivalry to a forced pairing for a Psychology paper, it seems you and Mark just can’t avoid each other. But something’s a little different now.

genre: fluff, angst (a little bit), suggestive themes, childhood friends (barely mentioned!) to enemies to lovers, college!au

notes: lia yeonjun chan hyuck jeno all make tiny appearances

word count: 17.2k

hi!!! this is my first work nd I’m really excited to put this out I’d looove if you could give it a read :^) hound me on my inbox if u wanna i take anything

“Remember when we were best friends in fifth grade?”

His voice is a little quiet, and there’s a very obvious undertone of boredom, but you hum softly anyway, nodding, as if to question why you would ever forget. Fifth grade was a suburban brew of Star Wars marathons, figuring out the world, and Harry Potter merchandise littering your house. Fifth grade was lemonade and oatmeal, knitted sweaters, and sneaking into your mom’s vanity to swipe her makeup. And fifth grade was Mark—bright eyed, geeky Mark, with his Death Star replica and weird electronica music.

Mark, who had an affinity with Troy from High School Musical and Spiderman, and wanted to be just like them. Mark, who would show up grinning to your front door everyday, pie dish in his nimble grip. He was the one who had opened a lemonade stand at the corner of your block so he could buy you the Gryffindor scarf you’d been nagging your mom about the entire holiday season. He was the one who learned the chords to your favorite Jonas Brothers song and sang it to you each time you requested it.

“Yes, I do,” you answer instead, clearing your throat.

You attempt to push down all the memories that just ran through your head and adjust the grip you have on your pen. “Well,” Mark continues, “that was ages ago. Beats me why it ever happened.”

The timidity is replaced with a tidal wave of teasing, and the annoyance that had disappeared is beginning to crawl all over you. Again. You roll your eyes and pull up the slides your professor had assigned. “Beats me why we even ended up in the same university, let alone the same class,” you jab, “if you thought I forgot about how you outright failed our Spanish classes in high school, I didn’t.”

Your friendship with Mark had reached its unfortunate demise to the hands of middle school, where you had branched out with your interests and began to stick to societal (as societal as school can get) norms. He had joined the geeky, cool kids; you hadn’t joined a specific social circle, but you had a best friend, Lia, and you were generally good with everybody.

Somehow, despite you both being in good graces with everyone, you had a deep-seated dislike for one another that stemmed from an intense academic rivalry. Specifically, the competition to become school council president. That had ended now, seeing as though you were both in college, but the abrasiveness of your banter had never worn off.

“Oh, because you were so good at Physics?” he says, voice even. His brow is raised. “We all have our strong suits, you know. You’re one to talk.” You decide to pay him no mind, instead jotting down the criteria for your final project in Psychology 1—something about the stages of grief. You’re supposed to relate it to a different human process and show how they fit with one another.

It’s absolute fucking bullshit, and the fact that Mark Lee became your partner among a hundred students is beyond you. Absolutely beyond you.

He nears your screen, reading the content of your project, eyes squinted—you’d noticed his lack of decent eyesight years ago, but it seemingly hadn’t improved. “Relate the stages of grief…hold up, what? That’s difficult as hell. What are we supposed to do, lose a loved one?” You roll your eyes, turning to him. “No, Mark. The point is to find another process that happens gradually and relate it to this—denial, bargaining, anger. Get it?”

He stares back at you. “No.”

You groan audibly, turning back to your notebook. “This is impossible. Can we just switch partners so I won’t have to deal with you?” He smirks, kicking his feet up on the library table. Absently, you note how nice his sneakers look. Reclining onto the seat, he shuts his eyes as if to contemplate.

“I heard through the birdvine our professor’s the type to pair up people she thinks would look good together for shits and giggles. Girls and boys, boys and boys, you name it. Johnny”—he’s referring to a guy who’s a year above yours, studying Biology—“tells me over five couples have been born out of this class. Isn’t that nice?” You scoff, scrolling mindlessly through the slides to keep yourself distracted.

“It really is. A shame we won’t be adding to that list, because I can’t fucking stand you.” He laughs loudly, the vibration of it remaining in the deadly silent air. “I can stand fucking you, though,” he says, and then, before you can even blush, “All jokes. Don’t get your hopes up, ‘kay?” He’s quick to get up, just as flustered as you are at the uncharacteristic phrase that just left his mouth. He collects his jacket and jogs out of the library with a small, half-assed bye under his breath.

—

Lia’s eyes bore into yours. “He actually said that? I’m telling you, he’s some weird kinky guy under that whole cool geek persona. High school Mark would never have. Oh my god. He’s a furry—he’s a furry!” She flops back onto your bed, laughing. You poke at her waist in protest.

“It’s because he’s surrounded by too many weird classy fuckboys. You know, those that think that they’re all that because they haven’t roofied a girl.” You’re half-joking, and you’re really only referring to maybe two guys you’ve happened to see Mark with. As if to read your mind, Lia continues. “Hey, I heard some of them are okay. They’re not, like…those ‘nice guys’, if you get me.”

“I do,” you quip. “But I guess I’m just trying to find a way to justify the whole 360 in Mark. I mean, in high school, he was still nerdy—well, you know. Shy. But jump to sophomore year of uni and he’s suddenly some…” You rack your head for a proper term. “Sex god?” your friend asks, holding in a laugh. “Oh, eat shit,” you fire back, “really, eat shit. And while you’re at it, feed me some, too, because I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to turn in at the end of the term. Like, Jes—”

There’s a faint knock at the door, and then. “Lia? It’s—uh, it’s me, Daniel? Er, Daniel Choi.” Your wide eyes can’t possibly match Lia’s as she tugs on a decent-looking pullover and puts it on. As she swings the door open, you manage to sufficiently hide yourself under your duvet and attempt to hear their conversation.

“You know, it’s okay if you leave out the whole…saying your full name at the door part. Trust me…I know you,” she jokes, and you hear him laugh before you detect the crinkling of a plastic bag. “Chinese. Uh, I bought some extra for your best friend, because I’m not gonna pretend I don’t see the sentient blob on the bed.”

You pull the blanket off and smile sheepishly. “Hey, Daniel,” you say, “thanks for the food. I owe you an empty room next time, I swear by it. It’ll be easy, since I’m gonna be”—you heave yourself off the bed and onto the floor, where they’re both sitting—“holed up at the library for the next few weeks.”

Lia nods, chewing her chow mein, and then when she’s done, she explains to Daniel your whole huge Psychology end-of-term paper about stages and grief and whatever, oh also she’s partnered with Mark Lee, this guy that we both know from high school, and she dislikes his guts, oh you know him?

“Wait. You know him?” You repeat, and Daniel nods, ruffling his black mullet. “His room’s, like, three away from mine. He’s studying Theoretical Physics, right? Yeah, he’s always in his room doing school shit, but every weekend he’s out with the upperclassmen. He’s probably out now, ‘cause it’s Friday. How he even charmed them, though, is a mystery.”

Mid-dumpling, you roll your eyes. “Y’know, the hardest part is being partnered with him. But also, even finding what kind of gradual process to relate denial and anger too is weirdly hard. It feels like I could find something, but I haven’t gotten it…quite…” you trail off, your eyes landing on Lia and Daniel across you—they’re smiling softly at each other, and you distinguish their fingers interlocking quietly, as if you wouldn’t notice.

“…yet. Except maybe I have. How would you want to participate in my end-of-term paper?” Their gazes turn to yours, and you nod frantically. “Oh my god, I’m a genius! Seriously! Falling in love! Yes! It’s denial—anger—whatever, whatever! It makes perfect sense. The end is acceptance, too! Oh god, Li, it’s perfect. I will owe you for life if you help me out.”

“Wait, what? You dove straight into it, what—recap, please,” Lia asks, and you compose yourself before explaining giddily.

“Falling in love. It happens gradually, and we can compare it to the stages of grief. Seeing as you and Daniel are headed right there, we can use you as some test subjects. It’s not required to have respondents or subjects, really, it’s just an extensive paper, but it might help get the grade up. This is gonna be great, and if you ever wanna back out, you can, because it’s not mandatory.” Lia and Daniel meet eyes briefly, and then slowly, nod. “Okay, that’s pretty smart,” Daniel says, “I’m up for it. Are you?” Lia nods, slowly and hesitantly, and you smile widely. “You two just saved my Psych grade. I’ll be at Giselle’s tonight. Just…not on my bed.” You grab your keys and phone and bound out of your room, straight into the elevator at the end of the hall.

The elevator door nearly closes when a Converse-clad foot steps in, and your eyes rake up the figure, eventually landing on his face.

“Jesus fuck,” you mumble, “you must be kidding me.”

Mark enters the elevator with a small, teasing smile, hands tucked into his jacket’s pockets. “Hey, dude, what’s up? Was on your floor on my stop down to get some money Lucas owed me,” he says, “this is actually a godsend, because my genius brain found us a project idea. Relate grief to something else gradual? Easy as pie. Falling in lo—”

You cut him off before he can finish, “Falling in love, right. I thought of it first, earlier,” you say profusely, absently noting the pettiness in your tone. He whistles. “No need to get all possessive over an idea the previous classes have used before, man.” You continue, ignoring him. “Whatever. Lucky for our grades, I went the extra mile to get us some test subjects. Do you know the two Chois? Lia and Daniel?”

He nods once, “Yeah, their PDA on Instagram is fucking sickening, but I see your technique, and I like that—we get some extra data from their god awful PDA.” You nod once, and he continues. “It’s nearing 11 on a Friday night. Whose party are you headed to?”

“You’re welcome for the test subjects,” you gripe. “Anyway, I was so giddy about coming up with it, I just left them to…well, fornicate. As a compromise for being lab rats. I texted my…” you realize you’re starting to share too much to a guy you typically dislike talking to, and then there’s a silence in the air that’s painfully awkward.

“You texted your…?” Mark asks. “My friend, but she’ll be home at 1AM, so I’m out to kill time. No parties, just…I dunno.” He nods again, and then the elevator lets out a blissful ding. You step out simultaneously, and then he faces you. “Look, it’s freezing out, you’re in shorts and a puffer coat, and it’s three hours to 1AM, so I doubt you’ll get far.” You scoff at his words despite feeling your legs shake from the breeze outside. “I’ll be fine, dumbass.”

“Just concerned,” he says, in a tone that sounds more blank than annoyed, but he turns and heads toward the door anyway. He swivels back around briefly. “It’s in Johnny’s apartment. Just a couple people, if you get bored freezing.” He jogs outside then, and you inwardly appreciate the small gesture, but again, annoyance returns just as quickly. You linger a bit before heading out yourself, walking briskly to a local Japanese restaurant. You consider this an opportunity to have some me time, some rest after a shitty week in university. Lasting ’til 1AM alone and entertained would not at all be a problem.

You last one ramen bowl and head to Johnny’s apartment.

—

When Johnny Suh answers the door, he’s clad in a makeshift shower curtain gown of sorts, and is flushed and very buzzed all over. He hikes up the top to cover his chest and laughs profusely. “Did Mark invite you?” Behind him is a sizeable group of just about twenty people, which looks like forty in a cramped communal space. You’d been here before—Johnny likes to invite just about anyone to get stoned and listen to Kid Cudi on Fridays, and you had pushed Lia to accompany you before.

You distantly spot the kitchenette, the small living room, and then the two bedroom doors opposing each other. “The rule was to show up wearing something not marketed as clothing, but Mark didn’t follow the rules, so. Anyway, you’re off scot-free, too…” he pauses, “…if you take off the puffer coat. We’ve got heating, anyway. Free booze and weed, too.” You figure being in a flimsy tank top isn’t so bad—you’re sure half the people here are already getting laid or trying to, and nobody would really pay attention to you.

You shrug off the coat as Johnny steps aside to let you in, hugging it close to your body and navigating your way to the kitchen. The granite counters are filled with various bottles of booze, and you also note the cigarettes and blunts lining the island. You peruse the brands before settling on a sealed can of decidedly not-so-cheap-looking beer, and crack it open to take a swig. It’s warm and fucking disgusting, but there’s not much glitz in an “anything but clothing” off-campus college party anyway.

There are several people scattered among the living area, passing around a blunt—another group is playing suck and blow. You make your way over to the cheap couch on the far end of the room, taking a seat on the arm and stretching out your hand to claim the blunt. It’s Jae who passes it to you—Jaehyun Jung, an upperclassman whose infamy (for wearing nothing but toilet paper and running through campus) greatly surpasses him. “Who are you?” he asks, and you holler your name back over the Kanye West song playing in the background. “Mark invited me,” you tack onto the end as compensation.

He nods in understanding, watching you take a drag and pass it back to him. He only hands it back, saying, “It’s nearly done, just finish it,” and getting up to probably get some booze or another blunt.

You scan the area for a better place to cherish your weed, because you’re definitely not going to do it on the arm of a couch housing three couples making out to the high heavens. You spot an open window and a fire escape just beside the kitchen and walk over, ducking into the cool night air. It’s not quiet, it never is, and you treasure the peace that comes with the noise, closing your eyes and trying to milk the last few drags. All that is flushed down the drain when somebody kicks you out of your reverie and your last two drags are falling down, through the grills of the fire escape.

“What the fuck?” You look up to meet, of course, Mark’s gaze, teasing and mischievous.

“That wasn’t fucking funny, asshat. Get away from me.” You get up instantly, ducking back into the house and searching for your coat. It’s (very unfortunately) buried under a couple who have escalated from making out to borderline public indecency.

“Fuck it,” you mumble, swinging the door open and mentally preparing yourself for the cold once you get to the sidewalk, floors down. Mark follows suit, a laugh gracing the atmosphere around the two of you. “You know, I forgot how fun it is to make you pissed off. I did it all the time in eighth grade when I told our teacher you knew the solution to the Physics problems.” You’re fucking pissed. However petty, you’re fucking annoyed that you couldn’t finish the blunt, and you pay no attention to him.

He badgers on anyway. “Hey—it was a mistake, I wanted to say hi to you.” You scoff, finally turning—“Why? Because we’re friends? We’re not. We’re Psych partners, we came from the same high school, we share a couple mutual friends. But you and I are not friends, not objectively, anyway. Please, Mark. I only just re-acquainted myself with you today, but, like, you’re already so annoying!” You’re at the elevator now, and when the doors slide open, you step inside and let them close at once. You barely catch the unreadable look on his face in your annoyance, and you lean against the wall, shutting your eyes and breathing heavily.

How you’d even get to Giselle’s, or how you would wait out the remaining half-hour before she got home, was just up to whichever higher power happened to be witnessing you that night.

—

The door of your professor’s office closes with a saddening click. You stare back at her name, embossed on the wood in bold, in defeat, accepting your fate with a heavy heart. Just fifteen minutes prior, you had entered with a whole spiel prepared on how you just had to swap with somebody from your class so you wouldn’t have to work with Mark. This speech had occurred twice now—with your TA, and then once with your professor. This was your second chance, your redemption: so you prepared notes, you prepared convincing words—you had a point.

But your professor simply shooed you away, muttering how she didn’t have time for you because she was going to be receiving hundreds of papers in a few weeks’ time from a different class and she, quite honestly, couldn’t be bothered. You bite your lip, thinking back to the previous Friday—it was nearing two weeks since your small outburst at Mark. Since then, you’d expected to build a silent rapport of just working, observing Lia and Daniel, and then parting. And that was almost it. You would show up to your so-called “lab rat sessions”, cup of warm caramel latte in hand, and work.

Except Mark would constantly make noise, jeer, swipe your pen, and do other things that got on your nerves.

“You’re going to have to stop trying sometime,” Lia says, backhugging you. She’d been waiting outside. You let your head loll back onto her shoulder and whine. “Do you know when you’re so frustrated you want to cry? Yeah? That’s exactly how it is, Li. I can’t keep up with this for another two, three months. It’s like he’s not even, like, fuck, like he’s not even trying, y’know? We’re building the foundation of a pages-long paper. This isn’t some finals essay he can bullshit in three hours.”

You groan as Lia pulls away from you, whirling you around to face her. “It’ll be fine, I swear to you. I’ll help out, anytime you need it. I promise. If I start hating Daniel, I’ll even pretend like I’m in love with him. Head over heels.” You let yourself laugh and pull out your phone as you two begin to walk towards your dorm.

She tsks. “We’re gonna have a thing tonight, right? Like, a lab rat session?”

You nod, squinting over your calendar app. “Yeah, at around 5:30 to 6. It’ll be quick, but Mark and I are gonna have to stay behind to divide the work for the general paper and then start. Hopefully we can get some outlining done by tonight…so don’t wait up,” you sigh. She smiles apologetically, pinching your waist affectionately.

“Daniel and I will totally help you. He’s a Mark anti now. I told him about the party outburst thing.” You had sent her a slew of texts that night, and like every other story you had told (save for the most private ones), Daniel had caught wind of it. You’re half sure he was capable of blackmailing you at that point. “Good,” you shoot back, “I’m going to need all the anti-Mark force I can get.”

“Why?” You both turn to see Mark standing idly behind you. There’s a beat, and then: “You look like an inane stalker,” you retort, turning to continue walking. Lia follows suit—with the two of you, the vibe of the atmosphere would always come easy. If one was mad, the other would act mad, too.

“Hey,” Mark repeats, falling into step beside you, “why do you need an anti-Mark force? Tell me.” At this point, your nerves are on fire and your blood is boiling, and you’re beginning to envision beating him up on the quad. “Mark, it’s been great, but we’re going to our dorm, and in case you don’t want to catch a restraining order, I suggest you get off at your floor instead of following us like a creep,” you say sweetly, quickening your steps until he’s far behind you, smiling. Fucking asshole.

“I’ll see ya this evening, then,” he teases, and you grumble under your breath.

—

It’s 5:45 when Lia and Daniel leave the library—fifteen minutes early. You and Mark leave ten minutes later, hours before you were supposed to complete your task. You’re fuming, and for once, Mark has the decency to read the room and feel remorse.

The evening had started off well enough, though—Lia and Daniel had showed up, did their thing, described what was happening, and you and Mark had noted it down. And then, well. Mark spilled water all over your planner, which, in hindsight, was definitely unintentional, but in the spur of the moment, you could do nothing but your natural—everybody’s natural—response to getting something precious ruined. You began to cry. “What the fuck,” you sniffled, “is wrong with you?!” You had shaken the majority of water off your planner, but any and all dates had been smudged and bled, and you couldn’t bring yourself to forgive him. “I know I called you annoying, but this is too far,” you had said, watching his face go from teasing to genuinely sorry. “Dude, it was accidenta—”

“I don’t give a fuck—!” You quickly cut yourself off and wipe your tears when you see a young library assistant heading towards your table. Everybody composes themselves—Lia and Daniel straighten out the things on the surface and Mark sits up straight. “Hey,” he says. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but two students already came in with a noise complaint. We’re gonna have to ask you to,” he makes a gesture, “leave for now and come back tomorrow. Also, the puddle on the table…yeah. I’m really sorry.” He leaves, as if to make sure you have no other choice but to just go, and you slump back onto your chair in exhaustion.

“You two can go ahead,” you hear Mark say, “I’m really sorry about this. We’ll clean up and apologize.” Faintly, you hear them get up, and you feel Lia’s hand squeeze yours as she promises a text and food later. You let your eyes remain shut, drinking in the quiet, trying to calm your inner turmoil.

Ten minutes later, when you’re out in the cold November air, Mark finally speaks. You had cleaned up and collected your things in silence. “I’m really sorry,” he says, “it was an accident, for real. I know I tease a lot, but, uh, I’m being serious. I would never have done that on purpose. I see you write shit on that thing a lot, so…I know how much you like it. Treasure it…? I don’t—whatever it is, I’m really sorry. Like, really. T’was an accident. If you need me to pay for it…” You shake your head softly, hugging your damp planner closer to your sweater-clad chest. “It’s okay. Thanks, anyway. For helping. I’ll email you what you have to do. Bye,” you turn and begin walking in the direction of your dorm. The sun is beginning to set, golden orange hues casting a vast array of colors onto the landscape of the city. You sigh softly, heart heavy with annoyance and exhaustion, and speed up before you start having a mini-breakdown.

—

Stage 1: Denial|

Your cursor blinks back at you as you finish typing in your outline for the introduction. It’s early into November, but already, you’ve had to shut your window to shielf yourself from the biting breeze outside. Across you, Lia applies mascara and talks to you. “What are you up to?” she asks, face contorted.

“This godforsaken paper,” you mumble back, “just finished the introduction outline. I’m trying to give a loose definition for each gradual ‘stage.’” Shoving your Macbook off your lap, you get up to stretch. “Which I’ll probably find on Google Scholar, honestly. If you had to give me a definition—what’s denial?”

She hums contemplatively, wand on lash, and then pipes up. “I think it’s just a stage where you can’t face the fact that you’re interested in that person. Like, why them? With Daniel, he wasn’t really my type. So the whole denial was denying I liked him, because…well, yeah. But I think it differs. Some people deny it because they’re shy, or ashamed, or weirded out that they even like them.”

You’ve had your fair share of crushes before, and sure enough, you had denied them all. But that was high school—college, though, had only brought short-lived flings and one night stands; you were an overachiever, much too committed to your own prosperity to pay mind to anybody else for too long. (Except Lia.) So you hadn’t really experienced the whole boyfriend-in-university thing—not that you particularly wanted to, but you were just human; you were curious. Lia had gotten it, and it looked wonderful.

Speaking of—“So, a week without meeting Mark in person, huh? How is that going for you?” You scoff lightly, shaking your head as you pull your hair into a bun. “It’s going just fine. Dandy, actually. We work from our dorms and you and Daniel just update us. It’s a fine arrangement that I regret was not formulated sooner.” Lia nods in understanding, and you watch her pull on a top, mutter I’m out and head outside. For the fifth time this week, you’re alone in the dorm, with nothing but your Alexa playing SZA and your laptop. You pull it onto your lap again, staring at the boldface letters you had typed minutes prior: denial. You had no firsthand experience of being mature and going through denial; not in that way, anyway. You found it stupid that people even denied when it would be less painful to just admit interest.

You blow a raspberry as you research studies related to the term, bored out of your mind.

—

Two days later, you meet Mark again.

You’d also had the pleasure of, for a minute or two, meeting a friend of his, Donghyuck Lee from Economics. He’s loud and amusing and, from your viewpoint, undeserving of somebody as boring as Mark. (That’s from a minute-long intercation.)

At Lia’s insistence (and likely Daniel’s, too), you two met up to properly work and collaborate. In fear of being kicked out again, the four of you had chosen to meet somewhere else—a cafe off-campus affectionately named something along the lines of Saltwater Coffee. Naturally, after Donghyuck leaves, you find yourself sitting idly (awkwardly) beside Mark. “They won’t be long,” he says suddenly, “er, Daniel just texted me. They’re near.” You nod, pursing your lips, eyes trained onto your laptop. “We’re almost done formulating the denial stage and we can start outlining anger and bargaining. This’ll take about a week more—maybe mid to late November? Uh, I know it seems justifiable to slack off with the holidays,” you say, “but I really want us to finish this early. The due date’s in mid-February, so we can pass this on the 14th.” You turn to face him. “Get it? ‘Cause it’s Valentine’s Day.”

He nods. “Okay. No slacking. I get it. The Valentine’s is smart, too.” You nod back in silent understanding, turning back to type frantically into your keyboard.

You hear the door jingle and Lia’s small “hey, guys”, so you look up and offer a smile. “I’m gonna go order everyone some coffee,” Mark says beside you, getting up and shuffling over to the counter. Daniel joins him, and Lia takes a seat across you, her smile knowing and apologetic. “Everything okay?” You blow a raspberry, but smile, anyway. “It’s not so bad. It could be better, but no more banter, just very annoyed auras…? You get it. It’s just been tough trying to divert my focus to this and ignore all the annoyance I feel.”

“Totally, I get that,” she says, “but all the same, I’m glad he’s matured a little bit and lessened all the ribbing.” You smile at that, agreeing, and then the conversation spirals into one about both of your days—“Professor Callahan totally pops a stiffy over Professor Michaelson”, “Daniel tells me Joshua cheated. Yes, on Jess!”, “Mia dropped out the other day and nobody knows why, hope she’s okay”—before Daniel and Mark return, coffee cups in hand. Mark places one next to you, and profusely, you look up at him, who’s just about to sit.

“Thanks, but I don’t drink brewed coff—”

“It’s a caramel latte, the only thing you drink. Heard you say that to Lia once.” He takes a seat and pulls his laptop open.

You stare at him, taking the cup and bringing it to your lips. Sure enough, it’s caramel—thick, and foamy, and sweet. You look up at him again, but he’s busy on Google Scholar, perusing through journals and studies. You shake your head before turning to Lia, who’s already looking at you, expression mirroring yours.

Sweet, she mouths, but you purse your lips and choose not to acknowledge it. “Thanks,” you say quietly, and he hums to say you’re welcome.

Your eyes flicker to him. He’s wearing a knitted sweater, but he’s pulled it up to his elbows. He’s typing quickly, and he can use all his fingers, too (you fail miserably at that), and his brows are furrowed as if he’s stressed, or in a hurry. You’ve never really noticed this much of Mark before. It’s probably, you think absently, because you’re confused. Puzzled at the gesture that you didn’t expect—at all.

After an hour, he angles his laptop to yours. “Nailed the intro. High five?” You open the Google doc on your own browser, and sure enough, the word count has increased monumentally. You can’t deny his knack for writing. “There are a few discrepancies in grammar,” you say instead. “But…okay. This is good.” You ignore his hand, in mid-air, and continue researching.

Lia holds in a giggle, but turns back to Daniel, who, after fifteen minutes, turns to you and Mark. “Lia and I are heading out, guys,” he says, and Lia quickly tacks on. “Hey, if you need me to stay, I can,” she says quickly, but you smile and shake your head.

“This might take a while. Go ahead. See ya at the dorm, Li. Bye, Daniel.” Mark bids his farewells, too, and they leave you alone in the cafe. It’s nearing a three hour crunch when he abruptly gets up to stretch, a low grunt leaving his lips. “I’m exhausted,” he sighs, “but at least we’re nearly done with this whole denial thing.”

“We’re actually only just starting,” you state, “this is going to go through a lot of editing and proofreading.”

He chuckles and walks back to the counter to order something, and you shut your laptop to rest your eyes. Your glasses rest uncomfortably on the bridge of your nose as you breathe deeply. You lose track of time, and you open your eyes ten minutes later, fumbling to get up properly. There’s a panini beside your laptop, wrapped neatly in a tissue and laid on a plate. Mark’s is empty, save for crumbs, and he says nothing.

“Get up,” he remarks teasingly after a while, and you groan in exhaustion. “I am, I’m up,” you mutter, straightening your back and flexing your neck. Inwardly, you wonder if you should thank him for the panini that is obviously yours that you obviously did not buy for yourself.

Then Mark’s hand stretches out to take the panini, and he takes a bite. “Sorry,” he says, “I had to put my second sandwich in your space. This table’s a little small.” You hum back in acknowledgement, nodding once. “It’s, uh…all good,” you respond, voice small as you type into your laptop. Internally, your body fills slowly with humiliation and confusion, but you stay quiet, and that’s how the rest of the night goes: a silent, steady beat of keyboard clicking and the occasional question.

No banter, no nothing—it’s a godsend, yes, it is, but you can’t help but miss the abrasive, playful conversations the two of you had built up over the previous several weeks. But really—had you truly assumed he had bought you a panini? As if a coffee wasn’t enough? You felt at odds with yourself for even expecting such a gesture from the guy whose main habit was to annoy you to the ends of the Earth.

“It’s late,” he says, as if he’s reading your mind and knowing you’re absolutely mortified inside. “Let’s head home.” You nod, deeming the night’s work satisfactory—maybe even beyond, considering the amount of effort you both put into the output. You shove your laptop and charger into your bag and pocket your phone, lingering awkwardly and waiting for Mark to finish packing up. He’s particular with it—he has little sections in his backpack for the wires and chargers, and even his AirPods, and his laptop.

“Very organized,” you find yourself commenting offhandedly, your tone taking on a teasing edge. He glares playfully back at you.

“Sorry I don’t want my wires to break,” he shoots back, eyeing your flimsy tote bag, “unlike some people.” You roll your eyes and, against your strongest wills, a smile appears on your lips, albeit a small one. His eyes linger on your smile for a little bit before he clears his throat and zips up his knapsack. “Let’s, er, go. Thank Jesus we’re in the same building.” When you exit, the air bites at you despite the jacket covering your body, and you quicken your pace. “It’s cold as hell.”

“Ironic,” Mark says. You hide a smile.

—

That’s what November brings you—the next week and a half are composed of just slowly learning to get used to working with Mark again and going home late into the night, crunching to the max.

Your paper begins to take on more and more structure, and two out of the six days you’ve met, Mark has set down a caramel latte for you to arrive to. The acoustic music slowly phases into holiday guitar, and the coat rack at the entrance is weighed down more and more as the days pass, preparing to welcome December.

You and Mark work silently, save for the rare banter and eyeroll, and very gradually, the annoyance that had bubbled up within seconds before had sank down. You’re not friends, per se—it’s just that the frustration and exasperation had lessened considerably.

You were civil. That’s it. You won’t try to deny that you’ve been thinking about this a little too much—about what your “friendship” had become with Mark. You hadn’t snapped at him in days, and he hadn’t tugged at your ballpen in even longer. It wasn’t that you had cowered him into silence by crying over your planner—it may have instigated it, but his behavior was…different.

More calm, more sure. Less childish. He would still tease you, but not as much. It’s nearing mid-November now, and you’ve successfully done much of your introduction and denial, needing less and less of Lia and Daniel’s presence. (Which you’re sure they’re grateful for.) But being left alone with Mark isn’t as bad as you once thought—

“Hello. Earth to you,” you distantly hear, and you whip your head in the direction of the voice as you pace back to your dorm building. Mark stares blankly back at you. “What,” you mumble back. He quirks a brow before continuing. “I was saying, I think I need to take a rain check tomorrow. The, uh”—he clears his throat—“um, yeah.”

You eye him. “Okay…?”

He nods profusely, “Yeah, all good.” The walk continues in silence, the sun finally setting down behind the Manhattan skyline beyond you and the breeze taking on a chillier temperature. You sigh softly, fatigue overtaking you as you stare at the building nearing you. “If you take a rain check, just make sure you write it within the day or after,” you say, half-sternly and half-tiredly. He mumbles a “got it” and you both jog up the steps to the lobby, where you run into, by some weird twist of the day, a small group of anti-abortion protesters.

“Jesus Christ,” Mark mutters under his breath. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” You rub the bridge of your nose in your fingers, choosing to tune them out and instead maneuver your way through the door. Before you can even take a step, though, they’re all up in your face with pamphlets and brochures and a guitar. “Excuse me,” you grunt, trying to gently push them aside, but they only come on stronger. “A child is a child,” they say. “If you know anybody who’s—”

“Is this your new initiative? Preying on college students on school grounds, unaccounted for?” Mark asks from behind you. You turn to find he’s filming and stifle a laugh. “I’m surprised nobody’s kicked you out. Won’t be long, now,” he adds with a smile.

You tune out nearly everything else—it’s really just them telling Mark to stop recording and him retorting with equally snarky phrases. It’s not until maybe after a solid two minutes of back and forth that one of them, a weird middle-aged woman, pulls out a burgundy gummy bear from a bag and pushes it into Mark’s camera. He takes it from her and examines it, puzzled. “That,” she says matter-of-factly, “is the approximate size of a fetus. It’s big. It’s sentient, alive. What, I beg of you, what would you do?”

Mark squints at it. Then he pops it into his mouth, takes your hand, and runs straight to the elevator across the floor.

“There’s a bunch of anti-abortion people outside, it’s not cool!” He hollers to the receptionist before the doors close with a damning click.

There’s a beat, and then.

Both of you are doubling over in laughter. “Why the hell would y—why would you do that?! You’re insane!” The response is: “Because they’re not cool! They’re fuckin’ annoying! So I ate their baby!” There are tears in your eyes, your laughter so hard it’s nearing silent—Mark’s, though, is loud and annoying sounding, though you seem to not mind so much. The laughter subsides when the ding of your floor sounds and you straighten yourself up. Getting into a different position reminds you of the very there, very obvious brushing of your hand against Mark’s, which he’d taken just moments earlier, post-baby eating.

You freeze and jerk your hand away. “I’ll, um, go now,” you say, “I’ll see you tomorr—no, the day after.” Against your wills, you meet his eyes, and you’re surprised to find that he’s already looking at you, an unreadable expression on his face. “Okay,” he says, his eyes not leaving yours. Your heart beats faster at a very small increment, but you head out and semi-run to your room, swinging it open and leaning against it.

You look up to find Lia and Daniel engaged in a heated Monopoly match. You make no noise, mind (and heart, but you can’t tell why) racing fast. You watch them play for a second before they both look up slowly.

“You’re smiling like a goddamn idiot,” Daniel says. Your face falls immediately. “I’m, um, no I’m not,” you say casually, pacing over to your bed and flopping onto it. Lia laughs loudly.

“That sounded so freaked. Like we’re your mom and you just brought weed home kind of freaked.” Pause.

“Are you hiding something from me?” She rises from her spot to look at you, head in pillow and all, and you let out a muffled “no!”, probably too defensive for your own good.

It’s Daniel’s turn to snort. You look up and glare at him, “You’re getting too comfortable for your own good. You need to humble yourself, Daniel. What’s it again? Oh yeah, Yeonjun, right?” He rolls his eyes at the use of his Korean name and turns back to the Monopoly board.

Lia flops atop you, eliciting a grunt from your lips. “Are you okay? Did somebody flirt with you? Did Mark finally fuck off and leave you alone properly?”

At the mention of Mark, your heart races—you will it to stop, and audibly groan in the process. “What is it, you bitch?” Lia asks, tugging on a section of your hair. “It’s nothing, Li! Nothing, I promise.” She glares at you before walking to Daniel and covering his ears. Instantly, he begins to let out a chorus of Lalala, and deeming the environment safe enough, you let it slip.

“Mark and I held hands. But it—”

“You what?!”

“It really, really doesn’t mean anyth—”

“How can that not mean anything? It’s hand holdi—”

“If you would listen to the backstory you’d know!” She pauses, and then uncovers Daniel’s ears and knees him.

“Okay, get out. Monopoly postponed, Jun,” she says, pushing him out insistently. He barely collects his phone and keys before he’s out, but you swoon silently when you catch him pressing a short goodbye kiss to her forehead before actually leaving. She turns immediately, fire and curiosity awfully evident in her face.

She nears you. “Explain.”

And that’s what sparks the story of the weird protesters, Mark’s power move, and the unintentional hand hold that lasted a few moments too long. She nods the entire time, laughing, and then her face straightens out again. You can almost hear the gears in her head turning as she analyzes the situation, and then she nods once.

“Okay. Perfectly justifiable to freak out.” Another pause. “But why were you smiling?” You stare blankly back at her, head working impossibly quick to formulate a reply. You’ve taken too long now, judging by the way Lia is looking at you with the most shit-eating grin on her fucking face. You groan.

“You like him, you bitch!”

You shake your head, facing her. “I don’t, dude. Trust me. I just…it was a fun experience, so naturally I’d be laughing. And smiling. But I’m just not interested in Mark! I’m not,” you fumble, being completely honest.

You didn’t—not even if you looked in the mirror and asked yourself. But you couldn’t deny the feelings you felt in the ten seconds from the elevator to your room, your heart racing and your fist curling and uncurling. When you look at Lia again, she’s still smiling, flushed. “You like him,” she says into her palm, which she’s slapped over her mouth in disbelief. You stare back at her, your expression baffled. “If I did,” you begin, getting up to discard your shirt, “I’d have told you by now. It’s really not that big of a deal unless you make it out to be.”

After that, you and Mark spend nearly three weeks walking on eggshells around each other. While conversations are no longer avoided, and you could talk without getting exasperated or too embarrassed, finger brushes are frequent, and eye contact only makes you extremely nervous. You had worked until the second stage—anger—already, but you’d still been polishing the denial and introduction. Considering November wasn’t over and the paper was due February, you figured you were moving at an okay pace. Besides, a lot of your friends hadn’t even begun.

—

There are two instances where you rush home, mortified beyond belief.

The first when when you struck up a conversation with the cute, Australian barista. Scrawled in big penmanship on his name tag is Chan. You had brought up, in passing, how often you’re at the cafe and how you probably deserve a free drink. He replied with a low hum, and you dialed down your flirty tone, slightly embarrassed. But not really. You’ve rejected plenty of people before. It’s when you’re already paying for your drink that he replied, handing you your (for a change) iced matcha with a small grin.

“I’d have flirted with you weeks ago if you didn’t have your boyfriend with you all the time. He’s always buying you your drinks.” You spluttered for a good second, staring at him incredulously. “He’s not my boyfriend,” you finally said.

He had shrugged, nonchalant. “He sure as hell looks at you a lot for someone you’re not dating. And you do it just as much, if not more. I’m observant, by the way. Not a stalker.” You had taken your cup and paced over to the other end of the cafe, sat across Mark, cheeks heated.

He looked up, brow raised. You shook your head.

The second time was when Donghyuck graced you both with his presence. You quickly found out that he was a magnetic presence and you both shared similar interests. The energy you both created was both amusing and annoying to Mark.

Although you kept quiet mostly, you enabled Donghyuck’s incessant teasing, which annoyed Mark to the ends of the Earth. “You’re a dork. Isn’t he?” You look up and nod with a smile. Mark rolls his eyes, sending Donghyuck into a laughing frenzy. Mark just grunts and continues typing.

Hyuck had made a joke about how two Physics textbooks discussed why the sad man named Mark owns two of them and didn’t have a life, and you laughed.

You didn’t usually laugh, not around Mark, at least, since it was safe to say you didn’t have any source of entertainment in such a boring guy. But you laughed at the witty joke, and Donghyuck, without thinking much, had said in passing: “Mark, I guess you’re right about everything about her being pretty.”

Mark said nothing, typing. You said nothing. Nobody said anything, not even a sly Donghyuck or, from the counter, an even slyer Chan.

—

When you see Mark next, it’s three days later, and it’s, for the second time, in Johnny’s apartment.

Lia had asked if you wanted to tag along, and you found no harm in going. (“You’re going because Mark is” becomes Lia’s favorite phrase of the night, so much it’s spread to Daniel, who you’d succumbed to and spilled everything to hours prior.) The walk there has something boiling low in your gut and you’re quiet, in fear you might end up vomiting in nerves or saying something stupid. Lia teases you, but her hand clasping yours reassures you, and you squeeze it tightly.

You get there late—it’s past 1AM, and you have a sense of deja vu walking into the cramped space. It’s fuller this time—people are creeping into the bedrooms to smoke in private or do some other things, but suffice to say it’s crowded as fuck.

“Want a drink?” Lia hollers, and you nod over the music. Johnny’s neighbor is another upperclassman named Doyoung, though he’s mainly referred to as Doie by just about everybody around him.

You’ve seen his girlfriend call him bunny a few times, though you’ve long desired to repress that memory.

Judging by the fact that you can faintly hear a different song from the next room, the party has probably extended to Doyoung’s. There’s quite a gathering this week—the rich freshman who you’d befriended once before, Chenle, and his horde of friends are here; from Lia, who hands you a drink, you learn that Kun and Sicheng, two incredibly attractive juniors, are here, too—in Doie’s, though. The party only intensifies, which is hard, because Johnny’s apartment is very tiny.

Eventually, you find yourself in the bathroom, smoking a joint you’d grabbed out of the clammy hands of a tipsy Chenle and kicking a couple out under the guise that you’re Johnny’s cousin. Chenle had protested but eventually given in, pulling a new one out of his pocket.

The bathroom light is white and harsh, but there’s a very funky lamp at the corner. From your place inside the dry (and thankfully clean…looking) bathtub, you eye it. It’s a tall one in the shape of a glass of margarita.

You heave yourself up and find the switch, and then when it’s on, you giggle at the green light emitting from it. You have absolutely no idea why Johnny, Jaehyun, or their roommate Jungwoo (3J, as some call them) have a decorative, margarita-shaped green lamp, and in their bathroom nonetheless, but you shut off the main light and return to smoking your blunt. Deciding your ass aches far too much, you lean against the tile wall and cherish the smoke.

The door opens abruptly, and you curse, pushing it back closed.

“I have explosive diarrhea,” you say robotically, using the same excuse you did for the previous three couples that showed up.

From the other side, you hear a shrill laugh and sound of confusion. When you peer over the other side and see Mark, you groan and laugh. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I saw you come in. Like, twenty minutes ago.”

“I’m cherishing the party privately.”

Mark ushers himself into the dark space and shuts the door. He makes a show of locking it, as if to show you it’s possible to do so. The sound of it locking sends a wave of nerves up your spine.

“I didn’t lock it in case a medical emergency happens and they have to rush inside.”

Mark quirks his brow. “I doubt they would think to go inside the restroom and not panic and call 911, you know.”

You shrug in indifference and take another drag, reluctantly offering it to him.

He takes it, and you pause for a second to observe him. His hair, dark, and which usually covers his entire forehead like a broom or at least parts in the middle slightly, is now styled differently.

He’s in a fitting black shirt and blue jeans, and, upon your closer inspection, silver rings adorn his fingers. You will yourself to look down. It’s dark. “What’s that you’re holding?” You ask instead, trying not to extend your stare at his shoulders.

“Your puffer coat,” he says, tossing it to you. “Left it last time.”

“That time when you annoyed the shit out of me, right,” you retort.

“Yes, exactly that time. That was ages ago. Weeks ago. Look at us now.”

“Us now—what, still disliking each other?”

He laughs humorlessly, but doesn’t entertain you further. He turns to the lamp instead. “Do you know I was there when they moved this in,” he begins, gesturing to it, “Jae got it at some weird, awful flea market, and he had to buy some extra wiring to fix it or whatever. I was doing Physics homework. It was at the start of this school year. And I bet you didn’t know…” he bends down and reaches to the base of the lamp, pressing a button, “that it changes color.”

The room is bathed in red now, and you swallow. “Interesting,” you manage to say, despite the racing in your head. “Very,” he responds, taking a step closer to you. You gaze up at him. He’s tall. You breathe softly. You nod in agreement. You don’t know what to do. You want to punch him and kiss him and leave all at once.

You want to kiss him, oh God, you want to kiss him.

“Oh God,” you say softly, out loud. Oh fuck. Too much weed?

He inches closer, leaving the blunt on the rim of the sink. “Why?” He smiles a little and you smile back, nervous. He’s so close now, and he smells so good—like cologne and laundry and weed. You shake your head. “Nothing,” you mumble back.

He’s even closer now, eyes boring into yours. You adjust your strap, a nervous habit. He takes your hand and does it for you. “I like this song,” he says casually, like he’s not playing with the strap of your dress. “Do you know what it’s called?” It’s vaguely familiar to you, but you shake your head.

“It’s Jhene Aiko,” he replies, and you nod. You gravitate closer.

You stare at him. He stares back. “I’m high,” you say. You giggle. “I had a brownie and that blunt.”

“That’s a lot,” he says. “Don’t finish the blunt, ‘kay?” You nod back, and giggle again. In two seconds, your nervous mechanism has kicked in and you’re laughing like a psycho. “I’m high,” you repeat, and then he kisses you, effectively sobering you up.

Huh. He kisses you, effectively sobering you up. He kisses you.

You kiss back, shocked and relieved, deepening it, trying to get as much of him as possible. His hands are big and wide and warm, traveling all over you. You want him. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him closer, lips molding against yours deliriously.

“Want you,” you say when his hands play with the hem of your dress, teetering closer and closer to your core. “I said, I want you,” you whine, “now.” Mark only laughs, his hands under your dress and playing with the lace waistband of your underwear.

“I like how this feels,” he mumbles. “Wanna take a look.” You whimper, hiking your leg up and nodding. “Please, just…touch me,” you say breathlessly. “Please.”

“I will,” he says, voice calm. “You’re being good.” You can’t deny the noise you make at the praise, breathy and loud. You pull him in again, drunk for more, your hands raking through his hair. It’s dark, the both of you basking in the small red light. Mark hikes your dress up, inching it higher, slowly, until he sees the hem of your white lace underwear. He grunts and pulls at it. “I love this,” he says. “So fuckin’, Jesus.”

You giggle against the smile. He toys with your panties for a bit before finally pulling them down, watching them sink to your ankles. “Hot,” he jokes, and you laugh in disbelief. “Why would you even be joking abou—”

“Mark! Let’s go, it’s 2:30!” Donghyuck’s voice is just as loud and clear as it would be if you weren’t separated by a door. Jolted, you and Mark instinctively break apart and stare at the rattling door. “Maaaark,” he sing-songs, knocking to a beat. You stare at Mark, waiting for him to respond.

“I have explosive diarrhea,” he says. You stifle a guffaw, pulling your panties up.

He pouts, tapping your ass. “Bullshit,” Donghyuck says from outside. “I’m cooomin’ in!”

In the span of a minute, where you realize Donghyuck is not bluffing and in fact has a stolen bathroom key from Jungwoo’s bedside drawer, you manage to shove yourself into the bathtub and hide yourself with the curtain. Mark switches the light back on, much to both of your disappointment, and pretends to smoke the blunt you’d left on the sink fifteen minutes ago. Ergo: pre-kiss.

You find your phone on the bathtub floor and grip it, turning the brightness down. You have a plethora of messages and voicemails from Lia, five calls from Daniel, and an interesting iMessage of Donghyuck’s red, weed-induced eyes from an unknown number. It could be anybody, and that scares you.

The texts are all frantic, and they’re the last things that bring you out of your high and back to reality. Where are u, who u with?, u getting railed??!, Have you seen mark?

“Hyuck, if I actually did have a shitstorm coming out of my ass, you’d be so sorry for breaking in,” you hear Mark say. You sink lower into the bathtub, awaiting Donghyuck’s voice. “You were the one who suggested we go at 2:30, and you’ve been smoking weed for the longest time, dipshit,” he says, “now let’s go. I haven’t seen your Psych girl all night, so you can cry about it at home.” You faintly detect Mark protesting and then, “Let me just freshen up! Just go ahead.”

Reluctantly, you peek out and find Mark alone. You get up and fix your dress.

You’re sober now. The red lights are gone. It’s just you and Mark, plain and simple. Your feelings haven’t gone away, though. You’re fucking fucked. You want him to fuck you. Oh, fuck.

“Go,” you say instead, spluttering. “And I’ll see you. Tuesday.”

You leave first despite yourself, not turning around for even a split second, finding a worried (and then relieved) Lia and taking five consecutive tequila shots to down the nerves and denial bubbling in your system. She raises a brow, but you refuse to even meet her eyes, head and heart pounding impossibly fast. You want to kiss him again. So, so bad. But what the fuck did you just let happen?

—

Stage 2: Anger|

Lia hadn’t pressed, and you were nervous, but it was getting easy to diverge the details of what happened during Johnny’s party. You had instead opted to work alone, too much of a coward to even see Mark’s face. If you were being completely honest with yourself, you feared you might just kiss him if you ever saw him. So you spent days at class working, and then at your dorm working, adjusting your route to avoid, as much as possible, Mark or Hyuck’s buildings and that godforsaken cafe. You did text Mark, though, and the exchanges were brief, not even a “thank you” or “good morning” preceding them. It was awful.

Working alone forced you into a heavy load of retrospection. You would think deeply, like how you are now, spiraling into a series of questions where you studied the play-by-play of what happened in the bathroom, up against the wall. You liked it. A lot. But you couldn’t. You wouldn’t let yourself. Why it even happened…God. You mentally berated yourself for giving into it. Didn’t you hate him? Or at least dislike him? Didn’t you take pleasure in scolding him or fighting with him?

“You’re freaking me out,” Lia says from her bed. She’s been staring at you. “You’ve been lying on your bed staring at the ceiling for twenty straight minutes.” She walks over to you, flopping next to you, her arms winding around your body. “You can tell me anything.”

“I know,” you say, nervous. You gulp.

“Okay. If you’re n—”

“Mark and I kissed.”

She sits up and turns to look at you.

“Made out, more like. We were going to fuck if we didn’t get interrupted.” You’re mortified, refusing to meet her gaze. When you look up, her face is even, but you know she’s bubbling over with giddiness inside. “That is so fucking great, dude,” she replies. “Why are you so embarrassed?”

“Because it’s Mark,” you whine. “He’s not…I don’t know.”

She lies back down. “You’re overthinking this.” You laugh, poking her waist. “I know, but I just…I feel like he might not like me much anymore.” You recount the way you left him hanging, despite the lack of awkward air and the potential to talk and become something. She tsks but justifies it, because she’s so good at that, being a mediator, and you continue with your day quietly.

Your mind is always on it, though, his hands and his lips, and you’ve scoured Spotify for the song playing that he had commented on.

It’s called Pussy Fairy. You cannot make it up. It’s a weird title, but the song is heavenly, and you can’t deny when it’s full blast on your AirPods and your hand is creeping closer and closer there, trying desperately to replicate what you felt in that moment. When you’re not sated, ashamed and sighing, you resort to working on your paper. There are moments where both you and Mark are working at the same time, and you hate yourself for getting all flustered when it happens.

—

It’s a Tuesday, in the early afternoon, when you’re out of class and cleaning out the little litter in your dorm, repasting whatever decorations fell off, et cetera. You have the time, anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt to fix the place up a bit. You’re halfway into re-stringing Lia’s fairy lights when someone knocks on the door, jolting you. You curse under your breath, hopping off her bed to swing the door open and reveal—

“What is up?!” Donghyuck grins back at you. His hand is raised in a high-five invitation, which you hesitantly reciprocate. “Mark tells me you’re meeting today, and that I should come remind you, since it seems like you forgot. He says you haven’t texted all day. Since I was on this floor—do you know Jeno Lee? Do you know it’s so amusing how Mark, Jeno, and I all have the same surname? Anyway. I was here on your floor to remind Jeno about an Econ presentation, and Mark texts me and goes, if you’re with Jeno, then remind you—you as in you, you—to come meet me and work.”

He talks so goddamn fast. “You talk so goddamn fast.”

He just guffaws, high-fiving you again. “Well, you get my point, right? Meet Mark at the cafe and work is all he said to do. If you wanna.” You nod slowly, absorbing his words. “Tell him I’ll be a little late,” you say simply, and as you’re about to shut the door, he talks again, his voice quieter this time. “I know you were hiding behind the curtain.”

You pull the door open again, so fast a minuscule gust of wind washes over both of your faces. “You’re kidding,” you say, “you’re kidding.” You stare at each other for a second before his solem features break into a smile. “I am. Mark spilled everything to me, so I decided to trick you.” Relief and annoyance break over your system as you swat Donghyuck’s shoulder. “You’re a dick,” you spit. “You’re bringing a bad image to Econ majors.”

He merely laughs and closes the door himself, light brown hair fluffing with the severity of his laugh (cackle.) Slightly annoyed, you drag yourself to get dressed, dread building up in your stomach at the prospect of seeing Mark again. Not when your mind conjures up what happened everytime you just see his name. Or the word mark. You’ve been out of it since it happened, not even responding to your usual heated debates with the conservative Trump supporter in class. You suppose the best way to confront it is to simply confront it.

When you get there, though, it’s clear that confrontation would not be an option. Immediately, when you sit, the air shifts into something oddly familiar—the atmosphere between the two of you when you first got partnered up. Except now, Mark won’t even give you a pinch of attention, or banter, instead typing his questions into the document to avoid verbal conversation. (He is a fucking petty bitch, you’ll give him that.)

You stroll over to the counter, pout set on your lips. “Hello,” Chan says politely, and you just smile half-heartedly. “Lover’s quarrel?” He teases, and you roll your eyes. “He’s ignoring me,” you respond, watching him make you a latte. “And we’re not dating. We never were.”

“Mm, right,” he says, finishing and setting your drink in front of you. You laugh a little, taking it. “No. We weren’t. But I’ll update you.”

When you return, Mark’s looking at you, quiet as ever. You break his gaze and continue working, working and working until the sun sets, nestled deep behind the horizon. When you look up again, the sky is already dark, city lights providing solace to the place. You look at Mark quizzically, as if to ask him what time you should both leave, but he just shrugs. “Any time,” he states plainly, and huffing, you get up.

“I’ll go right ahead then,” you say, trying your best to sound annoyed and get your message across. He says nothing, watching you pack up your stuff and sling your bag over your shoulder, and then eventually, leave.

Daniel is the first to see you in your raged, annoyed state—you meet him in the elevator of the lobby, your blood boiling and your fists balled. Knowing you’re headed to the same floor, he presses the button, ruffles his hair, and then lets the silence take over. And then, “What’s going on?” You breathe deeply, turning to him with a tired look on your face. “Mark’s going on,” you mumble, “he was ignoring me the entire time. And to think he was the one who requested my presence! It makes no sense. Why would he ignore me when we can just talk about it?”

“About what?”

It suddenly occurs to you that Daniel knows about your weird feelings for Mark, but not how they culminated. You splutter. “Um, about us. Everything.” Daniel looks amused, but the doors open, and you thank them for the temporary exit from the topic. He stops you right outside, though, and pulls out two ticket, card-looking things. “Wait, um. Listen, Lia and I are going to reach our seven-month…anniversary, I guess, of, y’know, being a thing. I know it seems really small, but I want to give her a little something out of appreciation, so I got us a room at this ski lodge outside the city.”

“That’s so sweet,” you say honestly, “but I must admit, it comes on sort of stalker-y. Like you’re whisking her off out of the city.”

He beams even louder. “That’s why you’re coming. With Mark!”

You gape back at him. “Did you miss the whole I-hate-him thing that happened in there?” You jab your finger towards the closed elevator doors, disbelief written across your face. He laughs. “Sometimes you can’t keep hiding behind”—he begins walking to your room, and you follow suit—“emotions, like anger. When I liked Lia, there was a point where I was just pretending to alienate her so I wouldn’t have to face that I was starting to love her. Like her. And you know, she did it right back.”

“Oh, quit it,” you scoff, insistent. “You’re lecturing me like you’ve been married a decade.”

“That’s what I want,” he says, and you gag. “The first step to that would be ski lodge trip, so you’re coming!”

You’re in front of your room now, and you pinch his wrist as he reaches for the handle, gaining his full attention. “I’ll gladly go,” you whisper, “if Mark’s out.” Daniel just laughs, shaking his head. “No, no. An overnight trip would delay your paper severely. Plus, they have two beds per room.”

“We’ll be staying in the same roo—hey, Li,” you say, quickly cutting your angry rant off when she opens the door, her face confused (to say the least.)

“Mm, hey,” she says, ushering the two of you in. “How long were you two out there?” Daniel shrugs, ruffling his hair and then pressing a kiss on Lia’s forehead. You boo from your place on your bed, buried under your duvet. “You both suck,” you holler, “always sexing it up in a sacred space. AKA my room.” Lia just grins and jumps on top of you, drawing grunts from you both. Daniel seats himself on the floor and busies himself with his phone. “How was Mark,” she whispers into your hair, and you groan.

“Bad,” you respond, “I’m so annoyed. We’re back to square one.” She makes an apologetic noise and gets up with a sigh, adjusting the strings of her pullover and then hugging Daniel. You watch them. You want to kiss Mark again. Life sucks that way.

—

Predictably, Mark turns down the offer of the ski lodge. He’s polite about it, too, especially since he and Daniel have grown a little bit closer since the start of your project. Daniel is, by no means, a “Mark anti”, but he would participate in the ribbing sometimes. Still, he’s insistent on the trip, saying it’s the best way to welcome December and that the forecast predicts a nice, thick layer of snow. It takes a week and two coffees everyday for Mark to give in, under the condition that he buy his own room when you get there.

Which, honestly, really, you have no problem with. Really, you think to yourself as you unceremoniously shove a knitted sweater into your bag. Really. Lia, who had graciously accepted the surprise, watches you abuse your bag, shoving sweater and scarf inside like they want to murder you. “Relax,” she says after a while. You laugh, playing it off (not so) casually.

The drive up there, courtesy of Daniel and a borrowed Prius, is fun, and cramped, but still decent, considering it was just an hour long. You’re in the back with Lia, and Mark is in charge of the AUX, which, of course, comes with its own bout of jokes. You even find the heart to participate and laugh in a few, not daring to meet his eyes. But all his songs are so fucking good. Frank Ocean, Jhene Aiko, SZA, and smaller indie artists flow from the speaker under his phone. The car ride has its share of epic karaoke moments—Mark plays ABBA, and Queen, solely to make sure everybody is belting out to the high heavens.

You get there when the sky’s purple and orange and there are some skiiers scattered around, though, since it’s not the proper holiday period, not too much. You trek over to the main lodge and that’s where Daniel pays for his reservations, and he and Lia retire to their room and promise to get up for dinner. You’re, again, alone with Mark in the lobby as you both stare at each other, willing the other to get up first. He does, to buy his own room like he said he would, and you can faintly hear the exchange from your seat on their nice, fluffy couch.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’re renovating a majority of the rooms for the holidays. That’s why reservations were a prerequisite for staying here.”

Mark sighs. “Okay, right. I’m so sorry. Um”—it’s at this point that you go up next to him, polite smile on your face, ready to take the room key and fuck off—“could we just get an extra blanket, please? For one of the beds.” The receptionist gives a curt smile, handing over the keycard and nodding. “That’ll be one queen-sized warm blanket, then,” she hums, typing away. The receptionist beside her goes to the back, presumably to get the blanket. Mark nods, smiling. “For two queen-sized beds, it must be a big room for both of them to fit comfortably,” he comments offhandedly, fiddling with the card.

The receptionist chuckles. “There is only one bed, sir.”

Oh, God. “Oh, God,” you whisper. “One bed?” She nods with an eye-crinkling smile, like her words have not just rained hell upon the two people across her. “One bed and a sofa,” she corrects herself, reading the information on the computer by the desk. Not wanting to risk your last shred of sanity, you smile profusely, walking quickly towards your room which, thankfully, is on the same floor, at the end of the hall. It’s a small, quaint place that would be honest-to-God perfect if not for the fact that—

“There’s one bed,” Mark sighs, the truth clicking into place. “Daniel is a fucking shithead.” You drop your bag onto the carpeted floor, surveying the room with a scrutinizing gaze. It’s sizable—a bed, a couch, a window. There’s a small wooden desk that looks like its legs can barely hold its weight, and then another door, leading to the bathroom. It’s not bad at all. But you’re exhausted, the sun’s long gone, and your resolve is shredding away as the seconds tick by. “Take the couch,” you say dismissively, “or the carpet.” You make a beeline for the bed, but Mark’s arm wraps around your waist, effectively stopping you.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod “Shut up and let go of me, dick,” you stutter out. Mark loosens his grip and you shove him off, glaring at him. He gazes back down at you, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “We can’t just make up terms without negotiation,” he says matter-of-factly, and you blow a raspberry. “Fine. Let’s negotiate then. I’m a girl and that puts me above you because chivalry isn’t dead, thus, boom, I get the bed.”

“I was in the uncomfortable passenger seat all day and my lower back hurts,” he counters.

“My legs are wobbly.”

“Bullshit. My back aches.”

“You already said that, it’s invalid.”

The back and forth only intensifies, your arguments growing more and more bizarre, until finally, your volume is so high Lia says she can hear it faintly, four doors down.

“The couch looks comfy,” you try, but Mark stands firm.

“Do you know what? The bed is big. It’s a big bed. And we’re not going to take up much space. If we divide the bed with the sofa pillows…” you pick up the cushions and line them up neatly along the middle, “…then we can sleep beside each other without having to make contact with each other.” He seems convinced, stepping closer to the bed and nodding. “Okay. I get first dibs on the shower.”

“Asshole,” you mutter, but you let him anyway. You’ve unpacked nearly all your things and he isn’t done yet, so you’ve resorted to scrolling mindlessly through Tiktok and laughing at just about everyone that pops up on screen. Mark finally exits after what feels like forever, and you keep your eyes trained on your screen to avoid looking at him. From your peripheral vision, he is very much shirtless. There are no words exchanged, the thickness in the air only building bit by bit.

—

Three hours later, post-dinner, post-abandoning the thought of working on your paper, you’re stumbling into your room after helping the very tipsy couple of the night into theirs. You’re beyond tired now, and you can tell Mark is, too, despite the lack of eye contact or communication between you. You don’t even look at him, brushing your teeth and removing your makeup and clipping your hair up into a bun. It’s when he does the same, and you’re both in bed, using your phones, that he finally breaks the silence.

“I’m not mad,” he says. His voice is even and calm, and you quickly shut your phone off and sit up, peering over the pillow boundary you had created. You look at him expectantly before he sighs and continues. “Why did you leave?”

You stand up, getting out, trying to increase distance. You’ve never really liked confrontation. “I was weirded out,” you spill, “and scared…? I guess with the nearness of being caught, and with all the lights on, I was just shocked back to reality.”

He sits up. “What’s reality?”

“I don’t—know,” you splutter, getting back on the bed. “Not kissing you?”

He laughs, and then it becomes silent. “Right. Let’s sleep, then.” Without another word, he pulls his lamp off, and only the white moonlight is left illuminating the both of you. Shucking yourself under the covers, feeling your heart practically thump out of your chest. You honestly think he can hear it, or at least feel it. Suddenly the boundary doesn’t do much. You turn away from him, nervous, and you can faintly hear his breathing even out. You shut your eyes for a second. When you open them again, he’s looking right at you. “Just checking to see if you’re asleep,” he says quietly. You nod. And then you lean upwards, just a touch, so your lips nearly brush slightly. “Night,” you say, before turning to sleep for real.

You’re not sure when. And how. Sure, you faintly remember digging your legs sleepily through the sheets to find warmth and tangling Mark’s in your own. But still—when you’re up, the pillow fort is at your feet, hanging precariously off the four post bed, and your back is against Mark’s chest. His breath fans lightly over your hair and you blearily register what happened overnight. His arm is slung over your middle, it’s quiet, and oh Christ, he is hard.

It’s fairly late. He’s hard. The antique clock mounted up on the wall tells you it’s around nine, which essentially gave you seven hours of sleep. He’s hard. You bask in the warmth of Mark for a while before your resolve solidifies and you gently push his arm off from its position on your hips. He only comes on stronger, wrapping fully around your waist, mumbling incoherence into your hair. He’s hard. You squeeze your eyes shut, summoning sleep to overcome you quickly, but it never does. Dread overcomes you as you feel your underwear grow damp.

“Mm,” Mark grunts, his hand around your waist loosening. You move away but his head suddenly lolls into the crook of your neck, his lips touching the side of it. You whimper. He’s a fucking asshole, even when he’s asleep. You pinch his arm, jolting him to half-awakeness, and you roll away, despite your body’s protests.

He blinks his eyes open. “Sorry, shit,” he says, voice deep and ridden with sleep. You’re fucked.

“It’s okay,” you splutter instead. “Just go back to sleep.” You faintly register that you sound just as exhausted as he does, and you bury your head back into the covers. Everything, plus the sound of his voice, has you dripping, and you breathe in deeply to poorly disguise a whimper. He chuckles, already half-asleep, from where he is, and it’s quiet for a few minutes before you realize he’s fallen asleep. Knowing Lia and Daniel will be busy for a while, you pull a spare pillow over your head and chant to yourself before falling back asleep, too.

When you awaken, the bed is cold and empty, and the shower’s running. You check the time to find only an hour has passed, but you’re much more awake now, getting up and knocking incessantly on the bathroom door. “Hurry,” you demand hoarsely, “I want to go skiing.” You hear a muffled okay and scurry over to your bag to find the pair of leggings you had packed for this. You also find your parka, and you pull off your shirt to clasp on a bra.

“Not that I don’t mind,” Mark says, eliciting a yelp from you as you tug a sweater on at record speed, “but generally, that kind of thing only goes unnoticed in nudist colonies. I could research some for you, if you’d—ow! I was joking, God!” You bonk him twice over the head with the Bible on the bedside table, your brows furrowed angrily. “You looked, asshat,” you say, collecting your things and locking yourself in the bathroom.

When it becomes increasingly evident that Lia and Daniel have no plans of exiting their room, you grumble and resort to skiing alone. But as you’re shuffling out, bundled up, you spot Mark leaning against the exit waiting for you. He looks up and tsks. “About fucking time,” he says, holding the door open for you. It’s not that cold out—maybe you’re just used to having snow and chilly weather, and so is Mark—so you barely shiver, walking around and looking for a good place to ski.

“Forget skiing,” Mark says after a few rounds. “Let’s go sledding. I have a thing.”

“A toboggan, you mean.”

“A funny word. Really, just say sled.”

You let up, anyway, the bright sky and cold ground sending serotonin right into you. Sure enough, Mark does have a nice, blue sled that he lets you on, and then the two of you are bolting down the hill at breakneck speed, laughing all the way. It’s quite a long ride, and you’re smiling and yelping so much the cloth you’ve used to cover your neck has ridden down, the cold air hitting your face harshly.

You land very ungracefully—the toboggan hits a small tree and sends you and Mark catapulting in the same direction, your hands clawing at the air for expense. You find Mark’s arm and cling onto it in the split second you’re in the air, landing on a clearing of thick snow. The arm you’ve clung onto pulls you closer, Mark grunting “be careful,” and when the whole fiasco’s over, you’re smiling like an idiot, and you’re right on top of Mark.

You’re not straddling him or anything, but you’ve just happened to land with your face a little above his. You can’t stop laughing, your face flushed and red with the cold air hitting your face. So you laugh. Why wouldn’t you laugh? It was a good day. A good ride down the hill. So you keep laughing until they’re reduced to giggles, Mark laughing right along as you pull down the covering of his mouth and tug his beanie off, ruffling your hands in his hair and dipping down to kiss him.

He kisses you right back, his lips cold but quickly growing warm with the friction. You smile into the kiss, your hands roaming all over his pink face. The kiss is giggly and light, your hands all over each other as the sunlight filters in through the thick trees overhead.

You pull away after a while. “I hate you,” you whisper. He presses a kiss to your jawline and lets it linger there. “You think I don’t?”

—

Stage 3: Bargaining, Depression|

You’ve begun to type the structure out when Lia tugs on your pajamas, her tone insistent and curious. “What’s up with you and Mark?” she presses, her cheek pressed to your stomach. You fervently hope she doesnt notice how your breathing quickens, and, keeping your voice even, you answer. “We’re…thinking about things.”

Which—you were thinking about things, to be fair. There were things to be thought and you had to think about them. It was a broad half-truth. It had been two weeks since the ski lodge thing, and you and Mark had decided it was probably best to shut the fuck up about everything you had done. (Everything meaning a few kisses here and there, and maybe a little more under the covers.) You’d hated yourself for hiding it from Lia, but you and Mark were actually feeling hesitant about moving forward with whatever you were. There was a lot of ambiguity and questions, and until you could clear it up yourself, you knew you weren’t ready to tell anybody else. You had talked about it already—clearly, the two of you were beyond jumping straight into a relationship after not liking each other that much and then becoming hesitant friends.

But it was, if you had to admit it to yourself, nice having that little secret.

“I’d want to tell Lia soon,” you tease, walking steadily beside Mark. The afternoon sun is warm on your heads, the snow falling intermittently. He turns with a small smile. “I’d want to tell Hyuck, too.” You scoff, burying your head in his chest. You probably look fucking disgusting. Around you, Washington Square Park is full of natives and tourists, and college students like you, all scurrying around and giving you that very much holiday feel.

He buys you a hot cocoa and hands it to you. “Are you heading home soon?”

You take a sip, your tongue hot. “If my ratty dorm counts as home, then yes.”

“Home is a feeling, not a place. Does your ratty dorm feel like home?”

“Kind of. Lia’s there. And so is the rat infestation in the ceiling.”

Mark nearly chokes on his cocoa. “You’re gross as fuck.”

You let out a loud laugh, your beanie nearly falling off with the bounciness of it. Mark reaches behind you to catch it, pressing a kiss to your lips in the process, soft and light and God, you like it. A lot. “Clumsy,” he remarks, pulling it back on and dragging a generous amount of your hair in front of your eyes as he does it. “It’s gonna be Christmas soon, and thank God we’re nearly done with this paper.”

“It was my genius idea to combine bargaining and depression,” you quip. “That’s my gift to you. Merry Christmas, Mark Lee.” He laughs at that. His laugh, you’ve noticed, is goddamn loud, and it’s a literal cackle, but he always looks so happy when he laughs. And buoyant. “You look stupid,” you say, but the smile on your face is undeniable. He glares playfully at you, taking your hand and walking you both in the direction of your building.

“New York in the snow,” he hums. “Always a great place.”

“It’s full of tourists,” you counter. Always disagreeing.

He chuckles and then, like clockwork—like how you’ve done it for the past six dates—you separate when you’re just shy of a meter away from the lobby entrance. Your fingers curl in search of his, and you jog up the steps, eager to get into the warmth of the building. The lobby’s pretty empty, save for a couple of students. Mark’s ahead of you, already pressing the elevator button and waiting impatiently.

“We’re alone,” he sing-songs, his eyebrows wiggling. The doors open right as you take Mark’s hand, and you look up to meet Daniel’s wide eyes. Then you look to the right to meet Lia’s.

Despite your inner turmoil, you remain nonchalant, pinching Mark’s wrist instead of holding it like you’d planned. “That’s why our professor fucking hates you,” you say, narrowing your eyes. Your heart is beating a mile a minute, but you muster a neutral expression, shoving your hands back into your pockets. Lia knows you, though, and her furrowed eyebrows and parted lips say everything—but you just shrug, playing off what they could have caught you doing. “Hey,” you say, walking into the elevator with Mark. It all blows over.

AKA: Daniel has to drag a curious Lia away from you, with a promise that you would converse later. You and Mark are alone again, in the elevator, your hands barely touching, laughs loud. It’s all blurry after that. You’re high on a laugh and the thought of a kiss—you drag him over to your room, hands in his hair, breathless, loose kisses. You’re both so exhausted, though, that all you manage to extend your energy to is taking your tops off and making out lazily to the songs you’d recommended to each other.

“Mm,” he says when one of your songs starts playing. “It’s a nice song.” You nod with a smile. “I know it is, it’s one of my recommendations. It’s called Softly.” He plays with the strap of your bra. “I’ll give it more of a listen, then. Also, a red bra to school? Whatever will the professors think,” he jokes lightly, pressing insistent, but soft kisses on your shoulder. You laugh, pinching the inner part of his arm and eliciting a swear from him. “I was joking! I know you wore this for me, stupid.” The wind whistles outside, barely audible from the half-open window across the room, overlapping with the music.

This all feels too real, now.

You pout lazily against his bare chest. “Get off before Lia gets in,” you mumble, your heart beginning to race. He does, for what it’s worth, rolling off your bed with a loud thump and tugging his shirt and sweater back on. You watch him (fondly) annoyedly, your hair draping over you as you get up to properly shove him out. “Out, out,” you chant, laughing, and he giggles, turning abruptly to poke at your waist.

“Shut up,” you groan, a smile on your face. There’s a beat, then he pulls you close and kisses you, running outside right after with a literal guffaw. You watch him, wrapping your fleece blanket around your frame as he runs to the elevator, sweater backwards and hair messy.

—

Doubts are normal. This you’re assured of, but your head pounds with the sheer amount of things you’re cramming into it. You squint impossibly harder, trying to get the nail polish into the crook of Lia’s nail. You’ve probably overdone it, judging by the way she jabs her knuckle in between your eyebrows, her face contorted in worry. “Are you…okay?”

You narrow your eyes, the inner debate of telling her raging on and on. The nail polish drips onto her fingernail, rolling onto her pant leg, and she yelps, but her eyes are still on you. “You can tell me anything,” she says, softer this time. You know she’s serious—you know you can. You always have. You told her about every fling, one night stand, pregnancy scare, bad grade, hot professor, and spoiled deli food you’d encountered since you ever became friends. She knew you. And you were so sure she knew what you were about to say.

Except you didn’t know what you wanted to say. Your feelings were a mess, and you wanted one thing as much as you wanted the other. You couldn’t place what you wanted, and if you had to narrow it down, you’d realize that you were scared of what you wanted. You were never really one for commitment, or a relationship, or really anything, for that matter. And the fact that you were so hung up on thinking about what you and Mark would become—Mark? It all seemed so dystopian, almost. Like you’d never expected it. Your friendship was a childhood bubble that popped in the span of your first high school semester, and that was that. But just two days ago you were being kissed all over by the same guy you’d had a cutthroat student council president competition with.

It seemed so absurd? Crazy? Those adjectives were a little over the top. Deep down, if you dug deep enough into the parts you didn’t even tell yourself, you knew what you were. And if anybody else were to know, it would be Lia.

“I’m scared,” you choke out, your voice shaky. “I’m scared and sad, and happy and angry, and I want this but I don’t.” You cover the nail polish, shaking your head. “This is all so new to me. I hate how much I feel, especially because it feels so wrong. You know me—relationships are just not cut out for me. They’re scary and new. And people in relationships turn all gooey. I’m scared that this won’t last, but I’m scared that it will, and I’ll be doomed to an eternity of bland, padlocked relationships. It’s weird. I could be feeling this way for anyone, but it had to be Mark? If only I didn’t hate him, then maybe we could’ve gone off on a better foot. If only this whole thing never fucking happened, right?”

“It’s okay,” Lia cuts in. “Being scared is okay. It’s part of the whole process. And nobody said you had to get along like conjoined twins in a relationship. They just go when they go and end when they end. Not every relationship starts as a high school sweetheart thing and ends with three kids and a picket fence. And I’m so sure Mark would be so understanding if you didn’t like him or if you chose not to continue.”

“You knew?”

She laughs. “Of course I knew. I know a post-sex glow when I see one, and I was blinded that morning at the ski lodge.” You groan, pinching her indignantly, hiding your face in your hands as she laughs out of view. “Okay. Take some time and think about it, but for now, I want to get my nails done, so.”

—

It’ll be a week before you come up with what you want, and the whole time you generally avoid talking about solemn topics with him in person.

It’ll be another few days before you finally talk to him personally—with your paper nearly finished, you suggest a meeting at the library. It’s just two days before Christmas Eve, and you know Mark’s going to be driving to Canada, so you want to snatch him away for your own personal time for just a second. The snow has all but thickened as you meet outside the building, the silence deafening.

“Hi,” he says, smiling. You know he’s probably picked up on your erratic, quieter behavior in the past several days, but you gulp and lead him inside anyways, to your favorite section. “It’s almost Christmas Eve,” he says, watching you stall, surrounded by Philosophy books from just about every century. “I know,” you say, hoping you don’t sound too nervous.

“You sound nervous,” he says.

“Do I?” you ask shakily, your voice taking on an unnaturally high pitch. “I mean, er. I guess I sort of am. I guess I’ve been thinking about everything lately—about you and me and everything that just happened so suddenly. Because—because it did happen so suddenly. I just…needed time? Yeah, time. To think about everything. Because it all happened so quickly, I…” you stutter. “I’m scared of these things. I’m not used to them. Relationships? Things that last longer than a couple weeks? I don’t like these.

I have something bigger I want to focus on and anybody who gets in the way just isn’t worth it. And it’s so weird how it was you out of all people I started thinking about it with. Usually I just have the rare fling and then they’re gone, and I’m not even mad. But you’re different. And I like it.

But I just needed time to find out if I really liked it. If I really wanted to try. I know it’s only been a few weeks, and I probably sound really fucking stupid, but you get me—you get me, right? And that’s how I realized—if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I don’t know why I overthought it. I mean, it’s a good thing and a bad thing that I did. Like, on one hand, I got to really think about how this would play out, and on the other, I’d just end up spiraling. And it’s just weird. I hope you don’t know I hated you. Hate you? Hated you. I was just—it was all so juvenile. Everything just stemmed from that one awfully dumb high school rivalry. But other than that, you were always a cool…see what I mean? I’m kind of rambling—even if I thought I had planned this out. And. Yeah. I dunno. I fucking…I hate you, stop laughing.”

Mark smiles down at you—you’re busy pretending to read a Sartre book to look unfazed, but your flickering gaze says it all.

“Okay, stupid,” he says, bordering onto a laugh. “If that’s your way of saying you’re willing to give this a try, then I graciously accept. Should I be saying something equally long? I—is that how this works?”

You roll your eyes and kiss him instead, pulling him close, Sartre’s postulates dropping to the floor alongside your tiptoes.

—

Stage 4: Acceptance|

“Acceptance is just that. Just accepting that you love that person after weeks or months of all the other stages. With her, it was. Like. It’s the whole sitting down after silence, having some time for the revelation to set in before you realize you love them. Or like them? Well, love them, I guess. But I don’t know why you would be asking me this.”

You bury your head further into Mark’s shoulder, your eyes strained from how long they’d been trained onto your screen. You smile up at Daniel, thanking him for the input and beginning to type it in, watching Lia doze off on his shoulder. “We’re asking because we’re not quite there yet,” Mark hums, “it’s just February. It’s barely been two months.” You nod, watching Mark type where you left off on the document. Daniel snorts from across you. “You’re just about, I guess.” Mark chuckles, shrugging so your head bounces off his shoulder unceremoniously.

“Like I’d ever fall in love with that shitstorm,” he says pointedly.

“Oh, and I’d fall in love with this dickwad?”

“You’re perfect for each other. Bullying, but we all know Mark brought back gifts from Canada and that you stitched an initial onto his sweater.”

“To practice my embroidery. Also, I stitched Mark’s initial. M. Asshole.”

“Okay,” whistles Daniel, his hand unconsciously coming up to make sure Lia doesn’t fall off his shoulder. “But hey, you’re just about to submit this paper and I’m fondly remembering all the times you despised each other. And when you”—he points at you, devilish grin on his face—“started gushing to Lia about how he”—he then turns to Mark—“kissed you at Johnny’s party.”

“God, it’s not the time for that yet, we’re still a fresh couple,” you groan, burying your head in your hands. “You have so much dirt on me, Choi.” Mark just laughs, though, loudly, bringing the other cafe-goers’ attention to yours. He bites your shoulder to stifle it, eliciting a laugh from you. “I agree, there should be a certain time requirement for pre-relationship embarrassing stories,” Mark says, closing his laptop. Lia gets up at that point, already half-awake from the ruckus (AKA Mark’s laugh), pulling on Daniel’s sleeve. “Alright, and that’s my cue to get this girl some more coffee and then go.”

“Mm, I’ll come with,” you say, “I need a refresher before we leave soon, anyway.”

You walk in between them, your fingers laced in Lia’s as she squeezes them sleepily. They order first and then they’re off with a smile and a polite goodbye, leaving you to order your drink. You gaze up at the menu, and then down at—

“Long time no see,” Chan says with a knowing beam. “How is your not boyfriend boyfriend?”

“Well, he’s my boyfriend now.”

“See, I always know. What do you want?”

“An iced ca—how did you know?” You ask, tempted.

“It’s just…the energy? It was a hit or miss, but I kinda got that feeling that something was going to happen.”

“Hmm,” you hum. “An iced caramel then.”

“And a black coffee for her best friend!” Hollers a new voice that you could never miss, turning slowly towards the entrance to meet Donghyuck’s crazy eyes. He’s in a suit, which isn’t unusual given the sheer amount of presentations he’s had to do since the new year started. You roll your eyes but put in the extra cash anyway, much to Chan’s amusement. Hyuck nears you with a sly grin. “I hear you’ll be submitting your paper soon. I just want my name in there so I’m in your professor’s good graces.”

“She’s not even going to be your professor, Hyuck,” you say, taking your drink and smiling at Chan. You and Donghyuck both walk back to where Mark’s sitting, you beside him and Hyuck across the both of you. “Yes, but it pays to be in somebody’s good graces, I swear. See what happened? I got you two together. I orchestrated your entire love st—”

“Okay, now you’re just lying, Hyuck,” Mark says with a laugh, finishing up the first few paragraphs and closing his laptop. “We’re not even in love.” But his friend lets out a teasing smile, his eyes narrowed, and he gets up with a loud farewell and alibi about “being needed by my better friends.” You assume he’s talking about Jeno.

—

You walk to Mark’s room alongside him, thanks to the promise of his roommate, Jaemin, sleeping at a friend’s. Your fingers are intertwined loosely. The sun’s setting and Mark’s room is sheathed in beautiful shades of orange and pink, a vast array of dusk settling over the space. It happens quietly, but full of laughs, which is how it happens when you’re both tired and/or shitfaced. You do this a lot—a routine of sharing new songs or books you’d picked up over the week and then making out while they play in the background or while one of you read. It’s awfully, horribly, terribly fucking intimate.

“Your bra sucks,” he jokes.

You love it.

“Get better abs and we can talk about it,” you counter, poking his toned stomach. He really, fully guffaws at that, pulling you onto his lap and then tugging his guitar out from where it stands at the corner. You flop back onto his bed, watching him play—and then registering the familiar opening of the Jonas Brothers song you used to request nearly everyday. “Lovebug,” you muse with a smile, singing along to his voice, carried away. You’re sleepy and light, and you know deep down—in that space of yourself where you’re all but honest—that you were going to fall in love with him someday.

Later, when all you’re doing is hugging him as he reads your latest Philosophy requirement to you, he pauses.

“Is this the 21st century idea of love?” He asks idly, unclasping your bra and connecting the moles on your shoulder. You hum.

“It’s the Gen Z idea,” you say, connecting the ones on his bare back. “And this isn’t love.”

“Corny.” he smiles against your collarbones. You kiss his neck. It’s all very gradual.

—

hope you liked it :) drop an ask! I absolutely love all types of feedback

#mark lee #mark lee imagines #mark imagines #mark drabbles

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horreurific · 3 years

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calli bg notes dump part 1 ???

okay so i’m not great at writing big paragraphs but i fucking love bullet points so in case i never finish writing the like... fancy version here we go

okay so her parents had her rlly young, her dad was 20, her mom 19. they were dating at the time but not super officially especially because her dad was from a well to do white family and her mom was half chinese and not white passing.

on this note calli was an oopsy baby for sure. her parents got married before she was born so she wasn’t technically born out of wedlock but conceived out of it which made her paternal grandparents be like “oh its the bastard child” and they already weren’t happy because 1. who the mom was 2. they couldn’t find a better marriage for their son bc he had to get married to calli’s mom to avoid scandal. luckily her parents do actually love one another

calli has always been like. ironically she’s the southern grandaughter every classic southerner would wish for. polite. soft-spoken. respectful, etc. so while her grandparents aren’t happy with their son and actually straight up refuse to acknowledge calli’s mom minnie (yeah calli’s paternal grandparents.. bad) they do wanan see calli bc its their only grandchild and calli’s dad is an only child so they aren’t gonna have any more.

so she does have a relationship with them growing up and once her grandmother sees calli’s disposition shes like “oh so the mother was just an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise perfect granddaughter” type gross bullshit and basically is like wow this is the daughter i can raise in polite society and put thru debutante balls that i never had and actively kinda steps into calli’s life.

i kinda imagine the paternal grandpa as like that grumpy old rich dude stereotype u see in all those movies so he is like there but not particularly close to calli. patriarchal type dude so he doesn’t have much interest in a granddaughter.

calli was always super studious!! like as she got older she could kinda tell there was smth up with her grandma like not wanting to acknowledge her mom and so she kinda was like if i just excel at everything grandma won’t hate that part of me anymore??? so she’s always like worked her ass off in EVERYTHING. academics, her image, etc.

calli was a cheerleader in school!! so i did some research and actually cheerleading had just started including women but i didn’t know this when i headcanoned it (in game calli is athletic and i was like hmmm.. where’d she get that from.. omg cheerleading would be cute. then i did research and was like oh. but im keeping it bc women WERE cheerleading at hte time just it was still mostly dudes. also calli went to all girls school thinking on it so the cheerleading team would have to allow girls.)

calli wasn’t exactly a fan of all the social functions rlly?? she’s actually pretty shy just a total doormat and too polite to like.. get herself out of social situations so she kinda felt like her grandma’s dress up doll a lot of hte time getting dragged to ladies tea parties and having to hang out with her grandma’s friends granddaughters who would like make snide comments abt her mom and stuff which just reinforced the fact to her that no matter how much she tried she wasn’t like “one of them” (aka the classical southerners) which caused her to work herself even harder bc shes like i’ll show them!

#there will be more parts where i like.. do other backstory dumps but this is all i can think of for now #relics of the lost age #relics series #calliope spillane #oc chatter

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strvngemagics · 4 years

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{ cisgender woman, she/her } ❝ I'm a juvenile product of the working class / whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass ❞ huh, who’s FIVEL STEWART? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually MOLLY WEASLEY II. she is a 24 year old HALFBLOOD witch who is a CHASER FOR PUDDLEMERE UNITED. she is known for being FLIGHTY, IMPULSIVE, DISORGANIZED, FORGETFUL, and REBELLIOUS but also TRUSTING, DEDICATED, VIBRANT, ADAPTABLE, and INDEPENDENT, so that must be why she always reminds me of the song GLAZIN’ - JACUZZI BOYS and ROLLER SKATING DOWN A STEEP INCLINE, FOREHEAD KISSES, AN OUT-OF-TUNE ACOUSTIC GUITAR, AN UNMADE BED WITH LOTS OF PILLOWS, CHERRY LIMEADE SLUSHIES, PUTTING ON YOUR FAVORITE SWEATSHIRT. i hear she is aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX so be sure to keep an eye on her.

BIO

Molly Adelaide Weasley was born into a (relatively) peaceful world but adopted into an ever-growing and infinitely chaotic family - and her father, having had a near-catastrophic falling out with this family in favor of furthering his career, made it CLEAR to her that her status as a Weasley was to be cherished, not derided, never forgone for more ambitious aims. Percy, sometimes rigid, though always loving, threw this lesson in familial love along with his more practical teachings.

Her first real sentence was “Molly do it!”, which was put to excessive use as a toddler. Doing the laundry? “Molly do it!” Her father’s bent over a stack of paperwork with a next-day deadline? Molly’s rushing over to help with a fat, color-changing crayon in hand: “Molly do it!” When Audrey was ill with a stomach bug, Lucy happened upon her sister, barely even three, mashing a ginger root with the handle of Mama’s wand in an attempt to make ginger biscuits. In short, Molly has always been headstrong and maternal. She takes a lot of pride in the traits that she shares with her namesake, her wonderful Gran, but regrettably never learned to knit.

Molly arrived at Hogwarts with a gaggle of cousins who’d already set the tone for who the Weasleys were and how they behaved. She found it difficult to find a life and identity outside of them - and still worries that she’s just another face in the family, unimportant compared to their accomplishments and accolades. Her time in Hufflepuff house passed without any prefect badges, school awards, or major academic achievements — even her five-year stint on the house Quidditch team was marred by the fact that she was always playing against some cousin or close family friend.

Life after Hogwarts has treated Molly well — she’s played professional Quidditch since age 18, something that she still can’t quite believe has happened. She was a reserve Chaser for the Kenmore Kestrels until 2027, when she was offered a contract by Puddlemere United. She took it, because wow that’s a lot of galleons, but Puddlemere’s always had a reputation for producing a lot of (painfully) straight-laced and by-the-book players………..which Molly definitely is not. She’s not allowed to speak at press conferences anymore due to PU’s management dubbing her “a PR nightmare” and “too foul-mouthed for a Dementor to want to Kiss”.

(TW DEATH MENTION) Memories of Uncle Harry pop up nearly every day - his voice, his rough hands positioning her arms and shoulders in a proper dueling stance, the smudges on his glasses, the way he looked at Aunt Ginny like she hung the moon in the sky. She misses him, dearly, but feels selfish and silly for doing so - she wasn’t his kid, and there are so many people who looked to Harry Potter as a symbol for the hope that carried them through wartime. She often worries that she isn’t doing enough - not enough to support her cousins, not enough for the muggleborns she knows and those she does not. There are days in which her inadequacy threatens to swallow her whole, when her hands tremble and breath rattles in her chest - but she’s able to bite it back for the moment. There’s bigger things ahead. (END TW).

PERSONALITY

okay so i always describe molly as a “disaster lesbian” or “chaotic dumbass” and i mean that with a lot of affection. she’s just very much motivated by pleasure and by fun, and much less motivated by duty or responsibility. she wants to stand out in both good and bad ways and more often achieves that in bad ways. she is also, like i mentioned, very headstrong. i consider her one of my funniest characters and that’s mostly unintentional because she just. says whatever pops into her head. i regularly giggle at what i make molly say. i am not ashamed of this.

uhhhh. what else? she’s a big old jock, one of those heinous people who for the most part actually enjoys exercising! will definitely ask you to join her on a sunrise run because she’s Ridiculous

loves her family so so so much, even though there’s at least 3 group chats where she’s currently trashing a cousin or two. is very down to take part in harmless pranks and shenanigans. someone outside the family tries to trash the cousins tho?!?!?! lmao kill bill sirens immediately go off. she and lucy probably call themselves twins bc they’re not blood-related but they are almost always on the same wavelength and in my eyes (jane u can confirm this for me) just get each other on a very fundamental level.

huge fuckin’ aries energy. you can find some personality assessments below:

zodiac.

aries (sun)

“aries is an active, energetic sign. people with sun in aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. they expect the same from others, and are baffled when they don’t always get it.”

gemini (moon)

“nervousness and worry are common traits with this lunar position. An underlying restlessness is common, and many lunar geminis need more stimulation than others. they usually read a lot, talk a lot, and think a lot.”

mbti. esfj (the consul)

+ strong practical skills, strong sense of duty, sensitive and warm, connects well with others

- inflexible, vulnerable to criticism, reluctant to improvise, needy, worries about social status

STATS

GENERAL

name. molly adelaide weasley

nickname. molls

birthdate. 4 april 2005 (she’s supposed to be 24? idk math)

place of birth. st. mungo’s

family. percy weasley (father), audrey weasley (mother), lucy weasley (sister), extended family in the form of various weasley-potter aunts, uncles and cousins.

residence. (tbd), but roommates: rose granger-weasley, natalia bardon, lucy weasley

occupation. chaser for puddlemere united

gender identity. cis woman

romantic orientation. homoromantic

sexuality. lesbian

blood status. half-blood

relationship status. single

pets. a bright pink pygmy puff named romeo

MAGICAL

hogwarts house. hufflepuff

extracurriculars/leadership. hogwarts orchestra (clarinet), dueling club, charms club (president)

allegiance. order of the pheonix

n.e.w.t. grades. charms (o), transfiguration (a), herbology (e), d.a.d.a (a), potions (e), care of magical creatures (e), astronomy (e), history of magic (o), muggle studies (o).

wand. alder, ten inches, dragon heartstring core.

boggart. inferi

patronus. corporeal, brown bear

amortentia. vanilla bath fizz, lemon peels, sandalwood, mint

magical strengths. charms, nonverbal casting, transfiguration, flying

magical weaknesses. defensive magic, hexes and curses, potions.

#potterintro #//////oops #i'm silly let's try this again #* ' molly.

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cloudyfm · 3 years

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hi everyone it’s me<3 i’m actually ahead of the game for once with intros so .... ur welcome ig idk. anyways i’ve put a shortish bio, personality, n some stats under the cut muah. also yeah that is a catboy gif i thought it was fitting and no i will not be taking criticism at this time.

BIOGRAPHY:

- thank you for joining my tedtalk to talk about the resident tyler posey of this rp<33 yes he is an actor, yes he is cringey. we all have our flaws.

- he was born in los angeles to 2 legacy parents - they had money, influence, and basically could get anything they wanted within the city. they both were also already involved in the film/media industry but were never super in the spotlight - his mom was a young actress but stopped when elijah was born, his dad was a director and continued his career afterwards...sooo yah his family is known n talked about

- his parents also were like . not good people to put it plainly. they were great to him and caring but it was not a happy marriage and led to multiple affairs, money struggles between the two of them (not with him, it was more so that if his family wanted to get a divorce, etc etc) - he still doesn’t know any of this<333

- basically when he was around 7 years old, they kind of picked a career path for him and it was mostly to get him disconnected from the family if any of the behind the doors problems came out. they used their connections to basically ensure that he was able to start a career in film and television at a young age so he would be set and it’s not like he minded. he grew up around this stuff it’s kind of all he knew

- he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his parents set him up, thought it would be easier if he was entirely disconnected from the family and its name so they kind of just .... disappeared. they knew that if the affairs and money struggles and basically all the problems they had made it public it would make it impossible for him to disappear and focus on himself so they did it for him. he still doesn’t know why his parents sent him off so his aunt n uncle (both of which he is very close w and loves dearly<3) kind of just made up a lie saying his parents had an accident and because he was so young he never questioned or asked for details. like he thought this entire staying w them stuff would be temporary but nope !

- literally i am saying his parents risked their own careers and lives for him like i am telling u his family were not bad people he just does not know that they literally did this to him to avoid their own problems getting out into the public (aka blackmail 1)

- but yeah from there ... his career just kind of took off from the connections in the industry he was given. like no offense n i hate aye for saying this but yeah he probably started on barney KFNLKSNLKSDNKSDF u know like most kid actors do<33 and then as he got older like. im sorry he cannot play serious roles but he probably did films that were coming of age type stories that were geared towards teenagers and young adults (think love simon, booksmart, that gist). we are also assuming in this universe that ppl actually are the same age as the characters they play ... yeah .

- when he was 18 he was really stupid (blackmail 2) and slept with a casting director for a role because he knew that someone else would have gotten the job if he didn’t. it was reckless and stupid and it actually got him in trouble but only with his family. his aunt n uncle found out and basically told him that if he didn’t go to school n fix his shit then he would have to stop working completely. he didn’t have much of a choice in where to go to college considering his parents were legacies so he just did as he was told

- he literally doesn’t wanna be there like he is the embodiment of ‘ i will now be causing a problem ‘

- but yeah ............. that’s all i got for now may remember more later KLNDFLKSNLKDSF

PERSONALITY:

- i mean he has a sag sun/aries moon which u can read about here that should frankly say enough

- but has the extreme problem of not thinking about the consequences of his actions - literally lives day by day rather than thinking about the future or the past which can really cause problems with his relationships

- a glass half full type of guy<3

- he generally has a huge problem with not taking things seriously - like if a problem comes up he will take it as nothing or just assume it’s not as big as it is just because he literally doesn’t see the point in stressing about it

- he is literally a himbo

- like he may not be stupid academically but he just doesn’t care for school and only ended up going because he was forced to by his aunt and uncle. he IS however stupid in every other aspect of his life KLNDFKSNSDFKL whether it be friendships, relationships, whatever he has a severe commitment problem and will basically just stick with what he feels like is a good time in that moment

- however when he is loyal, he is LOYAL. if a friendship or bond becomes deep enough he will be in it for the long haul and considering his personality it’s not super hard for someone to reach that level - he’s not overly trusting but he just doesn’t read into people as much as he should

- will make a joke about everything so i am sorry in advance for that<3 he just loves to have fun he can’t help who he is<3333333

- he isn’t a huge partier ... i mean he will if there is one but it’s not like he’s prone to scandal after scandal he kind of just does what he wants and if he gets caught well then that is a problem huh

- more tbd but that’s it for now ig .....

STATISTICS:

- full name: elijah cho.

- nicknames: i mean eli is fine ... he literally doesn’t care.

- age: 22.

- date of birth: december 10, 1997.

- birthplace: los angeles, california, united states.

- current location: new haven, connecticut, united states.

- astrological sign: sagittarius sun/aries moon.

- gender: cis male.

- pronouns: he/him/his

height: 5′11″.

- sexuality: bisexual.

- religion: agnostic, raised catholic.

- piercings: helix on his left ear, he had a nose ring for a couple of months when he was 19 but it fell out while he was sleeping and closed up :\

- tattoos: literally has the dumbest tattoos like i don’t even have the energy to find pictures. like random things he got when bored. probably has a smiley face on his finger - stuff like that.

- haircolor: peachy blonde like this.

- misc: has a calico cat named chewie (she’s 3) - loves her with his entire life so ellie if u see this she may come to meetings<3

#this is not edited so literally if there are errors no there arent #thank u<3 #i forgot to put the full blackmail into this but its fine u can check the page .

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charlotteu · 3 years

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⟨ SON CHAEYOUNG. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ⟩ though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, CHARLOTTE TAM is actually a descendent of H E P H A E S T U S it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY TWO year old CIVIL ENGINEERING/BUSINESS MAJOR from SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA has taken after their godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite PRECISE & TENSE.

heyheyhey girls gays & they’s. my og’s remember charlotte and how deeply i love her also the looming promise that i’d bring her back. and here are we so ✌️ if any of you don’t know, i’m dakota, i’m nineteen (19), i live in cst, and i’m a part time barista along with a full time political science major. i’ll have some vague wanted connections at the bottom of this but my dm’s are always open both on here and on discord @ wet ass politics#6969

trigger warnings: death

full name & nicknames :

charlotte chunhwa tam / lottie & lola

major :

civil engineering & business

sexuality :

lesbian

gender idenitity / pronouns :

cis - female / she/her

age / birthday :

twenty - three, december tenth, nineteen - ninety - eight

zodiac :

sagittarius

personality :

charlotte is known to find literal scraps of anything and manage to make something gorgeous from it - whether it’s food, metal scraps, or a nearly - ruined picnic table - it’s a skill that she takes great pride in. she constantly tries to bring her loved ones together in one form or another, which results in quite a lot of last - minute plans and “family dinners.” because of these two traits, if someone just happened to forget to plan a birthday party or a baby shower and needed it thrown together within a day or two (maybe that is on her bucket list, maybe not,) charlotte is your perfect person. regardless of this, charlotte is still considered that friend that never has their life together and has an extensional crises every few weeks. family wise, their relationship with their siblings is something that they take very seriously. even the ones that give her stress acne are still very much able to feel the affection and love she’s has for her family. she constantly checks in on all of her siblings and regularly makes an effort to be as involved in their lives as possible.

when it comes to school work, charlotte is perfectly organized. a well - planned and well - filled out academic calendar is always in her backpack and she has a few dozen notifications on both her phone and her laptop to remind her of class assignments. she is well - known at the tutoring center for her near constant sessions to ensure to that she is totally, a hundred percent getting the assignment. her math classes is where she thrives, and she has a record of taking several math classes during the summertime to further her knowledge. charlotte’s known for the immense pride that she takes in her work along with the very long academia career that they wish to have.

myers - briggs, vice, & virtue :

entp, temperance, & distrusting

hobbies :

welding, drawing, sculpting/general crafting, trivia games, meditation, going into nature & finding animals,

powers :

sensing faults in metal ores, technokenesis, and pyrokinesis. charlotte considers her technokenesis powers to be the stronger of her abilities now that she’s taken the time to work on it since her break. she uses it to help both students and professors on campus deal with their I.T issues and to make small devices to help her friends in their way to help with their daily life. she plans to use her sensing abilities to help with her career choice later on in life, so she continues to work on improving them to help later on. with honesty, she doesn’t use pyrokinesis beyond helping her forge things or as a cute party trick. they have very few plans to ever venture beyond the walls of a protected area ever again so her ability to control whatever flames she makes under pressure is virtually nonexistent.

backstory :

tam chaewon, aged thirty, had just finished her blacksmith apprenticeship abroad in the netherlands when she decides to go to a bar to celebrate with some friends before trying to find a job when she’s approached by a man claiming to overhear her accomplishment. eager to talk about her future, the two of them end up talking for three hours about it along with the various paths open for her to take. maybe it’s the willingness to sit and listen to her or maybe it’s the legitimacy in his interest that drew her in, but the two ended up spending the night together; they spend only two days together before he leaves with an address for chaewon to write to him if it’s needed. and she does, approximately two months later when she learns she’s pregnant with a baby girl. he writes back nothing but an apology, money to help with the expenses, along with a separate letter to give to the child when she turned ten.

(trigger warning in the paragraph: death specifically during child birth.) fast forward through a tornado of eight months and chaewon is visiting her parents when charlotte was born prematurely in seoul, south korea in chaewon’s childhood bathroom. there’s a complication with both chaewon and charlotte shortly the birth and the paramedics sped through the streets to pick up the two, doing their best to keep the two of them alive during the ride. the woman’s family races behind them in the family car, barely able to find the room the two are in to see the nurses rush ahead of them. (no one can tell charlotte what the complication is, but her mom stays alive for an gruesome day and a half, straddling the border between life and death. she’s declared dead on december eleventh at 12:18 pm, 1998.) legend has it that silence ran through the waiting room that the family was in, an unearthly wail leaving charlotte’s grandmother as she realizes what she had to pay to receive her granddaughter. no one wants to touch the child, let alone raise her. their family is faced with a choice when they’re handed the death certificate of their daughter, the birth certificate of their granddaughter, and their granddaughter herself.

her uncle is the one that ends up taking her in that day. the oldest sibling to her mother by six years, he had been an entrepreneur bachelor his entire life up until that point. so it’s whiplash, to say the least, to completely upheave his life in seoul and move to the small town of parga, greece to raise charlotte. the transition period between being a bachelor to a single father is hard, but he does his best to not give up on it. along side the lack of support from his family, it makes it all such a draining process. when she turns six, her uncle hires the first person to help the family: a highly recommended local nanny by the name of phoebe who would stay with the tam family until charlotte turned eighteen. it’s around this time that her uncle begins to drift away more, trying to keep his business on track, but he always comes back with an elaborate apology and an equally elaborate gift for charlotte to make up for the digression.

when she turns twelve, she starts to develop ... slightly unusual powers that always came as a shock but were immediately chalked up to scarily accurate guesses. it’s a fun party trick she uses at classroom gatherings, guessing where faults where in desks, trying to figure out what was wrong with technology, etc. and it didn’t go much beyond that for a very long time. it’s a rainy summer day when her uncle sits her down with a strange man who explains to the both of them that she’s a ... demigod. it takes a whole afternoon to convince charlotte of this fact while her uncle looks at her like a monster. she promptly declines any move to go to a camp (much to her uncle’s dismay) and the next six years of her life is promptly laid out. a life lived in a private plane, tucked away from the world to live out of a few suitcases and bought time from others.

this quiet life sealed away from the outside world leaves her doing whatever she can to keep busy. building whatever she can, trying to stay as occupied as much as she can. it results in a suitcase full of little trinkets by the time she’s six months into home schooling. the next few years of her life pass her by in a terrible haze as she does everything she can to catch up to the life that has been set out for her. her life begins to slow down when she gets into college at the age of nineteen, where she finally finds a safe haven amongst people like her. however, at the beginning of 2020, charlotte finds herself catching deep feelings for one EILILDH GALBRAITH. a fiery, vibrant, and resistant spirit immediately draws charlotte into deep feelings for her. the relationship happens for several months before the relationship comes to an abrupt halt in the end of october. unable to come to terms with her first major breakup, charlotte cites a personal, family matter to switch to online classes before coming back to in person at the end of finals shortly before the evacuation.

wanted connections :

DREAMLAND / a v simple plot with room for extreme nuance! someone that charlotte can help bounce ideas off of and vise versa. enable each other’s terrible ideas but do it with much love and a camera on hand at all times. ( 0/2 spots taken )

HIT DIFFERENT / some type of fun flirtatious relationship. maybe they’re just friends, maybe they’re party buddies (for the rare parties that she goes to,) or maybe they just happen to keep meeting. hopefully it’s very relaxed on both ends. ( 0/1 spots taken, must be afab )

ALWAYS GOLDEN / best friends, ride or die type shit. can we get some friend group for it tho because i always love a good group dynamic ( 0/5 spots taken )

I DIDN’T FALL / some kind of missed love, like those missed connections on craiglist. maybe the two of them grew close during charlotte’s time away from university or maybe they almost dated before charlotte was out, either way there’s still some mixed feelings of resentment for not making a move, the deathly “what if’s?”, and mayhaps some feelings that still linger. ( 0/1 spots taken, must be afab )

SPORTS / someone who helped navigate charlotte through her own experience of coming out and how that fits into her cultural identity along and her career field. i have a decent idea of her coming out process but i’m definitely flexible with it ( 0/1 spots taken )

#i said i'd make her kind of different and wow :)#euintro

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thestuckylibrary · 4 years

Text

A Year in Reading: 2019 - Julia

2019 wasn’t kind, but fandom is always there to cheer you up. Under the cut is a list of my favorite 2019 reads <3

Please make sure to check the additional tags for each of them and happy reading!

January

The Pajama Party Incident by follow_the_sun (oneshot | 1,455 | T)

A pajama party goes horribly wrong, then wonderfully right.

heartbeat going strong by fireflyslove (oneshot | 4,364 | T)

Steve's been sent to kill the dragon holding the Princess hostage, but the Princess isn't a hostage, and the dragon isn't what he seems.

I’m a Sucker for a Wild Boy by jinlinli (complete | 9,897 | T)

Steve is a vampire who’s never met a werewolf in his life before. Bucky is a werewolf who doesn’t even know vampires exist. Naturally, neck biting means two very different things to them.

In which Steve goes for a midnight snack and accidentally gets himself werewolf married.

The Very Heart of It by merryofsoul (oneshot | 17,743 | M) - Restricted

In which Captain America adopts a dog from Bucky and they become friends — and then more.

call me old-fashioned by I_mNotYourEnemy (oneshot | 7,458 | T)

Steve rises before the sun, runs through various exercises until his muscles burn and sweat gathers on his brow. He showers and dresses and eats, and then heads out the door with dampness still clinging to his hair. His path doesn’t cross with anyone else’s until he reaches the local subway station. He jogs down the stairs to the platform and sees the man waiting there once again, the sergeant.

Or: Bucky joins Steve on his morning commute. Steve draws him and gets his number.

the long walk home by Deisderium (oneshot | 3,566 | E)

On the walk back from Azzano, Bucky keeps touching Steve's chest. Then he touches it some more. And more.

Steve bites his lip raw. AKA tiddy fic

Heckin' Chunker for Love by canistakahari (oneshot | 2,708 | T)

On the inside of the big floor to ceiling window of the office across the street, someone has used Post-it Notes to spell out a message:

W H A T I S Y O U R C A T ’ S N A M E ?

February

bucky barnes and the art class by belovedmuerto (oneshot | 1,420 | T)

Bucky takes an art class, because he wants to spend more time with Steve.

Patience by cleo4u2 (oneshot | 5,073 | E)

You should never Google yourself. Steve knows that, he's been out of the ice for over a year, but he just can't help himself. After finding a gorgeous, sexy brunette thirst tweeting about calling him Daddy, he can't help himself from responding, either.

i want it, i got it by bornes (oneshot | 1,499 | T)

Ten minutes into their impromptu mall adventure, Steve has offered to buy Bucky a designer sofa he had sat on briefly to rest his legs, a $600 headband, and a diamond-encrusted butterfly clip

Remember How to Love by betoning (oneshot | 3,852 | T)

“We shared a bed,” Bucky remembers, "and your toes were freezin’. We didn’t – nothing more, though.”

“No, Buck,” Steve swallows. “Nothing more.”

(Bucky wants more.)

tease me, squeeze me by goodmanperfectsoldier (oneshot | 3,757 | E) - Restricted

It isn’t his fault that Steve has absolutely no sense of modesty. It isn’t his fault that Steve has no desire to be in his Captain America uniform any longer than strictly necessary. It isn’t his fault that Steve tends to start disrobing as soon as they hit friendly airspace, so that he can pull on a t-shirt and sweatpants before they even make it back to headquarters, much less get home to their apartment.

The Fool in the Mirror by thepinupchemist (complete | 111,489 | E) - violence, check additional tags for warnings!

The Avengers, SHIELD, and the world at large have underestimated the pain that Steve Rogers is in.

The night after a near brush with a suicide attempt, Steve discovers the world of support omegas, and in his desperation for relief from the battlefield of his brain, demands to have one.

Enter Bucky Barnes: retired marine, millennial, amputee, brother, son, and support omega. He maybe, just maybe, can help a broken alpha heal in the twenty-first century.

The Best Way to Wake by LeeHan (oneshot | 42,285 | E)

James Buchanan Barnes lay in a glass pod in the middle of the table, frozen since he fell. Steve’s hands were on the glass before he realized he’d moved. “Wait, Captain!” “Get him out,” Steve whispered, his hands searching for a clasp, a keypad, something. “Captain, we need to keep him in stasis—“ “I said get him out!”

March

Taken by Surprise by Mireille (oneshot | 1,606 | E)

It turned out that there were things Bucky didn't know about Steve, after all.

In the Shadow of Armistice by superheroresin (complete | 63,491 | E)

Sedryn Amathion is a young Ñoldor elf born of lower Himring near the end of the harrowed Second Age. Vice-Captain of the Forlindon Shieldmasters, herald of the High King Gil-Galad, and devotee of Eärendil, the Star of High Hope.

Or, as the ragtag Dúnedain troupe known as the Howling Commandos calls him, Steve.

The Commandos are to sabotage an orc signal tower deep within the Ephel Dúath mountains, clearing the way for the armies of the Last Alliance to march on Barad-dûr and rescue all of Middle-earth from the clutches of this new and terrible Dark Lord.

“Steve” has no way of knowing that love formed deep behind enemy lines would settle so completely inside his immortal heart, defying time, distance, and ultimately death itself.

Tinder Is the Night by rohkeutta (oneshot | 6,802 | E)

It’s the quality that gets him first. The profile photo looks like it's been taken with a semi-professional camera: it's sharp and remarkably unposed compared to most people on Tinder. The guy in the photo is the size of a fucking fridge but with Marilyn Monroe’s waistline, accentuated by the way he’s standing half-twisted towards the camera.

He’s also in the process of getting arrested.

Steve, 28, it says under the photo. New York City. Some say I have an arresting personality. This photo is from my good side. The other has a shiner.

Introduction to Fake Dating Your Best Friend 101 by crinklefries (oneshot | 24,627 | T)

Bucky stares at his best friend as though he’s absolutely lost what’s left of his dumbass mind.

“Excuse me?” he asks dumbly.

Steve sighs and sags back onto the couch, covering his face dramatically with one large, well-manicured hand.

“Dean Coulson thinks we’re dating. And gay. But like, for each other. And now I need you to fake date me so I can convince the Chancellor to fund my research.”

or;

Steve and Bucky are a pair of professors who have to fake date for academic purposes and are real dumb along the way. It's not so much a forest of pine as a whole landscape of it. It turns out fine, probably.

straight from your heart by luninosity (oneshot | 10,516 | E) - check additional tags for warnings!

Steve doesn’t mean to have the orgasm. Not exactly. Not the first time, anyway.

It’s the leather and the buckles and the capable stance. It’s the determination: familiar, and not. Steve doesn’t even know which mission this had been. Where this snapshot of the Winter Soldier had been captured, a splinter out of time. Too many to choose from. But that doesn’t matter.

His skin prickles, his heart races in supersoldier extra-double-time, with want.

Things That Go Bump in the Night by seapigeon, velleities (complete | 38,266 | E)

Many an odd critter and item have ended up on the front porch of the property Bucky house-sits in the Middle Of Nowhere, but a bleeding blond man is a first. A short inspection reveals the man to be none other than Steve Rogers; ex-Captain America, vigilante, and a wanted fugitive. Steve’s stay of a few days of recovery is prolonged, under instructions for him to lie low until the Avengers can sort out the mess that has become the Sokovia Accords. Bucky is pretty sure that he’s committing an act of treason by providing Steve a place to stay. He is also pretty sure that lengthy interaction with Steve makes one prone to impending headaches and possibly ulcers. And he is certain that he is, very assuredly, in danger of falling in love with Steve.

skin by mcwho (oneshot | 1,945 | E)

Steve is spooning Bucky, an arm draped loosely around his middle, laying on the large sofa opposite the TV. His lips are against Bucky’s hair, breathing him in.

It’d be an average Thursday night if it wasn’t for Steve being buried to the hilt inside of him and showing no signs of moving any time soon.

Rouge Fétiche by bangyababy, Neutralchaos (oneshot | 6,941 | E)

“Steve,” Bucky breathed, coming closer. “Stevie, what’s all this?”

Steve made no move to cover himself, now that Bucky had seen it, there was no point. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the ground. “What’s it look like?” he bit out. “I’m wearin’ women’s panties, that’s what it is.”

Steve has been keeping a secret from Bucky-sometimes he likes to wear women's underwear. He thinks it's wrong and he shouldn't want to do it, but he can't help it, so he keeps it to himself. But when Bucky walks in on him one day, Steve eventually has to explain himself. Of course, as it turns out, he was worried about nothing.

Army Proof by aetataureate (complete | 18,423 | T)

Despite his recent and unexpected promotion from green recruit to national icon and media darling Captain America, Steve Rogers still lacks the skills and experience necessary to thrive in the Army. First Sergeant Tony Stark has dealt with decades of tomfoolery from his subordinates, but nothing has quite prepared him for the particular brand of chaos that trails in Steve's wake.

Steve's team includes at least one competent adult in Sam Wilson, but also contains Clint Barton, a mechanic who cheats at cards and still loses, and Natasha Romanov, their terrifying police escort. Together, the gang must navigate across Eastern Europe without causing Steve’s next major international incident.

On the other side of the world, Bucky Barnes is contending with a new reality while doing what he can to keep his accidental hero boyfriend on the path that will eventually lead him home.

much tattoo about nothing by Deisderium (oneshot | 14,576 | E)

Steve Rogers gets a lot of email requests, but never one like this: James Barnes wants to use his healing factor to practice tattoos.

Turns out tattoos give Steve boners.

before we can breathe easy by belovedmuerto (oneshot | 22,052 | T)

No one touches Steve.

Bucky sets out to do something about that.

April

Count On Me Like One, Two, Three by MacksDramaticShenanigans (oneshot | 4,235 | G)

“I also need to get one of those scooter things,” Bucky adds. “That’s gotta be better than these damn crutches.” Steve’s eyes drop down to the crutches again, and he frowns. “Crutches are never comfortable,” he agrees, shaking his head. “You want a piggyback ride?” He asks, grinning as he laughs at his own joke. Bucky ducks his head and laughs along, a good-natured smile settling over his lips. “Yeah, that would be real nice, wouldn’t it?” He says, not thinking anything of it. When he looks back up, however, Steve’s already in the process of shrugging his backpack off of his shoulders. The smile melts off of Bucky’s face and his brows furrow together. Was that… a serious offer?

stay by birdjay (oneshot | 1,318 | T)

The platform buzzes, and suddenly goes quiet. The cycle has finished. Bucky doesn’t bother to look. There’s no way Steve’s coming back when he has the chance to stay. He moves to walk away, to move on with his life, somehow.

“Buck -- ?”

Bucky whirls around, hair flying.

might never be normal again (but who cares) by napricot (complete | 51,540 | E)

The beginnings of a plan took shape in Steve’s mind, as clear and simple as a tactical frontal assault. He’d prove to Bucky that this was it, he was staying: Steve was retired from the fighting game, Steve wasn’t going to let anything keep pulling them apart. Maybe then when Steve finally told him he loved him, Bucky would believe him.

All things considered, Steve thought he’d handled the whole Thanos killing half the universe thing and the ensuing bitter, desperate quest to defeat him pretty well. Sacrificing his super soldier serum to use one of the Infinity Stones wasn't a problem either, not when it meant getting back the half of the universe they'd lost, and especially not when it meant getting Bucky back. But retirement and finally confessing his feelings for Bucky? Those were proving to be more challenging.

May

Smile by WinterTheWriter (oneshot | 2,205 | E)

They say Bucky never smiles, and that's true.

Almost.

The Settler by charlesdk (complete | 52,203 | M)

“What do you want to do?”

Steve pauses and looks at them.

What he wants is to stay with them. He doesn't have any family left, they all died before he even joined the war and became... this. Captain America turned whatever he is now. But Natasha and Sam have become his family over the years. Not just because they're on the run together, fugitives and vigilantes, but way before that too.

He doesn't want to leave that.

But he knows that, realistically, he can't stay with them and they can't stay with him.

So he looks at them with a smile and lies. “I don't know.”

OR; In which Steve retires and finally finds a place to call home.

And fill our bodies up like water till we know by caughtinanocean (oneshot | 22,705 | T)

Wolves mate for life. It's both the best thing about Bucky's life, and the most inconvenient.

After six days in Steve’s arms, Bucky dreams again, for the first time since the ice — wolf dreams, four feet on the ground, the smell of the earth, and his eyes in the sky.

The moon is coming, and this reprieve — like all reprieves — is temporary.

June

Home Is Wherever I'm With You by cydonic (complete | 88,570 | E)

This is what happens when you buy a house to flip having only seen the online images: you get more than you bargained for. Bucky Barnes brings all the tools to handle a dilapidated home, but he's hardly prepared for a smart-mouthed child (with poor aim), a crying baby, and the hottest dad he's ever seen in his life living right next door.

That House-Flipper!AU.

People Change, Love Doesn't by Kateis_Cakeis (complete | 119,144 | E)

Bucky didn't fall from the train. Steve didn't die when he jumped out of the plane. They survived.

But suddenly, it wasn't enough to keep their feelings hidden. They had both almost died, only to come back stronger. Well, Steve was done pretending they were only friends, and Bucky was done too.

Surviving the war, however, brought so many challenges. Being SSR agents, eventually becoming SHIELD, building a family with their friends. Living. What would happen as the years ticked on?

miles to go before i sleep by alby_mangroves, obsessivereader (complete | 34,079 | E)

Vietnam vet Bucky is just trying to get a hot meal, and maybe a job, in the small town of Hope, but the local law enforcement has other ideas. When their brutality triggers a flashback, Bucky snaps and escapes from their custody. Hunted, exhausted, injured, he finds shelter for the night next to a cabin in the middle of the woods. He means to be long gone before the cabin's occupant awakes. Things don't turn out quite the way he expected.

All of Your Love is Sunlight by canistakahari, WarlockInTraining (oneshot | 22,657 | E)

Sometimes the path to happiness involves bad timing turned good, a butt plant, and a little everyday magic. For Steve and Bucky, it's all that and more.

if you're looking for jesus (then get on your knees) by voxofthevoid (oneshot | 18,171 | E)

S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Bucky Barnes is captured on a mission and meets Commander Steve Rogers, the erstwhile Captain America.

A Year in the Life of Sarge's Person by Angst_BuriTTo, BlueSimplicity (complete | 189,125 | E)

This is the tale of a year in the life of Sarge’s person, AKA James Buchanan Barnes, as he tries to recover from everything that’s happened to him over the past eighty years. During that time, he is forced to deal with bad therapists, people with their own agendas, memories he doesn’t want, horrible losses from his past and almost insurmountable odds.

But this is also the story of all the crazy people Bucky meets along the way, who help him when he’s at his lowest, point him in the right direction when he feels lost, make him laugh, grow to love him for who he is, and most importantly, give him hope when he needs it most.

It’s a long and difficult journey, as Bucky works not just to let go of his past, but to also rebuild his own identity and a future for himself. And with Sarge at his side, Bucky slowly comes to realize that not everything he once loved is lost, and if he can just have enough faith in himself and those around him, he might, just might, get his very own happy ending.

Bucky IS Sarge’s person after all. As the once abandoned puppy Bucky saved one night from freezing to death, he knows, more than anyone, just how much Bucky deserves it.

Let this be light work by caughtinanocean (oneshot | 8,628 | T)

On the run with Sam and Natasha, Steve finds the words to describe his commitment to Bucky. As with most of Steve’s decisions, there are unintended consequences.

July

everything the water can be by jehans (oneshot | 5,622 | E)

“So,” Bucky continues slowly, his blush deepening, “you get the best time today. . . ,” he takes a breath, drops his voice even lower, and soughs, “I’ll let you take off my clothes. All of ‘em.”

Shit.

Steve suddenly realizes what a fucking moron he is for having initiated this line of flirtation here at the pool and right before practice.

it don't mean a thing (if it ain't got that swing) by carissima (oneshot | 6,375 | M)

“Alright,” Bucky says and stands with his hands on his hips and gives Steve a narrowed glare. “Hit me. What went wrong?”

“I uh, don’t actually know?” Steve says, and now he feels an embarrassed flush creep over his cheeks. “She stood me up.”

Bucky stares at him. Blinks once. And stares some more. “You,” he says flatly. “You got stood up?”

An Act of Kindness by greyhavensking (complete | 12,716 | T)

In which Bucky Barnes ignores personal boundaries and Steve Rogers gets increasingly flustered.

(Or five times Bucky manhandled Steve + one time it was the other way around)

crowding the hitter by rooonil_waazlib (complete | 12,917 | E)

But the trash monsters are coming closer, and Bucky’s going to be pissed if he has to get his grate replaced tomorrow.

He turns off the panini press, heads into his bedroom, and pulls his college baseball bat out of the closet, pausing only to pull on the slacks he’d just taken off. He’s going to go defend his shop, and he’s not going to do it in his underpants.

August

time on my hands (could be time spent with you) by thedoubteriswise (oneshot | 23,024 | M)

"You doing okay, kid?”

Steve releases a breath, deciding how honest he wants to be. No point in lying. No point in telling the truth, either. "Glad to see you."

"That’s not what I asked, but same to you, punk."

Quench by AidaRonan (complete | 9,417 | E)

Or the one where archeology intern Bucky Barnes meets actual archeologist Steve Rogers and reaches levels of thirst scientists once believed to be theoretically impossible.

I'll hold on a little tighter (maybe you'll stay the night) by glittercake (complete | 10,393 | E)

"No strings. I ain't got time for strings." Steve murmurs.

Bucky nods helplessly.

"Be discreet." Steve continues kissing his neck and talking, now also rubbing and squeezing his thigh. "Condoms, always. Back out anytime you want. And sweetheart—"

"Hm?" Bucky hums in a delirious daze as Steve works all the way down to his collarbone and bites, making Bucky jolt forward.

"I like it rough, don't do it any other way. If that ain't your thing, we gotta call it off right now."

this love immortal is an assassin's delight by voxofthevoid (oneshot | 12,954 | E)

After the Battle of New York, Captain America refuses to work for S.H.I.E.L.D and remains in New York. Alexander Pierce activates the Winter Soldier to handle the situation and unknowingly signs Hydra’s death warrant.

Watch With Glittering Eyes by Kellyscams (oneshot | 6,746 | E)

Witch Steve and familiar Bucky have a fun night together.

Happiness is a handful by pamurai (oneshot | 1,274 | E)

Steve's pecs compel Bucky's memories to return faster. Together they explore what makes them happy and what the future holds.

(It's Steve's tits.)

It's Been a Long, Long Time by non_tiembo_mala (oneshot | 11,862 | E)

It's been a thing almost as long as they have, since before Steve grew up and filled out his serum-given body. Connection, comfort-- whatever it is, it grounded them then and, as it turns out, it grounds them now, many decades and disasters later.

Or: the one where Steve's beautiful tits help Bucky get his memory back.

September

Do What You Did by Bentrumors (oneshot | 1,075 | E)

“Come finish what you started,” Bucky mumbles into the pillow.

“I can’t. Sam’s waiting for me.”

Bucky turns his head and glares at Steve through bleary eyes. “You’re going to leave me hanging?”

Steve shrugs.

a slow start by birdjay (oneshot | 2,689 | E)

It’s a gorgeous sight, Steve spread out like this. He wants to lick, wants to bite, wants inside where he’s hot and tight. Wants to make Steve make that gasping noise that he loves so much.

All in good time.

An Apple in the American Pie by Kimra (oneshot | 2,479 | M)

At the end of CAWS Steve runs off with Bucky, and also falls pregnant. Go figure.

October

All the sweetness and all the glory by pes (oneshot | 2,916 | M)

“Do you know,” Steve began softly, mindful of the sleeping child, “I can’t tell whom she takes after the most just yet, but one thing I know for certain. This,” he said, tracing Annie’s dimpled chin with the very tip of his finger, “this she got from your side of the family.”

(In which a visit to Bucky's new niece kindles all sorts of feelings, and a precious little secret comes to light.)

Give Up the Ghost by humapuma (complete | 44,541 | E)

Bucky Barnes is an anomaly; he's physically an Omega but has the body of an Alpha. He has a lot of the stubbornness too. Steve Rogers is an anomaly; he's a romantic and he believes in the traditions his parents raised him with. There's something about Steve that makes Bucky's Omega brain say, Mine. There's something about Bucky that makes Steve want to be more than a little reckless.

ever just as sure by ariadne_odair (complete | 7,938 | M)

“Your boyfriend is here.”

It’s take Steve a second to realise Sharon is talking to him; it then takes him even longer to respond and to stop choking on his reply. “I - er, is he?”

Sharon eyes him up like he’s lost his mind. “Well, the guy currently parking his crappy car in our car park is definitely not mine.”

Steve and Bucky are idiots. They're also in love. Obnoxiously so. Alternatively titled: Five times someone has a front-row seat to Steve and Bucky's relationship.

Where the Heart Is by Chancy_Lurking (oneshot | 12,133 | T)

“Couples are more than welcome to room together.”

Steve freezes up, feels his eyes go a little wide before he can help himself. He stumbles over his words, “Oh, I—No, we’re not—”

“We’re not going to give you any trouble about that,” Fury presses, turning to squint at them head on. “Stark likes to say we’re opened minded and close-knit. Your private life is your business, but you don’t need to hide here, understand?”

Steve goes to reiterate that they’re not a couple, but startles when Bucky’s hand settles on the small of his back. He looks at him like he’s lost his mind, but Bucky’s just smiling at him. “Never can be too careful these days,” he says.

(Steve and Bucky pretend to be a couple when they move in, but at some point, it stops feeling like pretend.)

Like gifts under trees by pes (oneshot | 6,528 | T)

Inside the leather satchel, bundled in a few layers of cloth, was the smooth swell of an egg. A dragon egg, dark, and shiny, and fluttering with life in its makeshift nest.

“I think it’s about to hatch,” Steve breathed, clutching the bag to his chest helplessly.

Bucky didn’t need to think twice.

Your voice is all I hear somehow, calling out winter by chaosmanor (oneshot | 13,597 | E) - stucky/symbiote

Bucky is remarkably functional, considering what he's been through. Then, sometimes, it's like a sullen killer is wearing his skin.

(Or, the fic no one asked for, where Bucky has a symbiote named Winter and everyone has to work out how to live together.)

Misery I Need by mwestbelle (oneshot | 2,592 | M)

"You've seen his file, right?" She let out a low whistle. "What a shame. To do that to such a pretty omega."

They thought he was asleep. She didn't mean anything by it, and if she knew that he'd heard he's sure she would have apologized. But it's her voice that he hears whenever he feels out of place, uncomfortable in his skin. What a shame.

OR a different take on Steve Rogers' body issues

November

Simple by Ellessey (oneshot | 4,043 | T)

Steve's holding Bucky's drink out to him and he's looking at Bucky in that way he does. It makes Bucky want to cover his face. It makes him want to peek inside of himself and see if he can actually spot the butterflies.

"Here you go," Steve says. "Extra hot, so be careful, 'kay?"

"Okay, thanks..." Bucky says. And then he has to swallow again, and his throat feels awfully tight but he practiced this last night and he can do this. He can. He opens his mouth again and adds, "Steve."

Every morning Bucky walks to a nearby coffee shop as a kind of exposure therapy. He isn't going there for the coffee, and he's not actually sure he's going there for the therapy anymore, but he's definitely going there for Steve Rogers' smile.

Every Move the Feeling Follows by thepinupchemist (oneshot | 5,412 | E)

After the Avengers win the battle against Thanos, everyone gets to go home. Steve and Bucky retire, get mated, and get surprised. They have a baby, and they get to start their lives again.

not idiots at all by icoulddothisallday (oneshot | 2,297 | M)

Somehow, despite the seventy years in the ice and his overwhelming fame and popularity, Steve’s words have never been recorded anywhere. He suspects that he has Peggy to thank for that. The words have always been a source of embarrassment for Steve, for one reason or another. When he was a child, his words were just another thing that set him apart from others. Other kids had common words - mostly names, as that was what you were supposed to say to a stranger. Some kids got dealt generic words like excuse me and good morning. Steve’s words didn’t make much sense, the ones that did were...not intended for polite conversation.

Thursday Nights with Bucky Barnes by Ellessey (oneshot | 4,662 | T)

Steve has a comfortable, well-worn routine for his Thursday nights, until the old man who runs the laundromat breaks his hip.

Then Steve has Bucky instead.

Rare Is This Love (Keep It Covered) by histoires_eternelles, musette22 (complete | 66,773 | E)

It's 2014. Captain America has been out of the ice for three years and is trudging along, saving the world and trying to get used to living in the future. Steve thinks he knows how the rest of his life is going to pan out – a life of duty, which he chose when he signed up to be Erskine’s science experiment. But then, he meets Bucky Barnes: the out-of-this-world-gorgeous mechanic and war vet, who turns Steve’s life upside down and makes him question everything he thought he knew. Slowly, Steve comes to realize there is more to life than duty and punching Nazis. Just one problem though: how on earth does a 96-year-old virgin who only just realized he may not be entirely straight make the transition from crush to relationship? Cue healthy amounts of self-doubt, awkward flirting, pretty blushing, existential crises, emotional growth, and maybe, possibly, a sexual awakening.

rather be a lover than a fighter (found peace in your violence) by voxofthevoid (oneshot | 4,355 | E)

The dust has settled, and the world is healing. Men are too.

The Soldier's Revenge by LeeHan (complete | 76,406 | E)

Bucky Barnes turns himself in to SHIELD two years after dragging Captain America out of the Potomac River. He was deprogrammed in Wakanda and has been hunting down Hydra ever since, but he needs help if he wants to take proper revenge on his captors. He turns to his old enemies: SHIELD and the Avengers, but it'll take more than a few words to win their trust after the Winter Soldier brought SHIELD to its knees not long before. Now at SHIELD's mercy, the only thing that stands between Bucky and his revenge is the approval of Captain Rogers: a self-righteous asshole that Bucky barely knows.

All Those Little Pieces by Ellessey (complete | 40,516 | M)

Steve has never forgotten Bucky Barnes. Not their childhood together, not the horror of the moment Bucky fell too far for him to reach, and not the way he's loved him all the while.

Bucky has forgotten everything about Steve, at least at first. But there's still a feeling there, warm in his chest—and maybe now that he's found his way back to Steve Rogers and his sunny apartment, there's a chance it might turn into something more.

December

No fics for this month, since it was a difficult one.

In any case, I hope you enjoy all of these recs above and have a great 2020! <3

#mod picks #mod julia

108 notes · View notes

ofaylin · 4 years

Text

⌠ BAHAR SAHIN, 19 CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, AYLIN KALELI! according to their records, they’re a SECOND year, specializing in LINGUISTICS, CULTURE, & ASSIMILATION; and they DID go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (hair pulled back with a chanel ribbon, lycra boots with razor blades in the heel, champagne and french macarons in a bubble bath, wiping your tears with a $100 bill). when it’s the (leo)’s birthday on 8/3/00 they always request their FRENCH FRIES from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.

hi, hello, i’ve been sitting on this idea for a while and i was going to wait until june but with all these new characters i just got too excited ?! so, fuck it, i’m here now, i can’t help myself. for plots, feel free to message me here on tumblr or hmu on discord @ #kati7600, but check out her intro below the cut ! // ty @gallagherintro

INSPIRATION.

bex baxter – gallagher girls

carmen cortez – spy kids

blair waldorf – gossip girl

cher horowitz – clueless

torrance shipman – bring it on

jackie burkhart – that 70s show

BACKGROUND.

both of her parents work for the national intelligence organization of turkey, they’re big shots and they make a lot of money! she has two older sisters and she’s born into a world of wealth and expectations. it won’t take her long to learn more languages than years she has lived, and waking up early to run drills and do obstacle courses with her sisters is routine.

picture perfect on the outside, the household within goes through turmoil. her mother is promoted to the director of the NIO and it puts a strain on her parent’s relationship. her father starts taking more business trips, and aylin and her sisters spend nights sitting on the top of the stairs, listening in on phone conversations. aylin’s the youngest, so she doesn’t really understand what’s going on and needs to have it broken down.

aylin had always LOVED her parent’s love story – they met on a mission and they were partners for years, it’s all very romantic. so the divorce leaves her confused. how could you stop loving someone? how could you just give up?

both of her parents are an active part of her life, the divorce is...fairly amicable and they share custody. the only thing aylin doesn’t like is her father’s new girlfriend, young and totally uninvolved in the world of espionage. the girl could be her sister. aylin spends her time split between two houses, half-belonging to each, but her parents feel GUILTY so aylin quickly learns how to use that guilt to get what she wants, whether it’s freedom or material goods.

she’s a little spoiled, but it doesn’t satisfy her. nothing really does, it just makes her feel sort of empty, so she works harder, filling time with books and training with her older sisters who tell her cool stories from their spy prep schools and teach aylin things they’ve learned when they come home for breaks. aylin long for the day when she’s not splitting your time between other people’s homes and she’s in a place that she can really call her own.

she goes to the same spy prep school that her older sisters did in london. she’s competitive from the get-go because she’s a kelali and people already expect things from her to begin with. she smiles when people call her by her sister’s name or mention her mother, but inside she’s seething, eager to prove that she’s good because she works hard, not because she’s someone’s sister or daughter.

it’d be a lie to say that aylin didn’t step on a few toes, and the way she skyrocket to valedictorian is a little less than savory – she reports her competition for illicit activities, and...perhaps she planted something in their locker idk!!!

she has her pick of spy prep colleges across the nation, but her mom really encourages her to choose gallagher. why? that’s weird, her mom never went there and neither does the rest of her family! but aylin really likes the idea of a place that’s all hers and she’s always wanted to see america, so she chooses it. she’s a bit smug about being ahead of others because she’s been reading books on espionage since age 4, and if you don’t know sixteen languages, stay out of her way.

PERSONALITY:

PROUD. aylin is a very proud person, she grew up in an affluent household with important parents. when faced with a challenge, it’s her pride that tends to motivate her to be the best because she feels like she has something to prove, and she’ll turn her nose up at you until she gets it. this also makes her stubborn.

INTELLIGENT. aylin was raised in an environment where she was being trained since her childhood, knowing about espionage since she could speak, but she also has an iq of 122, so not quite genius level but she’s getting there. she’s the head cheerleader type that you’d be surprised is actually really good at math.

HARD-WORKING. queen of taking on too many extracurriculars at all times! honestly she tends to overexert herself until she burns out, but she wants it all – the exciting social life, the straight As, the meaningful connections, the parties, when does she sleep? maybe never.

SNOBBISH. honestly, she doesn’t mean to come off as a snob but she definitely does because she hasn’t really known anything other than crystal dishware and fancy clothes. she doesn’t even comprehend that other people don’t come from the same place of privilege that she has.

FUN-LOVING. the girl you want to party with! just because she’s a good student, she wouldn’t want you to think that she doesn’t know how to have a good time. aylin operates in extremes, so she parties just as hard as she studies and has a tendency to get carried away, but let it be known that she’s doing this for herself and not for anyone else’s attention.

MANIPULATIVE. aylin will step on toes to get what she wants, and she’s not scared to fight dirty. she tends to stay in the lines of what’s legal of course, but if she sees a window into getting what she wants, she’ll say what she needs to in order to get it. honestly, she can be a bit callous with the way she uses people and doesn’t always understand the effects of her actions. she would tell you that the ends justify the means. yikes.

INDEPENDENT. doesn’t need you or anyone else and wants you to know it. her confidence is genuine and real, and she doesn’t attribute any of her accomplishments to her family name – she’s not insecure about it, she knows that she’s good at what she does.

HEADCANONS.

started school early, so she’s a bit young for her grade by a year. she sees this as a positive thing and will brag to you about how she’s younger AND smarter. annoying.

acts like she really likes healthy food and eats a salad in public ( will tell you that’s her favorite food ) but she’s weak for things that are greasy and fried and will be pigging out in secret. her favorite food is french fries but you probably wouldn’t guess that about her !

languages she knows: english, french, turkish, arabic, german, kurmanji, italian, dutch, spanish, mandarin, japanese, latin, hindustani, malay, russian, bengali. some are better than others and some she reads more than she can really speak.

taught herself to skateboard since coming to america since it seemed like the thing to do based on watching american films. she will ride her little penny board in high heels and loves it ! and you thought i couldn’t make her more annoying !

tons of expensive lingerie but u can look but don’t touch.

bisexual but still not interested in you.

leo with a virgo rising and cancer moon. i am so SORRY !

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

SERENA TO HER BLAIR. literally her best friend ever, but they probably have a sort of on-off friendship because they’re strong personalities and get in each other’s business. however, when it comes down to it, they’ll always put the other first and they love each other immensely, would kill a man for the other. but they’re also pretty competitive too.

GIRL SQUAD. i just want her to have a couple close girl friends that are all close...you know. i would love if one of them was more subdued and totally chill about everything, maybe a wallflower type, and then another that’s kind of nerdy ? but also cool, you know. i’m just dreaming.

EX/BESTIE. aylin and this person used to date like forever ago, but mutually decided that they made better friends than romantic partners. they care about each other a lot, and they probably make jokes about how they USED to date. a healthy ex connection basically !

ON/OFF THING. because for every healthy ex i also want something kind of toxic. essentially it’s not good for either of them and they just keep going back to each other because, well, it’s a place of comfort or whatever. they drive each other fucking crazy though and no one can keep up with whether they hate each other’s guts today or if they’re all heart eyes.

SWORN ENEMY. but for a justified reason, like aylin probably screwed them over for something academic or even in a campus club or something. if your character went to a spy prep school, maybe they’re the person that aylin screwed out of the valedictorian role ? might submit a WC for that cause. fun.

PROJECT. like my fair lady, be aylin’s eliza doolittle, let her she’s the man you, whatever. essentially, your character might by shy, nervous, or new to the spy world and aylin wants to give them a metaphoric ( or maybe even physical ! ) makeover and help them get acclimated, teach them the ways of the world. i’m also picturing that pic of the lesbians, u know what i mean. i can’t find it, but i google searched “girl doing the other girls makeup, gay”

FORBIDDEN FRIENDSHIPS/LOVE. idk something totally not allowed. if this was sooner i’d want her ass to have a crush on a witness protection kid. however, her parents work for the turkish NIO, so perhaps your muse’s parents or family have been involved in something rivaling that so they’re not supposed to get along.

MARRIED COUPLE FRIENDS. these are friends that are so close that they’re practically a married couple?? i’d love to do a platonic m/f thing with this, where they fight and get on to each other like they’re married but love each other like it too. lil grandparents of their friend group.

CRUSHER. someone who has a crush on her, probably because they’re fascinated with the idea of her and not her true problematic self. she’d probably be kinda rude to them and i’d love to plot this out long enough for that crush to turn to dislike once they recognize the selfish parts of her or notice she’s been making fun of them. maybe a flipped scenario.

ONE NIGHT STAND. maybe after a few too many drinks, they hooked up. something recent so we can make it super awkward and potentially funny.

SET-UP. your character’s parents are close friend’s with aylin’s and they’re trying to set aylin up with your character. aylin and your character are NOT compatible at all and it’s hilarious.

OVERSEAS. they met while they were both abroad together one summer, and they accidentally got into some trouble with international police maybe just for being too drunk on the streets or acting stupid, climbing stuff. aylin considers your character a liability and has avoided them since, disregarding the fun times they had.

RIVALS/ENEMIES WITH SEXUAL TENSION.

EXISTING CONNECTIONS.

NAZ FARHI. her cousin. the two of them don’t NOT get along...but aylin really thought she would come to a school and be the only one of her family members there and then naz showed up ! determined to make it clear that she’s the best.

JO TRAN. rival/dislike. took one of the upper-level courses because she could and her attitude got on jo’s nerves because what doesn’t get on jo’s nerves. aylin’s just the epitome of everything that pisses jo off.

KASSANDRA SUTTON. bad friend to. one of those friendships where one person takes more than they give, and it’s not ON PURPOSE, but kass is really just so easy to take advantage of, aylin’s ALWAYS running to her when she needs a favor.

#gallagher:intro

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myxdante · 4 years

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... shimo shimo? 👉👈

woah. helo.

i’ll keep it short and simple: i’m sei. he/him. my timezone is gmt +8, malaysia. and i too used to be in fabeln as a ten (prince hans’ son) and jongin (simba’s son) fc, if u recognise them do say hi~ 😴 i legit haven’t been tumblr rping in forever so excuse me if i appear to be awkward around here lmao but i sure hope you can give my boy sum love pls!!

i’ll be setting up a plot page asap but here’s some rundown of dante below the cut in the mean time:

son of grimhilde aka evil queen aka snow white’s wicked stepmom. he was literally born out of her magic, a la powerpuff girls except with fire, ashes and everything ‘nice’.

he somehow turned out the opposite of what his mother expected, therefore his alignment is undetermined. will most probably just stay neutral for some reasons (i’ll write a self para for this soon eue) and he’s far from evil as his mom’s name suggests.

royal advisor major + minoring in animal familiar training. well known bc he excels very well in academics + his looks. his classmates remember him as a very distant and hard to approach person, but he’s still hella popular.

will most probably appear socially awkward and really quiet around people since he’s never established close connections with ppl his age. but he’s attentive and likes to observe. he wants to make friends, he just doesn’t really know how to get around it.

thee president of the student govt. surprisingly has very effective leadership skills, people would mostly be amazed how he can handle others very well.

he’ll come off really gentle and sweet tbh. it’s just his nature despite growing up around her mother who goes around yelling ELECTRIC CHAIR 24/7 DJHJDHDJH?? what he doesn’t realise is that he DOES inherit her sternness and icy appearance when he’s angry. so most ppl would know not to fuck around him.

with his mother’s obsession w vanity and beauty and having grown up being around the magic mirror who enables it, he too finds importance in keeping his appearance clean and fashionable. basically you’ll never find him wearing smth half-assed even when he’s abt to go to bed lmao

witchcraft is his forte. he just doesn’t practice it as much anymore, knowing the bad impression ppl have for it.

has a demon pet, belphegor who’s like. attached to him at all times. but he won’t tell anyone abt it since pets are forbidden in school grounds djhdjhd. he’s pretty sure nobody else can see bel anyway eue

do check out his bio! i’ll update it from time to time and add up a thing or two soon. and feel free to hmu for plotting! owo my discord is sad boi#7272, do add me for plotting or ic interactions alike if u want. jst tell me who u are. i can be awkward so i don’t rly like ooc light talks tho so keep that in mind jdhdjhd. nice to meet u everyone!

#inferno:mun #lemme... finish some stuff before i reply to ims eue

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oliviahellerarchive · 4 years

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( KRISTEN BELL + CISFEMALE ) — Have you seen OLIVIA HELLER ? This THIRTY-SIX year old is a VIDEO ESSAYIST and FILM PRODUCER who resides in BROOKLYN. SHE has been living in NYC for TWENTY YEARS, and is known to be HOSPITABLE and QUICK-WITTED, but can also be POMPOUS and PRICKLY, if you cross them. People tend to associate them with COFFEE LEFT OUT OVERNIGHT and COLLECTOR’S EDITION BOX SETS — details under the cut!

BASICS

call her olivia, liv, livvie, livia... go crazy tbh. she doesn’t mind.

as the line goes, just a small-town girl livin’ in that lonely world… or more accurately, born and raised midwestern lass who worked hard in high school, scored a scholarship to columbia, and never looked back.

initially wanted to go into political journalism, and had the academic credentials to back it up. but she couldn’t resist the pull of new york and the culture that comes with it, that she wound up working freelance for magazines instead. think variety, slate, the new yorker, criterion, sight & sound… ya know the drill. also worked a couple of odd jobs on the side to raise money bc this is NYC babey

after a good decade of going back and forth jobs, she now holds a permanent staff position at the new yorker, and it was around this time that she’d begun experimenting with video essays — which she considers a more dynamic medium. that’s her main job now, but she still gets assigned feature writeups every now and then. an example of liv’s video essays around that time (x) (x) (x) (x)

she also operates a youtube channel that aims to bring those more niche interests to a more accessible platform, kinda like nerdwriter’s channel except defo less popular (maybe half a million subscribers after four years, probs, but a few of her videos have gone viral). a lot of ppl in her line of work think it’s a shame she’s channeled her energy there but she’s like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ bro u gonna gatekeep art forever or what.

has dabbled in filmmaking a few times in the past. mainly works as a line producer for independent films, but is constantly in want of new challenges. most recently, she’s involved w/ @giobaldini’s first feature ... among other things.

main inspirations: kogonada for her career; megan amram, claire from bon appetit, and a bit of eleanor shellstrop for her personality.

PERSONALITY, MOTIVATIONS, ETC.

her mom’s a high school teacher and her dad’s a laborer. she has three other siblings with whom she has a good, if not slightly distant, relationship. part of why she’s set out to NYC is because she wants to get out of that life, where nothing seems to be a-changin’ — sorta like ladybird from… well, lady bird. she’s harbored a lot of success since but, due to her working-class roots, she still harbors a lot of insecurity but also anger towards the (mostly) rich ppl in her line of work

she loves to be disagreeable sfdgkjsdfgsh and to an extent feeds off discourse. she’s the type of person to get into a minor fight on her twitter replies or youtube comments. it’s what’s gotten her in trouble with management, too

liv doesn’t have the warmest personality, but it is pretty easy to get to know her. the way to her heart is incredibly easy: a good film, bagels from the store down the street, and cold beer, and you’ve pretty much assured her friendship. but she’s the type to inadvertently collect people and their stories rather than sustaining actual relationships. she doesn’t exactly know how to just… talk to people, and committing to friendships or relationships rarely comes from her initiative. it’s something she knows is fundamentally wrong and trying very hard to overcome, especially because it’s hurt her and other people more times than she cares to admit.

the biggest virgo alive. please handle with caution.

she’s made a career of making video essays in ~arthouse filmes~ but don’t let that shit fool u. her favorite film is wimbledon.

tl;dr a big nerd who’s made a career out of being a nerd.

hi, everyone! my name’s laine, 20+, gmt+8 and i’m so glad to be a part of this RP. olivia is a relatively new character of mine, and i would absolutely love new plots! currently looking for any and all connections lmao but i’ll automatically be reaching out if you reply/like to this post! :)

#codintro

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hellsparadiseessays · 5 years

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Aza Brothers Week - Day 3

Part II of my essay on the Aza Brothers, initially posted on r/Jigokuraku back in April/May. Reading it again cracks me up tbh, I usually suck at guessing authors’ intents, but this time it seems I managed to be right on pretty much everything, which still blows my mind. More under the cut!

Aza bros, an analysis – Part II: an essay on Tao, Lord Tensen and how Chôbe may not die so soon

As a disclaimer, three things need to be mentioned. First, thy enter spoiler territory; flee while thy can, new reader! Second, I am not Japanese/Chinese nor raised in Japan/China, so my take is solely based on the academic documents I read, what I know and what I understand. If there’s a mistake in my understanding, please, feel free to address it. Third, English is not my native language, so while I’m fluent in it, I don’t promise a 100% quality and may make some grammar mistakes here and there. On this note, let’s start a needlessly academic write up. I hope you’ll deem it an enjoyable or educative read.

The first part of this essay focused on Chôbe and Toma, their dynamic and how society keeps influencing them despite their rejection of it. Now that this whole part about their past and present is explained, we can turn our attention towards the potential future for them. Well, mostly for Chôbe, since this part of the essay has been modified in light of chapter 54, which gave us Toma’s immediate goal: getting stronger by training with Tamiya, so he can save his brother (and be on equal foot with him, especially when it comes to murdering everybody - Toma, you sneaky bastard, ily but be careful, Shion may be onto you). Things may not end up being that easy considering a whole boat full of ninjas is on its merry way to get Gabimaru’s head, but hey, the group may split up as a consequence of this specific mess. Considering that, the second part of the essay on our good brothers will be focused on Tao, Chôbe and Lord Tensen, and will be more opinion-based than the previous one (though textual evidences will be brought up to explain said opinions).

1. What is Tao and how does it work?

Tao has been defined both in-story and through u/gamria’s posts on this very subreddit (latest post here), so I will mostly sum things up a bit before going on yet another long rant about Chôbae.

Like Gamria summed up, Tao irl means “The Way” and is tied to a philosophy of life that allows one to live in harmony with the world. This state of perfection can be reached through various exercises involving alchemy, physiology and even specific sexual practices to prolong one’s life and reach immortality.

Now I’m not explaining further because you have the aforementioned essays on that matter, and because I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it so giving a clear explanation is tough. Instead, let’s see which elements of Taoism can be found in Jigokuraku and how they are explained in-story.

• Yin and Yang: they represent the duality between everything. Shion explains it well: "Tapping into this power demands a balanced spirit. Not too intense... Not too tranquil...”, “the interstice between rage and serenity... That duality. You must push your spirit to reach such a state.” (chapter 29) Lord Tensen also exemplifies it by switching between feminine and masculine – the energies represented by Yin and Yang.

• Tao: separated from Chi in the manga, yet with a similar function. It’s the life force that, once mastered, allows one to gain strength and perform notably better in battle (among other things).

• Waidan: the Outer Alchemy, one of the two forms of Taoist alchemy. It involves the use and mix of various elements found in nature (mineral, vegetal, animal) and constitutes a way to reach immortality. We’ve seen a lot of examples of it since our band of misfits arrived on the island: the Soshin, Monshin, the way Tan is produced, even Lord Tensen themselves – they are born from the mix between various elements found in nature, to produce something new that ranges from the technical fodder half human-half animal to a sort of elixir of life (Tan) based on humans mixed with plants to Lord Tensen (half plant-half human, with a very precise choice of plant to maximise the potential of Yin and Yang – and thus, of Tao – by having beings that are physically hermaphrodite).

• Neidan: the Inner Alchemy, the other form of Taoist alchemy. A mix of Waidan, cosmology and the Five Elements, it’s a system that makes one perceive their body as a cauldron in which the Three Treasures (Jing – Essence, Qi – Breath, Shen – Spirit) are worked in a manner that’ll allow a physical and emotional improvement through unity, leading to the immortality sought by Taoism.

• Five Elements: we literally got drawings and explanations about that one in the manga, so TL;DR it’s the sequence of Wood – Fire – Earth – Metal – Water constantly generating positive or negative interactions in a cyclic way. Wood feeds Fire, the Ash becomes Earth, from the Earth is born Metal, Metal can bear Water, Water makes Wood grow. Wood cracks Earth, Fire bends Metal, Earth absorbs Water, Metal cuts Wood, Water puts Fire out. These elements are also associated with seasons (Wood/Spring, Fire/Summer, Earth/late Summer (harvests), Metal/Autumn, Water/Winter) as well as moods, planets, colours or even Cardinal directions. As explained by the characters, everybody has one type dominating the others, and can act accordingly to it – be it by figuring out the appropriate strategy in a fight or understanding from which place X physical issue comes from, how to heal it and so on.

I’m probably missing some things, but that’s what caught my attention according to what I gathered from external sources and what I noticed in the manga. I’ll use these points to explain my personal take on Chôbe’s strength and what his future may look like, as well points out some interesting details about Lord Tensen and the way things seem to go in Hourai.

2. Lord Tensen: office politics is also a thing in Paradise

The island, described as Paradise and the place where the Elixir of Life can be found, truly is an amusing place. Its inhabitants are so human, no matter how much they try to get past this condition through all the means they can. First, you have people like Hoko, unfortunate souls who’ve been thoroughly manipulated and clearly seen as utter fools by Lord Tensen. Then you have the Soshin and Monshin, who’re seen as nothing more than failures. Then you have the Doshi, the disciples, who’re not there yet but fine enough to be the optional servants of Lord Tensen. Then you have the seven forms of Lord Tensen, which have displayed individual characteristics in their appearance, abilities and personalities. Zhu Jin is mocked for his loss against Shion (and his loss of Tao as well, which resulted in his body looking older), Ju Fa clearly has a short fuse and a violent disposition, Mu Dan is the local Mad Scientist who’s ready to give one’s a chance if one’s shows the potential for it (hi, Yuzuriha), Ratana Taisei seems to be the local mood maker and Rien is the leader (and Mad Scientist-in-Chief) who’s obeyed by the others without questions. However, Rien doesn’t seem to just be in charge of his fellow Tensen, it looks like he’s also in charge of overseeing the entire island. He’s the one showing distrust about Ju Fa’s confirmation on whether or not Chôbe and Toma were dealt with, and he’s the one who sent one of the Doshi to make sure they were Tan material. Later, when Mu Dan is killed (and since the Doshi sent to the Tan pit didn’t come back), he takes matters into his own hands and that’s how he ends up meeting Chôbe.

And let’s not forget Mei, who’s a proper wrench in the entire system by running around instead of being used as Bochu Jutsu material by the Doshi. No matter how seemingly godly Lord Tensen is, they clearly cannot foresee the consequences their actions may have. Ju Fa’s brutality may cause a rift among the seven, Rien accidentally gave free informations to our band of misfits by banishing Mei for her impurity, forcing her to consume Tan and giving her to the Doshi – thus creating a resentment that’ll come back to bite his backside, probably in the form of a small, fire-using ninja and his gang.

Considering these observations about the local politics of Kotaku, we can consider Chôbe’s future from a perspective larger than the one we get from a single weekly read of the new chapters.

3. Chôbe’s strength and potential: impure or new step forward?

Even before he sets a foot on Kotaku, Chôbe’s strength is pointed out when he literally kicks a man 6 feet in the air. The lad’s crazy physical strength is made obvious first during the fight against the other criminals, then when he deals with the Soshin and even picks a giant axe to clear the place more easily (funnily enough, that axe belonged to an Oni-like Soshin, the implications for Chôbe are amusing).

But the real deal about Chôbe’s potential becomes evident during the fight against the Doshi. After having been thrown in the Tan pit and having been somewhat invaded by the plants here, a shift happened and Chôbe became able to wield and read Tao. Not perfectly, but he picked up on it awfully fast, the Doshi openly acknowledged it in chapter 30: “this man is powerful, and yet considerably fatigued. It takes all he has to remain standing. This is only a bluff, a glimpse at his Tao reveals as much” at the beginning of the fight (considering the siblings had been beaten and thrown into the Tan pit some time before, it’s expected for Chôbe to be tired), “he possesses the aptitude, but has far to go” later during their fight, and he even uses the word “astounding” twice in relation to Chôbe’s fighting abilities. In chapter 31, a swift change happens in the way the Doshi perceives Chôbe: “this man’s Tao... It seems to have grown... In such a short period of time?” and “I can tell... This man is dangerous. A threat to Lord Tensen. He must be killed here. Now.” The Doshi even considers Chôbe’s progress and almost instantaneous understanding of the way to wield Tao “impossible”. Well, looks like it is possible when you’re the ever observant Aza Chôbe. Because that man may look and act like a beast, but he is far from being one – save for the fight against Gabimaru (during which he lost his mental balance), he demonstrated how clear his mind is during a fight, and do you know how he started understanding the way Tao works? By seeing it with his right eye. The blind one. As soon as we see him figure it all out, a panel is dedicated to this eye, wide open with a faintly visible pupil. That means he managed to calmly pull off what Shion has been doing for years while in the middle of a fight. Later, during his fight against Gabimaru, he went even further by managing to instinctively master his new form: he managed to turn his left arm into a sort of giant axe, thus showing the readers how he’s slowly managing to transcend his condition as a puny human.

Considering point 2 and what has been aforementioned, we can thus draw some conclusions about the path that may await Chôbe.

First, his growth relies on the balance between his rage and his calm (Professor Shion worded it perfectly), so while I’m not worrying too much about Toma for now, the same may not be said of Chôbe. I was thinking that before, but in light of chapter 54 and Toma’s decision, I suspect Chôbe may need Toma much more than Toma needs him. Plus, while his brother was protected and had time to swallow all the terrible things that happened to them, the same cannot be said of Chôbe, who still has a lot of hangs up (see Part I of this essay), the very hangs up that had him lose his mind while fighting Gabimaru. The entire scene when he finds himself facing that dark mass intrigues me. Is it the result of an imbalance, or the effect of the vines and consumption of Soshin blood that changed something in him? It was a stark opposition with the way Gabimaru’s flashbacks are expressed: while Gabi’s flashbacks tend to have this light about them, Chôbe’s flashback was dark, confused, suffocating. Seeing it caused Chôbe to not see Gabimaru anymore, and just lash out at everything that hurt him regardless of its nature. Our Bandit King will probably have to face all that to find a proper balance and gain further mastery over his new found abilities.

I mentioned the consumption of Soshin blood to stay hydrated, and this is my second point about Chôbe’s potential fate. We could suspect it with the way Tan is produced and consumed by Lord Tensen, but chapter 54 was clear about it: to survive, living beings full of Tao must be consumed, and that’s exactly what Chôbe did out of survival. Rien qualified him of “impure”, just like Mei (who needs to consume Tao from an external source to avoid arborification and had her Tanden destroyed), which has been treated like a failure. But does it really mean Chôbe is a failure? Remember, the Doshi openly found him amazing and even dangerous for Lord Tensen. So where Rien saw failure in Mei, will he see the same in Chôbe? Considering the short amount of time spent on the island (3-4 days), and considering Rien is one of the local Mad Scientists, it is possible that he’ll pick on Chôbe’s abnormal abilities and will take note of it. Maybe he’ll even take him to Hourai, where I’m sure Ratana Taisei would be delighted to meet him again – remember the encounter with her and Ju Fa, back in chapter 16? Taisei openly expressed her interest in Chôbe (“he’s cute”), and we already saw what was going on in the Palace (a literal pool to train and private beds for some Bochu Jutsu). Considering Yuzuriha nearly had a taste of it with Mu Dan, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was what actually happened to Chôbe. The one thing that worries me about his situation is the issue with arborification, which may or may not end up being a long-term problem for him depending on what may happen if he goes to the Palace and learn more about Tao.

But do you know what would be hilarious about the entire situation with Lord Tensen? Considering his unruly nature and sneaky behaviour (in chapter 30, he stayed down and waited for the Doshi to approach before ripping his throat out), I wouldn’t put it past Chôbe to play the card of the wolf among sheeps, stealing what Lord Tensen has to offer before wrecking some havoc in the Palace. That would be fitting of a Bandit King, don’t you think?

Well, this is all for now, I guess? Like I said, this second part is more me giving my opinion and taking wild guesses based on what I noticed in the manga. It’s also me ranting about Chôbe, because of course that’s what I do ever since I discovered that amazing character. I hope you found this read enjoyable or informative, a part 3 may happen depending on the material we get. In the mean time, I’m totally expecting UG to contradict some of the speculations I made. Oh well, we’ll see. I don’t even think I’ll be mad, because his handling of the story until now has been 10/10 to be honest. Re-reading the manga told me that much.

#jigokuraku #hell's paradise #chôbe #tôma #essay #my stuff

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changarroo · 5 years

Text

Incheon University // part 1

*note the pictures are not ours, the edit is*

Moving to University is scary, let alone being five hours away from the ones you love. But it was time for venture off into the. real world and continue your study. But tutoring the Deans playboy son how will that turn out? Is everything going to be all sunshine and rainbows? Or will your world come tumbling down?

What a Warm Welcome... // masterlist

word count: 4.7k

Genre: Fluff, Angst // College AU Series

Pairing: Jisung x Reader

Welcome to Incheon Private University, where boys and girls fight to have the top spot in the most well known private elite school. Though for you it was a bit different. You did not come from a wealthy family which put you in a position to fight for your way into Incheon High School. You took extreme classes and test, along with studying hard just so you can get it. You waited at the dinner table with your mother and sister waiting for the mail to be delivered. Exactly two minutes from the last time you checked your phone the door rang. Your head shot up and you stumbled your way to the door. You quickly opened it, which of course scared the mailman as he looked at you with such fear and horror in his eyes. He hands you the envelope and you thank him. You make your way (DOWNTOWN WALKING FAST jkjk) back to the table with shaking hands. Your mom rubs your back as you unclasped the silver clips and pull the pristine white paper out.

You looked at your mom and give a half smile. Your mom has encouraged you throughout all of your grade school years, leading up to this point. Your father has walked out on the three of you after your sister y/s/n was born, and of course, that was a huge finical change for you. Your mom worked three two for jobs just to be able to pay for all the fees and the tests that needed to be taken for Incheon Private University. You pull the letter out more “You know if I don’t get in I just want to thank you for everything you have done for me mom” You tear up, you would have never believed what the letter said if your mom did not scream that you got a full ride scholarship to Incheon. You drop the letter and scream with your mom and sister holding them tightly. “Thank you Thank you Thank you”

You currently lived in Busan which means Incheon is three hours and nine minutes away. You were very worried about leaving your mom and sister

“As soon as I get a job mom I will help you out,” You say as you back your last boxes and bags

Your mom smiles “Babygirl I am so proud of you. The only thing you can do is get good passing grades and meet a man who will treat you like his world” She kisses your forehead

“I love you mom” Your voice cracked as the tears begin to spill. Your little sister comes in and hands you her pink stuffed elephant “Here take this! He will protect you!” She says happily and gives you a hug as you whisper in her ear “No matter what happens you take care of mom okay. I’m counting on you”

She does her little soldier pose “Yes ma’am”

“You ready to go Y/N” You take one last look at your room since you won’t see it in four years and you nod “Yeah I’m ready” Once everything is loaded into the car, you start your journey to Incheon, for a new life and a brand new perspective

A few short hours you pull up to the large glass building filled campus that is surrounded by large fountains, and blossoming trees. You step out and are greeted by the headmaster. You bow to show your respect, not expecting him to come

“H-Hello sir, thank you so much for this opportunity. I promise I will keep my academics my top priority while I am here.

“Please the honor is mine to have such an extraordinary student attend my university” He turns to your mother “And as expected you are the mother, I assume?” Your mother gleams proudly and shakes his hand

“That I am sir”

He speaks once again “Well follow me please, there is much paperwork to be signed. Y/N my men will take your backs to your room and you will follow”

You nod and follow the men to the large dorm rooms. Each dorm had a nicely sized kitchen, in which an island was placed in the middle, two separate bedrooms, the living and dining room, and of course the bathroom. When your bags were finally placed in your new living space for the next four years, a head pops out from behind the wall. You turned around not noticing the female until a scream appears and your soul nearly leaves your body as you scream back at the female.

Once the screaming is over you both laugh and she introduces herself “Hey I’m Jeongyeon. I am a second-year student so I can help you at all times” She starts to giggle more and you look at her like she is crazy “You are all everyone at this campus is talking about. You beat Kim Woojin, which is like the smartest kid ever” You looked shocked

You knew your scores were high but not the high. Woojin and yourself were in competition since you could remember. Although he got more shine due to his status. Woojin’s family owned one of the most well-known car companies in the world today. He has practically had a golden spoon in his mouth since birth. Although you admit you used to have the biggest crush on him towards the end of middle school and little into high school. The two of you talk for the rest of the time before your mom comes up and knocks on the door. You let her and your sister in and show them around before you knew it they had to leave and your heart sank. It did not hit you until you realized that you wouldn’t be woken up by your little sister, or singing in the kitchen with your mom, but you also knew that she wanted this for you. You walk them back to the car and hug them one last time “I love you” You say to the both of them as they say it back and enter the car, before driving away.

As you head back to the dorm you tie your up in a high ponytail you hear a familiar voice call your name

“Y/N” You slowly turn around to reveal a much more handsome, much taller, Kim Woojin. Your cheeks instantly heat up, thank goodness it was dark

“Hey Woojin” You play it off like you totally did not kill his testing scores and that your heart was beating fast

He scoffs “Just because we were friends does not make us friends”

You smirk “Same old cranky Woojin I see” He cracks a smile and hugs you

“Want to grab coffee with me?” He asks

You nod and shiver a little forgetting your jacket

Woojin instantly takes his off and hands it to you “Still a gentleman I see”

He rolls his eyes “You know that gentleman act works well with the ladies”

You groan and push his hand in which was holding the jacket away

“I’m only kidding Y/N” He places the jacket around your shoulder as you begin to walk.

You look up at Woojin “How’s life been treating you, Woo?” He looks down

“Life is good. I couldn’t ask for more? What about you, you know since the whole incident” You smile “Everything is better, don’t worry I promise”

Woojin raises an eyebrow but nods “This conversation isn’t over”

You roll you're as at him as he opens the door for you.

You follow Woojin to the line and look at the menu

“I think I want peppermint hot chocolate” You excitedly but Woojin begins to laugh at you

“You are such a child” You scoff “There is nothing wrong with liking hot chocolate”

Woojin turns his focus to the cashier who was blushing at the sight of Wojin and you smile, looking at him to see if he notices but he seemed to not care. He ordered and paid for the items before you had a chance to. He thanked the girl and took the cup and walked away. You saw the disappointment in the girl's eyes and you smiled “Don’t be discouraged just keep trying”

She looked and smiled “Thank you. I’m Na Naeun by the way” She shakes your hand

“Nice to meet you, I’m Y/N. I should get going bye” You walked away towards Woojin

“You know you could have paid her attention a bit more, she was practically dying to speak to you but she was scared” You took a seat looking at him

“I don’t have time to interest myself with females,” He said sternly

“Stop sounding like your father” You drink your hot chocolate and look out the window

He kicks your leg softly under the table “On the fourteenth, my friend is having a big party at his house for this birthday you should come”

You look at him “Woojin how long have you known me?”

He thinks “Maybe fifteen to sixteen years, why?”

“Has there ever been a time where you’ve seen me go to a party?” He hesitates to answer

“U-Uh no”

You begin to speak again “So what in the entire world would make you think I would go to a damn party now!?”

“You need to step out of your shell Y/N”

You shake your head “I strongly disagree. I am perfectly fine in my shell. Leave me be”

He rolls his eyes”Whatever”

After getting coffee you guys bid your goodbyes and you head back to your dorm room. The following morning you are called into the head dean office to discuss your schedule

“I see you are taking IB Calculus. My son is also taking that class but he is not doing too well, so I was wondering if you could tutor him and I will pay you weekly” He officers

You instantly shut down the payment “Sir I can easily do it without charge”

“Nonsense I will pay you 300 dollars a week to tutor my son” He practically begs and of course you could not say no. After the meeting, you head to the enormous classroom that was filled with chatter and many unfamiliar faces. You quickly find an open seat towards the middle. You set everything down and now to those who spoke to you. A few minutes later after getting ready girls began to giggle and get rowdy as some Cheeto looking boy enters the classroom. Your eyes couldn’t help but follow the vibrant hair as he took a seat behind you, showing interest in you. You quickly turned around with your cheeks tonite with blush

“I’ve never seen you before” He tugs at your hair as you pull your head forward taking your hair back “And you will continue to not see me” You scoot your chair in more and scoff

What a little prick

The professor entered the classroom and everyone greets him

“Today class we are very honored to have the highest scoring of both male and females in our class today”

You instantly look down as people began to whisper

“Will you please stand up?” He asks looking at you. You were very hesitant but finally stood up and many people clapped, while others just scoffed. After that embarrassment, the day went on pretty smooth and school ended. You hurried and rushed back to the door to get the major assignments you had to get done. Jeongyeon came home with ramen and your guys at and talked today

“Hey, there was this weird guy with orange. Who is he?” You ask and Jeongyeon spits her food out

“You don’t know who he is?” She asked

“Why should I. He’s just a person with a strange personality. He almost looks like a squirrel”

She laughs “That squirrel is the Dean's son”

You instantly dropped your chopstick “That orange bucket is his son. I have to tutor that idiot. Literally, pray for me”

That following weekend you were asked to attend the Dean’s residence to tutor the Cheeto. You packed all of your books into your bag and took an Uber to his house. You were confused as you saw girls with tight dresses leave the premises. You frowned to yourself and entered the house. You were not dressed up, only in a simple blue skirt with your white tee shirt and a black jean jacket. Your hair was up in a high ponytail, nothing compared to the females running around. “Hello miss,” a butler said to you “how can we be a service to you today?”. “Um hi, I’m supposed to be tutoring the Dean’s son today. Where would the session be located?” you asked shifting your backpack a bit. “Ah yes the tutor, Mr. Han would be located in his room at the moment. Upstairs and it’s the third door on the left” he pointed to the proper directions and soon you were on your way. Once you were at the proper location you lifted your hand to knock on the door. To your surprise, the door opened before you revealing a girl in front of you leaving the room. “What did I get myself into,” you asked yourself looking at the girl and then looking forward into the room.

Once you entered the room you see the orange head placing his shirt back on and you walked back out knocking hard on the door

“Come in” was the response on the other side

You pushed open the door, happy to see him dressed as you set the books down

“I’m aware your father told you about tutoring session today” you crossed your arms eyeing him

“I heard I just don’t care” He turned and looked at you

You begin to mumble “What a stupid little-”

“A little what I dare you to finish the sentence kitten” He walked closer to you and lifted your chin with his finger, as his other traced the thigh, looking you up and down

“You are such a pig” You push and slap him as you grab your belongings walking out. As you headed out you ran into the Woojin

“I didn’t expect to see you here” He smiles happily

“You weren’t supposed too” You continued walking out of the house and walking back to the dorm. After about twenty minutes of walking, you finally arrived at the dorm.

You threw your books down and kicked your shoes off, flopping on the bed

“Why are boys so stupid” You laugh at his reaction that played in your head when you slapped him

The weekend passed slowly and you attended the Deans office

“Sir I want to-”

He stops you “I’m aware of the events my son pulled this weekend” There was a knock on the door and your attention looked towards it. An orange head popped through

“Have a seat Jisung” He sighs as he watched his son

You cross your legs in your white shirt, shaking your black doc martens

“You owe Ms.Y/N an apology for you disrespectful actions. He smirked and turned to you

“I’m sorry that an innocent little girl-”

His father slams his fist “Get your act together Jisung. You won’t graduate if you keep it up. I don’t care if you are my son or not”

Jisung instantly shut up “I apologize for Y/N for my actions”

You just looked at him and noticed that he needs discipline. He doesn’t do well with being yelled at or losing something important to him

“It’s fine” You stand up and grab your bag

“If you will excuse me I need to meet with someone”

You bowed and gave Jisung one last look before walking out

Walking out you notice that you were getting a phone call from your house phone.

“Hello?” you answer not knowing who was calling you.

“Y/N! How college? I missed you so much!” the voice of your sister on the other line may be a smile grew on your face.

Being away from home suck but both her and your mother were proud of what you were doing.

“College is hard but I’m pushing, missing you and mom every day. How is she?”.

“She doing good, you know working hard for the two of us, she still brags about you getting into Incheon, oh I got an A on my lecture paper and I’m in the top five percent of my school.”.

“See I know you could do you” you walked up to a tree I the school field and slowly fell and sat on the ground.

Jisung walked out of the building and show you laughing at your phone call.

He notices the way you how you fall a little bit when you laugh and how your hair falls into your eyes.

He wanted to walk over to you and give a true apology, but seeing you laugh made him feel uncomfortable like you were talking to a boyfriend of some sorts. He didn’t understand why he was so drawn to you now.

Waking up to a new day you weren’t excited for your morning class knowing that the “wonderful” Jisung would be sitting in front of you. But there was no reason to let one person bother you so much.

So you put on your favorite oversized hoodie, that feel over your knees and your Adidas superstars and you were on your way.

You arrived at your class about ten minutes early and took a seat in your usual spot and grabbed your phone. You started to text your younger sister, telling her to enjoy her day, as send began to send memes. You smile and laugh quietly to yourself when you see a black shadow block part of the light. You slowly look up and see Jisung.

“What exactly are you doing here” You look up unamused

“I want to apologize for my behavior the following day” He took a seat and looked at you, examining your face. You felt uncomfortable “Yeah I already said it was fine”.

He pouts softly “Are you sure” He teased sighting as he wanted your attention.

“Yes now go away”.

He grabbed all of his stuff and hopped over the row of chairs in front of you and took a seat in the next to you.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m sitting down. Jeez Y/N and I thought you were smart.”

“I am smart? Wait you think I’m smart? Like really smart or are you just saying that to get to me?”.

“One never exposes there secrets Y/N”.

You roll your eyes at him as the teacher walks in, throughout the lecture you keep trying to slide your paper that had little notes

“Are you still going to tutor me still?”

You look at him and write

“Can you focus so you don’t fail as your father stated”

He frowns at the coldness

Once class ends you quickly pack your items and fly down the small number of stairs

Jisung trailed behind you

“W-Wait slow down” He whines and started to slow down as he sees Woojin appear. You hug him tightly and he wrapped his arms around your shoulder

“Oh hey, Jisung!” He called the younger over

“Y/N this is-”

You cut him off “Han Jisung. I’m aware”

You look at Woojin “I’m hungry” You poke your lower lip out

“Don’t even try that with me” He rolls his eyes

“Jisung want to join us for lunch?” Woojin offers and you punched his side

“No, I’m sure he needs to study CONSIDERING HE IS FAIL-”

“I’d love to join” He smirks and looks at the two

“I’ll pay it will be my treat”

The car ride there was silent and filled with an angry you, smiling on the outside but planning a route of exit in case something happens.

Woojin pulls into a small café and you quickly hop out of the car “that was the most painful ride of my life” Jisung got out after you and waited with you while Woojin parked the car.

“Umm do you want to go inside and get a table or something?” Jisung asked pointing to the door behind you guys.

“Sure it’s kinda cold out here” you bundled yourself in your jacket to keep warm and walked up towards the door.

Once inside the two of you found your way to a table near the huge window that overlooks the city.

“So how do you know Woojin” Jisung randomly said looking at the menu.

“Oh, he and I are childhood friends, our mothers are friends so I would spend time at his house whenever my mom was at work”.

“What about your dad? Couldn’t he also watch you?”.

“He wasn’t really around much” you lowered your head.

“Oh, I…”

“Its okay, you didn’t know really I’m fine, I’m quite grateful for my mother and all the help from Woojin’s family. They shaped me into who I am today”.

“Hey, guys what did I miss?” Woojin asked pullin’ up a chair and taken a sit between the two of you.

“Nothing really,” you answer “are you gives ready to order?” you looked behind at the counter trying to get the attention of a worker.

“Yeah, I’m I need food in my stomach ASAP” Woojin chuckled putting his hands on his stomach.

For the rest of the night, Jisung couldn’t take his eyes off of you. He didn’t understand why he found himself somewhat drawn to you. Knowing you and how you acted there was no way that you would fall for his classic player moves, but that was okay. You were different from every other girl he been around. He felt like he can be himself around you.

“Okay guys I think it's getting late we should get going” you looked at your phone and notice the time.

“Yeah, Jisung looks like he going pass out any minute,” Woojin said pushing Jisung out of his daydream.

“Nah if anything he would sleep in class tomorrow”.

“I would so not be sleeping in class tomorrow Y/N, have a little faith in me.” he held the car door open the car door for you.

“Eh, I’ll see about that tomorrow,” as you smile patted his hand and then slipped into the car.

The ride back the dorms were quiet as everyone was sorta sleeping.

You could feel your eyes slowly getting heavy as you looked outside of the car window. You then started to wonder how you got so lucky to be here in the city, experiencing life as it was. Soon you were officially out as you leaned your head on the window.

Waking up the next morning wasn’t fun as you remember your class in the morning, but you also had no memory of getting back in your room.

As soon as you were about to walk out for your first class you notice a note on your desk.

“Hey Y/N, Jisung and I notice that you fell asleep on the ride home, so we helped you up to your dorm which is oddly clean for a college student. Anyways text me when you wake up”

Woojin

Quickly you pulled out your phone really quick and texted Woojin thanking him for bring you up to your dorm and then you were out to class.

“Hmm coffee sound really good right now,” you said to yourself as you passed the coffee cart near your building.

“Hey can I get you anything?” the coffee art boy asked.

“Yes, morning can I just get a small coffee with a bit of milk in it,”.

“Sure anything else?”

“Make that two small coffees and make a blueberry muffin,” a familiar voice said from behind you.

“Wow looks like you’re not going to be falling asleep in class today,” you said to Jisung who was now standing next to you.

“How did you sleep last night Y/N?” he asked paying the coffee cart guy.

“Really well surprisingly, and you no you don’t have to pay for my coffee, I could have gotten it myself,” you grabbed your cup of coffee and then proceeded to take a sip.

“I know I just wanted to do something nice I guess”.

“Come on we're going to be late for class”.

Throughout the class, you had a hard time focusing on the topic which was a first for you. You started to notice the little things that Jisung did that you never noticed before. This can’t be the same guy you ran into when you walked into him half dressed. What is heaven's name is going on?

“So I'm guessing you’re coming over later to tutor me right,” Jisung asked setting his laptop back into his bag.

“Oh yeah right, I should be, what time is good? I don’t want to walk in on whatever I walked into like last time”.

“Yeah,” Jisung lowered his hand and rubbed the back of his neck “I’m sorry about that by the way, I was mad at my father and took it out by doing that”.

“By doing girls?”.

“Just are you coming today? Yes or no?”.

“Yeah I should be there after my 14:00 class”.

“Okay cool, I’ll see you there then”.

“Bye Jisung”.

Walking up to Jisung house you didn't know what to expect since last time wasn’t the best meeting.

You lifted your hand towards the door and gave a simple knock or two.

“Ah, Miss. Y/N, Mr. Jisung has been expecting you” the butler said as he opened the door “he is in his room, I expect you to know where it is located”.

“I do, I’ll find my way up”.

Walking up the staircase you were wondering if Jisung was going to pull the same stunt like last time. He is mature he should learn by now,,, right?

“Y/N your here,” Jisung opened the door with a smile on his face.

“Yeah, is it only you or is there someone hiding in your closet,” you asked holding onto your books tightly.

“It’s just me I promise, where do you want to study?”

“In here is fine,” you walked towards his bed and set your bag down following by sitting down on the bed.

“I never really got a good view of your room last time I came, it’s not what I expected”.

“I don’t know whether I should take that as a compliment or not,” Jisung said with a confused looked in his face.

“It’s good, I show who you are, I like it. Now let's start with math”.

A few hours later the two of you were surrounded by multiple textbooks, an empty bottle of waters, and paperwork everywhere.

You were nearly about to pass out when you heard a book drop in front of you.

“I’m up, I’m awake” you lifted your head from the table.

“Come on,” Jisung said standing up with his hand out “I’ll walk you home”.

Walking out of his house you notice that it was already dark. Why was Jisung being so nice you thought to yourself. I mean he was a real ass to you the first day of classes and also when you came by the first day. What change? “Hey Jisung, why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”.

“Honestly there something about you I just can’t shake off, like your different from all the over girls that I been with”.

“Like dated or…”.

“I never really dated anyone before, I never thought that dating was for me”.

“Oh”

“Why?”

“No reason I’m just wondering”

“Hey Y/N,” Jisung stopped at the steps of your dorm. You turned around to face him. He was stretching the back of his neck as if he was scared. “There this special event coming up and only people who are invited can come. I was wondering if you wanted to go you know to go with me”.

“When, where and what time?”

“Now Ace I can’t tell you, then everyone around us will here. I’ll pick you up here on Friday at 17:00.”

“Okay okay, fine surprise me. I’ll see you on Friday”.

“Friday”.

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