#--and that Shadow has to 'pay' for what he 'did' in some way as if there was ever a choice in the books they wrote--

[shatcey]

I love my archenemy (Matias)

This story is a kind of parallel world. Emma works in a bookstore (during the day) and steals from the nobility (at night) in some town of Acroite. And Mathias is a detective in it. So Emma has never been Belle, and I have no choice but to call her Emma. It's a little sad.… I like to call her Belle.… The plot is multi-layered. There are flashbacks, but they are very cinematic… to make the story more impressive. Some details will become clear later. I think even the narrative is very different from the usual one. And, to my great happiness, Emma is not as annoyingly righteousness as usual. She knows she's doing something wrong, but she doesn't see any other way. The summary cannot convey the full complexity of the story… it is extremely primitive. But I did my best.

Not bad start, isn't it?

She tries to think of a way out, but nothing comes to mind. There is no trace of warmth in his gaze, so she already knows what awaits her…. Matias stretches out his hand to the mask on her face, and she begins to resist again. She doesn't want him to see her face.

3 days before

Matias went into the store where she works (during the day), and she was very happy to see him.

Emma recalled that they met by chance at an orphanage, where she donated the books. And since then, they have remained good friends and often meet to chat. But she understood that it was temporary.

Emma asked him if he was okay, he looked tired. He replied that there were some rumors. But his main problem is the Phantom thief. Just the other day, they broke into the mansion and stole jewelry. It's "absolutely unacceptable." She agrees that stealing is wrong. She said that sometimes they buy expensive books, and she is afraid that they may be stolen. Matias asked her to inform him if she received a warning, and he would protect her and her books "at the cost of his life." How melodramatic.

As always, he's very straight… Actually he's surprisingly animated. Each screenshot has a new facial expression…

She thought it was a warning from him not to be overly sympathetic.

Suddenly Matias bends down to the floor. She asks if he dropped something. He didn't. A moment later, he stood up and told her not to worry about it. I didn't really pay much attention to this scene when I read it for the first time. But this will be explained in the epilogue.

At night, Emma goes to a cave located far from the city. Although it is quite cold outside, it is warm inside the cave. In the shadow, behind some rock, there is a chest filled with jewelry and accessories. She stole them from the nobility.

Originally it was "what kind of face (expression) would he have," but the second line is obviously about his emotions, so I changed the first line to match the second one.

She thinks she's his enemy. But she still thinks of him as a friend. Suddenly, a strong wind blew, and she felt like she was going to be punished for what she was doing, but she couldn't stop.

Acroite is a fair country where the law rules, but there are poor people who cannot be helped by the law.

Despite the fact that she understands that stealing is bad, she still wants to help people who are suffering. A typical Belle.

She started writing.

It's the stupidest thing ever. But she's like Captain Blood, very noble and honest… give them a chance to prepare for her arrival. Or…. she just likes playing with fire. Maybe she has an adrenaline addiction?

She already has one of the four stones, so she thinks the other owners are more vigilant now.

Next day

She slipped into the mansion, but there were no guards there. They were standing outside the building, but not inside. She heard a familiar voice…

They're so silly. One prepares the owners for the fact that she will rob them, and this one tells her to be ready to be caught… Who's talking like that, guys?

His gaze was cold. Right now, he only sees her as an enemy. It has always been so. But it was only now that she realized.

She didn't understand what he meant, and he didn't explain anything to her either. She thought that now was not the time for chatting, it was time to run. So she took a step back, and Mati took a step as well. He looks more determined than usual, and she thought she needed to be careful. The sudden appearance of the owner of the mansion distracted Mati and Emma fleeded.

Already with the stolen stone, she runs through the still empty mansion. She's disappointed. She's definitely adrenaline addictive. She hears the voices of the guards outside, but Matias no longer follows her…

Shortly after she stole the stone. Outside of the mention, Matias is talking to his man. The guard reported that the phantom thief had escaped, and wondered why the nobleman had not let them into the building. Mati mumbles that it's because of the jewel that the thief decided to steal. And again, no explanation.

The guard asked if he knew where they had gone. And Mati replied that he had a guess.

Emma returned to the cave. She took out the stolen gem. It was a sparkling diamond-shaped crystal. Emma remembered Matias' question and began to examine the stone more closely…

The moment she turned the stone towards the light, she felt the movement of the wind and ducked. A sharp pain shot through her shoulder, as if it had been scratched by a knife. Clutching her shoulder, she stepped back, wondering who it could be… In front of her stood a man whose face was covered with a cloth. His eyes are a different color than Matias'… Assassin. How she noticed the color of his eyes. It's a night cave… I doubt there was any light… And as we all know, all cats are black at night, and so are people's eyes (pupils dilate).

She can't escape, the man is standing in front of the only entrance. While she was thinking about what to do, a man with a knife approaches her… She closes her eyes…

....

But nothing happened. She opened her eyes.

The Savior! Stand still, don't talk. Let me imagine the Prince Charming instead of you……………………. Okay, we can continue.

She was confused… how Mati appeared in this cave. She's not surprised by the killer, but by Mati……… This place is not as secluded as she thought.

Mati didn't kill that guy like I thought he would. Of course, he didn't, he's on the side of the law, and kill is wrong. He was just holding the guy, so he didn't made the final strike to kill Emma.

The guy turned to face Matias and tried to kill him instead. But Mati knocked him to the ground and pulled out a knife. He immediately handcuffed him. Everything happened so fast that the assassin didn't even have time to react.

After making sure that the assassin was calm down, he headed straight for Emma. And again… she has no way to escape. Why are these guys so wide? She can't slip out.

One more time… Stay still, don't talk. I'll dream a little… I think your habit of daydreaming is getting to me… On the other hand, you never say anything about your dreams here. So… I'm kind of replacing you…

Emma thinks he can't worry about her… He snatches out the stone that she is still holding. And explains his previous questions. She will face justice and it is unacceptable for her to be injured or even killed before her trial.

Of course, he can't worry about her. Now he sees her only as a criminal. And he finally explained…

And since she has already stolen one of the stones, they send assassins to hunt down her hideout. To take the stones and kill her if she finds out the code. Matias said he would definitely bring nobles to justice. Now he has this evidence… She's a victim in a way, but that doesn't erase her crimes. He would judge her, too. "All crimes must be dealt with fairly and according to the law." This guy is really something… He can write slogans for politicians.

He takes her by the hand and leads her to the exit.

She jumped up to him and caught his arm. He stopped falling, but she couldn't pull him up. What about adrenaline, which helps us do much more than we expect from ourselves? No? It probably only works with mothers saving their child.

Even though it would be better for her to let go of his hand… She can't do that. He's a dear friend of hers. Even more than that…

Matias warned her to look back. A shadowy figure is approaching… Another assassin. But what can she do? She can't let go of Matias' hand. The sound of a knife being pulled out. And�� something… Fly through the air to the assassin. A heavy thud and the sound of a falling body. Something shiny fell off the cliff… Now I'm curious how big this stone was… to knock a man down…

Anyway, she now has enough strength to lift him up. Perhaps the adrenaline was finally starting to work. And she picks him up. And we are finally getting back to what was at the very beginning. He reaches for her mask to reveal her face… But he stopped in mid-movement to ask her why she had saved him.

Without answering, she asked him why he was helping her at the risk of his own life. The same as before. He had to hold bring her to justice… in perfect condition.

(hysterical laughter) Do you even hear yourself???

She asked him why he sacrificed an important evidence to save her. If he hadn't, they would both have died… It's a pretty convincing explanation. And there are 3 more stones, and one of them is most likely still in this cave. She thought it was true, she hadn't sold it yet. He asked her to answer his question. Why did she save him, what is her goal?

She thought that if she had a goal, she wouldn't feel that way because of how complicated their relationship was. She just succumbed to her emotions. And that's the most painful. She was silent for too long, and Mati asked her why. She replied that she loved him.

Why? Does your wife not allow you? But you don't have an imaginary wife here.

No, she wasn't trying to seduce him. He asks how she can love her enemy… That may be true for the phantom thief, but she's not the only that.

His hands, which were still holding her mask, were trembling slightly. She thought there was no way they could be friends again… And that's for the best.

Taking advantage of his momentary hesitation, she slipped out of his grip and increased the distance between them. She lowered her mask and looked at him. She told him that he was right, her actions were illegal, and she, like any other criminal, should be judged. But she can't let herself be caught.

So now they're arch enemies. She wouldn't be able to spend peaceful time with him in the bookstore anymore. She will run away from him with all her might, and he will do everything possible to catch her. If he catches her, she will be punished as a criminal. She's fine with that.

There are conflicting feelings in Matias' hostile expression.

Epilogue

Half a month has passed since this story.

Matias is in the courtroom as a prosecutor of the nobles who owned the "tears of the snow mother." Accusing them of concealment and conspiracy. In addition, he mentioned the killers they sent to kill Emma, which is also a crime.

They used the code from 3 of the 4 gems and found the money. And thanks to this, it became possible to bring charges against these nobles.

One of the accused nobles tries to accuse Mati of helping the phantom thief back there in the cave. After all, he had saved her. Perhaps they were in cahoots.

Originally the sentence was more complex. Like… A court is a place where people are judged based on evidence… etc. But I decided to shorten it to make it sound sharper. I see Matias as calm and collected but at the same time very prickly. His words hit the nail on the head, right on the topic. Without any preliminaries…

No, really, he has a talent for making up catch phrases…

After the trial, he visited the place where Emma's bookstore used to be. The store remains the same inside, but Mati this place feels empty (lonely). Immediately after the incident, Emma closed the bookstore and disappeared. He visited the orphanage where she had given the books, but they haven't seen her since.

He remembered a conversation they had once had. She went out in the rain to buy medicines for sick customers. He asked her to take care of herself, and she noted that she's stronger when she looks. If necessary, she could even turn over a big man. Mati asked her not to do this to him. And she replied that she would never do that… he's a kind man. He replied that it was good…

So cute...

Emma blushed at this remark of his…

He's sad that he can't be Emma's friend anymore. If he hadn't been to her bookstore last time, he wouldn't notice her secret. Moss on the floor… It is rare in the Arcolite and grows only in some caves. And thanks to that, he was able to find the phantom thief's hideout. As a result, he saved her life, but… The friendship was ruined. He corrected himself that he couldn't possibly have a friendship with a phantom thief from the beginning. They are destined to be archenemies…

A sudden shout caught his attention… He rushed towards the mansion. The nobleman showed the letter they had received… a warning… Mati thinks she hasn't run away from the country after all…

At night

A dark figure jumps out of the window. The soldiers waiting outside the building to give chase to her. Their eyes meet. Even though she was far away, he was sure of it. Matias orders his men to follow her… someone on the street, someone on the roof. And people follow his instructions… He thinks… "he will definitely catch her and bring to the justice for her crimes."..

A few of my thoughts

Matias believes in what is right and what is wrong, absolutely. He is like a solid rock, unchanging, immobile. And in this story we see Emma, who also has very strong beliefs. And she also refuses to back down from them. And their opinions are so different that they seem completely contradictory.

And this story shows us that Mati is starting to falter. Her absolute confidence, her desire to go to such an extreme to follow her own path, makes him doubt…

I believe that this is what will be on his route. And you can't imagine how excited that makes me.

Two contract concepts that collide and change to… something completely different. Right in front of us. It's like the birth of a star… I have goosebumps.

I have already mentioned that at first the story seemed boring to me, but now, after rereading it, I see much more. As I said at the beginning, it is layered and not as simple as it seems.

Both characters find it difficult to come to terms with their feelings because of the state their in… archenemies. It's like a line they can't cross. And if Emma understands her emotions well, she just suppresses them. Matias has no idea. He really looks like a stone, it's very difficult to move him, but he's moving… but slowly.

And his obsessive desire to condemn her seems very familiar to me, but I can't remember where I saw it. The righteous character feels that he needs to catch her, he is fixated on this idea. It's not just a desire to punish a criminal, it's very personal. Only he has the right to catch her, only he has the right to even chase her. At least that's how I see it.

And I like her desire for him to look at her… It's a very emotional part. If she just wants to help the poor, they are everywhere. So she could move to another city and never see him again. But she refuses to do it because she wants him to look at her… I really like this concept. I would like to see the continuation of this story.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

🔝 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕋 ℙ𝔸𝔾𝔼 🔝

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[missgraylock]

North and South: Beginnings - Chapter 4: Thievery and Reconcilement

Summary: A fragile peace has settled between North and South of the border. You and your cousin live a quiet life on a secluded farm, attempting to hide both your omega status and your origins.

After a faithful meeting everything is about to change, and your past hunts you down. But in your time of need, someone aids you from the shadows.

"North and South: Beginnings" is an omegaverse tale in a medieval setting, where our ensemble will experience plenty of fluff, angst and very steamy moments. Ateez is the main focus here, with Seventeen as their allies. Stray Kids is the enemy, but this is a fictional work that doesn't reflect the real life persons in any way (love you SKZ).

This is my first long fic and English isn't my first language, so bear with me. This work is not proof read. I have a goal to post at least one chapter a week, and it's going to be a long story. Buckle in!

pairing: reader x non-idol! San, reader x most of Ateez for the smut tbh

genre: romance, smut, angst, A/B/O, omegaverse, AU

chapter: 4 of many, word count is 6,4k for this chapter

rating: 18+ minors dni

warnings for this series: dom! san, unprotected sex (don't do this), oral sex (both receiving) fingering, group sex, breeding kink, pet names (good girl, pretty, etc.), lots of gratuitous smut, violence and blood.

for this chapter: descriptions of domestic violence, smut!

divider by: @cafekitsune

Masterlist / << Previous / Next >>

Do you prefer to read on AO3? 📖

This is a long chapter, but trust me—it pays off if you stick with it to the end *cough cough*

---------

Chapter 4

Thievery and Reconcilement

A disaster happens, and a chance to reconcile with San arises You’ve just put the roast on the dining table when your uncle enters the front door, his face grimacing in pain. Your aunt catches it as well.

“Has something happened?” she starts to get up from her chair.

“I just rolled my ankle and it’s swollen, but it’s not a big deal, please sit down dear” he tries to keep his voice as neutral as possible, but you can hear the strain. 

As you take a breath through your nose, there’s a hint of something familiar in the air, but it’s not something from your own household. It lingers in your mind. 

Your aunt huffs and walks over to him, helping him down in a chair next to the table. He collapses down, resting his foot on a low stool.

“A young man actually helped me,” You’d been a bit occupied with setting the table, but now your ears perked up. “very strong lad, from one of the northern clans.”

Leliana’s eyes meet yours, as she dons a cheeky smile. 

“Really! Tell us more about this mystery man uncle.” you narrow your eyes at her sudden giddiness. 

Your aunt chimes in, “one of the patrols perhaps?”

“Yes yes, so dutiful that he wouldn’t even come in for supper as thanks.”

Your eyes widen, and you feel a sinking feeling in your chest. Part guilt, part longing. 

Leliana senses your stress, but she’s still got a mischievous look on her face.

“What does he look like then?”, her question earns an amused chuckle from your aunt.  

“Well, somewhat tall, dark hair — like many young men around here I guess.” Your uncle shrugs, and Leliana groans at the lackluster description. 

“What? You know I’m not the best at these kinds of details,” you stop and study your uncle, wondering if the mystery man could be someone other than San — maybe some of his pack mates. You pick up on the unique scent again. It has a hint of that distinct pine tree freshness. 

“Wait, he did have quite deep dimples when he smiled — happy now?” Leliana turns her head to look at you, and she can’t help but notice how you struggle to keep your composure. Your uncle looks at you now as well — his eyes narrowing. 

“Wait, is something going on? Do you girls know him by any chance?” Leliana stays quiet, and leaves it up to you to answer. 

It has to be San. His scent is still in your uncle’s clothing, seeping faintly into the room. 

Your aunt looks at you expectantly now as well, but you hesitate as you quickly go through different scenarios in your mind. They might be angry or disappointed that you’ve interacted with a stranger, especially an alpha. On the other hand, you’ve already rejected him and you don’t like to lie. 

You decide to tell them about your two meetings, and how it culminated with you sending him off with his tail figuratively between his legs. You’ve explained how he gave you a gift, always kept his distance but also his quick advances and bold words, attempting to convince you to join him. They sit in silence, pondering. 

You had honestly expected them to scold you for even entertaining San. 

“Well, what he did for your uncle was very selfless, I must say.” Your aunt says matter of factly, as she looks at your uncle. “He seemed like a very decent lad indeed.” Leliana seemed to share your surprise at their measured reactions, her eyebrows now almost at her hairline. 

Your uncle clears his throat, as the mood in the room shifts from upbeat to something more melancholic.  

“To be honest girls, we always knew there would come a day when the outside world would catch up to you. We won’t keep you as caged birds.” 

Your aunt nods along solemnly.

“I just hope we’ve managed to make you good judges of character — there’s a lot of people out there who want to take advantage of you two, but there are good people that will enrich your lives as well.” 

“Maybe we’ve even done too good of a job,” your aunt smirks at you, hinting at your tirade at San’s proposal. Leliana giggles now, and you join in. 

Night falls, and it’s silent in your shared bedroom. Both you and your cousin are deep in thought — your aunt and uncle’s words replaying in your minds. Even though you’ve grown up within rather strict confines that often felt frustrating, they also provided predictability in your daily lives. After tonight’s conversation however, it really feels like your lives have opened up — the future is yours to navigate as you wish. 

As you close your eyes, you envision San’s face. It’s clearer than it’s been, possibly influenced by his scent lingering on your uncle’s coat downstairs. He gently waves to you from afar. 

You wake up to the sun filtering between the curtains, squinting from the bright light in the room. You peek over the window sill, a blue sky appears above and you can hear the loud buzzing of bees in the flower beds below. It was another beautiful summer day. 

You shook your cousin awake, and you dressed yourself in your lightest linen dresses. The day was made to be spent outdoors — more specifically in a cool river pool. 

After a quick breakfast, you grabbed a satchel and filled it with some leftover bread, a couple of apples and a hard cheese. 

You were about to head out the door when your uncle whistled sharply. 

“Bring the bow please, I’ve seen a mountain lion stalking not too far from here, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Archery was your choice of weapon, so you fetched the bow and quiver, swinging it around your shoulder, tightening it against your back. 

“Done, see you later!” the two of you waved at your uncle, barreling out the doorway.

---------

You skipped down the path in the nearby woods, your fingers interlaced in your cousin’s. The thought of immersing your overheating skin in the cool water made you giddy, free from any chores or other concerns for a while. 

As you arrived at the river pool deep in the woods, you stripped yourself of all your clothes and waded into the water. It was undoubtedly made up from the icy water of a rapidly melting glacier further up the mountains. As you swam around in peace, you had half expected Leliana to start asking about San again, but it seemed like she was uncharacteristically occupied in her own mind today.

You were both just enjoying the carelessness of having almost a whole day to do whatever you wanted, postponing the big and potentially consequential conversations for a little longer. 

You suddenly felt a shiver in your skin from the coolness, and decided it was time to reheat in the sun again. You pulled your dress over your head, wringing the excess water from your hair as you pinned it back up in a bun.  

“Well hello again pretty omega, remember me?” Your eyes shoot up at the sound of a man’s voice, as Hyunjin steps out from behind a tree. Another pair emerges from the other side, isolating you and your cousin from the path. Leliana is only a couple of meters away, but you stand frozen as your heart starts pounding in your chest. You feel vulnerable in your little dress and your bow out of reach.  

“Oh, you were right hyung — they truly are quite pretty”, one of the other men chimed in, crossing his bulging arms across his chest. It revealed a dagger on his hip, the hilt shaped after a crescent moon. They were undoubtedly from a southern clan.

“Delicious even” the third man states, slimmer than the one next to him — with darker eyes and an intense stare. 

You eye your bow and quiver on the ground.

“Don’t even try pretty, you better leave that where it is.” Hyunjin’s snake-like eyes are fixed on you, like he’s about to pounce if you make any sudden movements. 

“Oh, you’re the creep from the tailor?” Leliana challenges him, and his mouth snarls slightly. You can tell that she’s trying to buy you time to figure out an escape route, but your mind is too overwhelmed, drowning in adrenaline.

“Minho. Jeongin . Grab the bitch. I’ve got this one.” 

Leliana didn’t stand a chance, as the two men had already flanked her, grabbing her arms and wrestling them behind her back. 

Hyunjin was already charging you, and you could only back up — paralyzed by fear. As he was about to grab your arms, your fingers darted into your tousled bun. The next thing you knew, you jabbed at his eye with it, and he yelped in pain. 

“Fucking bitch! What did you do!” His hand was pressed instinctively against his hurt eye, as he was stumbling backwards, trying to find his footing. 

“Run [Y/n],” Leliana was screaming at you “you need to find help, please run!” 

You only had seconds to dwell on your conflicting feelings, but you knew she was right. You stood no chance against three men set on capturing you both. 

Minho and Jeongin were still confused by the spectacle in front of them, but Hyunjin had started to recover. In a split second you managed to grab your bow, swinging the quiver over your shoulder and started running. 

You felt tears well as you had to turn your back to your cousin, but you were prey now, and you had to run for your life. 

As your heart and mind raced, you took a quick glance behind you. Hyunjin started to chase you down now — your head start shrinking by the second. You were still a ways off the homestead.

“This is what you’ve practiced for” you tried to reassure yourself, pulling an arrow from the quiver on your back.

In an elegant turn, you were kneeling on one knee in the grass, angled towards Hyunjin. Your hands were trembling but you managed to release an arrow towards him. 

Hyunjin ducked, barely dodging your arrow.

He quickly looked back up. “Really you little bitch? You can’t even hit me!”

He started running again, only a few meters away now. 

It was your last chance. You pulled the bowstring in a lightning fast move.

Your shakiness made the arrow waver on its path, but it hit him on his lower thigh.

Hyunjin screamed as he fell to the ground. 

He was incapacitated, but you didn’t trust it to last very long. You saw him clutch the arrow, trying to yank it out of his now weeping flesh, cursing and groaning. 

Snapping out of the intensity of the situation, you got up and started running again. 

“You can run all you want, but we’re coming to get you!” He yelled after you — his voice almost drowned out by the loud and rapid heartbeat in your ears. 

You were almost at the homestead now, and you weren’t being chased anymore. A group of people stood on the porch, one of them catching sight of you. 

“They took her!” You cried at them, recognizing your uncle among some of the neighboring farmers. 

You crashed into him — your hands clutching the front of his shirt.

“Hey, slow down, what happened?” He looked down at you concerned, the other men gathering around you.

“Southerners, they took her. They took Leliana.” Tears ran down your cheeks now, the full impact of what had transpired hitting you like a ton of bricks.

“Where are they?” Your uncle cupped your face now, trying to keep you focused.

“By the river pool,” you pointed towards the woods “one of them was chasing me but I shot him in the leg, I think he’s still back there.” 

Your uncle gave a quick glance to the men around him, nodding. 

“You’re going to stay here now, promise?”

You gasped, shaking your head.

“No! I can help! Please uncle!” You were fully sobbing now.

“No chance. It’s not safe, go inside and lock the door — now!” Your uncle's authority was undeniable, and you hung your head low in resignation.

He was suddenly off, the rest of the men in tow. You stood with your face in your palms, trying to catch your breath in between the sobs. You made your way into the house now, your mind racing about your cousin. Terrible scenarios appeared, but it was out of your control. As soon as you were inside, you made sure to lock both the locks on the outer door. 

Your uncle had gathered the men around the dining table, with his arm around your shoulder. Your eyes were red and puffy now, and a quiet anxiety was pulsing through you. 

Your aunt looked equally concerned, making a ruckus in the kitchen to keep herself occupied. 

“So all we have is a broken arrow and blood on the ground where [Y/n] shot one of them, and the girls’ items left behind.” Your uncle sighed.

You had all hoped to find them, or at least capture one of them. 

“There was quite a lot of blood though, she probably hit an artery.” One of the neighbors chimed in, giving you an acknowledging nod. 

“I think we can rationalise that they’re keeping Leliana alive, but we definitely need help getting her back. They could be part of a large clan and even have allies at the ready.” They all hummed in agreement.

“I’m seeking out the closest northern clan, they’re going to be capable.”

You leaned further into your uncle’s embrace, the knot in your chest loosening slightly at the mention of rallying to get your cousin back. 

“I found this by the way, is it yours?” You perk up, as your uncle presents an item in his palm. San’s hairpin.

You were on horseback now, your arms stretching around your uncle. You were heading for the Ateez patrol outpost, as you got directions from one of the nearby farmers. 

It dawned on you that you’d see San again, and you didn’t know what to expect. Your mind was occupied by Leliana, and you wondered if the clans would get involved in something that could potentially escalate conflicts. The peace had been resting on a knife’s edge for years now, and you had never really experienced turmoil in your adult years. 

As you arrived at the cabin, a tall, slim figure was already heading out the door. 

When he spotted you, he waved inside for the rest of the men to exit. 

“Greetings, you seem to be in a rush?” He enquired, as your horse came to a stall. 

“Yes indeed, my niece has been abducted by a southern clan, identified by a dagger.” 

Three men were gathered outside now, two of them towering above a shorter, yet well built man. You could see the surprise on their faces. This was the first time in years there had been an actual breach in the underlying rules and morals keeping the peace. 

“That is very grave, and it sounds like time is of the essence, like it often is with abductions.”

Your uncle nodded quickly.

“I’m Yunho by the way, from the Ateez clan. This is Mingi and Jongho.” They both lifted their hands in a silent greeting towards the pair of you. 

“I’m Marcus, this is my niece [Y/n], we live at a homestead only a few kilometers away.”

The men cast a knowing glance at each other by the mention of your name. 

You’d been quiet so far, but you couldn’t help yourself. 

“Is-is San around?” You met Yunho’s eyes, and they softened immediately. 

“He went back to our clan home earlier today, but I think it’s best we all go there now. A situation like this needs to be handled rationally, but it’s acute of course.” Yunho said reassuringly. Your uncle agreed. 

Jongho went back into the cabin to pack up their essentials quickly, as Mingi rode down to the homestead informing your aunt of the situation. 

“Let’s get a head start, they’ll catch up to us later,” Yunho swung elegantly over his horse “follow me.”

---------

After what felt like ages later, a massive timber manor manifested itself in an opening deep in the pine wood forest. It had several smaller dwellings surrounding it, a whole acre full of different sorts of vegetables, a field of trees and bushes you reckoned to be an orchard, as well as a sturdy stone fence surrounding the sizable perimeter. 

San’s words were true — this was a clan with their shit together. 

As your horses approached the stone wall gate, its doors opened and a figure appeared. 

“Marcus? What are you doing here?” It was San. 

You peeked from behind your uncle’s back, and your eyes met. San gasped, and it felt like the world stood still. You swore you could hear your heartbeat out loud, as you disappeared completely in his deep brown eyes. 

Younho cleared his throat, breaking the obvious tension between the two of you.

“San, we have an emergency, her cousin has been abducted by a southern clan just a few hours ago, we need to gather everyone.”

San snapped out of the moment with a dazed look on his face.

“Gather everyone — yes, yes of course.” 

Even though the situation was grave, Yunho couldn’t help but suppress an amused smile.

San sprinted up towards the mansion’s entrance, as Yunho led you towards the stables. 

A few moments later you were at the doorstep, two large wooden doors in front of you. They had fine, ornate carvings of flowers and branches. You slid your hand into your dress’ pocket and let your fingertips slide across the hairpin you’d pocketed. 

Yunho opened the doors into a large entranceway, with a wide staircase in the middle.

“They’re probably gathered in the living room, come with me.” He took a turn left, and led the way through a hallway. Its walls were made of timber, decorated by framed paintings and dried flowers. You wondered if the men had made these themselves. You took a deep breath through your nostrils, and the smell was incredible. It was like an explosion of flowers, trees and grass, with accents of herbs and fruits. 

You heard the sound of voices buzzing now, entering a large room that somehow still felt very cozy, featuring a fireplace and several couches and cushions spread across the floor.

You instinctively scanned the room for San’s face in the group of men, and he was already looking at you. 

A shorter man with sharp features turned around — an aura of authority radiating off of him. 

“Marcus and [Y/n] I presume, I’m Hongjoon — captain of the Ateez clan.” He gave you a slight bow, and you both bowed back.

“I hear your niece has been captured by a southern clan? I’ll need all the details.”

Yunho led you and your uncle to sit on the couch, and San sat across from you. His distance seemed intentional. A smaller man with an attentive and friendly face settled next to you. “Hi, I’m Wooyoung, are you ok?” He whispered in your ear, and you instantly felt a genuine warmth from his words.

“I’m ok, I think, I’m just very worried.” Tears started to gather in your eyes again, as Hongjoong conversed with your uncle. 

Wooyoung offered you his open palm, and you decided to lay your hand in his, as he carefully interlaced your fingers.

“You’re an omega right? I’m one as well.” Your eyes widened as you barely had met other omegas before, and it just deepened the bond that was rapidly forming between the two of you. Wooyoung carefully stroked over your thumb with his. 

“Yeosang is also an omega,” nodding towards an angelic being sitting in one of the corner couches, leaning into a man with sharp features just like Hongjoong’s. 

“that’s Seonghwa, Yeo’s mate — he’s an alpha.” You took in Seonghwa’s inherent elegance, as he listened intently to the discussion in the room. 

“You’ve already met Yunho, Mingi, Jongho and San I guess?”

You turned to meet Wooyoung’s eyes at the mention of San’s name. 

He smirked a bit now, as you realised that he had heard about you before. 

You felt San’s eyes on you, but you didn’t have the resolve to look at him right now. The intensity of the day was catching up to you, and you felt completely drained. 

You could hear doors slamming in the distance, and soon enough both Mingi and Jongho entered the room. 

Hongjoong rose to his feet, clearing his throat.

“Alright everyone, here’s the situation we’re in. One of our own has been abducted by a southern clan — a clear breach of the agreements in the peace treaty.” The mood in the room was tense as the captain spoke.

“It’s unacceptable, and we need to do something about this quickly — not only to show that we’re strong, but to save [Y/n]’s cousin here.” His gaze dropped to you, giving you a careful smile. The rest of the men gave you a sympathetic look. 

“It’s important that we don’t escalate this any more than necessary, so I will seek advice from both the Seventeen and Got7 clan. My instinct tells me that it’s worth meeting with the southern clan responsible to try to negotiate first.”

You gnawed on your lip, something in your gut telling you that Hyunjin’s clan wasn’t the negotiating type. 

“Yunho, Jongho, I’m sending you back out to inform the other clans about the situation.” 

They both nodded, already standing up.

“The rest of us here, we need to have a backup plan for the patrols, as well as taking stock of our armor and weapons — they need to be in tip top shape. Just in case.”

The gravity of the situation felt overwhelming, and without really thinking about it, you rested your head on Wooyoung’s shoulder. You could hear a small purr from his chest, as he wrapped an arm around your back.

“Marcus, [Y/n], you’re free to stay here as guests. I understand if you want to go back to your home, but there could still be vital information both about the attackers and Leliana that would be useful to us.”

“Of course, we can stay until tomorrow, but I need to get back to my wife then, I don’t like the thought of her staying by herself at the homestead now.”

Hongjoong nodded. 

“Yeo and Woo, can you show them the guest rooms? I’m sure they’re tired and need to rest up, it’s nightfall already.”

Wooyoung basically bounced off of the couch in excitement, running down the hallway.

Yeosang came up behind you, shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, he can’t contain himself sometimes, we don’t have visitors that often.” You gave him a light giggle, and he smiled sincerely back at you. 

Before you left the room, you turned around to look at San. He looked like he was about to follow you, when Mingi laid a hand on his chest to ask him something. 

His eyes flickered between you and Mingi as you disappeared further down the hall. 

Wooyoung and Yeosang were quick to make up your guest rooms. They were lavish with large windows, and their own bathrooms. 

You couldn’t wait to dive into the huge bed. 

“I left some extra items for you [Y/n], a robe, water bottle, hair and tooth brush, but just come knock on my door if you need anything else please!” Wooyoung suddenly wrapped his arms around you, and you froze for a second. Then you fully accepted his embrace, and took in his calming omega scents — the bond between you felt like something only akin to the one you had with your cousin. 

You hugged your uncle goodnight in the hallway, closed the door and quickly slid under the covers. When the mansion started going quiet, the singing feeling in your chest intensified. It was like a vortex of anxiety, all the painful and dark emotions creeping through your mind and manifesting in your physical form.

Hours passed and sleep eluded you completely. You couldn’t stop seeing her pained face as she yelled at you to run. 

You needed to change strategies if you were going to get any rest tonight. 

You slipped out of bed only wearing a short slip provided by Wooyoung, your bare feet shuffling silently across the cool floors.

You were now in the dimly lit hallway — a row of doors on both sides. Right across from you hung a little plate with a scribbled “W” on it, and you decided to gently open the door.

You spotted Wooyoung's unmistakable little shape under a blanket — his mixture of black and bleached locks poking out on the top.

“Woo?” You whispered.

To your surprise, his eyes peeped up from under the blanket.

“[Y/n], is everything okay?” his voice was hazy.

“Yes, I just… I can't sleep. I feel so bad.”

Wooyoung pulled his covers open, holding them up as he sliding further into the bed.

“Come here. I'll hold you.”

You closed the door behind you, and settled in next to his warm body. It didn't feel awkward at all — it felt familiar and somehow just right.

Wooyoung spooned you, as you finally closed your eyes and drifted off.

---------

You woke slowly to a soft knock on the door. Mingi's face appeared. “Woo?” 

Wooyoung was still asleep, nuzzled in your neck.

Mingi realised that both of you were in the bed, and you could tell that he did a deep intake of air through his nostrils. You swore you heard a low rumble from his chest, as the scent of two warm omegas hit him. Your eyes met, and you could feel the heat from his gaze. He bit his lower lip ever so slightly. 

Wooyoung stirred awake now, his hair going in all directions as he rubbed his eyes. 

“Yes Mingi?”

Mingi snapped out of the trance he was in.

“Breakfast, coffee — it's all waiting for you upstairs.”

Wooyoung stretched his arms, yawning dramatically. 

“We'll be there soon!”.

You’d both slipped into something comfortable, and Wooyoung took great pleasure in brushing through your long hair. 

“So San’s clearly in love with you.” You could see his teasing smirk reflected in the mirror.

“Stop it, don’t you think we have more pressing matters right now?” You huffed, not able to fully hide your amusement.

Wooyoung kept smirking, “what if I told you that he saved my life — well kind of.”

He sounded more serious now.

“Really?” You left it up to Wooyoung to elaborate.

“Yes, my family sold me off to an older alpha who mated me by force — ” You did a sharp intake, “He’s beat me overy anything — if he thought dinner was served too late, if he found strands of my hair on the furniture, I was constantly walking on eggshells.” 

You turned around and looked Wooyoung in the eyes. He didn’t seem affected.

“It’s ok, it’s been years now. Anyway — we had to stay at the inn in town once, and San witnessed him punch me. He actually beat the shit out of him.” He grinned.

“He saw all my bruises and wondered if I had a safe place to stay, and when I said I didn’t-he offered me to stay here for a while. I never left.” 

You wrapped your arms around Wooyoung in a tight embrace. 

“He’s pretty wonderful you know. Just not the most eloquent.” You giggled, and you felt something bubbling in your chest. An excitement to get upstairs and see him. 

Wooyoung patted your head gently, and grabbed your hand — pulling you with him upstairs.

The smell of pancakes and fresh coffee was overwhelming, masking the alpha scents slightly. 

As you entered the kitchen, Mingi, Seonghwa, Yeosang and San were already in deep conversation around the dining table. They all turned around when you appeared.

“Good morning sleepy heads” Seonghwa gave you a warm smile, “[Y/n], your uncle is getting a tour of the grounds from the captain, they’ll probably be back soon.” You nodded gently. The space next to San on the bench was vacant, and you decided to sit down next to him. His face lit up in surprise.

“Hi.” you said softly. A pink flush rose in his cheeks.

“Good morning, did you sleep well?”

“I did, really well actually, despite Woo clinging to me like a bear cub.” You could hear Woo protest as he prepared two cups of coffee at the kitchen counter. 

They all laughed now, and the mood in the room felt comfortable and relaxed. 

San leaned closer to you. “Are you leaving today?” he said in a hushed voice, wanting to keep your conversation between the two of you. You could feel your thighs brushing together, and the energy between you two was charged and almost crackling.

“I was thinking I might stay, if my uncle and Hongjoong agrees — I want to be a part of this, getting her back.” 

San nodded. “I hope you’ll stay.” His whispering voice was laced with sincerity and longing, and you could tell he was holding himself back from touching you. Wrapping an arm around you. Reaching for your hand. Anything.

Wooyoung placed a coffee in front of you, and a plate with banana pancakes, berries and cream. You squealed in delight, and San grinned next to you. 

Hongjoong and your uncle entered the room now, and you took the opportunity to explain why you wanted to stay longer. They didn’t see any issues with it, and you could positively feel San’s excitement radiate off of him when he realised you’d stay. 

---------

You hugged your uncle goodbye in the entrance hall, promising to send him a pigeon if there were any new developments. San stood behind you, his protective alpha energy out in full force now that you had reconciled. 

“[Y/n], can we talk in private?” You nodded, and he reached for your hand.

You took it, and he led you to the empty living room. He closed the door behind you, pulling you down to the sea of pillows on the floor. 

He opened his other palm. An invitation for you to lay your hands in his. You did, and the magnetic draw between you was palpable. 

“I’ve been a pompous idiot. I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I was in the wrong and I also rushed you when we barely knew each other. I just couldn’t help but feel like you were already mine.” 

The honesty in his words sent a deep pang right into your chest. You let go of your grudges that were already just hanging on by a thread.

“I forgive you, whatever is between you and me is confusing and intense. It can probably cloud our judgment as well. Your alpha just got really eager and I felt like I had to protect myself.” You could see the relief soften his nervous face.

“Can we start over?” His thumbs gently stroked your fingers now.

“Good idea.” You smiled at each other. 

Before he could say anything else, you leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss on the lips. He winced slightly at first, but recovered quickly, leaning back into your kiss. Weeks and weeks of yearning culminated in this moment between you. 

You wrapped your arms around his neck as you kiss deepend, and the world completely disappeared around you. 

San’s hands were on your hips now, lifting you into his lap. 

He pulled away from your lips for a second, your noses brushing against each other.

“Do you know that you smell like roses, the pink ones that bloom early in the summer,” You giggled at his sincerity, tucking back the hair that had fallen into his eyes gently. 

“Having my rose petal in my arms like this — it feels so right. Like it’s meant to be”. 

You preened at the nickname.

“San.” You whimpered, leaning even closer into his embrace.

“I love it when you say my name like that. The little sounds you’re making, I don’t know if I can hold myself back anymore.” 

He crashed his lips into yours again, as the intensity of your kiss was escalating. You cupped his face as his fingers slid up underneath your camisole. His fingertips were ghosting up your sides now, stopping at the lower outline of your breasts. 

“Can I touch you more, my petal?” he whispered.

“Yes San, please, I need more.” A rumbling sound originated from deep in his chest, a golden hue flickering in his eyes. 

He let his thumbs swipe over your stiffening nipples, and a shiver of pleasure ran down your spine. He lifted the camisole over your head, discarding it among the pillows. His swollen lips detaching from your kiss, moving down to your breast instead. You could feel the flicker of his tongue against your nipple — his hand was on the other, pinching you slightly as you moaned softly down towards him. 

He leaned you backwards now, until your back was laid against the soft pillows. Your hands were under the hem of his shirt, pulling at it. He grinned at your eagerness, pulling his shirt off. He cupped your face in his hands now, as you felt the weight of his heavy body on yours — his broad chest flush to your bare breasts. 

You spread your legs slightly, letting him settle in between your thighs. You could feel his hardness pressing against your core, as he nudged it slightly against you, making you whine and wriggle under him. He leaned back to a kneeling position, his fingers at the hem of your shorts. He looked at you asking, and you gave him a nod, biting your lip. 

He pulled them completely off of you, letting his hands slide back down your thighs. Your breath was heavy, and the air in the room was filled with your scents and anticipation. 

“Just relax, I’ll take care of you.” Before you could respond, his lips was on your inner thigh, leaving a trail of small love bites and kitten licks along it, getting dangerously close to your core. 

The next thing you knew, you could feel the flat of his tongue against you, as he dragged it slowly and teasingly upwards. You moaned loudly, feeling yourself getting wetter at his attention. He licked at you slowly, only lingering at the top as he sucked on your bud lightly, making you intertwine your fingers in his hair. The pleasure was so overwhelmingly intense that you pressed him slightly towards you, making him groan into your core. He was fully eating you out now — like he had been starving for weeks. 

You suddenly felt a fingertip teasing your entrance, swiping the wetness around it. He pushed his finger slowly into you, and you clenched down. He found the grooved spot, and slipped another finger in, rubbing it slowly. 

“San — don’t stop.” you whined, making him even more eager to please you. 

His movements were faster now, his fingers pumping rhythmically in and out of you, while his lips surrounded your bud — sucking and swiping at it. 

You felt your orgasm approaching quickly, and pressed his head against you as your hips buckled and your back arched. San kept at it, prolonging the ripples of pleasure that waved through your body.

“I love seeing you like this, all fucked out by my hands,” he looked up at you, his hair damp and lips all swollen and red now. 

“That was — it was incredible San,” You tried to catch your breath again as you slowly came down from your high. 

“It’s my turn now”

San had laid down on his back next to you, and you quickly straddled him. 

“You don’t have to do anything petal, we have all the time in the world.” he said earnestly.

“I know, but I want to” you cocked your head at him, pleading. He laughed slightly, his hands resting on your thighs, rubbing small circles. 

You started to slide down until you knelt between his legs. He was rock hard and leaking, his heavy cock resting against his trail of dark hair. The sight of it made you salivate. 

One of your hands was resting on his hip, as the other gripped the base of him. You gathered some spit in your mouth, letting it drip out from your lips, spreading over his tip. San was already groaning from the sinful display in front of him. His bare naked omega taking care of him so well. 

You wrapped your lips around him, sliding him in against the back of your tongue. San’s hands were in your hair now, gathering it at the back of your head to keep it from being in the way. 

“That feels incredible, just like that.” 

You looked up at him with his cock hitting the back of your throat, meeting his already fucked out eyes. Seeing him this pliant under you just spurred you on, as you started taking him in your mouth in a steady rhythm. As you kept a firm grip on his base with one hand, you snaked the other underneath it, cupping his balls gently. His hips bucked at your touch, and you let your thumb swipe against the delicate skin while you kept your movement going. 

“You’re going to make me cum, please — ”

“Cum in my mouth San, I want to swallow all of it.” Your dirty words were extremely effective, and you could feel his cock starting to pulse.

He pumped ropes of warm cum at the back of your throat now, shaking under you.

You swallowed it diligently, and pumped him gently to avoid overstimulating him. When he was empty, you sat back looking at him, reaching your tongue out to show your empty mouth.

“Holy shit, that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced. My girl is incredible.” he panted.

You giggled, getting a bit shy now from the filthiness of it all, sliding down besides him. He reached his arm around your shoulder, pulling you in so your head rested on his chest, intertwining your legs. 

“We’re so screwed, how are we going to keep our hands off of each other now.” 

You both started laughing at his statement, as your bodies relaxed from the pleasures of your orgasms.

“Who says we have to?” You replied, as San pulled you closer, reaching for a blanket nearby to pull across your naked bodies.

You suddenly heard a knock on the door. You looked towards it, seeing Wooyoung’s face appear in the doorway.

“Oh there you are — wait, what the hell, what have you two been up to?” He basically yelled out.

“Woo, please lower your voice” San tried.

“It smells like sex in here! You two sure made up fast, haha!”. 

San chucked a pillow in Woo’s direction, keeping you close in his other arm. 

“Anyway, you’re both needed upstairs. Cheol and Jaebeom have arrived.”

Masterlist / << Previous / Next >>

---------

Taglist: @flambychan

[lostsolutions]

Purgation

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Reader 1k Word count

TW: Some mention of Ghost's shit life, a tadbit of violence, Simon Riley as a weird feral dog allegory.

Simon “Ghost” Riley who is unapologetically, and stubbornly, not a man built for change.

Why would he be?

Has he not changed enough when he came crawling, clawing, out of the grave? Did he not already adapt to the maggots in grey matter and corpse dirt coating the inside of his lungs? Hasn’t he made enough room for the Ghost to reshape who he was down to the stardust in his bones?

He was forced to change enough times over.

A little boy to an angry teen to a soldier to a walking shadow.

From Simon to Ghost.

Scarier by far than the bastard who screamed at his children and brutalized his wife.

A metamorphosis facilitated by the bloodied hands of man and emerging from a chrysalis patch worked together out of gunpowder and other peoples’ final moments. Enough change to last him several lifetimes over.

It’s why you set his teeth on edge.

Soft, sweet thing you are. Changed in your own way- he can see it in the deceptively subtle set of your shoulders. A stubbornness that rivals his own in the way waves beat against a cliffside. Eventually one will win out against the other, but it’s impossible to tell which of you is being eroded away to make room for the other.

It doesn’t matter.

You’ll make room for him regardless. You have to. It’s the only choice you have lest he let his tongue roll past bared teeth, jaw unhinging to swallow you whole the way he wants to. The way Ghost wants to take the spun sugar of you and greedily indulge before anyone else can get the idea of buying you off the shelf. A confectioner's treat that should be rotting out his gums before someone else can even think to try and get a taste.

You’re smart enough to know better than to tempt that reaction from him though. Gentle hands smooth over the jagged edges of his face and croon little praises that drip over his violence until the rotten core of him is caramelized. The deadened look in his eyes is a glaceéd chocolate that warms on the end of each syllable. Never demanding, no, you never demand anything of Ghost. You offer the candied pieces of yourself so readily and without expectation of him. Satiating the thing he has become. 

The least the world owes him is a sugared bird that moves to accommodate the space he decides is his own.

You get all prettied up and, while grumbling, he’s grabbing his keys to take you out because it means he gets to swat at your ass and tilt his head to catch a glimpse past your skirt all night. The little shrieked giggles each time get the specters in between his ears to shut up.

Opening doors for you always gets him one of those kisses where you have to push up as far as you can on your toes to reach his cheek. The huff of frustration you let out as you tug on his arm, and when he refuses to move an inch, keeps the embers in his chest from icing over. Returns the feeling to the ends of his fingers.

Snatches the billfold off the table with a gruff “Fuck off, Bird” at the slightest twitch of one of your pretty painted nails. He’d pay for dinner the same way he paid for you to go to the Salon. You weren’t going to quit your job, and he wouldn’t demand it since you needed something to do when he was off on deployment anyway, but the way you squirm in your seat when he refuses to let your wallet see the light of day sticks in his ribcage.

Ghost didn’t need to change for a single fucking person on this rotten, burning planet.

Simon Riley wasn’t going to either. The name becomes just as interchangeable as the callsign.

So he- hallowed husk that he has become-  takes, takes, and takes.

A haunting that has settled into your life and metastasized inside your ribcage. Inoperable and parasitic, leaching what it wants and doing whatever mundane nonsense it needs to keep such a warm, willing host alive. The chords of the song he sings to keep you perched on his window scratch at an unused voice box but still you preen with every “Swee’eart”. A capacity to give freely has long since left him, but he wants and it’s easy enough to determine what he needs to do to reach his objective. 

Your wants, your desires, your needs become nothing more than something for him to analyze and pick apart just to piece them back together as he sees fits. Each new combination unlocking a reward. He learns which ones give him affection, the ones that make you vulnerable, and which ones get him buried between your legs all in equal measure. An assorted collection of sweets for him to pick from the box based on his mood.

Simon “Ghost” Riley has suffered enough change to last until the cosmos have wiped his contemptible deeds from all memory, until nothing exists that his hands have ever dared touch. 

So until hell itself has swallowed him whole he’ll do what is needed to slake his thirst with your own divinity. He has no need for communion. Reconciliation and confession utterly useless to a man who is more beast than not. His wants are iniquitous but what does it matter so long as he does not snap the wings held in his hands? Is that not just of him? To just let his teeth rest against the artery, and not let his jaw lock tight? Just a taste. You’ll let him, won't you Bird? Sweet thing you are. Too sweet for such a rotten bastard–

[mydearzero]

After Hours | Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x fem!Reader

Summary: Clean shaven. That was how you knew Bob. But while you were away on a mission, he'd decided to change up his look. Who knew just a little facial hair was enough to shine a new light on the man and drive you absolutely insane?

Contents: SMUT, porn with some plot, fem!reader, No Y/N, thunderbolts!reader, Bob is taller than reader, reader has hair long enough to get in your face, matchmakers Ava and Yelena, shower sex, Oral (f receiving), Penetrative sex (p in v), slight overstimulation, unsafe sex (wrap it before you tap it!!), creampie. If I missed any warnings please let me know!

WC: 4.4K

18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

Masterlist

A/N: As I've made very clear and made it everybody's problem, I'm currently going fucking insane over Lewis Pullman. Watched The Starling Girl, was not okay afterwards, wrote this. Bon Appétit.

Clean shaven, undetectable facial hair. That was how you knew Bob. You weren’t even sure he was able to grow any facial hair, until you’d spotted him in the bathroom one morning. Shaving was part of his morning routine. For a long time, he’d just preferred the look and feel.

Until last week. 

You’d been overseas for a mission, nothing unusual. You returned, debriefed and made your way back to the tower, just like you’d done many times before. Not everybody was at the tower, but then again, it was once in a blue moon everybody was there at the same time. It was just Ava, Yelena, Bob and you for today, it seemed. 

You took off your shoes, placing them on the rack next to the elevator. The sound of your heavy bag dropping to the floor caught the attention of the room’s occupants. Such dangerous people, yet they hadn’t heard the elevator? You met each of their eyes, giving them a tired but warm smile. Your smile faltered ever so slightly, eyebrows raising, at the sight of Bob. He looked different. 

He was wearing a black t-shirt. Short sleeves, you noted. Not something he wore often. He preferred to wear longer sleeves to cover some of the scarring on the inside of his elbows, understandably so. That was in the past. The shirt looked good on him. Very good. 

It was not the main attraction, though. He had stubble. More than a five o’clock shadow, but not a full beard. Probably a few days of growth, at most. But dear lord did it change his whole look. Bob noticed the extra attention you were paying him, insecurely rubbing his hand over the stubble and turning his attention back to the TV, away from you. 

“Hey guys…” you finally spoke. You tore your eyes off the back of Bob’s head, meeting Yelena’s amused gaze. “What’s going on?” 

“We were just watching a movie, you’re welcome to join, if you want,” Ava invited. 

“I’m just gonna go put my stuff in my room and change and then I’ll join you,” you agreed. Bob casually put his arm on the back of the couch, leaning back, and your eyes snapped to the exposed skin of his biceps. You knew he had some muscle on him, so why did you feel like a sinner seeing a woman’s ankles in the 1800’s? 

You grabbed your bag off the floor and hastily made your way to your room. God, what had gotten into you? Sure, Bob was very sweet. Why had your mouth gone dry at the sight of him, today of all days? 

You unpacked your bag, throwing the dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. You grabbed a change of comfy clothes and changed into them, finally being able to unwind after a week away. You already felt more relaxed just by being back in the tower. It had really become your home over these last few months on this new team. 

You walked into the kitchen to grab some snacks and a drink. Damn it. The one thing Walker and you had in common was your favourite brand of chips. Did he really have to put them on the tippy toppest of shelves? You were convinced he only put them there so you wouldn’t be able to reach them. Bastard. 

“Need a hand?” Startled, you whipped around. Bob was closer than his voice had sounded. He was already reaching over you for the chips. You were now faced with his chest and the new stubble on his chin. He put a hand on your waist to steady you. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he chuckled. He put the chips on the counter, grabbing a bag of M&M’s for himself. You took a deep breath to steady yourself as he moved away to the fridge. You followed his movements, frozen against the counter. 

“Thirsty?” He asked, holding up a bottle of soda. 

“Huh?” You blinked. You are a grown woman. Why are you getting distracted by him like this? 

“You want a drink?” He had grabbed a glass for himself, offering one to you, too. 

“Oh, yes, please. Thanks.” He poured two glasses to the brim. 

“How was the mission?” He asked. You grabbed the snacks and the both of you walked back into the living room, putting your stuff on the coffee table. 

“It was good. Quite uneventful, really. No wonder they sent me to go alone,” you shrugged. Surveillance for a full week without any real action. Boring. 

“Well, at least you didn’t get hurt,” Bob smiled. You returned it and sat down next to him on the couch, on the free spot between him and Yelena. If anybody were to hold you at gunpoint and ask what movie they’d been watching that night, they might as well shoot you. Your eyes were on the TV, but your mind and peripheral were preoccupied with the man to your right. 

You knew Yelena noticed. Ava too, probably. At this point, you didn’t care. You were enthralled. He looked so different. It had only been a week. Had someone dosed you with an aphrodisiac on the plane back or something? Because it sure felt like it. 

He absentmindedly ran a hand through his hair and pushed it out of his face, and just like that, you were done for. The nonchalant action was so hot, it wasn’t fair. You were starting to get angry with yourself, but also with him. Stupid Bob. Stupid beard. Stupid heart that won’t stop beating at a thousand BPM. 

“What did that bag of crisps ever do to you?” Ava asked, interrupting the silence. You looked down at your hands. You were grabbing the bag as if it had killed your family and owed you money. You had eaten one, maybe two hands of the stuff before your cravings had dwindled. Or shifted, more like. You were definitely craving something– someone else now. 

“Sorry,” you chuckled, releasing the bag and deciding to just put it on the table. “Probably still a bit tense from the mission.” 

“Hmmmm, right. I thought you said it was uneventful?” Yelena questioned. 

“Uhu,” your voice went up an octave, betraying your lie. Bob gave you a curious look. You refused to return it, scared what you might do if you made direct eye contact right now. 

Before you knew it, the credits rolled over the screen. Ava cleared the table and took everything to the kitchen, leaving you alone with Yelena and Bob. Yelena turned to you. 

“So, what do you think of Bob’s new look? Quite dashing, no?” She proposed. Smug little– You were so going to get her back for this one day. You slowly turned your eyes to Bob, who was patiently, though anxiously, awaiting your answer. 

“It uh– Looks good. Different,” you replied, scared to give yourself away. 

“Different? Is that a good thing? Or…” Bob’s face had fallen, though only a little. He was masking the insecurity, but you saw it either way. 

“No, no– I mean– Yes, it’s a good thing. Good different. Looks good,” you choked before he could feel any worse about it. 

“I’m not too sure about it, yet. Think I might shave it tonight.” 

“NO. I mean. Why don’t you give it a little longer? It’s only been what, a week? Just test it out for a while,” you laughed awkwardly. 

“Hmmm, I don’t know…” Bob pushed a hand through his hair again. It was getting long. You closed your eyes and turned back to Yelena. Anything to spare yourself this torture. Yelena was barely containing her laughter. If Bob had any clue as to what was happening, which was unlikely– the man was as dense as lead– he didn’t show it. 

“Well, I think it looks great. Makes him look a little more rugged. Don’t you agree?” You were going to kill Yelena Belova. It would be difficult. You would make it slow, torturous. 

“Yup! Definitely more rugged. Hey, where has Ava walked off to?” You changed the subject. Speaking of the devil, she walked back in with a cup of steaming tea. 

“I’m gonna go shower. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but please don’t kill each other while I’m gone,” Bob joked. So he had noticed Yelena was pestering you. He got up off the couch and walked down the hallway towards the bedrooms. 

The second Bob turned the corner out of sight, you jumped Yelena, reaching for her throat. “I’m gonna fucking kill you,” you threatened. She wrangled your arms away from her throat and laughed loudly. 

“I think you have more important matters to concern yourself with,” Ava interjected. You stopped wrestling Yelena into the couch, though you kept your grip on her wrists tight. 

“Like what?” You asked Ava. Yelena took that opportunity to flip you around. You groaned as your back hit the couch.

“Well, first of all, I think we all know you’re underneath the wrong person right now,” Ava laughed. Yelena laughed too, having finally rendered you powerless. Damn Russian spies. 

“But I’m pretty sure a shower means a shave, too. There might still be time to stop him, if you hurry,” she shrugged, sipping her tea. 

“God, was I really that obvious?” You gave up. Yelena released your wrists, and you got up, brushing your hair out of your face. 

“I think if it had been any more obvious we’d have to call a plumber over to investigate a leak,” Yelena said, catching her breath. Your jaw dropped at her words. 

“What? It’s true. I mean we knew you were into Bob, but the heart eyes you gave him when you walked in? Astronomical.” 

“What do you mean ‘we knew you were into Bob’?” You put quotation marks around it. The thought had hardly even crossed your mind before tonight. Both women laughed as if you’d made the funniest joke imaginable. 

“What do you mean ‘What do you mean’? You’ve been drooling over him ever since–” Ava was going to spill, but Yelena held her hand up, stopped her. 

“You’re saying you weren’t into Bob before tonight?” 

“I mean, he’s cute. But… I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it, I guess.” 

“But we’ve been trying to–” Ava was once again cut off by Yelena. 

“The beard is all it took? That was all he had to do?” Her voice held a tone of disbelief. 

“The t-shirt helps, too…” you admitted sheepishly. It was only then that it registered what Ava had said. “FUCK, you’re right. He can’t go shave now!” Your eyes shot towards the hallway he’d disappeared into, before meeting Ava’s. 

“Well what are you waiting for? By all means, go stop him.” she gestured towards the hallway. 

“Go stop him?? I can’t just waltz into the bathroom and say ‘Hey, don’t shave because then I can’t imagine what your stubble will feel like between my thighs while you’re eating me out.’ I have no–” The amused shock on their faces spoke for them. You closed your eyes and turned around, where Bob stood with his jaw slack. 

“We’re out of towels…” was all he said. He quickly walked into the laundry room, grabbed towels and hurried back to the bathroom. You turned to Ava and Yelena, unsure of what to do. 

“Well he knows, now. What’s stopping you? Go climb him like a tree! Show him some of those wrestling moves you showed me just now, while you’re at it,” Yelena shoved you off the couch. 

“You guys are horrible and I hate you very much,” you grumbled, getting off the floor. 

“Yeah, yeah. You can thank us later,” Yelena got up and used all her weight to push you towards the hallway. You stumbled over your feet and dragged them to Bob’s door. You hesitated before knocking lightly. You held your breath as you heard him shuffling around before opening the door. 

Bob Reynolds stood before you with only a towel hanging dangerously low on his hips. In all the months you’d lived at the tower, you had yet to see him without a shirt. That in combination with the new facial hair? Murderous. Lethal. 

He was about to speak but was cut off as you decided to throw everything to all hell and just push into his room, place your hands on his face and pull him in for a kiss. He quickly recovered, putting an arm around you and using the other to quickly slam and lock the door behind you. The tenacity with which he kissed you was addicting. 

He finally pulled away to breathe. “If I’d known you liked it that much–” he started, interrupting himself with a soft moan as you kissed up his jawline. “I’d have grown it out months ago.” 

“Shut up,” you said breathlessly. You ran your fingers through his hair and pulled him against your lips once more. You gripped his locks tightly. His stubble felt rough against your face. He toyed with the hem of your shirt, unsure whether to take it off. You helped him take it off, making quick work of throwing it in a random corner. Your sweatpants followed, leaving you only in your bra and underwear. 

“I should–” Bob spoke between kisses. “–at least go turn the shower off.” It had been on all this time, steaming up the bathroom and in turn his bedroom. 

“We can shower together, if you want,” you suggested, fingering the edge of the towel still tightly wrapped around him. 

“Yeah– Yeah I pick that option,” he smiled, leading you into the bathroom and shutting the door. You took off your bra and shimmied your panties down your legs, kicking them into the corner. The towel around his waist was gone. You put a hand on his abdomen, softly passing over his abs down to his hard cock. 

“All for me?” You whispered. 

“Yeah, you painted quite the picture back there. Something something, me eating you out?” He cradled the back of your head and brought you in for a soft, sensual kiss. You lazily stroked him, getting a feel for his length. You didn’t know what you’d expected. He was big. 

He pushed you into the shower, soaking you with water. He brushed your hair away from your face, slicking it back so it wouldn’t get in the way as it got wet. His own hair fell in front of his eyes. He slicked it back once more before trailing kisses down to your chin. Your hands came up to his chest, steadying yourself. You leaned against the cold, wet tile of the shower when he kissed your neck hungrily. 

He mouthed at your body, quickly sinking to his knees. The water hit him so beautifully. He gently rubbed his chin against your thighs, teasing you. The stubble tickled, sending goosebumps up your spine. He moved on to the other thigh, holding both of them in his hands. He peppered kisses all the way up your legs, making sure to leave a trail of tingles behind wherever his beard had made contact with your skin. 

You were growing impatient, but he took his time. Your breathing was rapid, and he hadn’t even done anything yet. He tenderly pulled at your legs. “Open them for me, baby,” he sounded as breathless as you felt. You obliged, making room for him to nestle himself fully between your thighs. The higher he worked with his mouth, the more sensitive you became. He leaned his cheek against your thigh and gazed up. It was a hungry, depraved look. You ran your fingers through his hair again, silently begging him closer to where you needed him most. 

“Gorgeous,” he whispered, and placed a soft peck on your inner thigh. He was so close, yet he kept kissing around where you wanted him. He didn’t break eye contact when he finally placed the smallest of kisses on your pussy. You’d never seen him so confident as in that very moment, on his knees between your legs. He brought his face closer and started sucking your clit. Your knees felt weak at the sensation. The added coarseness of his beard was the perfect combination of soft and rough. 

Your head hit the wall harshly as you threw it back, a loud moan echoing from your lips. He made out with your cunt as if he was a man starving. Your grip on his hair tightened when he experimentally added a finger into the mix, circling your entrance. 

“Fuck, Bob,” you moaned, wishing he’d just put it inside. You bucked against his face, seeking more friction. His beard was going to leave a rash if you kept this up. Somehow, you didn’t care. 

A deep moan rumbled from his mouth against your clit. The sensation was so good, your other hand reached down to tug him closer against it. He chuckled, another sound that had no right feeling that good when being made against your skin. 

He pushed the finger inside, slowly working you open. Not that you needed it, at that point. You were soaked, and not just from the shower. The things this man did to you. Within no time he added a second finger, scissoring you open. 

Heat built in your core as you quickly got closer and closer to the edge. You no longer had any control of the soft noises escaping your lips or your fingers tightening in his hair. Your toes curled and you squeezed your eyes shut. He added another finger, then. 

You peeled your eyes open, enthralled by just him. He was humping the air absentmindedly at the same rhythm his fingers were working inside of you, desperate to be touched. He couldn’t touch himself though, one hand preoccupied holding you up, the other curling its fingers inside of you. He was dedicated to getting you to come in his mouth, and he was succeeding fast. 

He circled his tongue around your clit just right. A high pitched keen left you as he curled his fingers against your G-spot repeatedly. You could feel your legs starting to tremble. His grip on your thigh tightened, determined to keep you standing. You ground against his tongue, breathing erratically. 

“Shit, Bob. I’m gonna come,” you warned. He kept going, sucking and licking until you snapped. 

“Come for me,” he groaned. “Come on my mouth.” 

Your vision went blind for a second as you came, riding out your high on his fingers. 

“Fuck!” You moaned, uncaring of who’d overhear. 

Bob kept sucking, kept thrusting his fingers against that perfect spot. You hissed and tugged at his hair, trying to get him to get up. He didn’t relent. 

“Taste so good,” he groaned. “So wet.” 

He took his fingers out, leaving you feeling empty. You were glad for the break, but his lips worked overtime. A newfound passion arose inside him to get you to come again now that he had a hand wrapped around his cock. He stroked idly, more focussed on your pleasure than his own. 

“I– I can’t. Fuck,” you whined. Your body was on fire, the hot water pouring down on you not helping your case. How the man hadn’t drowned yet, whether from your pussy or the shower, was beyond you. 

“Yes you can,” he grumbled. “For me?” It sounded so innocent. His pupils were blown wide as he sought eye contact, pleading you to come again. It was building up quickly. You hadn’t even caught your breath from your previous orgasm. Just as you were about to tip over the edge again, he stopped abruptly, standing up. 

A frustrated sob escaped your lips, but it was cut off by a desperate kiss. You could taste yourself on his tongue. 

“Want you to come on my cock,” he mumbled. You nodded quickly, taking him in your hand and stroking him. He put his hands around your waist and lifted you up like you were a feather. God, that super strength was a turn-on. He pushed you against the wall of the shower and lined himself up. He didn’t waste any time, pushing himself to the hilt. 

He moaned loudly in your ear as he bottomed out. It was the sexiest sound you’d ever heard. 

“F-fuck. So tight– God,” he couldn’t complete a sentence as he began rhythmically pounding inside. You held onto him for dear life. You were still so, so close. He kissed you hard, like this was his only chance. You leaned your head against the wall, lips sputtering as the water hit your face. 

“Bob,” you moaned. He sucked harshly at the bottom of your jaw. His hips snapped harshly, the sound of skin against skin vulgarly echoing through the bathroom. You tightened your legs around his waist, trying to get him to go deeper. 

“Waited so long for this,” he gushed. “Wanted you so bad.” 

“Yeah?” you replied breathlessly. He was mesmerized by the way your tits bounced with every thrust. 

“Mmhmm. Didn’t think you wanted me,” he admitted, peppering more desperate kisses on your neck. 

“I do. Shit,” you whined. “So much.” 

“Fuck, baby. Come on my cock. Come for me, please,” he pleaded, hips speeding up. 

Your nails scratched at his back, no doubt leaving red trails behind. You dug into his shoulders, gripping them tightly. The muscles underneath your fingers were sturdy. 

You came again with a loud wail of his name. You put your hands on his face, tugging him against your mouth and kissing him deeply. You couldn’t stop kissing him. Couldn’t stop feeling that delicious stubble against your chin. It scratched your palms as you caressed his face. 

His hips stuttered against yours. You could only hope the sound of the shower drowned out the sound of his balls slapping against your cunt with every harsh thrust. 

“Cum inside me,” you begged. “Please, need it.” 

“Fuck, are you sure?” Bob asked, ever the gentleman. 

“Please, Bob.” That sent him over the edge, shooting his spend inside of you. 

“Shit,” he whimpered. His palm made contact with the tiles beside your head, cracking on impact. Neither of you seemed to care at that moment. Your eyes sought his, and you found them glowing. He held you tight as he rode out his orgasm, lazily pumping inside of you as the water washed away your sweat. 

He held you against him, still holding you up against the wall. He let his head fall against your shoulder as he caught his breath. Both of you gasped lightly when he finally pulled out, cum dripping to the floor of the shower, immediately washing down the drain. 

He gently put you back down, careful to not let you slip. Your legs felt weak. You wrapped your arms around his neck to keep yourself up. You tugged him down, craning your neck so you could steal another kiss. 

You kissed softly for a while, before deciding you’d wasted enough water. He took his 2-in-1 shampoo and squirted some on his hands. He put some in your hair, softly massaging your scalp. You held your arms around his waist as he worked the shampoo through your hair. 

“We’re going out tomorrow and buying you some actual proper products. Who still uses 2-in-1 shampoo?” You scoffed. He laughed and agreed. 

“Okay, boss.” You smiled up at him as you let the water wash away the suds. You took some of the shampoo and returned the favour, washing his hair. He had a dumb smile on his lips the entire time, looking down at you lovingly. 

The same process repeated with his body wash. It wasn’t anything special, but you loved the scent. It smelled like him. He roamed your body with his hands, massaging your shoulders as he went. He spent some extra time fondling your chest. You still hadn’t fully recovered from the heated session just now, yet you could feel the fire starting again. 

“Hmmm,” you moaned. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.” You washed down his abdomen, and already found him hard again. 

“Superhuman stamina, remember?” Bob grinned. 

“Amazing,” you sighed. You gave him a few experimental tugs, and he hissed, gently slapping your hand away. 

“Doesn’t mean I’m not sensitive.” 

You finished up in the shower and realized there was only the one towel to dry the both of you. You made do and walked into Bob’s room. 

He lent you a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. “I didn’t know you owned several short sleeved t-shirts,” you joked. 

“I don’t wear them very often,” he laughed, putting on some sweatpants and a sweater. He looked like his cozy self again, if you didn’t count the stubble. The very very sexy stubble. 

“Well, I like you in them. You should wear them more often. Really highlights your biceps.” You flexed yours as a joke. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater and mirrored your pose. 

“God, if you do that we’re never going to make our way out of your bedroom,” you groaned. 

“Good. Then I’ll never have to shave again.” Bob wrapped an arm around your waist and placed a kiss on the top of your head. 

“Please never shave again. It’s so hot. Like. So hot.” 

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Asshole,” you slapped his chest. 

You walked out to the living room together, ready to face the music. Ava and Yelena were still where you’d left them, on the couch. At the sight of you, both grinned. 

“About time, loverboy,” Ava commented. 

“Remind me to never buy a razor again,” Bob said as he plopped down on the couch. 

“I’m gonna personally shave your face in your sleep if this is gonna be a recurring thing. My poor, poor ears.” Yelena groaned. You threw a pillow at her face, which she caught, of course. 

“I’ll kill you for real if you do, Belova,” you threatened. 

“I’d love to see you try.” 

You were about to jump her again, but Bob pulled you against his side. You melted into his hold. You could get used to this. 

[heesmiles]

MAMA, I'M IN LOVE WITH A CRIMINAL P.JS

೨౿ ⠀  ׅ ⠀   ̇ 24k ⸝⸝ . ‌ ׅ ⸺ word count.

pairings 𝜗𝜚criminal ! jay ៹ rival family ! kang ! reader ᧁ;smut ˒ angst ˒ violence ˒romeo and juliet au

warnings ⊹₊ ⋆ smut body worship fingering (in a church) angst graphic depictions of violence dark themes (i’m being serious) kidnapping held captive death injuries forbidden romance romeo and juliet au some toxic religious beliefs small town vibes ft taehyun (txt) ft yunah (illit) ft felix (stray kids) made up names for jay's parents fictional death of real life idols

in which ୨୧He was a mystery. One you didn't know if you could solve. Hidden behind the shadows of his past and his duty to his family. He was no man for you, no. You needed a good man, a man that could provide and you knew that. So why did you want him so bad? No matter how dangerous, no matter how wrong.

★ ! rain's mic is on ⋆ ͘ . lord. I seen a tiktok edit to Britney Spears 'criminal' with jay and I literally couldn't stop thinking about it. I'm a sucker for Romeo and Juliet type of stories and jay is so perf for this. Also; I hope you guys will understand the ending to this — i tried to make it clear that i was not romanticizing the things that happened in here but also make it known that not everything is black and white in the world; sometimes decisions are more complex than just simply right or wrong. If you have any questions on my intentions with the ending; feel free to respectfully ask and i’m more than happy to explain. There will be no part two. THIS IS A REPOST.

The chapel smells like old pinewood and older secrets. You sit between your brother and your mother, stiff in your Sunday best, your spine straight as the hymnals stacked behind the pew. The stained-glass windows cast slivers of color across the congregation, blood reds, bruised purples, the blue of a cold winter sky. Light falls like confession, quietly and without permission. You are not paying attention to the sermon. You never do.

The pastor drones on at the pulpit, words like smoke dissolving into the high beams of the chapel ceiling, but your mind drifts toward the murmuring of silk dresses and the creak of wooden pews, toward the undercurrent of small-town theater playing out in god’s house. Your father sits to your left, a statue carved of stone and pride. You feel the tension in his body like a heat source; silent, simmering, the kind of rage that has long since been iced over by responsibility. Your mother holds Minji in her lap, fingers curling gently around your little sister’s arm, but her eyes are watching everyone else in the church. 

The pews smell of lemon oil and something more human, powder and old perfume, the sweat of people trying to look holy. Minji starts kicking the pew in front of you, gently at first, like she’s testing the patience of the wood. Tap, tap, tap. Then harder. Thud. Your brother, Taehyun, flicks her a warning glance, but says nothing. You lean over, whispering sharp and low, like the way your mother does when guests are over “Minji. Stop.”. She glares at you with the full offense of a seven-year-old wronged. Her lip trembles. You already know what’s coming before she opens her mouth. 

She starts to cry; loud, wet, dramatic sobs that echo off the vaulted ceiling like thunder in a quiet storm. Heads turn. A few old women in floral skirts give sympathetic glances; others look annoyed. The pastor doesn’t pause, but you feel the church shift, the way it always does when something unscripted happens. Your mother turns to you, lips tight, voice sweetly cutting.  “Take her to the bathroom,” she hisses, her nails brushing your wrist like a warning. “Now.” You nod, standing and tugging Minji’s hand. She follows, sniffling, dragging her feet like she’s on the way to execution. You step out into the aisle, heat rising in your cheeks from the attention; most eyes pretend not to watch, but you feel them. You always feel them. Small towns are built on watching. You rush to the bathroom in the very back of the church, closed off and muggy. Surrounded by a long hallway of doors upon doors with who knows what in them. 

The bathroom smells like baby powder and old tile, the kind of sterile clean that never truly feels clean. Minji is humming a made-up song to herself behind the heavy door, the sound broken now and then by the rush of the faucet and the scrape of her shoes against the floor. You lean against the opposite wall, arms crossed, eyes flicking across the narrow hallway that leads deeper into the back corridors of the church; the kind of place children are told not to wander and adults forget to remember. It’s quiet here. Too quiet. You can still hear the low cadence of the sermon through the walls, like a heartbeat underwater. But underneath that; there. A sound. A sharp rustle, then a low thump. Muffled. Human. 

You stiffen. For a moment, it’s nothing. Could be a broom falling over, could be the wind sneaking through the stained glass seams. But then it comes again: a grunt, quick and strangled. Another thud. You glance toward the end of the hall, where a door hangs slightly ajar. Beyond it, darkness pools like ink in the corners of the church’s storage room. A place for old hymnals, broken nativity statues, forgotten folding chairs. You shouldn’t move. You know this. Every instinct in you, trained by caution, by family, by a lifetime of walking straight lines, tells you to stay planted, to wait for Minji and return to your seat and never speak of what you thought you heard. But curiosity, you’ve learned, is a quiet rebellion. A whisper that grows teeth. 

So you walk. Slowly. Barefoot-quiet in your heeled shoes. You reach the door, place your palm on the wood, breath hitched in your throat like a prayer waiting to break. You lean in, ear to the crack. Another grunt. And a voice; feminine, breathy, choked with a sound you’ve only ever heard behind closed doors in dramas you weren’t allowed to watch. You flinch, but your hand betrays you, fingers curling around the handle like it belongs to you. And then you open it. 

The light from the hallway slashes across the room, carving shadows into skin. You freeze. Park Jongseong. His back is bare, muscles flexing like a marble sculpture brought violently to life. His shirt is bunched around his waist, and his hands are on a girl. A girl you recognize, barely. Yumi. Her mouth is open in a gasp that doesn’t get the chance to leave. Her dress hiked up like it never belonged to her in the first place. Their limbs are tangled, their sins so vivid it feels like you're watching a sacred text being burned. Jay looks up. His eyes catch yours like a knife catches light. They widen, not with guilt, but with recognition — you, of all people. The breath leaves your lungs like glass shattering on cold tile. You slam the door so hard it rattles the frame.  

You’re trembling, though you don’t know if it’s from shame or shock or some strange cocktail of both. You spin around, heart thudding a war drum in your chest. Minji is just stepping out of the bathroom, drying her small hands on her dress. She doesn’t notice the way your hands shake as you reach for hers. Doesn’t see the way your eyes are wide, unfocused, filled with something that shouldn’t be there. “We’re going back,” you say, voice too high, too sharp. She doesn’t argue. Just nods and follows you, humming again, a tune too sweet for the ruin in your chest. 

You walk back into the sanctuary like a ghost in a girl’s body. You sit beside your mother, folding your hands in your lap like nothing happened, like you didn’t just see sin spill in a place meant for salvation. Your father doesn't glance at you. Taehyun doesn’t notice. But your mother turns slightly, just enough to give you a once-over; the kind that sees everything and says nothing. She thinks the crying was too much for you. She thinks you’ve been startled by your sister’s fit. And maybe she’s right, in a way. You’ve been startled. You’ve been unmade. 

And across the church, hidden in the shadows of holy silence, you feel him. Jay. And it’s not just what he did. It’s not just the shame of seeing it. It’s the way he looked at you. Like you were the one caught. Like he had nothing to hide. You stare straight ahead at the altar, but your mind stays in that room, with the taste of heat and velvet breath and the raw burn of a boundary shattered. You were innocent. Now, you’re aware. And awareness, you’re beginning to realize, is the beginning of every great tragedy. 

The service ends with the gentle hush of murmured amens and the rustle of Sunday clothes brushing past one another like leaves in a breeze. The congregation begins its slow migration out of the pews, a tide of polite smiles, handshakes, and the same conversations they’ve had for years, wearing different dresses. Your mother and father slip easily into their places; your father all firm nods and clipped words, your mother like a practiced socialite, her smile painted just perfectly at the edges. You, Taehyun, and Minji remain behind, lingering in your spot like the forgotten echo of a hymn, three children carved from the same silence. 

Minji swings her legs, her little shoes knocking against the pew in soft rhythm. She’s already forgotten the earlier outburst, too busy playing with the lace trim of her dress and watching Soojin across the room with an expression that flickers between curiosity and envy. Taehyun leans back, arms crossed, eyes roving lazily over the crowd. You try not to look for him. Not for Jay. But your eyes betray you like they always do, wandering before your mind gives them permission. And there he is. Standing by his mother, tall and lean like a shadow at sunset, too sharp around the edges to be beautiful, but too striking to ignore. Jay. His hands are in his pockets, posture relaxed, but there's a glint in his eye, dangerous, knowing. His mouth tilts into a crooked, unbearable smirk when his gaze meets yours. 

Like a match lit in the back of your throat. He knows. He knows you saw. You look down instantly, cheeks burning, staring at your shoes as though they can explain how to erase memory. But there’s no forgetting the picture burned into your eyelids. No way to smother the sound of that half-stifled breath, the friction of skin, the fall of a name not yours. You hear your name drift through the air like a ripple over still water. “Come here, sweetheart,” your mother calls, her voice sweet enough to sting. You rise on instinct, smoothing your skirt with trembling hands, and walk the long aisle toward her like you’re walking a tightrope, each step balanced between ruin and restraint. 

She stands with Jay’s mother, who is dressed in pastel pink, too pristine for the venom coiled beneath her voice. Their conversation is coated in sugar, but you can hear the brittle underneath; like porcelain tea cups about to crack. “Oh, she’s grown so much,” Jay’s mother says, her smile wide and empty. “Just lovely.” Your mother laughs, high and bright like wind chimes in a storm. “Time goes fast. I can barely keep up.” 

You can feel their words curling around you like ivy, decorative and choking. You nod, bow your head politely, try not to flinch as Soojin skips up to Minji and pulls her by the hand to the patch of grass outside the chapel. They giggle, bright as birdsong, unaware of the blood history buried beneath their fathers’ names. And beside them, like a wolf in Sunday clothes, stands Jay. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to. He looks at you like he’s still in that room. Like he can still see you there, wide-eyed, breathless, trembling at the threshold of something you shouldn’t have witnessed. His smirk deepens, lazy and cruel, and you feel it all the way in your stomach.

Your skin prickles. “What the hell was that look?” Taehyun mutters behind you, his tone low, edged with suspicion. He nudges you sharply with his knee, and you nearly stumble. You keep your eyes on your feet. “Nothing,” you say, too quickly. “I’ll tell you later.”

Taehyun narrows his eyes but doesn’t push. He knows you. He knows when to wait. You stand there, between your mother and your enemy’s mother, with your hands clasped and your mouth sewn shut, while your past, your present, and your sins walk the churchyard outside; laughing like children, smirking like boys who don’t believe in consequences. You think maybe you don’t either. Not anymore. 

The conversation begins to wilt, as all forced things do; smiles sagging at the corners, eyes flicking elsewhere in search of escape. Your mother and Jay’s mother trade the kind of compliments that glitter like broken glass: delicate, dazzling, and meant to cut. Behind them, laughter ripples from the church lawn, where Minji and Soojin chase each other in slow, dizzying circles, their dresses fanning out like blooming petals, too young to know the soil they’re rooted in. You glance once toward Jay, who leans against the edge of the wooden steps with his hands still buried in his pockets, his dark hair curling slightly at his temple, his expression unreadable now, less amused, more distant, as if even he feels the weight pressing down from generations above him. And then your father arrives. 

He moves through the crowd like a tide against stone, unyielding and deliberate. The chatter quiets a little wherever he steps, the way air thins before a storm. You feel him before he speaks; a presence that coils around your ribcage and makes your breath shallow. His eyes are sharp beneath the brim of his hat, and when he stops beside your mother, you see the brief flicker of something harden in Jay’s mother’s posture. “Mrs. Park,” he says, voice even, smooth, but cold in the way marble is cold. “Where’s your husband this fine morning? Too busy for the Lord?” 

She blinks once. Her smile holds, but only just. “Business,” she replies. “He’s out of town, dealing with a shipment issue in the city.” Your father’s silence stretches just long enough to make everyone feel it. “I’m sure he is,” he says finally, the words slow and heavy, like stones dropped into a still pond. The implication hangs there; thick, clinging, undeniable. 

You feel your stomach twist. Even the sun seems to dim for a moment, slipping behind a lazy cloud as if to shield its eyes. Your mother steps in like a practiced violinist interrupting a wrong note mid-performance. Her hand grazes your father’s elbow with the familiarity of a thousand such interventions. “Well,” she says lightly, too brightly, “we should be going. The roast will overcook if we linger much longer.” She turns to Jay’s mother with that polished grace only women in battle can master. “It was so lovely catching up. Truly.” 

Jay’s mother nods. Her smile has slipped further now, the edges brittle. “Of course. Always.” You’re ushered away quickly, your mother’s hand at your back firm and urging, her pace brisk as she gathers Minji from the grass, calls for Taehyun, and pulls your family together like a shepherd herding sheep out of a lion’s den. No one speaks until the church doors are behind you, the air suddenly cooler, less suffocating.

You’re nearly free. The gravel of the church path crunches beneath your shoes as your family moves forward, a cluster of matching postures and purposeful steps, like soldiers retreating from a battlefield dressed in Sunday best. The weight begins to lift from your chest, bit by bit, with every step away from those lingering glances and brittle conversations. You tell yourself you’ll forget what you saw, that it was an accident, a fleeting mistake swallowed by stained glass and holy silence. But just as you pass the old oak tree near the chapel gate, a hand snakes out and closes around your wrist. You freeze. The world seems to narrow into a pinprick.

Jay. His fingers are calloused, his grip strong; not enough to hurt, but enough to root you to the spot like a nail through your spine. He’s close. Too close. His face is calm, cold, carved from the same shadows that seem to cling to him even in the daylight. There is no trace of that smirk now. No mischief. No boyish charm. Just steel. “Don’t tell anyone what you saw,” he says, low and sharp, each word slicing into the quiet like the snap of a branch underfoot. “Or you’ll regret it.” 

There’s no drama in his voice, no raised tone, no overt threat. Just certainty. Like a promise. Or a prophecy. Your breath lodges somewhere beneath your ribs. You can’t even muster a word, only a nod, small and trembling, as your heart begins to stutter inside your chest like it’s trying to run ahead of you. He lets go as suddenly as he appeared, melting back into the periphery like a sin you can’t prove you committed. The imprint of his touch remains, hot and phantomlike, as you hurry back to your family with your head down and your thoughts unraveling at the seams. You slip into step beside them just in time to hear your father’s voice break the fragile calm. 

“If I ever catch you talking to the likes of Park Jongseong,” he says, without turning his head, “I will ship you off to a convent so fast you’ll be reciting rosaries before supper.” The words hang in the air, stark and heavy as thunderclouds. “Yes, Daddy,” you say softly, your voice a breath against the wind, your eyes fixed on the ground. And that’s it. No argument. No protest. Because even if you wanted to fight, what would you say? That you didn’t talk to him? That his hand found yours, not the other way around? That he threatened you? That you saw something you can’t unsee?

No. You say nothing. You bow your head like the good girl you’re supposed to be. Like a daughter dressed in obedience and stitched with silence. But beneath your skin, something writhes. Something that feels a lot like shame and a little like fear, but more than anything, like curiosity warped by danger. And as the chapel disappears behind you, you realize this is how it begins. Not with a kiss. But with a warning. 

That night the dining room is warm with the scent of roast chicken and buttered root vegetables, the table laid with modest care, linen napkins folded neatly, wine glasses filled just a touch too high, as though the evening itself demanded the illusion of celebration. Outside, the crickets begin their song beneath the veil of twilight, and the house hums gently with the quiet rituals of family: chairs scraping wood, silverware clinking like distant bells, Minji humming to herself between bites of mashed potatoes. 

You sit across from Taehyun, who nudges your foot under the table once, curious, wordless, but you give him nothing. Not yet. Your mother, dressed in her favorite pale blue blouse, cuts her meat with careful precision, while your father, ever the figure carved from unyielding stone, sips from his wine like it's an act of judgment rather than indulgence. The conversation flits from the mundane to the mechanical, your father talking about a shipment delay, your mother noting the fundraiser next month, Taehyun making a dry comment about work. You listen halfheartedly, moving food around your plate, your thoughts wandering back to the church, to the oak tree, to the ghost of a hand still wrapped around your wrist. But then your mother says it. 

“So,” she begins lightly, as though she’s offering a dessert menu instead of kindling a fire, “Jiyo invited us to dinner next Saturday.” The clink of your father’s knife against his plate is immediate. A small, sharp sound that lands like a gavel. 

“She what?” he says, his voice too calm, the kind of calm that thins the air. Your mother waves her hand, trying to dismiss the storm before it forms. “Just a friendly gesture. She said she’s wanted to reconnect. It’s been years since we’ve sat down like civilized people.” Your father laughs, but it’s humorless, a short, cutting sound like a blade being tested. “And you said yes?”  

“I said I’d think about it.” 

He sets down his fork, dabs his mouth with a napkin, and leans back in his chair like a man preparing to deliver a verdict. “You know how I feel about Chul. That woman chose to build her life beside a snake. What makes you think we owe them the performance of kindness?” 

“She’s not her husband,” your mother says, her tone still soft but no longer passive. “She’s always been sweet to me. To the kids. Especially when you were… gone.” The word lingers — gone — and you feel it hit the table like a dropped stone. Your father’s jaw tightens. “There’s nothing sweet about a woman who lays down with scum and lets him poison the earth around him.” 

“Well,” your mother says, straightening her back, her voice sharpening to a whisper-thin edge, “then I suppose I must be just as rotten. I married a man who once made deals with him too, didn’t I?” The silence that follows is deafening. Your father turns slowly to her, his expression unreadable but his eyes like winter; the kind of cold that doesn’t melt come spring. “Say that again?”

Your mother holds his gaze for half a second longer, a war trembling behind her lashes. But she looks away. She says nothing. Only returns to her plate and cuts her chicken in silence. And that’s it. The conversation dies. No one breathes too loudly. Minji doesn’t notice, she hums and chews and swings her feet. Taehyun reaches for the salt, eyes flicking to yours with quiet warning. Your appetite vanishes like mist in morning sun.

Outside, the wind brushes the windows like fingers trying to get in. Inside, you realize that your family is not made of glass, but of iron, bent into shape by betrayal, rusted over with resentment. And some metals, you think, cannot be reforged. Only buried. 

The night unfurls like silk, cool and gentle, stitched with stars. The backyard hums with crickets and the distant rustle of trees whispering secrets to one another in the dark. You’re curled on a poolside lounge chair, the spine of your book bent beneath your thumb, but your eyes have glossed over the same sentence three times. The page is just a veil now; something to hide behind while your mind wades through the wreckage of the day. The pool glows a soft, pale blue beneath the surface lights, and Taehyun slices through it like a blade through water. His strokes are steady, strong, the kind of motion that speaks of routine, of something he’s learned to rely on. You envy that; his ability to push everything down, to lose himself in rhythm and breath and the sound of water folding in on itself. 

You sigh and adjust your legs, the night air cool against your skin. Sometimes, in rare hours like this, you let yourself believe Taehyun might be the only one who truly sees you. The only one who knows how to read the pauses between your words, the weight behind your silences. Besides Yunah, who is far away tonight, it's always been him; your confidant, your reluctant protector, your brother. He swims one final lap, then glides to the edge and pulls himself out in a single fluid motion, water streaming off his skin in rivulets that catch the dim light. He grabs a towel from the back of a chair and rubs it through his hair, gaze flicking toward you, unreadable but searching. You wait. You know it’s coming. 

He sits at the pool’s edge, legs dangling in the water, shoulders still rising and falling from exertion. The silence thickens, until finally he breaks it. “What was that today?” he asks. “At church. Jay looked at you like…” He pauses, frowns. “And then he grabbed you. What the hell was that about?” You close your book slowly. The words don’t come easily. They never do when shame tangles them first. But this is Taehyun. If there’s anyone you can give them to, raw and imperfect, it’s him. 

“I saw something,” you begin softly. Your voice is barely a whisper, as if the night might shatter if you speak too loudly. “In the church. When I took Minji to the bathroom.” His eyes don’t leave your face. “There were… noises. From one of the storage rooms. I thought someone was hurt,” you say. “But when I opened the door, it was—” You hesitate. “It was Jay. With some girl. Yumi, I think. They were…” 

Taehyun groans, dragging a hand down his face before you can even finish. “Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah,” you murmur, hugging your knees to your chest. “I slammed the door shut. I didn’t even mean to see it.” 

“And that’s why he grabbed you?” Taehyun says, his voice laced with disbelief and anger, a storm gathering behind his words. “That’s why he gave you that look; like he was daring you to open your mouth.” You nod. “He told me not to tell anyone. Said I’d regret it.” 

Taehyun curses again, sharper this time. “What a goddamn asshole.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees, shaking his head like he’s trying to physically rid himself of the thought. “He treats people like shit. Always has. He walks around like the world owes him something for the family name he was born into. I don’t care how tragic his little story is; his dad screwing over ours, his mom pretending to be sweet, he’s just as rotten.” 

The silence stretches again, heavy with unspoken fears and the slow bloom of something darker. “He’s sick for doing that in a church,” Taehyun mutters, his voice low and hard. “And then threatening you about it? He’s lucky it was you who saw him and not me.” You glance at him then, at the way his jaw clenches, his hands balled into fists against his thighs. It should comfort you, the fierceness in him, the way he leaps to your defense without question. But instead, it only deepens the ache inside you. Because no matter how wrong it is, no matter how much your brother’s fury burns bright and righteous, there’s a whisper in the back of your mind that still wonders what it is about Jay Park that makes your heart stutter like that.

“I won’t talk to him,” you say quietly, more to convince yourself than him. “Good,” Taehyun says, looking over at you. “Because that boy doesn’t just bring trouble. He is trouble.” And yet even as the stars blink overhead and the pool water laps gently against tile, you feel the echo of Jay’s voice coil around your spine like smoke. You know what you saw. And worse; you know what you felt. You tuck your head against your knees and close your eyes, wishing the night could swallow the memory whole. But some things, once seen, never go quiet again. 

The house is still, cloaked in the velvety hush of after-hours, when dreams drip slow like honey and silence wraps around the walls like an old lover. The moon hangs low outside your window, its pale light slanting across your bedroom floor like an invitation, or a warning. You wake to something — not a dream, no — but the low hum of voices bleeding through the stillness, muffled and sharp, like the scrape of metal under cloth. Your breath catches. You sit up slowly, ears straining. The clock beside your bed reads just past three. The voices murmur again. 

You slip out of bed on bare feet, the cold floor biting against your skin as you tiptoe to the door. The hallway yawns long and dark before you, stretched like a corridor in some haunted chapel, the air thicker here, like it's been keeping secrets of its own. You hold your breath and follow the murmurs, each step soft, careful, barely there. The kitchen glows faintly ahead. dim yellow light spilling out like spilled whiskey beneath the doorframe. You press yourself to the wall and lean forward just enough to see. Your father stands near the table, sleeves rolled up, a glass untouched by his hand. Taehyun leans against the counter, arms crossed, face grim, eyes flickering toward two men you’ve never seen before, older, stern, the kind of men who carry weight without needing to raise their voices. They speak in hushed tones, but the tension rides every syllable, thick and bitter. 

“…can’t let them find out we’re disturbing their shipments,” one of the men says, low and urgent. “If Chul gets wind of it, he’ll burn this town down to find the leak.” Your heart jolts. Shipments? Leak? “They already suspect something,” the second man adds, fingers drumming against the table like a metronome counting down to disaster. “That little punk, Jay, he robbed one of our guys. Sent a message. You know what that means.” 

Your father’s face is carved from stone. “Of course I do.” Your stomach twists. Jay. “He’s getting reckless,” the man continues. “Acting like he’s untouchable. We don’t deal with people like that.” 

Taehyun’s voice is calm, but edged like a blade honed too long. “He can try,” he mutters. “If he comes near our side again, I’ll handle it.” Your blood runs cold. There’s no hesitation in his tone, only the promise of violence. Your hand flies to your mouth, breath trembling through your fingers. The room spins slightly, your body suddenly too small, too quiet for the weight of what you've just heard. The world feels different now, fractured. You’d known there were histories buried beneath this town, old grudges and whispered deals that had sunk roots deeper than the oak trees. But this — this was something else.

They weren’t just rivals. They were at war. And Jay, whatever he was to you, whatever strange heat curled around your being when you thought of him, was in the center of it. 

You back away from the doorway, heart racing, afraid they’ll hear the thunder of it. You scurry down the hallway like a ghost retracing its steps, back into the sanctuary of your room where shadows feel safer than light. You close the door with trembling hands and slide down the back of it, sinking to the floor. Your mind echoes with voices; dangerous, sharp-edged voices and Jay’s name spinning like a coin tossed too high. Sleep does not find you again that night. Only questions. And fear. 

The morning slips in on golden threads, soft and unassuming, the kind of light that warms the wooden floorboards and dapples the countertops in sleepy patches. You haven’t said a word about what you heard the night before those heavy truths folded into the silence between heartbeats but they thrum beneath your skin like a second pulse. Still, when your mother calls you down the hallway, brisk and bright, you answer as if nothing inside you has changed. “Put on something nice,” she says, her voice already trailing off into the kitchen. “We’re heading to the bake sale. Church is raising funds for that wedding coming up. Sohiya and Heeseung, bless them.” 

You pause with your hand on the stair rail, her words wrapping around your throat like ivy. Sohiya. She was your age, sweet and soft-spoken, with delicate wrists and laughter like wind chimes. And Heeseung, kind-eyed and quiet, the type who always held the door open and bowed his head when he prayed. The idea of them marrying, so young, so sudden, presses strangely on your chest. You dress in silence, the pastel linen of your skirt swishing against your legs like a lullaby as you smooth your hair, your reflection half-faded in the antique mirror on your wall. Outside, the town is already stirring, the sleepy streets of your village slowly waking, touched by the scent of sugar and cinnamon wafting through the breeze. 

At the town square, white tents have been strung with bunting, and tables bow beneath the weight of confections, pies with latticed crusts, sugar cookies shaped like doves, and cupcakes topped with icing roses that seem too delicate to eat. The air hums with the soft murmur of neighbors, laughter bubbling here and there like springwater. It is all so pleasant, so falsely perfect, like a painting trying to forget the shadows in its corners. You spot Yunah by the jam stall, her dark braid swinging as she waves you over with a grin, her mother deep in conversation with someone about flour prices and wedding favors. As soon as you reach her, she grabs your arm and leans in, eyes glinting with mischief. 

“Have you heard?” she whispers, the kind of tone that makes your stomach drop before you even know why. “Sohiya’s pregnant. That’s why the wedding’s so rushed.” Your brows lift in quiet shock. Yunah nods, savoring your reaction like a bite of forbidden cake. “I heard it from my cousin who heard it from Eunju, who heard it from her older sister. Her parents found out last week and demanded the wedding happen before anyone else starts talking.” 

You glance across the bake sale and find Sohiya near the lemonade stand, her hands wringing the hem of her blouse, Heeseung standing beside her like a ghost, present, but hollow. She looks tired, like someone who’s been carrying a secret too long, her smile wilting at the edges every time someone congratulates her. Your heart aches in the quiet way only girlhood understands. You’re the same age. You’ve braided your hair the same, sat in the same church pews, hummed the same hymns. But now she’s stepping into a life that feels ten years too soon. A house. A husband. A child. 

“I couldn’t imagine,” you murmur, voice soft and low, “being married right now.” Yunah shrugs, biting into a shortbread cookie. “You and me both. But you know how this town is. A scandal like that?” She shakes her head. “It’s either a wedding or exile.” You nod slowly, eyes lingering on Sohiya, on the way she keeps glancing over her shoulder like the whispers might catch up to her. The same way you feel the breath of last night’s secrets still clinging to yours. Beneath the sugar and sunlight, the square feels brittle. Like one wrong word could make it all shatter. 

It happens suddenly, like thunder splitting the hush of an approaching storm. One moment you’re nibbling on a vanilla cupcake and nodding along as Yunah whispers about scandalous bridal fittings and strict seamstresses, and the next, the air warps; sharp, brittle, buzzing like a struck wire. The shift is instant, the kind of moment that bends the bones of a quiet afternoon and sets hearts galloping. You hear it first; a voice, sharp and raw with fury. Then the low, sickening thud of someone being shoved against a wall.

Your head snaps toward the commotion, and the whole bake sale ripples with the echo of gasps and stilled conversations. Tables tremble, frosting smears, and parents clutch their children a little closer. Near the corner of the community center, just beneath the old iron sconce where flyers for choir practice flutter weakly, Jay is pinned; pressed against sun-warmed brick by another boy, taller, angrier, eyes gleaming with betrayal. It’s Felix. You know him. Sweet-talking, easy-laughing Felix who works at the town’s little mechanic shop and always smells like motor oil and mint gum. His voice is raised now, ragged and venomous. 

“You fucked my girlfriend, you sick bastard!” he roars, his arm slamming across Jay’s chest, voice loud enough to slice through every inch of sugar-sweet air. Yumi is there too, her mascara running like rivers down her cheeks, her hands fluttering uselessly in front of her as she pleads with Felix, voice breaking like porcelain in her throat. “It wasn’t like that, please,” she cries, grabbing at his arm. “Please, stop. It was a mistake — he didn’t mean—” 

But Jay only stands there, infuriatingly calm. There’s a half-lidded smirk painted across his lips, smug and gleaming like polished obsidian. “Relax, Felix,” he drawls, voice thick with venom-laced honey. “I didn’t know she was yours. She didn’t exactly say no.” The words are a match. Felix snaps. His fist connects with Jay’s jaw in a brutal arc, a punch that sounds like thunder cracking bone. Gasps scatter like doves taking flight. Yumi shrieks, and a cupcake tray crashes to the ground somewhere nearby, frosting splattering like a pink and white wound. 

Jay stumbles back from the blow, hand flying to his cheek but then he laughs. Actually laughs, a low, taunting sound, wild and cruel and so full of gall it steals the breath from your lungs. “You hit like a fucking choir boy,” he spits, blood blooming on his lower lip like a rose in ruin. People rush in, pastors, parents, volunteers with gloved hands and worried brows pulling Felix back, dragging Jay away, trying to stitch dignity back into the seams of a moment too far undone. 

The crowd swells, then parts. Jay is being hauled out by a man in a navy windbreaker and a church elder with trembling hands. But even bruised, even bleeding, Jay looks untouchable; smirking like he owns the goddamn town. And then he sees you. Eyes dark as ink, wild with something you can’t name. He meets your gaze across the chaos, across the bodies and ruined cakes and shattered calm. He winks. It’s slow. Intentional. And it sets your spine on fire. You forget how to breathe. He disappears into the crowd, the echo of that wink burning behind your eyes like the sun. 

Your heart is still galloping when the crowd begins to settle, when the ripples of scandal soften into murmurs and murmurs dissolve into sugared distractions. Parents usher children away with tight smiles and tighter hands, as if sweetness could scrub away the memory of fists and curses. Jay is gone, at least from sight. But not from your mind. “You know,” Yunah says beside you, folding her arms, her voice sharpened with knowing, “he’s no good. Just trouble in designer clothes.”

You nod, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. What you’re expected to believe. What every decent girl in this village is raised to fear. But inside you, curiosity blooms like a slow-burning match, small and dangerous. You mumble something about needing the bathroom and excuse yourself before she can press further, her eyes already narrowing in suspicion. The church looms behind you as you slip away, its whitewashed walls glowing warm in the early afternoon light, the air thick with the scent of sun-baked frosting and wilted roses. But beneath it — just barely, you catch another scent. Smoke. Acrid, earthy, wrong. 

You follow it. Each step feels reckless, like dancing barefoot on a chapel floor. Like carving your name into a hymnbook. The scent grows stronger as you round the corner of the church, your breath catching in your throat like a moth in a jar. And there he is. Jay.

He leans against the wall like he was born to break rules and balance on the edge of forgiveness. One foot propped behind him, head tilted back, the collar of his shirt loosened and stained with a drop of blood near the seam. His cigarette glows like an ember in the low light, the curl of smoke rising from it like a ghost ascending. He doesn’t look surprised to see you. In fact, he barely even glances your way. Just takes a drag, exhales slow, like the chaos he caused hasn’t even nicked his soul. Like the fight, the punch, the girl, the whispers, none of it mattered. 

“Didn’t think you’d come looking,” he says finally, voice low, almost bored. But there’s a thread of something else underneath; taunt or tease, you can’t tell. “You don’t seem the type.”  You should leave. You should turn around, march back to the bake sale, and pretend you never followed smoke down a church wall. But your feet stay planted, heart hammering as loud as the chapel bells. You don’t say a word. You just watch him, silently, like he’s a puzzle carved from shadow and sin and the ache of wanting something you know you shouldn’t. 

Jay flicks ash onto the gravel path, his eyes cutting toward you through the smoke, one brow raised lazily. His lip is split, a bloom of red painting the edge of his smirk. “You see something you like?” he asks. And for one terrible, breathless moment you don’t know the answer. The question drips from his mouth like smoke, slow, curling, coaxing. Not crude, not exactly. But not innocent, either. It lands somewhere in the charged space between your ribs and your throat, where breath gets tangled with hesitation.

You should scoff. Roll your eyes. Offer him the same disdain he so casually invites from the world. But you don’t. Because there’s something about the way he looks at you; like you’re not just another girl in a white dress and soft shoes, but someone he sees through, into. Like he knows your name and the weight it carries. Knows the walls you live behind, and the cracks that run silent and deep beneath your polished smile. You step closer without meaning to, arms crossed loosely, trying to look like the kind of girl who doesn’t care what boys like him say. But your voice comes softer than you mean for it to. “I didn’t come looking for you.” 

Jay chuckles, low and dark, like gravel skimming the bottom of a stream. He doesn’t believe you. That much is clear. He drops the cigarette to the dirt and grinds it out with the heel of his boot, the smoke hissing away like a secret being silenced. “No?” he says, stepping just slightly forward, head tilted. “Then why are you here, church girl?” You flinch a little at the nickname. It’s not mean. But there’s weight in it. A reminder of everything you’re supposed to be. Everything he isn’t. 

“I heard… noise,” you mumble, eyes darting away, to the cracked siding of the church wall. “From earlier. I just… I wanted to see if you were okay.” Jay scoffs this time, straightens, stretches the muscles in his shoulders like a wolf rising from slumber. “You mean after I got punched for screwing some girl who cried over it?” 

He says it like it doesn’t matter. Like he doesn’t matter. Like none of it, the punch, the drama, the girl, was anything more than a flicker in the dark. And still, the wound at the edge of his lip glistens like it wants to be noticed. You hesitate, then speak quietly. “That was cruel. What you did.” 

He watches you now, like your words are more interesting than they have any right to be. “Probably,” he agrees, not flinching. “But she knew what it was. I’m not the one playing pretend.” The words settle over you like dust, heavy and old and aching. You want to hate him. You really, truly do. You want to believe he’s everything your father says, that he’s rotten at the root, grown from betrayal and greed and the same sharp-edged steel his father used to cut yours down. 

But he looks at you then, and there’s something in his expression, not smugness, not bravado; but something rawer. Wearier. Like he’s been fighting a war so long he’s forgotten what peace feels like. You find your voice again, softer now. “Why do you act like this?” Jay blinks slowly, like you’ve asked him a question no one’s ever dared to. Then, in a voice barely louder than a confession, he says, “Because people already made up their minds about me a long time ago. Figured I might as well give them what they want.” It slices through the silence like a nail through silk.

You swallow, the wind tugging at your skirt, the chapel bells tolling in the distance; calling the faithful back inside, as if to protect them from boys like him and girls like you who linger too long in the gray. Jay takes a step back, pulling another cigarette from the pocket of his jacket, but he doesn’t light it. Just rolls it between his fingers like a habit he hasn’t learned how to quit. “Run along now,” he mutters, eyes dark. “Before your daddy comes lookin’. Wouldn’t want you shipped off to a convent, would we?”

And this time, when he smirks, there’s no cruelty in it. Just something almost sad. You hesitate one more breath, just one, before turning, your footsteps light on the gravel, your heart anything but. But as you leave, you can feel his gaze still on your back. Burning. Etching your outline into his memory like a prayer he’ll never speak. 

You scurry back around the side of the church, fingers fumbling with the hem of your dress, your breath still tinged with the ghost of smoke. The sun presses down hard now, warm and high in the sky, yet you feel cold beneath your skin, as though the truth of that boy has left a frostbite behind, unseen but pulsing. The bake sale has resumed its sugary rhythm, laughter bubbling from ladies with sunhats and teenagers handing out lemonade like the world isn’t slowly unraveling around you. As if it’s all sweet and simple, and boys like Jay Park don’t burn holes in the script you were meant to follow.

Yunah finds you with a look that speaks volumes, one brow raised, lips pursed slightly like she already knows you’ve done something that would make your parents spit their tea. She doesn’t say anything, though. Just hands you a paper plate with a melting brownie on it and raises her eyes toward the sky like she’s giving you a silent prayer. You offer a small, guilty smile and fall in step beside her. But your thoughts are no longer here. They wander, wild and unbidden, to the shadows of last night. 

To your bare feet on the cold wood floor, the whisper of your nightgown brushing your ankles. The hush of the house heavy around you as you crept down the hallway, drawn like a moth to the faint hum of voices in the kitchen. You hadn’t meant to listen. But once you’d heard, you couldn’t unhear it. The names, the threats, the implication that beneath all this civility was something far darker. Something like war. “We can’t let them find out we’re disturbing their shipments.” — “That little punk Jay needs to be dealt with.” — “He can try,” Taehyun had said, his voice sharper than you’d ever heard it, like a blade honed under moonlight.

Your father, standing there like a general. Cold. Unmoving. He hadn’t even flinched at the suggestion of retaliation. Of vengeance. You hadn’t wanted to believe it, but there it was, your family wasn’t just at odds with the Parks over pride and betrayal. There were stakes hidden deeper than Sunday sermons and fake smiles at bake sales. Stakes that bled and burned. Stakes that made boys disappear and fathers never come home. Jay. A name spoken like venom in your house, a boy your father swore was born from rot and ruin. A boy who had dared to look at you today with something that felt like a challenge. Or a warning.

Your fingers tighten around the paper plate in your hands, the brownie trembling on the wax paper like it knows it doesn’t belong in your grip. You don’t belong here, either. Not really. Not with your head full of cigarette smoke and secrets. Yunah is saying something beside you, but the words slip past like water on stone. You nod when you’re supposed to. Smile when expected. But inside? Inside, you’re still standing at the edge of that hallway, hearing the words that changed everything. Inside, you’re still by that church wall, staring into the eyes of the boy your father would rather see buried than anywhere near you. And worse than all of it is the ache that curls low in your belly because you don’t know if you’re scared of Jay… or of how much you want to understand him. 

That night, the air in the house is thick with something unsaid. Like storm clouds gathering just out of sight, grumbling low and slow in the distance. The walls creak with old secrets and the whispers of generations past, all of them watching, waiting. You lie in bed, the covers tangled around your legs, staring up at the ceiling where the shadows stretch like spiderwebs. But sleep doesn’t come. Not when your mind is still caught in that kitchen, when you still hear your father’s voice like thunder and Taehyun’s like flint striking stone. 

The question gnaws at you, small and sharp and relentless: what did they mean? What are they doing, what is Jay tangled in that your family feels the need to speak of him like a threat, like a ghost they can’t quite kill? So you get up. The floorboards are cold under your feet, the hallway dim save for the light spilling beneath Taehyun’s door, a golden sliver cutting the dark. You hover there for a second, unsure, your hand paused mid-air. Then you knock gently, once, twice. 

“It’s open,” his voice calls out, slightly muffled. You step in and find him hunched over his desk, textbooks spread like wings, his brow furrowed in concentration. He looks up at you, blinking like he’s surfacing from underwater. “What’s up?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting just barely. “Don’t tell me you need help with trig again.” 

You close the door softly behind you and step further into the room, suddenly unsure how to phrase what’s been burning in your chest for the past twenty-four hours. So you just say it, straight and small:

“I heard you. Last night. You and Dad.” His entire body stiffens like wire pulled taut. He leans back in his chair, pen dropping from his fingers as his face darkens with something between disappointment and dread. “You weren’t supposed to hear that,” he says, his voice low, more exhale than sound. “Conversations like that aren’t meant for young girls.” 

You bristle. “I’m only a year younger than you.” He gives you a look, half warning, half weary affection. “And that year makes a difference.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” you insist, crossing your arms. “I’m not a child, Taehyun.” He sighs and runs a hand through his damp hair, frustration flashing across his face like lightning. “You think being an adult is about age? It’s about what you’re ready to carry. And you’re not ready for this.”

“Then help me understand.” Your voice is soft but steady. “Help me understand why everyone talks about Jay like he’s poison. Like he’s something to be eliminated.” The name slips out before you can stop it. Jay. A matchstick against stone.

Taehyun’s eyes narrow. “Why do you care?” 

“I don’t —” you start, but the lie tastes bitter. He stands abruptly, the chair legs scraping against the hardwood. “You do care. Don’t lie to me.” 

You look away, your heart pounding like it wants out of your chest. “I saw him today,” you admit. “At the bake sale. We didn’t talk long. I just —” 

“You talked to him?” Taehyun’s voice cracks like a whip. “Are you out of your mind?” 

“He didn’t hurt me—” You started. 

“That’s not the point,” he snaps. “You don’t know what kind of shit he’s involved in. What his family is capable of. This isn’t some schoolyard rivalry, alright? This is blood and business. He’s dangerous.” 

“You don’t get to tell me who to talk to,” you hiss, your hands trembling. “You’re not the boss of me.” His jaw clenches so tight you swear you hear it grind. “Actually,” he says slowly, icily, “I am. Until you know better, I am.”

That does it. The fury rises in you like a storm tide. You don’t shout. You don’t cry. You just spin on your heel and stalk out of his room, your footsteps like gunshots down the hallway. Behind you, Taehyun doesn’t follow. He just lets the door click shut between you. And you, you retreat to your room with your chest heaving and your thoughts in shambles, torn between the brother who wants to protect you and the boy who might just ruin you.

But wasn’t that what drew you in the first place? Not the danger.The possibility. The proof that something — someone could make you feel something real, even if it burned.

The bell above the shop door tinkles faintly as you step out into the embrace of night. Mrs. Chen waves at you from behind the counter, her fingers still dancing with a needle and thread as the lamplight paints golden halos around her silver hair. You smile, small and tired, the weight of the day settling in your bones, and close the door behind you. The sky outside is bruised with twilight, bleeding violet and blue as the sun disappears behind the hills that cradle your little town. The street lamps blink on one by one, flickering like hesitant stars, and the cobbled road that winds through the town glows amber in the gathering dark. 

You wrap your shawl a little tighter around your shoulders, feeling the press of the cool evening air against your skin. The walk home isn’t far, just fifteen minutes down roads you’ve known since childhood, roads that smell of lilac and woodsmoke and safety. Roads that always, always felt like home. But tonight, something feels different. It begins as a whisper at the base of your neck. That sense; not quite sound, not quite sight but the ancient, instinctual knowledge that you are no longer alone. Your footsteps echo a beat behind yours, too steady to be wind, too light to be mere imagination. 

You glance back. A man. Far enough that he could still be a coincidence, close enough that your pulse begins to drum faster. You turn onto a narrower lane, hoping to lose him in the winding streets, past Mrs. Lee’s bakery now shuttered for the night, past the small chapel with its bowed iron gates and flickering candles in the windows. Your footsteps quicken. So do his. You try to convince yourself it’s nothing; just a late walker, a neighbor maybe, but your hands are starting to shake. Then you hear it. 

The scrape of shoe leather quickening. The sound of breath, heavy, sharp, close. Panic surges like a tide inside you. You break into a run, your feet pounding the pavement, your breath catching in your throat, heart clawing at your ribs like a wild animal. But you don’t get far. A hand slams over your mouth. Another arm snakes around your waist, yanking you back so fast your heels lift off the ground. You try to scream, but your voice is strangled by a palm that tastes of sweat and cigarettes, of something sickly and metallic. The world tilts. You’re dragged, stumbling, into the shadows of an alley.

The narrow passage smells of rust and rot, wet stone and old things. Your feet scrape against gravel, your knees buckle, and still he drags you like you’re nothing more than a sack of flour. “Shhh,” he hisses into your ear, breath hot and rank, “make a sound and I swear to God—” But you’re fighting now, kicking, flailing, desperate not to disappear into the black corners of this town like a ghost no one will remember. Your mind reels. You think of Taehyun. Of your mother’s soft hands. Of Jay’s cigarette smoke curling like a warning. You think: not like this. Not like this.

You are a wild thing now, thrashing and clawing like some animal pulled too soon from the womb of safety, a fledgling bird tossed mid-air and told to fly. His arm is like iron around your chest, squeezing until breath is no longer breath but gasps made of salt and fear. You kick. You scream. The sound doesn’t even sound like you, it's raw, primal, jagged like broken glass tearing up your throat. Then instinct, burning desperate inside your veins, you sink your teeth into his hand. Hard. Hard enough to feel flesh give, to taste copper and skin and filth. He howls, a sound not quite human, and in the next heartbeat, his hand rears back and strikes your cheek with such force that the world spins. White-hot pain blossoms beneath your eye like a cruel flower, petals blooming in shades of red and violet.  

You fall. Hard. The gravel bites into your palms, your knees scream, but nothing compares to the kick to your stomach that follows. A boot, sharp and merciless, lands right where your breath lives. It punches the air from your lungs and leaves you folded on the earth like a broken prayer, stars exploding behind your eyes, nausea clawing up your throat. He’s above you now, shadowed and snarling, and there’s a moment, a single, stretched-out beat of time, where you wonder if this is how the story ends. A foot raised. The night around you holding its breath. Your body too stunned to move. 

Then it happens. A blur. A sound like thunder colliding with flesh. The man is ripped away from you in an instant, tackled to the ground with such force that the cobblestones rattle. You hear the grunt of fists meeting ribs, the dull wet thud of a punch, another, another, bone against bone, like a drumbeat played by fury. Jay. He’s on top of him now, all sinew and violence, his face carved in rage, lips peeled back like a wolf in the final act of warning. His fists fly like they’ve waited their whole life for this moment, no technique, just raw, vicious instinct. The man beneath him sputters, tries to buck him off, but Jay is unrelenting. There’s blood, somewhere, someone’s and it paints Jay’s knuckles like war paint. 

“Touch her again,” he growls low, venom slithering through each syllable, “and I’ll make sure you never touch anything again.” He says it not like a threat, but like a promise carved in stone. You can’t move. You can barely breathe. You're crumpled on the cold ground, blinking through pain and fear and disbelief. But through the haze, you watch Jay stand, chest heaving, jaw clenched, the man groaning at his feet like something discarded. But Jay doesn’t stop. 

His knuckles keep rising and falling like thunder crashing on a cursed shoreline, relentless, wild, each blow drawn from something deeper than fury, a darkness that lives in his marrow, in the cracks behind his eyes. The man beneath him is coughing now, spitting blood between laughter, a cruel, rasping sound that haunts the alley like a specter. And Jay, jaw set like a guillotine, grabs the man by the collar, shoving him harder against the wall, until the bricks groan and dust spills like ash. “Who sent you?” Jay spits, voice sharp enough to cut air. “Who do you work for?” The man just chuckles, a hideous, broken sound leaking out of a bruised throat. His lip splits wider with every word, but still he smirks like a man with nothing left to lose. 

“You think I’d ever tell you?” he sneers, coughing through blood. “You’re just a kid playing gangster.” Jay growls low in his throat, an animal sound, and the next punch lands with such weight it echoes. The man gasps. You flinch. The wind shifts and carries the scent of blood and cigarette smoke into your lungs like smoke from a funeral pyre. 

You push yourself up, your limbs trembling, bones whispering protest. Pain blooms in your side where his boot struck, your face throbs, but still you crawl forward, palms scraping against gravel and broken glass. You reach them. Jay’s crouched like a storm about to strike, the man limp but still smirking like he knows some secret that Jay doesn’t. “Stop,” you say, voice hoarse, barely a whisper, like something stitched together with threadbare breath. “Jay, stop. You’re going to kill him.”

He doesn’t even look at you at first. His eyes are locked on the man, flame-red and feral, his chest rising and falling like the sea before it devours a ship. Then slowly, he turns, and there's something broken in his face, something wild and bitter and unspoken. “Good,” he says, teeth gritted like steel on steel. “He deserves to die.” The words fall heavy in the dark, sharp as glass in a chalice. You reach out, your fingers barely grazing his shoulder and shake your head, a tremble chasing the motion. “Please,” you whisper, not sure if you’re begging for the man’s life or for Jay’s humanity to return. “Please… just stop.”

He breathes in hard. For a moment, the silence stretches too long, pregnant with violence and decision. But then something flickers behind his eyes, a light sputtering back to life, weak and shaking, but there. Jay lets go. The man crumples to the ground, groaning, blood trailing from his mouth like ink from a broken pen. He stares at Jay, equal parts terrified and awed, and then stumbles to his feet, sways like a drunk ghost, and bolts into the dark alley without another word, just the sound of his heels slapping pavement like a heartbeat fleeing death. The world is quiet again. But not peaceful.

Jay turns to you, breath ragged, hands stained red. His jaw twitches as if he’s trying to say something, but the words dissolve before they can take form. He just steps forward, closing the space between you and reaches down, hand outstretched. “Come on,” he says, voice quieter now, softer, not sharp enough to cut but still trembling from what it almost became. You stare at his hand for a moment, at the boy who just fought like a monster to save you. And then, with shaking fingers, you let him pull you up from the wreckage. 

He looks at your face, and something flickers in those storm-dark eyes of his; something close to concern, but too buried beneath bravado to fully surface. His fingers ghost the edge of your jawline, not quite touching but close enough to feel like lightning waiting for the right tree. He tilts your chin ever so slightly, examining the swelling beneath your cheekbone with an expression that makes your stomach twist. “That’s going to bruise,” he mutters, voice low and sandpaper-rough. You nod, slowly, wincing as the movement stirs pain. “Why did you help me?” 

The question hangs in the cool night air like incense in a chapel, sweet, uncertain, sacred. He shrugs, a movement so nonchalant it’s maddening. Like he hadn’t just saved your life. Like the blood on his knuckles wasn’t still drying into his skin. “I don’t know,” he says, eyes flickering away like they don’t owe you the truth.

You stand there, aching and trembling and furious at the way your heart stutters beneath your ribs. You should be scared. You should be disgusted, shaken to the bone from the violence, from the pain still blooming like a bruise across your ribs. But all you can feel is warmth curling in the pit of your stomach, uninvited and undeniable. “Thank you,” you whisper, unsure if it’s gratitude or confession. 

“Don’t,��� he says sharply, cutting his gaze back to yours. “Don’t thank me.” His tone is firm, but not cruel. It’s the sound of someone who doesn’t want to be a hero, who’s been told too many times that he doesn’t deserve kindness. And maybe he believes it. Maybe that’s why he can’t take your thanks, because it tastes too much like absolution. He glances down the road, toward the dim golden lights of town, and then back at you. “I’ll walk you home.”

You hesitate. “You don’t have to—”

“I’m not asking,” he cuts in, already moving. So you fall into step beside him, the silence between you stretching long and strange. Your body aches with every step, and yet you feel like you’re floating, disconnected, dazed, and tethered only by the steady rhythm of Jay beside you. Like gravity shifted the moment he touched you, and now you orbit around him whether you want to or not. When your house comes into view, a knot tightens in your chest. The porch light is still on, like an accusation. You can already imagine your father’s face, already hear the questions wrapped in thunder and expectation. Jay stops at the edge of the walkway, still cloaked in night. 

“When your father asks,” he says, voice low, “don’t tell him I helped you.” 

You blink. “What?” He looks at you, unreadable. “Make up a lie. Say you fell or something. Just don’t bring me into it.” 

There’s no warmth in his voice, no smile, not even the smirk you’ve come to expect from him. Just a quiet, raw kind of resolve, like he’s asking you to keep a secret that might burn you both if it ever saw daylight. You nod. “Okay.” Jay lingers for a moment, as if he wants to say something more, like maybe this night changed something in him, too. But whatever it is, he swallows it down and turns away without another word. 

You watch him go, his silhouette swallowed by the dark, and then you push open the door and step into the light of your home, where lies are stitched as easily as hems and truth is just another thing buried beneath silence. The bruise blooms like a purple flower across your cheekbone. The door clicks shut behind you with the hush of finality, as if the night itself is sealing the pages of its most brutal chapter. But there is no rest in this kind of silence, only the jagged inhale of your mother’s gasp as she turns from the hallway and sees your face under the dim foyer light. 

Her slippers skid against the wood as she rushes to you, hands fluttering like frantic birds, afraid to touch, afraid not to. “Oh my god — what happened? What happened to your face?” Her voice is thin, stretched like silk pulled too tight. You flinch as she brushes your cheek with trembling fingers, and just like that, the whole house stirs. Taehyun barrels in from the kitchen, his voice already rising. “What the hell happened?” 

Your father follows in his shadow, his presence larger than the room, chest puffed with immediate anger and the bitter scent of panic barely masked beneath the cologne he always wears. “Who did this to you?” The world tilts slightly as all eyes converge on you, their questions digging at your skin like teeth. You open your mouth and close it again, suddenly aware of how fragile the truth is, how it quivers in your throat, aching to be spoken but dangerous to free. 

So you breathe in, steady and slow, and choose the half-lie with the cleanest edges. “I was walking home from Mrs. Chen’s,” you begin, voice carefully pitched between tremble and calm. “There was a man… I didn’t recognize him. He followed me, grabbed me. I fought back. I bit his hand. He hit me, but then —” You hesitate, careful not to look in the direction of the window, of the dark where Jay had disappeared only moments before. “He must’ve gotten spooked. He ran off. I don’t know why.” You lower your gaze as the lie coils around your tongue, heavy and sour, but necessary. 

Your father’s fists curl at his sides, his jaw set so tight you wonder if he’ll ever speak again. “A man did this to you?” he growls, like the words themselves are fire in his throat. “He laid hands on you?” Taehyun mutters a curse and kicks the wall, hard. The sound cracks through the air like lightning, loud enough to make Minji stir upstairs. Your mother’s hand moves from your cheek to your arm, guiding you to the couch with the reverence of someone handling broken porcelain. She’s whispering something now, prayers, you think. Or maybe just the names of every saint she knows. 

“I’ll find him,” your father says, voice flat and cold. “I don’t care if I have to turn over every damn rock in this town.” 

“Dad —” you start, but he’s already storming toward the back office, barking orders to no one and everyone at once, a storm given form and fury. Taehyun sits beside you, anger still rolling off of him like heat. He watches you with eyes too sharp, too knowing. “Did you really not see who it was?”

You shake your head, slowly. “It was dark. It happened fast.” He exhales through his nose, not convinced but not ready to argue. “I’ll walk you from now on,” he says. “No more being out late by yourself.” You nod, grateful and guilty all at once, because what you’ve said isn’t the truth, but neither is it a lie that came easily. And somewhere, in the places they cannot see, your body still carries the memory of Jay’s arms, of his rage not directed at you, of the unspoken promise that lived briefly between the blood and bruises. You fold your hands in your lap and lower your eyes, letting your family whirl around you with worry and vengeance and vow. And inside, you tuck your secret into the hollow behind your ribs, where all your dangerous truths now live. 

The church bells toll in the morning like an old warning, iron-voiced and hollow, their echoes slipping through the mist that clings to the town’s narrow streets. You walk beside your family in silence, each step heavier than the last, as though shame itself has taken root in your heels. The church rises before you in its usual whitewashed sanctimony, but today it feels more like a stage and you, unwilling, have become the play. You step inside, and instantly, the weight of a hundred unspoken things crashes over you. The air is perfumed with lilies and incense, but beneath it, there's the acrid tang of gossip, hushed tones curled behind cupped hands, eyes flickering like candle flames in your direction. You feel them long before you see them: judgmental, narrow gazes that prick against your skin like nettles. Their stares are veiled in piety, but you know better. You've been raised in a house of wolves pretending to pray. 

“They say her daddy’s sins are catching up with him.”

“She was always going to be a target with a name like his.”

“Poor thing — pretty won’t protect you from retribution.”

You don’t hear the words exactly, but they ripple through the wooden pews like ghosts, rising and falling with the organ's song, threading themselves between hymns and halfhearted smiles. It’s in the way they glance at the bruise blooming on your cheek like a crushed violet, in the silence that stretches too long when you pass, in the pity dressed up like politeness. You lower your head, eyes fixed on your polished shoes, hands clasped demurely in front of you, but your pulse hammers in your ears. You don’t dare look around. You don’t need to. You can feel the weight of it all pressing down on you like a stone in your chest. The truth you swallowed last night has soured in your gut, bitter as wormwood. 

And then, you feel it. A gaze unlike the others. Heavy, direct. You look up instinctively and your eyes lock with Park Chul; Jay’s father. He is sitting two rows ahead with his family gathered close, looking too much like a king among snakes, his tailored suit flawless, his posture regal, and his smile; oh, that smile, it slithers across his face like oil on water. It doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s nothing warm there. Just calculation. Recognition. He sees the bruise. He knows what you’ve left out. The smile he offers you is slow, like a blade being drawn from its sheath.

You blink once and look away, your heart suddenly loud in your ribs. Your fingers tighten around the edge of the pew as you sit down beside your mother, who is already lost in prayer. Your father doesn’t notice, he’s too busy glaring across the aisle at Chul, his disdain worn proudly like a second suit. Jay is there, too, seated beside his sister and looking maddeningly unaffected. He doesn’t look at you. Not at first. But as the choir begins to sing and the congregation rises, you catch it, just the flick of his eyes toward yours, the shadow of a smirk tugging at his lips before he turns his head away like nothing ever happened. 

You stand, too, murmuring the first verse of the hymn without really hearing it, the sound a dull hum in your ears. And even though your lips are moving, your mind is far from holy things. Because something is shifting. And though you can’t name it yet, can’t shape it into something solid, you know, deep in the marrow of your bones, that the bruise on your face isn’t the last mark this war will leave. The sermon drones on, words thick with dust and self-righteousness, echoing off vaulted ceilings like old warnings written in blood and parchment. You sit in the pew like a ghost in borrowed skin, present in body but floating elsewhere. The preacher’s voice is meant to be comforting, commanding, divine, but today it’s just noise, a hum beneath the cold stares and whispered rumors still clinging to you like static.

Another glance. Another hushed voice behind a lace-gloved hand. You feel it before you see it, someone’s eyes skating down the bruise along your cheek like it’s a badge you chose to wear, like you’re not already burning beneath their judgment. Your heartbeat climbs, fluttering in your chest like a caged moth. The walls feel too close, the pews too narrow. You can’t breathe. You rise, a breath of movement in a still room, and excuse yourself softly. Your mother doesn’t look up. Your father is lost in thought, your brother staring ahead like he might kill a man with his eyes. You slip out the heavy doors like a shadow, letting the sun kiss your skin again, warmth meeting chill. Outside, the world is quieter. Calmer. Honest. 

The church steps are cool beneath you, stone soaked in centuries of rain and repentance. You hug your knees to your chest, resting your chin atop them, and try to slow your breathing. The air carries the faint scent of roses from the cemetery down the hill, and further still, the faintest trace of last night’s terror still lingers behind your ribs. Footsteps behind you, Soft but certain. Crunching gravel. You whip around, heart climbing into your throat. But it’s only Jay. Only. 

He stands a moment, watching you with that unreadable expression of his; half smirk, half storm and then lowers himself beside you without a word. He doesn’t touch you, doesn’t lean in close. Just sits, legs stretched out in front of him like he owns the steps, the church, the whole damn town. You open your mouth to thank him again, to tell him you haven’t stopped thinking about the way he pulled you up from the darkness like a ghost from the grave, but before you can speak, his voice cuts across the silence. “Don’t,” he says. Not cruel, not cold, just… tired. Like he doesn’t need your gratitude weighing down what he did. Like it was inevitable.

Then, quieter, more tentative: “Are you okay?” Your heart stutters at the question. You nod, slow. “Yeah. I think so.” He scoffs, not at you, but at everything. The town. The church. The bruises on your face and the venom on their tongues. “Fuck what those hypocrites in there think,” he mutters, eyes flicking toward the stained glass windows above. “They’d rather pray for sinners than help them. Would’ve left you bleeding on the street if it meant saving face.” 

A breath of laughter slips from your lips. Not out of humor; more like release. Like someone finally said what your heart couldn’t. And something shifts. The air between you thickens. No longer easy, no longer innocent. It crackles now, like a wire pulled too tight or a sky just before thunder. You turn to him, and he’s already looking at you, really looking, like he sees through the bruises and the silk dress and the good-girl smile you’ve worn like armor for years. Like he sees the fire buried beneath the ashes. And before you can think, before you can flinch, he leans in. 

His mouth is warm and certain on yours, and everything slows. The birdsong quiets. The breeze stills. Your breath catches, trembling in your lungs, and for a moment you forget where you are, who you are, just lips and heat and the wild drumbeat in your ears. It’s your first kiss, and it doesn’t feel gentle or hesitant. It feels like a match struck against stone, sudden and bright and dangerous. He pulls back, just slightly, and his eyes hold yours with something fierce and searching. As though he's not sure what to say, or if he should say anything at all.

And then, with aching softness, he leans in again and places a second kiss on your lips, quieter this time, reverent almost. A kiss like a secret. A kiss like a promise or a threat. You don’t know which. Then he stands.

Doesn’t say goodbye. Doesn’t look back. Just runs a hand through his hair and strides back into the church as if nothing just happened. As if he didn’t just turn your world on its side. And you sit there alone, the stone still cool beneath you, the taste of him still on your mouth, your heart trying to decide if it should beat faster in fear or in longing. And for once, you don’t feel like a girl waiting to be told what to do. You feel like a match still burning. 

You don’t know how long you sit there, still as breath in a cathedral, the stone steps beneath you holding the echo of his kiss like holy ground. The air around you feels different now, touched by something raw and shimmering, like the hush after lightning splits the sky. Your fingers brush your lips, still warm, still tingling, as though they remember him better than your mind dares to. You’re not sure if it’s madness or magic, but whatever it is, it’s lodged in your chest like a second heartbeat, louder than the church bells, steadier than the sermon inside. Eventually, you rise, legs stiff from sitting too long, and drift back into the chapel’s shadow. Inside, the congregation is standing, voices rising in a hymn that scrapes the heavens, all sharp harmony and practiced devotion. You slip into a seat beside Yunah, whose gaze flickers toward you. There’s something unreadable in her eyes, not judgment, not surprise, just knowing. She doesn’t ask, and you don’t tell. Some moments are too fragile for words, too wild to be captured without breaking. 

The service ends, and the tide of townsfolk washes out of the church, trailing perfume and rumors behind them like smoke. Your family is gathered near the front steps, your mother speaking softly to the pastor’s wife, your father speaking not at all, his eyes like twin flints scanning the crowd for any spark of danger. Taehyun stands off to the side, arms crossed, watching Jay with the wary contempt of a guard dog who’s seen the wolf smile. You don’t say anything as you fall into step beside them. Your father reaches for your shoulder like a shield, and you let him, though you feel the ghost of Jay’s touch burning on your skin. The day unfolds like it always does in towns like this, slow and sun-soaked, filled with the scent of pies cooling on windowsills and the soft echo of children’s laughter skipping down cracked sidewalks. But inside you, something is stirring. Something restless and wild and hungry for the unknown.

At home, lunch is quiet. The clink of cutlery against porcelain plates sounds louder than usual. Your father doesn’t ask again about last night, he simply studies you, the way a man might study a cipher he doesn’t like not knowing how to read. Your mother fusses over your bruises with gentle hands and worried eyes, placing a cold compress against your cheek as though she can will the world to be kind with the sheer force of her care. Taehyun is brooding beside you, silent but heavy, like a storm that hasn’t decided whether to stay or roll in angry over the hills. But even with their eyes on you, even with their questions unasked but still hanging in the air like incense, your thoughts are elsewhere. 

You think of the alley. The press of fear. The sharp, unforgiving sting of a slap and the curling pain of a foot against your ribs. You think of the man’s laugh, hollow and fearless, and how Jay’s fists had answered it like judgment. You think of Jay’s eyes, dark as spilled ink, and how they’d searched your face like he didn’t want to miss a single flinch. How he kissed you like he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. You think, absurdly, foolishly of what it would be like to kiss him again. And that thought terrifies you.

Because you shouldn’t want him. You shouldn’t even know him. He is every warning your father ever gave you made flesh. He’s trouble written in bold letters across your stars, a promise of ruin in every glance. But still… you want to read him. You want to open that book and trace every redacted page with trembling fingers. That night, you sit on your bedroom floor, your journal cracked open in your lap like a confession booth. You don’t write his name. You don’t dare. But you write how it felt to be seen. To be saved. To be kissed like the world had stopped spinning for a heartbeat. You write it down not to remember, but to prove to yourself it happened. That it was real.

Outside, the moon hangs low, a silver eye watching you from behind thin clouds. And in the silence, your body aches, not from the bruises or the fear, but from wanting. From wondering. From knowing that something has shifted inside you, and nothing will ever be the same again. You lie back on your bed, staring up at the ceiling as though it might whisper answers to your questions. You close your eyes, but sleep does not come. Only his face. Only that kiss. Only the fire you didn’t know could live in someone like you.

The night presses against the glass like a velvet shroud, moonlight sifting through your curtains in soft, trembling strands. The tapping begins like a whisper too shy to speak, delicate and insistent, a beckoning on the other side of the veil. Your heart jolts, caught between sleep and something more primal; something curious, something afraid. Barefoot and cautious, you cross the cool wooden floor, each step light as breath, each movement threaded with unease. When you pull the curtain aside and see him; Jay, standing beneath your window like some starless phantom, your pulse skitters. He’s bathed in silver, his jaw sharp in the moonlight, a shadow of rebellion scrawled across the lines of his face. His hand lifts, two fingers beckoning you closer, not like a thief in the night but a boy who’s lost and desperate and burning with something too big for words. 

You lift the latch. He climbs in without ceremony, without sound, landing like wind on the floorboards. The air shifts the moment he enters, and suddenly your small, worn bedroom feels like a world away from everything else; everything loud, everything righteous. You barely whisper his name before his hands find your face, cradling it with a hunger that feels like grief and something more dangerous. He kisses you like he’s been drowning since birth and your mouth is the first breath of air he’s ever tasted.

It’s urgent, almost clumsy in its passion; his fingers lost in your hair, your hands curled into the cotton of his shirt, anchoring yourself to something that shouldn’t feel safe but somehow does. He walks you backwards with care disguised as chaos until your knees hit the edge of your bed, and you sit, breathless, dizzy. He follows, mouth never straying too far from yours, until the world disappears around you. But you pull away, gentle but firm, your palms pressed against his chest like a barricade made of hope and confusion. “What are you doing?” you whisper, your voice trembling not from fear, but from the storm gathering beneath your ribs.

He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes search your face like he’s looking for absolution in your gaze, something holy to balance the weight of whatever he carries. Finally, he breathes out, low and rough. “I needed to see you.” You sit in that truth for a beat, the quiet humming between your heartbeats. “Is everything okay?”

Jay looks away for the first time. His jaw clenches, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. “No,” he says, simply, honestly. “But it doesn’t matter.” A bitter smile plays on his lips. “My father wants something I don’t want to give him.” You nod, not asking, not pushing. There is so much you don’t understand yet, but you understand him. The way he sits next to you with shoulders heavy and breath uneven. The way his fingers find yours again like it’s instinct.  

Your hand finds his cheek. It’s a quiet gesture, a lullaby without words. “You can stay,” you whisper. He exhales, and there’s something sacred in the way his forehead falls against yours. The kiss he places on your lips this time is different; softer, deeper, unhurried. It tastes like gratitude and confession, like the first pages of a book too dangerous to read aloud. His hands settle at your waist as if anchoring himself in you, and yours curl around his shoulders. You don’t speak again. Not for a while. You let the silence fill the cracks, the breaths between kisses soft and slow, the kind that linger and promise without saying anything at all. 

And when he finally falls asleep beside you, his head resting against your shoulder, you stay awake a little longer, watching the way the moonlight rests on his lashes. You think of what it means to keep a secret this delicate. What it means to fall for someone forged in the fire your family fears. You don’t have the answers. But for tonight, you have him. And that is enough. 

Dawn unfolds like a sigh across the sky, the pale blush of morning slipping between your curtains and brushing the walls in hues of gold and rose. The world is still hushed in its waking breath, and for a moment, it feels as though time itself is holding its inhale, reverent of the quiet magic nestled between tangled sheets and slow, secret heartbeats. You stir, not with the abruptness of alarm, but the gentle unraveling of sleep's cocoon. There’s warmth beside you, not the abstract kind, but the tangible, breathing presence of someone tethered to this moment with you. Jay lies on his side, propped slightly on an elbow, his gaze fixed not on the window, nor the ceiling, but on you. 

There’s something unguarded in the way he looks at you; no smirk, no mask, no carefully constructed armor. Just eyes like storm clouds caught at sunrise, soft and searching. It startles something in your chest. You blink sleep from your eyes, voice still laced with dreams as you ask, “What time is it?” His lips quirk, that familiar crooked grin ghosting over his features as he leans closer and murmurs, “Almost six.”

Then, without waiting, without asking, he presses a kiss to your lips, slow and deep and reverent, like he’s memorizing you all over again, like he’s tracing every fragile thread that tethered last night’s chaos to this quiet intimacy. You kiss him back, languidly, until the haze lifts just enough for reality to set its feet back down. You pull away, breath brushing his cheek, and whisper, “What are we doing, Jay?”

There’s a pause, a brief flicker of hesitation across his brow. His hand, warm against your hip, stills. “We’re having fun,” he says at last, like it’s simple, like it’s something that doesn’t ache to hear. You sit up, the sheets slipping from your shoulders like petals falling in protest. There’s a steel note in your voice now, a tremor wrapped in resolve. “I’m not just some girl you kiss in the dark,” you say, eyes catching his. “I don’t do this. I don’t just… fool around. I believe in love.”

He’s quiet for a heartbeat too long. Then he sits up, too, crossing the small distance between you with one hand gently cupping your jaw. The air stills. His thumb traces the edge of your cheekbone as his eyes search yours. “You’re my girl,” he says, voice low, like a promise soaked in shadow and light. “If you want to be.” The simplicity of the words catches you off guard. No grand declarations, no silver-tongued poetry. Just that raw and real and something you can hold. 

A blush colors your cheeks like the blooming of first spring after a cruel winter. You nod, your voice a thread of warmth, “I want to be.” And then you’re kissing again, with a new kind of urgency, not born from fear or secrecy or rebellion, but from the aching sweetness of something finally named. His hands cradle you with more care this time, reverent, as if he knows what you’re giving him. Your fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt, anchoring him, anchoring yourself to the weightless gravity of this moment. 

It grows heated; breath against necks, hands skimming skin, whispered sighs and unspoken want. But there is no rush, no need to chase the edge of desire. You pause, your forehead pressed to his, and he doesn’t push. He stays. He breathes with you. And in that moment, it feels like the world, with all its judgment and fury, has fallen away. There is only this morning. Only this softness. Only the boy who held you under a bruised sky and the girl who believed, still, in love. 

His kisses continue softly, his hands still like steel on your hip — grazing the skin where your pajama top rose slightly. “Jay..” You trailed, breathless. 

“Yes, sweetheart?” He looked at you with heavy eyes, a dopey smile on his face. You were playing with fire here — suiting up to get burned. This was dangerous, who knew what your father and Taehyun would do if they knew Jay was in here with you, kissing you. It could very well be the end of him as you knew it. Your hands found Jay’s chest, pushing slightly to give yourself room. 

“I’m worried.” You say, your voice small. “My family hates you —” 

“Who cares?” 

“I do.” Your voice was stern. You wanted him to know you were serious. That even though you sometimes hated how protective they were, you still loved them, respected them. And what you were doing right now in your room was forbidden, it was wrong. A part of you didn’t care. You felt free from the shalkes tied to your life for the first time and you’d do anything to keep that feeling. But an equal part of you felt ashamed at the lying. You were not one to lie. Especially to your family. 

“They can’t tell you what to do.” Jay’s tone is soft like he knows this is a delicate topic. He’s using his kid gloves on you and you hated it. 

“They don’t.” You huffed. Jay’s eyebrow lifts slightly, like he doesn’t believe you in the slightest. “Fine.” You sigh. “They do.” 

“Don’t let them.” 

“It’s not that easy Jay.” 

“It can be.” He argues. “Just do whatever you want.” 

“You try doing that with a father like mine.” The words slip from your lips before you could stop them, before you could think. Because Jay did have a father like yours; they were one in the same no matter how much they hated each other. Jay looked at you like he understood your slip up. He said nothing further, he didn't need to. It was an unspoken agreement between you too. 

“Jay?” You asked warily. Jay hums, returning his lips to your collarbone as he leaves feather-like kisses over the skin. “What did your father want you to do that you didn’t want to?”

You don’t miss the way his entire body stiffens like a statue made of clay. You don’t miss the second he takes to answer and the shift in his tone. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that, okay?.” He says, a smile on his face. You stay silent and he doesn’t elaborate, instead reattaching his lips to your neck once again. Maybe in distraction, or maybe because he really didn’t care — either way, it worked. 

You allowed him his freedom to roam your body as he pleased. and you enjoyed it, god help you — you actually enjoyed it. You craved more and like the devil himself took over you, your lips parted only a sigh leaving “Please.” 

What were you asking for? Were you ready to have sex? To lose your virginity? and to Jay of all people? You weren’t sure. It was like Jay could sense your hesitance, his head shaking no as soon as the words left your lips. “You’re not ready, baby.” He whispered into your temple. and he was right. You weren’t. So instead he stayed in your bed. Not much longer but long enough for you to really miss him when he left. 

It was barely seven am when he decided it was time to climb out the window he came from the night before leaving only a whisper of himself and the memory of his lips on your own. It was a hollow feeling, one you couldn’t show when the rest of your family awoke and crawled out of their beds. You had to act normal. Like the enemy wasn’t right under their noses only a door down for the entirety of the night. 

The morning light was pale and indifferent, stretched thin across the sky like a faded lace curtain, and you watched your father and Taehyun disappear down the long gravel drive, their figures swallowed by the dust trail of the pickup truck and the unspoken weight of their business. You didn’t need to be told anymore, it was stitched into the sharp glances exchanged over dinner, into the coded conversations that dropped into silence when you entered the room. “Shipments,” they called them. But you were no longer a child swayed by misdirection and empty euphemisms. You had lived enough in shadows now to know when men spoke in half-truths and loaded words. Still, you said nothing. Because silence, you were beginning to learn, was its own kind of survival.  

Your mother bustled through the house like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, gathering Minji’s shoes and packing a tin of the sweet bean buns Mrs. Lee down the road had brought over. You watched her from the hallway, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, half-lost in your thoughts until she mentioned she’d be taking Minji over to the Parks’. “To play with Soojin,” she said, not looking up from her careful wrapping. Her voice was light, casual, like it was nothing more than an errand, like the name Park didn’t hold tension in your bones and a sudden, blooming heat in your chest. “I’ll come,” you said suddenly. Your mother looked up, startled, brows slightly lifted. “You want to come?” Her voice held a delicate edge of suspicion, like she couldn’t decide if she’d misheard you or if you were up to something you hadn’t yet put into words.

You nodded, steady. “Yeah,” you said, reaching for your coat. “I’d like to see Soojin.” That was the lie you chose. And to your surprise, your mother offered no protest, just a quiet, searching look and then a simple, “Alright then.”  The drive to the Park house was quiet, save for Minji’s soft humming in the backseat and the rhythmic turning of tires on dirt. The landscape rolled past in sepia tones, fields dotted with brittle grass, fences leaning like tired old men, the occasional burst of gold where the last stubborn wildflowers refused to bow to autumn’s chill. And then, the house appeared, grand in its own weathered way, with its wide porch and flaking paint and the lingering ghost of old money, old power, clinging to its bones. Soojin ran out to greet Minji, her laugh a bright trill in the cold morning air, and your mother excused herself inside with Mrs. Park, Jiyo, with a container of red bean buns tucked beneath her arm like a peace offering. 

You lingered on the porch, pretending to straighten Minji’s jacket, pretending not to scan the windows, not to listen for footsteps. The air was thick with anticipation, though nothing had yet happened. That was the trouble with secrets, you carried them even when no one asked you to, let them soak into your skin until they colored everything. And then there he was, Jay, stepping out from around the side of the house with that same easy, careless gait, a cigarette between his fingers and mischief in his gaze. He was the storm you had let into your room, into your lungs, and now he lingered like the scent of smoke in your pillowcase. You didn’t speak, not yet. Just held his eyes as he approached, the ground between you crackling with everything unsaid, everything that was coming. And in the quiet beat before words, before explanation, you realized you hadn’t come here for Soojin at all. You’d come for this, to stand in the belly of the lion’s den and feel the pulse of something forbidden, dangerous, and real. 

The sun was yawning low over the tree line, casting molten ribbons of gold across the Park’s backyard where Minji and Soojin chased each other in dizzying circles, their laughter rising like wind chimes caught in a summer gust. You watched them through the gauzy screen door, a ghost on the threshold, your arms folded across your chest like you could contain the gnawing question that kept pressing against your ribs: Why had you come? Inside, your mother and Jiyo sat in the sitting room with glasses of white wine that caught the light like glassy honey. Their voices rose and fell in polite crescendos, dulcet tones masking whatever quiet rivalries or histories they once shared. You could see the familiar curve of your mother’s mouth as she smiled too much, nodded too often. The room felt warm and distant, like a dream you weren’t quite invited into. 

You didn’t feel like staying downstairs, didn’t feel like sitting with women who spoke in codes and closed-lip smiles. “Excuse me,” you said softly, stepping into the living room. “Could you tell me where the bathroom is?” Jiyo looked up and gave you a generous nod, her hand gesturing vaguely toward the hallway. “Upstairs, last door on the right,” she said, then turned back to your mother with the easy grace of someone who had already forgotten you were there.

You climbed the stairs slowly, each step creaking beneath your weight like a warning whispered through wood. The house above was hushed, muffled by carpet and secrets. You passed doors half-ajar, the sterile scent of lemon cleaner and aging wood perfuming the air. But when you reached the top of the stairs, something stirred in you, an itch, a pull, the unmistakable gravity of curiosity. You didn’t go to the bathroom. Not at first. You wandered. 

It started as a glance into rooms left ajar. A study with a too-clean desk, a guest room with a bed so stiffly made it looked untouched by any soul. And then, Jay’s room. You knew it without needing to be told. The door was slightly cracked, and the air that filtered through was familiar, cologne and cigarette smoke, sweat and something wild, something him. You pushed it open. The room was dim, cluttered but lived-in. A guitar leaned against the far wall, strings dusty but taut. Sketches littered the desk, some crude, some startling in their intensity. A record played softly in the corner, a crackling blues tune that seemed to slow time. You stepped further in, eyes skating across his world, your fingers itching toward the mess.

You told yourself you weren’t snooping. But then you saw them. A pair of sneakers shoved halfway beneath the bed, saturated with dried blood, crusted around the soles. Beside them, a shirt, rumbled and wrinkled, with a maroon stain blooming like a dying flower across the chest. The sight of it stilled the air in your lungs. Your mind raced. You knew that shirt. Or thought you did. It haunted the edges of memory, like a face seen once in a dream or a name heard in a half-slept conversation. Your fingers hovered above the fabric, not quite brave enough to touch it, not quite smart enough to turn away.

“What the hell are you doing?” His voice broke across the room like thunder ripping through a still sky. You spun around. Jay stood in the doorway, a silhouette carved in shadow, his face unreadable and hard. The kind of hard that wasn’t born overnight, it was forged, sculpted in fire and violence and too many buried truths. “I — I was just —” you stammered, your throat drying like sand beneath sun.

“You were just what?” he growled, stepping forward. “Looking through my shit?” His eyes blazed with something you didn’t recognize. Not anger exactly, something deeper, more wounded. Betrayed, maybe. Or scared. You opened your mouth, tried to explain, tried to make it sound innocent, but the room felt like it was tilting, spinning around the bloodied cloth and your thundering heart. He was inches from you now, his chest rising and falling like he’d just run a mile. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said, his voice low, like gravel and regret.

You swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.” But even as you said it, you knew sorry wouldn’t fix this. You stiffened, the air around you charged like the moment before a summer storm breaks, still, electric, heavy with the promise of thunder. Your fingers twitched away from the shirt just as his voice split the silence again. “I was looking for the bathroom?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Jay said, his voice cutting through the space between you like a cold blade. “You weren’t looking for the bathroom.” You turned to him, spine straightening like iron pulled through a fire, and lifted your chin. You took a breath, steadying your pulse, willing your voice not to tremble. “Don’t talk to me like that,” you said quietly, firmly, like a line drawn in the sand. “I asked you not to.” 

He blinked, thrown off by your calm. His chest rose sharply with a breath he hadn’t meant to take. For a heartbeat, the fire between you crackled without direction. Then you reached down, hand hovering once more above the bloodied shirt, and asked the question that had begun clawing at your ribs since the moment you saw it. “What is this, Jay?” Your voice wasn’t accusatory, just soft, curious, laced with something more dangerous than suspicion. Concern. “Why is there blood on this? Are you hurt?”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked to the shirt, then back to your face, something stormy building behind his lashes. Without a word, he stepped forward and yanked it from your hand with a violence that wasn’t meant for you but sliced through the moment all the same. “Mind your own damn business,” he growled, gripping the fabric so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Don’t touch my things.”

The room seemed to grow smaller, the walls pressing in. Your stomach twisted, not in fear, but in hurt. The air between you, once filled with charged possibility, now choked with something unspoken and ugly. “I care about you, Jay,” you said, voice softer than it had any right to be. “If that blood’s yours, if you’re hurt, I deserve to know. I want to know.” He looked at you, really looked, his features warping with conflict. And then, so quietly it was almost a breath, he admitted, “It’s not mine.”

You waited, searching his face for more; anything. But his jaw locked, and his eyes shuttered, and you knew he was already pulling away from you. “Then whose is it?” you asked.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Jay —”

“I said I’m not telling you.” There was finality in his voice, a wall thrown up in a single breath. The boy who kissed you on the church steps, who tapped at your window like a lover from a poem, he was gone now, replaced by something harder, colder, cloaked in silence. Something broke in you. Not loudly, not with fireworks; but quietly, like frost spreading across glass. “Fine,” you said, each syllable clipped and cool. “Keep your secrets.” 

You turned and walked past him, your shoulder brushing his as you stormed through the door. His scent lingered; cologne and smoke and something wild, and you hated how your body still ached for him even as your heart folded in on itself. You didn’t look back. Not even when you heard him sigh behind you. 

The hour was brittle with sleep, the kind of silence that makes the world feel like it’s holding its breath. Your room was bathed in pale moonlight, the only sound the hum of the summer night outside; until the tapping began again. First gentle, like fingertips brushing a memory. Then louder. More insistent. A quiet desperation dressed in knuckles against glass. You curled tighter beneath the covers, clutching the edge of your pillow like it might anchor you to the dreamless dark. You didn’t want to see him. Not tonight. Not after that. Your heart was still bruised from the words he’d thrown like stones, from the blood he refused to explain, from the locked vault of his silence that you could not pick no matter how softly you knocked.

But the tapping wouldn’t stop. You hissed under your breath, casting a panicked glance toward your door; no footsteps yet, no flickering hallway light. If your mother woke, if Minji stirred... you’d never hear the end of it. Gritting your teeth, you kicked off the covers and padded to the window, throwing back the curtain with a fury that masked the fluttering inside your chest. There he was.

Jay. Like some bruised ghost conjured from a fever dream, standing half-shadowed in the night. But the moment your eyes landed on him, all that anger, the sharp, glittering shards of it, melted away like ice against fire. His face was a tapestry of pain: lip split, eye swelling, blood at the corner of his mouth. There were scratches across his neck, and he was holding his side like something inside him was broken. You pushed the window open without a word and stepped back. He climbed in slowly, like every movement cost him something. And when his feet hit your floor, his strength gave out, he sank onto your bed with a groan, his head tipping forward, hair falling over his eyes.

“Jay,” you whispered, kneeling beside him. You reached for him instinctively, your fingers ghosting along his arm. “What happened?” He winced, jaw tightening. “Don’t ask.”

“Jay —” 

“I can’t tell you,” he said, voice raw and quiet, like something torn. “Just — don’t ask.” And for once, you didn’t. You swallowed your questions, letting them die inside your throat. Because the way he looked, beaten, broken, and showing up at your window anyway, was answer enough for now. You fetched the first aid kit you kept hidden in your drawer, remnants of scraped knees and childhood falls, and returned to him. The bed dipped under your knees as you leaned in close, the soft sound of tearing wrappers and unscrewing ointments the only conversation. He hissed as you dabbed antiseptic across a gash on his temple, his hands gripping the bedsheets so tightly his knuckles went pale. But he didn’t pull away. 

You worked in silence, your touch gentle despite the chaos churning inside you. There was a sacredness to the moment, a kind of intimacy that didn’t need words, just breath, and closeness, and the quiet permission to fall apart in front of someone. You brushed the blood from beneath his nose, cleaned the dried smear along his jaw. Your fingers trembled, not from fear, but from the unbearable tenderness that unfurled inside you. He looked at you then, through one bruised eye and one clear, his lips parted like he might say something. But nothing came out. 

You could’ve leaned in. You could’ve kissed him right then, let him forget the pain with the press of your mouth. But you didn’t. Instead, you cupped his face, thumb stroking gently beneath the bruise that bloomed like a violet shadow under his eye. “You didn’t have to come here,” you whispered. “I didn’t know where else to go.” And your heart cracked wide open. 

Jay turned his face toward you, and for a moment, he looked unbearably young. Not the smirking boy with chaos on his tongue, not the ghost who haunted alleyways with fists and fury, but just a boy, lost in something far bigger than himself. The confession was quiet, barely more than breath, but it landed heavy in the hollow of your chest. You looked at him for a long moment, searching the shadows in his face for something, fear, regret, guilt. You didn’t find it. Just sorrow. And a strange, bitter tenderness. 

There was a silence, then. The kind that doesn’t ask to be filled. The kind that stretches its limbs across a room and curls up beside you like an old friend. Your fingers found his beneath the covers, roughened knuckles grazing your softer skin, and for a time, you just breathed together, matching rhythm for rhythm, heartbeat for heartbeat. But then it spilled out of you, like water through a cracked dam. “I hate the secrets,” you said, voice catching. “I hate not knowing. I hate feeling like I’m being kept away from something real.” 

He turned to face you fully, his brow furrowed. “They’re not to hurt you,” he said. “They’re to protect you.” You scoffed lightly, the sound bitter on your tongue. “That’s just another way of keeping me in the dark.” Jay reached up, brushing your hair back from your face. His fingers were still trembling slightly from whatever hell he’d crawled out of, but his touch was impossibly gentle.

“There are men out there,” he said slowly, “much worse than the one who grabbed you in that alley. Men with no soul behind their eyes. Men who would burn down your world just because it’s beautiful. If they ever came for you…” His jaw tightened, that fire lighting behind his gaze again. “I’d burn the whole fucking earth down first.” Your breath caught. There was no poetry in his words. No soft metaphor. Just pure, raw promise. And it hit you harder than any poem ever could.

Your chest ached with a tenderness so sharp it almost felt like grief; for the boy in your bed, for the pain in his silence, for the thousand versions of himself he had to bury just to survive in the daylight. And in that quiet ache, you leaned in. Your lips met his like a secret, like a prayer. Not rushed. Not ravenous. Just two souls pressing together in the quiet lull of honesty. His hands cupped your face with reverence, as if you were something sacred he wasn’t sure he deserved. You kissed him again, and again, letting the silence slip away with every touch. This wasn’t heat. It wasn’t the chaos that had sparked between you before. This was slower, deeper, an unraveling.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, and he whispered something you couldn’t quite make out; maybe your name, maybe a plea. You didn’t ask. Because for now, this moment was enough. 

The night seemed to stretch on forever, suspended in the quiet hush that followed whispered promises and half-spoken truths. The air in your room was still, yet it hummed with something electric and unspoken; like the pause before a storm or the moment just before a symphony begins. Jay lay beside you, his fingers threading gently through yours, his gaze roaming your face as if memorizing it, committing it to something deeper than memory, carving it into bone, etching it into breath. You turned to him, eyes wide and open like the night sky, and he met your gaze with the same soft wonder. No more walls. No more masks. Just two young hearts aching for something real in a world built on silence and shadows. “I want this,” you said, voice no louder than a falling feather. You were ready to give yourself to him; completely. 

Despite the lord's word of marriage before intimacy this felt right. At this moment you couldn't think of anything more perfect than this. He didn’t ask if you were sure. He saw the truth written in the way your hands trembled as they found his face, in the way your breath hitched not from fear but from anticipation, from a kind of reverent awe. The kind that settles between two people who have never done this before; who, even if one of them had, had never done it like this. 

There was no rush. No fumbling urgency. Just slow hands and soft sighs, as if the whole world had narrowed to this moment; the curve of your cheek beneath his touch, the shape of your name in his mouth, the warmth of his skin beneath your fingertips. Outside, the night pressed close to the glass, the moon a silver sentinel watching over the hush of your room, the silence of surrender. When you gave yourself to him, it wasn’t with hesitation; it was with trust, wrapped in candlelight and starlight and the unspoken understanding that nothing would ever be quite the same. Not after this. And in that moment, you weren’t the daughter of a man wrapped in danger. 

“Oh my god.” You sighed out as he thrust into you with a decadent ease. His touch light, his hands roaming your body like he owned it. And tonight, he did. Your moans were quiet — not to disturb your mother and sister. The soft thump of the headboard against the wall only slightly worrisome to your otherwise clouded judgement. Tonight, He wasn’t the boy with blood on his hands and secrets behind his teeth. You were just two people, breaking open beneath the weight of something delicate and real. 

He held you like something precious, like a wish whispered into the dark, and you clung to him like a prayer. And when it was over, when your bodies stilled and the world exhaled around you, you lay in his arms with your heart thudding softly against his chest. Not afraid. Not uncertain. Just full. And maybe that was the real miracle. Not the act itself, but the way you both emerged from it; still whole, but changed. Softened. Strengthened. As if love, in its quietest form, had found you in the dark and called you home.

Morning came like a whisper you didn’t want to hear; pale light creeping through your curtains, unwelcome, stirring you from the warmth left behind on your sheets. You reached instinctively for him, for the imprint of his body beside yours, but your fingers met nothing but the cool quiet of an empty bed. Jay was gone. You sat up slowly, sleep still crusted in the corners of your eyes, the remnants of last night clinging to your skin like faded stars. It wasn’t disappointment that he’d left, he was never the type to stay but a hollow ache bloomed in your chest all the same, tender and unnamed. You didn’t know if you expected a note, a goodbye, or even a lie wrapped in sweetness, but the absence spoke louder than anything. And still, you weren’t sorry. 

Your house felt changed when you walked through it; heavier, like the walls had swallowed some of the night’s truth and were trying to keep it secret. Your father and Taehyun had returned, the sound of the front door slamming earlier than sunrise pulling you halfway from sleep. Now they were back and the air was different, taut like a fraying wire. You didn’t know what had happened during their absence, but Taehyun carried the shadows like a second skin. He moved through the house like a ghost with a fuse in his chest, snapping at your mother over nothing, brushing past you with glass in his eyes, his hands shaking when he thought no one could see. You stayed out of his way. The silence between you two felt sharp and uncertain, like the edge of something waiting to be named.

Dinner that night was a ritual gone wrong, a prayer said with a mouth full of venom. You sat at the table, poking at your food, the warmth from your mother’s cooking doing little to ease the unease curling in your stomach. Your father, red-cheeked from whatever he’d been drinking, leaned back in his chair like a king on a crumbling throne, waving his glass with a crooked smirk. “That bastard Chul still thinks he can outplay me,” he muttered, voice thick with contempt. “His whore of a wife putting on fakeness like she’s better than the rest of us. And that boy of theirs... that Jay. Arrogant little shit. You can see the rot in him from a mile away.” 

You stiffened. The words felt like claws scraping against your skin, peeling away the quiet you’d wrapped around yourself. You looked up, your fork frozen in your hand. “He’s not like that,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, but it rang clear through the room like a church bell cracking. “You don’t know him.” The silence that followed was immediate and suffocating, like the house had stopped breathing.

Your father’s face twisted, his eyes going dark in an instant. The chair groaned as he shoved it back and stood, fists curling like thunderclouds. “Don’t you ever defend him again,” he snarled, the words spit like poison. “Do you hear me? If I ever hear you say that bastard’s name in this house again, I’ll lock you away so tight you’ll forget what sunlight feels like. There is nothing about that boy worth defending.” Your breath caught in your throat, your heart a frantic drum against your ribs. Your mother said nothing, eyes fixed on her plate like it could save her. And across the table, Taehyun stared at you; not with anger, not with disgust, but with something else. Something unreadable. Suspicion, maybe. Or worry. Like he was trying to put together a puzzle that suddenly had one too many pieces. 

You looked away first, throat burning, fingers shaking under the table. The warmth of last night felt galaxies away now, replaced by the cold realization that you were dancing with danger on a threadbare stage. And everyone around you was starting to notice. 

Sunday returned like clockwork, draped in solemn hymns and ironed dresses, as though the week’s secrets hadn’t been dragging behind you like chains. You found yourself sitting in the same pew as always, hands folded politely, head bowed beneath the weight of a hundred stares that whispered like ghosts behind you. The church was beautiful in that way all cages are, ornate, holy, and full of silences no one dared name. Incense curled like serpent smoke in the air, clinging to your lungs, your clothes, your bones. Jay was there. He always was. 

But today, he looked like the devil in disguise, ink-black suit pressed sharp enough to wound, and that crooked halo of hair that caught the light like it knew exactly how to tempt. He didn’t sit near you, didn’t look your way. Not really. But you felt him, his presence a gravity that tugged at your pulse. You couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t think right, not when the ghost of his mouth still lingered on your skin like last night had never ended. When the time for confessionals arrived, you rose slowly, walking the familiar path toward the booths. The red velvet curtain felt like blood between your fingers, and the small wooden seat creaked beneath your weight. You bowed your head, ready to whisper into the lattice the half-truths you’d rehearsed in your mind. But then you heard it. 

The rustle of fabric. The soft push of the curtain behind you. The scent of cigarette smoke and something darker, familiar. Before you could turn, Jay slid into the booth beside you, his body too close, his knee brushing yours in the dark. “What are you doing?” you hissed in a breathless whisper, heart already rioting in your chest like a church bell rung wrong. 

He didn’t answer at first. The space was small, too small, like a secret made physical. You could feel his breath at your temple, the heat of him seeping into your skin. “Forgive me, Father,” he murmured, voice low and sacrilegious, “for I am about to sin.” You turned sharply toward him, eyes wide. But in the dark, you could barely make out his expression, just the glint of something wild in his gaze. His hand found yours in the stillness, fingers threading through with the quiet urgency of someone drowning. 

Jay—” you tried to protest, but he leaned in, forehead resting against yours, and the world tilted. “I want you so bad.” he said, softer now, like a confession. “I couldn’t help myself.” Your breath caught, and suddenly you weren’t in a church anymore. You were in a storm. You were in a dream. You were in that fragile place where you didn’t know where faith ended and he began.

“You shouldn’t be here,” you whispered, though you didn’t really want him to go. 

“I know.” His hand slipped to your jaw, tilting your face toward his. “But I had to see you. Had to let you know that you’re still mine.” His lips brushed yours like a prayer, slow and reverent, and you kissed him back, like you were trying to absolve every wicked thought in your head, every rule you’d ever followed, every chain you were ready to break. The booth was a confessional, ye; but what you whispered into each other’s mouths were not sins. They were truths. Unholy. Beautiful.

You hear a rustle next to you — the priest had entered the booth beside you, ready to hear your sins. Your eyes widened with a mix of panic and excitement. You were not the type of girl who hopped into confessionals with their boyfriend. You weren’t the type of girl to rebel in anyway, it seems like lately that's all you've been doing. 

“Good morning.” Father Lee sighed from the otherside of the confessional. “I will begin with a prayer.” Jay’s fingers danced delicately along the lines of your dress, pulling the hem up slightly. Your eyes are wild as they shoot to his face. Jay only sends you a smirk in response, his thumb ghosting over your panties. 

“Dear heavenly Father..” Father Lee starts the prayer but his words fall on deaf ears, the only thing you can concentrate on is the way Jay’s fingers feel over your clothed clit. Circling his thumb like a bird on prey. “We’ve come here today to atone for our sins..to seek forgiveness… —” 

Jay’s moves your panty to the side; now ready and bare for him. Your breath shutters in your throat as a moan threatens to spill past your lips. You let out a squeak as Jay’s fingers found your sensitive nub rubbing slowly up and down. Jay looks at you with a devious smile, lifting his unoccupied hand to shush you with a finger against his lips. Your eyes narrow in his direction. This was so wrong. So so very wrong. How could you let him do this? How could you like? 

“We ask you, our lord, to bring peace unto us. To help us prosper —” Your hand grips Jay’s shirt, a sigh leaving your lips as he dips one single finger into your entrance. 

“Oh god —” You let slip out. A wave of panic washes over you. 

“Yes.” Father Lee hummed. “Call onto our lord and our savior..” Jay adds another finger his pace quickening along with your breathing, your chest heaving and moans knocking at lips begging to be set free. 

“Yes, god.” You whimpered, moving your hips to better aid Jay’s fingers. “Yes, yes, god.” 

“That’s it.” Father Lee nods. “Call unto him, as he is the only one who can judge you.” You feel your orgasm building in your belly, clutching onto Jay’s shirt and the arm chair you sat in; the small booth becoming hot and humid. Luckily your chants had been mistaken for prayer — something you knew you’d be ashamed of once the haze of Jay’s magnificent fingers faded. 

“I’m–” You whispered low, so close you’re not even sure Jay had heard you. He continued his movement inside you catapulting you closer and closer to your end. 

“Do you accept this prayer and are you ready to confess all your sins?” Father Lee says as a closing statement. Your orgasm washes over you like a wave, pleasure coursing through your veins straight to your belly. You convulsed around Jay’s fingers withering under  his touch. 

“Yes! Yes!” You chanted “Oh my god.” Your breathing was uneven. Father Lee shuffled beside you. “We can begin..” He trailed off. 

“Tell me, what would you like to confess?” Your eyes find Jay’s once again as your breathing slows. What did you just do? Jay flashes you a smile, a shit eating grin that you can’t help but send back. You were in trouble with him, you were falling in love with him. And nothing good could come from that. 

The morning opened soft and unsuspecting, wrapped in the perfume of maple syrup and brewed coffee, the clink of cutlery on porcelain playing a quiet lullaby in the kitchen. You sat across from your mother at the table, a gentle spring of sun dripping through the curtains, casting golden bars across her cheekbones. She looked peaceful, almost angelic, eyes trained on the television in the other room, the morning news murmuring low and steady in the background. Minji giggled somewhere down the hall, her laughter like bird song, but your focus remained tethered to the screen, distant, detached, until you heard the name. “Breaking this morning,” the anchor announced, her voice dipped in solemnity, “the body of Lee Felix, was found submerged in Blackwater Lake just after midnight…”

You froze. The fork slipped from your fingers and clattered against the ceramic plate, a jarring sound in the otherwise delicate quiet of brunch. Your breath caught like fishbone in your throat, your entire body leaning unconsciously toward the screen, as if proximity could rewrite the story you were hearing. The screen flickered. A photo filled the frame. Felix.

Smiling in that too-cocky way he had at the bake sale, his cheek bruised, his eyes alight with some reckless thing. But it wasn’t his face that rooted you to the ground like a gravestone. It was the shirt. The unmistakable burgundy fabric. The fraying collar. The splash of print along the bottom edge. The shirt you’d held in your hand just days before, trembling with unspoken questions, stained with blood and too many terrible possibilities. Felix was dead. The shirt was his. You couldn’t breathe.

“Oh my God,” you whispered, a tremor leaking into the quiet air. Your mother looked up in surprise, her brows creasing with maternal concern. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” You were already moving, scraping your chair back so violently it nearly tipped, heart pounding so loud you could barely hear her through the static in your head. You mumbled something, a headache, a book you left at the shop, you weren’t sure. Lies came too easily these days. 

You didn’t wait for her permission. You ran. Out the door, down the walk, across the street. The wind caught at your hair like fingers trying to pull you back, but you didn’t stop. The streets blurred around you, faces passing in a smear of color, sunlight too bright and air too thick. Every step closer to Jay’s house was like descending deeper into a question you weren’t ready to ask, but couldn’t leave alone. You didn’t hesitate to slam your knuckles against the front door, the sound thunderous in the quiet morning, like something wild had come knocking. The door opened too slowly for your frayed nerves, and Jay’s mother stood on the other side in a lavender cardigan and confusion painted across her face. 

“Oh… hello, sweetheart,” she said, blinking at your expression. “Is everything all right?” 

“I need to see Jay,” you said, your voice sharp and breathless, like it had been carved from ice. She flinched slightly at the urgency, but stepped aside, her brows drawing together. “He’s upstairs…” You didn’t wait for further instructions. You moved past her like a wave breaching the shore, like fury given legs and purpose, charging up the stairs that once felt so intimate, so safe. Each step was a scream. Each breath a question with no answer.

His door was closed. You didn’t knock. You pushed it open with trembling hands and a pounding heart, ready to wield truth like a blade. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, thumbing through a worn paperback, the early light painting soft shadows along the cut of his jaw. He looked up, startled, and then he smiled. “Hi, beautiful. What a surprise.” You could have wept. For a moment, you could have let the lie of his voice fold around you and lull you into peace again. But the pain sharpened you, drew you back into the wound he left open. 

“Cut the bullshit, Jay,” you snapped.

He blinked, the smile faltering. “What’s going on?”

You stepped further into the room, the space between you tightening like a noose. “Felix,” you said, your voice trembling at first, but hardening with every syllable. “They found his body. He’s dead, Jay. And he was wearing that shirt, the one I saw in here. Don’t lie to me again.” Confusion flickered across his face for the briefest second. A hesitation. Then a breath. Then something darker took root behind his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou — ” 

“Don’t.” Your voice cracked like thunder. “Please don’t lie to me again.” A long silence stretched between you, thick with guilt, with ghosts, with things unspoken and too dangerous to name. Finally, Jay stood. His hands trembled. “I didn’t want to,” he whispered. “But it wasn’t supposed to go that far.”

“So it’s true,” you breathed, your heart crumpling like paper inside your chest. Jay looked at you then, really looked at you. Not with the charm he wore like a second skin, not with that crooked smile, but with a hollow kind of desperation. A boy unraveling in front of the girl he swore to protect. “My dad…” he began, his voice thick. “He wanted to send a message. He made me follow Felix after the bake sale. Said we had to scare him. But things got out of hand. I — he — ”

But his confession never found its end. Because in the next moment, there was a hand. It covered your mouth. Strong. Cold. Reeking of cologne and iron. You tried to scream, but it caught like thorns in your throat. You thrashed, but the grip was vice-like. Jay’s face drained of color. His eyes widened, not in confusion, but in shame. In knowing. He didn’t move. From behind you, a voice like oil and gravel poured into your ear.

“Good job, son,” it said, calm and cruel. “Right where we wanted her.” You couldn’t see him, Jay’s father, but you could feel the venom in his smile. The triumph.

Your blood ran cold. You looked at Jay. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t reach for you. Didn’t fight.

And that was the worst part of all. The boy who once held you like he could protect you from the world now stood silent as it swallowed you whole. Everything went black. The last thing you remembered was his eyes. And how he didn’t even blink. 

The world came back to you slowly, like a fog lifting, like a dream turning to ash in the light of dawn. The first thing you noticed was the ache. Not just in your limbs, which were bound tight and cold against the wooden arms of a chair, but deep in the soft animal center of you, where all tenderness used to live. There was a throb behind your eyes, a ringing in your ears that ebbed and pulsed like the ocean, but no comfort came with the sound. Just dread. Just the realization that this wasn’t a nightmare. You were really here. The room was dimly lit, bare walls stained with time and secrets. The air smelled like mildew and something sharper, gasoline, maybe, or the acrid ghost of sweat and fear. Your heart pounded in its cage as your vision cleared and faces came into focus.

Chul was there. So were two men you’d never seen before, both cloaked in the quiet violence of people who had done unspeakable things too many times to remember. One was smoking, the other cracking his knuckles absently, like he was waiting for permission to break something. You realized with a start that the "something" was you. And then there was Jay.

He stood a little apart from the others, like the guilt itself had pushed him away. His eyes were on the floor, fixed on a crack in the tile like it was the only thing holding him to this earth. Not once did he look at you. Not when you stirred. Not when you cried out his name. Not when you whispered, “Jay?” as if saying it softly enough would undo everything. You struggled against the ropes that held you, panic rising in your throat like a scream half-formed. “What is this?” you demanded, voice raw and hoarse. “What the hell am I doing here?” 

Chul stepped forward, all easy menace and slick suits, the kind of man who wore his power like a second skin. His mouth curled into something that was almost a smile, but not quite. “Payback,” he said simply, like that single word explained the rot in the walls, the bile in your throat, the betrayal eating you alive from the inside out. He crouched beside you, eyes level with yours, and you hated how calm he looked, like this was just business, like you were nothing more than a bargaining chip on a bloody chessboard. 

“Your father,” he said, voice smooth as oil, “has been a real thorn in my side. Took down nearly every operation I had on the east side. Raided our shipments, turned men against me. You know how much money I’ve lost because of that self-righteous bastard?” You stared at him, your mouth dry, your stomach turning over with nausea and fury. 

“You’re lying,” you whispered, but the words held no weight. “Am I?” Chul chuckled. “You’re just a pawn, sweetheart. Your old man declared war, and war always has casualties. You just happened to be the most… convenient.” Your gaze darted to Jay again, desperate, pleading. But still, he wouldn’t meet your eyes. He stood there, carved of stone, spine rigid, jaw clenched.

“How could you?” you asked him, voice shaking, eyes burning. “Jay, please… how could you?” But something in your question broke him. Or maybe it simply exposed what was already broken. His shoulders heaved once, and he turned abruptly, storming from the room without a single word. The door slammed behind him like a sentence passed. Your heart shattered in real time. The betrayal settled into your bones like frost. You were alone now with wolves.

Chul clicked his tongue, rising back to full height, then nodded toward the men beside him. “Don’t worry, princess,” he said. “We’re not gonna kill you… yet. But if your daddy wants to see you again, he’s gonna have to cough up something big. Otherwise?” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. They left you then, all of them, the door groaning shut with finality and locking behind their footsteps. The silence that followed was unbearable. You sat there, in that cold, empty room, and the sob that broke from you was ragged and deep, a sound pulled from the belly of something ancient and wounded. Tears fell hot and relentless down your cheeks, carving rivers through the dust on your skin, baptizing you in despair. 

You had loved him. With the kind of reckless tenderness that only a heart untouched by betrayal could offer. And he had handed you over like a gift-wrapped threat. You didn’t know what was worse, the fear of what was to come, or the ache of what had already been lost.

Four days passed like smoke curling in a dark room, slow, choking, shapeless. Time didn’t pass so much as it bled, drop by drop, down the walls of your confinement. There were no windows in that room, no clocks, no way to mark the hours except by the grumble of your stomach or the ache in your spine. You lived in the rhythm of silence broken only by the door creaking open, just once a day, when she would come. Jay’s mother.  She entered like a ghost, quiet and grieving, her eyes rimmed with something too deep for sleep to ever touch. She carried with her a tray of food, a bowl of water, a cloth to wipe the bruises blooming across your face like cursed flowers. She said little, only the softest of whispers falling from her lips, prayers to a God that seemed to have turned His back on this house long ago. She would kneel before you, brush the hair from your face with fingers trembling as if your pain were a flame she longed to touch but could not bear to hold. “I’m sorry,” she’d murmur, like a litany. “I’m so sorry.” Then she would rise and vanish once more into the dark.  

Jay never came. Not once. And that betrayal festered like a splinter lodged too deep to remove, its pain dull and constant, until it owned you. But the fifth night was different. You felt it before it began, an electricity in the air, a crackle in your bones. The door opened like a breath being drawn, sharp and final, and in stepped Chul with the air of a man who enjoyed drawing blood from stones. His suit was immaculate. His smile, not.

“Well,” he said, striding toward you with slow, deliberate steps. “Looks like Daddy dearest doesn’t want you back after all.” The words crashed over you like waves too high to rise above. You gasped, shook your head, tears leaping unbidden to your eyes. “No,” you whispered. “No, you’re lying — he wouldn’t — he —” Chul crouched, one hand on the arm of your chair, the other cupping your chin with mock gentleness. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he said, tone slick with venom. “This is what happens when you pick the wrong side.” And then the slap.

It came like thunder, a sudden crack of bone against bone that left your ears ringing and your vision swimming. Your head snapped to the side. The copper taste of blood bloomed on your tongue. You barely registered the movement beside him until a voice, hoarse, breaking, cut through the din. “Stop!” Jay shouted, lunging forward, only to be yanked back by one of the other men. “Don’t touch her!” Chul’s laughter was a bark, cruel and sharp. He turned to Jay and struck him hard in the stomach. Jay doubled over, coughing, and Chul’s voice hissed through the room like smoke curling from a fire.

“You idiot. You love her?” he spat. “You really think that means anything here?” Jay didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But his eyes oh, his eyes, finally found yours. And in them you saw ruin. You saw remorse painted in broad, bleeding strokes. You saw a boy unraveling beneath the weight of his choices. A boy who had built his house upon the sand and now watched the tide take it all away. Chul pulled out his phone, leaned down, and took a photo of your face. “Let’s send this to her dear old dad,” he sneered. “Maybe this’ll make him reconsider.” 

You tried to turn your head away. You tried to disappear into the corners of the room, to become so small the violence couldn’t find you. But the blow came anyway. Sharp, final, slicing through your mind like lightning through a tree. The force of it sent your chair tilting, your cry echoing like a bell rung in mourning. “Stop it!” Jay shouted again, voice ragged with desperation. Chul raised his hand for another strike, and then the world changed.

The gunshot split the room in two. It was not the loudness that startled you but the silence that followed. A breathless, unnatural stillness, as if even the air had forgotten how to move. Chul’s eyes widened in shock before his body pitched forward, collapsing like a house gutted from the inside. Blood pooled around him, red as prophecy, thick as grief. Behind him stood Jay. Still. Gun in hand.

Smoke rising from the barrel like a spirit torn from its shell. He didn’t move. Not at first. Just stood there, breathing hard, his expression hollow and carved from something beyond pain. He looked older in that moment. Not like a boy. Not even like a man. Like something ancient. A myth unraveling in real time. Then he dropped the gun, and it clattered to the floor like a broken promise. He rushed to you, hands trembling as they touched your face, your shoulders, your bindings. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, again and again, as if the words could erase the hurt, the betrayal, the pieces of yourself that now lived in a place too dark to name. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know — I didn’t know how to stop him. I should’ve — God, I should’ve…”

And for the first time, you saw him for what he truly was. Not your savior. Not your villain. But a boy who had been used like a blade and turned back to find himself stained in the blood of everyone he loved. Jay’s fingers worked at the ropes in frantic desperation, his breath uneven, ragged with panic and something else, grief, maybe, or guilt so deep it had built a home inside his lungs. The ropes gave with a rough snap, and your hands were free, your legs unbound but the weight that clung to your chest, to your soul, was not so easily unknotted.

And then the world broke open. The thunder of boots against tile. Shouts reverberating down the hall like echoes from a war long lost. The door burst open in a flurry of violence and authority, police in black and navy, weapons drawn, voices commanding surrender. Behind them, a storm of familiar faces: your father, his jaw set in stone, and Taehyun, eyes wide with something between horror and relief. And in the center of it all, your body still trembling, Jay standing before you with blood on his hands, his father’s, and maybe his own. They pointed the guns at him. They shouted at him to step back, hands up. 

He did. Quietly. No resistance. Just a soft exhale from lungs that had been holding the moment too long. His eyes flickered toward you once more, and something like peace passed through him, fleeting and fragile. The cuffs clicked around his wrists like fate locking its teeth. “No!” you cried, stumbling forward before your knees could give way. “Wait — wait!”

The officers halted just long enough for you to cross the room, pushing past your father’s grasp, past Taehyun’s startled call. You stood in front of Jay, close enough to feel the heat of him, the sorrow radiating from his skin like the fading warmth of a star long burned out. He blinked at you, the shimmer of unshed tears catching on his lashes like morning dew. You reached up, took his face between your hands as if to memorize it, every angle, every flaw, every beautiful, broken piece. And then you kissed him. Fiercely, tenderly. Like the world was ending, because maybe, in some way, it was.

Your forehead rested against his when you finally pulled away, breath mingling with breath, time halting between heartbeats. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words shattering against your skin. You didn’t say it was okay. Because it wasn’t. Not really. Not ever. But you let him hold your gaze, let him see that despite the betrayal, despite the blood and the lies, despite everything, you still saw him. Beneath the wreckage. Beneath the boy who had chosen wrong and tried, far too late, to make it right.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, voice breaking. “I love you.” And then they took him. Through the door and out into the blinding blue morning. The house echoed with the quiet that follows storms, shattered glass and distant sirens, your own pulse pounding in your ears like a drum. You stood there long after he was gone, your wrists red and raw, your heart half in your chest and half walking away in a squad car under the watchful eye of justice and tragedy alike. Your heart is split open like a wound that hasn’t quite healed. Like a prayer said to a god who may or may not be listening. You carry him with you, in the silence between breaths, in the spaces love once occupied. Some nights, when the wind howls just right through the trees, you swear you can hear the echo of his voice.

Not calling for forgiveness. Not even for understanding. Just saying your name like it was the only true thing he ever had. And somewhere out there, the world goes on.

(♬) - @beomiracles @biteyoubiteme @hyukascampfire @dawngyu @izzyy-stuff @1-800-jewon @xylatox

[manicmanuscription]

Selfishly Late

This is the the second part to unapologetically selfish!!

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Word Count: 1554

Tags/Warnings: Fluff, suggestive, possessive Azriel.

Summary: Azriel has you running a little late to your introduction with his family. But he just can't seem to keep his hands off you.

A/N: I have literally rewrote this piece like five fucking times no joke. It's still not perfect in my eyes and there's definitely going to be a part three but I needed to post this before I went insane.

Thank you all for your patience I love you <3

acotar masterlist | main masterlist

You took one last look in the mirror before scoffing. 

Azriel had absolutely covered you in hickies. On any inch of skin he could reach, paying extra attention to your throat and collarbones. You gave him a pointed glare as he finished dressing behind you in the mirror but he was too busy fixing the cuff of his sleeves to notice. With a roll of your eyes you reached down for the scarf, draping it over your neck and brushing your hair back from underneath. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”  Azriel asked, slightly appalled as you adjusted your scarf and hair to cover some of the more egregious bruises.

He crossed the room in a few strides before standing directly behind you as you sat at your vanity. You didn’t even have a chance to respond before he pulled the scarf away from your neck gently and pinned your hair up with the jeweled metal hairpin he had gotten you last year as a birthday present, perfectly showing off the hickies.

“Azriel!” You exclaimed, turning in your seat to face him and his eyes gleamed at the yellowing dots decorating your bare skin. “I can not show up to your family’s house like this!” 

His brows furrowed slightly, the only sign of confusion you’d read off the usually stoic male. “But you look so pretty like this my love.” He murmured, reaching down and brushed his fingertips against the tender skin, his breath tickling your ear as he pressed another biting kiss to the juncture of your throat. 

Everyone told you once a mating bond snapped the males got unusually possessive, of course you believed them but Azriel was something on a whole different level. When you first met him he explained Illyrians were more territorial, all the instincts heightened. You couldn’t remember the exact sciences on it why but it made you feel so safe, loved and incredibly turned on. 

You gave him an exasperated look through the mirror, one he promptly ignored. His hands curling tighter around your shoulders. This had been going on for years. Every attempt at an introduction was thwarted by Azriel’s skilled persuasive abilities and intoxicating touch.

You did your best to stay strong this time, trying to ignore the way your entire being electrified at his close proximity, sparks running along every expanse of skin he touched. Your toes curled and you let out a soft breathy moan. One that Azriel had still heard and a victorious smile graced his lips. He hid his face in your neck so you didn’t see it. 

But you still did and it was enough to -barely- break you out of his spell. You stood up out of your chair and he rose to full height with you, towering over you slightly. “Azriel!” You reprimanded. “We are going to be late.”  

“We’re already late, what’s an extra five minutes?” He smirked, his shadows swirling around his shoulders as if in agreement. You scoffed, letting out a few curses under your breath. He had been pulling this all morning. 

You didn’t have to be a Spymaster to know Azriel was dragging his feet, first holding you tighter in bed so he could keep using your stomach as a pillow, spilling coffee on the outfit you’d picked out so you’d have to spend another 15 minutes trying to create a new one and now this hickey situation.  

You knew the High Lord or Lady was yelling at him too if any of the occasional winces and rubbing his temples were anything to go by. 

“I’m going to be making such a bad impression already!” You protested, holding your palm out for your clothing back. “Now give me my scarf so we can go please.” 

Azriel just looked at the light brown fabric still wrapped in his hands as if it committed a grievous act against him. “You’re so obsessed with this scarf.” 

You groaned, this time you were the one soothing your head with your fingertips. You knew he struggled when you were gone for long periods of time, both of your work schedules making it endlessly hard to actually have time to be husband and wife, mates, and life partners it drove you crazy too but you’d have to find a compromise because there was no way you were showing up to the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court’s estate covered in hickies. 

You told him as much and he paused, finally noticing your nerves of the event. Years after missed dates and scheduling conflicts and getting distracted by Azriel’s sly touch was all coming to an end, you were finally meeting his family, it loomed over your head and nerves pumped violently through your bloodstream.

It was a bittersweet feeling and you just wanted everything to go well, Azriel wouldn’t stop talking about how amazing his family was. His love for them ran deep and if they somehow didn’t like you….

Azriel begrudgingly passed the scarf over, your comfortability and safety would always come first and he tamped down those raging instincts telling him to whisk you and mark you more thoroughly and reclaim you over and over again especially after your long time apart. He instead pressed a comforting kiss to your forehead.

“Don’t worry love, we are completely mild compared to the crazy shit I’ve seen or heard my brother’s get into with their mates.” He shuddered and you laughed a little bit, pressing yourself closer to him so you could give him a quick hug and a soft peck to his lips, hearing a mumbled “Gods you’re killing me.”  Before sitting back down at your vanity. He sent a wave of reassurance through the bond and you returned it. You've dined with High Lord’s before this would be fine, you were fine. It had to be fine. 

“He’s not coming.” Mor said with finality. Looking over at the golden watch on Amren’s wrist. “I mean they were supposed to be here thirty minutes ago.” The ancient female pulled her hand away from the blonde sharply, giving her an even harsher look of disdain.

Cassian eyed the clock nervously and shot Mor a warning glare. It was incredibly important to him that this went well, you were a major part in his brother’s life and he wanted to not only make a good impression but also make sure you were good enough for Azriel, he recognized it as a silly thought you’d been mated for many years (unbeknownst to him) -and he’d definitely be having some words with Azriel about not being there for his mating ceremony later- but he wanted to make sure Azriel felt loved and cherished, taken care of with all the shit he’d already been through in his lifetime. 

Rhysand just let out a soft sigh, swirling the orange juice in his glass, desperately wishing it was something stronger. He’d assumed his dear brother would be late based on his previous patterns and the little reunion they’d witnessed last night but not this late and he was giving the Spymaster five more minutes before he winnowed the entire family, and their dining table to his living room torches all ablaze and pitchforks raised.

Although he couldn’t help but let out a soft smile at the thought of the usual strict and punctual Shadowsinger was willing to abandon his rigid routine for someone. 

“He’ll be here.” Feyre assured on her mate’s behalf, although her own confidence in him was waning, he did have a habit of simply not showing up when an introduction was planned. 

“You’re sure the female you saw wasn’t an illusion or a paid actress or-?” Mor started but suddenly the lighting in the room dimmed, shadows moving briefly across the edges of the floorboards before the sunlight streamed through the windows once again. An unfamiliar female’s voice rang throughout the large house as she laughed and Cassian’s heart flooded with relief at the sound, anxiety simultaneously  pumping in his chest, he wanted everything to go perfectly.

 “-are absolutely ridiculous.” “Yeah, yeah.” The shadowsinger muttered, the leftover pieces of conversation barely reaching the Inner Circle’s ears. 

Two sets of footsteps echoed across the floorboards, getting closer and closer to the dining room.

 Mor whispered a shocked. “No way.” Another step. “No way.” Another step. “No way.” 

She whispered it after every movement made until finally the couple came into view, standing in the open doorway and she couldn’t even make a sound, her mouth dropping at the sight of you. 

There was a few stunned moments of silence. 

The Inner Circle was staring at you as if you were a foreign creature and you shifted a little bit under their gaze, your mate had prepared you for an endless stream of questions but not the wide eyes and open mouths although you guess it was to be expected and Azriel tightened his hold on your shoulders protectively. 

“Surely you have better manners than this?” He bit out a little harsher than originally meant after a few more uncomfortable moments of stillness. 

You gave them a bright smile and a timid wave, breaking them out of their trance and all of a sudden they erupted with movement pulling you in for hugs and shaking your hands. Not so subtly inspecting you all the while bombarding you with questions.

This was going to be quite the breakfast. 

divider by @strangergraphics-archive

[reginyani]

Wet Dreams | s.reid x fem!reader

summary: Spencer decides to call it a day and head to bed, where he has a vivid wet dream of one of his female coworkers at the BAU.

cw: 18+, mdni, nsfw, dom!reader, sub!spencer, fem!bau!reader, oral sex, blowjob, reader swallows, use of Y/N, wet dreams

wc: 1174

authors note: sorry for the inactivity on my account! decided to pay back for that with some spencer smut;) enjoy! if you did, like and reblog!

It was an ordinary night, or so Spencer thought. The hum of the lights in his apartment, the soft tick of the clock on the wall, and the familiar weight of the blanket wrapped around his lower body. Yet something was still different.

 

When he closed his eyes, the world around him slowly started to drift away into an even deeper atmosphere.

 

It started like any other dream he has had—disjointed, unclear—but soon it shifted, warped. He found himself still lying down, leaning up on his bed. The room was dimly lit, and the air was thick with unfamiliar tension. The walls were dark, shadowed, as though the room itself was alive and shifting with every passing second.

 

Before he could process what was happening, the sound of footsteps echoed through the space. He looked up from his covers and found you standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

 

It was you, his BAU co-worker. Unlike anyone he had ever seen, a vision so striking he forgot how to breathe for a second. Your eyes glowed deeply in the low light, and your presence radiated an intense, magnetic pull. You weren't just beautiful; you were something otherworldly. It was odd; he had never noticed it before. As you stepped closer, Spencer's heart skipped a beat.

 

"What are you... doing here?" He asked, his voice hoarse, as if his body were betraying him. It was unable to comply with his usual levelheadedness.

 

"What do you mean, silly? I've been here," you said, continuing to walk over to the edge of his bed.

 

"I—uh..." He's at a loss for words, raising an eyebrow as he watches your body sway side to side as your footsteps make noise against the wood floor.

 

Once you finally make it to his bed, you crawl onto it, on all fours, making your way up his body. You smirk, looking into his big brown eyes. You snatch the blanket off, throwing it somewhere to find some other time.

 

"I can give you exactly what you need, Spencer," you said, your voice soft and melodic, your words carefully crafted to seduce him. It made his pulse race, a sudden heat rising in his chest that he couldn't explain.

 

"Need?" He gulped, sitting up straighter as your body towered over his, his brain trying to catch up with the situation. "I don't... I don't understand," his sad brown puppy eyes staring into your glowing ones in confusion.

 

You leaned in, your face mere inches from his, your breath warm against his skin. "I'm what you need in this exact moment," you whispered. "A way to... release tension, free you from the weight of your thoughts. You think so much, analyzing everything, but sometimes... you need to have an escape."

 

His chest tightened at the suggestion, his mind racing with undignified thoughts. There was something about your presence that made it impossible for him to think straight. It was as if you knew every part of him, every desire, every worry he buried deep inside himself.

 

"You don't have to think anything," you murmured, your fingers brushing over the waistband of his pajama pants. "Just feel."

 

Spencer's breath hitched as he looked down at your hand. He always prided himself on his control, but here, in this strange dream, that control seemed to slip through his fingers. His mind screamed to not allow this to happen, but his body betrayed him as he let out a whimper in anticipation.

 

You smiled at his inner conflict, his whimper music to your ears. "You don't have to fight it," you continued to whisper to him, seductively. "Do you want this, Spencer?" you finally ask.

 

He looks back up at you before finally nodding his head. "...Yes."

 

You grin, quickly pulling down his pajama pants and boxers all at once. His cock sprung out, already hard. He looks away from the scene, closing his eyes in embarrassment.

 

"Don't be embarrassed, baby. It's just me," you say, reassuring him and his doubts about this. Although there was no turning back now.

 

You look back down to his throbbing member, taking it in your hand and stroking it slowly. He turns his head back over, his mouth opening as a low groan escapes his lips.

 

"Oh... oh." he let out, throwing his head back in pleasure. You looked up to see his messy brown curls fall from his slightly wet forehead, his image more beautiful than ever.

Pathetic. It turned you on.

You finally lean your head down, taking it in your mouth slowly, your lips gliding over him as your hand worked the rest that couldn't fit into your mouth. Your tongue began to swirl and flick against the tip, feeling the smooth surface in your mouth.

 

Spencer couldn't hold back anymore. His hands flung to your head, gripping your hair, and he pushed your head further, allowing his cock to be fully pushed into your mouth. He holds your hair back as you begin to bob your head up and down, gagging as his cock hits the back of your throat.

 

Spencer's legs began to shake slightly, moaning loudly. His shame wasn't apparent anymore, as he allowed himself to guide your head on his length, beginning to thrust his hips unwillingly.

 

"Fuck... Just like that." He continues to thrust, this time in a steady rhythm, sliding in and out of your mouth with a swishing sound. Your lips gripped around his cock, driving him closer to release. "God, Y/N. You're so... talented."

 

You look up at him, your eyes locking with his, filled with lust and desire. All his problems seemed to fade away, nothing on his mind but the feeling of your lips clenching against his cock. You moan slightly, sending vibrations up his length, making him stutter out a whimper.

 

"I'm... I'm close..." he warned, his voice low but filled with pleasure as you worked your mouth on him.

 

Suddenly, a loud whine escaped his mouth, his legs heavily shaking uncontrollably. He clutched the sheets, his knuckles turning white as a warm liquid began to fill your mouth.

 

You swallowed.

 

You slide your mouth off his cock with a loud pop, sitting upward as you gaze at his face.

 

"You did so well, baby." You cooed, praising him as you brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear. He sighed softly, his arms shaking as he struggled to keep his body up. "I'm glad I could help you escape, even if it wasn't real."

 

That was the last thing you said before his eyes opened, breathing heavily as he sat up in his bed. The remnants of the dream lingered in the edges of Spencer's mind. It had been so vivid, so real—the kind of dream where every detail felt significant. Spencer rubbed his temples, pulling fragments of the haze, but the more he thought about it, the further it seemed to fade away.

 

How was he gonna act when he saw you at work? He flipped his sheets off his hot body, then looked down at his pajama pants.

 

Fuck.

 

Is all he thought as he looked down at the wet splotch on his crotch.

 

 

tags:

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[izadi234]

Forget me not

-Warning: Contain yandere themes, neglected! gn!reader, mention of low self-esteem, the writer's first language isn't English.

Yan! Batfamily x gn! reader

Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 (You're here)

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 2

The moment you retreated to your room Alfred's gaze hardened as he looked at the kitchen door through which you had left.

With a sigh he returned to making breakfast, however, something couldn't stop going around in his head.

Why?

Why do you have to leave?

Why do you have to leave ME?

He doesn't blame you. Your "family" has done nothing but ignore you and push you aside on more than one occasion since you arrived at Wayne Manor. And if it weren't for him, Bruce wouldn't have remembered to pay for your needs and education.

No. He could never blame you for your decision, but he can blame Bruce and your brothers. He had never felt such anger for them, not even when Martha and Thomas died at the hands of that cruel man. But that never had a solution, but this did. His family has a solution and he was going to fix it for you and for you. To always have his ray of sunshine at his side.

He wasn't going to lose you without having fought a war.

But for now, he had to stay calm. He sighed once more and finally relaxed as he served breakfast on the plates. He has to talk to Duje after you told him about your decision.

He had to think with a cool head. As he had told Bruce many years ago: "Fear doesn't make you think clearly" and not only was he scared of his little ones going out into the world alone, he also had anger built up. And he was going to use those two feelings to his advantage.

It was not for nothing that he was a very feared soldier during the war.

You were in your room as usual texting with a friend when Duke knocked on your bedroom door before coming in.

"Hey (name)!" said Duke happily who sat on your bed while you sat at your desk

"Oh hey Duke!" you greeted him with a smile anyway "How was school today?"

"A little boring, but at least it's Friday now" he chuckled

"And you? How was your day?"

It's now or never.

You sighed and got up from your spot to sit next to him on your bed.

"I have something to tell you Duke…" you put a hand on his shoulder

"And what is it?" He asked worriedly seeing your seriousness "Don't tell me it's something bad"

"No, it's nothing bad. At least I don't consider it bad" you started to say "But, Duke, I've decided to move out of the mansion"

"…What?…" he said in a quiet tone of voice surprised by your words

No, it can't be…

"I know it's sudden, but I can't stand this place" you sighed "I want- No, I need to start over without being in the shadow of others"

You turned to look at him and caressed his cheek.

"But this doesn't mean we won't see each other again. We'll be able to talk and keep in touch" you offered him a smile

Without saying anything, Duke hugged you and nestled his head in the crook of your neck. You put a hand on his neck and caressed him.

"Just… Don't forget about me…" he said after a few minutes of silence.

He pulled away from you and wiped away some tears that threatened to fall from his eyes.

"I could never do that, brother," you wiped one of his eyes with your thumb.

After that emotional conversation, you and Duke spent the afternoon in your room talking and watching movies on your laptop. However, Duke's mind was still on that conversation.

There was no chance that you would leave him. He had to find a way to prevent you from leaving his side.

The week you moved went by so fast that when you realized it, you were already taking the last box with your belongings out of the mansion.

You looked back at that mansion one last time and felt like that little kid again who arrived with fear and excitement to what he would call home for years. But soon your face darkened as you remembered the suffering you had experienced there. Without thinking twice, you turned around and got on your motorcycle, but not before securing your last box. You started the bike and left Wayne Manor.

You hadn't said goodbye to Alfred nor Duke but you left a letter on both of their beds wishing each of them the best, thanking them for everything and giving them the phone number of your second cell phone in case they needed something or just wanted to check on you. However, you didn't leave anything else, not even an address. You wanted to completely erase the Waynes from your life, you wanted to erase the fact that you were a Wayne too. You wanted to forget them so much that you turned off the cameras in the mansion for a period of time so you could take out your things in peace, so that no one would see the license plates of your motorcycle that you had been keeping at a friend's house and whose motorcycle was registered.

If nothing else, you had developed the same paranoia as Bruce and decided to take every measure to avoid being located. You even thought about going to live in Metropolis or Star City but the rent and sale of apartments there were much more expensive than in Gotham. Maybe when you earn more money once you finish college.

But for now focus on your present.

Before it is taken away from you.

When you got to your apartment you let out a sigh that you didn't know you were holding. You looked around, there were some pieces of furniture that came with the apartment like a leather armchair that was a little worn but looked pretty new, a wooden bookcase, several coffee tables, some pots and kitchen stuff. The only thing you had to buy was your bed but your best friend did you the favor of giving you a headboard for your bed as a gift of independence and you only bought a mattress. It wasn't as comfortable as the one you had in the mansion but at least you had things you could consider yours. NOT thanks to Wayne, but thanks to your efforts.

You put the box on the kitchen counter and before going to your room you saw several boxes.

Damn... You hadn't thought about how lazy you were going to be when you had to unpack.

That same day you left, Alfred had returned from going grocery shopping. At that time of the morning you and he used to spend the morning together, while you were in your online classes, he did the housework along with the food. Between the breaks you had between classes you used to go see what he was doing in the kitchen and you were his personal taster.

Now that you were on vacation, you spent more time with him because Bruce, Tim and sometimes Damian went to Wayne Enterprises, Dick and Jason weren't usually at the mansion and Duke, Cass and Stephanie were training in the Batcave or with their friends. For that same reason Alfred was alarmed when he called your name and you didn't answer.

He quickly went up to your room only to find it completely empty. His heart raced and he started to sweat lightly.

You couldn't have left so quickly, right?

He went down again and checked all the rooms in the big mansion and found nothing. Only his own room was missing. As he entered he could see an envelope of your favorite color on his pillow. He approached and read it.

In the letter you apologized for not saying goodbye to him in person but if you did you were more than sure that you wouldn't be able to leave. You also left him a private cell phone number where he could call you and you wished him all the best.

It had been a long time since Alfred felt the need to cry but without realizing it he had already shed a few tears. He couldn't believe that his little one was already gone.

After having shed a few tears, he quickly wiped his eyes and composed himself. No, he couldn't cry because you were going to return. He was sure of that.

However, he would let you enjoy your independence a little before implementing his plan for you to return home to your family. With him.

But first he'll have to talk with Duke.

Helloooo! I hope you liked the second chapter! If you did leave a heart and i'll see you in the next one. I kind of think this chapter is kind of bland but the story is just begining. This are the first impressions of you leaving the Manor but soon enough the rest of the family will appear.

Thanks you for reading!

-Izadi <3

TAG LIST

@eyeless-kun

[cheapshrimpysheep]

My Heaven's Light

SUMMARY: Rollo managed to kidnap you before sending the NRC students to Fleur City's Waterways, believing he was saving you. Malleus and the others reach the tower, ring the Bell of Solace and rescue you. Malleus expresses his protective side and Rollo apologizes for kidnapping you.

CHARACTERS: Rollo Flamme VS Malleus Draconia (x Reader)

TAGS: GN Reader; Angst to Comfort; Jealousy

WARNING: Spoilers from Glorious Masquerade; Kidnapping

WORD COUNT: 4.220 Words

COMMENTS: Thinking about the fact that Rollo is the twisted version of Frollo and thinking of MC as Esmeralda, it is inevitable to imagine Rollo kidnapping MC. But not for the same reasons!

Rollo is a really complex character, but one I've wanted to write about for some time now. I plan to try writing more with him in the future.

Until then, I hope you enjoy this one. 🐲🦐🔔

By the way, do you have ANY idea how many times I've looked up synonyms for common words just to get as close as possible to Rollo's way of speaking? One thing is for sure: I am greatly expanding my English vocabulary with this.

.

Amidst the panic that the firelotuses were causing, both your colleagues and Professor Trein end up paying more attention to the flowers than to you.

As you move away from the flowers, you end up approaching one of the pillars. That's when you feel a hand covering your mouth and another holding your arm behind your back.

You are carried away through the shadows as you try to free yourself, but these attempts only make the hands hold you even tighter and run the risk of injuring your arm.

The person who is taking you leans over and whispers in your ear. “I beg you not do make this more complicated that it needs to be.” It's Rollo!

He takes you to a room adjacent to the hall and pushes you inside, making you fall into an armchair. Just before he closes the door to lock you inside you hear Grim's voice.

“[Y/N]? [Y/N]?! MY HENCH-HUMAN DISAPPEARED!”

No matter how loud you scream, or how much you bang on the door, the chaos outside is too loud for anyone to hear you. Eventually you realize something is going on, so you stop to listen to the conversation. Rollo had revealed himself and was talking to your NRC colleagues.

“My, my.” You hear Azul say. “That was quite a predictable villain line, you know.”

“Silence!” Rollo's voice echoed. “YOU'RE the villains here! And what's more, you flaunted your magic and mesmerized our good citizens with it... Just like you did with your prefect. You imprisoned them with you and poisoned their mind. The poor thing became numb to the absurdity after spending every day swimming in it. Mages use their magic to lead people astray and cloud the eyes of the virtuous public. It's sad state of affairs, but it's devastating when the victim is someone like [Y/N].”

“What have you done with [Y/N]?!” Malleus's powerful voice demands to know.

“For now, I am keeping them safe. But once I engulf the world in the fiery crimson of these flowers and strip every mage in Twisted Wonderland of their magic, then I will have saved them, and all those like them who suffer at your hands!”

“You have no idea of the atrocity you are insinuating, Flamme!” Not only does Malleus’s voice thunder, but the sky outside does too.

“And there he is, folks! The secret mastermind who was controlling the ‘final boss’ all along!” Idia says. “But what kind of mastermind jumps the gun and shows up this early? Dude has like, zero patience.”

“Could you not right now? You're ruining the moment.” Azul complains.

The discussion continues with Rollo revealing that his plan is already well underway. When the Bell of Solace rang for an unprecedented fourth time that night, it suffused the city with magic. The firelotuses aren't only in the school. They've spread throughout the city, and are sapping the energy from every mage living there. And after that, he opens the floor for everyone to fall into a pit.

“And those accursed mages, with Malleus Draconia foremost among them... They'll all be finished! Enjoy your time down below. Though I think you'll find it quite...draining. At long last... I shall finally mete out my justice.”

Some time later, the door opens and Rollo enters, extending his hand to you.

“Come. We must go to the Bell Tower. It is safer-”

What he didn't expect was for you to attack him with a tall candlestick. And you discover that in addition to being a promising mage, he also has excellent reflexes. He manages to dodge your attack and grab your wrists so you let go of the candlestick.

“I do not aim to harm you!” He says very seriously. “Please don't turn it into something I have to do.”

“Then what are you doing locking me here?”

“Preventing you from falling for the tricks of those magic-addled fools once again.” He comes closer, still grabbing you by the wrists. “You poor thing. Blinded by villains who wear an elusive mask of companions. But worry not, that tragic state of affairs shan't last much longer.” He brings his face even closer to yours. “Now, I will provide you with a choice. You will accompany me peacefully to the Bell Tower, where you will be safe by my side. Or you will make me forcefully assure your safety. Which one will be?”

If you choose to resist, Rollo will pin your arm behind your back again and place a handkerchief over your mouth and nose. Whatever is in that handkerchief, will render you unconscious. And you will wake up on the top floor of the Bell Tower, lying on a blanket.

You see Rollo with his back to you, looking down at the bright scarlet below. You stand up.

“For the Righteous Judge's sake, don't try to go against me again.” Rollo says, without turning to you. “Even without the use of my magic you will not be able to overpower me.” Still without taking his eyes off the outside he calms down to invite you. “Would you be so kind as to join me in gazing out over the city?”

If you choose to accompany him peacefully to the Bell Tower, Rollo will release your wrists with a smile and give you his arm for you to intertwine with yours.

“I'm glad my judgment of you is aligning with the truth.” He says calmly as he guides. “To remain so virtuous amidst the chaos of magic, you must surely be one of heaven's lights.” You see now a new smile, a peaceful one.

The climb up the tower was silent, as you needed to breathe to climb all those stairs. When you finally reach the top, Rollo extends his hand to you. If you give him yours, he will guide you like a gentleman to a point where you can both see the ominously lit city below.

After your choice:

“Ahh, the city's turned a marvelous shade of crimson... How cleansing it is. I've never felt so at peace before.”

“Why are you doing this, Rollo?”

“Once magic vanish from the world forever, no one will have to suffer with its consequences. Magic is not something to be lionized. It is an evil temptation that, behind its illusory wonders, only causes pain and suffering. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't be like a toxin in your body... However... I wonder how much you actually know about it.”

You look at him as if to ask what he means by that.

“Are you even from this world [Y/N]?” He finally looks at you. “I don't know what it is, but there's something about you that's different from every non-magic user I've ever met. And the circumstances surrounding you are quite... abnormal.”

You choose not to respond.

“I see you have your secrets. I have mine owns as well." He takes his handkerchief to his face. "If you don't feel comfortable talking about your past, then allow me the right not to talk about mine either.”

He puts the handkerchief back in his pocket, and you observe the city in silence for a moment, until he speaks again.

“They will come here. I don't know which students will be strong enough to reach the tower, but Malleus Draconia will certainly be one of those who will be able to reach me. And when that happens, I will guarantee that he will be the first to fall.”

“Why all this obsession with Tsunotarou?”

“Obsession is a very strong word, I simply...” He stops to process what you just said. “I beg your pardon, but am I correct in assuming you were referring to Malleus Draconia just now?”

“Of course, he was who you were talking about just... Oh, I called him Tsunotarou didn't I? Sorry. But yes, I was talking about Malleus.”

“T-Tsunotarou?” He takes the handkerchief back to his face. “Is it some kind of mocking nickname?”

“No! I mean yes, it's a nickname, but no, it's not to mock him. It's a long story but that's what Grim and I call him.”

“Does he know about this... name?”

“Oh, yes. He even likes me calling him by that, he thinks it's funny. Or at least that's what it seams. He smiles every time he hears me say that name.” Just like you were smiling talking about him. “He calls me Child of Man.”

“You have a playful nickname for each other.” Rollo whispers with the handkerchief covering his angry (jealous) expression. “Soon enough you'll feel disgusted by it.”

“Sorry, I didn't understand.”

“No, nothing. Pay me no mind.” He takes the handkerchief away from his mouth. “Ah... I hear the firelotuses rustling... Those wretched Night Raven College mages are making their way up the tower, aren't they? Villains are always so stubborn.” Before you could complain about his words, he puts his hand on your arm and continues. “I must get you in a safer place. Those monsters won't give up without a fight.”

“Who do you think we’re calling-”

He ignores your reprimand and takes you by the arm to a small room that they will not have access to without first going through Rollo.

“I am deeply sorry for what I'm about to do, but I need to make sure you do not alert them to your location.” With his magic, he makes ropes appear to tie you up and a piece of cloth to silence you. “See how despicable magic is? An atrocity like trapping you is completed in seconds. But I will release you as soon as the danger has passed.” And he closes the door.

“Here we are.” You hear Malleus’s voice. “The very top floor of the bell tower.”

“The Bell of Solace stands out even at night.” Azul comments. “Look how it glints in the moonlight.”

“Now to ring it, wipe out the flowers, rescue [Y/N] and finish this stupid pop-up quest for good.” Idia points out.

“But to do that...” Malleus returns. “We must first pay our respects to the host of the party.”

This was Rollo's cue to reveal himself. Which he does.

“At long last, you've arrived. The greater the villains, the more they insist on stopping around. Deplorable.”

“Where are they Flamme?” Malleus demands to know.

“Safe, of course, away from you and your wicked lies.”

“Okay, I really need to ask.” Idia says. “What does our magic-less Prefect have to do with this flower plan and ending magic thing? Why kidnap them? They have no power to stop you. Unless you kidnapped them to keep them for yourself. Good taste tho. But you only met them literally today! That’s like the ultimate desperate creep move.”

“My actions involving your Prefect have nothing to do with personal motives. Innocent victims must be rescued from your evil hands! And that is exactly what I did.”

“I don't know if you would use the word ‘Innocent’ like that if you actually knew them.” Azul comments with a smirk.

“If this is true, it will be proof of your corruption!”

The flowers reach the bell and the exchange of words follows a course that ends with the three fighting Rollo after Malleus said:

“Regardless of your reasons, you will not have your way. I shall stop you for all the fallen in this city... For the wonderful person you kidnapped... For the people awaiting us at school... For Briar Valley... And for myself. You see, I harbor a particularly potent animus toward you. A feeling aggravated by the disrespectful actions you had towards  who is dearest to me. I shall eradicate the firelotuses and put all to rights. With the Bell of Solace itself!”

They lose the first fight against Rollo. And it's after that that Idia reveals what they read in Rollo's diary that they found in the fireplace. About his brother. About him not being able to do anything to save him... And you hear Idia going down a not so empathetic path, to which you would react with a facepalm if your hands weren't tied.

You hear Rollo getting angry and starting to lose his composure, Azul attacking him with Deuce's signature spell, with whom he had made a deal, the astonished reaction when seeing that Rollo is still standing, and finally, you hear Rollo use his signature spell and the sound of flames bursting forth.

A new fight, even more violent, until the sound of the flames died away and...

“Rollo collapsed, and his flames went out...” Azul says. “That means Malleus won, right?”

“Dude, Malleus is out of breath.” Idia says “I can see why he wanted us clear. We could've easily been collateral damage.”

Rollo says he accepted his defeat, but only to try to attack Malleus one last time when he turned his back on him. He failed, and Malleus rang the Bell of Solace, making all the flowers wither.

“The firelotuses...” Rollo was sobbing. “My flowers, my salvation, they're all withering away... You VILLAINS. What have you done?!”

“More important than that.” Malleus approached, his figure towering over Rollo's on the ground. “What have YOU done to [Y/N]?”

“Why do you show yourself so worried? A being like you would never truly care for someone like them. Admit your true intentions! You want to see them suffer on the long term.”

You finally manage to get your feet close to the door. You hear the worried voices of Azul and Idia telling Malleus not to succumb to Rollo's provocations. And you knock on the door with your feet so they can hear you.

You hear hurried footsteps coming your way, see Malleus opening the door, and look down in horror.

“[Y/N]!” He quickly reaches down to free you, breaking the ropes with his own hands and untying the piece of cloth around your mouth. He would have preferred to use magic to ensure he didn't hurt you, but he was relatively weak in that regard. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

You say you're fine, but that doesn't stop Malleus from picking you up in his arms.

“Is [Y/N] hurt?!” Azul asked, worried.

“They say they're fine. But just in case.”

“Something tells me that Malleus just really wanted to live the scene of the hero who picks up the princess in their arms after saving her from the clutches of the villain who kidnapped her.” Idia comments, just between him and Azul. “Hey, no judgments. This is what I call sense of opportunity.”

Rollo was furious, but he would never admit how jealous he was. Not even to himself.

You watched the shows that your NRC colleagues prepared. The music was beautiful and they sang so well! Especially Malleus. After that, you all talked for a bit in a group before Malleus disappeared. Only for you to see him dance with Rollo. Seriously? All that and he's still going to dance with Rollo before he dances with you?!

You dance with the others, until Malleus appears to bow to you and invite you to dance with him. However, to his surprise, you look sullen.

“Is there something wrong?” He asks you. “Did I do something that displeased you?”

You answer yes, that after everything, the first person he danced with was Rollo. He chuckles, and you get even more sulky.

“Forgive me, but I could not resist provoking Flamme one last time. That, and warn him never to even come near you again.” He says with a smile, which makes it a little scary. “I jest. Well, partially. I did threaten him if he did anything to you again.” He pauses to see if you would cheer up a bit, but you still didn't seem completely satisfied. He smirks. “I must admit, a little jealousy can actually be charming and cute.”

Other people wanted to dance with Malleus, but he asked them all to, please, wait a little longer.

“You are creating a quite long waiting line you know? I will not dance with anyone else until I have my desired dance with my beloved.” He smiles smugly when he sees your reaction.

You give him your hand, he kisses the back of it and brings your body closer to his, placing his other hand on your waist. And you dance together.

“Please be careful.” He says as you dance. You look down at your feet, confused. “Fufu. No my dear, I wasn't referring to your dancing.” The sweet smile becomes more serious. “I was referring to Rollo Flamme. I have reason to believe that, after just one day, he has already recognized your charm. He does not convince me that he did that to you just because he believed he was saving you. But worse than that...”

His expression turns sad and you feel his hand pull you closer.

“He still have hatred towards me and wants to get read of all the mages. Under different circumstances, I would not fear his attacks. I would even invite him to try. But with you... If he realizes how much you mean to me... Despite what happened, I don't believe he has that kind of character, but if he reaches a state of despair where his hatred for me is stronger than the attachment he might feel for you...”

There’s a pause. His expression becomes more peaceful.

“I learned an expression that the citizens here have. Heaven's Light. We don't know what this place called heaven is for sure, but according to some records from the past, it would have been such a wonderful place that it was not even located on land. It was somewhere above the clouds. I believe even the stories of the Lord of the Underworld spoke of a similar place. They say that the name ‘Heaven's Light’ was given by the Kindly Bell Ringer to the woman he fell in love with, for being such a caring and kind person to him.”

He caresses your cheek with one of his hands.

“I understand him perfectly. From the story I was told, I can only believe that I too was blessed with my own Heaven's Light. And just like the Kindly Bell Ringer, I will do whatever it takes to protect it.”

You didn't even realize that Malleus has led you to a more secluded place. Only when you saw that the two were hidden by the shadows and a pillar and he began to bring his face closer to yours. “My Heaven's Light.” He whispers before kissing you.

After your dance with Malleus, he went to dance with the other people who also wanted such an honor and you went to dance with some of your other colleagues.

You were finishing dancing with Sebek when Rollo approached you. Both you and he startled when Sebek quickly placed himself between the two of you.

“What are your intentions?” Sebek inquired with hostility.

“My intentions are not vile.” Rollo replies, hiding his displeasure at the way Sebek is talking to him with his composure. “I would only like to be able to invite [Y/N] to dance.”

“I cannot allow it! My orders are to keep this human safe and away from you.”

Rollo takes his handkerchief to his face, holding back the urge to respond to his audacity and insulting words. However, you tell Sebek that it's okay and that you would like to accept Rollo's invitation. Both he and Sebek are surprised.

“B-but...” He had those sad puppy eyes, eager to fulfil his duty. “My liege told me... he entrusted me to protect you.”

And you say he can still do it. He can watch you while you dance with Rollo. And if something really happens, he can intervene.

“But what if it's too late?”

You say that Rollo wouldn't do anything like that in front of all those people. And that Sebek could tell Malleus that it was your fault for telling him not to stop you.

“But... *sigh* Why are you humans so stubborn? Fine. But I won't take my eyes off you. Even if I have to stop myself from blinking!... Be careful.”

Rollo extends his hand to you and you place yours in his to accept his invitation to dance. He guides you very gently.

“I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you.” He tells you while dancing with you. “I never meant to be rude to you. And regardless of what the students of Night Raven College tell you, at no point did I intend to harm you.” Your expression shows your suspicion. “I don't intend to apologize for doing what I concluded was the best way to save you at the time. I only apologize for the... atrocious way in which I did it. I shouldn't have forced you to come with me. But I feared what those spiteful mages might do to you in a moment of desperation.”

“They wouldn't hurt me!” You say, with certainty in your voice.

“How could you be so sure of that?”

“Because, unlike you, I know them.”

He looks you intently in the eyes, and sighs. The music comes to an end, as does your dance. You bow to each other.

“I find it pitiful seeing someone magic-devoid like you stuck in that villains' lair.” He tells you when you both straighten up. “I am inclined to make my utmost efforts to have you reside in Nobel Bell College instead, however I've already come to the sorrowful realization that it is your heart that keeps you hostage in that island. But before we part, I insist that you know that if you ever find yourself overwhelmed by those circumstances that involve magic, do let me know.” He gives you that subtle smile of his. “I will be glad to provide you with my support and assistance at any moment.”

You give him a smile back, accepting his offer.

“But, just to guarantee that you don't forget my heartfelt offering...” He reaches into his pocket, takes out his handkerchief and extends it to you. “Here it is said that handkerchiefs are powerful guardians of the memories of a loved one. It is common to offer them when we don't want to be forgotten by someone. Despite my mistakes, I would still like you to have the most pleasant memory of me possible." You accept his gift. "I confess that my biggest wish at the moment was to have one of yours too.” Without his handkerchief, he covers his mouth with his hand. “But that is just a mere whim of mine.” He takes his hand away from his face and smiles again “Not even in my wildest dreams did I think I would have so much pleasure in meeting someone from Night Raven College.” He gives you one last bow. “May the Bell of Solace allow our paths to cross again.”

He turned to walk away, but you wanted to do one last thing. You had also bought a handkerchief just like his when you were doing your tour of the city, and you wouldn't need two. You ask him to wait and he turns back to you.

“It doesn't have to be a mere whim.” You say, handing him the handkerchief you had kept with you. Perhaps the sign of a second chance.

He receives your handkerchief and looked at it with his natural smile, but his eyes were different, they had a small, almost imperceptible sparkle.

“I will keep it as one of my most cherished possessions. Thank you, [Y/N].”

“Should I assume this was some sort of revenge?” You hear Malleus's voice say suddenly as you step away from the dancing crowd.

You didn't know he was there, and so close. You look at him and he's smiling wryly.

“I didn't give him any gifts, though. Should I have bought a souvenir too? Perhaps make a bouquet of those crimson flowers he is so fond of.”

“It seems you were right, Tsunotarou.” You say with a sly smile. “A little jealousy can actually be charming and cute.”

Malleus makes that cute pout.

“I told you to be careful.” He says, not as a scolding, but as a concerned request.

You tell him that nothing bad happened, that Rollo wanted to apologize for what he did to you and for him not to blame Sebek because you were the one who accepted Rollo's invitation.

“Don't worry, I know Sebek is a loyal guard. And that you are the one with a kind heart. I told Sebek that I believed him when he told me that it was of your own free will that you were dancing with Flamme. It is in your character to give others the opportunity to explain and apologize. I know this well because it's one of the things I love most about you.” His pout comes back. “However...” He smiles smugly. “I would be more reassured if you spend the rest of the ball close to me. Just in case.”

“Just in case of what, exactly?” You ask.

“Just in case someone else becomes so captivated by you that they want to lock you up in a tower. Which reminds me that in some tales the kidnapper arrange a dragoon to guard the kidnapped.” His smile becomes even more smug and slightly threatening. “Fu fu fu. I would like to see them trying.”

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[colouredbyd]

"If you look closely, you'll see them!"

Regulus Black x fem!reader

synopsis: you swear regulus has dimples but no one believes you, not until he walks in and finds you with his eyes. the room stills, and for a breathless moment, they begin to see what you always have.

warnings: pure fluff, mentions of cold deameanor, some mild language, grumpy x sunshine kinda?

w/c: 3k

a/n: my headcanon is that regulus is very much taller than sirius and he has dimples!!! i said what i said guys, argue with me !! also this has been in my drafts for a good 7 months </3

masterlist

"Regulus Black does not have dimples!"

Sirius declares for the third time that afternoon, sprawled across the common room sofa with his legs thrown carelessly over James’s lap, his voice carrying that unbothered arrogance he wielded like a second skin.

"You’re hallucinating."

You scoff, crossing your arms over your chest as you stand firm before the Marauders, unyielding in your defiance. Mary is nestled against Remus’s shoulder, her eyes glimmering with barely-contained amusement as if she knows something the others don’t.

"I am not hallucinating," you retort, voice dripping with indignation, hands finding your hips in a stance that borders on stubbornness. "I’ve seen them! They’re right here."

You jab your own cheeks for emphasis, fingers pressing into the softness just beneath your eyes, and the room erupts into snorts and muffled laughter, your so-called friends delighting in your apparent delusion.

But you know the truth. You have seen them—the delicate crescents that carve themselves into his cheeks when he smiles in that unguarded way, soft and fleeting, like moonlight filtering through darkened leaves. It is a secret you hold close to your heart, something sacred and untouched, for Regulus Black is not supposed to smile like that. Not according to them.

To everyone else, he is sharp lines and cold eyes, distant and unyielding, a boy forged from winter’s breath and brittle starlight. His name drips from their tongues like a warning, a reminder of ancient bloodlines and whispered expectations. But you know better. You have seen the way his eyes soften when you laugh, the way his hands hesitate before touching yours as if afraid he might shatter something precious.

Regulus Black, to you, is soft edges and hidden warmth, tenderness folded into the corners of his smile, something gentle and achingly beautiful beneath the surface. They could not see it, would not believe it, but you did. You always did.

"Darling," James begins, slipping into his most condescending tone as he tilts his glasses down the bridge of his nose to peer at you properly, eyes alight with mischief. "I’ve known Reggie since fourth year, and not once have I ever seen a dimple. Not even a suggestion of one."

He is wrong, you think, pressing your lips together to keep the secret tucked safely in your heart.

They do not know the way Regulus looks at you when no one is watching, how his gaze softens like the edge of dawn, or how his laugh—rare and unbidden—blooms like a flower in the dark. They do not know that Regulus Black, for all his coldness, holds sunlight in his smile, and you are one of the very few who has ever been allowed to see it.

"That’s because you’re not paying attention," you shoot back, arms crossing defensively. "He does this little smile sometimes, it’s soft and kind of lopsided, and there’s this tiny dimple right here—" you poke your cheek again, more insistently, as if the physicality might convince them. "I swear, it’s like magic."

"Or madness," Remus suggests mildly, and Mary dissolves into laughter, her curls shaking as she leans further into him.

"I mean, we’re talking about Regulus Black here, right? My-face-is-carved-from-stone Regulus Black?"

"Maybe it’s just a shadow," Sirius chimes in, inspecting his nails with a grin that teeters on smugness. He hardly even glances up, as if the matter is too trivial for his full attention.

"A trick of the light. Or you’ve been hexed. Definitely hexed. I bet it’s a dimple jinx. You see fake dimples, fall madly in love." His grin widens, eyes glinting with mischief, and the others snicker at the notion.

"I have not been hexed!" you cry, voice pitching higher in your indignation, but your outburst only seems to spur their laughter further.

The sound spills into the room like the crackle of firewood, unrestrained and merry, and you stand at the center of it all, defiant and unyielding. "I’m telling you, I’ve seen them. He has dimples!"

"Right," James nods, his expression shifting to exaggerated seriousness as he claps a hand on your shoulder, eyes sparkling with that brand of Marauder mischief that rarely bodes well.

"And I’m secretly the heir to the Malfoy fortune."

"Stop it." you protest, your hands flying to your hips as if that might root your argument more firmly in truth.

"He has dimples. If you look closely, you’ll see them!"

They laugh again, the sound bubbling up like champagne flutes clinking together, indulgent and disbelieving. But you only hold your ground, chin tilted upward with all the stubbornness of someone who has glimpsed something magical and refuses to let it be reduced to smoke and shadows.

Because you know. You have seen the way Regulus’s face softens when he lets his guard slip, how those tiny, secret dimples blossom at the edges of his smile like something fragile and hidden from the rest of the world. It is not a trick of the light, not some fleeting mirage conjured by wishful thinking.

It is real. He is real. And maybe, just maybe, they have never looked closely enough.

"He does not," Sirius says flatly. "I would know. I’ve seen that miserable mug for seventeen years straight, and not once has it ever hinted at joy. If he’s smiling for you, you might want to check if he’s choking."

"You don’t know everything about him," you snap back, and it’s a bit more pointed than you intended, because Sirius’s expression shifts for the briefest moment, but then he’s back to smirking, one brow arched.

"Oh, I know enough. And I know that my miserable little brother is physically incapable of producing dimples. It would require smiling first. Which is practically illegal for him, by the way. Pretty sure he signed a contract with Death himself."

"He does smile," you argue. "Just... not around you lot."

Mary’s eyes light up at that, and she sits up a little straighter, nudging Remus. "Not around us, huh? Just around you?"

You hesitate, heat creeping up your neck. "Well… yeah. I suppose." At their expressions, you quickly add, "That’s not weird!"

"It’s a little weird," Remus says thoughtfully. "I mean, I��ve never seen him smile like that." He looks to Sirius for confirmation, who just shakes his head.

"Me neither," Sirius agrees. "And if he was going to be grinning like a lovesick idiot, I feel like I’d know. Or maybe you just have some sort of freaky dimple-seeing ability. Is that a thing? Can we get that checked?"

"Maybe he only smiles for her," Mary sing-songs, and you swat at her, cheeks blazing. "What? I’m just saying!"

You cross your arms tighter over your chest, frustration curling hot and sharp beneath your ribs. You know what you saw. It wasn’t magic or shadows or madness. It was Regulus, soft and unguarded in a way that felt almost secret. A piece of him reserved just for you, like a glimpse behind the curtain of a play only you were meant to watch.

But they wouldn’t believe you. They couldn’t. Because to them, Regulus was all sharp edges and cold stares, impenetrable as stone. But to you, he was something else entirely.

You saw the parts he kept hidden—the softness, the ache, the way his eyes would linger when he thought you weren’t looking. The way his fingers brushed yours just a bit too long when he handed you your books, the way he stood a little closer than necessary when you walked side by side. His dimples were proof of it. Proof of the parts of him that were gentle and real and yours.

"I’m not making it up," you murmur stubbornly, softer this time, almost like you’re telling it to yourself.

James leans back, stretching his legs out in front of him. "You know, I almost want you to be right. I’ve never seen Regulus with dimples before. I think it would break my brain."

The room is still shaking with laughter when the portrait door swings open. It is a subtle thing, just the soft groan of hinges and the hush of movement, but you feel it like an echo in your bones. Your gaze snaps up before you can help it, the breath stalling in your lungs as if caught between heartbeats.

There he is, Regulus Black, framed in the doorway like he has stepped out of a painting, shadows and light playing across his features in sharp relief.

He is ice and elegance, his gaze sweeping over the room with cool detachment, the sort of look that makes even Sirius go still. His brother’s grin falters, an instinctual pause as if the air has been sucked from the room.

Regulus’s eyes flicker over them, James’s raised brow, Sirius’s smirk half-frozen in place, Remus’s unbothered calm, but there is nothing there, not even a nod of acknowledgment. His expression is marble-carved, beautiful and unyielding.

But then his gaze finds yours, and it softens, melts like snow beneath the first touch of spring. His eyes brighten, lips twitching at the corners, and suddenly it is like you are the only two people in the room. The change is breathtaking, the kind of transformation that feels like stepping into sunlight after days of rain.

Without thinking, you are already moving, feet carrying you across the room as if pulled by some invisible thread.

"Regulus," you breathe, and the way his name falls from your lips feels like unspooling thread, like the first sigh of spring. His expression softens entirely, something delicate and aching sparking behind his eyes as you practically throw yourself into his arms. He catches you easily, arms winding around your waist, steady and certain, like he has been waiting for you his entire life.

Your hands are in his hair before you realize it, fingertips grazing the base of his neck as you pull back just enough to look at him properly. His smile is still there, still hovering at the edges, and it is soft and real and yours.

"I missed you," you whisper, half a confession, half a prayer, and as soon as the words leave your lips, it happens.

A tiny crease, delicate and almost imperceptible, blooms on his left cheek, like the first hint of dawn breaking over a dark horizon.

A dimple, soft and secret, there and gone in a heartbeat, as if it only exists for you.

"I missed you too, amour," he murmurs, his gaze flicking over your face like he is memorizing it. "You have no idea."

There is a tension in the room, thick and breathless, as if the very walls are leaning in to listen, the crackle of the fire muted under the weight of disbelief.

The Marauders and Mary are watching with wide eyes, suspended between fascination and utter incredulity, as if the scene before them is too tender, too impossibly soft to be real.

Regulus Black—aloof and unyielding, frost-kissed and sharp-edged—is holding you like something sacred, his arms wrapped around you with a gentleness that seems to contradict everything they thought they knew of him. His thumb brushes across your cheek, feather-light and reverent, as though you are made of something finer than bone and breath, something worth protecting.

And then he smiles—just a fraction more—but it is enough.

You do not even realize what you are doing; your body moves before your mind catches up, and you lean up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, quick and soft and so achingly familiar it feels like slipping into an old memory. He blinks, eyes flickering with surprise, but you do not pull away.

You lean in again, pressing your lips to his other cheek, right where his smile deepens, and it happens—a twin to the first, blooming on the opposite cheek as if coaxed into existence by your touch alone.

A second dimple, tender and unmistakable, carved into his pale skin like it had been waiting there all along, hidden just beneath the surface.

You are not the only one who notices.

Behind you, there is the unmistakable sound of someone choking on their own breath, followed by a very loud, "What the hell?" from James, his voice pitched somewhere between awe and utter disbelief.

Regulus glances up, his gaze catching on James, who is staring as if he has just witnessed stone turn to gold, like magic itself has unfolded right in front of him.

Sirius is uncharacteristically silent, eyes narrowed in something akin to suspicion or maybe even wonder, while James’s jaw is completely unhinged, glasses slipping precariously down the bridge of his nose.

Remus is blinking rapidly, as if trying to clear away a mirage, mouth slightly parted in surprise. And Mary—sweet, sharp-eyed Mary—looks positively gleeful, her grin spreading slow and wicked as she nudges Remus sharply in the ribs, her eyes dancing with triumph.

"I told you," she mouths, lips curving around each word with delight.

Because it is true.

There is no need to look closely, no need to squint or peer beneath shadows—Regulus Black’s dimples are right there, clear as daylight and twice as warm, so stunningly visible that they might as well have been carved out of starlight.

They blossom wide and unguarded, softening the sharp lines of his face, and for a heartbeat, he is not the boy forged from winter’s chill and midnight silence. He is something brighter, something softer, and it is plain to see that with you, he is allowed to be gentle.

"I told you!" you practically crow, turning back to face them while still locked in Regulus’s arms. "I told you he has dimples!"

Sirius remains silent, watching with something like suspicion, but James looks like he has seen a ghost.

James is still staring. "I think I need to sit down."

"You are sitting down," Remus points out.

"I think I need to sit down lower," James clarifies faintly.

But you are not paying attention to them anymore, because Regulus is looking at you with that same impossible smile, both dimples still lingering like promises.

His hand cups your cheek, thumb stroking a gentle line across your skin. "You told them about my dimples?" he asks, voice low and edged with amusement.

You nod, breathless and unashamed. "I did. And they did not believe me."

His smile softens, stretching wider, and both dimples deepen like secret doorways to some hidden softness that only you are allowed to see.

He leans in, the space between you shrinking until his breath mingles with yours, and his voice drops to a low, velvety murmur meant only for you.

"You really should not spend so much time with Gryffindors," he whispers, his tone laced with quiet disdain that is more habit than heart, though his gaze remains warm and unyielding, crafted entirely for you. "I think they are starting to rub off on you." His eyes glimmer with amusement, but there is something else there too, something tender that settles in the quiet curve of his smile.

Your laughter spills out, bright and unrestrained, like the first crack of sunlight through winter clouds, and before you know it, your hands are tugging him closer, closing whatever space remains.

In that moment, it is just you and him, suspended in the fragile stillness that belongs only to the two of you, where the rest of the world feels distant and unimportant, something to be dealt with later.

For now, there is only this: his smile, his dimples carved like promises into his cheeks, and the gentle, unwavering warmth of his arms around you, holding you close as if he is terrified of letting go, as if this is a vow whispered into the spaces between heartbeats.

The truth is, Sirius had always known that Regulus had dimples.

He had known for years, had seen the faint creases carve themselves into his brother’s cheeks on the rarest of occasions, like fleeting whispers of a softer world beneath the ice.

But the thing is, those dimples only ever appeared when Regulus was around you, when your laughter spilled into the room like sunlight or when your name slipped from his mouth with that unguarded tenderness that seemed to unravel something deep and hidden in him.

It was as though the universe had woven this small, delicate fragment of softness solely for you to uncover, a secret threaded carefully into the very fabric of him, waiting patiently for your hands to find it, to hold it like something sacred and fragile and wholly yours.

[tsuma-senju]

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who only cares about winning, even if he has to be the biggest asshole in the world, ignoring anything other than the next fight.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who runs away from interviews like the plague, flinching in his chair as he hears the usual inane questions. His manager, a man blessed by heaven to be able to put up with the fighter's persistently optimistic mood, tries to keep his composure, but every dry, monosyllabic answer from Sukuna makes the sweat drip down his temple.

“Sukuna, how are you preparing for the fight against the Thai champion?”

“Training”

“Any new strategies?”

“Fighting”

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who was forced to be there against his will, stands up abruptly. The photographers are startled by the movement. The businessman tries to reach him, desperate.

"Sukuna! No! Only ten minutes to go!"

But it's no use. The champion is already leaving, with heavy, irritated steps, while the security guards try to clear the way. He ignores shouts, cameras, microphones and questions. And off he goes, towards the underground parking lot

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who is itching to get in and disappear in his matte black sports car.

He gets into the vehicle, starts the engine with a furious roar and begins to maneuver without paying much attention.

That's when you appear.

You, completely distracted, holding your cell phone and a shopping bag that almost falls to the ground.

The roar of the engine makes you look back, but it's too late.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, driving like an impatient ogre, almost runs you over.

“ARE YOU CRAZY, YOU SON OF A BITCH?!” you shout, slamming your palm down hard on the car window. “WHAT KIND OF IDIOT RUNS OUT OF THE PARKING LOT LIKE THAT?!”

You're furious. Your blood is boiling. Without even thinking about it, you're already hitting the bodywork harder.

"GET OUT OF THAT FUCKING CAR NOW! YOU IGNORANT"

The window starts to roll down. You're still huffing and puffing, indignant and ready to curse, until you see... him.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who is enchanted by your courage and audacity, appears like a huge shadow inside the car. His red eyes stare into yours as if studying you. The crooked smile at the corner of his mouth reveals that he is not in the least annoyed. On the contrary... he seems to be enjoying himself.

“Are you always like this?” he asks, getting out of the car with an annoying calmness and a body that makes the ground seem smaller.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who exudes imposing bearing, stretches himself to the maximum as he gets out of the car. His muscles bulge out from under his tight T-shirt, the tattoos decorating his arms like a dangerous map. You take two steps back, still holding the shopping bag as if it were a weapon.

"I-I... look, I'm sorry, okay? I... I thought you were some rich slacker"

“Technically, I am,” he replies, running his tongue over his teeth, approaching as if he were in a ring. “But your reaction... It was interesting”

Now that the initial shock has worn off, you realize who this is. Your eyes widen, the name slips out of your mouth like a secret:

"Ryomen Sukuna? The muai thai world champion?"

He shrugs.

"It depends. If I tell you no, will you keep shouting at me?"

You let out a nervous laugh, putting your hand to your forehead.

“Oh my God... I almost insulted you”

“Almost? You did” He smiles wider.

You try to apologize in every way, stumbling over your words, mixing up “I'm sorry”, “I really am sorry”, and “I didn't mean to”. But he raises a hand, cutting your apology in half.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who doesn't care about flattery or apologies, looks at you with a sharp look and says:

"Do you really want to apologize? Then give me your number."

You freeze.

“What?”

"That's it. Give me your number. I won't insist, but it would be a shame to let this story end in the parking lot."

You stare at him for a moment. He's not joking. And honestly? Maybe you're not either.

You take out your cell phone, type in your number and hand it over. He types something into his cell phone, and soon after, you receive a message:

Unknown number: "If I win the next fight, you owe me a coffee. If I lose... too. ;) - Sukuna."

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who gives you one last look before heading back to his car. Leaving you standing there, staring at your cell phone screen and trying to understand what the hell just happened.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who never gets distracted by anything outside the ring, didn't expect to fall in love with a woman he almost ran over in the parking lot. In front of the strong-tempered woman, drinking a coffee that he certainly won't let her pay for.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who, a few months later, is standing in the room he himself prepared with red petals scattered everywhere, lit candles emitting his favorite scent, the one you once mentioned casually one afternoon and he memorized as if it were the next technique that would save his life in the ring.

You open the front door thinking you're just going to find Sukuna grumpy and sweaty after training. But when you step inside, everything changes. The light is low, the sweet, familiar smell envelops you, and there, in the center of it all, is him, that man no one dares to contradict, holding a discreet ring in his calloused hand, as if it were made of glass.

"I almost ran you over," he begins, with that crooked, insolent smile, "and ever since then, I've never wanted you to get out of my way. Would you like to be my girlfriend?"

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who used to be cold, rough and averse to any sentimentality, now wants to hide you from the press because you're his little, and not at all defenseless, girlfriend. The woman who shouted at him without fear and who now sleeps on his chest every night. And he keeps it as a precious secret. For months, no one knows he's with someone. You live behind the scenes, away from the spotlight, safe and loved.

When you ask, he replies with the same expression as always:

"Next question."

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who marries you a year later. It was a simple, private ceremony, with no paparazzi or magazine covers. The only flashes were from close friends and family. But there was too much sincerity in that exchange of vows. He wore a suit, his hair neatly combed, and a look that seemed ready to cry, even if he would never admit it.

"I'm yours. Forever. Even when I'm far away. Even when my fists are closed. Even when life wants to beat me down... you'll be the only thing that keeps me standing."

You cried. He held your hand tightly. And when you were pronounced husband and wife, the world stopped for a few seconds.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna who has a dry, impersonal Instagram, with only training videos, photos with medals and short phrases like “ready” or “focus”. But one day, he surprised all of his almost six million followers with something no one expected.

One photo. No caption. Three hands.

His, scarred, rough, with knuckles hardened from so many punches.

Yours, soft, smooth, resting on top of his.

And between them, a chubby, innocent little hand, grasping Sukuna's finger as if it already knew it was safe there.

The comments explode.

“Is he a FATHER?” “Is this photo real???” “STOP THE WORLD I NEED INFORMATION” “Someone warn me that Sukuna has become a dilf”

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who doesn't give interviews about his personal life, remains silent. He deactivates the comments hours later. He leaves the image there, alone, saying everything he will never put into words.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who could never have imagined that his life would change completely in four years, now wakes up at dawn to hold a baby on his lap. He sings, walks down the dark corridor with slow, careful steps, and holds the child like he holds his own heart in his hands.

He finds himself looking at you, sleeping exhausted after another difficult night, and feels his chest tighten with love.

"Thank you," he whispers softly, so no one can hear.

Muai thai fighter Sukuna, who used to think only of winning, now measures victories in quiet cries, small laughs and kisses on the top of your head.

He is still the champion. He is still feared. He still fights like a demon when he's in the octagon.

But at home, he's just the man who can't stop thanking you.

For you. For the baby. For the life he never planned to have, but which has turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.

[wendichester]

⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ home is where you are,

summary. you make sam want to settle down.

pairing. sam winchester x reader genre. pure fluff

wordcount. 588

notes / warnings. forehead kisses, tender confessions, and a man realizing he doesn't want to fight monsters anymore

It happens on a Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday where rain patters against the windows and time feels syrupy, like the world’s moving just a little slower so you can catch your breath.

You’re in the kitchen, humming to some old song on the radio, barefoot in one of Sam’s flannel shirts—because, let’s be honest, you��ve slowly kidnapped half his wardrobe. You’re stirring something in a pot that smells like childhood and comfort and “please stay a little longer.”

And behind you, Sam just watches.

He’s leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, hair still damp from the shower, wearing sweatpants and one of those rare, easy smiles that aren’t shadowed by blood or loss or guilt. There’s something soft in his eyes—so soft it almost scares you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask, without turning, but your grin gives you away.

He walks over slowly, wraps his arms around your waist from behind, and presses a kiss to the crook of your neck. “Just thinking.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “It is. Thinking about something pretty reckless, actually.”

You pause, still holding the wooden spoon, feeling the weight of his body melt into yours. “Reckless how?”

His fingers trace lazy circles on your hips, and when he speaks again, his voice is quieter—like a secret he’s scared to say too loud. “Thinking about... quitting.”

You blink. “Quitting what?”

“The life.” His breath fans warm against your skin. “Hunting. Running. Living out of motel rooms and praying we don’t die tomorrow.”

Your heart stutters. You turn slowly in his arms, and his face is wide open, no armor, no shields. Just Sam, and a kind of raw hope you’ve never seen on him before.

“You serious?” you whisper.

He nods. “I didn’t think I was. Not at first. But being here with you, waking up without a gun under my pillow, eating food that isn’t wrapped in greasy paper... It makes me wonder if maybe—maybe—I could want something more.”

You reach up and cup his face, thumb brushing the line of his jaw. “You could have that, Sam. You deserve that.”

His throat works, like the words get stuck on the way out. “I didn’t think I did. For a long time, I thought this was all I was ever going to be. Just one more body in the fight. But then you showed up and... you make it quiet.”

Your chest aches, full in a way that feels almost unbearable.

“You think I wouldn’t want that with you?” you say, eyes misty. “I’ve wanted that since the second you fixed my busted heater and then looked offended when I offered to pay you in lasagna.”

He chuckles, rubbing at his eyes like the emotion is too much. “That lasagna was really good.”

“Then let me keep making it.” You press your forehead to his. “Let me be the reason you stop running.”

For a long moment, it’s just the two of you, standing there in the hum of the kitchen—his arms around your waist, your hands on his chest, the smell of dinner and rain, and the future hanging in the air like a promise.

“You ever think about it?” he asks softly. “A house. With a porch. Maybe a garden. A dog.”

You smile. “Yeah. And you in it. Sitting with me on the porch after dinner, your hand in mine, not a damn demon in sight.”

He kisses you like that future’s already started.

Like maybe, finally, it has.

ꔛ. navigation 𓂃˖ ࣪ all drabbles ; compatibility readings ; support my work .ᐟ

[endofthelinegang]

… C-can I request heavy make out session with John Walker (established relationship), please and thank you 🥹👉👈

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ john walker x fem! reader

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ something is in the wind tonight, so a little steam, a little much

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ oh fuck me i thought i would be able to make this short, but apparently the same way this has been the bird blog this will now be the robert and john blog (1.6k words)

You weren’t trying to make anything happen. Really for once you weren’t you were just curled up on the couch in little shorts and long sleeves, sleeves that were his. Of course he had picked the movie, some off brand Mission-Impossible shit that was insufferable at times when he would try and tell you about anything you crinkle your eyebrows at. That’s the part that always gets you later—how normal it was at first. Movie on. Hoodie sleeves pulled over your hands. His thigh warm hand on your calf, the TV flickering across his face in sharp bursts of light and shadow. But my god you did not wanna sit here anymore, not like this anyway. In between moments of real action you kept looking at his hand and then looking back up at him.

He wasn’t even looking at the screen anymore. He didn’t need to and not just because he had seen it so many times but because you were right there and you were paying attention to something he cared about. And you were wearing his clothes and holy shit was that something. 

You felt it first—the shift in the air, the pull of his eyes on you. And then, quietly, his voice:

“You doin’ that thing again,” he murmurs, a lazy drawl like smoke and heat. “That thing where you look at me like you want something, but you won’t say it.” 

You blink at him, lips parting—about to deny it, deflect, maybe tease him back. But nothing came out, not even a little puff of air, just silence. The smell of the aftershave he swore up and down he didn’t use was the only thing you could smell as you tucked your head against the hood just a little bit not to face him.

But then he tilts his head, smirks slowly and crooked, and adds, “It’s alright. I’ll say it for you.”

And just like that, it’s over.

He leans in. One hand slides around the back of your neck, palm broad and warm and certain—like he’s not asking, he’s claiming. His mouth brushes yours once, a breath away from soft, but then he closes the distance and kisses you like he’s already been thinking about it for days. It's practiced and hungry—too precise to be sloppy, too messy to be innocent. His fingers curl a little tighter at your neck as he deepens it, and his other hand finds your waist, pulling you in like he’s got something to prove.

You make a soft noise—half sigh, half gasp—and he chuckles against your lips, low and satisfied. 

“There it is,” he mutters. “Knew I could get you to melt for me.”

You want to say something smart back—really, you do—but his tongue brushes yours and your brain short-circuits. All you can do is cling to the front of his shirt, fisting the fabric like you might fall apart if you let go. 

He keeps going—pressing kisses into the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your throat. Not gentle. Not rough. Just intentional. Every inch of you, touched like it matters. Really it was shocking, he was not as selfish as he seemed to others, but this giving? Rare. He was loving you just enough for you to know that is what was going on. Anyone else would just think he is trying to get into your pants. But if you ask John Walker he would say he was doing both. 

“You ever think about how easy it’d be,” he murmurs into your skin, “to just keep you here? Right in my lap, right where you belong.”

You shiver. You don’t even try to hide it. If you did it would only be worse on you because he would stop. Not only would he stop but he would stop and make you talk to him and think about. Walker would tease and pick at you until you were either so mad you could kill him or so down bad that you would have nothing else to say. 

“John…”

He pulls back just enough to look at you. Really look at you. You had your boyfriend hair going, red cheeks, heaving chest that could barely be seen underneath the thick fabric making this an even hotter situation, and slightly parted lips taking in little quick breaths that felt like breathing through a straw. 

His eyes hooded, jaw tight, chest rising like he’s fighting to keep his pulse under control. His cheeks were also red but his pupils were fucking huge. 

“You don’t even know,” he mutters. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

You reach for him again, and he lets you. He kisses you this time slower, but deeper—like the sharp edge’s gone blunt, replaced by something molten, heavy with promise. His thumb strokes along your cheekbone like he’s grounding you both, even though his body’s practically vibrating with restraint. His hand slides to your thigh. Squeezes. Possessive. Familiar. And when you grind down against him—just a little—he exhales through his nose like he’s trying not to snap.

“I should stop,” he says. But he doesn’t move. It’s very simple as to why. Should n't mean you have to and nothing was going to make him stop now. 

You lean in close, tucking lose hair behind your ear, lips brushing the shell of his ear. Your dominant hand now placed on his face.

“But you won’t.”

He grabs your jaw—gently, but firm enough that your breath catches—and pulls your mouth back to his. Your both a fucking mess of deep shallow breaths, the bombs going off on the TV making the living room shake did not matter at all. His hands could not hold still they were tugging on the hoodie, then back down your legs, this back up around your neck, to your jaw. And that’s where you stay: pressed to him, half in his lap, lost in the quiet violence of being wanted this deeply. Of being kissed like you’re something holy and dangerous all at once.

Because John Walker doesn’t just kiss to feel. He kisses to remember.To mark.To keep.

And you? You’ve never wanted anything more than to be his to keep.

And he knows it.

It’s in the way your fingers tangle in his hair now, gentle at first, then tightening when he tilts your head just so and sinks into the kiss like he’s starving for it. It’s not frantic, not anymore. He’s savoring now. Sinking into it. Mapping your mouth with slow, possessive certainty like he’s memorizing it—not because he’s afraid to forget, but because he doesn’t want to risk missing a single part.

You whisper his name again between kisses—softer this time. Less like a warning, more like a promise. Like yes, I’m here. Yes, this is happening. Yes, this is yours. That fucking kills him, right there, shot dead. His name, your mouth, being spoken like that. If he was standing he would’ve fallen on his knees right then

John pulls back just barely, forehead to yours. His eyes are still closed. Like it hurts to stop, even for a second. He plants you completely over his lap now shifting you to be sat perfectly over top of him. Everything in him wanted to plant at least one hand on your ass but he couldn’t just do that, no, he had to say something first.

And then, voice hoarse, he breathes, “If you don’t want this…”

You cut him off without words—just a soft noise, an insistent pull on his shirt, the brush of your nose against his. You don’t say anything. You don’t have to.  You already said it with your body. With your kiss. With the way your knees tucked in tighter to the side of his thighs and your face softened and your pulse stayed loud enough for both of you.

“I want you,” you finally whisper. And it’s not sexy. It’s not coy or teasing. It’s raw. Honest. Like you’ve been sitting on it for too long and now it’s spilling out, trembling at the edges. His breath stutters like you hit something inside him he didn’t expect you to touch. He doesn’t smile—doesn’t smirk. He just looks at you.

That look.

The one that says, You could ask me for anything and I’d give it to you without thinking.

Not because he’s weak. Not because he’s easy. But because it’s you.And in his world—broken and blood-soaked and lined in gray—you’re the only thing that feels like solid ground.

“You should sit in my lap more,” he says gruffly, hands now flat against your hips. “I think better like this.”

You laugh, the kind of soft half-laugh that only comes out when you’re too gone to hide how gone you are.

“I think you just like me close.”

“I do,” he admits. No shame. Just truth. Which shocks you down the sole of your foot because he never said shit like that. Never. 

Then he kisses you again, and this time it’s slow and deep and reverent, and there’s something soft in it. Something safe.Like the calm before the storm, or maybe the eye of it.

Because make no mistake—John Walker is a storm. The kind that doesn’t ask permission before it breaks your world open.

But for you?

He quiets.

He calms.

He stays.

And as you curl up tighter into him chests touching hands roaming further—your lips bruised, your breath warm against his throat, his arms circling around you like the only home he’s ever trusted—you feel it:

That promise.

That gravity.

That quiet, terrifying, beautiful truth.

You’re not just something he wants.

You’re something he’s already chosen. Something he’ll protect. Something he’ll keep.

Even if the world burns around you.

[juricel]

god your yandere smc lives rent free in my head i wanna punch him, kick him in the shin and then give him a lil kiss

also if you're feeling up for it and your requests are open, would you mind writing some headcanons about yandere smc w/ a reader who is defiant but not really in the "kicking, yelling, screaming" way but in the "i will do my best to make your life miserable and inconvenience you as much as possible " (think refusing to talk or engage, entertaining herself in isolation, snarky backtalk; very much "cat making eye contact with you while pushing a glass off the table" energy, defiant yet still subdued)

bonus points if the reader is usually an affectionate person and continues to be like that w/ candy apple (hugs her/pats her head, speaks nicely and sweetly to her, treats her like a lil sis/daughter)

thank you so much for your time!! your writing is amazing!!

a/n: i'm flattered! and please do feel free to do so, anon... he more than deserves it with how he's been treating the reader in my fics.

— yandere! shadow milk cookie x defiant! reader hcs

໒꒰՞ ܸ. .ܸ՞꒱ა ۪ ׂ CONTENT WARNING: manipulation, physical abuse, heavy possessive and obssessive behavior, unhealthy relationship, implied forced established relationship, mentioned and implied mindbreak, stalking, potential ooc.

𖦁‎ oh, he would adore your defiance! shadow milk cookie loves games, and he would view your defiance as such and daresay, it certainly has became his favorite game, even taking over the throne of his most beloved hobby of breaking cookies apart and observing them falling down the never-ending rabbit hole from illusions.

𖦁 your distant attitude towards him wouldn't faze him whatsoever either, and if anything, his lovesickness would delude himself into thinking it was a natural reaction of yours from being in love; oh, you're not listening? oh, that is no biggie for him! he'll simply blabber your ears off, isolating yourself? has his dear forgotten? he is an omniscient presence within earthbread and his kingdom, there is no way to flee from him, he'll just trail along behind you! being a petulant thing against him? oh, that's adorable! surely, you jest! breaking one his precious gifts he spent his time on solely for you? oh, silly little you! how clumsy you are! being such a nice lover, he'll put it back together! you didn't mean to break that, don't you? you didn't, right? he'd break your arms. regardless of how you much you pay no heed to his presence, he is an everlasting existence and will forever be right beside you! there is no escaping him and his sight, it is just as fate concluded, after all!

𖦁 candy apple cookie—although, you treat her nicely—doesn't mean you're still exempted from her trickery: for her undying loyalty to shadow milk cookie overshadows anything to her; she'd allow you to braid her hair, all the while inquiring you why you loathe shadow milk cookie when he's just protecting you from the cookies outside, in love even! in that sickenly sweet tone of hers dripping with deceit. she'd even ask you to come with her for something she proclaimed was in dire need of help for only to lead you to back to shadow milk cookie with a cheerful face, giddily probbing shadow milk cookie if she did good.

𖦁 to shadow milk cookie, your defiance is none but a mere game to him, however, the moment you went against him and betrayed him by helping pure vanilla cookie within his spire? oh, that is when he actually takes your advances seriously. why are /you/ helping that pesky little thief? can't you comprehend that he's punishing him for taking what was his? don't tell him that you fell for that querulous cookie's lies? yes, surely, pure vanilla cookie did something to you that turned you against him, truly! what a fiend, stealing his soul jam and then you? oh, he is gonna crumble him into pieces! he vows on the witches the moment he's done with him he would be beyond recognization. you, on the other hand, unmistakably needed some tweaking—yes, he'd need to find a way for you to not do that again, surely, his sweet dear wouldn't mind being confined, would they?

a/n: extremely short compared to my other works but i do hope its fine.

[ageingfangirl2]

Imagine Being Bonten's Receptionist (Bonten x F Reader) - Tokyo Revengers

PART 2: MAIL SERVICE WITH A SMILE

ONE THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE

A week has passed since you first started working for Bonten. It was safe to say this wasn't your regular 9-5 office job, and the people you worked for were ‘rumoured’ criminals, but as long as you got paid and did your job, that’s all that mattered to you. Your last receptionist job had been pretty shitty, no one acknowledged you unless they had a complaint or some post that needed sending, so you kept to yourself and got by without so much as a smile or pleasant greeting in the morning. If they were going to ignore you, you could ignore them back.

But working for Bonten seemed like a fresh slate, a new start, and you were going to make a good impression every morning, even if they were a ‘rumoured’ criminal organistaion you wanted to bring some normality to the whole situation. 

The week had flown by, and you were looking forward to having the weekend off, but today you had a bunch of mail that needed handing out, and you were going to do it with your friendly smile.

Manjiro Sano was the first into the office, which was a rare occurrence since he usually showed up a couple of hours after everyone else, did some work, delegated tasks and took a nap for the rest of the day. You pick up the parcel that had been delivered to him and smile brightly, ‘Good morning, sir, I have a package for you.’

He barely reacts at first. He walks in like a ghost - unreadable, silent. He pauses for a heartbeat as you hold out the package to him, takes the package from you without a single word uttered. The next day, the same thing. By the fifth time, he gives you the tiniest of nods. That’s a breakthrough, and it made you feel good.

If Manjiro was in the office, he would be swiftly followed by his shadow, Haruchiyo Sanzu, but unlike Mikey, Sanzu acknowledged you when you held out his post to him with an unwavering smile, ‘These came for you.’

He bursts out laughing the first time, ‘What the hell is this? Mail delivery service now?’ he takes the envelopes and leans in close and asks, ‘You know who you’re smiling at, sweetheart?’

You simply nod, and he walks off laughing to himself. He’s kind of low-key obsessed at how you were able to keep your smile around him despite everything he’s ‘alleged’ to have done.. The next time mail arrives, he shows up grinning ear to ear, ‘Where’s my fan mail, huh?’

The Haitani brothers were two completely different personalities. Ran was amused and skeptical, smirking when you greeted him holding a letter. He simply leans on your desk and teases you, ‘You always this nice, or only to criminals?’ you laugh it off, ‘only when it pays my bills.’

Ran tries to make you slip up, drop your friendly mask, but it never slips, and he is resigned to the fact that you were going to be a tough cookie to crack. His brother, on the other hand, Rindou, well he was awkward, didn’t know how to respond. He simply takes the mail and utters a quiet thank you on the first day, avoiding eye contact at all costs. After a while, though, you slowly start to notice him arriving early so he can enjoy the way you say good morning to him with a smile. You made him feel normal for a criminal, and he kind of liked that.

Kakucho was a sweetie, Polite, reserved. He nods and accepts the mail with a quiet ‘Thanks.’ He’s wary, but he can tell she’s genuine. She starts remembering small things — like his preferred coffee or that he doesn't like loud noises. He respects her calm and starts trusting her a little faster than the others. You saw him like a puppy dog, scary, but would happily roll over on his belly to get his tummy rubbed. Out of all of the members, you felt more comfortable with him, and if you had any future issues, he’d probably be the one you went to for sound advice and a quiet shoulder to lean on.

Hajime Kokonoi, the one who hired you and gave you the lovely flowers that you kept alive as long as you could, looks you up and down suspiciously the first time you hand him his mail already organised with a friendly greeting. He’s used to manipulation, so your kindness does throw him off, even though he had a feeling you would be like this during the hiring process. 

If there was one word he used to describe you, it would be consistent. And soon after, he starts dropping off his invoices and banking letters without comment, almost like you’re becoming part of the system he depends on. It also helped that you were one of the few people in the office who took organising seriously.

Takeomi Akashi was annoyed at first. ‘This isn’t a damn law office.’ he huffed and took his mail like it personally insulted him, even though mail had done nothing to him. But you are stubbornly nice; your smile could warm the coldest of hearts, and he felt his starting to thaw after a long time of being frozen. Eventually, he sighs and starts grumbling back at her greetings like an old man — ‘Yeah, yeah, good morning, whatever.’ It becomes their little routine. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but you quickly become the main reason he makes an effort to come into the office. You were a ray of light in the darkness that was Bonten, and he liked the fact that you seemingly kept him grounded in the real world.

Kanji Mochizuki, or Mochi as he asked you to call him, thinks you are hilarious. ‘You’re way too sweet for this place, you know that?’ He tries joking with you or even startling you when you’re focused on the computer screen, but you never flinch in his presence. Over time, he gets weirdly protective — doesn’t like seeing her stressed or upset. If anyone yells at her, he steps in, and he makes sure to keep an eye on those sneaky Haitani brothers and even Sanzu because he doesn’t want anyone scaring you off. This place needs you, and he will become your shadow if that’s what it takes.