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phantomyre · 2 days ago
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VINCENT VALENTINE - REBIRTH Preorder Available (updated) Scheduled to release around June or July 2025
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Source: DIGITAMIN MERCH NEOWING Preorder link: AMIAMI
(Thank you @vinjaryou for the preorder link!)
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introloves · 4 months ago
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can we puh LEASE get a drabble or a one shot on that gojo undercut thing u posted im beggin on my hands AND knees 🙏🙏
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you knew he wanted something from you. you could feel it in the way he folded his frame down against yours. borderline suffocating, a malformed pout stretched across his face while humming against your neck.
“what is it.” you wondered, tapping away on your laptop without so much as paying him any attention- wounding him further.
he scoffed, wondering how you could be so cruel considering the fact he was dying. his eyes painted against the sheen of gloss painted over your newly done nails.
pink.
they were pretty and pink, and oddly resembling a part of him you just loved sucking on. his ego absolutely through the roof with that fact. you hadn’t put up your usual fight when he suggested the color brushed over that acrylic.
“nothing.”
a lie.
he himself knew what he wanted, but he never gave it up easy. choosing instead to wander away from the back of the couch you were so prettily purchased on. walking to stand directly in-front of you- the laptop screen doing nothing to block the majority of his body. tight shirt tucked into sweats that were hung a little too low for your tastes to be casual.
eyebrow raising and huffing with the hint served on a silver platter before you. smiling knowingly while closing the device and setting it aside.
opening yourself up to receive the heavy weight of his body, an exclaimed huff of air leaving you when his arms braced your body. engulfing them with ease- face planting first into your chest and groaning like he’d just found nirvana.
lifting his face to really show up that pout. letting those arms wrapped around you leave the circumference of you to grab at your wrists and plant them firmly against the shortened hair laying against the lower part of his head.
giggling when you finally got the unspoken hint. taking those newly manicured nails and raking them through the translucent hair.
“nothing, huh?” you teased, finding it easy to follow along to his whims. it was him who had paid a pretty penny for your current set after all.
answered with only a groan- eyes shut tight while you traced your initials into the hair there.
a vein prominent along the curve of his jaw with the force of his clenching teeth, something inside of him purring with the fact that you were so well taken care of.
taken care of on his money, with the color of his cock head painted on your nails.
shamelessly moving his face to nestle further against you, hands grabbing at you with an intensity not in proportion to your actions. wondering why the singular act of you running the tips of your styled nails across the short hair of his undercut had him reacting like this.
“satoru?” you inquired when his breathing nearly heaved while he let the full weight of him lay against you. answered with another near incoherent hum.
“is this okay?” words giggled sounded just a little teasing- but you truly wondered if this was fine. you’d never seen his body react in this fashion- not unless he was buried deep inside of you.
and with that realization, it seemed like a veil had been pulled from your eyes. looking over the curve of his back, over the defined planes, and watching the shifting of his hips against the couch cushions.
glossy lips pulled into something that resembled a smile before bringing your nails back and running them over the surface with just a little more pressure. making sure to watch for any shift in his demeanor.
barking out a bell of a giggle when his body tensed, coils of muscle wound tight and with an intensity that would have scared anyone that wasn’t you.
“feels good?” you wondered, and he could only nod. looking up and marveling at the pretty face smiling down at him. choosing to stretch himself back up to his full height. looming over you with that same intensity highlighted seconds previous.
“yeah, that feels good baby.” satoru huffed, letting you see for yourself when those horrible, teasing, wonderful sweats detailed the throbbing outline of his cock.
“do you wanna feel good?” he wondered, not letting you answer before tugging down the front of his waistband. finding it funny how close in color the pink tip of his matched your fingernails.
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yoon-kooks · 2 years ago
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on mute | jjk
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🦈pairing: fuckboy!gamer!jjk x reader
🦈genre: friends to lovers, office!au, coworker!au, smut, fluff
🦈summary: You always assumed your handsome coworker was down to fuck anyone in the office except for you. He always assumed you weren’t interested in a guy like him. And both of you were content with never admitting your feelings… until he unknowingly confides in you in the realms of a certain tactical FPS game.
🦈word count: 10.7k
🦈warnings: mutual pining, shooter game references, soft fuckboy vibes, fingering, doggy style, protected sex bc bro aint taking no chances🤠
a/n: i wasnt planning on including smut so thats a bonus✨
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You press a hand to your mouth to suppress a yawn as the department meeting finally comes to an end. Your boss had gone over the schedule for next quarter, alluded to a few new projects, and gave a few shoutouts to people on your team who apparently “went the extra mile” this week. You couldn’t care less about being acknowledged for your work, but it does kind of irk you that Jeon Jungkook got a shoutout when you’ve never seen him do extra work in the office. All he’s done this week is take your pretty lady boss out to lunch. If that’s considered extra work, you suppose Jungkook works the hardest. After all, he’s the type to make time for anyone he wants to sleep with aka everyone in the office except for you.
As you scoot your chair out, you back into something very solid. Surely no one is dumb enough to stand right behind your chair when they know how eager everyone is to get out of here for the weekend. But when you turn around, you know exactly who it is without even seeing his face—Employee of the Week Jeon Jungkook. 
You stare at the back of his shoulders in that mustard button-down, and it occurs to you that it was his nice ass that you’d bumped into. He didn’t even stumble forward from the impact or at least step aside so you can leave like everyone else. You just want to get home, soak in a nice hot bubble bath, and play a few games with your calico all curled up in your lap—that’s the ideal Friday night that Jeon Jungkook is keeping you from.
“Excuse me, kind sir,” you say as your nude acrylics tap the armrest.
The boy turns around with fake astonishment. And a handsome smile. “Oh, Y/N, I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I mean, yeah, I’d be gone too if someone wasn’t blocking my way out.” In the year that you’ve been on the same team as Jungkook, the two of you somehow developed this sarcastic and aggressive way of speaking without actually being mad at each other. Some call it banter, but you dislike the possible romantic implications of that.
“What’s the rush? Got plans tonight?” He still doesn’t move out of the way. You didn’t expect him pinning you against a table in the office to be so underwhelming. You imagine a fuck boy like him could try a little harder, be a little rougher. Not that you’ve ever fantasized about it.
“Yeah, I just bought some cute new lingerie for when I hop into bed with Christina Lauren and my cat.” You leave out the gaming part of your Friday night plans. If he knew you played the same game as him, he’d probably use it against you somehow.
“Who’s Christina Lauren?” he asks. You love the thought of him imagining you in lingerie with some mystery woman. Or maybe that’d just encourage a threesome.
“My cat’s favorite romance writer?” You say it like it should be common sense to know that your cat purrs himself to sleep when you read to him.
“And you’re going to waste your cute new lingerie on reading a Lauren Christina bedtime story to your cat?”
“It’s Christina Lauren, not Lauren Christina.”
“Christina Lauren doesn’t care about your lingerie.” It amuses you how he keeps bringing up the lingerie. You wonder what he’d think if he saw you in that skimpy mesh fabric. It’d probably come as a shock to him considering he’s only ever seen you in your preppy office attire. He has no idea what you’re capable of beneath those cream blouses and mocha mini skirts.
If only he knew.
“Tldr, yes I have very urgent plans tonight.” That reminds you, you need to check your in-game shop to see if any pretty skins are on sale this time around. You’ve been eyeing the one with the cute whale shark design.
“What a coincidence, Lauren Christina is my favorite writer too. I really liked that one book she wrote.” You don’t hate that he’s prolonging the conversation, but if he says “Lauren Christina” one more time, you’re gonna report him to HR.
“Same,” you chuckle. “Now please move so I can leave.”
He finally steps aside. Before he can pull a fast one and trap you again, you throw your tiny bag over your shoulder and scurry for the exit. You stop just outside the conference room and spin around. The boy’s eyes quickly shift up from your skirt.
“Coming or not?” you ask with a head tilt. If there’s one good thing about having a local fuck boy in the office, it’s that you always have someone who’ll walk you to your car when it’s dark out. That’s one of the things you know he does just for you.
On the elevator ride down, it’s just you and him because everyone else has already vacated the building. You sneak a peek at your handsome colleague. It’s a shame that he spends more time in your coworkers’ beds than in actual relationships. If not for that, you’d—
“You should recommend a book for me,” he says, catching you mindlessly staring at him. Oops.
“You don’t look like a reader.” You doubt he’d ever pick up a book over girls.
“I’ll read a book if you say it’s good.” Now he’s just sweet talking you, and you’re not going to fall for it. Except, you would love someone to gush to about your favorite books.
“Dating You/Hating You.” The book title just sort of slips out of your mouth. Though you can’t exactly vouch for how good it is since it’s the one you’re currently reading.
“Give me your best elevator pitch for it.” Haha, he thinks he’s so funny. (You laugh anyway.)
Persuasion is your thing, but you can’t give a proper elevator pitch for a book you haven’t actually finished yet. Moreover, you don’t know what kinds of genres he’d be into or if this book would be a good fit for him. You don’t even know any of his interests outside of sex and video games. 
When you really think about it, there’s not much you know about Jeon Jungkook. He’s a mystery, but a charming one.
“It’ll give us something to talk about,” you say softly as the loud ding interrupts. “That’s my elevator pitch to you.”
“Not bad,” he nods as you both exit the elevator. That was way easier than expected. “Is it by your cat’s favorite romance author?”
“It is,” you smile. It’s hard not to smile when you’re with him. “I can lend you my copy next week after I fin—”
“Jungkook!” The new recruiting coordinator blocks your way out of the building with eager eyes and a smile brighter than your own. “Still down for drinks later at that place we talked about?”
You try not to roll your eyes as you step around yet another coworker who ignores you standing right next to the boy they want to ask out. You and Jungkook aren’t a thing, but it does hurt to know that not a single person thinks of you as worthy competition. He’s probably made it very clear to everyone in the office that you and him are just friends and that your nightly walks to the parking lot are for safety purposes only.
Thankfully, you get out of the building before you can hear Jungkook accept the invitation into someone else’s bed. The last thing you want is to be jealous of the people he’d rather be spending time with. You and your silly little book recommendations mean nothing to him.
Nothing at all.
“Sorry about that.” He catches up to you a minute later in the dimly lit parking lot.
You shake your head. “It’s alright. That’s what happens when you’re the popular guy.” And you mean it, too. You’re not the type to fault people for being who they are, nor would you ever ask them to change for you. Besides, there’s really nothing between you and him. There’s nothing he should feel sorry for.
“Hey, why do you always park in the furthest corner of the parking lot?” he teases, probably as a way to change the subject. You see his car parked just a few spots down from you, so he doesn’t really have a right to criticize your decisions. Looks like your habit has rubbed off on him. “It’d be safer if you parked closer to the building.”
You shrug even though the parking placement and slightly longer walks are intentional. He doesn’t need to know it’s your subtle way of prolonging the time you spend with him. You always look forward to those few extra minutes where he’s all yours.
“It doesn’t feel dangerous here at all.” Not when you’re with him. You unlock your car and hop into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, totally not dangerous.” Jungkook holds your door as he scans the dark and empty lot for anything suspicious. He listens as a few sirens screech in the distance and does a double-take at the lone soda can rolling around in the wind. When the coast is clear, he turns back to you. “I look forward to reading the Lauren Christina book when your cat’s done with it.”
He waits for your seatbelt to click before closing the door. You roll the window down and glare. “It’s Christina Lauren! And have fun on your date.”
With a wave of your manicure, you’re off to your “urgent” Friday night plans.
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When you return home, you get what you want. You strip off your work clothes and soak in a lavender bubble bath for a good 30 minutes before admiring the new lingerie Jungkook wouldn’t stop mentioning earlier. 
It’s tempting to try it on now, but you wish someone else could see it on you. Jungkook is right. Christina Lauren doesn’t care about your lingerie. If the boy were here to see it for himself, you want to know what he’d think, what he’d say, and what he’d do to your body. It’d probably be incredible—for one night—but that’d be the end of it. That’s how all of his flings go, and a hypothetical one with you would be no different. With a sigh, you set the lingerie aside, throw on an oversized sweatshirt that just barely covers your ass, and load into your game.
The first thing you do is check the shop for the cute gun skin with the whale shark design. The RNG gods give you a couple of good knives, an awful pistol, a subpar rifle, and no shark. It’s fine, you tell yourself. You didn’t want to spend real money on pretty pixels anyway.
As soon as your first match starts, your four teammates are quick to use their mics. Apparently, they all know each other. Can’t relate.
“So… How’d the date go?” asks the healer. The two duelists place their bets on whether the date went incredibly well or horribly wrong. You silently cast your vote for horribly wrong since you lean toward pessimism.
“I didn’t end up going,” says the initiator. He sounds a lot like a certain Jeon Jungkook, but you shouldn’t assume. As far as you know, he doesn’t have a reason to cancel the date with that recruiting coordinator. In fact, he should be having drunk sex with her right about now. Not that it’s any of your business to know what your handsome coworker does after hours. None of that involves you.
“Is it because of You-know-who?” asks the duelist who voted with you. You-know-who? Like a jealous ex-lover? Sounds like drama to you.
“Yep…” Nah, it can’t be the Jeon Jungkook you know. This guy’s voice is giving you more lovesick puppy than confident fuck boy. He dies from a grenade and goes silent for the next few rounds while his buddies keep providing intel to the team. You pick up the whale shark gun over his dead body.
“Hey, CL,” the healer calls out your username. “Do you have a mic?”
Yes, you do have a mic. No, you’re not going to use it. These guys seem harmless so far, but it’s not always fun when people realize you’re the only female on the team. Men in this game try to hit on you just like the ones you pass in the short distance from the office to your car. And they’ll only stop pestering you if you’re walking next to a guy like Jungkook, which you clearly don’t have in this game with your empty friend list. So you’d rather stay on mute for now.
“my mic is broken,” you type, “cat knocked it over.”
“Ah, that’s okay.” He heals you up and saves you from an otherwise fatal headshot. “We were just wondering if you could help our buddy out.”
You? You’re not sure how you’re supposed to be of any help to a lovesick puppy when you haven’t had much luck in the love department either. But you are a curious kitten when it comes to other people’s love lives.
“maybe… can i get more context?”
Apparently, this lovesick puppy (or “Jklmnop” according to his username) has a little more in common with Jungkook than you’d originally thought. Turns out both of them are the designated fuck boys at their workplaces. Except this one has a massive crush on his “super hot” colleague. Jeon Jungkook would never.
The issue is that Jklmnop caught feelings for the one person who doesn’t seem interested in him. Worse, it feels like he’s being friendzoned. And he’s been going on dates with other people in an attempt to squash those unrequited feelings, but it’s just not doing the trick.
“i know a fuck boy too.” You are by no means an expert in the fuck boy archetype, but perhaps your time spent with Jungkook has prepared you for this opportunity to help a friend in need. And you do have some advice. “im not saying fucking all your coworkers is a bad thing but if you really want this girl you need to go all in on her and show her that you’re willing to commit to something more serious.”
Because if you knew this to be true about your own local fuck boy, you’d give him a chance, too. But as far as you know, Jungkook has never shown any romantic interest in you (or anyone else for that matter). He’s just a platonic buddy to you and a fuck buddy to everyone else.
“and it’s very possible she doesnt even realize youre interested in her,” you type, “this is a dumb question but have you tried asking her out yet?”
Your dumb question gets a few laughs from the boys. You feel like an IT person asking their client if they’ve tried turning their computer off and on again.
“Oh, our guy here doesn’t ask people out. He’s the one getting asked out all the time,” Duelist #1 explains.
“It’s been a year and You-know-who hasn’t made a move on him, so that must mean she doesn’t like him,” Duelist #2 adds in a sarcastic tone. You imagine him rolling his eyes on the other side of his screen.
“well @Jklmnop if you dont normally ask ppl out, itll hold more weight when you do.” Your fingers pause for a second. Maybe you’re just soft, but it’d mean a lot to you if you were asked out by the Jeon Jungkook. You’re sure this fuck boy could pull it off too. “you should ask her out. maybe shes waiting for you to make the move.”
You don’t get an immediate response, but he trades his pretty shark gun for your plain one. He must have seen you steal the one over his dead body a few rounds ago. What a thoughtful guy.
Then a friend request pops up. Fine. Jklmnop can be the one username on your otherwise empty friend list.
“I’ll ask her if the opportunity arises,” Jklmnop says after clutching a 1v4. “Thanks bro.”
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On Monday, you’re a lot sleepier than you should be at the beginning of the work week because you practically spent the entire weekend gaming with your new fuck boy friend and finishing the book you recommended to your office fuck boy friend.
Your dark circles must be pretty bad because Jungkook feels the need to stop by your desk and say, “Up all night reading Lauren Christina?” He taps the book on your mousepad, so he can clearly see that it’s Christina Lauren and not Lauren Christina. He’s just teasing you at this point.
“It’s Christina Lauren, you shithead. And yes, I finished it, so you can read it now,” you say, handing the book to the boy. He holds it with a soft grip as if to avoid creasing the pages. If library books were treated with the same care, they wouldn’t feel so crusty all the time. You can respect guys with gentle hands. “I expect a full book report by Friday.”
“At least give me the weekend,” he frowns. It’s the most attractive frown you’ve ever seen.
“Sure, if that’s how you want to spend your weekend,” you yawn. Wouldn’t he rather be doing anything else on his days off than read your book?
“That’s how you spent your weekend, Sleepyhead.” He makes a good point. His chuckle is quite cute too. 
As he flips through the book, you see something shimmery wedged between the pages toward the end of the story. You told yourself a million times to take your silly little bookmark out before lending him the book, but of course you forgot. Maybe he won’t notice.
Unfortunately for you, Jungkook pulls the metallic blue bookmark out to examine it. His lips curve upward when he sees it’s shaped like a whale shark. Oh great. He’s definitely gonna tease you about it. You knew you should’ve gone with one of the more sophisticated leather bookmarks.
“You really like these guys, huh.” He holds it up by the chain to let some light shine through the tiny holes mimicking the shark’s gorgeous spotty pattern. Not the reaction you were expecting, but you’ll take it.
“What makes you say that?” You don’t ever recall confiding in him about your whale shark obsession. Last time you checked, all of your nerdy and kiddish quirks were kept far away from your office. It’s just not on-brand for the professional image you’ve established here.
“Didn’t you have a cute whale shark phone case when you first started working here? Before you switched it to that cream-colored one?” He wrinkles his face, deep in thought as he tucks the bookmark back where he found it. He’s right, though. You just assumed no one had ever noticed it. As soon as you got your new work phone, you switched to something more neutral to fit your minimalist aesthetic.
“Oh, right.” You’d forgotten about the case just like you forgot about the bookmark. But Jungkook somehow notices and remembers those kinds of details about you. It’s almost endearing in a way.
You shouldn’t let yourself think like that, though. Those are dangerous thoughts.
“By the way, how was your date?” As much as you hate to admit it, you’re curious about his date with the recruiting coordinator. Besides, if he says it went well, you’ll have yet another reason to stop holding onto the tiny feelings you have for him.
“I didn’t go.”
“Oh,” you press a finger to your parted lips. That’s unheard of for Jeon Jungkook. “Did her cat die or something?”
“Why does someone’s cat need to die for the date to be canceled?”
“There must’ve been a pretty big emergency for you to forgo a date, no?”
“Is that what you really think of me, Y/N?” He cocks his head to the side because he’s a fuck boy and that’s what fuck boys do.
“That’s not what I think of you.” Another yawn slips from your mouth. “It’s just facts. You have a 99% attendance rate when it comes to dates, don’t you?”
He nods because he can’t argue with the credible gossip that goes on in your office.
“Anyway, I’m going to run to that coffee shop you won’t shut up about,” he says as he glances at the time on his phone and then at the dark abyss under your eyes. “Need anything?”
“Hmm…” You pretend to think deeply about your order. Usually when other people go on coffee runs, you request something easy to remember like an oat latte. But for Jeon Jungkook, the boy who keeps fucking up Christina Lauren’s name, you won’t go so easy. “How about an iced birthday cake latte with oat milk, an extra shot of espresso, two pumps of toffee syrup, and the crème brûlée topping? Please.”
“So… birthday cake frappuccino with oat milk?” He snickers in your sleepy face before walking off. “You’re gonna have to come with if you want all that extra stuff.”
It’s a latte, not a frappuccino. But you suppose it doesn’t matter if he knows the difference because you’re scurrying to catch up with him as he heads for the elevator.
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The “coffee shop you won’t shut up about” has been open for a few months now, and you’ve stopped by at least two times a week since the grand opening for your usual dose of caffeine. Should you be proud or embarrassed that the baristas all know your name and order? How about when they raise their eyebrows at the sight of you walking in with your handsome coworker?
“She’ll have a birthday cake frapp—”
“Don’t listen to him. I’ll get a birthday cake latte, please,” you tell the barista at the register. Jungkook chuckles as you give his arm a light shove. “With oat milk and crème brûlée today.”
“Sure thing, Y/N,” she smiles at you and then turns to the boy next to you. “Anything for you?”
“Just plain coffee, thanks,” he says after a quick glance at the menu. You hate that he orders plain coffee when the menu has all these fun options like pink donut lattes or cookies n cream cappuccinos. If he wanted black coffee, he could’ve saved time and money by brewing some in the office. He didn’t have to go all the way to the coffee shop you wouldn’t shut up about. But he did. And he invited you along for the ride.
As the two of you wait for your drinks, you pick the booth in the corner next to the window. You’ve always had this vision of sitting inside a cozy cafe to work from your laptop or read a book. It just hasn’t happened yet because you get scared off when all the other customers bring their friends or lovers to share that experience with. Your laptop and books can’t compare to that. 
You’ve always been envious. Until today.
“That doesn’t look nearly as complex as it sounded,” Jungkook says when he sees your latte with the fancy crème brûlée on it. He slides his boring coffee across the table to you. “I’ll let you try mine if you let me try yours.”
Only a weirdo would accept a pathetic offer like that.
“Deal.” You take a sip of your sugary treat before passing it off to the boy. He winces from how sweet yours is compared to the bitterness of his black coffee. You make a face for the opposite reason.
“I’m surprised you agreed to it,” he hums with a tiny bit of crème brûlée around his mouth. You want to kiss it off. He must notice you eyeing his lips because he wipes it off with his thumb a second later.
“I wanted you to try my special drink,” you say. It’s for the same reason you lent him your book—to let him know another tiny piece of you without explicitly saying it.
“I’ll have to get it myself next time we come.” He pulls up the notes app on his phone and types as he speaks. You wonder if “next time” and “we” imply that this coffee outing is going to become another routine thing between you and him, just like your walks to the parking lot. Hopefully it does. No, it definitely will. Because you’ll be the one to ask him next time. “What’s it called again? Birthday cake frappuccino… with crème brûlée?”
“Exactly,” you lie. Who knows. His mistake might taste even better. You’ll have to find a way to sneak a taste when he isn’t looking. It’s something sweet to look forward to.
As you sip your latte, the barista who took your order catches your eye from across the store, points at Jungkook, and mouths something to you. You don’t quite catch it, so she repeats it again just as your coworker turns to see what you’re staring at.
“Boyfriend?” she mouths, clear as day, before spinning around to use the espresso machine. 
When the boy turns back to you, he has such a goofy grin on his face. He points to himself and repeats, “Boyfriend?”
“Stop,” you laugh at his antics but totally dodge the question. “Anyway… may I ask why you didn’t go on that date with the recruiting coordinator?��� 
His eyes are wide. Probably because it’s not like you to pry. But you just want to make sense of why he’s sitting here with you, acting all sweet and boyfriend-like, after bailing on someone else a few days ago. He’s not his usual self either.
“It was faster to reject her,” he shrugs. You didn’t realize he was in such a hurry on Friday. It certainly didn’t seem like it with how he’d blocked your way out of the conference room.
“What were you in such a hurry for?”
“Isn’t it our unspoken thing to walk to the parking lot together?” He says it like you’re silly. Like the fate of the world depends on him being able to fulfill his duty of walking you to your car each and every day. Like he’d forgo hours of good sex for a five-minute walk with you.
“It’s not unspoken if we talk about it,” you say softly. You’ve always adored the short walks with Jungkook, but maybe you weren’t the only one who felt that way. What kind of guy rejects a date just so he can keep up this year-old tradition between you and him? No guy has ever done anything close to that for you. “But yeah, it is our thing.”
The boy nods with a gentle smile as he sips his coffee. For just a split second, he gives you Jklmnop vibes. You don’t know how else to explain it. He’s a fuck boy, but there’s something so delicate about him that you want to touch without breaking.
You wonder if he’d ever let you in.
On the way out, your favorite friendly barista waves you over to the counter with a huge grin. As much as you love the girl, you’re scared of what might come out of her mouth next. She leans in as if to whisper but ends up shouting over the grinder in the background.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about him.” Her eyes flick to somewhere beyond your shoulders. “He’s such a hottie, by the way. Y’all are kinda cute together.”
A snort comes from right behind you. “Thank you,” says the hottie. Your hottie, apparently. It would’ve been perfectly fine for him to clarify that the two of you aren’t actually together, but you suppose his ego was too busy soaking in the compliment from the pretty barista.
“Really?” You raise an eyebrow at Jungkook as soon as you’re both out the door.
“What?” What’s with that playful smile of his?
“You didn’t deny what she said.”
“A compliment’s a compliment, Y/N.”
“I didn’t mean the part about you being a hottie.” You shudder at that last word. Yes, Jungkook is the hottest guy you’ve ever seen, but he doesn’t need to hear that from your mouth. “I meant the part about you being my boyfriend.”
“You didn’t deny it earlier, either,” he shrugs. True. “Besides, isn’t that also a compliment?”
Now that he’s mentioned it, it does feel pretty nice to be seen as a couple with someone as attractive as Jungkook—to give the illusion that it’s you who’s got him wrapped around your finger, you who he chose above everyone else, and you who gets to fall asleep in his arms every night. And it feels especially good considering how often other people dismiss you as someone not good enough for him. In fact, this is the first time anyone has ever acknowledged that the two of you go well together.
“Hey man, mind if I steal that fine little lady for a sec?” a sleazy voice calls out in your direction. You don’t bother turning your head to acknowledge the presence of yet another ignorant hooligan on the street, but you do step a little closer to Jungkook. You don’t know what pisses you off more: the fact that this stranger is another nonbeliever that you could be dating a guy like Jungkook or the fact that he asked for another male’s permission to talk to you instead of asking you directly. Most catcallers keep their mouths shut when you’re walking with your handsome coworker, but this one clearly can’t take a hint.
A warm hand pulls you in at the waist. It’s the same soft grip Jungkook held your book with. And you kind of never want him to let go. Because when he holds you close like that, all the shitty people become irrelevant. That doesn’t, however, stop you from getting a kick out of the death stare he gives the catcaller who finally backs off.
“You really showed him,” you tease. His face loosens up after you let out a tiny snicker. Still, he studies your every expression to make sure you’re alright.
“Does that happen to you wherever you go?” he asks as he moves his arm up from your waist to your shoulder, something slightly more appropriate for two friendly colleagues. Suddenly your waist feels cold.
“Usually when I’m out by myself.” Whether it’s the supermarket, the park, the office, you’ve felt objectified pretty much everywhere. Even online. The sad thing about it is that you know you’re not the only one. ”But I’m used to it at this point.”
“Well, men are kind of shitty,” he huffs, looking rather frustrated on your behalf. You’ve never seen him so irritated. For the most part, he knows how to keep a calm composure, even during busy season. It’s oddly satisfying that an inconvenience for you is what brought that emotion out of him.
“I used to think that,” you admit as the two of you enter the office building. “But all it takes is one good guy to outweigh the shitty ones.”
For you, Jungkook has always been that one good guy.
“True. I suppose that hottie boyfriend of yours isn’t that bad, huh.” He gives you a soft shoulder squeeze in the elevator before dropping his arm back to his side. It’s a subtle taste of what he could be doing to other places on your body if he were actually your boyfriend. He’d handle you with so much care.
“You won’t let that go, will you?” you pout, pointing your thumb back in the general direction of the coffee shop. “Those baristas really think we’re dating now, you know.”
He pinches your pouty cheek and leaves you at your desk with a not-so-innocent remark. 
“I wonder why they think that about us.”
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The second half of your day feels painfully long. It’s kind of hard to focus on designing wholesome character models when you’ve got Jeon Jungkook stuck in your head. At this rate, your cute little characters are going to turn into bad boys who steal your books and lattes along with your heart. You can’t help it when he’s been extra sweet to you lately. Sweeter than a birthday cake frappuccino could ever be. And just like your favorite sugary beverages, there’s something so addicting about his company.
As you’re finishing up some designs, you spot the boy chatting with his buddies from the other departments. It’s unfair that an entire friend group can be so goodlooking. And it’s even more unfair that Jungkook is still the one you can’t take your eyes off of in the handsome bunch. Great, now you’re even more distracted.
“Hey, I saw you were online again last night,” says the guy from accounting. He has long pretty eyelashes. “Where was my invite?”
“Ah, yeah. Remember that girl on our team the other night?” Jungkook has a cheeky grin. Why does he have such a cheeky grin while talking about some e-girl, and why does your tummy hurt all of a sudden? “She helped me climb out of plat. She’s diamond.”
So what? That’s the same rank as you. Nothing special. Hmph. You hope she gets demoted before the act ends. You’re not a jealous person, but you are petty.
“How do you know she’s a she?” asks the engineer with plump lips.
“That’s what she told me,” Jungkook continues. “And it fits with the fact that she doesn’t use a mic. You guys know how fucked up people can be in that game.”
You nod along to that.
“What’s her username again? I wanna add her now,” the other engineer jumps in. This one has broad shoulders. Very broad.
“You just want to hit on her,” Engineer #1 shakes his head at Engineer #2. You agree with that too.
“Is she single? Or at least around our age?” asks the accountant.
“You guys are monsters,” Jungkook laughs. “I’ll give you her username only if you promise not to simp.”
“Fine,” they all agree reluctantly.
You convince yourself that you’re only eavesdropping because they’re talking too loud, but you’re actually just curious to search up the username and see how this e-girl’s game stats stack up against yours. You’re quite confident your headshot percentage will outrank hers.
“It’s CL, remember?”
“Oh right.”
No, not right. That’s definitely not the username you picked as a subtle nod to your favorite author, and Jungkook is definitely not the lovesick fuck boy you’ve been giving advice to through some wack ass shooter game. Definitely not.
Because if it were true, that would mean Jungkook has a crush on somebody in your office. And who the heck would that be?
“Ready to head out?” Jungkook pops out of nowhere and scares the shit out of you. You nearly leap out of your seat with a tight fist around your tablet pen like you’re about to knife the boy in-game. He holds your book up as a shield. “Whoa there.”
“My bad, I thought you were the enemy.” You snap the pen back onto your tablet and say it with a straight face as if he knows you play the same violent game as him.
He plays along, scanning the office for anyone suspicious. “Who’s the enemy?”
“Marketing?” You only say that because everyone in the office knows the marketing director Kim Namjoon was your college nemesis back when you were even pettier than you are now.
“Ah,” he nods as you pack up and roll your chair in. You’ve always wondered why he just accepts the weird things you do without question. “Glad I’m not your enemy. Wouldn’t want to be stabbed by your tablet pen. Or your nails.”
He points to your pretty manicure. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he’s subtly asking to hold your hand. But you do know better. He has an intense crush on someone else in the building, so there’s really no reason why he’d want to hold your hand.
So instead of misreading the situation and making a fool of yourself by entwining your fingers with his, you poke your favorite of his tattoos (the silly face on his middle finger) with your acrylic. “Consider yourself stabbed.”
You try not to look at the boy’s wrinkly smile. But it’s incredibly hard. Instead, you redirect your eyes anywhere else. Of course they fall on the “it couple” of the office passing by. They don’t do a whole lot of PDA, but the way they look at each other says it all, and they have this glow about them that seems so unobtainable. You feel the envy creeping up again.
On the elevator ride down, you try not to think about the happy couple or Jungkook’s wrinkly smile. It’s making you sad.
“Can I ask you something?” he turns to you. Maybe his question will take your mind off everything bringing your mood down. You nod for him to proceed. “How do you feel about dating a coworker?”
Shitty. You feel shitty. He could probably sense that from your silence upon seeing the couple.
“You mean like Hyuna and Dawn?” You don’t have a problem with it, or with them. If you could pull off a perfect office romance like them, you’d do it too. But it doesn’t seem likely for you, and that’s what sucks.
“Just in general. Like, do you think it’s fine, or is it crossing the line?” he asks. Aha, you get it now. He’s asking for your opinion because he doesn’t want to make you, his totally platonic friend, feel uncomfortable when he starts dating whoever he has a crush on here.
“HR allows it, so I don’t really see a problem with it,” you answer honestly. Sure, you’d be hurt if you had to work in an environment where Jungkook is doing lovey-dovey things with someone else, but you’re not going to be the one to ruin it for him.
“I’ve never seen you date anyone here, though.”
“Well I don’t get asked out all the time like you, Jungkook.”
“What about Mark from accounting? Or my guy Jooheon before he moved overseas? And don’t get me started on Kim Namjoon.” He has his fingers out and ready to list all the other guys in the office who’ve expressed some sort of interest in you, but he decides against it when he sees you glaring back at him. Wise man.
You’d love to know why he’s so familiar with your nonexistent office dating history.
“Okay, I get it. I’ve been asked out a fair amount,” you sigh. “But it doesn’t really count if they aren’t the right person.”
That earns you a soft head tilt from the boy. You swear he’s a puppy. “Oh? Miss Y/N has a type?”
When you think about it, a few of the guys who’ve asked out were your type—smart, funny, hardworking—and yet you still said no. They’ve never hand-delivered meeting notes and chamomile tea when you were out sick, never walked you to your car, never given you something to look forward to at work, and never known your favorite animal. They’ve never made you want them the way you want a certain someone else.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a type.” It’s a person. The person who makes you feel so safe and cared for. The person who has feelings for another girl. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
You don’t like being vague, but saying any more than that would only set you up for heartbreak. He can’t hurt you if you stay silent.
As the elevator continues to count down, Jungkook leans against the railing, arms crossed and head down. He’s awfully quiet for someone who always feels the need to say something silly until you laugh.
“What if I told you there’s one more person in the office who’s interested in you?” he asks just before the elevator arrives on the first floor.
The door slides open but neither of you steps out, so it closes back up.
You blink at the boy. First you learn Jungkook has a crush on someone, and now someone suddenly has a crush on you? Your brain genuinely doesn’t know what to do with all this information.
You’d ask who your secret admirer is, but it doesn’t matter. You’d only say yes to one person in this office, and his feelings lie elsewhere. Maybe he’s just trying to set you up with another guy who can walk you to your car. It’s not like the two of you would be able to keep up that tradition once he’s committed to someone else.
You’d rather walk alone at that point.
“A workplace romance sounds cool and all.” You point at the book in Jungkook’s hand while trying to keep a light tone. “But it’s just not for me. You know what I mean?”
He nods with a chuckle as the two of you finally clear out of the elevator. “Based on my history here, it’s probably not for me either.”
You know he’s poking fun at himself, but you hope he doesn’t actually feel that way about himself. He still needs to ask his girl out, and he can’t chicken out now. As the person he’s confided in about his feelings, it’s your job to shower him with encouragement and support. You’ll have to wait until you’re back online, though.
On the way to your car, the office romance conversation has been completely dropped. You ramble on about your sudden craving for tacos, and he claims he makes a “mean taco salad” before sending you a screenshot of the recipe no one asked for. You’ll try it when you get home.
Like always, he leans against your car door as you buckle yourself in. This time, he even tugs on the seatbelt like amusement park workers do before sending you off on a roller coaster. As gentle as he is, it stings where the tips of his fingers graze your shoulder. That feeling lingers even after the door closes.
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Jungkook wasn’t lying, you think to yourself as you munch away at his definition of a “mean taco salad.” Your first instinct is to text him about it, but your second one is to silence your phone and cozy up for the night. After your shower, you have another staredown with the pretty lingerie set. At this rate, no one’s going to see you in it, so you might as well wear it and look cute for yourself. 
It’s a little more see-through than you’re normally comfortable with, but the soft silky champagne accents make your body glow. To complete the look, you throw on a short skimpy robe with a baby pink floral pattern. Perhaps you’re being extra for a quiet night in with your cat and a cup of chamomile tea. But it’s what you need right now because you’re desperately searching for something to comfort and distract you from that dang feeling Jungkook left you with. 
It also couldn’t hurt to play a few games without Jklmnop. Maybe you’ll get lucky with the whale shark gun today.
Unfortunately, there’s still no whale shark gun in your shop, but at least Jungkook isn’t online yet. The four games you play without him go really well stat-wise. You’re the team MVP for half those games—something you hadn’t achieved all weekend with Jklmnop on your team. He’s a great friend but the kind of ally who will intentionally blind you so he can make you quake in your boots and steal your kill in the process. He’s lucky he hasn’t let you die while fucking around like that. Still, you can’t remember the last time you had that much fun in your matches.
As you review the summary of game #4, a notification pops up in the top corner of your screen.
[Jklmnop is online!]
“wanna carry me to radiant?” he DMs you right away and sends you an invite.
“no,” you type as you join his party.
“what if i trade you my whale shark gun?”
“fine”
The first thing you do when you spawn into the match is demand the whale shark gun. You put your baseball bat to his head, waiting for him to keep his end of the bargain. The boy drops the gun in front of you and backs away slowly.
“It’s cute that you like that skin so much,” he chuckles into his mic. When you hear his voice, you feel like an idiot for convincing yourself that Jklmnop and Jeon Jungkook weren’t the same person. There’s no mistaking that that’s the calm and flirty voice that has haunted you every day at work for the past year. Does it make you an asshole for wholeheartedly believing your local fuck boy friend wasn’t capable of developing real feelings for someone in the office? Probably, but you intend on redeeming yourself by sending him your full support in the love department. You’re just waiting for him to bring it up.
Twenty kills and one stolen ace later, Jungkook still hasn’t said anything about the mysterious You-know-who—which is weird, considering he wouldn’t shut up all weekend about how she’s “soft like a kitten” but “one that won’t hesitate to bring the claws out.” Who is this girl, and what has she done to Jungkook? He’s become a total cheeseball. And you can’t think of a single person in the office who fits his cheesy description.
“any update on youknowwho about youknowwhat?” you type between rounds.
Jungkook’s character paces back and forth in the snow even after the round begins. The three other members of your team starts following him like ducklings without knowing the context. You watch from afar as they get sniped down one by one until you’re the last one alive.
Usually in 1v5 situations like this, you’re great at keeping your cool and isolating your duels so you aren’t overwhelmed by an ambush. But instead of listening for footsteps and directional cues, you’re listening hard for the boy’s response to your question.
“Clutch this and I’ll give you an update on You-know-who,” he says after you cut the enemy team’s numbers down to one. All you have to do now is plant the bomb and wait for the last person to come out to start defusing. That’s when you’ll swoop in and—
Your character falls face first into the snow. You’ve been knifed from behind, which loses you the round but earns you an evil snicker from Jungkook.
At the start of the next round, you wait once more for the boy to trade his gun with you. But instead, he just stands there, clutching onto the weapon while the rest of the team rushes onto the site to plant the bomb.
“I’ve decided not to ask her out,” he says out of nowhere. “We have this wholesome thing between us, and it’s best if we keep it that way.”
“what makes you say that?” you type before joining up with the others on site. As far as you know, Jungkook isn’t wholesome with any coworker. Except you, maybe. He must have some other strange definition of wholesome.
“Let’s just say I read a whole ass book tonight about a workplace romance and realized I’m not cut out for it.” He really read your book. No. He devoured it. Why does that mean the absolute world to you? “She’s seen me going on date after date, and now I’m pretty sure I’ve scared her away from wanting any part of that.”
He’s not wrong. You used to feel the same way about him, so you understand why he has his reservations. But if that girl knew how much he’d cherish their relationship the way he cherishes your friendship with him, you know she’d fall for him too. There’s no doubt in your mind about that. It’s just a matter of him vocalizing it.
“i still think you should be upfront with her about your feelings,” you type away as you get headshot from who knows where. 
“She can’t hurt me if I stay silent,” Jungkook hums as he runs toward the ticking bomb and crouches in front of it. It looks like he’s trying to defuse the bomb that your own team planted, but it explodes in his face before you have time to correct him.
“gj,” one of your teammates puts in the chat even though everyone watching knows it was not a “good job.” The only silver lining is that he secured the win for your team. You don’t feel like playing anymore, anyway.
Before you log off for the night, you start typing out some long motivational speech along with your top ten reasons as to why Jungkook would make an excellent boyfriend. He’d try new things with you, share some of his favorite things with you, make sure you’re safe, and tease you until the end of time while making you feel so so loved. You know this because it’s what he’s done with you for the past year. But the more you think about it, the more you realize it’s not your place to say all of that from behind a screen with your mic on mute.
You end up deleting your whole spiel and settle for a simple “good night😴” to the boy from your gaming account. Then you get back on your phone.
Y/N🦈 [11:47PM] “It was indeed a mean taco salad”
Y/N🦈 [11:47PM] “Btw did you finish the book?👀”
Jungkook🥴 [11:48PM] “Finished it in 4 hours😌”
Y/N🦈 [11:49PM] “Wanna drop it off to me now?”
Jungkook🥴 [11:49PM] “Now?”
Jungkook🥴 [11:50PM] “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
Y/N🦈 [11:51PM] “Yes but my cat can’t fall asleep without his bedtime story”
Y/N🦈 [11:51PM] “🥺”
Y/N🦈 [11:51PM] “^^^My cat”
Jungkook🥴 [11:54PM] “omw”
The boy knocks on your door a few minutes later and does a horrible job of keeping his eyes above shoulder level. It doesn’t occur to you that your chest and ass are hanging out of your robe until the chilly air hits those spots.
“All dressed up for your night with Lauren Christina?” he says casually, handing the book back to you in mint condition.
“I thought you said Christina Lauren doesn’t care about my lingerie.” You cross your arms over your chest like it was totally intentional to answer the door in the bare minimum. Jungkook’s sleepwear, on the other hand, looks super cozy. And of fucking course he’s hot as hell in something as simple as sweats and a hoodie. A boy like him doesn’t have to put in any thought or effort to look cute.
“I stand by what I said.” He stares at your exposed skin in an almost lustful manner. Almost. “It’s cold out. You should go crawl back in bed and read your cat his bedtime story. Or do you need me to tuck him in, too?”
“He is quite needy,” you play along. Too bad he’s already fast asleep, all curled up on the couch. You wouldn’t mind if Jungkook tucked you in, though.
“Well tell your needy cat I said goodnight.” He takes a step back toward his car, but you know he must realize you didn’t call him all the way over here just for your cat’s sake.
“Jungkook,” you call out while flipping through the book. Once you find the bookmark wedged in the middle, you extend it to him like a peace offering.
He accepts the bookmark albeit with a puzzled expression. “Is this gratuity for delivering your book at this late hour?”
You shake your head. “It’s gratuity for lending me your whale shark gun all the time.”
“Whale shark gun?” He grips the bookmark by the dorsal fin and holds it like a pistol. It’s aimed at your left breast (or heart) (but breast sounds more accurate).
“The one from the Gentle Giants collection,” you say softly as you rub your arms because holy shit is it cold out. “In Valoranch.”
The wheels in his head start to turn as you pull him inside and toward your “work from home” setup in the living room. Your desk is pretty empty aside from the pastel headset, the cute dolphin Pokémon on your desktop wallpaper, and a cold cup of tea. 
Then he spots the little Valoranch shortcut on the far left corner of your screen. “Wait, you really play Valoranch? What’s your username?”
Instead of telling him, you show him with the help of your book. Your index finger slides across the bookcover from the C in Christina to the L in Lauren.
His eyes widen like a naughty cat caught doing something it shouldn’t be doing.
“Then that means you know about…” He pauses because he dare not repeat his feelings for another coworker in front of you.
You nod. “But I didn’t realize it was you until I overheard you talking about it with the guys earlier today.”
“My voice and backstory didn’t give it away?” 
“It definitely sounded like you.” You plop into your chair and start spinning around so he can’t get a clear view of your face. “But how was I supposed to know you had feelings for someone in our office? I still don’t know who she is, by the way.”
“You don’t?” Your childlike spins are interrupted by a steady hand. From the corner of your eye, you can see the boy’s face transition from doomed to amused. Good. He shouldn’t beat himself up over the bizarre situation.
“Nope.” At least you don’t have a specific face to imagine being next to Jungkook’s on those corny holiday cards that couples and families love to hand out around the office this time of year. “Regardless, you need to stop chickening out and just tell her how you feel already. If she knows you the way I know you, I promise you have nothing to worry about.”
The thing is, you don’t know if anyone else has been on the receiving end of the kinds of things Jungkook does for you. Does he show that side to anyone else but you?
“Fine, you’ve convinced me. I’ll do it.” He sits himself down beside the cat on the couch. “But only if you can figure out who it is.”
You give him a tiny nod for him to drop some hints. Of course you’ll lend an ear and play along if that’s what it takes for him to be more open about his feelings. Besides, you can’t say no when his voice is so soft and fragile like that. 
“She’s on the design team.” Your team is fairly small, so that narrows it down to names and faces you’d actually recognize.
“She has the most complex coffee order I’ve ever seen.” More complex than yours?
“I impulse-bought that whale shark gun because it reminds me of her.” Someone else has good taste in endangered marine life.
“My second job includes walking her to her car after work and pretending to be her hottie boyfriend.” Wait.
“And lastly, in case all of those other hints weren’t obvious enough, she has a needy cat who’s obsessed with Christina Lauren.” He strokes between your needy kitty’s ears and tucks the little guy in under a blanket. What a lucky cat. 
Jungkook only stops with the wholesome shit when you climb into his lap and press your lips into his jawline. On instinct, he slips beneath your robe and grabs you at the waist with those gentle hands of his. He smells of cardamom and cedarwood, like the candle you burn on cold nights when fluffy blankets aren’t enough. And like a moth, you’re attracted to the light and warmth he radiates in the dimness of your home. Even if it means you might get burned.
“Congratulations, you finally got the name right.” You stick your tongue out while your nails comb their way through the locks of hair at the back of his neck. He locks eyes with you, leaning ever so slightly into the massage the way cats do when they need more attention.
And then your lips meet his. You expect the guy who’s locked lips with everyone in the office to get straight to the point and not hold back, but that isn’t the case. What he gives you instead is a soft graze, an affectionate tease. When you try to go in for another taste, he pulls back and lets you chase him. You’d love nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face with another kiss.
“I thought you said you weren’t down to date a coworker?” Smartass. You wouldn’t be sitting on top of his cock if you weren’t down to be more intimate with him.
“That only applies to everyone except you.” Your robe slides off your shoulder as you poke him in the chest. Funny how you aren’t cold anymore.
“What makes me so special?” he asks while getting a sneak peek of the pretty lingerie you’d secretly hoped he’d see on you.
You think about all the little things he does—he walks with you, reads your book recommendations, takes note of your favorite animals and coffee shops. And he never expects anything in return, including your feelings apparently. He just wants to make sure you feel seen and know he always has your back. When he’s too chicken to be upfront about his feelings, you’ve come to realize this is his love language. 
“You might be open about all the sleeping around you do with other people, but the subtle thoughtful things you do just for me don’t go unnoticed.” You run your fingers along his cheek and bring your lips within striking distance from his. This time, he doesn’t initiate another chase and allows you to press your words into his mouth. “Plus I think it’s really cute that you use the whale shark skin in-game because of me.”
“That’s when I knew I was down bad.” The sound he makes is somewhere between a chuckle and an embarrassed sigh. “I didn’t even know you played that game and yet my mind was still finding ways to connect everything back to you and your little quirks.”
“I knew I was down bad when I installed that game after hearing you raging about it with the boys,” you blurt out of nowhere.
“You did what, Y/N?”
“I started playing that headache of a game because of you, okay? I wholeheartedly believed I was taking that secret to the grave, but now it stays between you and me. Got it?” Your face feels hot, but you aren’t complaining.
“Yes, ma’am.” His teasing grin will never get old, and you love that about him.
In the heat of another kiss, you feel Jungkook tug on the silky sash at your waist. Your robe opens up like curtains being drawn for a grand reveal. Exposed as you are, there’s no need to hide anymore. In fact, you’d be more than down to have sex out in the open on the couch, but you also have to consider the innocent kitten sleeping next to you.
Like the considerate boy he is, Jungkook scoops you up without disturbing the cat and makes his way to your bedroom.
He lays you down on the bed and eyes your body from head to toe. If he wasn’t giving you horny eyes when you greeted him at the door, he definitely is now.
“Am I gonna get you in trouble for keeping you up past your bedtime?” He saves time by tearing his hoodie and t-shirt off in one go. Based on those abs, you suppose working out is another one of his favorite pastimes alongside sex, gaming, and fucking around with you.
“No.” You reach for his body and pull him on top of you. The large bulge tucked away in his sweatpants catches your attention. “But I might be a little sore for tomorrow.”
“Oh? Is that how you like it?” He rubs two fingers against the thin fabric between your legs to test the waters. Your body shudders and tenses up from the tiniest of touches. Given the dry spell you’ve suffered through this year, you know it won’t take much for you to lose it. “Sure you can handle it?”
“Try me.” You push back with your tongue in his mouth and help him out of his sweats. You’re one swipe away from clawing his boxers off, but he grabs ahold of your wrists and pins you against the pillows.
“Someone’s awfully eager,” he says as he leaves a trail of kisses from your neck to your breasts. You squirm under his hot breath, asking for more contact—anywhere on your body will do.
“Yeah, well, we do have another meeting bright and early tomorrow morning, and it’d look bad if we both fell asleep during it because we were up all night having—” Your rambling is interrupted by the boy’s cock staring you down. He tears open a square packet, but you swipe it away and slide it down his length. You don’t mind a bit of rubber if it gives you an excuse to get your paws on him.
In return, he helps you wiggle out of your teeny tiny thong and bra. His hands waste no time in squeezing your breasts and fingering you down below to make sure you’re wet enough. (Spoiler alert: You most definitely are.)
As big as he is, he slides in with relative ease thanks to how desperately you need him inside you. He fills you in perfectly, too, reaffirming the fact that you and him are perfect for one another. Fuck everyone who thinks otherwise.
You dig your long nails into his arms as he moves in and out of you. If he keeps going harder with every thrust, you’re gonna have a difficult time holding on.
“I swear your nails are like cat claws,” he grunts into your ear but makes no actual effort to extract your nails from his arms.
“If I recall correctly, you did refer to me as a soft kitten who isn’t afraid to bring her claws out,” you hum up at him.
“Hey, let’s not talk about all the sappy things I said in-game right now.” There’s a hint of poutiness in his otherwise raspy bedroom voice. As punishment for teasing him, he flips you over onto your knees to give him the best view of your ass. “You weren’t supposed to hear that stuff.”
“Tell me something I’m supposed to hear,” you challenge him as he gives your ass a good squeeze. His fingers dip back between your legs and circle your clit a few times. You body rubs back on instinct like a horny pup against a toy.
“I would like to formally ask you out,” he says with his hands at your hips and his cock back inside you. "Will you go out with me?"
“You're a little late, buddy, but yes, I’ll go out with you,” you chuckle until your orgasm sneaks up on you and hits you like a truck. The moans you let out are probably loud enough to wake the cat, but that just means the two of you will have to relocate the next time you have sex. Perhaps his place or the office breakroom might be worth considering. 
Your arms give out as you tighten around him, so you lower your face to the pillow and let the boy do as he pleases to your body to get his release. After a few more strong thrusts, he gasps your name out in pleasure and pulls out of you. You give him a good ten seconds to catch his breath before you smother him with a million kisses.
You take a glance at the time on your phone. It’s getting awfully late, and you do have that meeting in the morning, but the two of you have a few options:
A) Cuddle in bed and go to sleep like normal 9-5ers.
B) Hop online and play a few games together because your computer’s still on.
C) Go another round and make a special coffee run before the meeting.
None of those options sound like a bad idea when you’ve got Jeon Jungkook to do them with. All he has to do is say the word and you're down.
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hatsunemitskislobotomy · 4 months ago
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✧.*“ 𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚒'𝚟𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚗 ”·˚ ༘
“ every piece of me, holds parts of you ”
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↳ ❝ ¡love and deepspace headcannon, y’all know that one trend where you match nail polish with each other’s eyes? yeahhhhh!❞
•◦இ•◦
xavier
there’s something about his blue eyes that just aren’t like the others yknow?
they’re expressing and deep like one’s unwavering desire
pools of deep blue that surely if you look hard enough would reveal his heart and soul to you
and when the light hits them a certain way? they look almost space like
all things aside— this man is an odd one truly
he’ll never be aware of it but he’s incredibly clingy
and he’s such a pouty baby bless his soul
you were having a girls night with tara and a few other female coworkers
he was a bit perturbed when he came knocking at your apartment seeking his favorite napping buddy only to greeted by a tara with hair curlers in and a sheet mask
ever since then he had been insistent on having a “girls night” with you
you really didn’t know what to do with him some days
you explain to him the concepts of it— the bonding and the more or less gossiping with some snacks as you guys helped each other wind down for the night painting each other’s nails or doing each other’s hair
that man is unfazed— he wants all in
though he insists it’s less of a girls thing and more of a you and him thing, you figured
so after a long exhausting week of deepspace hunter stuff, you and him have your little girls night
you get into the nitty gritty of it, although he wasn’t one for gossip he liked hearing you fill him in on the work culture he didn’t bother to immerse himself in
you introduce him to sunscreen and a few other things in mortification after finding out his entire skincare is bar soap and warm water
as the night winded down, you both wearing your face masks and snacking— it was time to paint your nails
you didn’t exactly expect him to join in, it was a preference and he’d definitely stand out more than he likes to if he did so you just go on looking for whatever color you’re feeling
but you get an idea and suddenly you’re holding up every blue polish to his eyes
he’s reasonably confused but he couldn’t help but melt when you explained that you wanted your nails to match the pretty blue of his eyes
now he’s determined and starts doing the same to yours, pulling up bottle after bottle to match with yours
once you two settle on your colors, you get to work
but of course nail painting is a tedious task, it wasn’t long before the two of you fell asleep against each other with half painted nails
but at least you wore a part of each other
rafayel
his eyes— lord
they’re ethereal
like the blueish purple shifting to a pinky hue like that color combo is mesmerizing
believe it or not but he’s the one who approaches you with the idea
something about it being only natural that he and his self appointed bodyguard should match
of course you go along with his antics, after all it’s been a while since you’ve gotten your nails done
he’s very insistent that he paints them for you, after all they’re just another canvas for him
when you visit him at his studio he shows out with a multitude of different nail polishes and gems and what not
it seems like he lost the plot
he tells you not to worry and to trust the process but this man is gluing acrylic tips on your nails as we speak
his work is precise and detailed and before you know it you have a full set of acrylic nails on
he definitely went overboard but not in a bad way— aside from the color of his eyes the nails had elements of his other aspects
basically he gave you mermaid nails following the color scheme of his eyes
you can’t even complain because they look GOOD
genuinely you’re wondering when this man learned how to be a nail tech
you feel kinda bad because although you painted his nails your eye color (or colors for the heterochromia babes) they were kinda… meh
of course he comforts you… by saying there’s only room for one artist in your relationship
all jokes aside (after you smack him with a pillow) he reassures you, the color of your eyes was already beautiful enough for him and now he could look at his hands to remind himself of you
zayne
his eyes are gorgeous
like think summer greens and woodsy vibes
for someone who’s so cold, his eyes look so warm
lately when you’ve been getting your nails done you’ve stuck with neutrals, you didn’t want anything crazy to stand out yet you wanted something subtle and soft for you to look at
and you just so happened to have an affinity for the color green
the first time he notices is after he invites you over to make dinner with him
he was distracting you, you were in charge of chopping the vegetables and he had the audacity to make you laugh
it was no wonder you slipped with the knife and was now sitting on the counter while he tended to your finger while chastising you in his normal manner
as he stood positioned in between your legs cleaning the wound he couldn’t help but notice your nails, a nice shade in between olive and forest green— although the polish was chipping a little
you know he was going to ask so you pull your finger away in embarrassment
hearing you meekly admit that the color reminded you of his eyes stirred something in him
as he wrapped your finger with care he mentions that he has a day off coming up in the upcoming weeks
he offered to treat you, getting your nails done of course after all who is he to not feel honored by your color choice?
although embarrassed, you accept his offer it was sweet of him
when the time comes and you’re sitting at the salon getting your nails done, you join the sweet old ladies into egging him on to also get his nails done
and no clear polish nonsense either
although he could’ve argued that being a surgeon required that his hands neat and clean, he can’t help but humor you
so you both walk out with painted nails, you with your forest olive green— and his with the colors mirroring your own eyes
when the ladies at the salon caught wind of the reasons behind your color choices they insisted you got the magnetic gel polish giving the cat eye affect free of charge
now when you looked at your nails, you could also get lost in them like you would in his eyes
sylus
his eyes have to be the scariest pool of red you’ve ever seen
yet there’s a certain way when he looks at you that you can’t help but get lost in them for hours
when you first proposed the idea he thought it was stupid and a waste of time— but in that same breath… he couldn’t say no to you
also he liked the fact that you’d have something to constantly remind yourself of him and his presence when he wasn’t already physically looming over you
so he decides to humor it, just this once because it makes your eyes light up and he thinks it’s worth it
as you’re looking for the perfect nail polish to match his eyes, he’s also quietly searching
he might as well return the favor after all, even if having painted nails compromised his stature and respect he’d just get rid of anyone who even dared to think of such a thing
besides— you also had really pretty eyes
when the next time he sees you, he sees the ethereal shade of red shimmering on your nails and it’s like a force possesses him
quite literally cannot keep his eyes off of them and his hands off of you, your hand has a permanent place in his as he rubs against your knuckles with the pad of his thumb
you couldn’t help but notice that he also went and painted his nails, a familiar color as well
he was very nonchalant about his nails of course, giving attention to your nails only
the affect it had on him was insane— it looked almost as if it were a brand, a sign that you were his
he swears to himself that you’d continue to be adorned in red, it was definitely your color
❀° ┄───╮
a/n: yall ive been meaning to post this concept for ages but i didn’t have a good song and then sylus came out (which btw a little commotion for sylus’s debut in my silly little posts 🤗) anyways we love beabadoobee in this household say thank you beabadoobee
on a more or less real note— i am trying to post more 😭😭😭 like it’s summer time and i’m on vacation but it doesn’t feel like a vacation so I don’t even know man
please look forward to more while i empty out my brain of these silly little ideas for you all and while i box it out with my wallet who will understandably hate me once sylus is a officially out
love u all mwaaaah 💋🫶🏾
╰───┄ °❀
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ripleyresonance · 11 months ago
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Sweet Enough to Eat pt 2
Sugar Mommy Rhea! x OC
Part 1
Thank you guys so much for all of the love on the first chapter. Typically I am a one-shot Sm*t kind of girl but let's see where this story takes us. And don't worry I will still post some one-shots in between.
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As the two sat across from each other at a quaint cafe Cali’s mind was racing. She looked down at her freshly manicured nails tracing the outline of her stiletto acrylics with her thumb as Rhea sat down. 
“I ordered you a mimosa...I know it's 2 pm but I say we celebrate our new…relationship.” Rhea smiled. 
Cali blinked a couple of times studying the woman's face to see any doubt and yet the woman was dead serious. 
“So I was thinking we could talk about the…finer details?” Rhea winked finally pulling Cali out of her shock.
Cali was a lot of things but when it came down to “business” she could put everything else aside. 
“My weekly fee is 3k but if you do monthly I can let it slide to 10k,” Cali said taking a sip from her glass. 
Rhea laughed causing Cali to lift an eyebrow. 
“Sweet girl, I don't know what these other “Mami’s” gave you but I don't have a “Limit”. You like it I get it no question asked,” Rhea said.
“So I can tell you I want a Gucci bag because my head hurts and boom you get it?” Cali questioned.  
“I think that is a pretty valid reason to buy a bag” Rhea shrugged. 
Cali’s mood shifted a bit…maybe she wanted to emphasize the sugar aspect of this relationship. 
“And you expect me to be… “available” all the time? Cali whispered admittedly afraid of the answer. 
“Available?” Rhea repeated.
“Like in the sugar capacity?” Cali said looking into Rhea's eyes as hers went wide.
“Oh god no that's not what I meant, I meant it in more of the way that you should be able to have everything you want without strings attached…well, I guess some strings because I want you to travel with me sometimes or be there when I come home but not make you think you have to have sex with me for it! It is not like I would mind I mean look at you, you are stunning but if we did that I would rather it be”- Rhea studdered as Cali burst out laughing. 
Rhea seemed very flirty and direct from all their interactions so far so seeing her loose composure made her comfortable again. 
“Alright then no sugar…for now. Any other terms you would like?” Cali smiled at her seemingly making Rhea blush. 
“Let's start the deal by making the contract last a year. Therefore if you don't like it or I don't like it we can go our separate ways. I just expect you to show up for me when I ask and I will give you the world. Can you do that for me, pretty girl?” Rhea smiled extending her hand. 
Cali returned the smile placing her hand in Rheas as she lightly kissed Cali’s hand sealing the deal. 
Cali rolled her eyes that time making the Australian laugh. 
“What the hell was that for you can’t already be exasperated with me,” Rhea said.
“Sorry, you just go from so smooth and flirty to the most fuck boy gestures.” Cali laughed causing Rhea to gasp dramatically.
“I will have you know that women usually love gestures like that,” Rhea said.
“So you have done that to other women…like I said, fuckboy.” Cali playfully waved her off as she stood up. 
“And yet, it seems like you like that,” Rhea said pulling her into her lap. “Cali” Rhea whispered in her ear. 
Cali felt her cheeks heating up as she playfully pushed her shoulder. 
‘Hey hey! No sugar for you, YOUR rule.” Cali said standing up and fixing her skirt. 
“Plus I saw this bracelet in a window we passed move it “Mami”. Cali grinned. 
The two spent the day together Cali buying an impressive amount of stuff. To be honest she was not the most high-maintenance sugar baby. But after not having funds for a few months she went a little crazy. She started feeling bad as Rhea made her fifth trip from her car to Cali’s apartment. 
“I'm so sorry it’s such a mess in here,” Cali said frantically, trying to clean up some magazines on the ground and a pizza box on her table. 
Cali had originally been given this apartment by one of her sugar mommy’s. It was beautiful. It had a loft that was covered with plants. As the sun went down you could see the golden light reflecting off of every potted plant making a mix of colors shine through the apartment. But something about the large space seemed…cold. 
Rhea watched as Cali frantically ran around. She made a note to herself of the look on her face of embarrassment as she tried to hide her mess. And Rhea found it adorable.
“Please sit anywhere you like I think I have a cabernet I flew in a while ago from France,” Cali said grabbing two wine glasses. 
“It’s a nice place,” Rhea remarked.
“I know right? I have had some wild nights here..some mornings too.” Cali laughed. 
“It just seems so…” Rhea trailed off
“Luxurious, sophisticated, stunning?” Cali smiled strolling over with the wine.
“Lonely” Rhea whispered making Cali pause. 
“It’s not that bad! I am told I throw the best parties everyone talks about them the next day.” Cali cleared her throat setting the glasses down. 
“But when they leave…” Rhea prodded. 
“What is this the pity party or something? I said I was lonely last night because I was drunk and look It led me to you.” Cali winked trying to change the subject. 
“And we are both the better for it.” Rhea conceded. 
Cali smiled at the response picking up her wine glass to toast. 
“To a new relationship,” Cali stated. 
‘To new beginnings.” Rhea said as they lightly clinked their glasses. 
Cali made sure to cover her emotions with particular care but Rhea noticed immediately something she couldn’t hide from. 
No matter how many parties she had, bodies rushed in and out of the apartment. Cali tried to hide it by liking nice things, but she wanted someone to see her for who she was. 
In that moment Rhea made it a priority. In this year she would see it. She would see Cali’s true self. 
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Let me know if you would like to be added to the tag list going forward!
Tag list:@bdalas, @babybatlover,@asherlilwitch,@littlemiss-fanficlover,@eepyslut,@cakeiloki,
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cillianmesoftlyyy · 11 months ago
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Horror Movies Pt. 1 | Neil Lewis x fem!reader
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Summary: She shares a special passion for horror movies with her boss, Neil Lewis. But it doesn't end there, she also shares his secrets... or at least the ones he can keep himself. He's been keeping one from her but maybe a night of adventure will break the silence and scare them to their senses.
Warnings: Drinking, semi-public sex, boss/employee relationship, struggles with self-image, spying, invasion of privacy, slight disrespect for the dead, smut, moments of miscommunication and assumed consent, unprotected sex, oral, and some fluff.
word count: 3781k
Nothing's New- Rio Romeo 🎶
We Used to Wait- Arcade Fire 🎵
I'm Writing a Novel- Father John Misty 🎶
Not proof read- sorry folks!
Neil’s eyelashes fluttered gently against his pale, sleepy skin. He woke to the soft hymn of a record player’s needle spinning on a Billie Holiday disk. When he opened his eyes, he saw her standing at the milk crate, flipping through the old vinyl, dusty with age. He sighed and stretched out his arms above his head on the cracking leather couch. She glanced over and smiled. 
“Long night?” She teased as she put the stack of records back. 
“How could you tell?” He rubbed his eyes and sat up, an empty can of cheap beer sliding off of his leg and onto the carpeted ground in the store. 
“You almost never spend the night here unless you have a special guest,” she wiggled her fingers and leaned against the register counter. The store still bore the signs of the night before, lamps dimmed, empty beer cans, and a woman’s bra hiding between the seat cushions of one of the couches. 
“You know I can’t have anyone over yet… it feels weird to bring them home with me, like the start of a horror movie.” He laughed awkwardly and checked his watch. 
“What horror movie starts like that?” She raised her eyebrow. 
“What if she turned out to be a serial killer?” He argued and she laughed lightly, shaking her head. 
“So who was it this time?” She walked over to the couch and retrieved the bra from between the cushions. He watched her with an embarrassed blush creeping up his sharp cheekbones. “34D?” She whistled slowly and tossed it at his chest, “impressive, Neil.” 
“Oh shut up!” He fumbled with the bra and tossed it aside. 
“We need to open in fifteen minutes,” she stopped herself from sounding too annoyed and clocked in on the ancient time-clock system behind the counter. Neil grunted and forced himself into a standing position. Jonathan and Lucien arrived at the front doors and pressed their faces against the glass. She rolled her eyes, “Neil, your friends are here.” 
Neil, holding the bra, dashed behind the counter and stuffed it into her purse. 
“What are you doing?” She protested, struggling over the bra and her purse. 
“Can you just keep this in your bag for a little while? I don’t want the guys to see.” His hair was pushed up over her forehead, showing the freckled texture of his skin. 
“Neil…” She warned and he pouted playfully. 
“Pretty please!” He widened his eyes into wide pools. She sighed and pinched the skin between her eyebrows. 
“Fine, fine!” She pushed her bag into one of the counter compartments and crossed her arms across her chest. 
“Oh God, thank you!” He smiled and hurried to let Lucien and Jonathan inside the video store. “I owe you one!” 
“Yeah you do.” She couldn’t help but laugh to herself as she watched him scramble over to the front doors and unlock them. His friends came inside without a second thought and continued the argument that they had been having outside. 
“No, I don’t think you understand. Quentin Tarantino is so overrated.” Lucien protested and beelined for her. “Here, is Tarantino overrated?” 
“No, I don’t think so.” She shook her head, “I love all of his movies.” 
“See!” Jonathan laughed. 
“Sorry, Lucien, I’m with Jonathan on this one.” She pulled out the order receipts and started slipping through them, her short acrylic nails scratching at each slip.  
“How could you like Quentin Tarantino?” Lucien exclaimed and walked angrily to the small circle of couches that Neil had previously been asleep on. She exchanged a look with Neil and smiled down at the papers, trying not to laugh. 
“Come on, I don’t pay you two to sit around and argue.” Neil followed them. Jonathan stepped on a crumbled can and laughed. 
“Well you certainly pay someone to sit around and drink.” He picked up the can and showed it to Lucien who stopped arguing to look. 
“Jesus Christ.” Neil pulled on his face and ran away as they started bombarding him with questions. 
“Did you have a girl over again last night?” Jonathan laughed loudly, gesturing to the empty cans. 
Again? She thought it only happened once or twice but it happened enough times for Jonathan and Lucien to notice. She felt her heart drop into her stomach and tried to go back to work. 
“Shhhh!” Neil tried to shush them and glanced over, embarrassed. She pretended to not hear. “I’ll tell you guys later, ok?” He whispered and she saw the boys nod out of the corner of her eye. 
“I can still hear you!” She sighed and opened the register. 
“You mean… you two?” Lucien pointed between them and Neil laughed tightly. 
“No, no. I just didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about it… in front of my employee.” He struggled for the right words. 
“Ohhh, sorry.” Lucien held up his hands in defeat and plopped back down on the couch. “So, anyway, the reason why I don’t like Tarentino…” 
Neil left them to their argument and wandered over back to the register. 
“Sorry about that.” Neil blushed and avoided eye contact. 
“It’s ok. We’re all adults here,” she looked over at Lucien and Jonathan, “at least we are.” She corrected and he laughed. 
“You have some…lipstick…” She pointed to a place on his neck and he wiped his neck with the back of his hand. 
“Damn, I should probably change.” He let his voice drone on for a second longer and spun around on his heels, heading back to his office. 
She had hid her feelings well for the past few months. She joked with him about the girls he brought back to the store and covered his ass when he slept into a work day. She felt like that was the only way that she could be with him, his friend or his younger sister. Strictly platonic. She’d been working at Gumshoe Video for nearly a year and gotten to know every one of Neil’s quirks. She’d started to like them, even though they could piss her off. The bells on the front door hit the door frame as a customer entered. She was short with black-shoulder length hair, twisted into small curls around her face. Her hooded eyes were focused on the racks of VHS tapes around her, speaking into a pair of string-earbuds. She was speaking to someone on the phone so she just waved at the customer and mouthed “hello.” The girl smiled back and started looking. Neil came back out into the store wearing cartoonish prisoner garb, a white undershirt visible at the base of his neck. He took a stack of returned VHS and put them on the counter. 
“Hey, could you rewind these for me? I’ll help the customer.” He tucked a loose strand of black hair behind his ear and waited for her nod of assent. 
“Sure, boss.” She liked using the nickname, especially when she was frustrated with him over something. His mouth twitched, starting to form a smile. She took the tapes to the tv in the store and Jonathan helped her load a tape into the box. 
“Geez, how many are there?” He pointed to the stack at her side. 
“Like ten.” She shook her head. “They never rewind the tapes, do they?” 
“No, I guess they don’t.” He pressed the rewind button on the base of the box and they waited for the movie to go back to the beginning. She glanced over at Neil who was sorting tapes on the case behind the register. When the customer approached, he didn’t react, until she cleared her throat and asked again. 
“Oh are you talking to me now?” He whispered and she nodded. 
“Which do you recommend?” She held up the tapes and Neil smiled. 
“Next tape, please.” Jonathan asked and she took the next tape from the box and loaded it into the player. “I’ll start a pile here.” He started to stack the boxes beside him on the other side. 
“I need a form of ID.” She could hear Neil say behind her as the movie rewinded. 
“I don’t have one.” The customer responded and she could hear Neil’s apprehension.
“No driver’s license?” 
“I don’t drive.” She answered as if it were obvious.
“We don’t usually rent to people without ID.” 
“Can I pay in cash? I have cash.” She handed him some money and he shrugged. 
“Uhh that works.” She could hear his smile in his words. “It’s due back in two weeks.” He handed the tape over and she left. 
“That was weird.” Jonathan mumbled beneath his breath and looked over at Neil who was watching her leave. “Looks like he’s found his next target.” 
Neil chuckled and said took out an envelope from beneath the register. 
“That girl was definitely on something. She gave me a $50.” 
“Jesus…” She nearly dropped the tape in her hand. 
“That is crazy.” Lucien fiddled with his pipe. 
“And no driver’s license?” Jonathan asked and Neil nodded. 
“She was hot though. Oh, Lucien?” 
“Yeah?”
“Could you get that box of old thrillers from my office? They’re in a cardboard box, it's a recent shipment.”
“Oh dear God… thrillers.” Lucien stood and shuffled into the backroom, speaking beneath his breath about thrillers.
She rolled her eyes and focused back on the tapes. Jonathan cleared his throat beside her. 
“So… I was meaning to ask you-”
“Yeah?” She asked absentmindedly and he started again. 
“I was wondering if you’d like to do something this weekend.” Jonathan asked hesitantly and snapped a VHS box closed, “just the two of us.” He added and she paused. She looked over and blushed, suddenly very sweaty and uncomfortable in her own body. Neil looked up from the desk, having overheard the conversation. 
“We could watch a movie… your choice of course.” He smiled and she mirrored him. 
“Well, um,” she struggled to come up with an excuse. The truth was that she didn’t have one. Sure she favored Neil but Jonathan was cute too and obviously, Jonathan was interested in her. “Sure… yeah. I’d like to.” She allowed and Jonathan grinned. 
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, why not?” She shrugged and Jonathan smiled down at the tapes in his hands. 
“Look, I don’t mind if you guys fuck eachother but don’t do it right in front of me, ok?” Neil almost sneered and Jonathan looked over his shoulder. Lucien came back with the box. 
“Says the guy that had sex right where Lucien was just sitting!”
Lucien almost dropped the box. “Where I was SITTING? Neil! You could have warned me!” He exclaimed and pushed the box onto the countertop. Neil’s face paled slightly and he swallowed, looking down at the box of movies.
“Nevermind, sorry.” He grumbled and Jonathan returned to tapes. 
She and Jonathan finished the tapes quickly and returned them to their places on the store’s shelves. She stayed out of Neil’s way for the rest of the day, trying to ignore the growing core of frustration in her stomach. She hated the way he made her feel. They were only a year or two apart and yet, she felt so much younger, so naive. She knew him from high school when he was a senior and she was a sophomore. They’d done AV club together and he’d done tech in theater when she acted. They’d been nearly friends by the time he graduated. He had been attractive in high school too though he wasn’t very popular. They’d bonded over their mutual love for film and corresponded a few times over email in college. She’d only seen him as a friend until now, running her eyes down the length of his chest to her narrow hips. Neither of them had made as much as a move on the other since they’d met and now she willed him to see her as more than just a colleague or coworker. 
She was perched on the stool behind the counter when a customer came in to return a video. She scanned the barcode and completed the transaction, bidding them a good day. She held the tape between her hands and flipped the box over, looking at the image of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. She’d cut her hair weeks ago, inspired by Mia Farrow’s character. Even though she knew she looked good in the shaved pixie, she felt almost undesirable. She had hoped that it would make her more confident but instead, it had weakened her sense of self-confidence. She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. Even having Jonathan ask her out didn’t help her confidence, it was pretty pitiful. Neil came around the back of the counter and checked a folder of receipts. 
“This envelope is for that girl from earlier if she comes in again.” He pointed out the envelope with ‘That weird girl without a driver’s license.’ She smiled at the envelope and nodded. 
“Got it, boss.” 
He laughed lightly and started to turn away when she interjected. 
“Do you want that bra back now?” She was suddenly conscious of her own breasts, pressed against the soft padding in her own bra. She crossed her legs, fixing the hem on her jeans. Neil cleared his throat and blushed again. 
“Eh yeah, sure.” He avoided his eyes and she dug around in her bag for the bright red bra. When she found it, she draped it in his open hand, brushing her fingers against the skin on his wrist. 
“Here.” She met his eyes. 
“Thanks,” he looked down at it and then cursed beneath his breath, “shit I just realized that I don’t know her address. I don’t know how to get this back to her.” 
“Do you remember her name?” She pulled up the business log on the computer. 
“Umm… Nancy?” He offered and she typed in the name checking the rentals from the day before. 
“Nancy Rand?” She read out the only name in the system. 
“That sounds right.” He nodded and licked his lips absentmindedly. 
“This is the address,” she read it out as he wrote it down. 
“Are you doing anything tonight?” He asked and she turned, shocked. 
“What?” 
“Do you want to help me return this?” He smiled. 
“You’re ridiculous,” she stood and brushed past him but turned and then nodded slowly, “ok.” The store closed at 8pm. She changed the vinyl on the record player and sought out the broom and dustpan. Jonathan and Lucien left at closing and Neil closed the door behind them, flipping the sign on the door to ‘closed.’ Jonathan gave her a nod goodbye and she waved shyly. They closed down the video store in relative silence, only the music from John Lennon’s Double Fantasy filling the space. She swept the store thoroughly as Neil closed the register. She waited as he locked up and pulled on the doors to ensure that they were secure. The summer humidity hit them like a cloud as soon as they stepped outside. Neil had switched out of his prison costume, now wearing jeans, his white undershirt, and a green button up that he’d left unbuttoned. She took off her cardigan and stuffed it into her bag, preferring to confront the heat in her plain brown camisole. Her jeans were a little too long and brushed the pavement as they walked. 
“Do you know where we’re going?” She asked Neil and he shrugged. 
“Kind of. I think I’ve been in the neighborhood before.” 
“Nice neighborhood?” She stuck her hands in her back pockets as they walked. 
“Oh yeah. It’s across the street from the golf course.” 
“Do you think Nancy Rand golfs?” 
“Probably.” 
“It's the Victoria’s Secret.” She sighed with a nod.
“What?” 
“Her bra- it’s Victoria’s Secret.” She pointed to the tag on the side of the bra and he raised his eyebrow. 
“Oh… right. What does that mean?” He smiled. 
“It means she dropped like $30 on that. She has the kind of money to play golf and buy expensive bras.”
“What??” He held the bra further away from him. “Why are they so expensive?” 
“The super fancy ones are. I can’t believe she left without it. It's nice.”
“Well to be fair, neither one of us were very sober.” He put the bra back into his pocket and swung his arms back and forth.  
“Mmm,” she hummed. 
“Soooo,” Neil shoved his hands into his front pockets and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears, “Do you wear Victoria's Secret too?” He smiled naughtily and she rolled her eyes. 
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “It seems like you have plenty of Victoria’s Secrets to go around, Neil.” She joked and pointed to his back pocket. He laughed and kicked his shoe against the pavement. 
“Yeah, yeah.” He held up his hands in surrender. 
“Is this the house here?” She pointed to a large house with wide round columns. Neil whistled low when he saw the house with two station wagons parked out front. 
“Yeah…”
“How are you planning on giving that back?” She asked and he shook his head.
“I have no idea.” 
“Oh, man… I have got to see how you pull this off!” She started laughing hysterically and he massaged his temples anxiously. 
“I’ll just go up there and knock on the door.” He claimed and rubbed his hands together. 
“Ok,” she smiled. “Go ahead! I’ll be right here.” She gestured to the curb. 
He sighed dramatically and walked up to the front door, framed by symmetrical fake gas lamps. He pointed to the gaslamp and pursed his lips, she could almost hear him trilling his lips in mock admiration. She giggled and waved him on. When Neil rang the doorbell, an older woman opened the front door and greeted him with a confused smile. 
Neil met the woman with a wide grin, immediately regretting the whole trip. 
“Can I help you?” She asked and Neil shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet. 
“I uh, I’m… I just moved into the neighborhood and I wanted to introduce myself.” He thought quickly on his feet and the woman smiled.
“Oh! I didn’t know someone was selling their house. Which is yours?” 
“It's uh… over there.” He gestured widely behind him and cleared his throat. “So er, nice to meet you.” 
“You haven’t told me your name.” The woman furrowed her brow. 
“Right, right. I’m uh Neil… Neil Lowry.” He came up with a random fake name on the spot and clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, I should be going. It was nice to meet you!” He called and hurried down the front step to the driveway. 
“Well, goodnight!” The lady frowned and closed the door, locking it. Neil practically scrambled back to the curb, panting. 
“That was fucking embarrassing.” He coughed out and she stifled her laughter behind her hand. 
“No luck?” 
“God no.” He put his hands on his knees, his shirt falling away from his thin stomach. 
“Why didn’t you just ask for Nancy?”
“I’m not even convinced that this is the right house!” He flailed his arms above his head. 
“Well, we could always leave it in the mailbox.” She shrugged and he sighed. 
“And run the risk of this not being her house and leaving a bra at a completely unrelated family home?” He cringed. “Could you use it?” He held out the bra and she smiled.
“I’m not a 34D, though I appreciate the offer. Ummm,” she rummaged through her bag.
“What are you looking for?” He asked.
“My binoculars.” She answered seriously and he laughed. 
“You carry binoculars?” 
“Yeah,” she shrugged, “they come in handy.”
“Do you often spy on people?” He crouched beside her on the curb, his hands held together in a tent. 
“It's called people watching, Neil.” She withdrew the small pair of binoculars and brushed them off. 
“Its fucking weird.” Neil retorted and laughed when she swatted him painfully on the shoulder. 
“Do you want my help or not?” 
“Ok, ok, sorry!” He took the binoculars and fixed the magnification onto the house. “We’ll have to go up to the house.” 
“Now who sounds like a stalker?” She grumbled and grabbed her bag. They snuck around the house to the side fence. 
“We’re both too short.” She pointed out and took the binoculars from Neil. “I could get on your shoulders…” She offered and bit her lip uncomfortably. Neil nodded and crouched down, his hands planted on the side of the house. 
“Alright, climb aboard.” 
“Don’t say that- it makes it sound weird.” She grumbled and scrambled, putting her thighs on either side of his neck. He stood upright and wavered a little. 
“Steady.” She whispered and peaked over the top of the fence, and looked into the second story room through the binoculars. She could see a girl sprawled out on her bed, a tv playing Singing in the Rain. 
“How do you feel about old musicals?” She asked and Neil huffed his response, not having to say anything. He hated Hollywood musicals. 
“Is she in there?” He asked in a strained voice. 
“Yeah, second story bedroom.” 
Neil lowered her to the ground and she put the binoculars back into her bag. They went around the fence and crouched beside the side of the house, below the window. 
“How old did you say this girl was?”
“I didn’t… and she’s in college.” He added quickly, “senior at NYU.” 
When she didn’t respond he changed the subject. 
“I’m going to throw a few pebbles at her window,” Neil thought aloud, “and when she opens the window, I can slingshot the bra up to her. 
“Slingshot? You can’t be serious.” 
“It’ll work.” Neil assured her and took a pebble from the ground. She sighed and waited for him to gently toss the pebble against the glass. He did it two more times before the window slid open and she could hear the girl leaning out. 
“Neil?” Nancy asked, confused. “What are you doing here?”
“You, uh, left this in the store.” He raised the bra and gave an awkward, crooked smile. 
“Oh, gosh. Thanks but I have so many. It’s ok, who’s telling what kind of stuff is on it now. You can just toss it.” She shrugged and waved. “Bye, Neil.” She closed the window with a loud snap and Neil lowered his arm. He said nothing though his brows were knit together. 
“Well what do we do now?” She asked below him and Neil smiled suddenly. 
“I have an idea. Come on!” He beckoned her to follow him as he crossed the street and held aside the fence onto the golf course.
----
End part 1 here :)
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moralesmilesanhour · 1 year ago
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'cold turkey' except i re-wrote it
summary: exactly what the title says :) unsure what I'm referring to? check my masterlist linked in my pinned post!
A/N: Both the reader and Miles are college students here, so I guess you can imagine comic book Miles as well? But I'll be following the timeline of spiderverse so his mom's alive 🫶🏾 part one part two
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Tell him to turn the corner and I’m right there. Thank you so much, Jeff. Bye!”
You balanced your phone precariously between your shoulder and your ear as you slid the tray of uncooked mac and cheese into the now-heated oven. Shutting the oven door, you sighed and took the phone in your hand to check the time. 
Dinner was in five hours. 
The turkey was ready to be baked, but un-stuffed. The yams were uncooked, and the beans and stuffing had yet to be delivered because Jefferson Morales’ son had gotten lost on the way to your apartment. 
Though you’d lived only a couple houses down, you’d never formally met the boy. Different schools, and you were always swamped with extracurriculars anyway. His mother would give you a warm greeting sometimes after sending him off to school in the morning; you remembered her soft eyes and quick demeanor. The boy seemed to take after his father more, if you remembered correctly. He had a darker complexion and an awkward stiffness to the way he walked, as if someone had reminded him to straighten his posture.
You tapped your acrylics impatiently on the counter as you attempted to recall his name.
Milo…Michael..Milan…? Something like that. 
Whatever, you decided, He’ll tell me his name when he gets here.
As if summoned by your thoughts, the doorbell rang. You sighed in relief as you jogged over to the door.
“Y/N? I got your stuff!” a muffled voice called out from the other side.
Opening the door revealed a boy about your age - lean, and tall enough to take up nearly the entire door frame. His hair had miraculously stayed more or less the same after all these years, only now his afro had morphed into a high-top fade. 
He held several bags of groceries that hung off of both arms and grinned proudly at you, as if he hadn't arrived thirty minutes late.
“You Morales?” 
“Nah, that's my mom,” he joked, “I'm Miles.” 
You rolled your eyes and stepped aside for Miles to enter. 
“Well thank you, Miles, I really appreciate it,” you replied humorlessly, “But if you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to–”
When you reached out to take the bags, he raised them high above his head with ease like they were toys. Your head snapped up to see that his hazel eyes sparkled with mischief. 
“What are you doing?”
“I am terribly sorry, ma'am, but I cannot under any circumstances let you carry all these by yourself.”
“I'll manage,” you replied sharply. Miles raised an eyebrow, challenging you.
“You sure? ‘Cuz I smell smoke from your kitchen, and I feel like you might need the help.”
The smell in question wafted beneath your nose, and your eyes went wide.
“Shit–Fine, bring ‘em in, whatever!”
You spun around and bolted towards the kitchen with Miles following not too far behind.
Your eyes watered as soon as you entered. The oven blew smoke into your face when you opened it, but the fumes thankfully weren't black. 
Grabbing a pair of oven mitts from the counter, you carefully removed the hot tin from its fiery mouth, standing and setting it down in front of you.
The mac and cheese was a golden brown, with a few darker spots here and there. There must've been a piece of food or debris sitting in the oven that you'd missed that had burned instead.
Miles set down the bags of groceries and surveyed the kitchen, watching your stout figure scurry about, flipping switches and turning knobs.
“It's just you in here?” He asked.
“Yup,” you replied while chopping yams. “My sister was s'posed to be here to help, but she's stuck in traffic. So, here I am.”
An awkward silence settled in between you. Even without looking up, you could sense that Miles was still standing there. 
Finally, he spoke:
“You want any help with that?”
You set the knife down and turned to him with a hand on your hip, and tilted your head in amusement. 
“I dunno, Miles. Are you gonna keep standing there like a lost puppy if I say no?”
A grin spread across his face. “I'll make the stuffing!”
You returned to chopping. “Knock yourself out.”
-
After removing some of the plantains he'd bought, Miles rummaged through your fridge. There was garlic–thank God–and chili peppers. After grabbing those, he opened one of the cupboards and found a bottle of olive oil.
While he was painstakingly chopping veggies, he occasionally stole glances at you as you continued preparing the yams.
Your wide nose was scrunched in focus, occasionally pushing a stray box braid away from your face. Cute.
He accidentally caught your eye the next time he looked up, and you paused.
“What?”
Miles cleared his throat, “N-nothing.” 
He turned away and poured the chopped ingredients into a bowl and combined them with the olive oil. 
The smell floated its way over to you. Interest piqued, you peered over his shoulder and watched his nimble fingers expertly peel several ripe plantain bananas, before tossing them in with the chili and garlic. Miles rolled up one of his sleeves to mash everything together, muscles flexing beneath his brown skin with every turn. You noticed a tiny smile ghosting his lips.
“Yes?” He asked. 
Miles hadn't so much as glanced up at you. Was it possible that you'd been staring so hard that you had gotten his attention telepathically?
Startled, you fumbled for an excuse. “You’re uh, really good at cooking. I'm impressed.”
The corner of Miles’ mouth quirked up.
“Sure you are.”
After filling the turkey with the finished mofongo, Miles slid it into the oven where it joined the yams, and shut the door.
The sound of knives hitting cutting boards no longer filled the air, leaving behind yet another silence. And time to kill.
Miles shuffled over to the sink to wash his hands, the sound of only faucet water rushing even more maddening. You decided to break the silence this time.
“So, how’s college? My mom said you went to New Jersey to study.”
“It's alright,” he shrugged as he grabbed a paper towel to dry his hands off with. 
You crossed your arms and grinned. “You givin’ me the parent answer. How's it really going?”
Miles threw the paper towel away, and gave you a lopsided smile.
“Fine. School's kinda whooping my ass, and winter break can't come soon enough. You?”
“Same here,” you sighed, unfolding your arms to rest them on the counter. “Med school ain't for the weak. Labs every five minutes.”
“You gonna be a nurse?”
“Surgeon,” you corrected.
Miles let out a low whistle, making your chest swell with pride.
“What do you study? You look like a student athlete.”
“Whoah, what does that mean?” He laughed and raised an eyebrow.
“That's not what I meant!” You giggled, catching the joke.
“Relax, I know what you meant,” Miles leaned against the counter opposite you. “I'm a physics major, if you must know.”
You nodded thoughtfully. Your guess was way off.
“Never met a future physicist before. Usually it's business, or poli-sci, or something.”
Miles winked, “I'm full of surprises.”
The gesture made your face grow embarrassingly hot. You'd think that spending enough time on campus would make you less susceptible to the charms of pretty boys with high-top fades, but old habits die hard. Still, you held your ground.
“You use that line on every girl?”
“I came up with that just now, so no. Flattered that you think it's good enough for me to have used it before, though.”
Just as you were about to respond, your phone vibrated in your pocket. It was a text from your sister:
“Coming over in 15. Don't forget the beans like last time 💗💗💗”
“Oh shit,” Your hand flew over your mouth. “We forgot the beans!”
You darted over to the cupboard where Miles had said he put the cans of beans in. Unfortunately for you, they had been stacked onto the shelf that you could never reach, hence why it was usually empty.
You stood on the tips of your toes anyway and tried to stretch your arm as far as it could go. When that inevitably failed, you considered climbing on top of the counter when Miles’ voice stopped you.
“I'll get it.”
“Nope,” you grunted, “it's fine–”
“Seriously, it's my fault for puttin’ ‘em up there–”
You turned, the smell of chili peppers and faint cologne hitting you instantly as your eyes met his.
Miles had already reached over your head, and was currently holding a can of beans in his right hand. 
Up close, you could see rows of full, dense lashes that curled upwards and away from his eyes in ‘c’ shapes. Your eyes then fell a bit lower, where a tiny scar ran across his left cheek that made you wonder about its origins. Did he fall off of his bicycle one day? Did he fight? Would it be rude to ask about it?
Meanwhile, Miles' gaze landed on your lips. They were glossy, lined with black and another dark, brown shade. He liked the shape of them. 
Before either of you could make any drastic decisions, the doorbell snapped you out of your thoughts. 
You moved from beneath the cupboard and let Miles keep the beans.
“You can cook those,” you directed as you left the kitchen. “My sister's here.”
Miles blinked and remembered where he was. “Right.”
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rubystatic · 1 year ago
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Asking For Trouble
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I wasn't sure what to write for my first post here. I haven't written for Hazbin Hotel before, but I figured what better introduction to the fandom than a literal introduction between Alastor and the reader? I've had this scene rattling around in my head for a few weeks, so I hope you enjoy it.
Pairing: Alastor x Reader
Contents: demonic summoning, Alastor being an eldritch horror, hints of gore, blood, minor self-injury (not sh)
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The red paint glistens like fresh blood in the light of the candles. A dozen or more of them, scattered around your living room, resting atop the coffee table, the TV stand, melted onto the top of the bookcase and the windowsill. Thick, black candles you bought from the Halloween clearance sale at the local big box store. You don’t think colour matters, but it felt right for the occasion. If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it right. 
A clear space dominates the centre of the room—all the furniture has been pushed aside, crowding up against the walls to make room. You’ve rolled up the living room rug and propped it against the stairs. 
When you first moved into your basement apartment, you were dismayed to discover that it had a poured concrete floor, and that the landlord hadn’t bothered to put in carpet or laminate or even cheap lino. However, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the rent price was such a steal, you didn’t dare question him on it in case he decided he wanted a less whiny tenant. 
You have reason to be grateful for it now, though. A red pentagram painted on a wooden floor or carpet would be a quick way to make sure you never got back your security deposit. A bit of turpentine and it’ll be like this never happened. 
Assuming that you’re still alive. If this even works.
The thing that started it all, a simple black notebook—some Moleskine rip-off—sits open at the edge of your circle, along with a whole mess of measuring implements. A simple protractor wasn’t good enough for something like this. You’d had to buy some stuff off the internet, and now your Amazon recommendations looked like a geometry professor’s wet dream. 
And there I was, thinking 10th grade math would never get me anywhere in the real world. 
You pick up the notebook, glancing between the scrawled diagrams and measurements and your own summoning circle. It looks right. It had better be, since you spent all afternoon hunched over, painting it with dollar store acrylic paints. Oh, and your life depends on it. Can’t forget that much. 
The notebook is a journal of sorts. You found it behind the bookcase when you first moved in, wedged there and forgotten. The pages are covered in the feverish scrawl of a previous resident. At first you felt a little weird about reading it, but curiosity overcame any moral quandary you had in the end. 
The journal outlines the three month period it took for a young writer to seemingly descend into madness as his work was rejected, over and over. As his girlfriend left him, his father died, and his life fell to pieces. He became more and more desperate, his writing growing erratic. His writing research had already led him down some occult paths, but it seemed he’d decided to pursue them even further.
Which was you’ve come to be kneeling on your living room floor, trying to summon a demon.
Taking a deep breath, you flip to the last page, where the invocation is written, the pen almost tearing through the paper in some places. It’s the last entry. 
You reach out, and use your fingertips to push a plate of venison over the boundary line, into the centre of the pentagram. The meat is a dark, pinkish red, practically pulsing with blood and vitality, as the journal instructs. 
Getting it necessitated a trip outside city limits to a questionable butcher in the countryside who specialised in game meat. The journal is very clear—it has to be fresh. Supermarket meat won’t cut it.
Everything is in place. There’s nothing left to do but begin.
You take a deep breath, your hands trembling slightly as you lift the journal, holding it open. You have a strange feeling of duality, that you’re both at once powerful and ridiculous. Someone tearing open the veil between worlds to seek higher (or lower) power, and someone playing pretend. 
You force yourself to ignore the latter, pushing it aside and holding onto the image that what you’re doing is going to work. Faith is important, even if it isn’t invested wisely. 
“Let—”
Oh, shit, you’ve forgotten a step. 
Dropping the journal in your haste, you reach for the small pen knife lying at the edge of the circle. Gritting your teeth, you tighten your grip on the wooden handle, and make a small cut on the side of your thumb. Holding your fist out over the circle, you let a few beads of blood, looking almost black in the candle light, splatter the venison. 
You open a bandaid and slap it over the cut, pleased you haven’t completely sliced your palm open like they do in movies. Don’t they know how long that takes to heal? 
Anyway, back to the demon summoning. 
“Let this offering of flesh and blood open the veil between the earthly realm and the depths of Hell,” you read aloud, your voice becoming stronger with every word.
No wonder that writer guy couldn’t get his shit published if this is how he wrote everything. Despite the stilted prose, you keep reciting it aloud, just glad it’s not in Latin, or worse, rhyming. 
“I summon you, o’ Deal Maker, Keeper of Bargains, Purchaser of Souls—” 
Seriously? Writer of Bullshit, more like. 
“I summon you, Alastor!” 
You hold your breath as the last echoes of your voice fade from the walls, waiting for something to happen. The candles continue to flicker gently, and you can hear the muted hubbub of voices from your neighbour’s TV upstairs. Your knees are starting to hurt from sitting on the floor. 
Sighing, you let the journal drop to the floor. It hasn’t worked. Of course.
Why did you think this was going to work? Summoning a demon of all things—
The candles ripple as if stirred by a breath, then their flames spike upwards, rigid. The light throws shadows across the walls, but the shadows don’t move in the right way. They sway back and forth, almost in a trance, as if the room is tilting side to side. 
The candle flames stretch up and up, thinning out into streamers. The golden glow dims, before blooming a bright, venal red. Your ears fill with the sound of static as the painted lines of the summoning circle begin to glow crimson. Smoke boils up from the centre into a plume of pulsing fog, backlit by the red light and twitching shadows. 
Something very old, buried and half-forgotten in your DNA screams at you to run, but you’re frozen to the spot, gaping as a figure takes form within the smoke. A tall, thin silhouette, long limbs distorted. Ice seeps into your gut.
The smoke clears, leaving an apparition, a demon, in your living room. It is not the monster you expected. No red skin, no black pits for eyes, no fire and brimstone… But whatever he is, he’s definitely not human. 
Stretching from floor to ceiling, he must be seven feet tall or more, with a thin, attenuated form and an inhumanly narrow waist. The demon is a vision in red, from his hair to his suit to his eyes, red on red, his pupils black slits in a sea of glowing crimson. 
It’s his smile that truly terrifies you, though. 
His teeth gleaming, the colour of aged ivory. Two rows of sharp, dagger-like points, ready to sink into flesh, designed to rend and tear. Whatever this creature is, death sustains him. 
Red hair, tipped in black, frames his face in a short bob, and tufts up at the top in what you think might be ears. Two small, black antlers jut from the top of his head. 
The static in  your ears crescendos like a wave crashing over your head, and the demon’s smile widens. He hums to himself, his voice a crackle, and looks around your meagre apartment. Finally, his gaze comes to rest back on you, the most interesting thing here.
“My, my,” he says, a strange, Transatlantic twang to his voice, “it’s been a while since someone summoned me. You really know how to set the mood, don’t you? Summoning circle, candles, and what’s this?” 
He leans down to pick up the plate of venison. Your blood has seeped into the meat by now, indistinguishable from the dead deer’s blood. The demon uses his gloved hand to pick up a morsel of the meat, his red eyes widening in pleasure, before popping it into his mouth like an hors d'oeuvre. 
“Delicious,” he praises. “Not a bit of fat on it, either. How did you know venison is my favourite?”
Before you can answer, his gaze lights upon the abandoned journal. He lets out a chuckle that’s half radio static. 
“Oh, that old thing. I should have known!” He slaps his knee in an over-the-top display of amusement. “You’re all so eager to throw yourselves into the Abyss! Humans, lemmings, what’s the difference?!”
The demon pretended to wipe a tear of mirth from his eye, before finally paying attention to you again. His grin cranked up a notch, practically splitting his face in half, and his hooded red eyes gleamed at you. 
“I haven’t introduced myself. How remiss of me. The name’s Alastor. A pleasure to meet you, my dear.”
The static in his voice fuzzed out, leaving behind a raspy baritone.
“Now, what can I do for you, darling?”
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crushedsweets · 10 months ago
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How strong is Jack really? What are his abilities?
he's very strong!!! he would absolutely destroy every one of the creeps in a fight (aside from O/S and zalgo). legitimately none of them stand a chance. imagine mortal combat type murders. ok im trolling but seriously he's really strong
he's also just hard to hurt. his skin is so thick/durable, its difficult to stab into him - and even when you do, the black blood/tar seeps out and quickly seals the wound, it's like nothing happened. its POSSIBLE to kill him, but it'd be hard
some abilities include echolocation/super hearing, thermovision, speed... etc. nothing super special/unique
depending on how hungry he is, his nails can turn into claws. not like acrylics, but like... the keratin thickens, surrounds his finger, and grows long/sharp. the keratin breaks off when the hunger subsides, leaving his normal hands/nails. his teeth do something similar, and his jaw can unhinge
everyone is lucky he wants to be a pacifist
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shinnyshining · 2 months ago
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Things I brought today (mostly at the SE exhibition) and some opinions about the whole experience
I couldn’t get everything I wanted I over estimated how much cash I’ll need to have with me so I’ll probably will go again tomorrow
Which is the last day so I need to go early…
I also couldn’t get that one frame magnet I wanted…volume 5 my dads….no… I’ll….I have no choice but to get the whole set just to get them guaranteed cuz I cant go back to the shopping area onceI exit the shop 😭
And its all sold out in the second hand listings on mercari jp ,…hope the whole box is somewhat affordable
Anyway…if I get doubles, yall know how to dm me ;3
Also I got the kid ,liz and patty shikishi as you can see and I only hope to get soul and maka tomorrow cuz its so expensive on mercari I wont be paying 3000 yen just for a shikishi no waaay
WAIT
I FORGOT
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I got the only cute exhibition keychain because ohkubo gave them very questionable angled illustrations which didnt translate well in merchs in my opinion ESPECIALLY on the acrylic stands they look nightmare fuels, but crona is fine (I sense some favoritism ngl) patty was cute too actually but I was on a budget
Anddd I got the badges from blind bags so its all gacha I like crona though Im happy and I will give the tsubaki one to a friend.
There were two entry tickets one was 2500 yen as standart
And the other was 3000 yen with limited goods which was this wristband , I think for 500 yen more it was worth it I might get another one tomorrow with entrance its high quality and soft
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Lastly if you brought anything over 5000yen total you get this bag, but you wont get a double for every 5000 you buy, quickly learned since I spended around 11k with some goods I picked for my friend, so if anyone is interested in going to the Osaka venue, just so you know if you go with a friend you may wanna pay separately if you want a bag for every each one of you
Also tip from me: dont be stupid like me and bring more money with you if theres something you want that is not guaranteed and is in a blind bag…cuz the chances of you getting lucky is not reliable and if you are as desperate as me you’ll pay for another entrance😭😭😭
Especially cuz you cant go back there if it turns out you didn’t get what you wanted, you’ll need another ticket so…buying the box seems more worth it (only if you need and want something absolutely that you’ll go that far) (actually its not a super big deal for badges and limited shikishi boards and cards since there aren’t many designs. But the mangets…they have 16 designs so it is pricey)
Now as for the exhibition hall itself, most things were okay to photograph and its consisted of mostly manga panels and official arts,there were cool cut outs and giant volume covers on the walls. seeing the panels upclose was interesting especially cuz I do comics as well and aspire to do it professionally in the future
But I guess the coolest experience is that they fully voice acted a certain chapter from the manga (didn’t finish it yet so I don’t know which) but it was so cool cuz it was all newly voiced (manga only duh) and the visuals were in a dynamic video edited pretty well, there were some live 2d just a little but it was there, it was not allowed to film that there which gives me hope that they will upload it to socials after the exhibition fully ends nationwide. But you never know
(italso gave me hope for a possible remake but I don’t wanna get my hopes up)
Anyway I might make a google drive with everything I took pictures of later , Im kinda tired today
but I wanna say to those who have high expectations for this exhibition
don’t expect something revolutionary.unfortunately it was mostly manga pages displayed (the giant official art were cool though cuz you could see more details of them) and as for props, aside from some decorations hanging from the walls and cielings here and there there was a shinigami sama cut out and the mirror, but thats about it) so definitely a little underwhelming for a 20th anniversary exhibition , at least from my expectations
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I enjoyed it because I like Soul Eater and Im pretty hyperfixated on it right now, but that doesn’t keep me away from criticizing it and I do just that CUZ I LIKE SOUL EATER
there were so many things they could do and honestly for 20th anniversary it was pretty small and the exclusive merchandise was just… meh??? especially the illustrations made specifically for the Exhibition itself (which wasn’t even that much just the main 3 duo/trio’s) Honestly I have to say Im quite disappointed with Ohkubo it seemed like he didn’t give his all designing the illustrations. they didn’t even performed well as various types of goods and ,sure, he made a design and its not that bad , but he could at least draw them again with no weird angling that only looks okay in a promotional poster, aside from that, you know the magnets are made from previously made official arts and manga covers, there were some cool stuff like kid’s skateboard and Soul’s jacket but those are made to order and you can’t even get them there at the time,
NOT TO MENTION THIS SUPER COOL ART WAS NI WHERE TO BE FOUND AT THE GOODS SHOP IT IS A MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO ME!!
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A mini acrylic stand of this could be sooo cool 😭😭😖
The nuis are cool it was well overdue I hope they will make more characters in the future they should capitalize on them a bit more
Tote bags , hoodies and such were something to be expected from exhibitions like this Im not really impressed but they were nice as designs
But my opinion is set, they could’ve done so much more for this exhibition and it was a little underwhelming so only consider attending if you like to see official arts and manga panels up close, and if you like to interact with very limited props and watching the exclusive manga voice acting (to me that alone is worth to visit ngl) and of course the goods, only if you’re interested in
I do some theories why this exhibition was the way it is I mainly think, the budget was set and it was not much to do more than what we got especially considering the made to order goods, but it gives me hope, even after 20 years I think Soul Eater as a series is still profitable and I hope this exhibition does well enough for the higher ups to consider making more things in the future
Thats all from Shining today :3
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discotenny · 11 months ago
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I saw this yumejo tweet once that just made me go oh.
the idea of you being your f/o's comfort character....
like imagine. you are just a fictional character they happened to find and took comfort in.. you make them imagine a better, cozier life where they feel loved.. ramuda secretly takes little photos with an acryl stand of you at the cafes he tours or sasara keeps your keychain in his pocket for good luck and gives it a kiss before his shows, uhhhh toki always watches your show to power up before beating someone up- LMAO idk but rightttt??
OOOOOOH ANON THIS IS GOOD THIS IS GOOOOOOD
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Honestly, I feel like Ichiro would be the most obvious with his fanatics. He's already been shown in canon to be an unabashed anime / manga fan so can u imagine how he'd act towards you??!?!?!
Ichi has a binder full of prints for your official art that he keeps in the Odd Jobs Yamada office. He looks at it in downtimes, kicking his feet and squealing as he stares. Ichi also scours second hand sites to try and get merch for cheaper than official. He owns pins, stickers, plushies, and SO, SO MANY KEYCHAINS.
He honestly is the one most likely to write/read fan fiction too LMAO. Shipfic, platonic fics, reader insert- it doesn't matter. Don't tell his brothers, they'd be absolutely mortified.
Ramuda secretly runs one of those Twitter accounts that take pictures of their mochis/nuis in different irl settings!!! He MAKES little outfits for a nui of you and is so proud of all of them.
For every little cafe he goes to he always makes sure to take a pic that implies cute little nui of you is the one that just demolished 3 pieces of cake.
In the times where Ramu was still working with Chuuoku, he'd pull your nui out of his pocket and talk to you while he's scheming ;_; He has the image in his mind that you're the only one that would ever accept him as he is.
But my favorite image of this ask has to be DOPPO!! DOPPO!!! DOPPOOO !!! I saw this image once of ties that have anime charas in the inside and I think it's so silly to imagine Doppo has one of those of you AHAHAHA.
Doppo can't have personal items on his desk at work, so aside from his tie he has a little keychain of you tied to his bag :C Whenever he gets in his real shitty moods Doppo holds onto it and just mutters mutters mutters.
Since Doppo is the chara that speaks the most of his personal life / inner thoughts in his raps- imagine that he frequently mentions you in his verses and ship art of you and Doppo starts floating around in the Matenro fandom LOL. He'd be so embarrassed but he'd secretly love it.
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Bonus!!
Dice keeps a mochi of you in his pocket at all times, calling it his personal good luck charm. Whenever he's gambling he squishes it real hard and always has to apologize to it after.
Saburo is the most embarrassed about having a comfort character. The most obvious he is about it is having you as his desktop background but other than that he is too embarrassed to go out and buy merch. Ichiro buys him a lil plush of you for his birthday and he starts to cryyyyy.
Hitoya keeps an acrylic standee of you on his office desk but he faces it towards his clients LMAO. He comes across as so unserious.
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jkaiofeawfewa this was such a good concept omggegwargew
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More little things I noticed in my third rewatch of ATSV.
-SPOILERS AHEAD-
There was a moment that confused me where Spot was robbing the guy of the ATM and he was setting down some cans for (seemingly) no reason. He was actually placing the ATM on top of the cans so he can roll it out.
I can't confirm if this is what was actually there, but when Uncle Aaron was telling Miles they "gotta roll," there was an acrylic stand of Spider-Man there that looked like Miles Morales Spider-Man (color and all).
When Miles was swinging through 42 NYC, there was an advertisement for "Vulture" something, I'm assuming a company. Messed up.
When Miguel first introduces himself by ramming into Vulture, Gwen gets to the spot and does this really slick landing animation where she kinda just gracefully brushes against the bannister briefly before landing on the ground.
42 Rio being given more hours at the hospital shows just how bad 42 New York has gotten without a Spider-Man. Terrifying.
I think I may have pointed this out on a previous post, but 1610 Uncle Aaron had a lucky black cat while 42 Uncle Aaron had a lucky white cat instead. I also like the parallels of Peter being tied up against a punching bag by Miles in ITSV while Miles is tied up by Uncle Aaron in ATSV.
I find it hilarious that Miles STILL doesn't know about ComicCon and didn't bother to look it up since ITSV when 42 Rio brings up "ComicsCon."
When Hobie is blocking off Miles from walking through to Miguel and Miles bumps into him, there's a tiny skull that appears when they make contact. It might just be a punk thing, but I wonder if it's an omen for the bad thing that's ahead of Miles.
Lego Spider-Man's vocalized "boop boop"s killed me.
I love the reveal when Miles realizes he's in the wrong universe, the camera pulls into his face and twists slightly. Obvious but nonetheless cool film styling of "his world is spinning" aside, I love that it feels like a 40's/50's kind of thing. Like this is something that you would see in The Twilight Zone, it nails the old comic book-y vibes too.
42 Miles' facial posture has his head up high and his chin slightly jutting out and up, like he's this "in-charge," cold, dignified superior while our Miles has his chin straight, sometimes pointed down and his head straight, showing he's trying to appeal to his humanity and trying to be humble and unassuming. It's awesome details like this that I love.
Hearing Spot say that he couldn't get a job because of what happened to him at that deli really hurts, honestly. Even if, in a way, he himself is partially to blame, it sucks that he has to resort to this. And the way he says it, almost in a "well, I can't do anything else so this is the only thing I can do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" kind of way is really saddening, like he's trying to take it in stride and as a matter of fact. As awful as Spot becomes, I still feel bad for him.
Miles has a "#BLM" pin on his backpack. I'm sure people saw it already and it's probably a given, but in a world where media is trying to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, it's nice to see the studio make a clear stance with a character that absolutely fits the bill.
That title drop for Earth 42 when Uncle Aaron tries to dab up Miles going into slow-mo with the music subdued was dope as fuck.
Miles throwing his arms up when asking when his dad dies ("When does it happen?!") is so on-point and well animated, it feels like something every New Yorker would do (I would personally know, since I am one).
When Gwen asks Jess if she ever made mistakes, Jess' reply, saying "yeah, but I got over it," is pretty toxic. It feeds into Gwen's need to avoid her problems rather than address them and face them, and I think that's why she probably chooses to avoid discussing things about Miles to him directly.
That look of disgust on Miles' face when he's being surrounded by Spider-People ("What is this? Some kind of intervention or something?") was so real.
The long silence between Miles choosing to go into the portal to follow Gwen is so good, I love when the movie speaks for itself rather than the dialogue. You can see the hesitation in Miles' eyes and face and then his determination as he jumps headfirst into the portal. A great character scene and fitting transition into the next act.
The album cover for the soundtrack is so good and comes from the scene where Miles goes into the portal. It feels like a mix of something from a Golden Age comic book cover, Miles' hand opened out towards the camera like he's being thrust into another world. And the colors of the portal and transition to Mumbattan are gorgeous. Fills the 40's/50's vibes I was talking about earlier, too.
Jeff's toast is really well done and I like how heartfelt and real it feels. Makes his anger, unfortunately, justified on Miles, even if Miles was trying to do the right thing for him and Rio in the end.
"I was just cool the whole time" is such a boss line, I love Hobie.
Miguel casually (almost lazily) swinging around rescuing civilians at the Guggenheim whilst talking to Gwen about a serious conversation is unironically cool. And it fits to his character, he's probably done it so many times that it becomes child's play in the end.
"I ain't got Scooby-Doo, mate."
How does Hobie know that Miles should use his palms for those powers? Curious.
"But now...I'm not afraid of anything." I love Miles so much, he's grown and become so strong not just for himself but for others. He's the best Spidey. Full stop.
I love the reversal of reflections for Gwen. At the beginning of the movie, she's in her casual wear but with the reflections always showing her in her Spider outfit. At the end, she comes home in her Spider outfit but with herself in her casual wear in the reflection instead. She started off alone in the world as Spider-Woman and ended feeling like Gwen. Her arc was completed and she's facing herself, the real Gwen Stacy and not Spider-Woman.
I felt bad that the deli clerk got bonked by the bat :( But, at least he's all right.
Miles saying "Don't do that" to the kid licking the subway window is real. That shit is nasty, the windows are the least clean parts of NYC's subway.
I love that both Gwen and Miles use comically deep voices around their respective dads. It's cute.
When the police officer was saying "I think we found our sign" when Gwen webbed them up, George's silent head turn with unamusement was awesome.
I will not have anymore George Stacy slander. Yeah, he made a bad call in seemingly arresting his daughter, but he QUIT his job for her. He loves her that much that he quit being, not just a police officer, but a CAPTAIN, for HER sake.
Speaking of which, when George had his gun pointed at her before she unmasked, he had his gun down the whole time after she unmasked, even while he was re-relaying her her rights. And when she tries to approach him, his gun flinches up a bit but stops.
"Can you go easy on the penguin?"
This is actually a follow-up post, since I said before that I might make another. This movie is too much for me and I love taking it apart.
Edit: I'm sorry for the constant updates and changes/revisions, but I can't stop thinking about this movie.
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runawaycarouselhorse · 1 year ago
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Iris has no offiicial full-sized figures compared to past heroines and I think that's sad
I lost my old thread a long time ago, so taking a moment to show you how anime Iris only got two chibi pieces of merch, unlike all the main girls before and after (not including Koharu, who was more of a rarely appearing supporting cast member for much of her run), one a cheap Pokemon Kids toy and one a very nicely made (still chibi) collectors’ keychain part of a set.
Update: Iris now has an acrylic stand! Those are 2D, so not. Proper figures, alas, it's the same stock artwork that makes up stickers, just propped up to stand. There are also pins! Sadly, still no proper official 3D figure, aside from the chibi keychain (which was one of the first things I bought online with my salary--chibi Iris and a cute little Deerling plushie ♡).
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There was an amazing resin statue of Champion Iris and Haxorus and another beautiful a League Series Iris (also in her Champion dress), but EZM Studios and Trainer House Studios respectively do not appear to be officially sanctioned by the Pokemon Company? There's a lot of Chinese figures that are honestly amazing, but seem to be unofficial/fan-made? Gorgeous, though.)
No figures of Iris as she was shown in the BW! anime/in her younger self's BW outfit from the games, ;^;
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Misty is a product of the 90’s and most of her figures were cheap children’s toys! But thers’s still a bunch of them (in addition to the cheap Pokemon Kids toy, assume one exists of every major character.) New merch includes the polished G.E.M. series figure & chibi plushie!
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These are sitting plushies, not figures, but they're very new and cute (and her seiyuu/original voice actress owns one and often poses it for photographs on her twitter, fff.)
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May is also an early character and primarily has cheap toys, but she also has this very sweet (very tiny) promotional movie figure of her with Manaphy... a recently made very polished G.E.M. series figure, and she has a figure with Torchic! Game May has her own polished figure.
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Note: the G.E.M. series commemorates the anime and seemed to be going in order, until it skipped Dawn (despite her immense popularity?!) after May, then skipped Iris for Serena... then, they made the Sun & Moon girls and that seemed it.
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Dawn has a LOT of merchandise, ranging from cheap action figures for kids to collectors’ figures for her anime & game counterparts. Also, plushies, more keychains...
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That last one is likely her game counterpart, given the loooong scarf.
Some more cheap children’s toy Dawns, trainer pack sets...
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Again, keep in mind, EVERY major Pokemon character gets the very homely-looking Pokemon Kids toys and for a long time, that was Iris’ only toy. So, despite not picturing them here, assume all the main girls have them (as do main boys!)
For the record, BW! Ash had character merch like collector’s figures and children’s toys/action figures too, it was only Iris who was excluded.*Cilan has a full figure (Banpresto Partners figure with Pansage, Banpresto Partners Ash is with Pikachu) too! N, the Subway Bosses too also existed...
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Serena has a LOT of merchandise. There’s a music box figure of her performing with a key, there’s the new G.E.M. figure with Sylveon, her game counterpart with Fennekin, cheap kid’s toys (Takara Tomy action figure), a plushie of her short-haired look...
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Serena’s game counterpart has figures, clearfiles, keychains, stickers, posters, etc. (Iris recently got a pin/badge along with the other Unova Gym Leaders, possibly stickers too)—slightly sidetracking, let’s get back to figures!
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A very cute short-haired, chibi XY anime-styled Serena (note she also has the gifted blue ribbon and the second outfit!) for the Pita Poke toys!! I wish I had those, it looks very Polly Pocket and cute, but sadly discontinued.
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Moving onto Lillie, she has the most merchandise across franchise, I think! She has two anime-based figures (with Snowy and the Poke Problem blackboard.)
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Game Lillie has many figures, a music box like Serena’s that plays her theme (it’s the one of her on the sofa with her diary).
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If we count ~related~ merchandise, there’s a cute Terrarium Collection one of Snowy on the shore, with fallen flowers floating on the water, with a paw reaching out to touch Lillie’s hat, lying in the sand. There’s Iris’ Axew stickers and cards, promotional stuff, but all 2D.
I may reblog with the others and anime-related merch that isn't figures... I hit the limit, PFFT.
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misahyochaeng · 20 days ago
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“Deal With The Devil.”
(Momo x Mina🌧️🔞)
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cw: horror, thriller, Momo x Mina, artist!mina, Ceo!momo, blood, gore, drug use, mentions of overdose, alcohol abuse, physical abuse, stockholm syndrome, emotional/mental abuse, forced drug use. mentions of suicidal thoughts, mentions of self harm, etc.
a/n: this is work of fiction only, i don’t condone any of the things stated in this book, please read at your own risk.
“Come back when you have something worth showing.”
Alone, the artist’s eyes fell to the empty canvas. How much more could they give?
That night, a stranger knocked.
It was late on October 25th, the air crisp as Mina walked toward her apartment, hands tucked into her jacket pockets. Each step echoed softly on the pavement, the streetlights flickering faintly above her.
Fifty-three.
Sixty-six.
Three hundred.
Counting her steps—an old habit she couldn’t shake—she felt the chill creep up her spine.
Mina was drowning in debt, a starving artist whose emotions spilled onto the canvas, yet her work never garnered the attention it deserved. Everyone seemed to prefer all the modern art bullshit, Mina thought it was rather stupid how a single red line on a canvas could cost over a million.
The pent-up stress coursing through her made Mina fumble her keys as she unlocked the door. Her jaw clenched tightly as she dropped her messenger bag onto the wooden floor, the sound of paintbrushes rattling against each other echoing through the apartment.
She stumbled into her room, a reflection of her mind. Paint stains splattered the floor, and a trash bag overflowed with discarded sketches, each one a reminder of her failed attempts. Canvases leaned erratically against one another like towers. It was a mess, and her life felt just as tangled
Mina sat down at her desk, pushing aside paint palettes and tubes of acrylics to pull out her laptop. She noticed an email from the Riverside Academy of Visual and Performing Arts.
“Dear Students,
Join us this Saturday at 2 PM at The Contemporary Art Museum for an art gallery event. All students are invited to present and sell their artwork.
Representatives from various art agencies will be scouting for new talent and potential contracts, so don’t miss this chance to gain exposure!
Best,
The Riverside Academy Team”
As she read the email, a tiny twinge of hope blossomed within her. Maybe this was her chance. Perhaps she could finally repay her debts and secure a stable job doing something she truly aspired. The thought ignited a spark in her weary heart, pushing aside the weight of her worries, if only for a moment.
That night, Mina stayed up late, feeling inspired, she painted for hours, barely getting sleep, but it was worth it knowing that maybe- just maybe. She might be able to finally impress someone.
Though that faith was cut rather short.
As she got to the museum, hands crammed with canvases and folders, eyeing the amount of people inside struck a bit of doubt in her.
What if she’s not good enough?
She put up her booth rather enthusiastically, making it seem as lavish as possible with the display, hoping she could catch some attention.
She counted the hours.
One.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
This isn’t worth it.
Mina looked down in shame, her shoulders slumped and breaths shallow. Her vacant eyes settled on her trembling hands. In that moment, it felt like hope had slipped through her fingers, leaving nothing behind but despair.
A loud thud.
Mina looked up, startled, as the stack of cash landed on her table with a rather solid thud. The woman standing before her was striking, draped in an elegant coat with a devilish red tone, blonde hair tied up in a ponytail with her bags framing her face, her expression calm yet focused.
“I couldn’t help but notice your work,” the woman said, her voice smooth and assured. “You can call me Momo. I’m a patron of the arts, and I have an agency that specializes in nurturing talent like yours.”
Mina blinked, unsure whether to feel flattered or wary. Her mind raced, unable to ignore the stack of cash between them. “Uh..”
Momo continued, her gaze almost obsessive as it flickered over the scattered canvases. “You have real potential, Mina. But potential alone doesn’t pay the bills, does it? Work with me, work with my agency, and I can offer you fame, wealth, and recognition—everything you’ve ever wanted. All you have to do is sign, Darling.”
Mina hesitated, her heart pounding. A contract? It sounded too good to be true. But then again, what did she have to lose? Her debts were drowning her, and no one else had ever shown this level of interest in her work. She glanced down at her trembling hands, then back at Momo.
“What’s the catch?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Momo smiled, sliding a simple contract across the table. “No catch, Baby. Just your signature, and in return, you’ll have everything you’ve dreamed of.”
Desperation gnawed at Mina’s thoughts. The offer felt like a lifeline, one she couldn’t afford to ignore. She picked up the pen, hand shaking, and signed her name.
In the days that followed, Mina’s life transformed in ways she had never imagined. Momo wasted no time getting her involved in the art scene. She arranged for Mina’s work to be displayed in a gallery showcasing emerging artists, providing her with all the necessary materials and connections. The first exhibition was a whirlwind of excitement, with people buzzing about her art, the vibrant colors, and the raw emotions that flowed from each canvas.
It was odd.
Six days.
Mina's face smashed against the cold table, her cheek scraping against its rough surface. Her pulse thundered in her ears as Momo’s grip tightened like a vice around her skull. Blood trickled from a small gash on her forehead, mixing with the scattered coke dust that Momo had laid out in perfect, cruel lines.
“You really think you’re different?” Momo’s voice was venomous, her patience long gone. The faint, devilish glint in her eye had transformed into something far darker, more sadistic. “You’re just like the others. A worthless artist who thinks they can make it without sacrifice.”
Mina whimpered, her breaths shallow and ragged, but Momo didn’t ease her hold. Instead, with a sudden violent jerk, Momo slammed Mina’s head harder into the table, the impact reverberating through her body. Mina let out a muffled cry, her nose smashing against the surface. Blood spurted out, warm and thick, mingling with the white powder on the table.
“You’ll do it,” Momo hissed, her hand forcing Mina’s face closer to the lines of cocaine, blood dripping into the powder, staining it red. “Or I’ll make sure you never paint again. You’ll be nothing. You hear me, bitch?! Nothing.”
Mina gasped, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. It was warm. She tried to pull away, her limbs weak, but Momo was relentless. There was no escape, only the suffocating pressure of Momo’s grip and the darkness creeping at the edges of her vision.
“Snort it,” Momo commanded, her voice low and dripping with malice. “Now.”
Mina hesitated, and that was all it took for Momo to slam her head once more. This time, the crack of bone was unmistakable. Pain exploded through Mina’s skull, her nose now shattered, blood pouring freely down her face. She screamed, but Momo didn’t care.
“You want to pay off your debts? You want success?” Momo spat, pressing Mina’s face into the blood-soaked lines of cocaine. “Then this is what you’ll do.”
With no choice, tears streaming down her bloodied face, Mina inhaled.
She counted.
One.
The dust, mixed with her own blood, burned as it shot through her nostrils. Her head spun wildly, the pain and the drug warping her senses. Her vision blurred, the edges of her sight twisting in a nauseating spiral.
Two.
Her body trembled violently, muscles spasming uncontrollably. The high hit her like a sledgehammer, the rush almost unbearable. Her heart pounded so hard it felt like it would tear through her chest.
Three.
Blood continued to drip from her nose, splattering on the table, pooling around her face. Her throat closed up, choking on the iron taste of blood and the harsh sting of the drug. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
Four.
Mina convulsed, her body seizing up as the substance tore through her veins. The room spun violently, a sickening blur of colors and shapes. Everything was too loud, too bright, too sharp.
Five.
Momo watched with twisted satisfaction, her lips curling into a dark, wicked smile. “That’s it. Keep going. You’re almost there, you’re being such a good girl, Minari.” she purred, her hand still gripping Mina’s hair, pulling her head back just enough to force her into another line.
Six.
Mina’s body collapsed onto the table, limp and drenched in sweat. Her breaths were shallow, her heart racing beyond control. Blood and cocaine mixed together, staining the table and her face. Her vision swam, darkness creeping in from the corners of her eyes.
Momo crouched beside her, her lips close to Mina’s ear. “This is what it takes,” she whispered, her tone icy and void of any humanity. “You want to make it? You have to bleed for it.”
Mina’s world faded into a haze of pain, blood, and betrayal, her broken body slumped on the table, completely at Momo’s mercy, vision going blurry as she fell unconscious.
It’s been six hours.
Mina’s eyes blinked open to an all-white room, cold and sterile, the air-conditioning biting into her skin. She laid still, disoriented, her mind a foggy blank as she stared up at the glaring lights above. Every inch of her body felt tender, bruised, especially her head, wrapped tightly in bandages. She tried to move, but a sharp ache shot through her, making her wince.
“Mina,” a familiar voice spoke softly. She turned her head, vision adjusting to see Momo seated casually on a sleek couch beside her, legs spread, watching her with an unsettling calm.
“What... happened?” Mina murmured, touching the bandages on her head and arms, flinching at the pain.
Momo leaned forward, her fingers reaching out to brush a loose strand of hair from Mina’s face. “You fainted,” she said smoothly, her voice laced with concern. “We were just about to eat, and you lost consciousness. Hit your head pretty badly.” She gestured to the bandages. “I took care of you.”
Mina tried to piece together the fragments in her mind, but all she could recall was the coldness of the room, and Momo’s face, blurred in the haze.
Momo smiled gently, reaching into her bag and pulling out a thick stack of cash. “Look at this,” she said, her tone rich with satisfaction. “Your paintings sold—most of them. People can’t get enough of your work, Mina. I’m proud of you.”
A strange warmth filled Mina’s chest, a sense of reassurance in Momo’s words. The pain, the fog, all seemed to dull beneath Momo’s praise. Despite everything—the hazy memories, the pain laced with uncertainty—the comfort of her words wrapped around Mina like a promise. It didn’t matter how hurt she was. Momo was proud, and that was something she couldn’t let go of.
The next day, Mina’s world transformed. Her work sold faster than she could keep up with—gallery after gallery clamored to showcase her pieces. Strangers admired her, articles praised her raw talent, and the haunting beauty she poured onto each canvas. For the first time, she paid off her debts, the weight lifting from her shoulders in one exhilarating rush. And yet, as much as she told herself this was everything she wanted, something felt... wrong.
Every day, Momo seemed to tighten her grip. She hovered over Mina, watching with an obsessive gleam in her eyes, her words laced with that possessive edge. "You don’t realize how big you’re becoming, Mina," Momo murmured, her hand lingering on Mina’s waist, mouth nipping at her earlobe slightly. "This is just the start. Our start. Think of what we can accomplish together."
Mina swallowed, feeling a strange mix of warmth and fear. “I—I appreciate everything you’re doing, Momo, but... sometimes it feels like... like I’m not even myself anymore.”
Momo’s gaze darkened, her grip tightening slightly. “That’s the price of greatness,” she replied smoothly, almost whispering in Mina’s ear. “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of throwing all of this away now. Not after how far I’ve brought you.” Her voice softened, almost tender. “I’ve put so much into this—into you. You wouldn’t want to disappoint me, would you?”
The words sent a chill down Mina’s spine, yet she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. Instead, she felt herself nodding, even as that hollow feeling gnawed deeper inside her.
Alone in her studio later that night, Mina’s gaze wandered to the cluttered corner of the room, where a bottle of whiskey sat, glinting in the dim light. She hesitated, heart pounding. The emptiness inside her seemed to grow, consuming every bit of joy the success had brought. She reached for the bottle, her fingers grazing the glass.
“Maybe... just a little,” she whispered to herself, as if reassuring the craving that throbbed beneath her skin.
She reached for the bottle.
Puke.
I can’t.
I need to stop.
My stomach twists, heaves, acid burning up my throat. I gasp for air, try to pull myself back, but my hand reaches for the bottle again, fingers shaky.
Mina? What is wrong with you?
This isn’t you. Get a grip.
Five shots. One more. Just one. I swear it’ll be the last.
But it isn’t.
It never is.
It isn’t enough.
I’m not enough.
She doubled over again, retching as her body betrayed her, emptying out whatever remnants she had left. The room spun violently around her, each breath scraping raw in her throat. Her fingers barely gripped the bottle, slipping with every attempt to bring it back to her lips, but she couldn’t stop. The numbness was fading too fast; she needed it to stick.
A wave of dizziness washed over her, her head pounding like a drum, each beat a painful reminder of her body’s limits. Just as she took another shuddering breath, the door swung open.
“Mina!” Momo’s voice sliced through the room, harsh and unforgiving. She stood there, her eyes narrowing with disgust as she took in the scene before her.
Mina lifted her head, face pale and tear-streaked, body trembling. “I’m... fine,” she mumbled, slurring her words as she reached clumsily for the bottle again.
Momo’s patience snapped. With swift, ruthless force, she kicked Mina’s leg, sending a sharp jolt of pain through her. “Look at yourself. Pathetic.”
Mina whimpered, instinctively clinging to Momo’s legs even as another kick bruised her ribs. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, her voice breaking.
“You’re ruining everything,” Momo sneered. “Artists don’t do this! You’re a joke if you think anyone will care about your art like this.”
Despite the pain, despite the sting of every insult, Mina held onto Momo tightly, feeling a twisted sense of comfort in her presence. Her heart ached with confusion and attachment, even as the bruises began to darken across her skin.
Mina choked on a sob, her voice breaking as she tried to form words. “Please, Momo… don’t go. I’m sorry, I’ll do better… please…” Her fingers clawed desperately at Momo’s legs, clinging with the last bit of strength she had. She screamed through her tears, each word laced with a desperation that shook her whole body.
But Momo only sneered, her expression cold as she yanked her leg away and kicked harder, her heel striking into Mina’s ribs. Mina gasped, curling in on herself, yet she still reached out, grabbing onto Momo’s ankle, clinging like her life depended on it. “I can’t… I can’t lose you,” she sobbed, her nails digging in as if her grip could keep Momo from leaving.
Another brutal kick, this time to her shoulder, sent her sprawling. The pain was blinding, her body shaking as she lay on the floor, wracked with sobs that echoed through the room. But even then, she tried to crawl back, to reach Momo, her voice hoarse as she begged, “Please… don’t leave me. I’m nothing without you. I’ll be better, I’ll stop, I swear… just… stay.”
Momo looked down at her, disgust evident in every line of her face. She stepped back, watching Mina writhe, her lips curling into a cruel smile. “You’re pathetic, Mina. Nothing but a sad, helpless little mess.”
Mina’s heart shattered, yet she still sobbed, crawling forward, her hands trembling as she reached out one last time.
You’re not enough.
Momo’s expression softened as she finally bent down, lifting Mina up, her touch unexpectedly gentle as she cradled the sobbing girl in her arms. Mina clung to her, a trembling mess, burying her tear-streaked face into Momo’s shoulder as she let out ragged cries. Each broken sob echoed through the room, and Momo’s hand stroked her hair, her voice laced with an unsettling tenderness. “Shh, Mina. I’m here. I won’t leave you. It’s all right,” she murmured, her words dripping with a strange, quiet control.
Mina was limp, her body still aching from the brutal kicks, yet she melted into Momo’s arms, needing the comfort even as her mind spun with confusion. She barely registered it when Momo led her to the bathroom, easing her down into the warm water, holding her steady as she washed away the remnants of pain and shame. Momo’s hands moved with an eerie gentleness, wiping away the dirt and sweat, fingers lingering just a little too long, each caress meant to calm but somehow unnervingly possessive.
Soft, delicate kisses brushed Mina’s forehead, her cheeks, her shoulder, as Momo whispered praise in her ear. “You’re doing so well. Everything will be perfect now,” she murmured. Mina’s exhaustion dulled her senses, and she clung to the soothing, surreal comfort, her grip tight on Momo’s wrist as she leaned back, eyes drifting closed in a haze.
Once bathed and dressed, Momo helped Mina to bed, settling her beneath the covers with unnaturally tender care. She stroked Mina’s hair as her eyes fluttered open and closed, still unfocused. Momo’s face hovered just inches from hers, the warmth of her breath soft against Mina’s skin as she murmured, “Sleep, my little muse. I’ll be here. Always.”
But just as Mina’s eyes closed, she felt something wrong—a chill that slipped through her bones, cutting through the comfort like a blade. She tried to ignore it, to fall into the warmth, but an icy dread clung to her, refusing to let go. In the dim light, Momo’s smile lingered, a little too sharp, her eyes watching with a quiet, unsettling intensity that lingered even as darkness pulled Mina under.
And just before she drifted into sleep, one thought clawed at her mind, faint but chilling: Something’s not right. This isn’t love—it’s something else.
It was an endless loop. Sell out. Earn money. Drink until numb. Over and over, Momo’s presence threaded through every moment—a vicious cycle of pain and comfort. Momo would lash out, her words and hands leaving marks that stained more than Mina’s skin. But then she would turn, almost as if transformed, wrapping Mina in her arms, whispering soft reassurances that kept her bound to this twisted existence.
Mina felt herself growing sick of it, her mind fraying at the edges, body worn down from the brutal highs and lows. Every morning, she told herself she would break free, but the ecstasy of drowning in racks of cash, of seeing her name celebrated and her art prized, held her tight. But something was wrong; she could feel it gnawing at the back of her mind like an unshakable shadow. She wanted it all to stop, to escape from Momo’s control, but the pull was too strong, too consuming.
Then, from somewhere beyond the walls of her room, she heard it—a loud, guttural groan, almost inhuman. The sound froze her, a sick, cold dread sinking into her bones. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t decide if it was real or just another illusion conjured by Momo’s games.
Six hours, 56 minutes.
10 minutes.
Mina laid in bed, her heart pounding, as she tried to drown out the muffled groans coming from somewhere in the house. They grew louder, each one more painful and desperate.
They grew louder, each one more painful and desperate.
What is going on?
She slipped out of bed, tiptoeing through the darkened halls, every step weighted with dread. Only one light was on—Momo’s office. A red glow seeped from the cracked door, casting long, sinister shadows down the hallway. She hesitated, a deep, gnawing fear twisting in her gut, but concern for Momo pushed her forward.
She reached the door and, holding her breath, nudged it open. Her eyes widened in horror.
Momo was there, her back facing the door, hunched over something. She didn’t look human—not entirely. Her skin seemed to shimmer with an unnatural pallor, her hair clinging to her in a way that was almost corpse-like. The room reeked of rot, a sickly-sweet stench that made Mina’s stomach churn. Artworks from various artists were strewn everywhere, slashed and torn apart, the vibrant colors smeared like blood across the walls and floors. But it was the sounds—the grotesque slurping, the guttural groans—that rooted Mina in place.
And then she saw it. Momo was devouring something—or someone. A figure stood crumpled beneath her, lifeless and drained. Recognition struck Mina like a lightning bolt. Chaeyoung. Her friend.
No, fuck… No..
A wave of sick realization washed over her. Chaeyoung had once mentioned a contract—a mysterious blonde woman who had promised her success. She was desperate, so deep in her suicidal and self harming thoughts that when she reached out It had seemed too good to be true. Now Mina understood, the horror hitting her full force. Momo was… the devil.
Momo groaned, her back heaving, and in one swift, primal movement, she tore Chaeyoung’s head from her body. Blood splattered, painting the walls in sickening red streaks, filling the room with the thick, metallic scent. Mina took a step back, bile rising in her throat, but the floor creaked beneath her.
Momo froze.
Slowly, she turned, her face a twisted version of itself. Her skin was ashen, her eyes bloodshot, the whites replaced by a sickly yellow. Her teeth jutted out in jagged, spiky points, drenched in fresh blood that dripped in slow, deliberate drops. There was something wrong with her form, something that resonated with an ancient, primal terror deep inside Mina. Momo’s lips pulled back in a grotesque grin, revealing a maw that seemed too wide, too wrong.
Momo’s bloodshot eyes locked onto Mina, a guttural, inhuman groan bubbling up from her throat as she took a slow, menacing step forward, her blood-soaked mouth curling with a twisted hunger.
Mina stumbled back, terror squeezing her chest, and then she turned.
And ran.
Mina kicked and thrashed against Momo’s hold, but her strength was waning, each movement feeling heavier as Momo’s nails dug into her throat, their sharp points like ice-cold steel pressing down. Her vision began to blur as Momo’s voice, twisted and cruel, came in waves around her.
Count your steps.
Why aren’t you counting.
Stop it.
One.
Two.
Fuck.
Six.
Six.
Six.
I lost count.
WHY CANT YOU KEEP COUNT.
“You think you can escape?” Momo’s voice was low and chilling, each word punctuated with a slow, mocking laugh that rumbled through the dark house. “You signed your life away, Mina. You belong to me now.”
The words rang in Mina’s ears, each syllable pulling her deeper into despair. The walls around them seemed to pulse and twist, dark shadows creeping along the floor, framing Momo’s figure as she loomed above her, her mouth stretched into a grotesque grin. Mina’s chest heaved as she struggled, the air growing thick, as if the house itself were swallowing her whole.
With one last surge of desperation, Mina managed to kick free, twisting out of Momo’s grasp. She stumbled backward, her legs shaking, and gasped for air, her fingers instinctively reaching up to her bruised throat. But Momo didn’t falter—she simply tilted her head, watching Mina with a sinister amusement, her eyes glowing with an unnatural, predatory light.
The room spun, flickering between reality and nightmare. Momo’s face shifted in the dim light, her features warping like melted wax, her eyes hollowing and darkening until they resembled endless pits. She grinned, her mouth stretching unnaturally wide, revealing rows of sharp, jagged teeth glistening with blood. And from somewhere in the depths of that darkness, Mina thought she saw something—an odd, fleeting look of sorrow, buried deep beneath Momo’s terrifying gaze.
Mina’s head pounded as her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She stumbled back, her body instinctively pulling away from the horrific sight. The walls began to close in, and the air thickened with the coppery smell of blood. Just as she turned to flee, she tripped, collapsing onto the floor. She clawed at the ground, desperate to crawl away, but the floor beneath her felt as if it were shifting, moving, pulling her down. She struggled, nails scraping against the hardwood, the sound of splintering wood and snapping nails filling her ears.
Momo advanced, slow and deliberate, her shadow swallowing the room as she leaned down. She grabbed Mina’s leg, her grip so tight that Mina felt a sharp, searing pain as Momo twisted her ankle, tearing at her tendons like brittle thread. Mina screamed, agony rippling through her body, she kicked back, dislocating Momo’s jaw to the side, but Momo’s gaze remained detached, almost bored.
“You’re worthless,” Momo snarled, her voice deepening to something inhuman, something that reverberated through the very walls. “Just a pretty little pawn… my puppet, my dinner.”
Mina’s vision blurred with tears as Momo’s hand snaked around her neck once more, lifting her up until her feet dangled just inches off the ground. She choked, gasping for air, her fingers clawing helplessly at Momo’s unyielding grip. The cold, stinging sensation crept up her body as her limbs grew weaker, her consciousness slipping.
And then, just as she was certain everything would fade to black, Momo released her. Mina crumpled to the floor, gasping, clutching her bruised throat as her head spun, the world around her distorted and fragmented. She blinked, struggling to ground herself, to make sense of her surroundings. The house was still, eerily quiet. No sounds of crashing walls, no shattered glass—everything was pristine.
She looked around, disoriented, her gaze landing on the mirror across the room. Her own reflection stared back, pale and shaken, eyes hollow with fear. She turned slowly, half-expecting Momo to be lurking behind her, but the room remained empty. The only sound was her own shallow breathing, echoing through the silence.
Had any of it been real? Or was it something else entirely?
A faint whisper echoed in her mind, Momo’s voice curling around her thoughts like smoke. “You’re mine, Mina. Forever.”
Her reflection seemed to shift in the mirror, just for an instant. And then, staring back at her, were Momo’s bloodshot eyes, watching her with that same unyielding, predatory gaze.
Six days.
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daisychainsandbowties · 1 year ago
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thinking about bea painting mary, again and again across the years, the change in bea's skill and in mary's demeanour easily allowing an observer to organize the pieces. bea learning blending and edge control, learning how to vary brush strokes and layer colours to add light and shadow, to give pieces dimension. mary's eyes softening, the tension ebbing from her shoulders, from her jaw, laugh lines pulling at a mouth that had been set grim for so long
she paints her in the aftermath. clumsy, at first, talking through her first few paintings while the brush is still resisting her, when the colors don’t wash together. a disharmony of hues, brushstrokes too blunt, too treacherously thin.
and, by some miracle, she’s not talking to herself. she feels ava sidle up behind her, hands slipping up under her shirt, taking a familiar path over a blunt crescent of scar tissue on her abdomen. linking her fingers loosely at bea’s midriff, up on the tips of her toes to see over her shoulder.
‘okay, talk me through it.’
this punctuated with a kiss to the nape of her neck, ava’s breath falling down past the collar of her shirt.
‘i’m’ - she loses herself a little in ava’s hands - ‘i’m trying to learn edge handling. it’s somewhat mathematical, i suppose, in that it’s about the relation between edges. you have to understand not only where you want to draw the eye, but also how. with the right technique, you can make some edges harder, sharper, or you can blur their boundaries.’
she’s working from sketches. precise, but lacking in flare. they’re spread out on the desk, drinking in the sunlight.
sketches of mary from so many angles. with her chin tilted up, eyes searching for sunset out the convent window. cleaning her shotguns or standing in a store sifting through tubes of paint.
(distracted then by a memory of ava sneaking her between rows of shelves while the owner stared grumpily at mary. whisper-hissing what are you doing?! as ava took down one of the acrylics and unscrewed the lid.
ava’s eyes dancing as she dabbed the barest drop of it onto beatrice’s nose. she could have dodged anyone else but this was ava, who is always and forever her weakness.
sighing, drifting in for an exasperated kiss. ava’s mouth tasted faintly of butter and honey, and beatrice pulled away without her breath, gasping. ‘we’re going to get into trouble.’
‘so? i like trouble.’)
beatrice takes out her canvas and she paints mary, trying to ignore the grief she keeps at the edge of her mouth - a shadow so razor-thin you can’t see it except in the washed-out light of sunset or the soft-footedness of dawn.
when beatrice sketches mary she finds herself drawing out each line in relation to something missing; an absence in the space beside mary, around which her body curves.
sometimes she’s halfway through painting a bruise onto the landscape before she stops. alway, then, the brushstrokes are certain. dynamic, drawing the eye in towards that blurry mass of half-remembered things.
ava tells her to keep going, when she finds her staring at another ruined canvas with the brush near to cracking in her fist.
stepping dainty through the apartment in her bare feet and an oversized t-shirt (lilith’s), stopping at bea’s easel. tracing her fingers over the dull purples that have blossomed as an aside from mary.
‘i don’t know bea. a bruise is just something that happens after an injury, and then it changes color. maybe you need to let it happen.’
so she does. layering dark blues under broken purples. using everything, to see what doesn’t work. oils, because she likes the thought of unearthing things layer by layer. the edges are all very sharp, only softening at the boundary line between mary and everything else.
phthalo blue and green, dioxazine purple with little hints of alizarin crimson inside. and maybe there is a second shape inside the cloud that rises up off of mary’s outline.
she’s imprecise, at first, more of an impression set against her sadness, but over weeks beatrice thins the layers and goes back again and again, adding and adding until ava drifts by one day, waits for bea to lower her brush before she takes her by the jaw.
they kiss so often but it’s always a dizzy thing, like the first daring stroke of color onto canvas.
and there she is, opened like a wound against the backdrop of her grief.
‘hi mary,’ ava says, speaking to the painting like it’s alive.
she reaches out, her hand a shape beatrice has learned to worship - that, the splay of ava’s fingers, the way her veins work over the back of her hand. the pad of her thumb and the heel of her palm. beatrice could paint her in the dark.
later she finds herself sitting at the kitchen table, staring at flecks of drying paint on her knuckles. a stripe of alizarin crimson following the soreness of overworked joints.
and there, a spot of blue that doesn’t brighten as ava comes over with a mug of cocoa and a bag of tiny marshmallows, dropping them one by one into bea’s cup. trying to coax language back out of her, and beatrice watches for one, two, three, four, five before she reaches out and finds the slender inside of ava’s wrist, thumb trailing over her scaphoid.
‘i love you.’ and from ava it’s a promise as much as a reminder.
beatrice makes a noise, manages to turn it into words.
‘love you too.’
ava gives herself a hot chocolate mustache and then, when they’ve settled into silence, when she’s watched bea tease marshmallows out of the mug with her tongue, she says, ‘i didn’t really understand what mary lost, what you lost in shannon. for a while it was just guilt. i didn’t want to understand, because then i’d have to feel bad about it.’
‘you don’t-’
‘no, i know. i’m just saying that the painting… it’s a good thing.’
mary cries when she sees it, ava phasing through the wall when the first tear falls, letting mary turn into beatrice’s arms.
she’s captured mary as she was years ago, leaning into shannon on the warm roof tiles. at peace, aglow, shielded by a dim halo of light. face upraised against a storm of bruise-blues threaded with that off-shade phthalo. silver shards and red strands and graying edges.
they miss her, together, and beatrice tells mary that the oil is only touch-dry, and it occurs to her that a painting is a bit like a wound. as with oils it’s a thing that opens and closes, building layers that have to fall away. like watercolour it feels out of control at first, but then beauty falls out of the disorder. sometimes the wayward drips only feel accidental.
sometimes the flaws are necessary.
and she does paint mary, again and again and again. consulting shannon’s old sketches, but painting always from memory. and gradually there’s the blending of colors and those soft and hard edges. that’s love, too, beatrice learns. bruising kisses and featherlight touch.
she learns, and one day there’s a painting of mary that they look at together. mugs of hot chocolate and mary joking ‘ah, she’s been training you’ when she watches bea flick a marshmallow out with the flat of her tongue.
blushing, and the painting sitting there as mary frowns and says, ‘why’d you never let me pose for you?’
beatrice, pausing with her whole body in that way that reminds mary of shannon.
‘i wanted to be good at painting from memory.’
‘why?’
and instead of answering immediately, beatrice leads mary into the spare room they’ve given over to storage. and there, lying along the far wall, are a dozen paintings of shannon.
dozing with her head in mary’s lap, or standing in the garden with dew dusting her ankles, painted mid-movement with her bō an umber blur.
'oh.' mary stands silhouetted against each scene. older now, and different, and still in love.
beatrice, aware that she's probing a wound, stepping up beside her. 'i just... i wanted to paint her.’
and memory is all that's left
mary turns, presses a kiss to bea's forehead, and they stand together surrounded by all that they've shared, and all that they've lost.
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alltoowelltom · 2 years ago
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tom holland x reader
| reader is colorblind and tom doesn’t know |
I tried to research color blindness but I was soooo confused so sorry if this is insanely unrealistic 💀
only main warning is mention of near miss crashes x
°:. *₊ ° . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ° .•
"And you know what he told me?" Tom says from the passenger seat, rolling his eyes as he tells you about an interaction he had with an interviewer recently.
"What did he tell you?" you ask, noticing the traffic lights up ahead.
The light seemed to flicker a little but was still a shade of green so you thought nothing of it, driving straight through.
"He said-" Tom is interrupted by the harsh beep of a few cars from your right.
"Shit, love!" he yells, wincing at the near miss as a car from your right slams on it's breaks so as not to crash into your side.
"What the hell?" you murmur. "It was still my turn to go, dickhead!" you pull the finger at the other driver.
Tom shrinks into his seat in embarrassment.
"You just ran a red light!" he exclaims. "And we almost got hit because of it!"
"It was green!" you protest, standing your ground. "I made a safe judgement that I had plenty of time to get through the intersection."
"Well clearly not!" Tom says, trying to take deep breaths. "You actually ran the red 'cause you were looking over at me. Like a Taylor Swift lyric."
"I was not looking over at you!" you defend yourself playfully, trying to ease the tension. "You're so vain sometimes, Tom."
He rolls his eyes, placing one hand on your thigh in silent apology for yelling, even though he'd bet his life on the fact that the light was red.
"Agree to disagree then, lovie. Just drive carefully, yeah?"
°:. *₊ ° . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ° .•
The second time Tom noticed something might be off was when the two of you were making breakfast together early one morning. You'd recently got a set of acrylics that Tom loved the feeling of scratching his scalp gently, but right now the sound of them against the counter was driving him insane.
"Love!" he sighed from where he was making the tea. "Can you stop that tapping along the entire counter? What are you even doing?"
"The damn bread tag has gone missing and I can't close the bag without it," you groan. "It was literally here when I put the toast in."
You continue tapping your hand along the bench to find it, nails clicking incessantly along the cool stone.
Tom puts the kettle down, walking over to where you are and picking up the tag.
"It's right here, hun?" he says, that one scruffy eyebrow raised in confusion.
"Oh my god, you found it!" you squeal, taking it from his outstretched hand and planting a quick kiss on his cheek in thanks. As you fasten the bread bag and begin to butter the toast Tom stands still, looking at your turned back.
"Could you really not see it?" he checks, remembering this is the second time you've entirely not been able to see something colorful.
"Nope," you say lightly, opening the pantry door. "You want jam or Nutella?"
°:. *₊ ° . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ° .•
Tom realized something was really wrong when the two of you were babysitting his young cousin one afternoon. She had ever so politely asked if Auntie Y/N could come and color in with her and of course you'd agreed, helping her set up her coloring pencils at the kitchen table as Tom leaned against the doorway, trying to pretend his heart wasn't absolutely melting at the sight.
"Auntie Y/N," she laughed after a little while. "Why are you coloring things all wrong?"
"Hmm?" you ask. "What did I do wrong?" The scene you two had decided to color was of Santa Claus and his reindeer and it looked perfectly fine to you, aside from a few scribbles and coloring outside the lines courtesy of the little girl.
"Santa's clothes aren't green" she giggles in that matter-of-fact way that kids love to tell adults they're wrong.
Tom steps over, intrigued at his cousin's words.
"I know," you say as you frown, trying to defend yourself. Why does everyone think you're crazy? It's getting old real fast.
"She's right, Y/N." Tom confirms. "You've colored in Santa's suit dark green instead of bright red."
You throw the pencil down, annoyed now.
"Darling, it's okay," Tom chuckles as he takes a seat next to you, taking one of your hands in his own warm ones, contrasted with the cool metal of the ring on his pinky finger. "I think you might be colorblind, is all. I'll see if we can get you an eye appointment tomorrow, yeah?"
You blink up at the ceiling, trying not to get emotional. Unbeknownst to Tom, you'd had the same sneaking suspicion that you weren't seeing colors the same as most people.
"I don't want to be colorblind," you whisper. "How am I gonna drive, how am I gonna pick my outfits…" you trail off, leaning your head on his shoulder. This is all a bit much for right now.
"Hey, it's okay lovie." Tom whispers, leaning his head on yours and rubbing your back gently with his free hand. "You're gonna be okay, I'm with you. You help me when my dyslexia plays up, so I'll help you if you get confused about colors, alright?"
You nod, unable to hide your smile as Tom presses kisses over both your cheeks until his cousin pretends to gag from where she colors the red on Rudolph's nose.
°:. *₊ ° . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ° .•
trying to get back into writing over these holidays but my work is understaffed leading up to christmas so i'm going to try my best.
tysm for reading, please consider reblogging or leaving feedback to help a writer out <3
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