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amadcap · 2 years

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Things I’ve Learned Cleaning Up After People

One thing you should know about me is I’m a midnight guy to the bone. At almost every job I’ve ever had, I’ve worked the midnight shift. I’ve flipped burgers, stocked shelves, unloaded trucks and cut plastic all between the hours of 10pm and 7am the next morning. I’m obviously not the only one either. There are many more like me, out there in the middle of the night, burning the midnight oil, as they say. Some do it because, like me, they want to work that shift, and some are in it for that precious shift premium. Although all these graveyard shifts have been very different jobs, the one responsibility they have all had in common is cleaning.

Yes, in those midnight hours are when things are cleaned by humans like me and not magical elves. Once the sun is down, an army of zombified people go out all across America and probably the Western world, into the office buildings, convenience stores, supermarkets, theaters and anywhere else you can think of, armed with brooms, mops, trashcans, and rags to clean up your mess. Chances are at 3am wherever you are, there is someone close by making a trip to a dumpster, wiping down a window or has their face squarely in a toilet. The world is filled with toilets and someone has to clean them.

Most people I’ve met who have never had to clean up a spill in aisle five think of that kind of work as beneath them. Cleaning up after people is for illegal aliens, teenagers, and ex-cons as far as they are concerned. It’s disgusting work and the people who do it should be paid the minimum wage until they get better jobs. Of course, the people that say that kind of thing deserve to have the contents of a public bin emptied onto them in their sleep because they could not be more wrong.

Cleaning, in general, is hard work. Cleaning a place of business is a thankless, back-breaking, uphill enterprise. It takes a superhuman amount of self-discipline to wake up every day and do a job you know will suck and an even larger amount of fortitude to scrub up messes most people would burn their house down to avoid cleaning. It is because of this that cleaning as a job is one of those life experiences I think everyone would be better off as a human being if they had to do it for six months, along with working with the public and living in your car. If everyone had to push a mop around for a time in their life they might learn some valuable lessons that would make their lives and everyone else’s lives infinitely better. But since I seriously doubt I’ll be able to get teenagers to clean any better than their parents and instill in them these morals before they turn into unbearable adults, I’ll try to condense what I’ve learned over the years into a convenient, shareable article.

The first thing that really struck me when I first started cleaning as a job was just how dirty everything is. People and the public places they spend their time are disgusting. I could probably write a whole article describing in detail every gut churning thing I’ve cleaned up in an attempt to cause you to lose your lunch but I’ll spare you. Needless to say, I’ve cleaned up EVERY bodily fluid multiple times, including but not limited to dried tampons off a wall, human feces that spelled out ‘SHIT’ across a different wall, a pile of used condoms off the top of a trash can, an over-flowing diaper also spewed over the top of a different trash can and most recently some chunky mystery meat stuffed into the sink drain of a men's room. But even those extreme cases aside, the filth that accumulates naturally over the course of a day is surprising. Being alive is a messy thing and our environment reflects that. Just like in your life, things get messed up or worn out. That’s entropy and it’s fine. Everything will crumble, falter, break and get gunked up. All you have to do, in life and at the job, is clean it up and get ready for the inevitable next mess.

I say the next mess because there will be another mess to clean. In fact, it will probably be the same mess you’ve already cleaned back again. One of the most frustrating things about cleaning for a living is just how Sisyphean a task it is. If you stick around the place you just cleaned long enough you will literally watch your hard work come undone. Regardless, it has to be done. If you don’t deal with it, the mess will only accumulate and get worse. Nothing goes away on its own. Life takes maintenance. Whether it’s small things like cleaning and laundry or the bigger stuff like doctors appointments and personal relationships, you have to keep on top of it or it quickly falls apart. One spill, if left unattended, ingrains itself into or onto anything it is spilled on and eventually grows mold. Don’t get me wrong, I am a king of procrastination but there just comes a point that you have to do the thing you’re putting off. Even if it’s just gonna get messed up again.

The trick to making this less torturous is to realize the difference between when something has to be clean and when something just has to not be a mess. If you’re working in a hospital and you’re prepping the OR, I imagine things have to be CLEAN, but when working at 7-Eleven, where customers are constantly coming in and walking over your freshly mopped floors, you just have to keep things stocked and the coffee brewing. If someone spills something, mop it up and if the trash is full, take it out. No one is expecting the store to be clean enough to perform open heart surgery in. In real life, sometimes it’s impossible to clean up a mess you’ve made. It’s just too big and would take too long to fix. It happens. It’s at those times that your best bet is to patch it up the best you can and move on. If you linger, other parts of your life will suffer for it. When something happens that is too catastrophic to fix right away or you just don’t have the time, resources or energy to properly clean it up, all you can do make sure it’s not a complete mess and move on. The world does not stop for anyone and some days you just gotta do your best to keep up.

Despite the fact that being alive is a messy business, you’ll find out very quickly if it’s your job to clean that there is not a building on the planet designed with the janitorial staff in mind. Right now, my second job is cleaning a big art house theater on the weekends. It’s a 90-year-old building that seats almost 1,600 people complete with chandeliers, an organ that is from the theaters opening and millions of small crevasses for popcorn and candy to wedge itself into. There are plenty of dark corners where no broom, mop or vacuum can reach. So while it all looks nice and pretty, the place you have to clean, and the world, were not built with you and your task in mind. That doesn’t mean you get to skip cleaning it though. That just means you have to pay attention and learn the landscape if you want to even come close to accomplishing any level of orderly. Just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean the problem or mess isn’t your responsibility. You can’t just leave it for the next person because that next person will always be you. Much like any other problem in life, it’s just a puzzle to be solved.

When it comes down to actually getting the job done, there are many tips and tricks to make it easier on yourself and almost all of them can be applied to life outside the workplace. In fact, one of the first things you learn when cleaning any place bigger than your bedroom is to clean top to bottom. You dust countertops, wipe down windows, etc, until gravity does the work of bringing it all down to the ground. Then all that’s left is to sweep it up and mop. If you do it any other way, you’re going to have to sweep up and mop multiple times. Not everything in life has one best way to do things but there is usually a solid method to start with if you’re looking to tackle a problem. You encounter a problem, find its root cause and work your way through it until you find its source. Find the top and work your way down.

Maintenance should be routine. I can still tell you the order I cleaned things at the convenience store I worked midnights at for seven years and at what time I did each step each night. If you can make a routine out of the upkeep in life, then when extra problems do come along, you’ll have all your bases covered and a method to deal with whatever additional mess has come your way. I’m not saying your routine has to be so rigid that any deviance from it throws your life into disarray, but if you have a baseline for where you should be in a night, then you’ll know just how far behind or ahead you are when those other problems come up. For me, that baseline is my routine.

One thing about cleaning I tell people, that at first seems counterintuitive, is that in order to properly clean, you sometimes have to make a mess. Think back to any time you’ve had to do a deep clean on your house. The first thing you do is grab everything out of your closets and hiding places and throw it into piles. You sweep out all the hidden dirt and dust from under your bed or behind the couch and push it into the open. Then you might dump any soiled dishes into the sink or filthy clothes into baskets. All the once hidden grime in your life is brought into the open and now your place is gonna seem much worse than before you started. After that, you have to dive in and start getting things clean again but you can only truly do that after you bring what was once secreted away out into the open. Then comes the real gross part. Anyone who has ever done any cleaning knows, you’re gonna end up with most of that mess on you. You are at some point going to be elbow deep in grime and gunk that stinks and sticks to your clothes. By the end of a shift, the building may be clean but you will be absolutely covered. But in my experience, that’s the only way to get anything done. You have to dive in unafraid of getting dirty for the sake of the task at hand. The solution to some problems is sometimes buried elbow deep in years of neglect and decomposing garbage and you have to be willing to get in there if you want to move forward.

Cleaning is no different from other jobs in that it affects you outside of work. People who work at a fast food joint often can’t continue to eat at that particular place ever again. They have seen the sausage get made, sometimes literally, and it has turned them off from the whole endeavor. This did not work on me, I still love White Castle, but I digress. Some of these ripples actually end up making you a better person. It only takes one night of scraping and scrubbing just to have some drunk come by like a tornado through your store destroying your hard work to make you more careful and considerate in the future when you’re out in public. It only takes being covered in goo from changing one trash bin full of half-empty cups of soda to make the connection that trash bins aren’t all wormholes to some trash dimension. Whatever you throw away in there an actual human being is going to have to deal with so maybe you’ll look for a sink before chucking a half-full Coke in there (it’s a pet peeve). Basically, doing a tough, thankless job will teach you to be empathetic and thankful for the people who are willing to do the dirty work of keeping the world running. You’ll maybe even realize that the work they do is much more vital than whatever the hell it is hedge fund managers and the like do. With that newfound empathy, your attitudes and, more importantly, your behaviors change, making it easier for those people to get the job done which will make them less stressed and happier, so on and so on, until it snowballs into a kinder world. Or, at the very least, if that’s too utopian for you, no one will think you’re an asshole.

There are definitely some people out there that we all know who, when they make a mess in a public place, think (or even say out loud) that they don’t have to deal with it because that’s someone else’s job. Yes, they are technically correct. There is someone like me whose job it is to clean up whatever someone like them might leave behind. But not only does not give you a free pass to live your filthiest life but also speaks to a larger issue in society. Just because it’s not your job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help out if you can. Imagine a world where instead of your own convenience as your prime concern, we all made everyone's comfort a priority. If you drop something, just pick it up. It’ll save someone else that much time and effort in their day. It all comes down to looking out for each other even when we don’t have to. If everyone did that maybe the planet wouldn’t feel like such a filthy nightmare existence constantly. Who knows?

Now, that’s not to say that if you slap your tall glass of sugar syrup all over the table and floor that you should insist on “helping” by throwing a few napkins on it, essentially putting a bandaid over a tumor. Sometimes you make a mess that is just too big to handle on your own. It is ok to ask for help from someone who has the proper tools and experience to help you. Just find someone around and fess up to your mess and they will most likely be happy to help. Like I said before, messes are inevitable so there is no need to be embarrassed. It’s much better to seek help than to just sneak away and leave the mess for someone else, even if it is their job. Whether it is a mess you’ve made, a project you need help on or just seeking a better understanding, the best thing to do in some situations is to seek out someone who has trained and who has the proper tools to help. That could be finding the janitor or finding a therapist. You do not have to (and I might as well be saying this in a mirror right now) figure everything out on your own. Find the proper tools and the people who know how to use them. They will be happy to help.

For thirteen years I have spent a lot of my time sifting through the trash disasters people leave behind them. My whole adult working life has been one piss covered bathroom after another. My blood may be part cleaning fluid by the time I die from inhaling too many of their fumes. In the end, though, I think it has made me a more empathetic and kinder person. I’ve become someone who’s not afraid to tackle disaster areas and get elbow deep in the filth if that’s what it’s going to take to make the world better. All the same though, if I see you making a mess, expect a fight.

#writing #opinion #blue collar #worker stories #work

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sara-scribbles · 2 years

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The Little Moray Mermaids

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Characters: GN!Reader, Jade Leech, Floyd Leech, Ace Trappola, Deuce Spade, Azul Ashengrotto Word Count: 7,399 Note: This a long one folks. I enjoyed writing this a lot. Not the mermaid AU I was planning, but it just happened. Hope you all enjoy reading it! Warnings: Some swearing

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It is the sudden quietness of the night that draws you from under your covers to look around the dark. The only light comes from your phone screen that you had been looking at previously, and the occasional lightning that flashes in the dark skies. At 3AM it’s far too early for anyone to be up, though you had kept yourself awake while scrolling through social media. Since early evening the rain has been pouring down in sheets while lightning lit up the sky and thunder echoed loudly.

The lack of thunder makes you pause, but eventually you decide to go back under your covers. However, you hear a loud squeak of floorboards and immediately sit back up. The only other person in the house is your father, who should be asleep at this hour. Tossing aside the covers, your bare feet touch the cold, wooden floors making you jump.

Tip toeing to your door, you crack the bedroom door open to peek outside. You don’t see anything in the gloom of the hallway. Slipping out, you avoid certain squeaky floorboards as you make your way down the hall and to the stairwell. Squatting, you hide between the bars of the stairs, you see your father standing with the front door open.

The porch light illuminates a broad figure in the doorway, who seems to tower over your father despite being about the same height. You strain your ears trying to hear their mumbled conversation, but only manage to catch a few things here and there.

“Clark and Claire want you to…”

“It’s three in the morning!”

“Don’t…bosses wait. They found something interesting, possibly me-” A violent boom of thunder shakes the house and forces you to clap your hands over your ears. Your father nearly drops his glasses that he had been fiddling with. The stranger doesn’t seem to react.

“We can drag… -make it difficult for us.” Finally your father seems to slump forward as he grabs his coat hanging nearby and follows the stranger out into the night.

You stay there frozen for a few moments longer, before rushing back to your room. You open the balcony door only to be pushed back by a violent wind. Managing to stay upright, you try in vain to look for any sign of a vehicle, yet there is nothing in the dark night.

“What was that?” you ask yourself as you lock the balcony door and go back to bed.

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It is a sharp, painful flick to the forehead that finally draws you from your thoughts. You drop the controller and throw the offender a nasty look. “What the hell!?”

Ace merely rolls his eyes. “Not my fault you were off in wonderland. You’re not even paying attention to the game.”

True to his statement, you lost the race. “Just got something on my mind…” You fall back against the couch cushions.

“Anything we can help with? My mom always says it’s best to talk to other people if something’s bothering you,” Deuce offers.

Having moved to the town about three years ago, you had made friends with Ace and Deuce. The duo were often seen together at school and on days off. You became an official member later on. Though they caused many headaches, you cared for the two knuckleheads. Oftentimes the three of you would hang out on the weekends. With summer vacation just starting, you were looking forward to spending a lot of time together.

You sigh before explaining, “Some stranger came to the house early in the morning and my dad went with him. I’m just worried…”

The redhead yawns as he stretches. “Maybe your dad is doing something illegal.” A swift slap on the arm makes the boy cry out. “Hey!”

“My dad’s not the type! The most illegal thing he’s done is driving under the speed limit.” You huff in annoyance. “I couldn’t make them out, but the stranger mentioned Clark and Claire?”

The duo share a glance. “What?” You look frantically between them.

“N-nothing!” Deuce immediately becomes fascinated with the television.

“That wasn’t a nothing look! What? Do you guys know them?” You glare at Ace, who nervously rubs the back of his neck.

Again they share a look. “Well…” Ace starts but looks away.

“They’re the mafia!” Deuce blurts out.

“What!” You grab Deuce by the front of his shirt. “What do you mean?!”

The dark haired boy nervously waves his hands. “N-nothing! I mean they’re not the mafia, just like the mafia…?”

Releasing him, you pinch the bridge of your nose, groaning, “That doesn’t make me feel better!”

Knocking Deuce on the head, Ace tries to clarify. “What the idiot means is that they’re bad news. They’re known as the Jester gang. They’re known for doing illegal dealings under the table. And a lot of people who were associated with them have disappeared.”

“Most of the stores downtown pay them a monthly due or else,” Deuce adds. “I wouldn’t associate with them back then.” You had gotten a brief overview of the dark haired boy’s delinquent past at some point, so you have an idea of how bad the two were.

“What do they want with my dad? He’s a marine biologist and professor, not a criminal.” You start rubbing your own temples.

“You could ask him,” Deuce suggests.

“Oh yeah I’m sure that would go well. ‘Hey dad, are you working with the town mafia?’ Like he’d give me the truth.” Staring at the ceiling, you wonder how things could have gone from zero to hundred. “Why haven’t they been thrown in jail if everyone seems to know?”

The two shrug. “Probably because they’re good at covering their tracks. The police have nothing on them, and people are too scared to report them.” Ace starts up a new match.

“Great…”

Your father is a good person, though he isn’t a saint. He tried his best with you after moving to this new town. Having purchased the large mansion over the jagged cliff, he tried to make it feel like home. Still this place is too big for two people. The east wing isn’t even used and most of the rooms remain empty even after three years. You mostly occupy the west wing, kitchen and the rec room down in the basement. It isn’t as bad as you had initially thought; plus your father gives you a lot of freedom to come and go as you please.

Him being tied up with an unsavory group is far from your imagination. Even if he is doing something illegal, he would never tell you willingly.

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Riding on your bike down the only road that leads to your house, you peddle to the pier. Locking your bike up, you stroll down to the beach while observing the beach goers. Some lean over the pier balcony looking down into the water below. The flimsy chain link sign that’s supposed to keep people away from the opening does little to actually do anything. People sit in between the gaps, their feet dangling in the air. Everyone seems to be enjoying the nice weather and warm water. Walking along the rocky cliffs, you veer left into a hidden alcove.

The cave is something your father had found while exploring the beach awhile back. It has a large underground grotto pool that connects to the ocean. You had explored a bit of it once, finding small fish and crabs wandering the expansive area. There’s something almost peaceful about being under water despite not being able to breath. All noise seems to vanish and fish flit along without a care. Perhaps your father’s love for marine life has rubbed off on you.

You stop short when you see your father standing over a newly brought table. The entire cave is filled with equipment that has never been there before. There’s even a generator humming off to the side.

“Dad?” you call, brows knitting together.

He jumps; the pen he had been holding falls out of his hand and rolls on the sandy floor. “What are you doing here?!”

“I just wanted to check on the grotto and maybe go for a swim. What’s all this?” You gesture to all the shiny machines. He even has a brand new laptop set up, which he quickly closes.

“J-just research. I, uh, wanted to do some testing on the marine life that gathers in the grotto,” he lies, his eyes not meeting you.

Deciding to play along, you wander over to the edge of the pool. Squatting, you lazily touch the water. “Did you find something?”

“N-nothing like that. Maybe step away from the edge…in case you fall in.” He fiddles with his glasses as he watches you.

Looking at him, you smile. “Please, I know this place like the back of my hand.” Hours of exploring the underground grotto had ingrained the layout into your brain. It is much like a second home; a home you need to come up for air.

“Right… Why don’t we go to the crab shack for lunch?” he suggests.

“Alright, that sounds go-” Suddenly you feel something cold grab your wrist and tug you backwards. The move causes you to lose your balance and fall back into the pool; your father’s terrified face is the last thing you see before you squeeze your eyes shut.

You clamp your mouth closed as the cold ocean water hits you. You sink a bit lower before finally pulling yourself together. Opening your eyes despite the stinging water, you can’t see much in the murkiness. Just as you are about to swim back up, a hazy figure swims toward you so quickly you don't have time to react. You’re staring into a glinting golden eye, which causes your mouth to open suddenly letting out a garbled scream.

A flash of sharp, pointy teeth and a long tail is all you see before you force your body to surface. Rising from the water, you sputter and cough. “What-” You keep hacking up water as your father helps to drag you out of the pool. “What the hell is in there?!”

Sitting on solid ground, you stare up at him bewildered. Your father grabs a towel from a stack in a small cubby and hands it to you. “I…It’s just a very large fish that found its way into the grotto.”

“Very large fish my ass! That thing had teeth!” You try your best to dry yourself off. You lost your flip flops it seems. “I swear something grabbed me and pulled me into the water!”

Hovering nervously, he adjusts and readjusts his glasses. “T-there might be an octopus in there. You know h-how curious they can be… Just stay clear of this place for a while okay?” It’s a weak excuse you both knew, but you decide not to push.

Sighing, you pick yourself off the ground. “I have to go back home and change. But I’ll meet you at the crab shack in thirty minutes?”

Shoulders relaxing, he smiles. “Of course. I’ll get you whatever you want.”

Later that night, you carefully open the door to your father’s study. He’s passed out at his desk, an empty glass in his hand and the still opened whiskey bottle on the desk. His loud snores are all you need to hear. Going back to your room, you grab your backpack and a flashlight.

You avoid the squeaky steps and leave the house by the side door from the kitchen. Biking back to the pier, it’s completely deserted compared to earlier. You need to know what is in the pool even if your father doesn’t want you to. Could it be related to what the stranger came for the other night? Stepping into the cave, you sweep the light around. Seeing that he has left everything as is, you go over to the laptop. It’s password protected… Leaving it alone, you do one last sweep of the cave before getting to business.

Setting the flashlight down so the beam of light points up, you take off your backpack. Reaching inside, you rifle around as you eye the water. Pulling out a plastic bag with a few precooked shrimp, you take one out. Tossing it in the water, you watch as it sinks into the depths. You wait a bit but nothing happens.

Frowning, you throw in another shrimp and wait. When nothing happens, you pull out another plastic bag filled with dried mackerel. “Maybe it doesn’t like shrimp…”

The sudden loud echo of your phone ringing makes you drop the bag. “Shit!” You quickly answer. “What?” you hiss.

“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Ace comments. “We wanted to know if you wanna come to a game with us next week?” You can hear the t.v. blasting in the background.

“And you couldn’t have texted me?” You can almost hear the eye-roll.

“Nope. So you in?”

Grumbling a “fine” you hang up before silencing your phone. “Almost had a heart attack…”

“Ya make funny faces, Shrimpy!” You whip your head up and meet the dual colored eyes of a creature. Leaning against the edge of the pool on the far end, the creature holds up one of the shrimps you had dropped in. Swallowing it whole, you get a flash of sharp white teeth.

Scrambling back a bit, you grab the flashlight and direct it toward the creature. “Y-you’re the thing that I saw!”

Eyes gleaming in glee, the creature dives under the water only to resurface on your end. Leaning against the edge, dangerous eyes watch you. “Hiya!” A webbed hand waves at you. Mouth opening and closing you can’t find the right words. “Ya look like a gaping fish!”

Shaking your head, you stare wide-eyed. “What are you?”

“I’m Floyd. Never seen a moray mermaid before?” he asks almost mockingly.

“M-mermaid? Like half fish, half human…” He definitely doesn’t look anything like the fairy tale mermaids you read about when you were a kid. His turquoise hair is muted under the bad light and he has a longer strand of back. He has fin-like protrusions where his ears should be, and webbed hands that have dangerous looking nails. You can vaguely make out something swishing in the water back and forth.

He clicks his tongue in annoyance. “We don’t all look like the mermaids you humans like to imagine. We’re better.”

“Whose ‘we’?”

Floyd seems to find interest in the bag of mackerel you had dropped. He’s already opened it and is chowing down. “My brother’s here too. So, Shrimpy, what’s goin’ on?”

“Like I know. I-I just found out mermaids apparently exist! How’d you even get here?” You watch him with part curiosity and part fear. Those claws and teeth aren’t for show.

He dumps the remaining fish in his mouth before tossing the plastic bag at you. “Beats me. One second I’m just enjoying a nice snack, the next we’re tossed into a net and then a glass cage. Then they threw us in here and snapped these on our necks.” He taps at the chunky black collar that you hadn’t noticed. A small red light blinks occasionally.

Brows knitting together, you wonder what the device is. You have never seen anything like it, and it is definitely not something your father ever had. “Can’t you leave? The grotto does exit into the ocean.”

“Someone put metal bars on the exit.” He shrugs. “The sea slug has been feeding us, but he keeps his distance. He’s no fun…” Floyd sighs.

“Sea slug?”

“The sweaty human who fiddles a lot with stuff,” he clarifies.

“Dad… What on earth has he gotten himself into?” you mutter.

Floyd yawns loudly. “See ya, Shrimpy. Next time bring more snacks!” He dips under the water before you can say anything else.

You sit there for a while before finally pulling yourself together. Biking back home, your thoughts swirl around trying to understand everything that just happened. You aren’t even sure what to tell Ace and Deuce or if you should tell them. However, you know one thing and that’s whatever is going on is in no way a good thing

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It’s a few days later that you are able to go back to the grotto. Your father has left for the day to teach his summer course. You make a pb&j for yourself, before throwing in a few cans of tuna and sardines in your bag. You hesitate before tossing in a candy bar for the fun of it. You’re just about to hop on your bike when a loud ‘meow’ stops you.

“Grim?” The gray and white cat rubs against your leg. His clear blue eyes stare up at you. “So you smelled the tuna and decided to show up, huh?” The feral cat often comes around when he’s hungry. Most of the townsfolk fed him if they happened to have anything on hand. You found the cat likes tuna. A lot.

Taking off your backpack, you pull out a can of tuna and open it. Leaving it on the porch, you laugh as the cat pounces on the food. “Enjoy the meal. I have a fish to meet.”

Riding off, you make the trip to the cave as quickly as possible. Inside, you’re already removing some cans and setting them down. “Floyd? I brought some snacks,” you call.

Against your better judgment, you want to speak with the mermaid some more. It isn’t everyday you meet a mythical sea creature. Hearing a splash, you smile as teal hair pokes out of the water. Rising higher, your smile falls a bit as you stare at the dual colored eyes. Something is off about the mermaid, yet you can’t quite put your finger on what.

His eyes watch your every movement as you take out your pb&j. “...Floyd?” You tilt your head to the side trying to remember your first encounter. “I swear the eyes were switched…” muttering under your breath, you cautiously inch closer.

Finally he speaks, and the voice is definitely different. “So you’re not as foolish as you look. Interesting.”

“You’re his brother then?” you ask, ignoring the insult.

“Jade at your service,” he greets with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “My brother mentioned you. I’m glad I also got the chance to meet you.”

Sitting at the edge of the pool, you dip your feet in the water. Perhaps not the smartest thing to do since there are two mermaids in there, but you have a feeling they aren’t interested in eating you. “Twins, huh… So, what’s it like?”

“Pardon?” He keeps his distance though he is looking at the things you laid out near the edge. Close enough that one can reach it if they come closer.

“Living underwater, I mean. Is there a city under there like the stories say?” Curiosity wins out over fear.

“You could say that we have a city of sorts. Compared to you humans, it’s cold and dark,” he explains.

Surprised he’s willing to talk, you lean forward. “Cold and dark? Sounds kinda uncomfortable, but I guess it makes sense if you live deep in the ocean. Maybe that’s why no one has seen a mermaid before…?”

“We tend not to interact with your kind. You people aren’t known to be the kindest…” His tone takes on a chilly quality. Yet, you can’t blame him considering he and his brother are trapped in the grotto for unknown reasons.

Just as you open your mouth to say something, you feel a cold hand grab your foot. You let out a yelp and quickly pull your legs out of the water. “You’re so jumpy, Shrimpy~” Floyd teases as he pops his head up.

“D-don’t do that!” Hand over your heart, you let out a deep breath. “I bring snacks and this is how I’m treated…”

Floyd’s already helping himself to your food. Namely your pb&j. “Twish stuff is so wry! I dwon’t understand why you like peanut budder,” he says between bites.

“That was my lunch… Wait, you know what peanut butter is?” You put your feet back in the water after it seems like the moray mermaid loses interest.

Finishing the sandwich quickly, Floyd nods. “We’ve visited places humans eat. Takoyaki is really good!”

“We are able to come on land as humans,” Jade explains, “It’s something every mermaid has done at least once.”

Eyes widen in awe. “So you guys could just become human and walk out of here?”

He shakes his head. “We actually have to make the potion that requires hard to obtain ingredients and there are certain conditions. If it was that simple, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

“Oh… So magic kinda exists but in potion form?” Every fantasy idea you had read about or seen is suddenly coming to mind.

“More or less.” He shrugs. “What you humans consider magic is not quite the same, but it is within the same idea.”

“Huh…” You stare at the twins thoughtfully.

Floyd interrupts your musings by poking your leg. “Hey, Shrimpy, can ya get us outta here?”

“I can try but I don’t know if I could carry you from the cave to the water. It’s not a far distance but you don’t look very…light.” If you are being honest, they look like they weigh too much. Perhaps you could drag them along?

Jade shakes his head. “That wouldn’t work. We can’t breathe outside of water for too long. The time it would take for you to carry one of us to the water, we’d probably be dead.”

“You have to always be in water?”

“At least halfway up. Unlike the mermaids you humans know of, morays aren’t able to be out of water for long without running the risk of drying out,” he explains further.

Scrunch up your nose, you wracked your brain for ideas. “We could put you in something portable that can hold water… But where would I get something big enough…? Though I guess it doesn’t have to fit your entire body, just enough plus water…”

Floyd suddenly leans over and pokes your forehead. You grimace as water drips off his hand. “Don’t think too hard, Shrimpy. Can ya bring me takoyaki?” Again he switches between topics.

“Uh…I can try? I’ve never made it so I’ll have to look up a recipe.” You glance over at Jade and give him an encouraging smile. “Any requests over there?”

“Octopus carpaccio,” he says, eyes lighting up a bit.

You make a mental note to look those two dishes up. “Great. Two things I don’t know how to make. But I’ll try.”

“Shrimpy!” Suddenly Floyd throws his arms around your waist and squeezes. He squeezes a little too hard causing you to wheeze. You swear your hear your bones creak

“T-too tight!” You weakly shove at his shoulders until he lets go.

---------

It becomes an occurrence for you where you visit the two when you can. Sometimes it’s impossible when your father is there, so you steer clear. Other times, you sneak out late at night to have a chat. You always bring snacks, which Floyd eats happily and sometimes Jade partakes. It seems your father has been feeding them live fish by quickly dumping them into the water before scurrying away. Floyd seems to take fun in scaring him on occasions or just plain up soaking him with water.

The time spent with Ace and Deuce are fun but you still contemplate whether you should tell them. On one hand it would be nice to have their help and support. On the other hand, you don’t want to get them involved with something dangerous. Though you haven’t seen any more shady people, you feel like they might come out of nowhere any second.

You’re still thinking of ways to get the twins back to the ocean. A tank large enough to fit them would be ideal, but you have no idea where you would get one. You also have to think about what would happen to your father when the gang finds out the mermaids are gone. You can only imagine that he would be blamed and punished. There doesn’t seem to be a good ending if you help the brothers escape.

---------

Again Ace and Deuce are at your home playing video games. It’s too hot to do much outside, so the three of you decided to stay inside. However, you are too distracted to pay attention to the match. Your thoughts are busy thinking about your most recent encounter with the twins.

You had gone to visit them a few days before, and they had told you some people had visited your father. The two stayed under the water but could hear the conversation. It seemed the Jester gang wanted to move the twins to their home soon. For what reason, they didn’t know, but it wasn’t good.

“Hey, are you okay?” Deuce asks, nudging you lightly when he notices the glazed over look in your eyes.

“Hmm?” You glance at him blankly. “Sorry I was lost in thought.”

Attention drawn away from the screen, his brows draw together. “You seem to be lost a lot recently. Is it because of…you know…?”

You set the controller down. “Yeah… I just don’t know what to do. If I do anything my dad will get in trouble. But if I don’t do anything they’ll probably end up hurt.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

You frown at your slip-up. “...”

“Eat my dust!” Ace cheers as he comes in first place. He jumps up and pumps his arms in the air, but stops when he realizes you're both not even playing. “Aww, come on! You guys aren’t even playing!”

Looking between the two, you decide to tell them the truth. “You guys want to see what that gang is using my dad for?”

“Uh…” Deuce looks unsure.

Ace shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

“You sure? This means you’d be involved and could get in trouble.” You gave them an out just in case they realize the trouble they might be getting into.

“When has that ever stopped us from doing anything?” Ace asks with a grin. Deuce nods determinedly.

A chuckle leaves your lips as you shake your head in disbelief. “Let’s get going tweedledum and tweedledee.”

“Hey!”

You lead them to the cave knowing your father won’t be there and stand at the edge of the pool. The two boys are glancing around suspiciously. “What is all this stuff?” Deuce pokes at the machinery.

“Don’t touch that!” Jumping, the dark haired boy backs away slowly. “Come over here.” You had already cleared it with Jade and Floyd awhile ago. The two seemed agreeable to meeting your friends if you ever decided to tell them.

The two peer down in the water. Finally Ace asks, “What are we supposed to be seeing?”

“Jade. Floyd. Meet Ace and Deuce,” you introduce.

Suddenly Deuce lets out a horrified scream as Floyd reaches out of the water and grabs his ankle. Ace scrambles behind you as the dark haired boy falls to the ground. “What the fuck!” the redhead shouts.

Rolling your eyes, you give Floyd a pointed look. He merely grins before letting Deuce go, who crawls behind you as well. “Must you do that?”

“It’s a lota fun!” he cackles.

The two behind you are speechless as they take in the two mermaids. Jade gives his usual smile while Floyd wiggles his webbed digits at them with a toothy grin. “Hiya, Crabby and Mackerel!”

“W-what are they?” Deuce finally asks, eyes darting between the two.

“Moray mermaids. They were apparently caught by the Jester gang. Not sure what they’re doing with them, but my dad’s been monitoring their vitals for the past month,” you explain.

Ace moves from behind you as he examines them from a safe distance. “They’re kinda…scary.”

“Thank you,” Jade says, his smile widening a hint.

You wave off his worried expression. “They’re fine. Anyways, the reason I wanted to introduce you guys is because I need to figure out a way to get them back to the ocean. They can’t be out of the water for too long, but maybe with all three of us we can carry them quickly to the shore?”

“You want us to carry them?” Both boys hold their hands up. “They look kinda heavy,” Deuce admits, finally standing up to stand beside you.

“Have any better ideas? I’m all ears.” Both shrug in unison. “Fine. We’ll need to brainstorm some more.”

“Ey ey, Shrimpy, did you bring snacks?” Floyd watches you expectantly as you take off your backpack.

You pull out a tupperware container. “I actually made takoyaki. The first and second batch were cooked too much. I think this one’s pretty good.”

“Wooo!” Floyd grabs the container and starts chowing down.

Ace pouts. “Why don’t you make us stuff?”

“You never asked.” You chuckle as Floyd shares a few with Jade but mainly eats the rest.

“So, if I asked for a cherry pie…?” He looks at you hopefully.

“Make it yourself. You got two hands and feet,” you answer with a huff. “It’s not like these two can walk into a kitchen.”

“Tsk.” Ace crosses his arms. “Treats a bunch of fish better than your best friend,” he mutters.

Ignoring his grumblings, you take back the tupperware once Floyd is done. Bidding farewell to the two mermaids, the three of you return back to your house. Though the two boys are still wary of the mermaids, they agree to help you figure out a way to get them back to the ocean.

---------

It’s nearing the end of summer vacation and no plans have been made. Despite three heads, it seems none of you can come up with a good idea. You did try lifting Floyd out of the pool together once, but he proved to be heavier than he looked. With his extremely long tail, you could barely get him a few inches out. After struggling for an hour, you gave up though Floyd seemed to enjoy the experience.

As you walk along the pier, you notice a lone figure up ahead walking along the shore. Having come back from a tennis match, you had decided to check in on the twins. You might not have paid attention to the person if it weren’t for how they are dressed. It’s summer time yet this strange person is wearing a long gray jacket and a black fedora. You linger behind as you watch the man from afar. Eyes narrowing, you grip your racket as you see him veer to the left toward the hidden grotto.

You walk a little faster as he disappears around the bend. Inching closer, you can hear mumbling. Peeking inside you see the stranger standing in front of the pool with the twins bobbing in the water. You shuffle closer as you lift your racket, ready to smash his head like a tennis ball.

“Shimpy!” Floyd notices you and waves causing the stranger to whirl around. His eyes widen when he sees you ready to pummel him.

“Wait, (y/n)! Don’t hit him!” Jade calls to you. You stop mid-swing, brows drawing together. Jade lets out a breath of relief. “This is our friend, Azul.”

The silver haired stranger looks between you and the twins. “A friend? You have a human friend?” you ask, lowering your racket.

“Nah. Azul is a mermaid like us. He’s just usin’ a transformation potion,” Floyd explains as his tail flicks water around.

“Oh…right.” You recall that the twins did say they could become human. “So, what’s he doing here?”

Azul seems to finally pull himself out of his stupor as he speaks. “They wanted me to come fetch them.” He adjusts his silver frames as he examines you. “I didn’t realize they had made an acquaintance on land…”

“I didn’t realize they had friends,” you say, looking between the two.

“Yup! We’ve known Azul since he was a cute, chubby little octopus,” Floyd chortles.

Sputtering, Azul glares at Floyd. “You signed a NDA about that!” He receives a toothy grin in return.

As much as you want to hear more, you decide to change the subject. “So are you going to give them a potion to make them human?”

“Well about that…” he coughs “I don’t have any potions. A bunch of kids ran into me and knocked them to the ground.”

Jade ponders for a moment. “That’s too bad. We might be able to still get out though. You see, the hulking man that brought us here came a few days ago saying they were going to transfer us.”

“Transfer? To where?”

“Not sure. But they mentioned somethin’ about meat.” Floyd’s face darkens as his lip curls upward.

You feel your body suddenly get cold. You had been reading up on legends of mermaids, and a few were less savory than the fairy tales. One legend existed that if a person were to eat the flesh of the mermaid, they would gain immortality. Of course you had scoffed at the idea, but perhaps there were some who believed in it.

Azul looks almost green. “God they’re going to… Ugh! Humans can be so barbaric.”

“Ditto. When will they be coming?” you ask, you mind racing.

“In three days from now at midnight. There will only be two men as they mentioned something about being watched. I think when they’re transporting us, it might be the best time for your friends to try and get us out. There’ll be portable tanks, so if you can distract two of them, perhaps you can do something.” The three share a look before nodding.

Rubbing your temples, you sigh. “Alright, I’ll let Ace and Deuce know. We’ll figure out a way to distract them.” You glance at Azul. “Do you have somewhere to hide before then?”

“I’ll return to the sea,” he says.

“Oookaaay…” You honestly don’t know what he can do to help, but since the twins trust him, you don’t say anything else.

You and Azul leave the area in silence. You head up back to the pier while Azul walks further down the shore. Taking a look over your shoulder, you see that he’s already waist deep in the water; clothes and all. Shaking your head, you send Ace and Deuce a quick text before hopping on your bike to head home.

You wait for the two out on the porch while playing with Grim. The cat jumps up and down as you dangle the fish-on-a-string toy just enough that he can swat at it. You perk up when you hear the sound of Deuce’s motorbike. The duo come to a stop, and Deuce parks his bike; Grim seems to find interest in the vehicle.

“Did someone die?!” Is the first thing Deuce asks.

“What? No!” Ace only shrugs when you turn your confused gaze to him.

The dark haired boy frowns as he hangs his helmet on the handle of his bike. “But you said it was an emergency…”

“No one’s dying. Yet. But this is an emergency. Come on, let's get inside first.” You lead the two downstairs.

Ace sits down on the couch. “So what’s up?”

“Apparently the Jester gang plans to move the twins,” you start “to their house. And they want to…eat them…”

“...”

“What. The. Fuck.” Ace’s eyes widen as he stares at you in disbelief. “Why the hell do they want to eat them?!”

“Like I would know. I mean there are stories about mermaids granting immortality by eating them, but who knows if that’s true.” You shudder at the thought. “Anyways I need your help.”

Deuce sighs. “As much as I don’t like those weird guys, I guess we can’t leave them to be eaten…”

“I guess…” Ace agrees halfheartedly.

“Alright, so I have a plan…”

---------

Hiding out under the docks alone is a bit unnerving, especially when it’s pitch black and quiet. You comfort yourself with the knowledge that Ace and Deuce are hiding in the parking lot, so at least they’re nearby. You had gone over the plan with the two a couple of times, but still you are nervous. It’s not everyday you do something illegal against a gang that could kill you if they ever found out.

The two men sent by Clark and Claire had already walked by with their large tank. They both seemed rather annoyed and grumbled a lot. You can only hope that the distraction the two boys had planned would work enough. Gripping the wooden baseball bat you brought, you periodically glance at the dark waters. Unsure if Azul is actually out there waiting, you can only hope.

The plan is to toss the twins off the pier balcony where beach goers like to sit. It’s the quickest way to the water and should be fairly easy. All you have to do is tip over the large tank enough that they could get out. Of course this half-baked plan relied on a lot of things happening in the right way.

You tense when you hear the squeaking of wheels and see the two grunts coming around the bend. It’s hard to see what’s in the tank, but you do notice the two seem to be struggling more. You watch from your hiding spot as they push the tank up the ramp while swearing once and awhile.

Hiding back in the darkness, you send Ace and Deuce a quick text. You wait as the two men take a quick rest once they’re no longer on the ramp. A loud pop rings out in the quiet night followed by multiple loud pops and cracks.

“What the hell?!” You hear the two men arguing before one runs off.

The other one that stays behind rubs the back of his head muttering about inconveniences. As you creep up behind him, you grip the handle of the bat tighter. Clenching your teeth, you strike the back of his head as hard as you can. The wooden bat meets his head with a sickening crack. He falls to the ground like dead weight. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you nudge his body with your foot. He’s breathing.

“Oh thank goodness…” you mumble before tossing the bat aside.

As you struggle to push the tank toward the end of the pier, you wonder how the other two are doing. The loud noises have stopped and everything is eerily quiet once more. As long as they distract the other guy long enough, you’re sure you can make it.

“(Y/N)?” You freeze. Slowly looking over your shoulder your stomach drops as you meet your father’s gaze.

Turning fully around, you press your back against the tank. “Dad…”

His clothes are in disarray and his hair sticks up. “W-what are you doing?”

Everything seems to be frozen in place. “I…I’m helping my friends. What are you doing here?” Last you checked, he was asleep in his study.

He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Of course you went back to the pool,” he says to himself. “Always so curious…” He shakes his head before meeting your gaze. “I couldn’t let them do what they wanted with the two mermaids…”

All the tension in your body relaxes. “You’re here to save them?”

He sighs and rubs his face. “Somehow… I don’t know, but I see you made it before me.” He gestures to the tank.

“What about the gang? Aren’t you afraid of what they’ll do?” you ask.

Walking over, he helps you push the tank. “They can’t really prove anything. And even if they try to do something, I have a lot of evidence against them. I might be a teacher, but I won’t let someone threaten my family.”

Nearing the edge, you pause to push the top off the tank. A few seconds later Floyd and Jade pop their heads out of the top. “Shrimpy!”

“Hey, you guys good?” You notice the black collars are gone.

“Yes. Those two men were more afraid of us than anything else,” Jade says with a chuckle.

Your father looks between you two, mouth open. “They t-talk?!”

“Yeah… what you guys never spoke to my dad?”

Floyd waves a web hand lazily. “Nothing really interestin’ to say to the sea slug or those guppies.”

“Sea slug?” Shock still on his face, he starts to fiddle with his glasses.

You pat your father on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” You turn your attention back to the two. “I’d suggest getting ready cause we’re going to just tip this thing over the edge.”

Both nodded before ducking down into the tank. With your father, you’re able to tip the tank over. You hear a muffled thump and then a loud splash. Peering over the edge, you see the twins bobbing in the water. Azul pops up as well.

“Bye, Shrimpy~!” Floyd waves.

“Thank you,” you hear Jade say before the three duck under water. A green tail flashes in the water before disappearing under the waves.

Letting out a relieved sigh, you grin. “Well that was fun.”

“(Y/N)!” Ace and Deuce run toward you. Both have leaves and twigs in their hair and clothes. They both stop to catch their breath.

“Did…they…leave?” Deuce asks between breaths.

“Yeah, we just saw them swim off.” You jab a thumb in the direction of the sea.

“Good! We might have a problem…” Ace glances at your father. “Uh…we accidentally knocked out the guy.”

Deuce nods. “He was getting too close to us, so I might have panicked.”

You shrug, not really caring. “And that’s a problem? They weren’t nice guys. Anyways, I also hit the other guy with a bat. We can just report them to the police for…”

“Transporting exotic fish?” your father supplies.

“Yeah, that’s good.” You wrap your arms around both their shoulders. “Come on, let’s go back to my place.”

Rolling his eyes, Ace sighs. “This was the dumbest plan ever. You owe me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Poached eggs?” Deuce asks hopefully.

“Sure!”

“I want my cherry pie first!”

“It’s two in the morning, Ace…”

“...still want my cherry pie!”

---------

An entire year passes without much drama beyond the Jester gang finally getting arrested on charges of transporting exotic species. Though the police don’t say how they came to this conclusion, you notice a bounce in your father’s step. You continue your life as if two mermaids hadn’t just appeared during your summer break. By the time summer rolls around once more, you’re almost convinced it was all a mass fever dream you shared.

Wandering on the shores of the beach, you look out on the calm waters. Tourists are slowly coming back though for now you have the beach to yourself. You let the water lap at your toes as you stare out. Finding out mermaids existed made you curious about what else could be out there. What other myths could be true.

“Shrimpy!” You let out a yelp as arms suddenly wrap around your middle and crush you into a tight hug.

“Floyd, don’t scare, (y/n),” another voice comments playfully.

Looking up at Floyd, who still has yet to release you from his hold, a grin bursts from your face. “You guys came back!”

“Of course we did, Shrimpy. I missed ya!” He nuzzles the top of your head as you try to wiggle out of his hold.

Jade chuckles as his brother finally lets you go. “We wanted to come see you sooner, but it was difficult procuring some ingredients. However, we’re glad we made it for summer.”

“Is Azul here?” You don’t see him.

“He had some stuff to wrap up, but he’ll be here in a few hours.” Floyd grabs your arm. “I wanna see the sights!”

Jade gives a mock bow. “We are in your care.” He grasps your other arm.

“Alright, alright. I’ll be your personal tour guide.” Sandwiched between the two, you can only give in. Not that you mind since you did miss them.

“Invite Mackerel and Crabby. We can have a lota fun!” The glint in Floyd’s eyes speaks volumes, but you’re sure Ace and Deuce wouldn’t mind. Hopefully.

Walking along the pier with the two arm-in-arm, you wonder what this summer will bring.

#twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #jade leech #floyd leech #ace trappola #deuce spade #azul ashengrotto #twst jade #twst floyd #twst ace #twst deuce #twst azul #reader insert #scenario

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gukyi · 4 years

Text

the love project | jjk

summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.

{college!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy word count: 12k warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!

These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur.

At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.

Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks.

Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all.

Your best friend would have to disagree.

“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”

“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”

“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”

He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.

Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode.

Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments.

But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.

“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”

Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did.

He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself.

“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half.

“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”

“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”

“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”

“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”

“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you.

“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”

Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.

There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off.

The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything.

So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong.

“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds.

It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you.

“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated.

“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.

“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”

“What do you have to do?”

Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”

You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly.

“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”

“Oh,” You say dumbly.

“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”

“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you.

Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”

“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”

“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years.

“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”

He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost.

Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about.

“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”

“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”

He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.

“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”

“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless.

“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”

“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.

You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together.

Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest.

Click.

“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?

From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”

“Well, how many do you have now?”

It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.

You wonder what the hell he sees in you.

“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement.

“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk.

Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows.

It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click.

He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why.

“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?

“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”

“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.

Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”

You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”

“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”

“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair.

“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”

Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems.

The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you.

When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.

“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.

“I never want to miss anything.”

“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?

“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”

At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship.

You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it.

Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio.

Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic.

This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since.

It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have.

“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows.

“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”

“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in.

You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.

“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”

“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once.

“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”

“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.

“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”

Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”

“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”

“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this.

You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right?

The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.

“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins.

“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing.

You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”

You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention.

“Y/N!”

You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind.

Another voice breaks you from your trance.

“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide.

The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes.

“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”

“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to.

Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you.

“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”

The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”

Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you.

“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”

“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”

“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you?

What do you not know?

By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.

This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?

Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.

You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence.

Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them?

Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.

Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.

So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.

An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met.

And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.

The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.

“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.

The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor.

“Whoa.”

“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook.

“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”

“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”

“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date.

“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”

“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”

“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this.

“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”

Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”

“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”

“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”

“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”

You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you.

“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”

“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief.

Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”

He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it.

Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it.

And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory.

Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away.

You wonder what he sees.

(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)

“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.

You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders.

“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”

Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door.

“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”

There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.

“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”

Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door.

For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left.

The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind.

You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet.

[November 7th, 8:48PM]

You: you still game for that movie?

[November 7th, 8:50PM]

Jungkook: you finished your date already?

You: is that a yes or a no

Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that

You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me You: i’m coming over

The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.

Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side.

But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet.

Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive.

“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist.

“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him.

“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them.

You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”

“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted.

“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”

Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing.

Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter.

“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”

“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”

To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash.

He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them.

“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.

Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him.

Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”

The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card.

“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black.

“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised.

Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure.

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body.

The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is.

“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you.

“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”

“I want to see it.”

“What? My project?”

“What else?”

“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”

You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”

“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”

“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?

“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown.

“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back.

You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further.

“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.

Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”

And that’s good enough for you.

You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.

You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.

“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”

“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”

“How do you know what feels right?”

Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him.

The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet.

So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?

Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment.

The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester.

Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there.

Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that.

Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?

Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right.

“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”

“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk.

Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room.

You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world.

As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well.

The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen.

There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written.

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.

What?

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page…

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

“Y/N?”

You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling.

“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed.

“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom.

“Uh—”

“Were you reading my computer screen?”

It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else.

“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head.

(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)

“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease.

“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart.

“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”

“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you.

“So you are hiding something?”

“That’s not the point, the point is that—”

“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”

“Because then you’d know!” Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving.

He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless.

“Jungkook—?”

“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”

“Know what? What would I know?”

Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”

The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating.

“You’re in love with me?” You ask him.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”

You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”

Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”

“And you are mine,” you remind him.

“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”

“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”

And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain.

You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing.

But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure.

He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth.

He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about.

By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out.

“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.

“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”

Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process.

You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world.

“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”

“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”

“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”

“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”

“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”

“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious.

It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side.

“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her.

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #w: the love project #yes i am finishing this at 6am on the day its meant to be posted... MIND UR OWN BUSINESS

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mikimagines · 3 years

Note

Hi! Can I request a drv3 boy x Workaholic! Reader, please? I wanna see how they will convince their partner, to rest and finally take some 8 hours of sleep (via using word or literally cling the reader trying to annoy them enough to go to sleep, etc) Thank you !

a/n: hihi thank you for requesting! also the clingy part goes more to kokichi…yeah nope just kokichi.

DRV3 Boys with a Workaholic! S/O

Shuichi Saihara.

you both probably never spent that much time together.

shuichi, due to having the title of the super high level school detective:

he has to deal with plenty of things like murder cases, missing children; people; kidnappings, robberies.

(although it has calmed down with cases like a pet gone missing or something not that serious for police to get involved.)

and since his uncles agency is popular in the Prefecture, it’s obvious that people were going to ramble shuichi, which means less time spent with each other.

as for you, it’s mostly just working on schoolwork and your talent as well,

but ever since the exams have been announced days ago, studying on everything over again step by step so you can be proven that you are the best at your talent.

which is causing you to stay up all night and making your boyfriend worry more than expected.

shuichi is polite, and kind. he might not be much of a clingy person. He’s about to turn into one.

but here’s the thing. he has no idea how to be clingy. it would put into the point that it would be embarrassing, especially for him.

and yet, he just came up with a small essay on why you should go to sleep.

not only because he’s so worried!!! nvm that’s it.

he’s just worried for your safety.

it took a while but you agreed and finally went to bed. it hurts seeing Shuichi so worried.

and now here’s the thing.

you finally went to sleep at 3am in the morning, and taking a full 8 hours of sleep is y’know.

11am.

which means, uhm.

your late. for school.

Kokichi Oma.

kokichi oma??? worried???

probably.

although he never spoke his actual true feelings about you working all night.

you can see the:

“your supposed to spend time with me~~~ not that stupid work thing!!”

in his eyes.

also with that stupid game baby whimper he has.

not to mention his clinging makes you almost drop to the floor.

and the declaration of war on literal paper.

also he’s needy as hell, so you might as well probably be dragged from him as he’s trying to make you sleep.

(he even has that chair that rocks back and forth while he’s trying to read you his totally not re writing on basic story books.)

sure he’s a little sad that you went to sleep during the middle of the best part.

but in one side of him, he’s happy your asleep. (so he can draw on your face again /j)

for real, you deserve it. You have done many to keep many from finding out about the secret organization he has and plenty of other things.

once you woke up, a sleepy kokichi wouldn’t let you go and was still clingy in his sleep.

“kokichi, we are going late for the exams.”

“and?”

“our SCHOOL exams.”

Kaito Momota

due to his hero complex, and stupid yet inspired speeches.

he knows a thing on two on being a workaholic.

being the super high school level astronaut, which being a astronaut takes amount of time, and years to do.

“Didn’t you illegally got in there by asking your friend to do all the work?”

it seemed like the world paused for a second.

since uhm, he needs to think this more though.

because the first speech was honestly, not helping at all.

as you still worked physically all night.

so the best he could do was honestly, come up with something better than that.

kaito extremely cares about you (even with the hero complex he has.) and he’s a astronaut to be sure, but the “the impossible is possible.”

although that has nothing to do with the fact that you are hurting your mental health badly.

kaito has no idea, other than just cling on you.

although yes, he will give you personal space.

it was technically the same situation as Maki and Shuichi.

(don’t be shocked if he asked you to train with him.)

and yet, you finally agreed to take a nap.

and he is a proud boyfriend!

☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

Rantaro Amami

not on his watch.

he’s going on full big brother mode on you.

this man has dealt with everything you can possibly think of.

he knows that work matters, being the ultimate adventure after all. yet, sleeping is better for his and your health.

this man would literally drag you out of your work space and make sure you will be getting sleep.

and yes, he would cling…just a little bit.

just so he doesn’t ruin that cool guy thing he has.

at the end, he’s just a worried big brother.

honestly, ever since he got into your life, I don’t feel like you would be that much of a workaholic anymore.

Korekiyo Shinguji

Korekiyo probably cares more about you than himself.

to be honest.

yes, he finds humanity beautiful in, ways.

but with you working hard on exams coming up and violently ruining your mental health.

it wouldn’t be a shock if korekiyo tells you to take a nap while he does the rest.

“Sweetheart, why don’t you take a nap while I work on the rest?…if that is right with you?

although you did complain, a little…you did trust him with the rest and korekiyo is really reliable at things like work.

also with that calming voice of his can give a advantage as well.

you can go to sleep sometimes when he reads things of old historic books or random tales.

at the end, I think it would be mostly like Shuichi’s plan.

Ryoma Hoshi

“I care more for you than myself.” part 2!

yes, it actually hurts ryoma seeing you all tired out and how your slowly turning into him.

I don’t think he wants to deal with anymore loss anymore.

he’s not that much of a talker, and yet he would give signs on how you should probably take a nap.

it’s does hurt him a lot honestly hpw your draining in your mentality of staying up all night without taking a nap.

even if it was just a little one, ryoma has dealt with things that he doesn’t want to see again.

so if he will slowly suggest I’m taking a nap.

or maybe just having a small chat.

he really cares for you a lot.

(yes, maybe even sacrifice himself…y’know.)

update: it is currently 2:23 in the morning that and I’m supposed to be sleeping right now but then I remember that I forgot gonta after reading some imagines.

Gonta Gokuhara

extremely worried boy.

gonta cares for everyone and wants to take care of everyone the best he can do.

so seeing you all tired from exams can make him extremely wondering what he can do.

also gonta isn’t that dumb, due to being a literally scientist. (I mean, sometimes…he is.)

I do think he would understand the fact that you are taking horrible care of your mental health.

but of course, gonta has to be a gentleman!

it’s his number one priority! for everyone and you.

also forcing you to go to sleep is obviously non-gentlemanly.

so if you would faint due to overworking, he would carefully pick you up and take you to the nearest bed.

also gonta would be making sure that everything is quiet.

although I don’t think your overworking would end quick, slowly put surely. I do think it could be put into the ease.

once it’s over, I see gonta hugging you super tightly in happiness.

a/n:

that’s it. that’s the post.

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arvinsescape · 3 years

Text

Nurse Y/N

A/N: I’ve been working on this for a couple of days and happy to finally be able to post it. Mob Tom fic, i tried to add smut but i don’t think my writings there at the minute, i’ll do it eventually. Bit of a slow burn but not too much. As always i hope you enjoy.

Summary: You’re a nurse and you’ve always been on the right side of the law, what happens when you meet a man that sweet and caring but definitely not on the right side of the law.

Warnings: Language, mentions and hints of smut.

W/C: 4.4K,

You’d lived with your best friend for around a year now. A bad relationship had brought you to his door, he took you in and the rest is history. You were working as a nurse in the local hospital and you had no idea what exactly it was that your best friend did, he didn’t talk much about it, claiming he “just did odd jobs for someone”. You were sceptical to say the least, the amount of times he had come home covered in bruises led you to believe that his activities were probably not legal. But he never brought it home and being non the wiser made things slightly easier for you. It was your day off and you were stuck into a Netflix series when you saw your best friends name light up on your phone screen. You noticed it was 1am and wondered why he wasn’t home yet.

“Hi James. What’s up?”

“Y/N? Where are you?” He asked in a rushed tone. He sounded out of breath. You could hear the slamming of a car door over the speaker.

“I’m at home. Why? James what’s wrong?” You asked him, voice growing more concerned.

“I need your help. If I text you an address can you meet me there?”

“Sure. James are you okay?” You asked as you started to put your shoes on.

“I’m fine! I just need you to meet me.”

“Okay, text me the address.” You sighed as you hung up and grabbed your car keys.

Once you received the address you set off in the direction that your SAT NAV was taking you. As you came nearer to the destination you started to feel more and more uneasy. It was almost too quiet for London. You pulled into what looked like an abandoned warehouse, now you were really uneasy. You fumbled around your bag as you tried to find your phone, with a tight grip you dialled James’ number.

“Y/N? Where are you?”

“I’m outside but what is going on? Where have you brought me?”

“Stay there I’ll be out in a second.” He huffed as he put the phone down.

He wasn’t wrong, it couldn’t have been 30 seconds later that he arrived at your car, pulling the door open. He looked physically fine but the worry on his face still had you on your guard. What on Earth was going on? You glanced at the time in your car 1.10am. What the hell is happening?

“Y/N. I’m sorry for calling so late but I didn’t know who else to call. I can’t go to a hospital and I need one, so I need your help. I need you to do something for me.” He spoke faster than you thought physically possible.

“Slow down. What is it? Are you hurt?” You asked as you scanned him overlooking for wounds that weren’t there. What did he mean he needed a hospital but couldn’t go?

“The guy I work for. He’s been injured, someone managed to get a shot off on him.” He rambled as he pulled you towards the building.

“Shot! What the hell are you talking about? What do you do?” You almost screamed.

“Look. I promise I’ll explain everything Y/N. But right now I need you to help him. I can’t take him to a hospital it would be too risky. I need you to take the bullet out and stitch him up. Please, he’s my boss. He’ll make it worth your while.” He asked you with pleading eyes as he pulled you further into the warehouse.

“James. I’m not a surgeon! I don’t know if I can do that!” You started to panic now.

“You can give stitches though? He’s been shot in the arm, he’s losing blood, but I think the bullet is stemming the bleeding. I don’t think it’s lodged too far in. Please and I promise I’ll explain everything.”

The nurse in you was screaming at you to try and help who ever it was but you were frightened, you weren’t a surgeon. What if it went wrong? He could sue you; you’d lose your career. You weren’t supposed to do this off duty. So many things were running through your mind as James took you into another room that was filled with 4 other men. All dressed rather smart to say they’d clearly been involved in illegal activity. The man who James had informed you was the boss became apparent when you saw him clutching his arm. Blood dripping down it.

“Boss. This is Y/N, she’s a nurse.” James explained as you both stopped in front of him. He was attractive at first glance. Beautiful brown eyes and brown curls that were almost begging to have fingers run through them. You kept quiet, feeling intimidated as he stared you down, expression completely unreadable.

“Can you trust her?” The ‘Boss’ asked James.

“She’s been my best friend for years; you can trust her.” James answered confidently. You just shook your head, finally having the courage to speak up.

“Hang on just a second. What do you mean can you trust her? I’m the one who should be wondering that, your sat there having been shot, apparently need my help and you have the audacity to ask if you can trust me?” You almost screamed at the man in front of you. You don’t know what made you snap, maybe it was the stress of the situation or how tired you suddenly felt. James grasped your arm in a tight grip.

“Y/N. I love you, but this is no time to be head strong. Just please, be respectful, he’s an important man.” He said to you as he released your arm. Before you could say anything, the brown eyed man spoke first.

“No, that’s quite alright James. She’s feisty, nothing wrong with that.” He said as he smirked in your direction. He may have been good looking, but he was irritating the hell out of you. You just looked at him as if to say, “what the fuck?” He just smiled at you. “Now, I would very much appreciate it if you could help me out. I will pay you what ever you want, and I promise not to say a word to anyone about what you have done for me.” He gave you what seemed to be a genuine smile and you sighed. Perhaps doing what he asked was the fastest way to get to bed.

“Look, I’m not a surgeon. I might not be able to do much, but I’ll try. Let me have a look.” You said as you eyed him carefully. James had left to stand near the other 3 men in the room. You took his arm as you assessed the damage. Maybe you could do this. The wound didn’t look all that bad. “I think I can do this. It just, it will hurt, and I don’t have anything to numb the pain. In fact, I don’t have anything at all to work with.” You suddenly realised.

“Well I came somewhat prepared. Sam? Have you got the first aid kit?” He turned to one of the men. ‘Sam’ nodded and made his way towards you, handing you the first aid kit and making his way back to his original spot. This really was some strange operation.

“Like I said, this might hurt.” You sighed as you got to work.

“Okay. All done.” You said as you finished up the stitching. You were surprised at how little he flinched throughout the process. He must have one hell of a pain tolerance. “Take some paracetamol and ibuprofen when you get home. I really would suggest you go to an actual hospital to make sure I removed that bullet properly.” You said as covered the stitching with a bandage.

“Thank you very much. I’m sure I won’t be going to a hospital, not sure how I would explain a bullet wound without the police getting involved and what would I tell them? I’d have to tell them nurse Y/N helped me out in the first place.” He teased.

“Whatever, just please don’t sue me if you end up losing your arm.”

“I promise. Now how much would you like for what you have done. Name your price. It’s yours.”

“I don’t want anything. Just please don’t tell anyone what I did and try and stay out of trouble.” You sighed as you looked into his brown eyes. You really were tired now, thankful that you had a day off tomorrow, well today.

“I already promised that I wouldn’t say anything and as for staying out of trouble I’m afraid I can’t promise you that. But hopefully I won’t need your services like this again. Are you sure you don’t want any money?”

“I’m sure. It wouldn’t feel right to take money when I know I shouldn’t have done that. I really just want to go home and go to bed.”

“Whatever makes you feel better princess.” He said as he flashed you a genuine smile and that nickname made your stomach do things that you’d rather not think about. He wasn’t someone you should get mixed up with. That much you could tell.

“James? Are you coming?” You finally turned to your best friend and he just shook his head, saying that he had things to finish up there and with that you left. You fell into bed and as soon as your head hit the pillow you were asleep.

You woke up at around 12pm, having not gotten into bed until 3am and you were still feeling exhausted. You briefly wondered if last night was just a strange dream was just but you knew it wasn’t. You made your way downstairs and made yourself a coffee, yeah you were going to need caffeine to wake up today. You wandered into the living room where you saw James sat on the couch, he looked over at you.

“Y/N. Thank you so much for last night. I’m so fucking sorry that I dragged you into that, but I couldn’t let anything happen to him, he’s a very important man.” James rambled as you took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, sipping your coffee.

“I just want an explanation, James. It’s the least you can do.” You were still slightly pissed at him, but you knew he wouldn’t have risked you and your job if it wasn’t important.

“Okay. Look, I’m involved with the London ‘mob’ if you want to call it that. I’ve made it pretty far up in the ranks and that was my boss, the leader you saved last night. We were reclaiming some old territory when things went a little south and he got shot. I can’t thank you enough for what you did, and I promise I wouldn’t have gotten you involved if I didn’t have to.” He sighed. You’d stayed silent, taking in his words and you just sighed back.

“Listen, I’m still pissed but it’ll pass. I had a gut feeling you were involved in something illegal and I think you should get out if you can but please don’t get me involved like that again and we’ll continue to pretend that this never happened and you don’t do what you do for a living. The less I know the better.” James smiled at you as he hugged you.

“Thank you Y/N. You’re the best. I love you; you know that. I can deal with you being pissed; I deserve that much. I promise I’ll make it up to you, pizza for tea. I’m buying!”

Most people would say that you’d had a rather nonchalant response but honestly. You didn’t want to know more; he was your best friend and maybe you were trying to look the other way to protect your image of him or maybe you were still tired and your brain hadn’t quite caught up yet but you left it at that and he told you he was going to ‘work’ and off he went about his day as you started going about your own.

You’d just been for a shower when you heard a knock at the door. You hadn’t been expecting a visitor and assumed it was your friend who also had today off. You threw on your pyjamas which consisted of shorts and a tank top as you made your way to the door.

“You know Lizzy, you could’ve texted me before you decided to- “Your words were cut short as you opened the door. It wasn’t Lizzy at all, it was the man you’d helped last night, escorted by two other men that you didn’t recognise.

“If I had your number, I might’ve done sweetheart.” He said as he took in your attire. You suddenly felt self-conscious under his stare and wished you’d have grabbed your dressing gown.

“What are you doing here? How did you know where I live?” you asked him.

“My apologies but James said you lived together, and I know where all my staff live.”

“Okay, so what do you want?”

“I came to thank you properly for last night. You don’t want paying and I can’t take what you did for free.” He said as he watched you cautiously eye the two men that he’d brought with him. “Don’t worry about them, apparently I’m not aloud to go anywhere alone until my arm is healed. Mum’s orders and you know you don’t argue with your mother.” He said, trying to ease you, you still looked somewhat tense. “Can I come in? I’ll make them stay outside.” He asked and there was that genuine smile again. It made your stomach flip and you just nodded as you moved aside and let him in. Shutting the door rapidly as he crossed the thresh hold.

You hadn’t noticed his hands were full until he placed down a large box on your kitchen counter. “Do I want to know what’s in there?” You couldn’t help but ask.

“Well unless you’re allergic to anything in there, I wouldn’t be too concerned.” He teased. You made your way over and opened the box, it was full of god knows how many boxes of all different types of chocolate. “I did ask James and he said you loved chocolate so I thought I could repay you by starting there.”

“Well thank you but honestly I don’t want anything else. It’s not like you were on deaths door.” You joked back. Something about him set you at ease when it probably shouldn’t have.

“Well who knows? I might’ve lost my arm.” He laughed. You couldn’t help but laugh with him, it was almost contagious. “Tom by the way.”

“Wow. James didn’t call you Tom; I must be honoured.” You laughed.

“Well unlike James, you don’t work for me princess.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.”

“Cute pj’s by the way.” He teased as he eyed you again. You instantly wrapped your arms around yourself, feeling conscious under his stare, but not in a bad way, in a way that made your stomach flutter and heat rush to your cheeks.

“Um, thanks. Look, not to be rude but what do you want?” You asked as you locked eyes with him. God he was beautiful.

“I’d like to take you out to lunch, as a thank you. Don’t read too much into it.”

“Will you take no for an answer?”

“Not really darling.”

“Fine. Give me 10 minutes.” You laughed as you made your way upstairs to get changed.

He took you to a nice restaurant at the other side of town, it seemed expensive, but he didn’t seem to mind, it seemed like he knew everyone that worked there. He probably owned it; you came to realise. It was actually a lovely afternoon spent chatting and getting to know him. There were numerous times when you found yourself wondering how he ended up being part of a mob. He was sweet but every time you remembered what he did for a living you were reminded that you couldn’t let yourself go there.

“And where have you been?” James teased as you came through the door.

“Out.” You answered vaguely.

“With a certain brown eyed, brown haired mobster?”

“How did you know?” You asked, shocked.

“Well I know he was interested in how I knew you and then we didn’t see him again all day.”

“Right, well, he just wanted to say thank you.” You said as you joined him on the couch.

“Bullshit Y/N. I think he has a soft spot for you.” He continued to tease you. “I mean come on. He’s gorgeous.”

“It was just a thank you lunch!” You defended yourself. “Besides it wouldn’t be a good idea, you know with what he does for a living, if you want to call it that.”

“Yeah, but he could offer you protection and all the money you’d ever need. He might do illegal stuff but he’s not a complete monster Y/N.”

“James, please don’t go there.” You groaned as you took a slice of pizza from the box he’d ordered in.

“Okay, okay. I know that look though. That one you had when you came through that door. I just have one question for you.” He said as he laughed.

“What’s that?” You asked, mouth full of pizza.

“When are you seeing him again?”

You picked up the nearest pillow and hit him with it, mumbling a ‘fuck off’ as he laughed at you. You finished your night watching a movie before heading to bed, dreams of a curly haired, brown eyed boy flooding your dreams.

Two weeks passed before you saw Tom again. James had mentioned he wasn’t going to be in for the night, and you’d decided to read a book as there was a knock at the door. You made your way over and opened the door, there he was, alone this time.

“Déjà vu. I swear you had exactly the same thing on the last time you opened this door for me.” He laughed as he gestured towards your attire.

“I did. What are you doing here Tom?”

“I actually just came to see you.” He said as he made his way past you so you could close the door.

“And why’s that?”

“Look, I can’t stop thinking about Y/N. God knows I’ve tried but I can’t, and I know we hardly know each other but I’d like to change that.” He answered, he’d stepped slightly closer to you.

“Tom.” You sighed. “We shouldn’t. This isn’t a good idea, you know that right?”

“Trust me, I’ve been through this a thousand times since we last saw each other but I can’t help it. I think I like you, like a lot.” He said as he reached towards you, catching a strand of your hair as he played with the end of it. Your heart rate was starting to pick up at the closeness.

“Tom I-“

“I could give you everything and anything you want princess. I’d look after you and that’s a promise, I know my line of work is messy and comes with risks but I’m willing to risk everything for a chance with you.” He’d tucked the strand of hair behind your ear and placed his hand on your cheek, moving his face closer to yours, you could feel his breath on your lips.

“We shouldn’t” you whispered, although you knew you didn’t mean it. He just shook his head in agreement with you. Lips almost touching.

“If you don’t want to just tell me to stop.” He whispered against your lips. Your body moved before your brain could catch up and you connected your lips. It was like fireworks had exploded in your stomach. Your lips moved against each other as your fingers made their way into his curls, god they were soft.

He backed you up until your back hit the cool wall behind you, moving his hands to grip your hips. His tongue slid over your bottom lip asking for access which you gladly gave. Your tongues danced together like they were old dance partners. Knowing exactly how to move together and it made you moan slightly. You pulled back for a bit of air before his lips were back on yours. You’d never been kissed like this before. Almost as if he was trying to tell you everything through the kiss.

He tapped your thigh and you jumped, his strong arms instantly catching you as he pinned you further against the wall. Your mind was racing, this was possibly the hottest, most intense kiss you had ever engaged with. “Do you want to stop?” He mumbled against your lips. You only shook your head in response reconnecting your lips as he carried you through the flat, you directed him towards your bed room and the night was spent with you receiving the most amount of attention and pleasure you’d ever experienced with another human being.

You woke up with a warm arm wrapped around your waist, your mind flooded with the events of the night before. You smiled to yourself as you carefully removed his arm and made your way into the bathroom. You examined yourself in the mirror after having brushed your teeth and gasped at the large hickey that had been left on the sweet spot of your neck. You bit your lip and smiled. You threw on Tom’s shirt that he’d worn last night and some underwear, making your way into the kitchen. You boiled the kettle as you got two mugs out, lost in your thoughts you didn’t hear a second person enter the kitchen.

“Well someone looks happy.” James laughed as you lightly screamed and turned around to face him.

“James, I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.” You gasped, hand on heart as you waited for it to beat at a regular pace again.

“I recognise that shirt.”

“How can you recognise a white button up shirt?” You asked in disbelief.

He just laughed at pointed at the sleeve, you looked down and on the cuff of the shirt was ‘T.H’ embroidered in gold. Heat instantly rose to your cheeks.

“It’s none of your business!”

He threw his hands up in defence. “You’re right, it’s not. You look happy though, I’m happy for you.”

“I don’t- we haven’t spoken about it.” You sighed. Just as you spoke Tom walked into the kitchen, he smiled at you.

“I wondered where that had gotten to.” He laughed gesturing towards the shirt as he said morning to James. James shook his head and laughed.

“I’ll leave you two to it.” He grabbed his keys and wallet and walked out of the flat. Leaving you and Tom stood in the kitchen. He was shirtless and he looked good, you bit your lip as you looked at him.

“Morning princess.” He smiled as he wrapped you in a tight, warm embrace.

“We should talk about last night.” You mumbled against his chest. He sighed.

“Look, I meant what I said. All of it.” He kissed the top of your head. You pulled out of his embrace as you looked at him.

“I just- I know it might seem ridiculous because of last night but I want to take it slow. We should get to know each other. We don’t know enough about each other yet and last night, I don’t regret it but maybe we should take it back to step one.”

“Whatever you want princess. I promise I’ll look after you. I know my line of work bothers you and I hope that you can accept that it’s part of what I do but I understand if getting to know me more means that that is too much for you.” He said as he looked into your eyes. He was being vulnerable, honest and you knew you had to give him the chance. You’d regret it if you didn’t.

You went on dates and it would be three months before you found yourself in bed with him again. You fell hard and you fell fast for him. You ended up leaving your job in favour of becoming the woman who oversaw all of Tom’s books. He kept you safe and he loved you and made you feel more loved than you thought possible. Anything you wanted, you got. Anything you needed, you had. Anything you asked of him, done.

You never imagined that you’d end up dating a man on the wrong side of the law and being okay with it, being complicit in it but here you were. You married about three years in and nothing changed, he still made you feel the same way he had years prior. You had three beautiful children with him, and he was best, most loving father a child could hope for. You had two boys which he would do anything and everything for and your little girl well he doted on her completely, she was his little angel, couldn’t do a thing wrong in his eyes.

“You know I never thought I’d say this” he spoke one night as you were cuddled up in bed “but I’m actually thankful I got shot that night.”

“Most people wouldn’t be thankful for that Tom.” You teased him.

“No probably not. But I never would have met you had it not happened.” He said sincerely as he ran his fingers up and down your arm.

“No, you wouldn’t have. I’m always thankful I gave you the chance even if at the time I was wary.” You laughed as you kissed his chest.

“Admit it. I had you the second I kissed you and then gave you one of the best railings you’d ever had.” He teased which earned him a playful smack on the chest.

“Yeah that always helps.” You laughed as you rolled your eyes at him. You couldn’t be more in love with this man if you tried.

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland one shot #tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #mob!tom

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forasecondtherewedwon · 3 years

Text

3 Simple Rules for Dating a Centenarian

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 2374

Summary: After seeing Steve's shield handed over to some stranger, Sam calls up Bucky, certain he's the one person who can properly commiserate. He doesn't really expect Bucky to answer though (the guy's become a bit of a recluse), or to hear the hints that he might be missing Sam as much as Sam's been missing him. Not that he'd ever say it straight out.

Sam is almost completely still as the feelings rattle through him like a roller coaster’s last run on a derelict track. He only lets it out—the blend of frustration, betrayal, and regret—in the way his fingers squeeze his knee through his jeans, skin damp against the denim. Keeping his hands clasped, and watching those clasped hands, was more grounding, but he needs one of his hands to hold the phone to his ear, and that activity is getting pretty damn tired.

Bucky’s voicemail clicks on for the third time in a row.

“Bucky,” Sam says, “I know you prefer calls to texting, so what are you doing ignoring me, man? Haven’t used your cell in so long that you’ve forgotten how to hit the answer button? At least it rang. That’s something, I guess.”

He sighs away from the speaker where it won’t be recorded for Bucky to hear later. Maybe he did divert his message from the snarky sarcasm he was planning to leave the guy, but Bucky doesn’t need to hear him sigh on top of that.

For a few moments, Sam taps his foot along with the muffled music of his nephews’ video game coming through the closed door. He knows the boys’ routine (and if he ever forgets, he sees the copy Sarah has on the fridge door) and that this isn’t their usual scheduled time for whatever they’re playing out there. Best guess: Sarah wants them hogging the TV so she won’t be tempted to peek at that government-sanctioned shitshow. Sam can’t blame her. Actually, he wonders if she blames him. The disappointment was so clear in her eyes before he stopped making himself meet them. He thought he was doing the right thing when he handed the shield over. Are there people out there who think he’s let them down, or just his sister? Just himself?

He can’t talk to Sarah right now and he’s thankful that she’s giving him some time to himself, but as soon as he got it, he realized he didn’t know what to do with it. Just like that shield. Dialing Bucky over and over—tapping in every number every time because that appears to be part of this pity ritual he’s performing—seemed like the thing he should do. Probably won’t answer. That asshole is terrible at staying in touch. Still, Sam’s heart feels a little heavier with every word closer he gets to the end of this message. Feels like he’s trying to keep the thing afloat in his chest, like his parents’ boat down at the dock. This is what he knows he should do when everything in him wants to sink—reach out, talk to people. Kinda self-sabotage when he picks the one person almost guaranteed not to answer.

Oh, he’ll hear back from Bucky eventually, probably a handful of choppy texts sent in the middle of the night two weeks from now. Sam knows his pattern; Bucky’s chattiest between 3am and 4am, so chatty that what are likely intended as longer blocks of text arrive in broken fragments because he wants to make everything into neat paragraphs, like he’s writing a damn letter, instead of just getting to the point, but he hits send too soon. Sam would teach him—with plenty of mocking and name-calling, but he would teach him—only while he’s been running ops all over the planet, Bucky’s shrunk his own world way down. He’s gone local to the extreme and it aggravates Sam, even though Bucky isn’t his responsibility, isn’t his other inheritance from Steve. It’s sorta just easier to feel like Bucky is a misplaced bequest than to acknowledge that maybe he misses the guy and his sharp-shooter’s eye and his caveman hair. He can’t keep calling him.

“Thought I’d give you a heads-up,” Sam says, voice weary with this half-true excuse. “Maybe you already saw.” He clears his throat and says quickly, “Anyway, guess I’ll hear from you when I hear from you.”

He’s pulling the phone away from his head and has barely ended the call when it’s ringing in his hand. He answers and catches Bucky’s voice saying his name before it’s even back up to his ear.

“Bucky?” Sam says. “You have a senior’s moment and forget where you left your phone?”

“Nah,” Bucky says. “I saw it was you and decided to ignore it.”

“But you called back.”

“You wouldn’t quit calling. Seemed like you needed me to tell you directly to knock it off.”

“Jackass.” Sam’s gaze darts to the door, but it’s still shut. No chance Sarah saw him grinning over this easy banter. Always the banter with this idiot. Always easy. He sniffs and turns his chair away from the black TV screen. “Did you see that joker on the news?”

Bucky’s either less self-conscious or more inept because he sighs right into the mouthpiece, an exhausted breath in Sam’s ear that has his fingers fleetingly digging into his knee.

“Couldn’t believe that shit,” Bucky tells him in a rough voice. He’s clearly holding back his own feelings about today’s events and, from the sounds of it, they’re more along the lines of anger, hurt, and a simmering desire to wrench the shield from the arm of the new Captain America. “You know that thing’s supposed to be yours.”

“You saying I should’ve done something to stop it?” Sam demands.

“Coulda.”

Sam forces his shoulders to drop, draws a slow breath in and pushes it back out.

“It wasn’t mine anymore, if it ever was. I gave it to the Smithsonian. They sealed it in this glass case and added it to the exhibit.”

“Not a very tight seal.”

“Guess not,” Sam agrees.

“You shouldn’t have turned it over,” Bucky says. Sam’s silent, frowning, and Bucky goes on. “Forget about the shield being given to somebody else—it shouldn’t have even been in a glass case. Doesn’t belong there.”

“I do just fine without it,” Sam assures him. The practicalities of carrying that shield around are more straightforward to discuss than his yawning uncertainty in the face of Steve’s legacy and his place relative to it. “The shield would only get in the way of the wings.”

“You and those wings.”

“Hey, they carried me over Tunisia recently. Show some respect.”

“Didn’t hear about that,” Bucky says in a tone that’s difficult to interpret, though Sam squints thoughtfully as he listens.

“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t even be telling the likes of you, but it was discrete. As far as the major players are concerned, I was never there.”

“So it was illegal?”

Sam’s head tips back as he laughs hard.

“Why, you wanna turn me in?” he jokes. “Working on the government’s trust? What’s the next level up from a pardon? Knighthood?”

“You are such a pain in the ass,” Bucky groans, which really does make Sam smile.

“I’m sure it would’ve been illegal if you were there,” he says automatically. Too fast, his imagination fills it in, a fictional alternative materializing in his mind. Him and Bucky, cocky in reckless freefall. Him and Bucky, fighting back-to-back in a plummeting aircraft. Sam screening Bucky from enemy fire with his wings. Bucky deflecting a stray bullet with his arm before it could hit Sam.

“Nah, I can’t do that no more.”

“Uh huh. I’m sure you’re an angel.”

“Anybody get hurt?” Bucky asks.

Sam glances through the window at the blue sky, the truck rolling unhurriedly past with the driver’s arm hanging out to catch the sun. Beautiful day. He remembers a kick that sent a guy through the door of the plane, sucked out into the sky, another guy tossed aside who tried to fight him in midair, and a helicopter aflame as it went down. He shrugs and figures Bucky’ll hear the gesture in his voice.

“Nobody who didn’t know the risks.”

“Of going up against Captain America?” Bucky probes. Sam rolls his eyes.

“You know, that would almost be a compliment if you got my name right.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not using the name just to avoid compliments from me.”

“I honestly can’t say which one would feel more wrong,” Sam says, passing a hand over his head as he leans back in his chair, “calling myself Captain America or hearing a little overdue praise from you.”

“I’m not really a words guy. Ask my therapist.”

Sam sits with that for a second. He’s happy that Bucky’s talking to someone. He needs it, badly, after decades of violence and being belted into the passenger seat of his own brain. It’s more than Bucky’s ever admitted to him before, but Sam would bet—and bet big—that seeing some stranger named as Steve’s successor today has gotten to Bucky as much as it’s gotten to him. Something like that is bound to open Bucky up a little. He’s the only other person Sam can imagine the news having such a monumental impact on.

“You could try words,” he goads, not wanting to leave Bucky hanging more than a few seconds after his admission. “What else do you have if you don’t feel like being a human action figure?”

“I have my system. My rules.”

“Oh yeah? What rules?”

“Three of ’em,” Bucky informs him. “Nothing illegal. Nobody gets hurt. Making amends for the actions of the Winter Solider.”

“You don’t have to make amends for something you—”

“Don’t. It… helps.”

And who is Sam to question what’s helping Bucky? After the multiple-lifetimes’ worth of hell the guy’s been through?

“Good for you, man,” Sam offers softly.

“Save it, Sam.” The words are clipped but light. Sam grins.

“No words for me either? You more comfortable with me sticking to actions? How are we supposed to talk to each other when you don’t come to Tunisia with me?”

“Wasn’t invited,” Bucky quips back.

“You mighta been if you answered your phone more often. I’m not gonna send you the details to a covert operation in a text.”

“You wanted me in Tunisia?”

“You get shit done,” Sam acknowledges simply. You wanted me in Tunisia? echoes in his head. His heart’s bobbing like a buoy now. You wanted me in Tunisia? You wanted me?

“Not like that.”

“‘Not illegal,’” Sam repeats. “‘Nobody gets hurt. Making amends.’”

“Right. Can’t do any of that.”

“Well, I’m glad this regime’s working for you, but you have to admit it’s weird that I saw more of you when we were fighting alien hordes.”

“What can I say?” Bucky asks in a tone that seems to consciously flatten the charm out of it. “I’m old-fashioned now.”

Sam snorts.

“You were old-fashioned then.”

“I assume you had a team on the ground.”

“I had to,” Sam says over the sound of a squabble in the other room. Immediately, he can hear Sarah’s voice rising slightly above, breaking it up. Just like that, there’s the looping music of the video game again. She’s raised those boys well. “Couldn’t wait around for you.”

“I might show up if you asked me on better dates.”

“It wasn’t a date, it was a goddamn op.”

It’s startling to hear the sound of laughter. Not hearty, deep, rich, or loud, but definitely laughter. Bucky laughs? Sam backtracks a minute. Bucky makes jokes? About dating? About the two of them dating? Evidently, that is something he’s capable of, along with returning calls during daylight hours.

Sam shifts in his seat.

“You could come around sometime,” he suggests, nervously rubbing a hand up and down his thigh. “If you like fish and you’re ever in Louisiana.”

“I do like fish,” Bucky says. “I’ve been going to this sushi place a lot lately.”

It’s not his taste that surprises Sam—it’s the readiness with which he responds to the invitation. He would’ve sooner guessed that Bucky would tell him to shove it up his ass. In a joking way, but still.

“On dates?” Sam asks, telling himself he’s providing some good-natured hassling and that it has nothing to do with the odd feeling he got when Bucky’s joke about them dating caught up with him.

“One. Mostly, I go with Mr. Nakajima.”

“And that’s not a date?”

Sam laughs and wishes he could shut his own mouth as firmly as he’s (many times) told Bucky to shut his.

“I’m pretty sure he’s in his eighties, so he’s more age-appropriate for me than most people, but I murdered his son,” Bucky says grimly.

“Amends?” Sam guesses, adjusting his tone to cope with Bucky’s emotional switchback.

“I haven’t told him yet, but, yeah, I’m working on that.”

They’re both working on something, Sam thinks. Both confronting something that feels too big to tackle—the decision not to announce himself as the new Captain America, guilt for assassinations Bucky had no control over but which span the better part of a century. Sometimes it seems to Sam that they go up against the easiest situations as a team and face the hardest stuff alone. But he called Bucky, and Bucky called back.

“You could bring some of those amends down here and trade them for a snapper dinner,” Sam proposes, aiming for irritatingly cheerful to pull Bucky back out of the dark.

“What do I have to make amends to you for?”

“Being a dick. I’ll text you my sister’s address.”

Sam swiftly ends the call. There are two possible sources to which he can attribute the small surge of adrenaline he feels: hanging up on Bucky and the fact that he might’ve just asked him on a date. When Sam dialed, he knew it was because he didn’t want to do this alone, but he thought that meant watching the appointment of an upstart Captain America. Although he believed he could count on Bucky’s understanding today and for the near future, asking him down to have dinner with Sarah and the boys (or tricking him into it, since he didn’t exactly say it’d be a thing with the whole family) lengthens the timeline. Near future? Inviting Bucky to meet his family and see where he grew up means recognizing that he’ll be in his life a little longer. Alone? Sam might forget the meaning of the word.

#my writing #tfatws #tfatws spoilers #The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #sambucky #Sam Wilson x Bucky Barnes

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commajade · 3 years

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god i fucking hate the unenlightened east attitude people have when talking about being a queer person in an eastern country. like people in my country know what a gay person is we are not dumb. especially in kpop fandoms some people act like they know e v e r y t h i n g about being a queer person living in korea and their idol can't come out because how homophobic the country is and how koreans probably don't know much about being gay and write essays like ????? you only have some general knowledge about korea thanks to kpop why are you acting like you are the queer spokesperson of korea,,,

unenlightened east attitude is a hell of a word combo to open tumblr to when i'm p faded so i thought u were yelling at me at first i was like whoaaa there lol but nah ur completely right i feel the same literally all the time. i call it brain worms but the kind of stuff i read every day is literal colonial erasure it's rly fascinating that violence comes in such small pieces.

white people should just not speak it's no surprise but lol when i went abroad to korea i realized just how little i knew at all about the gay people there. i assumed they were there because i existed but before just like 5 years ago there was literally no easily accessible info about it on the internet in english. there were a few studies on jstor that didn't say much a few youtube interview clips. so it's so easy to just believe the dominant narrative (always the colonial one) esp when an entire hivemind of kpop stans r parroting it at you vehemently like ur bias' life depends on it. pinkwashing of their colonial tendencies and possessiveness over these korean artists and simple white saviorism makes them feel like rings true.

it wasn't until i was an adult in korea that had learned some korean and was seeking out queer things that i realized it's actually everywhere. there are gay people everywhere. i didn't know that was true when a mentor figure told that to me but now i know it is true. there are gay people everywhere, and in korea in the last few years it's very very visible to anyone who's looking. especially because the feminist movement has been so huge for the last 5ish years and women are en masse protesting the patriarchy by dressing the way they want to more and more and various subcultures are developing like music scenes and art scenes and online spaces. these movements have made it a lot easier for lgbt ppl to find each other and koreans r used to living with their parents until marriage and having their personal lives completely separate and outside of the home which is more conducive to gay stuff. the lgbt scene in south korea is a thriving several subcultures and has been growing in its current "post" Korean War form since the 60s and i literally saw more butch femme couples walking around hongdae at 3am than i have in LA total. tho tbf i haven't been to a lesbian bar/club in the US. it's literally so easy even in english to find gay events just on facebook i went to a halloween drag show at a small dive bar in hongdae it was a GREAT TIME. also 90% of korean tattoo artists are in or adjacent to the queer subculture it's just a thing cuz being gay and being a tattoo artist r both technically illegal but not enforced. there's a ton of lgbt youtubers now they have their own hashtags and are active in fandoms it's rly amazing to see. but i wouldn't have known if i didn't study korean and go looking for it.

the other thing is that fans with a western mindset can't fathom the idea of being happy and gay and professionally closeted. there are definitely idols who are living full happy dramatic fun gay love lives and are out to everyone but their parents maybe and their employers. fans but esp intl fans r STRANGERS who r not entitled to knowing about kpop idols' personal business so have they considered that just because someone didn't tell YOU they're gay doesn't mean they haven't told anybody. i call idols gay when i see that they are, as a korean lesbian who has been learning to recognize my people. racial capitalism comes with the need for u to detail every part of urself legibly and labeled in order to be seen as legitimate and existent so the south korean queer presence is illegible.

i'm trying not to get angry at it anymore because i'm not surprised i can't help that millions of people are saying the same wrong thing about my people sucks for them if they think we don't exist.

#asks #kpop #personal #yaejin

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ananad1 · 4 years

Text

Tree! (Fred Weasley X Reader)

Writing Challenge

Fred Weasley X Reader

Prompts: 26. A: *B is driving* Left steer left!

B: *Turns right*

A:....You call that left?

and 34. A: Is this illegal?

B: Probably.

A: Are we still doing it?

B: Hell yeah!

Warnings: Swearing

“Get up, it’s time to go!”

“Shut it, Ronald, I’m sleeping.”

I groan and turn to the voice at the door. Ron is standing there, fidgeting and waiting for his idiot brothers to get up.

“What are you doing?” I ask, confused. Fred rolls and looks at me after turning to glare at Ron and hitting George with a pillow. George sits bolt upright and accidentally falls off the bed. All we hear is an “ow” before he stands up rubbing his arse.

“Morning Georgia, mind telling me where exactly you three are off to at…...3AM!”

“Uhhhhhh... I’m going to let Freddie handle this one. Ron let’s go get ready hmm?”

“Fred.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you doing? Can I come with?”

“According to Ron, Harry is being kept locked in his room sooooo we’ve decided to break him out using Dad’s car. And of course you can come love, I just know how much you enjoy your sleep.”

“Let's go then, Weasley.” I say, a small smirk crossing his face at my excited tone. We quickly race down the stairs and outside to where George and Ron are waiting. Ron looks like he is going to throw up. George just looks tired.

“Is this Illegal?” I ask Fred with a worried look towards Ron.

“Probably.” He answers, watching Ron walk over to the bushes and put his hand against the wall of the Burrow.

“Are we still doing it?”

“Hell Yeah!”

“We can’t just leave Harry locked up like that.” George adds from his position by the car.

“Let’s go Ronald, sometime this year, huh.” Fred hisses as loudly as he can without waking anyone nestled asleep inside the Burrow. Ron and George climb into the back of the car, I get in the passenger side, while Fred gets in the driver's seat.

“You have driven before yeah?” I ask, worried, as we take off to a very bumpy start.

“Of course I have woman, with Dad….once.”

“ONCE?”

“Shhhhh! They may still be able to hear you.” He says, eyes focused on the sky ahead of us. I grab the map sitting in front of me on the dash and start to give him directions. After several minutes and plenty of rough bumps, we start to even out and settle into a better rhythm.

“See, I told you I knew what I was doing.” Fred brags with a quick glance my way.

“If Ron throws up on me Freddie, I will hex you into next week.” I retort. George quickly agrees. Ron just groans and opens the window. The car flies at a moderate pace. When I check the time, it is nearly 5.

We still have quite a bit of time to make up for the twins not wanting to get their sorry arses out of bed, but all in all we make good time. I hear light snores from the back seat and look to find George out cold and Ron slightly less green. Then comes the difficult part: exiting the countryside. There seem to be more trees that Fred swerves to avoid. After about the fifth almost-collision with a tree, George gets up, smacking his brother on the back of the head.

“Ow, Georgie, what was that for?”

“Maybe it was for, I don’t know, the terrible driving.” I suggest. I receive a long, withering glare that almost results in two more tree-related accidents.

“Eyes on the road, sky, whatever!” I shout. “You know, I’m starting to think George should have driven.” I add.

“I was supposed to, until you decided to come and Freddie simply had to impress his girlfriend with his ‘excellent’ driving skills.” George grumbles before pulling Ron to his side so he doesn’t fall out the window as the car turns on its side to avoid another tree.

“It really is too bad we don’t have time to switch drivers because we still have to drive back with another person and an owl.” I comment after a few minutes. George snorts and Ron offers a small grin. After another half hour, George fell asleep again and Ron seemed completely fine.

Once we reach Little Whinging, I try to navigate to Privet Drive, which turns out to be more of a challenge than the trees.

“Turn left.” I instruct as he starts to go straight...into a house.

“LEFT! STEER LEFT!” Fred then turns right.

“You call that left?” I snort sarcastically.

“Which left? Yours or Mine?”

“We’re facing the same direction you fucking idiot!”

“Oh yeah, sorry.” He turns fully, causing everyone to slide.

“If you do that again I will kill you, even if you are my twin.” George threatens, annoyed at being woken up yet again.

“Sorry, sorry.” Fred answers before we pull up beside 4 Privet Drive.

Time skip brought to you by I’m pretty sure everyone knows what happened here.

The drive back was surprisingly uneventful compared to the drive over. All of us were thankful for the temporary respite. As we landed, a little bumpy, we got out and slipped back into the Burrow. While we hoped we had done everything undetected, we naturally could never be that lucky. Mrs.Weasley came round and started yelling at the boys. She did, however, make a point to say that she did not blame Harry or me, she even said she assumed I went to make sure the boys did not get themselves killed. Of course, she’s exactly right. Fred grabs my hand when she dismisses us all to go. He leads me back to his room where our crazy adventure began.

“I suppose getting yelled at was worth all the fun we had.” He concludes, flopping down on to his bed.

“Yeah, almost dying was so much fun!” I laugh as Fred pulls me down next to him.

“But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“I would. You are not driving next time!” George shouts as he collapses onto his own bed.

“Lee is gonna flip when we tell him what happened though.” Fred adds before closing his eyes and falling asleep with his arms wrapped around me.

@slytherinquill @im-a-writer-right

Please give any feedback you can. I haven’t written in a really long time, cause getting it out of my head sucks. Let me know if anyone wants me to write anything else in the future. I will write for almost any Harry Potter characters.

#haraces1kchallenge #harry potter #fred weasley #george weasley #fred weasley x reader #ron weasley

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caleanope · 3 years

Text

PoV: it’s 3am, you’re a talking dog and your high-strung human boss? partner? charge is obsessing over inconsequential things like how many leaves he counted in a forest and what angle they must have fallen from the trees

Kurogane watches Sakumo furiously write his mission report in the dim light of a candle and whatever light the moon provides. He is a little particular about light sources in the night, but Kurogane thinks Sakumo is just being melodramatic for the heck of it. A flickering candle can't be good for his eyes, especially with his tiny spidery handwriting.

How Sakumo has handwriting on the verge of illegible despite being considerably talented in calligraphy is beyond him.

(That his ability to read is a work in progress is not the point. The point is, that even if he wants to, he can't. And for reference: He's seen actual dogs try to write. Also, in Kurogane's defense, Sakumo's father has even worse handwriting so it's not like he has a very good teacher to begin with.)

The scratching of the pen pauses again in favour of unrolling another stretch of the scroll. Kurogane decides to intervene.

"Sakumo, I think this is quite enough"

"Huh?" His eyes are predictably bloodshot. "I'm not done yet!"

"I don’t think this is what they mean"

"It's a mission report. I have to report what happened," Sakumo says slowly.

It is frankly a little offensive even if the slowed speech really is just him still trying split his attention between finessing his sentences for said report and arguing with Kurogane.

The report that encompassed three scrolls now and has extended into a fourth about half an hour ago.

"Aren't you only supposed to fill out that one form? This is a little excessive"

"This is what happened!" Sakumo ruffles his hair in frustration and continues to mumble under his breath. "…what type of wood made the campfire on the third day? We were nearly at the border to River-- I should bring a notebook next time…"

"This was a C-rank mission. They just want to know how it went in broad strokes and what you think was noteworthy," Kurogane says.

Oh, no, wait--

"So everything might be important!"

Sakumo starts to let out a whine barely audible to human ears.

If only his father hadn't left for a mission of his own that afternoon. Hatake Kumogi had basically raised Kurogane alongside his own son, so he knows that the art of writing mission reports is left to the parents to teach their children instead of a thing that is formally taught at the Academy, something which Kumogi is very relaxed about and not here to demonstrate to his son--

Kurogane gives up on Sakumo when he starts researching the acidity of some random stream in the Land of Rivers and actually tries to pull out a book on it.

The Academy itself wasn't established for that long yet, so there is still a chance they will improve on it. Sage, he prays they will improve on it, for al their sakes. Sakumo's class is only the fourth one to officially graduate, now that the syllabus is standardized enough to not interfere with clan techniques but also extensive enough that it does not require any clan training to pass.

Generally. There are always some outliers.

Theoretically.

Fine, it still somewhat expects training outside of its walls, but it isn't like families don't train their children regardless!

Maybe the Academy will incorporate lessons on how to write a mission report when the mission desk tires of piecing together a coherent timeline for one scroll and muddling through trivialities in the next few on top of having to deal with the different shinobi clan's idiosyncrasies regarding perceptions and reports.

Sage knows how much of Sakumo's second scroll is dedicated to the incense that each of the merchants favour.

#Naruto #naruto shippuden #naruto fanfic #fanfiction #headcanon #lore #pre canon #Hatake Sakumo #Summons AU #now with another dog!#there's a total of six #only three have more than one personality trait for now #Sakumo's struggles #genin struggles #how to teach a gaggle of murder children #clan politics #or something #village politics #paperwork

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springday-aus · 4 years

Text

SVT’s Wonwoo: Daytime Scares

—

Fic Written by: Admin Grandma of @springday-aus

Moodboard Link: created by Admin Grandpa

Main Characters: Y/N [fem. reader] and Seventeen’s Jeon Wonwoo

Other Characters: OCs [Ae Jae, Mi Jeong, Yoojin, and Minjae], Chaeyoung (BlackPink), Yongsun (Mamamoo), Seventeen [Seungkwan and Mingyu]

Genre: fluff, romance, comedy, college!Wonwoo

Type: one-shot writing piece

Word Count: approx. 11.6k

Plot Summary: Wonwoo is nothing more than an attractive stranger in your ethics class. You have no relation with him whatsoever, but that changes when you suddenly have a nightmare that he tries to kill you. That’s a whole level of psychoanalyzing you would rather not dive into. But now things get weirder when he’s starting to talk to you.

→ Based on the AU prompt: “I had a dream that you tried to kill me and now I’m scared of you”

Sleepovers typically mean movies, gossip, and face masks. It’s a fun time to be with your friends and it’s good for lowering stress after midterms. The only level of stress here is would be finding a movie to watch—which probably should have been selected beforehand. But, in your defense, it was hard enough to schedule this hang-out; who has the time to actually schedule the activities?

So, right now, you lay comfortably on the carpeted floor of Ae Jae’s studio apartment with Mi Jeong. You two are on your phones, trying to find a movie to watch. Meanwhile, Yoojin scrolls through her laptop—connected to the projector—browsing through her Netflix account.

“What about Hustlers?” Minjae asks.

“I could really use some J.Lo right now,” you say with wiggling eyebrows.

“Ugh, we can all use a little more J.Lo,” Mi Jeong says.

“That movie is too recent,” Yoojin says. “We can’t find that on a streaming site.”

“Hello?” Ae Jae says. “Have you heard of Dailymotion?”

“Do you want me to just pull up one of those illegal websites?” Minjae asks.

Yoojin turns around to face her. “Ma’am, that’s called pirating.”

“Exactly.”

Mi Jeong laughs at them. Yoojin gives her a pointed look, but you all know it’s no bad intentions.

You set your phone down and sit up from your previous position. “Might as well. We can probably browse through the other movies and figure out some other options to choose from.”

“What I’m hearing is,” Ae Jae says, “is that we don’t have to pay to watch these new movies.”

Yoojin rolls her eyes and moves out of the way of her laptop. “I guess we have nothing to lose.”

“No fear of the viruses?” you ask.

“Potato, potato,” Minjae says.

Yoojin shrugs. “Fire away, Minjae.”

You watch her practically jump over from her previous spot to the TV to type in one of her illegal sites, which you may or may not have frequently used—thanks to her. You can only laugh at her antics.

It’s nice to be with your friends again. It’s been a while since you had properly sent time with them. With the assignments and overlapping work schedules, you’ve all kind of distanced yourselves from one another and, with midterms coming up, things were just piling higher. After midterms week finished, when things calmed down, you and your friends aligned your schedules to catch up with one another.

But who knew it would take nearly two hours to figure out what to watch? Granted, one of the flaws within your friend group is the fact that most of your friends (you included) are incredibly indecisive.

As Minjae moves from one page to the next, everyone else silently scans the movies presented in front of them.

“The live-action Lion King is out,” Mi Jeong says. “That could be an option.”

“Hm,” you say. “I’m pretty sure it’s just the same as the original one.”

“It is,” Minjae says. “But we can just put it on a list of things we could watch. We can still look.”

“Let’s just do that,” Yoojin says.

About ten movie pages (and a list of six possible movies to watch) in, Minjae gets into the horror movie section. You tense up from the movie covers—each one making your stomach twist in apprehension. The one thing each one of your friends know is that you get easily scared, which means you dodge horror movies like the plague.

“Oh, what about It: Chapter 2?” Ae Jae asks.

You start to whine, realizing where this is going. “Nooo.”

You’re ignored.

“I still haven’t watched the first one,” Minjae says.

“What?” “That was literally everywhere.” “How did you manage to miss one of the biggest horror movies?”

Minjae shrugs off the questions. “I just never got to it.”

“It’s a good movie,” Mi Jeong says. “Right, (Y/N)?”

You scowl at her. “No, it’s not.”

Yoojin snorts. “You probably didn’t even watch it.”

“Yeah.”

“Since (Y/N) and I haven’t watched it,” Minjae says. “Should we just watch it?”

“NOOO—”

Everyone ignores you.

“Since it’s kind of old,” Ae Jae says. “They’ll probably have it in higher quality.”

“NOOOO—”

“You’re probably right,” Yoojin says. “Oh, 1080hd. That’s fancy.”

“GUYS. IS ANYONE GOING TO LISTEN TO ME?”

“I found it!”

You let out a long sigh, kissing a month’s worth of sleep away. You mumble under your breath. “Guess no one cares about my well being and health.”

You move yourself to properly lay between Mi Jeong and Minjae, throwing another pillow down. All three of you are on the carpeted floor with too many pillows to count. Ae Jae moved herself and now, she lies on her bed with Yoojin. A blanket is placed on your head and shoulders, ready for cover whenever Pennywise’s face appears on the screen.

You’ve never wished for poorer eyesight until now. You will never understand the trolls that found this clown attractive. A shudder runs down your spine, seeing his face flash in the lightning from the sewer. You quickly pull the blanket over your head to erase the image.

You feel a couple of tugs.

Mi Jeong’s pulling on it. “Jesus Christ, it’s just a clown!”

“John Wayne Gacy was just a clown too and he turned out as a murderer. This one just happens to be supernatural!”

Minjae starts to tug down the blanket as well. “Be apart of the friend group!”

“NO!”

A pillow is flung towards you, in courtesy of Yoojin, who yells down at all of you. “Be quiet!”

“I want new friends.”

It’s 3am—you’ve all moved on from It and onto some generic cartoon movie. You were the main advocate for another movie, in an attempt to rid yourself of the horrific images Pennywise provided. Mi Jeong and Minjae are both asleep on each side of you—both with pore strips still attached on their noses. Yoojin snores lightly from Ae Jae’s bed, whereas Ae Jae is up with her elbow propping up her head.

“Hey,” she says.

“What?”

“You up?” She gives you a teasing smile.

You roll your eyes at her. “This is your fault. Of course, I’m up.”

“What? You really can’t sleep because of the movie?”

You stare at her, but refuse to actually move. “Believe it or not, terrifying images of a killer clown that’s telling me I’ll float isn’t a good sleeping mechanism.”

She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again, once the words come to her. “They help Mi Jeong sleep.”

“She’s got a different way of thinking.”

“Hmm, you’re right,” Ae Jae says. “Do you just want a melatonin instead?”

You’ve got nothing to lose. “Sure.”

She manages to get up, without waking up Yoojin, and walks over to the bathroom. She opens the cabinet, looks through it, and pulls out her melatonin gummies. She pops the lid open, walks towards you, and hands it over. “Take two and you should be asleep in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks.” You take a couple, as she advises, and hand the jar back to her. You slowly chew on them, keeping your eyes on the screen in front of you. The images start to pass like a blur and you can’t retain what you’ve just watched.

About twenty minutes later, your eyelids start to droop, feeling the melatonin kick in. You begin to feel a bit tired, so you fully close your eyes and drift off to sleep.

You find yourself in a sewer, blindly moving through a lightless tunnel—with no clue as to how you ended up there. It’s dark, you note to yourself, and it smells foul. The muddy water splashes with each step and it rises as you go through, practically filling your boots. There’s a mist as well, blocking nearly half of your sight of the tunnel. You try to squint through the fog, trying to make out what’s ahead.

You’re able to see a small light at the end. As if you had no control over your body, you run towards it—but it never gets any bigger. You can feel your heartbeat pounding against your chest as your legs keep you running.

But then you slip.

You swear you had felt a pull on your leg, but you couldn’t tell due to the murkiness of the water. You end up on your hands, your lower half is soaked, still in the water—you can’t even make out your reflection. You look closer at it, trying to see what could be underneath it. Suddenly, a hand pushes your head down.

The dirty water fills up your nose and you struggle to escape from this person’s hold on you. As you’re submerged, you hear it. The familiar voice, but you can’t pinpoint where you’ve heard it.

“Can you float?”

You freeze, hearing those words.

The hand lets go and you resurface, taking in a deep breath of much needed air. You look up at your tormentor, who looks down at you with a smirk. His teeth are sharpened, shining with the little light of the tunnel. His eyes are dark and long eyelashes curl on top of his eyelids. Raven-black bangs stick to his forehead—from sweat or water—you couldn’t tell. You look up a bit further, spotting the deviled horns on his head.

You put it together.

It’s Wonwoo. But, what’s he doing here?

He tilts his head at you, pitying you as if you were a lost kitten. His lips fully curl from a smirk to a sinister smile. He lowers his head closer to you.

“Can you float?” he asks.

You don’t have the words to answer him; you don’t think you can find any.

He asks again. “Can you float?”

Before you say anything, he shoves your head underneath once more.

It’s been two weeks since the sleepover (and the last time you had proper sleep). Classes have started up again, but you’re already tired. It isn’t even from the goddamned workload (which you are definitely not doing). Since the sleepover, you’ve had the same recurring nightmare over and over. Same place, same face.

Right now, you sit at a table in the dining hall with a single coffee mug that’s already empty. You wait for your friends to arrive at the table, tapping away at your phone, trying to make yourself busy.

“What’s up,” Chaeyoung says. She takes the seat in front of you and sets her plate on the table. She spots the sad coffee mug and looks between it and you, before asking. “Is that all you’re getting?”

You set your phone down. “No, I also had a bowl of ice cream earlier.”

“(Y/N), it’s noon.”

“Sugar means energy.”

She lets out a sigh—not surprised, just disappointed. You would think after knowing you for so long, she would get used to your horrible eating habits. She is your meal buddy after all. She takes a stab at her food. “So how was your mid-semester break?”

“I think we both know that break is a joke.”

“Still.”

“Well, I got to meet up with some of my old friends, spent some time with family—you know, all the good stuff.” You lean on the table with an elbow propped up and a hand underneath your chin. “How was yours?”

“Eh, I did the same thing. It was nice to chill for a bit, but then I remembered how many readings I have to do.”

You force a smile at her. “I haven’t done any of mine.”

She throws her head back with a laugh. You start laughing too, at yourself and at her.

Yongsun comes around to the table. She sets down another cup of coffee for you, which you previously asked for, and her own plate as she sits herself next to you. She looks between you and Chaeyoung. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing really,” you say. “Just talking about how oh-so productive we’ve been since break.”

She gives you a bitter look with regret evident on her face “That break is a joke. I got nothing done either.”

“Glad to know everyone is on the same track.” You take a sip of your coffee.

“No offense,” Chaeyoung says. “But you look really tired. Are you okay?”

Yongsun laughs, nearly choking on her food. “It’s the exams creeping up, that’s why her eye bags are a darker shade.”

Your eyebrows slightly rise. “Not wrong, but doesn’t mean I don’t feel attacked.”

“Are you having trouble sleeping again?” Chaeyoung asks.

Yongsun takes a closer look at you. “You know, now that she’s said something. She’s not wrong. Are you okay?”

You sigh and take another big sip of the coffee. “My friends made me watch It.”

“That’s all?” Chaeyoung asks.

“Kind of.” You set the coffee down and lay your head on the table. “I’ve just been having the same nightmares for a while now and I can’t sleep.”

“What do you see?” Yongsun asks.

“Why? Are you going to psycho-analyze them like you do with the others?” Chaeyoung asks.

“Absolutely.”

“Oh my god.”

“Now,” Yongsun says. She fully turns to you, pointing at you with her spoon. “What happens in your nightmares?”

You hesitate. “The nightmare overall…. it makes sense but there’s a piece that I can’t figure out.”

“What?” Chaeyoung asks. “You know what, just explain the entire dream and we’ll figure it out.”

You scratch the back of your ear, feeling a bit sheepish of the whole thing. “Do you guys know Jeon Wonwoo?”

There’s a silence, but you can practically see them racking their memory for him. You look between them, seeing if either one of them would know him. It’s ideal that they don’t, but if they do, they could probably picture it better.

“Jeon Wonwoo,” Yongsun mutters under her breath. She speaks louder the second time. “That name is so familiar but I can’t pinpoint where.”

Chaeyoung looks confused as well. “I get that. I feel like I know him too.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

You let out a long sigh. “Because my nightmares are essentially him just trying to kill me.” You don’t take notice of Yongsun’s frantic typing on her phone. “I don’t understand why it’s him specifically.”

Chaeyoung hums, nodding along to what you’re saying. “Maybe it’s just a random face from memory—you could have just seen his face and now it’s stuck. Is he ugly or something?”

“He’s in my ethics class,” you say. “And he’s definitely not ugly.”

“So he’s attractive and trying to murder you?”

“Mmhm, basically.”

“Is there a kink you aren’t sharing with us?”

“No, who wants to be murdered?”

“There’s lots of college kids who want to be murdered, (Y/N),” Yongsun says.

“Okay, fair point.”

“In other news though.” Yongsun pauses and sets her phone down for all three of you to see. “I found him and I can confirm that he is hot.”

You take a peek at the Facebook profile—the familiar face is in the little profile image and you shudder out of habit. You move away from the phone, feeling uncomfortable from his face. “Yup, that’s him.”

“Jesus,” Chaeyoung says. She grabs the phone and zooms in on the image. “This is the face you’re seeing? How can someone look like that?”

You grimace. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean?” Yongsun asks.

“I sit in the front, far away from him, so I don’t have to look at him anymore.”

“What do you think this means?” Chaeyoung asks.

“From my perspective,” Yongsun says. “Maybe you’re scared of how attractive he is.”

You and Chaeyoung squint at her, both not understanding. She continues. “This can mean a lot of things. I need the context.”

You try to recollect your dream memories. It isn’t hard, considering the fact that you’ve had the same nightmare for a couple of weeks. Although, there have been odd additions every once in a while. Just last night, you were on an empty road rather than a sewer. Sometimes there was the pile of children there and would start floating in front of you. Wonwoo stood in front of it, just staring at it, before turning his head to you to start shoving you into the water.

You shrink in your seat. You feel like throwing up.

“Well?” Yongsun asks. “Any details?”

You grimace again. “I would rather not share while we’re eating.”

Chaeyoung looks at you with a bit of worry in her eyes. “Do you think you’ll be okay?”

“Yeah.” You drown the rest of your now-cold coffee down. “It’ll be fine. It’s not like Wonwoo’s a friend. How hard could it be to avoid him?”

Another restless week passes and you’re convinced your sleeping schedule will never bounce back. You rub your eyes, trying to wake yourself up somehow—it’s your third cup of coffee of the day and it’s done nothing for you.

It’s 11:20am and class is supposed to start in ten minutes. The class is already half full of students. Everyone else fiddles with their phones, or talks to others about weekend plans. You sit in your seat with a laptop out, fully blanking out, but attempting to stay awake. Granted, you can just ditch, but attendance counts and if your GPA is below 3.0, you can kiss that scholarship goodbye.

You groan from the thought of being in this class for an hour. You lay your head on the table, feeling the cold table pressed on your cheek, and closing your eyes for just a moment.

Suddenly, a chill comes over you and you feel more awake than ever. You open your eyes, only to see Wonwoo walk in. His backpack is slung over one shoulder; he wears a soft, black cardigan that’s tugged on his hands to form sweater paws. He has his hair down, tousling through his bangs with his long fingers. He looks like such a soft boy.

Despite his boyish looks, you felt your body physically react. Chills run up your spine and you felt the hairs on your arms raise. You feel more alert than you’ve been in weeks. You quickly sit up and straighten out your back at his presence. That’s right: you’re in ethics. You always forgot, until you came to class, see him and the nightmares become daytime horrors.

You let out a sigh. Somehow, you feel more exhausted than before, despite feeling more awake in Wonwoo’s presence. Once the professor arrives, she immediately starts her lecture. Frankly, you can’t even remember what she’s talking about. It all goes in one ear and out the other. You simply type away, your note page expanding as each minute passes.

An hour eventually passes and you let out a breath of relief.

“Alright class,” she says. “Remember for the next class, we will be working on our papers, so bring those laptops fully charged and be prepared for discussion.”

Everyone, including yourself, groans.

“We need to start preparing for the final and, from my previous feedback, I hear this is really helpful. So, prepare yourselves.” Your professor shuts off the monitor and starts to shut her books. “Now, get out.”

No one had to be told twice; everyone practically floods out of the room, ready to take a nap or eat, or whatever else college kids do. With the combination of your previous exhaustion and the lecture, you were moving slower than usual, not wanting to tire yourself out further. You could feel your body nearly shutting down again. You close your eyes once more as you rotate your neck around. Once again, you feel the chills creep up your back.

You follow your instincts and open your eyes, spotting Wonwoo from the corner of your eye. Unknowingly, you flinch, immediately looking away from him. He tries to smile in your direction on his way out, but you move your body away from him, trying to look preoccupied as you shove your books into your bag.

Once he leaves, you let out a long sigh you didn’t realize you held in. Resting your head on the table, you close your eyes—only to see the images of Wonwoo from your nightmares with devil horns. You sit back up, rubbing your eyes and trying to shake the sight of him out of your mind.

This is going to be harder than you thought.

“Paging Sleeping Beauty, are you awake?”

You slowly sit up from the library table, trying to keep your eyes awake as you lean on your hand. “Yes, sir. I am physically present.”

Seungkwan raises an eyebrow at you. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“When am I ever okay?”

“Fair.” He sets down his books in front of you and takes a seat. “How much did you get done?”

“I just finished the draft and took a lil nap.”

“In a public space?”

“I didn’t get robbed. I’m fine.”

He blinks at you, shakes his head and tries to move on from the odd comment. “Anyways,” he says, pulling out his laptop. “I finished my essay earlier during class, so.”

“So it might be garbage?”

“Hell no.” He opens the laptop, mindlessly moving the mouse around. “I’m just saying, consider the conditions when you read this. I was in a highly stressed environment.”

Seungkwan and you have the same professor for ethics (just at different times), so it only made sense to work together for this paper. You two knew each other from a previous class and bonded over a mutual friend of yours, Soonyoung. Obviously, suffering is the only way to bond with other college students, hence your blossomed friendship with Seungkwan.

You rub your eyes, trying to keep yourself awake in front of his laptop. But, it doesn’t help and the words start to blur together. After the third sentence, you lean back and close your eyes in an attempt to regain your focus.

“Hey.” You feel his hand on your shoulder. “(Y/N), are you sure you’re okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine.” You reopen your eyes, to see concern in Seungkwan’s eyes. He doesn’t even have to ask for you to answer. “I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately and there’s only so many sleeping pills a person can take.”

“Is it stress?”

“Not… not exactly.”

He raises an eyebrow, leaning his chin on his hand. “Do tell, (Y/N). If not stress, is it a lover?”

You give him an unamused look at his teasing. “Ha ha. No.” You shift in your seat. “I’ve been having nightmares about this guy in my class.”

“Ooooh?”

“Stop it.”

He pouts. “Can you at least tell me who? I might know who it is.”

You rub the back of your neck, feeling a bit apprehensive. The problem is that he does know everyone. Apparently, everyone else seems to know Wonwoo, one way or another. He does have that reputation of looking like a moody emo bad boy. The fact that he’s good looking means he gets away with being creepy. But then again, he is polite to everyone—a very well mannered boy. You sigh, feeling the exhaustion hit all at once.

“I have a suspicion that you know who it is,” you say. You let out another sigh. “It’s Wonwoo.”

His eyes sparkle with interest. “Jeon? Jeon Wonwoo??”

You let out another sigh and place your head in your arms, muffling the groans you make. “Jesus, of course you know him.”

He makes a face. “Why?” Before you can answer him, he leans closer to you. “What’d he do?”

You can feel yourself inwardly cringing before the words even come out. You feel embarrassed about making a big deal about this small thing. “He’s done nothing to me. He’s just scary.”

“Wonwoo is one of the least scary people I know.” He moves away, looking off into the distance as if to collect his thoughts. “Minghao… He’s on that list, but Wonwoo? He’s like a scared cat…” At this point, he’s just mumbling to himself.

You look up, resting your head on your folded arms. “Earth to Seungkwan?”

“Right, back to you.” He pauses. “So these nightmares, are they that bad that you’re losing this much sleep?”

You nod.

“Wow, is he that scary to you?”

“Well, considering in the dream that he’s trying to murder me… I would say he’s pretty scary.”

“Okay, but what’d you think about him before?”

“Before what?”

“Like, before you started dreaming about his face and death.”

You blink, staring at him for a bit, lost in thought. You haven’t really thought about Wonwoo without the devil horns, but then again, you don’t really talk to him. It’s a required class, so there’s a lot of people in this lecture hall. Also, it’s a lecture hall, it’s not like people have a chance to interact with one another. The only reason why you’ve heard of him is because of your mutual friends. You admit though, he is attractive.

But you couldn’t let Seungkwan know that. He would never let it go and he’s friends with Wonwoo. Who knows what he’d do with this information.

“I was neutral about him,” you say. “Since I don’t really know much about him.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You don’t even find him attractive?”

You grumble as you begin to sit up. “Can we not talk about this and go back to suffering?”

“Ugh.” He throws his head back in a dramatic fashion. “I wanted the tea though.”

“This ain’t a tea shop honey, so I’m not giving you any.” You put your attention back to his laptop. “Let me just go over this draft and you can trash mine.”

You push your laptop towards him with the draft of your paper open.

He clicks his tongue in disappointment. “Fine, but I want details later.”

“Boba break?”

“Boba break.”

Your professor sets down her books on the podium. “Alright class, please pull out your drafts. Your classroom partners are already assigned on the classroom page. If you can’t find it, it’s also on the projector.”

Your eyes don’t move away from your computer screen. The list of peer review partners has been pulled up and you scroll through it to find yours. You can only stare once you spot it.

(Y/N) and Wonwoo

This can’t be right.

You look from your screen to the projector. Your names are clear on the screen.

(Y/N) and Wonwoo

Someone clears their throat, snapping you out of your inner panic. “You’re (Y/N), right?”

To your right, Wonwoo stands with his messenger bag, a couple of textbooks in his hands, and a polite smile on his face. You can only nod, feeling the chills run up your back. He takes the empty spot next to you and sets down his things. Having him sit so close to you… it’s even scarier than you even imagined.

He glances at you with a small smile. Ugh, he is handsome. You’ll give him that.

As he turns his head, you get a closer look at his profile. In an instant, you see the devil-horned image of him flash. You shudder, turning away and wordlessly setting your laptop closer to him.

You manage to speak up, but it gets quieter as you talk. “Here’s my draft. You should be able to make comments… suggestions or something…”

He gives another smile (although you don’t see it) and hands you his laptop. “I have my draft on here too. I’m sorry, but it’s still a bit messy.”

His voice is so soft, despite his cold features. You take another glance at him to take his laptop. Your hands brush against his and you try to ignore the goosebumps that raise on your arms—whether it’s from fear, you can’t tell.

For a while, it’s quiet. Everyone is working on peer-editing their partner’s drafts, including you and Wonwoo. You both read through one another’s drafts. Ugh, he’s such a good writer. This was supposed to be a rough draft, but he makes it look like the final draft. This thesis makes sense; the support from the text is present; the counter-argument is made and redirected back to the thesis. Meanwhile, your draft probably looks even more half-assed than you originally intended for it to be.

You go through the document again to try to give some feedback on his draft, despite how hard it is to make something up. By the end, you only manage to give him three comments. Turns out, you had finished earlier than you’d thought. You look around, seeing everyone still working and interacting with their partners, before looking over at him.

He stares intensely at your screen, still scrolling through the hot mess you call a rough draft. Every couple of seconds, he types a comment and you feel yourself flinch at how hard he presses on the keyboard. You knew it wasn’t the best, but there’s no way for it to be the most awful thing you’ve written. You hadn’t even realized you’ve been staring until he turns his body towards you.

You lightly flinch at the sudden eye contact and, unconsciously, inch away from him. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he sets your laptop next to you.

“I wrote a couple of recommendations as to how you could expand on your argument further. I think you have a solid thesis and the evidence you provide from the texts are very strong. I didn’t know what else I could add, so I did the best I could to add some comments to help. You don’t have to use them, but they were just some ideas I thought you could use.”

He gives you another smile and you couldn’t help to feel a bit touched. Typically, people half ass these types of assignments. To see that he actually put effort into it and even added in ideas you can use...

You push his laptop further away from you and he immediately scrolls through it, before you can get a word in. That’s probably why the word vomit began and you haphazardly try to explain things, without even looking at him in the eye.

“I couldn’t really add in as much as you did. I thought it was really well thought out and made some really good points. I just made a couple of comments on word choice, grammar, and how it all connects. You’re a really good writer so you don’t have to really pay attention to these things. They really don’t make a big difference or anything. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you anything particularly helpful…”

You trail off from your nervous rambling, glancing up at him to take in his reaction. He looks rather sheepish; his hand rubs the back of his neck and light blush dusts his cheeks.

“It’s really nothing… I’m not that good…”

This vision of Wonwoo is definitely a 180 from your nightmares. The stoic and heartless image of Wonwoo with devil horns flashes once again. But then, you take another look at him. All you see a shy boy, flushed from a couple of compliments from a classmate he doesn’t even talk to—well, at least, until now.

You both sit there for a bit in silence, fiddling with your laptops in an attempt to work on your drafted papers. From what you can read, he put a lot of thought into his recommendations. After about five minutes, as the conversation around you begins to stir up again, he turns his body to you.

“Are the comments okay?” He pauses. “Were they able to help you?”

You hum and give a small nod. “I think with your suggestions this paper will be a bit easier to write.. I’m sorry for not being able to help you much with yours.”

He speaks in a small voice that you almost don’t hear. “You did help though…”

You give him a sheepish smile. “Not really. I gained more from this than you were able to… it’s unfair, sorry...”

“You shouldn’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, you tried your best.”

You let out a light laugh. “Did I though? I’m sure you’ve gotten more helpful feedback from other people.”

“Well, most people here don’t really care about this since this doesn’t ‘count for points.’”

“You’ve got a point.”

“Alright,” your professor says. “Considering how much you’re all talking, I’m assuming you’re done exchanging your drafts. If you’re done, you can leave. Consider it a reward for finishing early.”

You start to pack your things, as does Wonwoo. The both of you remain silent for a while, but, as you get up to leave, he speaks up with a soft voice.

“Did you want to work together on this paper later sometime?”

Before you can answer, he continues. “I just meant, like… I know you and Seungkwan work together and I was wondering if I could join you two or something. You don’t have to! I was just curious since Seungkwan and I work on it together too and I just thought it would be good if we all meet up.. together or something…”

“Oh…” Frankly, you didn’t even know they were working on the essay together too. No wonder Seungkwan’s draft was so good—that son of a bitch. On one hand, you already know Seungkwan is most likely to agree. On the other hand, you are still unsure you’re mentally prepared to willingly spend more time with him.

He’s nice, but you’re apprehensive as to how your brain is going to interrupt this. Who knows what your unconscious can unload? What if he transforms into a demon in your next dream? What if he turns into one of those gross monster-sized spiders and eats you whole?

Another chill runs down your spine, but you fake an unbothered smile. “I’ll talk to Seungkwan.”

He smiles back; it’s small, but genuine.

You sit at the library, tapping your fingers on the table as you wait anxiously for the boys’ arrival. You flip your phone over again, to check the time and any new text notifications from Seungkwan. You were starting to regret all your life’s decisions. Okay, maybe that’s too dramatic—even for you. But, you are regretting your decision of joining Seungkwan and Wonwoo’s study session.

To be honest, when you said you would talk to Seungkwan, that was 100% a lie. So, when you get a text from Seungkwan… you are more than shocked to find that he has oh-so graciously arranged the study session for you. That also meant getting a couple of pokes from him.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. As if he knew someone was talking shit, he enters the library and easily spots you in your usual corner. He drops his backpack onto the table and sits himself across from you, pulling out his laptop and textbooks.

“Sorry,” he says. “I had a couple of questions for my professor and…. I forgot how much that man likes to talk.”

“Hm, sounds like someone I know.”

“Ha ha, very funny (Y/N).” He opens his laptop and starts to skim through his books, but, eventually, he gets bored and looks back at you.

You feel his eyes on you and look up from your own laptop. “What?”

“From our last conversation, you said you were scared of Wonwoo.” Save it for Seungkwan to be blunt rather than beating around the bush.

“I didn’t say that—”

“It was implied.”

Your lips purse, finding yourself at a loss of words. “What about it?” you mumble, shrinking into your seat.

“Soooo,” Seungkwan says. “Why did you agree to the study group?”

You frown, squinting at him. “I’m sorry, but who decided to put us all into a group chat???” Your frown becomes a pout. “You can’t just put me in a group chat, ask about a meeting time, and think I’m going to be the asshole who says ‘oh no, I can’t make it.’ Then have you point out that I’m not doing anything.”

He shines a bright smile at you, ignoring your negative tone. “You wouldn’t have joined so otherwise.”

“Ha! So it was a ruse!”

“Of course it was.” He leans back to his seat. “You were so scared of him—look at you now, you’re making plans with him.”

“You made the plans.”

He waves a finger at you, “Semantics.”

You can only roll your eyes at him and type away, trying to sort out and prioritize on your latest assignments. “Why do you care so much about what I think about him?”

He blinks and you swear, for a second, he seems to have run out of words. You raise an eyebrow at his silence.

“Well... “ He stammers. “I—I just... just want all of my friends… to—to get along and be… friends.”

Your eyebrows furrow and you hum along, but you don’t believe a single thing he says. “It’s all the subconscious. I never had a problem with him in the first place.”

“Problem with who?”

You both turn around to see Wonwoo and another boy standing next to you two. From the unfamiliar voice, you can assume it was said by Mingyu—the other participating victim in the groupchat Seungkwan made.

“No one,” Seungkwan says. “Problem with no one—right, (Y/N)?”

You can only stare wide-eyed as you glance between them. “Yes, what he said.”

Mingyu laughs. “Uhm, okay.”

They both seat themselves at the table with you and Seungkwan—Wonwoo on one side and Mingyu on the other. They both give you a friendly smile and start to pull out their materials. You can only smile back awkwardly, typing away at your laptop.

“No offense,” Mingyu says. “I’m glad to be here, but I’m confused why I’m here.”

“It’s a study group and you’re our friend,” Seungkwan says.

“We’re not in the same class.”

“Moral support.”

“For what?”

He glances at you, which makes you narrow your eyes at him. He turns his attention back to Mingyu. “For things.”

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, but he doesn’t say anything.

“So,” Wonwoo says. “Shall we get started?”

“What should we start on?” you ask.

“I was thinking maybe the essay since that’s due the soonest,” Seungkwan says.

You all nod along, even Mingyu.

“So, I’m not involved either way,” Mingyu says. “This is fine, I totally don’t feel left out.”

Seungkwan shrugs. “You can do other assignments too.”

Mingyu pouts and his silent sulking is ignored.

You and Wonwoo chuckle at their antics. “Sorry buddy,” he says. “This plan wasn’t scheduled well.”

“Hey!”

Wonwoo ignores Seungkwan and turns to you. “Were you able to work on the essay?”

You shift in your seat, feeling awkward from suddenly being in his direct line of vision. “Yeah, I did—it’s coming along. Thanks again, by the way.”

“It’s not a problem. I’m glad I could help,” he says. “Did you want me to look at it?”

Your eyes widen, meeting Seungkwan’s, who makes a face. To be honest, you haven’t worked on it since you opened it during class and you’re too embarrassed to say you’ve been procrastinating. It’s due in two days and who says you can’t write an essay in one night (who isn’t a professor).

“Are you having trouble concentrating again?” Seungkwan asks. Before you can answer, he interjects himself. “Is this because you’re still having sleeping problems? Dude, just keep popping those pills.”

The other two’s attention have been turned to you. You inwardly groan from the eyes and try to focus on Seungkwan—but your body responds for you with a grimace. “Can you not say it like that? It’s melatonin and they’re technically vitamins.”

“Hmmm, sure.”

“You have sleeping problems?” Mingyu asks.

You sheepishly rub the back of your neck. “Yeah, it’s not that big of a deal though.”

Seungkwan snorts. “Sure it isn’t. It’s not like you were nearly falling asleep when editing my essay just a couple of days ago.”

You smile. “I bought you boba though.”

“But can I really be bribed?”

“Of course not,” you say. “Because no one can afford your high maintenance.”

Seungkwan’s jaw drops from your bluntness, but there’s a small smile in it. Mingyu doubles over in laughter and Wonwoo tries to hold his in—the smile on his face gives it away, causing you to laugh as well.

Seungkwan quickly straightens up in defense. “This is what I get for trying to be nice.”

You give him another teasing smile.

“Okay, okay,” Mingyu says. “How bad is this sleeping problem?”

“It’s..” You click your tongue, recalling as to how bad your sleep schedule has been since these nightmares began. “It’s really bad, dude.”

“You know,” he says, turning his body towards you. “There are foods good for sleep.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, one time I made this banana almond parfait.”

“Oooh, sounds fancy—”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Seungkwan says. “But I doubt that’s going to help (Y/N)’s situation.”

“Why not?” Wonwoo asks.

You’d almost forgotten he was there for a second.

“It’s a subconscious thing.”

Wait a second.

“So it’s psychological problems?” Mingyu asks. He props his chin into his hands. “Do tell.”

You stifle a laugh.

Wonwoo is the one who speaks for you. “Mingyu, you just met her and you already want to open up her psyche?”

“What’s a better way to get to know someone?”

“Anything else, bro.”

Mingyu’s lips purse, then form into a pout. “Booooooooo.”

“Okay,” you say. “Let’s just move on. We actually have to work on this essay.”

“Boooooo!”

“Shut up, Seungkwan.”

“I don’t care what anyone else says,” Chaeyoung says. “Lizard people are real.”

Yongsun nods along, digging her spoon further into her ice cream. “I’d buy into it. Matthew McConaughey has a lizard smile.”

You can only sigh in disappointment and put your head in your hands. “Why am I friends with you people?”

Your comment is ignored and Chaeyoung continues to talk. “Controversial statement: Shawn Mendez? Lizard person.”

“Oh my God, he kind of does.” Yongsun shows her screen to the both of you. “He has the same lizard smile as Matthew.”

As the two continue to converse other celebrities with lizard qualities, you sit at the other side of the booth, playing with your food. Dining hall food isn’t great, but it is free. What’s the point of these dinners, if you’re just going to want to throw it back up from these types of conversations?

A couple of weeks ago, y’all had a whole conversation as to how Ted Bundy got away from his crimes for such a long time (to be honest, he wasn’t even really attractive so….). Then, last week, y’all talked about white boy names—the looks you got from people with those names were absolutely hilarious. Side note: you don’t give a solid shit to anyone named Todd (what Todd have you met that WASN’T an asshole?).

By now, you’ve just learned to sit back and let these topics just… happen. At some point, these conversations are going to bite you in the ass.

“(Y/N)?”

You look up from your plate.

“I thought that was you,” Mingyu says with a smile.

You return it with one of yours. “Hey, Mingyu, right?”

“Yeah! I’m Seungkwan’s friend—although, I’m more known for being Wonwoo’s.” He pauses, before mumbling to himself. “And Jungkook’s…”

“Wonwoo?” Chaeyoung asks.

“Jeon Wonwoo?” Yongsun adds.

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “You know him?”

“We’ve heard of him,” Yongsun says, nudging your rib. You smack her elbow away.

Chaeyoung scoots herself over. “If you want, you can sit with us.”

“Sure,” he says. “I have class in an hour, so I have time.” He sits himself next to her and looks between you and the other girls. “So, what are we talking about?”

Yongsun swallows her ice cream, pointing her spoon at him. “Lizard people.”

You push her spoon out of the way. “Can we please move away from this subject?”

“They! Are! Here!” Chaeyoung bangs her fists on the table, along each syllable.

You put your head back into your hands. “Oh my God. You need to stay off the internet.”

“Lizard people…” Mingyu says slowly. “What is this exactly?”

You look up, eyes wide and warning. “You do not want to ask her that.”

“So, there are theories that some people roam around Earth—”

“And, so it begins.”

Chaeyoung ignores you. “—as lizards. They are living amongst us and planning to overthrow the human race.”

“We’ve possibly identified a couple of them,” Yongsun says. “Hear us out. Matthew McConaughey and Shawn Mendez. Thoughts?”

“You do not have to answer them, by the way,” you say to him.

As if Mingyu was possessed by someone else, he nods along as he listens. “I could definitely see that. They have weird face structures.”

Your jaw drops from his participation in your weird dinner discussions. Your respect for him as a person has dropped. “Dude, don’t encourage them!”

Chaeyoung points at him, as if he isn’t present. “I like him better than that Wonwoo guy.”

“Ditto,” Yongsun says.

“I thought you guys didn’t know him?” Mingyu asks. His head tilts to the side—for a second, he looks like a puppy.

“We don’t,” Yongsun says. She slurps up the remaining ice cream melting from her bowl. “(Y/N) mentioned him and we looked him up—he’s just as hot as (Y/N) said.”

Your cheeks flush and you flick some of your water in her direction. “That’s not what I said!”

Her lips purse in response and she continues to slurp from her bowl. Meanwhile, Chaeyoung gives you a look, which you refuse to acknowledge.

On the other hand, Mingyu’s attention has been turned to you in interest. His eyebrow raises and you start to squirm.

“So,” he says with a twirl of his fork. “What have you said about Wonwoo?”

You’d honestly thought this conversation was behind you, especially since you had dodged away from the topic during your study group a couple of days ago. The difference between Seungkwan and these two is that these two have very little regard for your opinion. While they are your friends, they are also very invasive and you are very sure that they will ignore your protests. It’s almost as if they had heard your thoughts—they answer the question for you.

“She said he’s attractive,” Chaeyoung says.

“Technically,” Yongsun says. “She said he wasn’t ugly and I think she also said he murders her.”

Mingyu turns to you with surprise.

Just when you thought you had died before, you were sure that you have died now and were stuck in your customized purgatory hell.

“That,” you say into your hands. “Was not what I said.”

Yongsun squints at you. “Are you sure? Because I distinctly remember you defining your death kink with those weird dreams.”

You stare at her for a while before deciding on what to say. “Are you on crack? I was sure that your crackhead energy was drained last week during your history exam.”

“How dare you? I am completely sober.”

“Debatable.”

You both turn back to the other two at the table, where Chaeyoung continues to eat and Mingyu stares off with confusion evident in his features.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “But what’s the piece I’m missing?”

“I’ll give you a short version,” Chaeyoung says. “You see, (Y/N) has been dreaming about Wonwoo murdering her and we think it’s a loo—hey!” She grabs a napkin to wipe her, now, wet hair.

You give her a bright, fake smile as she playfully glares at you and the glass of water you’ve flicked on her. Yongsun chuckles at your antics and turns to Mingyu. “Either way, it’s 100% repression.”

“Repression of what exactly?” you ask.

“Attraction,” Yongsun points out.

You flick some more water at her, ignoring her yelps. You turn your attention to Mingyu. “Ignore them and everything they’ve said because it isn’t true.”

“Lies!” Chaeyoung says. “Yongsun’s right. It’s probably repression because Wonwoo is definitely hot—stop throwing water at me!”

You ignore her once again, flicking more water from your glass. “I did not say he was hot. I just admitted that he wasn’t ugly!”

As you continue to attack your friends with your water, Mingyu stays silent, but makes note from the conversation. Oh, how things will become more interesting….

You continue to type on your laptop, wrapping the conclusion paragraph with one last sentence. You let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” you mutter under your breath. This god forbidden essay is done and you can easily turn it in. You look up from your screen, where Wonwoo continues to type on his.

His glasses sit on the edge of his nose and his eyes are narrowed, as if to physically focus on the words. You have to admit: the glasses suit him and his oversized sweater. While he has worn them every once in a while, this is one of the rare times you’ve seen him this close up. He looks like a soft boy molded from a John Green book.

You look a glance around and, seeing how he’s gathered the attention of a few people, you can tell you aren’t the only one who’s noticed. To be fair, if it wasn’t for your nightmares, you would be a lot more attracted to him.

Admittedly, it has been nice to spend this time with him—you managed to reduce some of those nightmares and get a bit more sleep. You might even admit that he’s a friend more than just a classmate now.

Speaking of friends, Seungkwan and Mingyu are pretty late. It’s been 20 minutes of just you and Wonwoo. You don’t mind, but you all made a plan to meet here (since the essay is due tonight).

“Are you done with your essay already?”

Wonwoo’s voice snaps you out of your inner ramblings. You look towards his direction, freezing from the sudden eye contact. “Huh?”

He clears his throat. “Are you... done? With the essay?”

“Ah, kind of. It’s probably bad, but it’s done.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. Let me see.” He gestures to your laptop.

“Compared to your English major ass?” You pull the laptop closer to you. “No.”

“(Y/N),” he says with a sigh. “I’m sure it’s not even bad.” He gets ahold of the top of your laptop, lightly tugging it away from your grasp. You can only pout as the device is taken away from your hold and he begins to read. You place your chin into your hands, watching Wonwoo’s eyes dance from sentence to sentence.

You didn’t realize how long you’d been staring until he makes eye contact with you and sets your laptop back near you. If he noticed, he doesn’t say anything about it.

Wonwoo adjusts his glasses, pushing them closer to the bridge of his nose. When his face comes to view, there’s a small smile. “I told you your essay was fine. In fact, you could probably turn it in right now.”

Your lips purse, considering the idea, even though you were already planning to. Originally, you wanted Seungkwan to check it too—especially since he saw the real rough draft of it, which was a blank document.

“I kind of wanted to wait for Seungkwan,” you say. “Since we all agreed to do it together.”

He nods along with your words. “It makes sense.” He looks at you with a head tilt, thinking aloud. “Where is Seungkwan?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” you say with a small laugh. “Is Mingyu coming?”

He checks his phone, wrinkling his nose as he squints at the screen and scrolls through his messages. “Honestly, I have no idea—last time I checked, he was supposed to.”

“Yeah, I ran into him yesterday and I assumed he was coming too.”

“Oh yeah,” Wonwoo says. “How was the lunch?”

“It was actually pretty funny beca—” You stop. You didn’t mention anything about lunch… so, how did he know about that? Your eyes narrow at him. “Did Mingyu tell you already?”

“Uh.” Wonwoo’s eyes shift. “Kind of?” He hunches a bit more over his own laptop, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Mingyu basically tells me everything.”

Mingyu basically tells me everything.

Oh, no.

You try to recall exactly as to the different topics during that one hour lunch with him. He was almost late to his class, since he was in a heavy debate with Yongsun and Chaeyoung as to whether or not Perry the Platypus cosplayers are considered furries…

It was a conversation that you had to be there for, in order for the context to be understood.

There was also the topic of whether Twilight should be watched for ironic purposes and/or the cinematic value of it. There was also discussion about what was the weakest element—which Yongsun was debating on the side of water.

You were getting off track; curse your friends for having such bizarre conversations. That line shouldn’t have triggered you, but for some reason, it feels off—as if there was something you were forgetting. You look at Wonwoo, who’s sitting across from you with flushed cheeks.

Wait a second.

She said he’s attractive.

Death kink with those weird dreams.

(Y/N) has been dreaming about Wonwoo murdering her.

Just when you thought things were just starting to become normal-ish between you two.

Your face flushes as you remember all the things your friends said… which were most likely echoed to Wonwoo through Mingyu (seeing how much blush is present on his face).

There’s only one thing you can say. “I can explain.”

He lets out a little, breathless laugh—but it sounds more like an uncomfortable one.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, I swear.”

He pushes his glasses up once more. “You—you don’t have to.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “I should explain myself. It’s not supposed to sound as bad as they made it out to be and it’s not even your fault. I don’t even know why my subconscious chose your face out of anyone else’s. Yongsun said it’s repression, but you probably already know that and—” You sigh. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“For what? It’s not really your fault.”

“Yeah, but I guess, it’s just in general.” Your fingers glaze over the keyboard, absentmindedly toying with the keys. “Over break, I watched a horror movie with my friends and then I started getting nightmares. Again, I don’t know why your face was there, but… it just was.”

“I’m not mad,” Wonwoo says. “And it’s not your fault—you don’t have to apologize.”

There’s a small silence, which is just you and Wonwoo looking at one another with wide eyes, unsure as to what happens next.

“I will say,” Wonwoo says with a small voice. “I’m a bit flattered.”

“That I dream of you murdering me?”

“No.” He lets out a small laugh. “That your subconscious ‘chose my face.’”

You chuckle rather sheepishly when he took the words from your previous rambling. “Yeah… Seungkwan suggested that it was just a face that was most memorable.” You let out a long sigh. “And Yongsun likes to psychoanalyze into things.”

“So, do you… think my face… is attractive?”

You look up at him from your keyboard, only to see him dodging your eyes. His Adam's apple moves as he swallows. On the table, you can see that his hands are curled underneath the sweater paws, moving as he fiddles with his fingers. You can feel yourself shrinking into your seat, shyness overpowering you.

“Well….” you say. “You are… attractive…” You say the last part quieter than you intended, but Wonwoo’s eyes meet yours once the words are said.

His face turns a shade darker and he smiles a bit wider than before. “Even.. Even if I was part of a nightmare?”

You nod, but look off to the side to shake off the embarrassment.

“I think you’re attractive too.”

Your head turns to him, but his concentration is back to his laptop. While he can act like he didn’t say anything all he wants, the redness of his ears give his emotions away. You press your lips to repress your smile.

A bag being thrown into the table interrupts your moment.

“Sorry, sorry,” Seungkwan says, clearly out of breath. “This ladder here wanted to stop by Starbucks and there was a line.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Mingyu yells.

“It’s Starbucks! You should have known!”

“You couldn’t have sent a text?” you ask.

“My phone died,” he says with a pout. “Speaking of which, do you have a charger??”

You can only sigh in disappointment, but rummage through your bag nevertheless. “You’re lucky I brought this one.”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know, I know. Now sit down and shut up, people are looking.”

When you open your eyes, you’re running—from what, you are unsure of. This tunnel is nearly pitch black dark. A part of you is calm, but the other is panicking. Probably due to previous experiences you’ve had in this subconscious. You continue to run, refusing to look back at whatever remains behind you, but you can hear its footsteps echoing.

Your shoes are soaked and continue to splash against the muddy waters, as you continue to run. It stays dark for so long, but then it gets lighter, as if the sun poured itself into the tunnel. The footsteps stop. Whatever’s behind you diminishes.

But you can’t stop running towards the light, which burns closer and closer. The light embraces you, shining brightly and bouncing along your surroundings. You try to shield your eyes from the sun, only to be greeted by shimmers. Your vision starts to clear, enough for you to identify your surroundings.

You’re at the park. But what for?

You stand in the grass, surrounded by trees and rose bushes. The flowers are just in bloom, blossoming towards you, as if you were the sun itself. The skies are clear of clouds and the sun shines down, but it isn’t beating. Butterflies flutter and graze above the ground, but they don’t get close enough to you. The birds are chirping lightly, sounding like a song’s melody. The air is fresh and the aura is soothing.

As you walk through, you start to soak in the aroma. To the side, you notice a small hill with, no doubt, the best view. A picnic blanket is laid out, along with plates and other objects.

Someone else is also there.

It’s a familiar figure, but you can’t make out who it is from the distance.

You call out. “Hello?”

The figure turns and there Wonwoo sits. He has his glasses intact, but, instead of the casual wear, he’s a bit more dressed up—his white button-up showcases his nicely built chest and his slacks reveals how long his legs are.

He smiles at you, white pearls sparkling and eyes shining—you feel as if it’s almost like the buds have bloomed as well. For a moment, you think you’re stuck in a picture.

And then the wind blows, brushing his hair against his forehead.

“Are you coming, (Y/N)?”

---

Your eyes shoot open. The warmness in your chest is gone and is replaced by the coldness of your sheets. You shift under the covers and attempt to sit up.

The grogginess stays, but one thing remains in your mind—what was that and why did the dream change?

It’s 11:15am once again and you sit at your unofficial reserved spot. Your head lies on the desk, awaiting for the other students and your professor to arrive at the lecture hall. Tiredness continues to overpower you as your eyes consistently flutter to shut and reopen.

A knock on the table interrupts your attempted naptime. You look up to see Wonwoo’s face above yours. He gives you a small smile as he sets his bag on the seat next to yours. From his presence, you sit yourself up and rub your eyes, in an attempt to wake yourself.

“Are you tired?” he asks.

You can feel yourself internally curling from his close proximity. “Yeah, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

He lets out a small, airy laugh. With a shake of his head, he jokes. “Still getting nightmares about me murdering you?”

A blush creeps up to your face. “Ha… Not really,” you say. It’s not like it’s a lie, but it’s not exactly the truth. You unconsciously move yourself a bit further from him as you recall the image of him surrounded by roses. “It’s probably just insomnia—bad sleeping habits most likely piled up.”

He nods, humming along as you speak. He rummages through his bag, pulling out his laptop and notebook. His side profile is illuminated through the sunshine that’s reflected on the window. He looks like he’s sparkling…

You quickly turn away as soon as he moves his head towards your direction. God, you were starting to stare a lot more than usual. You shake your head as you try to refocus on what you were doing.

What were you doing?

Closing your eyes, you try to regain your train of thought—only for you to lose it immediately after. You eventually decide to pull out your laptop and open up your lecture notes. On another tab, you see the essay that you’ve already turned in.

“Oh,” you say. You turn back to Wonwoo, “I almost forgot, did your essay turn out okay?”

“Yeah, it took a little bit of editing but I turned it in on time.”

“I’m sure it turned out great,” you say. “You’re definitely getting an A.” He gives you another shy smile and his cheeks start to blush. You shift into your seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “You’re really smart anyways,” you mumble.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you say. “Nothing at all.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re getting an A too,” he says. “It was really well put together. At least, from what I remember.”

“Ehh.” You shrug your shoulders. “We’ll see.”

“Give yourself more credit, (Y/N),” he says in a softer tone. “You’re really smart and it’s okay for you to brag.” He turns his attention back to his laptop. His red ears have made a return.

On the other hand, you position yourself in your seat to straighten up and hide your smile. You take the opportunity to glance around, noticing the other students who’ve entered the lecture hall. Others are starting to enter as well.

You check the time on your laptop and it looks like it’s time for class to begin. Your professor arrives as well and sets up her materials.

“Open up your textbooks and turn to page 304. We’ll start with the four categories of ethical theories.”

Without turning from your laptop screen, your hand hovers over the textbook in your bag, but Wonwoo’s whisper interrupts your movement.

“Did you forget your book? I’ll share mine with you.”

You should probably say no, but your hand speaks for you, moving away from the bag. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

He gives another smile, leaning closer as he scoots the book towards you. Your professor continues to lecture, going over the slide’s content, but you can’t concentrate—not when Wonwoo’s this close. He smells like fresh laundry, the kind that you want to wrap yourself in before the warmth is gone. When you look at him, the sparkles return, along with the image of him from your dreams.

“Hold up,” Seungkwan says. “Yongsun thought that water is the weakest element? It’s clearly fire.”

“That’s what I said!” Mingyu yells. He sighs in disappointment from the recollection of the conversation and moves his strawberry milkshake to the side. “Fire is just a stupid element that can be destroyed by water AND all living things need water in order to survive. There are so many benefits to water and—” He stops himself with another sigh and takes a long sip of his milkshake.

Next to him, you shake your head with a small laugh. Taking a fry from your plate for a bite, you can only observe and let the conversation take its course. While your focus remains on the other two, your eyes glance over towards Wonwoo, who sits in front of you.

“I think earth is debatable,” Wonwoo says. “But, I feel like fire is the weakest due to the fact that it’s more destructive rather than productive.”

While the essay was already due, Seungkwan invited you to dinner at a nearby diner. You figured that it’d be nice to not eat dining hall food for once, so you agreed. But when you got there, you didn’t expect Mingyu and Wonwoo to already be there—hence your current position in front of Wonwoo, next to Mingyu, in a booth, while they’re arguing about the strongest element.

You blame Yongsun and Chaeyoung for this chaos; if they hadn’t pulled him into this conversation, he wouldn’t have brought it up now—which also dragged Seungkwan and Wonwoo into the discourse.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” you say. You continue to gnaw away at your fries, even when all three of their eyes land on you. Typically you’d refuse to engage in these conversations, but you refuse to let them walk around without an argument.

Seungkwan clears his throat, as if he was asking you to elaborate. Meanwhile, Mingyu continues to sip on his shake and Wonwoo has an eyebrow raised.

You let out a sigh from the eyes and toss the half-bitten french fry back to your plate before speaking. “You can argue that fire is the weakest, but we cook with fire and that’s what allowed our society to thrive because we started to have less time devoted to farming.”

Seungkwan and Mingyu’s jaws slightly drop from your point, while Wonwoo smiles.

“We can technically live without fire,” Seungkwan says. “We can go back to farming and let the animals thrive.”

“First of all, cold temperatures are a thing and fire provides warmth. Secondly, did you not hear me? Cooking gave us more time to further develop society, so, without it, we would figuratively and literally be unable to live.”

“She’s got a point,” Wonwoo says.

“Thank you.”

Seungkwan’s mouth moves, but no words find their way out.

“Wow, I left Boo Seungkwan speechless,” you say, as you begin to finish off your fries. “You’re welcome.”

Mingyu looks on impressively. “Niceeee.”

“That’s a very hard feat,” Wonwoo says. “I’ll give you points for that.”

Seungkwan has suddenly regained interest from Wonwoo’s words. He leans his chin on his hand, moving uncomfortably closer to Wonwoo, who attempts to swat him away. “When did you two get along so well?”

“We have class together,” you say with narrowed eyes.

“And I sit right next to her,” Wonwoo adds.

Mingyu smiles slyly. “Since when did that happen?”

You miss the way he looks over to Seungkwan. Wonwoo blinks at the question and you suddenly have developed more interest towards the salt on the fries.

“I feel like we shouldn’t be here,” Seungkwan says.

“You invited me,” you say. “But okay.”

“I know that,” he says with a huff. “But it just feels like a moment we shouldn’t be in.”

You roll your eyes in response, but the smile on your face shows no malice. Wonwoo remains quiet—scratching his neck, feeling the heat creep up to his face.

“So, are you dating yet?” Mingyu asks as he glances between you two.

“Oh my God,” Wonwoo mutters. He lays his face onto the table with a thud and you almost choke from Mingyu’s directiveness.

Mingyu goes on, ignoring both of your reactions. “You both like each other right? Well, at least, I know Wonwoo does.”

“DUDE!”

“Oops.” Mingyu’s lips pull back. He turns to Seungkwan. “Should we leave now?”

“Please don’t,” Wonwoo whispers.

Your jaw drops as you watch Seungkwan nod, smiling at you like nothing’s happened. Seungkwan and Mingyu side out of their side of the booth, but. before they leave, Mingyu drops one hand on each of your shoulders. “Don’t worry about the check. Consider it a present from your cupids.”

“You owe me one, (Y/N)!” Seungkwan shouts from the door. They both head towards the door, giving both of you little waves with their fingers.

Both you and Wonwoo sit in silence, not knowing what to say to the other. But, in all fairness, Wonwoo owes you the explanation.

You swallow, suddenly feeling your throat dry up. “If it makes you feel better…”

He looks up at you from the table.

“I like you too.”

A smile grows on his face and he starts to sit up slowly. “Really?”

“What can I say?” Your smile mirrors his. “My subconscious chose you before I could.”

He lets out a chuckle, readjusting his glasses and fiddling with his fingers, before settling them on the diner table. They’re free from the usual sweater paws and tap against the bright countertop.

“Just to be clear,” he says. “You aren’t scared of me?”

“Well, I was before,” you pause. “But that was before we even really talked or hung out. And now….”

“What about now?”

You blush, remembering the roses, the sparkling, the picnic—it all sounds so… nice. You couldn’t think of the words and Wonwoo could sense that.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

A sigh of relief escapes you. “Maybe next time then.”

His smile grows. “So, there’s a next time?”

You nod, feeling the butterflies in your stomach and your heart pounds in your chest. His hand moves towards you, closer and with caution—so yours meets his halfway. When your fingers intertwine, he looks from your hands to you with sparkling eyes and you can feel the warmth return to your chest.

This.

This is what feels right.

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