14 steps to a better you | jake sim.
or, the perfect sobriety program to heal a quarter-life crisis.
synopsis: "If you're not in your middle ages but are already suffering through the pains of financial security, does that make it a quarter-life crisis?" Jake asked as he looked back on the last three years of his student life. He did have many unforgettable moments and sleepless nights, but the excessive consumption of beer and neon-lit raves came crashing to a halt after everyone around him decided it was time to focus on their respective career paths. Left with an empty to-do list and an uncertain future, he meets you, a person who was on the different side of the same coin.
cast: jake sim x fem!reader, ft. leo (trainee a) bc aussie LMAO
genre: coming of age, angst, opposites attract or sth idk
wc: 40.1k
warnings: RATED 15+; profanity; mentions and implications of food, alcohol, and marijuana consumption; implied sexual activity; slight mentions of death and suicide; slight mentions of weight at one point; very existential; reader has a breakdown and an anxiety attack at some point; without spoiling i will say that there's mild depictions of violence at some point; workplace trauma
a/n: PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU'RE NEUROTIC/GOING THROUGH SOMETHING AT THE MOMENT. this fic is an extremely heavy work so do read with caution and make sure to double (triple!!) check all the warnings before continuing. anyway, a friend and i were thinking about what would've happened to jake if he didn't join enhypen, and we could totally see him in the cs, physics, or engineering program at unsw or umelb. he'd definitely have his own apartment because his parents are minted, and he could have been an eshay. who knows haha. anyway hope you enjoy this story, which is heavily based on "14 steps to a better you" by lime cordiale!
p.s. i know this story is set in australia but pLS excuse my american spelling because i'm too used to writing in american english ;-; (mom instead of mum, color instead of colour, center instead of centre, etc.)
© orpheyeux 2022. please do not repost, translate, or cross-post my works onto other websites or forums.
i. that's life!
Summer vacation was a brief period of time that anyone who didn't have a full-time job looked forward to. It was a time of sunshine, beaches, and massive amounts of sweat for all the reasons the world could offer. For Jake, it was a delightful time of consuming copious amounts of ice-cold beer in front of bikini-clad women that played beach volleyball with equally muscular macho men. It would have been a tad bit nicer for him to have more time at the gym, but he was swarmed with self-inflicted expectations of maintaining a regular distinction or higher in a prestigious university. To venture into the gym as occasionally as they did meant sacrificing a good portion of time that could have been spent on immersing himself in advanced mathematics and organic chemistry. With the time he spent regularly attending parties, raves, and whatever occasion he could use as an excuse to drink more with friends, he had to sacrifice a jacked, Promethean body at the expense of his academic record. He was already struggling to maintain his current distinction, and if he didn't raise it to a higher distinction by the end of the year, he was sure that he'd lose the only thing that made him stand out from the rest of his cohort. This meant three things to him: no more parties, no more designer shoes, and no more spontaneous road trips to the next music festival.
Although he managed to get by with his current lifestyle, a new set of obstacles threatened his nightly routine. The first instance of disruption was when he was in his third year of university. Instead of having the usual clusters of house parties and pub crawls with his friends, he witnessed some of the wilder ones don smart casual clothing to attend internship interviews. Sure, they still had their share of fun, but each invite to his apartment was turned down with a "next time" or "not now." He understood that some of his friends were scheduled to graduate a year earlier, but that did not stop him from trying to get them to loosen up from their new schedules of collecting career-related experiences to polish their resumes. In hindsight, the only occasion as of late that fulfilled his criteria of fun was the graduation party for his friends outside the science and engineering program. After that, he realized it was now his turn to don the smart casual outfit and send his empty resume to every tech company he could find.
Even if he tried to return to the haze of blurry memories and the rotting stench of vomit across his apartment floor, he knew it was too late. He already turned twenty-two last month, he's graduating next month, and all his friends have either started working full-time or have secured a career path to work towards.
This was his last summer as a full-time student—and then, it's one step into adulthood.