#Asian Next Wave

[cerealbishh]

"Henry cares for Faran. The Liars normally have to be the ones caring for others. It just makes me melt!" - Zaria on Twitter about Henry(x)

[fox-guardian]

[ID: A digital comic of Celia Ripley and Samama Khalid from The Magnus Protocol. Celia is a taller, slim, Korean woman with pale skin, short black hair, rectangular glasses, gold piercings, and dimples. She is wearing a coat, vest, scarf, trousers, and nice shoes, all in green and dark purple with gold accents. Sam is a shorter, fat, South Asian man with brown skin, short curly black hair, a mustache and small goatee, and black earrings. He is wearing a coat, turtleneck, cardigan, trousers, and nice shoes, all in brown, dark red, and green.

They are standing in a hallway in front of a closed door. Celia is spinning a set of keys, and they are smiling at each other.

Celia: Well, this is me. I had a really good time, Sam. Sam: Yeah, me too! Celia: We should do this again. Sam: Y-Yeah! I'd like that a lot, Celia.

She goes to unlock her door, peeking back to smile at Sam, who is standing awkwardly, looking away. She opens her door with a creak and gives him a shrug.

Celia: Thanks again for walking me home, Sam. I really appreciate it.

She pauses, looking at him with half-lidded eyes. Sam smiles, gesturing about sheepishly. The text as he speaks takes up the next three panels, partly obscured by the two of them and fading towards the bottom.

Sam: OH! Well, you know it was no big deal I just figured you know. It's polite and it gives us more time to talk and it's not always safe out there at night. Not that you can't handle yourself I just you know and I figured company would be nice on the walk back and we were already having so much fun so-

As he talks, Celia calmly steps closer, smiling, lifting her hands up near his face. He notices her hands, looks up at her, and then looks slightly downward towards her lips as she leans closer, his eyes going sparkly. A shadow falls over him as she blocks out the light.

Sam: It's really no.... problem....

She smiles, looking at him with intent and then looks down at his lips. A pink haze appears behind them in the background. She finally tilts her head and kisses him, knocking her glasses askew. The background is all pink with hearts surrounding them. There are two closeups, one of their lips touching and one after they've pulled slightly back, lips glistening and pink sparkles surrounding their faces.

She stands back up, smiling down at him, pink haze fading behind her, before startling slightly. She is still holding his face, slightly squishing his cheeks. His eyes are still shut and he is blushing severely, hair slightly mussed. He opens his eyes, expression vague, with tiny hearts in his eyes and sparkles around him, pink haze remaining behind him, before he suddenly tips back, surrounded by hearts, and giggles "hee-hee". The tail of the speech bubble forms a heart. Celia panics, leaning forward to grab him.

He snaps back, haze gone, with a "POP!" as she pulls him up, and they are chest-to-chest for a moment before Sam pulls back, blushing, looking awkward. He clears his throat before abruptly turning around and walking off.

Sam: OKAY BYE CELIA. (smaller bubble, an aside) Sleep well.

She watches him leave, amused and confused, and chuckles "heh-heh", a couple hearts around her. She waves, heading into her flat as he leaves, embarrassed.

Celia: See you at work Monday, Sam! Sam, in a thought bubble: FUUUUCK

end ID]

~~~~

I FINISHED THE THING YAY please enjoy ripsam being. silly geese <3 after a nice date <3

[waynes-multiverse]

Ok hear me out. I got this idea after the episode of Dean getting his "virginity" back and hooking up with the porn star when he's digging through her dresser and finds the DVD of her ANYWAY

Best friend Dean who's been pining after you for sooo long but doesn't want to fuck it up and lose you. You're hanging out when you ask him to go grab something from your room and he's digging through your drawers looking and accidentally comes across some lingerie and now it's days later and he's so hot and bothered cuz he can't think of anything else (the boy has a serious panty kink lets be honest) and you catch him in your room going through your drawers again and OH

A/N: As I warned y'all, this is a longer DD because, well, the prompt was long, so it's not really my fault. All that backstory took on a life of its own, but I think no one will be mad about it 😅 Again, I had tons of fun with this one! You'll see 🤣

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Warnings: +18/NSWF, a ridiculous heat wave, friends to lovers (Wayne's Version), crack, a panty kink, some sneaky fluff, and some hot lovin' aka smut (oral f & face sitting)

Word Count: 4.5k (whoops)

Main Masterlist || Dirty Drabbles

Cruel Summer

“You open the beaches on the 4th of July, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for Christ’s sake…”

As Jaws flickered across the screen in the Dean Cave, the green-eyed hunter adjusted himself in his seat. Usually, he had perfect control over himself and his feelings for you.

But on some days – like today – when you sat right next to him on the couch in nothing but a loose t-shirt and some short sweatpants, fanning yourself with an old magazine of Busty Asian Beauties as beads of salty sweat collected on your forehead and trickled down your neck, you made it hard for him.

“God, I’m so hot,” you sighed exhaustively and sunk further into the couch cushions, lifting your shirt from your sticky skin to let some cool air to your boobs as a heat wave ravaged through Kansas.

Painfully hard.

“Dean?” You pouted with your best puppy dog look at your best friend.

“Huh?” Dean was in trance, watching you more than the movie, always on the edge of getting caught one of these days.

“We’re out of Sour Patch Kids. I have more in my nightstand. Can you get them for me please?” you asked sweetly. “I don’t wanna move. I might actually die from heat exhaustion.”

Dean sighed and wordlessly rose from his seat. He knew you always kept an array of salty and sweet midnight snacks in your room in case you got hungry and didn’t want to wander into the kitchen in the middle of the night.

Moreover, he was grateful for the break. God knows he couldn’t stand to be around you any longer, or he would’ve been too tempted to rip your clothes off and really make you sweat.

I’ll show her a damn heat exhaustion, he thought with a scoff.

Hastily grabbing the desired snack, his green eyes then caught something red and lacy sticking out from the first drawer of your dresser. The hunter knew the decent and honest thing would’ve been to just keep moving and leave your godforsaken room.

Turn around, as Bonnie Tyler sang. But for some reason, his bright eyes couldn’t resist, his curiosity overtaking him.

Dean opened the drawer with the intention to push the naughty little clothing item back into its place and out of sight. Get rid of the temptation, so to speak. It sounded like the perfect loophole. He got to touch it and look at it, but for a very heroic and noble reason – not because he was a creepy perv, violating his best friend’s privacy.

On some level, Dean knew he’d never stand a chance with you. He wasn’t good enough. He had so much baggage all his suitcases wouldn’t even fit into the bunker.

A damn touch of a pair of panties you weren’t even wearing was all he would ever get from you.

But then his fingers touched the soft and see-through material, his pads tracing every delicate scarlet thread with precision and care. It was game over for him then and there, cursing himself internally for not resisting harder as his cock twitched joyfully in his jeans.

Dean had laid his eyes on you the second you strolled with swinging hips into that diner in Wichita for your very first case together, a werewolf hunt six years ago. And he had managed to get by without an incident for years since then, even when you moved into the bunker, being rather proud of that achievement. He never wanted to lose you as a friend and didn’t dare to cross a line. Ever.

Recently, though, it became more difficult to keep his distance and not let his thoughts wander. His feelings were magma that slowly had filled a volcano over the years. Each time you did something sexy or sweet or goofy or smart, another drop was added. And now, that damn fire mountain was overdue for an eruption – no thanks to that stupid heat wave.

“Thanks,” you said absentmindedly as the hunter handed you the candy but didn’t settle back down. Instead, he stood behind the sofa and leaned his hands on the backrest.

What you didn’t know, though, was that Dean was sporting quite the boner and wouldn’t dare to come into your line of view. He was surprised he could even walk up straight and not like a caveman early in the evolution.

A hunter gathering panties.

“I’m gonna hit the hay,” he told you with a somber clear of his throat. As the fan carried a breeze of your perfume to his nose, his grip tightened on the couch.

You turned in your seat and looked over your shoulder at him, raising a surprised brow. “Already? But the movie’s not over.”

“Yeah, I’m beat,” he excused and tried his best not to look strained. He forced a tight smile to his lips while his little dude celebrated Spring Break in his jeans. “‘Sides, we’ve seen Jaws like a million times now, Y/N.”

It was a cherished summer tradition between the two of you, watching it every 4th of July.

“I guess so.” You shrugged disappointedly, watching your best friend retreat to his room. Truth was, you loved spending time with Dean and held those little traditions close to your heart.

The Winchesters were your family, the only one you ever had. And while some families wore matching pajamas on Christmas morning, you watched the first two Die Hard movies. You would watch Dean’s favorite horror movies on Halloween. Sixteen Candles and High Fidelity on your birthday, Tombstone and The Great Escape on Dean’s, and some lame-ass foreign language documentaries that you both snored through on Sam’s.

Valentine’s Day was a dreaded non-holiday for all three of you, but for the past four years, someone would leave a box of chocolate in front of your door. The salted caramel ones would always be missing, and it always came with the same Forrest Gump quote:

I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.

You knew the anonymous someone was Dean, and you knew he meant it as a joke. Still, you clung to those little traditions. They might seem silly and stupid to some, but to you, they were your lifeline in a world full of darkness.

So, you felt rather saddened Dean didn’t seem to honor them anymore. It wasn’t just Jaws, either. He’d been withdrawing from you for a while, and you didn’t understand why.

Unbeknownst to you, the green-eyed hunter had kept a lacy souvenir from your room.

Now, Dean had managed to avoid you for four days. Every night since his stealthy excursion, he would lie in his bed with your stolen panties in one hand and his throbbing length in the other, feeling goddamn pathetic for sinking so low.

It was probably so low that even his memory foam mattress would remember it.

With closed eyes, he then imagined how the perky globes of your ass would look like covered in crimson lace. How you would stretch out on his bed on all fours, with your ass high in the air and wiggling in front of him. How his fingers would push the wicked material aside to push into you, taking you deep and hard while you moaned his name.

As he ruined tissue after tissue, the guilt would wash over him as soon as he was done. Call it a post-nut epiphany.

Dean knew it was wrong to think those things. He knew he only made it harder for himself to ever look you into the eyes again. Hell, he barely could do it now, even though a part of him audaciously wondered what other treasures were hiding in that drawer of yours. And more pressingly, what ultimate wealth he would find beneath your clothes. If your lingerie was gold, he’d be a creepy-ass dragon sitting on it.

So, Dean tried to avoid you as best as possible. Mostly because, well…

“God, fuck me,” you groaned exhaustively and opened the refrigerator door, leaning against it as the refreshing cold hit you from behind. On top of that, you held a big bag of frozen peas to your sweaty chest. You already wore the bare minimum – some short denims and a white tank top, your hair up in a messy bun.

“I swear underboob sweat is the worst. Just be glad you don’t have tits,” you complained. “Guys, seriously, can we invest in an AC? This heat wave is killing me! This bunker is like one giant oven…”

You watched as Dean squirmed in his seat as he ate his cereal, looking as uncomfortable as you. Surely, the boys were suffering just as badly during those sweltering temperatures, already forgoing the usual flannels and opting for plain t-shirts instead. How they were still wearing jeans was beyond you. When you first moved in, you protested against Dean’s suggestion of Naked Tuesdays, but these days, you were actually giving it a second thought.

“Well, I’m gonna drive to Kansas City today and see if I can get us an AC. Apparently, they’re all sold out, but I figured maybe with a bit of flirting and some cleavage, I can still get us one,” you explained your plan with a bright smirk and wiggled your eyebrows. “What d’you guys think, huh?”

Dean then abruptly banged his fist on the table, spilling some milk from his bowl on the surface. “For God’s sake, Y/N!”

You frowned in confusion at his unexpected outburst. “What’s up with you? Are you having a heat stroke?”

“Flirting, really?!” the hunter barked, his brow shaped into a deeply furious v.

“What’s wrong with that? Double standard much? You do it all the time to get shit,” you countered and watched his jaw clench in anger.

“I do-... not,” he remarked snappily with a fierce finger drilling into the table, clearly lacking a good argument. Sam cleared his throat in agreement with you, but that only earned him a glare. “And Jesus fucking Christ, would it hurt you to put on some goddamn clothes? You’re not even wearing a bra!”

“Did you not hear my tits rant just now? Of course I’m not! ‘Sides, those boobs are gonna get you an AC, so be a little more grateful to them,” you retorted, annoyed with his attitude. You’d think of all the people in this world, Dean Winchester would understand. (And maybe even appreciate it.) “And how can you even tell, huh?”

“‘Cause science, Y/N! You’re literally cooling your tits! What did you think was gonna happen, huh? Nipples!” he vented outrageously. “This ain’t a strip club!”

“It’s 102 degrees, Dean!” you argued, throwing your arms up. “Look, if I could, I’d even go naked, alright? It’s fucking hot!”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Dean shook his head and stormed out of the kitchen without any further comment.

Confused, you blinked at the younger Winchester. “What’s up with him?”

But Sam only shrugged, shaking his head. “Uhm, I don’t know,” he replied, although he could take an educated guess, suspecting his brother’s feelings for you as the culprit.

“Well, alright, I’m going to Kansas City,” you decided without wasting another thought on the older Winchester’s strange behavior. “Text me if you guys need something. I can pick it up on my way home.”

Dean knew he was in deep trouble as his bow legs bolted down the bunker’s hallways. He tried so hard to keep it together, but when he saw you, half-naked and panting in front of the fridge, he quite literally lost his coolness in this goddamn heat wave.

The green-eyed hunter understood a thing or two about torture, but this was the worst of all. He’d rather have a demon repeatedly peel off his skin in hellfire than endure a day more of this fucking madness.

If the temperatures didn’t drop soon, it would be a cruel summer ahead of him.

As Dean heard the door to the garage close, he knew you’d left for your trip and exhaled a deep sigh of relief. At least he’d get a few hours of peace.

With the best intentions, he strolled to his bedroom, but as he passed your room on his way, he found the door ajar. Whatever good motives he had up until this point, went quickly out the window right then.

His hand twitched at the thought of more riches, worse than any trigger finger and competing with a California earthquake, and well, so did the dick in his jeans. It was an addiction at this point, an obsession he couldn’t resist nor get rid off. The fact that it was forbidden and wrong only made it even more appealing. The apple in the garden of Eden.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t an anonymous support group for this kind of sickness.

As unbearable shame and guilt collected in his stomach like rainwater in the gutter, his eager hands rummaged through your dresser drawer. There was purple lace and black satin, navy G-strings and white Brazilians. It was never ending, and the hunter couldn’t stop as he picked up each item and let his fantasies roam wild.

God, the things he wanted to do to you were as colorful as your rainbow full of underwear.

“Dean?!”

The green-eyed hunter froze in his place, a white lace panty still bunched up in his large palm. The hair in the back of his neck stood up in shock, a part of him refusing to turn around at the sound of your voice. He was caught red-handed, and he knew it.

“What are you doing in my room?” you prompted, suspiciously cocking an eyebrow. It looked fairly obvious what your best friend was up to, but you didn’t want to accuse him right away, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Frankly, it was quite unbelievable.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Dean replied and swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he held up his hands like a criminal during an arrest, the evidence still in his grasp.

“Well, it looks like you’re snooping through my lingerie,” you pointed out bluntly.

Dean nodded, guilt-ridden and reluctant. “I can explain.”

“Good,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’m waiting…”

“Right, uhm…”

“Oh, before you scramble for an answer, you should know, though, that I’m aware a pair of red lace panties is missing, and I know the washer didn’t eat them,” you said and raised an expectant brow.

You had a feeling your pervy best friend was behind the mystery of the missing item. Now you knew for sure.

“Man, I always knew you were a kinky son of a bitch, but this is a new level, Dean,” you scolded.

Dean’s gaze dropped to the floor in shame, scratching the nape of his neck. “Look, uhm, there’s no good excuse. I know I fucked up here. I’ll sleep in a motel tonight until I find my own place. You can stay here with Sam, alright? I’ll move out and won’t bother you anymore.”

As he tried to brush past you, you blocked his exit and grabbed his arm. “So, you’re gonna leave? Just like that?”

“What other choice do I have? I don’t wanna make you more uncomfortable,” he stated without glancing at you once. He couldn’t bring himself to look into your eyes and see the disappointment and disgust there. “I know what I did was wrong.”

“Oh, so wrong,” you agreed. “I just figured you wouldn’t run away like a coward and take your punishment like a man, you know? Aren’t you at all curious what I’m wearing right now?”

That was when Dean’s juniper eyes slowly wandered to you and caught your gaze for the first time. You smirked as his breathing became heavy and his look darkened and filled with lust. It seemed like he wanted to rip your clothes off with his goddamn bare teeth like a wild animal.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or if I’m dreaming,” he admitted, his deep voice part harsh swallow and part nervous chuckle.

“Neither,” you said, biting your bottom lip.

Carefully, you leaned closer, your hands reaching up to cup his scruffy cheeks. Noses nuzzled as your lips ghosted against his with a daring grin. You wouldn’t go further; it was up to Dean to make that final decision.

And then, as no more than a mere second ticked by on the clock, the hunter crashed his lips against yours in a kiss so scorching it made the current heat wave look like an ice age. If you thought you were hot before, now it felt like you were burning in a wildfire.

Dean roughly pushed you against the door, his kiss all teeth and tongue in an uncontrollable frenzy. His dick was hard and thick, straining against his jeans and rubbing along your thigh. Pantingly, you gasped for air and grabbed his hand, guiding it down your body and into your shorts.

“Feel that?” you asked mischievously as his fingers dug through your soaked folds and collected the arousal he caused. A wanton growl left his plush lips. “All for you, baby. You’ve been a bad boy, haven’t you?”

“Shit, yeah, so bad…” Dean rasped huskily against your throat as he worshipped his path down your body, forcing your shirt up till his wet tongue rolled over your pert and still cold nipple.

“Gonna make it up to me, huh? Show me how sorry you are?” you prompted, your fingers raking through his sandy blond and soft hair, eliciting a groan from him every time you tugged a little harder.

Teeth pinched your skin, tongue cherished your taste, and lips left your throat bruised. It was equal parts hot, sweaty, messy, naughty, dirty, and sticky as your bodies rutted against one another, looking for dire release.

With swollen and plumper than before lips, he came back up for air and found your eyes. He kissed you with heated passion once more as if he couldn’t resist to touch you over and over again. He had to restrain himself to be able to speak.

“So, uhm, you sure about this?” Dean asked between labored breaths with an insecure gleam in his green eyes. “‘Cause if we go further, I don’t think I can stop. And I don’t mean just this time but ever… If you want this to be a one time thing, you gotta tell me, sweetheart, so I can mentally prepare myself. I mean, I’ll take what I can get, you know? Not that I care either way… Well, that’s not true. I do care. A lot… But, you know, you’re you, and I’m me, so I’m not delusional. I know there’s no way you would–”

You interrupted his babbling with a kiss, causing the hunter to lose his words. You looked deeply into his eyes and offered him a small smile of comfort.

“Dean, listen to me, okay? ‘Cause this is very important,” you urged, your hands gripping his shirt tightly.

He nodded, gulping anxiously. “O-Okay.”

“You’re incredible,” you said and watched him inhale sharply at your words, blinking at you in disbelief. “Absolutely fucking bonkers incredible. You’re right – you’re you. And thank God you are, because you’re the best, funniest, smartest, kindest, and goddamn hottest man I’ve ever met. I’m tired of you not seeing that. As my boyfriend, I really need to you to see that, alright?”

As Dean pensively took in your words, his brow began to furrow. “Boyfriend?”

The corners of your mouth rose to a beam. “Yeah, boyfriend,” you confirmed. “That’s what you want, right? ‘Cause I’d really like that, too.”

“Uh, yeah, yeah… That’s what I want.” Dean nodded eagerly before another swallow followed. “I mean, among other things…”

You bit your lip, smirking. “What other things?”

“Well, uhm…”

Dean didn’t finish his sentence, his lips impatiently claiming yours instead. He pressed you hungrily back against the door, massive hands sliding down your sides till they hooked into the hem of your denim shorts and ripped them down to your ankles, leaving you only covered in teal lace. He growled shamelessly at the sight, his thick digits eagerly diving inside.

“Wanna be inside you,” he groaned into your ear, thumbing furiously at your clit. “Every hour of every day…”

“We can do that,” you agreed with a giggle, your arms locking around his neck, fingers carding through his hair in the back.

“Wanna feel your mouth around my–” The last word was muffled as he ravaged your neck, but you understood where he was going with this.

“You can do that,” you said with a smile.

“And fuck, I want you to ride my face,” he declared. That demand left you speechless, making even Dean stop for a minute and look at you. “Too far?”

You shook your head and smirked. “I can do that.”

Before Dean’s mind could fathom your words, you shoved him onto the bed, his back hitting the mattress. When you stood before him, slotted between his muscular legs, his gaze trailed up and down your body, memorizing every beautiful curve. As your fingers curled into the waistband of your panties, however, the hunter stopped you.

“Leave ‘em on, sweetheart. Don’t you dare take those off,” he told you, his hands rapaciously reaching out to you.

You played with the hem of your top and smirked, your tongue licking over your lips. “What about this? On or off?”

“Off,” he shot back faster than a bullet leaving a barrel.

“You first,” you demanded and grinned. “Remember, this is still your punishment.”

“God, I love getting punished,” Dean mumbled and slipped out of his shirt. He then swiftly shimmied out of his jeans, discarding each item carelessly around the room.

He then took a deep breath as he tugged the waistband of his boxers, his erection already fighting its way out. “Well, here goes nothing,” the hunter said and pulled his underwear down.

You tilted your head to see his hard cock from a better angle as it sprang against his stomach. Your lips parted in anticipation, wondering what he’d taste like on your tongue and how deep you’d be able to take him. You guessed there’d be a struggle ahead, considering how huge and wide he was.

“Oh, I would not call that monster nothing,” you commented with a scoff, your pussy throbbing with need. “Explains all that BDE.”

Dean blushed. It was cute to watch. “Thank you.”

Giggling, you removed your shirt and tossed it at his face, blinding him for a second. You used that momentum to slide onto the bed and straddle his torso. As his eyes finally found you again, he almost choked on his spit when he gazed up at your perfect tits above him. A primal grunt escaped his throat.

With a mesmerized sparkle in his eyes, his hands trailed up your body and cupped your breasts, massaging them roughly as your panties grew damper by the minute. He then pulled you down to his lips and kissed you breathless before he left them with a boyish smirk on his freckled face.

“Hop on, sweetheart.”

And as if his words hadn’t been enough motivation, his hands wandered to palm your ass and hauled you closer to his mouth. He was an impatient one – or maybe he’d waited years for this and was finally tired of it.

Your knees sunk into the mattress on either side of his stubborn head. His fingers dented your flesh as they grabbed onto your thighs. Yours held onto the headboard for support. You tried not to look down, because then you’d see his big lopsided and full of excitement grin.

The same one he had when you found a diner in Kentucky that advertised the biggest burger in America (it wasn’t). The same one he had when he thought he had run into a member of Metallica at a gas station outside of Phoenix (he didn’t). The same one he had when you and Sam gifted him his own beer brewing station for his last birthday (which tasted horrible, but neither you nor Sam had the heart to tell him).

And now, he had that same grin when he was about to be with you.

As your pussy dripped above him, Dean couldn’t hold back his lewd groans any longer. You didn’t even have to lower yourself; he just dragged you down onto his face all to eagerly. His fingers swiped your panties to the side, and before you could even adjust your grip on the bedpost, his tongue darted into your soaked channel as deeply as he could and sucked you goddamn dry.

With several whimpers, you clenched around his wet muscle. If you were water in the desert, he was parched and drinking to survive.

His nose was buried in your folds, rubbing deliciously against your clit as he lapped your pussy in a vicious attack that left you squirming and moaning to a pornographic degree above him. Because Dean was just that – pure porn.

Instinctively and irresistibly, you ground your cunt against him, the vibrations of his keen groans against your sensitive flesh rocking you to the edge of your climax. He ate you out and devoured you like that damn gigantic burger in Kentucky. And as you dared to blink down and watch him in action, he had the audacity to devilishly smirk up at you with the crinkles around his green eyes alone, gauging your every reaction to his touches as if you were a goddamn movie on a silver screen.

You trembled and quivered and screamed as your orgasm electrified every molecule in your body. You white-knuckled the wood in your grip, your body only held up by Dean’s strong arms because God knows your weak legs were useless now.

As wave after wave washed over you, Dean drank every drop of yours, his tongue never getting enough of your taste. The sounds that filled the room were carnal and obscene.

“Fuck, Dean,” you sighed blissfully and lifted off his face and captured his swollen and red lips in a grateful kiss, your palms finding purchase on his broad shoulders. Your drenched and sensitive cunt settled on his thighs as an egregiously large erection poked your belly and tempted you further.

Dean smirked up at you, all satisfied and confident with his achievement. “I think we have a slight problem, though.”

Your brow knitted, your heart tightening with anxiety. Had you been as disappointing as the burger, beer, and that fake Metallica band member?

But Dean only grinned teasingly at your confused face. “There’s no way I learned my lesson here.”

You snorted and sought out his lips, the kiss giving you a taste of yourself. “We’ll work on that. I might have to nickname you Jaws after this,” you joked.

“Can’t wait for you to explain that one to Sammy.” Dean snorted, chuckling. “Now, how about you hop on again, but this time a little further south, huh?” he proposed with a wiggle of his eyebrows and a suggestive twitch of his cock for emphasis.

You giggled with a few nods. “I can do that.”

Was it worth the words? 😝

For all you newcomers and as a general reminder, Dirty Drabbles are always open. I still have quite a few left, but you're welcome to send more in, and we'll add it to the collection at some point 😎🔥

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[beansprean]

My Familiar’s Ghost part 81

Masterpost Masterpost 2

See the latest pages on Patreon!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Wide shot, knees up, of vampire Guillermo and Nandor sitting on the couch in the library in front of the papered-over bay window. Nandor is wearing one of his usual outfits and Guillermo is wearing something new: a dark blue shirt with a pink floral pattern, a dark red sweater vest, brown cuords, and a string of pearls. Both are looking at the viewer and have clipboards in their hands, Guillermo's pen poised and ready on the paper and Nandor gesturing his in the air as he asks, 'So...what makes you the best candidate for our new familiar?'

2. Reverse shot of a single green armchair on a vague brown background. Sitting on it, legs crossed, is a southeast Asian woman in her 30s with shoulder length black hair and countless slash-like scars running up her arms, neck, and face. She is wearing a purple sweater with 3/4 sleeves, black leggings, and combat boots. She grimaces, looking upward, left arm waving vaguely as her right nervously fingers the arm of the chair, and says, 'Well, I survived three years with Gorgo the Murderer...'

3. Repeat, new candidate in the chair: a fat white man in his 30s with close cropped sandy blond hair and unsettling blue eyes, wearing a blue polo and brown chinos. His arms are covered in gorey tattoos depicting blood, buzzsaws, skulls, and fangs, plus one art nouveau portrait and black fang shapes above and below his mouth. He stares directly forward with a fixed grin, hands laced together over his chest, and declares, 'My former mistress always said I had a knack for dismemberment.'

4. Repeat, new candidate in the chair: a fat brown hispanic person in their 20s with hazel eyes, big glasses, and half bleach blonde half dark brown hair in a bowl cut. She is wearing a red flannel open over a TrueBlood tee shirt and jeans, nails painted teal, a silver hoop in each ear. They are leaning forward eagerly, fists clenched and eyes wide, babbling, 'You're the only familiar I've ever heard of who got turned! What's the turnaround for your familiars? Which one of you will turn me?!'

5. Repeat, new candidate in the chair: a small white woman in her 60s with gray-streaked auburn hair wearing a low-cut dark pink top tucked into a plaid knee-length skirt. Her long nails are painted a dark reddish brown to match her lipstick, and she also has on pantyhose and, inexplicably, a diamond ring on her left ring finger. She leans casually against the side of the chair, brown eyes roaming the ceiling, and announces, 'I've had so many masters by now... I'm really just looking for something more long-term...'

6a. Reverse shot back to Guillermo and Nandor on the couch. Nandor leans forward with a suggestive smirk, touching the butt of his pen coyly to his chin, and replies, 'That is good to hear... I trust your age will not prevent you from your duties?' Guillermo glares at him from the corner of his eye, grip shaking on his pen. 6b. Knees up in profile of Nandor and the milf candidate sitting across from each other, leaning forward with suggestive grins. One of her legs stretches forward to rub against his and she touches her chest demurely, replying, 'Honey, I can handle whatever you have for me-' Guillermo leans around Nandor to get between them and interrupts her, loudly shouting 'Next!!' 6c. Zoom in to shoulders up of Nandor, turned toward the viewer to curl his fingers in a wave as the milf leaves offscreen, muttering, 'Uh, well, thank you for your time.' Nandor glances over his shoulder with the smuggest of grins at Guillermo, who is absolutely seething behind him. Guillermo is surrounded by a ragged black aura, frowning as deeply as his boyish face allows, glowing orange eyes burning holes into the back of Nandor's head. /end ID

[mammonscheeks]

brothers reaction to mc with a long skincare routine

✎ warnings: the word blood

"Finally!" You grinned to yourself, hauling a large package on the HoL dining table. Inside were all of your favorite products; hair oils, body scrubs, perfumes, face washes, serums, and the like.

Since you had been summoned unexpectedly to the Devildom, you were forced to use the oddest local products; a facewash that burned your flesh, deodorant that smelled suspiciously like blood, and hair masks that were green and slimy.

As much as you loved Devildom culture, it was tough to find products that didn't harm your human skin and hair, even with Asmodeus's help. So you were glad when Barbatos personally cleared your package from the human world at Devildom customs, where it had been stuck under inspection for the past month.

Later that night while you were indulging in your products, a certain brother came to visit you in your room.

LUCIFER would probably sigh at the number of products you use. he watches you layer serum over serum on your face with a judgemental expression.

"this long of a routine is a waste of time and money, mc. you could be studying right now.

then you walk by him, sending a wave of the honey-scented body scrub you use in his direction. his resolve threatens to break as his face grows warm. thoughts of running his lips over your sugar- scented neck plague his mind. the next day, lucifer visits the human world to buy everything you use, so you never run out in the Devildom.

MAMMON initially comes to your room to see if you have any luxury items worth much. however, he curiously watches you as you go through your hair and skincare routine, and asks if he can try some products out. he's adorable, obviously excited to be involved in whatever you're doing, and not wanting to be left out.

"can you put that on me too, mc? oh, and that? what does this one do?"

before long, you and mammon are cuddling in bed and watching a movie, waiting for the pink glittery face mask on both of your faces to dry.

LEVIATHAN would be interested in the packaging of your skincare, especially if its those asian brands with anime and hello kitty packaging. he'd declare that he's going to buy skincare products with ruri-chan packaging! he probably won't ask to try your products, since Devildom products work better for him, but he wouldn't protest when you put something on him, just to get one of those stereotypical scenes from romance anime, where the protagonist leans in close and...

"MC, I know you're trying to put serum on my lashes, but y-you're too close!"

SATAN inspects the packaging and ingredients of your skincare, thinking back to his research in chemicals and potions classes. He suddenly cups your face, running his thumb over your soft skin.

"MC, why are you so flustered? I'm just trying to understand your skin composition."

the next day, he uses his knowledge in potions and with a list of the chemicals in your products, recreates all your products, so that you can get them for free.

"S-stop grinning like an idiot, MC. I just did this to expand my knowledge on human products, that's all."

he did it because he loves you

ASMODEUS is absolutely DELIGHTED that your package has come. he had helped you this past month, trying to find products that worked for you in the Devildom, but to no avail. he definitely uses popular human world products as well, but not nearly as much as you. he literally wants to do EVERYTHING with you that night, from showering together to skincare.

"MC, show me absolutely EVERYTHING you do, step by step! We can do our routines alongside each other!"

the two of you have so much fun comparing products and being beauty product nerds together. he promises to give you the angelic essence serum he smuggled from the celestial realm, but only if you get him that a tube of that korean sunscreen he's been eyeing.

"my beautiful angel MC! you're glowing!"

BEELZEBUB would try and eat your products. they just smell so good, like candy, honey, and flowers! after preventing him from gobbling them down in one bite, he curiously watches you. he probably wouldn't ask you to put any products on himself, but he wouldn't mind if you do. he provides emotional support while watching you, completely entranced with how your face glows after every step.

"MC, I know you wanted to put this face mask on me, but I keep licking it off..."

after you're done with your routine, expect a clingy beelzebub, who keeps nuzzling your neck and face for a sniff of the sugary products you use.

BELPHEGOR upon watching your routine begins to feel tired. He doesn't understand why humans (and Asmodeus) need to go through so much effort and products before going to bed. On top of that, humans have to be patient and wait between steps, so their skin absorbs the serums properly!

"I feel sleepy just watching how long your routine is, MC. Doesn't it take too much energy to do so much?"

In an effort to show him that skincare is relaxing, you lay him down in your bed and start running a gua sha on his face. In 5 seconds flat, he's passed out (snoring and everything), from the ice-cold sensation on his jaw as well as your soft hands on his face.

[sleepynoons]

Made for You

You're a patisserie, and now, also the proud co-owner of your own restaurant, Zhuming Dessert Bar. You're new to this whole CEO thing, and you're hoping to seek some support from those around you – like the head chef next door!

patisserie!f!reader x chef!jiaoqiu, modern!au, sfw

word count: ~9,100

cw: explicit language, use of poisons, a lil slow burn lol

notes: i haven't played through the full story quest, so sorry if jiaoqiu is slightly ooc lol but he is blind and can only eat spicy foods yeet otherwise, wanted to write smth fluffy for this tragic, tragic man. and i also wanted to geek out about delicious east asian food yep.

thank you so much to @lychniis for beta-reading and for helping immensely with the pacing of this piece! @pawpiefawn i hope this story is at least 1/1000th as sweet as you are, and welcome to the hsr hell hole <3

I. TARO Macarons and Winter Melon Cookies

Crush almonds. Toast and grind sesame seeds. Mix egg whites with brown sugar. Skin, cut, mash taro root. Bring water to a boil. Top cookie dough with candied winter melon.

The sun starts filtering in through the window.

Steam soy milk until it foams. Melt gelatin. Frost thinly. Turn off the oven and stove. Slice coconut jelly into thin, small squares. Put everything into the fridge.

The day of a patisserie begins early – 4:30AM for you. Although you’re the head of your restaurant, the Zhuming Dessert Bar, you’re unable to separate yourself from the habitual duties of prepping, cleaning, getting a head start. To be fair, it would also be improper of you to leave such a task to your teammates. After all, these macarons and cookies are a gift for your neighbors, a first impression to the locals of not only the dessert bar, but primarily, the food it serves. The taste and presentation have to be perfect, and there’s no need to burden everyone else with an otherwise tedious and irrelevant task.

The Zhuming Dessert Bar is located in a busy food district, where there are various other diners, cafés, hole-in-the-wall gems, all waiting to be discovered and savored. After a long process of bidding and negotiating, you managed to snag a larger space, a one-story building sandwiched between a complex that housed several small businesses and a well-established hot pot spot. Unsurprisingly, a large majority of the stores in the district aren’t open in the morning, due to the lack of customers, and you only have to make a few runs.

As the time approaches 7AM, you begin to make your way out.

“Good morning, everyone!”

Those are the first words exchanged between you and your team, aside from the occasional “behind” or question, and you giggle as you’re greeted with a chorus of tired moans and lazy waves.

You ask, “I’m gonna head out – no more than two hours. Can someone meet with the vendors while I’m gone?”

Someone next to you nods, and you beam at them as you leave with a few boxes of the treats you made.

You only have three stops this morning – a trendy café co-owned by two college drop-outs, a Japanese, lunch-only spot run by an elderly couple, and a Western brunch place known for its omelettes.

The college drop-outs, acting much like their age, cheer when you hand over their sweets and quite literally gobble them up in front of you. By the time you leave, you’ve been unofficially adopted as their favorite “next-door aunt.”

When you arrive at the Japanese restaurant, only the wife seems to have arrived, and she pauses from her prep work to bring you inside to chat over cups of steaming green tea. Though the conversation is brief, the two of you quickly go down a rabbit hole, discussing the best brand for knives, how to tell when a daikon is ripe, which fruits are in season at the moment. As your exchange wraps up, you promise her you’ll return, at which she slips a napkin into your palm that has “Free Meal Coupon” scribbled on it with haphazard handwriting.

The American brunch restaurant is already bustling with noise, and a sous chef comes to welcome you at the front door. He’s polite, a little younger than you, and has the excitement of someone just starting off their career. You tell him good luck, and he responds likewise, wishing your dessert bar success.

Everyone seems pleasant and friendly, and you feel a rush of eagerness to hurry back to your restaurant. 

When you return, you can’t help but pause in front of the Zhuming Dessert Bar. You admire the spray-painted logo on the windows, the clean and modern architecture of the building, the little signboards out in front with chalk writings of recommendations and prices. Yesterday was your dessert bar’s opening day, and now, you and your team are about to embark on your first full week. Instead of feeling the daunting weight and pressure, you’re restless, hands and wrists itching to pick up a spatula, mouth salivating at all of the syrups and icings you’ll have to taste-test, feet poised to navigate through a crowded kitchen. After a few more seconds of admiring, you can’t hold back any longer and burst in through the back door, absolutely needing to get back to work.

Time passes quickly for all chefs. Even though you’re surrounded by timers that count down to precise milliseconds, the minutes and hours add up, and by the time service has ended, you truly don’t feel the passage of the day until you loosen the apron wrapped around your waist and sit down for a brief break. But you’re not done with all of your work quite yet, and you leave the cleaning and tidying to the others so you can make your last runs of the day.

You had taken a brief intermission after lunch to make the majority of your visits, so the only remaining restaurant on your list is the hot pot place right next door. If you remember correctly, the restaurant’s actually part of a larger chain, Yaoqing Hot Pot, that’s known for offering the spiciest yet most mouth-watering Szechuan flavors.

You jog over to the entrance, and peeking through the glass, you can see a man with peach pink hair sitting at the bar. He’s not wearing a uniform or eating, so he’s neither a cook nor a customer. That must mean he’s either a welcome guest or the manager.

You knock on the door, hoping to grab the attention of the man. His head does perk up, and he faces the door – but makes no effort to get up. You wait for another minute or so, before knocking again. Finally, the man rises from his seat, still facing you, before grabbing a cane and making his way over to you. As he approaches, you can see that his eyes are closed, and you almost fluster with humiliation.

As the man opens the door, you immediately bow, 90 degrees at the waist. “I am so, so sorry for bothering you!”

With a light laugh, the man replies, “No problem, but unfortunately, we’re not taking any more customers for the night.”

You straighten up and hold the box out in front of you. “I’m not a customer, actually. I’m from next door, we just opened.” You quickly introduced yourself and explained the contents of the box to him.

He pauses before slowly extending his palm, face up, out in front of him, on which you place the packaged macarons and cookies.

“Please enjoy! And have a good night!” 

Fearing that you’ve not only inconvenienced the man but also taken up too much of his time when his restaurant’s still crammed with customers, you bow again, despite knowing he won’t see, and scuffle away, only peering behind your shoulder once to see the man still at the door and “looking” down at the box.

II. Anmitsu

“Chef!”

The kitchen’s always loud, from boiling pots of syrup to whirring mixers kneading dough to blenders grinding up crackers, but never because of the people. It’s rare, in the first place, for someone to look for you unless you’re requested to taste a component or item being served that night, but the urgency of the call tells you it’s something different this time.

You rush over to the back door, where one of your pastry chefs, a fresh graduate from culinary school, is frowning beside an equally distraught vendor.

You pat your chef on the shoulder and wave cheerily at the vendor, “Hey, whatever the problem, there’s a way out. What’s going on?”

“We’ve run out of geomeunpat,” the chef responds.

The vendor chips in as well. “There wasn’t an order for the black adzuki beans, and I don’t have any extra. I’m so sorry!”

You nod in understanding. “Don’t apologize. Gimme a second to think.”

Geomeunpat, or black adzuki beans, is crucial to making white adzuki bean paste, which in Korean cuisine, is used to make rice cakes and other confectionery. Adzuki bean paste is also an irreplaceable ingredient for anmitsu, a Japanese dessert that typically consists of sliced fruit, kanten jelly, and rice flour dango. Given that it’s summer, your tasting menu has a few limited specials, and geomeunpat is needed for almost all of them. 

You ask, “Do we have any canned red bean paste?”

Your pastry chef goes to check the pantry and returns to report a number of cans.

“Alright, let’s do this.” You turn to the vendor. “We’re so sorry. Thanks for all of your help, and we’ll see you on Friday at this time, right?” The vendor confirms before leaving. Then, you turn back to your pastry chef. “Let’s substitute with the canned anko for today, but can you call me when you’re making the mitsu? We might need to adjust the sugar content of the syrup, or else it might be too sweet otherwise.”

“Yes, chef!”

“In the meantime, I’ll run to the market to see if there are any raspberries or cherries that can cut through the taste of the anko. Be right back.”

True to your word, you dash the few blocks to the farmer’s market, located at a nearby park with an open field and seating. It’s already mid-morning, so it’s likely that all of the best batches are gone, but there should be enough left over for you to find sufficient ingredients.

As predicted, the market crowd is waning, with many customers having already finished their shopping and gone home or enjoying their purchases at the picnic benches and tables. You look around, skittering around here and there, as if you’re a little child playing hide-and-seek, constantly changing your hiding spot.

This one’s no good either. Just as you take a step back, though, you bump into someone – wait, no, you step on something.

You look down, and you notice you’ve stepped on the ball of a white cane.

“Oh, shoot, sorry!” You jump away and nervously look at the owner of the cane. Your nervousness, though, is quickly replaced with something else, your eyes widening and brows raising.

You blurt, “You’re from Yaoqing Hot Pot!”

Behind the pink-haired man is a younger girl, brown hair tied into long, streaming pigtails and eyes piqued with childish wonder and unbounded curiosity.

The girl asks, “Chef, do you know this person?”

“I’m not quite sure.”

You speak up. “Yes, we have! Only very briefly, though. I dropped by with some treats, on behalf of the Zhuming Dessert Bar.”

Suddenly, the girl lets out a scream, at which you and the man wince. “Wait, did you bake those? They were delicious!” The girl clamors over to you and grabs you by the shoulders, shaking you back and forth. “How did you know to pair the taro filling with toasted sesame seeds? And the winter melon cookies were a spin on the traditional lao po bing, right? How did you come up with these ideas? Just hearing about them made my mouth water, but the real deal was –“

“Sushang,” the man interrupts sharply, “you’re being rude.”

“Oh, right, sorry.” The girl, Sushang, releases her hold on you with an awkward chuckle before returning to the man’s side.

You shake your head with a bright smile. “No, not at all! I’m glad you enjoyed them.”

Sushang gleams at you. “No, but seriously, they were delicious. You said you were from the Zhuming Dessert Bar, right? Are they sold in-store?”

“Yes, I’m the head chef at the dessert bar. Unfortunately, we don’t plan on putting them on the menu for a while because they still need some work.”

“More work?” Sushang’s jaw drops wide open in disbelief, and you shrug.

The man says, “Sushang, you should know that every item on a tasting menu is chosen with utmost patience and care. It can take months to perfect a new item.”

“Yes, chef, but I just can’t imagine how you could do even better.”

You chuckle. “I’m glad, then. If they ever make it on the menu, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

With happy claps, Sushang cheers. As for you, you turn towards the man.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” you say, “I never quite got your name.”

He gives you a small smile in the form of pursed lips. “Jiaoqiu, head chef at Yaoqing Hot Pot, though I don’t do much of the cooking anymore.”

“Well, Jiaoqiu, it’s very nice to meet you. Do you happen to have any thoughts on those treats I gave you?”

Before Jiaoqiu can respond, Sushang answers first on his behalf. “Oh, our chef never eats anything made by other people! He doesn’t even try my cooking, so I don’t even know how to improve!”

The chef nudges an elbow into his employee’s ribs, who winces and whimpers at the pain.

You simply just watch the interaction before saying, “No worries, I get it. Though, I feel like your name is familiar, Jiaoqiu…”

You tilt your head, attempting to recall. His name reminds you of a news headline, something about culinary school and graduation, but nothing else beyond that. Sushang looks like she can barely contain herself, but the set expression on Jiaoqiu’s face prevents her from actually spilling the truth.

Regardless, you move on. “No matter. Anyway, I’m guessing the two of you are grabbing some ingredients, yeah?”

“Yes,” Jiaoqiu affirms. “We always source our fruits locally. How about you?”

“Oh, I’m also looking to buy some fruit!”

“Then come with us!” Sushang suggests. “We know the best vendors in town.”

Before you can even ask if that’s alright with the Yaoqing’s head chef, you’re already pulled along by the arm and tugged towards a tent near the end of the market street.

III. Penghu Salty Biscuits

“Two beers please.”

You sigh, setting down the hardcover menu on the table. Yaoqing Hot Pot is packed with people, even though it’s late at night, 11PM. To be fair, the hot pot chain is a combination of a hot pot buffet and bar, so it makes sense that the store’s open until the unruly hours of the night. But while all of the customers seem to be partying and having the time of their lives, you and your co-owner, Yukong, sit tiredly across from each other.

“How is it only the third week,” you groan as you drop your forehead onto the table.

A waiter comes over to drop your drinks off, and Yukong takes a quick gulp from her chilled mug.

“Tell me about it,” she sighs.

Yukong co-founded the Zhuming Dessert Bar with you. In fact, the two of you grew up together, and have been inseparable ever since elementary school. When she transferred middle schools, you begged your parents to transfer you as well. When you both were preparing for college entrance exams, you chose the same university as your top pick. When you went to baking school, she got into a neighboring MBA program so that the two of you could continue rooming together. And when you both came up with the idea of starting a restaurant together, the logistics and enthusiasm naturally fell into place.

“That customer just wouldn’t back off,” Yukong grumbles. She takes another drink before picking up her chopsticks, skewering a slice of fatty beef, and dropping it into the boiling tomato broth. “He clearly already got a serving of the ice cream – I saw it with my own eyes! But he just wouldn’t stop lying and making a fuss.”

“I know,” you bemoan. “I’m just glad I have you to handle these kinds of customer problems. I would’ve just cried on the spot.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t.” She captures the beef with a flick of her wrist and drops it into her sauce bowl. “I just feel bad for Yunli. You know how she is, hot-tempered and impatient, but even she wouldn’t dare speak up against a customer. But you could tell it was taking every inch of her strength to not, just, yell back.”

“Yeah, Yunli was completely out of it for the rest of her shift.” You shake your head as you ladle a knotted bunch of Konjac noodles onto your plate. 

The tomato soup, despite being completely plant-based, is rich, almost too aggressive in its flavor. But when soaked up, the oil and fragrance of the broth fuse seamlessly into the unseasoned nature of hot pot ingredients, so much so that you can arguably eat everything without dipping it in sauce. Still, you drench half of the noodles into your mixture of sesame oil, peanut sauce, green onions, and garlic. When you take your bite, you hum so happily, the chewiness of the Konjac providing great texture while heat permeates throughout your entire body, melting away the knots and strain in your muscles.

“This is so good,” you garble through a mouthful. Yukong’s also entranced with her bite of fish cake, and can only nod in agreement.

Once you finish the Konjac noodles, you slide in a platter of cabbage slices, balls of shrimp paste, and tofu squares.

“Anyway…,” you start. “Next time, I don’t think we should even bother. Most of our customers are reasonable, anyway, and it’s honestly not worth it.”

Yukong frowns at the suggestion. “Are you sure? Because, on the other hand, I don’t think we should tolerate this behavior at all.”

“I know, but I don’t want the other pastry chefs to worry about stuff like this. Besides, we always make enough of everything. Otherwise, the extras would all go to waste, and I can’t keep giving Granny Toka and the college kids our leftovers.”

Yukong huffs and crosses her arms, a pointer finger tapping impatiently at the juncture of her elbow. Yet, Yukong can’t seem to come up with a response, so she acquiesces.

“Yukong…,” you mumble. You look at her, a little expectantly and a lot more nervously.

She slides her arm across the table, a gesture for you to do the same. As you put your hand on top of hers, she says, “I’m not angry. I’m just frustrated. You and the other chefs are our top priority, and I understand you want to avoid causing them as much stress as possible. I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

Yukong’s always been like this – able to read your mind, say the reassuring things you need to hear at the right time, find the best solution without compromising anyone’s feelings. You rub your thumb over the back of her hand lovingly before someone calls out your name.

“Hey, you managed to come!”

You turn to the side to see Sushang. You exclaim, “Yes, we did! Thanks for having us! The food’s amazing!”

“Of course! If you ever want another discount, just let me know.” Sushang wiggles her eyebrows, and you and Yukong laugh at her antics.

“This is Yukong, my co-founder,” you introduce. 

Sushang steps aside, and only then do you realize someone’s behind her. Which is odd, because the man’s absolutely looming over her, but something about his quiet demeanor must’ve concealed his presence. 

Sushang says, “Nice to meet you, Yukong! This here is Moze, one of our sous chefs. Moze, she made the macarons and cookies we had a few weeks ago.”

Moze stiffly nods, but as soon as Sushang mentions your desserts, a hopeful glint in his eyes appears.

“You know,” Sushang continues, “I’ve only seen Moze talk so much about someone’s cooking, like, literally a handful of times. He rarely compliments other people, but he totally ranted when he ate those sweets of yours.”

Moze scoffs and knocks Sushang on the back of her head. “We’ve told you so many times to not run your mouth.”

You and Yukong exchange warm looks. You say, “Sushang’s just incredibly honest. But I’m glad they were to your liking, Moze.”

Yukong speaks up as well. “We’d like to return the favor, too. Feel free to drop by the Zhuming Dessert Bar, free of charge.”

Sushang yells so loudly that some of the adjacent customers glance at your party. “Are you for real?! Moze, we need to go. Immediately.”

“By the way,” Yukong interrupts, tone more formal now, “is your head chef, Jiaoqiu, around? And is it possible for us speak to him?”

Puzzled, you glance towards Yukong. You came for a simple dinner, and Yukong never informed you of other plans.

Moze answers this time. “The head chef’s in the back. Can I ask what you plan on discussing?”

“Actually, I’m a family friend of Feixiao’s. I’d like to personally meet her right-hand man.”

It seems as if the world has stopped spinning. Yukong knows Feixiao? She knows the owner of Yaoqing Hot Pot? Personally? Huh? It seems Moze and Sushang are both stunned as well, and after a few sluggish seconds, Moze excuses himself, presumably to find his boss.

Jiaoqiu appears in no more than five minutes.

“Miss Yukong, it’s good to meet you in person,” Jiaoqiu greets. Yukong reaches her hand out for a handshake, and only when Moze guides Jiaoqiu’s hand forward does the head chef reciprocate.

“Oh, apologies, I didn’t know you –,“ Yukong begins.

Jiaoqiu cuts her off succinctly. “No worries. It’s only been a few years, after all. I also told Feixiao not to inform others of my condition in the first place.”

“I see.”

Jiaoqiu then redirects the conversation skillfully. “Speaking of Feixiao, I’m sure the two of you have come up with something that requires my assistance? I’d be happy to help out in any way that I can.”

You slide deeper into the booth so that Jiaoqiu can sit beside you. From this proximity, you can make out the sweat lining his forehead, the thick rubber band pulling his hair back into a ponytail, and the creases of his sleeves where they were once rolled up.

Yukong clears her throat, a habit of hers right before negotiations begin. 

“The Mid-Autumn Festival’s coming up in a little over a month, and since both of our restaurants are based on East Asian cuisines, Feixiao and I are considering a collaboration. Do you think that’s something your team would be interested in?”

Surprisingly, despite his thoughtful nature, Jiaoqiu doesn’t even take a second to consider. “If Feixiao’s eager about the idea, I don’t see why not.”

“Great. So far, the plan is to add a few of our desserts to your existing menu, while we add some of your appetizers to ours. How does that sound?”

At this suggestion, Jiaoqiu hums with dissatisfaction. “That could ruin the flavor profiles of each of our own stores.”

“Right, of course. We considered that, and that’s why we think it’d be best if both of our restaurants created new items that’d fit both the theme of the Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as our respective offerings.”

“I see.”

From your periphery, you can see Moze looking at Yukong, trying to decipher her intentions, while Sushang’s rocking on her feet, cheeks puffed up with anticipation. You, on the other hand, have no problem with this idea either and simply accept the fact that the next two months are going to be very busy.

Jiaoqiu asks, “I think this idea’s not bad. How do we plan on executing it?”

Yukong gestures at you, so you perk up. “Uh, well, I guess we can just meet to hash out the details? I know you’re very busy, though, so that might not work.”

“No, it’s fine.” Jiaoqiu seems to sigh, almost as if he’s giving into defeat. “If both Feixiao and Miss Yukong think this is a worthwhile business project, then it’s my job to see it through. We should begin promptly.”

You nod and begin exchanging contacts with the Yaoqing folks. As you’re typing in Moze’s contact, though, you suddenly get a call from one of your chefs.

You excuse yourself, walking out of the noisy restaurant to answer the call.

“Yunli, what’s up?” you chirp.

You hear very panicked voices until Yunli directly replies. “Chef, the HVAC’s broken. The refrigeration doesn’t work. At all.”

You feel goosebumps snake down your arms and back. Suddenly, your throat feels entirely parched, and you’re not even able to swallow to alleviate the dryness. For once, when it comes to work, your body’s freezing up, rooting you to your spot on the sidewalk, preventing you from running into the kitchen.

Fuck.

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

You rush back into Yaoqing Hot Pot, inform Yukong of the situation, and the two of you scramble back to the Zhuming Dessert Bar.

That night, you make several runs home, but you don’t actually get to unwind until well past 2AM. Not only did you have to make several emergency calls to your property manager and repair services, but you also had to drive back and forth to transfer the ingredients to your own fridge and freezer. Simply put, everyone who stayed past service to clean up the dessert bar was utterly exhausted. It was arguably one of your worst nights since the Zhuming’s opening.

It took the whole weekend for the HVAC-R system to be repaired, which meant the cancellation of two days’ worth of reservations. The cancellations impacted the store’s sales significantly for the week, and you were forced to revise several recipes to accommodate for cheaper ingredients. While your other teammates could take the time off, you had to come in to experiment and adjust the taste of each menu item, which is always a painstakingly arduous and tedious process. At times, you felt a hint of nostalgia, reminiscent of your times in pastry school, but those flashbacks only left a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

Your meetings with Jiaoqiu also began the following week. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, you head over and enter Yaoqing Hot Pot through the back door so you can directly walk to Jiaoqiu’s office. Inside his office, there’s a small desk which he sits at, while you situate yourself on a small, plush bean bag that was brought in by Sushang. So far, the two of you have drafted initial ideas, and tonight, Jiaoqiu will be presenting the first iterations of the Yaoqing’s appetizers to you.

Like the first time you met him, you knock on the door twice. As always, when he greets you, he gives you a tight smile. Tonight, though, his expression appears more grim than usual.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“I’m afraid the dishes have not come out as expected.”

You see a porcelain white plate on his desk. In the center, there are a few strips of tofu, topped with finely diced pieces of thousand-year-old eggs, scallions, and garlic. There are streaks of red and black as well, no doubt the Yaoqing’s signature spicy sauce. Beside the plate is a small bowl. You take a step closer to see chunks of cabbage, ginger, radish, and carrots, all of the pieces slightly wrinkled, accompanied by a sharp smell of acid. Both are classic Szechuan dishes: spicy cold tofu and pickled vegetables.

Using the chopsticks laid out on a napkin, you take small bites of the dishes. You’re personally not too good with spicy foods, so you can only hope that Jiaoqiu hasn’t gone overboard with the seasonings.

The thousand-year-old eggs are chewy and dense, in delightful contrast to the softness of the tofu, which practically melts on your tongue. However, the garlic, scallions, and spicy sauce penetrate through and remain as the final aftertaste. Then, you pick up a piece of the pickled cabbages. The water and vinegar brine has been completely absorbed, and you notice that there’s a stark lack of peppercorns, which is usually a key component of this dish. With a crunch, your teeth pierce through the leaf, and you’re impressed by how tender the inside of the cabbage is. You pick around to try the other ingredients.

When Jiaoqiu hears you place your chopsticks down, he asks, “I’m sorry if they’re lacking.”

“No worries. Maybe we should call in Moze, so I can share my thoughts?”

Jiaoqiu does as you request, and a few minutes later, the sous chef joins the two of you.

You give a brief rundown of your suggestions.

“The Zhuming Dessert Bar is known for its milder flavors, and the two appetizers taste great as is but simply don’t make sense in the broader context. I was thinking, maybe for the spicy cold tofu, we can mash the eggs into almost something like a paste? I think it’d provide an interesting texture, and we can use fresh scallions to keep that hint of bite if needed. To be honest, I think there should be way less garlic. Maybe even no garlic at all.

“As for the pickled vegetables, I think this one’s pretty close to done, actually! I think the cabbage is perfect, and I like that there are no peppercorns in the presentation. I was thinking that maybe we can make this dish a little more – how do I put this – refreshing? For instance, instead of using radish, we can use cucumbers instead? The water content might pose an issue, but I think cucumbers could add a ‘clean,’ crisp touch, which I like the sound of. Oh, we should also take out the ginger.”

When you finish, Jiaoqiu and Moze look at you as if you’ve just committed a murder in front of them.

Moze can barely conjure a sentence. “Are – are you – can you not handle spicy foods? Are these too spicy for you? Wh – what are you –“

Jiaoqiu has to interrupt him. “Without the ginger or garlic, you’re essentially asking us to abandon core aspects of Szechuan cuisine.”

You try to justify yourself. “I know it’s a cardinal sin, I get it. It’s like asking pastry chefs to not use sugar or flour or whatever. But the appetizers are just too strong, and none of the desserts we have, including our Mid-Autumn Festival specials, will complement them. Maybe a subtractive method isn’t the best approach, but I honestly don’t know enough to propose any other ideas.”

Jiaoqiu tilts his chin, thinking. Finally, he states, “I think I have one.”

At the next meeting, the head chef presents you the same two dishes, but they look vastly different than before.

Jiaoqiu explains that, for the tofu, he listened to your suggestion and mashed the thousand-year-old eggs into a paste. Within the paste, he also incorporated the garlic, which should be diluted by the natural pungency of the aged yolk. The scallions and chili sauce are filled in a separate container, allowing customers to pour as little or as much as they want.

As for the pickled vegetables, Jiaoqiu added a rather unique ingredient. 

“Why lotus root?” you ask.

He explains, “Lotus root is in season right now, and we took inspiration from the classic Yunnan lotus root salad. We soaked the lotus root in a one-to-one ratio of rice vinegar and water to extract the starch, before blanching the slices. We also added ginger and a bit of sugar to the brine, so there wouldn’t be a need to keep the ginger slices in the dish itself. The one thing I want you to check is if we added too much peppercorn and salt.”

One bite of each dish, and you’re grinning ear to ear.

“This is it,” you whisper, in sheer awe. You can’t help but take two more mouthfuls of each appetizer. “In just one night, and you made such vast improvements. Jiaoqiu, you’re a genius.”

What was supposed to be a celebratory moment seemed to be ruined instantaneously by your comment. Moze’s face drops and Jiaoqiu can’t help but wince, to your confusion.

All of a sudden, very shy and embarrassed, you mumble, “Did I say something wrong? The food’s great, Jiaoqiu, is there something that’s not to your liking?”

Moze states, rather gruffly, “No, we’re very happy that you enjoy the dishes so much. After all, it’s been a while since Jiaoqiu has cooked something by himself.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you both look so upset. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.” Jiaoqiu sighs. “Then, these two are a go. One more left.”

From then on, your interactions with Jiaoqiu become stiff and rigid. Not that you had made much progress in the first place, but at the very least, the two of you could speak in the same fluid prose of ingredients and techniques and practically anything related to cooking and baking. Now, the two of you barely speak outside the context of the collaboration, and even the feedback you receive doesn’t come straight from him. Sushang had mentioned this earlier, and she’s absolutely right – Jiaoqiu doesn’t touch your cooking at all. In fact, Moze’s the one who munches away at your samples, while Jiaoqiu only asks for his opinions.

Are you frustrated? Absolutely. But it’s not like you can call off this project for such a small reason. It’s not like Moze doesn’t offer great advice, but it’s not up to the level of expertise that you need. So, not only do you feel frustrated, you also feel directionless, and your creative juices are running out.

You hate to admit it, but this sucks. 

IV. Taiwanese Pineapple Cake

You should’ve prepared for all hell to break loose because “busy” doesn’t even begin to describe your current state.

The Mid-Autumn Festival Is approaching in a week, which means the collaboration’s also set to launch in just a few days. But before that, it seems you have other, more urgent issues to address first.

“Wait, why isn’t Lingsha here?” You look around, hoping for someone to know. You have a full house tonight, and you need all the helping hands you can get.

Yunli, who’s busy shaping some fondant, responds, “I think she’s sick.”

Alarmed, you quickly shoot Lingsha a text, asking her about her condition, in addition to a reminder to please, please, please let you know next time.

“That’s fine, but we’re going to need someone to take over her station…”

There are two halves to your team. Since the dessert bar is split between a morning bakery and an evening tasting restaurant, you’ve placed your less experienced chefs on the morning shifts. This could be a good opportunity for one of them to learn, you think.

“Huo Huo,” you call out, “can you stay for the rest of the day? I’ll make sure Yukong pays you overtime.”

A small, green-haired girl squeaks at the sound of her name. Even from a distance, you can see her body begin to shake and tremble.

“Y-yes,” she stutters as her knuckles pale from gripping onto a hand mixer so tightly.

You shoot her two thumbs up and a gentle smile. “You’ll be great, I just know it, Huo Huo. You’re in charge of presentation, so all you have to worry about is not breaking any dishes, alright?”

You, in fact, did have to worry about broken dishes that night.

Frankly speaking, Huo Huo was all over the place. She confused some of the dishes with each other, so the presentation wasn’t right at times. She also spilled glaze, so those desserts had to be tossed. The most tragic of her mistakes was that she forgot basic kitchen etiquette and almost got burned in the face with a blowtorch. Yunli’s tolerance was clearly waning, and you had to pinch her multiple times to prevent her from unleashing all of her rage.

You can’t help but think this is all your fault.

And as you trudge to Jiaoqiu’s office, your stomach sinks further. You feel the fatigue coursing through your veins, and despite your usual patient and easy going temperament, you can feel your thread of optimism thinning, dangerously close to snapping.

You just never expected it to break so soon.

“Uh, where are your samples?” Moze asks.

You can only close your eyes and cover them with your palms. You feel so weak in the knees. You want to keel over.

The burning sensation at your waterline doesn’t help either, and even though you can’t breathe, you hold back so as to not let anyone hear your sniffles.

You’re an actual patisserie now. No more groveling and self-pitying – you left all of that behind at baking school and your previous stages. You’ve made it so far, and you can’t fumble it. You need to be on top of things and be professional. Why are you even upset? What’s wrong with you? Keep. It. Together.

Jiaoqiu mutters, “Moze, leave us for now.”

With barely audible steps, you feel Moze walk away, and Jiaoqiu slides his office door closed behind you. Though it takes him a bit, he manages to feel his way down the wall so that he’s stooping beside you.

“Guess it’s my turn to ask you what’s wrong.”

“Everything,” you say, voice muffled as you hide your head with your forearms, tucking your chin to your chest.

“Yeah, running a restaurant never gets easier.”

You peek up at him. “But you never seem to be sweating over it.”

“Everyone has their worries.”

You take a deep breath. At this point, it doesn’t even matter if you cry or not because Jiaoqiu doesn’t seem to be the kind of person to care.

You ask, “I feel like I don’t know how to lead my team properly. We managed to get everything out in time, but the kitchen was an entire mess. We also had to get repairs done a few weeks ago, even though the property’s new and all. And remember when we ran into each other at the farmer’s market? It’s because someone forgot to properly do inventory. Like – these are all basic procedures. What am I forgetting to teach them?”

“From my experience, it just comes from routine reminders during meetings, and being ruthless when it comes to firing people.”

You roll your eyes. “Jiaoqiu, I’m afraid not everyone has the luxury of an inbox overflowing with hiring and employment requests.”

“Then, you have to do the hard thing and train them. Over and over again, until they finally get it right.”

You take another inhale. He’s right.

The stooping’s becoming uncomfortable, so you let yourself fall back and onto the ground.

“Thanks, Jiaoqiu. I think I’ve got my shit together again.”

“Of course. Then, I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

You begin to get up but end up deciding otherwise. You suggest instead, “Let’s just talk for a bit, if you have the time. We’ve been seeing each other so often, and I feel like I know practically nothing about you.”

You see a flash of suspicion cross his face, but Jiaoqiu doesn’t reject the idea either.

You help Jiaoqiu to his desk before finding your usual spot on the bean bag, and ask, “So, tell me. What about Yaoqing Hot Pot is stressing you out?”

“The new hires. I trust Moze, but it’s hard for him to handle everything by himself. I would ask Sushang, but it’s more important that she concentrates on honing her own skills right now.”

Something Moze said rings in your head.

“And…,” you start. “I’m guessing you can’t help either because you haven’t cooked in a while?”

Jiaoqiu remains silent. More hints from previous conversations seem to pop into your head.

You ask again, tone much quieter and more polite, “You told Yukong your blindness is relatively recent. Is… is that why you’ve stopped cooking?”

“I’d get in the way of too many people. Plus, I can really only trust Moze to help me in the kitchen, but that’d hinder his own growth as a chef. I couldn’t ask that of him.”

“So those appetizers –“

“That was a one-time thing. The others know how to replicate them by now.”

“But I want to eat your food.”

The words fly out before you can think about them. You gasp at your audacity, hands flying to seal your mouth, and Jiaoqiu has a surprised look on his face.

It takes a few moments before Jiaoqiu breaks the silence with huffs of chuckles. “You called me a genius the other day, didn’t you?”

You nod at first, but remembering that he can’t see, affirm vocally.

“It’s just a personal peeve of mine, but I detest being called that.”

Furrowing your brows and scrunching your nose, you try to think of why.

Jiaoqiu… Blind… Genius… Hate… Feixiao…

You let out another audible gasp, this time horrified.

“I remember,” you hiss.

No wonder his name’s familiar. 

You’ve never paid much attention because you were so entrenched in your own work, but a few years ago, Jiaoqiu was a superstar in the culinary world. He was winning awards left and right, despite not having even graduated culinary school. But then, he suddenly disappeared, and all of the tabloids were speculating as to why. He didn’t come back into the limelight until he joined Yaoqing and became Feixiao’s right-hand man.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, but…”

“I was poisoned.”

You gape at him.

He continues, indifferent to your loud reactions. “Being a ‘genius’ comes with its own share of problems. I had classmates who were envious of my achievements, and one of them slipped methanol into a dish they wanted me to try.”

The story’s horrifying itself, but what leaves you completely stunned is Jiaoqiu’s nonchalance. He’s speaking as if he’s reading the news, as if this terrible thing happened to some stranger and not to him.

“Oh, Jiaoqiu…”

“It’s alright. I owe Feixiao for entrusting much of Yaoqing to me.”

“Thanks for sharing these painful memories with me…”

Jiaoqiu simply nods. “I hope the Zhuming Dessert Bar sees better days.”

V. Fuqi Feipian

Everything does seem to calm down, though there’s never truly a peaceful day when you’re working in the restaurant industry.

Lingsha returns in good shape, and with her and Yunli’s help, the three of you begin to offer additional training sessions after work to better prepare the newcomers. You’re a small team, after all, so it’s only right that you have each other’s backs.

The launch of the Mid-Autumn Festival goes as well as Yukong and Feixiao predict. Revenue streams are the highest they’ve ever been for the Zhuming Dessert Bar, and the food seems to be well-received. There are always a few pesky hate comments on social media platforms, but those can’t be helped.

Most importantly, your relationship with Jiaoqiu has improved dramatically. You first tested the waters by sending him an hour-long ASMR video of cat purrs, and he replied likewise with a five-minute compilation of foxes yipping and laughing. Also, even though there’s no reason to meet anymore, you still drop by and bother the pink-haired chef whenever you have the time. Mostly, it’s just you pestering him to make you food and him refusing, but after ten minutes or so of pointless bantering, he relents and you help him around the kitchen, setting timers, fetching ingredients, and making sure he doesn’t cut himself.

For the most part, he does well even without your assistance. His sense of taste is incredibly acute, and his hands seem to remember how to slice at different angles, widths, and shapes, all from rote memory. Still, it seems that having you there provides an additional layer of safety, and you’re more than happy to oblige.

“What are you going to make for me this time?”

You’re holding Jiaoqiu by the hands, steering him towards the industrial fridges standing tall to one side of the kitchen. Unlike the narrow and rectangular layout of the Zhuming Dessert Bar’s kitchen, the Yaoqing’s is much more spacious and has sufficient walking room.

“The freezer should have a piece of beef shank.” You let go of one of his hands to open the door, and as he said, there’s a plastic-wrapped chunk on the top shelf. You take it out, and then walk the two of you over to the central island, where there’s a large cutting board and knife.

“Knife to your right, beef to your left. Is there anything else I should grab?”

“Can you get some sesame seeds, chili oil, and a stalk of celery?”

As you collect the items, you watch him from the corner of your eye. Jiaoqiu picks up the beef shank by the fingertips, and using his other hand to roughly measure out the length of the cutting board, sets the meat down near the center. Then, with fleeting touches, he feels for the wooden handle of his knife.

“The blade’s facing downwards,” you call out.

“Thanks,” he replies.

With his left hand, he traces the shank until he reaches the edge, where he backtracks by a few millimeters and curls his fingers in so that the first joints are tucked away. With steady movements, he brings the knife over with his right hand until the flat of the blade meets his curled fingers, and now he knows where to cut. Though he’s slow, much slower than a professional chef should be, every slice is done without hesitation. There’s no wavering, no stopping, no interrupting the motion of the knife being plunged down onto the cutting board. He continues, procedurally shifting his left hand back and right hand forward, until he’s divided the chunk of beef into beautifully thin slices.

You only come back when he’s set his knife down.

“You still haven’t told me what you’re making.”

“The name’s a little misleading,” he says, “but it’s a dish I grew up eating quite frequently. Do you think you’re up to trying something spicy?”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, please, when have you made something not spicy?”

His lips break into a small, genuine smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Grab a bowl with a short rim, will you?”

“Yes, chef!”

Into the bowl, he transfers the beef shank and pours spoonfuls of chili oil, salt, and white sugar on top. He mixes everything, ensuring that the tips of the chopsticks don’t puncture through the meat, and sets the dish aside.

He then picks up the knife again, which you follow up by placing the celery stalk onto the cutting board.

“Center middle”

“Leaf intact?”

“Yes.”

He searches for the end of the stalk, and when he finds it, he chops the leafy section off. He makes diligent work of the rest, first splitting the stalk in horizontal half before chopping it vertically into small bits. When he’s finished, he transfers the celery pieces into the bowl, giving the ingredients a good mix again, before returning to mince the celery leaves.

When he’s finished, he pushes the bowl away from the cutting board. He says, “You’ll realize that Szechuan food is quite simple to put together. This dish is called fuqi feipian.”

“You said the name was misleading.”

“Well, its literal translation means ‘husband and wife lung slices.’”

You can’t help but chuckle at the name. “I don’t know if that’s supposed to be romantic or gory.”

Jiaoqiu smirks and crosses his arms. “Either way, it’s spicier than all of the other things I’ve cooked for you. Take a bite.”

Mentally, you prepare for the numbing bite of the spices and chilis as you eat a slice of beef. The acidity of the oil and celery leaf garnishing hit you immediately, and you almost choke at the sudden impact of flavor.

You cry out, “Spicy!”

“I told you.”

You quickly swallow before picking out pieces of celery and peanuts to soothe your tongue.

“Seriously, Jiaoqiu, how can you eat this all the time?”

He simply shrugs. “I can’t really taste anything else.”

“Wait, what?”

“I started losing my sense of taste in culinary school. The doctors said it was probably due to stress from the competitions and media appearances. Now, I can only really eat very strong and spicy flavors.”

You almost drop your chopsticks onto the floor.

“Jiaoqiu,” you choke, “you can’t keep dropping these severely depressing facts about yourself out of nowhere.”

“Oh, sorry, should I have mentioned a trigger warning or something?”

You huff unhappily before taking another bite, barely managing the stinging heat at the back of your throat.

Jiaoqiu suddenly asks, “Did you enjoy culinary school?”

You pause to reflect. “I kinda took an unconventional path. I actually have a Bachelor in something completely unrelated to cooking, but I couldn’t find a full-time job after graduating and decided to give baking a shot. Baking school was hellish, though, I can’t lie.”

He makes a noise of surprise when you finish.

“You didn’t enjoy baking school?”

You scratch the back of your head. “I mean, it was tough. I don’t remember much besides crying a lot and feeling very incompetent. It’s hard being surrounded by really young and accomplished people all the time.”

“I thought you were going to say you had the time of your life.”

“Why?”

“Well…,” Jiaoqiu starts, though he turns to face away from you for some reason. “You seem very optimistic and easy to get along with. People like you thrive in social environments, like school.”

You try to muster your usual smile, but you can’t will your mouth to stretch or your cheeks to lift. “I guess, and it’s not like I hated my experience. I was just… I was too concerned about making up for lost time.”

You don’t want to think about this anymore, so you take another bite.

Through a mouthful, you pivot the conversation. “By the way, there’s no way I can finish this all by myself. Have some, too!”

You tap Jiaoqiu on the shoulder so that he turns to face you again, and you tightly grip the chopsticks so that the food doesn’t drop.

Jiaoqiu tries to deny at first. “No, no, I already ate dinner.”

“But Jiaoqiu, please! You made so much, and it’d be such a waste to keep it overnight. C’mon, just one bite, it’s right in front of you.”

He opens his mouth and leans forward, but either because your hands are shaky or because he simply cannot reach, he keeps missing.

You ask with slight amusement, “May I?”

“Just hurry and give it to me.”

You slide your free hand underneath his chin and hold his head in place. Initially, he sputters out of shyness and embarrassment, but finally relents as you tell him to keep his mouth open.

When he’s chewing on it, you say, “Really good, right? You should cook for yourself more often.”

“It’s fine. Could be better,” he replies. “Besides, it’s dangerous cooking by myself.”

You shrug. “I can always come over and help, like I did tonight.”

He sighs. “You’re so demanding. You just want more free food.”

You giggle with glee and clap at his shoulders. “Of course not!” You feign hurt. “I just want to spend more time with a good friend!”

Jiaoqiu huffs and you think he rolls his eyes. “Friends,” he mutters, “don’t eat from the same pair of chopsticks.”

You feel your face burn, having been completely unaware of the implications of your actions.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” you retort, though there’s really no bite to your words. “You haven’t even tried my desserts once.”

VI. Sweet Run Bing

On the last day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, you come over with some leftovers to hand to the Yaoqing staff. You’ve gotten to know them quite well, and of course, Sushang and Moze are the first ones to appear.

“What’d you bring this time?” Sushang sing-songs.

You set the boxes on a counter and list everything out. “There’s coconut cake, a Taiwanese rendition of French custard tarts, some of our special mooncakes, and sweet run bing. There’s more than enough for everyone!”

You try to take a step back so that all of the Yaoqing chefs can reach your desserts, but you bump into somebody.

Or more specifically, someone holds you by the shoulders.

You look over to find Jiaoqiu resting his hands on you, face turned towards the commotion in the center of the kitchen.

He muses, “Sweet run bing? Isn’t it usually salty?”

You laugh. “Yes, but it’s pretty popular in Taiwan to add ice cream and nuts to make a sweeter version of it.”

The question always floats in the air but is usually left unaddressed. This time, though, Jiaoqiu surprises you.

“Can I try?”

A sense of pride and satisfaction pumps through your entire body. “Of course!” you exclaim. “Let me get you one!”

The two of you retreat to the calmer corner of his office, and you watch him intently as he holds the run bing close to his nose.

“I smell peanuts, almonds, and vanilla. There’s also something sweet?”

“Yes, we added some of our homemade canned peaches!”

“I see. Let me try it.”

Slowly, methodically, Jiaoqiu rolls up the crepe and takes a bite from it. You gulp and can almost feel beads of sweat forming at your temples from the anticipation and anxiety.

Then, something in his features softens. 

“The texture’s great.”

At his compliment, you bound out of your seat, whooping and cheering.

“I’ll take it! Next time, I’ll make something you can actually taste. I roasted the nuts to create a smokey flavor and to add some crunch, but I didn’t want it to be too overpowering, so I also added some herbs, like ground coriander and –“

“Wait, there’s coriander in this?”

You comically pause in the middle of your celebrating. “Uh, yes?”

It’s your first time seeing the man… so frightened.

You can’t help but glare at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t like coriander.”

Jiaoqiu doesn’t move.

“Isn’t coriander supposed to be important in Szechuan cuisine? You were the one nagging my ears off weeks ago –“

“First of all, I wasn’t nagging you. Second, I personally don’t like to eat it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use it.”

“Sure, fine, but the run bing doesn’t taste bad, does it?”

Jiaoqiu grimaces. “It tastes fine… even if there’s coriander in it.”

You smugly croon at him. “What other foods do you hate? I’ll convince you otherwise.”

Jiaoqiu takes another big bite of the run bing, before replying, uncharacteristically serious, “I’ll eat whatever you give me.”

You flush at his words, rendered unable to speak. In fact, you have to clear your throat a couple of times in order to respond. “And… you’ll cook for me, too?”

He nods, with firm intent. “For as long as you want me to.”

You feel like the vanilla ice cream in the run bing, melting and dripping, positively overheating.

[totaly-obsessed]

Falling

Mackenzie Arnold x reader

-> Reader and Macca's daughter watch her win 8-0, even if it is way too early

➳ Masterlist

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Watching your wife play for her country would never bore you, not even when it was an 8 – 0 win and you barely get to see her on the screen. Your daughter, however, was bored. Isla had woken up bright and early as it was a Sunday. 

While you would travel the world for Mackenzie and her games, pulling Isla out of school was difficult, so you stayed home for the Asian Olympic Qualifiers – watching from home as well as you could. Kick-off was at 07:10 in the morning for the two of you in the UK, but the small blonde in your lap was Macca's good luck charm, so a short phone call before was mandatory. 

It was six in the morning when Isla started jumping on your bed. “Wake up! Wake up! Game time! Mo- Ahhh!” you had snatched her out of the air, cuddling her close to you. “Game time later baby, give your mommy some cuddles.” With all her might the brunette girl wrangled herself out of your hold, sitting herself down on your chest. “Call Mama?” With a defeated sigh you grabbed your phone from the bedside table, knowing that your daughter would not give in until she had talked to her mom. “Here baby, you call her.” 

The five-year-old knew just enough about phones, to know where she could call your wife and put it on speaker. Today the young girl decides to go for a Facetime tough at six in the morning – how nice. Especially when you had barely gotten any sleep, worrying about your wife. 

It rang a couple of times before Mackenzie picked up, being greeted by her daughter’s face, way too close to the camera. “Good morning Bubba! How’d ya sleep?” Excited noises left Isla’s lips as she saw her mom on a dark bus, she had pulled the curtains by her seat close, trying to concentrate. “Good Mama! You?” 

“I slept well babe, where is mommy?” Your child threw the phone at you before she slipped under the blanket, joining you in the warmth of it. “Oh, now you wanna cuddle, hmm?” Mackenzie watched with a fond smile as her carbon copy cuddled into your chest, with you holding the phone now, being able to see everything. 

“Hi, beautiful.” She would never get tired of how blushy you got, whenever she complimented you in such a vulnerable state – even after six years of marriage and a child. “Hi, baby. How are you?” 

With Isla nearly falling asleep on you, Macca and you quietly talked until the bus arrived at the stadium “Isla? Baby? I have to go now. Mama loves you, have fun!” A tired wave at the camera was all that she got, blowing you a kiss as well.  

After making coffee and cleaning up a little you pulled Isla to the couch, wrapping both of you in blankets and handing her a breakfast sandwich. “Is Mama going to play?” Just seconds later they showed the Tillies in the tunnel, Mackenzie in pink, a little girl holding her hand. 

“Oi! That’s my Mama!” You could not help but burst with laughter, the little girl appalled to see someone else holding her mother’s hand. “That is her Mascot baby. You were one as well, do you remember?” 

Isla had been a mascot plenty of times, for her mother, Sam, Steph, Caitlin, Alanna, and even Courtney when she had joined Leicester City. 

After the two of you had marveled at the dress the singer of the Philippines national anthem was wearing, it was time for the Australian anthem. As fast as she could Isla was out of the blankets, standing with a hand on her heart, belting the anthem with the singer on the TV. Sneakily you took a video of it, immediately sending it to Mackenzie who was laughing next to Sam, behind the singer. 

“Look there’s Auntie Lani! Oh and Stephy, And Cait!” The young girl could not help herself, stopping her singing and waving at her aunties instead. 

The stadium was filled, and your eyes could not help but tear up a little, seeing your wife stand there, making her country and family proud in front of so many people. “Where’s Mama?” Isla was now back at your side as she tried to find her mother’s pink kit in the colorful mix. But Mackenzie was nowhere to be seen as the rest of the Matilda’s tried to take the team picture, looking for her as well. The commentator explained that she had gone to warm up in goal, forgetting the picture - but she sprinted back just in time. 

Seconds before kick-off Isla sprinted off to her room, returning with bright blue hair ribbons and a hairbrush, wordlessly gesturing you to style her hair just like Raso’s. Once you were done you also sent a picture of that to your wife, knowing that she would show the girls everything that Isla did. 

Caitlin’s first shot on goal was saved by the keeper, Isla next to you restless in her seat. And just a few minutes later the Philippines had a long shot at goal, your daughter jumping up and down. “Get up Mama!” Mackenzie had fallen on her way to save the ball, but luckily it did not meet the back of the net. 

It was Mary Fowler who put the Matilda’s in front with a gorgeous goal in the 14th minute. That first goal set off a series of goals and by the end of the first half, the Matilda’s were leading with five goals. 

Isla however had dozed off as her excitement had lessened during the game. While she loved all of her aunties with all her heart, she was only watching for one person. Her Mama. But with such a lead and the Philippines’ not being a real threat Mackenzie was barely seen. Once or twice, she collected a loose ball, sending it back but otherwise, it was an entirely calm game for the goalkeeper. The second half brought three more goals and a hat trick for both Sam and Caitlin. 

With nothing else to do in the day you decided, to let the young girl sleep until Macca called, which was three hours later. She was back in the Team hotel, freshly showered and alone in her room. “There she is! My beautiful wife!” As expected, you blushed, hiding your face in a blanket on the couch. 

Isla apparently heard your phone ring, as she burst into the room, now fully awake. “Mama, you won!” Your wife could barely contain herself at the cute smile her daughter gave her – a smile that reminded her so much of you it was scary. “I did, Baby! Did you watch me?” 

Isla’s hair was a mess, the ribbon had nearly fallen out by this point. She had always been an aggressive sleeper. “I did, but I got bored.” Mackenzie could not help but laugh at the carelessness in her daughter’s voice. “Little Miss was asleep before halftime, huh?” 

“Huh! How mean of you! Such a mean Mommy didn’t even wake you up.” The small brunette that was jumping in her seat rolled her little eyes at her mother’s sarcasm, well accustomed to it by now. 

“You fell when the ball got to you, Mama.” Mackenzie was flabbergasted “So you fall asleep but that’s what you see?” The two of them bantered back and forth in true mother-daughter fashion, but you couldn’t help but admire them. 

And you were so happy to have them, so much fun in a home that you loved.

[rakurairagnarok]

Hey I love your products! Got any cool new testers I could try out?

We truely appreciate the welcoming few who are willing to take the risks. The following is a new prototype of an established product.

You walked through the flea market with feigned interest. You really had no need for any of this stuff but as district manager of the supermarket chain it was held infront of, you had to save face.

One of the people selling stuff was this quite well put together man in a suit. He was tall, slight beard, and an obvious dye job, seeing the color difference in his hair and beard. He was however very sweet looking and walked up to you as you approached his booth.

"Here you go sir, as a sign of good will"

You took the item from his hands. It was a silver set of headphones with the brand name lazered into the head rest. Rakurai Inc.

It looked quite high tech for a flee market but you figured it must be faulty for this man to just give it away.

"Ah thank you, but I have no need for junk like this."

"Ah please sir, It would mean so much to me if you just wore it."

Rolling your eyes you decide to humor the man and put it on. Immediately you notice something is wrong, as a monotonous voice starts speaking japanese through it.

At first you're bewildered, looking around, searching for the man. But when you turned around you found that not only did the man totally dissapear, his booth was gone as well.

Suddenly the voice began speaking english, but you didn't register what it was saying, looking for someone to ask where the man went.

'Sorry, do you know where the man who was just here went?"

The woman who you asked looked at you with a confused look in her eyes and then said something back. You didn't quite caught what she said, but for some reason you did realise it was English. But that doesn't make sense, you spoke English. Right? No that also didn't quite make sense. You had come to America to improve your English. You... you were... Japanese.

You looked down at your expensive suit, seeing that it had been replaced with a pullover, with a shirt and tie.

You quickly run to the bathroom and look at yourself. Your old visage has tightened around your new youthfull face. Your previously receding hairline has recovered itself and styled itself in a stylish young cut.

You run a hand down your new skinny torso, throwing your head back as just your fingers on your skin send waves of pleasure down your spine.

A fruity taste fills your mouth as you suddenly notice chewing gum in your mouth.

After blowing a bubble and having it pop your brain slows down, and your dick jumps. Each successive bubble you blow and pop, decreases your IQ and increases your libido by the same amount.

Once you spit it out because it has no flavour left, youre left a giggling mess, waiting for your boss's orders for the next shoot.

These americans love their asian playboys

I want to SINCERELY APOLOGISE. This ask has been send in by a good friend of mine to replace the ask I lost due to Tumblr app being a shit show.

[sweetteainthesummerx]

THE LOVE LASTS SO LONG (15)

The penultimate chapter!!

series masterlist

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

aubreyyang posted on their story

caption: back to reality

Ollie pushed her luggage to the side, his eyes tired behind a pair of blue light glasses. His hair was smushed a little from the drive over to the airport, but he looked handsome as always. 

They were back in Italy, Ollie starting training again before the Canadian Grand Prix. Aubrey had to go back to New York, catch up on classes and deal with auditions and bookings. 

“Don’t fall in love with some Manhattan fashion guy,” Ollie pouted, tugging her into him, cradling her head and waist. 

“Don’t be dramatic, babe. I’ll see you in like, a week and a half.” She sniffed into his hoodie, but she felt her heart carving itself out of her chest and wedging into his already. Nearly two weeks with Ollie, all tanned, shirtless and happy…now back to the sweltering, bustling city without him. She wanted to cry a little. This sweet boy made her life so much more, so abundant. It felt like time, almost. She knew that he loved her, and she most definitely loved him. But he knew her and he wanted to take it slow so she wouldn’t be spooked. She adored him for it. 

He must’ve felt her tense because he pressed quiet kisses into the crown of her head, smoothing her hair away from her face. 

“I can’t wait to win in your home country. Promise you’ll text me when you land?” He pressed one more kiss into her temple tenderly. 

“Okay, I will.” 

With one more squeeze, she rubbed her eyes and entered into the terminal, waving once more at Ollie. 

aubreyyang posted

aubreyyang SO AMERICAN MUSIC VIDEO! It was an honour to direct my first music video for my girl @oliviarodrigo ❤️

Even though I hate being mistaken as american, this song was too good to pass up 💋

GO WATCH NOW 🇺🇸🦅🗽

liked by oliviarodrigo, olliebearman, and 111,092 others

view all comments

user1 OH SO SHES SERVING SERVING HUH

livieelove OMG THE ULTIMATE COLLAB

aubreyyangcontent liv and Aubrey (successful gorgeous asian queens) 🤝 their golden retriever tall white bfs

-- olliebearmansgf CRYING BECAUSE THIS IS THEIR SHARED EXPERIENCEE

logansargeant we welcome you to America anytime 🤠

-- aubreyollie4eva YO STAY IN UR OWN LANE BRUV

olliebearman real ones know the Vancouver lore :)

-- aubreyyang downtown day when?

-- user2 MOM AND DAD PLSSS

MESSAGES

ollie

just watched the music video

it was so good

aubrey

well what can I say I relate to it hehe

ollie

really?

aubrey

well duh

I mean ig im from canada but ur from england

ollie

oh wow

aubrey

idk I kinda like having a muse for directing

it feels more personal

sorry did I make it weird?

ollie

no of course not love

come to the next gp with me

aubrey

ollie what

ollie

no im serious im having my Aubrey withdrawals

I really want you here

aubrey

okay

okay ill come to you

aubberieyaang posted

aubberieyaang highkey in love with my best friend 🤪

liked by celine_diorr and 18 other

view all comments

alexandrasaintmleux I KNEW IT THATS WHY HES ALL RED AND GIGGLY

-- aubberieyaang wait really hehe

leosdad please just tell him this hurts my soul

-- aubberieyaang SOON I PROMISE

celine_diorr fine hes better than any of ur exes and he has my blessing

-- aubberieyaang TY BAE

chuck_bushes Ay he better watch his hands

-- aubberieyaang love u my honorary big bro

f1wagupdates posted

slide one: ollie and aubrey walking through the paddock; he is wearing a Ferrari polo and a backwards hat with jeans and sneakers, she is wearing a vintage Ferrari tank top with her dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her mini skirt is a light denim, and she has a pair of low doc Martens and scrunch white socks. A pair of sunglasses (as seen in her previous posts) pushes her hair back from her face. The picture is slightly blurry, but she is walking in front as he follows suit behind her, one hand on the small of her back. A black Prada handbag is in his hand, presumably Aubrey's.

slide two: a video of David Bearman and Aubrey Yang in the Ferrari garage as they stand side by side, both wearing red earmuffs as they stare enraptured at the screen. Someone moving boxes passes by, and David moves Aubrey behind him in a very fatherly way. She says something that makes him laugh, and he pats her shoulder as they focus back on the screen. The tags on the live TV shows David Bearman, Oliver Bearman's dad, and Aubrey Yang, Oliver Bearman's Partner.

f1wagupdate Aubrey Yang is once again seen in the paddock, this time in Montreal. She is seen with Ollie Bearman's father and Ollie before and during the race.

liked by ollieheartsaubrey, aubrey1fan and 88,092 others

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aubreyyangfanpage THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF FERRARI RAHHH the first pic is so cute

-- user1 THEYRE BOTH WEARING MERCH AND LOOKING GORGEOUS HOLY MOLY

user2 aww her and his dad are so sweet (when is it my turn PLEASE)

-- f1funnies00 shes so daughter in law coded I SWEAR THEYRE TOGETHER EVEN THE TAG HARD LAUNCHED THEM BROO

premababies hes holding her bag (gonna sleep on the highway tonight hehe)

★・・・・★・・・・ ★・・・・★

Taglist: @callsignwidow @iloveyou3000morgan @honethatty12 @taygrls @destinyg237 @ilivbullyingjeongin @eiaaasamantha @1uvsptnik @yla-aira @motorsportloverf1 @gigigreens

© sweetteainthesummerx.tumblr. all rights reserved. unauthorized copying, translation, or claiming of my writing or any works as your own is strictly prohibited.

[icanseethefuture333]

PAC: What your fp/fs looks like but make it actually diverse 🌅

Feel free to leave a tip as well if you enjoyed this pac! $$$ 😌🌺

Pile 1:

Physical appearance

Hair color ranges from dark brown, light brown , ginger, & blonde highlights (Their natural hair color is mostly brown but they could dye it or a few of them are actually blonde/ginger). Their hair texture is coily, curly, or wavy. They are most likely light skinned or mixed race (I'm seeing mostly black, white, or middle eastern. This message could only be for a few but I heard someone's fp/fs could be Somalian, Moroccan, or Israeli to be specific). They have hazel eyes (eye color is a mix of green, aqua, gold, or amber). They have freckles and moles. Skintone is warm and medium or medium deep (tawny, olive, or brown). Your fp/fs's body could be more bottom heavy. If they are more feminine I'm seeing a pear shaped figure and if they are more masculine I'm seeing that they have strong legs. This person could like to workout or they are in involved in sports because they have strong lower body muscles (wide hips, big butt, thick thighs, toned calves, etc). Sagittarius & Leo could be prominent in their birth chart. Sun or Jupiter dominant.

Pile 2:

Physical Appearance

This pile's fp/fs is pretty unique! For some people in this pile, their fs/fp could have vitiligo. It's as if they have two skintones for some reasons. So either this person could have vitiligo, they either get very pale in the winter and dark in the summer, or they could have used tanners or skin bleaching creams growing up. I'm also seeing that this person could strictly only wear black, gray, and white - no colors. They like to be like a panda 🐼. For their hair color I'm seeing its gray, white, silver, platinum blonde, or bleached. They could like to wear wigs or their head is shaved at the moment. If the fp is a feminine they like to wear their hair very long while the masculine likes their hair very short, almost like a buzzcut. They also have dark brown almost pitch black eyes. Your fp/fs could have some type of scar on there face or body, perhaps from a burn, fight, or some sort of accident. Their body is angular, lean, and toned. This person likes to include stars in their aesthetic ☆. They could like y2k fashion or subversive fashion. I'm thinking of the brand "Chrome hearts". This person could be alternative or like being involved in that culture. They could be goth specifically which would explain why their skin color varies (some goths like to paint their face white). I'm seeing piercings and tattoos as well. There isn't a specific race for this pile but they could have almond eyes, a low nose bridge, and small lips (they like to wear lip liner so it looks fuller or red/black lipstick so they can appear as a "vampire" lol). So for some of you your fp/fs could be black, asian, or "other". I'm seeing that this person has Scorpio placements and a Pluto dominance.

Pile 3:

Physical Appearance

This person is white and their cultural heritage could either be Greek, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian, Portuguese, or Argentian. They have dark brown hair and it's straight with a slight bend of wave or curls. Their hair is very voluminous and shiny. Their skin ranges from pale to medium. Their eye color could be blue, brown, or green. For some other physical features they could have a prominent nose, dark circles, red lips, and a beauty mark either under their eye or next to their mouth. If feminine, their body is hourglass shape with hip dips. If masculine, they have wide shoulders, and have more of a inverted triangle shape. Your fp/fs' style is very refined and posh. It's giving "old money" vibes. Rolexes, white Polo shirts, khakis, linen blouses, diamond necklaces, etc. They could have Taurus placements as well as a Venus dominance.

Pile 4:

Physical Appearance

I feel for most people in this pile their fs/fp naturally has ginger, reddish hair or they have brown hair with reddish undertones. They have dark brown eyes, pale skin, freckles, rosy cheeks, and heart shaped lips. They could look like a cat or have features similar to cat. Their eyes are big and upturned. Your fp/fs is either east asian or "wasian" (half white half east asian). Their style is grunge with warm autumn tones or they dress very colorful (they could wear a lot of primary colors with brown and green). They could like to wear khakis, cargo pants, converse sneakers, and striped sweaters. This person gives off obvious Gemini energy 😂 but I'm also picking up that they could have Virgo placements. They have a Mercury dominance.

Pile 5:

Physical Appearance

This person has a very rich, deep skintone. If your fp/fs was a man they would remind me of the saying "tall, dark, and handsome". I'm seeing that they are either Black or South Asian. They have thick curly/coily hair and it's the color onyx. Their eyes are the color chocolate brown. They have a balanced and proportionate body type. I feel that this person really embodies having Venusian energy and could have Libra prominent in their birth chart. Their style is casual with a touch of luxury. They like to wear black blazers, white shirts, sundresses, gold hoops, pearls, and jewels. I'm seeing purple, red, and green (sapphires, rubies, emeralds, etc) so they could like to wear very regal colors as well or they could just look like royalty.

Pile 6:

Physical Appearance

I channeled a few different people for this pile so this might not resonate for all of you but only for some! So for those who are attracted to people with a feminine appearance. Your fp/fs could like to have their hair very colorful and it's always changing. They either wear wigs or dye their hair blue. I'm getting a "2014 tumblr girl" vibe from them. They are just naturally beautiful. As for those who are attracted to people with a masculine appearance. Your fp/fs could have short to medium length blonde hair. Their hair is very shaggy and they like to style it in a messy, carefree, tousled way. They could have slight wavy hair as well. They could look like a "surfey boy" or a "skater boy". Both feminine and masculine fp/fs could have blue eyes, a button nose, and pink lips. Their body type is petite and thin with a narrow waist. I'm not seeing a specific race being stated for your fp/fs but I wanna lean towards for most people who picked this pile that they will have a white partner. While for a few of you, you will date/marry someone who will be considered racially ambiguous. They could have Aquarius placements and a Uranus dominance

Pile 7:

Physical Appearance

This person has black or dark brown hair. Their hair texture could be straight or wavy. They could have siren eyes as well. Something about their eyes are very captivating. Their eye color ranges from light brown to dark brown. While their skin color is like copper. They are average height and their shoulders and collarbones could be very beautiful. Your fp/fs could be of West & South/Southeast Asian descent, this message might only be for some but I'm hearing that they could be possibly be Sri Lankan, Tamil, Iranian, Saudi Arabian, Bengali, Malaysian, Singaporean, Pakistani, Thai, and Indonesian (very specific, I know 💀). I feel like you would meet then while they are in their cultural attire or during a special holiday. If you are not from these countries perhaps you go there for a vacation and meet them there (how cute!🥺). I feel like their faith or beliefs are very important to them, so they might wear some sort of necklace to represent that. Capricorn could be prominent in their chart and they could have a Saturn dominance.

Pile 8:

Physical Appearance

For your fp/fs I feel that they could have a duality to them, so it is possible that they are mixed, have two cultures, or they have a dual citizenship somewhere. I believe that they are Aboriginal, Pacific Islander, and for a few, South East Asian (I'm getting the Philippines to be specific). They have thick wavy, curly hair. They might like to switch up their hair a lot by either straightening it or curling it sometimes. They could even do perms on their hair or use relaxers. The skin color varies from person to person. Their body type will be more fleshy and muscular, some of them have a prominent tummy. They could have Cancer placements or the Moon is dominant in their chart.

Pile 9:

Physical Appearance

Your fp/fs is indigenous or Latin indigenous descent. They have straight, dark brown hair. Their skintone varies from medium to dark skintones. Some of them have a hooked nose or will have a upturned nose. The corner of their lips could be downturned or when they smile it looks like this ^~^ (adorable 😭). I feel that these people have a very loud but infectious laugh. They could brighten your day when you are sad. For some of you these people could be a cowboy/cowgirl or work at some sort of ranch or farm (I'm not from the South so idk how all that works but you get what I mean 😅). They have a natural connection to animals. They could wear stetson hats, beaded necklaces, bolo ties, flannels, boots, bone shells, and silver or turquoise jewelry. They could have Aries placements and a Mars dominance.

[autisticempathydaemon]

Redactober 2024 Day Twenty-Three

Prompt: Morgan & Money

Pairing: Morgan/Morgan’s Listener

cw: second person POV, Morgan is inspired by Nick Young from Crazy Rich Asians

“Morgan, the bread costs more money than I make in two hours.”

Available on AO3 here!

<- Prev Day | Next Day ->

“When you said let’s get dinner somewhere near the department office, I imagined something more… casual, lowkey.”

“Yeah? There is this Michelin ramen place from Japan that just opened a California location that I was considering, but that seemed like it’d be busy. I picked here because it’d be more quiet.” You look around at the fine furnishings of the French bistro, the housemade butter on the table, and the semi-private table away from the main dining room with a maître d’ just around the corner if you call, and you agree it’s quiet… quiet luxury perhaps. As Morgan flips through the wine list, tapping his fingers in thought against the table, you really look at him and notice the sleek watch on his wrist, the immaculate tailoring of his suit, the lush youth of his skin that glows of the best korean skin care.

“Morgan Kyne, are you loaded?” you ask, staring incredulously at him over your menu so you don’t have to look at the highbrow items ominously labeled “MP” for “Market Price”.

“Hardly,” he says with a small laugh and dismissive wave of the hand. “I’d consider myself… comfortable.”

“Morgan, the bread costs more money than I make in two hours. I don’t think I can be here; I can’t afford this.”

“You can and should be here, because you’re my guest,” the other seer insists, leaning closer to lightly touch your wrist and meet your eyes. “You don’t need to afford it, because I invited you to dinner; thus it’s my treat.” His gaze is intense and solid, his touch fleeting and electric, and you giggle nervously between his attention and unfamiliar, understated grandeur of the place.

“Are you sure it’s not the Sodality’s treat? Feels like you’re trying to show off how much they pay their Seer Obscuras,” you joke, sipping the water you have an uncomfortable suspicion was served to you in bonafide crystal.

“It’s not nothing, I’ll give you that. Though, if I thought that was all it took, I would have taken you somewhere really fancy,” he jokes back with a grin, revealing a rarely spotted dimple in his right cheek that is more tempting than any three star dinner.

[mengjue]

What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党 下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

[germhammy]

“Girls Night 3- The Challenge pt 3”

Kent placed the next nugget bowls in front of the four

Harley: oh this is good. Very sweet with a bit of spice. Mixes nicely. But I would prefer honey to the maple syrup

Wednesday: I like the maple coconut. But now you got me wanting to taste the honey. If you like honey? You should ask Eugene for a jar.

Harley: which one is Eugene?

Eugene waved

Harley: hi

Xavier: this is very sweet.

Mr Johnson: very tropical

Kent revealed the sauce. “Lovely Coconut”

Enid cleared the bowls as Kent brought out the next nuggets

Mr Johnson: these are hot! Very Asian

Xavier: ack. I don’t like these. -reaching for a slice of bread-

Wednesday: Thai chili. Nice. Not sure I care for it on chicken nuggets

Harley: yeah. These nuggets have the wrong coating. Bread crumbs are not it. Oh! Wednesday, do you like chili crisp? I know it’s Chinese and we are eating a Thai sauce but

Wednesday: yes! I like it on boiled eggs

Kent revealed the sauce: “Thai tease”

Harley: this is great! Nice choices. So far nothing I tried.

Enid came to clear the bowls. Kent ran back and brought out the next set

Kent: stay out here for the taste and reveal while I prepare the next sets

With the new bowls in front of them the four tasters ate their nuggets while Kent went back to the preparing station

Mr Johnson: now this is hearty. Got a bit of a kick

Xavier: definitely getting hotter

Wednesday: now this would go nicely on a burger!

Harley: definitely! Say, one of the catering is a burger night. I want to put this sauce on the burgers. Pippy, do you remember when that was?

Pippa: I think it’s Thursday. The first day of shooting

Wednesday: I will have to make sure my homework is done so I can be there. Mr Burton please inform my mother?

Mr Burton: of course

Xavier: I want to come!

Wednesday: absolutely not.

Xavier: but you get to go! Why can’t I?

Harley: because Wednesday has reason to be there. You don’t. Bystanders will only get in the way! Especially on the first night of shooting

Mr Johnson: your friend can come

Xavier: see? The Foundation says I can come!

Mr Burton: no you cannot. The first day. No distractions. I am the director. And also in charge of the episode. I want Wednesday to be there for the first night. I do not need bystanders. Doug, you will not overstep.

Kent arrived with the next set of nuggets

Kent: ready for the reveal? Any comments on the sauce?

Mr Johnson: I would put this on tacos

Harley: barbacoa but hot sauce. So I think it would go nicely with burgers

Kent: -revealing the bottle- Barbacoa Barista! And I got three bottles because the price was cheaper than just one so I can give you the bottles for burger night

Harley: that great!

Wednesday: barbacoa barista? What kind of a name is that?

[infiniteeight8]

Could we get a sequel to "who bound your magic?" (And if you've already written a sequel and I just haven't seen it yet since I usually read your fic on AO3 instead of here, could we get ANOTHER sequel? :-D ) Sequel could be what happens next, or one of the other characters' POV of what's already happened.

I have not yet done a sequel to this one!

The original ficlet is here: who bound your magic?

And now onto the sequel! Uh, quick warning that my knowledge of Teen Wolf druids is a bit fuzzy and largely remembered from fic, so if anything here is super wrong… just consider it a casualty of merging the MCU and Teen Wolf magic systems. LOL

-

Doctor Strange—talk about a kick ass name for a magic user—takes Stiles and Peter to his home base by portal. Just… puts on a ring, waves his hand, and steps through a hole in space time and into a completely different place.

“Welcome to the Sanctum Sanctorum,” Doctor Strange says, and Stiles can’t help turning in a circle, taking in the space with wide eyes. Now this is what a wizard’s home ought to look like! Deaton had always been so… mundane. “Wong!” 

Stiles jumps when Doctor Strange shouts. He glances at Peter, who just shrugs, though he’s on high alert.

After a moment, another man appears at the top of the staircase. He’s Asian, dressed in robes similar to Doctor Strange’s but in darker colors. “There’s no need to shout,” he says, descending the stairs. “If I am here, the Sanctum will alert me. If I am not, I won’t hear you.”

“I think you’ll be interested to examine Stiles here,” Doctor Strange says, gesturing at Stiles.

Wong reaches the bottom of the stairs and approaches Stiles. “With your permission?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles says, nodding.

Wong waves his hands around, and suddenly there’s a glowing pattern floating in the air between them. He examines it, and Stiles through it, with a frown. Eventually he waves it away. “Someone did not want you doing magic,” Wong says.

Stiles blows out a breath. “That’s what Doctor Strange said. I’ve only met a few people who knew about magic at all. Most of them were bad guys, so I guess it could have been one of them…” he trails off and looks over at Peter.

“But?” Doctor Strange prompts. 

“There’s a druid who’s supposed to be helping us,” Peter says, “and he’s never mentioned any problem with Stiles’ magic.”

“A ‘druid’?” Doctor Strange raises his eyebrows and turns to Wong.

“Hmm. A minor sect of sorcerers that broke off from the order in Ancient Greece,” Wong says. “I’m surprised they’re still around; they’re focus was… narrow.”

Stiles snorts. “They’re not only around, they act like they’re the final authority on all things magic. They say it’s their job to ‘keep the balance.’”

“Balance?” Wong huffs. “There’s no such thing. Not magically, anyway.”

“There is a price to pay for magic,” Stephen points out. “That might be where they got the idea.”

“Possibly,” Wong allows. To Stiles, he says, “I can remove the block on your magic, but you will require immediate training. Despite the block, you have clearly been reaching for your power. To do so without training is dangerous, for you and for the fabric of reality.”

“I am totally down for training,” Stiles says, bouncing a little on his toes. 

“I’m staying,” Peter says flatly.

“Of course,” Doctor Strange says. Both he and Wong look surprised. “We’d never ask you to leave your bonded, especially not with the energies he’ll be handling.”

“Bonded?” Stiles squeaks. Peter looks just as startled.

Wong sighs deeply. “Druids.”

[kevin-the-bruyne]

I really had to read with my own two eyes multiple times since this post had multiple people add on to it, bringing it back to my dash again and again, that the drama from Tharn and Phaya's past life did not feel dramatic at all. And somehow that detracts from taking the drama of the present as seriously as the show is taking it. This story is based on Thai folklore? The Naga and Garuda are eternal enemies. The love between a Naga and a Garuda is an insult to the literal cosmic order. Chalothon who was only trying to preserve the natural order has been wronged by their love. The natural order is also referenced several times but especially when the priest was like keep Phaya and Chalothon away from each other, they're destined to be enemies. Not meeting the show halfway to accepting this as part of your lens as an audience is frankly...an interesting choice to make. The next bit is pure conjecture on account of me not being Thai but I'm trying to relate to what The Sign is likely trying to do from my own understanding of Asian folklore and the way we use those stories to build new stories. What is there to get out of this show other than the big fuck you to 'natural order' of things that must be because of the way that they are. Why can't a Naga and Garuda be in love? This must be a concept that people explore under the general lens of forbidden love in Thailand (pure conjecture but also like I don't know how it can't be true). We all have our poorly explained versions of Forbidden Love gone bad; Romeo and Juliet, Ram Leela, Devdas would be some heterosexual stories of Forbidden Love that kind of hand waves around the forbidden part a little bit that I'm familiar with. Devdas (the story I'm most familiar with of the one's stated) and its myriad adaptations is a story about the absolute ways we hold on to class even as it brings about our own downfall.

It's a great pick for a queer adaptation because the reasons why the lovers couldn't be together was so made up and really came down to ONE person (Devdas' mother) who just couldn't let go of class even though everyone else was literally begging for the two to just be together because let me tell you none of you have met a poor little meow meow on the scale of Devdas.

The Sign is bringing the forbidden love between a Naga and Garuda as a parallel of the forbidden love between two men. Homosexuality outside of the legal sphere really does come down to an ideological difference as to what is natural vs not. Homosexuality goes against a natural order of reproduction. And this is true. Two men cannot reproduce, two women cannot reproduce with each other.

The challenge isn't to prove that they can, it's to prove that reproduction isn't the centerpoint of human life, that we have transcended the need for our life to be dictated by this 'natural' order because on principal our societies just aren't built along the paradigm of 'survival of the fittest' where the benchmark of species fitness is its ability to reproduce.

Thai shows including things that have come out of Idol Factory (that produces The Sign) are often socially engaged with LGBT rights within Thailand. Now that gay marriage is legal or on its way to be, I assume a move in the direction of bringing same sex relationships up to the same societal respect as straight relationships would be a natural direction that future screenwriters will go.

The Sign is trying very hard to take the question of homosexuality right to the heart of Thai culture and tradition and talk about it from that lens [this is less conjecture and more paraphrasing what Saint has said about the show in interviews] And I know that you all are capable of meeting a story halfway in respecting its desire to set up the stakes through references of allegorical story telling since y'all have been doing it with Last Twilight and Le Petit Prince. So I don't know even know why I had to make this post but: tl;dr: The stakes of the love between Tharn and Phaya and the forbidden nature of it is set before you even see much of the show just from the fact that Tharn is a Naga and Phaya is a Garuda and as a member of the audience you have to accept that the love between Naga and Garuda is a deviant form of love in Thai culture.

[octuscle]

I'd love to be transformed into a huge Asian bodybuilder.

If only your app had a pleasure and punishment setting, I'm a bit of a who're for muscle growth with a big serving of punishment on the side

It was the first time that Pierrick was allowed to represent his employer, a French car manufacturer, at an international congress. Although he was only 27 years old, Pierrick was already a department head in research and development for alternative fuels. And now he was a little excited about what to expect over the next few days in Seoul. He had arrived late, it was actually long past his bedtime, but he felt like a nightcap. So he went to the hotel bar, which was almost empty now, just before midnight. The only person still sitting at the bar was an old short man with a bald head and a long white beard in a black coat. Grotesque, he looks like the teacher from Kung Fu Panda, Pierrick thought to himself and made eye contact with the barman. Pierrick asked for a local schnapps and was given a glass of soju. Spicy stuff, comparable to vodka. He ordered a second glass. The old man next to him sat silently in front of his glass, presumably just drinking water.

After the third glass, Pierrick's tongue loosened. He philosophized about the fact that you could power cars with schnapps. Powerful, mighty cars. And that it was a shame that you couldn't drive people with booze. For him, wine, pastis and Marc de Champagne would only have led to a beer belly. And not mighty, powerful muscles. How wonderful it would be if you could power the human body with this delicious soju, for example. The old man looked at him and said in his best, accent-free French, "Si tel est ton souhait, alors que ton souhait soit accordé!" Damn it, had the man understood what he had been babbling to himself the whole time? Pierrick had to laugh, gulped air and burped. "죄송해요, 술에 익숙해져야 해서요." he said, still laughing. Pierrick waved the bartender over and said, "저와 제 친구를 위해 소주 두 잔!" He wanted to thank the old man and drink a toast with him. But Pierrick was alone in the bar. With two glasses of soju.

Pierrick downed the first glass in one go. It burned in his stomach. And his stomach became hard. Hard as a rock. Pierrick ran his fingers over his stomach and felt the ridges of a six-pack. But his stomach was bloated. Pierrick knew what they called it: "roid gut". He had a veritable roid gut. He drank the second soju, thanked his new friend the bartender, ordered another bottle of soju to take back to the room and put it all on his room bill along with a generous tip. On the way to the elevator, his steps became heavier and heavier. It wasn't just because Pierrick was drunk as a skunk. He was also getting heavier and heavier. The seams of his jeans were stretched to bursting point. And lost in thought, Pierrick unbuttoned his shirt before his chest muscles could tear the buttons off. In the elevator, the first seams of the jeans gave way with a crash. When he arrived in his room, shreds were still hanging down from his belt. Pierrick took another swig from the bottle, fell back on the bed and fell asleep, snoring.

The next morning, Pierrick had a hangover, a huge hangover. The chambermaid had woken him up at 13:00. He had slept through half of the first day. He went to the bathroom with a heavy head. And needed a sip of soju first. Pierrick was naked. What he still had on had been blown off his body. And his body was big. The body of a serious bodybuilder. And there were other things that were more than strange. His reddish-blond curls were straight and noticeably darker. Chestnut-colored, but already very close to black. His body hair had disappeared and his skin had a darker, somehow golden shade. He needed another sip of soju. And he could have sworn that his eyes became a little almond-shaped as he did so.

Pierre-Ick had to sit down. And think. His suitcase wasn't even open yet. But nothing he had packed would fit him. After a quick check, the only thing that worked to some extent was his pyjama bottoms. Normally they would have been very loose. Now they were skin-tight. He looked at the hotel information pages on the television. There was a health and fitness club on the third floor and there was also supposed to be a small store there. Pierre-Ick put on a bathrobe and went to the elevator. He still felt a little drunk. But the sip had done him good.

The waitress in the store smiled politely, ignored his alcoholic breath and helped him find something suitable to wear. There wasn't much in his size, but suitably dressed for a workout and with a sports bag containing a tracksuit, a couple of T-shirts, socks and jockstraps, Yerre-Jick went straight on to the gym. He didn't really know anything about lifting iron, even though he looked like he lived in a gym. And he didn't know how to use the machines or the dumbbells. He sweated like a pig at the slightest movement. He was always hanging around the drinking fountain. He bought himself a bottle of protein shake. None of it helped. He looked like a Hercules. But he trained like a weakling. Thank God it was empty in the gym. But as more and more customers appeared on the training floor, Yerre-Jick gathered his things and went back to his room. He was exhausted, he was done, he needed a sip of soju. And that was obviously what he had needed. The strength flowed back into his body. Yer-juk filled up as if he could tear out trees. The tank top, which had just been quite loose, was now crisply tight. He poured a little schnapps into his water bottle and made his way back to the gym.

The other people were at least irritated by his slightly staggering pace. But damn, in Ye-Jun's case, alcohol was simply the best fuel for his muscle growth. He had heard somewhere that you could even fuel cars with booze. But he couldn't imagine that. But what did he know about it? He lived in the gym, was always a bit drunk and earned his money as a billboard for HiteJinro. Life was great!