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ybklix · 6 months ago

Text

hidden lovers

★ pairing: idol bf!lee know x fem!reader

✦summary: Minho and you have this little game of dating in secret, but keep a completely opposite image for the rest of your friends.

♡ genre - warnings: smut, mean and soft dom minho, established relationship, enemies to lovers briefly written; fingering, mutual masturbation, edging, oral sex (f. rec.), cunnilingus, orgasm denial, unprotected sex, creampie, pet names.

word count: 5k

╰ ⋆⭒˚.⋆ masterlist - taglist forms

୧ ‧₊˚request by anon₊ ˚⊹♡ secretly dating minho w enemy plot yesyes<3

a/n: i hope u liked it 🍮 mwahmwah, i think lino has a puddin in the pic lmao so cute

divider by enchanthings

It was pouring rain outside, it was one of those rainy summer days when you really missed your boyfriend, you wanted to be in his arms watching a movie or spying through his cell phone whatever he was doing. But he was busy, he couldn’t visit you so often because he spent hours at the company, he arrived exhausted at his apartment which he shares with three other colleagues and friends; plus it was that season when coincidentally the rest of his seven co-workers and best friends were more glued to him since it was when they were hard at work on their new album, so being so close to them, they usually tend to be insistent and ask in detail what he does outside of work and Minho, your boyfriend, could not risk them finding out that there is something between you.

So, amidst the heavy rain, your perfect signal fell with it; Han Jisung, your brother and one of Minho’s closest friends sent you a message, asking you for help with household activities in his apartment, blackmailing you while reminding you that he was the one giving you money, since he’s rich and an extremely important pop star and claiming that it was one of those days when they didn’t go to the company and Chan took the opportunity to put the rest of them to clean their respective apartments. You honestly didn’t think much of it, going to your brother’s apartment would mean you would see Minho one way or another, despite living in different apartments, you were pretty sure you would be able to see him.

You thought it was strange that Minho didn’t tell you that he didn’t go to work today, you thought he must have been busy ordering Felix, Seungmin and Jeongin to clean their rooms like little kids since it was your boyfriend who was in charge of the place. So anyway, you decided not to tell him and see him as a surprise; you dressed up perfectly, you haven’t seen him for days except through facetime and you really missed the closeness and smell of your man nearby.

You left your apartment and headed to the building of your older brother and his other almost older brothers, Chan, Changbin and Hyunjin and sighed as you passed through the wide hallway, the famous hallway reserved for the eight of them, only two doors on each side of the hallway, the place where they lived, you sighed, because you knew that Minho was probably in his apartment.

You knocked on the door, where a very confused Chan opened it for you, wearing comfortable clothes, with his curls and his face totally free of any traces of makeup.

“Oh, hi, Y/N, I didn’t know you were coming.”

His confused countenance gradually softened into a smile. He was confused as Han had authorized your entrance all the way to his door without previously letting anyone know you were coming.

“Yeah, well neither did I...”

“Come on in, we’re just cleaning up a bit.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s just what Han calls me for, apparently.”

You walked in and even Chan couldn’t help but watch you as you walked by, smelling your perfume and getting slightly lost in your bare legs through your short dress; which you were wearing only for, who they consider, your enemy.

“Agh, my dear sister who’s going to help me do the laundry and dishes, how good you look, have you eaten yet?” said in a fake and dramatic tone your brother, greeting you with an exaggerated expression of excitement and hugging you, which he never does and was just overacting and being funny.

“Fuck you, Han” you answered him as a joke, you were really there just to see Minho and you were starting to get desperate, you wanted to run into his arms and kiss his nose exactly where he had his little freckle.

Han changed his expression to an annoyed one as soon as he pulled away from you after his brief hug, “Hey, watch your mouth, I’m older remember. Also, why are you wearing so much perfume, are you wearing makeup?”

“I can’t believe you brought your sister all the way here just to help you” Chan interjected.

“Hey, Y/N, nice to see you” interrupted Hyunjin as he came out of his room and walked around the apartment.

“Hi” you replied sweetly smiling at Hyunjin.

“She came to see me, it’s obvious” you heard Changbin suddenly say, who came out of the laundry room, approaching Han and you.

Changbin winked at you and gently grabbed your waist, flirting and teasing you, making Hyunjin laugh. But Han didn’t find it the least bit funny so he opened his big round eyes in shock, raising his eyebrows, ready to exclaim in his typical voice:

“Ya, are you out of your mind? Get your dirty hands off my sister or I’ll kill you.”

Chan laughed at Han’s reaction, who was also joking, since he fully trusted each of his friends and knew that they were just playing around, he knew that none of the men he lived with every day would touch you and Han had a strict rule of not trying anything with you, since you were the closest to them, all the time living with them, a rule which they all respected since at least four of them also had sisters and understood the seriousness of the situation... however it wasn’t quite like that, Minho was the one who dared to touch you and would fuck you every day if only you could be together all the time and, for the rest, Minho was really the last option in the list of people who would even have anything to do with you, since for them, you two are enemies and hate each other. Plus Han would never agree to you dating any of his friends, you were strictly forbidden and he reminded them of that every chance he got.

Changbin let out a guilty chuckle and walked away from you.

“Well, I was assigned to do the dishes and laundry, please help me, my room is a mess, I’ll clean that up. I’ll buy you five Chanel bags, I promise, please” spoke your brother, you rolled your eyes and walked towards the kitchen without answering him.

Hours later, the night came and you finished without a problem, you handed the freshly washed clothes to each of them, you left the boys’ kitchen spotless and went a little frustrated to your brother’s room to see what he was doing, he had finished cleaning too, tiredly you sat on his bed, each time losing hope of spontaneously seeing your boyfriend and surprising him, so you thought about going to the bathroom to send him a message, saying you were there and that if he had the rest of the night he should spend it with you, making a little drama by reproaching him for not telling you he would have the day off, supposedly, since you knew he might be cleaning.

“I’m thinking of buying another piece of furniture and putting it in...” started to tell you Han, pointing to a part of his room but you decided not to pay attention at all,

And suddenly a voice, a sound so familiar that it filled every part of your body with excitement, you heard in the distance the typical whine of your boyfriend, followed by his manly voice in a soft whine saying, “Agh, are you guys done already? I really didn’t want to clean up today, why did you guys finish so soon?”

Han opened his eyes in surprise and looked at you with a bit of fear, he also recognized perfectly well that it was Minho.

“Is that Minho?” you asked suddenly, hiding every excited particle of your body, your heart pounding as if you were a young girl about to see her crush.

“Oh no… if you want, I’ll get him out of here before he sees you” Han replied and before you even thought how to stop him he was already leaving his room.

You quickly stood up and went after him.

“Ah, Hannie, let’s go get some dinner and let’s all eat it in my apart...” spoke Minho cheerfully as he saw his friend coming out of the hallway but he didn’t finish the sentence as his world stopped as he saw you coming out behind him.

And there he was, Lee Minho, looking as handsome as ever, in comfortable clothes and a bare face, his hair looking soft and shiny black. You had to contain your joy, feeling him so far away but so close at the same time; as did Minho, who held back with all his might a smile from his lips at the sight of you, instead, his expression tightened completely, furrowing his thick eyebrows, his thin lips pursed a little, his big eyes sharpened if that was possible, looking at you contemptuously and an irremediable tension for the rest of the guys formed in the atmosphere, they all looked at each other complicitly, amused and slightly worried, Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin and Han, moving their eyeballs quickly as they noticed you and Minho were looking at each other.

“What the fuck is she doing here?” spat Minho annoyed.

His tone and demeanor gave you goosebumps, just as it made your pussy throb, it really turned you on to see him upset, he looked so hot, you ran your eyes along his bare arms with your gaze, you wanted his veiny hands on your neck but you had to maintain your sanity and be tough, acting your best role, as Minho’s enemy.

“Minho be nice...” Chan said softly.

“With... that-her, never. Oh, and I see why you guys finished early. That’s unfair, you have a fucking maid” said Minho again in annoyance.

“Minho...” your brother replied in his sternest tone and giving him a dirty look.

“Actually, let’s all eat at Minho’s, that sounds good” you finally spoke, walking and teasing your enemy.

“You can’t come into my apartment” Minho answered you, his eyes dark with desire as he saw how pretty you looked and it made him feel so good to know you were doing it for him.

You knew that look so well, so intimidating and wetting you in seconds; while for the rest it was a look of hatred and spite.

“I’m hungry, let’s eat” Changbin added, approaching you two and gently squeezing your forearms as he saw that you seemed to have a staring contest, “Come on, maybe you’re just mad because you’re hungry.”

The story of you and Minho really was funny, you truly used to be enemies and hated each other; Minho met you when you were younger, for him, back in his trainee years, and instantly thought of you as a spoiled brat who was given absolutely everything, your voice irritated him, the way you acted, everything. You both had such similar personalities that you just couldn’t manage to match each other... until years later, the big revelation fell on Minho with the intensity of a crash, he liked you, you were so cute all of sudden and he also suddenly fantasized about beating your ass to stopping you from being so badly behaved. Your start of romance was so fiery, as you were suddenly confused by his strange behavior, flirting with you while still being rude to you and, since then, a year ago that you’ve been dating. And you decided to hide it for obvious reasons; although Minho had already told you that he had no problem claiming you as his own, that he loved to possess you and have you as his girlfriend, he loved the intensity in which you loved him.

And now acting like enemies in front of everyone and lovers in secret between just you two, became such an exciting game you couldn’t stop, you lived for the mystery and the adrenaline of never getting caught, and when the guys started joking that ‘those who hate each other end up falling in love’ —literally your situation—, Minho would be really mean to you again, but he rewarded you so fucking well that you even forgot why he apologized. Sex after fake hard fights was always the best for you.

Changbin led everyone to Minho’s apartment, everyone without truly thinking about why they followed him and the rest of the people who lived with Minho were surprised at the timely arrival of the rest of his friends and you.

“Woah, what is this? What are you guys doing here?” you watched Jeongin say in surprise as he slowly lowered the cell phone from his face.

The three of them were sitting on the couch in the living room, Felix, Seungmin and Jeongin, watching you enter with astonishment reflected on their faces.

“It looked pretty serious the way they all came in” Felix added smiling, “Hello, Y/n.”

“Yongbok don’t say hello to her or I’ll kick you out of the apartment” replied Minho quickly.

“What do you guys want for dinner?” spoke Chan.

“You’re not even invited to this house, plus I’m still not done with my chores” replied Minho directly to you, serious and a bit irritated.

“What you guys haven’t done yet? Let us help you so you can finish soon” spoke Chan kindly again.

“Minho hasn’t done anything, he just kept bossing around” Seungmin exposed him with a smile and pointing at him, causing a soft chuckle among his other two roommates.

“Kim Seungmin, count your days” Minho hissed.

“A whole pile of clothes to be folded is waiting for him in his room” Seungmin joked again.

“Shut up, Seungmin!” exclaimed your boyfriend.

“Y/n should go help him, it would be fun to see them not fighting for five seconds” commented Jeongin amused with his cocky tone and raising his eyebrows.

“Never, I’d rather burn your clothes” replied Minho.

“Yes yes, put them both in punishment” exclaimed Seungmin with a huge smile on his face.

“For all the nights they had their little fights every time we went out” Changbin continued the joke.

Hyunjin and Felix laughed, Han and Chan watched you both with amusement.

“There’s not going to be any more nights together because I’m going to kill every single one of you” mumbled your boyfriend.

You watched the scene, trying to be the strongest and hiding the immense urge you had to indeed see your boyfriend's room.

“No way” Chan lifted his shoulders, “You have to fulfill your duties...”

“Okay, okay, but who said I would agree to help him?” you spoke suddenly.

“Oh, yeah, you both have to go while we order food” Changbin sentenced, waking over to you to gently push you.

“Do it” you heard Han order you.

“Just because I seriously don’t want to fold all those clothes by myself...” whispered Minho.

You looked at him surprised, and with a face of indignation you followed him. But deep down you were just waiting for all the drama to be over and you could be alone with him.

“Wow, he really accepted her help” Hyunjin commented in amazement as he watched you walk to Minho’s room.

“Shut the fuck up, Hyunjin, I’ll cut your tongue out!” shouted Minho to which Hyunjin made a quick funny grimace in response.

“Try not to kill each other in there!” yelled Changbin.

You and Minho stood for a few moments near his door, looking at each other complicit and with your breathing heavy, so eager to be near each other; you watched him through the darkness of his room, diverting your gaze from his big bright eyes to the rest of his room with huge windows overlooking the city, his room was beautiful, after all he was part of a very important group and maintained his reputation by having a luxurious place to live in... and almost at one end of his bed, a pile of clothes waiting to be folded. There were few times that you had entered Minho’s room as privacy was very limited.

You were both waiting for the boys’ attention to be diverted elsewhere and, Minho recognizing and hearing that they finally managed to get distracted, he locked the door. Minho knew them so well and recognized perfectly when their attention was diverted to something new; their loud voices ceased softly as they were heard lower with his door closed and he without wasting any time, grabbed you by the hips, pulling your body to him.

You smiled broadly, once again with every particle of you excited to finally have him near.

“I missed you so much, baby, you look so good today” he spoke to you sweetly, leaning into you and kissing you.

You couldn’t answer him, your whole body went warm as you felt his lips on yours, you both missed each other madly and wanted each other immensely, so quickly the kiss became desperate and lustful, his sharp nose rubbing against your face, your hands wrapping around his neck and stroking his hair; Minho hugged you, leaving his hands on your back and slowly leading you to his bed.

As you bumped against the edge of his bed with your legs, he slowly let his body drop, making you fall onto his bed gently, both of you breathless, lewd with the temperatures of your excited bodies, Minho wanted to make you his now and you needed your boyfriend’s affection so bad that your weak pussy was so soaked and needy for his touch. Minho moved away from you a little, only to pull up your dress and reveal that you were only wearing your panties underneath it, you noticed his disapproving look, still he said sweetly:

“Settle in, princess, make yourself comfortable, so I can touch you better.”

You stirred a little, getting comfortable with his pillows on your back and Minho kissed you again, positioning his body over yours, sticking to you to the point of feeling his swollen hard erection rubbing against your sensitive center, he was kissing you so passionately, getting even for all the nights he had to spend it alone, when he had you as his girlfriend and he was partly able to come and see you, you taking care of him so well. You moaned softly as you felt his cock grinding into your pussy and, Minho being himself, he began to gently ram into you, rubbing and squeezing his member into your needy area, rubbing against your clit, causing you to lubricate yourself more and every muscle in your pussy to throb hungrily for your boyfriend’s cock.

Your groans were held between his lips, but Minho was fucking you slowly and torturously, moving his nimble hips against your pussy, leaving you so wet.

You both caught your breath, Minho watched your face slightly illuminated by the night’s exterior reflected in the window. You gasped, still watching him lovingly, placing your hands on his cheeks.

“I missed you too, Minho.”

“I know, sweetheart, sorry I was busy” gasped Minho breathlessly, enjoying his cock being compressed against the friction of the fabric of your panties on your pussy.

He moved his hand down to your pussy finally, pushing the fabric of your panties aside, reaching down to your entrance and smiling smugly as he noticed how incredibly wet you were. Minho bit his lip and inserted two fingers deep into you, making you moan and the sound of his fingers immersing between your lubed cunt.

“I want to fuck you so bad, princess, c'mon, ask for it, kitten. I loove to hear you beg, you know that, don’t you?”

“Ahh, mmm, M-minho, p-please” you sighed excitedly, his fingers were tickling a sweet spot in you.

You wiggled your ass gently, aroused to have your boyfriend’s fingers working on your sensitive vagina and exploring your insides, as you reached for the hem of his shirt, gently lifting his simple white t-shirt, stroking his abs; Minho smirked again smugly and abruptly slid his fingers out of you.

“You want to touch me too, don’t you, kitten?”

Minho drew a half smile on his face to which you only nodded in a trance, completely lost in the incredibly hot and sexy atmosphere created between you and your boyfriend. He hurried, taking off his shirt and quickly pulling down his shorts and boxers, exposing his very well erect cock, you could appreciate how needy he was too, detonating his veins and his pink tip covered by shiny white precum. You almost sighed, wanting to have fun in so many ways with your boyfriend’s cock, so almost reflexively you directed your hands towards his member, stroking it to feel its stiffness, causing sweet gasps to escape from Minho’s lips, you looked at him, in his face captured pure pleasure, so you wanted to get up, change positions and suck his cock, but he stopped you instantly, also almost reflexively.

“Ah, ah” spoke your boyfriend in disapproval, pushing you off your shoulder, “Be a good girl and do whatever I say and want, okay?”

Minho darkened his gaze more and said it in a tone so intense and demanding but being gentle with you that it made your body tremble in excitement, you bit your lip and nodded.

“Now, stroke my cock and cum in my fingers like a good princess” he spoke again, his dirty words made you throb again, “But... let me see a little bit your pretty body...” Minho licked his lips and abruptly sought a way to pull the straps of your dress to expose your chest, “You always look so good, baby” Minho let his gaze linger on your bare breasts and then came closer and kissed you again.

You were so distracted, blinded by the incredible pleasure built up in your body, busy with your mouths joined, your hands in stroking up and down his cock and, as soon as you felt again the tickle of his fingers touching your pussy, your hairs stood on end; Minho without stopping kissing you, inserted in your entrance three of his fingers, making you gasp at the sensation of your entrance stretching. He moved his kisses down, down your neck, his hot breath hitting your sensitive skin, until his mouth reached your breasts, licking them, sucking them and biting your nipple, while his hand on your pussy fucked you and his thumb caressed your clit, getting his hand and the thin fabric of your panties you were still wearing wetter and wetter.

“We need to discuss later why you only came in that tiny dress, in panties and no bra, to an apartment full of men, you’re such a very bad kitty, you need a little punishment, but you feel so good right now, I wanna make you cum” Minho said, exasperated and excited in your ear.

He was so aroused too, desperate for an orgasm as he felt your hands skilfully but a little clumsily touching all over his length, stroking his glans, his testicles, feeling every inch of him, which dick you were internally screaming for by wanting such a member to be in you right now, but you couldn’t deny it, you loved the way your boyfriend liked to play and entertain your pussy, ramming it with his fingers and crushing and stroking your needy, throbbing clit. Minho gasped loudly, so close to his orgasm whose he took the decision of delaying it himself, he wanted every drop of his cum inside you, so runny and thick drops of his precum fell on your bare abdomen; his cock was so swollen and throbbing and you felt it in your hands that, in a whimper you practically begged him:

“M-minho please fuck me, I need you.”

Minho smiled.

“Then cum to your first orgasm in my hand, sweetie, you can do it.”

He, being pushed to the limit by your caresses on his cock, sped up his movements in your cunt, desperately fitting his fingers deep inside you, enjoying your walls in his digits, the softness of your throbbing clit on his fingertip. You whimpered loudly, staring into his eyes, arched your back, so ready for your orgasm, every muscle in you squeezed with intensity.

“Are you about to cum, kitten? Do it now, come on.”

“Oh, ffuck” you squealed with a shaky voice, catching one last glimpse of Minho’s handsome face with a smug little smile, before your vision blurred and you rolled your eyes slightly back.

Your legs tensed, you squeezed his cock slightly tighter, only to release yourself in orgasm, squirting into his hand, just as he desired.

“Good girl” Minho commented smiling.

He withdrew his fingers and in one swift movement, slipped your panties off and without warning of anything, brought his face up to your pussy, licking your sweet liquid sliding down your hole. You moaned at the sensation of his thick hot tongue, of his lips sticking to your pussy to slurp hard from your entrance to your labia, feeling his high bridge nose rubbing against your core, Minho left his hands on your thighs and began to eat your pussy, raising his piercing gaze, watching with joy your body struggle with your heavy breathing.

This time you enjoyed every movement of his mouth on your pussy, his kisses, his soft bites, the intense sucking and licking; you were in paradise, his pace was hot and slow, little by little speeding up the way he ate your pussy, Minho was enjoying it too, getting harder on his dick, causing a little pain to his erect cock hanging in the air, in need of attention, screaming to cum, but the slight pain was turning him on more, he loved pushing himself to the limit, making you enjoy only you as you deserve it, besides he had this idea or theory, that he didn’t deserve to cum as he wasn’t being the best boyfriend these last days, he missed you and felt guilty for not being able to come to see you, and that you had to be the one who was looking for him.

Minho again sensed your orgasm so close, your gasps rose, honestly the noise didn’t bother him, the walls were thick and his friends were being ten times louder in the living room of the apartment. So he suddenly stopped having his mouth on your pussy, roughly wiped his face with his dry hand and got closer to your face.

“Don’t cum yet, princess, I need to fuck you now” he whispered, giving you a sweet kiss on your cheek.

You saw him in confusion, you couldn’t even groan because you instantly realized that you were finally going to have his cock inside you.

Minho repositioned himself again, took his member and began to tease your wet and needy entrance, stroking his glans into it, sliding it in so gently and just enough to get your hole dilated, but he would pull it out again. You whimpered with excitement and desperation as you perfectly recognized the game your boyfriend was playing.

“You want it don’t you?” he said amused with his typical smug smile as he saw your needy body and countenance, your pussy made a beautiful mess, your length so shiny from your wetness and his licking, your entrance resenting his tip inside you, “So needy for my cock.”

You whimpered, his broad tip slipped out of you and this time he grind your labia with his erection, rubbing himself on them.

“Y-yes, Minho, please, please, please.”

“Only because I’m the best boyfriend” he replied haughtily.

Minho slowly slid his cock inside you, you gasped, he was big and wide, squeezing your walls hard and stretching your entrance. He sighed, almost feeling a relief as he felt his cock around your warm core, he pulled his body closer to yours, wanting to feel your body touching his; he was so deep inside you that he almost took your breath away, still, he began to thrust you slowly, never leaving his depth and intensity, moving his hips to take you to the limit, caressing your cervix, and his balls rubbing against your exposed pussy. You tightened your legs and encircled his body, while your hands rested on his strong back, you both began to pant, his slow deep thrusts heating your lower abdomen, torturing you but sending you to heaven itself at the same time. Minho kept a pace that only he knew how made you go crazy, slow, then he accelerated fast, pounding you hard. You dug your nails into his back, you were so close to your orgasm; Minho sped up the movements of his cock in you, but as he felt your walls squeezing his member hard, he couldn’t take it, he gasped loudly in your ear and ejaculated, milking him dry every drop of his cum in an intense orgasm. You felt his cum instantly, your legs also squeezed his body tighter and you whimpered loudly, cumming again and covering your boyfriend’s cock in your so intense orgasm.

Minho left his head on your neck for a few seconds, then distanced himself and watched your pussy image after the action.

“So sweet and all mine” Minho said, looking down at his cock sliding out of your core, dripping the glorious orgasm of both of you in a glistening liquid; he moved closer to you again, to give you a sweet kiss, your mouth was dry, from moaning and breathing by it, but quickly Minho’s soft lips ceased any sensation, “I love you” he whispered into your lips, bringing your foreheads together.

You smiled, about to answer him something cheesy, but Minho’s doorknob turning sharply and banging on his door alerted you a little.

“Dinner’s ready, why is the door locked?” you heard Seungmin’s voice shout from the other side.

“Linoo” you now heard Changbin’s voice shout, “Are you okay?! He must be dead already.”

Minho sighed in frustration, “These idiots...” he muttered, catching his breath near your face.

—————-

𐙚TAGLIST: @rylea08 @hann1bee @iovecb97 @armystay89

2K notes · View notes

yzzart · 1 year ago

Note

Love your Tom blyth fics an unhealthy amount!!! I’m picturing reader and Tom being all lovey dovey at the premiers but playing it off as really good bestfriends UNTIL she goes to kiss him on the cheek and in instinct he turns his head to kiss her on the lips so they just say fuck it and hard launch there and then x

"An unplanned situation."

pairing: tom blyth x actress!reader

summary: a small gesture, with a sweet intention, revealed a promising secret.

word count: 1.359!

notes: i started this request in the morning and only had the opportunity to finish it a few minutes ago, forgive me for that, anon! — i hope you like it and of course, feel free to share ideas with me!

"Y/N, look here!"

Another request, among others, screams and countless flashes, was directed to you; being, theoretically, almost impossible to identify who had demanded your image. — There were so many voices mixing, not to mention the music in the background, but, you tried your best to pay attention to most of the cameras.

However, it wasn't anything you weren't used to; something that has already been normalized in your life.— And during the premiere of The ballad of songbirds and snake it was no different, and it was splendid; simply perfect. — Not to mention, the feeling of gratitude that grew in your chest.

Cameras and cell phones captured your every movement, your poses and the way your perfectly chosen dress was valued and highlighted on your body. — And how it matched the color palette of the film. — Everything was being recorded, at the exact moment, posted and commented on all social networks.

You had the opportunity to meet, talk and take photos with some of the cast. — It was so pleasant, the company and unity that everyone developed during the filming of the film was inexplicable and so adorable; you were grateful to have worked with so many talented people. — There were some people who were absent, until now, in your eyes, but you would definitely meet them again on the carpet.

And, of course, your eyes roamed the decorated room, matching the elements of the film, and crowded in search of a specific person. — It wasn't exaggerated words to say that you were starting to feel uncomfortable because he was missed; and the cameras recorded it. — Silent questions, which would be written, formed in the minds of the presenters and photographers.

Your boyfriend had yet to appear on the red carpet; perhaps he is giving a quick and curious interview or greeting someone. — That's what was going on in your head.

You and Tom had a secret relationship, ever since you met behind the scenes, in front of the world and all the cameras that may exist in it; something that was so risky and at the same time adventurous. — And that, as incredible as it might seem, you knew how to disguise it in front of your fans; even though they gradually became suspicious with comments, interactions and behind-the-scenes photos.

They were either smart or you and Tom were too far over the line. — This question was not important or essential for the moment. — And you considered each other best friends for interviews or responses to comments; you tried your best.

And so, Rachel sent countless screenshots of tweets, which talked about or mentioned the relationship between you and Tom, to you. — It's impossible to deny how funny it was.

Persisting in continuing to look for him and for a few seconds, your eyes meet his blue and so charming irises. — Its shade of blue was a magnificent and beautiful combination; something you would never get tired of admiring. —And there was no other thing, or anyone, that could take his eyes off you.

As if the only thing that mattered at that moment was you. — And everything around him simply disappeared.

"There you are!" — Tom walked towards you, easily as there weren't so many people on the carpet, and an enthusiastic smile forming on his lips; also accompanied by cameras and intense flashes. — "And so beautiful!"

Holding a part of your long and dazzling dress so as not to hinder your steps, you met him, and without wasting any time, hugged him. — A common gesture, and not so different or strange, for the spectators; so, you thought. — Tom's arms went around your waist, holding your protectively for a little while, while your arms positioned themselves around his neck.

Tom's fragrance, which you liked so much, filled your nose; it felt so good, and you felt your eyes weaken, contaminated by it. — And the british man was aware of that.

"You look perfect, always." — The older man distanced himself, just a little, and brought his face closer to your ear, wanting only you to hear. — "The most beautiful woman that has ever crossed my eyes." — The lenses probably captured a reddish pigmentation on your cheeks and it was not part of your makeup.

You placed one of your hands on his chest, and looking directly into his eyes; that shone at you, and it wasn't just because of the influence of the lights in your direction. — Tom's gaze was sincere, and passionate, intensely fascinating you. — He conveyed what he felt most with just his eyes.

And that was one of the facts about him that you were passionate about and recognized very well.

"Oh, shut up!" — Raising your hand and resting it a little away from your mouth, you laughed a little embarrassed and looked back at the cameras; remembering that they remained there and you knew that later you would see your interaction with Tom on some social media.

Again, a thing and situation you were used to.

"Look at that camera!" — A voice mingled among others, which requested the same request, asking you to take some photos together; something that would feed news, fans and press.

At no point, minute or second, did you and Tom remain distant or apart from each other; always a few steps close, hugging each other for photos and certain looks, completely indiscreet. — Even during brief interviews, as Blyth mentioned you or your character's work, you were silently watching. — One of the interviewers even commented on how cute she thought it was.

Tom's hand was on your waist, holding and almost covering you, making a quick caress in a few seconds and one of your hands was still resting on his chest; and you continued, of course, to be the focus of the cameras.

Quickly, with the intention of changing your pose and trying something new and also to take advantage of the fact that Blyth's face was almost close to yours, you decide to place your pigmented lips on his cheeks. — Such a cute and friendly gesture, and so common. —But, automatically and hastily, Tom turned his face away at the same time, without having in mind what you were, in fact, planning. — God, it was a shock; an absurd and completely intense shock.

For the first time that night, in that place and on those cameras, your lips touched Tom's lips. — It was very quick, good and surprising; and that definitely left a cold, freezing air in your belly accompanied by a desperate feeling in your mind. — Rumor has it that smoke was coming out of his head. — It was a peck, a quick and simple kiss.

When you separated, hurriedly, your eyes met Tom's once again; who were a little wide-eyed, expressing surprise. — Looking for something to say or do, just like you. — And you watched his lips curve into an almost smile, as if he was trapping him.

Shouts of enthusiasm and some possible whistles echoed throughout the immense place, along with some looks and expressions of surprise at what had happened. — And some people were worried if they had recorded the exact moment, of course. — Your fans were probably commenting frantically about what happened.

You really didn't know what to do but at no point did you move away from your boyfriend — now, official to the public — and keep your hand on his chest; as if it were, in fact, planned.

"A nice way to reveal it, huh?" — Tom laughed, relaxed and without a feeling of discomfort or uneasiness, he still had his hand on your waist; and he still squeezed you, then leaving you with another caress. — "I think." — He didn't look at the cameras, his orbits focused only on you.

They have always focused on you, regardless of what is actually happening; and that will never change.

"A nice way to reveal." — You repeated your words, but, as an affirmation and certainty; maybe, seeing how relieved Tom was, and not showing some kind of distress, your chest calmed down and you felt safe.

And soon, you and Tom became one of the most talked about topics on social media.

#tom blyth #tom blyth x reader #coriolanus snow #coriolanus #snow #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow fanfiction #coriolanus snow imagine #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus imagine #the hunger games #the hunger games x reader #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #ballad of songbirds and snakes

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thewritergx · 1 month ago

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Gentle Torture: Dbf!JoelxF!Reader Part 2

Part 1, Part 2

Summary: Joel Miller has been losing his mind since your father's party. When he's forced to check on you, he can't hold back anymore. Pre-Outbreak.

Warnings: Smut: Age Gap (Joel in his late 30s, reader starts out at 18), Dbf!Joel, Kissing, Oral (F!Receiving), Fingering, unprotected PinV, slightly rough, some overstimulation, choking. Pet Names: Sweetheart, baby girl, good girl, little girl.

Word Count: 3.5K

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

I have been obsessed with the dbf trope lately. This story is very much inspired by @pearlessance. Please go check her out.

Please feel free to like and repost. Click here if you’d like more stories from me. Text divider from @cafekitsune.

Days passed and you have not seen or heard from Joel once. You try to go on with your everyday tasks, but the memory of the shared kiss and Joel’s warm body pressed against you replays again and again in your head. You find yourself constantly looking for him, waiting to hear his echoed laughter as he makes dumb jokes with your father. You cannot help but overthink. Were you a bad kisser? Did you do something wrong? Did he hate you?

You tried to bury yourself in work. You scheduled as many hair and nail appointments as you could in the small town, even giving clients discounts. You knew Joel was avoiding you, all the same. That much was crystal clear.

Joel was a complete mess. Shame and anger guilted him. How could he have been so stupid? He was so possessive and desperate over you. Over his best friend’s daughter. It was pathetic. He could not get your little moans out of his head. Could not stop replaying the way you shivered at his light touches. Could not stop imagining what your little cunt would feel like wrapped around him as he plows into you. He could not sleep, could not eat. Jerking off was not even working anymore.

Joel hated that he had been ignoring you. He hated that he had to lie to your dad, telling him he was sick with the flu. He knew it was for the best, and again he started to question if there was any good in him at all. You were so young, so innocent. He knew it was wrong, so wrong. But you wanted him. Needed him, just as much as he needed you. Joel wished you hated him. Wish you had screamed at him and told him to get the fuck off you. Wish you did not let him cause those beautiful moans to leak out of you. He did not deserve it. Did not deserve you.

The days were dragging on and Joel missed you. Even missed hanging out with your dad. He was scared. He did not know if you ever wanted to see him again. Maybe it was just a one-time thing for you, something that just happened in the moment.

In the last few days, he left for work late, waiting until he heard your car pull out of the driveway next door before he even got out of bed. He came home late, an entire hour after he knew you would get home, just so he did not have to pass you outside as you walked into your house.

You were fucking his entire life up.

Joel sat idly at his kitchen table, nursing a cup of hot coffee and watching the news on TV. The sound of his cell phone ringing shakes him from the TV. He picks it up, annoyed to see a text from your dad.

‘Hey Joel, know you're not feeling too hot. I’ll be out of town this week on a work trip. I was wondering if you’d check on y/n while I’m gone?’

Joel's face darkens. Damn it. It's not like he has an excuse to say no.

‘Yeah, no problem. I’ll stop by when I get off later’ Joel responded, slamming his phone down on the table. Fucking great.

The day passes and you get home, excited for some alone time. You slip into a thin pair of shorts and a crop top, ditching your shoes in the doorway of your room. Your mind cannot help but wander to Joel. What was he doing? Where was he? You turn on the TV in the living room, curling up in a blanket, hoping it will distract you from him.

Joel drags his feet the entire day. He tries to stay at work as late as possible, but he knows it’s just slowing the inevitable. When he pulls up to his driveway, he can’t help but picture you inside your house, all alone. He knows he shouldn’t but his legs beckon him to your front door. He could just text you, and ask if you need anything. But instead, he was standing outside, hating himself.

A knock at the door startles you and you sit up straighter. You stand slowly pausing the movie as you step towards the door. You open it in shock, a tired Joel Miller in the doorway. He’s wearing jeans, boots, and a dusty work shirt. His forehead is slightly beaded with sweat from the hot Texas sun and fuck his skin is so golden. It is clear to you he has been working all day, dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey, my dad’s not here”, you mumble, hardly peeking out from behind the door.

“I know. He told me to check you,” Joel spoke calmly even though his skin was crawling to slam the door open, come inside, and have his way with you.

“I’m fine,” you responded with a roll of your eyes and a hint of fire in your tone.

Joel stands there, hands buried deep in his pockets, eyes locking onto yours. His gaze darkens at your tone, fist tightening into balls. “Text if you need anything. You know where I'll be.” His voice comes out with a low, gruff frustration.

“I’m not a child and I don’t need anything,” you scowl, closing the door harshly behind you before stumbling back towards the couch. Who did he think he was? He could be all sweet one second, kiss you like he was possessed, and then not talk to you for days? You were over it. Completely fucking over it.

Joel stands at the door for a moment, jaw clenched in anger, annoyance, and desire. Even when you were pissed at him, you were so fucking beautiful. So perfect. He thinks about knocking again but forces himself to turn around and walk home.

Joel lays in bed later that night, staring up at the ceiling in defeat. He cannot get you out of his mind. The way you looked at him so hurt earlier fucking killed him.

His mind thinks back to that night, your tiny frame and silky smooth skin. The way you came on his fingers, god the way you moaned his fucking name. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight and before he processed what he was doing, he was getting dressed and walking back to your house.

The moon cast a silver glow over the street, each stride Joel took leaving his heart racing. He swore he could feel his blood pumping and his ears rang. He stood on the porch praying you were still awake. He had no idea what time it was, didn't even bother to check his phone when he left. His chest grew tight and he gently knocked on the door.

Of course, you were still up, tossing and turning with annoyance in your bed. Joel didn’t know it but you were just as exhausted as he was. Your heart pounded in your chest as a quiet knock stirred you out of your daydreams. You quickly walk to the front door, flipping on the living room light. You looked through the peephole, surprised to see Joel, his head down. You open the door, slightly smiling.

Joel looks up, surprised to see you standing in a pair of black panties and a loose-fitted t-shirt. The sight of you like this drove him crazy, his mind going blank for a moment.

He’s so lost in you, he doesn't even realize that he's walked inside the house. His eyes roam over your body and he tries to think of any words to say.

“Joel…” you whisper, your voice soft and breathy. His name was a plea, a trembling surrender to him.

It causes Joel to snap back to reality. He takes a deep breath, his eyes wandering down to your exposed legs. It takes every ounce of restraint to not pull you into his arms and take you right here on the front door.

“Sorry, I-I came over here like this…Can’t sleep. I, fuck. I had to come see you,” Joel stands awkwardly, running a hand through his hair, his voice shy and sheepish. You had never heard him sound nervous before. Despite the obvious need he felt to touch you, he stayed locked in place, a few steps away from you.

“Me either” you muttered, nervously playing with your fingers.

Joel lets out a quiet sigh, his eyes scanning the room like he had never been here before. He’s completely unsure of what to say or do, his mind too drunk on how sexy you look in front of him.

The two of you stand in silence, both too nervous to move.

“Where have you been?” You ask, the environment of the room drying out your throat.

Joel shifts uncomfortably at your question, his gaze wandering to your eyes before landing on the floor below you. “Been busy,” is all he can force himself to respond with.

“Right, busy” you roll your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest.

Joel knows you don't buy it. It was obvious to the both of you that he was ignoring you. What the fuck was he supposed to say? He feels so fucking guilty. Guilty for ignoring you. Guilty for leaving you in the kitchen like that. Guilty for not being able to fuck you properly that night.

“Fuck, I’m sorry sweetheart. I shouldn’t have ignored you like that. I just…You don’t know what it’s like, even standing and talking to you, I can't stop thinking about taking you in that room and fucking you until you beg me to stop.”

Your skin grows hot at his words and you take a step closer to him. Joel's heart races, your body close enough that he can feel your warmth. He’s trying his best to keep composure but it’s getting harder and harder with each passing second.

“What are you doing?” Joel asks, his voice low and stuck in his throat. An involuntary shiver escapes him.

“Just need to be close to you, need to feel you,” The sound of the subtle plea in your words nearly breaks Joel. A low growl escapes him and in a second he closes the gap between you. His eyes are locked on yours.

Joel's hand cups your face gently, his tough hands so tender on your soft skin. “You have no idea how much I want you”. His toned body towers over you, a shiver rushing down your spine as he leans his head down, lips hovering an inch above yours.

He groans, finally meeting your lips, and all his resolve breaks. His tongue seeks out yours, nipping at your bottom lip. He explores your mouth, mapping out every inch, filled with a hunger Joel can't seem to control. His hands grip your hips, pulling you flush against him and his muscles quiver in an effort of restraint. He wants to take you right here, bend you over and fuck you from the back. But he knows he has to be gentle, has to give you as much pleasure as possible.

Joel’s arms wrap around you, lifting you off the ground with ease. He holds you tightly, placing your legs around his waist. His hands make a home on your ass and he carries you to your room, his steps slow and calculated in the dimly lit house.

He uses a hand to open the door and gently lays you on the bed. Your brain is all fucked out already. His eyes roam over your form, studying every inch of you like you might disappear.

Joel gently hovers over you, supporting his weight on his forearms as you resume kissing him. His lips explore your neck, making his mark on you with soft bites and sucks. You melt beneath him, moaning soft cries.

You lift your hips up, the thin material of your panties allowing you to feel the hard bulge in Joel’s sweatpants. He lets out a groan, allowing you to groan against him. He never wanted it to stop. Joel’s hands roamed down your body, leaving a line of fire in the wake of his fingers and he traveled from your neck to chest, to your waist.

“Such a good girl,” Joel praised, lifting himself onto his knees. He gently pulls at the soft fabric of your shirt. “May I?” Joel asks softly, meeting your eyes.

You nod your head, arching your back off the bed. Joel is practically crying when he lifts the t-shirt over your head, your perfect tits on display. Your nipples were the perfect shade of pink, erect in the cool air.

Joel swallowed hard, undoing the buttons of his flannel and throwing it off his shoulders. You had never really gotten a chance to see him without a shirt on. God, he was toned, his strong arms flexing with every movement.

Joel wrapped his lips around a perfect perky nipple, a sweet hint of vanilla to your skin. Little ‘ohs’ escaped you, your hand traveling down to Joel’s toned back. He licked at the soft bud, massaging the other gently. He didn't realize just how big your tits were til he was face deep inside them, leaving soft hot kisses on the fat.

He pitched your nipple, twisting it softly between two fingers. You relaxed into his touch, gently caressing his back and moaning his name over and over. Joel would never get tired of the way each letter spilled out of your mouth.

Joel released your swollen nipple with a pop, quickly swallowing the other. Your hips grinded against him more and you could only take so much teasing.

“Need more”, you pleaded, back arching and hips writhing.

Joel was quick to give you what you wanted, bringing a hand down to rub you through the thin fabric of your panties, dampness creating a dark circle at your entrance. Your eyes slowly move down, watching Joel’s hand gently massage the swollen outside of your pussy.

You whine at the view, Joel's large hand gently playing with your lips. He used a finger to hook the material, pulling your panties down in a swift motion. He tosses them somewhere, dragging his body until his knees are planted on the ground. He grabs your thighs, pulling you until your ass is just hanging off the bed.

“Bet you taste so fucking good. Gonna let me eat that pretty little pussy?”

“Please,” you whined, needing his touch more than air.

Joel placed soft, wet kisses on your thighs, wrapping his forearms around the back of your thighs, holding your legs apart. You stayed still, waiting as he blew cold air on your clit, gently separating your slippery lips when his fingers. His breath was a new sensation, your body craving more. His soft lips hovered above your pussy, licking a long thick stripe from your entrance to your clit. Joel's tongue was soft and warm against your sensitive skin, licking small cat licks between your slit.

Joel brushed his tongue in a circle around your clit, your hand gently grabbing at his hair and the other pulling at the blanket below you. He flicked his tongue up and down, left and right, faster than you could have anticipated. Loud slurping sounds filled the room and you wondered how Joel was even breathing.

His nose brushes against your clit, lapping his tongue at the entrance of your cunt without warning. He pushed it in and out, tasting every drop of arousal your pussy could provide him.

“Better than I ever fucking imagined,” he vibrated against your core, sending a shock wave through you. He hummed, tracing your clit again.

Joel licked the sides of your entrance, gently sliding the tip of his middle finger inside you. You let out a gasp, moaning his name and tightening the grip on his hair. Joel quickly found the best pace, paying great detail to the way your mouth hung open and eyebrows furrowed. Your legs clenched around him in desperation as Joel sunk his finger further inside.

“So beautiful,” he mumbled to himself. Joel couldn't believe he was knuckle deep in his best friend's daughter, a girl half his age…again. Fuck, you weren't even 20 yet.

Joel brushed the thought away, pumping his finger in and out, swirling and curling them to open you up as much as he could. He searched for your sweet spot, hitting it over and over as he lapped his tongue in your slit.

You bucked your hips, so close to release. Joel knew it. He pumped his finger faster, sucked your clit more, and spit roughly on your pussy, his saliva running down the back of your ass cheek.

Your orgasm shot through you, wave after wave hitting you like lightning. Joel’s grip on you tightened, unwilling to let you slip out of his hands until he was sure you had ridden your orgasm all the way through. By the time he came up for air, his hair was a mess and his chest was rising and falling, leaving him all out of breath.

“That’s my good girl,” He groaned, hovering above you and kissing you deeply.

God, he was obsessed with how responsive you were.

Joel stood at the edge of the bed, carefully removing his shoes and pulling down the sweatpants that hung loosely from his waist. You watched as he undressed, the bulge in his boxers undeniable. Joel Miller could not believe all the choices he made in life had led him…here. Standing above you, your legs sprawled out, pussy wet and glistening for him.

You swallow your nervousness, eyes locked on his member as he kicks off his boxers. His cock sprung free, precum gathering at the top. He was bigger than you imagined, not huge but definitely more than the average. Joel's cock stopped just below his belly button, the tip a shade lighter than the rest. He looked delicious, his balls a perfect size to slap your clit.

Joel smirked as he met your eyes like he was reading your thoughts.

“You done this before?” Joel asked simply.

You nodded your head. “Just a couple, with my ex-boyfriend”.

Joel hummed, a slight smirk painted on his lips. “That’s good”. Joel felt himself ease a bit, no longer nervous he was the first man to be inside you. It made him feel less creepy, less like a piece of shit.

“It’s been, kinda a while and he wasn’t… as big as you.” You whispered, your voice coxed with fear and trembling.

“That’s okay, sweet girl. I’m gonna be so gentle with ya.” Joel responded tenderly, placing a light kiss on your neck.

Your stomach fluttered in anticipation. He was so…new to you.

Joel stepped closer, hovering about you and bringing your legs up, bending them at the knees so your ankles hung next to his shoulders. He placed a soft kiss on your ankle, caressing his hand up and down your shin.

Joel lined his thick cock with your entrance, the tip teasing you. “You think you're ready for me, baby?” Joel asked, softly cupping your cheek.

You nodded in agreement, softly closing your eyes.

“Need to hear you say it, baby” Joel spoke, a serious tone hidden behind the layer of desire.

“I’m ready Joel. Please…put it in.”

Joel hummed in response, biting the inside of his cheek. He gently grabbed the base of his cock, pushing the tip just inside your tight hole. He was seeing stars already. God, how could you feel this good?

You inhale sharply, throwing your arms around his broad shoulders, and dragging your nails down with more force than you intended. You hoped it didn't hurt, but the thought of leaving a mark on him drove you crazy.

“Relax, baby. I got you. I got you.” Joel groaned into your neck, pushing himself further inside you. He placed a kiss on your lips, swallowing your cries of pleasure. Joel stayed in place as long as he could, his body screaming to push its way inside, fuck you until you were a mess of tears.

You have never been stretched out this much. Joel’s hard cock hit the back of you with a rough pressure, causing a yelp to escape you and your hands to reach out towards his stomach, pushing him out some. Joel tried to stay gentle but he knew you could take him. He grabbed your wrist, pushing it away from him and sinking back inside.

“Too big,” you cried, a single tear forming in your eyes as Joel pulled out of you, the tip crashing back down and hitting your soft walls. You were so fucking tight around him, you were practically sucking him in.

“You got it, baby girl. You can take it.” Joel growled, slamming gently into you with clenched teeth. “Take my cock, baby.”

The bed creaked below you, the frame hitting the wall with an audible thud. Joel pushed your thighs down, ankles bouncing with each thrust. He was completely fucked. He would crave you every night now. God, why was he doing this?

Your vision blurred, a jolt of electricity pooled in your stomach, a fire igniting so hot in you. “Fuck yes!” you screamed, creamy white arousal gathering at the bottom of Joel's cock. The sight sent him into hyperdrive, thrusting into you like his life depended on it. Joel paid your orgasm no mind, continuing his thrust as you whined and wiggle under him, completely overstimulated by his touch, the way his cock was hitting you at that perfect angle. You were sure you’d never have sex like this with anyone other than him again.

“Fucking good slut, taking me so well,” Joel growled, his thrust too hard for you to handle. “Told you, you could” Joel laughed, wrapping a hand around your throat and giving it a light squeeze. You gasped, swallowing as air slowly escaped you. He knew he shouldn't be here and this was why. He was trying so hard to be gentle, but he still couldn't stop himself from making a complete mess of you. Before you knew it, you were screaming out his name again, tightening your walls around him and cumming harder than ever before. “Ah!”, you whined, feeling Joel crash into your cervix hard.

Your high-pitched moans reduced to soft cries, hips bucking, pleading for a break. You tried to wiggle out of his grip, tried to push him off a bit, but Joel was unmoveable. He grabbed your wrist, pushing them above your head and holding your hands in his. His finger intertwined with yours, engulfing you in his grasp. You clenched your walls around Joel, body almost rejecting his thick cock.

“Love this cunt, baby. Fucking love ya” Joel growled into your neck, his thrust becoming messy and uneven. “Fuck, gonna fucking cum baby. Where you want it?” Joel asked, sweat pulling at his forehead. He had hoped to last long, craved to have you cumming over and over again around him. But you were so warm, so fucking tight around him. He would have believed you if you told him you were a virgin.

“Oh fuck,” you cried Joel’s dick hitting you with so much force you thought you might be bruised.

Joel groaned, pulling his cock out and quickly cumming on your stomach before you got a chance to process what was happening.

“Goddamn, you were made for me,” Joel whispered, crashing on the bed next to you and pulling your shaky body on top of him. "My sweet little girl."

You stay like this for a while, Joel gently caressing your hair as your eyes get heavier and heavier. Finally, you both could rest.

#smut #joel the last of us #joel x reader #joel #joel tlou #joel miller #joel miller x y/n #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us hbo #tlou fanfiction #joel miller fic

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safetynetwireless · 2 years ago

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dcxdpdabbles · 2 days ago

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I am feral for fake dating au and alley boyfriends goes so hard, I am on my hands and knees begging for a part 3

Tim's afternoon meeting gets canceled due to three of the members coming down with the flu. Usually, he would have just sent them a recording of what they missed, but since the three were presenting and the meeting was meant to be with the five department heads, he feels it would be best to reschedule.

There was only so much HR could report to him, after all. This meant he had the entire afternoon off.

Tim usually uses the free time he finds himself with to get a head start on other work. Maybe even some crake some cases. But today, he knew Danny was off from his job. His roommate was likely at home watching that new show he really got into.

Last night, he explained the entire plot over their dinner- Danny came from one of those families that always ate dinner at the same time- and went as far as to reveal fun facts he learned about the production team in charge of his show.

Tim didn't understand why Danny was so excited to know the lighting effects used only for a particular character. Nor did he find it as fascinating.

However, watching him get excitable was endearing enough that he listened to the whole thing. Then, he sat down to watch the show, finding it adorable that Danny couldn't stop speaking to the screen as if the characters could hear him.

Tim stares at his computer screen, trying his best to get himself to focus. The data sheets needed some work, but he had two weeks to complete it, and he really wasn't in the mood to verify so much work if he wasn't completely focused.

He glances at the clock, watching the little red hand tick. He insisted on having a face clock in his office instead of just having an electrical one because he found the ticking sound comforting.

Now, it merely annoyed him. That only happens when he's been trapped inside the office for too long or gone out as Red Robin so much he neglected his Tim Drake side. He could take the afternoon off, but what fun would that be?

He had also been trapped at home for a long time, working remotely whenever he could. Tim wanted to go out, but he didn't want to do that alone.

It would be so dull to just go to the same places on his lonesome as it would be sitting in his office or in his room. He could play video games or watch a movie with his roommate, but it wasn't the same of getting outside for a little while

His eyes landed on his cell phone. He could call Danny and ask if he wanted to go out today, but he had no idea what to do. He could take Danny shopping again- apparently, his roommate had no actual use for suits at his barista job, so the two had gone to the mall and gotten him some jeans and t-shirts, but the other seemed tired of that the last time.

Tim didn't want to spend money at the movies either because he wanted to do something active. The problem was that Danny hated spots with a passion and wasn't one for hiking or walking. They could go to a place to eat, but going out just for food wasn't something they could fill a whole afternoon with, not to mention Gotham's cold wave had most of the hang-out places closed until summer.

How hard was it to think of something to do in a city this big?

His eyes shift over to his computer before he caves. He quickly changes the docking station on his work computer to his personal laptop, eyes dancing between his two monitors.

He types into the search engine Where to take your roommate in Gotham City.. The first result is a list of locations, but Tim finds that they are all well-known tourist places, which is something he would rather avoid. He's just not up for a big crowd.

The following result is restaurants to try, which again isn't enough to fill the entire afternoon with- he notes to visit the ramen place because Danny mentioned he wanted to have some three days ago. He grows irritated with the similar lists he clicks until he stumbles across a new store that opened only a week ago.

It's new enough that most people don't know about it, which means they could enjoy a fun new activity since it is a random Tuesday.

Tim checks the store times, confirms that they could be there for a few hours and then reaches for his phone. Three taps later, a dull ringing sounds in his ear as he waits for Danny to answer.

Initially, he didn't want to go shopping, but he thought Danny would enjoy this shop more than any clothes store.

"Yellow?" Danny chirps in his ear, warm and bright. His voice reminds him of the comfortable nights when he's brewing Tim a lovely London Fog Late.

At once, Tim feels himself relaxed. "Hey, Danny. I have the afternoon off. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out?"

"Oh, sure! What do you want to do?"

Tim looks up at the screen. "How would you like to go to a place that lets you design your own succulent and offers an entire room filled with decorations to personalize it?

"I'll be ready in fifteen minutes!" Danny shouts the sound of crashes accompanying his voice as he likely leaps from the couch. "How expensive is it?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. I'll pay for everything." Tim tells Danny just as Tam and three interns wander into his office. He holds up a finger at them, listening to Danny loudly proclaim he wants to be the one to treat Tim.

It's sweet, but Tim had so much money he didn't know what to do. Danny was saving up to buy his own car- and the last time Tim offered to buy him one, his roommate had refused to make him the Red Robin Rush for a week.

"Don't worry about money, Danny. Just get dressed, and tonight, you can make it up to me the usual way." He says, feeling a slow, smug smile spread across his face as Danny rushes to the coffee station to check through the tea they had.

"I'll do something even better. It's a new trick I picked up, but it's guaranteed to keep you up all night." Danny tells him as he fumbles with his clothes- likely changing- which is loud enough to echo from his phone speakers. An intern shifts, uncomfortable on his feet.

Tam raises an impressed eyebrow, which, for some reason, makes Tim slightly embarrassed. His face turns a bit red as he hastily tells his roommate. "I should be picking you up in an hour."

"Wait, what do I wear for this? I will not repeat O'malley's."

Tim's face turns redder at the reminder of last week's blunder. It wasn't his fault that what he considered casual clothes were what Danny thought were formal. He told the man to meet him at the restaurant after work, not considering it upscale since it was only served dinner, and once again, Danny's outfit had him stopped at the door by a worker who didn't think he was dressed the part.

"Just wear that outfit I like. The blue one." He tells him about the black sweatshirt with blue stripes and a fluffy black and blue sweater. It was the warmest, most stylish thing Danny women meant for streetwear, and he knew it would be a bit chilly in the evening.

"Alright. See you soon. Text me when you are outside. Byeeeee"

"Bye," Tim hangs up and offers the three interns and impressed secretary a sheepish look. "Sorry about that. How can I help you?"

Tam steps forward, waving a hand at the two young men and single women older than him by a few years. They straighten up as his PA speaks. "I just wanted to introduce the interns that start tomorrow; it won't take more than five minutes if you have to be somewhere soon."

"It's lovely to meet you all. " Tim smiles, ignoring the wide-eyed stare the one on the left is giving him. The introductions don't take long at all, but Tim still feels restless when he grabs his coat and rushes past Tam's empty desk. He leaves a note on her desk telling her he took the afternoon off and practically skips down to the parking garage.

He is unaware of the rumors circulating among his employees after a particular intern on the left let it slip he overheard Mr. Drake talking to his lover like their relationship was....like that. He is even more unaware that the second he picks up Danny from the front of their building, five shadows break into his penthouse and search the place for any drugs.

He is too busy picking out crystals with his roommate, who babbles about their effects on ghosts, memorized by his silly random knowledge again.

Meanwhile, Bruce is horrified to find some green liquid in the second bedroom. He's not sure why Tim or Danny have to separate rooms if they truly are lovers, but the fact this was hidden in the room by the other boy gives Jason's idea of Tim living with his dealer aan uncomfortable amount of credit.

He returned a sample to the Cave when his other children reported nothing. They refrained from planting any bugs just because Tim would find them, and it would stop him from trusting them should they have to give him a proper introduction.

Upon conducting some tests, despite the similar appearance to the Lazarus pits, results showed it's closer to the formula of Mr. Freeze's ice ray but in liquid form.

Why would Fenton hide this? What was he up to? Did Tim know that Fenton had cut an entire part of the wall to hide jars and jars of this goo?

#dcxdpdabbles #dcxdp crossover #Alley Boyfriends #Part 5 #Tim and Danny are not helping the rumors #Guess who forgot that this was just to throw off his family scent and has yet to introduce his family?#Danny likes plants and crystals #Tim is finding a better work and life balance #Tim could listen to Danny ramble for hours #Remember Danny is hiding his powers #Bruce is getting closer

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husbandhoshi · 1 year ago

Text

title: eat. play. love.

pairing: seungcheol x f!reader

wc: 19.4k

summary: being one of new york's top food critics comes with a lot of perks: free dinners, nice awards, and a linkedin profile your parents could be proud of. that doesn't stop you from wanting a lofty promotion to editor, and the only person standing in your way is choi seungcheol. just one problem: his romance column has half of new york under his grimy little thumb. that, and you hate him.

in which your love language is food. seungcheol doesn't have one.

notes: romcom with mild angst, coworkers!au, slow burn enemies to lovers, playboy!cheol, suggestive (one moment in particular) + mentions of sex (otherwise sfw), swearing, lots of alcohol, also you will probably get hungry reading this. extra special thanks a million times over to my fav person @wuahae for bearing with me through literally all 20k words of this. i love you:')

It's underneath a layer of paper-thin egg yolk pasta where you think you see god.

Spoon meets whipped ricotta, white truffle, sage oil. A sip of 1979 cabernet, punishing and oaky. Rinse and repeat.

None of these words are in the Bible, yet you are having nothing short of a religious experience.

"Well, this seems like good news for the place," Jeonghan says. "Wine's tasty. Three stars?"

At this point, you're fairly sure Jeonghan has tuned the explanation of your elaborate rating process out (he's there for the wine, anyway), so instead you top him up and help yourself to a generous portion of his pappardelle.

"Four, then?" He leans forward on his elbows. "Or critic's choice?"

Candied lemon, pecorino, garlic. Derivative, but it's a good bite.

"You're distracting me." You point your fork at him. "You're like 80% alcohol, anyway. Bad opinions."

"Sue me," he laughs. "I would take a client here, is all I'm saying."

You pass on the opportunity to bring up that Jeonghan once brought a client to a Bubba Gump because he was craving coconut shrimp. But Jeonghan isn't a food critic—he's a business analyst and your best friend from college, back when all you cared about was Friday's house party and writing pizza joint reviews for the university paper.

It's a good arrangement. You appreciate his company, and he's never one to turn down a free meal. The both of you keep a small circle—such is the price of discernment.

There aren't many things that can come between you and a delicious meal. But, you have notifications turned on for just three things (all work-related) and you both watch the linen tablecloth light up under your face-down phone in true horror-movie fashion.

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. "Popular on a Saturday night," he jokes. "Copy on your ass again?"

"Nothing's in production," you reply, letting the evil claws of your terrible work-life balance encircle you once again as you open your email.

URGENT: LIFESTYLE EDITOR TRANSITIONAL PLANS, it reads. It's from Wonwoo, your editor in chief, who has sent it with priority, as if the caps lock wasn't scary enough.

"So Joshua decided to quit. Just like you said," Jeonghan says, but it's like he's speaking to you through a wet paper bag because it takes every working brain cell of yours to read the email.

As you may know, Joshua has decided to step down from his position as our current Lifestyle editor.

Not a surprise, given his wife is having a kid. You had called it six months ago over the paper's Christmas dinner at Eleven Madison Park, when Joshua spent half of it outside on a phone call and the other half browsing the Baby Gap website.

I have decided to hire internally to fill his position. I and upper management believe you would be a good fit for the position. Please plan for a meeting 9 AM Monday to discuss transitional plans.

It's that part that you have to read over three times. And then you read it over a fourth, just for good measure.

"You're starting to scare me." Jeonghan puts down his glass, which is something akin to a baby separating from their bottle.

Sometimes you need a dictionary to understand Wonwoo, but the email seems clear as day to you. Good fit. Transitional plans. Suddenly you wish Jeonghan hadn't had so much of the wine because you're in desperate need of a drink.

"I-I think…I think I'm getting promoted."

How funny to think your lifelong dream would be realized over a 40 dollar plate of pasta. You want to cry and hug the maître d' and eat the entire complimentary bread basket.

"It's about time." The glass finds his relieved hand again. "You breathe journalism. I'm afraid one day you'll text me in AP style."

You read over all of it again, trying to memorialize the words that undoubtedly will launch your wonderful and long career in the upper echelons of media.

Looking forward to talking with the two of you.

Wait—two?

Then the proverbial cherry on top, the laughably convenient other thing your eyes had glazed over before.

CC: Choi Seungcheol.

"Choi Seungcheol?!"

Nothing is ever that easy and it then dawns on you that this is a competition type thing because never in the history of the printing press has there been two editors for a section.

Jeonghan stares at you blankly. It would be funny if you didn't feel like you were being double deep-fried like terrible fair food, all the thrill and elation of the moment boiled down to lead in your chest.

"I—he," you stammer.

Jeonghan mouths check to the poor waiter assigned to watch your table. God bless him.

"Words," he tells you. "You went to journalism school."

You take a syrupy breath that sits in your lungs unhappily. Your food is cold. This is a disaster.

"Well, actually, I'm not getting promoted."

Jeonghan's eyes soften, just enough without making you pity yourself more.

"There's this guy," you start. "He's the love and relationships columnist, the one I complain about all the time." Jeonghan makes a small ahh sound, your predicament finally dawning on him. "I guess we're both under consideration for the position. I didn't-I didn't even think of him. I—"

You slump into your seat, the arancini your only solace despite your complaint that the breading was too salty earlier.

"So? I bet you're a way better fit than him. It'll be a shoe-in. Easy decision."

Jeonghan's confidence in you makes you want to cry.

The problem is that Seungcheol is the human equivalent of Cosmopolitan Magazine. You can't recall the last time he walked into the office with a fully buttoned up shirt. You also can't recall the last time one of his advice columns wasn't in the end of quarter recap for popularity.

It's not in you to explain this debacle to Jeonghan. This whole situation is so cosmically awful that all you can do is ask for dessert in a takeout box and watch Jeonghan calculate tip without a calculator because that's all you learn in business school.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jeonghan asks when you're both in the Uber.

"Yeah." You have a headache. You also can't decide whether or not to give the restaurant three or four stars, and you always know by the time you're out the door. "It's fine."

The tiramisu is cold in your lap. Jeonghan squeezes your shoulder. You refresh your email.

Choi Seungcheol's name stares back at you.

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The meeting goes exactly how you would expect.

Wonwoo, in his lanky taupe sweater vest, says that Joshua is leaving and you and Seungcheol are standing toe-to-toe in the space left behind.

"I'm sure you two are well-acquainted," he begins.

You stifle a laugh, but Seungcheol's cat-like grimace says more than enough. Neither of you have the heart to tell Wonwoo that your very first impression of Seungcheol was that he tried to hit on you at the new recruit party, or that Joshua probably deserves reparations for how often he mediated fights between the two of you during weekly meetings. (Maybe not reparations, but at least an Edible Arrangements.)

For better or for worse, Wonwoo's genius does not extend to social cues, and he follows with a blithe, "Therefore, I hope you two will treat this as a friendly competition between equals."

You almost laugh again, but this time it's because you need the promotion more than you need air, and you cannot allow some Buzzfeed reject with the face of a model take that from you. And you don't doubt Seungcheol wants it as bad as you do, considering how often you've seen him try to schmooze his way up the ranks.

He may have become a columnist by rubbing elbows with the right people, but you'll never forget the late nights you spent sifting through hours of interview transcripts, on the grueling climb up the totem pole to earn your position.

"We'll evaluate an article of your own submission at the end of the month before we decide. Best of luck."

At least Wonwoo knows to quit while he's ahead—he closes the meeting with a succinct nod before returning to his seemingly infinite unread emails.

"Exciting," Seungcheol says. He claps his hands together, Rolex gaudy under the office lights, and sends a nauseating smile your way. "May the best writer win."

He offers you a handshake. You think he has real life cooties, so instead you close your planner and shoot him a very pointed look.

"There's only one writer here. Thrilled to read your next thinkpiece on how men should spend more time on Tinder and not therapy."

That earns you a chuckle from Wonwoo, but Seungcheol is not easily fazed.

Instead he rushes to hold the door open for you on your way out, likely his favorite piece of advice to give his poor, indolent readers.

"I'll book a table for us at Avra next month," Seungcheol gloats. "Consider it a gift from your future boss."

"They don't have a kids menu, you know."

"No problem. I'll have my darling food critic order for me." He places a wicked hand over his polyester covered heart. "Ending misogyny in one fell swoop, huh?"

You wait for the door to Wonwoo's office to close before looking at him right in his wet, cow eyes with the most malice you can possibly muster. You feel it collect in your bones, enough to feel like you can physically hack it up and hurl it at him.

"You have no clue what you're talking about, huh? Do you actually attract women with that attitude? Or are you just a really good liar?"

You are so close to him, you could kiss him if you wanted—luckily for the both of you, you would rather die a thousand fiery, terrible deaths, and then die all over again. Instead, you watch his pout unravel into a grin from hell, and he leans in closer, the scent of Old Spice and break room coffee heavy on him. This morning's matcha latte churns in your stomach, and you wonder if you should have gotten oatmilk instead of dairy.

Up close, he's worse. His hair reminds you of the sad, tired swoop of the washed-up lead of a daytime soap opera. And he has no pores, which is deeply upsetting because he looks like the type to wash his face with Palmolive and a prayer.

"You know what?"

His breath hits your lips and your skin prickles like you have an allergy.

"What?"

"You just gave me the winning idea for my next column." No way, you think. Mind games. Classy. "See you at dinner, sweetheart. Looking forward to it."

The pet name makes you seethe. There are a million things you want to say, all colorful and none workplace appropriate.

"I'd rather starve."

"Better not let Wonwoo hear you with that bad attitude. I'm sure management loves a team player." His cheshire grin somehow gets bigger, all white teeth and pink lip. "Try to smile a little, huh? Have fun writing about snails and black garlic and cwa-ssants, or whatever it is that you do."

you watch all the laminated syllables of croissant go through his paper shredder smile and you think you black out.

He spins on his heel triumphantly, almost bowling over Minghao from Arts & Entertainment, who is undoubtedly wondering if you did, in fact, kiss.

Seungcheol laughs as he walks away, linebacker shoulders rippling under his one size too small shirt.

The metal-red knot of anger swells in your gut as you watch his perfect silhouette and his tiny little waist disappear into the staff room. Then you realize what you've been looking at and let yourself get mad all over again.

He does have a nice ass, though. You'll give him that.

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"You'll never guess what I have."

"Is it better than this lox bagel?" You answer, mouth unattractively full.

Seungkwan's answer is the sound of a straw hitting the bottom of an empty cup and the grating jostle of ice. Phone calls with him are like ASMR because he's always doing a million things at once, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

"Infinitely," he finally says, after procuring the last milliliter of what's likely his second coffee of the day. "Besides, we all know pesto is way better."

"Wrong, but okay," you reply. "What is it?"

"You're not gonna thank me for being the best friend in the world? Me, an editor, keeping nepotism alive for you? A mere columnist?"

"Senior columnist," you laugh between bites. "You need me. Who else would you text during content meetings?"

"Whatever." His eye roll is audible. "I guess I won't tell you."

He shakes his cup again, all ice and no patience.

"Fine! I owe you. My career and my life."

"And a seat at Momofuku."

"And that."

You take another greedy bite, letting the everything on an everything bagel get all over your chin. You love dressing up and going to restaurants that cost more than both of your kidneys, but there's something sacred about eating a $10 bagel behind the shield of your computer screen at a cafe where no one knows you.

There's someone laughing really loudly somewhere, and if you weren't otherwise preoccupied, you would look for the offender and give them a hard glare. You don't know what could possibly be that funny at 9 AM, but, then again, you never were a morning person.

"So, I have intel. About Seungcheol." You can picture the glint in Seungkwan's eyes, glittery and caramel. Unfortunately, the news that it's related to your worst enemy makes you sit up a little straighter. "At today's content meeting, Joshua said that he's working on some kind of challenge to go on as many dates as possible. He might make it a series."

"How tacky," you say, but the information clanks around in your brain like shoes in a washing machine. The indulgent, clickbaity headline just falls together perfectly—I Went On 50 First Dates So You Don't Have To. Exactly the kind of article your mom sees on Facebook and sends to you.

"You have to admit it's a decent idea. Not as good as yours, but it'll get engagement," is Seungkwan's reply, but you can barely hear it over the swell of another sitcom-esque laugh, this time, from a woman. "The other editors are very invested in this whole thing, by the way. Of course, I'm betting on you."

You're about to very openly stress about people gambling on your success when your eyes wander to the backside of the Sports Illustrated model getting napkins at the counter. Not bad at all, you think. It may be too early for the comedy club, but appreciating the male figure has no schedule.

And then he turns around, and you're able to see past the curly hair, muscle tee, beauty pageant smile—it's none other than Choi Seungcheol, fully outfitted with the audacity to trespass on your bagel place. You have never been more disgusted by your heterosexuality.

You hide behind your computer screen.

"Helloooo?" comes Seungkwan on the line. "Are you making out with your breakfast or something?"

"Seungkwan, I gotta go," you hiss. Your eyes follow Seungcheol as he makes his way back to his table. "There's a…situation."

You watch him sit across from a beautiful girl in a sundress and Prada sunglasses, and her lips tumble into a brilliant red smile.

It would be really fucking funny if he was on a date, you think, but then you see him make the kind of eyes you last saw in the deepest, stickiest recesses of a frat house on thirsty Thursday. Then you realize he is on a date, that he's been on a date, and it's his laugh that is equally annoying as it is loud.

Seungkwan works hard, but the devil always works harder.

"Ok, talk to you later. Bye!" You can hear the beginning of one of Seungkwan's protests, but you hang up before he's able to properly complain. Maybe you'll have to do a little better than Momofuku—that's a problem for later.

Over the rim of your laptop, you catch glimpses of their conversation. You notice Seungcheol talks a lot with his hands, and you wonder if that's another one of his tips or if that's just him. Him and those big clown hands, illustrating a story that you're unfortunately too far away to hear.

But you can hear her laugh again, and you try to guess what he's talking about. His childhood dog. The insurmountable burden of being prom king and captain of the football team. This little not-competition and this little not-rivalry between the two of you. How the PB&J bagel is the best thing on the menu (it's not, but you see the berry compote all over his fingers and you know that's the hill he's dying on).

No matter how you spin it, it's a hard pill to swallow. Choi Seungcheol is good at what he does, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

You hear the careening lilt of what seems to be Seungcheol whining, and there's a brief flash of something like endearment in your stomach before the repulsion sets in.

Nothing you can do to stop him, huh?

The question, sinister and burning, writhes in your brain as you chew on the ice from your coffee and stare at a blank Word document, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat.

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Beware the wrath of a woman scorned.

It's number 3 on Seungcheol's article titled Revenge and Other Stories. Unsurprisingly, he must not practice what he preaches, because you currently have all nine circles of Dante's Inferno inside you right now.

Play nice, Jeonghan had told you. Looks better to upper management.

And you did, until one of your photo requests mysteriously got deleted. Then Joshua told you to cut 500 words from this week's column because Seungcheol's just "happened" to be a little longer this time.

The knockout punch was yesterday when Seungcheol told you he was using your January critic's choice pick to take Wonwoo out for a friendly dinner, his treat. If you had known, you would've called ahead and told them to poison the hamachi. (No matter. Any foodie worth their salt knows Thursday is the worst day for sushi).

Now you sit on the C train, dressed to the nines, because you have a date with destiny at Nai. Sometimes destiny is a big pan of paella for one, but this time, it's Seungcheol and his next victim on date night.

Getting him there was so easy, it was almost criminal. An obnoxiously loud elevator phone call in which you name dropped the executive chef, a friend of yours, at least four times. Seungkwan very strategically asking you if a press pass can bypass reservations for a booked-out restaurant. Gossip in the break room with the intentional use of "intimate," "sangria drunk," and "affordable."

Affordable was a lie, but you're learning quickly that a hungry fish will take any bait. And seeing Seungcheol's face is never a joy, but you're not opposed to watching him open the menu for the first time.

"I have a killer Spanish accent," Seungcheol told you on the way out today.

Hook, line, and sinker.

The subway car rumbles under you. You're almost in East Village. You don't normally spend your Friday nights crashing dates—you actually don't really spend them outside your apartment at all, but Seungcheol is the exception to the rule and you're making a lot of them for him. A small price to pay for the glory of dethroning Casanova.

The plan is to "accidentally" run into Seungcheol and his Friday night exploit, and then to casually, non-bitterly mention a, that she is about to become a statistic, b, that his idea of chivalry was birthed in the basement of the Alpha Omega house, and c, that you're surprised he's still single because you always happen to catch him on dates. Something like that.

This is admittedly the best you could come up with. Like you said, you don't really crash dates. You don't really sabotage people either, but Seungcheol declared war the minute his Folgers breath hit your face outside Wonwoo's office.

Then you think of all the ways things can absolutely backfire. Seungcheol's warm, carefree whirl of laughter when he explains you're office rivals, or worse, lies and says you're nothing but a jilted, jealous ex. Or this whole thing could simply be immortalized in his winning article as a jaunty sentence about making the most out of a bad situation, yada yada yada.

You picture watching another girl, spellbound, as you dig into your table-for-one paella.

In your mind's eye, she laughs, floaty like his date at the bagel place, and for a moment you understand what it might feel like to want Choi Seungcheol.

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Friday night at Nai is red and glittering and heady with saffron.

You remember when you first ate here, two weekends after the soft open, early in your career at the paper. After a three hour conversation over wine and octopus with the owner, you wrote the restaurant a glowing review that, to your surprise, helped land it several ritzy awards. Now the dining room is never empty, but they always find space for you.

That was the first time you learned that all of this work meant something. Yeah, you loved an excuse to stuff your face and get paid for it, but what was even better was the chance to tell the stories of a working father's hand-pulled noodles, the drunk, midnight origins of a tasting menu, the caramel-greedy fingers of a well-loved childhood.

This is the long way of explaining how you bypass the two hour standby wait time, and how you walk in on a first name basis with the manager.

You're fully prepared to see Seungcheol mid-churro, perhaps four pick-up lines deep and wondering if he still has a condom in his wallet.

That's why you almost miss him on your way to your table. His is empty, other than a lonely, watered down martini on the rocks and two menus.

"Seungcheol?"

He looks up at you, and something like genuine surprise melts into relief, then intrigue.

"Look at who crawled out of her dungeon," he chuckles. "You clean up good."

Whatever pity you may have felt for him vaporizes instantly. Although, when he beckons for you to sit in the empty seat across from him, you do take the bait—you're not about to pass up a good opportunity to humble your least formidable foe.

"Refreshing to see that our love guru isn't above dining solo," you reply. "I have to admit, your acting is impressive. What an elaborate ruse to get another poor, single diner to pity you enough to sit with you."

"It worked, didn't it?" He takes a sip of his cocktail, which is almost a brand new drink because it's 90% water, 10% martini by now.

"I'm no expert, but pretending to get stood up is not a tip I would give the general public."

"Who said I was pretending?"

No fucking way. Your jaw drops. It's too unreal to believe. Even if the slutty cut of Seungcheol's shirt wasn't persuasive enough, surely the prospect of enjoying a free Michelin star dinner would warrant an appearance, even for you. Breaking News: New York's Hottest Bachelor Ghosted at Top Restaurant. If only that were as wonderful to the average reader as it is to you.

Because waiters are trained to enter conversations at the best possible time, you're forced to pause and order a wine for the table and some tapas. (No paella for one? Seungcheol asks, and you try to reconcile your annoyance with the fact that one, he's read your review of this place, and two, that he looks mildly turned on that you can pronounce all the menu items. You tell the waiter to add a paella.)

"You got stood up?" You cross your arms over your chest. "You may think I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb."

"You have no idea how flattering your reaction is." He laughs, and the air shifts around him, drawing you further into his eyes, inky under the lowlight. "I understand you think I'm irresistible, but, alas, not everyone shares your opinion."

"I never said that."

You hate how easy it is for him to push your buttons. You hate how in control he is, and you hate how he's looking at you like you're on the menu.

The waiter returns with the wine, and you decide you're feeling equally as terrible.

"Truly, you can't be that irresistible. After all this time writing about relationships, you would think you'd actually be in one."

Touché, you think. Normally, it would be too low a blow, even for you, except that his column-related debauchery is one of the four thrilling conversation topics he subjects you to at the office. And who are you to bury the lede?

"Coaches don't play," Seungcheol says, leaning back and popping the martini olive in his mouth offensively, as if he's not at a restaurant that takes months to get a good table at.

"Bullshit." You lean forward and chase his gaze. He doesn't shy away; rather, he meets you with an appraising raise of an eyebrow. "Coaches should at least know how to throw the ball."

"What do you think we're doing right now?"

"Oh, please." Your wrist twitches as you fight the urge to down your entire glass of merlot in a single gulp. You picture the title of his next article: Top 10 Ways To Get A Woman Drunk. And then the oh so charming punchline: 1. Be so insufferable she cannot last a conversation without her real life partner, wine.

"See? I've already got you laughing." He notices the generous sip missing from your glass and tops you up.

"No, you do not get to make this about me."

Somehow, you are laughing, but you chalk it up to the spiteful little man in your brain writing headlines for Seungcheol's column.

How To Antagonize Your Date In 5 Easy Steps.

"Need I remind you I'm only here because your actual date stood you up? Too soon?"

"I prefer you anyway," he answers, his expression half-challenge, half-something else that you don't really want to think about.

"Crazy, because I'd rather be literally anywhere else."

Signs You Are In A Hostage Situation, Not A Date.

"You should stick to food. You're a bad liar." He cocks his head to the empty table next to him. "It's still open if you want it."

"I'm no quitter."

Maybe The Male Gaze Isn't So Bad: A Thinkpiece.

Definitely not that one.

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"So, before I try anything," Seungcheol says, leaning across the table. "Teach me how to be a food critic."

"Why, so you can steal my job?"

"You can keep it," he laughs. "I'm gonna be your boss, not your replacement."

You notice he'll linger on the tail end of his sentences, betting on the response you haven't even come up with yet. He's picking apart the furrow of your brow, the marrow of your brain. It's like one drawn out interview, but you suppose that's all dating really is. Maybe your journalism degree wasn't a waste of money after all.

You won't give him the satisfaction of a fight (plus, you don't want the food to get cold), so you change the subject.

"Well, I take pictures first," you say, waving away his overeager fork.

"Genius. They really scammed you out of your Pulitzer, huh?"

You ignore him in lieu of repositioning the chorizo. Unfortunately, Seungcheol is unrelenting. You hear the snap of his phone camera, clearly taking a photo of you and not the meal—clever, but you won't bite.

"Wanna be in my story? I can tag you."

In your periphery hovers his wry, wanting smile.

"Sure. So the world can know I'm a charity worker too."

He whistles, clutching his heart. If he weren't so annoying, you would find him a little cute. Just a little. You blame the kitchen for whatever aphrodisiac is in the food today.

"Live update: date with food critic going about as well as an episode of Hell's Kitchen."

He says this leaning forward, elbows on the table, so close to you that your knees might touch. You tense at the thought.

"Any date of mine would be on better behavior."

"So you're admitting this is a date?"

"This," you wave your hand over the table. "This is not a date. This is me regretting ever pitying you."

"Well, pity looks good on you."

And there it is again, that accursed, perfect smile. This time, it works, and you fight the losing battle of the wine flush undoubtedly all over your face. It bothers you that there's a little part of you that enjoys this, but that's a confession you plan on taking to the grave.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, because you're not getting any again."

"Fine. I'm still waiting for your grand secret," he says, now biting the tines of his fork like an untrained dog. No rest for the weary, you suppose. "Food is food. Prove me wrong."

Despite the betrayal of your basal human instincts, you're determined to make this a bad encounter. Maybe you hadn't anticipated the full force of Seungcheol's overgrown fratboy persona, but you came here for a reason and you do plan to see it through.

"There is no secret." You split apart an empanada, the guts steaming and fragrant. "You eat."

"Like this?" He crams an entire piece in his mouth, and you watch him recoil and huff the heat out. "Mmm, 's pretty good, though."

Your eyes almost roll back far enough to see the wrinkles of your brain. Of course he wouldn't get it, but you don't know what you were expecting from a guy who thinks Hot Pockets are fine dining.

You put on your most pretentious food critic face. "Eating is about respect. Storytelling. He's retelling the first time someone made him this dish. The ingredients—they're words on a page. An autobiography." Your hand finds your chest and you sigh, a final touch to your Oscar winning melodrama that would certainly annoy anyone with even half a brain.

"Huh. Poetic," he says. He's still fanning his (very full) mouth, but he chews a little more slowly. "I'm respecting. I'm taking it in."

You don't know if he's actually doing any of that, but, when he takes his next bite he asks about what's in it (tomato, raisin, egg) and if someone really made the chef an empanada when he was younger (yes, on the flour-printed counter, every Sunday morning).

You press on. It shouldn't take much to bore him, but with every question, food-related factoid, and snide comment you have, he matches you with genuine curiosity. Either he's an excellent actor or he's secretly culinary school-bound, because you can't actually imagine anyone putting up with any of that, nonetheless I like dick jokes and football Choi Seungcheol.

You spend the rest of the evening like this, spoon to heart to cherry mouth. The wine is abundant, and Seungcheol spends more time listening than talking, which he admits is a first for him.

"You really know a lot about food," he says, likely fighting the urge to use his finger to get the last of the chocolate sauce off the churro plate. "I like that."

It's a cheap compliment in a game of low blows, but it sits warm and content in your chest. You have to force yourself back to the night you met him, when he was all cognac and one-liners and he gave you his spare hotel room key. A good reminder of his true nature, you think, despite the fact that he just listened to you talk about all the different grains of rice, ad nauseum.

"It's my job," is your reply, adequately distant for your liking.

"Fair. You gonna ask me about mine?"

"What more is there to know?" You hold up the check. "You're paying, right? Chivalry and all that?"

You're waiting for him to mention the company card, the only one allocated to your section that Seungcheol couldn't possibly have because it's sitting snug in your purse. The one you'll say you conveniently forgot so you get to see a grown man squirm at paying the bill.

"Already did. Gave the host my card when I got here. You're holding the customer copy." His chuckle disappears under the lip of his wine glass. "Bet you were excited to use the company card, huh?"

If shame were a physical object, you feel like your own personal Atlas. Your only option is to stare at the wasteland of empty plates before you and wonder how deep Seungcheol's pockets really are.

"Hardly. More excited that I burned a hole in your wallet." You click your tongue, out of options on how to ruin Seungcheol's night. You would spill wine on him but there's none left. "Anyway, I'm heading out."

"Running away?"

"Bored," you lie.

He calls you a taxi, and you walk out together, night heavy with the rhinestone glare of Friday night traffic.

"I actually had a nice time tonight," Seungcheol says, emphasis on the actually.

"Unfortunate."

"How do you think I feel?"

The taxi pulls to the curb, and he sighs, weighty with exaggerated relief. You can't even take it seriously because he's looking right at you and badly failing to push down the smile at the corners of his mouth.

It's only now that you notice his eyes are really brown, like he's from a cartoon or something. Worse, you'd daresay they're nice, less menacing, when they're tempered by a good meal and semi-public humiliation.

"Text me when you get back to your villain lair."

"If I were a real villain, you would have a lot more to worry about."

Seungcheol opens the cab door for you, and you catch a whiff of the cologne he undoubtedly smeared on in the toothpaste-streaked mirror of his five by five studio bathroom. Pine, leather, and citrus, which is the most pedestrian combination of smells to exist and yet you doubt it hasn't done him any favors.

"I'm terrified. Shaking." You clamber into the backseat, and he smiles at you again, as if you've forgotten what all his other ones looked like. "By the way—"

You have half a mind to shut the door in his face, but you can't find it within you—maybe it's the wine, or perhaps pure defeat. Probably the former.

"This job. It's—" He clicks his tongue and looks at the tops of his leather shoes. He's actually thinking, and you don't like it. "Never mind. See you Monday."

And then the words are gone. He shuts the cab door, and they're left in a plume of exhaust and Seungcheol's tiny waving figure in the rearview mirror.

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"So you're telling me you went on a date with your worst enemy."

It's 8 AM, and Jeonghan isn't pulling punches. Even through the phone, you can see his lazy grin, the pen he's flipping in his hand, the green ribbon of the Dow Jones on his desktop.

The newsroom is refreshingly near empty, except for Joshua, who hovers around the water cooler like a fly on the wall, if flies wore Armani ties and cigarette jeans.

"It wasn't a date, and I wanted to ruin it so he would have nothing to write about."

"No one goes on a date to ruin it. You could have just left."

"Clearly you haven't seen How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days."

"Are you serious." Jeonghan laughs, crackly and bright. "Care to tell me how that movie ends?"

"Except he isn't Matthew Mcconaughey. He says spaghetti like pah-scetti and doesn't use Oxford commas."

Mid-laugh, you endure another beat of extended eye contact with your editor until he beckons you over. He'd likely been waiting for the perfect time to interrupt the conversation he was so subtly eavesdropping on—oh, how you love a newsroom with an "open floor plan" to "facilitate communication." Sometimes you think the reason Joshua's stuck around this long is because reporters can't stay away from drama, especially if they're not the ones reporting it.

"I gotta go," you tell Jeonghan, whose version of a goodbye is a triumphant cackle.

You find Joshua putzing around, plastic water cup incriminatingly full.

"I take it you had an enjoyable weekend?" he asks, eyes sequined with all the secrets they hold.

"Yup. Just working on that Dining Through The Years article." Not entirely a lie—you are hedging your bets on this story, one where you revisit the restaurants you wrote about when you first got your start at the paper (Nai included, although admittedly yesterday's food was the least of your concerns). "You needed me?"

"Glad to see New York's finest chefs are well-versed in Kate Hudson's filmography," he says, grinning something beastly. If he weren't your boss, you'd knock that little water cup clean out of his hand. "Anyway, if your interview is over, I need you to go on a field trip."

"Field trip?"

Surely you're better than a task for the interns. You wonder if they're off fighting their own demons, seeing as you missed the circus in the elevator this morning, the usual juggle of hazelnut lattes and lemon poppyseed muffins for the higher-ups.

"Wonwoo needs you to help pick out catering for the corporate event later next week." Joshua tips his head back at Wonwoo's glass-plated office, where you see him redoing his tie in the reflection of his computer monitor. "My guess is that Yerim is going to be there, and he wants to make a good impression. Like an 'I consulted a food expert' impression."

Classic gossip queen Hong Joshua, always with the unnecessary but incredibly cogent commentary on office politics. You think you're actually going to miss the bastard.

"Flattered," you remark dryly. "Catering from where?"

"That's the thing. It's from this Thai place like two hours out from the city."

Two hours: code for an all day endeavor. He wasn't kidding when he said field trip.

You graciously resist the urge to groan out loud. No one told you taking the high road is one big slog through the mud, but here you are. You tell yourself this will help your campaign to be editor—the stinky, dirt-smeared silver lining.

"Before you ask—yes, I know you cannot take the subway there." You blink at him, wondering why this all feels like the set-up to a terrible joke. "Luckily, as you probably know, Seungcheol drives here every day and has offered to help."

Ah. There it is. You look for the blinking applause sign hanging above your head and the chorus of riotous Seungcheols making up your own personal laugh track.

"Only back to the office, though—" Joshua adds, as if that provides you any solace. "There's a one-way bus going up there at noon."

"N-not both ways?" you croak.

"Something about funds," he replies, shrugging. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"You're not the one I'm thinking of shooting."

"Who knows? Maybe he is Matthew McConaughey." And when your glare turns sharp as the edge of a santoku knife, he holds his hands up like he's getting arrested. "I'm just saying. As your friend, not your editor."

Whatever.

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You have to admit, Wonwoo does have impeccable taste in Thai food.

Three noodle dishes, two curries, and the best mango sticky rice you've ever had: that's what it took for you to finally say "not all men." Certainly not Wonwoo, who's in deep enough to send his goons cross-state for a girl he's tried to woo for almost a whole year now.

A tamarind sunset blankets the countryside in milk and honey. You're sitting on a bench, ridiculously full with leftovers to spare, waiting for your chauffeur from hell.

Two years and you still don't know what car Seungcheol drives. Your last memory of it is it being flashy, impractical, and loud, much like him.

You know this, and yet you are still surprised when a gnat of a BMW rips into the curb in front of you. The passenger window crawls down, and Seungcheol has the gall to whistle at you.

For someone so predictable, he sure does manage to find new ways to piss you off. Unfortunately, on brand— according to him, Consistency Is Key (number 2 on Keeping the Spark Alive, August 2022 issue). You've done your reading.

"You're welcome," is the first thing Seungcheol says to you after cranking down the volume of the radio and watching you fumble with the seatbelt.

"You really didn't have to." You look at the array of gas station snacks bubbling out of the cupholders—Sour Patch Kids, a Big Gulp, and Flamin’ Hot Fritos. You didn't even know they sold Sour Patch Kids to full grown adults.

Still, you do feel a little bad. You can count on one hand the amount of people you would do this for and still have one or two cheese-dusted fingers left.

"But, thank you."

"Joshua made me," he says, and what happened this morning starts to make a lot more sense. "Plus, I was a little jealous. I would kill for a day frolicking in the sun, eating delicious food, far, far away from the big city. Not trapped like me in the newsroom, exhausted, toiling away on my magnum opus."

The sigh that crawls from his chapped lips practically shakes the car.

"I'm retracting my thank you."

"I'm devastated. Really."

You choose to watch the strip of shitty New York highway unravel through the greasy passenger window. No point in picking a fight when you're in a leather quilted jail cell for the foreseeable future.

It's at the thirty minute mark where Seungcheol casts the first stone of terrible, stilted small talk.

"Why'd you get sent all the way out here anyway?"

The red taillight flush of rush hour floods the car, an unpleasant reminder of the real sunset left far behind you.

"Thought you knew it was Wonwoo."

"Yeah, but why?"

Why does it matter? Is your first thought, but you realize he's attempting to actually have a genuine conversation with you, which you suppose is better than him flinging around another rude remark. Either that, or he's falling asleep, and you'd rather not have the last moments of your life be in Seungcheol's chick magnet car.

"Joshua thinks it's because he wants to impress Yerim at the corporate meeting this week. I guess she likes Thai."

Traffic is slow enough for him to turn to look at you, really look at you.

"Come on, he can't like her that much."

"Yes, he can." you try to read his expression, neon-glossy. "This isn't even that much effort."

"Nah," he shrugs. "There's gotta be some kind of ulterior motive. Maybe he wants to move into corporate."

"Hot take for a romantic." You frown. "Not everything people do is a career move, you know."

You omit the unlike you that sits heavy in the back of your throat, although, his cavalier approach to relationships is starting to make a little more sense. You wonder if this whole thing—the dates, the watch, the Invisalign smiles—is just a long, drawn-out joke to him.

"Seems like a lot of effort to go through for an office crush." His gaze drifts back to the road. "The extravagant birthday present. Always having her favorite flowers in the office. That one cringe voicemail we all heard him re-record ten times. No one likes anyone that much. Come on. Her dad is the CEO of the company."

Suddenly his winning smile doesn't seem so triumphant. It almost feels like a betrayal, but you don't know why.

"Maybe he just likes her," you reply. "I dunno. I choose to believe that. I think it's sweet."

"Maybe you're the romantic." The words come out like an accusation; Seungcheol laughs, but all the joy's been sucked out of it.

"Who hurt you?"

"No one did. I'm just being honest."

You would laugh at the irony if it didn't feel like there was a vine wrapped round your throat. Life is funny, but never so funny as to curse New York's favorite romance writer with cynicism and a lying streak.

"Controversial, but I actually want to do nice things for the person I like."

"And when was the last time that happened?" He's deflecting, which is predictably on brand for him. His grin, now playful, is propped up by a pair of frustratingly well-formed dimples.

You can't even find it within you to protest because he's right—you haven't dated in a long time. Joshua stopped asking if you were bringing a plus one to office parties ages ago.

But it's not that you can't—in fact, the last time you did, you think it broke you a little inside. It's certainly not a story Seungcheol's privy to, though. You already feel strange, cut-open, trying to convince him that people are capable of meaningful relationships.

Childishly, there's also a part of you chasing the truth about him because it takes him further and further away from you. So you do what you do best and deflect again. Two can play at that game.

"Not taking criticism from a guy who's dated half of the city and has nothing to show for it."

"I wouldn't say nothing."

He opens his mouth then closes it again, as if he's revising the words on his tongue. Journalist behavior, which you didn't even know he could still exhibit.

Now you're really thinking. Who hurt him, and how? The development that Seungcheol is more than the playboy slime haunting page 3 intrigues you more than you'd care to admit.

Before you can pry, Seungcheol's stomach growls, almost offensively loud.

"Sorry," he says. "Who would've thunk that corn chips aren't a balanced meal?"

You stare at the takeout boxes snug in your lap. There is a cosmic message being sent right now.

Seungcheol's sad, Frito-filled belly. Fresh noodle that won't keep well in the fridge. Tax and tip for a four hour car ride back to the city. Expanding your repertoire of blackmail so that you can claim your rightful helm at the paper.

These are all the reasons you give yourself for what you ask next.

"You in a rush?"

"How could I be—do you see the blinding speed we're driving at?" He laughs at his own incredibly unfunny attempt at a joke. "No, I'm not."

"I may or may not have an actual balanced meal for you."

That’s how you end up in the parking lot of a random 7/11 off the freeway. In any other circumstances, it would be a cruel and unusual punishment, but you've already been whittled down enough to actually care about Seungcheol, even if just a little.

That's what you tell yourself, anyway, as you watch him finish the last of the takeout.

"So I'm bad at food, and you're bad at love. Why the fuck did Wonwoo even think of promoting either of us?" Seungcheol kicks his shoes off and props his feet up on the dashboard. You notice his socks have dogs on them, little linty brown ones, and you feel a little worse about openly bullying him about his fashion taste in front of the entirety of copy staff.

"I may be bad at love, but you're worse. Especially for someone who does it for a living," you retort. "Don't think I forgot our earlier conversation."

You try to read the tiny text on a receipt he's got stashed in the center console, among his graveyard of snack wrappers. (2) CHEESY GORDITA CRUNCH…8.78. (1) M MT DEW BAJA BLAST…1.00.

Definitely bad at food, you muse to yourself.

"You think I'm not kicking myself right now? That I have a beautiful girl in my car right now, and all we do is argue?"

Now that—nothing could have prepared you for that.

It gets awfully quiet. The noise of the freeway seems to screech to a fever pitch, all horns and the thrum of the asphalt. You wish anything but John Mayer was playing on the radio.

You will the headlines man in your head to make you laugh. Instead, your brain presses the word beautiful into your neurons and you feel all the heat in your body float to your face, traitorously, dizzyingly. John Mayer croons, your body is a wonderland and your stomach knots into itself over and over again.

"Stop that."

"What?" Seungcheol's head lolls to his shoulder so he can look at you from the corner of his eye. " 's not a big deal. Never been called beautiful?"

A grin plays on his lips, expression dancing on something grim, like he's spoken his final words.

"I'm serious! Stop trying to get me to like you." You huff and cross your arms over your chest, like it'll somehow make you feel more normal. "I'm not some experiment for your column."

"Is it working?"

You don't answer. How can you? There's a yes resting on the roof of your mouth, surely the product of the handful of real, actual moments you've now had with him—far too many for your liking. This whole charade has been a balancing act on the razor edge between rivals and something else, and now you're feeling the sting.

"For the record, I have been called beautiful before."

"And for the record, you're not an experiment for my column. You never were."

There's a relief that pulses through your chest, a breathless, wonderful kind of dizziness. You grab hold of it as soon as it's reared its ugly head. You're flying way too close to the sun, chasing cheap validation from the same guy who ate your lunch out of the fridge last week.

He's no better—he looks like the vulnerability cracked him open a little, and you're the one holding the hammer. It makes for a grubby, unflattering portrait of two emotionally inept people trying to play feelings.

However, much like all other things Seungcheol, any glimpse of something real is gone before you know it. He takes a loud, noisy pull of Diet Coke, and the spell is broken.

"Want any?" And when you shake your head, grateful to swallow the words pressed to your tongue, he says, "Should we wait out traffic here?"

This is an easier yes. You tell yourself you're getting sick of brake lights and reading the license plates on the back of other people's cars. Certainly that makes Seungcheol's gaze, lingering and moonlight-warmed, a little more tolerable.

For once, you don't talk about Wonwoo or your job. You don't talk about love, either.

Maybe this is the reason the next few hours slip through your fingers. Three folded takeout pagodas and a secret—somehow this is all it takes for you to hate Seungcheol just a little less.

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Usually, a good eggs benedict can solve the majority of your problems. Today seems to be the exception. The hollandaise is broken, Jeonghan is already laughing at you, and nothing will ever erase the fact that Seungcheol drove you home last night and now he knows where you live. If you wake up one morning and see a sniper laser pointed at your forehead, you have no one to blame but yourself.

"You look exhausted." An eighth of a buckwheat pancake disappears into Jeonghan's mouth. "You literally eat for a living. There is no reason for them to keep you late."

Jeonghan has a funny way of caring about you, but he's right. You did get home at 2 AM yesterday, but that was on you, not Wonwoo.

"I'm not going to let a corporate slug tell me what is and isn't a real job," you sigh, taking a swig of your half-flat mimosa and reminding yourself to figure out which staff writer gave this place 4 stars in last week's paper.

"Says the girl who needs the company card to afford bottomless brunch," Jeonghan replies.

"At least I'm not a slave to my career."

"What do you call this whole thing with your coworker then, huh? It's all you text me about." The smirk on Jeonghan's face is miserably, tragically righteous, and you can't even be mad about it.

"Seungcheol is my enemy, remember?"

"You sent me a five minute voice memo the other day ranting about how he went on a date with another girl." And just like the little shit he is, he even pulls up your mile-long text history, just to rub it in your face a little harder.

"Am I not allowed to wish for his demise? Since when were you the mature one?"

"I wouldn't call keeping track of his whereabouts wishing for his demise." Jeonghan takes a well-timed bite of your hashbrowns. "Something tells me you're wishing for something a little different."

You almost choke on a blueberry.

"Absolutely not."

You watch Jeonghan power down another mimosa, half-fascinated, half-appalled he would even dream of suggesting something so vile.

The memory of Seungcheol, leant back in the driver’s seat, lowering greasy spools of rice noodles into his mouth, crosses your mind. He had laughed until he cried when he asked you if a pineapple had really fried this rice. That was the kind of man you were dealing with. You can't believe you laughed with him.

"I think it'll be good for you to get back into dating again. Mingyu was, what, three years ago?"

And that's the chocolate chip studded, syrup-covered nail in your coffin. Of course all roads had to lead back to you and your relationship trauma Jeonghan considered unresolved.

You had dated Mingyu when you were younger, softer. It was a love of firsts, of sun-washed mornings and farmer's market Sundays, of raw, black currant midnights and whatever long-winded conversation you had spent all day on.

Mingyu was a chef. His hands, his lips, his eyes—that's how you fell in love with food. Strawberry kisses into fresh pasta into the first time someone had ever cooked for you. What a wonderful, terrible thing to see all your history on a plate, the I could never eat peas, the once I ate mangos till I was sick, the guilty spoon in the vanilla ice cream after a bad day and the dark chocolate you keep in your purse. He remembered that you like your noodles just a little bit overcooked, and you don't even think you told him that.

Food, like some shitty piece of home decor would say in that swirling, curly font, really is some window to the soul. It didn't fully hit you until, one day, you were at the grocery store alone, and somehow you knew exactly what brand of everything Mingyu liked.

You opened a restaurant together after you graduated from college. Then it closed, and you lost Mingyu to Naples or New Orleans or Seoul—somewhere, anywhere to escape the corner of 5th and 40th, the December-pleated memory of his hands in yours and a promise you could never keep.

You're sure you're over it by now, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't look for him in a bowl of his favorite ramyun, the one you could never replicate even though he insisted he just added hot water (Food tastes best when it's a gift, he'd say. You never understood until now.).

Jeonghan doesn't believe you because every time you try explaining this to him, you end up sounding like the most chronically lonely person on planet Earth.

"That is the wrong guy to suggest then," you instead reply, feeling all the food dry up in your mouth.

"I'm running out of options."

"Don't you have a hot coworker or something?"

You shut your eyes, pushing Mingyu back to recall literally any face from one of the many swanky corporate parties Jeonghan bullied you into attending. The only person coming to mind is Lee Chan, and even more than his face, you remember the fat platinum band around his ring finger (Better luck next time, Jeonghan had said, mid-cheese cube).

Worse, amidst all the fuzz, a grainy recollection of Seungcheol's wet cow eyes washes up against your eyelids, and it's not going away this time.

"I thought we were all corporate slugs," Jeonghan replies, enjoying the way you glower at him over your fork. "I was kidding, anyway. Relax."

Your entire body heaves with the sigh that escapes you.

You thank god that Jeonghan is never serious, because otherwise you'd have to consider the fact that he really thought you should date Seungcheol. Jeonghan, who knows the pizza column you, the Mingyu you, and now the you that works late because there's nothing else left to do, really might have thought you should date grifter by day, con artist by night Seungcheol.

The fluorescent glaze of the gas station lights. Seungcheol's hand on the gear stick. His voice, warm and gauzy. It's like there's a flash drive of last night plugged into your head, and you can't take it out.

The stem of the champagne glass finds your hand, and you down the whole thing.

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Monday is uneventful. So is Tuesday, and you wonder what good deed you'd done to deserve such a blessing.

Wednesday, you realize you're just three interviews away from what could possibly be the best article of your life. Unfortunately, two of those won't pick up the phone and the third keeps rescheduling on you.

That's fine—Rome wasn't built in a day, and the same hopefully applies to your future noodle empire.

You're using your lunch break to write an email to number two when you notice Seungcheol hovering around your desk, a plastic straw in his mouth and evil in his eyes.

He's taken to publicly annoying you at work more than usual—Progress, Joshua had told you in the elevator this morning. Towards what? you had asked. He shrugged, letting his crafty, knowing look do all the talking.

"Me, you, and date number two?" is today's opening line. Before you can peel yourself away from your computer and give him a good lashing for whatever the fuck he just said to you, he continues with, "How's that for a follow-up text to my speakeasy date?"

"Lame," you reply, hackles still raised but now re-reading your email for typos.

"Wrong. You were supposed to say incredibly romantic, extremely witty, and unfairly charming." He perches his baseball player ass on the corner of your desk, waiting to be humbled. This is the usual order of things, which has shockingly become more of a familiarity than anything else.

"Do you even have a romantic bone in your body?"

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow. "Just one, but it's the only one that matters."

"Ew. Gross." You wrinkle your nose and attempt to soothe your temper with a sip of the terrible protein shake you got for lunch. "No wonder your column sucks."

"If mine sucks, I'd hate to see what people are saying about yours." And when your reply is a tired, hungry swig of your sad drink, he says, "No lunch today? Even I had something better."

"Lucky you."

The bigger truth is that that the deadline for your article, looming before you, is getting to you more than you'd care to admit. Seungcheol isn't helping, not with his bottomless magic hat of date stories that seems to only grow deeper by the day. Now you're forgetting to pack a lunch, and the highlight of your day has been reduced to punching numbers into a vending machine.

Things are bad, but you'll never say that aloud, especially not to the guy who'll spend the next five years dunking on you if you keep this up.

You stare down the lip of your bottle at the faux-chocolate dregs streaking the bottom.

The month before Mingyu opened his restaurant, you were so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right that you also forgot to eat. One day, leftovers from his work started magically appearing in your fridge. Chow fun (miss you!), salt and pepper shrimp (don't forget to drink water!), a gargantuan vat of hot and sour soup (love you most!).

It was a perfect coincidence until you realized there was no way Chinese takeout was coming out of a very French restaurant, and it was then you learned that love is never really a coincidence.

Now you have no coincidences, mapo tofu, or romance. Just muscle milk and a front row view of the struggling inseam of a man who must shrink his pants in the dryer.

He's peeling a tangerine. Your worst confession to date is that it's easy on the eyes. For once, his hands, always made busy with some scheme, now still over the rind, steady, practiced. Plus, it looks like a marble in his huge hands, which is unfortunately both funny and a little hot.

"Stare any longer, and I'm gonna forget how to peel this."

"Don’t flatter yourself. Just hungry," you half-lie.

Hungry, Stressed, And Delusional—The New Holy Trinity.

It's a catchy headline, but not a great look for you. Never in your life did you think you'd be ogling a man peeling an orange. He even takes all the pith off, and you don't have the heart to tell him that's where all the nutrients are.

"Exactly," he replies. Then he plops the naked, shiny fruit right on your bare desk. "Here. Eat."

You’re so taken aback, all you can do is stare. First at the orange, then at Seungcheol, who suddenly cannot make eye contact with you. Instead, he stacks the peel in his hands, dimpled piece over piece.

"Payback for the, uh, Thai," he says, and although you wouldn't equate a tangerine to James Beard awarded pad kee mao, all you can think of is an lime green sticky note in your fridge and a smile.

A gift. A pithless, wrinkly one.

The idea that Seungcheol was capable of being genuinely nice to anyone, nonetheless, you—probably the most undeserving person of it in the world—makes you feel something close to guilt.

You push through the feeling, instead taking the fruit in your hand and splitting it between your thumbs. The flesh caves so easily, and it's then you remember that food, unlike people, doesn't have to be complicated.

You can feel a better person somewhere inside you, someone easier to care for and with less of a bad attitude. You're not there yet, but there's a dark, satisfying comfort in not being good enough for the indulgence of that kind of intimacy. An arm's length was never too far away for you, except now there's someone sitting on your desk and they gave you lunch. Worst of all, you don't think you mind.

You hold out the half—sticky, guilty fingers and all.

Seungcheol wordlessly accepts it. There's no surprise or confusion—he smiles, you say cheers, and you both take a bite.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

On weekends, the Korean place down the street from your college apartment sold corn dogs until 3 AM. That was when words came easy and love came easier.

It was with sugar all over your nose, eyes pressed to the once forgiving half-moon, where you told Mingyu you would become a writer.

The thing about youth is that it can float anything, no matter how holey, desperate it was. So you sailed through college, that gasping hope wound tight in your fist. Then you started freelancing, just in time for Mingyu’s soft open. You wanted to write, but more importantly, you wanted some way, any way to be useful to the person who had given you so much.

In retrospect, there was no way your crude attempts at actual journalism could ever generate real publicity for him. Not in the heart of New York, where a new restaurant opened every two days and someone wanted to get published every three.

So you eventually sank, and so did Mingyu, leaving you with all this creased, no good love in your chest to shrivel up with nowhere to go.

All of that landed you here. A degree, a dream job, and a laundry list of accolades, but the fruit of that love still hangs heavy and joy-rot on the vine, as you wait for it to be good enough for the taking.

Ironically, it reminded you of cooking. No one ever teaches you when to stop, and now every other joint has dry-aged steak and some version of a three-day demi glacé. But at least demi glacé tastes good—you don't even know what the fuck you're doing some days, and the feeling's never been worse than now, waiting on a call you were supposed to get two days ago.

The phone rings, just in time to distract you from the top button of Seungcheol's fitted shirt, which looks like it's holding on for dear life. He's currently deep in conversation with Mina from design, but every so often, he'll glance your way to see if you're just free enough to be bothered.

The unspoken perils of working late—less people around to pester on Wonwoo's dime.

Mina stuffs her laptop in her bag and checks her watch. Strike three for Seungcheol.

Working Hard Or Hardly Working: A Guide To Office Romances. You're surprised he hasn't written that one yet. Maybe Joshua shot it down.

"Hello?" The dial tone breaks into the warm, risen-bread voice of the woman you know to be the owner of one of your favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle spots. The Friday night after your review was published, there was a line out the door. It honestly felt like a no-brainer to you, and you had no hesitation telling the owner that you were sure her place would become a local mainstay. You watched her crow-footed eyes go moony and you couldn't help but picture the day your yellowed newspaper would be posted up on the wall, framed and prophetic.

You're ready to profusely apologize for not stopping by—truthfully, no bone broth has come close to hers. Instead, she apologizes to you, which you aren't sure is flattering or a sign something terrible has happened.

You hope it's the former, but you should have known that hoping has never been enough.

She tells you that she closed the doors to her restaurant yesterday. It all comes spilling out, one gut punch after the other, the bills and the empty tables and how things just weren't the same the year after your review was published. She thanks you for your time, your writing, and your belief, and then she hangs up.

Not a thing in your body feels capable of moving. All the phone static passes right through you until the week's canned up dread balls up in your throat and some darker-than-black feeling swallows you whole.

The fluorescent ceiling lights sear into you. You think you're going to cry, and that's the last thing you want.

To anyone else, it wouldn't be that serious. Restaurants close all the time, and you know an entry in your silly little column is a far cry from a Hail Mary. But all you can think of is Mingyu’s neon sign on 5th and 40th and the two pairs of hands that had to take it down. You think your fingerprints are still on it, right over the blue shock of the I and the N.

One more dream taking on water, and once again, you're at the sad, cruel center of it.

You try to imagine the gumpaste walls, bumpy and water-stained. Maybe a pale square where your review used to hang.

No, you're definitely going to cry.

Fuck this, fuck work, fuck the article. And fuck Seungcheol, who's packing up his annoying, jingly messenger bag and is the only thing standing between you and an empty office to lose your shit in.

You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember if you're wearing waterproof mascara today. Unfortunately, the cowbell of Seungcheol's bag sounds like it's catching up to you, and, like it or not, you are two shaky breaths away from breaking down in front of the last person in the world you want to see.

"Final touches on another titillating piece about pineapple on pizza?"

You have no stomach for yelling at him. You can't even look at him. Instead, you bury your head in your hands and tell him to never use the word titillating again.

"A little too soon to play editor, in my humble opinion."

You don't reply. You're trying to scare him off without really scaring him off because god knows you've done that with enough people. Either way, he's calling you a crazy bitch at the next holiday party. You can just hear it.

But you should've known Seungcheol, of all people, doesn't flinch at a little silence. You still feel him hovering behind you, probably wondering if it's the half-full vanilla protein shake on your desk that's turned you sour. Or if you'll really make good on your threat to shank him with the plastic knife you keep in your top drawer.

Just walk away, you think. Go the fuck home.

Seungcheol, who gets paid to play cupid like it's fantasy football, would never understand that bite of the dial tone. Not like that. Half an orange is a hell of a toll to pay for your unfortunate work-related trauma.

You count the seconds till he walks away.

One. Two. Three.

Four is cut short because instead of doing what he should have done and left, he places a hesitant hand at the base of your neck, between your shoulder blades.

"Hey, you ok?"

Easy, noncommittal words, but something in you cracks. You don't know what it is—maybe it's because it's late and you're running on nothing, maybe it's because you can't remember the last time a hand was so warm.

And so, against your better judgment, you lift your streaky, raccoon-eyed face (definitely didn't use waterproof today) from your hands to look at the same eyes you looked at not more than a month ago and swore at.

You're glad you have no idea what you look like, because it's bad enough that all the corners of Seungcheol's face fall.

"Whoa," he breathes.

Now he'll know when to leave me alone, you think, but then that hand slides to your shoulder and his expression becomes impossibly soft and what you thought was confusion, pity even, dips into affection, stinging and raw.

"Listen, I—," he clears his throat nervously. Perhaps he's running through his repertoire of Wikihow phrases to say to a sad person, but you, inexplicably, don't believe that. "I don't know what's going on, but if you, you know, ever needed to talk…" Then he points to himself because that's probably the longest he's gone without attempting to tell a joke.

You're two and a half shaky breaths into this conversation, and the likelihood you will start crying has not changed. If anything, the odds have gotten much worse because the stubbornness of Seungcheol's expression is fooling you into thinking he actually cares. The illusion is comforting—after all the fighting and sabotage and inconveniences, he's still made space for you. That, or he's keeping his enemies close.

Then his thumb rubs over the plane of your collarbone, and all the little walls and hurdles and dams and shields in you drop.

Close friends, closer enemies, and the infinitesimal space between you and Seungcheol.

You'll blame your sorry state of mind for what you're about to do because you can't really cope with any other explanation. That's a tomorrow problem.

Today, you trust Seungcheol. Today, you tell him not everything, but enough.

"Forgive yourself," he says. And before you protest and tell him, through the waves of tears and snot and lightheadedness, that your heart has yet to catch up to the rest of you, he interrupts you before you even start. "I get it. Just try."

You’re all too familiar with his sugar-floss, candy-coated platitudes that make everything seem so simple, but he looks you in the eye, or somewhere even deeper than that, with so much belief, it's contagious.

The words are ripped out from under you. All you can do is what you wanted to do in the first place. So you cry, and when Seungcheol takes you into his arms, at first tentatively and then all at once, you cry even harder.

"Is this ok?" he asks, so quietly, you almost don't hear him.

"Yeah, I-I think so."

You let him hold you, and all the noise and the heat and the static fades into a hum. His chin finds the top of your head and you let him do that too.

Neither of you say anything more. You don't need to.

All that matters is the welcome sound of someone else's heartbeat, a kind hand in your hair, and Seungcheol, with none of the charms and boasts and failed, half-baked insults he hides behind.

Just him, and you decide you like this version best.

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The emotional hangover you wake up with rivals that of every vodka-flavored morning you had when you were in college, plus another two shots.

There is nothing worse than the aftermath of a particularly bad episode of oversharing. There's a reason you don't talk about your personal life at all, but something about Seungcheol makes every single thing claw its way back up your throat.

A need to prove yourself. A tiny, whispering hope that if you give a little, you'll get a little in return. Or your pride, the familiar knife you keep wedged into your side. A million excuses rattle around in your head, but nothing will ever take away the fact that it felt good.

Shields down, heart bleeding—never did you think that's how you would find yourself in a state where you actually liked Seungcheol. It felt good to be taken seriously, to say that all the talk about foie gras and peppercorns and microgreens was just tableside service for a great love and an even greater apology. And you'd like to think somewhere between the tears and the linen of his shirt, you were finally understood.

Just try. The words, sun-warmed stones, float in the hollow of your chest. It felt a little more possible, coming out of Seungcheol's mouth, with that dumb, resolute expression of his.

You don't even know if you would do the same for him. If he came to you, rosy-eyed and breakdown-adjacent, would you drop everything and listen to him? Clearly his problems ran deeper than a pretty girl not calling him back, but you had never really cared to listen.

And that's something you'll give Seungcheol credit for—he puts up with you, with everything, really, albeit with clumsy hands and the mask of reluctance.

You roll onto your side to reach for your phone. There's a text from Jeonghan asking if you're still up for grabbing drinks this evening. (Always). You have your final interview at 2. (Thank god).

And no text from Seungcheol. (Damn.)

Somehow this is disappointing, which makes your day that much worse. Maybe the runny mascara wasn't as flattering as you thought.

8 Totally Normal Texts To Send When You're Overthinking.

Not a good headline for a worse situation. Honestly, you shouldn't care, but now you're here, staring at your phone and undecided on if you even want Monday to come or not.

You'll order one (or three) margaritas tonight. You'll ask Jeonghan about his upcoming trip to Seoul. You'll make your favorite overnight oats and you'll go to sleep and Sunday will pass just the same.

You won't think about Seungcheol's arms around you or his head on top of yours or the way he insisted he would drive you to the subway so you didn't have to walk. You almost brushed against his hand on the gear stick and the nearness made you want to throw up.

But you're not thinking about it. You can't. Not without falling in love just a little.

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"Here. Drink."

You set two cups on the table before sitting face-to-face with Seungcheol, who decided to roll up to a coffee date in a somehow flattering polo and slacks.

But it's not a date—you're just talking. It's a meet-up. Not a hangout, which sounds too familiar, and definitely not a date.

Yesterday did not go as planned. Margarita-buzzed and under Jeonghan's terrible influence, you texted Seungcheol. Just to clear up some stuff, you told yourself. Friday night's like a scab, and you just can't help coming back to it.

"So, you're a coffee connoisseur too, huh?" Seungcheol says, tipping his head to the side.

"Not nearly," you reply. "Just wanted to pay for something for once. I'm pretty sure I owe you at least fifty of these."

"I'll hold you to it." He's doing that thing where it's like he stares past you. It's the most impressive eye contact on the planet, and it's making you nervous.

Then the silence, once welcome, becomes awkward—the air turns stiff, clinging to all the things you haven't said yet.

You play chicken with the idea of being an emotionally intelligent person and just talking about what most certainly is on everyone's mind right now. The cup between your hands is burning your palms. Seungcheol smiles.

"I'm—" The exact moment you start, the words crinkle up on your tongue and all the walls come back up again. It's a terrible, inevitable instinct. "I'm sorry. For Friday."

"For…what?" Seungcheol pauses mid-sip to say this. "Also, this coffee is really good."

Arabica, orange, and honey, you want to say. But you can't deflect this time. Somehow Seungcheol has cornered you into this tiny cafe chair with that disarming grin and an overabundance of patience.

"Everything, I guess. You were just trying to leave."

"No, I wasn't." And he laughs, which makes your stomach fold over trying to figure out what there possibly is to laugh at. "I actually liked getting to know you. You…care a lot. And I didn't expect that."

Seungcheol's sincerity staggers you. You could ask what the hell he just meant by all of that, but you decide to take him for his word. You think you've experienced the most honesty from him in the past three days than you have in the entire span of time you've known him, and it almost feels like a privilege.

"Thanks…?"

"Don’t let it go to your head, though," he adds, as if to erase what he just said. "Can't have you walking around the office with a bigger stick in your ass."

"Poetic." You sigh. Once again, the illusion is shattered. You wonder if his kindness has a time limit. "How's your article coming along?"

"Nice try," he replies. "I'm not that easy."

"You're literally the definition of easy."

"Is that a compliment?" There's that challenge in his eyes again, that same look that he gave you outside Wonwoo's office. "You did ask me out on a date, despite saying that you'd rather eat glass. So I guess either there's a half-eaten plate in your trash or you've finally come to your senses."

"This is not a date. Dream on."

"You're right. This isn't a date." He leans forward on his elbows. "Just like our dinner date wasn't a date."

"It wasn't."

"Of course. If it was, I'd be asking stuff like…Where you're from. But I already know—h, e, double hockey—"

"Chicago."

"Same difference."

Your conversation continues as such.

Not a date, but where'd you go to college? Not a date, but do you have a pet? Not a date, but can I walk you home?

You realize your talk in his car two weeks ago involved everything but your pasts, but you suppose neither of you are the type to unwrap old wounds. Sometimes the bandaid is better on, but, in your case, there's really nothing left to tell.

You divulge that you went to Northwestern for journalism. You have a family tabby, and no, you wouldn't mind being walked home.

You also realize before today, you knew less about Seungcheol than you thought, but there's some give to his secrecy. He went to USC because his parents wanted him to. Played football for half of it until he tore his ACL and got adopted by the sports section of the school paper. He even captained the advice column for three semesters—something he wants to return to, but you're happy to tell him you wouldn't trust his advice as far as you could throw him. (What was your alias? Samuel. Sounds kinda like Seungcheol, huh? You say no. He laughs.)

After circling the same park three times, you reach the doorstep of your apartment building. You cycle through some one-liners to end on a high note, but none of them seem quite right.

It's not a date, but you've noticed Seungcheol keeps glancing at your lips, and it almost seems like one.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol asks some stupid question about if coffee could be considered tea, which you start to answer before you are rudely interrupted.

First, the bump of his nose against yours, then his lips, slow, insistent, dizzying. Your heart jumps all the way to your throat and you think there's so much heat in your cheeks that he can feel it.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol just kissed you and you liked it.

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The next time you see Seungcheol is in the elevator to the newsroom on Monday.

He sticks his dumb, big arm out of the cabin to hold the door open for you, and his smile bruises your overripe heart.

"Hi," he says, sneaking a glance like a guilty child.

"Hi."

The floor indicators flicker like fireflies, one by one. He sidesteps toward you so that your shoulders touch. You watch the 4 crawl to 5. The air in the cabin is sticky, electric.

And as if taking a great big dive, you kiss him, a fleeting, tender thing that you rolled around in your head for a good thirty minutes earlier this morning—and you never thought the fruit of overthinking could be so sweet.

The elevator dings.

Before the doors open to your floor, Seungcheol slams the close button, takes your face in his hands, and kisses you again.

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You have three reasons to get drunk.

1. It's Friday.

2. You finished your article.

3. You and Seungcheol are no longer mortal enemies, but now you don't know what you are.

(The other day, you both worked late, and he ordered takeout to the office. You sat crosslegged on his desk as he tried to explain what a touchdown was and why he was obsessed with the Steelers. Normally a two hour long conversation about football would be a punishable offense, but that night he made you laugh so hard your stomach hurt the next day.)

After Wonwoo's dinner with corporate, he went to the market across the street and picked up a few handles of soju and the fattest bottle of cheap vodka you've ever seen.

You're all getting a raise—you guess the Thai must have worked out well, although Wonwoo must have struck out with Yerim since he's spending his Friday night drinking with you guys instead.

So you get drunk.

Drunk enough to tune out of Jihyo from Sports giving Wonwoo dating advice—riveting, if not for your near double vision—and follow Seungcheol to the staff bathroom.

"Anyone—," you manage. His lips are hot on your neck, and every dizzy neuron in your body seems to be reaching, grasping for him. "Anyone ever tell you that your forearms look really good when you roll up your sleeves?"

"All the time," he replies, and he swallows the laugh right off of your tongue.

"You are so annoying." Your palm finds his heartbeat, and you revel in how it leaps towards your skin every hurried beat. You don't want to think about how many girls came before you, leant back against the bathroom counter just like this, but having a body against yours never felt so good. You guess that's what a three year hiatus will do to you. "Bet you hear that one a lot too, huh?"

"You got that right."

Another kiss, just a nudge of his nose and you're leaning up to him; your lips feel swollen and warm and somehow they still crave the feeling.

"How is it that we still bump noses," you ask, half words, half air. Seungcheol's hands, skin-greedy, skim over the back of your thighs like they're water and find the swell of your ass.

"You make me impatient." Cheshire grin across heart lips and you're toast. "Anyone tell you that you have a great ass?"

"All the time," you squeak out. It's a lie and a half but who cares. His fingers drag under the seam of your underwear and you've never been so thankful you forgot to wear shorts under your dress.

"Need you," he says, lips flush to the skin behind your ear, and your lower half would give out if you weren't propped against the sink.

The idea of Seungcheol on his knees, your thigh hiked over his shoulder, crosses your mind. He'd probably be really good at head, and that makes you dizzier than any ungodly combination of alcohol would. Or would he press you against the mirror, want your skirt pushed to your waist so he could fuck you from behind?

Anticipation tumbles into anxiety into some primordial, horrible shyness because you haven't had sex in years. You feel hot and damp and sweaty and you can't remember if you shaved or not. Plus, you're already seizing in his arms and he hasn't even touched you for real yet.

"H-home," you breathe. "Let's go home."

"Hm?" His hand slows in the dip between your thighs. "You wanna stop? We can stop."

"No, I just…I just thought it would be better if we went home. To…you know."

"Yours or mine?"

"Mine’s closer," you answer after a considerable amount of mental gymnastics trying to figure out if you're both drunk enough to not mind the mess.

You know your apartment and you know your bed and you know where the bathroom is in case you have to pee. There's a box of condoms under the sink. You have an extra toothbrush for him. Less variables to worry about because nothing else has really gone to plan. You watch Seungcheol misbutton the top two buttons on his shirt and all the fondness in your heart feels like a welcome stranger in your body.

How To Ruin The Moment In One Easy Step!

You feel incredibly horny and guilty all at once, but Seungcheol kisses your cheek on the way out and it's like you're able to breathe again.

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It seems that the car ride to your place sucks all the sobriety back into the both of you.

You're lying stomach-down on your bed, Seungcheol against the headboard with his shirt undone. You're in your bra and your still sticky underwear, and somehow, despite being ready to break your three-year spell, you like this much better.

"Imagine if someone needed to piss," Seungcheol groans. "I think we would have gotten fired. Lifestyle would have no editor."

"I honestly think that's why Seungkwan was standing outside for so long."

Upon hearing this, Seungcheol's eyes shoot open. If your phone wasn't charging, you would take a picture. He fell asleep on your shoulder in the car, and now, even with all the affection you can muster, you can only describe his hair as broom-adjacent. Einstein-core. How far you've fallen from grace.

"Don't worry, he won't say anything." And as you watch the color return to his face, you add, "Also, it's not that I didn't want to have sex, I just…" you trail off, hoping he'll get it even though you're making no sense.

"No, it was the right call. I wanna do it when we're both sober."

It smooths your frayed-out nerves knowing that none of this was a performance or a test, just two shy, touch-starved people stumbling in the dark.

"Lemme guess—this is just a typical Friday night for you."

"Flattering but no," Seungcheol replies, grinning something stupid. "Do you always spend this much time wondering what I'm doing?"

"No!" His hands, once busy with scrunching up the fabric of your bedsheets, now find yours, and he runs a careful thumb over your knuckles. You notice he has the care-worn hands of a line chef, or maybe even a baker, which is funny because you don't even think the man knows how to turn on an oven. "I dunno. You just seem so experienced. What about all of those other girls?"

He flips your hand over, tracing the creases of your palm.

"Just dates. Nothing serious."

You want to ask—What about us? Are we serious? But you swallow it all down. You watch Seungcheol's eyes, midnight-weary, fall back upon you, and it feels like he's trusted you with something important.

"Don’t get it twisted, though," he adds, before yawning big and wide without covering his mouth. "I'm a loser, not a virgin. Definitely not."

You bite back a laugh. Killer journalist bio, but that's something to pitch next content meeting.

"Definitely a loser. I think you make me a loser by association."

"Good. So we're both losers. I like that." He smiles at you with so much warmth, it makes your heart physically hurt. Then he clamps down another yawn. "God, I'm exhausted. I think if we fucked in the bathroom, I'd have passed out. Or pulled my back."

"Then sleep," you chide, shucking a pillow at him. "Also take your shirt off. I don't like outside clothes on the bed."

"Say less," Seungcheol says. "I’ll blow your back out another day. Save the date." Between your almost audible gulp and his unfortunately attractive physique, you almost forget the place you're in-between.

Did everyone fit into his arms? Did he lift a hand for just anyone? Two silhouettes in the lamplight—was that how every day with him ended? Or just you, the only other person competing with him for his dream job? The convenient reality scares you.

The thought never seems to cross Seungcheol's mind. His head hits the pillow, and he's out like a light. But not without a not-so-subtle scoot to your side of the bed, near enough that the heat of his skin plays off yours.

You lean into it, liking how your skin buzzes with the closeness.

You're lulled by the sway of Seungcheol's breathing behind you—probably the most quiet he'll ever be. The moonlight oozes into the room; sleep comes over you like water, a slow, gentle wash.

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You can't remember the last time you cooked for two.

You open your fridge, and the hollow insides stare back at you. Rows of condiments and two water bottles. You have finally reached K-drama CEO status.

"Is this the part where I get kicked out?" Seungcheol says, shrugging his shirt back on as he walks out of the bedroom.

"This is the part where I cook breakfast for you."

"Really? You don't have to." He sounds genuinely surprised, which tips your heart a little off-axis.

"I want to," you reply, double checking the fridge as if opening it a second time would repopulate it. "That's what people do when they care about each other."

"Or if they're trying to poison you."

"Will you just let me do something nice for you?" You yank your head out to glare at him, and he looks stung.

"Thanks." He says it after so much pause that you wonder if this is the first time someone has done this for him. You wish you had a better offering, but surely the man with the worst palate in the world could spare his judgment for one meal. "No really, 'cause I am starving."

You let him bask in the rare glory of the unobstructed refrigerator light while you rummage through the pantry for a plan B.

"Holy shit. You live like this?"

"Not always. It's been…a week." All you have is the ramyun Mingyu likes, which feels like a weird, culinary betrayal. But you're hungry, and Seungcheol is eyeing a strange bag in the freezer that you don't even remember putting there. "You good with ramyun?"

"Honestly, I'll eat anything," he whines, gnawing on the ice straight from the freezer drawer.

At least he's self-aware. But he makes all the spaces Mingyu left behind seem a little less empty, and you can't find it in you to be mad at that.

You wait for the water to boil and Seungcheol finds a seat at your tiny dinner table, a misaligned, wobbly product of Mingyu’s inability to read an Ikea manual.

"I'm hoping your week got better?" Seungcheol asks, referring to your capital W week.

You tentatively nod before dropping the noodles in.

"Of course it did—you woke up to me in your bed. Can't get better than that."

"Actually, it's because I finished my article yesterday."

Seungcheol pauses before laughing to himself. "Congrats," he replies, now wiggling the table on its bad leg. "Can't say the same for myself."

you watch the starch-foam wash over the mouth of the pot, precariously close to the edge. You overfilled it, which mildly surprises you until you consider that you're cooking double the food.

There's a stretchy, anxious tumble in your stomach. It's not like you were expecting him to cheer or anything, but it just reminds you that you are, still in fact, competitors. When all of this is said and done, one of you is losing, and from every angle, it seems like quite the death knell for whatever you've got going on now.

It's a pity because you actually kind of like this arrangement. If Seungcheol was in your banged-up flea market chair next Saturday morning, you wouldn't be mad. Maybe you would even make him waffles. From scratch, even.

"What, too many dates to cover?"

He laughs again, somehow to no one in particular. "Something like that."

Past the bruising swell of his smile is the much sharper, more unforgiving edge of an unspoken hurt that you're neither trusted with nor owed, and yet you refuse to drop it. What about me? It feels like you're almost there, wrapped around something bigger, a scoop you can't pull your stubborn teeth out of.

"Is there a reason none of those were serious? Come on."

"What's so wrong with that?" And when you don't say anything, he says, "Trust me, it is never that serious."

His voice ticks up at the end like a teenager trying to play cool and the noodle water boils up around your chopsticks as you try to get your portion cooked through.

You won't—can't—turn to face him. You committed to the line, and now you must see it through, no matter how bad an idea it may be.

"That's not true," you finally squeeze out, finding the right footing for your voice. "It was serious for me. I'm sorry it wasn’t for you."

The table stops rocking.

"I'm glad. Really." He claps his hands together like a cruel punctuation mark, and it's then you remember that the only person as ill-tempered as you happens to be sitting two feet away.

Like an injured animal, your heart wants to cower back into your chest. You knew this was a mistake—this being everything—but an open wound can't help but bleed and your pride can't do without seeing the knife.

"Look, I don't know what your problem is." The pot hisses, astringent and pleading, beneath your fist. "I don't know what happened with your love life, but don't take it out on me."

"You asked."

"Yeah? Well, what is this?" You turn to face him, feeling the air between you tense, pulled like a rubber band. "You can't sit in my kitchen and tell me you don't care about whatever this is."

After all of the terse meetings, elevator spats, and foul-mouthed encounters in the parking lot, you can now recognize the fresh twist of Seungcheol's mouth and the livewire of a temper you've become so familiar with.

"Who said I didn't care? I'm just tired of you trying to lecture me about my life. I—"

"I'm not lecturing you, I just know you can't really believe what you're saying." Every word stumbles out, trembling and doe-legged, barely audible over his attempts to interrupt you. "There's nothing wrong with admitting you were in love with someone. And if you can't, I just feel really fucking sorry for you."

There’s an incredulous look in Seungcheol's eyes. But it's the worse part of you, ruthless and hungry for acceptance, that makes you say, "Maybe the fact that nothing lasts is your fault."

"Oh, really?" Seungcheol's voice, half-laugh with none of the warmth, rips through you. "You're really gonna act like you're better than me? As if you don't write in your pretentious little column every week, just waiting for your ex to read it and decide he wants you back again?"

There’s a red hot flash behind your eyes and everything inside you feels like it breaks at once.

"You know, at least I had someone who cared about me. Can't say the same about your miserable, sorry ass. Now get the fuck out of my apartment."

"Wh—"

he stands up, table croaking underneath his fists, and you realize you've crossed a bridge that can never be uncrossed.

"Get. Out."

It feels like a stitch in you has come undone. The water has long boiled over the pot and there's no joy to be found in watching Seungcheol stumble over his pant legs on the way to the door.

"I didn't want Mingyu. I wanted you."

it's not an apology, nor is it an indictment. You don't know why you say it, and you guess Seungcheol doesn't either. The door slams behind him, and all you're left with is a bloated pot of ramyun you never really wanted anyway.

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Celery. Red wine. Short rib.

If you had one day left on earth, you think you would go grocery shopping. It was like a prayer to you—you could close your eyes and know exactly what aisle had the beef broth, or feel the stone weight of a can of San Marzano tomato paste.

That's one thing you can thank Mingyu for—it's true that you don't love him like you used to, but you refuse to believe that any love worth having is also worth leaving behind.

Fingerling potatoes, the red ones. A Vidalia onion.

You recite your shopping list, slowly, quietly, a rosary.

Baguette is the next item, with a question mark next to it because sometimes your local bakery sells out after 3.

You pass by, expecting to see the shop window cleared out. Instead you see a familiar crown of cowlicked black hair and a horribly well-worn grin that only looks good because it's on Choi Seungcheol's face.

He's paying for a pretty girl's sourdough, and thyme, rosemary gets washed out by a dizzying riptide of heartache.

It was never personal, you tell yourself. Just another date. That's the angle.

You think it hurts a little less, knowing that it all was a business transaction. A long interview.

The thyme is next to the dill. The rosemary is next to the chives, at the end of the shelf.

You watch Seungcheol lean over the tiny cafe table to take a sip of his date's Americano. Did he always laugh like that? Were you really any different?

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Monday feels tilted.

There's the usual gust of cinnamon sugar and cold brew—today's offering from the interns, who have begun to master the art of pressing the elevator buttons with full hands. Wonwoo is wearing his Monday outfit, a wrinkled cream button up under a navy blue sweater vest. Your cubicle is empty, just the way you like it, save for the ass-shaped spot cleared off on the desk edge.

You like days like this, except today you don't and you know exactly why.

"Today's the day," Joshua says, nose buried in a bakery-style muffin, the top pillowing out of the wrapper.

He stares over your shoulder at your article, locked and loaded for submission to copy.

You are not exaggerating when you say you would die for these four thousand words. You ate and cried and argued for them in what you can only describe as the worst literary coliseum of your life, and now their (and your) fate rests in Joshua’s massive Mickey Mouse hands and Wonwoo's bespectacled whimsy.

"Well, don't let me stop you." He laughs and then totters away, sucking a crumb off a finger. Just another Monday.

Your cursor hovers over the SUBMIT button. You've always been a little scared of it—unsurprising, since you're also the type to triple read an email before sending it—but there's a new kind of fear boxed in those little pixels.

Last night, you emptied out your freezer. Stuck on the back wall was a neon green sticky note, behind all the bags. See you when you get home, it said. You laughed and then you cried and then you ripped it up because that's probably what Seungcheol was looking at the morning you chewed him out.

All of that heartache must have been good for something. To say you wasted it on a no-love situationship wouldn't do any of it justice, not when all that's left is most definitely a crude shoutout on Seungcheol's next listicle. If you weren't already getting one earlier, you sure are now.

You wonder what you'll be:

10 Signs She Is Clinically Insane.

It's Not You, It's Them!

Help! My Friend With Benefits Isn't A Friend Or A Benefit!

At least that one is funny, although if it's the winning line, you don't think you can ever show your face in the office again.

The beginning and the end and the muddy in-between. Entrenched in all of it was this article and this job, and you'll be damned if you let your misplaced faith get co-opted by a sweaty-palmed Casanova.

(8:19 AM; the smell of summer and dried-down cologne. A hand on your ribcage, just beneath your heart. Good morning, Seungcheol says, as if emerging from a long, wonderful dream.)

You picture the byline with editor tacked next to your name. To run your finger over the ink spackled serif of a paper hot off the press, as if somehow it would radiate the misery you had to endure.

(11:41 PM; jajangmyeon and a pack of rice crackers. Seungcheol had given you his chopsticks because you dropped yours. The hum of the broken light outside Wonwoo's office sings in the silence of an empty newsroom. Your eyes meet, and you don't look away.)

There's a sinking feeling in your chest. You close your eyes and hit submit.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Ask Samuel!

It's 6 PM on a Thursday and if you weren't already on your last thread, you are now. The angry red of the Daily Trojan website glares back at you from your phone as you step into the elevator with none other than your editor-in-chief.

You've resorted to reading Seungcheol's old advice columns. Not because you miss him, but because you want to know if he was ever a competent writer capable of talking about something other than how to score on a second date.

That's the only way he's beating you.

(There's also no way you miss him. The thought would make you laugh out loud if you weren't standing next to your boss).

One column became four became ten. After thirteen you concluded Seungcheol must have sustained a head injury some time before starting his job here—you can find no other explanation for how someone so generous and intuitive could've gotten lost in the chaff of articles with more pictures than words.

"Congrats," Wonwoo says, seemingly speaking into the void.

"Pardon?" You close out a particularly riveting query about estranged childhood friends to look up at him.

"Congrats."

"F-for what?" You get that head rush again, the same one you got a month ago at the Italian restaurant with Jeonghan.

"The job. You got the position." Wonwoo clears his throat calmly, as if he's not delivering the most important news of your life. "I wanted to let you know in person before we sent out Monday’s email."

For once, you have no words. In a wonderful instant, they are all zapped out of your brain. You feel hot and clammy and anxious all at once and you half expect to close your eyes and see either god or the flare of a hospital light, waking you up from an impossible coma.

"Holy shit," the primordial ooze inside you says instead. "T-thank you."

"No need."

"What about Seungcheol? Does he know?"

"I haven't told him yet, but he should be aware." Wonwoo pauses. "He didn't submit anything."

"What?!"

There are only so many surprises your body can handle. You feel like you are being held together by a fast-unraveling string on a poorly made sweater. Your stomach is somewhere in your feet and you don't even know where your heart is. Part of you is waiting for the elevator to stop so the entire office can jump out of the walls and laugh at you.

"I too was surprised," Wonwoo says, now checking his smartwatch for messages. "He must have changed his mind. No matter—I'm confident you will be an excellent fit."

The elevator jerks to a stop at the first floor. You feel boneless, like a can of cranberry sauce.

"Forgive me, I have a dinner appointment." Wonwoo ends the conversation the best way he can—with his trademark parentheses smile and a nod of the head—and leaves you in the elevator cabin alone.

All the times you've dreamed of this moment, you're tear-dizzy, joyous, fumbling with your phone to call your parents.

Instead you stand motionless, waiting, emptied.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

To make croissants, you fold a slab of butter into a square of yeasted dough. You roll it out thin and then fold it into itself before leaving it to rest in the fridge. Then you take it out again, roll it, and fold it. You do this until you've forgotten how many times you folded it and you no longer crave croissants.

When you were five, you pressed your nose to the window of your favorite patisserie and decided this is how your mind works.

You've had ample time now to flatten out Saturday morning, to watch all the little layers of doubt and loathing form, and now you're sick of it. It's not often you're star witness to your own unhappiness, but, as if you were called to the stand, you can easily play back the moment you lit the match and then watched everything explode.

You're not sure what either of you were expecting. A playboy and you, who loves so insistently, almost as if out of spite—there is truly no reality in which it makes sense. The fact that you fought over a literal pot of ramyun only proves this.

And now he's saddled you with the final blow. The position of your dreams with none of the glory because he gave up.

He gave up.

None of this should matter to you.

You're standing outside the office, waiting for your ride to your celebratory dinner (this time, on Jeonghan). The little headline man in your brain is silent for once. Instead, you try to enjoy the breeze, honeyed with late June, and not dwell on the horrible twist in your stomach every time you think about your new position. It's been 24 hours since you found out but it is no less raw.

It's then that you catch Seungcheol, creeping out the double doors of the office like some sort of criminal. You're not sure if it's the plod of his Sasquatch feet or that bag you hate so dearly, but you could recognize that walk from anywhere.

His pace quickens when you turn to face him—he's running away. You won't grant him the satisfaction. Not when he's fucked up what little you had left, and then some.

"You're an idiot, Seungcheol."

That does the trick.

"Funny way of saying hi," he responds, bracing himself on the sidewalk as if you're about to hit him.

"Why didn't you submit anything? What the fuck were you thinking?"

"What does it matter to you? You got the position."

"Look, I—" You shut your eyes, feeling the frenetic ice-cream churn of your brain try to put together a million broken up words. "I'm sorry for Saturday. But I never wanted to scare you off from the job. You deserve it as much as I do, and, as much as I hate to say it, I care about you too fucking much to watch you throw away your shot."

Saying the words is like cutting something loose from your chest, a million strings coming undone.

Seungcheol takes a deep, unsteady breath. You watch the crest and fall of his shoulders and the inescapable tar pits he calls eyes get big and shiny.

"No, I—" He pulls himself from your gaze. "I'm sorry. I should have never said that to you. And I should have never treated you like that."

The silence between you ripples, as if after a long rain.

"I was scared. A long time ago, I threw myself into a relationship. I thought we had something really, really good, and then I found out she was also seeing someone else."

Being right never felt so bad. It's even worse that something you would look forward to—the I told you so, the jokes really write themselves—no longer holds any satisfaction, only a sense of loss and a terrible urge to make it right again.

"And it's not right, but I decided that it was a mistake to take chances like that again. And it was fine, fun even, going on all of these casual dates and getting paid for it. Then you just had to mess it up."

"H-how?"

"You were so dead-set on convincing me otherwise. You wouldn't let it go, not with your weird sayings and the way you talked about your ex and when you told me you were making me breakfast. I started believing you, and it really fucking scared me."

There's a sharp pain in your head. It feels like, at once, you were skinned like a fruit. Like the interlude between dream and waking, all the sheets of sleep yanked from your person.

"What…what about the article?" you ask, scrambling. You don't really want to contend with what he just told you. You don't think you can.

"You deserved it more. And you really love what you do. I used to think it was all bullshit, but I was wrong."

You take a hard swallow. The image of Seungcheol, head bowed, a nervous hand on the back of his neck, swims in front of your eyes.

"Whatever. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore," he laughs, mirthless.

"No, wait," you say. "I-I also…never took you seriously, not even when I should've. You know, I read your advice columns. Crazy, I know."

"I do have to say that is one of your more insane claims."

"No, I thought, they were actually, you know…really good." You watch him blink, mouth already twisting up as he fights a smile. "What I'm trying to say is that I think we messed up. In a lot of ways. But I want to be friends again. Or at least not enemies."

Seungcheol takes a long pause before he sticks his hand out.

"Choi Seungcheol. Writer. It's nice to meet you."

Some force, as if you had always been connected, pulls your skin to his. You shake his hand for the very first time, and starting over never felt so good.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

"You're booking Eleven Madison for the office dinner again, right?"

Wonwoo pops his head into your office, his Monday uniform now festive with a holiday tie. Today, it's snowmen with glasses.

"Naturally," you reply. "Unless you have plans on that Friday."

You're referring to last week, when Wonwoo took a call in the middle of a staff meeting and revealed that yes, he would most definitely be available for drinks with Yerim that evening. He ended the meeting thirty short seconds later, and you think you saw him skip to the elevator.

He laughs, deep and caramel. "Not this time. Also—don't forget to review those job applications. Sent them to your email."

Before you can tease him again, he leaves, and you are forced to look at your teeming inbox, the only unfortunate side effect of your new position. But you've never been happier, and a hundred new unread emails never seemed so wonderful. The first time Jeonghan saw you in your new office, you were so giddy he thought you were coming down with something.

You take a hefty sip of today's coffee (ginger, molasses, cinnamon). On the side of the cup, the one you keep facing away from the door, reads SEUNGCHEOL and OAT, in loopy marker letters.

After you shook hands in the parking lot, you agreed to take it slow. You thought bringing everything to a simmer would cure you of your affection, but it wasn't even a month before Seungcheol was back in that same seat in your kitchen, eating the blueberry waffles you promised him.

But if slow meant long phone calls and the nervous twine of your hands after an ice cream date, then you think you like slow. You could do slow for a while.

He's taken to bringing you coffee in the morning. He claims it's your editorial right, but you think he just likes having an excuse to barge into your office. (And close the door behind him. And kiss you. But that's aside the point.)

Plus, Seungcheol's had plenty of legitimate reasons to be in your office. The newest one is the launch of Ask Sunny! , which you think is the best idea he's had since deciding to get you coffee every day. He spent the last few days campaigning to reuse his old alias, but you're pretty sure he was just looking for reasons to argue with you.

"Afternoon, boss."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. You always seem to learn the hard way with Seungcheol.

He swaggers in, ear-to-ear smile on his face, before taking a seat at the designated corner of your table.

"I think I like this desk better," he says, folding at the waist so he can lean close to you. Instead of reminding him it's the same desk, you just choose to make space for him, you let him press his nose to yours.

"Friendly reminder we're at work."

"Everyone's at lunch, genius."

He interrupts you with just a touch of his lips, which should be considered no less than a war crime by now.

"You are the worst."

"Not what you said last night. Not even close." He places another wet kiss on your nose before sliding off the table edge to his feet. There's a horrible warmth in his eyes as he watches you very clearly remember what exactly he's referring to. (A wandering hand. A cherry. Dark hair, wound through your fingers). "Anyway, I've got serious problems to solve. Or should I say Sunny? I still think we should have gone with Samuel."

"Executive decision," you tease. "Now if you don't need anything, scram. Out of my office."

"Just wanted to remind you I made reservations for us at Avra today," Seungcheol says, lingering in the doorframe with the shit-eating grin he tends to sport nowadays. "I'll even let you order."

There's no fighting the familiar bloom of laughter in your chest. It boils up, sparkling and citrusy, as you roll your eyes and watch Seungcheol return to his desk no less starry-eyed than how he walked in.

If cooking is a language, then love is the words, and you finally think you're learning to speak them.

You open the email at the top of your inbox: Seungcheol's last draft of the article he never published. You urged him to let you consider it for the next issue, and he finally caved (although you're learning that he really doesn't take much convincing when it comes to you).

Eat, Play, Love: A Guide.

Maybe you'd put it through. Maybe.

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

#mine #seungcheol #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol fluff #seungcheol x you #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #scoups x reader #scoups fluff #scoups x you #seungcheol imagines #seungcheol scenarios #scoups imagines

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requinoesis · 6 months ago

Text

⭐The Magic Drawing Pad! 📱✨

I was surprised to receive a Tablet from XPPen in exchange for a review. Here’s my experience! 📝✨

Initially, I thought the tablet's design, meant for drawing away from a workspace and outdoors, didn't suit my lifestyle. As an introvert who rarely leaves the house or is socially active, I decided to review it from a homebody’s perspective.

I've never drawn on a display tablet before, only on regular digital tablets like the Wacom Bamboo and my current Huion Inspiroy Ink. Now, I have the XP-Pen Magic Drawing Pad to try out!

At first, it was frustrating! Everything I drew looked crooked and ugly, and I felt like a fraud. But it wasn't the tablet's fault; it was like learning to draw all over again since I was used to the computer and had abandoned traditional art.

I was rushing, thinking I should be perfect immediately. I took a deep breath and remembered that learning a new tool takes time and patience. Once I gave myself the time to adapt, things started to work out.

I only explored the tablet's basic functions, but its interface is similar to an iPad or cell phone and works well. I transferred files to my computer via Telegram, but Google Drive could also be used.

There are several illustration apps available. I chose Infinite Painter first because it is similar to Procreate. I found it amusing that the process of creating art was recorded while I was drawing!

In conclusion, I find the Magic Drawing Pad to be an ideal tablet for beginners venturing into screen drawing for the first time. It offers a practical and enjoyable experience!

Feel free to ask any questions about this tablet, and I'll do my best to answer them!

They also told me to say that there would be up to 45% off during the Prime Day event on the Amazon store and the official store from July 16th to 17th! 🛍️✨

⭐ - US store: https://amzn.to/3L08x36 ⭐ - CA store: https://amzn.to/3VanP9W

They also recommended this keyboard!

⭐ - ACK08 smart keyboard: https://bit.ly/3VCgAYv

Thanks a lot to the XPPen team for their patience and for the opportunity to try out this tablet!❤️✨

---

I did this little speedpaint experiment too if you want to see! The function of recording while drawing is a very cool experience!

youtube

That's it, I hope you like it!✨

#xppen #xp pen tablet #art #illustration #digitalart #Youtube #advertisement #AD #product reviews

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nicka-nell · 7 months ago

Note

Can i request tsukishima, kuroo, semi and futakuchi being interrumped at sexy moments with their s/o (for example, they are kissing your neck so slowly that you can't breathe and boom! the door bell)

Hi anon! I don't know what happened, but I suddenly had a big boost of motivation and just wrote your sweet request. 😅🥰 I really need to get back into writing... It was so unfamiliar and kind of hard, but it was still fun. Sorry if it's kind of bad. I tried my best. 🥹

Getting interrupted during sexy time

Pairing: Tsukishima x, Kuroo x, Semi x, Futakuchi Kenji x reader

Warning: fluff, slightly mention of nsfw, mdni

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

“Tsukki... are you still reading through that report on dinosaurs?” you sigh as you get up from his bed and walk over to his desk, looking over his shoulder.

“This isn’t just any dinosaur. It’s a Camptosaurus, one of the rarest. Researchers found bones of this dinosaur a few days ago.” Tsukishima replies in his usual tone. Instead of answering him, you just nod with a slight smile. It’s actually quite cute when he talks about something that fascinates him.

“Ooh, I see... what did they look like before?” you ask curiously, taking the opportunity to roll his desk chair backwards and sit on his lap. A grumpy ‘hey’ escapes Tsukishima as you make yourself comfortable, your back against his chest. He accepts it and puts his free hand around your waist.

“Here... this is what a camptosaurus used to look like.” Tsukishima leans forward. You automatically move with him as he hands you his cell phone and you look at the pictures in the report. “Wow, that’s a big dinosaur. I’d be an easy snack for it.” you giggle and glance to the side at Tsukishima, who is looking over your shoulder at his cell phone.

“No, they were herbivores. At most, it would eat your plants that you look after sporadically,” he replies sarcastically, and you stick your tongue out at him before laughing lightly. Now he looks away from his cell phone and up at you.

“What? I’m right,” he says, and you just roll your eyes playfully. “Sometimes you’re really mean. But I love you for it.” You reply and watch Tsukishima’s eyes widen for a moment. The tips of his ears redden before he turns away. Oh Tsukki... you think and turn a little more in his lap, so that you are now facing him head-on, before you cup his cheeks with your hands and kiss him. “What, shy?” You say mischievously, but he only returns your grin with an arrogant look.

“Shy? Did you see your reflection in my glasses?” he teases back and leans forward, trapping you between himself and the table. “Oh, now I’m scared,” you say sneeringly, as Tsukishima pulls you towards his hips by your waist, his face bent forward. “Don’t be cheeky, or else-“

“Or else what?” you interrupt him before he whispers softly, “Punishment.” Before you can get any further into your teasing, you feel his warm lips on yours. Your heart beats fast and you feel like you’re on fire. His fingertips, which sneak lightly under your t-shirt and touch your skin, make you sigh softly.

“Have you lost your tongue?” he whispers before his lips meet yours again. His kiss is slow and long. His tongue parts your lips before the kiss becomes even more intimate.

You feel his thumbs caressing your bare skin under your shirt, slowly traveling up your sides before you break away from the kiss and look at him with a mischievous grin. “Who knows? Looks like you’re going to have to try to get me talking again.”

“Easy.” he replies grinning, before he starts to kiss your neck. His lips are warm on your skin, his teeth nibble lightly.

“Is that a challenge?” you breathe as you tilt your head back, your hands wrapping around Tsukishima’s neck. You feel his smirk on your neck, his hands pushing your shirt up and his upper body pressing even closer to yours, pushing your back further against the table behind you. “Mhh Tsukki...” you sigh and feel the desire for more rising inside you.

“Easier than I thought.” he smiles triumphantly as he continues to kiss your neck when you suddenly hear the door opens.

“Do you want to have dinner with us later or are you going to the cinem-?” you hear Akiteru, who enters the room happily and quickly gets wide-eyed when he sees you both.

“Eh, I… well... I think mum just called.” He turns around somewhat awkwardly and instantly closes the door behind him. Embarrassed, you put your face in your hands and feel like sinking into the ground.

“Oh my God, how shameful...” you sigh, but instead of being embarrassed, Tsukishima clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes. “Annoying... He’s old enough to know that doors aren’t decorative objects. They’re there to be knocked on before you pull the door open,” he says with a slightly annoyed undertone.

You feel your face grimace as you glare at him. “That’s not funny Tsukki. How am I supposed to look your brother in the eye at dinner now?”

Your snappy words make Tsukishima roll his eyes again. But it’s not an annoyed eye roll, more like an amused one. “Just don’t look him in the eye if it bothers you that much. But just for the record... my room has neither airtight windows nor doors. In other words, it’s not a soundproof room. Don’t you think my brother knows what we do here at night? I’m pretty sure he hears you every time. You’re not exactly quiet, are you?” Tsukishima teases you with a smirk before leaning forward and pulling your hands away from your face to look at you.

“Tsukki! My God, why would you say that? I hate you!” you say mad, feeling the heat only rise to your face more before you kick him lightly and sigh more. Ah, Tsukishima loves to see your embarrassed face when he teases you. “Sure, that’s why you annoy me every day.” he smirks before giving you a kiss on the nose.

The national team’s volleyball matches are coming up again and Kuroo is working overtime more often. He’s staying late at the office today. He's the only one except for a few colleagues there, when you knock on his office door and enter it. With a gentle smile, you hold a bag of food in the air. Kuroo still seems to be in a videoconference. You quietly unpack the box of food and place it on his desk before making yourself comfortable on the sofa in the corner of his office as you wait for his meeting to be over.

It doesn’t take long for him to say goodbye and take his headset off his head, rubbing his eyes tiredly before clicking on the “leave” button for the online meeting.

With an understanding smile, you walk to him, wanting to ask him if you should massage his shoulders, but Kuroo is already stretching out his hands, grabbing yours, before pulling you onto his lap and giving you a kiss.

“Don’t forget to eat something in between,” you say worriedly as Kuroo leans his head against your chest. “You know I’m not a child to look after, right?” Kuroo says teasingly, even though he likes that you’re worried about him.

You roll your eyes lovingly before looking at the bento box you have prepared for Kuroo. You release your hands from his before reaching for the box to open it. Still sitting on his lap, you pick up the chopsticks and a small piece of tamagoyaki before you bring it to Kuroo’s mouth. “Go on, eat my little baby.” you tease him warmly as Kuroo grins and puts his hands around your waist, opens his mouth and lets you feed him.

“Well, kitten, I could get used to that,” he purrs as you giggle. “In your dreams. Don’t get too used to it. You’re not old and fragile yet.” you say as you reach for the next piece of tamagoyaki, but you pause as Kuroo’s lips move gently over your neck, nuzzling your skin.

“I’m actually hungry for something else,” he whispers in your ear as he starts to nibble on your earlobe. His thumb lightly caresses your hip, his breath is warm on your skin and you quickly realize how shy you suddenly feel.

“Tetsu... there are still colleagues of yours in the office... what if someone comes in? We shouldn’t do something so naughty here.” You reply sheepishly and look to the side. But Kuroo doesn’t even think about stopping now.

The week was more exhausting than usual. He was hardly ever at home and had many meetings with sponsors or young talents who needed to be supported. To avoid waking you up in the middle of the night, Kuroo either slept in his office or on the sofa in the living room. He misses being close to you. He was glad to see you again today after a hard day. You somehow looked even more charming than usual today. Even if that’s not possible. He’s sure you could have come into his office in sweatpants and a baggy jumper, but his first thought would still have been, ‘wow, that’s my wife’.

“Let them be. There should only be a few colleagues left, anyway. The colleagues who are still working have no reason to come into my office,” Kuroo says throatily between kisses, before his hand strolls from your hip to your chin, he moves away from your neck and peers at you mischievously.

“Besides, you’re the one who said my statement was indecent. How could you possibly think that I had something naughty in mind? I actually only wanted to eat the rice in the bento box and not the egg,” Kuroo says you with a grin.

Embarrassed, you try to look away, but his hand on your chin stops you. “Now I feel a bit silly. Then... wait, I’ll give you the rice,” you say almost shyly, but Kuroo chuckles.

“Where do you think you’re going? That was a lie. The thing I crave most right now is right in front of me.” he whispers almost like a predator looking at his prey as he brushes your lips with his thumb before his hand moves to the back of your head when he pulls you close to kiss you.

His kiss is slow but firm. His tongue quickly finds its way between your lips and makes your heart beat even faster. “Tetsu...” you sigh between kisses, feeling his grin on your lips. “Oh my kitten, don’t worry about the others here. If you stay quiet, no one will hear us, and no one will find out that we’re about to give the desk a quality check.”

“Shush, you talk too much.” You say sheepishly, feeling his hand wrap itself tighter in your hair as his other hand slides under your top.

Kuroo is just about to say something, when the vibrating of his mobile phone makes him sigh briefly. He considers answering it, but then he ignores the call and concentrates on kissing you again, pressing your body even closer to him on his lap. “Ah, Tetsu, at least see who’s calling you. Maybe it’s important.”

“You’re the most important thing right now,” he says hungrily, but you push him away and look at him seriously. Kuroo sighs in frustration, making a mental note to block the contact who has now called him and disturbed your togetherness and remove him from his friend’s list if it’s not really important.

He clicks his tongue as he reaches for his phone and picks it up even before he can read who is calling him. But his annoyed expression suddenly changes. His eyes grow wide, almost panicked, as he reaches for his mouse and looks at his computer screen. “Kuroo-san, you really seem to have a lovely wife, and I don’t want to disturb you. But… You’re still in the meeting and we can hear and see you,” says an investor with whom he and two of his colleagues were at the meeting earlier.

Kuroo checks the app he had used for the meeting and sees that instead of clicking the “Leave” button, he had simply minimized the window. He was still in the meeting and everyone could see and hear you. Caught and with a charming smile, Kuroo apologizes before quickly leaving the meeting, almost not daring to look in your direction. Because he knows that you are staring at him with a look that could kill.

Semi is sitting in his garage as he plays a melody on his guitar and goes through the lyrics he wrote yesterday when he was slightly drunk and partying with his band mambers.

He is not entirely happy with the melody. It sounds so sad, although the lyrics are actually beautiful. Maybe he should take a break? After all, he’s been practicing here for a while now. “Just one more time, then I’ll take a break,” he mumbles to himself as he starts to play a new melody to the song. Completely in his element, he doesn’t notice when the door to his garage opens and you walk in.

You wait until he has finished his song before you start clapping. Semi flinches before looking towards the door in your direction. He grabs a cushion that’s next to him on the sofa and throws it in your direction. “Tell me, are you trying to kill me with a heart attack? I’m not that successful yet that it would be worth it for you,” he pouts, but he doesn’t mean any offense.

Laughing, you catch the pillow and throw it back before walking to him and placing two bottles of juice and two boxes of noodles on the table in front of him. Before you sit down, you cup his cheeks with your hands and give him a loving peck. “Oh damn, I guess I’ll have to wait a few more years than, right? Although... if you keep writing hits like the song you just wrote, then maybe it will only take a few more months.” You say playfully with a smile and brush a strand of hair behind his ear.

Semi’s ears turn red, his hands still on his guitar before he realizes that you must have just heard the whole song. He had written a song about you. About the woman who turns his head, who will be the death to him even in his dreams. About the woman who makes him smile every day, because that’s what she does to him every day and she doesn’t even have to be there. Because just the thought of you is enough. About the woman who makes him feel strong in every situation, who always supports him. And then there were a few lines that weren’t so suitable for minors.

“Do you think it’s really sexy if I walk into our kitchen in the morning in just your shirt and make us a coffee?” you grin teasingly. Semi pouts, unsure how to respond.

You lean further towards him, your fingers brush against his, still holding the guitar. “You know, I find it really sexy when you play the guitar. The way your hands move, how passionate you look when you sing the lyrics you’ve written yourself. Sometimes I wish you’d replace the guitar with me and play with me like you play your guitar,” you say seductively with a hungry look.

Oh, you really are the death to him, Semi thinks, now also red in the face as he turns to you and his shy look has twisted into a confident and strong smile. “Hey watch out pretty-face. A wise man once said that you should be careful with your wishes, otherwise they will soon come true,” he whispers hoarsely to you, just inches away from your face.

“Is that so? Then I hope he’s right.” You whisper just as confidently before closing the last distance between you two to kiss him. You playfully bite his lower lip. Your hand caresses his cheek before you wander down his neck, your fingers play with his necklace. You smile briefly before tugging on the necklace and pulling him closer to you.

“Oh, God, you’re going to send me to hell,” Semi says in a raspy voice before putting down his guitar to kiss you again. He leans forwards, pushing you down onto the sofa before lying on top of you between your legs his lips never leaving yours. His kisses are stormy, taking your breath away.

“Good," you breathe, reaching for the fabric of Semi’s top to pull it off. You throw it on the floor, your hands caressing his muscles hungrily, only giving Semi an even bigger ego boost.

“Fuck, I love when you do that,” he moans, still kissing you fiercely as his hand slides to your leg, bending it slightly and squeezing the flesh of your thigh. A murmur escapes him as his hand moves further up your skirt to your bum. “Baby, you do things to me-“

“Oh boy, here we go again...” a familiar voice suddenly interrupts him. Cursing, Semi flinches and pulls your skirt back into place before looking towards the door. Two of his band mates are standing in the doorway of his garage. The band’s second guitarist looks to the side, embarrassed, and scratches the back of his neck, while the bassist puts his hands on his hips and looks at Semi, shaking his head.

“Fuck, what are you doing here?” curses Semi, before standing up and helping you into a sitting position. He always meets up with his band in his garage on Fridays. Each of his colleagues has a key to the garage so that everyone can stay longer, even after band practice is over. But today was Thursday...

“Really? You were the one who wanted to move the rehearsal to Thursday this week because you wanted to meet up with your former school friends tomorrow. You wanted to cheer for that guy... Wakatoshi, right?” the bassist sighs, before taking a few steps forwards and grabbing Semi’s shirt. With a hiss, he throws the shirt in his face. “Can’t you find a room? This is the... fifth time we’ve caught you rubbing your love life in our faces. Or are you secretly telling us to join in? Are you into a gangbang or what?” The bassist laughs as he teases Semi with his words.

Annoyed by his own forgetfulness, Semi rolls his eyes as he catches the shirt. He sulkily puts the shirt back on before placing his hand protectively on your thigh. “Nothing there, I’m not sharing my girl,” he says seriously, even though his band mate had only said it as a joke. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to give his bandmates a key to the garage after all. Or maybe you should just start keeping your hands to yourselves before and during band rehearsals.

Futakuchi has just come home from work when he walks into the living room and sees you sitting there with a book in your hand. He looks around the room before his eyes land on you again. “Baby, you’ll damage your eyes if you read a book in this poor light,” he says, before flicking the light switch and turning on the light.

Engrossed in your book, you didn’t realize that the sun was already setting. “Oh, that’s right... thank you. How was your day?” you ask him as you close the book and look at him with a smile. He comes to you and gives you a quick kiss before stretching.

“Annoying. The customers were just extremely weird today. With some of them, I wonder how they even get through life,” he grumbles, before undoing the first buttons of his shirt. “But anyway, let’s not talk about work. I’d like to take a shower now and then maybe we can continue watching the series we started yesterday. What do you think?”

Futakuchi has never been someone who likes to talk about his work. But perhaps it’s just as well that he doesn’t take his work home with him. In any case, he never really seems exhausted or overworked. So you just nod with a smile and pick up your book again. In the time Futakuchi is in the shower, you’re sure to manage another twenty pages.

Fresh out of the shower, Futakuchi pulls on a pair of shorts and a shirt before rubbing his hair dry and heading back into the living room. With a sigh of relief, he heads for the sofa when he sees you lying there. You’re lying on your stomach, your book in front of you, and your ass right in front of his eyes. In those tight, sexy leggings. Oh, how he loves the way your ass wiggles in those things.

Unconsciously, he bites his lower lip, sneaks up to you before giving you a slap on the ass and squeezing it with his hands. He jumps on the sofa, kneels over you before playfully pretending to bite your shoulder from behind.

“Kenji! Haha stop, that tickles.” you laugh, close the book and try to turn around, but Futakuchi won’t let you.

“You’re doing that on purpose. Showing me your sexy ass like that.” Futakuchi grins, before leaning forwards and trapping you between him and the sofa, kissing your shoulder again. His still damp hair gives you goosebumps.

“Kenji... I thought we wanted to continue watching our series.” You say a little more quietly now, feeling your body react to his kisses and his touch.

“Yeah, sure, the series...” mumbles Futakuchi as he moves from your shoulder to your neck, buries his head in the crook of your neck and slides his hands between the sofa and your body, hugging you from behind. “Just let me lie like this for a while,” he sighs contentedly.

His body lies on top of yours, but he doesn’t press his full weight onto you. You can still breathe. His cool hands on your stomach caress you, his fingertips graze your lower for a moment, and you don’t know what makes your breathing most uneasy. His hands on your body, his body on yours or his breath landing hot on your skin.

“Ah... Kenji... that’s not the remote that’s between you and me on my butt, is it?” you say as you hear him smirk.

“No baby, you don’t need batteries for this thing to work,” he says mischievously, continuing to rub his pelvis against your ass. A soft moan escapes your lips, Kenji starts kissing your neck, his hand moves up to your breast, the other down between your legs.

“It’s easier if I turn around- “ you’re about to say, but Futakuchi interrupts you. “But it’s pretty hot like this,” he murmurs, and you feel him rubbing his pelvis harder against you, your own desire growing. With a groan, you lower your head, push your ass upwards and hear Futakuchi murmur.

“Yeah baby, just like that,” he says, playfully biting your neck before kissing you on the same spot. You both want more. The mood is charged, when you suddenly hear the ringing of your front doorbell. You startle, Futakuchi also briefly considers answering the door. But opening the door with a erection in his shorts wouldn’t be the best idea, anyway. So you both try to ignore it, but the doorbell rings again.

“Damn!” Futakuchi curses, stands up, pushes the curtains aside slightly and looks out of the living room window. From the living room, you have a good view of the entrance to the front door. His eyes widen and he looks at you. “Oh shit, shit, shit. Go on, say something. Something that really turns me off!” Futakuchi says, almost in a panic.

You look at him in confusion before sitting up. “Kenji... what’s wrong with you?” you ask, irritated. But Futakuchi seems to be thinking hard about something to get rid of his erection.

“I forgot that I promised my mum I’d look after my sister for the weekend. The two of them are just outside the front door...” says Futakuchi with a desperate smile.

“W-what? Kenji! Oh god, open the door, these two can’t stay outside! Or no... wait... you’re not opening the door with that...” you say, pointing at his massive erection. “Go, go into the bathroom and wait there until it’s gone again. And then come to us. I’ll tell your mum and sister that you’re still in the shower,” you say, before straightening your clothes and heading for the door, when Futakuchi comes up to you and hugs you from behind.

“You’re the best,” he says, kissing your cheek before letting you go. However, he can’t resist giving you a slap on your butt before he leaves.

#haikyu x #haikyuu x reader #tsukishima x reader #kuroo x reader #semi x reader #futakuchi x reader

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