On todays broadcast, I am once again shamelessly simping for eimiko, they could both try to kill me and I WOULD apologize

☆ko-fi au: nostoligic summer romance!au hanbin
find other ikon aushere

• the sun burns your shoulders and the skin of your heel. you stand on it and bear the pain as you look down at hanbin, whose face is covered by one of those three-dollar nude magazines
• “get up”
• “can’t you see i am asleep?”
• the wind blows some small wisps of hair around your face - somewhere in the distance, you hear junhoe chase a beachball down the shore as jiwon yells for him to race back to the rest of your friends
• “hanbin, you are not wasting your summer spread out like this, not doing anything. you are not a piece of seaweed.”
• “you sound like my mother”
• you nudge his elbow with your toe
• “did you finish your graduate school application?”
• “yeah, im working on it right now looking at -”
• he lifts the magazine off his face and flips to a random page, turning it around to face you
• averting your gaze you make a sound of disappointment
• “the deadline already passed, the school is giving you an extension because they know you’ll be a great addition to the program. does that not mean anything to you?”
• hanbin lets the next gust of wind pull the magazine from his weak grip and float it pathetically to his left
• the silence is his answer in a way and search his face, now that you can see it properly, for anything else
• his dark eyes are void and highlighted by a shadow of darkness.
• his lips are chapped.
• the scratch he got from face planting in the public pool’s changing room last weak is still sitting on his cheek only half-hidden under a kids bandage
• “hanbin, this is your future”
• you whisper it - like it’s your future too
• maybe because somewhere subconsciously buried in both your chests. you both know it is.
• “i know”
• you turn around and take his apathy as the final stake in the ground
• after years of caring about him, of one-sided adoration hidden behind affectionate and worried friendship
• you have learned the hanbin is more stubborn than an ox - especially when he gives up
• when you find yourself walking home back alone - the sun still blasting an uncomfortable heat onto your skin - you try to pretend the overwhelming feeling of crying isn’t itching its way out
• i can’t help him forever, especially if he doesn’t want to help himself
• hanbin calls three days later
• “do you want to go fishing with me and jinhwan?”
• “fishing?”
• “jinhwan said he’s trying new hobbies.”
• you are silent for a second, a part of you wants to explode.
• what are you talking about fishing! the application asks you to finish an entire song. to show your effort! who gives a fuck about fishing!
• the other part of you is dormant. uninterested.
• jinhwan is already a successful editor, maybe he can help hanbin find the right path better than i can.
• “no thanks.”
• you hang up first, something you’ve never done with hanbin
• you’re both balanced in that sense - you are usually soft and forgiving and never want to hurt anyone’s feelings. you just want to keep helping and helping until there’s nothing left of you.
• hanbin is more strict - people have to prove themselves to him otherwise he cuts them off without a qualm.
• you get a text a few minutes later from jinhwan:
• are you and your husband fighting?
• my husband? i didn’t know i finally married that millionaire from my dreams.
• haha im talking about hanbin
• you purse your lips. everyone in the world wants ‘us’ to happen.
• no. we’re not fighting. he doesn’t want to go to grad school.
• so?
• your fingers hover over the keyboard. right, so what? not like it’s your business to run your friend’s life.
• but that’s not it. something is so wrong. hanbin will work on music till his eyes and ears bleed. why is it that composing one little thing for this application that is just going to better his life so hard? why is he so against it?
• leaving jinhwan without an answer, you throw yourself on your bed and tell yourself that you have to break this habit
• you’ve been putting hanbin over yourself since you were both young
• getting in trouble with him when in reality you’d done nothing but try to stop him from doing something stupid
• staying up with him when he’d go through bouts of bad insomnia
• shoving your own secrets and pain down to comfort him about his own
• you have your own life, goal, and dreams
• it’s your fault for somehow always imagining that hanbin would want to be part of them
• “can you please talk to hanbin again.”
• jiwon, junhoe, and donghyuk take up the space in your car as you pull into the parking lot of the local mall
• you turn the key in the ignition, jiwon and junhoe are sitting far apart in the back seat, still managing to look cramped and donghyuk looks at you sympathetically from the passenger side
• “im not avoiding him.”
• “you’re totally avoiding him.”
• again. you want to explode and also say nothing at all. why are there expectations on you as his friend and not the other way around?
• “have you guys asked him about his grad school application? you all have your futures planned - and he’s lost.”
• jiwon pops his bubble gum at the worst possible moment and junhoe looks awkward without an answer to come out of his big mouth.
• donhyuk puts a hand on your shoulder
• “he didn’t just give up, you know.”
• you snort, “it looked that way to me.”
• opening the door, you step out and tell the little voice in your head that wonders out loud if hanbin needs your help to please shut up
• it’s two days before the extension deadline. you know this because it pops up as a reminder on your google calendar and you grumble as you delete it.
• having his deadlines on my schedule like he’s my goddamn boyfriend or something.
• you want to enjoy your summer before you go back to school too, so you dig out a big t-shirt and bathing suit to take to the pool
• only when you sling the shirt over yourself do you pick at the worn fabric and groan
• this is hanbin’s isn’t it? the coffee stain at the bottom is totally his signature.
• someone knocks on the door of your room, half expecting a family member you open it without caution and nearly throw it shut when you see hanbin in the frame
• the only thing that stops you from doing so is the look of utter desperation on his face
• “hanbin? when is the last time you slept?”
• he breaths through his nose and mumbles maybe three or four days ago
• you pull him into your room and shut the door, you try to examine him for any other signs of fatigue but he looks otherwise the same
• skinny, slightly hunched over and more beautiful than you could ever say out loud in fear of dying on the spot of embarrassment
• “is it your insomnia? do you need to go to the doc-”
• “i can’t compose the song.”
• you wave your hand to dismiss the sentence, “that doesn’t matter right now. you have to take care of your health first and-”
• “i can’t stop thinking about you.”
• suddenly irritated with his tone - you snap under the weight of it all
• “you cannot blame your inability to finish this application or giving up or not sleeping on me. just because we haven’t spoken in a bit-”
• “that’s not what i meant.”
• you cross your hands over your chest, you can feel a fire unlike any other of anger lick up your spine
• if he is going to pin this on me somehow im going -
• “i love you.”
• “are you crazy?”
• you blurt out your words before you really even hear his own. you were expecting him to start spinning some elaborate tale about how not seeing you or you avoiding him had somehow damaged him further
• but this is hanbin, and you admit that never has he put the blame on you without you taking it on willingly
• so you blink past the initial shock and ask him to repeat himself
• he straightens his bad posture, looks at you and sees past the surface level
• “i love you. it’s making everything else a blur, so i need to tell you.”
• “you- you should have told me before.”
• “i thought you’d slap me.” he laughs weakly, but it is forced “or that you’d think i was lying to get you off my back about the application.”
• you soften, your hands uncross and you drop the defensive look on your face
• hanbin runs a line from your eyes to your knees
• “are you wearing my shirt?”
• “i love you too.”
• the spell of dread that seems to have clung itself into every nook and cranny of hanbin’s existence seems to be exorcised when you say those words to him
• like a light has entered the part of him that has been pitch black for weeks now
• he doesn’t kiss you right after you say it, he kisses you two days later when he submits his application with a song he spent thirteen hours on creating
• the song is about that light, the kind of easy feeling of being put into the right puzzle with the right person
• that’s when he kisses you - when he meets the deadline - and you throw your arms around him and the world starts rotating in the right direction again
• summer is still left over for you two to enjoy, you rush around the beach with your friends, you go fishing with jinhwan who decides he hates it at some point, and you spend whatever minute you can with hanbin
• even if you’re with others, your hands are always glued together. you look at him when you think he’s distracted. he looks at you regardless, unashamed of the teasing that comes your way
• 'it finally happened! they realized they’re perfect for each other!’
• and when you’re alone with your legs tangled with his and hanbin’s nervous, soft mouth on the slope of your back. that same uncapped love bursts from both of you.
• when summer dwindles and hanbin gets an email about his application
• he celebrates by pressing you up against the desk and nearly toppling his laptop over
• “can i ask you something?” he plays with a strand of your hair after as the sweat sticks you two together “were you so adamant about me getting into grad school because you love me or-”
• you rest your chin on his chest and sigh
• “yes, but because it’ll help you achieve your dreams. and it’ll give you a future that’s stable. a future that i want for you and-”
• you get shy, tucking your face into his skin
• “and?”
• he asks, but you just kiss him instead.
• when it’s ten years after - and hanbin has become successful in ways he had never dreamed
• you are successful in your own right too
• you’re equals and your lives are full of each other and your work and everything else
• and hanbin realizes when he’s looking at rings by himself after work one day what you wanted to say all that time ago
• you wanted him to have a good future so that it could tie in with yours
• he reminds himself to ask you when he gets home, by what age had you already planned the wedding?
• he expects you will stick your tongue out at him when he does, and you do, but he doesn’t expect you to cry for half an hour when he pulls the little box out of his pocket.

“Tentacles”

Day two of EGS Flashfic Week! A slight warning: This story is a little more suggestive than our usual fare, though it doesn’t go beyond the usual level of, say, an episode of Futurama, and is probably SFW unless you work in a convent. A ‘read more’ link has still been inserted. 

“Do… do I want to know?” After several long seconds, that was the only thing that could escape Sarah’s mouth. Grace cocked her head to the side - the squirrel girl was wearing a transformation that Sarah had never seen before, a somewhat disturbing fusion of mammalian and cephalopod traits. Mostly, she looked human-ish, though her skin was… different. Constantly shifting colors, subtly. Her eyes were WEIRD, and her arms were… not there. Replaced by a cluster of three tentacles apiece.

“What do you mean? This is awesome!”

“Yeah, but do I want to know why you and Tedd made this form? I mean, I can only imagine the shoehorning that he had to do to get the genetics to work.”

“Magic does a LOT to speed that up.” Grace winked, wrapping a pair of tentacles around Sarah’s shoulder. Sarah locked up at the touch, staring down at the tendrils, trying not to think about it. She was thinking about it. “I wanted to see what it would be like to have no bones for a while.”

“NO bones?!”

“None at all!” Grace grinned, and Sarah realized just why Grace looked wrong - her face was constantly shifting in SHAPE just a little, held in place only by - what? Musculature? Fluid sacs?

“That’s… that’s pretty freaky, I’m not going to lie. How different does it feel?”

“Honestly, except for the arms, you don’t think about it too much?” She shrugged. “And these are pretty cool. You’d be amazed at what you can do with them.”

“Yeah, I’d imagine.” Sarah’s blush ratcheted up a few notches, as Grace giggled.

“I mean like ‘scratching my own back’ or ‘tightening nuts without a wrench’, not THAT.”

“Riiiight. Like you and Tedd haven’t-”

“Oh we HAVE. I’m not denying anything there. But that doesn’t need to be the first place your mind goes.” She stretched upwards with all six  limbs. “Look at these things! They’re nature’s perfect all-purpose tools! Infinitely flexible, super-strong, and able to do SO much more than arms can, My tentacles are naughty because I’M naughty, not because of the mere fact that they are tentacles!”

“Fair. But I’m going to have to ask you to change back before we play Mario Kart.”

“Aww.”

Story by Mod Zee.