#//i definitely want to do my part in helping people to customize their dash

[stevieschrodinger]

Part One of Rock Star Eddie and Baker Steve wrong number AU

Link to Part Two

Eddie's got dubious history with picture messages. Only a very small group of people have his number, considering he's the front man of a multimillion best selling metal band, he doesn't ever want his number to be public knowledge.

So yeah, picture message from and unknown number? Dubious.

Eddie's had enough dick and...vag...pics in his time that he, honestly, doesn't really want another. But when the picture is followed by a message, "were you thinking something like this?"

Well, Eddie's a curious guy. So, committing himself to the idea that this might be new number time, again, he opens the message.

To be confronted with a cake. A really fucking cool cake actually, it's got a car dashing around a muddy track on top with a big '5' in the middle. All of it looks edible, made out of...cake stuff. Eddie has no idea what it is, but it looks delicious.

"One layer chocolate, one layer red velvet? I can do any combination of flavours you want."

Well. Eddie isn't anything but impulsive and he was trying to figure out what the fuck to do for the 'quiet' celebration they were planning for going platinum. Again.

"I think you have the wrong number'" Eddie types, "but I definitely want to order a cake from you."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry, unsolicited cake pics are the worst 😉"

And Eddie can't help it, he laughs, and types back, "if I told you I wanted three tiers of the darkest, spookiest, cherry chocolate what would you come up with?"

It takes a couple of minutes, but Eddie's phone pings twice in quick succession, the first picture is of a spooky orange cake clearly Halloween themed, covered in ghosts and skeletons and stuff. The second is jet black and has a coffin on top that looks like it's leaking green corrosive stuff and Eddie nearly throws his phone in excitement. "That! The second one!"

"🤣 that's an old pic, I was just starting out then, but everything is edible, the green slime is made out of jello"

"Where are you based and can you make it for the 15th? I'll get a courier to collect."

"Sure thing, how many portions? And I need a deposit up front. I'll do chocolate ganache and cherry filling."

"Errr...like, 150? Maybe?"

Eddie sits and watches as the dots appear and disappear, appear and disappear, and then there's a pic.

It's a selfie of the most beautiful man he's ever seen. And he's standing in a kitchen, holding a cake pan. Suddenly Eddie's phone is ringing in his hand and he is panicking because beautiful man is calling him. "Hello?"

"Hey, man, it's Steve, the cake guy?". Eddie assumes he makes an affirmative noise because Steve keeps talking, "anyway, that cake pan I'm holding is literally the largest one I own, even if I did three tiers, no way will it cater that many, I'm a small business, you know, it's just me. I can recommend you some companies I know would do a great job."

But then, Eddie will never get to talk to beautiful man ever again, "what if you made like, three cakes?". He asks desperately.

There's a long beat of silence on the phone, "I mean, in theory, I mean, it might cost you more than-"

"I'll pay it. I'll pay double, for, inconvenience, or whatever-"

And oh no, beautiful man has the most beautiful laugh too. Eddie's fucked. He's so fucked.

"I'll raise you, two cakes and fifty muffins?" Steve laughs again, and Eddie laughs right along with him.

Steve grabs his phone when it pings, hoping for Eddie. It is Eddie. It's a selfie from the neck down, like always, Steve still doesn't know what the guy looks like, but Eddie's wearing a deep red shirt that he's clearly just dumped a whole cup of coffee down, "hope your days going better than mine, sweetheart,"

Steve sends back a selfie with a lump of uncooperative modelling fondant in the background, "that depends, can you tell what this is supposed to be?"

Steve's pretty sure it's wierd to talk to a customer every day, but he's started to find he's looking forward to Eddie's messages. Even when they turn flirty. Especially when they turn flirty, maybe.

And maybe it's not exactly professional that Steve's found a lot of reasons to call Eddie. He just, needs to get this right, and if Eddie wants chocolate covered cherries on the cupcakes, well, Steve needs to call him and check, right? Right.

Steve heads out into the lounge with flour on his nose and a mixing bowl under his arm, Dustin, Lucas and Max are sprawled on the couch, El lying on the floor. He can hear Mike and Will fucking around outside. He spoons up some cherry mixture, "hey will you try-"

"Shhhhhhhh!"

Well. Rude. Steve looks to the interview they're watching on the TV. It's some metal band Steve vaguely recognises, and when the lead guy speaks...Steve has to sit down. Because that sounds a lot like-

"So, Eddie," the show host guy starts, and Steve's knees would go weak of he wasn't already sitting down. He's certain his stomach has left the building. "Seeing anyone?"

Eddie laughs, says no, but the band mate next to him makes a show of nudging Eddie and sharing a look.

The host picks up on it immediately, "so there is someone," Eddie's still shaking his head, but he's got a shy smile on his face that makes Steve feel like he's melting. "Come on Eddie, give us something."

"It's not a thing," Eddie flaps his hands, "don't make it a thing."

"Oh it's a thing alright," the audience laugh, "come on, give us something!"

Eddie looks uncomfortable for a second before shrugging, "they, uhm, they make the most amazing cakes you've ever seen."

[insecateur]

do you have any tips on where and/or how to make blinkies? i want to learn how to make them but don't know how. have a good day btw :3

hiiii i will do my best to give tips!! o7

first of all if you want to get a feel for blinkie making without diving in directly i recommend using a site like blinkies.cafe which lets you just add text to premade blinkie templates! i think it's a good way to get an eye for the blinkies "aesthetic" especially regarding the actual blinking part, the borders, all of that. and ofc the size (which for the record is traditionally 150x20px!)

if you want to actually get into Real Custom-Made Blinkies, studying ones you like up close is a great idea because it'll help you see what works and what doesn't. obviously everyone will have different design sensibilities, but that's why it's always good to take inspiration from things that you personally like!

here are things that i like, as an example:

dotted/dashed borders that blink between two colors

shadows

outlines

pixel art

keep in mind that blinking can be upsetting to the eyes for some people! i always try to not overdo it, but at the same time, they are blinkies, so it seems kind of like a waste when they don't blink at all...

traditionally, blinkies include two things: a picture, and text. they don't always! sometimes there's only a picture, and sometimes there's only text. for example, this blinkie i made of lysandre only has his card art and little hearts. this is once again going to depend on your preferences. but for the sake of explaining, let's say you want one or two simple pictures, and some text.

i find pokémon to be a pretty easy thing to make blinkies for, because you have a large panel of pixel art to choose from! for example, i made this blinkie for my blog using one of the mini scyther sprites. a lot of them are animated, too, which is fun. i can't really advise you on what program to use for animated stuff because i use really old ones LMAO but i've always had a good time using ezgif! you can just feed it your frames and use the website to put them together into an animation.

the text imo is the trickiest part. the blinkies you find on blinkies.cafe use pixelated fonts, but i've had a really hard time using them outside of that context. it's hard to get them to look good imo, especially at the small scale that blinkies end up at... so what i've been doing is making my own little pixel art alphabet. it's very fun for me and i don't think it's as difficult as it sounds, so i definitely recommend it because it gives you a lot more flexibility imo. i handdrew the text for all of my PSS blinkies, as well as the aforementioned scyther one, and this trans rights one. i actually have the trans rights and PSS alphabets completed and saved in a file for later use in case i need them, lmao:

you can see what the process is like: i make a rectangle, draw one letter, and then copy the rectangle to draw the other ones at the same size and in the same style. it's very, um, vibe-based, i guess? you just have to figure out what looks good for your Vision. but i find it super fun... so it's easy for me to do, i guess...

if you want to see the scyther blinkies text closer up, here it is at 500% size:

uncapitalized letters are more difficult than capitalized letters imo, but i think i did an ok job! maybe i'll make a full alphabet for that one too at some point, lmao. for the "tumblr" text i just copied the style of the logo (hopefully that comes through...)

i'm not sure what else to say, so feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like! i think a lot of the other stuff is more general art/graphics advice, like color theory and the likes, which i'm not sure is worth going over LOL. but as a parting note, i'd definitely suggest not going overboard on the color palette. blinkies are pretty small at their default size, and too many colors will make them really hard to look at, let alone understand. in general, keep in mind the final size when working on something like blinkies, and make sure to zoom out periodically to double check you've got something readable!

and don't forget to have fun 👍👍👍

[rcreveal]

The Trouble with a Keen Manager-Ch 4

Ineffable Husband banter as Crowley applies for a job, Aziraphale does a good deed, and Crowley has to find bathing privileges as the extent of his loss of powers (thanks to the new Hellish manager) continues to be revealed.

“You want to hire me!”

The barkeep and owner of the Dirty Donkey looked around the ‘Help Wanted’ sign held in his face by a fist.

The fist and ropey arm were attached to a young bloke with a mop of unkempt red hair to his chin, but nevertheless, glaring at Dave through dark sunglasses with a determined expression under a two day beard. God Almighty, the lad was wearing a great kilt like he was born to it topped with a black leather waistcoat over a black undershirt.

“Why on earth would I want to hire you?” retorted Dave to the kilted apparition.

Which seemed to knock the bloke back, he dropped his head and arm, momentarily despondent.

Dave heard the lad mutter, “Alright, we do this the old fashioned way,” then to Dave with a winning grin, “How about a wager? I manage this horde,” the lad stuck his thumb over his shoulder at a crowd of impending customers, ”And you hire me as your new barkeep?” The cheeky bastard held out his hand.

Dave glanced at the crowd and the hand.

“If you can sort out this lot, you’ve got a deal,” said Dave, shaking the demon’s hand.

While Crowley was engaged over at the Dirty Donkey, Aziraphale closed up his shop for a stroll.  He generally strolled at unplannable intervals, all part of his long term success in not selling books to the public, but this stroll had a specific goal in mind.  Backtracking Crowley’s most recent walk to his shop, Aziraphale soon found the Bentley, parked in the neighborhood, but uncharacteristically bedecked with parking tickets.

Tutting gently from across the street, the angel looked at the sheaf of tickets under the windshield wiper.  A tow truck was just turning down the street with the vintage car in its sights, (the tow truck driver, after running the Bentley’s plates, had found that it wasn’t exactly registered, so he reasoned that it wouldn’t exactly be stealing if he were to tow it away and sell it to the highest bidder of his extensive underground network).  Aziraphale made a little shooing motion at the tow truck before walking across the street and letting himself into the car whereupon the tow truck driver suddenly remembered that the Bentley was very definitely registered and to a feisty gentleman.  He drove on, thinking it would be a good idea to let others in his circle know to leave this car alone.  Raising an eyebrow at the departing tow truck, the angel reached around to gesture at the tickets, evaporating them.

Patting the dash gently, he told the car, “You are under my protection.  I don’t know what Crowley would do if you came to any harm!”  The Bentley’s engine made a purring noise, and one travel sweet popped into existence. “You’re very welcome. Now, don’t tell him I was here!” With that good deed done, Aziraphale let himself out of the Bentley and continued his stroll in the neighborhood.

Dave had to hand it to the rough Scottish stranger, he knew his way around a bar.  The red-haired hellion charmed the old biddies from the Agatha Christie reading group, reminisced with the old gaffers back from their venerable association meetings and trash talked with the blue collar workers coming off their shifts.  Completely ignored the come-ons of the co-eds, serving them with an impenetrable professional calm, while timing his round of clearing up the empties with somehow deflecting a couple of toughs that came in to bother the young ladies.  He made every drink flawlessly and never once missed an order.   All while he made perfect change, mixed drinks and engaged with the public.  The lad was an answered prayer.

After the crush of people had filtered out and even the patron set on getting himself messily drunk had been sent on his way, Dave walked up to the kilted red-head with a look of grudging respect on his face.  

“Alright then, you won the bet fair and square.  You’re hired.” Dave extended a hand to the grinning youngster to shake.   “What’s yer name, lad?”

“Anthony.  Anthony Crowley,” said the young bloke with the unfinished look of one who hasn’t quite filled out into his shoulders, yet. 

“So, Anthony, rules are, you work your whole shift.  You don’t go home with the customers.  No drinking on the job. And I’ll fire you the second I see you do something out of line.  Come back this evening.  And take a bath, lad!  You reek!  The only thing dirty about my pub is the talk!” Dave said.

Combing his hair out of his face with his fingers and scrubbing one cheek with his palm, Anthony admitted, “I’m fair skint at the moment, so I’d appreciate a forward on my wages.”  

Dave reached over to the tip jar, handed it to Anthony, “You earned this today.  Be back here at 5 o'clock.”

Crowley poured the contents of the tip jar into his spog, and waved jauntily at Dave as he headed out the door.

When Crowley arrived back in A. Z. Fell’s Bookshop, he found Aziraphale at his large desk reading a newspaper with a cup of tea at his elbow.

“I thought you were fixing my clothes!” complained Crowley.

Looking over the top of his paper, Aziraphale remarked calmly, “The cleaning agents have to have the proper amount of time to work.  Did you have any luck with that job?”

Grumbling at the indignity of it all, Crowley replied, “Yes.  As a matter of fact I start tonight, but I need a shower.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, eyes back on the newsprint, “Then go back to your place and bathe.”

“They turned the water off at my place,” admitted Crowley.

Aziraphale let the paper fall to his lap.

“And the electricity.  Actually, I had to pick the lock to get in the last time.”

“Crowley!” 

“So it wouldn’t work for me to walk back there, anyway.”

“Walk!  I thought you drove over here.”

“Used my last miracles to drive the Bentley over.  Haven’t been issued any new one’s yet,” replied Crowley.

“You could always use petrol,” Aziraphale said reasonably.

“Put petrol in the Bentley?!?” Crowley said shocked, “Do you have any idea what that would do to her engine?”

“It might make her turn over,” suggested Aziraphale.

“I am not putting petrol in the Bentley and I can’t use my place to shower, anyway, so,” digging around in his spog to a rustle of specie and clink of coinage, Crowley came up with a tuppence which he held up to the angel.  “So I have payment for the use of your facilities.”

Aziraphale folded his paper and crossed his arms.

“My bathing facilities are certainly worth more than a tuppence public bath, Crowley!” 

“How about as much as a Turkish bath?  I’ve got a shilling in here somewhere,” Crowley replied, still digging.

“If you think that I don’t know how much a bath costs at the YMCA, in today’s money, then you had better think again!  You obviously don’t, but I’ll let you walk yourself down there to find out!” 

Crowley recognized that the angel was getting quite perturbed, and as he was Crowley’s best bet to get a bath, he didn’t know why his natural tendency to antagonize the angel was so present today.

“Ok, ok, sorry, sorry!  What do you think is a fair price to use your magnificent bathing facilities?” Crowley oiled.

Aziraphale gave him the look of one who is not to be gotten round that easily.

Then they got down to haggling.

Unfortunately, for Crowley that is, Aziraphale had kept premises for a very long time and not only had a better idea of VAT than the demon, but had paid his bills (on time, of course) as well.  Not only could he calculate the gallons per minute to his bath and cost to heat said bathwater, he could haggle like a Victorian Cockney housewife.

Aziraphale was saying, “That's the absolute best deal in the neighborhood for a week of bathing privileges,” hand out as Crowley counted pound coins into it, ”Now, if you're in need of housing, I've a spare bedroom and I can offer you a reasonable rate of…”

But Crowley snatched the towel out of Aziraphale’s hand and headed to the bath, saying over his shoulder, “I'll kip in my car before I pay you room and board, angel!”

Taking the view that he could clean his underthings and himself most efficiently with the undergarments on,  Crowley lathered up from toes to nose and sluiced off with as much efficiency as possible.  Clean and steaming mad, (he could still regulate his body temperature, so he figured he could dry his clothes that way) he stomped back down the stairs toweling his hair.

“Why do you even have a bed? I thought you said sleeping was inefficient?” Crowley complained to the angel.

“People don't bat an eye at a bookseller who reads books in bed, but they do get curious if I stay up all night in the shop too often,” answered the angel, not to be goaded. “Feeling better?”

“No! I am not feeling better! I'm feeling humiliated having to get a job to be able to do my job!”

“Were you able to think of all the things you’d need to do that ‘job’?” Aziraphale asked politely.

“Yeah,” growled Crowley.

“Well then, write it all down and requisition it. I find that several requests a day can really get your point across.  Do you need any paper?” The angel reached for a spare ledger.“No!  Forms are the only thing I have got in abundance!” unable to bear the angel’s smug looks any longer, Crowley stormed out the door in a flash of dark tartan.

Thanks for reading! Your kudos and comments make my day!

If you would like to read more, check out my Master List for one-shots and other multi-chapter Good Omens fanfic

[matthewsepicwriting]

“I can’t describe how good this coffee is, so I won’t”

that’s the original title so hell yes I’m keeping it

(Btw the ending is a joke, I thought I was funny asf back then)

A sigh escapes Norton's lips as he's walking through town "I need inspiration, there's no way I can continue writing if I stay cooped up in my apartment room.

Lately, Norton has been having a tough case of writers block, probably due to the fact he hasn't had much time to get out or do many things. College exams are coming up soon and he can barely keep his eyes open due to studying so late.

Norton stops at a small coffee shop, not many people are there by the looks of it. He sighs again and enters the small cafe. The atmosphere is nice, calm, and pretty quiet. Maybe he should come here to relax more often.

He finds an empty table to set his tattered old laptop, it's about time for a new one, but then again he's rather eat this week, bills are tough! Sometimes he wonders if his roommate naib even pays his part of the bills.

He anxiously makes his way to the counter. He's greeted by a short and pretty peppy kid. Fluffy, untamed hair, crazy freckles plastered all over his cheeks, and two different colored eyes, which is pretty rare.

"Hi! May I take your order sir??" He smiles brightly at the raven haired male in front of him. Yep, as expected, he's as enthusiastic as he looks.

"I-uhm, I guess the pumpkin spice latte?" He scratches the back of his neck. "Alright!!" The blondie beams a smile.

He watches Norton slowly make his way back to the table, then dashes over to his co-worker. "Lucky!! Ya gotta help me!". The freckled red head in front of him gives him a worried frown "mike, please quiet down".

"Sorry- but there's this guy I just took his order and he looks really nice and I want to get his number but I'm not sure-". Lucky covers the mikes mouth and quickly replies "slow down! I can barely tell what your saying!"

"Sorry, sorry. I want this guys number, but I'm not sure how to get it, you've gotta help me man!!" He shakes his friend. "Maybe write your number on his coffee cup? Sorry I'm not really good with this dating stuff" the red head chuckles nervously.

"Oh, not a bad idea, thanks lucky!". Before lucky can even think of a reply mike leaves in a flash to whip up that pumpkin spice latte. Mike nervously makes his way to the counter and calls out Norton's name. "I have an order for...Norton Campbell?" He looks around.

Norton hears his name being called and looks up from his laptop. "Oh, I forgot I even ordered something." He didn't really come here for the drink, he just needed somewhere nice to work, and It would be rude not to order anything.

Mike waits a minute then sees the man return. It was pretty rare and out of character for mike to be nervous, he was usually confident and peppy towards customers. He quickly hands Norton his drink "here's your order sir!". Norton takes the drink "thanks". He pays for the drink and sits back down.

Norton doesn't even notice the number on the cup and proceeds to drink out of it. Mike, watching from afar, sees the man not even take a glance at the writing. "Aw man, I thought I might have a chance, and I was really cute to" he pouts.

Lucky comes by and pays his shoulder "hey, maybe next time. He may come back, you never know!". Mike gives him a small smile and lucky responds with a wink and a thumbs up.

It's been two hours, and Norton had already completed five chapters! Not bad at all. He'll definitely come back to write more often. But it's been long enough and he needs to get home and have dinner. Norton shoves his old laptop into his bag and grabs the unfinished coffee, and proceeds to leave the shop.

…

Norton gets hit by a car on the way home and slips into a three year coma. He wakes up to see he's lying in a junkyard

[sithroyal]

        @darthdescent​: 37. How do you feel about tagging triggers? Do you tag them? How do you determine what is triggering content and what isn’t?

        I don’t mind tagging triggers at all. Even if something isn’t a personal trigger of mine, that doesn’t mean that it’s not a trigger for someone else and I always try to keep that in mind. If I don’t immediately remember to tag it, I do try to go back and tag it anyway just in case.

The ones I use are pretty generic as far as trigger tagging goes. A simple ‘trigger tw’ / ‘trigger mention tw’ is what I use. 

When I write a reply, I look through it while I’m tagging to make sure that there’s nothing that gives me pause. Even if I personally don’t think it’s a big deal, I still tag it the best I can anyway. Like I said, my triggers aren’t the same as someone else’s and that’s okay! But I still want to make sure that no one feels unsafe coming to my blog. 

If there’s the barest hint that it could be pertaining to a trigger that I’m aware of, I tag it. And, if anyone ever needs me to, my DMs and ask are always open and I don’t mind making a new tag specifically for their trigger. I may not understand why it’s there entirely and I’m not entitled to their story as to why it’s triggering for them, but if it needs tagged then that’s that.

[dreamedofyou]

Porsche & Smoking

I've been thinking about Porsche and his smoking habits ever since we saw him say he wanted to quit smoking in ep 8. I can't help but shake the feeling that it's one of those details to help us understand him better and showcase his character development (because why else would they have included that line, right?).

Putting it under a cut just in case some people feel like it's clogging up the tag/their dash.

The first time we see Porsche smoke is after he's had sex with a bar customer and I thought nothing of it at the time, apart from seeing it as just one of his habits (it was the first episode, so both of the main characters were still getting established, meaning it's not unusual for directors/writers to include a scene of someone smoking for no other purpose than to establish someone is a smoker).

However, the more episodes I'd seen, the more it seemed to me that there was a pattern emerging. Namely, that we see Porsche smoke after a stressful situation or whenever he's in emotional turmoil a lot. For example, this is the case in episode 2 after the apple shooting incident.

The first thing he does after the adrenaline wears off and his fear catches up to him is grab a smoke, which is very telling. It shows the audience that Porsche alleviates stress through smoking. Cigarettes help him calm down (which is not uncommon among smokers, at least those I know irl) and take some of that edge off. In other words, he needs a smoke to cope.

From this point on, the idea is reinforced in several of the scenes in which Porsche smokes. That time when he can't bear watching Pete and Ken beat up the man disloyal to Kinn's family in ep 3? The first thing he does after Pete takes him outside is indulge in a cigarette, and based on his expression and the way he takes that drag you can just tell he felt relief, like he couldn't wait to do it in order to ease his mind.

The bathroom breakdown in ep 5? Which is arguably the scene in which he's hit his lowest point so far, mentally speaking? He smokes.

Actually, throughout the entirety of episode 5 Porsche only ever grabs a cigarette when he gets emotionally overwhelmed in some way. He's clearly struggling during the scene where he tries to hook up with a random bar customer again. He isn't in the mood to do that when Yok points him in the woman's direction but he goes for it anyway. He tries so hard to convince himself that he can go back to doing what he's always done, that Kinn having sex with him hasn't affected him in the way it has. So when he fails, when he can't "perform" like he's done countless times before and the woman walks away, which leaves him with nothing but his distraught emotions, he immediately turns to smoking again.

(I love this image so much because it really shows the turmoil he's feeling in this moment.)

Now, all of that isn't to say he only ever smokes whenever he's stressed, because there are times when he goes for a casual smoke, but such is the nature of smokers. Sometimes they'll smoke just because they need/want a cigarette. Even during a few of those scenes, however, there's an underlying presence of stress or unease in his life.

(This is him smoking just before the confrontation with Macau in ep 2. Remember, Porsche has had a really rough time throughout the episode getting used to a completely new world and messing up a lot. So he was definitely going through it mentally.)

(The party in episode 7 was right after quite possibly the most dangerous mission Porsche has been a part of since working for the Theerapanyakul family, so letting loose with the help of cigarettes and alcohol after coming back from such a high-stakes situation feels natural.)

Anyways, I'd like to come back to the scene I mentioned in my very first sentence – the one that prompted me to start thinking about Porsche's relationship with smoking in the first place and write this whole thing.

The implications of him thinking about quitting are, imo, huge, because quitting cigarettes also means throwing away one of his coping methods, the thing that grounds him when he feels too on edge. So maybe, just maybe that's because he's starting to feel like he doesn't need to cope anymore. Whether that's because he doesn't feel as stressed/anxious anymore (he's been really happy and full of joy during ep 8 prior to the scene above) or because he's found something (or someone) that helps calm him down instead, it's all due to his relationship with Kinn.

(What does he do when he's deathly afraid of being haunted by Tawan's ghost? Smoke to calm down? Or call Kinn?)

The fact that he wants to quit smoking for the first time ever (as far as we've seen) indicates that he feels happier, calmer and in a much better mental state in general.

Too bad we all know it won't last. 🙃

[luventi]

GENSHIN AS PIZZA DELIVERY BOYS

note. shout out to my star anon for the childe headcanon and if you want to see the lazier version on these you can find them here and as always please reblog if you enjoyed it helps me so much!

cw. gender neutral, modern au, fluff, humor, reverse harem

kaeya: hates wearing his uniform properly. it’s just not him! he needs to be the most fuckable person in the pizzeria! zhongli used to tell him to button his shirt up but he’s so tired of it now he lets kaeya do whatever. besides it’s not like you mind getting a face full of his titties when you open the door for him.

zhongli: he’s the manager and he doesn’t even know how he got the position. he wants out of here as soon as possible (please let him quit)! it honestly beats having to deliver pizzas all day long, but he misses seeing you. one of these days he’s going to ask why you order so many pizzas and if he can take you out to get traditional chinese food instead.

diluc: only has this job because kaeya got a job and their dad believed it would be good for diluc as well. sadly diluc does not share his ideals. he hates working here and is always sent on bathroom duties because he doesn’t know how to smile properly (it’s not that hard diluc please). but his favorite part of the day is when you come in with your friends and point and whisper about the cute toilet bowl cleaner.

childe: the worst driver the pizzeria has ever seen. he once got a ticket because he was speeding to try and see you as fast as possible. it’s very obvious childe has a crush on you, because the first day he met you he grabbed ahold of your door, closed it, scribbled his number on the back of your receipt, then opened your door again with the most dashing smile he could muster and said, “hey, someone order a pizza with the cutest delivery boy ever.” such a dork.

albedo: works the telephone but absolutely hates talking to people so he just doesn’t answer. he’s the reason the pizzeria gets so much bad yelp reviews. his breaks are definitely the longest because he naps in the back room while listening to loud ass whale sounds or sometimes he just disappears and never comes back for the second half of his shift. the only reason albedo keeps working there is because you chat with him on the phone, he remembers your number by heart and always looks forward to it.

xiao: if childe is the worst driver the pizzeria has ever seen than xiao is an abomination. his road rage is awful and he makes the sharpest turns ever. which causes your pizza to get all kinds of fucked up in the backseat. you’d honestly would just go pick it up yourself if xiao wasn’t so undeniable cute in his uniform, it’s also really fun to see his red cheeks in contrast to his semi white uniform whenever you tease him about his horrible driving skills. you’re lucky he thinks you’re cute too or he would have thrown your pizza outside his car window.

venti: is not too fond of working minimum wage but he does like seeing you all the time. mostly because you have an adorable laugh (much like his own) but you also tip him very well! in the beginning he had to use his puppy dog eyes to get you to fork over a 10 dollar bill but now you make sure to save your extra bills from throughout the week so you can tip the cutest delivery boy ever. venti is much obliged, maybe he’ll stick around for you even longer.

scaramouche: probably the worst cashier ever. scara hates seeing the countless annoying customers come in and out throughout the day. so he takes it upon himself to get an extra break or two. and but this i mean he tells you “one sec” in the middle of your order and then walks away from you and the cashier so he can nap in the break room. this confuses you so much but you find it absolutely hilarious when he gets scolded by his manager.

kazuha: is the most chatty. unlike his coworkers he loves to talk to all the customers he gets and inquire about their day. especially you. you’re his favorite because you indulge him in his poetry whenever he comes to drop off your order. sometimes he stays so long he’s 30 minutes late to his next one! he personally doesn’t mind (although the other customer definitely does) he’ll receive a thousand scoldings from thoma if it meant getting to stare at how your eyes shine when he recites his poems.

thoma: most definitely the only sane worker they have. which is saying a lot. thoma has his employe of the month picture up where everyone can see it (this is like the fourth month in a row) and you think he deserves it the most because he always puts extra toppings on your pizza. the reason why they’re not out of business yet is probably because thoma’s sweet attitude and gorgeous face brings in the customers. truly the pizzeria’s pride and joy.

gorou: the reason why the pizzeria is almost out of business. and not because he’s rude or anything he’s actually very kind and calm! but because gorou gets really hungry on the job and always does this. customers start complaining about large pizzas become mediums but nobody knows it’s him. except for you because he decided to share his little secret in hopes it would draw you two closer and you can share a little laugh.

[tittyblade]

tumblr etiquette 101

a list that is nowhere near exhaustive, from yours truly.

First off, welcome! Whether you’re a twitter veteran looking for anything but whatever twitter is, or a new user just done signing up, glad to see you in our ranks beloveds! Welcome home. Refer to this quick tour to make sure your fandom experience (or tumblr experience in general) is a positive one!

Disclaimer: I know it’s long, but please try to read or skim through til the end if you’re new here! This is by no means meant to be a rule book (for the most part lol), only a guide to help you get settled easier!

1) Your blog

This is where people will see and interact with you, so put some effort into it!

Try to choose a name (url) that’s simple. You can see it as your brand, it’s how people will perceive you and remember you. If you’d like to interact with other users here (and not use the site just for the content) it’s better to have something short and sweet, preferably without spaces. (Of course, these are only suggestions.) Rest assured, you can change it literally any time you want.

Have a theme. Utilize the tool that lets you edit your blog’s color or the font of your bio! You can make it match your profile picture, or your blog if it has a theme of its own. Make it feel homey :]

Fill in your bio. People will be checking out your profile probably more often than you think. Don’t leave it empty! Put in any information you’re comfortable with sharing and isn’t too personal (like your age if you’re a minor, or other TMI that can be found on other people’s carrds). It’s always better to add a name/nickname people can use to refer to you by, but feel free to use your blog description to shitpost still.

You can have an intro post. More often than not, you’ll see a blog have a pinned post, a post permanently appearing at the top of a blog until you pin another post or unpin it. You can make one of those, if you’d like to introduce yourself in more length, link any other socials or a carrd, and show others visiting your blog how you tag things so it’ll be easy for them to navigate. Not an obligation.

Keep your anonymity and your safety. It should go without saying, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case. Your comfort, privacy and safety has the utmost importance. Don’t share any information you don’t want to. Don’t share your age if you’re a minor, or any other incredibly personal info. I’d encourage you to go by a nickname that’s not your real name, (blog name, your brand, remember?) since there’s safety in anonymity, and that’s lowkey one of the big deals of tumblr, but that’s up to you still.

Choose what you want to be visible. Your liked posts and who you follow are all things you can set to keep to yourself and hide from the publics eye, how handy! You should go through all the setting while you’re at it, set it to your comfort.

Side blogs are a thing. You can have multiple blogs that you can use for different things (see: different fandoms, art blog, etc) to keep them organized or away from your followers. Just remember that the replies and off-anon asks you send will be from your main blog, as well as where you follow other blogs from.

2) Interacting with others

You’ve set up your account, now comes the fun part!

Follow to your heart’s desire. If you care about others seeing who you follow, fear not! In tumblr, usually only two types of blogs keep their following visible to others: newbies, and big blogs using it to point people on other good blogs’ direction. Just turn it off, and go ham following people.

Customize your dashboard. Gonna mention just two things here: this is another reason why it’s really important that you follow blogs without sparing, your dash will collect dust otherwise; and you should turn off “best stuff first” in your dashboard settings, to have a better community here and all.

Follow tags. You can set it in your settings that posts with your followed tags appear on your dashboard.

You can check the og post for edits and context. When you see a reblogged post you don’t understand the context of (or don’t recognize the character in case of fanarts), click on the profile so it will take you to the original post. From there you can check the original poster’s tags to get the context, or see if there have been any edits made to the post, since when you edit a post it doesn’t update any past reblogs.

Send people asks... This is how you make mutuals, people! Do it off-anon if you’d like them to know your blog, or anon if you’d rather not! (You can still end your messages with a signature to show you’re the same person, -[name] is one example.) Send them nice messages, ask their opinion on something, discuss things, or just straight up shitpost lol. Go wild. The sky’s your limit and it’s definitely more than 280 characters.

...and let them ask you! You can set your preference in the settings, do it on desktop tumblr to access more settings tho! What you can customize on mobile is limited (like letting people ask you things anonymously, that’s only on desktop settings). In my personal opinion, it’s always better to tag their username (or a nickname you give them, if they’re a friend) on that post, since you wouldn’t want your interactions with your friends to get buried in your blog forever.

Comment on posts. If you have something to say but don’t want the post to appear on your blog you can add a comment. The owner of the post will get a notif for it, but for anyone else you need to tag them.

For the love of god, reblog. People will only see your liked posts if you have it visible to public and they specifically go on your blog to look at them. You like something? You reblog. It’s already hard for posts to circulate properly, if you don’t reblog them literally no one will see them. If not for anything do it for the artists. Just hold and drag on mobile to fast rb.

3) Your Posts

Finally here! Don’t be a lurker, post and engage!

Make use of “read more”. If your post is long, add it. That’s what you clicked on earlier to expand this post. On desktop leave an empty line and you’ll see three dots appear, and on mobile type :readmore: on that empty line.

Draft a post to come back to it later. Pretty self explanatory.

Queue your post. Whether it’s your own post or you’re reblogging, make use of the queue feature to a) not spam reblog and fill up the dashboard of people following you and b) keep your blog active while you’re gone. Mess around in the settings, it’s fairly easy to set up.

Schedule your post. Same as queueing, the only difference is you get to choose the exact time your post will go up. Handy if you want to schedule a post for certain dates like april fools, or 5 years in the future for some reason. 

Format your texts. You can do all kinds of fancy stuff here (that’s a link, try pressing on it). Twitter doesn’t have this, make use of it. Changes depending on whether you’re on mobile or desktop. (Desktop has less features.)

Check your stats. If you’re trying to understand the algorithm better or want to look at some pretty graphs you can get your data on that on desktop tumblr.

@ people in comments. You’ll get all the notifs when people comment on your posts but they won’t see your reply unless you tag them in your message.

4) Tags, and tagging a post

This is where my earlier statement “this isn’t a rule book” stops being applicable. It’s not a war crime to go against these, I won’t come chasing you (don’t take my word for this) but you’ll work up a bad rep. Just saying lol.

Do NOT crosstag posts. It’s really tempting to add unrelated tags to increase your posts’ interaction, I know, but that’s not what tumblr is about. Don’t be a dick and make other communities’ experience worse for them.

Always tag your posts with “crit/critical/discourse/etc” if it calls for it. There’s no exceptions to it. This is the reason you see people migrating to tumblr. Let people enjoy things.

Don’t main tag a critical/negative post. If your crit post is about “Thing”, you add the “Thing critical” tag, but not the “Thing” tag. People block crit tags if they don’t want to see it, don’t shove it in their faces by main tagging it. 

If you don’t want to see something, just block it. Another reason why people are able to survive on tumblr. You don’t start discourse, you don’t make call-outs, you block. You can find something for every community you can think of if you go looking for it. The worst of the worst probably won’t ever appear on your dash, but if you’re worried or feel the need for it, you know where the block button is.

Feel free to shitpost or ramble. More often than not you’ll see people rb a post with a comment, and their elaboration will be in the tags. The tags are only visible on your profile and the notifications of the owner of the og blog. Just a thing people do.

Reblog artists’ posts with nice comments in the tags! Commenting on a drawing is usually done through the tags (Not an obligation, again, just a thing people do. Feel free to add your comment on the rb itself if you’d want other people to see it tho!) and leave nice messages for the artists! It’s a win-win for everyone involved. 

If you have more than a single follower, always use the common tw warning tags. You don’t need to tw everything, but tw’ing some common things is the bare minimum human decency. Keep it safe for others. 

Tag a post “long post” if it’s really long. Pretty self explanatory. Don’t make people scroll through all that please lol. 

You can use them to organize your blog. This is more of a pro tip, if you’d like to not miss a post in your blog, cause they will start pilin’ up soon enough.

#Liveblogging is pretty fun. If you’d like to talk to people during streams, don’t forget to add the relevant tags still! Again, you won’t show up on people’s dash otherwise.

Whew! That got out of hand. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Check out blogs like @heritageposts and @hellsite-hall-of-fame to honor our past o7. @mcytblr-hall-of-fame too maybe :eyes:. Anyways, don’t forget the most important rule of them all:

Enjoy your stay! You’re meant to have fun on here while also making friends (if that’s your thing). Just be kind and respectful of others, you’ll get the hang of the rest! <3

[snackhobi]

this is my part of the rockin’ around the christmas tropes collab with @yeojaa, @underthejoon @ladyartemesia, @ppersonna, @untaemedqueen, @xjoonchildx ✨ MERRY (early) CHRISTMAS Y’ALL

summary: yoongi is your favourite regular. he’s patient, polite, and predictable, a-large-black-coffee-to-go-please, no cream, no sugar, thank you. rinse and repeat. the seasons might change, but yoongi’s order stays the same.

and then one fateful day in winter, yoongi asks about the weekly specials, orders a cup of christmas and sugary sweetness, and everything starts changing.

pairing: yoongi x barista f!reader / word count: 14.8k / genre: coffeeshop!au, fluff, dash of smut (NSFW)

warnings: slow burn, terrible drink concoctions, pining, miscommunication (kind of/reader comes to incorrect conclusions based on literally nothing), the tiniest bit of swearing, heated makeouts, oral (m receiving), I think that’s it

a/n: I have a lot of people to thank: thank you to my loveliest most beautiful wife @yeojaa for the beautiful banner 🥺💖 thank you to @morndas for helping me name this fic and suggesting some of the awful weekly specials featured within 🥰 thank you to @yeoldontknow for letting me have multiple meltdowns at her and for letting me pick her brain about working in the music industry, and for helping me with plot points I wasn’t sure about!! 💕

also thank you to @hobi-gif for helping me brainstorm the original fic idea with her; she hasn’t beta’ed this fic because I am TERRIBLE and literally finished this like an hour before posting. that’s on me and not her. I am a shambles without her indomitable proof reading skills; any mistakes are down to me, and I apologise for that. I’ve only read this through like once, sorry in advance, I’m literally formatting this while I should be getting ready for work

Being a barista isn’t all bad.

Like, okay, you’re on your feet for hours at a time, the pay isn’t exactly the highest in the world, and coffee beans have a tendency to end up in the weirdest places (how did you get the light roast in your bra?)—but it’s not entirely terrible.

Here’s a (totally not comprehensive) list of good things about working at the Paradise coffee shop:

The free drinks (y’know, for taste testing purposes)

The free food (you probably eat more than you’re actually allowed, but who’s telling?)

Your coworkers (like Taehyung, who is—yep—currently shoving a whole mini panettone in his mouth)

Most of the customers are pretty nice, too (you have some lovely regulars)

(If you had to be more specific, there’s one regular in particular that you really, really like—)

(Yoongi appears like clockwork every week. Just after the Tuesday lunch rush, the bell above the door will sing out its greeting as he steps inside, ordering the same drink each and every time he’s here—a large Americano, to go, plain and simple and unadorned, no room for cream or milk, no added sugar or sweetener.)

(Yoongi really is the perfect customer. He has been from the very beginning, a point of quiet in a churning sea of hot, sweaty people all begging for frappés and milkshakes, the hottest point at the very peak of summer. The queue had been growing longer and longer, out of the doors as the blenders whirred their way through a neverending cascade of sugary, iced blends; the counters were a mess and all the baristas were running around and everything was chaos and in had walked this guy, all dark hair and dark eyes and dark clothes, even in the height of summer—you were ready for death at this point, hands sticky with syrup and apron streaked with flecks from almost every drink from the summer menu, and you’d braced yourself for some terse words, impatience and passive aggressive comments on the long wait—)

(—and this intimidating man had just patiently asked for an iced Americano, calm and quiet and polite.)

(You’d fallen a little in love, then and there. Fallen in love with that simple order, quick and easy to make, and fallen a little in love with the dichotomy of the man who looked like nothing but sharp edges being the softest customer you’d had all day. There was nothing rushed about his motions, no desperate need to get his drink and get away, no anger at having waited for so long.)

(He’d been ready to pay, too, no fumbling with his wallet or money; he’d tapped his card, easy and breezy and all lemon squeezy, but he’d left a tip in change, dropped almost thoughtlessly into the jar. He’d collected his cup with the smallest upturn to his lips, a tilt of his head, and then he’d left, other customers parting before him like the Red Sea.)

(The only thing that’s changed over the months is that the iced coffees of summer have changed into hot Americanos for the cooler months, autumn and now almost-winter, warding off the chill in the air. Everything else is the same; his dark eyes and low voice and patient smile, small but ever present, pressed lightly into the surprisingly soft line of his mouth.)

(So, yeah. Yoongi is your favourite customer. Even if you’ve barely spoken, really, the two of you dancing through the same short script each time he comes in—the longest conversation you’ve had so far is the one where you’d tentatively asked if he’d like a rewards card, and after a moment of contemplation, he’d quietly agreed.)

(You like to think that you’re Yoongi’s favourite server, too. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but—)

(Taehyung had been stunned into speechlessness, because, to quote his words exactly: “I tried getting him to sign up for a card last time and I swear he just pretended he couldn’t hear me? He just straight up didn’t respond? What?”)

(—you know Yoongi likes you at least a little bit.)

Anyway. You’re getting off the point. Paradise is a decent place to work, the people are nice, and the building is pretty and airy and welcoming and warm, toasty and cosy in the upcoming cold of winter. It’s one of the things that keeps people coming back, that lovely atmosphere.

Another thing that people apparently love about Paradise is the constantly changing menu. It’s not enough to have seasonal menus, no—you need to have weekly specials, apparently, to keep people interested.  It’s like a gachapon, but instead of cute little capsule toys, it’s a random mix of concoctions that are hit or miss.

“Well, I liked the Peachy Keen Jelly Bean,” Taehyung says, around a mouthful of sweet bread, still chewing his way through the panettone.

“You’d be the only one,” you reply, swiping a cloth over the counters and crinkling your nose  at the pile of coffee grounds you gather. “Iced peach tea with blackberry and vanilla and cherry and watermelon syrup has got to be one of the worst things we’ve ever served.”

That had definitely been one of the misses. This week’s special, though, is far more palatable, if incredibly sweet—Crystal Snow, a white chocolate mocha with whipped cream, dusted with powdered sugar, and a crystallised sugar stick to stir in. Sugar on sugar on sugar, basically. (Your teeth ache just thinking about it.) 

But there’s always something so fun about making the winter specials, no matter how sugary they are; the smell of the sticky syrups, the swirl of cream to top off the cup, the dusting of cocoa or cinnamon, everything mulled in the sweet warmth of winter. Even if the drink you’re making is questionable, you get so excited about it, genuinely enthusiastic when you recommend them to customers, carrying everyone into the spirit of the upcoming holidays. You’d hardly describe making coffee a billion times a day fun—it’s pretty exhausting, actually—but you’ve always had a weird affection for the winter menu and the weekly specials alongside it.

You don’t upsell the drinks because you have to. You do it because you want to.

(You’re pretty good at it too. Not a flex: just a fact. Your customer service is on point.)

The only person you’ve never tried to persuade into trying something new is Yoongi. He might not be rude or short tempered, but he clearly knows what he wants, and you hate the idea of ruining the easy flow of his visits. You’re not about to embarrass yourself by asking Mr No-Cream-Or-Sugar if he’d like a drink that's nothing but cream and sugar. Asking about the rewards card had been nerve-wracking enough, even if it had been worth it for the genuinely-unintentional-but-definitely-not-unpleasant brushing of your fingers when you’d handed the card over to him.

(Okay. Look. Yoongi is patient and pleasant and polite and cute. You never thought that you’d crush on a customer, but here you are. He just… oozes masculinity in an understated, self-assured way that has you internally swooning. He looks intimidating and serious but when he smiles his eyes go soft-soft-soft, his voice a low rumble as he gives you his gentle thank you, and everything about him is just so… attractive. Even the way he holds his coffee is hot, fingers loose around the lid as he makes his way out of the café, your eyes tracing every motion as he goes. Like. Come on. Of course you’re crushing on him.)

(Just a little bit, though. Just a little bit. It’s just an itty bitty crush. A teeny weeny crush.) 

The bell above the door chimes. Your kneejerk reaction is to snap your head over to see who it is—but you hold it together, instead letting your head turn at a normal, natural pace. It’s just an unfamiliar woman, rearranging the tassels of her long scarf with one hand and holding her phone with the other as the door swings shut, and you deflate.

(... It’s a small crush, you swear. It’s not like this is around the normal time Yoongi appears and you’d thought it was going to be him. Nope. Definitely not that.)

As the woman lingers near the counter, eyes flicking between her phone and the chalkboard menu on the wall above your head, Taehyung finishes licking the panettone crumbs off his fingers.

“It’s Tuesday,” he states solemnly.

“I know?”

“It’s just past two o’clock,” he continues.

“I know,” you repeat, glancing at him quizzically. “You told me what the time was less than five minutes ago.”

“I did.”

The bell chimes again. This time, a gaggle of giggling girls come bubbling into the café, cutting you off before you can ask what Taehyung is trying to say. You go to flick your cloth at him before thinking better of it, not wanting to rain dark roast everywhere.

“Go wash your hands,” you say, just as the scarfed woman approaches the counter, ready to order. A bright smile splits your face, voice rising into its usual peppy Customer Service tone. “Hi, welcome to Paradise! How can I help you today?”

She barely glances up from her phone as she orders, asking for a latte macchiato and croissant, a distracted ‘no thanks’ when you ask if she’s interested in this week’s special. Oh well. The girls behind her, though, all seem incredibly excited when they catch wind of it; they all eagerly listen as you describe what a Crystal Snow is, your eyes lighting up as you mime piping the cream and dusting the sugar on top, laughing when they ask if they can buy extra sugar sticks to take home, because of course they can, you’d be happy to do that for them, would they like those in to-go bags? Yes, the bags are cute, aren’t they, the snowflakes are lovely, you agree.

Taehyung’s just finished wiping the steam wand when you give him the next order. You see the way his face crumples before his brows lift and his lips purse, pleading as he looks at you with big eyes, and you just roll your own eyes affectionately.

“Yes, yes, I’ll make them even though you’re meant to be on the bar, it’s fine,” you say, and Taehyung’s whole face lights up.

You’ve worked with Taehyung long enough by now to know that it takes him until at least Wednesday to memorise how to make whatever that week’s special is. And there’s not a queue, so you don’t mind taking over, pulling espresso shots and steaming milk and pouring everything together, puffing air in Taehyung’s face when he peers at your cream swirling technique. (No matter how many times you’ve tried to teach him, he’s never been able to get it right, usually just farting a mess of cream out of the nozzle and hoping for the best. Results are… mixed.) Maybe the flourish you put into dusting the sugar on top is unnecessary, but, hey. It’s fun. You smile to yourself as you give a small flick of the wrist over each drink, powdered sugar floating down like snow, and, done.

You don’t like to toot your own horn but the drinks come out Instagram perfect, each latte glass set on a tiny napkin on a saucer, sugar stick on one side, and you take a moment to admire your work.

“They’re so pretty,” Taehyung says, and your smile grows wider.

The girls all agree, cooing over the drinks in a way that only makes your smile grow even more, wide on your face. You watch as they squirrel themselves away in a corner, talking and laughing and nibbling their food and sipping at their drinks, pleased at the way their eyes widen at the first taste.

Yeah, it’s the small things that makes your time here good. Being a barista is a thankless job most of the time, as relaxed as Paradise usually is, so you try to appreciate the small things. Like having fun when you make a drink, for example. Making nice customers happy. (Having cute regulars that you can quietly ogle.)

Actually, on the note of cute regulars—

“Your 2:15 appointment is here.”

You tear your attention away from the table of girls at the sound of Taehyung’s voice. “My what—?”

There’s someone in front of the glass display, hunched as they slowly and quietly peruse the selection of pastries and food inside—and you realise with a jolt that it’s Yoongi. You have no idea how long he’s been there, so distracted with patting yourself on the back for making a few nice drinks; oh, God, what if Yoongi had seen your pleased expression? Do you look smug? You probably look smug. Great, now he probably thinks that you’re a self-obsessed clown, honking your nose like some sort of narcissist. 

“You’re spiralling,” Taehyung points out mildly, voice low enough that Yoongi doesn't hear.

His surprisingly perceptive comment snaps you out of aforementioned spiralling, and after shaking yourself off, you glance over at him. “Why didn’t you serve him?”

He shrugs. “He didn’t seem like he wanted to be served so I just left him to it.”

To be fair to Taehyung, he’s not wrong. Yoongi is staring intently at a slice of carrot cake—even if he’s never ordered any before—and it’s not until you move to your usual spot behind the till that his attention finally rises, meeting your gaze with his deep, dark eyes.

Your inner schoolgirl feels like she needs to sit down. Your entire stomach and chest is a looping mess of frantic butterflies after making eye contact with the cute boy who you’re crushing on, but you’ve got a great poker face; you’ve worked as a barista long enough that you’re good at shoving your real feelings down, none of your internal turmoil playing across your face as you smile. Customer service mode activate.

“Hi, and welcome back to Paradise. What can I get for you today? The usual? Large Americano, to go, for Yoongi?”

You’re a little softer than you would be with other customers, a little more subdued, dialing down how upbeat you normally are to match Yoongi’s level. His lips lift almost imperceptibly, the faintest smile playing across his mouth, and it takes all your strength for your knees to not immediately buckle. 

“Hi,” he says. His voice is soft and low, faintest drawl at the end of his words, and yep, just your weekly reminder that you’re enamoured with him. Cool. “Yes, please, that would be great.”

He already has his card ready, you know he does. He always does; card to pay, loyalty card to swipe, tip to drop in the jar, quick and smooth and easy. This is normally where you’d rattle off the price—as if he doesn’t already know what it is—but you pause, thinking about how intent he’d been on the pastry display, as uncharacteristic as that is.

“Did you… want something to eat, too? I couldn’t, um, help noticing that you were eyeing up the carrot cake?”

Yoongi blinks, wispy lashes fluttering. You can see the muted surprise that flashes across his face, and you wonder if you’ve misstepped, thrown off the usual rhythm of his visit. It’s an unusual step away from your regular script, an ad-lib that he wasn’t expecting.

“Uh, no, thank you,” he says. “Maybe… next time.”

He’s polite as ever, thankfully. You’re not surprised at his answer but you do have to wonder why he was looking at the cake so closely if he hadn’t planned on getting anything; you know he likes getting served by you the most, if the evidence over the months means anything at all, but you don’t think he’d stare at cake just so he would avoid Taehyung. You’re making assumptions based on the fact he just drinks black coffee and literally nothing else, but you’ve guessed he doesn’t have a sweet tooth. (The only time he’s ever ordered food had been two months prior when he’d asked for a single croissant, and nothing since. Taehyung still talks about the croissant sometimes.) 

Well, it doesn't really matter. If he doesn't want cake, you're not going to force it on him, and the rest of the transaction goes as normal. Yoongi hands over his rewards card, fingers long and knuckles knobbly and altogether lovely, pays for his Americano—made by Taehyung, cup wrapped in the sleeve that you’ve written Yoongi’s name on, black sharpie bleeding into the cardboard—and smiles at you both when Taehyung hands it to him across the smooth wood of the counter.

“Thanks.” He gives you that slight tilt of his head that he always does, and you smile helplessly back. 

He’s a gentleman, through and through, even if he looks as distant as ever; dressed in all black, his ripped jeans the only splash of lightness in his dark outfit. Maybe you’re biased, but no matter what he wears, he looks stylish, somehow. It’s something in his aura. All cool understated elegance and power. 

And here you are, in your cream jumper under the dark mulberry apron of your uniform, a flower blooming next to the name on your badge. All chirpy customer service, smiling broad and wide as you go through the same motions over and over with each new person that comes in. Sometimes you wonder what Yoongi thinks of you, as different as you are to him, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter—because he keeps coming back, doesn’t he?

“Have a nice day,” you say as he turns to go, and when he glances over his shoulder and says you too, smile soft and eyes softer, you know he really means it. 

(And if your eyes always trail after him once his back has turned, who’s telling?)

“You’re staring.” Taehyung’s telling, apparently.

You tear your eyes away from Yoongi, bell tinkling as the door swings shut behind him. “He’s my favourite customer,” you say. As if that explains why you were staring.

“You’ve barely spoken to him.”

“He’s my favourite customer,” you say again, emphatically. “He comes in, he gets the world’s simplest drink to make, is always polite, always leaves a tip, and he goes. Literally the perfect customer.”

 “Alright, true,” he says, as if he hadn’t considered that before now. “Cute, too.”

You sigh. A little wistful. “Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, he is.”

Taehyung opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something else when someone spills their drink on their floor with an unholy clattering sound, even if nothing breaks; without saying anything, both you and Taehyung raise your hands, eyes narrowing at each other.

"Rock, paper, scissors," you chant. Taehyung promptly loses, and the pout that forms on his lips doesn't disappear until he's finished mopping everything up.

(“Why do I always end up having to clean spillages?”

“Because you never win rock-paper-scissors. You always choose scissors, Taehyung. You literally always choose scissors.”)

The tradition of the weekly specials at Paradise is a weird one, truth be told. Each Monday whoever’s on the opening shift will enter the coffee shop and find that the board on the wall has been updated, the recipe typed up and laminated, waiting on the counter for the baristas. You all assume it’s the mysterious owner, who no one has ever seen, and no one even knows the name of, apparently.

“Someone has to know their name,” you’d said, once, back when you’d first started, only to receive a shrugs from everyone.

“I heard one of the old baristas say the owner’s name was Jackson,” Taehyung had said, and you’d just blinked at him.

“Huh?” you’d said, but Jimin had rolled his eyes and told you to ignore him, so you had.

This week’s drink is the Marshmallow World. As always, when you and Taehyung start your shift together, you read the recipe and follow it step by step to learn how to make it. Warmed milk, vanilla syrup, topped off with marshmallow fluff instead of whipped cream—not bad in theory, if you like sweet things, although it does pose one significant problem.

“It’s clogged my hole,” Taehyung says sadly.

You sputter on your own drink, desperately hacking your lungs out as you try to stop milk from going down your windpipe. “I’m-sorry-it’s-what,” you wheeze all at once, struggling for air.

Taehyung tilts his takeaway cup at you, gesturing at the lid. (All the mugs are still out back or on a rinse cycle so laziness had forced you to make do.) “My drink hole. It’s blocked,” he explains. “The fluff is getting in the way.”

So, yeah. It clogs people’s holes, apparently. But other than that, you have to admit it’s pretty nice, and if you drink it in the café (and thus out of a mug) then you’re fine. You just get into the habit of warning the customers if they order it to go and laugh about it with them and it’s all fine and dandy and everyone is happy.

It’s starting to get busier, now. The nights are getting longer and the days are getting colder and everyone’s starting to think about Christmas, which feels both close and far away, all at once. Close, because you still have presents to buy and there’s never enough time for it; and far, because the lights have yet to go up and Christmas songs aren’t dominating the radio yet and you have yet to experience the real winter rush. Students home for the holidays and families out to see Father Christmas and workers grabbing Secret Santa gifts, everyone desperate for something warm and soothing, hot and comforting in the face of the snow which has yet to fall. 

But there’s something in the air, that cool hush that lets you know it’s nearly here—the changing of the seasons, the burnt sunset colours of autumn melting into the iced blues and greys of winter. No matter if you prefer hot or cold weather, there’s something about the beauty of wintertime that’s undeniable.

And it’s a lot easier to sell something like the Marshmallow World on a day like this, the nip in the air almost solid, biting cold into the apples of your cheeks, nibbling at fingers that are so cold they feel frost-bitten. Once again, your genuine enthusiasm shines through, persuading people to give the drink a go, happy to add a shot of espresso for whoever needs it, desperate for caffeine to buoy them up through the day.

You’ve just finished laughing with a lovely old couple, wearing matching scarves and hats—awwww—waving them goodbye as they go to sit down, when you come face to face with Yoongi, blindsided by his sudden appearance. You’d been so caught up, once again, too busy giggling your way through the conversation with your other customers, able to persuade them to try one special to share alongside everything else they’ve ordered. 

“Oh. Uh. Hi,” you say. Your hand is still by your face after you’d given the couple a cute wave, and when you realise, you freeze. Flustered. Behind you, Taehyung is struggling to spoon the marshmallow fluff neatly on the vanilla steamer, making small noises of distress, but you’re too caught up in your own distress to really notice.

Once again, you have no idea how long Yoongi’s been there. You’re slipping. You’re normally aware of him as soon as he steps into the coffee shop. (You know, because you’re always aware of when a new customer steps in. Like any good barista would be.) Had he witnessed you enthusiastically waving your hands and talking about marshmallows and s'mores? Seen the way you'd grinned and laughed as you'd gotten excited over the weekly special, yet again?

Well, if he had, he doesn't seem perturbed at all. His usual smile is on his face, though you would swear it seems a little softer around the edges, almost fond. 

“Hi,” he says, and… that’s it. 

There’s no addition of his usual that would be great, and that’s when you realise you haven’t asked about his coffee. In fact, your fingers are still curled near your chin, almost like a claw. You clear your throat and let your arm fall to your side, fiddling with the tie of your apron. 

“Hi,” you repeat. Flounder for a second. Try to remember your usual line. “Large Americano?”

“Y/n.” Taehyung whines your name from the bar, loud enough that it catches your attention. “The marshmallow isn’t staying. Why do you keep recommending Marshmallow World? Why must I suffer through this torture? Every day I wake up and I make coffee—”

“Sorry, sir, one second,” you say, face scrunching in apology at Yoongi. 

“It's just Yoongi,” he replies, gentle, and your heart thuds in your chest. "You don't have to call me sir."

Your face feels warm. "Um, okay, Yoongi." You've said his name before, of course, said it dozens of times to confirm his order, but never like this—by invitation from the man himself, an acknowledgement of familiarity.

Taehyung makes another noise. Yoongi's expression turns into one of faint amusement, eyes drifting over your shoulder to your friend; when you turn around, you can see why.

The other barista’s managed to get marshmallow fluff all over the edge of the glass, on the handle of the cup, all the way up the spoon, on his fingers—everywhere except on the drink itself. It’s funny, in a sad sort of way.

“Wow.” You have no idea how he managed it, but you’re here to help. “Alright, go wash your hands, Tae. I’ve got this.”

The cup is a goner.  There’s no way you’ll be able to wipe off the sticky marshmallow. You’re acutely aware of Yoongi at the counter, able to watch your every move, but then you get distracted as you salvage Taehyung's attempt at a Marshmallow World. You just feel grateful that it’s a steamer so you can pour it into a new glass, not having to worry about layers of coffee and milk and foam; it’s a pretty easy fix. Good. (You don’t want to keep Yoongi waiting, as patient as he may be.)

It doesn’t take long to spoon the marshmallow on, whipped peaks in the sticky white, and by the time Taehyung returns you’re ready to present him with the picture perfect drink, not a single lick of fluff anywhere it shouldn’t be. You've got your hands on your hips as you survey your work proudly, and Taehyung sticks his tongue out at you.

“Witchcraft,” he says, and you laugh.

“You’re welcome,” you say. “Alright, shoo, go take this over to the table before they start wondering where it is.”

When you turn back, Yoongi’s watching you. Contemplative. You tamp down the flush that threatens to spill onto your cheeks, face burning, but before you can say anything, he speaks.

“Was that the weekly special?”

You blink. Blindsided. Yoongi’s never asked about the special before, never commented on the A-frame outside, the sign on the wall that sits next to the regular menu. No surprise there—why would someone who only drinks Americanos want to drink ninety-nine percent of the weekly specials you offer? “Um, yeah,” you say. “We’ve got the Marshmallow World this week.”

“Would you recommend it?”

You can’t help it. You light up. You love when customers ask for recommendations, and the fact that it’s Yoongi—whose blood must be made of coffee at this point—who’s asking about it? Americano Yoongi, asking about something without caffeine? Black coffee Yoongi, asking about a weekly special that’s nothing but sugar and sweetness? Something inside you switches on, a Christmas tree, all flashing lights and shimmering tinsel and excitement.

“Oh, if you like sweeter drinks, absolutely! It’s great for a cold day like today,” you gush. Maybe you should reel it in, far more exuberant than you usually are with Yoongi, but. You can’t stop. “It’s warm milk and vanilla, so it’s a lovely comfort drink, and we can add a shot of espresso too if you were wanting a little pick-me-up. And then you’ve got marshmallow fluff on top for some extra self-indulgence. We were meant to, uh, toast the top, actually, but we don’t have the necessary health and safety clearance for blowtorches. I guess you could do that at home if you really wanted to. Everyone likes toasted marshmallows, right?”

Yoongi hums, and you wonder if you’ve maybe gotten ahead of yourself. Oversold it. Maybe he was asking out of curiosity. Just because he’s asking about it doesn’t mean that he wants one—

“Can I get a Marshmallow World, please? Large, to go?”

—or maybe Yoongi is an official convert to the world of sweet drinks, changing after a lifetime of drinking unadorned, unadulterated black coffee. Holy shit. Holy shit? Holy—

“And a large Americano to go, too, please.”

(Record scratch. Freeze frame.  

Yoongi of-the-black-coffee is ordering his usual drink, and another. Both large. Too much for one person to reasonably drink before one of them got cold. He’s not ordering for one person; he’s ordering for two people. Of course Yoongi wouldn’t order something as heart-stopping as the Marshmallow World—not for himself, anyway. 

Mental maths. Two plus two is four, four plus four is eight; one large Americano and one Marshmallow World is two people. Yoongi and one other person is two people, a couple of people, a couple—

Oh, God.

A couple.

You’ve been crushing on a taken man.

You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes before you die? It’s sort of like that, but rather than remembering your life, you immediately recall every moment over the months where you’ve looked at him or thought about him with even the smallest iota of longing and you want to crawl under the counter and never come out. 

You feel weirdly guilty. Like… like you’re some sort of unintentional homewrecker. Even though, you know, you thought Yoongi was single and you haven’t made a single move on him and nor had you had any plans to. The guilt bubbles up inside you anyway.

All at once, you feel immensely, incredibly embarrassed. Of course he’s taken. There’s no way he wouldn’t be, as attractive and nice as he is, and you’ve just been sat here crushing on him like a big dumb idiot. 

You are the worst.)

You manage to squeeze this internal breakdown into the span of a few seconds. You’re grateful that you have your customer service face locked on, giving nothing away—from the outside the smile looks just like that, a smile, rather than the rictus of deathly mortification it actually is, burning through you like a wildfire. 

Yoongi seems none the wiser, just patiently waiting for some sort of acknowledgement of his order. Most of your brain power is still taken up with the mish-mash of humiliation and guilt that’s roiling through you. Luckily, though, the part of your brain that’s still in the moment (trying to drag you back to the real world, shame-faced as you are) forces you to move before things get weird.

“One large Americano, one large Marshmallow World, both to go.” You tap the drinks into the till on auto-pilot, dimly noting that Taehyung’s been pulled into conversation with the old couple at their table, having delivered their drinks and food to them. It’s just you behind the counter, no one else to man the coffee machines. “Let me get those started for you.”

Luckily, making the drinks means you can turn your back to Yoongi, oscillating through the five stages of grief as you fiddle with hot milk and coffee grounds and paper cups. You always take pride in your work—especially when it comes to Yoongi—and you take even more pride now, determined to make these drinks as lovely as they can be. His Americano is fairly simple, but the Marshmallow World requires a bit more finesse, and you lavish attention on the fluff, swirling it beautifully, even though you know it’ll stick to the lid anyway. 

(Okay, listen. Whoever this person Yoongi is seeing must be as nice as he is. They both deserve nice drinks.)

There’s something sweet about it, actually. Before the lids go on, you spent a second staring down at the drinks and the juxtaposition between them; black coffee and white marshmallow, bitter and sweet, night and day. It’s lovely, really, these two opposing things coming together. You wonder what Yoongi’s partner is like. Exuberant and bright, rather than his subdued warmth? A balance, yin and yang, opposite but complementary. 

(Isn’t that a nice thing to think about? Finding someone who’s different to you but matches you so well?)

You firmly press the lids into place, making sure they’re secure. The protective cardboard sleeve of Yoongi’s Americano has his name—the name you’ve memorised, written out countless times—while the Marshmallow World has a scrawled happy face, and an enjoy! on it, for this mysterious person who likes sweet drinks. You do sincerely hope they enjoy it. You really do.

“The fluff blocks the hole,” you warn, sliding the cardboard tray for both drinks carefully across the counter. “It’s probably a better idea to just take the lid off.”

Something flickers across Yoongi’s face, too fast for you to identify. But then he nods, lifting the tray up with equally careful hands. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. 

He’s always polite to everyone, Taehyung and the other baristas, but he seems to smile at you the most. He’s smiling at you now, curling at the corners of his lips, and you smile back, fighting through ten layers of embarrassment and self-inflicted shame to do so. Just because he smiles at you the most doesn’t mean anything. You can smile at people and not have it be weird; it doesn’t mean you return their ill-fated attraction.

Why, oh why, oh why.

By the time Taehyung returns to the counter, having escaped the chatty, kind clutches of the elderly couple, Yoongi is long gone. Your fellow barista finds you crouched down in front one of the cupboards with your head in your hands.

“Y/n?” He sounds incredibly concerned. “Are you okay? Do you have a headache? Are you sick?”

You let out a quiet noise, a mix between a whale dying and a hippo trying to swallow porridge, muffled into your palms. “I’m such a doughnut,” you say. “Just an absolute doughnut.”

Taehyung crouches beside you. “A glazed doughnut or a jam doughnut?”

Your hands drop away from your face as you think. “Plain,” you say, eventually. “Unglazed. No toppings or fillings.” A little sad and disappointing. It seems fitting. 

Taehyung puts a hand on your shoulder, warm and comforting. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You feel embarrassed all over again, thinking about admitting your (now-squashed) crush to your friend. It was stupid in the first place, crushing on a customer, especially as you’d barely spoken to him; Yoongi might be cute, and nice, but your crush was silly and dumb and you’d been silly and dumb not to think that he was already in a relationship.

“I’m fine,” you say. “Just going through it. And by ‘it’ I mean life generally, you know?”

Taehyung makes a noise of understanding, patting your shoulder. “Big mood,” he says sombrely. He always knows what to say, empathetic to a fault.

“Uh,” a customer says, craning over the counter to see the two of you. “Sorry to interrupt, but can I get a refill on my coffee, please?”

That effectively kills the conversation, which is good. Keep yourself busy and distracted. By the time you see Yoongi next week, this crush will be dead and gone and you’ll be fine. Just fine. Absolutely fine.

He’s dyed his hair.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, the café is full of people, and Yoongi has dyed his hair.

You’d spent all of last Tuesday alternating between all-consuming guilt and embarrassment, Taehyung catching you with your head in your hands in one moment and furiously cleaning the steam wand the next, channeling your tumult of emotions into anything that will distract you. 

It had worked. Mostly. You’ve had a week’s worth of time since, to get over this month’s long crush, your brain consistently reminding you that Yoongi is in a relationship, with someone who’s probably lovely and attractive and all around just wonderful (just like him). You remind yourself about this every time you find coffee grounds under your nails, or notice milk flecked on your apron, soured and off-white after a day of work; your life isn’t a meet-cute, and you’re not the cute barista who falls in love with the cute regular. You’re the tired barista who makes more cups of coffee in a day than most people probably drink in a year, and Yoongi is the cute regular who’s already in a long term relationship and comes to Paradise just because he likes the dark roast you use. That’s as far as it will go, because this is real life, and not a romance film or novel. (Even if you wished that it was.)

You’ve come to terms with it. Really, you have. But then he has to step into the coffee shop looking like that, his hair bleached so blond it almost looks white, silver hoops in his ears, and he’s still dressed in dark clothes but he’s wearing glasses, no, this isn’t a drill, Yoongi’s dyed his hair, he’s all light and dark, soft and sharp, and you want to crouch behind the counter again. Because he looks so good and of course he’s in a relationship because he’s hot, and you feel dumb for not having realised it sooner.

You can’t hide behind the counter, though. There’s a queue of people, all waiting for your attention and your time, and it’s still just you and Taehyung; none of your usual Christmas temps are back yet, still away at uni, hence the we’re hiring! posters that are up for all the customers to see (and mostly ignore). The seasons are changing and the weeks are passing and the really eager people are starting to think about Christmas shopping; you swear you don’t even need a calendar, able to trace how close you are to Christmas just based on the amount of foot traffic the coffee shop gets. You’re definitely hitting peak.

But it’s fine. You have this down to a fine art. You and Taehyung are both good on the till and scarily efficient at making drinks and plating food, dancing past each other with an ease that only comes with time spent working together and friendship alongside.

People aren’t ordering the weekly special as much, either, not today. You can’t blame them. Candy Cane Dreams is a white hot chocolate, flavoured with mint and coloured green, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles of candy cane bark and red and green drizzle too; it’s… pretty overwhelming. So it means you don’t have to take over for Taehyung from the bar, focusing on smiling at customers and soothing them after their wait, taking their orders and shuffling them along as quickly as you can. You keep a smile plastered on your face as Taehyung pulls espresso shots and grabs tea bags and heats milk, routine and familiar.

When Yoongi steps up to the counter, you’ve barely had time to mentally prepare yourself, so focused on serving everyone else in the queue; it feels like a slap to the face, a kick to the knees, but then you take one deep breath and exhale. Long, deep, slow, forcing air out of your lungs and thoughts out of your mind, and you smile.

You’ve been so careful up until this point, wanting to keep Yoongi happy, wary of misstepping—but he’s just a regular customer. You feel more confident, now, less worried about breaking this tenuous thing you thought you’d had; less worried about what you’re doing being construed as some weird, roundabout way of flirting, because. You know. He’s in a relationship, so it doesn’t matter either way. He’s definitely not interested. You can talk to him like you would anyone else. 

So you say: “You dyed your hair.”

And, just like you suspected, Yoongi doesn’t seem bothered that you’ve broken your usual script. “Oh, yeah.” He reaches up, touches his head, as if he’d forgotten. “I did.”

“It looks nice,” you continue, because it does.

He’s smiling back at you. He looks pleased; maybe a little bashful, even, as surprising as that is. “Thanks,” he says, warm and genuine. (The tiny gremlin of a crush that’s still lurking in your soul lets out a wistful sigh.) “Can I get a large Americano and a—” he squints at the board— “large Candy Cane Dream, please?”

(One plus one is two, Yoongi and his other half, the sugar to his coffee.)

“Sure!” Your voice is bright. “I’m guessing the Marshmallow World went over well?”

There’s a brief beat of silence, but you don’t notice, too focused on typing Yoongi’s order into the till.

“Yeah, it was great,” he says after that moment of quiet, and you smile. Good. You’re glad they enjoyed it. 

“I’m really happy to hear that,” you say, genuine and bright. 

“What’s actually in the, ah, Candy Cane Dreams?” Yoongi asks, and you laugh, leaning forward conspiratorially.

“It’s horrendous,” you say in a low voice, as if you’re sharing a secret. “Have you ever seen green hot chocolate before?”

You’ve never spoken to Yoongi like this, easy and light, and it’s… nice. He gives no indication of surprise at your sudden friendliness after months of barely talking. If anything he looks pleased, and at one point he even gives you a smile you’ve never seen before, wide and wonderful, flashing his teeth and gums. (The crush gremlin rattles at your ribcage like prison bars, trying desperately to escape, but you don’t give it a chance.)

“Alright, let me just swap with the other barista, he’s still not gotten the Candy Cane Dreams recipe down.”

You hear a suspicious crunch as you make your way over to Taehyung. He turns to you with a guilty smile, edged with sugar, munching on shards of candy cane while his back is to the customers.

“You’re terrible,” you say affectionately. “Go take over on the till, I have a special to make.”

Taehyung glances over, sees Yoongi making his way down to the collection point. “Huh. Alright.”

The Candy Cane Dreams recipe might be a questionable one, but it’s definitely fun to make (watching the white hot chocolate turn green makes you feel like a kid all over again, mixing shampoos together in your bathroom and calling them potions), and maybe you’re overly generous with the candy cane bark, giving Yoongi’s beau more to nibble on and enjoy. It’s not Christmas yet but you’re already in a giving mood, so sue you. 

“Here you go.” You slide the drinks towards him, the man busy reading one of the vacancy fliers, eyes flicking away from the poster when you appear. Your lips quirk up. “Looking for a job?”

You’re expecting a huff of a laugh, a small shake of the head, but he answers you seriously. “Not me, but I have a friend who is,” he says, reaching to take the tray.

You realise your hands are still curled around the cardboard; you quickly pull away so that there’s no chance your hands will brush. (You might have shoved your crush down as far as it will go, but you have to be careful with your weak, gooey heart.) 

“We could do with any help, honestly. Your friend is more than welcome to apply.” You glance over at the queue, which is small but ever present, and you know it’ll only get worse as time goes on. “And, hey, if you ever decide for a change of pace from whatever it is you do, we’d be glad to have you, too.”

This gets a laugh from him, a warm burst of sound. (The gremlin points out that this is the first time you’ve heard him laugh, really laugh, a little raspy and a little quiet and altogether lovely; you beat the gremlin back with a stick.) “I’m better at drinking coffee than I am at making it,” Yoongi says, eyes soft with lingering amusement. “I’ll leave that to the experts.”

You might have gone off script, but the nod he gives you is his usual one, that familiar tilt of the head. “See you next week?” His eyes are dark, dark and deep, and it’s so hard not to fall into them, to fall all over again.

“See you next week,” you echo, hoping the smile you plaster on your face doesn’t look as forced as it feels, as you struggle once more. Yoongi is just nice, okay? He's just being nice, but still. He needs to let a girl breathe.

(He needs to let the gremlin of her crush wither away, instead of making it threaten to come back as strong as before, fuelled by his smile and his eyes and his everything.)

(... maybe you’re not as over this crush as you thought you were.)

It seems like the we’re hiring! posters actually worked.

“I’m Jungkook,” says the new starter, all crooked smiles and warm eyes and thighs so thick they threaten to split the trousers of the café’s uniform, ties of his apron emphasising his small waist.

(“Good lord,” Taehyung says faintly.)

It’s the last week of November and even though Jungkook is still learning the ropes, he’s a massive help, and you know he’ll be a lifesaver over Christmas. He’s eager, learns quickly, and gets stuck right in, material of his shirt straining across his shoulder blades when he rips a bag of coffee beans open with his bare hands, rather than having to use scissors like you or Taehyung. 

Taehyung watches with stars in his eyes as Jungkook pours the beans into the grinder. You cover your smile by sipping at one of the espresso shots Jungkook has pulled—full-bodied and dark, rich in your mouth. 

“This is really good, Jungkook,” you say. He looks over, eyes squeezing into a smile.

“Thought it would be,” he says, and you can’t help but huff a laugh into the tiny espresso cup. He’s cocky and competitive, telling you that he’d never made coffee before but he was going to do a better job than any of the other baristas here. He’s too endearing to come across as arrogant, though, and you have to admit that the coffee is good. (Not as good as yours or Taehyung’s, of course, but still. Pretty good.)

Taehyung coos at him and reaches out to shamelessly squeeze his bicep. “Jungkookie is a natural barista.”

Jungkook’s cocky smile turns equal parts pleased and flustered. You continue to sip at the espresso as Taehyung moons over him, then the bell above the door rings, and the mooning temporarily is put on hold. (Temporarily, because Taehyung continues to moon over him for the rest of the shift, insisting on doing the bulk of his training, which is fine by you.)

It’s the 1st of December tomorrow, so not only do you have to clean after the café is locked up, you have to put out all the Christmas decorations, too. But it’s more fun that it is work, the three of you dragging the tree out of the storage room and decorating it with a menagerie of tinsel and baubles; Jungkook lifts Taehyung so he can get the star on the tree, wrapping his arms around Taehyung’s waist and hoisting him up effortlessly, leaving your friend with a pleased smile on his face.

Jungkook is new, only on his second shift, but he’s slotted in so easily. He laughs at Taehyung when he wiggles his butt along to the Christmas songs you've put on to play, and he helps steady the stepladder as you string garlands of snowflakes on the ceiling, even if he doesn’t really need to. 

He absently readjusts the reindeer headband Taehyung had unearthed from the storage room and proudly placed on his head. “Yoongi-hyung talks a lot about this place,” Jungkook comments, offhand.

If you’d heard this a few weeks ago, you probably would have fallen off the stepladder, inner gremlin grabbing your heart with both hands and squeezing tight-tight-tight. As it is you only pause for a moment, one of the larger snowflakes cradled in your palm, before you go back to your job of hanging them up. 

“So you’re the friend he mentioned that needed a job,” you say. 

“That’s me.” Jungkook grins, boyish and bright, and you laugh. “He really, really likes this café. Wouldn’t shut up about it, even before he told me that you were hiring.”

You can’t imagine Yoongi gushing about a café to his friends, but then again, he clearly is passionate about his coffee. Jungkook will know him better than you, having a real friendship rather than this patron-and-customer back-and-forth that you’ve had, so who are you to imagine what’s normal for Yoongi and what isn’t? You didn’t even know he was in a relationship, after all. You don’t know anything about the guy, really. 

“Well, we appreciate his custom,” you say. “I know Yoongi is the one who actually comes in, but you can thank his other half, too, and I hope they enjoy their drinks as well.”

You’re too busy hanging the garland to see the way Jungkook’s face twists. 

“Huh?”

“You know. Yoongi always comes in for his Americano and the weekly special for his partner,” you say.

You’re focused on stepping down the ladder without falling to see the expression on Jungkook’s face, nose scrunched and lips pursed, like there’s something he’s smelled that he really doesn’t like.

“Did he say that to you? That it was for someone else?”

“Hm?” You pause in grabbing another string of snowflakes, glancing up. “Oh, no, I just worked it out, you know? Yoongi is a religious coffee drinker, why else would he order something that’s basically hot sugar water? I think it’s cute,” you add, belatedly. “That he always comes in to grab something for them, too.” 

(You wish you had someone to do that for you.)

There’s a beat of silence. Jungkook’s holding the stepladder, ready to move it, staring at you in a way that’s weirdly intense. “I see,” he says, like that isn’t weird or mysterious at all.

Then he drags the stepladder’s rubber feet across the floor with such a loud noise that Taehyung startles, bauble falling out of his hand and shattering. Jungkook, of course, profusely apologises and insists on cleaning it up—but not before making sure Taehyung is okay, of course, grabbing his hands and looking over them, as if the bauble had broken in his palms and not the floor. 

Taehyung looks immensely pleased. You just smile quietly to yourself, roll your eyes lightly, and go back to hanging snowflakes as Jungkook speaks to Taehyung, soft and low.

You think your favourite thing about training a new starter is witnessing their reaction to the weekly special.

“So,” Jungkook says, slowly. “You put in the whole gingerbread man—gumdrops and icing and all—and just blend it?

“Yep.” Taehyung’s reply is cheery. “Straight in and whizz it all up.”

This week, it’s You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Frappé which is a) probably the longest name known to mankind and b) probably the most questionable name known to mankind and c) who orders a frappé in December?

These thoughts are clearly playing across Jungkook’s face as Taehyung coaxes him to drop the gingerbread man into the blender, and you’re too busy enjoying the consternation on Jungkook’s face to notice someone stepping up to the counter—until they clear their throat, that is, and you all turn. 

“Hi,” Yoongi says.

“Oh! Hi,” Taehyung says.

“Hyung! Look!” Jungkook says.

“Jungkook, wait—” you say.

“Whirr,” the lidless blender says.

It’s chaos. Frappé ends up everywhere, splattered over the counter and the floor, splashed across the wine-red aprons of both of your fellow baristas, as close to the blender as they were—saving you from any of the sugary fallout, unwitting human shields.

There’s a beat of silence, where you all stare at each other—

And then Yoongi laughs.

You’ve never seen Yoongi laugh this loudly, eyes squeezed so hard you wonder if he can even see, almost cackling as he laughs at Jungkook’s expression, joyful and loud and free. It’s another dimension to him, another new part you witness as Jungkook wipes gingerbread and ice off his face and Taehyung stares at the mess spattered across his hands and arms.

It makes you think of a paper crane. Yoongi is this unfinished thing in your mind, each new thing you learn about him another fold that you add, a flat sheet of paper turned into something entirely and wholly new. You wish that it weren’t so alluring, watching it come together, finding out more and more about this man you’ve technically known for months, but only recently started to get to know.

(You wish that it wasn’t so easy to keep falling for him.)

Once the counter is cleaned, both Jungkook and Taehyung retreat to replace their aprons, leaving you—once again—alone with Yoongi. He’d stopped laughing to tease Jungkook, to gently rib him, but you can see the smile that’s etched on his face, the echoes of mirth written across all his features.

“We usually train the baristas to keep the lid on, I swear,” you say, and Yoongi’s face splits into another smile.

“I was going to say that it’s an unorthodox blending technique,” and you can’t help but smile back at this, even if you’ve been trying not to laugh. Professionalism barely wins out, your lips trembling as you try to hold your giggling back, but Yoongi spots it anyway, looking pleased, like he’s accomplished something by getting you to (nearly) laugh.

You’re not laughing when you have to make one of the special frappés, though. You stare at the gingerbread man as you hold him above the blender, at his cheery iced face and his cute little buttons (not the gumdrop buttons), and brace yourself to drop him.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper, and let him go, before quickly slamming the lid on top and turning the blender on so you don’t have to look at the betrayal you’ve just committed. 

When you turn, Yoongi has an expression of sympathy on his face; for you or the gingerbread man, you can’t tell, but his face smooths the second he notices you looking at him, blinking innocently, as if there’s nothing unusual going on. It’s disarming, seeing that expression on his face, when you’d gotten used to seeing him act more reserved, but it’s cute.

(It is cute, whether you’re crushing on him or not. It’s just a statement of fact, okay? It’s nothing more than that. Even if that tiny gremlin of a crush still lives in your chest, scuffing its feet against your heart, reminding you of its presence when you least need it.)

(It digs its heels in when you put the frappé and Americano side by side, nestled snug in their cardboard tray. You slide it towards Yoongi and you’re a little too slow, fingers brushing his when he reaches for them; you’re surprised by how quickly he moves, how eager he seems to be reaching for his order, fingertips dragging across the back of your knuckles, and the gremlin kicks your heart, pulse rising just at that glancing touch. Even if you know it’s fruitless, useless, you can’t help but like Yoongi anyway.)

(“See you next week,” he says, and you can’t do anything but smile helplessly back.)

You normally love snow. You love waking up to the sight of it, pure and pristine white, adding another dimension to your familiar world—you love snowball fights and snowmen and snow angels, even if it all leaves you feeling cold, chilled right to the bone, nose running and hands freezing. The best part about winter is getting warm again, the season of throw blankets and hot water bottles, knitwear and scarves, tea and hot cocoa, all cosy and lovely and wonderful.

It’s a bit different when you have to work all day, though. You watch as the snow on the streets outside is threatened by the spray of salt and a thousand spinning car wheels and busy feet, ice turned to slush water; for now the snow is winning, though, and judging from the weather forecast, you think that’ll be the case for the rest of the day. You hope it lasts through to tomorrow, too; by the time you get home you’ll be too tired and it’ll be too dark to play in the snow, and it leaves you feeling disappointed and sad. 

(Winter is lovely but it can be a hollow season, too, something about the leafless trees and fogged windows making everything feel like an empty dream.)

At least Paradise is warm, even if you’re cooped up inside, safe from the still-falling snow that keeps trying to turn the world into an untouched, frozen wonderland. It’s quiet in the coffee shop today. Only the bravest of people have ventured out into the not-a-blizzard-but-basically-a-blizzard, plastered against radiators and putting drinks to their faces, letting hot steam heat their cold cheeks.

It’s why you’re both surprised and unsurprised when Yoongi appears, bell chiming above his head as the door swings shut and he stamps his feet on the front mat, knocking snow off his boots. He somehow looks disgruntled and soft all at the same time, a royal blue beanie on his head forcing his fringe down to sit messily over his eyes, bundled up warm even if his face is scrunched up and his cheeks are red from the cold.

“I hate cold weather,” he tells you once he reaches the counter, gloves peeled off his fingers so he can reach for his wallet, his nose tinged pink as he sniffs.

You proffer him a box of tissues. “You look like you need it,” you say gently, and he smiles at you, a warm hearth in the cold winter.

“Thank you.” His voice is equally as gentle as yours, and something aches in your chest.

It’s just you behind the counter right now, so you take Yoongi’s order and make the drinks too—one large Americano and one large Latteggnog (a basic latte made with eggnog instead of milk, rich and thick and creamy), this week’s special: everyone’s favourite Christmas drink, but with a twist of coffee. 

The quiet gives you time to think. Jungkook and Taehyung are out back, the older barista coming up with the most ridiculous excuses to take them away from the counter; you don’t mind that they’re taking the time ‘counting the coffee beans’, as deserted as the café is. 

The café is practically empty and Yoongi hates the cold but here he is, venturing into the ice and snow to get this person he cares about the drink they want, because they’re that special to him. (You hope they realise how lucky they are.)

You’re normally okay being single. Don’t really think about it. But there’s something about today, this moment, that has you reflecting; Taehyung has this budding thing with Jungkook, Yoongi has this steady thing with his love, and here you are, by yourself, alone. It’s hard to summon up your usual energy, going through the motions as you make the drinks. You tilt your head forward, dusting nutmeg on the eggnog latte, watching the way the sprinkle of spice settles delicately and softly in the foam. No flourish, no flick of the wrist, not today.

(There’s two cups in front of you now, but later, when you’re home, there’s just going to be one. Yours. Yours, and no one else’s.)

(When you get home, you’re going to do what any self-respecting single person would do: order too much takeaway, rewatch The Good Place, get emotional over Eleanor and Chidi’s relationship—they’re so different but they’re so perfect for each other, why can’t you have that?—mope for a bit, rewatch The Princess Bride, get emotional over Westley and Buttercup—where’s your cute farmboy who saves you from an evil prince?—mope a bit more, before finally climbing into bed and hugging a pillow to your chest in the space of having someone else there. You know. Perfectly normal single person things.)

When you turn to Yoongi, drinks ready and raring to go, you’ve forced a Customer Service Smile onto your face. They say that just the act of smiling makes you happier, right? Maybe if you smile hard enough, you’ll cheer up, chasing away this sudden sadness that lingers in the back of your throat, scratching at your lungs like black ice.

“Here you go!” Your voice seems too loud for the quiet hush of the café, but you roll with it anyway. “Enjoy your drinks!”

Yoongi takes them from you, hands carefully cupped around the tray, but his eyes don’t leave your face. He doesn’t return your smile, as convincing as it should be (even Taehyung struggles to tell between your real smile and your work smile, sometimes); he stands for a moment, looking at you.

You think he’s about to say something when he clearly thinks better of it. He tilts his head, like he always does, but you’d swear his expression is tinged with concern. “Thanks,” he says. Pauses. “The roads are really icy. Get home safe, okay Y/n?”

Blink, blink. Your eyelashes flutter. You suddenly realise that he’s never said your name out loud, never had a need to, even if he must have known it all along from the badge on your chest. It sounds so good in his mouth, soft and safe.

 “Oh,” you say, slow with surprise. “Thank you. I will. You, too.”

Yoongi nods again, as if to himself, before he turns to go.

He stops one more time before he goes. He stands at the open door, glances over his shoulder before he steps out, dark eyes meeting yours, as if checking that you’re still there, still tethered to the ground. Seems satisfied when he finds that you are. He gives you one last smile, all soft around the edges—that’s something you know intimately about Yoongi, that he’s soft through and through, even if he can look sharp, as cold as the ice outside—and then he goes, back into the falling snow to deliver a steaming sip of warmth into the hands of the person he loves.

(Your heart aches.)

It’s the week before Christmas. The whole world has that feeling it always does at this time of year—excited and bright, if a little frantic, the hanging lights in the city a backdrop to people’s last minute shopping, their breaths pluming out into the air as they rush around in the cold. The whole world feels full of life, that final push towards the end of the year; the hearth fire of Christmas before that weird in between before the new year, that held breath of potential, before the clock ticks over and the world is thrown into the next year.

Paradise has been busy. It’s like summer, only instead of sundresses and shorts, everyone is in knitwear and scarves, shivering as they wait to be served, desperate for a drink to warm them up, something to eat to fill their bellies. You spend more time in the coffee shop than you do at home, pulling overtime shifts to help your fellow baristas out—everyone thinks Christmas is a time of relaxation and coming together, but it doesn’t feel like that when you work in a customer facing job, oh no. It’s just non-stop busyness and being rushed off your feet.

(You’d barely had a chance to speak to Yoongi, café full when he’d stepped in, your pace frenetic as you’d danced around behind the counter with Taehyung and Jungkook; you’d slid his drinks towards him, his Americano and the special, and maybe your smile had looked more harrowed than you thought because he’d caught your hand and squeezed it.

“I hope you get a chance to rest over Christmas,” he’d said, concerned and sincere, as you’d stood in stunned silence, not expecting that almost-intimate touch, gentle against your skin.

“I will,” you’d said eventually. Yoongi had seemed to suddenly realise he was still touching you, fingers clasped around yours, and he’d withdrawn quickly, giving you a smile that felt like a whispered secret, before leaving you to deal with the ever-growing queue.)

Suffice to say, it’s been a long week, and you’re tired, and your feet hurt after all the running around you’ve been doing, and you just want to go home. You just need to finish the close, need to finish setting everything up for the open tomorrow, need to finish cleaning everything, and then you can get some sleep.

At least, that’s what you thought. Instead, you’re standing across from Jungkook and staring at him incredulously. You can feel a headache coming on.

“Wait.” You pinch the bridge of your nose. “What do you mean, we need to deliver some coffee?”

You don’t know if Jungkook is being deliberately obtuse, but he just stares at you as if you’re the one talking nonsense right now, and not him. “We have a customer order to deliver,” he says.

“Yes, I gathered that,” you say. “I just mean, why did no one tell me sooner?”

Paradise doesn’t do deliveries, as such. You cater for events, and you technically do deliveries then, but it’s less ‘one coffee to go’ and more ‘enough sandwiches and pastries and bagels and coffee to feed an entire office’. It’s not that you can’t bring someone their order directly, it’s more that you just… don’t.

“Taehyung took the order,” Jungkook says, as if that explains everything.

You pinch the bridge of your nose again. You can’t ask Tae about it, the other man having had to leave just as you’d been about to flip the sign to closed (‘Jimin says Tannie peed in his shoes again! I have to go clean it up! I’m so sorry, I swear I’ll cover a close for each of you next time!’), so it’s just you, and Jungkook, and the slip of paper on the counter between you. You’ve worked with Taehyung long enough to trust his judgement and his decisions, as inexplicable as they might seem sometimes, but you do think it’s weird that he’s taken this delivery on board.

“It’s not too far from here,” Jungkook adds, peering at the address on the paper. “It won’t take long.”

“We have to finish closing, Jungkook,” you say. 

He shrugs casually, carelessly. “I’ll do it, I don’t mind. You can just do the delivery and then go home straight after, it’s whatever.”

“It’s not whatever,” you mumble. “Why can’t you deliver it?”

“You’re the senior barista, you’re a better representative of the brand,” he says, and you have no idea where he pulled that from. (You blame Jimin. You know they’ve had shifts together, and Jimin is too smooth-talking for his own good.)

As much as you want to argue, you can’t help but cave, because the prospect of getting home early is one that you’re not about to sniff at. (You’d worry that Jungkook would get home late, what with the amount of prep he still needs to do for tomorrow, but you half suspect that Taehyung will reappear at some point, anyway.) You’re too tired to want to argue. “I just want to say this is a one off, and normally we cater for events, we’re not really a delivery service, okay?”

“Duly noted.”

It’s a simple enough order, anyway—it’s just two drinks. The first is a large quad shot latte with caramel and toffee syrup, extra whipped cream and cinnamon on top (something you’d definitely order, you think, indulgent and milky and with enough caffeine to kick you up the ass). Jungkook dutifully cleans as you start the second drink. The special this week is far, far less sweet than normal; a Rudolph the Red-eyed Reindeer: a simple red eye with a pinch of holiday spice, coffee with an extra espresso shot and topped with cinnamon and nutmeg. You take in a deep breath, swallowing down the warm smell and letting it flow through you before you double check the details on the note.

It takes you a second as you squint at the address, wondering why it looks familiar—and then you pause. This is Yoongi’s office, you think to yourself, and it feels a little like there’s an apricot pit sitting heavy in your stomach, heavy and hard. Paradise had catered a breakfast for them last week, and it hadn’t been on your shift and so you hadn’t gone, but—you’d heard enough about it from Jimin, the type who gets to know everyone and everything the second he walks in the door. You’d heard about the team that Yoongi manages, found out that Yoongi works in music, in artist and repertoire, and when you’d had the chance to Google exactly what that meant, you’d been bowled over. He has such a complex, high skilled job, and here you are, struggling to get a job with your degree, hence the barista thing. (Thanks, economy.)

You hastily shuffle past the address, trying to ward off your sudden sense of inadequacy, focusing on the name instead. What sort of name is Suga? you think to yourself, and then shrug. Probably one of the workers had enjoyed the breakfast the other week and was still hanging around before going on holiday for Christmas, or something.

“Alright, I’m off.” You’re ready to advance into the cold outside: coat on, scarf looped around your neck and hat secure on your head, cardboard tray of drinks clutched in your hands. “If you need help closing, just call me and I’ll come back, okay?”

“I won’t, but, thanks,” Jungkook says, equal parts self-assured and reassuring. “Don’t fall on your ass!”

It is icy outside, the entire world a winter wonderland, beautiful but cold and daylight long gone; snow drifts slowly from the sky above, dusting your shoulders and the top of your hat, flakes caught so softly by the weave of your clothes. It’s the kind of day that’s perfect spent indoors, curled up with the people you love, warmed through and through—and here you are, picking your way across the pavement slush to deliver a coffee to someone. (You’re not even getting paid for this.)

At least it’s not too far, really, just a few blocks away. The building is small, which is a plus, because it means you won’t have multitudes of rooms and offices to trawl past to get to your destination. The receptionist is more than helpful, too, when you say that you have a delivery for Suga; she gives you exactly directions and then she smiles at you, pleasant and pretty and lovely, and that gremlin that’s still clinging desperately onto your feelings for Yoongi whispers: what if this is Yoongi’s girlfriend? She’s beautiful.

Shut up, you think, before smiling back and thanking her, and heading on your way.

This close to Christmas you’d think that the building would be almost empty, but you’d be wrong. It’s not a buzzing hive of activity but there are still people walking around, speaking behind closed doors or laughing through open ones, decorations and tinsel hanging from the ceiling. Up ahead you see a someone come out of a room, shutting the door behind them before they walk in your direction. It’s a man who looks like he’s just stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine and as you pass in the corridor he pauses, raising his eyebrows at you. Not suspicious, just surprised.

“Uh, I have a coffee for Suga,” you say without prompting, as if he was about to accuse you of some sort of nefarious scheme and your coffee delivery is the only thing saving you from that.

“Oh,” mister-model-handsome says, suddenly smiling widely, like this is all perfectly normal and not weird at all. He’s got some of the poutiest lips you’ve ever seen. “You’re nearly there, he’s just down the corridor and on the right. Have fun!”

“Uh, you too?” you reply. (Is he Yoongi’s boyfriend? He’s tall and broad shouldered and incredibly attractive, with the type of smile that makes people’s hearts race, and Yoongi definitely deserves someone like that.)

Your destination seems to be the office the (probably) model just came out of. You look around the corridor, which seems to be deserted now, the hubbub of people elsewhere in the building. You knock quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush that’s filled the air around you.

A beat. Then: “Come in,” someone says, voice muffled through the door.

It swings open easily at your touch. You stand on the threshold, mouth open around the announcement of your delivery when the words die on your lips.

Yoongi’s there, sitting behind a desk and his head bowed as he scribbles something in a notebook. He doesn’t look up. “Shut the door,” he says. Dumbstruck, you do just that, and it’s not until the door’s quietly clicked shut that he starts to raise his head. “Hyung, I already said that I don’t need to eat—”

And then he spots you standing there.

He stops mid-sentence, mouth open, eyes widening. He looks as shocked as you feel, utterly taken aback and agog, and even now you can’t help but notice how good he looks. He’s in a black button up, sleeves rolled to the elbow and top button undone, revealing the pale skin of his collarbones. It’s another juxtaposition, the Yoongi that you’re familiar with (an aura of effortless authority and attractiveness) in a place you don’t know at all, completely professional, his desk neat and the entire space put together. There’s a tastefully decorated tree in the corner but it doesn’t throw off the balance of the room at all. 

“Uh.” You cough lightly. “I have… a delivery… for Suga?”

Yoongi stares at you.

“Is this… not the right room? I can go,” you mumble, gesturing over your shoulder with a thumb.

This seems to snap Yoongi out of whatever thoughts he was having as he shakes his head. “No, this is… Suga’s office,” he says. “I just didn’t order any coffee.”

You open your mouth. Shut your mouth. You don’t have an Americano on the tray, but he’d probably like the red eye, coffee with extra coffee, no sugar or cream. Just a little pinch of spice. 

“Maybe it was a surprise, or something? Couples get each other gifts all the time.”

Yoongi’s lips quirk up. “I’m not really the type that gets surprised with gifts.”

Something about this strikes a discordant note in you. He’s always delivering gifts of coffee—he deserves those expressions of love returned to him. You can’t help but say as such.

“You’re always giving gifts, though,” you say. “Those weekly specials. I wouldn’t be surprised if your other half is returning the favour.”

Blink, blink. He looks perplexed. “I don’t have an other half?”

Your mouth opens again. “Uh,” you say eloquently. “What?”

“I… don’t have an other half? I’m… single?”

“You’re…” Your face scrunches up, wrinkled in confusion. What? He’s… what? “But you always buy two drinks?”

Silence. Then: “I… the Americano is for me,” he says. “I usually just pour the special away. I only started ordering them because you got so excited talking about them and making them. I never planned on drinking them.”

Your mouth falls open, soft around a quiet breath, a soft oh. “You—wait. You ordered them because I got excited about them?”

Yoongi’s eyes are so dark, so gentle; melted chocolate, warm. “You started to talk to me more, after the first time I did,” he says, and you know you had. Because you thought it was safer to talk to him, though you were secure in the knowledge he wasn’t single—but he is single. “So I kept doing it, because I wanted to talk more to you. I thought you knew? And that’s why you started having real conversations with me.”

You’re frozen in place, eyes as big as dinner plates. Min Yoongi, your futile crush, who looks as sharp as a knife but is as sweet as spun candyfloss, has been coming back week after week—for you. He’s not in a relationship, and he’s been flirting with you.

Or at least he thought he had been. You, however, hadn’t even realised.

“I was going to ask you on a date after Christmas,” he continues, calm and steady, as if your brain isn’t melting. He’s still sitting behind his desk, and there’s something about his tousled hair and bared lower arms—watch on one wrist and a few bracelets on the other—that has your heart pounding, that casual air somehow not at odds at the weight of the surroundings. Because the world is a backdrop to Yoongi, and he makes it work.

“What the fuck,” you say. You realise you’ve never sworn in front of him when something flickers in his eyes; not a bad flicker, no. Definitely not. “I thought you were taken.”

“I’m very single,” he says lightly, belying the weight behind the words. And then his eyes drop to your hands. “You said you have a coffee for me?”

Which leads to this: Yoongi, in his chair, you, leaning against his desk. He’s taken the red eye (of course) while you sip at the latte, relishing the punch of espresso, the flavour of the syrups.

You’re both staring at each other as you drink, air in the room growing thicker by the moment, when Yoongi breaks the silence. “This is probably the only weekly special I’d actually want to drink.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Black coffee with more espresso? That’s you all over,” you say. “The other specials aren’t so bad, though. I think you just need to give sweet drinks a chance.”

You’re speaking without thinking, but the second those words leave your mouth, the air turns electric. Yoongi’s still staring at you, unwavering and intent, and everything inside you is melting, leaving you flushed and hot. The smile hasn’t left his face, which had been warm but it’s changed, evolved, edged with something sharper.

“If you say so,” he says. His eyes are on your lips. “Let me try?”

His fingers are so gentle on your face, hands cupping your jaw as he tilts your head down. All your thoughts leave you. There’s nothing in your mind but Yoongi, his warm hands and dark eyes, the heat of his body so close to yours, his mouth; you can’t help but look down, tracing the shape of his lips with your gaze, a small soft pout that’s so at odds with the weight of his intensity. 

When he kisses you, it’s featherlight. Barely the softest of pressures, the potential of something more—and then he pulls you in deeper, and there it is, that heat flickering in your stomach jumping into a full fire. The kiss turns hot and wet as he licks the flavour of caramel and toffee syrup out of your mouth, and he tastes like coffee, dark and bitter; you make a noise against his lips and he swallows it down, pulls you closer.

You’re straddling his knees, a little awkward and cramped in his office chair, but you don’t care. You’ve been wanting to kiss Yoongi for so long, even when you felt like you shouldn’t, thought about his dark eyes and pink mouth, the curve of his lips, the paleness of his hands; a steadying presence around your waist, holding you in place.

When you pull apart, Yoongi’s lips are flushed, kiss swollen. It looks good on him. Really good on him.

“I’ve thought about that more than I’d like to admit,” he says, and you can’t help but feel warmed by it, the realisation that you’ve wanted to kiss him but he’s wanted to kiss you, too.

“This really isn’t comfortable,” you say, wriggling a little—your ass is starting to go numb, sat on Yoongi’s knees—and Yoongi sucks in a quick breath at the way you’re all but squirming in his lap, even if he doesn’t say anything.

Oh, you think. 

When you move away, he lets you go without protest, hands sliding off your waist. It’s not until you fall to your knees that Yoongi realises what you’re doing, his eyes widening.

“Y/n,” he breathes. “You don’t have to—”

“Please, Yoongi, I’ve wanted to do this for months,” you say. Maybe it was a little crass to start with, wanting to get on your knees for a man you barely knew just because he was hot and polite to you, but now you know he wants you back. You’re not about to let this opportunity pass you by, staring up at him between his knees, hands braced on his thighs. “But if you want me to stop, I’ll stop.”

He looks torn, just for a second, eyes darting away from your face and to the door. It’s shut, but it’s not locked, and though the building is quiet there’s nothing to say that someone couldn’t walk in at any second.

Without thinking, you lick your lips. Yoongi’s eyes flicker back at the motion, watching how your tongue moves, and you can see how he crumbles.

“I don’t want you to stop,” he says, and you dig your nails into his trousers, electricity shooting through you.

“You’ll have to keep your voice down,” you warn, and reach for his zipper.

It’s a struggle for him, you can tell. He’s already biting his lip by the time you’ve tugged his trousers and boxers down, hardening under your grasp, and you knew his dick would be as pretty as the rest of him. You don’t have the luxury of worshipping him the way you want to, acutely aware of the fact you’re in his office, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to make Yoongi feel good. It’s dirty and messy, the way you suck his cock into your mouth lewd and wet, lavishing attention on the most sensitive parts; his hips jump as you circle the head with your tongue and jerk the rest of his length with a hand. 

Everything’s sloppy with spit and precum and Yoongi’s biting off curses, hand tightening in your hair as you take in as much of him as you can, relaxing your throat and swallowing him down, down, down. When you look up at him through your lashes he looks wrecked, the paleness of his skin flushed pink, and you can’t wait to see that all over. Can’t wait to see Yoongi entirely bare in front of you, when you have the luxury of time and pleasure.

But there’s something about this, too, that has your heart racing, cunt throbbing. You’re running your spit slick lips down the side of his shaft, tonguing the throb of the vein there, when you hear footsteps nearby, muffled through the door. It doesn’t sound like they’re coming in this direction and Yoongi seems almost entirely lost to the feeling of your mouth on him, but you flick your tongue across the spot where the head of his cock meets the shaft and he bows forward, swallowing down the noise that threatened to spill from his lips. He’s so fucking hot like this, falling apart under your hands and mouth, and you know he’ll give as good as he gets.

“Gonna cum,” he rasps. You smile up at him before taking his cock back into your mouth, jerking him off hard and fast as you lick and suck—and when he cums it’s with a noisy exhale of breath, a muffled groan, and even as you’re swallowing down his cum and mouthing at him until he winces with oversensitivity, you’re imagining what he sounds like when he doesn’t have to be quiet.

He’s not shy, either. You’ve barely tucked him back in when he’s reaching for you, kissing you. There’s no taste of coffee any more and you shiver, molten and boneless at the way his tongue presses into your mouth.

“Still want to take me on a date?” 

You’re being cheeky, voice light as you joke, but Yoongi’s responding look is equal parts serious and affectionate. He sweeps a thumb over your cheekbone and you relax into his hands, feeling like a cat that got the cream. Here you are, on your knees in his office, the glittering lights of his Christmas tree thrown across your hair and skin, warmed by the touch of a man you’ve wanted for months but never thought you would get.

“Of course,” he murmurs, gentle-gentle-gentle, as if you hadn’t just sucked his soul through his dick—and you love that about him, love his inherent soft core, his big heart. You might not know him as well as you’d like—not yet—but you already know that much about him. “I owe you a present, too.”

Your face scrunches. “What, because I gave you a blowjob?”

At this he laughs, mouth split wide and gums on show as his whole body shakes with the intensity of it. “No, because you brought me a coffee,” he says. He still has your cheek cupped in his hand, palm warm against your skin. “But if you want to say it’s because of the blowjob as well, then sure.”

“There’s plenty more where that came from.” You smile at him, gentle expression at odds with the meaning behind the words and your position—still on your knees.

You don’t know if they ache when you stand, because Yoongi is kissing you again, distracting you. And it’s easy, this back and forth you have, comfortable as you finish the (now lukewarm) coffees and get ready to go, because Yoongi insists on walking you home. Because he’s a gentleman, your gentleman, and he even holds the door open for you.

You’re not sure if you can reach for his hand, if that would be too forward in his place of work, if he doesn’t want to when this thing between you is so tentative and new. But you’re barely halfway down the corridor when he stops you with a gentle hand on your arm; when you look over, he’s smiling at you, and then tilts his chin up.

“Oh!” You stare at the huge bundle of mistletoe above you, tied with red ribbon and messily taped to the ceiling. It brings a smile to your face. “Oh, how cute.”

The hand on your arm shifts down. Yoongi weaves his fingers with yours.

“You know about the tradition, right?” There’s a twinkle in his eyes, and it’s not just from the lights from the ceiling above, turning his dark eyes into warm chocolate, deep brown. “Kissing under the mistletoe?”

You can’t help but blink, surprised at his sweetness, his forwardness. There’s nothing to say that someone couldn’t walk by right now, to see the two of you hand in hand under the mistletoe, but Yoongi doesn’t care at all. He’s staring at you like you’re the only other person in the world, and you feel like a fountain of champagne is bubbling inside you, heady and sparkling and light.

“I think I’ve heard of it,” you say, and he’s still smiling, a small thing, just for you. “Do you think you can show me?”

And he does, with his hand in yours, your lips against his, and up above, the mistletoe sparkles.

(Your phone rings. Caller ID says it’s Taehyung, but when you pick up, he’s not the one who speaks.

“So.” Jungkook sounds knowing, his voice bordering on smug. “How did the delivery go?”

In the background you can hear someone crowding close, put it on speaker, Kookie, I want to hear too, and you can’t help but smile at Taehyung’s eagerness.

“Good,” you say. Yoongi’s palm is warm against yours and you swing your joint hands together, looking at him, entranced by the way the snowflakes dust his eyelashes. The sky above is dark and the wind around you is cold, but the man beside is so bright and warm. You feel wrapped up in it. “Yoongi says he’s going to kill you, by the way.”

“He won’t,” Jungkook says cheerfully, loud enough that Yoongi can hear. He looks fond.

“Well, tell Taehyung I’m going to kick his ass for lying about Tannie peeing on Jimin’s shoes,” you say.

“You won’t,” Taehyung says, equally as cheerful, and you can’t help but smile.

“No, I won’t,” you say. 

You think about the seasons. You think about the man walking beside you; the man who says he hates cold weather, but has kept his gloves off so he can feel your hand against his. The man who came out in the snow to order a drink, just to make you smile. The man who looks like winter but feels like spring, something cold bursting into potential, new life.

In the depth of winter, under the snow and twinkling Christmas lights above, Yoongi squeezes your hand.)

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​ @vensulove

[streetlight11]

Strawberry Lattes

Summary: He always needs his morning caffeine to wake him up for his morning classes. He never knew what it feels like wanting to come back to a particular place again and again solely for one reason, until he met you. You were a full time barista and a part time university student. Despite the stress you get almost every week, your two friends have always been there to support you. What happens when your friends come to visit you at your workplace one day, only to find out that they were friends with the same boy who not only is your eye candy, but also your regular customer?

Genre: Super fluffy

Pairing: Kim Sunwoo x GN Reader

Word count: 5.5k

It was another dreadful morning after only 2 hours of sleep due to staying up all night hoping to finish at least 50% of the assignment. But this wasn’t an excuse for you to call in to work sick or unable to come for your shift. Hence, the reason why you were now forcing yourself out of bed to freshen up and get ready for work. You were a full time barista at a local café downtown just around the corner from your apartment, and also a part time student at Yonsei University.

The reason why you chose this path was because you wanted to further your studies but also earn a monthly allowance in order to pay for your school and house bills since you were living alone and didn't have the time to search for a roommate.

Despite the stress load you get every once in a while, you managed to cope and tried your best to pass each module. Today was no different, as you got ready for work and was out the door by 0730. You arrived at the café only to find your manager already preparing the coffee machines and restocking the cakes in the fridge beside the cashier. You greeted him good morning before he smiled at you.

You went into the back room to put your bag down and took your apron. Proceeding to head to the front where the cashier and coffee machines were.

“Did you get enough sleep yesterday?” Kihyun asked.

Before you could reply, a yawn left your lips as you used the back of your hand to cover your mouth slightly.

“Nope. But I’ll be fine.” You said. You could hear the heavy sigh that left his lips when he closed the fridge door and soon turned to you with a frown.

“(Y/N), you know you have to get some rest. It’s not good for your health.” Kihyun said, but you nodded.

“I know Ki, but I can’t fail this module.”

“Just… know when to take a break okay?”

“Okay.”

With that, he went to the back room to settle some paperwork while you stayed by the counter, refilling the powders into the containers. After you were done, a few customers had entered to buy their morning caffeine doses. 4 orders and 5 minutes of silence later, you leaned over the counter top with one knee resting on the stool in front of you that was hidden from any customer in plain sight.

You supported your head on your palm, slowly finding yourself drifting to sleep when the doorbell chimed, catching your attention. You looked up to see a guy walking into the café looking just as tired as you were but he had more life in him.

“Dang he’s cute.” You thought to yourself as you quickly wiped the pout off your face and soon replaced it with a warm smile.

“Good morning, may I take your order?” you greeted him.

He flashed you a soft smile before glancing up at the menu boards hanging above your head.

“Do you have any recommendations? I feel like trying something new.” He finally looked back down at you, only for you to feel as though your airflow got sucked out of your lungs.

“Personally I really like the Iced Matcha Latte with soy milk if I want a non-caffeinated drink. But if I want that espresso kick to start my mornings, I really love the Strawberry Latte, with two pumps of syrup and a light dash of strawberry sprinkles. It’s not too strong and it definitely gives you a sweet tangy balance to the bitter coffee taste.” You ended your speech with a light giggle after you realized how long it was.

The male only smiled fondly at you during that whole minute explanation but it was worth it. “Great, can I get the exact order for the second one then?” He said. You looked quite surprised but nonetheless smiled as you began to key in the order

“Choice of size?”

“Regular please.”

After you were done, you took the regular size takeaway cup and a marker, looking at him to ask for his name or initials.

“Sunwoo.”

The corner of your lips tugged upwards, writing down his name before setting the cup to your left beside the coffee machine and soon charged him for his order. After he was done paying, you returned him his change and gave the receipt before telling him to wait at the collection point. You made the drink exactly how you would make it for yourself. Smiling happily upon seeing your creation being prepared for not yourself, but this time for a customer.

After you had sprinkled the strawberry powder on top of the foam surface, you took the lid and secured it close before you went to the collection point and called out softly.

“Strawberry Latte for Sunwoo.” 

He walked forwards as he took the cup, not forgetting to give you a smile. 

“Thank you-” His eyes darted towards your name tag pinned to your apron before he looked back at you. “...(Y/N)”

You bowed to him slightly as you watched him leave the café. After he left, he didn’t forget to spare a quick glance into the café, only to see your smile soon disappeared. Replacing it with a small pout when you let out a sigh. Sunwoo chuckled as he continued walking to campus that was just 2 blocks away.

For some reason, he couldn’t stop thinking about you even after he made it to his first lecture. The small smile gracing on his lips didn’t go unnoticed by his friends as Kevin began to nudge Sunwoo’s elbow the minute he came to sit beside the former.

“Aye, why are you smiling like an idiot huh?” Kevin asked.

“Maybe he just sniffed a smiling gas.” Younghoon said.

“What the hell is that?” Jacob asked.

“I was being sarcastic you nimrod.” Younghoon said, making the former one growl.

“I’ll tell you guys later.” Sunwoo said as he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. 

2 hours passed and they were now heading to the food hall in the main building, when Hyunjae slings his arm over Sunwoo’s shoulder.

“So? Why were you smiling all morning today?” He asked, causing the rest to focus their gazes on him as Sunwoo sighed knowing he couldn’t run away now.

“Ahh, it’s nothing… I went to get my morning coffee and there was this really cute barista who attended to me. That’s all.”

A series of “ooh”s were heard as the boys got noisier by the second.

“Jeez, can y’all shut up? You’re embarrassing me.” Sunwoo said as he quickened his pace, only for Younghoon to grab hold of his backpack and pulled him back.

“Oh please, you should be thankful we even gave reactions to what you say.” Younghoon said, making Sunwoo scoff. 

A few weeks later, you were just handing a customer her plate of pasta and a cappuccino at one of the tables when you heard the doorbell chime. The customer you were attending to, thanked you for bringing her orders to her, smiling and replied to her.

“Your welcome. Enjoy your food.”

With that, you began to walk back to the front counter when you saw a group of guys gathered in front of the cashier. Right when you were just about to walk past them to head behind the counter, one of them glanced towards his right only to lock eyes with you. It was Sunwoo. The same regular customer that came every morning before his classes. The same guy who you may or may not have a tiny crush on.

The moment you locked eyes, you could feel your heartbeat stop for just a millisecond later as he flashed you a soft smile. This was enough to make you blush as you smiled back to him shyly before quickly making your way behind the counter.

“Oh great, you’re back. Help me take their order will you? I have to prepare the delivery ones.” Kihyun said simply. You were about to protest but you had no choice since the other part timer was on his lunch break.

So you nodded defeatedly before you returned the tray back at the collection point before you went back to the cashier, only to see Sunwoo standing there alone.

“Hey.” Sunwoo said as his lips began to tug upwards.

“Hey. What can I get you today?” You asked with a shy smile. Your voice sounded much softer than usual. You didn’t miss the little chuckle that left his lips before he spoke up.

“There’s gonna be a bit more than one order today.”

“I can see that.” You joked.

“Can I get one regular iced mocha, two regular double chocolate frappe, one small iced americano, one regular iced vanilla latte, and my usual please.”

You keyed in his orders as he spoke, only for you to look back up at him to confirm if that was all he wanted. Sunwoo gave you a firm nod, proceeding to charge him for the orders and soon told him to have a seat, you will call out to him once the drinks are ready. Sunwoo nodded as he left, not forgetting to smile at you for the umpteenth time that day.

You soon came beside Kihyun and started to make the drinks. Sunwoo on the other hand, immediately got dragged down into his seat by Kevin when they began to make comments about you.

“You were right, they’re hella cute!” Kevin said.

“Do you think they’re attached?” Younghoon asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, they’re quite cute. It’s impossible they’re single.” Sangyeon shrugged.

“Not all good looking people are attached. Even some normal looking ones are attached. We can’t just judge from their looks.” Sunwoo said defensively, only for Changmin and Haknyeon to smirk.

“Or are you just saying that because you want them to be single?” Changmin said, causing the rest of them to agree teasingly.

“Whatever, they wouldn’t date someone like me anyway.” Sunwoo said.

Not long after he finished his sentence, your voice echoes around the café walls as you called his name.

“Drinks for Sunwoo.”

With that, Sunwoo got up and soon jogged his way to the collection point, only to find you standing behind the counter with the tray in hand. You smiled as you pushed the tray gently towards him.

“Be careful. It’s heavy.” You warned.

“Don’t worry.” Sunwoo said, couldn’t help but smile at him.

He soon came back to their table and distributed the drinks. Almost half an hour had passed, they were just talking about random topics when Sunwoo happened to glance towards the counter. Seeing you laugh at something your manager said.

He didn’t realize he was smiling until Sangyeon spoke up. “Sunwoo yah, if they make your heart flutter that much, why don’t you just go there and ask them out?”

Sunwoo whips his head to Sangyeon, almost pulling a muscle while doing that.

“What?! N-No!”

“Why not?”

“The last time I asked someone out, I got turned down harshly in front of everyone. I couldn’t sleep for days!”

“Sunwoo yah, you’re just thinking too much. Just try and ask them out. Who knows they’ll accept?” Haknyeon asked.

“I don’t wanna risk it.” Sunwoo said. Glancing back to the front counter.

“Why must I have a crush on the cutest barista working just two blocks away from campus?” Sunwoo thought to himself as he gently shook his head and went back into the conversation with the guys.

A few minutes passed, some of them were discussing their project work while some were doing their own stuff when Sunwoo saw you left the counter only to walk towards an empty table near the back of the café. Since the café was not so packed, Kihyun told you to eat at one of the tables. So as to not feel cramped in the back room.

You had a transparent cup filled with what seems to be strawberry latte and a plate of sandwich. Sunwoo was caught staring by his friends as Younghoon nudged his arm to gain his attention.

“This is your chance to talk to them.”

Sunwoo saw some of them nod in agreement as he glanced back at you who was just taking a bite of the sandwich while scrolling through your phone.

With much motivation, he finally got up and made his way towards your table. You were just looking at your Instagram feed when you saw a figure come to a stop on the opposite side of your table.

You looked up to see Sunwoo standing there with a nervous smile as he spoke up. “Do you need some company?” He asked. You giggled, locking your phone screen and soon placed it face down on the table.

“Sure, that would be great.” You said. He pulled the chair out and soon took a seat.

“You’re just having that for lunch?” He asked curiously as he looked at the plate in front of you.

“Mmm.”

“Is that enough to fill you for the rest of your shift?” He asks, genuinely concerned at how little you ate.

“Yeap! Don’t worry. I always get something heavy to eat before my night classes.”

Sunwoo paused only to raise his eyebrows in confusion.

“Night classes?”

“I’m a part time student at Yonsei U. That’s why I’m a full timer here.”

“Wow… Are you able to cope with work and study at the same time?”

“It can be tiring and mentally exhausting sometimes but I persevere.”

Sunwoo was shocked at this new information but nonetheless gave you some comforting words to help cheer you on. “That’s… a lot to take in. I hope you don’t stress yourself out too much. Please get some rest and don’t overwork yourself.”

You hadn't seen this side of him before but it was very sweet of him to even say all those things to you. You ended up chatting for a bit, only for you both to find out that he was a student at Hankuk U, you were the same age, you both loved sushi and many more.

Your lunch break was ending soon but you were dreading to say goodbye. “Well, it was really nice talking to you Sunwoo, but I’m afraid my break time’s almost over.” 

You pouted sadly, only for him to chuckle.

“Do you have class tonight?”

You nodded.

“Hmm, don’t worry okay? I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Sunwoo said, making you giggle at his disclaimer.

The both of you got up only for him to speak up.

“My friends and I are leaving soon too. I’ll see you tomorrow. Take care, don’t forget to eat before you head to class!” He reminded you. Not forgetting to give him a nod.

A few days later, you had just ended your night class and you were almost burned out for the day, you could barely keep your eyes open. Only for your phone to ring. It was Eric.

“Hello?” You said into the line.

“Hey! Are you finished with class?”

“Yeah. I’m heading down now. Where are you?”

“At the parking lot. Me and Chanhee hyung decided to wait for you today.”

With that being said, you gasped lightly, unable to digest this information.

“Wha- Eric are you serious? You didn’t have to- omg.”

“No, it’s fine! Besides, me and hyung needed to discuss something anyway. Meet us at the parking lot okay?”

Before you could reply, he already hung up the call, making you sigh. You felt bad for making them wait for you since it was already half past 10 at night. But then again, they did it out of their own will. You arrived at the parking lot, only to see Chanhee and Eric leaning against the side of Chanhee’s car amongst a few other vehicles left just chatting away while waiting for you.

Just then, Eric glanced towards the entrance, only to see a very tired you dragging your feet towards them. You could barely open your eyes as you held onto your bag strap for your dear life. Right when you had just arrived in front of them, your vision blacked out, feeling your head pound against your skull. You let out a soft groan, falling forwards, just in time for Eric to catch you.

“Woah, are you okay?” He asked worriedly as Chanhee and him exchanged glances to one another.

“Mmm, y-yeah… I just blacked out for a bit.” You said, only to hear Chanhee sigh.

“How many times must we tell you not to overwork yourself and get some sleep?” Chanhee said.

“I did sleep...” You tried to defend yourself, but they knew you better than you know yourself. 

“How many hours did you sleep last night?” Eric asked as he narrowed his eyes at you questioningly. You avoided their piercing gazes by answering their question in a hushed tone. 

“An hour and a half.” 

With that, your two friends let out a heavy sigh as Eric looked disappointed in his friend. It wasn’t because he was mad at you, it was because he was growing more and more concerned over your sleeping patterns and your health. You weren't just schooling, you were working as well so it would only be right if you maintained a healthy sleeping pattern and a balanced work/study time.

“That’s it. You’re coming home with me. I’m gonna make sure you get that sleep you so well deserved.” Chanhee said as Eric nodded in agreement.

“What? No, I’m fine. Okay, I promise I’ll sleep tonight.” You said.

“Yeah right.”

“You don’t trust me?” You asked with a pout.

“On this? No, I don’t.” With that, you scoffed as you knew you couldn’t fight back with them. So with that being said, you ended up following Chanhee to his apartment since he lived alone. Once you were back at Chanhee’s place, he told you to wash up. He let you borrow a loose shirt and sleeping shorts.

He told you to sleep in his bed and that he could take the couch. At first you rejected it, saying you could sleep on the couch but he refused. 

Chanhee purposely placed your bag in the living room so that you couldn’t sneakily stay up all night and worked on your assignment. Chanhee’s body clock was never normal to begin with but to him, your sleeping pattern was more important than his.

Hence, the reason why he was still awake at 3am, watching the live broadcast of the World Cup. He was trying so hard to keep quiet to avoid waking you up as he eagerly watched the tournament. Just then, he thought he heard soft whimpers in his head.

“What the-” He mumbled to himself as he continued watching the game.

Just then, the whimper sounded again and it was a lot more distinct this time. With that, he lowered down the volume just to see if that sound would appear again. Not long after, he heard the whimper again and it seemed to have come from his hallway.

Chanhee got up immediately as he went to his bedroom, opening the door gently.

That’s when he saw you shifting uncomfortably in your sleep. He approached you in a rush as he saw you clutching onto the blanket against your chest as you had a frown on your face.

You were mumbling something in your sleep but he couldn’t really catch what you said.

“(Y/N)? Hey wake up.” Chanhee said softly as he placed a hand on your shoulder and lightly shook it. It took him 3 tries to finally get you awake when you jolted forward. Your breathing was heavy as you sat there with cold sweat running down the side of your face.

“It’s okay (Y/N), you’re okay. I’m here. It’s just a nightmare.” He comforted you while grabbing a handful of his shirt.

He pulled you into a hug, feeling your body shiver. They stayed like that for a while, only for him to tuck you back in bed. He pushed your hair away from your face as he looked down at you gently with a soft smile.

“Goodnight (Y/N).”

“Goodnight Chanhee.”

He was about to walk away when you grabbed his hand.

“Thank you… for everything.”

Chanhee could only smile, gently caressing the back of your hand with his thumb and soon spoke up.

“Get some rest, (Y/N).” You nodded only to let go of his hand. You fell back asleep a few seconds after as he went back to the living room, only to turn off the television and went to sleep himself.

It has been 4 months since Sunwoo first came to the café and you've gotten a lot closer than before. 

However, Sunwoo still has yet to ask you out on a date.

It was a chilly Wednesday afternoon and both Chanhee and Eric promised to visit you after their lecture. The time was 35 minutes past 2 and the two guys had just entered the café, settling themselves into one of the empty tables beside the glass window after they ordered their drinks.

After making their drinks, you made your own drink and took one of the sandwiches from the fridge. Making your way to them for your lunch break.

“Hey guys, one iced mocha and one iced matcha latte for the two sweetest guys I’m lucky to have as friends.” You said, causing the two boys to smirk.

“Just friends?” Eric teased.

“Best friends.” You corrected yourself, only for Chanhee to laugh at Eric’s pained reaction.

“Ouch, never thought I’d be friend zoned this quick.”

You found yourself giggling as you spoke up to comfort your friend while you took a seat beside him.

“I love you, Eric ah.”

He couldn’t find himself being angry at you as he immediately melted and soon became a giggling mess. You were just chatting away, gossiping about the same stuck up girl in their class who keeps acting as if everyone was head over heels for when they’re actually not.

Just then, a familiar voice calls out to Chanhee and Eric from a distance behind you making your heart skip a beat.

“Hey! Hyung! Eric ah!”

Chanhee glanced past your shoulder while Eric turned to look over his own shoulder before they smiled widely and waved eagerly to whoever was behind you.

“That voice…” You whispered under your breath, only to slowly turn around. That’s when you saw Sunwoo walking up to your table along with his usual group of friends. However, you didn’t miss the look on Sunwoo’s face when he locked eyes with you. He was definitely surprised but also confused as to why you were seated with his friends.

“Oh? It’s the cute barista!” Juyeon said innocently. Flashing them a bashful smile. Just then, both Chanhee and Eric turned to look at each other simultaneously only for them to look at you and spoke up in unison.

“You’re the cute barista Sunwoo’s been talking about?!”

With that, Sunwoo gestured a punch to them signalling them to keep quiet. Only for him to look at you and ask.

“You know them?” 

You could only nod as you told him the truth.

“I’ve known them since college.”

The rest of the boys gasped at the newly profound information. They couldn’t believe you were mutual friends with Chanhee and Eric. The 12 of you ended up sitting in two separate tables side by side whilst Chanhee and Eric began to spill the tea about Sunwoo.

“I can’t believe he’s been talking about you all these while.” Eric said.

“If I had known sooner, I would have set you two up on a date.” Chanhee said, causing you to glance at Sunwoo who was sitting opposite you. You cleared your throat and glanced down at your wrist watch before you got up abruptly to avoid any more awkward conversations.

“Oh look, my break time is ending. Nice talking to you guys. Thanks for visiting me today, my babies. More cakes for you? Yes? Okay.” You said in a rush. Quickly leaving the table, earning a laugh from the guys. Thinking that your actions are cute.

“Sunwoo, you really have a good taste don’t you?” Eric teased, making Sunwoo throw a tissue paper packet to Eric’s face, catching the poor boy by surprise.

You were in the back room, having a short break when your co-worker, Mingi called for you from the door.

“(Y/N), somebody wants to talk to you. He said he’s a friend of yours?” Mingi said, making you hum in confusion but nonetheless left the back room.

Only to be met with Sunwoo standing at the collection point.

“Sunwoo?”

“Hey, umm, I was wondering… Are you… free, this weekend?” You found yourself blushing as you tried to come up with a quick response.

“Uhh yeah. Yeah, I’m free.” Sunwoo didn’t expect you to say yes so quickly but it definitely made him feel slightly happy that he didn’t get rejected.

“Great. Umm, I’ll pick you up at 8?”

“Okay.” You smiled genuinely.

“Okay… Well, I uhh, better get going. Bye (Y/N). See you.” He said shyly, his ears starting to burn red.

“See you Sunwoo.” You said, only for him to quickly leave before his whole tomato head explodes.

Weekends finally came and it was already 30 minutes past 7 and you were struggling to find a nice outfit to wear. You didn’t know exactly where he was taking you, all he said was to wear nicely. You were nervous to say the least. You haven't been on a date in like what? 2 years?

Ever since your last date where you got stood up, you decided not to go on any more blind dates. You would rather stay single for the rest of your life than being played with and getting your heart broken again and again.

Sunwoo texted you a few minutes later saying he was downstairs so you replied by saying you’ll be down in a minute. You soon left your apartment and locked the doors before heading down the corridor towards the lift lobby. Once you were at ground level, you made your way out, only to see Sunwoo leaning against his car door.

The minute he noticed your figure walking towards him, he looked up only to give you a one over. You stopped a few feet in front of him with a shy smile as he spoke up.

“Wow, you look really stunning.”

“Thank you. You look dashing.” You giggled.

Sunwoo was wearing a dark blue button down shirt tucked into his black denim skinny jeans, a pair of black sneakers and a few stainless steel accessories. He recently dyed his hair to a deep berry colour. He soon opened the door for you. Getting in before he walked over to the driver seat. Once he was in, he buckled his seatbelt and started his car engine.

“Where are we going?” You asked.

“It’s a surprise.” Sunwoo said with a cheeky smile as you could feel your heartstrings pull.

The drive to the destination wasn’t as long as you thought, maybe because the journey was filled with jokes and laughter every now and then. Before you knew it, he finally pulled into a parking lot at what seems to be an outdoor movie theatre.

“Sunwoo yah… This is…” You paused as you got out of the car while he reached over to the back seat to take the blanket he brought to lay it down on the grass. He came back to your side after locking his car, only for you to continue from where you left off.

“So cute. How did you even find out about this outdoor movie?”

He smiled as you both began to walk towards the open space where quite a lot of couples were already seated down on their own blankets.

“My friend told me about this when he went on a date with his girlfriend the other day. So I figured why not give it a try.” Sunwoo said, making you blush.

You managed to find an empty space so he laid down the blanket and soon sat down. While waiting for the movie, you talked about almost anything. The movie soon started as everyone was starting to get excited. Halfway through the beginning of the movie, you were sitting beside Sunwoo with your legs extended out in front of you.

The night slowly got breezy, feeling the cool air blowing on you softly. Just then, he saw you straightening your posture, rubbing your arms to keep yourself warm. He felt bad that he couldn’t give you his jacket since he didn’t wear any.

However, an idea flashed across his mind, making him turn to you to speak.

“Hey, are you cold?” He asked. You turned to him with a small smile before you answered.

“Yeah, but it’s fine. It’s just a little chilly, that’s all.” Sunwoo wasn’t convinced as he saw your teeth clattering, making him chuckle softly.

“You know, I heard from somewhere that close body contact can keep us warm.” Sunwoo suggests indirectly to you, turning your head to him to see a playful smile on his lips.

You giggled as you looked at him with your brows raised.

“Are you okay with it?”

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t suggest it would I?” He asked, causing you to mentally facepalm at your ridiculous self.

“Right. You have a point.”

You heard him chuckle when he pat the empty spot in between his legs, gesturing for you to come over.

“C’mere.” He said.

Once you have settled down between his legs, you feel him wrap his arms around your body, trapping your arms. Gently pressing your back against his chest. Warmth immediately engulfing you both as you snuggled deeper into his chest.

“Warm enough?” He asked, only for you to nod.

You stayed like that for the rest of the movie. Sacrificing his back if it meant keeping you warm throughout the 1 and a half hours of the movie. 

After the movie ended, you went to get supper before he sent you home. You agreed to let him walk you all the way to your door. Hence, the reason why you were now standing outside your apartment door. You unlocked the door but then turned around to face him.

“Thank you for today Sunwoo. It was a fun experience watching a movie outdoors for the first time under the starry night.” You said as he smiled.

“I’m glad you liked it…”

“I hope we can do something like this again soon.” At that being said, his ears perked up, staring at you in awe.

“A-Again? Does that mean…?” He paused, causing you to giggle.

“Yes. I’d love to go on a date with you again.” 

Sunwoo couldn’t contain his excitement as he smiled from ear to ear, his adorable toothy grin made your heart skip a few beats. He elicited a soft giggle, biting his lip to stop himself from smiling too much.

Just then, you decided to take it upon yourself by pressing a soft kiss onto his cheek. Sunwoo was frozen in place as you smiled up to him endearingly before you bid him goodbye. You quickly entered your apartment to hide your flushed face when you could feel the embarrassment starting to creep up on you. You leaned against the door. Trying to steady your heartbeat.

After what felt like forever, you finally pushed yourself off the door and was about to walk deeper into your apartment when there was a knock.

You turned around to open it and you were greeted by Sunwoo again, seeming he finally came into senses.

Without any words exchanged, he took one quick step forward, reaching up to cup your face with one hand before he gently pressed his lips against yours. You melted almost immediately when you felt him smile into the kiss. Sunwoo could feel his heart get weaker, snaking one hand around your waist while pulling you closer to him.

Your hands rested on his chest as he pulled away with a soft sound, only for you to keep your gaze on his collarbone. Too shy to look at him in the eye.

Sunwoo gently took your chin in between his thumb and index finger. Tilting your head up, making you lock eyes with him.

“I’m pretty sure that just proves to you how I feel about you, but I still wanna tell you in words. I really, really like you. And I would love to take you out on more dates and be able to call you mine.”

With his cute confession, you couldn’t help but giggle. Wrapping your arms around his neck before you spoke up.

“I like you too Sunwoo. And yes, I would love to go on dates with you, and for you to call me yours.” With that being said, Sunwoo smiled in victory. Kissing you again sweetly.

The next day, you broke the news to your friends as you got happy cheers and excited screams in the group chat. Sunwoo never thought he would date anyone after being rejected multiple times but maybe he was fated to meet you and be the person who orders the same drink every time at the café you worked in. Maybe now he could finally live his love life with more cuddles and Strawberry Lattes.

[dawn-cafe]

Modern AU meet-cute series

A/N: I didn't have to include a moodboard with this but I felt like being extra.  Also... this was meant to be just a headcanon list but here's a whole ficlet, I guess! Can’t decide if I’m gonna finish Childe’s or Diluc’s after this, so inputs are welcome. Requests are open, rules are here! -Hal

Prompt: meet-cute

Content includes: Part 1 of Modern AU meet-cute series. model!kaeya, semi-ooc kaeya i think, florist!reader

Pairing: kaeya x gn!reader

Kaeya: he's a model who's escaping the paparazzi and you're closing up your flower shop

Kaeya's a pretty big-name model in Mondstadt.

He's been featured in Fontaine Fashion Week for the past 2 years and has modeled for every season for Favonius & Co.'s works.

With such popularity, you'd think he'd have some sort of body guard to keep him away from the prying eyes of Teyvat Pop News.

But no, he's a pretty stubborn guy and Jean, his manager, never fails to give him a piece of her mind every time.

He finds himself escaping from a few paparazzi as he's walking home from the mall, so he detours and tries to find a place to rest after he think he's lost them.

Kaeya then spots the lights on inside a little flower shop and thinks, "Oh, thank god."

You're closing up your little flower shop, sweeping the floor of any fallen leaves and flower petals you've cut up for the day. Normally, you'd keep the shop running til evening, but something felt off and you couldn't place what it was. So it's only late afternoon, yet the shop sign has been flipped to 'CLOSED' and you're packing up hours before closing time. There's faint music coming from the back room and you're humming along to the tune when the serenity gets cut off by something knocking on glass. You jump in surprise, looking behind you to see someone by the porch. By the looks of it, they were out of breath from running.

Setting aside your cleaning equipment, you walk up to the door to see a blue-haired guy, dressed in similar-colored clothing, hands on his knees as he pants. He looks up at you with starry blue eyes and blows his bangs away. You think he looks familiar, and that he's breathtaking even when he looks frazzled.

The chimes ring as you open the door a crack. "Hey, sorry..." you start, "but we're closed for the day." you tell him halfheartedly.

Kaeya stands up and you see he's taller than you expected. He leans back and looks to the side past the road, and blue eyes meet yours in desperation. "Sorry, I'm trying to get away from... a few people." His head tilts to the side, puts on the best puppy-dog eyes he can muster, and clasps his hands together. "Can I come in and stay for a while?" he pleads.

It's bizarre, you think, that someone could look so innocently cute yet dangerously handsome at the same time. At first, your instinct is to open your mouth and agree to help him. Of course, if this was a bad situation and you're the only refuge he could find, who were you to deny him? Though there's also the possibility that this could be a really bad scheme, and he'll rob you as soon as you let him in. He looks too dashing to do such a thing, but you can never be too sure... but also do robbers even wear designer clothes like he does?

He senses the hesitation in the way you don't immediately respond. "I-It's nothing dangerous, I swear!" Kaeya's slim hands are held up in front of him in defense before he runs it through his deep blue locks. The cool afternoon breeze sweeps his cologne to your direction. He smells of mint, of fresh summer air and freedom. "The paparazzi won't get off my back and I could really use the help," He explains briefly.

At the mention of paparazzi, it makes so much more sense. You still don't remember where you've seen him, but he sure fits the role of some celebrity by the way he dresses and carries himself. That... and his face looks really attractive. He's still smiling at you with just the tiniest bit of desperation creeping in his voice when he talks. All caution goes out the window as you open the door wider. There's still no one behind him, but you usher him inside your little shop. "Alright, but if they start bombarding my business, that's on you." you warn him playfully.

The breath he's holding escapes as he exhales in relief. "You're an angel," He beams at you with the brightest of smiles.

The door closes and is locked once again, and you go around the shop to close the blinds just a little. Kaeya breathes in. He's not the first stranger to walk in your shop, but it sure feels a little awkward as if you're being judged. "Do all flower shops smell this good, or is it just yours?" he asks coyly, taking in the array of flowers and plants on display. The playful roll of your eyes and your retort of "Do you ask this to all florists, or is it just me?" make him laugh, with his eyes crinkling at the corners and a hand over his chest.

He follows you around, assisting you in closing up, and you don't miss the way he wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead most likely due to his escapade. "It's better this way," you say, pulling a string to close a set of blinds, "at least they won't see you." With the last of the blinds shut, you turn to your pseudo-customer and ask, "Would you like some water?"

"Please." the embarrassment shows on his face.

You disappear in the back room for a bit, grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge. When you emerge to the front of the shop, you find Kaeya seated on a barstool next to the counter, idly thumbing the calla lilies on display next to the cash register. The beginning of the day's sunset peeks through the slats of the blinds, capturing him like a painting. It's peaceful, ethereal, and you almost want to pull out your phone and take a quick photo to immortalize what you see. It doesn't help that some love song starts playing on the shop's speakers. The spell is broken when he catches you looking, and he looks at you with an easygoing smile.

Clearing your throat, you step forwards and place the bottle of water in front of him. You feel the heat rise to your cheeks, and if he notices you were staring, he doesn't comment on it. "Here." You place the bottle in front of him and he takes it eagerly. "Thank you." Kaeya bows his head graciously.

Picking up where you left off, you hold the broomstick and dustpan and start cleaning the floors again. "So um... you're gonna have to forgive me," you sheepishly smile at him, "but why are you being chased by the paps?"

As fate would have it, the magazine rack next to the counter has several magazines including a copy of last month's Mondstadt Fashion. And he recognizes himself on the cover, wearing a few of Favonius & Co.'s Spring Collection pieces. Kaeya picks up the magazine and places it on the counter, which you peer at curiously. The double-take you do makes him laugh again, watching you look at the cover, then to him in front of you, and back at the cover.

"Oh," you murmur as the realization dawns on you. "you're a model."

You don't dwell much on celebrity gossip so you don't really recognize most of them at first glance. But no wonder he seemed familiar, you'd seen him in a couple of magazines both in your store and in news sites. If paparazzi were chasing him, he must be a huge hit with the general public.

For Kaeya, however, he shrugs like it's no big deal. "Specifically, Teyvat's hottest model and top bachelor of 2021." he says as he closes the water bottle cap. "According to Mond Fashion." he adds with a cheeky wink. You scrunch up your nose impishly. "Still though, having paparazzi invade your privacy and all." you shake your head to the floor mostly, still occupied with cleaning the remaining dirt. "Glad I could be of use somewhat." you tell him.

“Kaeya.” he holds out his hand in a formal handshake.

You give him your name and grasp his hand; it’s soft, like the smile that never leaves his face

Kaeya offers to help around with your closing routine, but you stop him before he could pick up the broom again. It feels wrong having someone else do your tasks even though it's offered in good faith (and after all, he wanted to repay you for taking him in past your closing time). So you settle with having him arrange your excess daisies in a basket for tomorrow's bouquet orders. It's pretty easy work that he couldn't mess up, so you leave him at it while you clean out your floral buckets. Still, you try to speed through your routine and leisurely chat with him, thinking he must be bored with his task. 

What hobbies do celebrities even have?, you wonder. Surely it can't be chatting up some florist and counting flowers.

"Do I look pretty?" he asks abruptly. And when your eyes land on him, your breath gets caught in your throat.

Kaeya looks different. In fashion magazines he's featured in, he's always prim and proper, composed. It's not to say he's stiff, because he definitely carries that confidence wherever he goes. But to be dressed and told to act, smile, and pose a certain way; it can look... artificial. But here, sitting on a barstool with a few daisies in his hair; here with his blue jacket draped across his lap, a loose white shirt and hands full of flowers. Here, where instead of studio lights, it's just the soft lights overhead on your small store. And here, where instead of cameras taking shots upon shots of his face, it's just you in your apron that he focuses on.

"Breathtakingly so." You smile.

By the end of the day, he has a whole flower crown on his head and you wonder why blue's related to sadness when it's brought you joy when you least expect it. 

[defractum]

Modern LWJ + WWX flowershop (with the juniors if you can please!)

So LWJ is the quiet florist in a quiet florist shop, with his two assistants, Sizhui and Jingyi who are, respectively, slightly less quiet and much less quiet

It's a bit of a miracle that the shop is quiet, because he's about two doors down from an entrance to a major station and in the middle of the city, so he gets a lot of businesspeople getting flowers on their way home or people swinging by on their way to the office for a work event or coworker birthday

WWX is a customer who whirls in and asks breathlessly for something 'pink and purple but like, not romantic'. He points to one of the pre-arranged bouquets up at the front (mostly arranged by Sizhui and Jingyi at the beginning of the day so they can get some practice in arrangements when there's no customer waiting impatiently) and says, 'like that, but bigger'

LWJ usually hates people who are in a rush, because they think he can just throw a bunch of things in together and wrap it up, but this man seems more like he just exudes excess energy. He hops from foot to foot, and occasionally asks for a bit more greenery.

(LWJ secretly loves people who ask for more greenery. Most people ask for more colours, more flowers, and he has to bite his tongue before telling them that the greenery is what makes the colours pop, it's there for a reason, and – anyway. He just likes the balance of greenery, okay.)

He has a very nice smile when he waves and leaves but mostly LWJ forgets him, because he was only one of many customers in his working day.

Except then WWX becomes a semi-frequent customer. And he always asks for something 'like this, but bigger'. The colours change, although pink and purple make a frequent appearance. There's no order to his appearances, sometimes once a fortnight, sometimes three times in the same week.

The shop is no longer quiet when he is here – he chats away, even though LWJ barely responds. He tells LWJ about his job (social media and PR), his flat (small), his lunch (usually spicy) and his sister (dating some knobhead). He starts paying by card, and Lan Wangji looks down to see his name: Wei Ying

LWJ wonders vaguely if all this effort is for a new relationship, and if so, how long he can sustain the flower giving. They're not cheap. He's kind of a bit sad about the relationship thing, because Wei Ying is pretty and charming and flirty, but also if it keeps WWX coming in so that they can have their mostly one-sided conversations, he will take it.

He starts doing all of Wei Wuxian's orders himself. The bigger the bouquet, the harder it becomes to arrange and keep it from looking like a mash of flowers; Sizhui could barely see around the last one. LWJ is the most experienced in the shop, after all. (This is what he tells himself. Sizhui and Jingyi are both completely capable of filling the order.)

Wei Wuxian loves it. He says that Lan Wangji has 'magic fingers'. LWJ's brain is possibly melting.  

Another time, WWX asks how much a sprig of baby's breath was. The shop doesn't normally sell it by itself, and especially not a sprig at a time. LWJ names some arbitrary number. WWX buys the baby's breath and tucks it behind LWJ's ear and then just walks out like LWJ's not in danger of a heart attack.

One day, Wei Wuxian comes in and asks for something 'obnoxiously big'. He says it with an obnoxiously big smile, which quickly disappears when he hastens to reassure Lan Wangji: "Not that your arrangements are obnoxious. They're beautiful. But I need this to be intimidatingly big."

LWJ reaches for the gladioli and Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "No, more like..." He looks around, and finally points at the sunflowers, which hit Lan Wangji around shoulder height. "You have a delivery service, right?"

Lan Wangji has Jingyi on a bike attached to a cart, which is almost the same thing.

He creates an enormous arrangement, the likes of which he normally doesn't get to do apart from corporate arrangements and those certainly don't feature sunflowers, which is yellow at the top and ombres down into a dark orange at the bottom. There's plenty of greenery.

Jingyi is almost scared to touch it.

The delivery is for a Jiang Yanli at a media production company about ten minutes away, for 12:55pm which is oddly specific, and Lan Wangji pointedly does not pump Jingyi for any details he can provide the moment he gets back. He's better than that. Plus, if he waits ten minutes, Jingyi will start telling them anyway.

He's wrong – he only has to wait five minutes. Jingyi is close to vibrating out of his skin. Jiang Yanli turns out to be a rather plain young woman whose face lights up when she gets flowers, apparently. Jingyi had got to witness it twice, because he was the first of two deliveries of flowers.

The other bouquet was also very big, but definitely not as big as his. It had been delivered by a tall businessman, who had nearly dashed it to the floor when he saw Jingyi there, teetering behind his mountain of flowers. He'd snapped something like 'for the last time, Wei Wuxian!', shoved his bouquet at Jiang Yanli, and run away.

Jingyi had helpfully offered to stay and help her get the flowers into some vases, and give her some advice on keeping the bouquets fresh for longer, and if he conveniently asked about the other bouquet, well, he was just making small talk, right?

Jiang Yanli is Wei Ying's sister, it seems. (Lan Wangji exhales from where he's not-eavesdropping behind the bench.) The runaway man is her boyfriend, who also works in the same place that her brother does. For months, Wei Ying has been eyeing up the times the boyfriend has tried to buy her flowers, and then got her a bigger bouquet in the same day. Neither of the men have actually said anything about it, they've just been passively aggressively buying progressively bigger bouquets.

(Jiang Yanli is of the opinion that this is mostly harmless, especially since her other brother keeps talking about breaking the boyfriend's legs. Plus, she loves flowers.)

Jingyi looks delighted to be part of a flower-arrangement themed family feud. LWJ wonders if he could start ordering in some varieties of floral branches. They don't really use them for personal bouquets, but he's always wanted to expand his skill set. They would be really tall.

The next time WWX comes in, LWJ asks, "How big?"

"Ah, no," says WWX sheepishly. "We've mutually decided to stop it now."

LWJ feels kind of distraught about that. He's got used to seeing WWX frequently and hearing his updates on his life.

WWX is oblivious to this: "My sister thought it was gorgeous – thanks for that by the way – but she had a really hard time getting it home. I forgot about that. So I'm just here for one last, normal sized bouquet to say sorry." He grabs one of the pre-arranged ones, and LWJ is disappointed that he won't even get his normal dose of WWX chatter on what is probably his last visit.

"Well," LWJ manages to say as he rings him up, "we'll miss you." That's an appropriate customer service thing to say, right?

WWX laughs: "Me too, I enjoyed this, but I'll be honest, my wallet probably won't."

And then he waves and walks out of LWJ's life forever.

No, obviously not, that would be awful. That's what LWJ thinks though, and he's left staring at the door as it swings closed behind WWX and then keeps staring at it long after it stills, and yet is somehow still surprised when it flings back open three minutes later and Wei Wuxian bursts through it again.

"Hey, so, I've been thinking – or was literally just thinking, same thing – that since I'm gonna have all this extra money now, it means I can probably do other things. Like go out to dinner or something."

LWJ blinks. Good for him.

"You know, if you'd like to. Sometime." WWX is looking up at him through his eyelashes.

Oh.

(Out of the corner of his eye, LWJ can see Sizhui and Jingyi are frantically flashing thumbs up at him.)

WWX's smile fades as LWJ stares at him uncomprehendingly. No, that can't happen. LWJ turns, starts frantically looking through his flower buckets, pawing through them until he finds what he wants, and turns back. WWX mostly looks confused now. LWJ leans over the counter, banging his elbow on the table as he does so, and clumsily tucks a sprig of baby's breath behind WWX's ear.

"Yes," Lan Wangji says breathlessly, "That would be nice. Sometime. Any time."

[vivianweasley]

Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 6)

Summary: Your father is Lucius Malfoy’s cousin, and after the war, it was really difficult for you to find a job because of your last name. So your mother and Mrs. Weasley came up with a crazy idea. A fake marriage between you and Fred Weasley.

Last Chapter! (I combined the last chapter and the epilogue cuz they are not too long.)

Pairing: Fred Weasley X Malfoy!Fem!Reader

Warnings: food mention, mention of divorce, people pretending to choke, proposal.

Word Count: 1.8k

Disclaimer: photos used in the header are from Pinterest. Credit goes to the original owners.

Please do NOT repost or translate my work on any platform! Thank you! Reblogs and comments are always welcome:)

Pride and Prejudice Series Masterlist

Fred walked downstairs, noticing a faint smell of apples in the joke shop. “So are we selling apple juice now, Georgie?” he joked.

But George looked confused, “What apple juice? I could only smell caramel-” And then the answer finally came to George, “Amortentia!”

Fred followed George to the shelf displaying amortentia and immediately realized a firecracker just exploded next to this shelf, causing at least four bottles of amortentia to break and the love potion inside to spill.

George waved his wand and cleaned up the mess, but a satisfied smirk soon appeared on George’s lips, “Strange. Didn’t know you liked apples this much.”

“Shut up and go back to work!” Fred raised his voice, covering for the fact that he’s a complete mess now. 

That fainting smell of apple that’s still lingering in the shop also had a dash of the scent of book pages in it. And this combination could only remind Fred of one person. 

You.

The person whom he married out of a dare. The person who he fell in love with during the process. The person who just walked out of his life.

George noticed the change in Fred’s expression. How defeat was now written all over his face. “Mate, you need to do something. You can’t just let her walk away like that.”

“What can I do?” Fred sighed, “Maybe she’s been waiting for this all the time.”

George sighed with Fred. This wasn’t like his brother. Soon the lingering smell of amortentia caught his attention, and a brilliant idea popped into George’s mind. “She has feelings for you too, and I can prove it to you!”

~

You pushed open the door of the joke shop. George just called you claiming that there’s an emergency, so you rushed to the joke shop immediately after work.

George approached you with a small glass vial, “Y/N, this is the new perfume I just made. I need your opinion.”

So this is the emergency??

You looked at George, couldn’t decipher what his smile meant. But you did know one thing. In fact, everyone who went to school with the twins should know the rule: be careful of what they handed to you. So you stepped away from that vial and asked with caution, “When did the joke shop start selling perfume?”

“Oh, we are always trying to expand our business,” George noticed how you became alert, so he added, “I swear to Merlin, this is not a prank!”

Still finding his smile suspicious, but for Merlin’s sake, you still decided to take the vial.

“Does it smell good? What does it smell like?” George asked carefully.

“Hmm...” The perfume did smell very good. You could smell the sweetness of cinnamon, a dash of gunpowder, but it also smelled so familiar. It smelled like...Fred’s cologne? “George, I’m pretty sure someone else has already made a perfume like this.”

“Really? How so?” George felt his heart beating at his throat, so scared that you might say another person’s name.

“Isn’t this just Fred’s cologne?” You were finding this unbelievable. How could George not recognize his own twin’s cologne?

“Oh really!!” Hearing a definitive answer from you has made George so happy that he pulled you into a hug. “Got it! Thank you for your opinion! You’re the best!”

“You’re welcome...?” Watching George being so happy that he could start dancing at any minute, you were beginning to think that the chemicals in the perfume were toxic. How could making a plagiarized perfume make a man so happy?

~

Two days later, you apparated to the joke shop again. It was raining outside. Maybe the weather was trying to set the tone for what was about to happen next. After taking a deep breath, you knocked on the door of the twins’ apartment, the apartment that you called home for the past year.

Fred opened the door, letting you in without saying a word. You tried not to look at him so you could appear indifferent and won’t be affected by his expressions.

“Here’s the divorce document,” you said as you took out all the paper in your bag. He took the documents and flipped through the papers quickly, still not saying anything at all.

You couldn’t tell if his silence meant he’s also not ready to say goodbye or he just had nothing to say to you. But you tried not to overthink as you continued, “Oh, before you sign it, you still have one wish left. What do you want me to do?”

“What if I said,” he finally looked at you, his eyes capturing yours, “I don’t want you to go?”

His words were like a drum in your ears, rendered you speechless. Before you could fully process what he just said, Fred continued, “It might sound crazy, but for the past few days, I realized I just couldn’t imagine a life without you anymore.  I know I’ve lived 20 years without you perfectly fine, but now that I’ve had you in my life, I don’t ever want to live without you again. I know I could be insensitive sometimes, and I probably did something stupid that made you mad in the past year, but I’m willing to change if you tell me to.”

“All I’m trying to say is,” he took a deep breath and continued, “Please allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. And please don’t divorce me.“

You finally let out a soft laugh. That’s Mr. Darcy’s line in Pride and Prejudice. You remembered reading this part to him during Christmas, and you couldn’t believe that he actually memorized this line.

Fred panicked when you weren’t talking, “But of course, if you really want to, I wouldn’t stop you. I-“

“You know, you don’t have to use your last wish on this,” you stopped him, “I was going to say yes anyway. But If you insist, that won’t be a problem with me.”

Fred’s eyes widened as he processed your words, “Wait, does that mean-“

You answered his question by pulling him down and pressing a kiss on his lips. He was shocked by your sudden action but soon kissed you back with his hands finding your waist and pulling you closer to him.

So this is what it feels like to kiss him, and it’s so much better than how you’ve imagined it would be. It started a soft kiss but soon became more passionate, as if you were making up for all the time you two spent on being oblivious.

“Should’ve done this earlier.” A smirk appeared on Fred’s lips when you finally pulled away.

“Idiot,” you rolled your eyes, but your cheeks were still heated.

He chuckled before giving you another soft peck on the lips. His hands were still resting on your waist.

“And you’re still this idiot’s wife.”

～(warning: people pretending to choke, food mention)~

“Y/N, there’s a Mr. Weasley looking for you,” the receptionist raised her eyebrows and smiled at you.

“Thanks! I’ll be done in a minute!” You quickly finished the last sentence and looked at Luna from across the table with your puppy eyes.

She chuckled, “Alright, you can leave early today.”

“Thanks, Luna, you’re the best!” You flicked your wand to pack up your bag before running to the door.

“Tell Fred I said hi!” you heard Luna’s voice behind you.

“I will!”

A month after your fake marriage ended, you quit your job at Whizz Hard Books. You didn’t want to work in a place that wouldn’t accept who you really are.

Ginny introduced you to Luna Lovegood and The Quibbler. You immediately fell in love with the whimsical ideas and style of The Quibbler, and Luna gave you a new job as you two hit it off very quickly. So this is where you work now. No need to hide your background and use a fake last name. This place accepted you for who you are.

Fred was at the door, opening his arms when he saw you running to him. “Happy one-year anniversary, darling!”

You giggled as you ran into his arms, “and this time, it’s real.”

“Yep,” he pressed a kiss on your forehead, “ready?”

You nodded, and the next second you two apparated to your favorite restaurant.

The dinner was delicious, and for dessert, Fred ordered your favorite cake. But when you were enjoying the cake, you suddenly felt something hard inside. This was extremely dangerous, for you could’ve swallowed it if you weren’t paying attention. You were just about to complain when you finally realized what it was.

It’s a ring!

You were surprised. Was Fred trying to propose? But last time you checked, you two were still legally a married couple.

But this also seemed like what he would do on your one-year anniversary. You were sure he was waiting to see your surprised face, and an idea soon came to you.

You pretended that you were trying to pick up your spoon because your elbow “accidentally” swept it down on the floor a few seconds ago. When you were sure Fred couldn’t see you, you slid the ring on your finger. Then you got up and took another bite of the cake like nothing out of the ordinary happened.

A few seconds later, you started coughing. Your brows were furrowed as your hands reached for your neck like you just choked on something.

Fred was freaking out, knowing that he’s the reason behind all this, “Darling, are you alright?”

The only response you could produce was a few glottal sounds and you looked like you were almost crying.

Fred ran to you as fast as possible. He wanted to help, but he had no idea what to do as his brain was in an absolute mess now. The only thing he could manage to do was apologizing again and again, “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have done that. Baby, I’m so sorry…”

The noise you two were making attracted the other customers’ attention, and you saw a waiter approaching you with his wand, trying to help. You knew it’s probably time to stop this prank.

“Are you talking about this?” You finally stopped acting and waved your left hand in front of him.

Fred’s expression froze, still trying to recover from the terror of accidentally hurting you. After a few moments, he finally realized, “Wait, does that mean…”

“YES!” You chuckled.

Fred’s furrowed brows finally unfolded as a bright smile appeared on his lips. He picked you up and spun you around, “She said YES!”

The crowd around you was clapping and cheering while your husband was cheering himself as well.

You giggled, “Freddie, you know we never went through with the divorce, right? So technically, I’m still your wife.”

“I know, darling, but I figured that I owe you a proper proposal,” he said while pressing multiple soft kisses on your face, “Plus, I just want to make this official. I love you, darling.”

“I love you too,” You smiled as your lips found his again, “I love you most ardently.”

A/N: I can’t believe I really finished this series asdfgfgjk Thank you guys so so much for reading, reblogging, commenting, and liking this series. I can’t tell you how much your support means to me❤️

Series Taglist: @ifilosemyselfagain @theweasleytwinsgirl @bookworm06 @unabashedbookscollector @txtdreamss @sagittarius-flowerchild  @rsheridan @ovrwd @anywherebuthere @allaroundaddict @jeminila @secretsofageek @magical-spit @freddieweasleyswife @lilypad-55449 @hufflepuffzutara @honey-honey-5644 @kyloren-peterparker @treblebeth @kyloren-peterparker @fred-sux @rodrickmalfoy @liliputbahn @its-yasbxtch @daydreamgirl8​ @305weasley​ @awritingtree​ @lucymfer​ @bberree​ @malfoy-wife15   @weasleyxmalfoyxstyles  @justfollowtheroad​  @nojamsonmytoast​  @amc723​ 

(If your name is bolded, Tumblr wont let me tag you. And I’m really sorry if I forgot you!)

(General taglist in reblogged post cuz it can’t fit in one post)

[keilemlucent]

lavender latte: i

(T (for now!))

hawks | takami keigo x reader

chapter 2   ||   chapter 3 ||  chapter 4

ao3

word count: ~3k

You serve Hawks a lavender, oat milk latte. Not only is he hooked on your drinks, but he's also hooked on you as well.

a fluffy multi-chaptered piece i’ll release when i’m feeling it :’^) enjoy y’all. coffee shop au hell

||||||||||||||||||

You and Keigo met each other on the coldest, snowiest day of the year.

The temperature was near glacial. The air stung and bit like hell, wind kicking and spitting powdery snow as it fell in sheets from the grey sky.

The weather, horribly, prevented two of your coworkers from working the morning shift at the tea shop. Half of the trains were shut down across the city in addition to power outages. But, your cheap ass owner forced you to open. Alone. In a blizzard.

You were fairly certain that you wouldn’t be getting many customers.

Opening at the tea shop on a normal day was a hellish amount of work. As you unlocked the door and walked into your humble establishment of employment, you grimaced at the thought of all of the work you were to do.

After disrobing from your thick winter jacket, scarf, and mittens and throwing on your apron, it was time to begin. You made yourself a simple, oat milk latte and then started to get to work setting up for the day. 

It was hardly dawn. 

  Keigo was on early morning patrol. It wasn’t his favorite shift, oh, hardly, but he did enjoy watching the sunrise. And, while his wings were powerful, the snowstorm did force him to fly much lower in the grey haze of the day than he normally would. Stepping out of his apartment around just before 5:30 AM, Keigo almost moaned in anguish at the cold. He was infinitely glad he had worn a thermal bodysuit under his uniform.

His quirk afforded him much in terms of battle prowess, in addition to a few avian mutations. Most notably at that moment was his difficulty conserving heat. As Keigo stood on his balcony, frowning at the can of coffee in his hand, he made the prompt decision to fly to his area of patrol and grab a hot drink. The thought of downing something cold made his stomach turn.

Gracefully, Keigo turned and flew, letting himself be carried across town. The area he was patrolling was relatively quiet, mostly small businesses and lower-middle-class apartments. As he touched down, shivering and sleepy, he padded through the empty streets with his wings folded to his back.

  The wind was wild, wiping between buildings, making snowdrifts that blocked some of the doors of shops nearby. Part of you cursed, shaking your head. You desperately wanted to be warm, curled in bed with your cats, and watching cartoons.

You set up the shop, moving chairs and turning on machines. Though you were a tea shop, you sold more coffee than any sort. On a normal, fully-staffed day, you’d be in the back, crafting tea blends. But, that day was, in fact, a very abnormal day and it was about to get weirder.

  Keigo meandered around the streets, strangely at genuine ease. There were no civilians and very few stores open allowing him to walk freely, albeit coldly. Part of him wondered if he would even find a coffee shop.

But lo and behold, he did. 

Keigo opened the door, a cute bell ringing. The shop was themed warmly with yellow-toned wood counters and furnishings. There was a smattering of local art on the walls and jewel-toned accents. All in all, it was a cozy reprieve from the icy nature of outside. Keigo relished the heat.

It seemed only one person was working, you. 

  When you heard the bell sounding at the entrance of a customer, you piped up from behind the counter, “Just one sec!”

A kind laugh, “Take your time.”

You were struggling to reach a tea blend. It was high on the many shelves behind the counter. You clamored on top of the counter, rising on your knees to try and reach it. Your hands stretched to grip it with an arch of your back. You grinned in victory as you managed to grab it. You pulled back, miscalculating in your pride—

And then you were losing balance.

And then you were falling.

(How fucking cliche).

You would’ve hit the floor if it wasn’t for some unknown force, pushing you back onto the counter, steadying you. The sensation, new, perked you up, causing you to let out a high noise of surprise. You turned, your eyes going wide.

Several beautiful, scarlet feathers caught your fall.

Your eyes flickered up to your patron savior.

  Number two hero, Hawks, smiling at you and giving you a bit of cheshire grin, stifling a laugh.

You slowly descended from the counter, turning to face him at the register, “Well, I really have to say thank you. I nearly ate shit there.”

“All in a day's work,” Hawks winked at you. You beamed easily. Local heroes came and drank at the shop fairly regularly, but never anyone particularly famous, let alone the top ten. Never the incredibly stunning, wind-whipped bachelor hero that was Hawks.

“What can I get for you today?” You asked, going for a notepad.

Hawks eyes scanned the menu behind you. He hummed, pretty, amber eyes settling back on you, “Surprise me.”

Your eyes widened, but you nodded. You couldn’t stop smiling.

“Alright, let me ask a few questions, just to make your drink the best it can.” You told him. “First off, hot or iced?”

“Oh, definitely hot,” Hawks almost wiggled a feathered eyebrow at you and you couldn’t help rolling your eyes. 

“Okay, how much caffeine? Any allergies?” You asked, scribbling an idea down on the notepad. “Milk preference?”

“As much as you can legally supply me with, no preferred milk, and no allergies. Though, I do like things sweet,” Hawks was removing his gloves as he spoke. “Go crazy, give me the best thing you got, angel. Something that gives me the warm and fuzzies.”

Oh, that was a move. 

Hawks was notoriously (in the media) shamelessly flirtatious with fans and other heroes. It was always painted as something that was in good fun, never sexual, and just part of his brand. This was just common knowledge, but god you never expected it to be directed at you with a cute pet name.

  “On it,” You smiled back at him, face hot. You smoothed yourself down before beginning to craft his drink. 

It wasn’t often that you worked the front counter, and there was a good reason for it. Most of the time, you got too into making drinks, customizing them frivolously (often due to your quirk). Though you were skilled, it took a lot of time that people didn’t have for a coffee run.

But, on the day of a momentous snowstorm, you and Hawks had all the time in the world.

  Keigo was a bit stunned by you.  

You were cute, one. 

You were wearing a soft-looking turtleneck sweater, and high-waisted, wide-leg pants. They were fashionable but obviously aged. But it worked. A cute, embroidered apron was tied over you snuggly around your waist. It was adorned with buttons and pins, brightly colored.

 You spoke so frankly to him. You didn’t gawk at him for even a second, even when his feathers propped you up from falling. You blushed at his pet name but didn’t seem any more fazed than a bit of embarrassment. He liked it. It felt normal.

Keigo rested his hands on the counter, watching you flit about behind the counter. 

“I gotta ask, why are you open in this blizzard??” Keigo tilted his head as your gaze flickered to him. You were still smiling, just a bit, even hard at work. 

  You snorted, “Cheap boss who won’t close, and my coworkers are stranded without the trains running. I live close by and work hourly, so I might as well come in, ya’ know?”

Hawks laughed, something warm and full, so juxtaposed to the storm of flurries outside. 

It was odd, talking to the number two fucking hero so casually, but it felt good. There was a sense of awe and idleness, but it dimmed. There were no flashy heroics, just one person wanting a drink and the other making it.

Your quirk activated on its own as you stared at the syrups. Your quirk’s tell was so small and normal, no one ever caught it. A heavy dilation of the eyes was not something most people were tuned into. Yet there you were, submerged in sensation. Touch, sight, smell, taste, even sound, all blending together. They elicited something deeper in you, creating something abstract you could make tangible.

To make a feeling into a physical reality was a gift, but it came with drawbacks of course.

You poured a few syrups into the bottom of the cup, carefully selecting them.

“I can’t imagine how cold it is up in the sky,” You mused to yourself just before steaming some oat milk. 

“Oh, you have no idea, ” Hawks lamented to you with a groan. “I feel like I’m gonna lose a few toes whenever I work in this weather.”

“Just toes? I’d be worried about a whole foot,” You grinned back at him as you poured more things into the cup, stirring every few moments. 

The feeling in your mind was so tangible to you, and you could perfectly translate it to reality. Something warm, to beat away the frost of the world beyond the tea shop. 

You sprinkled the top with a few dashes of cinnamon, setting it on the counter in front of him. 

  Keigo looked down at the drink you made him, raising an eyebrow. He went to take a sip, but you stopped him, “I’d give that a few minutes if you don’t want to burn your tongue, tailfeathers.”

  Hawks nearly fucking squawked as he set down the drink, giving you a look of false anger, “ Tailfeathers? That’s not a kind name to call me. I don’t even have those.”

Keigo huffed, pouting at you. 

  “You call me, a stranger barista, angel, I call you tailfeathers. Easy trade.” You shrugged at him, tapping into the register system. “I’m not charging you until you try it.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to upcharge if I don’t like it?” Hawks continued to pout, jokingly so, pulling out a wad of bills that was undoubtedly much more than any drink would cost. 

Your eyes widened, leaving you sputtering, “Oh, never— it’s on the house if it bangs as much as I think it will.”

Hawks laughed, out loud, bending back a bit. You watched his pretty red wings shudder and reflect the warm light of the coffee house. Keigo collected himself, over-dramatically straightening himself. 

You watched with anticipation as he took his sip.

  Keigo was a man of poor taste. Sure, dropping an unholy amount of money on frivolities was one of his small pleasures, after so much of the ascetic bullshit that the Commission put him through, it only seemed fair. But, caffeine was a necessity with his fucked up schedule and he’d be damned waiting in a line or making it at home. Canned coffee was saccharine and speedy and that’s all he fucking wanted. 

But, when the first drops of that stupid oat milk latte hit his tongue, Keigo was beyond enamored. 

Yeah, he wanted coffee to feel warm in this storm, but he didn’t expect to feel warm. With just one gulp, he could feel the heat, like the flames of a steady hearth, drift around his body. 

He brought the cup down from his lips, looking at you with awe. 

You had the smuggest grin spread across your face, arms crossed over your chest.

“Thoughts?” God, you were so cheeky. He loved it. You were so subtly bold.

“This,” Keigo took another greedy swig, wiping his mouth on the back of his ungloved hand, “is the best coffee I’ve ever had in my damn life.”

Your smile just got wider. 

“Glad I could meet your tastes, tailfeathers. No charge,” You gave him a cheeky little wink. You swore you saw his face get redder, but you dismissed it a moment later.

“Oh no, nu-uh,” Keigo pushed the bills towards you. “Take it as a tip then. Seriously. How did you make this?”

You stared down at the bills and Hawks’s hand. His hands weren’t particularly large, but they were scarred plenty. Veins and bone were accented by the dryness of his skin. 

You looked back up at him, still not taking the money, “Can you keep a secret? It’s a big one, especially considering you’re a hero.”

Hawks tilted his head, “If you say you used your quirk to mess with this drink, I don’t know if I’m legally able to keep it a secret.”

“Nah, nah. I didn’t ‘mess with your drink’,” You shook your head, nodding down to it. “Do you know what synesthesia is?”

(He did, surely. But he just wanted to listen to you talk more.)

“Enlighten me?” Hawks ask, stooping to rest his elbows on the counter, chin cradled in his hands.

  For being a man who could kill you in a split second, Hawks was remarkably cute. You understood his sex appeal long before he entered the shop. His hair looked unnaturally fluffy, wind-ruffled, and honey blonde. His eyes had a few cute bird-like markings ringing the sweet, amber irises. He had a delicate but defined jaw. 

He raised a sculpted, feathered eyebrow at you. 

(He’d caught you staring).

You cleared your throat, laughing it off easily (though you were mentally kicking yourself), “Synesthesia, broadly, is like senses overlapping in your brain. Like... The common example is seeing colors when you hear a month of the year.”

“Now, what does this have to do with my lovely drink?” Hawks batted his eyelashes at you. You could tell he was definitely flirting with you, but you brushed it off the best you could. 

He’s a hot guy you made coffee for. Happens all the time. 

“Well, you had me a little bit, I did use my quirk, but it doesn’t mess with your drink physically at all. Not even close,” You laugh. “My quirk allows me to conceptualize abstract ideas into tangible ideas.”

“That really makes it sound like you used your quirk to make my drink,” Keigo watched your eyes dilate as he spoke.

You blinked, and they went back to normal.

“No, no. It’s like for your drink,” Both of your eyes looked towards the steaming cup. “I took your request for ‘warm and fuzzies’ to heart.”

Keigo blinked at you. 

Your pupils expanded again, “I figured ‘ you know, this guy has to fly around in the cold all day, right? Probably is freezing and far away from home ’— and there was my inspiration.

“I used my quirk to conceptualize... the idea of being warm and safe into a tangible concept. A nice, easy coffee drink. Four shots of espresso, oat milk, homemade lavender honey syrup, two of my own, specially made tea extracts, and a bit of cinnamon for good measure.”

Hawks blinked at you, “Your quirk gives you the... blueprints, to turn ideas, literal feelings, into reality and these blueprints just work?” 

You nodded and shrugged, “Most of the time. The less I’m focused on it, the more likely it is that the feeling won’t be able to manifest. I just get more exact with my construction with the fewer stimuli.”

“Drawback?” Hawks quirked an eyebrow, already having a good idea as to it.

You gestured lazily to the empty coffee shop, “I get overstimulated easily, quirk activated or not. Makes a lot of shit hard, but I like my quirk. I mean, it’s nothing like having a crazy strong pair of wings, but it services me well.”

“Did you really ‘manifest’ ‘warm and fuzzies’ into a drink, or did you make it a bit deeper than that?” Keigo sipped again, relishing how it warmed him all over once more. The taste that was dancing over his palette seemed a little more complex than what they were saying. 

“To be frank and to have a bit of an ego, yeah, I went for my go-to feeling when making drinks for myself,” You averted your eyes from him. “A good drink should feel like you’re getting hugged from the inside out, you know? Comforted. It’s hard enough to get that tangibly without a quirk. I just try to help where I can.”

  Keigo blinked at you.

You had turned suddenly, shy, eyes anxiously darting and a hand tugging at the sleeve of your sweater. A cute flush was spreading over your cheekbones when you finally looked at him again, “Kinda corny, right?”

Despite the fact that Keigo’s heart was fucking pounding, he shook his head, voice steady and sure, “Nah, I think it’s cool. You’re doing a lot more than just making coffee for folks.”

Your face got even redder as you rubbed the back of your head,

“I usually work in the back, so I don’t tend to make a lot of coffee for people. I make the tea blends that we sell. I don’t always use my quirk, but sometimes I do.”

Keigo watched you nervously pull at your apron, giving him an oddly desperate deadpan, “Please don’t turn me in.”

That made Keigo bust out laughing again. 

You couldn’t help but stare at him in shock, and then join him. You covered your mouth at first, but finally, just let yourself laugh with him. All it seemed like that there was in the world was you, Keigo, the lavender latte, and the snowdrifts outside.

  Hawks’s pager beeped, almost instantly pulling him from his laughing fit. He glanced at it, giving a dull grimace, “Duty calls, it seems.”

“You’d think villains would take snow days?” You told him as he re-gloved his hands. 

“It would really make my job easier,” He chuckled. Hawks pushed the forgotten money on the counter. “That’s all for you, ya hear me? Keep it or I will actually turn you in.”

Oh, you were feeling bold. 

Before Hawks could pull his hand away, you placed your own on his, stopping his movement.

“Only,” You somehow, one-handed, managed to pull a bit of receipt paper from its machine. Still one-handed you grabbed a pen and scribbled onto the paper. You pushed it towards Keigo. “If you take this very conveniently small piece of paper that totally doesn’t have my name and number on it. Just in case you’d like another lavender latte like that.”

  Oh, Keigo was floored.

He had rapid fucking fans. They were feral. He’d had fans drop their entire life stories on him, gush to him, stalk him— one time, a fan dropped to their knees and licked his boots. And he’d certainly received many phone numbers in his day, so many, but never like this. 

This felt a little different.

“Well, I was gonna say, I might need some contact to know when you work next. Just so I can grab one of your lovely drinks,” Hawks winked at you, all smitten.  He walked backwards towards the door, still meeting your eyes

“Feel free to.” You were just as starry-eyed as he was. “I have a lot to show you!”

And with that, Hawks whisked himself out of the door, fast as ever.

And you both simmered, full of intangible feelings. 

[starshine583]

New Girl on the Block (5)

(The next update is here! Feel free to check out the mini series connected to this fic called Journal Entries. I will warn anyone who checks it out that I’m probably not going to continue the entries, though.)

Ch.1 / Ch.4 / Ch.6

Chapter 5: Late Night Visits

Felix idly watched the elevator light flicker from circle to circle as he reached the top floor. He tugged lightly at the green color of the shirt that Marinette had given him, preparing for his mother’s overbearing questions. She’d been trying to get him to wear something other than his suits for at least a year. When she saw him in this attire, she was going to have a fit.

Felix blew out a sigh. Normally, he would have changed back to his other clothes by now- Mme Sabine did an excellent job of cleaning them and tucking them into his bag, neatly folded -but Marinette told everyone that they could keep their outfits. After an offer like that, it seemed rude to change. 

The elevator emitted a soft *ding* to inform him that he’d arrived on his selected floor, and Felix drew in a deep breath, watching the golden-colored doors slide open. Here it comes.

The family penthouse was shrouded in darkness, save for the flames that flickered in the fireplace of the open living. It cast a soft, orange glow on the furniture and floors, and in the midst of the distorted dimness, Felix could make out his mother lounging leisurely on one of the light blue couches. It wasn’t unlike her to keep the house lights off while he or Father was away. She claimed that it helped think and relax. 

When the elevator doors rattled closed, his mother sat up from the couch and turned to him, her eyes bright and curious. A part of him hoped that she couldn’t spot his new outfit in the darkness, but that hope was quickly dashed as she hopped up with a gasp.

“Oh my goodness!” She exclaimed, sounding like a child on Christmas morning. Felix barely had time to set his bag down before she got to him, pawing up and down to study the fabric. He briefly wondered how a woman who wore six inch heels could move with such speed and agility.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! Is it my birthday? Are you really my son? What happened to your old clothes? I thought you were going to visit Marinette’s house!” She flicked the lights on to get a better look, and Felix squinted as his eyes adjusted.

“Yes, I’m really your son,” He replied firstly, taking a step away from her incessant touches, “And I did go to Marinette’s house. That’s why I needed new clothes.”

Bridgette frowned, both at his step away from her and his comment. “What happened to your old clothes? Did Claude spill something on them again?”

“You could say that Claude was the Catalyst, yes.” He grumbled, the memory of Claude’s mocking laughter flicking through his mind. 

“Well, where are your other clothes then? Should I call M. Bernarde over to clean them?” 

Felix shook his head and gestured to his bag on the floor. “No need. Mme Sabine has already taken care of it.”

“Mme Sabine?” Bridgette parroted curiously. She knelt down and flipped over the brown, leather flap to pull out the clothes.

“Ah. Marinette’s mother.” Felix explained. “She insisted that I refer to her as ‘Mme Sabine’.” 

A smile graced Bridgette’s lips as she stood, tucking Felix’s clothes in her arms. “That’s very sweet of her.”

Felix nodded and knelt down to grab his bag as well. “M. Tom and Mme Sabine both have an uncanny resemblance towards you when it comes to their behavior.”

“Oh?” Bridgette’s eyes narrowed with amusement. “So what I’m hearing is: Marinette’s parents are wonderful people.”

Felix chuckled, flashing her an indulgent smile. “Of course, Mother.”

Bridgette grinned and ruffled a hand through his hair. “I definitely raised you right. Do you want some tea? I can make some while you go change. I know that’s not your usual preference of clothing.”

Felix hummed at the offer, reaching up to touch his collar again. “Tea sounds nice, but I think I’ll keep the outfit.”

It was already ten o’clock at night. If he were to change into anything, it would be a pair of pajamas, and he wasn’t in the mood for that yet. There were still things that he needed to jot down in his notebook before settling down for the evening.

Bridgette’s eyes bulged out of her head. “You mean you actually like the outfit?”

Felix shrugged. “The clothes are comfortable. It might not be my usual attire, but it’s also not unbearable. Besides, going up to change now would only be a waste of energy.”

Bridgette placed a hand on her hip and breathed out an incredulous laugh. “If I had known that going to Marinette’s house was all it would take for you to break your ‘suits’ streak, I would have you sent you there ages ago.”

Felix playfully rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be happy that I dress well? Father’s quite pleased with it.”

Bridgette clicked her tongue, setting his clothes on the dining room table next to them to cross her arms. “Yes, that’s because your father is just as uptight as you are. You both need to loosen up a little.”

Felix chuckled. “Where is Father? I thought he was supposed to be home tonight.”

“He’s up in his study.” Bridgette answered, tilting her head towards the stairs. “There’s an important meeting at the bank tomorrow, and he wanted to prepare.”

Felix nodded. That was understandable. “What kind of tea are you going to make?”

Bridgette perked up at the reminder and spun on her heel to head towards the kitchen, her cream-colored dress flowing around her legs with the action. “I was thinking of Iron Goddess, but is there something different you might want?”

Felix shook his head as he followed behind her. “Iron Goddess sounds marvelous. I haven’t had that in a while.”

Bridgette moved to the stove and turned it on. Then she pulled out her flower-decorated kettle and set it on the burner. Felix stood next to her, quietly watching her pour the needed amount of water into the kettle. 

“So tell me how Claude managed to ruin your clothes for the twentieth time.” She said after a moment while handing Felix the dried, tea leaves.

Felix took the tea leaves and fished out a measuring spoon to scoop the accurate amount. “Twenty-second, actually, and I’m not entirely sure what happened.”

One moment, they were trying to put flour on the dough. The next moment, the flour was on them. Not the dough. He remembered everyone coughing up flour, and the white clouding his vision as the substance floated around the room. He remembered Claude laughing and Allan sighing in defeat when he finally got hit. Allegra had pinched the bridge of her nose at one point, undoubtedly asking herself what she would do with all of them.

Then he remembered Marinette’s face, flushed from embarrassment, as she scrambled to take the flour bag off of him, and her giddy smile, moments later, as she threw the bag onto Allan. 

“M. Tom was teaching us how to make croissants.” Felix said, starting at the first thing he could clearly recall. “When he left to deal with an unruly customer, Marinette attempted to take over the lesson. Unfortunately, she didn’t anticipate Claude’s tumultuous mannerisms.”

A laugh escaped Bridgette. “Can anyone truly prepare for Claude?”

Felix shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen.”

He tipped his measuring spoon into the infuser, letting the leaves fall into it. Then he reached across the stove and dropped the infuser into the kettle.

“Claude inevitably spilled a fourth of their flour bag onto himself and Allegra, and when Marinette went to fetch more for the rest of us, she tripped. I tried to catch her, but the flour bag was too heavy to handle. So we both ended up falling and getting covered as well.”

Bridgette snorted. “How chivalrous of you. It’s nice to know you’re fond enough of Marinette to try to help her when she needs it.”

“I didn’t do anything special.” Felix said, a twinge of irritation stirring in the back of his mind. She acted as though he let people fall in front of him on a regular basis. 

..of course, he did watch Claude land face first into the cement one day without so much as twitching. But in his defense, the brunette had been pushing Felix to the limit that day. He thought it only fair to let the boy suffer a little. 

“Anyone decent would have done the same thing.” Felix added, referring back to Marinette’s trip.

Bridgette nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true.. So you’re saying you’re not fond of her, then?”

“No, I-” Felix cut himself short, realizing what he was about to say. 

It’s not that he disliked Marinette. She was a kind-hearted person and, as of right now, hasn’t done anything to displease him. But for some reason, the word ‘fond’ sounded.. too strong. Too incriminating. 

His mother’s bubbly laughter broke him from his thoughts.

“Relax, sweetheart. I’m only teasing. I know you enjoy Marinette’s company.” She said, lightly tapping her fingers under his chin. The assurance didn’t appease Felix in the slightest. In fact, it only birthed a new form of discomfort. Why did the thought of enjoying Marinette’s company make him squirm? Wasn’t it normal to enjoy someone’s company once you were around them for a while? 

“So how did you get the new outfit?” Bridgette inquired next. “Did you have to stop baking and go on a last minute shopping spree?”

“No, Marinette had plenty of outfits.” Felix answered, gladly accepting the subject change. “It was quite impressive. She’d told us that she was a fashion major, but I didn’t realize that she was actually making clothes at this moment and time.”

“Wait, what?!” Bridgette blanched, her eyes blowing wide as she straightened. “You’re telling me that she made those clothes? The ones you’re wearing right now.”

Felix barely managed a nod before Bridgette swooped down to inspect his clothes all over again.

“You’re kidding!” She gasped, feeling over the seams and fabrics. “You didn’t tell me that she was a fashion designer! And a talented one, no less!”

“Didn’t I?” Felix replied, subtly leaning away from his mother.

Bridgette shook her head. “No, you didn’t! You’ve told me that she’s a new student who got in on a scholarship, that she lives in a bakery, that she’s clumsy, and that she’s somehow anxious and level-headed at the same time, but I’ve never heard about her aspirations towards being a fashion designer.”

“Huh..” Felix mumbled. The fact must have slipped his mind earlier. “Well, that’s how she attained the scholarship. She’s majoring in fashion. Claude, Allegra, and Allan all got outfits from her as well.”

“That’s incredible..” Bridgette muttered. “She must really be something.”

Felix nodded, being inclined to agree. No one got an early scholarship to Rosemary Highschool without having an immense amount of drive and talent. The clothes he wore now proved that.

A sharp whistle cut into their conversation, and Bridgette swiftly moved back to the stove to turn it off. She then grabbed two mugs from the counter- one deep green and one deep blue -and poured some of the scalding liquid from the kettle into both cups.

“So what happened after everyone changed?” She asked, getting back to the original topic.

“Nothing much.” Felix admitted. He took the dark green mug that Bridgette offered him with a ‘thanks’ before adding, “Marinette took our clothes to Mme Sabine for her to wash them, and the rest of the visit was spent playing video games or talking.”

“Did you play games as well?” 

An involuntary snort left Felix’s lips, and he shook his head. “Certainly not. I looked around Marinette’s room instead.”

“Oh?” His mother scooted closer to him with a sly smile, the same way she always did when she expected to hear something ‘juicy’. “Did you find anything interesting?”

The treasure chest of birthday gifts resurfaced in Felix’s mind, along with the card that he’d found.

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” He lied. It wasn’t his place to disclose such things, especially when he hadn’t been told directly about them. Felix wanted to learn more about Marinette, not share her private life with the world. “She seems to have quite an obsession with the color pink, though.”

Bridgette laughed. “Really? How bad?”

“Well, it’s not as bad as your infatuation with sky blue,” Felix said light heartedly, “but it still covered almost everything in her room. I was shocked that her hand-made outfits weren’t all pink as well.”

Bridgette hummed. “You do need to have some variety in the fashion world. Otherwise your clothes will become bland and predictable.”

She took a small sip of her tea and sank against the counter, reveling in the warmth it provided. 

“So how do you think Marinette’s fairing in the group so far?” she asked after a moment.

Felix took a sip of his own tea as he mulled over his answer. “She certainly knows how to hold her own. Allegra and Claude have already pledged their loyalty to her, claiming that she’s family even though we’ve only known her a week.”

“You think they’re rushing things?”

“I think they’re impulsive and rash as always.” Felix shrugged. “Marinette can be a great asset to our group, but that’s hardly a reason to devote themselves to her.”

Intrigue flashed in Bridgette’s deep blue eyes. “So you think she can make the group better?”

“Currently, yes.” Felix responded. “The way she interacts with each of us brings a strange sense of balance to the group. She adds this splash of color that we’ve apparently been lacking.”

It’s something he’s noticed often in the past week. Marinette will listen intently to Claude’s stories and ideas, therefore sedating his chaotic atmosphere. She’ll compliment Allegra’s styles and discuss compelling topics with the blonde, easily satisfying the girl’s need to dig up controversy and drag it to light for the sake of a good argument. She’ll even share looks and teasing comments with Allan, praising him for his photography skills and giving him the constant validation that causes the boy to smile just a little bit more. Her routine of asking Felix’s opinion and actually taking it into consideration admittedly soothes his ever-rising temper as well.

In a way, she kept them grounded, and that was something that their group desperately needed if you asked him.

“Wow~” Bridgette sang, taking a long sip of her tea. “That’s a lot of praise coming from you, Felix.”

Something turned inside Felix’s chest at the comment, and his grip on his mug tightened. Why did he feel as though he had been caught for something? Nothing he said had been untrue. 

“I’m merely stating observations.”

“Of course.” Bridgette muttered into her cup, an air of amusement in her voice. “Observations.”

Felix narrowed his eyes at his mother. Her sly smile told him that she wasn’t quite agreeing with him in the way that she said. Almost like she was insinuating something or knew something that he didn’t. Bridgette was known for drawing irrational conclusions, though, so he didn’t dare ask what that something was. Felix simply took another sip of his tea and continued telling her the smaller details of his visit. 

~~~~~~

Evening in Paris, a time where the streets are empty and the lights are full. The city of love always had a way of illuminating the night sky with its abundance of lanterns and street lamps. Couples could often be found strolling along, enjoying the romantic atmosphere, but tonight, company was scarce. Only the occasional car divulged the fact that the drowsy town was not quite asleep. 

Chat Noir didn’t blame the civilians for staying inside. The frigid month of January was tolerable in the morning, but at night, the frosted winds had no mercy. He tugged up his scarf to compensate for the chill that nipped at his cheeks and nose, and although it did little to help, he continued skipping across the rooftops. Nathalie would be checking on him in roughly an hour to make sure he was asleep. That gave him roughly thirty to forty-five minutes to get to Marinette’s house, convince her to transfer back to Dupont, and get home. 

Well, he didn’t expect to convince her fully- Marinette can be extremely stubborn -but he could lay the groundwork. For example, if Chat Noir could figure out why she left, maybe Adrien would be able to fix it. 

The balcony came into view a few minutes later, and Chat Noir picked up the pace. Using his alter ego to snuff out information wasn’t something that he put to practice often, but all attempts to talk to Marinette as Adrien so far have failed, and he couldn’t wait for his schedule as a civilian to open again. 

His feet landed on the Dupain-Cheng rooftop, but the ice on top of it caused him to slip. He let out a yelp and threw his hands forward to claw for support. The high pitched whine that came from his gloves when they caught on the ice made him wince, but it was better than falling off the edge of the roof. He scrambled upwards to safety, blowing out a sigh of relief as he found Marinette’s window. That was close.

Now that he had steady footing, Chat Noir stole a peek into Marinette’s bedroom. The last time he came to her house uninvited, it was while she was sleeping, and that did not end well for him. Therefore, he’s started checking whether she’s ‘ready’ for him or not.

Marinette buzzed around her room, a bright smile on her lips as she gathered empty soda can, cups, and plates. Why were there so many drinks and plates? Did Marinette eat that much or did she have someone over earlier? If she did have someone over, then who would it be? Everyone at Dupont was still grumbling about her supposed misdeeds. Did someone finally come to their senses and apologize? 

Chat Noir perked up. This was great! If she’s reconciled with one of her old classmates, it would be that much easier to sway her in his direction.

Fueled by a fresh spark of hope, he climbed up to Marinette’s balcony. The coolness of the metal railing seeped through his gloved hands as he grabbed it, but he hardly cared as he swung himself over. His padded feet hit the wooden floorboards without a sound, and he knelt down to knock on the trapdoor.

“I can’t believe how much fun today was!”

His knuckles faltered in the air at the sound of Marinette’s voice. She sounded positively giddy, which was nice, but who was she talking to? He didn’t remember seeing anyone in the bedroom with her. Were they sitting outside his viewpoint? Should he come back later?

“When everyone got covered in flour, I thought the rest of the night was going to be horrible, but they looked like they had a good time.” Marinette continued, oblivious of her eavesdropper. 

Chat Noir frowned slightly. ‘Everyone’.. Did more than one person come over? How did they get covered in flour?

He shook his head and checked his baton for the time. 10:20pm. If he was going to talk to her, it needed to do it now. 

Tentatively, he knocked on the trapdoor, hoping beyond all hope that she was making a simple phone call. Marinette would be ticked if he came over, uninvited, while she had someone else visiting.

Her idle chatter immediately ceased, and Chat Noir shifted nervously on the floor. Please be alone. Please be alone.

His ears twitched to the sound of movements. Footsteps were making their way across the room. Then up the first ladder to the loft. Then up the second ladder to the balcony. Then-

Marinette pushed her way through the trapdoor, offering him a warm smile. “Hey, Chat! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you around here. How have you been?”

Chat’s shoulders sagged in relief. It’s been forever since he’s seen that wonderful smile. “I’ve been okay. Mind if I come in?”

“Not at all.” Marinette held the trapdoor open long enough for Chat to grab it and started climbing back down the ladder. “I was just cleaning up from having my friends over.”

So she did have people over! 

“Which friends?” He asked, trying not to sound too eager as he climbed down the ladder behind her. Could it be Alya? They were best friends, after all. Or Nino? He was always skeptical of Lila’s tales. Oh! What if it was Nathaniel? Chat remembered the red-head having a soft spot for Marinette a while back. Or what about-

“My new friends from school!” Her enthusiastic reply shattered his hopes, and Chat Noir froze, the trapdoor rocking shut above him. She had.. new friends? Already? She’d only been gone a week or two..

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I transferred from Dupont to Rosemary!” She added, completely oblivious to the bomb that she’d just dropped on him. It shouldn’t surprise Chat that she had new friends, since Marinette was amazing, but..

“What about your old friends?” 

Marinette shrugged, dumping a few soda cans into the trash bag that lay in the corner of her room. “Oh, you know. Lila’s been rallying them against me for a few months now. I figured that wasn’t good for my mental health or my education, so I decided to leave.”

Guilt festered in the pit of his stomach, and Chat Noir cast his gaze to the side. He understood where she was coming from. Lila hadn’t been making life easy for her as of late. 

“Do you miss them?”

“Nope!” The answer was immediate and cheerful, and it shot a knife right through Chat’s heart.

“There’s not a single part of you that wants to go back?” He persisted. School had been difficult for her with Lila’s lies. He got that. But it still hurt to know that she was willing to throw them away like they hadn’t been friends for the better half of two years. 

Marinette shook her head, shoving the imagined knife deeper into his chest. “If they wanted me to stay, they should have treated me better.”

“What if they’re sorry?” He asked, probably faster than he should have. “What if they missed you and wanted you to come back? Wouldn’t you forgive them?”

Weren’t friends supposed to work things out? 

A sigh fell from her lips. “I don’t know, Chat. No one’s even apologized yet. Even if they did, I’m not sure that I’d want to go back?”

“Why not?” Chat all but yelled in exasperation. If everyone apologized, that would mean no one was upset with her anymore. The problem would be gone! So why would she want to stay away from them?

Marinette frowned at him. “If I go back to Dupont, it’ll only show them that their actions don’t have any real consequences. They need to learn that they can’t just treat people however they want.” 

Chat Noir didn’t respond, because what could he really say? She was right. He knew she was right. You can’t rage against someone day after day and expect them to take it. Even so, he couldn’t help wanting her back. They needed her. He needed her.

“Why are you so concerned about this anyway?” Marinette inquired, breaking him from his thoughts.

Chat Noir managed a sheepish smile. “N-No reason. I just don’t want you making any rash decisions is all.”

Marinette eyed him for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I don’t think it’s rash to get out of a toxic situation, but why don’t we change the subject? Do you want to play games? I can bring up snacks if you plan on staying long.”

Chat Noir pulled out his baton to check the time. 10:40pm. Drat.

“Actually, I should get going.” He replied, slipping on an apologetic smile. “Patrol and all that.”

Marinette gave an understanding nod. “No problem. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Thanks for having me.” Chat Noir said with a small wave. He then clambered back up the ladder and pushed open the trapdoor. The freezing air hit him full force, but he didn’t have time to be skittish. Nathalie would be coming to check on him in twenty minutes, and that didn’t include the possibility of her coming to check on him early.

He shut the trapdoor behind him, making sure it was tightly closed. (Just because he had to get frostbite didn’t mean that Marinette had to) Then, Chat Noir swung himself over the railing, slid down the Dupain-Cheng’s rooftop, and started homeward.

He’d wanted to change Marinette’s mind about Dupont, but in the end, he was the one who had his mind changed. With Lila running about and spreading lies, it wouldn’t be fair to ask her to return. However, if his classmates were too.. say.. change their ways and learn to appreciate Marinette, she might be inclined to come back. All he had to do was convince them that Lila was a liar and that Marinette was an actual angel, and he would start with apologizing. What the school Marinette said she transferred to? Rosemary? Yeah, that’s it. Rosemary.. Wasn’t that the prestigious school for rich kids that Father almost sent him to? How did she manage to enroll there? He thought the tuition was supposed to be extremely expensive.

Chat Noir shook his head slightly. How she enrolled at that school didn’t matter. What mattered was that that’s where she’ll be most of the day from now on, and as soon as he got even a second of free time as Adrien, she will be the first person he sees.

Tag List:  @artbyknigit @athena452 @nickristus-dreamer @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @arsaem @abrx2002 @neakco @pawsitivelymiraculous @too0bsessedformyowngood @nathleigh @lusicing @officiallydarkgeek @all-mights-asscheeks @tbehartoo @woe-is-me0 @raeuberprinzessin @lazuli-11 @miss-chaos27 @trippingovermyfeet @sadpotatoondrugs @ladybug-182 @jaggedheart11 @marinahrasauce @i-need-blog-ideas

[mammonshuman92]

- Joy Ride -

(Saeyoung x F!MC)

**TW: cussing, implied seggs, my shitty writing lol

“No, wait! Y/N this wasn’t part of the bet!” Saeyoung exclaimed, following close behind you.

You spun on your heel to face him, “The deal was, that if I got a perfect score on my final exam, I got to do one thing, anything I wanted. That’s what you said, right?”

“Um, w-well yeah, but I thought it’d be like, bedroom stuff or something. Not this.” He sounded so desperate. “Besides, I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“Saeyoung!” You shouted, playfully slapping his arm and acting as if you were offended.

“Ow! What? I’ve seen your test scores. I thought this was an easy win for me.” He confessed.

“Rude.” You turned away from him and continued walking down the hallway, reaching the door of your destination. You stopped, and faced him again.

“What were you gonna ask for, had you won?” You asked, curiously.

He wiggled his eyebrows at you, “Bedroom stuffs.”

You rolled your eyes and giggled, “Geez, you horn dog!”

You opened the door, and flicked on the light.

“It’s not to late to change your mind, Y/N! I-I’ll get you a puppy! Or we can do those tik tok thirst traps you”re always trying to talk me into. Please, Y/N. Anything but this.”

His last-ditch efforts to persuade you weren’t working. You wouldn’t change your mind.

“No deal.” You said, nonchalantly grabbing a set of keys off their place on the holder on the wall, and jingling them at him.

“Get in. We’re going for a drive.”

“Y/N please, I’m begging you. Not my babies!” He was all but having a nervous breakdown in the passenger seat.

“Calm down, Sae. She will come back in the exact condition she’s in now.” You said, marveling at the jet black interior. The back light behind the dash and all the controls was the same color red as the exterior. You felt like a kid in a candy store.

Saeyoung groaned in the seat next you you. “Why did you have to pick the most expensive one though?”

The car you chose happened to be a limited edition Herrari, highly customized, and extremely pricey. It was definitely his favorite one. 

“Because of why it’s the most expensive.” You said, practically bouncing in your seat. You turned the key, and she roared to life. Adrenaline rushed through you.

Your response slightly confused him. “Because you look cool?”

You scoffed, “That’s just a perk, I guess.” You buckled your seat belt, then turned to look at him. “I’m after that customized, super charged engine.” You confessed, quickly putting it in gear and zooming out of the garage.

You were weaving in and out of traffic with ease, heading for a more secluded area. Saeyoung kept making odd little noises beside you, and you were sure you even heard him silently praying.

You chuckled at him, “Relax, alright? I’m an excellent driver. Probably even better than you.”

Oh, now he’s salty.

“No one knows my babies better than I do.” He said, matter-of-factly, crossing his arms over his chest. You laughed at him.

“There’s things about me that even you don’t know, Mr. Hacker.” Your mysteriousness has intrigued him.

“Do tell.” He prompted you.

“My folks owned a mechanic shop.” You began, “I grew up in that garage, learning to work on all kinds of cars. From oil changes on family minivans, to fully customizing sports cars. Like this one.” You gently patted the steering wheel. “I’ve always been around cars.”

“A basic background check revealed that after you first came to the RFA.”

“Yes, but the most important part is secret. It can’t be found on any files, anywhere.”

Traffic had thinned out a lot, now that the sun was starting to set, leaving the highway wide open. You accelerated, knowing that you would soon reach your destination. He did seem to be relaxing a little.

To say that Saeyoung was curious, was an understatement. He loved unearthing secrets. It’s kinda what he does. 

You exited the highway onto the all too familiar secluded stretch of road you knew so well.

Saeyoung looked out the window and turned to you, his eyes were big and curious. What were you planning? 

“Go on.” He urged.

“Well, when I got old enough, my Dad let me in on the family business that happened after hours: street racing.”

“Street racing? But, why would that be secret?” He asked.

You pulled into what looked like an abandoned lot. The thick cover of trees kept it well hidden while you were on the road. It wasn’t until you pulled further in, that he noticed several sets of lights. He was so confused.

When you got closer, he noticed that the lights were actually headlights, belonging to dozens of drool worthy sports cars.

“Well, you see, it’s kinda... illegal.” You confessed with a sheepish grin.

He looked at you with wide eyes, mouth slightly hanging open. 

“Y/N L/N! You? Illegal?” He put his hand over his heart as if he were shocked. Although, he really was.

“Oh, stop! Like you didn’t use to do all kinds of illegal things before you got out of the agency.”

“Well yeah, but this is you we’re talking about! Sweet, innocent Y/N. Well, you’re not very innocent when we-”

“Sae!” You yelled, causing him to laugh at you.

“For real though. I would’ve never pegged you as someone to be into something like this.” He said, gesturing to all the other cars in front of you.

“You should know better than anyone that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, 707.” He smiled at you.

 Although his time with the agency was agonizing, he didn’t mind the use of his old code name. Especially if it came from you.

You circled around, and parked the car at the very end of the line. You popped the hood and got out of the car. Saeyoung followed suit, and propped the hood open. His car wasn’t the most customized car there, but it was one of the rarest which quickly drew in a flock of enthusiasts.

“Shall we, 606?” Saeyoung was smiling as he extended his hand out to you. You took it, intertwining your fingers in his. 

The two of you walked around, hand-in-hand, looking at all the other cars and talking specs with the owners. Saeyoung was in Heaven. His “precious babies” wish list was getting longer by the minute. You couldn’t help but giggle at him.

“So, what about all of this makes it illegal?” He asked. 

You were now sitting on the little grassy hill behind all the cars, watching as one after the other raced each other. 

The empty lot used to belong to a mall that was demolished long ago, leaving behind the giant lot and the long stretch of road attached to it. It became abandoned after the new highway was built. It was the perfect place for racing though.

“Some of these cars have parts in them that make them illegal.” you explained, “the parts themselves are in fact legal, like the engine and spoilers and stuff. But after they’re customized, they make the car much faster and it’s no longer ‘street legal.’ They’re not as worried about the car parts as much as they are about the racing, though.”

Saeyoung nodded in understanding, turning toward you slightly, “So, how exactly did your parents get into all of this?” He asked, gesturing around you.

You pulled your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs, “My dad’s always been a gear head, so when he overheard a conversation about some underground racing ring, he had to go see it for himself. He ended up meeting my mom at one of those races, too. Our whole family is car crazy.” You said with a laugh.

“Does it bother you? I mean, the legality of it all?” He, more than anyone, knew the toll getting mixed up in illegal activity to take on a person. Granted, his was far worse than some illegal car parts, but still.

“Kinda, but we just wanna race fast cars. We don’t want to hurt anyone, which is why we come all the way out here. There’s far worse criminals than us.” That doesn’t justify it, but whatever.

As you were talking, you noticed some of the people around the two of you started to scramble. You jumped up from where you had been sitting. 

Saeyoung, immediately reverting to fight or flight Agent 707 mode, was on his feet in an instant.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” He asked, voice heavy with concern, scanning your face.

Just then, through the trees right before you turn into the lot, you saw flashing lights. Someone behind you shouted.

“Cops!”

You turned to Saeyoung, “C’mon, we gotta go! Now!”

You ran to the car, pulling Saeyoung by the hand behind you, and got in the driver’s seat. You wasted no time starting the engine, thinking over your escape plan.

Several cop cars were pouring into the lot. You buckled the seat belt and took a deep breath. Saeyoung seemed surprisingly calm, given the situation.

“You’re not nervous?” You asked.

“About the cops? Nah. The driving I’m sure you’re about to do in my most precious baby? Absolutely.”

“You haven’t even seen driving yet.” You said with a devilish grin, prompting him to buckle up.

People all around you jumped in their cars and sped off. You put it in drive and accelerated quickly, going the opposite way as the majority. A few others following suit, seeming to be aware of this most unused exit.

“Isn’t that the only way in here?” Saeyoung asked, referring to the entrance the cops kept flooding in from, you shook your head.

“When the mall was still here, there were several ways in and out. Some of those are impassable now due to the demo of the building, or because nature took over and it’s now overgrown. However, there are still a couple ways out.” You assured him, “And, aren’t you the one who said to always have an exit strategy?” He grinned slightly.

“You’ve learned well, 606.” You smiled at the use of your favorite nickname.

The exit you took was a little different than the highway you took to get here. It was considered a “back way” out. The secluded road was a little curvier, with some small hills thrown in. 

During the daylight, the scenery was beautiful but at night it could be dangerous if you weren’t careful. To make sure you were always prepared, your father made you drive all over the area around the racing lot, until you knew every entrance and exit like the back of your hand.

The speedometer steadily climbed, the car hugging every twist and turn, like it was made specifically for this road. After a couple random turns, you were sure you had long lost any cops that may have followed you. You let up on the gas a little, letting your current speed slowly fall back into the “Saeyoung’s most precious baby” approved range.

“Whoa.” Saeyoung said quietly, he hadn’t said anything since you first got in the car.

“You okay?” You were worried that maybe he was on the verge of losing it. A lot of people can’t handle going such high speeds. They either get really scared, or puke. Or both.

“That was...amazing!!” He yelled, his sudden outburst startling you, before laughing at his reaction.

“Oh, yeah? Does that mean I can drive your cars more often?”

He turned to face you, giving you his sweetest smile.

“Absolutely not.”

“What?! Why?” You protested.

“Y/N, this is a limited edition Herarri.”

“Sae, c’mon. You’ve got to open up the engine every now and the-”

You stopped mid-sentence when you noticed a set of headlights pop up behind you. Saeyoung looked at you curiously, waiting for you to finish. He turned around in his seat to look out the back window when he noticed that you kept looking in the rear view. Then, flashing lights.

“Shit! I was sure I lost them.” You hissed, quickly stepping on the gas. “How did they find us?” 

“Now what?” Saeyoung asked, turning back around in his seat.

“We lose them for real.”

The speedometer slowly kept climbing, reaching the triple digits. You flew down the straight stretch of highway, the flashing lights behind you barely keeping up with your speed.

“Sae?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”

“Huh? What do you mean? Y/N?”

Getting off the road and laying low was your best option right now. Home wasn’t too far from your current location, and in order to make it there with enough time to hide the car in the garage and throw them off the trail, you couldn’t compromise your speed.

You pressed harder on the gas pedal, the arm on the speedometer rising rapidly.

“Y/N?” By his tone, you could tell Saeyoung was getting nervous, but you didn’t let up.

“Remember the turns up here? Y/N?”

The lights behind you were getting further and further away. You were losing them. You were going to make it.

You were quickly approaching the turns he had mentioned, the ones right before the house. Almost there.

“Hang on!” You instructed right before the first turn.

“Y/N! No, no, no, no!”

The car beautifully drifted around the turn, losing the cops that more much, and Saeyoung losing his mind.

You went around the second turn with ease as well, the back tires losing traction, spinning freely. It was all so smooth, even at these high speeds.

You straightened out after coming out of the last turn, cops unable to catch up. The house was only about a few blocks away, as fast as you were going, you’d be there in no time.

Using his phone once you got in range, Saeyoung had the garage door open, awaiting your arrival. 

You checked the rear view one last time, making sure they still hadn’t caught up. You were in the clear.

You screeched to a stop in the garage, quickly parking and bailing from the car. Saeyoung quickly slapped the button on the wall to shut the garage door while you turned off the lights.

The two of you quickly went inside, going right to Saeyoung’s computer. He pulled up the live security feed all around the perimeter. You watched the cops drive past the front of the house on the monitor. After a few minutes of no activity, Saeyoung decided the coast was clear. You let out a heavy sigh.

“Y/N..” Saeyoung said, voice quiet. His back was to you, still facing the monitors.

“Y-yeah?” You replied sheepishly.

You were in trouble. Big trouble.

“What you did... that was..”

“I’m sorry! I swear I won’t ev-” You started to apologize profusely before he cut you off.

“Awesome!!” He yelled, turning to face you, eyes wide with excitement.

“I’m sorry, what?” Surely you hadn’t heard him right. 

“It was like we were in an action movie! It was incredible!”

“You do realize that your last job was as a secret agent, right? But, you think my driving was like an action movie?” You were so confused.

“Oh yeah! I mean, I can drive too, don’t get me wrong. I just never expected something like that from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest.

“It means that my amazing, talented, beautiful girlfriend kept a truly awesome secret from me! Not fair, by the way.” He dramatically pooched out his bottom lip.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Sae, it’s just that my family could get in trouble..” 

“It’s okay, I understand. But..” He trailed off.

“But?”

“Well, after taking my most cherished and most expensive baby out drifting, she’s going to need some pampering.” He sounded serious, but the face he was making didn’t match. He was up to something for sure.

“Okay..? No problem. I am a mechanic, after all.”

“Then it’s a deal.” He said with a smirk. He promptly scooped you up and threw you over his shoulder.

“Ah! Saeyoung, what the hell?” You screeched, making him laugh.

“What? I’m paying up front. And I must say, I’m looking forward to doing business with you.” He said with a smirk, carting you off to to the bedroom, both of you giggling the whole way.