#[/ /) u (\ thank you so much for including me here ]

[heartmaddie]

dusk 'til dawn ! tsukishima kei , akaashi keiji , azumane asahi , hinata shoyo , ushijima wakatoshi , kiyoomi sakusa incl ; post time-skip , fluff , fem! reader note ; thank u to garfield & the anon who requested this ! synopsis ; a small collection of domestic drabbles including the haikyuu! men

07:21 ! tsukishima kei

the flat was always unreasonably cold in the mornings.

she curled up under the thin linen sheets as she stirred awake, uncomfortable from the freezing gust of wind and rain which had just blown through their window. after she let out a groggy, tired sigh, yn looked to her right, gazing at the restful boy who had a peculiar serenity displayed on his face. a small content smile was found on her lips, he was utterly captivating.

she watched with a tender expression as kei stirred awake, he groaned quietly as he stretched out his tense muscles before rolling over to face her. the rain gently patted against their rooftop as y/n felt his warm arms pull her into his warm chest as he nuzzled his nose into the soft strands of her hair.

“morning..” he mumbled quietly, the exhaustion evident in his voice as he yawned, “what time is it?”

“seven something?” she hummed wearily in response, rubbing her face against his neck and soaking up as much warmth as she possibly could. “need to get ready for work soon..” 

he let out a quiet groan out of distaste, holding her even tighter as a silent protest.

“it’s cold, i don’t wanna get out of bed..” tsukishima was always a bit of a sulker in the morning, and yn couldn’t help but chuckle as she looked up at him with an affectionate gaze. “let’s just stay here for a little bit longer, mkay?” he murmured sleepily, pressing a chaste kiss against the skin of her temple.

“hm, fine..” she sighed dramatically, but was secretly overjoyed by his uncommon display of affection.

yn let him shift downwards to rest his golden locks against her chest, her fingers intertwining with each strand. her gaze followed him as his eyes started to shut once again, falling into the temptation of sleep in the comfort of her envelope.

9:53 ! akaashi keiji

“i can always cancel my meeting, i don’t want you to be alone when you’re unwell.” he hummed quietly, voice a blur to her ringing ears. keiji always had nurturing tendencies, but that was amplified to the max when she was sick. he brushed his rough fingertips over the skin of her forehead, moving any hair from her face.

“no, it’s okay,” she was so congested, it was evident on her tongue from every word she’d utter. “you should go to work,” her gaze was ever so soft as she admired his furrowed eyebrows and worried expression, her fingers rested on top of his hand, offering him a sliver of comfort, confirming that she’d be okay alone.

“are you sure?” his forehead creased and she let out a soft giggle as she brought her soft hand to rub the wrinkles away.

“you’ll look old if you keep on frowning like that..” she hummed, lips twisted upwards as she looked up at him.

“you just make me worry.” he huffed as he pressed a soft kiss to her supple cheek, “i’ll bring you home some medicine, make sure to rest up.” keiji rested his forehead against hers, potentially breathing in the bacteria of her illness, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

keiji let out a soft sigh as he slid into the bed next to her. he rested his arms around her waist, bringing her into the warmth of his chest. 

“you’ll be late..” her droopy eyes and flushed nose was trained on him, he felt his heart patter a little bit faster as a small amount of blood rushed to his cheeks.

“they’ll live, i’m more concerned about you right now.” his fingers pulled her hair back into a ponytail, settling the loose strands on her shoulder, “i’ll leave once you’re asleep.” he whispered, bringing his lips to her cheek.

she nodded, smiling up at him before resting her eyes and curling against the pillow. akaashi couldn’t help but run his fingers up and down the expanse of her arm, an attempt to lull her to sleep before he carefully slipped out of bed and turned the lights off, offering her a soft kiss before leaving the house.

12:27 ! azumane asahi

days with him were always tender.

she brushed his hair carefully as he worked on some early sketches of potential collections. his thick fingers were dusted with graphite and blisters as they brushed over the paper below him. their apartment was strewn with loose drawings and photographs, it was an organised mess, but somehow still cozy.

“you’d look nice in this piece actually, i’ll size one for you later.” he muses, holding up the thin sheet of paper up for her to see.

“i like the square neckline, what fabric will you use?” she asked curiously, peering down at the paper through blue light glasses. her fingers ran through his velvet-like strands of hair.

“don’t know, silk maybe?” he glanced up at her, eyes impossibly soft as he smiled gently. “what do you think?”

“i’m not the designer here..” she mumbled jokingly, kissing the nape of his neck before slumping down on the couch next to him. “you shouldn’t slouch, why don’t you work at your desk instead of at the coffee table?”

“lighting’s better here.” his eyes were drawn to her, he couldn’t help but reach out for her hand and gently caress her soft fingers, so unlike his. “and besides, that room is miserable, i prefer staying out here with you.” he admitted, taking a sip from the steaming mug.

“clingy,” she leaned her head on his shoulder, watching as he sketched. his face was brightened by the sun shining down on him, and her heart swelled ever so softly as she gazed up at him. “i think i prefer the new conditioner i bought. my hair feels a bit more silky now.”

“yeah, it looks good.” he glances over at her, eyes still impossibly soft before he checked the time, “it’s almost 12:30, should we prepare lunch?”

she nodded in response, taking his hand as he pulled her off the couch and into his embrace, whispering a sweet nothing into her ear before they continued to their kitchen.

15:05 ! hinata shoyo

shoyo was always exhausted after practice, the last thing on his mind was his normal exuberant personality.

he had a serene smile on his face as she applied thick layers of aloe vera gel onto his skin. there was nothing that he enjoyed more than these tranquil, everyday moments with her. the sun would set a lot earlier during the winter, and he was grateful that he’d be able to utilise a couple more hours with her in their shared apartment during the off season.

“you should come watch my practices” he murmured, voice uncharacteristically soft as he brushed his fingers through his orange hair, “can you apply some to my back, it’s a bit itchy still..” he lifted up the back of his shirt, revealing his tan, muscular back.

“maybe next time, yeah?” her free hand ruffled through his messy hair, letting him melt into her arms. she leaned her head on his shoulder, inhaling his musk of seawater and sunshine. he leaned against the headboard of their bed with a groan, tense thighs and calves relaxing after an excruciating day.

he reached out and pulled her into his arms, pressing multiple kisses against her cheeks & neck, ignoring her relentless giggles. 

“stop sho- that tickles!” she smiled up at him with her eyes creased, and his heart warmed immensely.

“don’t wanna..” he nuzzled against her neck, letting a huff out as his body relaxed on top of hers. “let me practice something.” he’d beg her for this exact thing everyday without fail.

minutes later, the two of them were situated on the ground, hinata grasping onto three chunks of hair which he eagerly tried to braid with. she hummed gently as they conversed about their day, her head occasionally turning towards his and pressing soft, sweet kisses against his chapped lips, receiving flustered, almost awkward giggles in return.

18:55 ! ushijima wakatoshi

his favourite pastime was watching her get ready for bed.

he found it holistic, almost reverent how she’d change into matching pajamas or how on sundays she’d spend a half hour extra in their bathroom. it was so peculiar to him, he’d never seen something like this before.

but he particularly liked standing behind her, leaning against the wall of their bathroom as she meticulously went through each step of her skincare routine, applying miscellaneous gels and creams onto her face which he couldn’t even bear to fathom. she had a little collection of products which she’d use on the daily, ones he had spent a small fortune on, afterall, but they surely did work. there was a soft glow which radiated from her face after she’d finished her routine, a small aspect of her appearance he’d grown to not just love, but appreciate.

sometimes, if he was lucky that night, she’d even let him massage her exfoliating cleanser for her. he found that the grains felt relaxing on his fingertips, but he found the way she’d look up at him with closed eyes utterly endearing, he couldn’t help but let his heart melt and pulse faster then. 

wakatoshi was the epitome of care when it came to her, he wouldn’t dare ruin that half hour she’d set aside for herself every night. but occasionally he’d wrap his arms around her from behind, pressing gentle osculates against her nape as she’d apply her topical creams, he couldn’t help himself.

he’d let out a small smile every time, rubbing his thick fingers into her waist as he watched in awe, he was absolutely infatuated with her. & once she had washed her hands and untied her hair, he was the one to be gracefully pulling her towards the bed and tucking her under the sheets.

21:12 ! kiyoomi sakusa

kiyoomi hated coming home late, but he surely didn’t mind the sight of her wrapped up in their sheets.

the moon shone down on their apartment, the city still bustling as he carefully walked through, not wanting to make a noise. his back was unbearably tense, muscles screaming in agony as he opened the door to their bedroom, almost immediately soothed once he laid eyes upon his partner in a deep state of tranquil in the lonesome of their bed. his heart swelled.

once he’d stripped himself of his sweaty clothes and basked under the warm cascade of their shower, he pulled a black shirt over his head and found a pair of pajama pants to wear, ones which had been the ones to match hers, coincidentally. he brushed his teeth and washed his face, but his heart would beat ever so quicker whenever his eyes would land on her, he found her even more stunning under the moon’s blue light.

before sliding into the bed, he’d gently pressed soft kisses against the skin of her forehead, smiling to himself as he brushed every strand of stray hair away from her face. he was devout when it came to her, with methodical touches was he only able to bring her into his embrace - he was always cold, and she was the only thing able to warm him.

finally, his eyes could close, he was absolutely exhausted. his head nuzzled against her scalp, inhaling the scent of clean, honey fragranced hair. he could rest in this familiarity. with a groan, his arms tightened around her impossibly, but still careful as to not wake her up. sakusa melted into the mattress, letting out tired groans and occasional stirs as he found himself falling asleep.

it still surprised him how easily he could fall asleep now, compared to when he was younger and all alone. 

please like , reblog or follow if you enjoyed :p © heartmaddie all rights reserved. please do not repost my work

[ram-bles]

HELLOOOO

I got a silly little ask, just a drabble from you would be fine 😁

Like- the reader (gender neutral) wasn't very open about their hobbies and such. One of their hobbies was like martial arts or smth (THIS IS VERY CRUCIAL ☝️☝️☝️)

Wellll, one day Jimmy (🤮) decided to try and touch the reader inappropriately and they just throw him over their shoulder saying something along the lines of "Do NOT touch me."

I KNOW IT'S CRINGE BUT PLEASEEEE, IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY 🙏🙏🙏🙏

I saw you're writing for only Curly and Daisuke, but if you wanna you can add other characters into the mix. It's all platonic, just a silly little ask cuz I wanna laugh 😁😁😁

[ Tulpar Crew & Reader ]

Oh I love this one. Also this reminded me to update my list thank u 4 unintentionally reminding me anon.,.,. ALSO DONT WORRY I DONT THINK IT'S CRINGE !

gender neutral reader, it gets silly later on i promise. not proof-read. wrote this really quick.

⚠️ tw: stalking, jimmy being a little too forward and close

The day was pretty much mundane, like always. Everyone was in their designated work stations, including you of course. Though, something felt off. It had been like this for the past week, and you hated it. You even blamed your lack of sleep for it. It seemed like there was something— someone, watching and following you when you were alone.

One time, you'd even woken up to the sound of your quarter's door closing. You stayed up all night, not wanting to inconvenience the other crew members for what you think might just be all in your head. Well, that is until psych evaluation day came and you opened up about this to Anya who so easily believed you, but seemed so uncomfortable with the topic. You decided not to pry out of respect. She offers her company when you need it.

That same night, Daisuke offered to host a game session to which everyone reluctantly agreed to.

Establishing good bonds between workers is key to an efficient working environment!

Anya, Swansea and Daisuke were sitting by the sofa, Curly dragged a chair just beside the game table, whilst you and Jimmy sat beside each other on the floor. The game involved four players and the crew decided that whoever loses first has to swap with whoever hasn't played yet for the next rounds. The game was getting heated, Daisuke and Anya, neck on neck. Unfortunately, not the only thing neck on neck. Everyone else was too focused on the game to even notice what Jimmy was doing. You can feel his breath against your skin. You eyed the others in hopes that they would see. Too busy. Annoyed and grossed out, you elbowed his ribs in warning, glaring at him. "Jimmy, don't touch me." He seems pissed, but that doesn't deter him from getting his entertainment. Jimmy presses on and you swear you felt your eyebrows twitch. The balls of this guy to even do this here.

Daisuke throws the dice, the three leans in in anticipation as they watch it slowly roll to a stop and—

CRASH!

Some game pieces flew in different directions, two table legs snapping from the force and Jimmy's weight. It was radio silent for a moment. The crew having different variations of shocked expressions. You had grabbed his arm and flipped his body onto the furniture.

"Fuckin' pervert. Are you deaf, or what? I said do NOT touch me."

Daisuke threw his hands up in the air and settled it on each side of his head, frustrated. "Oh, come on, man! I was so close to winni—!" His whining ceases when Swansea nudges him, instantly shutting up and processing what had just happened. It took a few blinks for him to register and he eventually bursts out laughing and pointing at Jimmy. It took everything from Swansea not to burst out laughing as well. Instead, he crosses his arms and huffs with a proud smile. 'Atta' kid.'

Anya on the other hand slips out a gasp, covering her mouth. Mostly out of shock, and no sympathy for the man whatsoever. When the other intern started laughing, she had to bite her lip and look away to suppress her own fit.

[ History of glenohumeral joint subluxation.

It happened way too fast for Jimmy to even process what just happened. He spits out something hard, probably a tooth. His shoulder slightly stings as well, probably dislocated. He'll get back at you some other time, he can't get back at you when everyone else is here and that pisses him off even more.

Curly had mixed feelings. But of course, he prioritizes his role and he has to mediate everything first and foremost. Rubbing his face, he sighs and stands up, putting his hands on his hips. He calls your name and you tilted your head to look up at him. "I have to discuss... this with you later on. Please drop by the cockpit, yeah?" You roll your eyes and nod, pouting. "Swansea, could we borrow your intern real quick?"

"Shift's over, go ahead."

He gives the eldest a nod. "Daisuke, please assist Anya. Help her bring Jimmy to medical."

"Youuuuu got it, Big C." He finger guns towards the captain then stands up to hover over the co-pilot. Curly could only give Daisuke an awkward smile at the nickname.

"Never call him that again."

"El Capitano." Daisuke helps Jimmy up, making sure he's pulling them up by the injured arm, making the man grit his teeth and groan in pain. Before the guy could even cuss at the intern, Swansea continued bickering.

"Do your damn job."

"Yessir. Swansir."

Anya and Daisuke finally went off the bring the poor injured co-pilot to treat him. And if you'd like to know, Anya taught Daisuke how to pull Jimmy's shoulder back to place. Yes, everyone heard him when it happened.

You helped Swansea clean up the mess by the lounge and in apology, offered to help repair the table the next day. He agrees and even offers Daisuke to assist you.

Curly had to lightly reprimand you for your actions, but you'd explained to him what happened. The best he could do for you for now is lie on the report.

Sustained through occupational accident.

Employee confirmed inebriated while working.

Property damage docked to Jimmy.]

[lndsismaeverything]

Drunken moments

Lnds men gets a little drunk and spills away their feelings at the moment ( MC is already in a relationship with him )

An: here I am writing another fic even though I don't wanna ᕕ(˵•̀෴•́˵)ᕗ took me 3 days to write this ...

Not proof read sorry for mistake and grammar issue. And some words

Xavier

You and Xavier are having a home hotpot. Just a little celebration form todays mission. It was his idea to eat hotpot in the new hotpot restaurant . But when y'all got there it was to crowded and have to wait 2 hours for a table.

Xavier was disappointed to say the least . It was late at night ,almost 10 pm already and he was really craving hotpot

" Xavier why not have hotpot at home? We can buy the ingredients at the store plush it be a lot cheaper and more food" you said looking at his gloomy expression turn into bright smile

" yea, it would be just the two of us too "

The two of you bought the ingredients and headed straight to your apartment since you have all the equipment for the hotpot

No later did you pulled out the alcoholic peach drink you bought a few days ago that was sitting in the fridge, nothing is better then having a cool drink with hotpot on a chilly night

Xavier didn't usually drink but today was an exception and was worth it after defeating a wonderer

I don't know if Xavier can hold his liquor or not judging by his appearance he looks like he'll be knock out cold after a few glasses. Or he can hold it every well since she's been living for over 214yrs on earth now

But let's say he's weak to alcohol for now-

Xavier cheeks are dusted with a hue of pink he should stop drinking while he's still sober. But he can't because of the delicious hotpot u made goes so well which this nice refreshing alcoholic peach drink

After cleaning up the table with the help of your boyfriend you decided to settling on the sofa, to watch a some random comedy video

" Xavier I think u have enough to drink " you said to your boyfriend and grabbing the alcoholic drink and put it on the coffee table, which he protested but let it go

You lay on the sofa , switching from show to show not knowing that Xavier stared at you lovingly. The next moment Xavier lean toward you and kissed your cheeks

It caught you in surprised of the sudden affection of his just now " you look pretty bunbun " Xavier wrapped his arm around your waist and snuggled close

You just smile at him realizing he's a bit drunk but also a bit sober but not completely.

" thank you for the delicious hotpot " his voice so gentle yet soothing

" can we hotpot like this everytime? " he said looking up at you as you played with his soft fluffy hair

" yes of course " you replied, your hand cupped his cheek as you draw small circles.Letting go he plopped his head back on your thighs snuggling close and holding you tighter making you laugh as it tickles

" my honey is the best person in the universe. And not only is she strong, beautiful , kind, trustworthy , independent and a bit stubborn sometimes . She also an amazing cook and Baker."

"I love her so much , my little starlight "

"Your my brightes star in my univers. Beaming brightly when I miss you. Reminding me that I'm not alone "

with that Xavier fell asleep. You turn off the TV and join him holding him tight as he lay on too of you

Both of you woke up from the sofa with back pain.

Zayne

You and zayne just got out of the bar and headed straight home.

Of course zayne didn't drink but that didn't mean you didn't. It was a bummer that zayne didn't enjoyed the free cocktail that the hospital will pay later on . Congratulating zayne for having the title of the youngest doctor that maded it so far in his career as a cardiac surgeon.

The small part only included zayne colleagues and you .

Greyson try to convince zayne to at least have one glass or a beer but zayne refused saying " I'm responsible for taking y/n home "

After zayne dropped you off home you invited him over saying you got him a gift for him. Grabbing the gift from th kitchen table you handed to him and congratulated him on his achievement

He open the gift and it was chocolates

" may I ?" He asked you told him it's his and he could eat it now if he wanted. Knowing zayne sweet tooth he immediately devoured 3 of them while you get something to go along with the chocolate and-

You forget to tell him those aren't just any regular chocolates

" zayne-" your cut off by the sight of him, cheeks tinted pink hes already unwrapped his 4th chocolate already

" these chocolate... I never tasted something like his before..its quite unique ..it taste like Cherry's and grapes.." he popped the the chocolate in his mouth

You told zayne that these chocolate has wine infuse in them. That's why it's taste like grapes and a hit of cherry

each chocolate ball contains 13% alcohol and are meant to enjoy slowly with something salty like ham or cured meat

" how many did you have already? "

" this is my 4th one "

Thinking he has enough already for one night you take the box out of his hands and settled it on the table

You let your boyfriend stay for the night as he can't drive, having eaten a lot of chocolate

You dragged him to your bedroom as he's in a daze looking at you with such fondness. After his shower you have him some spare clothes he left you in case he's staying over

Zayne, siting on the edge of the bed watches you gently dry his hair. He hasn't spoken much since he ate the chocolates which made you a bit worried

" dear, is everything alright ? You seem at a daze, you haven't spoken much since you at the chocolates "

Zayne just pulled you on his lap and started giving you soft butterfly kisses on your face and neck before replying

" it's just that you seem so beautiful that I consider myself lucky to have met you "

"Your existing in my life is everything to me , I can't imagine my life without you by my side...''

"Your my the warmth to my heart, with you I experienced summer in snowy blizzard"

" you're like my precious flower that can survive. in the winter"

" also I want my flower to be careful and not hey hurt during mission . I don't want to see her coming to the hospital injured "

After sharing a moment with your beloved snowman both of you settled to bed , zayne spoons you closely in hin arms kissing the top of your head before whispering " goodnight "

Rafayel

Rafayel avoid drinking during his art exhibition. Especially when someone hands him some wine , wanting to toast him for his great success as young artists

Rafayel doesn't drink the wine as it might be spiked or something. But he except the glass and carefully examinen the wine before cheering with some business men and taking a sip

He's very careful with his surroundings, the moment he say you coming through he excuses himself to be with you

" you late miss body guard "

You apologize and explained that the wonderer you delt today took longer then you expected

" what's important now is that your here "

The art exhibition almost lasted for 4hours, you where by rafayel side the entire time as his request for making up to him for being late.

Rafayel having to meet a lot of people congratulate and toasting him for his newest work , grew more and more red as he takes sip after sip of his wine

Being by your boyfriend as he spoke with some important investors and buyers you noticed Rafayel getting less and less sober

Something wasn't right here, you felt uneasy why was there only wine served and not other drinks?

And the wine they give out isn't weak one either. You saw on the bottle it was 17% alcohol

Feeling worried you looked at Rafayel, you can feel Rafayel getting annoyed and wanted to leave as more people approach him and want to speak with him bout his art you decided its time to go

" let's us give you a toast, to our partner ship Mr. Rafayel ! " they raised there glass before Rafayel could take another sip you took his glass from him and-

" sorry gentlemens I'll drink on Rafayel behalf, he had enough for today " they understand and you leave with your boyfriend

You hold Rafayel hands the inter way out, Rafayel couldn't help but blush, admiring you as you took him away from those annoying people

You called Thomas telling him your taking Rafayel home as he's clearly getting drunk and it was probably someone plan wanting Rafayel to get drunk so they can write something about him and publishing it on the news.

Thomas understand and ended the art exhibition earlier then expected

You call a cab and headed to Rafayel house ( island )

You unluck his house and guide Rafayel inside

" you know what miss bodyguard , your the best bodyguard there is"

" without you my world would be full of black and greys "

" I miss you when your not around "

" I hate it when you keep me waiting "

" but I love it even when your late you try to make an effort to come see me and make it up to me "

" you're my special pearl from the deep sea"

You stayed with Rafayel for the night, the next morning thosmas blew up Rafayel phone asking him to check the news

The news about 'having a secret relationship with his bodyguard?' With a picture of the two of you holding has while waiting for a cab

Sylus

You don't even know how sylus got drunk or at least he looks like he's drunk . When you where at the bace you heard them coming back. So you decided to great them at the door and asked how it go

But you where met with sylus disheveled look like his been hit by a truck

" I'm going to my room don't bother me" sylus said passing through you

You ask luke and kierran about him as they just came from a business deal

You asked like and kieren if sylus drink got spiked . They laugh at you, you think the great leader of onychinus got his drink spiked and fell for it ?

It does sound ridiculous because you know he can handle his alcohol.

Like explain that sylus in hailed some gass that enemy planned , supposedly to make you weak and not able to think straight kinda like alcohol

" yea boss man got hit with ton of gass that's why he looks like that " kierran informed you

" don't worry boss won't go down that easily it will wear off in a couple of hours "

you headed straight to sylus bedroom to check on him but you go to the kitchen counter first to get two glasses of gin fiz that you prepared earlier

You don't know if it's a good idea or not but you already made them anyway

Holding two glass you couldn't knock on the door your about to call for sylus until the door open for you to come in

" didn't I say don't bother me?" stood beside his record player in a robe clearly stated he just got out of the shower

" but you still open the door for me " you settled the two glasses of gin fizz at the coffee table at taking as seat before turning to him

" I heard form like and kierran. How are you doing? Everything okay?"

He just sighed and pick up the glass and drinks it enjoying the refreshing drink before sitting next to you and shared about what happened

" have I ever told you when your with me on the meetings times goes faster? "

"But today was particularly slow bec you where to there so I told them to hurry it up as they where waisting my time. They didn't took that lightly so they grew a surprise attack "

" I was pleased as it turn out like that because I didn't needed them anyway "

" the moment the gass took a but affect on me on the ride to the bace my mind was occupied by you "

" I couldn't stop thinking about you "

" your laughter, your smile, you scent ,everything "

He finished his glass and looked at you, his eyes soft as he gently caress your cheek

" your everything to me..."

" without you I feel trapped in a cage , living out life without it's full potential"

"With you around, I like feel the chains around me being broken setting me free "

" you are my key to my cage..."

" my kitten, my sweetie, my miss hunter, my beloved...."

He's words are sweet and he ment everything he said but you couldnt help but tease him a bit

"Who are you and what have you don't to my sylus" you said you couldn't hold in your laugher .

Sylus just chuckled and shook his head .It was rare for sylus to be sharing his feelings and thoughts

" I wonder if it's the gun fizz fault or the gass you in heiled" you wonder tapping your chin

"Gues we'll never know the answer'' Sylus just took both your hand and gently lean in to kiss your lips

And took another

And another

And another

Before you giggle at him, removing you hand from his , you looped it around his neck before kissing him back

After you finish your glass sylus carried you to him bed , he wants to be sleeping next to you and waking up next you everyday and every night

He carefully lifted the blanket up and holds you tight before humming as soft tune that both of you fell asleep within minutes

[vristrogen]

something about people calling vrisrezi "toxic yuri" always puts me off. i understand the lack of words to really put their dynamic but like you know theyre in a relationship thats largely good for them right. they arent dating because "it sucks but it would be worse without each other" they genuinely really love each other a lot

[acebytaemin]

[end of an era]: closing #analook

first of all, i want to say thank you times five billion to everyone who’s ever tagged me in a post. it goes without saying that i have enjoyed every single one of them and will treasure this entire experience and all the beautiful creations i’ve gotten to see (and discuss in great lengths in the tags of course 🤭). now, that’s partly the reason why i feel like i should wrap it up - you all create such wonderful things and they all deserve my full attention and all the yapping i can muster yet sadly just don’t have the time to type up. it’s silly how much it’s meant to me (i might be tearing up a little) and how much i’m going to miss it, but i really do think it’s for the best. of course, feel free to @ me or send me any post of yours in the future - you know i’ll respond with enthusiasm. though it won’t come close to a gif/edit/artwork, i’ve typed up little thank-you notes to the main contributors to #analook as a token of my gratitude under the cut. love & appreciate you all SO so so so much! 💖

@atlantis-area - my dearest alexa, the reason i even started a user tag and got to experience all this, thank you The most 💖 hopefully you already know how grateful i am for you, so i won’t make it too long. it’s been a pleasure (and will continue to be) to watch your giffing style evolve and to get to be a fan of taemin alongside you. love you! 🩵

@herewegobebe - oh my darling ru where do i start 🥹 i’m soooo so thankful for your wonderful presence and your gifs (as ive already told you numerous times). you’ve been a real highlight of my tag (it’s still a bit of a starstruck moment for me to be your mutual/get tagged in your gifs tbh!) and it’s going to make me really really sad to potentially miss some of your gifs now but best believe i’ll be checking ur blog whenever i can 🙂‍↕️💖

@minhosblr - MAJA my number one gorgeous wino gif source i literally can’t believe you even tagged me in them to begin with i feel like it’s all been such a successful fan moment 🥹🐰🫶🏻 thank you so so much & ofc expect me all up in your tags regardless 😽💓

@kimsuyeon - my lili the absolute master of gifs with gorgeous quality and beautiful coloring and stunning women like you can truly do no wrong in my books anytime i see a gif of yours i get giddy and feel like cracking my knuckles and going IN in the tags. thank you soooo much for gracing me (and everyone else) w your gorgeous gifs 💝

@pink-vacancy - the way im going to miss yuna & mina served on a beautiful platter cannot be overstated.. thank you so much for adding a beautiful touch of cherry red spice to my tag 🙂‍↕️🍒💋 (and kinda beside the point but also for always being SO incredibly sweet & nice to me)

@faunandfloraas - jess my third favorite australian 🤭💕 your creativity and collecting moments/pulling parallels + funny tags have brought me very many giggles, thank you saaaaur much 😽💕

@chanrizard - sa thank you soooo much for my chan gif fixes 💖 and SORRY for all the stuff you’ve had to read in your tags and still tagging me regardless lmfaojfkdjdk you best believe you’ll keep on reading them as i’ll be a frequent visitor of your blog from now on 🫡

@rainknow - your art has been one my favorite things to find in my tag, thank you so so so much for using it! most wonderful capturing of lino i’ve ever seen, no one does his eyes justice like you do 😽💖 (pls if you ever feel like it and i don’t see a post of ur art mention me or send it to me - it’d be highly appreciated!)

@linoyes - thank you SO much for amping up the amount of linos in my tag, it’s been such a delight to see your giffing evolve and im excited to keep yapping in your tags in the future 🤭💞💞💞

@jonghyunluvr - your jjong/taemin posts are always so enjoyable, i love your insights and how you notice the same things as me sometimes hehe 🩵🩵 please do keep sending them to me by all means 😌

@shorelinnes - raf pleaseeee if you want to still send me or tag me in your art.. i’d be so sad to miss it and your gorgeous gifs too! im so very happy to have you around and i appreciate all the posts you’ve tagged me in so so much 💞

@strayklds - em i remember being nervoussss to ask you to tag me hdksjdk i think your gifs are so good and want to thank you Very much for tagging me in them! it’s really been a pleasure 🫶🏻

@briankang - TAY my minchan friend and my bangchan gifs supplier you best believe i’ll be checking your blog 🤭 thank you SO much for all you’ve tagged me in so far 💖 (still thinking abt your minchan ate teasers edits.. changed my life now idk if for the better or worse but. lives have been changed for sure)

@taeiltual - bex your gorgeous edits truly make me think that most of these companies truly need to do better, thank you so much for making everyone look more beautiful and tagging me along (hehe) for the ride! 💖

@ashmp3 @kissoflifes - thank you two SO much for using my tag as intended and for the highest purpose of all - in your gorgeous selfies! (& thank you zaynab for your beautiful gifs too ofc ofc) for sure still send them to me if i happen to miss them we Do Nottt want a tragedy like that to ever strike. love u my beautiful friends 💞💞

@28reas0ns - not directly related to my tag (though you did tag me in a couple of beautiful sets!) but just wanted to once again thank you for my header gif(s) i’ll really treasure them for a long time 💝

and a shoutout to everyone who’s tagged me in a few of their posts, thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart! it’s really felt special every single time and i can’t thank you all enough for thinking of me and inviting me to yap in your tags like one would a vampire into their home. MWAH appreciate you all soooo so much 💖💖💖:

@reiiofsunn 💖 @drzephyr 💖 @hyunjinsource 💖 @minho-knows 💖 @speakofcompersion 💖@linolinoing 💖 @sunugf 💖

[crossbackpoke-check]

Dysprosium, Mary Soon Lee

dysprosium, AN 66, is a silvery-white rare earth metal. its name is derived from the greek dysprositos, meaning “hard to get at”, owing to the difficulty in separating and isolating this rare earth element. dysprosium is used to measure neutron flux, to fuel reactors, and to activate phosphors. terfenol-d is a magnetorestrictive alloy, meaning that it changes shape when a magnetic field is applied, and is used to manufacture underwater acoustic systems.

jason “robo” robertson, dallas stars #21 for @simmyfrobby’s nhl periodic table poems <3

[impossible-rat-babies]

puppets bunker and ddos attacks have never been so much fun

[straykats]

“i appreciate it but” is basically no thank you, you’re acknowledging the thought behind the gesture but the action/offer isn’t welcome or one you can accept. say you were applying for jobs and you accepted an offer with job a before job b gets back to you. when job b reaches out with an offer you could use “i appreciate the offer but i already accepted a position elsewhere”. or someone offers you a ride home and you say “i appreciate it but i’d rather walk” etc.

(im so sorry if this comes off rude i do not mean it to) yeah no i get the use of the word appreciate in that context, where gratitude-esque sentiment is being expressed, but ive heard it used in acknowledgment but not in like.. that way? HAHA ummm an example would be like when a tutor told me "i appreciate your circumstances (which were pretty bad at the time) but i can only do xyz for you.." in this context it was an acknowledgement but not like. 'thank you for explaining ur circumstances but..' ??? OR WAS IT omg wait now im confused myself HAHA

or likr when a customer is kind of like. really agitated bc theyve been waiting a long time or like im 'overexplaining' smth and they say like. 'i can appreciate that you guys are busy but..' or 'i can appreciate you're just doing your job, but i dont need a lecture' ??? like in these specific circumstances theres no like. feigned appreciation at all (that i perceive anyways)

this might 100% be a me problem btw + idk how to explain this slight difference that im trying to. twease apart ig so 😭😭

.... the use of the word 'appreciate' outside of gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness etc?

[forlix]

𝐝𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞・b.c.

— incurable playboy turned doting boyfriend was a character development arc nobody saw coming for christopher bang, including (especially) his frat brothers.

words・2.8k pairing・frat president!chris x gn!reader genres・fluff, humor, hurt/comfort, college!au, fuckboy!chris, boys being boys, kissing, implied sex so mdni warnings・substance use, talk of past heartbreak

a/n・here is "nobody believes you're dating" w/chan, requested by none other than my @rachalixie for my 2k event !! anny, i hope u love this fic as much as i love u; thank you for allowing me to write something so self-indulgent <3

In the deafening throes of one of Phi Mu Alpha’s spring kickbacks, Minho finds Jeongin and Seungmin standing in motionless silence by the kitchen counter. Both boys are gaping at something with an intensity that dips egregiously into the realm of creepy. He moves to pour himself a shot.

“What the fuck are you people looking at?”

Seungmin prods a pointer finger in the relevant direction. It takes a few seconds of scanning the scene for Minho to find what he’s referring to. He digs a knuckle into his eye, instantly confused by what he’s seeing. Maybe the gaping is justified.

The windows and doors have all been thrown open to invite the balmy April weather into the foyer of the frathouse. There’s a large crowd of people huddled around a long, foldable table stationed before the stairs; Jaehyun clutches a ping-pong ball between his fingers, singular eye squinted shut as he takes aim. The number of remaining solo cups dwindles rapidly, as does the players’ sobriety.

Something—someone—is missing.

Not to say “beer pong virtuoso” was one of the reasons Chris was elected frat president, but you’d think the guy had a career path in basketball with how he’s given the entire Greek life community alcohol poisoning by courtesy of two or three plastic balls alone. Minho has never known him to miss a shot, let alone miss out on a game.

Today, however, the reigning champion is only spectating, seated above the ongoing match on one of the steps of the main staircase.

A beautiful stranger is sitting beside him, cheek pressed to his shoulder as you peer at the match through the bannister.

You say something inaudible. The laugh it earns from Chris is bright enough to pick up from a few streets down. He leans in to murmur something in return, and you slide your hand over his nape to pull his mouth onto yours, light blush crawling up and over your ears. The way Chris melts into you can only be described as familiar, his eyes slowly fluttering shut, finger hooking delicately beneath your chin, grin going lopsided as your lips part—

“That’s enough,” Minho hisses, tearing his eyes away with considerable effort. “Aren’t you ashamed? Just fucking ogling.”

Jeongin shakes his head, grinning. “It’s dinner and a show. We’d be idiots not to.”

By dinner, he must mean the gallon of chocolate milk he’s been drinking from for the last hour. He now holds out said gallon with the intent to cheers. Seungmin picks up the entire handle and does the same.

Minho sighs, clinks his glass against theirs, and they throw back their respective refreshments in unison.

“Anywho.” Jeongin swipes the back of his hand over his mouth before going on. “You guys know who that is?”

Minho resurfaces with a wince, relishing in the bitter aftermath, then motions for Seungmin to give the bottle back straightaway. He arrived to the function late and he’s not nearly as drunk as he’d like to be.

Seungmin obliges Minho only after another heady swig. “No clue. Probably just another fling, no?”

“Mmm,” Jeongin hums in assent. “It’s Chris we’re talking about, after all.”

"Agreed. Case closed.”

There’s an air of finality in Seungmin’s voice—but Minho isn’t so sure.

Perhaps because he has never noticed that Chris had dimples until now; or because you fold so naturally into Chris' side after your kiss ends, head nuzzling against the crook of his neck and hand seeking out his to hold in your lap; or, most likely, because Chris' eyes seem to return to you when he looks at you, as if his gaze drifting anywhere else is but a momentary departure from where it really belongs. As if he comes home every time you come into his line of vision.

Whatever the reason, the idea coalesces in Minho’s mind, even as inebriation begins to fall over his cognitive faculties like a curtain, that the boys have got it wrong.

Jeongin utters his name, jolting him out of his trance. There’s another shot lifted halfway to Minho’s lips that hasn’t budged in minutes. “Whatcha thinking about?”

Minho looks at Jeongin first, Seungmin next, then back at Chris and his stunning companion. He’s not inclined to answer the question in full, but he can in truth. A coy smile crosses his face.

“Threesome?”

Jeongin laughs hard enough to collapse onto the kitchen island. Seungmin drags a hand down his face. “Come on, man.”

In the corner of his eye, you’ve gone back to kissing again, slow and sweet and secretive. Chris' gentle hold on your jaw shields you from view but fails to hide his lovesick smile. Dimly, Minho thinks that maybe his friend has met his match.

Then, he takes four shots in rapid succession—and stops thinking altogether.

Christopher Bang’s love life is like a horror movie and romcom spliced together: a fiasco of a film to which his housemates have front row seats.

The frat’s upperclassmen live in sets of four-bed, two-bath suites comprising a small common space with a kitchen and a sitting area, sandwiched by bedrooms on either side. It is in that common space that Changbin, Hyunjin, and Jisung often see or hear Chris stumbling home after a night out, entangled with a different attractive stranger every time—so often, in fact, that they’ve come to believe that he’s deathly allergic to anything bigger than a one-and-done hookup.

They can’t judge. In part because they’d be throwing stones from glass houses, but also because the man’s penchant for empty physicality is far from unfounded. His past self gave pieces of his heart to the wrong people, contracted first-degree burns from the guileless warmth he sought out. Now, his version of “intimacy” is less a connotation of closeness than it is a self-contradiction, for it should be impossible for so much distance to remain between two people in a single bed.

Chris hasn’t vocalized any of this. Nor have his housemates discussed it with each other. The knowledge simply exists in the air between the four of them like something akin to taboo, dipping in and out of acknowledgement depending on the circumstance.

This might be the circumstance of all time.

At around 11:40 A.M. on a Saturday, three doors in the suite open at once. Hyunjin and Changbin aren’t coincidence—the latter is coercing the former to go to the gym again—but they lift their eyes to the opposite side of the living room, and the slice of milk bread dangling from Hyunjin’s lips very nearly takes a fatal fall. Changbin manages to snatch it up with an extended hand.

Chris has just emerged from his room as well. Your silhouette follows close behind, your mouth stretching into a yawn as you massage the sleep from your eyes. You’re sporting a mesh green sweater identical to one Chris owns. They find Chris' accessories more interesting than his clothes, though: two hickeys peeking out from beneath his jaw and the base of his neck.

Chris sees Hyunjin and Changbin right away, and his expression goes utterly blank, not unlike their faces as they watch you close his door meticulously. You turn around and gasp.

The four of you stare at each other for what feels like multiple business days. At least, Hyunjin, Changbin, and Chris stare at each other; your eyes dart between the men on the other side of the room and the man next to you, silently pleading for him to say something. He does not for a long while.

Then, he lunges for one of the throw pillows on the couch and flings it at Hyunjin like a shot put. It ricochets off his chest and lands on the floor rather anticlimactically.

“Distraction!” Chris yells anyways, grabbing your hand and tearing towards the exit, wild grin on his face. “Go, go, go!”

Your raucous laughter lingers even after you’ve been hauled away, accompanied by an unintelligible, breathless shout of something along the lines of my toothbrush—and then the front door clicks shut, and there are two.

Changbin and Hyunjin lock eyes, struggling to process what just happened. Hyunjin is the first to move, wandering hesitantly into the bathroom that Chris and Jisung share. Nothing about the place looks out of the ordinary.

“Well, shit,” Hyunjin says out loud.

That is, aside from the two toothbrushes slotted in the holder on Chris' side of the counter.

Something moves in the bathroom window, catching his attention. Hyunjin looks over just in time to spot you and Chris dart out onto the lawn two floors below. Chris has his arm draped over your shoulders, yours wrapped around his waist. Your smile is discernible all the way from here, and Hyunjin sees a perfect mirror of it on his friend’s face when Chris glances at the frathouse over his shoulder. 

Has he always had dimples?

Moments later, Changbin joins him in peering out the window. A high-pitched cackle erupts from the older boy’s lips. “Look at that idiot.”

Standing off to the left is a tiny, astonished Han Jisung, his arms full of groceries, jaw sitting squarely the grass and whites of his eyes on full display as he watches you and Chris stroll away.

Hyunjin laughs with his whole fucking body. Changbin whips out his phone and takes a picture.

When you finally breach the topic, it’s because you don’t think you can physically study for another minute—but also because, after multiple long months of fruitless sparring, your curiosity finally wins.

Your boyfriend is seated in your desk chair, feet kicked up onto your mattress with his laptop propped up on his thighs. His features have rearranged themselves into an expression of intense focus as he pores over his production homework. You can hear music blaring through his headphones from all the way here.

You uncross your legs from below you, scootch across your bed, and lift your hands to cradle his cheeks. He startles as if coming out of a trance, then begins to smile when he reads the words hi, Channie off your lips.

His headphones fall around his neck. He sets his laptop down onto your desk with a dull thunk. The next thing to drop is you when Chris seizes you by the waist and tackles you into the mattress. The somber atmosphere of your study session is shattered by your muted laughter and Chris pressing his lips to every inch of your exposed skin he can. He saves your mouth for last.

“Hey, beautiful,” he answers, but only after kissing the living daylights out of you, the syllables soft and silky with adoration. “Missed me?”

You drag your eyes from his brown irises with blown pupils to his sloping nose, from his disheveled dark locks to his cordate lips, so plush and warm against your own that you swear you still feel them there. You brush a hand over the back of his neck, your head now spinning so badly that you barely remember what you wanted to ask him.

“Always,” you say. “I was starting to feel jealous of your homework.”

He chuckles. “Shit, I’ll drop out of college right now, baby. Just say the word.”

“You’re perfect,” you hum.

“Says you,” he murmurs, nudging the tip of his nose against yours.

Your lips find each other’s again—needless to say, your study sessions aren’t known for their productivity. Some time passes before you come up for air. Even afterwards, Chris doesn’t let you go far, pulling you into his chest by the curve of your waist, nuzzling his cheek into your hairline. You only need to whisper for him to hear your question.

“Can I ask you something?”

“'Course,” he returns, and you’re close enough to sense him tighten with apprehension. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, don’t worry.” You print a kiss to the side of his neck for extra reassurance. “It’s just…I’ve been meaning to ask how your friends feel about me.”

He tightens with something else now: surprise, you’re guessing; you’re hoping. You hadn’t seriously considered that the answer could be negative, but it’s dawning on you now that the possibility of that isn’t zero.

“Where’s this coming from?” Chris inquires, his tone opaque.

You hesitate, mentally reviewing your interactions with your boyfriend’s social circle. Hyunjin and Jisung can’t make eye contact with you when they speak to you. Minho does nothing but make eye contact with you whether he’s speaking to you or not. Jeongin and Seungmin can maintain small talk for about ten seconds before they start looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. Changbin is the only one you’ve held a conversation with, and only because you were going up the same stairs at the same time and the alternative would have been mind-numbing silence.

What is the best way for you to say this?

“Well,” you begin, “I can’t help but notice that they act a little—when I’m around, they’re a bit, uh—”

“—crazy,” Chris offers. “Completely fucking bat-shit crazy.”

“Yes. Exactly that.”

Chris threads a hand through your hair, the comforting gesture doing nothing to assuage your worry. It seems there’s some truth behind your impressions. Your next words are tinged with a quiet sadness.

“I’m not imagining things, then?”

“No, angel,” he sighs. “But not for the reasons you think.”

A beat passes. Chris perceives your silence as a chance to backtrack, to opt out of this conversation if it’s one he’s not ready for. He would’ve leapt at the opportunity once.

But he realizes in that moment, with your voice gentle against his ears and your touch so doting upon his skin, how much has changed since he met you: from the color of the sky to the word home and everything in between, including his cynicism towards love and all the iterations of forever it holds. 

With that epiphany comes another, then another: he wants you to know why his friends are acting insane, wants you to know about him and his past and all the wounds of his you never know you healed, wants you to spend the rest of this forever with him.

His pointer finger dusts beneath your chin, a wordless request for you to look at him, and he nearly liquifies when you do and he finds entire constellations in your eyes. 

“It’s a lot,” he mumbles, though he suspects you know that already; he suspects you know about the other stuff, too. 

You bring your hand to the side of his face, bring your forehead to rest upon his. Your closeness washes over him like a low summer tide lapping over sandy shores, a soothing balm spreading over scorched flesh. 

“It’s you,” you breathe. “I will love it just the same.”

Chris' held breath comes out in shudders.

So this is warmth.

Minho and Felix are watching anime on the couch when a knock comes at their door, unfortunately during a pivotal moment of a pivotal episode. 

Minho hits pause with a ghastly groan. Felix laughs and rises to his feet, dashing into his room to grab the two silver necklaces he’ll be loaning out for the evening. “Coming!”

Outside, Chris is standing alone, hips and thighs accentuated by a pair of tight-fitting dress pants, sculpted chest and collarbones framed by a thin, cream-colored shirt with the top three buttons undone. Most of his hair has been pushed off his forehead, leaving a few locks free to fall over his right eyebrow. He’s rolling up his sleeves when Felix opens the door, veined forearms flexing as a result of the effort.

“Well?” He asks. Minho cranes his neck to look past Felix.

Both boys start to holler and whistle like excited macaques.

“What in the Calvin Klein is this?” Felix shouts, spinning Chris around by the shoulders. “You look insane, bro. Holy fuck.”

“What’s the occasion, young man?” Minho inadvertently sounds like a gruff uncle. “Where are you going dressed like that, huh?”

Chris' laugh comes easier nowadays. What’s more, it comes in a way that reaches the rest of him, that ends in a tiny, high squeak that you really have to look for in order to hear.

Felix and Minho can't help but replicate his smile. Those clothes look good on him, yes—but happiness looks better.

“You guys are silly,” Chris giggles. Dimples indent his cheeks as he accepts the necklaces from Felix. “Thanks, man. I’ll give ‘em back tomorrow.”

“No rush,” Felix replies, grinning. “Have fun, yeah?”

“We will.” Chris starts to retreat down the hallway, hands moving to clasp the jewelry around his neck, but not before he blows the both of them a kiss.

“Be back before ten!” Minho hollers; Chris laughs again, turns a corner, and disappears.

Felix closes the door. His smile falters fast. Minho has brought his face mere centimeters away, his expression thoroughly humorless.

“Tell me only the truth, Lee Yongbok,” he deadpans.

“O-okay—”

“Is Chris in a relationship?”

“—oh.” Felix frowns. “Well, yeah.”

Minho blanches. “How—how long?”

“One year, give or take? Anniversary’s today.”

Minho is stunned. Felix is stunned that Minho is stunned.

© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · liked this work? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support ♡

[sexbot300]

telling them they have a small dick!

pairing: toji x reader, gojo x reader (separate)

⤷ 18+, MDNI

tw: man-handling, p in v, unprotected sex, power play, cunnilingus, falsetto, huge dick (come on now), mentions of creampie, orgasms, degrading/dirty talk, slight size kink if you squint, text format for gojoe.

a/n: this was so funny to write i cant stop laughing. this was longer than i expected, i will be making a part two with choso, geto, and nanami if asked for. originally it was meant to include them but this is a bit tew long. I actually like this more than anything i’ve ever written before :’) comments r more than welcome thank uuuuu. luv u all xoxo (felt things while writing this, it’s funny that I think it’s my best work)

═════════════════════

Toji ⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Reading your diary

Toji Fushiguro pissed you off. There were no ifs and buts or any way around it. As much as you adored being friends with Megumi and spending time near the stoic guy, coming by his house felt entirely dreadful. Mutual friends frequently visited his abode, leaving and visiting often without a sliver of complaint leaving their diction. ‘Maybe I was truly the problem.’ A thought had snuck up in the crevices of your brain until the mental image of why you didn’t come over as often decided to grace you with his presence. A shiver traveled up north of your spine, straightening yourself out mentally and physically. ‘Nah. That doesn’t sound right. I am NOT the problem.’ 

Toji was everything Megumi was not; cocky, arrogant, and trying to start anything with anyone if they remotely looked in his direction the wrong way. Was he hot? Of course. Would you ever admit it to the bastard? Of course, you wouldn’t. This is why what unfolds before you felt as if some cruel divine punishment, curated by the highest demon in the belly that cradled hell, deciding today would be the day to toy with you.

Closing your phone with a little, ‘Ding!’ Megumi had sent a text earlier entailing that something of your belonging had been left behind. Strangely enough, even he didn’t know what it was, which left a question of perplexity. All he knew was that his dad found it and to alert you about it. 

A sigh that had built up in the depths of your chest left, as you stood behind the mahogany-colored door. Praying that Megumi would just give the item so a beeline can be made as far as legs can sprint. Bringing a hand to the door, tapping with a fist, “Megumi? It’s me.”

With a shuffling heard from inside the house, the sound of the door unlocked and a slow swing revealed no one behind it. Stepping inside carefully and scooping out the area, an eyebrow raised as the familiar setting had no one in eyesight. Closing and locking the door behind, your voice even more confused, “Megumi? Hello? I thought you’d be here.” 

In plain eye view, coming around a corner stood the looming presence of a man that was hard to ignore. Leaning up against the counter behind, a protein shake in hand as his body seems depleted from a workout session. Glistening in sweat, he stood there devastatingly handsome. A simple white tank top clung onto his pectorals, highlighting the ridges of his stone-hard abs while the pump of his presumed workout caused his already massive biceps to look the size of planets. His gray sweats hung low off his slim core. He eyed you up and down as if inspecting every single thing about you.

“Oh yeah. My son's little friend was expecting you here.” He spoke in a casual tone, eyes met yours for a split second before eyeing you down in a carnal way.

Standing in place, mentally making note of killing Megumi for not being the one to give you what was missing from his home. Only leaving you to deal with his father.

He gripped something behind him his fingers grazing what seemed to be a bit lightweight. A light thud of a journal hit the island counter that stood between the pair. Eyes glancing down on what was thrown carelessly, the journal looked all too familiar.

My diary– fuck. All forms of color had drained from the hue of your face, replaced with a crimson flush. Frantically blinking up at the journal, your thoughts blared. ‘There’s no way he could’ve read it right?’ Almost sprinting at the piece of media, fingertips yanked it off the island forcibly gluing it to your chest almost to shield it from eyes it doesn’t belong to. 

Eyes darting back and forth frantically searching for relief in such a predicament, in a measly voice, “T-Thank you Mr. Fushiguro, it was very kind of you to give it back. I-I’ll be leaving now.”

He had only watched amused, but it wasn’t stated within his facial expression. If anything his demeanor was calm– his body leaned back at the counter behind him, legs crossed over one another while he wore what seemed to be a completely uninterested face.

“Smart girl. Probably read a lot, huh?” 

Clutching the diary tighter to your chest, almost impossibly close, furrowed eyebrows and a snap of a neck towards his direction. A low, barely audible, “H-huh?” 

“My favorite passage is where the narrator states that, ‘Toji is probably compensating his small dick for huge muscles.’” He chuckled deeply, taking a swing of his protein shake before setting it to the side.

Frozen in place, eyes widened, simply just going quiet. I mean– what could be said? For a moment so intense, all that ran through your mind was complete blankness.

“Kinda find it endearing how the narrator only uses vibrators on her clit because the idea of penetration ‘arouses’ yet ‘scares’ her.”

“Mr. Fushiguro did you r-rea-“ stated in an incredibly shaky voice. Embarrassed, wishing that the ground would do you good bidding and swallow you whole with no hesitation. He still looked calm, ridiculing every aspect of you, his eyes had darkened a bit due to pupil dilation.

Everything felt tense, hot, incredibly warm, a moment of heat transpiring between the two of you as eyes met one another. Except both eyes said a different story. His; was full of something that could only be described that an animal gets knowing that they had successfully captured their prey right where they were needed. Yours; full of complete self-pity, begging to be freed under the gaze of something that will eat you alive and leave no bones.

“Do you think that Toji's character might appreciate the narrator calling him ‘hot but probably hotter with his mouth shut?’” His large arms bulged, and crossed over his chest, enjoying every minute that left you squirming under his condescending gaze. You looked like something had caught your throat and any form of attitude seemed to exist on the lines written in the diary. 

Tilting his head, on cue his hair moved as well, his expression seeming bleak. “Aw, wish I could meet this narrator, express to her how far off she is from the truth. Seems the type to talk a lot but get quiet when confronted.”

With a croak of your throat you managed to speak in a weak voice, “Mr. Fushiguro I am so sor-”

A silky voice met your ears, “Megumi taught me a bit about books. You know what’s funny about narrators sometimes?”

“W-what?” Your voice croaked.

“They’re unreliable.”

“Want to know something else funny?”

Body shifting off the ledge of the counter his bulky body slowly walked, emerald eyes glancing down while you stared up with the most innocent expression. ‘Cute,’ he thought. Staring down, a waft of his natural musky scent hit your nasal passages. He towered right in front of you. His long finger gripped a loose strand of your hair, twirling it mockingly.

He juxtaposed the flustered expression drawn on your face, a grin that stretched from ear to ear, a sly expression painting a look of hunger. “Yeah,” his tongue swiped at his bottom lip, voice dropping a few octaves, “it’s tiny even.”

-

On the checklist of things you hated about Toji, you mentally jotted down that he was a liar. He was a complete liar. 

Knees blown out, nose buried deep into his neatly trimmed pubic hair, lips trying to adhere to a girth that wasn’t friendly to take down, saliva coating your chin and seeping through the cracks of the side of your lips, and mascara smeared down the sides of your cheek. 

Toji was anything but tiny. A huge hand gripped the back of your skull, yanking at the follicles of your hair bouncing your head back and forth on his dick. He had to be 8 inches at least.

Gagging and whimpers filled the air, as you pathetically took down all the length he forced down. Your eyes beaming with tears, while he looked down at yours mockingly. Eyebrows slightly furrowed at the feeling of your tight throat clinging onto his cock like a vice. He smirked staring you down as you struggle to take him in, light pants escaped from his throat as spit slowly exited his mouth, meeting the exposed part of his dick and a part of your face.

“Slow down sweetheart, shit,” a condescending laugh, “I’m not going anywhere.” He hissed in a bit feeling your tongue desperately lap up and down his cock as you took the initiative to get completely lost in the feeling. 

It was all too lewd– he had stopped guiding you by bobbing your head, but kept a firm hold; all you did was suck him as if your life depended on it. His hefty cock felt divine to the tastebuds, weighing heavy down your throat and around your tongue. Frantically allowing your tongue to brush over the large veins running throughout his shaft, your hands jerking off what you could, letting the room fill up with the wet squelches. Moaning onto his cock the vibrations cued a grunt from Toji, sucking his massive tip with a ‘pop!’ He pulled you away, noticing the whine in your face when separated from his dick. He laid it on your face, grin sprawled out. 

“You suck dick good for a girl who only gets off to filthy fantasies about a man who she hates.” 

Panting, studying him while feeling incredibly small under his stare, catching your breath. So perfect, you looked so perfect to him.

“Fuck- I could just cum looking at your face like this,” gripping your hair earning a mewl from your throat, he held onto his dick tapping the tip of your tongue repeatedly, he grinned wider noticing how you desperately leaned into every tap. “Heh, want more huh? Coulda came from your throat, rather fuck it in your little pussy instead. I could tell you were a cock-deprived whore from the start.”

All you could do was blink up at him, gulping at everything he was saying, a new wave of arousal crashing down in your panties. Eyebrows furrowed, keeping steady eye contact with him, he noticed your fucked out expression. 

“Aw? No back-talk? Seem to have a lot to run your mouth about in that little diary, girl. Do you even remember your name? Already trained you well without stretching you out? Or does it make you feel ashamed to be this wet in the house of a man you hate so much? Do you have no shame?”

“I-I’m,” you cleared your hoarse voice swallowing any bit of saliva that didn’t engulf his cock, “not wet.”

He blankly stared down at your face before a loud chuckle eroded from his body, shaking him slightly, “Darling, you’re practically dripping on my kitchen floors. You think I can’t see you clenching your thighs f’me?”

“I-it’s not for y-you, Mr. Fushiguro-“

“Cut the shit, it’s Toji. Stand up.”

Pushing your knees off the position they were in for the longest time, you whined and stumbled while Toji watched amused. Standing on your feet, wobbling, he did the honors of throwing you over his shoulder eliciting a loud gasp as your torso made contact and leaned into his broad shoulders. His fingers lightly grazed your wet folds that leaked through your leggings, causing a slight gasp.

He only chuckled again, walking to his master bedroom. “Not wet, my ass.”

-

You’re not sure what round this was, but being thrown like a rag-doll by a man who easily overpowered every aspect of you was not how you expected this visit to go. He did the honors of prepping you for hours long– edging you and making sure you were on the brink of insanity so taking his cock in would feel much more manageable. At first, you winced taking him in, but the pain subsided once the overwhelming bliss of pleasure overtook all feelings of discomfort.

Toji started by fucking his tip in, rocking back and forth to let you become accustomed slightly. He quickly learned that you were nothing more than a cock-deprived whore.

“T-toji, y-you’re, ah! Breakin’ me!”

“Good.” His face had a wild expression, grinning ear to ear, his long onyx hair clinging to parts of his forehead from sweat while the rest dangled in your face. This man just found his new favorite plaything, he’d be damned to stop this. 

Toji had you mangled in a mating press, feet planted firmly into his mattress, feeling every last bit of dick he could give. Holding your thighs back with large hands, he drilled into your poor cunt, legs hanging off his broad shoulders, the sounds of skin-on-skin vibrating in the room alongside his pants, and your loud moans.

“T-toji, ah! I-I’m sorry, t-too,” a deeper thrust sent a harsh quiver from your lips while his lips dropped low to your ear, “Too! Big! Cant!”

Grunting into your ear, the same smirk plastered on his face. He angled himself even deeper, never stopping the rhythm, slamming his inches into you. All you could do was take it and moan desperately. Head thrown back while eyes rolled back into your skull. 

“Don’t” thrust, “care.” He stated casually in your ear while his voice grew huskier, “Gonna fuck my cum into this lil’ ah, fuck, pussy. Make sure it only learns how to take me in.” He chuckled while he never stopped drilling, he pulled all the way out, leaving only the tip in. Causing you to pant rapidly at the loss of dick, hating how empty yet incredibly full you felt just from his tip alone.

“P-Please, please Toji, please,” fingers dug into his biceps in a fucked out voice, “don’t stop.”

“Aw,” he placed his forehead atop yours, mockingly cooing at the mess you’ve become. “Why should I let you cum?” He whispered now, lips ghosting over your own, “Had a lot to say about me being tiny but your greedy little cunt is both clinging onto me and stretching out. Disgusting girl” 

“I’m so so so so sorry, Toji I promise I’ll be good, I’ll be so good.” Frantically scanning over his face, your body still throbbing from the positions he put you in. Meanwhile, he felt just as warm to the touch, the feeling of sex coated him entirely his composure not faltering.

Wrapping a strong hand around your throat he tightened his grip as he pummeled right into you at once, body jerking forward at the sudden stretch. A loud gasp and moan abruptly left your mouth. Before he could continue pumping into you, his lips still hovering over yours, he had a cocky smile still etched onto his face.

“Sent Megumi off with his little friends, they’re having a sleepover.” His smirk deepened, “Oh don’t worry, you’ll be proving to me how good of a whore you’ll be for me all night.” He scoffed, “Maybe then in your little diary you can write about how good I fuck you.” He pulled out yet again, suddenly feeling his body weight push off your body entirely, making you whine at the loss of sensation in your cunt and body. In an instant, he flipped you over.

Back arched completely, chest pressed down into the sprawled-out duvet, legs spread out ready for him to obliterate all self-dignity you had left, his knee pushed into the bed behind you. Placing his socked foot in the back of your head, he gripped his cockhead dragging it along your puffy folds. Moaning slightly at the feeling of contact as he circled his massive tip around your clit, your eyes fluttered shut again. Drool seeped through the sides of your mouth not caring that this man had stolen all sense of respect you once held for yourself.

“Now,” his voice husky again grunting as his cock slowly teased at your entrance before shoving it in at a tantalizing pace. Staring in awe at your hole as it glistened, hearing your cunt squelch around his thick width, “Hear her for me?” Physically tightening at the words he just said, he let out a slight grunt.

“Mhm,” you let out a mangled noise which caused him to chuckle, feeling his foot press deeper onto the back of your head while your fingers desperately gripped at the sheets below. 

“Maybe,” he pushed himself in, a wild smile on his face while he heard you whimper below, thrashing around still not used to a length this immense. “You should listen to her more often than that dumb little brain of yours princess.” 

Swiftly gripping your wrist, he firmly pinned it back at the small of your back, while rapidly thrusting in and out all at once. “Ah! Ah! T-Toji… So! Hnghhh, G-Good,” moans incredibly muffled as they were pushed into the sheets, cunt gripping onto him every time he moved in and out.

Grunting at the view of your ass clapping back at his pelvic region every time he drilled inside, your walls trying their hardest to take him. He only cackled before whistling, harshly slamming a hand down on your ass letting it recoil with a red mark left behind.

“Should’ve told you I read that stupid diary ages ago…”

═════════════════════

Gojo ⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Failed date

“Ding! New message from ‘toruu.’” The robotic voice announced in your headphones, breaking you from wallowing in your sorrowful haze.

Shuffling in your bed, trying to forget the events that unfolded earlier today, your hand reached out to your nightstand fidgeting around to find your phone. You thought maybe lying down with sad music blaring in your ears would help, but spoiler; it did not. Groaning slightly while your eyes try to adjust to the phone's brightness. A failed date equated to a failed day, lo and behold, your eccentric friend was at your side ready to wipe away any discomfort. 

Shifting your body upwards, a smile couldn’t help but be formed at his words. At the end of the day, the guy was just that, a guy. There was nothing to stress over. Was there a slight skip in a heartbeat hearing Satoru speak fondly upon you? Yes. But that’s all that there was. Risking a friendship with him wasn’t worth it in the grand scheme. He was appealing in all senses, there was no surprise that girls and boys alike flocked to him like candy. Getting laid wasn’t exactly the objective, but hanging onto things that weren’t feasible was. 

Joking with Satoru came second nature, but having him become defensive over a harmless joke startled you a bit. ‘There’s no way he’s acting like this.’ Nibbling at your bottom lip staring at him laughing in all caps. Is he being defensive? Eyes moving back and forth on the screen questioning what to say next, the conversation continued.

Snickering to yourself, ‘Oh, so he IS being defensive.’ The thought danced around in your head, rolling eyes at every other thing he texted. “There is no way he is serious,” mumbling to yourself like a madman in the dead of night alone while speaking to nothing but the screen at hand. 

A light ping indicated that your message was sent, as you glanced at the dots that appeared from his end. Breath slightly hitching at what he stated next.

Eyes widening, breath caught in throat quickly throwing the phone down face first as your face burnt. Breathing shallow breaths to catch up, time felt a bit still before shaking hands gripped the phone, and slowly brought it into your line of sight. 

My God was Satoru Gojo, huge.

His tip was a light dusty pink, almost made to be kissed, forming a beautiful head that had a bead of translucent precum decorating the slit. The shaft was thick, matching his milky pale tone and fading into an ombre ending right where the tip started. His veins were many, mapped out all around his shaft, up and down, a prominent one stood at the center. It looked heavy, he appeared to be standing up in the picture. A white-happy trail formed alongside the end of his abs and faded around into his neatly groomed bush. You blinked slowly, taking in the image of your best friend’s fat cock. He wasn’t lying. At all. He had to be pushing 8 inches and more. This was the image alone, thumb hovering slightly over the video attachment. Feeling your cunt pulsate slightly and clit growing a bit hard, shuffling some more. 

‘I can't be getting wet over my friend. This is so wrong, he’s probably joking too right? Guys do this all the time with their guy friends. Except, I’m not a guy…’

Biting the bullet and taking the initiative, clicking the video attachment was a wrong, wrong idea. Still, in the same position, his gray sweat pushed down his mid-thigh, the flash was strong in the video. In your ears, everything was heard. Still standing erect, you could hear him lightly chuckle, almost as if he was taunting you in the same room. For some reason, the slick heat flooded more, He brought his large veiny hand, placing it side by side with his cock, holy shit, it was larger than his hand. He spoke your name in a sultry voice one that sent waves crashing down your pussy, a voice that you’ve never heard before. 

“You already know how big my hand is, I mean you’ve held it before. Do with that information what you will.” You could hear the smirk in his voice before plopping on the bed before him, a soft grunt echoed in your ears. So his dick was heavy, it flopped straight on his abs which elicited a laugh on his end. 

“Sorry, I couldn't send you it while lying down. It’s a bit too heavy.” With that, the video ended. Gulping and staring dumbfounded, your fingers anxiously wrote whatever they could, trying to keep any semblance of a friendly demeanor. 

Sighing while rolling your eyes at his behavior, mentally sighing that he's back acting like the immature soul he’s always been. Guess, it’s time to rely on the good ol’ vibrator to solve this problem. Knowing him he’d probably hang this compliment over your head for eternity and that was that with this conversation, which is why what he stated startled you a bit.

Staring at the screen once more, feeling a bit anxious about his response. All that could be thought of is if the wrong thing was said to him. He’d be over the moon hearing that his cock is big as fuck, right? Sighing while dropping your shoulders and clicking the side button to shut the phone off, eyes closing once more while the back of your head met the soft headboard. 

“Ding! New message from: ‘toruu.’”

Eyes widening, the heat still pooling in your lace panties, thanking yourself for another failed date. Within ten minutes the phone was chucked out of hand, racing to get ready for his arrival even though it wasn’t the typical hangout.

Slipping on a lacy, cerulean bra and throwing it on, keeping the same undies on having a feeling that the slick wetness would be favored for you both, fixing your hair, spritzing a gourmand perfume, applying a bubble-gum colored lip gloss, and pulling on a light blue hoodie, tight black spandex shorts, with black house sandals. It wasn’t long before a certain man rang the doorbell.

Rushing to the door while maintaining some form of composure and unlocking it to be met with piercing eyes and a shit-eating grin towering over you. He wore the same sweats in the video and a black hoodie that did very little to hide his massive frame.

“Hi,” he stated in his typical voice, eyes looking over his glasses down at your face, as he put one strong arm over the doorframe. “Hello, ‘Toru…” audibly speaking so only he heard, while a light blush scattered across your face.

“Heard your date got canceled or whatever, what a bummerrrrrrr.” He rolled his eyes exaggerating his disdain due to unexpected plans. “Gonna let me in?” His voice stated in a whisper while studying the curves of your body. 

Slightly nodding, shifting to the side to let the tall figure in, a waft of his cologne hit all senses and shot straight to your core. 

While he walked in, your hand pressed against the doorframe closing it and locking it before a large hand turned you around. Gasping at the sudden feel of his hand around your waist, while the rest of your body was pushed against the door. Staring up at his face, not recognizing the look displayed on his usual happy-go-lucky face, painted a darkened expression of desire. Satoru pressed your chest against the front of his body, pushing you closer by the hand on the back of your waist. Caging you in his embrace, the other hand laid flat behind the door.

Smelling his sweet breath from the various candies he indulged in, the air hit the tip of your nose while his lips were merely inches away from your own. 

“No offense,” his voice silky, smooth, and deeper than usual, “Kinda glad this asshole bailed on you. Wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like you anyways.” His smile deepened while you responded by cupping his soft face in both hands. 

Breath a bit higher than a whisper, lips almost touching his while his grip on your waist felt stronger, “Oh, yeah ‘Toru, and you know what to do?” 

Feeling a vibration from his chest against your frame, as a laugh erupted from him, he stared into your eyes intensely. “Let me kiss your lips and show you. I think you know by now my words match up with my actions.”

Almost on command, both of you smashed your lips into one another savoring the feeling of tasting what you wanted for so long. Mutually moaning slightly upon the impact, Satoru quickly moved his large hands to caress all over your tinier frame. Ass, waist, thighs, hair, neck, his long slender fingers were everywhere, anywhere, every chance he could get to press you impossibly close to him.

Mouth agape, he took it as an opportunity to slip his tongue in, slithering it around your mouth while your tongue circled his own. Hands entangled in his hair, tilting your head, and on cue, he did the same. Tongues squelching and roaming each other's mouths as if you’ve been thirsty and the only cure was one another. His hands finally stop at your ass, giving a light squeeze before carrying you up, wrapping your legs around his torso.

Breaking away faces mimicking a blush on both faces, a string of saliva connecting your lips. Slightly panting as your forehead meets his, he stares deeply into your eyes. “Cute and all,” he says still in a haze, “but those weren’t the lips I was talking about.”

-

Hovering over his torso, while your mouth was stuffed with his huge cock. Hungrily lapping up his dick with your tongue, your hand wrapped around his base in a circular motion going up and down while your mouth struggled slightly to take the entirety of him in. Moans sent vibrations across his huge shaft, he was so big, so so so big. You loved every minute of it, it was evident with the sticky residue of cum that formed on his thighs and pubic hair from the previous rounds you’d gone. Saliva pooled on his dick, to rest on his balls and underneath his thighs. 

It was a mess, “Mhm!” You panted, separating yourself from having his cock buried down your throat but quickly attaching your lips at the head, smearing precum on like a lip product. Lapping the precum up and down the slit, before indulging his length back in. “Sa-Satoru- Ah! S-Stop!” Lips making a ‘pop!’ noise after pulling his dick from your throat, hands still echoing a wet sound as they both rapidly jerked him off.

Gojo laid on his back his face stuffed in your cunt, “Cant, ahhhh, too good,” His voice sounding hoarse. Bringing his head up even further into your slick heat, he licked long strips with his tongue from clit, hole, and ass. Both of his large hands spread your cheeks apart, your discharge soaking the bottom half of his face. He dove in head first, nose pressed directly in your pussy while his mouth harshly sucked at your clit, twirling it around his tongue effortlessly. Years of sucking on candy couldn’t compare to this. Pulling away both hands from your ass, he placed them on the front of your thighs, forcing you to sit on his face with a welp that broke away the string of moans.

Continuing to jerk him off, your eyes crossed while spitting down his length, feeling him twitch slightly under your motion. You mewled, “Mhpmh! Satoruuuuuuu!”

Harshly sucking on it before pulling away, he kissed your clit before dragging his head around in a circular motion licking all around like a madman. He closed his eyes and buried his tongue deep in your walls that tightened and contracted around him. Bobbing his head back and forth, tongue fucking your tiny hole, thumb diligently working in circles on your swollen clit. Slowly feeling your high soon approaching in waves and feeling him twitch even more violently underneath you. 

He moaned deep into your cunt while high-pitched yells escaped your throat, “Oh! Oh! Oooooh! Oh, Satoru! I’m c-cumm- ah!” Soon enough, Satoru’s face was full of liquid when your orgasm arrived. Sticking a tongue out noticing him jerk in your hands, closing your eyes, while cum painting your tongue and face. Swallowing him all while quivering from the impact of cumming all over his face.

For once in your life, this was the most quiet Satoru has ever been. 

Breaking away from your cunt, Satoru took a deep breath, laughing to himself shakily.

“Fuck, I should pay men more often not to date you.”

[gyuswhore]

Statistically Speaking...

part of the svt TA collab

kim mingyu x reader

word count: 21k

contains: TA! mingyu, fluff, smut [minors DNI], angst, statistics, ur honour they're stupid for one another, descriptions of stress exhaustion and burnout, academic burden, disagreements, mingyu is smart as hell, shitting on bad professors, smut but its a surprise [gyu gets his soul sucked while he's reciting statistical models I mean what]

words of conviction from @highvern: Kim Mingyu, total asshole , 1-800-HOT N DUMB , THEYRE IN LOVE MINGYU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LOSER , sick fucking freak , i know when you wrote this you put your head in your hands , OHHHM YW GOD

synopsis: In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.

[a/n]: this fic is set in the same universe as @highvern's wonu fic endpoint [read here!!!], some insight for wonu's pov is included here as is some of Mingyu's pov in cam's fic if you'd like to see more about what happens in the gaps!!

I want to start by thanking everyone who chose to be part of this collab fic and for being the reason cam and I were able to open up @camandemstudios in the first place. everyone's been so kind and cooperative and I still cant believe we managed to convince such amazing writers to join us on this collab journey 🥹 I love u guys

Thanking my wife camothy @highvern for brainstorming with me since day one and for betaing for me. @seokgyuu and @miabebe for also looking over the doc and reassuring me. I'm for sure forgetting someone and I'm really sorry about that, know that I appreciate you just as much 🤍

on that note, I hope you guys enjoy this fic, im HELLA nervous for some reason so plsplspls remember to reblog and send me feedback on how you liked it, I will love you forever <333

masterlist

Monday

A normal person would’ve cried. Perhaps even sued the entire institution for all it was worth. Burn down the world, if it came to it. 

But as you stare at the tiny 37/100 on your screen, you feel…nothing. 

You could’ve said you saw it coming, which you did, but something about blaming someone else for an exam you took was beginning to feel a little manipulative. 

Clicking off the student portal, you huff loudly, five in the morning too early for you to begin breaking down over a grade that was completely unreflective of what you were taught. 

Or maybe it was, because as you count one, two, three hours till your dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, you can only hope you’ll hold back from spitting in your professor’s coffee. But alas, you can only shut your laptop harder than necessary for what it costs and push the grade out of your mind.

You were tired enough to sleep for a couple more hours, and you take it as an opportunity to spite the entire course by giving just as many fucks as your professor did.  

Which was little to none. 

That was a lie—on your part anyway. Because you continue to show up, and probably will until you can put this course and all of its trauma behind you. Even now as you feel the inclining beat of your pulse sitting in the white lecture hall, you know this is all but you versus the universe. 

Dr. Cho might as well have wheeled himself into the room on a skateboard with the way he struts into the room. 

He’s wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and jeans of a matching finish that do not fit him properly. There’s pins in every last colour on this earth, littering the front of his jacket with sayings that toe the silver controversial lining. There was one that said Vote for John F. Kennedy, another plain black one with I Eat Kids, and of course, the blaring Cunt written in cursive, pink sparkly letters. 

This man that’s pushing into his 60s stands before his slightly wilted class in his crocs, hands on his hips as he heaves a long breath. 

“I have to say, not the turn out I was expecting on that last report.”

He’s talking about the report you coincidentally failed, the same one you were pushed into with little to no direction and a deadline tighter than any you’ve had to bully yourself through. 

“All I can say is to read through the feedback I’ve given and try a little harder next time.” His voice is somewhere bordering comical exasperation. Feedback that consisted of sparing ‘?’’s and ‘no’’s with zero further explanation. He could say more, but you’ve learned that he simply chooses to not. 

Besides the man that drones in the front of the room, there’s another person in the other corner of the lecture hall. He’s hunched over a giant pile of papers, sifting through each and every one with a pen in his other hand. 

The TA doing a mundane task is somehow more interesting than whatever seminars of disappointment your professor was giving. He’s crossing something out on every single leaf of paper that he flicks through, and you vaguely wonder if those were today’s worksheets. 

“...and post hoc tests last week, we can start on Bayesian today. Mingyu will be handing out the tutorial papers.”

The poor TA looks like he thought he’d have more time, snapping his head up to look at the professor with an expression of pure incredulousness. He staggers for a moment before he’s flicking past the pages even faster somehow, striking out what seems like the same instruction in the giant pile of papers meant for an entire lecture hall. There’s a rustle as about a hundred laptops are being pulled out and booted up, waiting for the worksheets to land on the desks. 

You hear the familiar warble of papers being passed out and you watch as the TA pulls chunks of sheets out of the giant stack in his arms to slam down onto the front tables. 

“Pass it down, please… pass it down, please…”

There’s a voice that calls from one of the front seats, “What formula is the sheet talking about?”

Mingyu looks startled as he snaps back to look at the blaring empty whiteboard. In the midst of passing papers, you watch him sprint to the rolling whiteboards, pulling one of the giant flats of white over to the other side, the mechanism slamming into place with a louder than comfortable slam. It reveals another whiteboard underneath with the detestably long formula already written (and the one you’d have to figure out yourself).

 The professor remains with his chin in his hands behind his laptop, unphased. 

By the time you’ve registered the foreign symbols on the board, one of the tutorial papers has made it into your hands.

Sure enough, there’s a quick line across one of the steps with a thick black marker. 

Blinking hard, you attempt to pull yourself into the zone, staring at the white sheet with words that are barely stringing themselves together. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially as you lift your head to find hunched shoulders and furrowed brows all around. 

There’s one person that’s zipping back and forth, just like there always is. 

You watch as Mingyu hunches over certain laptops and whispers in rapid explanation before moving on to the next, a looming sense of dizziness that trails behind him as he shoots up the stairs to the back rows to help someone else. 

There’s a brief consideration to raise your own hand to ask for help, but one look at his disoriented gaze and the amount of hands that shoot up by the second, you guess it wasn’t going to help.

Back you go, hunched over the same wretched paper as everyone else, and praying for some divine revelation. 

Tuesday

Divine revelation did not come to you, but the good sense to make use of office hours did. 

So here you are, a printed copy of your supposedly horrid assignment and a pack of multicolour pens in your tote, and determination in your stride, you make your way to the department building. 

You’ve double, triple, quadruple checked the times to ensure you don’t dip in at the wrong moment, swiping open your phone to re-check the room number yet again. 

Standing outside the door, you knock with mustered confidence, waiting for something akin to an affirmative from the other side of the door. 

Nothing. 

You knock again.

Silence. 

You glance around the empty hall before grasping onto the cool brass handle of the door, wrenching it open just a peep. Poking your head in, you find the room…empty.

The chairs and tables that usually buzz with discussing students lay barren as you step into the room. Moving to look at the front of the room, you inhale sharply as you realise the professor’s desk has been occupied this entire time. 

Except he’s asleep.

No, that’s not the professor. 

Moving closer, you watch the way his back rises and falls ever so slowly, head resting on his arm as his hand hangs limp off the table. Whipping your head around with more attention this time, you attempt to find an explanation written on the walls. But there’s none, even in the papers that litter the table he rests his head on.

You don’t need to see his face to know it’s the TA. But as you stand in the empty room, clutching the straps of your tote, you aren’t quite sure what to do. 

Another glance around the table and you realise his laptop remains on, the screen yet to sleep. Before the obvious issue of a blatant invasion of privacy can befall you, you take a step forward to take a peek. 

It’s his schedule, a million colours blaring on the screen in a colour coded regard with barely any white spaces. It doesn’t take long to find his time slot for right now, red with importance. 

Glancing down, the man remains fast asleep, pen still in hand as it inks a faint line on the page. You look around the room for the nth time, taking constant glances back at his laptop that tells you he’s actively missing something right now. Clearing your throat, you hunch over a tad bit. 

“Um, excuse me.” He hardly moves. So you try a little louder, hunching over his sleeping form even further. “Excuse me.”

You could’ve sworn you heard a snore. 

Out of instinct, you bring a hand forward to his shoulder, shaking ever so slightly as you call for him again. “Excuse me!”

There’s a sharp inhale and he shoots up quicker than you can back away, ensuring you get an entire back’s worth of force as he bumps into you, hard.

“Wh–ow!” The noise is collective, yelps and thuds as you both back away from each other. 

“W–what’re you doing here?” he asks, hair still ruffled and eyes barely open as he stands at the table. There’s a bright yellow sticky note on his right cheek, ink scribbled on in something you can’t decipher.

“Um, it’s office—”

His eyes land on the same screen you were peering into just before and it looks like his life flashes before his eyes, widening at the sight as he slams around the table looking for something. 

“I have to go,” he announces, gripping onto an unstrapped watch as he registers the time, his other hand shoving his laptop and a few papers into a dark messenger bag. 

“Wait, isn’t it still office hours?” you call out as he whizzes past you. 

He’s swinging his bag over his shoulder and half tripping to the door as he calls out, “Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

“But—”

“It’s on the portal.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it—” he pauses as he exhales loudly, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to rub across his tired face. “I’ll double check. But it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays from now on. You can wait till I get back if you really want help.”

“How—”

A loud slam! of the door. 

“—long…” 

You’re left draped in silence yet again, the echoes of the slammed door ringing in your startled ears. It all happened too fast for you to process, blinking rapidly as you registered that you were now alone in the room. 

He said he’d be back, but left you with no indication as to when. By the looks of his god awful schedule, it looked like he had something else to attend to right after whatever it was he buggered off to right now. 

Fingers clenched into a fist, you consider your options. You could wait, sit on one of the desks and try to get some work done until he gets back. 

The universe gives you your answer as the door opens with a loud creak in the empty lecture hall. It’s another professor who looks quite startled to find an overenthusiastic student already present for class. 

She stares before craning to look at the room number outside the door, “Am I in the right room?”

“Uh, yes! I was just leaving,” you buffer out, moving to shuffle out immediately. 

You’re halfway out the door when you hear another call of an “Excuse me!”

“Are these your papers?” The professor’s full arms are up as she gestures to the still littered table. 

The No is ready on your lips. Until it isn’t. 

Later on, you’d consider how you left that room with an armful of papers that did not belong to you. How you’d ducked under the table to ensure you’d gotten everything, down to the leather strap watch with the cracked clock face. 

But as you stare at the stack of files and sheets that lay on your desk at home, you only know of the decent act that you’d committed.

And nothing of the hourglass you’d just turned over. 

Wednesday

In your Sent box are three emails sent on three separate days, all asking the same recurring question, all responding with the same recurring reply.

I wanted to confirm the days and times for office hours. I’m aware it’s on the portal but I’d like to reconfirm. 

Regards, YN

Dear YN,

Wednesdays and Thursdays. 4 to 6 PM.

Kim Mingyu, T.A. 

So there you were on a Wednesday afternoon, 3:59 PM sharp, outside the lecture hall where office hours have always been. With the same tote hung on your shoulders, with the same printed assignment and pack of multicolour pens, and a separated stack of files and folders, you wrench the door open with bated breath. 

The blended murmur of the usual hustle and bustle of the appointment reassures you first, the sight of scattered students of familiar faces reassures you second. And most of all, a conscious TA that sits at the professor’s desk, speaking to another student over a laptop screen. 

The man does nothing to acknowledge your arrival, continuing above the babble of students that occupy the chairs and the discussion. It isn’t too full, but considerably busy nonetheless despite how early you’ve swooped in. 

There’s a brief consideration whether this was in the TA’s job description at all, craning your neck to take a full sweep of the room to find a sparing glimpse of the man who should be here. The professor and his loud fashion choices are nowhere to be found. 

The sigh you let out is heavy and full of an emotion you cannot possibly begin to unpack, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs to slump against. Shoulders sagging, you feel every fibre of your being screaming against your better judgement to pull out some work and to be productive while you wait. Reading over your failed assignment for the nth time, the same one that seemed to be some sick form of rage bait. 

You pull a couple things out so as to not look awkward sitting and staring into nothing on an empty desk, uncapping your pen and pulling up your sleeves like there was business to be done. Which there was, but none of which you wished to entertain. 

People watching, you realise, is a lot easier when most of the room is preoccupied with whatever it is they’re doing, too busy to notice your blank stares. 

The faces are familiar, none of which are people you’ve interacted with before but classmates nonetheless. The room is full of shaking legs, spinning pens and hunched backs, not an un-scrunched brow in sight. There’s a particular gaggle of girls somewhere around the front, their tables suggesting a work environment but between the whispers, giggles and glances to the front of the room, you assume there’s one thing in common the both of you weren’t doing. 

Speaking of the front of the room, your matched glance finds you face to face with the student at the main table in the middle of pushing himself off his seat. Your reaction is immediate, hand coming over to slam against the flat of your bag to find the lost straps, moving out of your seat as you keep your eyes on the front of the room. 

Bad luck must be a lover, because you realise quickly that somebody’s already beat you to it. Before you even noticed the first’s intentions to. The student stands beside the chair ready to keep it warm as the previous occupant leaves. 

Slamming back down on your own seat, you realise very quickly that trying to get an audience with this TA was going to be harder than you anticipated. There’s multiple other sounds of frustration around the room, and you doubt the slowly increasing pool of students was going to help anyone’s time management. 

Realising you needed to be a little more tactical if you didn’t want to sit here for the next month and half, you find an empty spot near the gaggle of girls you’d noticed before. It was right up front, just enough for you to hear when the conversation would begin to conclude at the main table. 

Once again, the TA doesn’t seem to notice any of the hustle and bustle of the room as his mouth continues to move rapidly, eyes on the question as he invests himself in his explanation. 

It was unfortunate that the only remaining seat was right next to the louder than necessary group, but you take it as a blessing anyway. It’s then that the one right next to you turns to stage-whisper to you. 

“Are you here to see him?”

You don’t expect a conversation, ears straining to eavesdrop on the other conversation in front of you to find your cue. You snap to look at her in surprise. “Pardon?” 

“Are you here to see him? Mingyu?”

“Uh—” Wasn’t everybody? “Yeah, I had a couple things I wanted to clear out.”

The revelation makes her shoulders drop as she lets out a loud sigh, “God, I can never get anything this professor says. I've been here nearly every week trying to figure it all out.”

“Yeah he’s a bit…unorthodox.”

“He’s unorthodox too.” She looks over to the main table towards the TA, chin in her hands as she gazes. “A face like that is rare.”

It wasn’t that she was wrong, it didn’t take more than a glance to convince yourself that Mingyu was possibly one of the more attractive people you’d meet in your lifetime. But the appeal lasted for all of five minutes for you, flitting away when you noticed that he dragged along a very…overwrought… suggestion wherever he went. 

It was clear he was stressed seemingly all year round, nearly just as relaxed as your professor seemed to be. 

But Mingyu was attractive. And you realise how much of a fool you’d sound if you admitted to anything other than such. 

“It is. His willpower’s somehow even rarer,” you add. “Don’t know how he does it.”

“God, tell me about it. Forget getting his number, trying to have more than a three sentence exchange with him without some statistical nonsense involved is near impossible.” Her face has fallen, a tight little frown on her face as she irritates herself with some other memory. 

Taking a glance down at her notes, you find the printed sheet littered with glitter gel pen ink lining the edges, doodles of stars and hearts and small anime characters next to p values and z scores. 

There’s a distinct sound of a chair screeching, and it’s like a large GAME OVER sign is hanging above your head. 

You jerk in your seat, like you could jump over the table and land in the emptying seat with some god-given stroke of luck, like the person already standing next to the chair wouldn’t hold a lifelong grudge against the insane girl with an unnatural acclimation to statistics. 

Although, nothing was more unnatural than the way this TA seemed to know more than the professor. Or you were just really behind. 

Alas, you don’t tumble over the table or kick back your chair, merely making a forceful motion in your seat, palms itching terribly as you watch the girl with her open laptop balanced in her arms move to take a seat. 

You were preoccupied, hence you do not notice that the TA has also noticed you. 

Suddenly, the girl looks startled as she’s told to wait. 

“She’s been waiting nearly a week, I really hope you don’t mind,” you hear him say, voice strained as you turn to look at him. His hands are outstretched to motion towards you a few feet across from him. 

For whatever reason, you had no thought that he might’ve remembered you. Something about his half asleep state when he’d spoken to you, perhaps he might’ve thought he dreamt it. Or he’d just forgotten it altogether. 

The girl glances at you, and her shoulders sag a little as she nods in formality. 

“Thank you.”

It comes out of both of you, snapping to look at each other hardly a moment as you go back to smiling at the retreating student. 

“You can come right after her,” he reassures, his own upturned mouth tired and fading. 

Never have you felt more awkward trying to come around the elongated student tables. 

You pause at first, staring at the table in front of you like it was worth trying to climb over or even crawl under it to get to the desk. Another moment of eye contact as he stares at your unmoving form with a blank look, and the heat pools your skin. 

Staggering for a moment, you end up moving past your chair and walking the way round anyway, the screeching of the chairs only nurturing the existing budding humiliation for no apparent reason. 

It only gets worse when you sit across from him finally, backside barely touching the plastic before realising you’d forgotten your bag in your seat. 

Mid smile in a timid greeting when you make a sound resembling something of an “Oh!” as you spring back up immediately. It’s easier to reach for your bag over the table you were sitting on, reaching across to grab it off your vacated seat. 

The girl you were sitting next to just before makes a motion like she’s trying to help and you have to remind yourself to smile at her as you retreat. 

Mingyu has the very beginnings of an amused expression on his face once you’ve finally made yourself comfortable across from him, clearing your throat just for something to do. 

“Right. How can I help you?”

Pulling out your printed assignment, you bring out the sheets of stapled paper to the centre of the table, writing facing him. 

One look at the sparse format of the cover page, he blows a full mouth of air at the sight of recognition. Without you having to say a thing, he flicks to the very last page, finding the rubric printed on a separate page. 

“It’s a 37,” you inform him like he couldn’t see the bold 37/100 in the bottom Total cell. 

“Do you think you deserved a better grade?” he asks. It would have sounded direct, an accusation even. But he asks with an intonation of genuinity, like he actually wanted to know. 

It stumps you regardless.

“Well…I know I can do better, at least,” you decide to answer. 

“You’re here, which means you’re at least willing to try. That’s a start,” he murmurs. His eyes are laser focused on the sheet beneath him, holding it open as his eyes move faster across the page than you can keep up with. Somehow talking to you while taking in the words on the paper.

“I remember marking this,” he says, looking up to address you. “Your concepts are nearly there, but your structure and presentation was off.”

“You marked them?”

He raises his brow, “I hope that wasn’t an accusation. I need to stick to the rubric.”

“I thought the professor marked the lab reports.”

“He’s…supposed to.” There’s a forced reservedness in his voice. “I mark them and he puts in his comments if he has any. But I’m not sure you’d fare any better than this if it was him behind that pen either.”

Every question that floated in memorisation, from the form and structure, to the nitty gritties of the data presentation, all evaporate as you realise you’re at a loss for words. 

Even more embarrassingly, you feel tears prick the back of your eyes. You don’t have an explanation, but it’s somehow easier to feel helpless in front of the man that’s meant to help you. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“That’s alright,” he says as reassurance, though it sounds awfully rehearsed. Like he has to say it everyday. “We’ll work through it.”

He lets out a big sigh, adjusting in his chair and running a hand through his hair. The motion has you noticing the dishevelled nature of the mop on his head, un-uniformed and sticking out at certain places, yet still somehow cohesive with his look. His shoulders are straight and taut, fingers working as they fiddle and flick the pen in his hand. 

Despite it all, his shirt is ruffled and creased, unbuttoned at the first couple steps. The buttons are misaligned, one side of his collar higher on his neck than the other. It takes an effort to not reach over and fix it for him.

“Lab reports can be quite tricky if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. Did you refer to the tutorial?”

You mean the one that did nothing to help? “Yes.”

“You got those bits right, format and whatnot. But—”

“It was a lump of writing about subheadings and word counts,” you say plainly.

Mingyu lips are in a tight line. “Well, yes, but it helps—”

“I know the results are supposed to go in the results section. I don’t need a PDF to tell me that,” you cut him off. Your voice is reserved, and you hope it comes off as a point across and not a complaint. Although it was a complaint. “I want to know why the entire section was ruled off as incorrect when we were never properly taught how to write it in the first place.”

“Dr. Cho—”

“Is no help.”

“I understand—”

“He can’t even mark his own papers. I’m quite sure that’s not in your job description. It’s supposed to be him here. Not you.”

It’s silent. There was nothing in your voice that suggested you wished to pick a fight, on the contrary, quite calm and matter of fact. Mingyu’s fingernails are going white as his grip on his pen and paper grow stronger. 

“And yet, we continue to show up. Because we do what we must.” He raises his head in control, a small smile on his face, eyebrows unnaturally raised. “And, better that I’m here rather than no one at all. I can help you too.”

Help, he did. 

Mingyu had made it quite clear his time with you was limited, but by the end of the near 25 minute session, nearly every inch of your printed assignment was covered in a rainbow of notes and corrections, additional papers and post-it notes pasted on the back as you remain careful to not lose them as you slip the stack in your bag. 

You only remember when you spot the segregated file of papers in your bag.

“I almost forgot,” you say, slipping the files and tidbits out and in front of him. 

“Where did you find this?” he asks sharply, eyes widening as sees the familiar blue. 

“You left them at the desk of the lecture hall last week,” you say, before quickly adding, “There was a class right after you left. I took them off the professor’s hands before they got lost. Thought it might be important.”

“I’ve been looking all over for these,” he says as he goes through the pages and files. Random sticky tabs and highlighted regions across the pages. The leather strap watch with the broken clock face remains on top, and he picks it up. He looks up to you with wide, sparkling eyes and a smile that feels genuine. “Thank you.”

You flush for some reason, “O–of course, couldn’t just leave them there.”

Pausing, you wonder if you should make the next comment, the words tumbling out before you can make a decision. “Maybe don’t run out of rooms still half asleep.”

By the grace of God, he laughs, “No, you’re right. I should be careful.”

It isn’t till you’re pushing yourself out of your chair that he continues. “You can come in at 3:30 tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

He’s stood up as well. “I have a free thirty minutes before office hours formally start. I can help you out a little more without the crowd.” 

Feet planted on the ground, there’s not much you can do but stare. “Um, sure. I can come in a little early.”

He nods casually, “Thanks again for the papers. And the watch.”

You smile, “No problem.”

Thursday

True to your punctual nature, you make yourself known at exactly 3:29 PM.

Mingyu is at the desk, conscious and on the phone, eyes closed as he rests his face on his fist.

“I don’t know if I can make time for that—no, I understand, sir,”

Another pause as the noise from his speakers fill his ears, his rubbing over his face a little harsher than you doubt he’s entirely comfortable with. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

His phone hits the table with a heartbreaking thud, both hands covering his face as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. 

“Light on your feet or something? I can never tell when you come in,” he startles when he notices you. 

Sheepish smile on your face, you move to sit down. “Sorry.”

You know it’s invasive, and you also know you might be asking him to break some unknown university code of conduct, but curiosity takes charge as you ask a casual question. “Important call?”

“Uh, yeah, um, just work stuff,” he states, shaking his head swiftly like he’s trying to shake the thought out of his mind. 

There’s a pause while you're slipping your papers and laptop out of your bag, during which he seems to have decided to divulge a little more. 

“It was Dr. Cho. More stuff for me to do,” he says. “As always.” 

“Does he do anything other than show up to class?” you ask through a snort. 

“Of course he does. He cusses out every article he doesn’t agree with, is anything but objective and…the occasional relay of blatant misinformation.” 

For the record, you’d never really heard Mingyu speak at all for the months he’d been TA-ing for the semester. It was small whispers of choice words in a vague voice, the distant murmur as he exchanged with the professor too far for you to hear. 

The voice of the seemingly quiet and diligent TA was never known to you, not until yesterday as he explained statistical models and the flaws of your data presentation. 

Passionately too. Incredulous for a discipline so dry and unapproachable. 

That being said, something about the grit in his voice as he positively sneered through his teeth, badmouthing his professor—it was something you couldn’t quite believe he was capable of. 

“I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”

Once again, by whatever stone of tolerance the universe bestowed in his heart, you watch him sigh and smile, “Anything for that recommendation. And the pay too, I suppose. Besides, he’s done a lot for the area, can’t discredit him entirely.”

With your eyebrows raised, he seems to catch your expression. He pants out a laugh, and your stomach lurches as you watch it reach his eyes, teeth on display, a lurch in his chest; a true laugh. 

Raising his hands in surrender, he responds, “I’m stuck.”

There’s nothing you can do to stop the smile that reaches your own face, turning your laptop screen towards him with the JASP software display. “I am too. Help.”

Help, he does.

Monday

Mingyu ended up giving you an entire hour on that Thursday. 

The thirty minutes before office hours began soared by like they were nothing, and you were ready to take your leave the minute students began to scatter in as the clock hit a swift four. Except he kept going, another 30 minutes in deep concentration as he retaught you nearly everything from scratch. 

Perhaps his proven determination to ensure you don’t tragically fail is what prompted you to do this, standing at the till of your regular coffee shop as you ask, “Make that two, please.”

It might also be important to mention the 7:30 AM on the dial on a bright Monday morning as you walked into your slightly less dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, knowing there would only be one other person insane enough to get to the lecture hall this early. 

Something isn’t right. 

Mingyu is in a position all too familiar to you and everyone else who shares this class, hunched over something or the other in deep focus. The sun pours in through the lifted blinds, the lights of the class turned off as natural light does more than enough of the job. 

It also shows you a blaring hot pink post-it note on his face, all too familiar to a previous interaction you’ve had with him. 

He notices you before you need to announce yourself, brows separating as he recognises you in the doorway. “‘Morning!” 

“...Morning.”

“You’re early,” he comments, straightening his back with a hand behind him for support as you approach. 

“Figured we both needed this,” you hand him a tray with his cup of coffee, eyes still trained on his lower cheek with the paper stuck to it. “It’s a latte with no sugar, but I added a couple packets on the side anyway. Just in case.”

“O–oh, thank you. And you’re right I did need this.”

Now that you’re closer, the scrawled writing on the post-it note is clearer. 

To Do:

Call mom

Shoot myself

“You, um—” It’s alarmingly difficult for you to say it, despite the words being so simple. Hey! You got a lil’ something on your face.

But all you do is dumbly point to your own cheek, eyes trained on the loud piece of paper that tells more than he might like the world to know. 

There’s a loud slap of his hand on his own cheek as he crumples the paper in his hands, bringing it forward to see. “For fuck’s sake.”

“It’s okay! I wanna…shoot myself too sometimes.” 

What the fuck?

“I mean!” you correct louder than you anticipated, before covering with a laugh. “It’s okay, it happens. Good thing I caught it before someone else did.”

It’s all the more petrifying when your voice echoes across the blatantly empty lecture hall, reverberating like it was a punishment for you and your horrid lack of volume control. Meeting his eyes feels like a sin right now, so you keep them downcast and pray he doesn’t try to sabotage your education. 

“Good thing it was just you. Yeah.”

Just you.

“Anyways, I think I’m done with prepping for class. Do you wanna squeeze in twenty minutes of ANOVA?” 

“Have you seen the time?” 

“Not a morning person?”

“Nope!”

“And yet it’s 7:40 on a Monday morning and you’re absurdly early.” His brows are raised as he pulls around the professor's chair to bring it to you. 

“Do you want the coffee or not?” you ask, watching as he drags another chair for himself. 

The both of you sit away from the professors table, coffees in hand as you watch Mingyu run a hand through his hair. 

He gives you a crooked grin,“I apologise.”

“To be fair,” he continues. “I’m not much of a morning person either.”

You narrow your eyes the slightest bit as Mingyu takes a sip of his unsweetened coffee, “I’m starting to think no money’s worth this job.”

Mingyu snorts, coffee suspended in his full cheeks. He swallows with much difficulty before answering, “You’re right. Not sure why I’m still here either. I could get an offer from another professor.”

“And that isn’t happening because…?”

Elbows on his knees, Mingyu swirls his capless coffee cup, the beige liquid moving in a growing tornado. “I like Dr. Cho.”

“You—”

“I know,” he laughs loud, a deep, echoing sound that shakes in your ears. “I know. I sound like a lunatic.”

“I don’t know about lunacy, but insanity can have its reasons.”

“Another would argue that insanity was the very absence of reason.” 

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Excuse me for doing my job.”

He takes another sip of his coffee, and you ask again, “No, but really. I can’t imagine this man having too many redeeming qualities as an educator.”

Mingyu lifts his chin as he presses his lips together. “When I was in my first year, there was this other class I had where we had to write a lab report for the first time.”

“PSYCH101?”

“That’s the one. I’d never written one before, but I liked statistics enough to do a little more digging than what the assignment called for. I ended up finding one of Dr. Cho’s studies, read the entire thing, word for word. I was up all night reading nearly everything he’d published, some of ‘em before any of us were even born.” 

“Oh. So you’re a fan.”

“Everyone tells you to never meet your idols,” he snickers. “He’s done amazing things, but I guess he pays for it with his flawed personality.”

“I’m sorry it had to be you,” you half joke. 

Mingyu looks at you sheepishly, “That might also be my own fault.” 

“Don’t tell me you offered.”

“I might as well have. All my assignments referenced his work the most. I was always talking to him about upcoming research after class, and it was like he was a different person. Forget differing opinions, some of what he was saying was just…plain incorrect. He welcomed the argument though, and I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true. He was always emailing me extra resources which…I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to do. Only reason I did so well in his class was because I taught myself.” 

He sighs a loud sigh, straightening his back, “I guess he liked me more than I thought, because next thing I know I’m getting a call over the summer telling me I have a job.”

“Did he…have a TA when you were in his class?” 

“Four.”

“Four?!”

“Two at a time. All of ‘em quit at some point. Said they didn’t want the recommendation or the pay.”

“Would he…not give you a recommendation anyway? You said he liked you.”

Mingyu shakes his head solemnly, “He’s a tough cookie, everyone in the field knows that. If you’ve impressed him, you’ve impressed everyone.”

You take a moment to really absorb everything you’ve just learned. “That’s a sucky position you’re in.”

“Tell me about it. But it’s okay. Three—three and a half more months to go? This isn’t even the worst of it, I’m just dreading study week when I’m gonna have to handle all the crying.”

You wince as he mentions something even remotely close to exam season, still barely at a stage where you can accept you’d be alright with this class. 

“I know you’re not nearly as qualified or experienced as him, but I think you could take over his class.”

“Ever heard of barriers to entry? I’d be ruined if I wanted a career in this.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “All I’m saying is I’ve learned more from you in barely a couple hours combined than the last two months I’ve spent cursing this very lecture hall.”

If you weren’t lying to yourself, you could’ve sworn you saw a blush creep up his face, and paired with his shy laugh and hand at the back of his neck, you can’t help but bite back your own smile. 

“If I can help you then it’s worth losing myself.”

Your heart is in your fucking throat.

“I’m glad when students tell me that,” he continues, utterly oblivious to the landslide happening in your digestive tract. “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

“You’re—” you swallow thickly because you sound like a toad. “You’re doing more than just something right. You’re saving us therapy and an extra semester.”

He laughs at that, and you wish he’d let you breathe. 

“Feels like I’m doing something wrong sometimes,” he huffs. “My friend’s a TA too and he’s got himself a girlfriend on top of everything else he’s got going on.” 

He goes on, “Do you know how many times I need to ask people to quit twirling their hair? To look at the page and not my face? Asking for my number, I have an email for a reason, for fuck’s sake—”

Mingyu is cut off because you’re laughing, hand to mouth as your shoulders shake through your sniggering. “W–what?”

“I’m sorry,” you hiccup. “It’s just…It sounds like you don’t know what you look like.”

“What’s wrong with how I look?” he frowns.

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “But that’s the problem isn’t it.”

Mingyu doesn’t seem to buy it, even through your coaxing as you attempt to explain to him that he is, in fact, desirable.

“Can’t possibly be enough to distract people,” he huffs in earnest, still hung up on the students he can’t get through to. 

“Majority of the class would beg to differ.”

There’s a pause as he registers what you imply. 

After a few moments, he drops his head, opening his mouth, “Would… you also—”

There’s a loud creak of the door as you hear the immediate noises of shuffling feet and chattering mouths, as low and tired as they sounded. Turning back to look at Mingyu, he’s already jumped out of his seat, wrist to face as he checks the time on the same leather strap watch you returned. 

“That’s our cue,” you breathe, pushing your chair back behind the professor’s desk as you manoeuvre around Mingyu who’s suddenly frantic. 

Of course you realise there’s people other than just the two of you in the room, heightened in seats that are designed to ensure they can absorb every detail that goes on right where you stand in the front of the room.

But you feel the soft of Mingyu’s shirt over his wrist as you give him a gentle squeeze despite it all, barely enough pressure. Half your index finger brushes the skin of his hand, just enough to register how cold your fingertips are and how warm his body is. 

“Relax,” you whisper. “You’ll be better off without all the panic.”

You don’t see his face as you brush past him and up to your seat, looking up to see him disappear somewhere in the corner hunched over another stack of papers. The next time you see Mingyu’s face is when the professor arrives and has begun his regularly scheduled tomfoolery, and realise all the age that can accumulate in the span of five minutes. 

Thursday

Midterm season is nothing you’ve ever really had to worry about. 

Something about the halfway point did make it obvious that the clock was ticking, but danger was far enough away to prevent the ultimate breakdowns reserved for the peak seasons. 

Except this class isn’t ordinary, and it’s all you’re able to worry about all semester. And as Dr. Cho in his Thrasher vest announces the date for the in class midterm, the glass once half empty, suddenly looks very half full. 

“I’m not ready.”

“You’re more ready than anyone else in class.”

“How do you know that?”

Mingyu stares at you blankly, “If I don’t know that, then who else does?”

You have tears in your eyes, which is embarrassing enough since this is the second time you’ve teared up in front of him, but also because you’re in a library following Mingyu around like a lost duck because he insists on putting the books he borrowed back onto the shelves himself after registering the return. 

“But I don’t feel like I’m ready,” you whine, turning the corner as he searches for the last spot to place his final book. 

“You’ll realise just how ready you are when all those hieroglyphs on the page start to make sense to you,” he grunts the last bit out as he reaches on his tippy toes to shove the book back up. 

Dusting his hands off, he adjusts his shirt before turning to you, “You only feel that way because I’ve been giving you harder problems to work on. You’re past the level you need to be at right now. Trust me, you’re more than prepared.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he waves to the librarian as you both leave the library, your eyes still glistening as you fiddle with your sleeves. “It’s only the midterm—”

“Only the—”

“If this goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to work you harder for the real thing. Even though I know it won’t go wrong because I said so.”

You fall into silence as he walks you towards the coffee shop across the courtyard. 

“I’m assuming…” you start. 

“Hm?” he looks over to you.

“I’m assuming you can’t hint at what’s on the paper.”

Mingyu barks out a laugh of disbelief, “You assume correct. I’m not going through hell with this job just to lose it because of a paper leak.”

“But it’s just the midterm,” you mumble, not even close to remotely audible. 

“What did you say?” Mingyu smirks. 

“Nothing,” you huff.

“You know, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.”

“Who said I didn’t.”

“Well then, stop being such a worrywart.”

There must be something written on your face, because as you pass Mingyu standing at the door he keeps open for you, entering into the coffee shop with fallen shoulders, he seems to change his mind. 

He brings you a coffee, sits you down, and gives you something else you need. “I made the paper. Every question. And I taught you. Every concept. So I definitely know you’re gonna be fine.”

In that moment, with the large glass walls of the warm coffee shop, the afternoon sun comfortably resting on every last object of the room, you don’t see it illuminate anything other than the man before you. 

Perhaps you're being dramatic at the revelation, but you don’t take anything into account as you note Mingyu’s eyes and how they sparkle like they were gifted from the centre of a flaming volcano, brown and polished more than any jewel or stone you’d ever seen. Reaching out to touch him, you know you’d feel nothing but smooth stone, the indentations only possible by a being beyond what you could comprehend. 

He’d given you more than just reassurance, and at times, his timing makes it feel like he was sent from the heavens itself, just for you. 

You sniffle. 

His hands brush over yours as he hands you a napkin, and even more so, cover your own as he takes your freezing fingertips into his own palm, the contact burning you like hot coal. 

You know he’s real. And you don’t know why quite just yet, but that reassurance is enough to give you calm.

Monday

You were alright, but it seems that Mingyu seemed to disintegrate right after he was done reassuring you to the moon and Saturn and Jupiter and back.

It’s midterm day, and as always on every Monday morning, you enter the empty lecture hall with two warm coffees in your hand, ready for whatever shitshow you’d have to perform for today.

It seems Mingyu must defect from at least one regular string of behaviour to remain as Mingyu, who on this occasion, stands before you in a baby blue polo sweater. 

Except you only know that because you can see the unique collar, but it might also be important that his back is turned towards you. 

“Morning, champ,” he gruffs, nothing encouraging about his voice in the slightest. 

Your breath hitches when you finally see his face, eyes sunken in and face pale. His lips are chapped and peeling, eyes half closed. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that, why has everyone been looking at me like that?” he huffs in one long, rapid question. 

“Um, I mean,” you stare at his shirt that’s backwards. And inside out. “I can’t tell if that’s a choice or a mistake.”

Looking down at his front, he looks back up, “What?”

“Your collar is…not at your collar, Mingyu. And your shirt’s inside out.”

Hand at his nape, he reaches his fingers down and finds the unmistakable starched planes of his collar, eyes closing at the realisation. He’s immediately pulling his arms out of the shirt with his eyes still closed like it’d all disappear if he keeps them like that. 

“Wait!” you exclaim before he strips entirely, scrambling to put your coffees down to push him out of the room towards the restrooms. “Do you wanna strip for the CCTVs?”

You only hear him sigh as he moves out and into the hall, doors closed behind him. 

You’ve nearly forgotten about the midterm at this point, your concern now growing in a completely different direction. By the time Mingyu returns, he’s blabbing about wondering why everyone he ran into since he left home was giving him the strangest looks, and then something about you always swooping in to save him before the real bout of disaster strikes. 

It’s hard for you to listen to him when you’re more worried about him passing out, his face doing him no favours to reassure you that he wasn’t a breathing corpse. 

“Mingyu…did you sleep at all?”

“Hm?” His eyes are glazed over and unfocused. 

“Sleep? Rest?”

“Oh,” he frowns. “Not really. I had emails coming in all night.”

“And you were replying?”

“It's the midterm today,” he responds flatly, like it should’ve been enough explanation. 

You almost don’t believe him. “Doesn’t mean you stay up to answer something that should’ve been cleared out beforehand!”

“Couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves,” he dramatises. 

“Yes, you could!” Your voice comes out louder than you expected, eyes wide as you realise what he’s doing to himself. “You barely look human and it’s only the midterm.”

“What’re you trying to say?”

“I don’t know if this job is really worth as much as you think it is.”

Mingyu’s jaw is clenched, fists tight as he releases them to grip paper weight on the desk, knuckles white. “I can’t get anywhere if I don’t—”

“Mingyu, please. This isn’t good for you.”

He says your name. Declarative, almost like a warning. “If you think this job isn’t worth it then you just don’t know.”

“Mingyu—”

“No, you don’t, because I’ve seen how good of a job I’ve been doing.”

“You have, you’ve been amazing but—”

Mingyu’s own voice is raised, a hard impenetrable floor to the words he spills. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a corpse!”

And then he’s getting out of his chair with so much force it almost knocks it backwards, “Why on earth do you care so much? So what if I look like a corpse, if I‘m doing my job?” 

It might’ve been better if he knocked the chair right into you, your breath dissipating in your chest like it never existed. His face is morphed in an expression of exasperation your anxieties fear the most, every line on his face committed to irritation and anger. 

Why on earth do you care so much?

Right. Why do you? 

“Are you asking me that?”

“What?”

“Are you asking me why I care?” 

Mingyu only sighs, shoulders dropping and eyes closed. Like so many times before, you watch run a hand through his hair, except this time he yanks on the strands harder than ever before. 

His eyes are bloodshot. 

“I have to get the exam pack.”

Marching out the door in front of your own eyes, you’re left with a feeling that’s right in the back of your throat, curling and whirling into something you wish you could hack and gag out. Gripping the corner of the professor’s desk, you feel the peeling wood cut into your skin. 

There’s a draft, the delayed slam of the door has only hit its wind now, a delayed reaction. It’s like it registers in your mind as you feel strands of your hair shift, the clarity that comes with it.

Delusive. Chimeric. Cruel.

Everything you’d subjected upon yourself. A whimsical fantasy between pages of logic and numbers, a story that simply didn’t fit where the laws wouldn’t allow it. 

The null hypothesis of your most elaborate nightmares.

Monday

Your favourite commonplace box, where your mother once placed all her most prized jewels, had a finicky latch. 

It wasn’t broken, simply worn in from years of opening and closing. It took a few tries to get it shut. Simply pressing down with pressure didn’t work; you had to open it again, press down on the individual elements of the latch and then try again. 

You were never satisfied until you heard the distinct click of the latch fixing itself, the box closed and ready for you to hook your lock through.

Earlier on in your undergraduate career, you remember a professor talking about the effects of external factors on the mind, how they can sometimes cause it to ‘shut down’ when overwhelmed or stressed. 

It’s happened to you on many a occasion; like when you stayed up too late on a school night to watch a documentary about the Stanford prison experiment, or when you’d neglect food or water on busier days, or when you’d stop paying attention in class because you were too preoccupied thinking about Taco Tuesday. 

Regardless, you’d found a way to recognise when your brain would fall into some strange kahoots with daydreams, or whatever was bothering you, and learned ways to give yourself a reset. 

Pressuring and forcing the attention wouldn’t work, just like how the latch wouldn’t fit when you’d do the same with your beloved old box. So you’d take a walk, drink something cold, spray yourself with a garden hose, or even take a nap altogether. Opening yourself up, so the latch can finally click. 

On the morning of your midterm, when you’d ensured your brain was in optimal condition for the exam you knew would be one of the worse ones you’ll have to take, you were sure the only external force that could ruin your vibe was from God himself. 

Having been so preoccupied with your mind and its functions, you’d seemed to have forgotten where your heart had wandered off to. 

Somebody else might consider it a minor disagreement; an anxious squabble if you will. But your breakfast in your throat was enough reason to deem what happened that morning much more than that. At least for you. 

“Pass it on, please…pass it on, please.”

The sound of his voice is tectonic. Rattling in your head like a superior force had slammed into your skull like a padded hammer to a gong. 

You hated it. You hated everything. You hated yourself. And as the midterm paper reaches you with your pen in your clawed fingers, the first three questions already making perfect sense, you realise you hated Kim Mingyu the most. 

That was a lie. You were lying to yourself, yet again. 

Because it was quite the opposite. You couldn’t hate him. 

As you drift past every question of conditional experiments and screenshots of data and tables on a software, you hardly remember what you circle and what you don’t. Hardly remember what words you picked for the short answers and labels. You hardly remember taking the steps down from your seat to the front of the room, where the professor sat scrolling through his Skateboarders [!MEN ONLY!] facebook group, placing your paper down and leaving the classroom. 

Throughout your years of living, you’d learned what you needed to get your brain out of its clouded muffle, to refocus when you needed it. 

Everything. You tried everything. 

But on that day, when it mattered most, your latch never clicked.

It’s Wednesday. 

You order lunch from the Italian place a few streets down. Ravioli; it’s safe and you know you’ll like it. 

Savouring it is easy in front of another true crime show. You pull a lone soft drink from your fridge, one that your friend left weeks ago. It tastes just as bad as the last time you tasted it from someone else’s cup, but you drink it anyway, the empty can now in your trash. 

It’s 3:30 PM, and you sit at your desk. It’s strange. It feels like you’re missing something, which in ways, you are. But as you pull your laptop from your nightstand instead of out of your bag, you slow your movements. 

The papers are the same. But you read them anyway. 

Parameter estimation: Make inferences on characteristics of the population, including distributions of the variables and the effect of one variable over another. 

It’s accursed the way the universe won’t let you live. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, estimation cannot be perfect. 

Estimation cannot be perfect. 

[_]

It’s Thursday

Class. Eat. Drink. Work.

Hypothesis testing: Determine whether null hypothesis is rejected or not after data observation. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, no null hypothesis in bayesian approach!!

[_]

It’s Friday

Eat. Drink. Work.

Latent means to have meaning but is yet to be manifested. The greek letters are placeholder values for values yet unknown. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue; values that you will find out

[_]

It’s Saturday

Eat. Drink. Work.

P(A|B) = [P(B|A)P(A)

              ——————

                     P(B)

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

 it gets less complicated

 promise :/ 

[_]

It’s Sunday.

Eat. Drink. Work.

The page is blurry. Your eyes hurt. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

you’ve got this!!! < 3

You give up.

It’s Monday.

8:14 AM. 

You barely glance at the front of the room; swift turn to the left and right up the steps. Dr. Cho’s outfit almost goes unnoticed by you, tamer than most. Bright Barbie pink with large polka dots, untucked into too tight white jeans. His crocs are sparkly, at least that’s what the twinkle from up here looks like. 

He’s insulting another author, the man’s ProQuest journal article open for the world to see like a mediaeval scandal. 

There’s another person next to the whiteboards, back to the wall, hands clasped in front of him. His hair is messy, shooting lasers into the carpet as he rocks the slightest bit, listening to the professor rip this author to shreds. 

An hour later, you’re staring into the JASP software like it was written in a different language. 

Glancing next to you, the boy in the spongebob hoodie is playing sharkboy and lavagirl by himself. On your other side, the girl has the same thing as you open on her laptop, her pen occupied with drawing about a hundred tiny gojos on a bright pink sticky note. 

Bright pink sticky note. 

You snap your gaze back to your screen quickly after that. 

9:58 AM. You start packing up, shoving everything into your bag. 

Dr. Cho doesn’t even notice you slip out of the room, hardly a minute to the end of the lecture.

In the hallway, you take your first real breath in two hours. 

It’s Tuesday.

You’ve come down with something, head heavy as you feel yourself burn up. Skipping class is easy when you sleep through your alarm and every phone call from a friend asking where you are. 

They drop by, armed with medicine and soup. You almost feel better. 

It’s silent after they leave, and you realise in that moment how much you hate it. 

Opening your laptop for the first time in over 24 hours, you turn on a random podcast to play in the background, needing something to fill the air before you lose it entirely. 

The screen lands right where you left on the incredulous data presentation, unsolved tutorial paper crumpled between the screen and keyboard like a wilted leaf. 

Hot, scalding tears sting your eyeballs when you realise there was nowhere to turn to.

It’s Wednesday.

After a long day of doing nothing, still sick from whatever plagued your body, you go to bed earlier than usual.

It’s Thursday. 

Walking out of class, your mind is empty. You’re still sniffling, still achey, but better than you were. The shawl wrapped around you is warm, and your hood covers the cold tips of your ears. 

This other class makes you feel better about yourself, especially when the content is digestible and so is the professor. The TA feels like a mere accessory in the room, something you’ve learned to appreciate. 

With your gaze lowered, you only see midriffs as you walk out the classroom into the busy hallway. 

It happens in an instant, the flash of a clenched hand as the owner walks by in quick stride. An unmistakable leather strap watch with a broken clock face on the wrist.

You freeze like you’ve been caught. 

The hard bump of someone coming out the room behind you is welcomed, the annoyed “Hey!” knocking you back to earth before you could even exit the dimension. 

You’re off centre. But it’s fine. 

It’s Monday.

“Midterm results are out Tuesday morning. If you have any questions I’ll be sitting at office hours on Wednesday and Thursday, four to six in the evening. Or you could send me an email, either’s fine.”

Dr. Cho isn’t here. Something you only found out when the pitt sank in your stomach as Mingyu cleared his throat at the full hour. 

You want to leave, not caring about how strange it’d look if you did. Not caring about how he would definitely notice if you did. You want him to shut up, to stop talking, for anything to halt the way his voice infiltrates your entire being, talking about things you don’t understand but more familiar than anything else. 

Mingyu’s voice is hoarse, and you loathe the way you can tell the difference. 

It’s Tuesday.

Midterm Results for Statistics in Psychological Research.

—  92/100

It’s Wednesday. 

4:10 PM. It’s almost too much for you. Almost. 

The screech of the door is loud, the slam of the handle’s rebound even more so. The room doesn’t so much as glance at you at the door, the half full seats preoccupied with more important things. 

The front desk perks up immediately, eyes shooting towards the door for the nth time that day, like he was expecting someone that never seemed to show up. 

It’s ironic, you think, how Mingyu never seemed to notice you walk into the room for the many months you’ve walked in just for him. And now, as you walk in fists clenched and jaw set, eyes wild and burning, he’s breaking away from a student to look at the door before you even come into view. 

“Did you feel bad?” you spit.

“What?” he whispers. He seems to come around, glancing back before continuing, “Can we talk? Please.”

“Answer the question, Mingyu,” you snap. You don’t care there’s a confused student sitting right across from the both of you, his slot interrupted by your barge. “Did you feel so bad you had to give me something I didn’t earn?”

He’s stood up now, half confused. “Is this about the midterm—”

“I did not get a ninety two, I know I didn’t,” you grit. “Whatever happened before that stupid paper made sure I wouldn’t.”

Mingyu says your name and the sound makes you want to vomit. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I fucked up because of you?” you announce, louder than before. 

The world disappeared, your tunnel vision pointed at Mingyu’s face that wears an expression you cannot even begin to read. The unbecoming tears in your eyes are of a type of unadulterated rage you’ve felt only a few times before. Your heart is going about a million miles a breath, everything else only triggering an added bout of infuriated tremble in the forefront of your emotions. Nothing makes sense. 

Mingyu pushes back his chair in silence, stalking over to a large cupboard in the corner of the room. He shuffles around for a minute before returning. 

There’s a packet being thrust into your fists when he reaches you. He does not meet your eyes. 

A bright red 92/100 marks the front page.

“Here. It was all you, if you can’t believe me.”

It’s a careful mark, unmistakable lines and curves of the nine and the two. 

Reality is slow to sink in, but for some reason it’s only making you angrier. The paper curls under the pressure of your fingertips. You don’t open the packet. You refuse to flick through the pages. 

Because you know you’ve lost.

It’s Thursday. And it’s full of regret. 

There’s a sickness in you, from that dreaded day, something beyond what affects your body temperature and your energy. It’s in your mind, flooding the nerves that swim through every crevice and cave of your brain, a physical venom that does the opposite of kill but also the opposite of letting you live. 

There’s a feeling in you, that even if you were to open your mouth, unhinge your jaw, try to scream as loud as your throat would allow, there would be no sound. Something like a horrible dream, that you need to screw your eyes tight shut to fall out of. Except you aren’t waking up from this one. 

In a coffee shop, where Mingyu held your hand in a reassurance you now bleed for, you were sure he was real. Real like some deiform image; too good to be true. 

In your bed, dry tears on your face, midterm packet sifted through that showed you absolutely everything that you did right, thanks to him. He feels too real. Real like a cloud of obsidian that follows you everywhere, like the sad that’s been sleeping with you every night. 

If there was a way to hate someone more than a human limit, you’ve crossed it with the resentment you’ve now fostered for yourself. 

Barging into office hours like that, accusing him on a basis of nothing but your own dangerously stewed thoughts. If there was a hope of salvaged parts, you took a hammer to it in disregard; tearing it to ribbons that lay at your feet. 

It’s Friday.

At least it was. It bled into Saturday before you realised the 3:23 AM on the dial. 

Two weeks of no help and you already feel lightyears behind. The hour is getting to you, and you feel the frustration pool into tears, that turn into full fledged sobs. You’re crying over Bayesian inference and it’s somehow more pressing than any other emotion you’ve ever felt. 

Impossible numbers on your data sheets taunt you, not a single reference to if it was a button you clicked wrong or if you were playing a fool’s game altogether. 

Ding! You pick up your phone, the weight of it is enough gravity to pull you back to earth. 

[Mingyu]: switch to bF10 

[Mingyu]: you’ve been pulling numbers from bF01

It’s immediate the way your eyes dart towards your lit screen, clicking off tables to get to the drop down menu you need. And there on the left, two tiny buttons, one clicked on bF01. 

With shaking fingers, you move your cursor to hover over the tiny bF10, anticipating. You click. It takes a moment for the numbers to change, but they do. The nominal values turn into something you can actually work with. 

Something akin to a tut leaves you, hidden in the breath of another sob. It’s stupid, unreasonable, absurd. Your fingers hover over your phone, shaking as tears drop onto the screen, faster than before. 

Do you not miss me?

Do you not want me around?

Talk to me

I miss you

Please talk to me

“I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true.”

Mingyu is a product of his personality. You can only imagine he’s helped because he saw you struggling in class, heard from someone else, or perhaps, he just knew the very thing you’d make blunders out of. 

The reasons come to you, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. Then why does it hurt? Why does it feel like the knife’s twisted a full 360, that despite the way you accused him of the thing that would strip him of everything he’s bruised himself for, he helps you. The very thing that caused this rift in the first place. 

There’s a reason for that, and it is again, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. 

It’s Saturday. 

Perhaps you relied on your olfactory senses to remain calm, because you always knew you could count on a coffee shop to forever and always smell the same. 

The universe seems to want to ruin that for you too. 

“Latte, please,” you voice. “Iced.”

“We have a one plus one for the week! Would you like to receive another latte?” The lady taking your order looks no older than 17, a pep in her voice. 

“Um, no thank you. Just one, please.”

She looks taken aback, a reasonable reaction to anyone turning down a free drink. But you couldn’t bring yourself to walk home with two cups in hand. 

You’re plucking a napkin from the pickup counter when you hear his name. 

“...that he manipulated her grade because they were hooking up.” 

“He has time to hook up?”

“I remember hearing about that! She barged in during office hours and asked why he fixed her grade or something.” 

“A ninety two? In that class? Oh, they were definitely fooling around with each other.”

“Whatever, at least we know he’ll entertain you if he likes you enough. I’m just glad those two are over so I can swoop in.”

There’s an eruption of giggles. You press your head down further. 

“Unless he flirts in variables.”

“All is forgiven when you’re born with a face like that.” 

Another explosion of giddy laughter, through which your drink is slid across the counter towards you, like it was waiting for you to hear the damning evidence before you could leave. You grab it anyway, grip tighter than usual. 

Turning around, your eyes search, finding a group of people that sit in smiles and in various states of trust-falls. 

There she is, the girl you sat with on the first day you attended office hours, the one with the glitter gel pen doodles on her notes and her blatant fawns over the TA you slipped under just as easily. 

She locks eyes with you and her face falls, eyes widening the slightest bit in recognition. 

Pressing your lips into a smile, you hope it doesn’t look as menacing as you feel. You don’t wait for a response before you walk out the large glass doors.

It’s Sunday.

It seems every sip of water you’ve taken during the week has been used up in all the tears you’ve seemed to be shedding. By the bucketload.

Alas, even blurry and puffy eyed, you pour over statistical formulas anyway, running on no energy and all antagonism. It’s another tutorial sheet left incomplete, a single question taking a pour that lasts in at least an hour of struggle. 

Reading the same question for the nth time, your palms press into your temples as you stare lasers into the paper, like the revelation would come to you if you stared it down hard enough. It doesn’t make sense, the commands you’ve toggled on and off identical to the instructions on the page. 

Hence the question begs why the data was coming out like someone pressed the ultimate on a number generator. 

With a heat of unreasonable embarrassment, you find yourself checking your selection in one of the drop down menus, switching to bF01 and back just to see the difference. It does nothing to help, and you can’t help but feel a little relieved it wasn’t that particular snag. 

The library is as silent as it could possibly be on a Sunday morning, near empty as you occupy the mostly vacant seats. The librarian is having her own day off, as you could swear she’s playing computer games behind the counter instead of actual work. 

The only noise in the room is your own breathing, and that seems to be enough to mess with your concentration. You’re going cross eyed staring at the page for so long, the words doubling and  disappearing before going back to normal. 

Bayesian inference…z scores…null hypothesis…

Wait. 

It’s like you can see it in front of your eyes right now, the scribble of someone else’s dark blue on your notes.

no null hypothesis in bayesian approach

Bayesian approaches don’t use null hypotheses. And z scores are in…

“Oh my god, this is a t test,” you whisper to yourself in disbelief. Immediately, you’re scrambling to shake your laptop out of its sleep, switching over to a t test to redo everything, following the instructions on the same data set. 

And there it was…a clear 0.067 under the p value. 

In a moment of questioning, you laugh out a breathy sound, the absurdity of it all becoming too real. T tests were the first thing you learned, the foundation to all your statistical knowledge. Coming so far, and it took you days to realise the instructions under a Bayesian approach were for a different realm entirely. 

It was stupid of you. But in this difficult aftermath you can’t help but feel victorious. Laughing to yourself quietly in this empty library. 

When the initial adrenaline fades and you’ve double, triple checked to ensure you were right, you can only stare at the tiny mail button in your shortcuts on the screen. It was clearly an error, one that was given out to nearly a hundred students. 

The first step was clicking, your inbox coming to life as you drift towards the big blue button with the readily available NEW MAIL. So you click. 

There’s an attached file in the email you draft. 

The tutorial paper has titled t test instructions as a Bayesian approach. Just wanted to point it out and ask if I could receive a corrected version. 

Regards, YN

It’s almost like you’re trying to remember how it feels like when you type an experimental m in the To bar. His name pops up immediately, email address typed out in full, full name clear on top as a regular contact. 

You don’t need a suggestion to remember, his email came easier to you than your own. 

But you don’t email him, backspacing till it’s empty once again. 

Dr. Cho’s email sits in that place instead, a first for you. 

SEND.

You don’t expect him to reply on a Sunday, in fact, you aren’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. You’ve already shut your laptop, half out of your seat in an attempt to pack up. You’re forced to consider. 

Would it be terrible to go back and cc him as well? 

A spiteful part of you might find joy in correcting him for a change. The rational part of you wants to actually finish the tutorial before tomorrow’s class when you’d have to tackle another beast for the rest of the week. 

Sitting back down, you move without thinking. Your mind is still cooking up possibilities as you swing your screen open once again, still weighing as you click back into your inbox. 

There’s a new email in your sent box after you’re done, a copy of the one you sent your professor, the same attachment and the same question; word for word. The only difference, a more familiar name in the address bar. 

Before you can chicken out, you slam your laptop shut for the actual last time, shoving everything into your bag before the speeding thoughts can infiltrate your mind's barrier. You’re out the door before you know it, ready to be done with this. 

You’re afraid if you put a hand to your stomach it’d be met with kicks and punches, especially with the way you feel the aggressive cartwheels slashing away at your insides. The butterflies are making it to the end of your food pipe, and you briefly wonder if you need to break into a sprint to make it to a safe throwing up zone. Your entire being jolts as you feel a buzz in your hands, a loud click that signifies a new email in your inbox. 

Right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, you stop. 

The grip you have on your phone is unyielding, your fingers beginning to hurt from the pressure. There’s no way to tell if you’re shaking or not, but you bring your phone to your face anyway. The screen flips on, a lone notification on the screen. 

RE: Tutorial Error from Kim Mingyu

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since you sent that email, the library still in sight from where you stand. At the same time, it’s almost funny you expected any different from him. 

The kicks and punches in your stomach halt, the cartwheels have calmed, the butterflies have fallen asleep. The grip on your phone has loosened, and it’s like every nerve in your body went from on fire to serenity in a whiplash inducing shift. 

Clicking on the notification, the email opens. 

Noted. I have another tutorial sheet for you if you want it. I’ll be in the room where office hours are held for the rest of the morning.

Kim Mingyu, T.A.

There was no way he didn’t have a softcopy he could send you in less than a minute, and you’re sure he knew you’d realise that too. You should scoff, be upset, roll your eyes. 

But instead, you find your feet making a 180, turning around to go right back to where you came from. You walk, eyes still half trained on the email, reading and rereading as you walk back onto campus, towards the building you’d once considered a second home. 

You walk, and walk and walk, in through the doors, up the stairs and then another set of them, you take a left and look up. The hallway is empty, the door on the right coming into view as you slow your steps significantly. 

Closer and closer, you realise the light surrounding it is brighter than usual. The door is open, and you can see the empty rows of tables and chairs, set neatly against one another. It’s strange, you’ve never seen it wide open before. 

Walking even closer, you can see the beginnings of the professor’s desk come into view, and it only takes you one more step forward. 

Standing in the doorway now, you find yourself in the direct path of the sun that pours in through the open windows. It’s warm, but just enough to combat the cooling weather. 

The desk up front is occupied, as it always is. 

Mingyu is only in a t-shirt and trousers, glasses perched on his nose as he scrawls away on the paper in front of him. His laptop is turned on, screen facing the door where you stand, his inbox open and available even on the weekend. 

It wasn’t that you were waiting for him to notice, but you found yourself inadvertently taking your time looking at him. Every other situation, you’d done your absolute best to avoid your eyes grazing over him at all costs, hardly drifting over his form before flitting away. You never did it on purpose, but it was more like you were unconsciously protecting yourself.

 Like looking at him would only make the ache in your heart worse.

If that was the case, you would’ve been right. There’s a tug in your chest, and in that moment, it all comes flooding in like a gate destroyed. 

Mingyu looks up and sees you in the doorway, standing immobile. He sets his pen down, taking his glasses off. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he greets you, “‘Morning.”

You take it as your cue to move forward, stepping foot into the patch of sun slowly. “‘Morning.”

You reach the desk, standing in front of him, the only thing blocking you being the littered table with files, papers and stationary; the trench between you both. 

It’s so silent it tears at your insides, gripping the strap of your bag to have something to do. 

“I, uh, double checked when I saw the email. You were right, nobody noticed in class either.” There’s an airiness in his voice, like he might be struggling just as much as you are right now. 

He clears his throat when you don’t respond, looking back down at his workspace like he was looking for something. He finds a paper from some stack, handing it over to you. 

“Thanks,” you hoarse. It’s the same tutorial you had, except the instructions had been crossed out, replaced by a list of handwritten instructions instead, detailed in their annotation. You recognise it, because of course you’d recognise his handwriting. 

“I didn’t have time to print one out right now. I’ll probably send a corrected copy to everyone tonight,” he explains. 

“That’s alright.” You look up, lips pressed together, eyebrows forced into a regular position on your face. Nodding, you thank him once again. “Thanks again. I’ll…get going.” 

Every fibre in your body screams at you to turn back around, hollering profanities at your inability to deal with this. You’re already halfway to the door though, and your pride’s already deemed it too late. 

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop me, please just say something and stop me—

There it is. Your name, from his mouth, in his beautiful voice. 

Turning back around is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. 

Mingyu has stood up from his seat, out from behind the desk. He looks like he wasn’t expecting you to turn back. “Can we talk?” 

And then he’s pulling out the chair he was sitting on, presenting it like a piece offering. If you heard correctly, you could’ve sworn you heard his voice break the slightest bit when he pressed, “Please?”

So there you were, in a position all too familiar as you sit across from the man that’s haunted you for the past weeks, trying to keep your chest from falling in. 

“I guess I should start with an apology,” he’s fidgeting with his own fingers. “I don’t need to give you excuses about stress or exhaustion because…”

He closes his eyes, trying to find the words. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You were only trying to help and I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. I’m sorry I spoke to you like that when you didn’t deserve it.” 

For about the millionth time, you realise you’re tearing up again. He continues. “And then…right before the midterm too. You were right, I did feel horrible. But I swear that grade was all you, I didn’t touch those numbers.”

He really didn’t, because the papers he had thrust into your hands on that fateful day in this very room proved that you earned that mark. You wince regardless.

“I thought I could apologise before the exam started but I couldn’t find you, and then you were gone right after. I didn’t text or call because I was sure I’d fucked it all up.” 

“I’m sorry too. For barging in in front of everyone and basically accusing you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” You look up from your lap, wet lashes and all. “I really hope you didn’t get into any trouble.” 

“I–no, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I promise I didn’t.” He locked eyes with you when he said that, hoping you’d believe him. You nod slowly. 

“It wasn’t even that bad, what you said,” you sniffled. 

He scoffs at that, “I’d beg to differ.”

“I would’ve gotten over it,” you continue, bracing yourself to admit to something you’ve had trouble admitting to yourself. “I should’ve gotten over it. I don’t know why it hurt so much, why watching you walk out felt so horrible. But I haven’t been acting like normal ever since, and I’m sorry for stretching this whole fiasco out into something that didn’t need to turn into…this!”

“You were hurt because I hurt you.”

“People have said worse things to me. And you were practically a zombie, I should’ve just left it for another time. It was a little bit my fault too. But…yeah.”

There’s a silence as you try to remind yourself to breathe. You speak up again. “I just want us to go back to normal. I’ve missed you. Alot.”

“Me too. The go back to normal bit. And the…missed you bit.”

Mingyu’s half smiling when you look up, biting your lip hard as you try to keep a smile of your own at bay. “I’d thought if I gave up and admitted I was struggling that day, that’d be admitting defeat. That you’d think I…couldn’t do it.” 

Why on earth do you care so much? It rings in your ears. 

You sound light when you say it though, knowing now it wasn’t what he meant.“Since when are we on caring terms?” 

Mingyu cringes. "We are. I am, at least, if you aren't anymore, which is fine. I care about you. A lot."

It’s hard to not let out a laugh. He looks half constipated as he tries to navigate his words. 

“Oh well I’d hope you’d care, since you’re my TA and all.”

“Not in a TA way.”

“Tutor way.”

“Um.”

“Friend way? A human way?” 

“No.”

You both know you’re being obtuse on purpose, and you aren’t sure why. Maybe you just like to watch him squirm. 

“You know what?” he rasps. 

“What?”

Your answer comes in the form of Mingyu lurching to grab the legs of your chair, pulling the wheels to crash into him where he sits. You’re not expecting it, the clashing legs causing you to swerve forward, hands on Mingyu’s lap. 

And then his hand is on the back of your neck, and his lips placed on your own. 

You’re stiff as a board, brain computing the fact that Mingyu is kissing you in a classroom. 

It’s short, hardly a few moments before he pulls away. “Does that clear things up?”

There’s nothing you can do but blink at him, the reality of it all settles in. “Hm.”

He laughs at your half dazed state. It’s a purely instinctual part of you that speaks after this. “Maybe one more time. To make sure.”

Mingyu doesn’t even wait to laugh again as he wastes no time, putting his mouth on yours properly this time. There’s more of a drive in you this time, moving your mouth against his and he keeps your head close. 

The ecstasy is slow but sure to build in your stomach. Mingyu is kissing you. Mingyu is sitting with you and kissing you so good you’re already half faint. 

His mouth tastes like coffee and remnants of berry, a combination you can’t believe you could enjoy this much. Licking into his mouth, you let your tongue drag over his, like the tactile would convince you this wasn’t some too vivid fever dream. 

He pulls away for a moment, but hardly so as his lips remain pressed onto yours. 

“For the record,” he pants. “I love that you care. And I hope you’ll keep caring. Because I don’t think I can handle it if you walk away after this.”

Mouth back on his own, you decide there’s only one way to convince him you weren’t going anywhere without dragging him with you. 

MINGYU'S APARTMENT IS CLEANER than you expected. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, perhaps more mad scientist than anything else. But the most you find is a mug and plate in the sink, and a moderately crowded study desk, which is to be expected. 

Mingyu decided to abandon his work for the day to spend it with you, to which you contest that it was Sunday anyway. His response is making you change into something comfortable of his so you could laze on his couch. 

Like you would run away if he didn’t, Mingyu keeps his arms around you in a tight hold, fingers curling around your shoulders as you lay on top of him. Your head rests directly over his heart, his cheek and lips taking turns to occupy the top of your head.  

You fill him in on everything, and realise the most eventful weeks you’ve spent were actually quite uneventful in hindsight. He feels up your cheek and forehead when you tell him you got sick at one point, to which you have to reassure him it was either something going around or stress that you subjected on yourself. 

“I went to a frat party,” Mingyu mumbles into your forehead. “For Halloween.”

The information has you shifting to look up at him in bewilderment, “You went to a frat party?”

He snorts, “Dressed up for it too.”

“Oh my god,” you voice in mild horror. “Do I wanna know?” 

“Wonwoo and I matched,” he hums as he pulls out his phone, scrolling his gallery to look for pictures. “I was Mario, he was Luigi.”

“How adorable.”

He only gives you a look and shoves the phone in your face. By some grace of god they aren’t wearing moustaches, but the distinct red and green outfits are enough to give you enough recognition. 

“Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also possible contenders,” he informs. 

“That might’ve been a little better.”

“What’s wrong with Mario?” he asks sharply.

“Nothing. But I do hope you weren’t sporting an Italian accent throughout that.” 

“I was,” he pushes. “A horrible one too.”

You give him the satisfaction of an eye roll. 

“You could’ve gone as Peach. We could’ve matched.” 

“I don’t know if I’d wanna wear any available Peach costumes during Halloween time.” You crinkle your nose as you think of all the racy costumes that unearth every October. 

“Maybe in private,” he says with an insufferable smile on his face. 

Placing your hands flat on his chest, you rest your chin and look up at him. “I’m not sure I want to interrupt whatever you two have going on.” 

“Who?”

“You and Wonwoo, you’re practically married.”

Mingyu laughs out loud, and you can feel the rumble in his chest against your hands, his body moving against your own that’s stuck to him. “Not with whatever he has going on with his girl.”

“Oh right,” you frown in remembrance. “What happened to not understanding how he does it?” 

“Hm?”

“He’s a TA too. Probably just as busy as you. You said you didn’t know how he could juggle a relationship and his job at the same time.”

His eyes spark in remembrance, pausing for a moment. “I may owe him an apology.”

“Do you?”

Mingyu frowns, “Actually no I don’t. I don’t think he and his lady are doing too well right now. He’s been insufferable lately.”

“Is it because of the TA-ing?”

“I never know with those two,” he sighs.

There’s silence once again, in the midst of which Mingyu leans over to kiss you a few times, soft and lingering. Like he’s trying to familiarise himself with the shape of your mouth, the tactile feeling of kissing you. 

“Do you…know about us?” There’s hesitancy in the way you ask. But you can’t help but ask anyway.

Mingyu thinks for a moment, and it has your heart beating out of your chest. “I know that I want us to be concrete. That I wanna work around whatever life throws at us. You can decide what to call it, but I know I’m in it for the long run.”

“I’m glad you’re smarter than your husband,” you smile.

He only rolls his eyes, “He’s only good at one kind of chemistry.” 

“D’you think they’ll be okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he assures. “They’re just going through a…rough patch.”

“Like we did?”

“If you’re asking me, I’d say they’re being a little more stupid about it.”

The snort that leaves you is unanimous with his own. He continues, “They’ll be okay though.”

“I hope so. I’d like to go on double dates with my boyfriend’s husband’s girlfriend.” You start giggling in the middle of your sentence, too ridiculous even for you to voice. 

“This is getting weird,” Mingyu breathes. 

You only hum against his mouth, “Do I have to take your husband's blessing before we can move forward?”

“For fuck’s sake.” 

You’re both laughing again, a sound that comes from your stomachs, true and uncontrollable. For a moment, you can’t help but be conscious of how light you feel, how happy you feel with his scent infiltrating your nostrils, his presence known where his fingertips touch you. 

“I did the sticky note thing again too,” Mingyu says into the silence, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the fit of giggles that erupt all over again. 

“Said something worse this time,” he continues as you laugh into his chest. “Accept that you’ll die alone or some other shit like that.” 

There’s comfort in this moment. In your giggles and in your tears, in his voice and in his affection. His lips are another sanctuary you’ve found, and perhaps even another way to make your dreaded latch click. 

Nose nuzzled in his cheek, the feeling of his skin so soft against yours, fingers at his chin where a slight stubble grows, you relax in ways you cannot comprehend. 

MINGYU'S LIPS BECOME A feeling you’ve grown dangerously accustomed to. 

It isn’t that he has them on you too much, regardless of what an outsider might suggest; to you they simply aren’t on you enough. 

The following Monday went as usual, for you anyway. You weren’t avoiding Mingyu this time, and you were grateful for it. It was two hours of following him with your eyes as he darted around the room. You could hardly constitute it as not paying attention when Dr. Cho was preoccupied with explaining every reason he hates JASP over SPSS, but also ultimately, hates them both. 

You don’t even notice his loud outfit (overalls and a neon green sweater underneath), happy to watch Mingyu flit about and whisper incoherent explanations to students. 

The tutorial paper is barely looked at by you, because you know your boyfriend will be happy to help you out later at his place. 

You’re barely through the door that night when he gets a hold of you, tight grip across your waist as you’re catapulted into his arms, door slammed shut behind you. 

Bag still on your shoulders and your shoes still on, Mingyu’s slammed his mouth onto yours before you can take a proper breath. You stumble, squealing through the kiss as you realise you aren’t escaping the iron grip he’s got on your face. 

Somehow between it all, you manage to slip your bag off to let it drop to the floor of his doorway, shoes kicked off one after the other as he leads you inside, littering the way. 

“You aren’t actually paying attention in class anyway,” he breathes against your mouth before kissing you again. “So why don’t you sit in the back where you don’t distract me.”

“Who says I’m not paying attention.” You open your as your back lands on the couch, looking at him as he looms overhead. 

“You’re paying attention to me.”

“It was in my job description when I signed up for the girlfriend position.”

He’s all over you now, hands at your sides, mouth underneath your earlobes as he husks, “Was letting me take you in front of the entire class also a clause? Because if this goes on I might have to take up on that.”

If you didn’t know any better you would’ve assumed he’d been possessed, everything about his behaviour screaming the opposite of the well behaved, restrained man you’ve been accustomed to. The fact that he’s whispering directly into your ears isn’t helping either, a conspicuous shiver dragging across your spine. 

It lands with precision, right at your core. You’re too hot to tell, but there isn’t a doubt you’ve begun to pool. 

There’s a ding in the background. 

He’s suckling underneath your ear, his hands roaming in ways that would smear your reputation altogether. 

Another ding. 

He’s reached your mouth once again, groping your right breast lightly. Like he’s testing the waters.

Ding. 

Mingyu makes a noise of annoyance, the other hand trailing underneath your shirt. 

His ringtone blares throughout the room, whoever the caller was having reached wit’s end. 

“Gyu…” you whisper. 

“Ignore it,” he growls. The ringing has stopped. 

He ducks underneath to kiss at your stomach, lifting your shirt oh so slowly. He goes higher, and higher and higher, leaving a trail of kisses at the skin, taking deep breaths as he drags his mouth over your torso. 

His phone begins to ring again. 

Your head is spinning, your senses overcome. If you weren’t sure before, the air of wetness between your legs is definitely obvious now. 

He brings a hand to your centre, pushing inwards at your jean clad core. You exhale sharply yet shakily. 

The ringing stops. 

Mingyu makes a gumbled sound that you can’t quite make out, too preoccupied with the way your shirt is now up past your bra, at which Mingyu has taken to leaving open mouthed kisses to your cleavage. 

There’s a ding. 

“Mingyu, I really think—”

His phone begins to ring again. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he curses, rearing his head like an interrupted animal, wet mouthed and bleary eyed. He looks at his buzzing phone on the floor in an accusatory glare, like he wants to chuck it out the window and go right back to burrowing into your chest. 

“You should answer.” 

He looks irritated as he takes his phone in his hands, and you find a flash of Dr. Cho’s name on the screen. “It’s eleven O’clock.” 

“It might be important.”

“The last time he did this he asked where his peacock feather pen was,” he grunts as he silences his phone. 

You laugh, running a soothing hand through Mingyu’s hair, a tiny attempt to calm him down. Pulling your shirt down, you attempt to sit up. 

Mingyu makes a noise of denial, attempting to stick his face into your now clothed chest, knocking you back down, “Nooooo, I’m gonna ignore him.”

“He’s not going to leave you alone,” you sing quietly, running your nails across his scalp lightly, holding his head to your chest. You place your cheek on his head, playing with his ear. 

As if to prove your point, Mingyu’s phone begins to ring again, and he groans at the prospect. 

“Go on.”

He swipes to answer it. A loud sigh and then a tired, “Hello?”

His volume is bumped up enough for you to make out what’s being said on the other line. “Where have you been?”

“It’s nearly eleven, sir. I was in bed.”

“My flash drive won’t open up on my computer.”

You have to stifle a snort. 

“Is it…plugged in?”

“Of course it is, I’m not an idiot.”

“Is it showing up on your files?”

“Disk…is not…formatted.”

“Erm, it might be corrupted.”

“How did that happen?”

“Did you download something off the internet onto it?”

“Hardly matters, I need the attendance sheet on it!”

Your fingers are massaging Mingyu’s temples as you feel him tense on top of you. 

“Your attendance sheet is on the teacher’s portal,” Mingyu grits before adding, “sir.”

“...I have other things on there too.”

Mingyu exhales ever so quietly and you tighten your hold on him a smidge. “This sounds like something tech support could help with.”

“Why can’t you help?” he asks sharply. 

“I…I don’t know how, sir.”

There’s a noise of indignation from the other end, and you can’t help but keep from laughing. 

Mingyu sighs into the phone, this time doing nothing to hide it. “I’ll take it to tech support for you tomorrow. And I’ll send you a direct link for the attendance sheet for Monday and Tuesday’s classes.”

The line beeps shut. Mingyu brings the phone for you both to see the professor’s hung up as soon as the words left Mingyu’s mouth. 

“Wow,” you whisper into the silence, the weight of Mingyu’s head heavier on your chest. “Not even a thank you.”

“Absent father behaviour,” Mingyu grumbles as he moves his face to burrow into your shirt. 

It’s a bad joke, but you laugh anyway. 

“Will I be an asshole if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” he murmurs. 

“Absolutely not. Everything sucked right back in the minute I heard his voice on the line.”

“Gross,” he comments, but he’s laughing too. 

“Should we call it a night?” he asks, rearing his head. 

Nodding, you rise with him. By the time you’ve reached the bedroom, you’ve already begun taking off your accessories, fiddling with your bracelet as you voice. 

“I need a shower.”

Mingyu throws you a towel and a t-shirt, which you catch and move towards the bathroom. Halfway through the door, you sneak a look at him fiddling with his belt. 

“Do you wanna come in too?” 

Mingyu looks at you peering through the door frame. You’ve never seen anyone leap across the room as quickly as in that moment. 

THE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE just as eventful as that phone call, Mingyu running around as the midterm low passed and the line creeped up towards finals season. 

Perhaps it was better that you stopped attending office hours, because the room seems to become increasingly packed as the days progressed. 

You only ever saw Mingyu in the wee hours of the night at his place, where he begged you to camp out till the end of the semester so he “doesn’t move to insanity”. It might even be better for you, going about your day as usual, without the usual added distraction of a partner.

Coming home to him was easier, where he could clear up your doubts while in ratty pyjamas and starfished across the bed, where you could find solace in Mingyu’s chest without prying eyes when the information became like filling an already stuffed junk drawer. 

It was a Friday night, you’re alone at Mingyu’s place sitting cross legged on the floor. The table in front of you is pouring over the final question of this week’s tutorial paper, everything seemingly whizzing right past the top of your head. 

Despite that, as Mingyu stumbles inside past eleven, you know you shouldn’t ask him for a thing. 

Tired was a look on Mingyu you’d gotten quite used to, so you’ve learned to not comment and simply let him fall into the couch cushions with all his weight. 

His face is parallel to yours as he closes his eyes with a light groan in greeting. Moving forward, you kiss the flutter of his eyelids softly, down to the apple of his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth. 

Your fingers run through his tangled and distressed hair as he mumbles against your mouth. “Did you finish the tutorial paper?”

You huff in mild annoyance, that despite his state he still thinks about work. “Not yet. One last question and I’m done.”

He hums and waits a moment before reopening his eyes. With a loud groan he’s pushing himself off the couch, sliding off of it to sit with you on the uncomfortable floor. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

“I can figure it out myself, Gyu.”

“You would’ve been done by now if you could,” he answers. It’s annoying that he says it but he’s also right. 

Mingyu holds the paper a mere inch from his eyes, the sight almost comical if he also didn’t look an inch from passing out. 

He mumbles the question as he reads, “It’s nothing, just worded weird. Toggle this off and move this to mixed factors and you’re done.”

The toggles are done for you, and Mingyu takes the liberty crossing he question off with a pen he finds on the table. 

“Did you get everything else?” he asks in earnest. 

“Hm? I think so.” 

“Good.” And then he’s throwing his head back to rest it on the couch cushions behind him, breathing slowly. 

He’s in a navy sweater, collar of his undershirt peeking through the top. Your gaze leads up further, to the exposed area of his throat—clean, tan and naked. You realise this might not be a good time, but it’s only natural your mind cooks up other ways to translate your helplessness as you watch your boyfriend push himself to the brink. Release is never a bad idea. 

Besides, it’s a Friday night. No reason to not. 

“Gyu,” you shuffle closer. 

Lolling his head to look over at you, he answers in a small voice, “Yeah?” 

You put on the guiltiest face you can muster, complete with darting eyes and fidgeting fingers. “D’you think…d’you think you can go over post hoc tests again?”

“Post hoc?” He furrowed his eyebrows. You bite the inside of your cheek, having blurted the first plausible model you could think of to ask him. It’s an older bit of the syllabus, something you should already be well versed in. 

Not that you care what he thinks right now, he’d figure out why you were asking anyway. 

“Post hoc, um,” he rubs a hand over his face as if to jog his memory. 

Shifting forward, you plaster you front onto his side. He thinks nothing of it. 

“Analysis tool after you’ve already run the data,” he begins. 

Placing your chin on his shoulder, you let your nose nuzzle against his cheek. Trailing up, your lips find the shell of his ear. 

“Results have to be…they have to be…” He falters when your hand reaches his front, running across the expanse of his clothes stomach, nails digging ever so slightly as you reach his abdomen. You continue to place open mouthed kisses at the space of neck you can reach. 

“Hm? Has to be what?”

“Statistically significant,” he breathes when your palms reach the tops of his thighs. “To run a post hoc test.”

His trousers are less barrier inducing than regular jeans, something you’re both grateful for as you begin to palm his clothed bulge. “Results of what, baby?”

“For the love of—”

“Go on,” you whisper in his ear. “Please.”

One flick and his trousers are unbutton, pulling them aside as the zipper pulls open. You're pushing down his boxers when he answers you. “ANOVA.” 

“What’s that again?”

“You little shit.”

You move your mouth forward to kiss him.

“Analysis of variance.” 

You hum against the column of his throat at that, his half hard member in your hands. Light touches, that’s all they are, running the pads of your fingers across the pulsing length, coaxing him into full length. 

“What’s it for though? We already got our results.” Bending forward, you stick your tongue to kitten lick at his tip. Mingyu hisses, hips shifting. Your tongue swirls around the tip, pushing into the skin on the head where he’s most sensitive. 

“Ugh, fuck, for um,” he falters as you begin to suck at his head, tongue running over each hollow of your cheeks. 

“For…for…” His chest is moving up and down in quick breathes, every sound from his mouth coming from a deep rumble in his stomach. 

Letting go of his cock, you continue to pump him with your hand as you gaze up at him from your position. “For? Keep talking, baby.”

“For…To identify groups,” he grunts out. He lets out a louder moan when you place your mouth back on him, going past his tip and taking as much as you can of him into your mouth. “Identify…the differences, shit, hmph.”

He takes a loud breath before speeding through it again, “Identify which groups actually differ, oh my god.”

The bit of him that you can’t fit on your mouth is being pumped by your hands, fingers pushing into him like you were trying to indent them on the base of his cock. A glance upwards and you find his head thrown back, hands coming to tangle in your hair. His thumb caresses the side of your cheek.

“How many groups?” you ask, before diving back in. 

“Three,” he chokes out. “Three or more, oh I’m gonna cum, fuck don’t stop, holy shit.”

Both of his hands are at your head, guiding you as you suck him harder, faster, more tongue digging into his slit. You hum against his dick on purpose, making sure it’s coarse enough to get the reaction you want. 

You succeed, because immediately after you hear Mingyu rip out the loudest moan you’ve ever heard, his grip on your strands harder than ever. He cums into your mouth, hips stuttering as you place your entire weight on him to keep him in place. 

You let some of it dribble out your mouth and back over his softening dick like a hot coating, sucking him through shooting spurts of cum that land on your tongue. 

When you emerge from underneath, Mingyu looks like he got the soul sucked out of him; eyes closed, stuttered breaths raking through his entire body, a light sheen of the beginnings of sweat that glisten in the low light of the room. 

Reaching for the tissue box and water bottle on the table, you soak the napkins and bring them to clean him up. He whines when the cold tissues touch him where he’s most sensitive right now, you want to kiss him but account for the cum that is actively stuck to the walls of your mouth. 

You leave for a few minutes, much to Mingyu’s hoarse protests. He’s almost on all fours, hands on the floors as you promise to be back. By the time you’ve hauled his tired ass into bed, you’re just as ready to knock out as the half asleep man beside you. 

Mingyu’s face is plastered into your neck, arms and legs thrown over your form as he hugs you close to him. 

“I might love you,” he says into the darkness. A secret, just for you and the walls to hear. 

You hide the way your heart absolutely leaps, conceal the way your hands tighten around his form into an affectionate caress, hold your breath to prevent the inevitable hitch. 

I might love you too. 

You hide that as well. For now. 

Smiling into the skin of his temples, you sigh.

“Feel free.”

[Mingyu]: class ended early 

[Mingyu]: be there in 5 

[You]: ???

[You]: wdym ended early

[You]: kim did u end class early to come home

Your response comes in the form of the front door lock jiggling loudly. You’d stayed the night at his place, knowing you didn’t have anything to do but study by yourself. Sickly as you were, you doubt you could sit through two hours of even more statistics. 

He’d left you in bed with a kiss, needing to be extra early since Dr. Cho decided to dump the last crucial few weeks leading up to finals season entirely on his TA. As much as there was on Mingyu’s already overflowing plate now, you couldn’t deny the elated feeling of your attendance being taken care of regardless of whether you show up to class or not. 

A very real violation, but no one truly notes one skipped student in the midst of hundreds. Besides, the bag under Mingyu’s pretty eyes might be enough for anyone to have mercy and let the supposed mistake slide.

As Mingyu walks into the room, shoes flying and back dumped on the floor, he finds you still half clothed with leftover sleep in your eyes, standing in the middle of the living space like you were lost. 

He drops his things to come and drown you in his arms, loud kisses all over your face as you talk. “You’re getting too comfortable with this job.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t possibly expect me to teach a bunch of half asleep idiots when my woman is all alone at home, sickly and cold without me.”

You grumble wordlessly as you feel him check your temperature with the back of his hand. “How’s the congestion?”

“Bad,” you respond nasally. “I can’t find my Afrin.”

“It’s on the bedside table, baby.”

“No, it’s not.”

Still wrapped in his hold, Mingyu begins to take steps forward that lead towards the bed, pushing you to walk backwards.

“I’m not awake enough to navigate,” you sniff.

“I’ve got you,” he lowtones, pushing backwards slowly. 

The back of your knees hit the bed and you let yourself fall back into the unmade sheets. You crawl back under the covers as Mingyu navigates between used tissues, water bottles and pills on the bedside table. But no sign of your nasal spray. 

You have to breathe through your mouth and you hate it, but you send a remark his way anyway. “Told you.”

Mingyu bends down and emerges with a familiar red capped bottle. He stares at you while you stare at it, choosing to simply snatch it from his presenting hands and be done with it. 

“Good thing I came back early, hm?” 

“Shut up.”

He leaps over your form to claim the spot in bed right next to you, still fully clothed as he burrows under the covers next to you.

There’s nothing flattering about the way you stick the nozzle up your nostrils and sniff hard, but the gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes might as well suggest you were trying to get him to look at you like that. 

“Are you gonna keep doing this till finals?” you ask throatily, shifting under the covers. 

“Teaching during class time is just extended office hours, I’m gonna go insane if I keep going like this. Probably just today. Or…once more if I feel it.”

“Didn’t you say you were gonna extend office hours to Fridays too?” 

Mingyu moulded himself against you, giving warmth to your shivering body even under thick blankets. 

It seems throughout the course of your relationship, your time with Mingyu is either spent laying down or in the process of doing so. Not that you mind, you’ve found that remaining horizontal was what worked best for someone like Mingyu who seemed to want to fuse with your very being whenever you were together.

“Ugh, not this week. Do not have the patience.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say, eyes closed, already on the highway to dreamland. 

“Thank you, I do think I’ve been very brave.” Even while slipping into dreamland, you find the good sense to find his nipple through his sweater and give it a hard pinch. He jerks away in a yelp, clutching his chest. 

“What’s that for?!”

You ignore him and simply run your hand over the area you just attacked. “You’ve gotten better at knowing when to slow down. I’m proud of you.”

You’re too far gone to make out what he answers you with, but with the hot breath against your already warm forehead, you decide it's more than enough for you. 

MINGYU DOES IT FOR the fourth time, but this time round he’s smart enough to not tell you. 

It’s the Friday before finals week officially begins, and you remain in your own place for once to crack down on the last bits of syllabus you want to go over, away from your extremely distracting boyfriend. 

There’s a text when you check your phone after a couple hours of hyperfocus, and you narrow your eyes at the notification. 

It’s Wonwoo’s (actual) girlfriend, and she’s sent you nothing but a picture of both of your men on Wonwoo’s living room floor, thoroughly occupied with the floored expanse of sheets, pillows and cushions. 

It’s a pillow fort.

Your boyfriend is building a pillow fort in his not-husband’s living room mere days before the final exam for the most dreaded course of the semester. All while he’s actively meant to be available for office hours.

You want to laugh. The man that stayed up multiple nights to answer stupid questions in emails, is now less than concerned about the pandemonium that is probably ensuing in the department building. It isn’t that you’re upset, because this was what you wanted from him. To learn to take a break when it was needed. But you would also prefer he’d time them a little better. 

Inevitably, you text him, but not before sending an encouraging text to your girlfriend-in-law for putting up with the both of them all by herself. 

[You]: where are you

[Mingyu]: where im meant to be?

[You]: office hours?

[Mingyu]: mhm

[You]: are u and ur husband conducting them under a pillow fort in his house

You imagine him sending Wonwoo’s girlfriend a betrayed look. Perhaps even throw a frilled throw pillow in her unassuming direction. 

[Mingyu]: DONT KILL ME

You let him suffer in your silence, clicking your phone off and leaving it somewhere you won’t be tempted to look. 

Besides, it wasn’t long before there was an incessant banging at your door that you ended up needing to get up to open. He looks so timid, the face of an innocent perpetrator that waltzes into your space. 

“I’m sorry,” he begins, following you to your desk like a lost duckling. 

“Whatever for?”

“For lying.” 

You snort as you sift through tutorial sheets, “Might wanna take that up to the poor hopeless student that thought you were their last hope.”

Mingyu’s head sinks to your shoulder where you sit at your desk. “God.”

“Him too.”

In another few moments, his arms have come around to cage you into your desk where you’re sat, hands placed on the table as he towers over the top of your head, mouth to crown. 

“Rumour has it,” he starts. 

You make a face. “Now you’ve joined in on gossip? Maybe I have steered you wrong.”

He ignores you valiantly as his mouth drops lower, down to the beginnings of the tips of your ears. You can smell him. He smells good. 

“That a textbook recitation is all it takes to get you all bothered down there.”

Lifting your head from its craned position over your papers, you stare straight ahead. Blank and unassuming. 

“Take a hike, Kim.”

“...Sorry.”

NO MATTER HOW FAKE annoyed you were at your boyfriend, you cannot possibly credit anyone else for how smooth your finals had gone. 

Not a single tear, hack or whine. Your meals were on time, your sleep schedule the healthiest it’s been for months. You even managed a movie night break in the midst of it all. A record for you. 

The very first thing you do after walking out of the exam hall, stretching and sighing, you find Mingyu waiting with nervous eyes. 

“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and lips pulled into his teeth. 

You merely grab for his hand and pull him out of the crowded hall and past a few familiar turns. 

“For the record I didn’t want some of the questions on there,” he yaps as he follows behind your stalks. “Hard ones weren’t mine. I promise I’m not a sadist.”

Then, in an un-CCTV’d corner, marked by the broken, empty vending machine, you round up on him. In seconds you’ve pulled him down to meet your lips in an eager, full kiss. 

In the moments your lips remain intact, you can feel all the horrid statistical knowledge you’d gathered over the months slip out the cracks and crevices, relieving you. 

Mingyu is careful to let you pull away first, eyes sticky to open when you do. There’s a smile on your face. “It went great.”

A strong tug against your waist and you’re suddenly pressed into Mingyu’s all too familiar hold, so everloving tight you can hardly breathe. His lips are smacking and pressing into your skin, all over your face, neck and hands. Anywhere he could possibly reach. 

There wasn’t much he could do standing in a huddled corner at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, where anyone could pass by and question what in the high school was going on. But there was more than enough Mingyu could do behind closed doors. 

In true Mingyu fashion, he’s begun to grope in every way you love the minute the lock clicks shut of his apartment, every fibre of both of your beings giddy and jumpy, giggles erupting from your tired mouths. You haven’t been touched in ages, always too tired to do anything even when you would find the time. 

It isn’t remotely strange that you're wet from only a few kisses and hot breaths against your neck. Although Mingyu’s hands haven’t been modest either, already reaching your clothed cunt as you fall into bed. 

He says it was your reward, for doing so good, his illustrious mouth suctioned onto your naked core, moving and grinding in ways you can more than just appreciate.

His tongue is nothing below made for you, like he knows exactly when to flick his tongue, graze his teeth and all but suck the daylights out of you. It’s marvellous, even more so as you realise he won’t stop. One, two, three mind blowing orgasms later, your legs still shake around his head as you cry out for him to stop. 

Not that he was going to listen, as he did not the last fifteen times you tried, simply pushing a finger into your abused hole to chuck you into yet another climax. You’re sobbing, trembling, sweating; but also half hearted in your attempts to stop him. 

By the time he’s relented, you’re sure you won’t feel a thing down there for at least a week. If Mingyu will even let you go untouched for that long. 

But as you’re finally able to catch your long lost breath in bed, and Mingyu has curled up right beside you, like he always does, you let the finality of it all sink in. You were done. And so was he. And you could now begin to experience a Mingyu that wasn’t exhausted, stressed or tired. Even now, the long indented layers of fatigue begin to melt away, revealing a less strained man. 

Mingyu was beautiful either way. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you, his fingers tracing your features. 

The pads of his fingers glide across your eyelids, down the slope of your nose, tracing the outline of your lips. You kiss his fingers as they reach you there, hand coming up to hold his wrists. You kiss the tips of his fingers, down to the palm of his hand. Eyes closed, you keep your lips there. 

“More than okay,” you mumble. 

“Good. Thought I lost you there.”

Stretching unceremoniously, you drape yourself over his naked form, head on his shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not after being the sole reason I pass this devil’s module.”

“Is that all it takes? Make sure you don’t fail?”

“And give head like that.” It’s a half joke. “But also be Kim Mingyu comma TA.”

He mimics you between a breathy laugh, “Comma TA. Not anymore, I guess.”

“How happy are you?”

“Still have to grade the last set of papers. But I got what I wanted.”

“The recommendation? You deserve it.”

“That, and not having to be in Dr. Cho’s presence every other day. And you.”

You kiss his shoulder. “Look at you. All grown up with your big boy grad school on the horizon.”

“Not just yet.”

“You’ll get there too. If you can power through this hellsent semester, you can power through anything grad school applications throw.”

Mingyu shifts where he lays, taking a turn to lie on his side to face you. The afternoon sun peeks from behind his form, his outline made of pure gold. His breath is in your face as he talks, and there’s comfort in the air it penetrates.

“I only powered through this because of you. I hope you know that.” He’s smiling. 

“Girlfriend duties,” you quote solemnly. 

“I mean it. I knew I was walking into disaster with how this stupid job was going, all that work was just a distraction. I didn’t wanna believe this was a bad idea. And then you walked in.”

You cup his face and pout, “Oh, my damsel in distress.”

“Hm, my knight in shining armour,” he giggles. “Galloped in and saved me from myself.”

“You saved me too. From the world and its horrible creations.” 

“I’ll start talking in formulas if this keeps up.” 

You can only grumble in mild annoyance. 

“I’m glad I asked you to come in early that day,” he says.

“I’m glad I was a good samaritan and gathered all your stuff that day.” You grin.

Mingyu leans in and kisses you. It’s soft, slow, and drips of the romance he’s trying to bring into the conversation. His lips are bliss, the feeling of him is bliss. 

It’s almost scary how easily you’ve been able to give yourself to him. How quickly he’s placed himself in every nook and cranny of your heart. With his tired eyes and stronger than himself smile, the hand he extended in ways beyond you could ever explain to him. It’s terrifying when you realise what remains on the tip of your tongue, ready and bursting. 

But it’s true, and you can only pray it remains that way. Because in that moment, naked and tangled between Mingyu’s limbs, his heart in your ears, your hands on his being, you just know. 

“I think I might love you too.” 

[uzurakis]

can u do how jjk boys (include megumi PLEASE) would react to you getting all pretty and dolled up to go out (and u just look soooooooooo good)

TOO PRETTY TO BE TRUE!

featuring: fushiguro megumi. gojo satoru. geto suguru. nanami kento. itadori yuuji.

n. your wish is my command nonnie, and ya don’t need to say megs cause i’ll ALWAYS include him in every shit that i write (he comes in one package okay) and.. I WENT OVERBOARD WRITING THIS HELPLEP i usually limit to 4 charas every post but yours made my creative space going and I HAD TO DO 5.. so thank you for that. i looooveee the idea mwah mwah i hope the writing makes justice for your cute hc <3

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI. you were running late; a girl's usual problem before a date. your hands fumbled with the clasp of your earrings, and shit, you cursed softly under your breath. outside, you knew your boyfriend was waiting patiently, or so you hoped. the idea of keeping him waiting made you anxious, but you wanted everything to be perfect.

just as you finished adjusting your hair, you heard the front door creak open. fushiguro’s soft footsteps echoed through the hallway, and you felt a twinge of panic. he never liked to intrude, but his curiosity had gotten the best of him. "hey, what’s taking so long?" you heard him mutter.

you turned around just as he reached the doorway to your room. his eyes widened, and for a moment, time seemed to stand still. fushiguro's usual stoic expression melted into one of pure surprise. his cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink, and his mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.

"is everything okay?" you asked, trying to keep your voice steady despite the sudden flutter in your chest.

megumi blinked, finally finding his voice. "a-ah, yeah, everything’s fine," his eyes remained locked on the ground while he stammered. how in the hell did this place get so hot? he thought to himself as he fiddled with his shirt collar.

"you look… um, really pretty."

"no, i mean, don't get me wrong though! you're al-"

you blushed at his earnestness, but you also smiled. "you too, gumi."

the guy scratched the back of his neck awkwardly but managed a small smile in return. "sorry i kinda barged in,” gently, he reached his hand to you and said, “next time, take all the time you need. i’ll wait.”

GOJO SATORU. "well, well, look at you," someone called out, sauntering over with an exaggerated attitude. "you really went all out for our little date, huh?"

you couldn't help but smile as you rolled your eyes. "aand you didn't even bother to dress up," you teased back, gesturing to his usual attire. “so lame for the gojo satoru, boo-hoo.”

"why would i need to dress up when i have the most gorgeous person in the world right here?" the guy stepped closer, taking your hand and spinning you around playfully. "you look soo good, i kind of want to take you home right now. can’t have everyone else stealing glances at my date."

a giggle managed to escape your lips, feeling a blush creep up your cheeks. "you're ridiculous, toru," shaking your head at him.

then he leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, one that could captivate a soul. "but seriously, you look amazing. i'm the luckiest guy here."

you swatted at his arm playfully, but your heart swelled from his words. "alright, mr. smooth talker, where are we going?"

gojo straightened up, still holding your hand. "anywhere you want, as long as i get to show you off. but maybe we’ll head home a bit early, just in case," and of course, he didn’t forget to wink.

ITADORI YUUJI. a knock on your door sent a jolt of excitement through you. you had taken extra time to get ready for your date with itadori tonight in the hopes of surprising him. he was standing there with an enormous smile on his face as you opened the door.

“bless me!” his pink eyes widened with admiration. “you look beautiful as always, baby.”

your cheeks heated beneath his surprising compliment. "nah, baby, that’s too much."

his enthusiasm contagious, he practically bounced on his toes. “i’m serious! you’re soo pretty that i might die from your prettiness—is that an actual word—but look at me, i'm serious!”

as you stepped outside, itadori kept showering you with compliments. "that outfit is perfect on you. and your hair! you’re always cute, but.. you really shine tonight."

“you’re too sweet, yuu,”

"i mean it! you deserve to hear it every day baby!”

NANAMI KENTO. you were putting the finishing touches on your makeup when you heard a firm knock at the door. taking a deep breath, you walked over and opened it to find nanami standing there, his usual composed demeanor softened by a warm smile.

his eyes swept over you, taking in every detail. "you look beautiful, sweetheart." he said simply, sincere and direct. the compliment made your heart skip a beat.

"thank you, kento," goddamn, a gentleman is always a gentleman.

he stepped closer, his gaze never leaving yours. "i appreciate the effort you put into this. it means a lot to me." his smile widened just a fraction, but the warmth in his eyes spoke more than his words could.

you smiled back, touched by his straightforwardness. "it’s because i’m excited to spend time with you."

nanami nodded, offering his hand. "shall we go?"

you sensed serenity and joy as soon as you held his hand. "i’m glad you liked it," you said softly as you both made your way down the street.

GETO SUGURU. “fucking hell, you look so pretty,” he swore under his breath, emerald orbs wide as he took in your appearance. “too pretty to be true.”

“hmm, you think so, suguru?” a little teasing might not hurt, right? his usually calm and composed expression shifting to one of pure astonishment the moment he saw you. and there it is again, his usual up-to-no-good grin.

he stepped closer, his gaze intense and cocky with that smile of his. “oh, you’re mine,” he declared, voice firm yet filled with a protective tenderness. “definitely mine.”

your heart skipped a beat at his sudden possessiveness, yet you couldn't help but feel a rush of delight at his words. “i’m yours,” you confirmed softly, tippy toeing to peck his cheeks.

he pulled your waist gently into his hook, grip both protective and warm. “i just… i don’t want anyone else looking at you like this,” the words were murmured, his lips brushing against your hair. “you’re too beautiful.”

you leaned into him, feeling safe and cherished in his embrace. “i only want you to look at me like this, suguru.”

he smiled, a rare and genuine expression that lit up his face. “good. because i’m not letting you go.” he pulled back slightly to look into your eyes. “let’s go, princess."

@uzurakis

[ellecdc]

hi! i absolutely love your works, particularly your poly!marauders(w/lily). i think you write them so beautifully and harmoniously that you can't help but fall in love with them.

i wanna compliment you on your recent two-parter about remus and the whole revealing the werewolf thing. the angst to fluff had me on the edge of my seat. thank you for writing such a piece! 🤍

i hope its not too much to ask but in part 1, there's a brief mention of sirius receiving letters from i can assume is his family that lily confiscates and the group tends to love on him a bit more. let's say reader isn't in the loop about sirius' family life and she feels a bit sad that she can't comfort sirius like the rest can, and in general feels lost because it's another thing she isn't 'let in on'. i was wondering if you could write a little something on that? maybe some misunderstandings with a fluffy ending?

i hope this is something you're ok w writing 🥹 if not, its ok! still wish u the best always!

this is so sweet - thank you! & thanks for your request - hope you like it!!

pt 1 // pt 2 // pt 3 // pt 4 // pt 5

poly!marauders + lily x fem!reader who find's her own way to comfort Sirius - 2.1k

CW: brief mention of Sirius' childhood, allusions to anxiety, our shy Hufflepuff reader, hurt comfort, Sirius-centric

There was this saying that you never really understood before.

Love makes you do crazy things. 

And while the definition of crazy may be up for debate, you’re quite sure it could be understood as acting completely out of character.

So here you were, acting completely out of character; voluntarily marching towards a secluded end of the library where three Slytherin’s were sitting that you had - up until this point - managed to avoid completely. 

But you couldn’t, wouldn’t, avoid them any longer; not now, not for Sirius. 

The dust settled relatively well after the news of Remus’ lycanthropy had been shared with you; the five of you seemed to find a sort of freedom in not having to hide from one another anymore. Remus could be himself, the other’s could love him appropriately, and you could too. 

But another one of those black envelopes with  a green wax seal showed up at breakfast yesterday, and the group delved into their usual hide-the-envelope-and-coddle-Sirius practice. 

Lily took the envelope and disposed of it, James and Sirius had a floo call with the Potter’s, and Remus’ mum and dad sent baked goods from Wales via owl. 

You had since gathered that these letters were coming from his parents, or at the very least from someone in the Black family; you had also gathered that the contents of the letter’s were hurtful or upsetting to Sirius. And even though he never got to read them, a heavy cloud seemed to form and follow the young ex-heir around. 

And your heart felt heavy; not because they were keeping anything from you, per se, but rather because they seemed to have a routine that didn’t include you.

And while you didn’t want to encroach in spaces that you weren’t necessarily invited in, you couldn’t help but feel like you should be doing more. 

Lily, James, and Remus all had something they could offer Sirius; they all had some way that they could support him. 

You didn’t.

And it wasn’t for a lack of trying on your part, but rather that no one seemed particularly inclined to burden you with any negativity. 

“Don’t worry about me, babydoll; this is standard Black stuff. I’ll be just fine.” Sirius had said when you asked if he was okay; his usual salacious smile significantly dimmed as it seemingly took the majority of his effort in his response. 

The others hadn’t been much help either; Remus and James effectively telling you that you were too sweet to have to worry about such horrid people, and Lily trying to assure you that they had it under control and not to worry - Sirius would be okay. 

And that was all well and good, but it wasn’t enough for you - it was about sodding time you started pulling your weight in this relationship.

So - with nothing more than the teeniest bit of courage you were sure you pilfered from your four Gryffindors and perhaps a healthy dose of delusion - you forced your feet to take you in the direction of the only person in the entire castle you thought might possibly be able to help you. 

“My, my, my; to what do we owe the absolute pleasure, little Puffle?” Barty Crouch Junior mocked as you paused at their table; Evan Rosier and Regulus Black picking their heads up to look at you incredulously and bemusedly respectful. 

“Did ya get lost there, L/N? Need me to find you one of your Gryffindor’s?” Evan taunted, earning him what looked like a kick in the shin from Regulus, though you couldn’t be certain on account of the table impeding your view.

“Erm…I-I was sort of wondering if I could speak with you, Regulus?” You managed to murmur awkwardly.

The three Slytherin’s seemed to have a silent conversation as they shared glances before Barty shrugged and Evan rolled his eyes; both standing and leaving the two of you some privacy. 

Regulus watched as you cast a hasty muffliato around the table - another trick you’d picked up from the Gryffindor’s - and as you helped yourself to a seat with your boyfriend’s younger brother. 

“Is Sirius okay?” Regulus asked quickly, his voice no more than an urgent whisper as he looked at you imploringly.

His intensity caught you off guard; you were so certain getting anything out of the notoriously stand-offish Slytherin would be next to impossible, but he had beat you to the conversation and seemed to be just as worried about his brother as you were. 

You remembered then why you liked Slytherin’s so much; you often found a kindred spirit in them, for one thing that a Slytherin valued most was a sense of loyalty.

Well, didn’t you have enough loyalty to use to your advantage. 

You wondered rather belatedly if you had overstepped. It was admittedly too late to ask yourself this now; standing outside of the boys’ dorm with a package in your hand.

What’s done is done. You had a one-track mind, and that was to help Sirius.

With this, you raised your hand and gently knocked on the door.

It had been James to open the door; his jaw tense until he saw you, which seemed to cause his face to melt into an awkward expression you couldn’t quite decipher.

“Hi angel.” He greeted apologetically. “You okay?”

You were confused by his greeting, and his question, and the fact that he hadn’t moved out of the way of the door to invite you in as he usually did.

“I’m fine.” You responded quickly, trying to look behind him. “What’s wrong?”

James made a sound of discomfort in the back of his throat as he looked over his shoulder, still not moving to allow you entry. 

“Listen, sweetheart; I’m not sure now is a great time…”

“It’s Sirius, is it?” You asked quickly. His responding grimace proving your suspicions. “I need to see him.”

“Sweets, maybe you could come back la-”

But later wasn’t good enough, you see. You had a one-track mind, and that was to help Sirius.

So, in the name of love making you do crazy things and still acting completely out of character for you, you shoved your way past James’ hip, bending under his arm to allow yourself your own entrance to the boys’ dormitory. 

Lily sat at the end of Sirius’ bed where she had one hand resting on his ankle; her thumb stroking back-and-forth over his achilles tendon.

Remus sat against the headboard with Sirius in his arms; his lips pressed against his hair as he murmured sweet nothings to him.

And as you stepped closer, you could see an indent where James had been sitting, opposite of Lily likely serving the same support as your red-headed girlfriend.

“Siri?” You asked quietly, causing him to stiffen significantly before sitting up and feigning nonchalance.

“Hi doll.” He croaked then, wiping angrily at the tear tracks on his face and pasting on a smile. “Didn’t mean for you to see me like this. What’s up?”

You hated the faux blase act he was putting on for your sake, but you reminded yourself why you were here.

To help.

“I have something for you.” You offered quietly, procuring the parchment wrapped package and holding it out for him. 

“Awe.” He chuckled wetly with a sniffle. “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

“Well, I suppose I can’t take all the credit for it.” You replied, watching him pause in the process of opening to look at you in confusion.

“Open it.” You encouraged.

He finished ripping the parchment from the box before lifting the lid.

You felt your heart stop as the lid fell unceremoniously from his hands and a small gasp left his lips at the sight of the small, stuffed black cat sitting inside.

You’d spent the afternoon learning about the tail of two toys; Splash the cat and Padfoot the dog. The only toys the two young Black family boys were given came from their Uncle Alphard in the form of a plush cat and a plush dog; both with black fur as a nod to the family name and the boys’ hair colour. 

Even though Uncle Alphard had given the dog to Sirius and the cat to Regulus, the boys often traded, depending on their current circumstances. 

You learned that when Sirius went to Hogwarts, he had left with the cat. 

When he returned home after having been sorted into the wrong house, Regulus had given him the dog.

And when Regulus joined Sirius at Hogwarts only to be ripped from his brother - possibly for good - after being sorted into Slytherin, he pilfered the dog from Sirius and left him with the cat.

They never discussed those plush toys again.

And when Sirius fled Grimmauld place one horrible night in June between fifth and sixth year, he left with nothing but his wand, the clothes on his back, and his school trunk.

Left behind was poor Splash the cat.

Regulus - fearing his mother would go on a warpath and completely destroy everything in Sirius’ room - quickly grabbed the cat and had kept it hidden in his school trunk ever since.

Until today. Until now.

Now, he left Splash with you; trusting that you would return him to his person, the one who needed him the most.

“How…” Sirius whispered as he quietly pulled the plush toy from the box; hands painfully gentle as if the toy would simply turn to ash should he jostle it. “Where did you get this?”

“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking.” You tried to joke in an attempt to keep the moment light. Sirius simply turned his disbelieving gaze from the toy to you.

“You spoke with him?”

Suddenly, your fears that you had completely overstepped came flooding back; a nervous sort of nausea settling deep within your stomach that threatened to make this awkward moment horribly worse.

“I…I did- I didn’t say anything, of course! Because there was nothing to say, because I don’t actually know anything, which is fine too! I just…I couldn’t…well, you see, I just had to do something, you know? I couldn’t just-”

Your ramblings were (thankfully) cut off when the air nearly completely left your lungs as Sirius attached himself to your middle; his arms winding tightly around your body where they met in the middle of your back. You could feel the impression of Splash against your back from where he was still in Sirius’ grasp.

“I’m sorry if I upset you - I know it wasn’t my place, but-”

“You’re incredible.” Sirius whispered then. “I can’t believe you’d do this for me.”

“You’re not mad?” You whispered back, causing Sirius to pull away from you, only far enough to be able to look into your eyes with ill-hidden admiration. 

“My sweet shy girl; approaching Slytherin’s for me.” He murmured, causing Remus and Lily to snort and James to gawk.

“You did what!?” 

“You do know that a quarter of our school is made up of Slytherin’s, right?” You asked James then; Sirius pulling you back into his chest when you dared to remove your gaze from him.

“That’s entirely too many Slytherin’s, my girl.” James muttered, though he relented in his admonishment of you for your crime of daring to speak to your classmates in order to sit beside your other two lovers. 

“I can’t believe he gave this to you.” Sirius whispered; holding the cat up behind your back so he could examine it over your shoulder.

“He didn’t give it to me, Sirius.” You whispered back as you pulled away from him so you could look into his eyes. “You have a lot of people in your corner; more than you know.” 

His eyes seemed to well again, though he didn’t look nearly as heartbroken as he did when you first walked in, so you counted that as a win. 

“What did I do to deserve you, hm?” He asked then before pressing a lingering kiss to your lips.

You’re sure you could have counted at least seventeen ways in which Sirius Black deserved the nicest things you had to offer, but right now you were more focused on the feel of his lips against yours.

If love made you do crazy things, and those crazy things brought you to this; this being Sirius moulding himself to you as if he hoped he could make a home for himself inside of your soul, then you would happily spend the rest of you life mad as one could be.

You hadn’t fixed anything, not by a longshot; but you had helped, even if only just a little.

His lips tasted of salt and perhaps some sadness, but also of hope.

And for now, that was enough.

[moonstruckme]

absolutely live for ur roommate!james could you maybe write one on him meeting some of readers friends for the first time or calling james to pick u up after a girls night 😇would love to see him finally feel “included” in our life like we are in his

Thank you for requesting lovely!

cw: alcohol

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 │ part 4 │part 5 │ part 6 │ part 7 │ part 8 │ part 9 │ part 10 │ part 11 │part 12 │ part 13

roommate!James x shy!reader ♡ 1k words

James is so absorbed in the football match on his phone that when there’s a tap on the window next to his face, he jolts halfway across the center console and squeaks like he’s twelve years old again. 

You’re beaming outside the car. Your shoulders shake with quiet, un-self-conscious laughter, so it’s impossible for James to be any kind of upset. Still, he makes a show of huffing a little as his own smile spreads. He reaches over and opens his door. 

“Sorry,” you say. You don’t look it, so he lets you off the hook for your over-apologizing. 

“Who do you think would drive you home if I had a heart attack?” James asks. He’s somewhat breathless, either because of the scare or the easier-than-usual grin still fixed on your face. 

You lean against the side of his car and roll your eyes. “Oh, your heart’s too healthy to be in danger of attacks.” 

“What are you doing on this side of the car? You’re the passenger, you know.”

“Okay, listen.” You give him a very intentional look. It’s more eye contact than he’s used to from you, and it makes his guts go all twisty in a surprisingly nice way. “It’s completely up to you, of course, but I think I’m about to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” 

It clicks into place. “You’re drunk.” 

“Not very.” Your grin is a short fall from impish. Your eyes sparkle. God help him. “But you’re about to be.” 

James feels his eyebrows float up. “How do you figure?” 

“Because I’ve come to collect you. If you want.” 

“To collect me…where?”

“Inside,” you say, as though this should be obvious. You tip your head towards the restaurant. “We’ve just closed, and we have so much wine. Pleasepleaseplease, James, come in.” 

“Okay.” He’s letting you tug him from his car before he knows what he’s agreed to, only that one please will always be enough to get whatever you want from him. “Alright, love, but doesn’t your manager mind that you’re drinking their wine?” 

You let loose a bark of laughter, loud and sharp and totally unlike you. “Tom? Yeah, right.” 

Tom, James learns quickly upon entering the rowdy atmosphere of your workplace after hours, is younger than the both of you, hardly old enough to serve alcohol and yet managing the restaurant. And the wine isn’t stolen, necessarily, but the fortunate leavings of a wealthy customer who bought more bottles than his table could handle and then left nearly all of them. 

Everyone who’d been on the night shift is strewn about the empty restaurant. Servers and busboys and dishwashers all perched on stools, standing behind the bar, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on tables. You take James by the hand, first reclaiming the bottle of wine you’d evidently stored behind the host’s station and then leading him around the room to introduce him to various coworkers. His hand feels warm and tingly. You have an easy repartee and a million in-jokes with the servers, but even the kitchen staff seems to adore you. As they rightly should, James thinks. It’s obvious you’re as kind and considerate here as you are at home, and he feels a bit silly for not having been able to picture you in this place so clearly before now. 

Art is working with you again tonight. It’s embarrassing, the warm wave of relief that James feels when he notices you don’t pay him any extra attention. He makes a mental note to extend his offer of a ride home more often. Every time your hand starts to slip from James’, you readjust your grip before he can even think of doing it himself. Suits him just fine; ever since your mugging incident, suddenly James is in this weird place where he always wants a hand on you.

You say his name, and then the lip of a bottle is being pushed against his lips. 

“You haven’t had hardly any.” You look like you’re trying to pout, but your eyes are smiling. 

James takes the bottle from you. He looks you in the eyes as he takes a sip as if to say, Happy? It’s barely enough to warm his throat. “I am still driving us home, you know.”  

The pout is getting better. “I know, but I’m trying to be fun for you. You don’t have to drive us if you don’t want to! You’re always the one doing the nice things.” 

“Oh, don’t.” His tone is fonder than he means for it to be, but luckily you’re too tipsy to mind. “You’re plenty fun. You do nice things for me all the time.” 

“Yeah, but not enough to balance out.” You make your eyes big and pitiful. James feels fortunate this isn’t a skill you seem inclined to utilize sober. “Obviously you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but—Jamie, don’t hold back because of me, please.” 

His stomach does an impressive flip. He doesn’t think you realize you’ve called him that, doubts you’d have done it under normal circumstances, but his nervous system cares not for rationalizations. He wants desperately to hear you say it again. 

You beam as James lifts the bottle to his lips again, taking a few hearty gulps. You both end up walking home that night, but you wake even before James to go retrieve his car in the morning.

[dollwrites]

𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ∣ smut ( minors dni ), fem!nanny!reader, married!toji ( rich toji too lmao hot take ), age gap, noncon, dacryphilia, virginity loss, heavy breeding kink, bondage, all characters featured are aged 18+

𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 ∣ please reblog && leave feedback. not proofread so there’s probably mistakes. thanks for reading < 3

𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯 ∣ day twenty-two [ toji fushiguro + breeding ]

you probably should’ve kept your mouth shut. you should’ve bit the bullet and swallowed your pride when Toji said he couldn’t pay you any earlier than Friday for babysitting the kids. no, couldn’t had not been his word of choice. he wouldn’t pay you before Friday. Toji was loaded with cash. you’d never bothered to ask him how he made his living, but you knew that he had plenty and his massive mansion would not be snatched up by the bank if the prick gave you your well earned three hundred and twenty dollars on a Wednesday instead of a Friday.

and you’d told him so.

which had landed you in the position you’re in now.

on a few occasions, Toji or his wife had asked you to tidy up around the house and that included their bedroom. the room was massive and luxurious, with a king size bed in the center of the room. you’d seen plenty of oddities in there— handcuffs here, a flogger there, vibrators in the drawers and even a black, pleather bench with seatbelt-like straps hanging off it in the corner— but you never thought, in all the time you’ve worked for them, that you’d find yourself on your back in nothing but your bra and panties ( which were both pulled askew to expose your breasts and give him access to your core ) against the mattress, with thick, black straps on your ankles that bind them to a long, silver bar. your legs are spread wide for Toji, he has also fastened similar cuffs to each of your wrists to separate notches on the pole. his fist is wrapped around the center of the metal, gripping it tight. he seems to use it as a lever, pulling your entire body to his.

the tears are far from dried on your cheeks, though the majority of the pain from the initial insertion has dissipated, Toji is none too gentle as he ruts into you. your walls flutter about the girth of his manhood as it stretches you to a capacity you’ve never felt before. he was so big, much too big for him to have been your first, and you felt like he was ripping you apart, especially because he had no regard for how deep he was delving into you— each thrust of his hips sent him hilt-deep into a newly devirginized interior. because of this, your face remained twisted into an expression of discomfort, eyes wide with shock.

Toji chuckles through grit teeth, “What’s with the crocodile tears, slut? Wasn’t expecting I’d pop your cherry? Daddy’s cock too big for that itty, bitty belly of yours?” his dark pair coruscate in the dim lighting as his gaze travels over your stomach, pressing his free palm against the lump just below your navel, the size and shape of his cock. you mewl, head rolling about on the mattress, and your teeth sink into your lower lip; the pressure adds to the sensation of being stuffed full. “Ooh, listen to you whine for me,” he croons with faux sympathy, poking out his lower lip. “I’ll bet you’re used to getting exactly what you want with those puppy dog eyes, aren’t you? But, I gotta tell you, baby girl, daddy’s made more girls cry than just you. You really think those little sniffles are gonna work on me? Make me go easier on you?”

his hips grind into yours as he digs as deep as possible without his thick tip bursting through your belly button ( or, at least, that’s what it feels like ), and you cry out, back arching. your fingernails claw at the restraints, arms tensed unable to do much but sting.

“Ah!” it’s more a bestial growl than a sound of pleasure you’d expect anyone to make, his eyes fiery with even more desire at your wriggling. “See, feel that? How your pussy tremors when she’s gripping my cock? You can glare up at me with those cute, puffy eyes and your makeup streaked down your cheeks, but I can tell by the way that little pussy hugs me that you don’t want it gentle. You don’t want me to be nice. You want to be fucked into submission, and daddy’s more than willing to break that bad fuckin’ habit of talking back to me with my cock.”

it was almost impossible to formulate a coherent sentence, batting tears back, but they fall anyways, squirming as if to escape the cocktail of pleasure and pain, and you turn away from him, angling your countenance towards the wall instead. “W—what— what if I t-told your, ah! Your wife about this—“

the most wicked of grins contorts Toji’s lips, and he reaches through the bar and between your arms to grip your face, turning it back to force you to look up at him. “You think she doesn’t know, girl? I’ve only been planning to breed your little body since you started working for us. I just needed a good excuse to break you in, thanks for that.” he pauses, to groan and close his eyes, pace picking up as his hips begin to buck more erratically. “She thinks you’ll make a better baby factory than she ever could, and she’s more than willing to let me keep you here and fuckin’ ruin you until the only thing you want is for me to swell that little tummy with my bastards—“ even as your whimpering escalated into screams, you can hear him. your eyes close, head wanting to angle away from his grip, his palm makes contact with your cheek in a couple, quick slaps. “You can get used to being my little breed-whore, sweet girl. And don’t you worry, you’re gonna get a nice raise every time I knock you up; as long as you learn that your place is wrapped around daddy’s cock, and that pussy is for him to fill with his loads, you’re gonna be a fine new addition to this family.”

[starkwlkr]

hi loved your Rubi and Charles oneshotes 🥹🥹🥹 it’s the cutest thing ever ,I was wondering if u can make the same with max and Noah or maybe a daughter 😭😭 please 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

little boss | max verstappen

I’ve been wanting to write more for max lately, especially dad fics 😭 so thank you for this request!!

Whenever Noah was in the paddock, Max always made sure he was close by. It didn’t matter if he was doing interviews or in a meeting, he had to be close and the team didn’t mind. Everyone loved Noah, including the fans. During interviews, the little boy would be in his father’s arms playing with the cap on Max’s head or giving him kisses on the cheek resulting in many YouTube compilations of dad Max.

“Did you like the race, Noah?” An interviewer asked the boy, holding a microphone towards him.

Noah looked at his dad as if asking if it was okay to talk. Max gave him a nod. “I liked how the car sounds. It’s loud but I’m not scared.”

“Tell them how the car sounds.” Max said as Noah mimicked the sound of his dad’s car which resulted in various laughs.

“He’s actually my boss. He’s the one that tells me when I’m not going fast enough, when to pit, right?” Max looked at his son.

“You were slow this time . . Like when the race almost ended and you came in and I counted the seconds and it was . . “ he counted on his fingers. “It was five seconds!”

“I took five seconds? I’ll try to be faster next time, okay?” Max played along. “See? He’s my boss.”

“Do I sense a team principal in the making?”

“Watch out, Christian.” Max teased.

Other times when Max had to attend press conferences, drivers noticed how much of a dad max acted. He would often mumble throngs to Noah, who stayed with someone from the Red Bull team.

“You’re such a dad, mate.” Charles chuckled as Max got up from his seat and walked to his son to make sure he was drinking enough water.

“It’s adorable.” Lewis commented.

“I don’t want water, papa.” Noah gave Max the water bottle with a frown.

“Okay, I’ll be over here. Let me know when you want water, okay? Be good.” Max placed a gentle kiss on the boy’s head then walked back to his seat. “What was the question?”

Eventually, Noah did want water so he whispered his dad’s name until Max heard. “Water!” Noah whisper yelled.

“I can get it for you.” Max’s manager told him, but Max had gestured for Noah to come get it so the boy did so. Immediately Noah was greeted by the drivers.

“Hey, little boss man.” Lewis fist bumped the boy. “How’s school? You doing your homework?”

Noah nodded. “I got all the answers right on my test and then papa took me to see a movie and it was so funny.”

“That’s awesome!”

After having a drink of water, Max let Noah sit on his lap as the press conference continued. Towards the end, the boy was half asleep. Max kepts his arms around his little boy as he finally went to sleep. Thankfully the press conference had ended so he walked back to his driver’s room so he and Noah could have a nap together.

The next morning, the hashtag daddy max was trending. The hashtag was filled with screenshots and videos of the press conference. Some people even made memes out of the interaction between Noah and Lewis. It was clear that Max enjoyed being a dad and the whole world loved to see it.