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itneverendshere · 5 months ago

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school spirit and all! - soccer!frat!rafe cameron blurb (+18)

warnings: future smut. paring: smart!reader x himbo!rafe; ps: this is just for fun cause someone asked me to post it (it was just a draft😬)

you’ve never been one for academic sports spirit.

what’s the point? okay, your school has incredible athletes, that’s good, but why the fuck would you kiss and praise the ground they walk on? you’re a fantastic student and no one gives a shit. why do they get all the glory while brainiacs get zilch?

the double standards piss you off. somehow academics always take the backseat to sports. maybe that explained your dislike towards jocks like rafe cameron.

up until sophomore year, you’d only heard about him, saw him occasionally around school. it was understandable why people talked about him so often. he looked like he’d just been ripped off a page of an abercrombie and fitch catalog, and apparently – you’d never attended a game to check – he was the best player on the team, playing forward. but, unlike many, you didn’t form an opinion about him until you met him.

the verdict? total pain in your fucking ass.

ever since you two were paired in a class project together, an annual class at that, he suddenly took an interest in you, like you were some sort of exotic animal he’d never encountered in his life, only because you wouldn’t flirt with him.

outrageous, never done before.

for the first four months, it was just him laying on the cheesy pickup lines and you rolling your eyes so hard you thought they'd pop out of your head. eventually, rafe dialed it down and you were able to be civil, perhaps friends. if you could call it that.

wich is why, as his friend, you’re starting to lose your fucking patience. the season was not going well for his team. at all. there’s little to no chance they’re going to be able to win the championship.

not that you care, but apparently the whole school does. everyone seems to be on the verge of a meltdown.

“i swear to god if they lose to standford next week–“

“pope, will you kindly shut the fuck up? it’s just soccer.”

“just soccer?”

you let out an exasperated sigh, glancing over at pope who looks at you like you’ve just shot someone, “can we study? peacefully?”

"it’s not just soccer! it's about school spirit, camaraderie, y’know?"

you raise an eyebrow, unimpressed. "camaraderie? please. more like a bunch of testosterone-fueled egos chasing after a ball," you retort, disdain evident in your tone.

“you don't know what you're talking about. and i'm being dead serious, cameron’s been on edge lately. never seen him like this."

you lean back in your chair, crossing your arms. "yeah, well, losing does that to people. don't why you're complaining soooo much" you sigh, "i’m the one who has to put up with all the brooding and pouting.”

pope’s quiet. too quiet. you can picture the gears turning in his brain as he blankly stares at you. nothing good ever comes out of that.

“what?” you press, wondering if you have to break the school spirit out of him.

“you should fuck him. after or before, don't care. but you should."

you recoil, nearly tumbling out of your chair at pope's suggestion.

your eyes widen in disbelief, your mind struggling to process what he just said. for a moment, the room spins around you, and you feel like you’ve been thrust into some surreal alternate universe.

“what?! pope?" you finally manage to sputter, acting like you're about to go into cardiac arrest, "the fuck's wrong with you?"

“don’t look at me like that,” he merely shrugs, “that man is depressed. he needs to get laid if he’s going to win something.“

you hardly think a guy like rafe is not getting laid every other day, but that’s irrelevant. your jaw drops, stunned by his audacity. "are you kidding me? you don’t even like him!”

“but i like winning!” he whines, all but pushing his books aside to place in his elbows on the table, “and he’s so obsessed with you it hurts watching. he’s like one of those little crusty white dogs always running after you.”

you shake your head in disbelief, "he does it to be funny, okay? he’s not actually interested.. t's just a joke”

your best friend only laughs, a raucous, almost maniacal sound that echoes through the room. he clutches his stomach, "just joking?" pope gasps out, his laughter still bubbling to the surface. "oh man. you're hilarious, honestly, wow."

you stare at him, lips set in a straight line, feeling like you missed the entire joke. "what's so funny?"

pope wipes away a fake tear, trying to compose himself. "he almost ripped a new one to jj after he pulled that stunt last semester.”

your eyebrows knit together in skepticism. “and? i still don’t follow.”

rafe and jj couldn’t stand each other. both are incredible athletes and everyone always gushes about how great they are together on the field. outside, however? not so much. they don't mix. ever.

“and?! why do you think jj randomly talked about you in the locker room?”

“because he’s a horny creep and got a kink for fist fights with undressed men?”

you love jj. really, you do. but sometimes he’d win a lot more if he just kept his mouth shut or thought before speaking. you've lost count of how many times that boy has been suspended.

pope leans in, his tone low and conspiratorial, “cameron practically threatened to rearrange jj's face if he ever mentioned you again.”

you narrow your eyes, “nop. you’re making that up.”

pope shakes his head, a grin playing on his lips. "nah, i'm dead serious.”

your mind races, trying to piece it all together. while your brain always clicks instantly in class, feelings...emotions are a little more complicated to grasp sometimes.

"wait, so you're saying he actually cares about me?"

he nods, his eyes gleaming with mischief. "yep.”

“seriously?”

pope chuckles, leaning back in his chair. "head over heels. you’re our school’s only hope.”

your brain's on overdrive trying to process pope's bombshell revelation. rafe cameron, the big-shot jock, actually giving a fuck about you? it's like some twisted plot line from a teen drama. you didn’t see this one coming. but then again, you hardly pay attention to anything outside academics.

“so what? ’m supposed to fuck the mediocrity out of him?”

he grins, clapping you on the shoulder, “there’s that school spirit!”

you slap his hand away, “oh fuck off. ‘m being serious.”

he’s still grinning like he just cracked the code to life. "come on, hear me out. it's like a strategic move, y’ know? boost his morale, boost the team's performance. win-win."

you roll your eyes, not buying into his scheme. "yeah, because my sex habilities are definitely the key to winning soccer games."

he shrugs, undeterred. "it's not like you'd be doing it for him. it's all about the greater good."

you scoff, rearranging your notes for the millionth time, "this isn't some feel-good sports movie."

it’s not like you never thought about rafe. sure, he's a yapping idiot around you most of the time, but every time you need help or an extra hand, he’s always the first one to offer. that has to count for something, right?

“the ball’s in your court.”

yeah it is.

truth to be told, you’ve been sick and tired of rafe acting like a loser over soccer. what was the point in whining about it if he wasn’t going to try and do better? god, you'd never seen him like this before and it's been irking you to beyond. even more now that pope mentioned it again.

at this point, you just want to march up to him, shake him and make it come to his senses. you can’t even remember that last time he tried to hit on you. that’s how bad it is! the memory is buried under the weight of his brooding.

so maybe….maybe pope's onto something, y'know? maybe there's more to it than just you and rafe. and yeah, okay, you're not exactly thrilled about the idea of hopping into bed with him, but only because you’d hate the attention that comes along with his name.

but...a part of you is weirdly intrigued. not because you're dying to be his next conquest, but because you're just done with watching him drown in his own misery. maybe this could be the wake-up call he needs. a swift kick in the ass to snap him out of his funk.

you wouldn’t be doing out of selfish reasons! school spirit and all. you’d be doing everyone a favor. and you wouldn't need to blame it on yourself if things went downhill.

you had pope for that.

which is why you’re standing in front of rafe's room in his frat.

a jock and a frat boy? charming. you’ve certainly hit the jackass lottery. but you’ve been here before. he always saved the day when the library was packed or when your roommate was too busy fucking her boyfriend in your dorm room. this was weirdly your safe place to work.

taking a deep breath, you rap your knuckles against the door, trying to ignore the butterflies doing somersaults in your stomach. it's not about you! get a grip.

the door swings open, and there's the fucker, all brooding and rugged, like he just walked off the set of a sports movie. you roll your eyes at the cliché, but there's something weird about the way he looks at you. or maybe the tight wife-beater is doing a number on you.

you still notice the bags underneath his swollen eyes.

there's a flicker of surprise in him, like he wasn't expecting to see you, out of everyone in this school, standing there and you can't blame him; after all, you're not exactly a regular visitor to the frat house, only when your academic needs force you to.

“hey?”

“you look like shit, cameron.”

rafe's eyebrows raise in surprise at your blunt remark, “uh, what?”

you roll your eyes resisting the urge to scoff. "can i come in or are you going to stand there looking like an idiot all day?”

rafe chuckles, stepping aside to let you into his room, “come on in.”

you step inside, taking in the cluttered room with a mixture of amusement and mild disgust. it was never this bad before, you know rafe’s a clean freak and this? this is not him. but it is exactly how you imagined a frat boy's room would look like—dirty.

there’s laundry strewn across the floor, empty beer cans littering the desk, and a distinct musky smell lingering in the air. you shake your head in disbelief, shooting rafe a disapproving look.

"what are you? a divorced forty-five-year-old man?”

rafe laughs at your comment, though there's a hint of embarrassment in his expression as he scratches the back of his neck. "yeah, i know. sorry about that."

he’s doing worse than what you realized and it tugs a little at your heartstrings.

you raise an eyebrow, unconvinced by his apology. "sorry doesn't cut it, cameron. you should be ashamed of yourself.”

"okay, fair point. i'll clean up, promise."

“not just your stupid room. i mean your whole attitude. you've been moping around like a loser!”

rafe's expression shifts, defensiveness crossing his features. "hey, ‘m not—"

"don't even try to deny it," you interrupt, not backing down. "everyone’s noticed. you’re pissing me off.”

you don’t know why you’re suddenly so tempted to give him the scolding of a lifetime, but there’s just something about seeing someone with so much potential and drive wasting it all away without a fight. it’s not like him.

and by the kicked-puppy look on his face, you can tell he's not used to being called out so openly. but you're dead set on breaking through to him, no matter how awkward it gets.

“see! you’re just staring at me like—like, a fucking idiot!”, you fire off, frustration lacing your tone. the irony of the situation isn't lost on you. “will you speak for gods sake? for more than five seconds? i spent months trying to get you to shut up and now you do?”

rafe's stunned expression makes you second guess your approach for a moment, but you push the feeling aside, knowing you can't afford to let sympathy cloud your purpose here.

“why are you mad at me?”

you can't believe he's still clueless after all this time.

"why am i mad at you?" you repeat incredulously, feeling the irritation rising your my chest. "seriously, rafe? have you even looked in the mirror lately?"

he blinks at you, his confusion evident, and you resist the urge to roll your eyes.

"you've been moping around like the world's about to end.”

rafe's brows furrow even further, and for a moment, you wonder if he's playing dumb or if he genuinely has no idea what you’re talking about. "i don't—uh, i don't understand," he finally stammers out, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

that’s it.

you’re gonna pull the feelings card and hope it doesn’t backfire.

“do you like me?” you blurt out, the words tumbling out before you can stop them.

rafe snorts as he lifts his finger to scratch his face, “course i do. pretty obvious.”

for a second you get a glimpse of the real rafe and it soothes you inside.

“and you want to fuck me?”

you’ve never seen him look so gobsmacked in his life, you’d laugh in his face if it wasn’t such a serious matter.

“what?” he stammers, his cheeks flushing slightly. you can’t believe the rafe cameron is blushing. over you.

you let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through your hair. "do you want to fuck me? do i need to spell it out for you?”

he opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out, and you can't help but feel a twinge of satisfaction at finally catching him off guard, “’m sorry? is this—are you…is this for punk’d?”

"punk'd? seriously, rafe?" you snap, incredulous that he would think this is some sort of prank, “it’s 2024.”

rafe's cheeks flush an even deeper shade of red, and he stammers again "no, i mean— i just...didn't expect you to— uhh”

“yes or no.”

rafe blinks at you before breathing out, “yes.”

“okay. so win your next match and you will.”

he looks at you like you’ve grown a second head, exhaling through his nose, trying to keep his agitation to a minimum. “what?”

“i’m sick and tired of this version of you. i need you to win, and if this” you gesture to the both of you with your hand, “is your motivation, then we’re doing it.”

"y’serious?" he takes a step closer, his demeanor suddenly more serious, “me and you?”

you nod firmly, crossing your arms over your chest as you tilt your head up to look at his features, “dead serious. and it’s not just you and me. it’s for the team, and for the school spirit or whatever nonsense pope keeps going on about."

rafe lets out a small chuckle, a hint of his usual cocky confident demeanor returning. "is that so? can't say no to that kind of motivation."

“i figured.”

he reaches out a hand, his fingers lightly grazing the strands of your hair, eyes fixed on your lips. "are there any rules?”

you swallow hard, feeling your heart race at his touch. “no, just win.”

rafe's lips curl into a playful smirk— the money-making smirk that makes you want to punch him and kiss him, not necessarily in that order — as he leans in closer, his breath warm against your ear.

"never would've guessed you'd be the one to offer yourself as my motivation, though," he murmurs, his voice sending a shiver down your spine, "i'm surprised."

you try to maintain your composure, but his proximity is making it increasingly difficult to think straight. "just doing what needs to be done," you manage to stammer out, trying to sound perfectly unaffected by his words.

rafe chuckles softly, his hand still lingering in your hair as he leans back slightly to look at you. "my pretty prize, huh?" he says, his tone teasing as he brushes a strand of hair away from your face.

you feel a flush spread across your features at his boldness. you blame him entirely for this side of you. without thinking, you reach up to brush your fingers against his cheek, tips pressings against his skin lightly.

“just win the fucking match, cameron."

rafe's nasty smirk widens into a heart-stopping, soul-gripping grin as he leans in closer, his lips hovering dangerously close to yours.

"consider it done."

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron au #rafe x reader #rafe cameron fluff #rafe fic #rafe imagine #bimbo!rafe #smart!reader #soccer!rafe #frat!rafe #rafe blurb

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spadesolace · 11 months ago

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(more than) friendly rivalry

lasallian!yunjin x atenean!reader

yunjin as your lasallian girlfriend who doesn’t know who to cheer for when you’re playing for your own university versus her own

word count: 2.2k

another year another UAAP, an exciting event for everyone with the highlight of the entire event finally taking place, the finals. DLSU versus ADMU; some would say it’s the fight of elitists with both universities are known to house politicians, businessmen, and other familiar faces. long time rivals - both civilized and good sports to the event.

yunjin had tried her best to get the seat closest to the match itself without possibly getting hit in the face by a volleyball. luckily, with her connections, she managed to find a seat in between DLSU and ADMU. her lingering eyes wonder as she looks for her friends, not without taking a quick glance at the arena and looking for a certain middle blocker.

the sounds of cheer as yunjin watched her university’s women’s volleyball team - the lady spikers - run out to the main court; it was no surprise to have everyone on the left side screaming on top of their lungs. some of the players smiled and waved back to their adoring fans, yet the middle blocker is nowhere in sight.

“YUNJIN! UY!” her eyes landed on her small feisty friend - hanni, who was waving her hands to get her attention.

“girl, you didn’t have to scream at me.” settling down on her seat, that is closer to the opposing team, hanni could only flip her off. fixing her outfit and looking at their university’s volleyball team.

“i know but don’t be so obvious naman that you’re looking for your bebe.”

“oo nga, quick reminder yunjin, she’s still in our rival school.” somi is quick to remind the girl who is wearing their school’s name on her windbreaker that despite it being all for fun and title of champions for the event- Ateneo De Manila is still their rival school.

“you’re quick to judge when your ex is literally in the roaring tigers, somi. but they’re right, yunjin.” giselle adjusted herself to look at yunjin, a small smile on her face as some members of the opposing team started walking out.

“uy, don’t forget, you’re fighting with everyone for her attention.” the screams from the right side only became louder as yunjin looked at the person waving. the number 8 printed on the back of her shirt, with her surname printed on top, hair tied in a high ponytail, even signing volleyballs for the kids seated in front. middle blocker of the lady eagles.

yunjin eyes never left the middle blocker of the opposing team, there was something about you that has her on a chokehold. she’s watched all of your games whether it was in the comfort of her room as she takes a brain break from writing scripts and listening to sound boards to physically watching your games at the arena.

she wanted to scream your name, and it didn’t help that she was merely a few feet away.

being the co-captain and middle blocker of the lady eagles, you were automatically in the starting line up. a huge smile on your face as you remove your shirt, finally showing the royal blue jersey underneath, the screams of the Atenean louder than before as your eyes look for a certain Lasallian in the crowd. yunjin’s gaze never left you as you continued looking for her.

“fuck, why is your bebe so attractive, yun.” the entire group now looking at you, hanni was about to stand up again and wave at your direction only for somi to pull her back down.

“itong si hanni, we said lowkey not let the entire arena and everyone watching catch your attention.” yunjin could only laugh, watching hanni and pout and express how she wanted the courtside report of Ateneo to look at her.

there you stood in all your glory, finally catching a glimpse of yunjin sitting by the front row middle seat. a smile on your face as she waves at you, a part of you wants to run and kiss her before the game but the other half is to let her have her peace and enjoy the game.

“hey, y/n. one last pep talk sabi ni coach.” a small wave and there you go running to your teammates who looked at you with teasing smiles and playfully pushing you.

once the game started, yunjin couldn’t focus on her own university when you’ve been serving aces back to back switching from a jump float serve to a topspin serve. anyone could see the fire in your eyes as you target the setter, not even a full rotation in and you’re racking up points. the conflict of whether she’d cheer for you or her own university is slowly getting to her.

“another service ace from ateneo’s very own shin y/n. grabe simula palang pero todo hataw tong si shin.” no one assumed you’d be such a strong suit in your team, and already making your team have a 3 point lead simply from service aces.

“AND…! RECEIVED BY DLSU’S LIBERO, HERE TO END ATENEO’S STREAK!” the crowd screams, and finally yunjin sees you running towards the net ready to block, the rally continues as you successfully block the attack.

slowly people are standing up, no one is letting the ball drop as this makes or breaks the momentum for both sides. yunjin watches you back up as the setter sends the ball towards your direction. only for the ace to score, letting ateneo take the point.

she sees the bright smile on your face, the camera pointed directly at you as the entire arena watches in awe as the captains of the team share a hug and a high five. the crowd filled with different shades of blue cheered, the band playing louder along with the many cheers for Ateneo’s Lady Eagles.

“GO ATENEO! ONE BIG FIGHT!” the crowd cheered and yunjin felt the urge to scream with them, maybe not yet but her girlfriend is a few feet away, taking quick glances at her before serving the ball again. the sounds of cheer as DLSU got its first match of the game.

“WOOOH! ANIMO LA SALLE!” the group cheered, now feeling the hype of the game and how fierce it would be. the fire in your eyes is now brighter as DLSU serves, while your girlfriend is in her seat wearing her school’s merch - wishing it would be your school merch she’s wearing.

set 4, the lady eagles are in the lead taking 2 sets while the lady spikers have 1. giselle feels agitated as you were about to serve again, now on the left side of the court. somi and hanni are holding hands hoping that your serve would go out while yunjin simply took her phone out to take a picture of her girlfriend moments before you finally serve.

“SERVICE ACE ULIT KAY SHIN! GRABE ANG NGITI NI COACH HWANG! ANG MOMENTUM NASA LADY EAGLES!” the girls groan, they love you but it was all for the sake of the name of their school as champions.

“GO Y/N!! MY SEXY SEXY LOVE! WOOOH ONE BIG FIGHT!” the three looked at their friend who is now full on cheering for the opposing team, a few side eyes from the people on their left and laughter from the right.

“yunjin, why not tell your girlfriend TO STOP SENDING SERVES THAT CANNOT BE HIT!” hanni shook the girl who is now smiling as she took a quick glance at the middle blocker of the lady eagles who was giggling at the cheer.

“ayaw ko, that’s my sexy love playing.”

hanni could only smack yunjin with a balloon with De La Salle University written on it. “mapagkakamalan ka delulu, yun.”

the girls sit in anticipation, watching you get ready to serve again after settling a bit down from hearing yunjin cheering you on using the iconic cheer from she’s dating the gangster.

“si Shin kinikilig! JOWA REVEAL?” one of your friends screams, a familiar voice to yunjin as she takes a quick glance at the group on the other side of the court waving a picture of their friend high. your teammates looking at you as they process what jay had mentioned. that was on you for deciding to keep the relationship on the low as to not make yunjin feel uncomfortable under the spotlight and be known simply as your girlfriend. yet, here she is screaming on top of her lungs to show her support for you while wearing her school’s name.

yunjin has been your biggest supporter, you’re well aware of how much she loves and adores you from back then in senior high school. before anything else, you were a Lasallian once but Ateneo seemed like the perfect place for you to pursue your undergraduate degree. you have no one to thank for the amazing support rather than from your own girlfriend - even if it means beating her university.

the arena became quiet, hearing the whistle and watching you perfect your serve. everything felt slow as your serve made it pass the court, some would say that was the strongest serve of the game but it was outside. cheers from the left side, giselle and somi standing up and jumping finally your streak coming to an end.

“ANIMO LA SALLE! LET’S GO!” yunjin screams as the crowd goes wild, making DLSU at set point ready to win the entire set.

“ghurl, nasaan loyalty mo?” giselle could only judge her friend is keeps on switching sides whenever DLSU would score a point or when you would score a point.

“THAT’S WHERE MY LOYALTY LIES!” yunjin pointed at you as you apologized to your teammates.

to everyone on their side, they would question whether she was truly from LaSalle or from Ateneo wearing a DLSU merch.

“damn, calm down. she’s looking at you.” yunjin never turned her head so fast that she almost got whiplashed but there you were in position, smiling at her and signalling her to calm down.

“if ateneo gets this point, we won’t get a chance to see this game end.” hanni pulled both somi and giselle down in order to watch the game properly and see the game. seeing it was their setter getting ready to serve, one that you’re familiar with.

it didn’t take long for you and karina to act upon your moves. not only is she a setter but can also switch from an outside hitter, and the same goes to you as the middle blocker who can switch positions at any given moment. it felt like a move from an anime, watching you set the ball onto karina who had perfectly targeted an open area that cannot be reached in time. a point to Ateneo!

the match extends, with both teams at 24 and with wonyoung serving, it would be easy to rack up those remaining two points to win the title of champion.

yunjin could only watch in awe. her girlfriend never looked so fierce and ready to attack, watching the rally after wonyoung’s serve. she’s reminded of how much the middle blocker is the hidden weapon of their university. the last two points were achieved by your very own outside hitter and fully blocking the offense of DLSU.

“AND ATENEO TAKES THE WIN! LET’S GET A REPLAY.” yunjin screams as the lady eagles gathered around and start jumping from their win. yunjin screaming made everyone on their side look at her as if she was crazy but seeing you running towards their side with the biggest smile.

“I- I DID THAT?!”

“YOU DID THAT!”

yunjin did the unthinkable and kissed you while the camera was panned on you two. the whole arena and everyone watching at home seeing the interaction as you kiss her back with so much passion. coach hwang had nothing to say as you deserved it, letting you celebrate in your own way before you head out later with the team to celebrate.

“yunnie, wait. we’re on national tv.” it was too late for yunjin to realize what she had done.

“HUH? WAIT… OH MY GOSH- I’M SO-” but it didn’t stop you from kissing her again.

“ang lalandi.” giselle complained yet still took pictures of the interaction as karina pulled you aside, not without waving at yunjin and her friends.

“come on, we gotta do the post game interview before we close the entire event. from the looks of it you’ll get MVP and best middle blocker. or an interview about your lasallian girlfriend.”

“shut up, rina.”

post game interviews mostly focused on your play and thoughts during the game, of course ateneo’s own courtside reporter wouldn’t miss the chance to ask regarding yunjin, taking note of her being from DLSU.

“so, do you perhaps have anything to share with your adoring fans who watched you being kissed by a student of the opposing team?” you could only laugh at the comment, yunjin rarely does anything drastic and considering how the spotlight is on you - with multiple videos circulating on social media already.

“well, as my friend shouted kanina na jowa reveal, that would be my girlfriend of 3 years. i’m long taken and out of the market from our long time rivals.”

in the background of your interview, yunjin smiles proudly as you announce to the whole country how in love you are with her. even getting a few teases from your teammates as they gather around you; you could only thank yunjin.

#lesserafim x reader #le sserafim x reader #le sserafim imagines #le sserafim #huh yunjin x reader #yunjin #huh yunjin #jennifer huh #lasallian!yunjin #big4

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sopiloveshobi · 3 months ago

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Kim Fucking Namjoon

Please proceed with caution. This is a 18+ nsfw piece. I won’t spoil anything here. Had this in my head since I saw those pics from Hoseoks party. Haven’t spelled checked and haven’t written like this in ages so I hope it makes sense and is good enough!

‘You are out of your mind! You know exactly who will be at that party. I am not going!’ You answered your best friend sitting on your bed whilst she was going through your wardrobe.

‘Please please I am begging you! You know Hoseok invited me? He called me and made sure I will be there! What if tonight is the night?!’ Yu-jin pouted at you, with a begging hands.

‘What do you even mean THE night?’ You rolled your eyes at her and threw yourself back at the bed.

‘What if he kisses me tonight? What if he finally makes a move and I won’t be there because you won’t go!’ Her voice was really desperate and she was trying to hide all of the excitement she was holding inside.

‘You can still go! Just without me. I wasn’t invited, I was supposed to be your plus one anyway’ you answered sighing loudly. You wanted to go, but you also knew who you could bump into at this party. The guy who you worked with few times and who also happens to be a best friend of your best friends crush. Its not that you hated the man. But you definitely weren’t fond of him and wanted to avoid him. The man was trouble. Every time you had to work together he would come up with excuses or would refuse to cooperate. He was always late and he just simply annoyed the fuck out of you. Luckily the feeling was mutual. Because Hoseok told Yu-jin that he wasn’t keen on you either.

Kim Namjoon. Tall, incredibly wide shoulders and dark hair. Smoky, sleepy dark eyes and the perfect jaw line. Perfect looks, yet so fucking annoying.

‘Please, please. I promise I will keep you away from him and I won’t leave you on your own for too long’ she was about to say she won’t leave you at all but you both knew that won’t be the case. Because the second Hoseok will wave at her she will drop you and run to that man. And you couldn’t blame her. He was really good looking, he was successful and he did treat her really well. There was never a game that he would play with her. His intentions were pretty clear to everyone.

You rolled your eyes and sat back up on the bed.

‘Fine…’ you decided. Why would you avoid a great party, a little boogie and a drink because this jerk might be there? And even if he will, its not like he will come to harass you. It will be fine. If you will have to converse you will be civil. You bet he will be late anyway, like he always was.

‘I love love looooooove you’ Yu-jin jumped on you and tackled you down onto the bed ‘You are the best’ she giggled right into your face. You and Yu-jin have been friends for years, pretty much since school. You never left each others sides, even with careers going on and moving out of your family houses you were always there for each other. Even when her dad passed, you took care of their family and helped cook for them for few months. You were inseparable so it was natural for Yu-jin wanting to be on a very important party of her probably future boyfriend. Maybe even husband.

‘Pick my outfit though’ you moaned and pushed her off yourself. She sprang up to your wardrobe and she already had eyed out black dress with long sleeves and pair of sneakers paired with it. It was the cool kind of outfit you could never pick yourself but she was a master in this. She was the cool stylish one who would buy and gift you tons of stuff that she knew you could pull off but were too scared to experiment yourself.

You both arrived in front of the building and got out of the car. You have straightened your dress and fixed your hair. Both you check your make up and were ready to go in.

You have showed your invitation at the door and went on the top floor of the building in the lift. You were nervous. Yu-jin was excited. As always the absolute opposites. You took a deep breath as the lift reached the top floor, the door dinged and you could heard loud music already blasting. Yu-jin left first and you followed her, another person asked for the invitations which you both showed and received a bracelet to be let in. It was long until you heard the man squeak and run towards the two of you. His hair done wet like style, denim outfit, chunky chose and shades. He did look like a king of this party.

‘Its so good to see you both! So glad you made it! Yu-jin, you look so good baby’ he commented on her. He always showered her in compliments and it was great to see her being treasured. ‘You both do. Thank you so much for coming. Cocktails are on this side, snacks on the other. Yu-jin I will grab you in a bit okay? I need to welcome all the guests. Get yourself a drink and I will be right with you okay?’ He was so reassuring, made sure she felt special and taken care if. She nodded and smiled widely at him. He always took her words away, she was so stunned around him, so shy. Not the Yu-jin you know. You both swiftly moved away to the cocktail bar. You scanned the room to see if there was anyone who you known and there few people that you knew of. No sight of him. Thank fuck. You ordered your cocktail, you were just chatting to the bartender and then Yu-jin patted your shoulder.

‘Im so sorry..’ she whispered and you knew what was coming. But just as you promised yourself at home, you wouldn’t let this spoil your night. You were here for Hoseok and your friend and a little bit of good time. You turned around and then he was, at the entrance that you and Yu-jin just were few minutes ago. Top to bottom dark jeans, oversized t-shirt, long hair dark hair. Slightly overgrown. He was talking to Hoseok and scanned the room himself. And then it was. He stopped at you. Your eyes locked for just a second. Fuck. You were hoping to go by unnoticed.

There she is. He thought already annoyed at your sight. Fuck, she will be as annoying as always he thought to himself.

He moved away from Hoseok and moved towards a group of men standing on the side. He didn’t break the eye contact though. He was still staring at you. And you couldn’t let him win. He made you so competitive. Fuck he is so annoying even from so far away. You rolled your eyes and turned around back to the bar. You took a big sip of your cocktail.

‘Its fine Yu-jin, we both knew this is going to happen’ you said to your friend and continued on sipping on your drink. You definitely needed liquid courage to be able to walk about and dance on this party, in the outfit you were in, in front of a guy you really disliked. You moved along with the drink and your friend and she spotted few people she knew and wanted to say hello to. And all you could feel was his eyes on you. Even when you weren’t facing him, you could just feel him staring. It was uncomfortable but at the same time it has given you this weird confidence.

Eventually Hoseok came and grabbed Yu-jin as he promised and he basically didn’t leave her side the entire night. They would go up together to different people and he would introduce her. They did disappear at some point completely, you lost them and you panicked a little. She promised not to leave you for good and as you were turning around to look for her, you were stopped by him. Kim Namjoon. Fuck. He appeared right in front of you. Out of no where.

‘Nice to see you’ he hissed through his clenched jaw. You could hear his teeth grind. Why is he here and talking to you. You weren’t buying his bullshit.

‘Im afraid im not able to say the same’ you looked down on him. You took another sip of your drink for extra courage. No way he is going to spoil your night.

‘As polite as always I see’ he hissed back and moved away. He went around you and ordered a drink from the bartender. Of course, he couldn’t avoid you because you were stuck like a leech to the bar. You grabbed your drink and moved away. It didn’t take long and someone approached you. Also quite tall. Piercing in his lip, tattoos on his arm. Dark clothes, thick chain around his neck, drink in his hand.

‘I was told to take care of you’ he whispered to your ear. You froze. What the hell?

‘Who are you and who told you that?’ You were surprised, it wasn’t him so you weren’t completely closed off to talk to anyone else. Anyone but him.

‘Yu-jin told me to hang around for a bit. Her and Hoseok went.. to his studio. I think he will finally make things official’ you were stunned. Who is this guy. He was nice and sweet and he knew details about your friend. Wait Yu-jin told him what? ‘Jungkook’ he added at the end. Jungkook. Jungkook. You tried to remember if she ever mentioned anyone with that name. He put his hand on your waist. You froze again. ‘i was supposed to keep Namjoon away’ he added. Yu-jin im going to kill you, you thought to yourself but you were happy to take any hell at this stage. You turned around to him, keeping his hand on your waist and smiled politely.

‘I see. I also see you have been let in on all my secrets’ you chuckled and continued on your cocktail.

At that very second, when you were chuckling whilst Jungkook hand was resting on your waist Kim Namjoon has turned around from the bar to look around. Scanned the room and saw exactly that picture. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his drink a little bit too hard, he broke the glass and spilled the whiskey that was in it. It didn’t look like he hurt himself. He apologised to the bartender and ordered another drink. You noticed in the corner of your eye that he was still stating. It didn’t take long for him to approach. Of course, he couldn’t stay the fuck away could he?

‘Jungkookie, i didnt know you had a date’ he chuckled at the sight of the two of you.

‘I don’t have to tell you everything do I?’ He answered and grabbed you a little closer. You were staring at Namjoon, and he was staring staring at you. The surroundings became unbearable and steamy.

‘I didn’t know you knew each other’ you gasped and wrapped yourself around Jungkook. He wasn’t expecting that so he smirked a little when he felt your body getting closer to his. Namjoons jaw clenched again.

‘For years now’ he answered and scanned you and Jungkook up and down. He knew. He smelled it. He found out this was only a play. If Jungkook didnt smirk with a triumph like that maybe he would have been fooled. ‘Enjoy you two’ he raised his glass slightly and moved away. You could have breathing again, so you exhaled loudly.

‘What the fuck is wrong with the two of you? You really do hate each other’ Jungkook commented, partially amused at the situation and sipped on his drink. The music stopped and Hoseok appeared around the main area of the party. All lights on him.

‘Thank you for coming everyone. We will play few songs from the new album now. I hope you enjoy’ he bowed down and he went away. The music started, the lights went off again. And you felt really warm. Incredibly warm. You needed a breath of fresh air or water at your neck. You looked around and spotted a corridor leading to the bathrooms. You started walking towards it. As you started moving, you felt a pair of eyes on you. And after that movement in the corner of your eye. You rushed towards the bathrooms, closed the first door behind you and you could hear the steps behind you. You entered the bathroom and instantly opened the tap to spray some water on yourself. The door opened right behind you. And there he was. Kim fucking Namjoon.

‘What the fuck is your problem?!’ He hissed at you, half shouting and walking towards you.

‘What the fuck is YOUR problem?! This is ladys room by the way’ you answered with the same anger as he brought in.

‘Why the fuck would you act like this?’ He kept walking and nearly shouting at you. The temperature raising in the room. The tension growing like crazy because this fucking idiot was right there shouting at you. You hated his guts but at this right moment, he was insanely hot. The angrier he was getting the more you felt yourself getting wet. What the fuck. Its the most annoying guy you know, why would he make you feel like this?! ‘Why would wear something like this?’ He hissed again when he didn’t get an answer ‘and the Jungkook theatre?! Are you out of your mind?’ He continued and pointed outside when he mentioned Jungkook. What the hell was I wearing? How dares he even mention something like this.

‘Why are you even here? Why do you care?!’ You answered completely confused and out of breath as you were still really warm and dizzy.

But it was about to continue because he was now right in front of you. Nearly leaning over your, staring directly into your eyes. You were furious and so was he. And something in that tension broke because he smashed his lips on yours and sat you up on the sink.

‘What the fuck?!’ You hissed and you pushed him away. He was so annoying. So annoyingly hot. So annoying. No no. You cant be this weak. And then he came back, smashed his lips against yours and you didn’t refuse this time. Fast breathing, his hands on your legs going up. His tongue down your throat, your hand on his neck and the other in his long hair. Steamy. Steamy was the feeling, the room, the way he kissed. He picked you up holding your ass and he walked with you to a cubicle and he shut the door behind him. He sat on the closed toilet and he sat you on top of him facing him. You bit his lip and moved to his neck, slowly licking and kissing up towards the back of his ear and he whined. This single act made him whine out loud. His hands explored your ass and when he got bored he moved under your dress and moved your underwear to the side. His tongue again back deep down you throat, and the second he touched you, you whimpered into his mouth. He really wanted to play the long game but the anticipation and tension between the two of you for weeks has made it impossible. He slid his two fingers inside you and as he did so, you moaned into his mouth and he stopped kissing you.

‘You slut’ he hissed and you completely ignored what he just said to you. You slid his trousers slightly, just enough to gain access and pulled his rock hard dick that was ready for you there and there. He didn’t expect it, he opened his mouth and stared at you for a second as you started going with your hand up and down the length of it. He moved his fingers again and felt how wet you turned. You threw your head back when he started moving again. Fuck. Fuck you. You gained a little bit of clarity in your head.

‘I hate you’ you said irritated straight into his face.

‘I know’ he responded and he took his fingers out of you. He moved your hand away from his cock and lifted you slightly, his trousers fell lower down to his knees and he placed you on top of him. You poked your hand under yourself to aim him right and he just let go of you and you fell right onto him, his dick sliding into you at a fast paste and your body jerked trying to adjust to him. He gasped quietly and looked deep into your eyes. You locked your eyes with his as he slowly started moving inside you. The more pace he picked up, the more you couldn’t hold your facial expression. You leaned into him, attacking his lips and moaning in between his movements. He finally came to his senses and places one hand on your hip and the other on your ass and as he started ramming into you, you bouncing on top of him he kept kissing you back, he kept kissing you chin and your cheek, whatever was closer at the moment. His grip tightened on you and he picked up the pace even more, the both of your breath loud and shallow. He squeezed your ass and he felt you squeeze around him inside you, you closed your eyes and whispered ‘so close�� as he picked up the pace to an insane speed and you were on the edge for a minute and then he switched one of his hands and squeezed your breast. That did it, you jerked your head to the back and closed your eyes moaning insanely loud and him kissing your neck helping you ride your high. And when you did and did see the stars, you looked down on him but the pace didn’t stop. You felt him slowly twitching and then you remembered, there wasn’t a condom break. There was nothing. You stopped him and got yourself off him, your juices slowly going town your leg. He looked at you with the biggest disgust at the same time with insane admiration. And then he pulled your hair and brought you all the way down to your knees and he opened your mouth with his finger and stuck himself in your mouth. No warning, no word. He was so close he needed to finish, and you were so hot, so slutty for him. He started fucking your throat and you let him, you put your tongue on top of him and sucked him off. It didn’t take long for him to come. You heard him grunt and moan and he finally came all the way down your throat. You swallowed everything you received. Your cheeks red, pink nose, hair messed up. You looked fucked. You were fucked. And you remained on your knees as he pulled himself together and then he helped you up, he tried putting your hair back to its best but that was a fail. And when you were about to unlock the door of the cubicle without a word he put a hand on yours and stopped you. He leaned you on the door and kissed you. But not harsh and aggressively like he did before. He kissed you like he really meant it, with care and he cupped your face and stroked it. He looked into your eyes, moved you to the side and left. He left you there. Without a word. Kim fucking Namjoon. What the fuck was that? You thought to yourself when you came to your senses and walked out. Checked yourself in the mirror and you did look fucked. You tried putting yourself together with the bits you had in your bag, but who were you fooling.

As Namjoon left the bathroom fixing himself and trying to look put together, Jungkook spotted him and approached him

‘Where have you been?’ He asked staring him down.

‘Just needed to fix some things’ he answered cryptically and moved on. Went towards the bar and ordered another drink.

Not long after you came out of the bathroom and Jungkook clocked what needed fixing. Based on the state of you he put 2 and 2 together and couldn’t stop giggling.

Yu-jin couldn’t find you. She really needed to tell you the good news and you were no where to be found. And then finally she found Jungkook giggling to himself.

‘Where is she?’ She asked.

‘Oh, uhm, just there’ he pointed at you leaving the bathroom trying to brush your dress down. He giggled again. ‘What the fuck happened to her?’ Yu-jin asked.

‘Namjoon’ Jungkook responded and moved away to find Hoseok.

‘We have a lot to talk about’ she said the second she approached.

‘I have no idea what youre talking about’ you were playing along, not about to tell your best friend you just fucked with the very man you were trying to avoid.

‘Me and Hoseok! Official!’ She jumped in place and you felt relieved because it was long time coming and also gave you the time to hopefully have her forget what she just saw.

‘Im so happy for you!’ You answered and hugged her. ‘Celebratory drink?’ You asked. You desperately needed to drink.

‘Lets get itttt’ Yu-jin was in the best of moods and decided not to ask about anything for now. For now.

The party went along, most of the guests disappeared and because Yi-jin wanted to close with Hoseok, you were tagging along.

‘We will just check if we took everything from the studio and will be right here okay?’ Your best friend announced and you nodded.

‘I will wait downstairs’ you added and went into the lift.

Of course. Your luck. Who was in the vert same lift?! Kim fucking Namjoon. The door closed, nobody else inside and he just approached you. Pushed you to the wall and kissed like there was no tomorrow.

‘Jagiya…’ he whined into your mouth. You were in shock. I mean the kissing was great but the name calling?

‘Namjoon are you drunk?’ You asked and he moved him slightly to the side, breaking the kiss.

‘No, i am really not. I just cant stop thinking about you’ he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

You didn’t know what to think about it. He was annoying and always late. But the chemistry the two of you had wasn’t normal. And you couldn’t just skip it, forget it, move on from it.

‘Fine, lets go home’ you said and you put your hand out so he would hold it, but he didn’t.

‘Let me ask you out properly first. Hoseok will rip me open if he will find out… i will call you tomorrow?’ He asked. He turned… sweet? Kim fucking Namjoon, annoying and always late. The man who infuriated you for the past few months and also the very same man who grunted few hours ago as you sucked him off, was now sweet and charming and… you loved it? What the fuck was wrong with you.

‘If you won’t, the ship will sail. There is only one chance with me’ you teased him and you left the lift and he followed. And you have met Hoseok and Yu-Jin staring at the two of you holding hands, with their mouths wide open. No fucking way.

#bts #namjoon x reader #hoseok #fanfiction #fanfic #smut

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liillyliilly · 4 months ago

Text

Max It Out

semi eita x reader words; 7101 + bonus content bc i love this AU synopsis; Band AU. She's the manager. As it turns out, he wants her as more than just the band manager.

“You gotta amp the bass up,” Semi called out.

You just rolled your eyes at him again. There was only so much more you could ‘amp’ his bass up. You couldn’t fix something that just wasn’t broken.

“I think you gotta fix your play style instead. I can make the bass louder, but then the main guitar line would have to be shrunk. Unless you want fizzing during your set.” You shrugged. He really couldn’t manage this gig without you.

It was hard to believe that earlier that day, you and he sat opposite in the paralegal office. Some civil service job, getting assigned to share an office with Semi Eita.

Arrogant, egotistical, damningly attractive. You wanted to wear his clothes and be his prized possession.

“Pass the stapler.” Your stapler, he had been working here for five months and still hadn’t bought his stapler yet. To be fair, it was a genuinely good stapler that you had shipped in from your aunt who lived in Germany.

You opened the drawer under your desk, grabbed the stapler, and then handed it to Semi under your computer.

He peeked under the computers, smiling at you. “Thanks, sweetie.”

“We aren’t in a work marriage anymore. I divorced you.”

“I never signed the papers darling.”

How could he always do that? Make you smile? It was unfair.

Sure, you always ate lunch together. Sure, he always packed an extra set of tissues when you went to the movies because he knew you cried easily. Sure, he gave you his leather jacket during winter on the walks from the hauling truck to the clubs.

But you had divorced this man weeks ago. Work marriage of course. He was just too clingy for you.

There of course had to be another layer to this dynamic between the two of you. The whole band manager thing.

You were nineteen and completely in love with Konoha Akinori. Which was why Semi invited you to help them with gigging the band out.

You had known of Semi, but only really got to know him in college. His center of gravity was alluring, to say the least. You were friends with Konoha first, attending high school together. Konoha was the one who invited you to your first real college party. Except it wasn’t even really a party.

It was five guys smoking, listening to music, and messing with instruments.

When you enter the apartment, Beach Weather’s “Sex, Drugs, Etc.” was lulling in the background.

Semi was lying back on a beanbag, strumming his bass guitar gently. Two boys in the opposite corner were blowing puffs of smoke into each other’s mouths, between what looked like extremely wet kisses.

“Issei, Hiro, do you have to do that here?” Futakuchi Kenji, a fellow class member of your advertising supplemental class, was faking being sick. He had drumsticks and was hitting an empty container of fried chicken.

“You can join in whenever you want Jiji.” The pink-haired one smiled, using his head to motion Futakuchi to join them on the sofa.

“Issei’s breath reeks of mango.”

The one with short cropped black hair, wearing a One Piece shirt spoke up, “Mango-licious. That’s the exact flavor, there’s some strawberry in the pod as well.”

The one referred to as Hiro shoved the one called Issei off the sofa. “Song’s over.” Issei just shrugged, taking another hit from his blue e-cigarette.

Konoha explained that Matsukawa Issei and Hanamaki Takahiro had been best friends for essentially their whole lives and that there were a select few songs that they just always made out to. He said he just got used to it, and that you should too.

You decide to make conversation, “So how do you all know each other?”

Semi chimed in, “Konoha and I used to work together at a tutoring place. Before he ditched it to deal drugs.”

Konoha worked in a pharmacy.

“You worked at a tutoring place,” Shock was evident in your tone of voice.

“It’s not hard to help seven-year-olds with their math homework.” Semi continued, “I know Issei and Hiro from competing in the same volleyball circuit in high school. I don’t know when Kenji got here though.”

“Ass.” Futakuchi rolled his eyes, “I joined this shoddy group of friends when we were all struggling to pass the intro math course. And when I found out we were all decent at music.”

Your raised eyebrow at the music comment made Semi smirk.

“If we play for you, you gotta join our cult.” He minced no words.

Konoha assured you that it wasn’t actually a cult, but it did feel like one.

When Matsukawa had finished hooking up all the proper chords to an outlet machine, Konoha had shoved some bean bags out of the way, and Hanamaki downed several glasses of water, you realized that they were good at music.

The song they played was “Lavender Sunflower” by Tory Lanez. When you asked why they would play a song from someone who was in jail, Semi just said you should separate the art from the artist. Futakuchi said it was because Hanamaki liked to say the word ‘sexify’.

They did a few more covers, ranging from Steve Lacy to Cautious Clay.

You gave them a round of applause when Matsukawa slid his fingers across his keyboard to end their mini-concert.

“I meant it. You’re in our cult now.” Semi had come up from behind you, speaking into your ear and resting his hands on your shoulders. The shiver down your spine didn’t go unnoticed by you or Semi.

Electric Guest; the five young adult boys turned into a decently popular alternative indie band. Semi Eita, on the bass. Konoha Akinori, on the guitar. Matsukawa Issei on keyboard. Hanamaki Takahiro, on primary vocals and autotuning. Futakuchi Kenji on drums. Plus you, the mastermind behind it all. Kind of.

All you did was everything else besides play music.

The first time they played at the Battle of the Bands, you sweat so much that your white shirt was permanently stained in the pits. At least they won the prize money, just enough for a team dinner, entrance fees to the next competition and a new shirt for you.

It was a learning curve for you, learning the lighting, the sound management, and the coordination of schedules as you all got busier. Making a Google calendar helped as the years went on.

The whole band thing became so lucrative that all of you could’ve quit your day jobs and been perfectly comfortable, but Futakuchi claimed that the band was never supposed to be their whole lives. Just a part of them. So, in addition to your band manager role, you also ran the charity on the side.

A cross between cancer research, volleyball advocacy, and music education. The holy trinity of causes Matsukawa claimed.

Electric Guest was never supposed to be the reason for you to stay friends with people from high school, and college. But that was how it ended up. Just a group of boys with their girl on weekend nights playing live music.

Initially a cover band, but it turned into original works.

Semi was always a little too clever to just play others' words. “This Head I Hold”, Semi’s first song that he had written had charted on the IONIC Alternative chart in the Top 100 for seven weeks straight, never falling below the top seventy.

Was he humble about this feat? No.

But did he sheepishly make a toast to how your marketing carried the song to where it was? Yes. So it leveled out in your mind for him to be prideful of his music, of their music.

“Amp it up.” Semi stomped his feet again.

Konoha shoved Semi’s arm. “She just said that she couldn’t do that. Do you just have selective hearing for praise? Maybe she should throw in her opinion on your ass in those jeans between the clarification of why increasing the amp would be bad?”

“Screw you, Aki.”

“Meet me in the bathroom in five?” You could practically see the way Konoha’s eyebrows raised in a jokingly seductive way.

“Semi, I could try to reduce the vocals slightly. I just don’t know why you want your bass to be so highlighted tonight?”

Semi just waved his hand in the air, brushing away your comments.

Rolling your eyes, you sipped on your water, reviewing the setlist for tonight.

“Hey, I thought we cut “Get Out” for tonight? And we never play it as the last song?” You did a double take at the setlist, Semi had scribbled the song in right after their typical closer of “Basic- Acoustic Version”

Hanamaki slid into your booth, downing his demon juice, a mixture of Redbull, Monster, and a shot of tequila. He grimaced, then shook his face, smiling at you.

“Semi-Semi has a surprise for tonight, it’s supposed to knock your socks off.”

“I do like a good “Get Out” moment.” You mused.

“A little more than just a good moment supposedly.”

Hanamaki was always one of the guys from your friend group who could manage to make anything sound more important than it was. He was the lead singer after all. You’d be lying if you hadn’t thought about the way some very specific words would sound coming from him to you.

That was another element to this Electric Guest thing, the touch aspect. Once they had integrated you into the friend circle, they became your humans. Your people. You all began to function as a single unit. Where one goes, the rest follow.

The Twitter comments on official posts did love to get a little explicit when they posed theories about how all five of you were in a polyamorous relationship.

That time you and Matsukawa got seen with your hands in his hair and his hands on your ass created a good portion of those theories, especially since Matsukawa still openly liked to lick Hanamaki’s neck between songs.

The touching thing just became second nature, to be close to each other was to be genuine.

Futakuchi threw a plastic water bottle at Hanamaki, “You drunkard, come set up your autotune before you’re too far gone. Please chew some gum before you start singing too, your breath reeks on that stuff.” Futakuchi was referencing the aforementioned demon juice.

Semi had started working at the same place you were working after he had aced his civil servant exam with flying colors.

He had gotten bored of lazing at his shared apartment with Futakuchi for entire days on end. He claimed to need social and mental stimulation. You thought it was because he just wanted to have another reason to get to know you better, which was also true.

Semi was strange when it came to you, freezing up in touch before easing into it. Sometimes you and him could just sit in your apartment for hours on end talking about the band, movies, the best hangover food.

He just understood you on an unparalleled level.

You were all friends, of course, Issei, Hiro, Jiji, Akinori, Eita, and you. But you clicked on what felt like a multidimensional plane with Semi Eita.

He knew what you would say before you said it. He always managed to mitigate your problems with simple, clear solutions.

He also always looked a little too deep into your eyes. You felt like he was inspecting your innermost self when he locked his eyes on you.

No judgment, just assessment. No confusion, just curiosity.

“We can always carpool you know,” He swung his keys on his finger as he walked you to the bus stop, “Save you an hour in commuting.”

“As appealing as that is, I wouldn’t be able to do my share of driving, you know, due to the whole, I don’t have a car thing.” Grateful, you rubbed his shoulder in thanks.

“When I say carpool I mean, I’ll drive and you be my live-in car DJ.”

“Am I being used for my amazing playlists?”

“I love using you.”

So you began to carpool. He would pick you up at your apartment 30 minutes before work started, and then you would sit in the parking lot together for 10 minutes listening to your new underground finds before clocking in.

Semi was a great co-worker, truly. He just always used your stuff and spent way too much time going through your computer search history when you took a break.

“I swear I was going to find some kind of band groupie orgy porn on here this time.” He scoffed when you began shaking your office chair with him still sitting in it.

“At work? You’re kidding me”

“Maybe it was just for future reference,” He licked his lips, looking up at you. “You know, for tonight.”

“You’re revolting.”

“You’re an angel.” He reached a hand up and tugged on the front of your shirt, pulling you down to him.

“You make me sick.” You tried to escape his grasp without damaging your new button-up.

“Lovesick.”

There were only a few more hours to go before their show tonight. You had taken several photos of your boys preparing for the show, posting them on all the social media sites.

Using captions such as, ‘ETA: When Semi Eita gets around to it.’

‘Matsukawa’s forgotten mango vape pod.’ (You thought that one was funny because the vape pod was shown to be almost negatively drained more than it could go, he had sucked all the Mango-licious nicotine out of that poor vape pod)

‘Real or fake? I guess we’ll never know’ Attached to a shot of Hanamaki looking at himself in the mirror, moving small hairs around. The fan-favorite think piece was about his hair, genetically strawberry blond or just dyed.

‘Jiji on that beat’ Futakuchi’s head resting in his hands, his knees bouncing up and down in a short video clip. He always got anxious before shows, despite being one of the relatively more popular members of Electric Guest.

‘Akinori’s Asshole Agenda, task one: hide all the free promotional stickers’ Your box of stickers was shown to be empty, but you had another one in the hauling truck that you would go and grab in a few minutes. The ushers at the clubs helped hand the stickers out when getting people into the building.

Futakuchi called you over to the stage. You put your phone back into your pocket and meandered over to where he was inspecting his drum kit.

“The skin on my drum is getting too thin.” Futakuchi traced a white line that stuck onto the kick drum.

“What do you want me to do?”

He pulled out a fresh skin from his satchel. “Help me reskin this bad boy please.”

“It’s not real animal skin yeah? Just synthetic?”

“Yeah, it should go on fairly easily, I need to polish my cymbals.”

You tilted your head in slight anger. He was going to make you reskin his drum?

Semi had finished messing with his bass settings, resting his instrument on the large case he had brought out to the stage.

“Lemme do it.”

“I can re-skin it, it’s fine, Eita.”

He took the material from your hands, “Let me skin the stupid drum.”

You nodded, swallowing thickly. That tone of voice subtly said, “Don’t test me” and overtly said, “I want to do this for you.”

You let him reskin Futakuchi’s stupid drum.

Joining Electric Guest was one of the best decisions in your life, and you owed it all to Konoha Akinori for bringing you to that ‘college party’. Semi liked to argue that he was the one to thank for getting you involved, but Konoha always pulled up the text receipts of him asking you to officially be a part of the band.

All your firsts had been with Konoha. First kiss, first boyfriend, first hickey.

A high school crush that turned into a decently long relationship at the beginning of university. Konoha was a great boyfriend, dates were amazing, and he was the one who introduced you to all of his friends, who became your friends as well. He was the one who took care of you when you were sick.

He was the one who cried with you when your cousin died.

You truly loved him. But the piece in your heart for him and the piece in his heart for you just didn’t fit together once you hit 20 years old. It was an amicable break-up, but it still hurt.

Best friends with a rich past was how you defined your relationship with Konoha.

Semi was getting increasingly anxious about the fallout when Konoha and you broke up. That’s how it made the most sense to you anyway.

Why else would he have punched Konoha? The fate of the band was at risk.

Semi would’ve rather died than admit why he had to physically express his anger. Screw the band in that moment, what about you? Were you doing alright?

They hadn’t told you about the punch until nearly a year later when you were all either high or sleep-deprived in your apartment, celebrating another competition win.

What they hadn’t told you was louder than what they did tell you about that night, three days after your break-up with Konoha.

Matsukawa had to hold Konoha back, and Hanamaki along with Futakuchi pulled Semi back from throwing another punch. Konoha’s lip was cut and bleeding, so he spat the blood on the floor of the recording studio.

You just sat in the beanbag in the mixing office, none the wiser, headphones on, clicking away at audio files to make promotions.

The night of the breakup, you called Semi and had him at your apartment. It was raining that night. When he arrived at your place, he was soaked through. You asked about it since a short walk from the road to your place wouldn’t have yielded such a damp appearance.

As it turned out, his car had run out of gas, so he took Futakuchi’s moped. When you wrapped him in a towel and gave him tea, he complained that he should be the one soothing you.

That comment triggered you to start bawling. What if it was all a mistake to break up with Konoha? Maybe he was your best option. Semi said that Konoha wasn’t worth shit compared to other guys out there for you.

You told him that that was cruel to say. Semi tried to backtrack, explaining that maybe better options were still around for you. When you just kept talking about how much you loved Konoha, Semi stopped trying to fight the idea of Konoha and focused solely on comforting you and assuring you of your decision.

Two days later, after Semi witnessed your shattered state, the punch occurred during band practice. He saw Konoha’s phone screen saver was still Konoha and you kissing.

“You asshole, she was crying!”

“I already told you Eita, it was an agreed upon break up!”

“The bruise on her neck then? Explain that you dick!” Semi snarled. Hanamaki was shaking in his Doc Martens, but Futakuchi just kicked Hanamaki and told him to keep holding Semi back.

“The bruise? You mean the HICKEY?” Konoha wasn’t mad anymore, just annoyed, “You know sometimes when people break up they have break-up sex. It’s in the name, you oblivious coward.”

Matsukawa finally let Konoha go. Konoha just rubbed his arms where Matsukawa had grabbed him. Konoha had come to several realizations when he had talked to you about breaking up.

Kissing hadn’t felt right for some time, and you both hardly ever tried to be romantic in any sense. Instead choosing to send memes to each other and joking around. It was being best friends under the label of a relationship.

You agreed to split, letting both of you let go of your long-winded high school crushes.

“Coward? You’re calling me a coward? Breaking up with the best girl in your entire life wasn’t a cowardly thing to do then?” Semi was panting, arms shaking, but he was still kicking his feet.

Konoha knew Semi would throw a fit. So he decided to say what everyone else in the friend group wanted to say.

“You love her more than I do,” Konoha sat down, legs sprawled on the floor. He told Hanamaki and Futakuchi to let Semi go. “Did you know that? You love her more than I do. Which is utterly baffling to me because I love her with my entire heart.”

Semi stood for a moment, a slight sway from all the tension in his high-strung body. Semi crouched down before laying on the floor. Looking at the ceiling, he pressed his lips into a tight line.

Hanamaki, Futakuchi, and Matsukawa had left the band space, choosing to let the two friends talk out whatever they needed to.

They too knew that this conversation needed to occur, primarily for Semi.

Semi sniffles then laughs. A genuine laugh. “I guess I am a coward.”

“Damn straight.” Konoha continued, “I always thought you’d get to her before me. Not sexually, or anything like that. But in terms of love. You know? You just always had her first thing in mind. Whereas I, well, I never cheated and I never considered it either, but I always wondered if I was the right person for her.”

“You think that person is me?” Semi scoffed. “I can hardly call myself an adult compared to you.”

“I know right.” Semi kicked Konoha with his outstretched leg.

“You gotta tell her, or else someone will take her from you. Not everyone can see you’re the best person for her. Hell, even I had a mental breakdown when I realized it.”

“So you’re saying-”

“I don’t want your bullshit, Eita, I want you to tell her.”

“I can’t.”

Konoha told him that he’d be stuck then. So, stuck Semi became.

It was almost an hour before opening the doors to the long line outside Club Karazaki.

You still needed to help the boys with their hair. So you grabbed your comb from your bag and made your way backstage.

“Hairstylist in the house, I take 50s and 100s only.” You patted your jeans’ back pocket, “I need a new phone so this is how y’all will contribute.”

After finishing Matsukawa’s quick retouch on his taper, you took the fiver he handed you.

“You know, I think tonight is going to be one of our best performances.” Matsukawa lifted his mango vape to you, you declined it, and he took another hit. “Semi outdid himself for tonight.”

“Ya’ll overhype that man.”

“Nah, we hype him just enough.” Matsukawa held your hand, “You ever get another date with that dude from a week ago?”

You shook your head, explaining how it just didn’t feel right. Lately, your romantic exploits had all crashed and burned quicker than Semi could begin a riff.

Several of the adventures in romance had ended with an upset Semi, which in turn made you upset. The most recent ‘discussion’ between the two of you had occurred just a week before tonight, about the same guy Matsukawa had brought up.

The band left Semi and you in your apartment, and you offered to let him crash on your futon. Futakuchi refused to let a drunk Semi back into their apartment. Claiming that he would puke all over the new rug he bought.

“I just don’t get you.” He was tugging on his sweatpants’ drawstring and lying on your couch. His shirt had ridden up to his mid-stomach, showing off a trail of dark blond hair that snuck under his sweatpants.

“What don’t you get.” You sat on the end of your couch, freshly showered. He put his feet in your lap. You obliged, scrolling through channels on your TV.

He smelled like the expensive wine your label had dropped off to celebrate a bronze ranking on the new album. You asked how much he had drunk, only now realizing his whole face was flushed. He mumbled, so you lifted the bottle, only to find it completely empty.

“You’ll get alcohol poisoning from doing this.” It was only a mini-sized bottle, but it was expensive and aged perfectly.

“Better than how I’m living now.” He took off his shirt, too warm to continue with the material on him.

He didn’t quite have abs, but he was strong. Broad, tan, and wide. The difference between Konoha’s so-called, “slutty waist” and Semi’s toned torso was striking.

You clarified that he actually wouldn’t even be living if he got serious alcohol poisoning.

“That dude,” You said your one-off date’s name, “Yeah him, he looked like my doppelganger don’t you think?”

He did look a lot like Semi.

At the same time you both added the addendum that his fashion was way worse than Semi’s. Semi just laughed, not even a laugh, he giggled. A 22-year-old child, giggling about how you were insulting your date. Shirtless, drunk, and now rubbing your back.

He had shifted, laying his back on the back of the couch, lightly kicking you so you would sit on the floor in front of him.

His hands were warm, due to the alcohol flowing through his veins. When he dug his thumb between your spine and shoulder blade you moaned. He asked if you felt good, and you nodded.

You didn’t expect him to slide your shirt up, your bare back exposed to the cold air of your apartment. In no time, his hands were soothing down the goosebumps.

“Make your little noise again.”

“Hm?” You turned your head to Semi.

“I want you to moan again.”

Your eyes widened. There was no teasing this time, he was dead serious.

Something was definitely wrong with your best friend, especially when he started to kiss your shoulders, moving to your jawline, attempting to move his lips wherever he could reach. He had slid down the couch, using his hands to pull your back against his chest. Skin on skin.

Your shirt was still bunched up at the back of your neck, but with the way that Semi was slowly sliding hands over your stomach, he had a plan to remove the purple sleep shirt. His maneuvers were snake-like. His intermittent hisses were reactions to your scent, your warmth, and the way your skin tasted on his tongue.

When he cupped your chest with one hand and had the other hand in your hair, you had to stop him. Quickly you stood up, and he cussed at the loss of touch.

“Eita, I think you need to sleep.” You tugged him up from the floor, and he just kept cursing. Incoherently, no rhyme or reason for what he was so mad about. You could hardly understand many of the words, a few distinct ones hit your eardrums: Konoha, coward, sex, music, the band. The most frequent word was your name.

You let him sit on the floor, going to grab a glass of water for him. When you reached into your fridge for a Gatorade as well, Semi was standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Brown eyes just watching you.

“One kiss.” He clearly stated.

You laughed, but he only got irritated.

“I’m serious. Just one.” He reaffirmed.

“You’re drunk. I’ll say it twice, Eita. You’re drunk.”

“I’m a better kisser when I’m drunk.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

You handed him the water. He downed it. You handed him the Gatorade. He sipped it. He probably had a reason for asking.

“Is it for a song?” You touched the bottom of the Gatorade bottle, lifting it closer to his mouth so he would take another drink. Semi angrily rolled his eyes, why would that be his only reason for asking to kiss you?

“If I say yes will you kiss me.”

You shook your head no. He was clearly inebriated. You didn’t know how he would feel about this in the morning, and you knew the alcohol was altering him.

It had been two years since you broke up with Konoha. You had promised that you wouldn’t date another member of your friend group. It just wouldn’t work. Plus with the new label intervention as well, they tried to subtly say that dating within the band could cause some scandals.

But they were an alternative indie band, so the label let a lot of the little things go.

But openly dating? Ruining the image of attainability? They just told everyone to keep relationships to a minimum, and if they did want to date, then you should be off limits.

Semi had never seemed more pissed at a formal organization, he ranted to you about how as soon as the three-year contract was up that Electric Guest should go back to being entirely independent.

You agreed, for the most part, just letting him consider how much easier it was for him to get creative licensing protection on his songs. He just said that working at the paralegal office would be enough skill to get legal protection on the music.

Semi cleaned up the Gatorade, tossing it into the trash can. You found yourself in a corner, the sink to your right, and the fridge to your left, Semi in all other directions.

Never had you seen his eyes so blown out. Not even after one of the longer smoke sessions, Matsukawa liked to cook up.

“If you can tell me you don’t love me then I’ll let it go.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, “Eita, what? Of course, I love you. What are you talking about?”

“If you can tell me you haven’t thought about me when you were touching yourself. If you can tell me that you haven’t thought about my lips on you. If you can tell me that you never considered me as an option. If you can say that then I’ll drop it. Otherwise, please let me kiss you.” You paused your breathing. He looked at you. “And don’t use my blood alcohol content as an excuse.”

“I need a minute.” You gently pushed your hand on his bicep.

“I have time.”

You glanced at the microwave clock.

1:28 AM.

He started kissing you at 1:29 AM.

You didn’t stop him.

It was slow at first, gentle even. He started at your neck. Biding time before he got to where he wanted to go. He nipped along your jaw. Your hands were resting on his chest, your breath baited.

When he picked you up and sat you on the counter, you knew you were a goner.

He guided your hands to his hair, his shoulders, and his hips, telling you to just touch him and not stop. He gave himself 15 minutes. You didn’t know this, but he was only using 15 minutes. From 1:29 AM to 1:44 AM.

When he starts to rub his hips against yours, you wish you could’ve stayed like this for hours. You could feel the outline of his body through the sweatpants, and each time you made another sound, his hips just stilted before rubbing again with more pressure.

His first lip-to-lip kiss with you was dry. He just pressed your lips together. He paused, just letting the touch process in his mind. When you pressed back, he smiled into the kiss.

He could immortalize the kiss later, he still had 7 minutes left.

He wanted to reach his hand down into the front of your pants but knew you would draw the line there. His alcohol solution became the one barrier he wished he didn’t have at the moment. Especially when he could feel the way your thighs were shaking slightly, anticipation was a bitch.

He gently, lightly, wrapped one hand around your neck. The other hand was under your shirt doing things you couldn’t quite make sense of because his tongue was in your mouth. His thumb was distinctly writing the letters of his name over your nipples.

When the clock turned to 1:40 AM, he turned ravenous. He pressed his lips everywhere on your face, forehead, nose, chin. Dry turned to wet, and he knew you were covered in his saliva. You groaned slightly when he gave in and cupped the front of your shorts. Before he removed his hand in favor of just grinding against you again.

He was panting when the clock finally ticked to 1:44 AM. Semi tucked his head into the nook between your shoulder and neck. His arms under your shirt hugged you tighter, making you feel like a boa constrictor was attempting to cut off your oxygen supply.

“I’m tired.” You ran a hand through his hair. Telling him to let you go so you could get his futon. He shook his head, pieces of hair tickling you. He wasn’t tired physically, he was tired mentally. To hold back from someone you were magnetized to, spent all his energy. Until his willpower to fight the pull force was just entirely gone.

“Second door on the left?” He spoke right into your skin. If he had gotten this far, one last ditch attempt to feel all of you might just be his lucky opportunity. The second door on the left was your bedroom.

You nodded.

In the morning, you woke up to Semi tracing shapes on your thigh that was laid across his stomach.

He spoke first.

“We can talk about it after the show at Karazaki.” He had begun running his hand on your head, starting at the top of your head before sliding down to your nape. He repeated the soothing caress so many times you lost count.

“Ok.”

The doors finally shut, and all the people at Club Karazaki were finally ready to be blessed with the music from none other than Electric Guest.

The two-hour show went off without a hitch.

Konoha’s guitar solo got the most bras thrown at him. Futakuchi’s reverb of Arctic Monkeys’ “Knee Socks” had the most phones recording him, his drum set and single verse got more viral video and editing clips than you would know how to manage. Matsukawa and Hanamaki’s duet singing “Oh Devil” from the new album almost made you scream for them too.

It was finally time to close off the show, with Semi’s addition of “Get Out”. You couldn’t help but get thrilled at the idea of hearing your favorite song one more time before he planned to officially cut it from the setlist.

Instead of Hanamaki, Semi cleared his throat, thanking the audience for their time, and that the last song was going to be a crowd favorite.

Hanamaki stepped back. Now, the main singer of a band did not just simply step back and out of the primary light. You fidgeted with the system, getting equal lighting on everyone. The red slow strobe was always a good default, especially since you had no idea what was going on.

“I’ll max it out one time for you.” Semi sang.

This wasn’t the revised ending song. It wasn’t even “Get Out”, the song you had believed to be Semi’s bonus on the setlist. You clicked into your headphones, trying to contact Konoha. Radio silence on your end. Standing up in the back of the club, you waved your arms rapidly. Trying to get Semi’s attention.

What the hell was he doing?

“You should never worry, you’ve been here a long time.” His bass guitar was strumming to the beat of your pulse, just fast enough to keep you alive, but steadily increasing in speed. Matsukawa’s keyboard was playing perfectly in tune. So at least you knew they had practiced this song before.

Maybe more than one practice though, because the flow of the music was just too smooth. You sit back down, and instead of leaving the blaring red strobe lights, you cool it down. A light blue focal light on Semi, with grays and whites on the other band members.

It matched with the RnB edge this song had.

“Now you’re in a hurry. Feels like a long way home.”

He moved up more, tugging on the chord connecting his guitar. He stood in the center of the stage.

His vocals were stunning. Usually, it was Hanamaki singing, with Semi doing the backing vocals. But this was all Semi’s scratchy, deep, resounding, pleading voice. He sang like he was begging for a lifeline.

“You’re just the light I follow.” He wasn’t closing his eyes, he was looking straight at you. You looked behind yourself, only seeing the black wall. You checked in front of you to see if any girls you were familiar with were standing in front of your systems booth. But no, the crowd was just packed with dedicated fanboys and fangirls tonight.

“Right now you just can’t see. I’ll feel the same tomorrow. ‘Cause a good thing is falling on me.”

So this is what all your boys had been talking about. Semi’s special show.

“I’ll max it out one time.”

What a nerd.

“And I know they go on and on and on, I know you’re growing tired of me.”

You’d never get tired of him. And somehow you knew that he knew that.

“And even when you're nervous, or you’re feeling out of order”

Hanamaki had joined in, singing the backing lyrics at this point. Semi just kept looking at you.

“I’m somewhere right next to you, singing you the chorus.”

He’d always been clingy.

“I’ll max it out one time for you, ‘Cause I know it’s overdue.”

Hell yeah, it was overdue.

“So, I raise my glass to you.”

He raises his bottle of water.

An uncontrollable smile erupts over his face. The crowd is in shambles. People were screaming, some were off in a tucked away corner kissing, and someone was getting pulled off the gate to the stage by security.

He doesn’t sing anymore. He mouths the words to just you.

“I love you.”

So there they were, Electric Guest. Sitting in a run-down 24/7 diner laughing and throwing fries at each other.

So there they were; Semi and you. He had his arms around you, chin resting on your shoulder, joking about the time Konoha had spilled his weird mixture of mayo and ketchup all over a borrowed white shirt.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa were pinching each other under the table.

Futakuchi and Konoha were arguing about who got more tagged posts on Instagram.

“I think we should adopt a baby or something.” Hanamaki waved Matsukawa’s vape in the air.

“You would be arrested in like two seconds. You can barely function as a human being Hiro.” Futakuchi ate another fry, starting to list off all the reasons Hanamaki would make a horrible parent figure. Matsukawa kept trying to get another hit from his vape, but Hanamaki just kept waving it around.

You turned to face Semi, but he was already looking at you.

“Max It Out?” You brought up the title of his Not Confession, confession song.

“I wanted to title it your name, but no, that would be too on the nose for some people.” Semi glared at Konoha.

Konoha shrugged, “Eita, you always go on and on about increasing your bass, I thought that ‘Max It Out’ would just click better with the average audience. You know, the same audience who wasn’t exactly there to witness you groping on our friend here last week.” Konoha patted your thigh.

Futakuchi dropped his fry. Complaining that he was always the last one to know what was going on with his friends.

“I wouldn’t call it groping, maybe loving, but not groping.”

“That could be a good lyric for our next song,” Matsukawa brought his hands up to motion them in a rainbow shape, presenting an idea, “we could call it, ‘I Had Sex With My Best Friend Who I Pined After Since I Was Nineteen, I Also Passionately Care About Her And Ended Up Punching Her Ex-Boyfriend Who Is Also My Other Best Friend’ I think that has a real ring to it for a song title.”

Semi rolled his eyes, “Not looking like that title would fit with the rest of our catalog.”

You consoled Matsukawa by handing him back the fiver he gave you for trimming his hair.

Futakuchi, still upset at not knowing about you and Semi’s incident, posed a question, “Well if Aki, Eita, and I have all kissed you, where does that leave Issei and Hiro?”

Semi’s mouth dropped open, “When did that happen?”

“Our kiss? Uh, I can’t remember. But we did.”

You shrugged, it wasn’t your best moment. But Futakuchi had been a very good kisser. “After advertising class ended. I was having a moment about where my life was going.”

“I still think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve kissed so far.”

Semi groans. “This is so unfair. I waited over four years, but Jiji and Aki got to kiss you before me?”

“Slow your roll Eita, if we keep this up, maybe we will end up in a polyamorous relationship.” Hanamaki analyzed, and you knew all about his thoughts about that situation occurring. He had told you several times that if a six-person relationship did exist, then it still wouldn't be as amazing as the dynamics between all of you.

“No more kissing other people,” Semi rubbed your elbow, “You’re stuck to me now. Might as well stay with the one with the best dick.”

You nodded. Semi grinned, waiting expectantly.

“This is the part where you start listing off other good qualities about me.”

“Nope, I think you listed them all.”

Konoha stuck his tongue out and mocked Semi’s claims about genitalia.

After a copious amount of french fries, and enough jokes about everything that had happened the last few years, Semi and you walked hand in hand to his car.

“I got a new bass booster in my car.”

“Why exactly?” You buckled yourself, before reaching over and buckling Semi in as well.

“So I can blast our favorite songs while making you scream.”

There he was, your flirting, egotistical, arrogant, loving best friend. You nixed the best friend part in your head, writing ‘soulmate’ in place.

“Also, can you rescind the whole work-husband divorce claims?” He rested his hand on the back of your seat while backing up his car. Flexing his arm on purpose.

“Sure, there’s a few things you’ll have to do before I officially call you husband again.” You listed off chores, errands, and body parts.

Semi licked his lips, “I can do that.”

---

BONUS:

Playlist for all the music nerds out there: (aka my headcanon of 'Electric Guest's Latest Album)

"Max It Out" - Electric Guest --- The main song from this fic, Semi's confession fic. It was not the only confession song he wrote though. One day, all the lyrics he wrote became less about teenagerhood and fun and genuinely about love.

"Get Out" -Electric Guest --- Our main character's favorite song, it's about exceptionalism. If you can't handle the heat, don't play in the arena. Also about gambling and not going back to toxic people. MC is an icon for sure for having this as her favorite song (Max It Out is her actual favorite, but would rather die than tell Semi)

"This Head I Hold" - Electric Guest --- Matsukawa's favorite, he gets to start the song off with his keyboard. Also Matsukawa's favorite because it's about getting high. The druggie energy is strong with him.

"That's What Happens" -Kid Bloom --- An unreleased Semi song, depression hit him hard when he and Konoha had their heart-to-heart. He kept it locked away until this very specific album release. When he went into detail telling our main character about why he wrote the song, she had to wipe tears from the corners of Semi's eyes, give him love please.

"Window Pane (Pretty Little Thing)" - GSoul --- Hanamaki's favorite song off their newest album, mostly because he helped to write the lyrics, but he'll still love to sing "Lavender Sunflower" because no words sung will ever top "sexify" for him.

"Hold Me" - Hojean --- Futakuchi's favorite song from the new album because the drums are the most heavily featured at the core. And because the autotune is heavy enough to let him pretend Hanamaki isn't the one singing.

"Wake" - Jiwoo --- When Semi wrote this one, Konoha had spent hours trying to figure out who it was about. To Konoha's shock it was about his ex-girlfriend turned into lifelong best friend. Konoha almost got revenge by punching Semi and telling him that it had already been two years, and that someone would make a move soon. Semi then explained his idea for his confession. Konoha realized his friend may be an actual genius.

"Oh Devil" - Electric Guest --- Konoha's favorite song off the new album, he spent the most time in the recording studio practicing this one, he even picked up some additional instruments to help produce it to its highest potential.

"Basic" - Electric Guest --- Semi's hate-piece to the label and to other bands who had been calling out Electric Guest's unconventional style choices. The label thought this one would be the least streamed, jokes on them because it got TikTok famous (courtesy of Semi's newly shown off girlfriend making hot edits for each of the band members)

"Charismatic" - Hailey Knox --- Hanamaki's only duet with a woman. The singer loved what they were doing, and asked to be the main vocal on a b-side song. When all was said and done, Hanamaki and Matsukawa finally had another person to blow smoke with when listening to "Sex, Drugs, Etc."

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bambi-slxt · 6 months ago

Text

🤍𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 ~ 𝐩𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞🤍

𝕔𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕝𝕠 𝕩 𝕗𝕖𝕞

word count: 1.2k

genre/tropes: second chance, romance, lovers to strangers to...?

warnings: smut, gaslighting, dumbification, slight degredation if you squint, nothing super hardcore.

pt two pt three

notes from bambi: this story starts off with chris and fmc as children - the smut does not happen here. obviously. enjoy!

I should have known the love of my life wouldn’t be someone who smacked me on the head with a meter stick, but I was thirteen and Christopher Sturniolo was cute. What was I supposed to do?

With science class almost over, students lined up at the door and ready to leave, Chris decided to enact his genius plan. He didn’t hit me hard, just enough to get my attention, and it worked–I turned to face him, shocked and a little curious. Above my head, the wooden stick, behind me in line, Christopher Sturniolo, though I wouldn’t learn his name until the next day.

I reached for the nefarious weapon and he tilted it upward, just out of reach. A game. I liked games. I batted the air as a grin spread across his lips, still keeping his makeshift flirtation device out of my hands. A laugh escaped me and his eyes seemed to sparkle.

I thought about that interaction for the rest of the day–what did it all mean? The minds of the male species is almost incalculable in regards to flirtation, especially in middle school. But god, he managed to be the cutest kid around with that curly brown hair, with his uneven teeth that added such charm to his smile, his playful nature, and oh, his confidence–I practically ran to science the next day.

“‘M Chris,” he said, sitting behind me at the next table over.

“You hit me yesterday,” I replied with a faux pout.

“Had to get your attention somehow.” He hung one arm over the back of his chair and looked up at me through devastatingly long lashes. “Did I hurt ya?”

I sniffed. “No. Could have said my name like a civilized creature.”

“What is your name?” Chris asked smoothly–I walked into that one.

I told him and he tasted it on his tongue for a moment. “Nice to meet you,” he murmured and reached out to shake my hand.

I pulled my ruler out of my pencil bag and handed it to him instead. “For the next time you need my attention.” His jaw dropped and his eyes got that sparkle again. Turning back around, I felt my stomach drop into a flurry of butterflies. By the end of class, I had his number, and before the week was out, I began to sit with him, his brothers, and his friends at lunch.

Our relationship progressed quickly, as most in middle school tend to, and he asked me to be his girlfriend three weeks later.

I remember sneaking my phone into bed with me so we could call at night. He used to make me laugh so hard I thought for sure I’d wake my parents up. I remember going to the library with him so I could read and he could get out of class and nap on the beanbags (or give me my first kiss behind a bookshelf and a dandelion he found outside). I remember helping him in science when the formulas didn’t make sense or when he got tripped up on food webs. I remember cheering for him at Friday pep rallies when he would run out into the gym with his team, and later that night while I wore his jersey number at his game. I remember all of it.

We stayed together for three years, Chris and I. His brothers and I hung out all the time. I became a regular at the Sturniolo house, dog-sitting Trevor on the off-chance that no one was home, spending weekends at the beach house, learning how to play Mario Kart from Justin, helping Mary Lou make dinner, Jimmy even taught me how to swing a golf club (or rather, he did his absolute best and demonstrated the patience of a saint–I didn’t learn shit, golf is hard).

I got my driver’s license a month and three days before Matt, which meant that for a month and two days, I held the illustrious title of Triplets + Nate’s chauffeur. An utterly thankless job, if you had asked me at the time, though now I would give anything to drive the boys around again. Chris broke up with me the day before Matt’s drivers test. I never found out if he did it then on purpose or not.

It took me a while to feel upset about it, if I’m being honest. We felt that we wanted different things in life, and that was all there was to it. I hugged him before I left class and he hugged me right back before we split down the hallway. The rest of that school year I was plagued from all sides about our relationship–”Why did you and Chris break up?”, “Did he cheat? Did you cheat?”, “What did he do to you?”, and the worst, “I bet you wanted one of his brothers instead.” Chris took a lot of heat for it as well and as a result, we stayed apart for a long time.

We didn’t speak again until the summer before senior year. My life changed twelve times over between our last hug and the night he called me again. I’d had birthdays (my 18th was quite the event, my friends and I made friendship bracelets and stayed up until 2am), wonderful opportunities (substantial scholarships to our local college, all in my degree), terrible losses (I spent a week in a hospital for a rather severe injury), and had all but moved on. I felt like he made a mistake of some kind by dialing my cell–surely an accident on his part.

I sat in my room with a towel on my head and a bag of snacks in my lap. “No one told you life was gonna be this wayyy…” I hummed, crunching on a pretzel. “Oh my god, moisturizer.” I shoved the bag aside and reached for my bottle of lotion–I should have done this an hour ago. Spreading the sweet-smelling cream over my leg, I didn’t hear the buzz of my phone the first time. I didn’t even hear it the second time. It wasn’t until Joey Tribbiani plopped himself onto the couch in Central Perk on the TV and I opened the bottle cap over my shoulder that the vibrating device touched my skin and I must have cleared three feet of air between myself and the mattress. Lotion went flying, my remote fell into the abyss, my hair tumbled out of its now-disheveled towel, and I sat panting, poised to strike, staring at the screen.

Incoming call from: Christopher Sturniolo

Why? What does he want? I didn’t move as his name scrolled slowly across the top of my phone. If I let it go to voicemail, maybe he wouldn’t call back, and it would just be an accident. My phone ceased its’ buzzing and I picked it up with shaking hands, pausing my TV. Another vibration–a voicemail. Tapping on the notification, I held it up to my ear and Chris’s voice flowed over me.

“Hey…I’m sorry to call like this, I know it’s late but, um…can we talk?” He paused, his breath crackling through time and space and the 3.7 miles that lay between our houses. “I didn’t know who else to call. You don’t have to respond, if you don’t want to. Yeah. Bye.”

I set my phone on my thigh.

Don’t do it.

I stared blankly at the wall.

You don’t need this right now.

I looked down, clicked the telephone icon, raised the phone to my ear, and clutched my fist into the blanket.

Son of a bitch.

It rang all of twice.

Click.

“...Hi.”

My breath shook. “Hey, Chris.”

request to be on the taglist under this post right here

tags:

@pinksturniolo @malirosee @st7rnioioss @nonat-111 @cindylcuwho @evie-sturns @h3arts4harry @fanficsbymia @dazednmatthews @sturniolo-rat @mattsmad @sturniolo04 @bellasturn @blahbel668 @yomamaslays4lyfe @stasiesturn @pleasantlycrazyworld

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ventismacchiato · 2 years ago

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37 just playing the part — karma is my bf !

scaramouche x g!n reader

concert headcanons

✰ there’s a photo booth near the venue with props and you drag him into it and force him to wear the cat ears. he gets two copies and keeps a photo of you two in his clear phone case

✰ during the song lover he holds your waist from behind you and sways you through the song with his chin on your shoulder, kissing your neck

✰ someone records it and you guys go viral on tiktok as that one hot couple

✰ ten ppl try hitting on him and he gives them the cold shoulder everytime, even drags you to run away one of the times

✰ security guard got flustered by him and let you guys cut in line

✰ he carried your shit for the entire concert so you could be hands free and enjoy yourself

✰ records the entire show so you can cry over it later and so you can live in the moment

✰ you guys are one of the people to get randomly chosen to meet taylor after the concert and you tell her you’ll leave scara for her

✰ ends up renting a hotel room you guys can crash in afterwards, and there’s one bed

just playing the part !

masterlist — prev | next

new yn wallpaper me n who

btw this is the last filler fluff before the time skip so i hope it was enough to feed you lmao it’s time for the finale!!

this is me projecting i need taylor tickets

if you aren’t a taylor fan…fix that!

headcanon scara always gets the best seats for any concert you want and will learn the set list better than you and correct you if you miss a lyric 😒

scara liking the catboy text…do you think he’d be down to have seggs wearing it 👁️👁️ i would def write that one day

also mistake the time in scarayns text is supposed to say 7:29 AM mb 😔

synopsis: you and scaramouche are both drama majors and have been at each other’s throats vying for the same lead roles since high school. but when you’re both cast as each other’s love interest in your second year you’re forced to be civil with your academic rival and see him in a new light. are his feelings for you true or is he just playing the part?

author’s notes: double update i’m sick and procrastinating 😇 guyz what’s your favorite song on midnights 🎤

end of act three 🎬

taglist—CLOSED: @monochromaticelliot @kaedear @stxrgxzxr @shirmxie @elakari @lacy-lady @linn-a-a @one-offmind @kithewanderingme @quepasoash @leathernourishingshoepolish @mangobee @lxry-chxn @dameofthorns @scarasaver @kythe1a @elysiasbae @hikaru-exe @tokkishouse @raiihoshii @cherrybeomgyu @kunikuzushiit @thenightsflower @lilneps @goodthingimsam @lovelyiez @euhla @beriiov @abvolat @kittycasie @b0bafl0wer @bubblyclouds @atlatcaheart @artssleepy @baelloraa @tartagli-yuh @satowaluverr @hangesextra @scaranaris-lil-niko @caffinatedcoma @wheneverthesunrise @hajimeseyo @itsyourgirlria @hyunrei @redactedhimbo @caliginous-skies @vinskyspuff @miissfortune @criminalinthemaking @scaramouches-girlfriend @scrmgf [1/3]

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batsarebetterthanpeople · 1 year ago

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This is a meta on Our Flag Means Death episode 5: The Best Revenge Is Dressing Well, Sir Godfrey Thornrose, The scene where he calls Ed a donkey, and so called "race science."

It has come to my attention that some of you apparently do not know what a phrenologist is.

*a note: I'm going to for the purposes of this assume that the guy played by Jeff Lorch is sir Godfrey Thornrose, I do not know this for certain but in my opinion even if he is not Thornrose the same principles still apply to him for reasons I will discuss in this meta.

So lets recap the scenes I want to touch on. At the beginning of episode 5 Stede is teaching Ed how to identify rich people cutlery like they're Barney Thompson and Vivian Ward in pretty woman. Stede bitches at Thornrose for not having enough spoons for Stede's liking. Thornrose responds "My apologies, I hadn't imagined we'd be hosting your kind."

Ed responds "My kind, what kind"

to which Godfrey responds "A rich donkey is still a donkey."

Ed then proceeds to scream at him and then orders Fang to skin him with a snail fork before throwing him overboard. To which Fang presumably responds by either skinning him with a normal skinning implement or forgoing the skinning step and just throwing him overboard, because who tf has time to skin a man with a snail fork.

I've seen some dogshit takes on this scene. I've seen it treated as evidence that Ed is exceptionally violent or abusive or has mood swings or anger issues or whatever bullshit. And I... Do Not Agree. You'll see why.

The next scene I want us to have in our back pocket is the first couple scenes with Gabriel and Antionette. When Gabriel and Antionette introduce themselves to Ed and Stede they reveal that Sir Godfrey Thornrose is a quote "Master Phrenologist." Stede is then expected to study Antionette's head. When he does he introduces his fake craft as "Phrenology, which is the study of the human head." He then takes a wild guess as to Antionette's heritage based on her skull lumps.

Content warning for like real old school racism ahead.

The reason Stede goes for the heritage is because Phrenology is a pseudoscience closely linked to other contemporary race science of the time. It was the idea that bumps on your head, thought to be caused by the pressure of the brain, could be used to identify your personality traits.

Phrenology gets really fucking racist, really fucking fast. Phrenology was used as proof that the white race was superior to other races, and as a justification for slavery and eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that you can improve society through breeding out "bad genes", which is almost universally popular among all types of racists, but the Nazis were big fans of it and there's a direct through line between the race scientists in the 1700s who were into phrenology and modern hate groups and neo nazis. I wanted to use an image here as an example of racist phrenology texts, but it's rough and I don't want to make a cut so I'm just going to link to the wordpress anthropology article I found the picture in, it's sourced and an alright place to start if you're into further reading.

With this information, I would like to use another example, that is relevant to the ethnicities in contention. A French physician who attracted huge crowds with his phrenology lectures, François-Joseph-Victor Broussais, once claimed that Maori people (as well as indigenous Australians) could never become civilized since he claimed they had no cerebral organ for producing great artists.

This is the context in which we need to understand the exchange between Ed and the French captain. I've seen some people claim it's about class and not about race, but Thornrose acknowledges Ed's wealth when he says a rich donkey is still a donkey. It doesn't matter to a man like Thornrose what Ed does or how rich he is or how well he can learn his fucking forks, he's still akin to an animal in this skull molesting freak's racist little mind. If a phrenologist, or even someone who's rubbing elbows with a phrenologist, calls a man of color a donkey they're clearly saying he's an uncivilized animal based on the shape of his face. That's how racists operate.

And Sir Godfrey Thornrose is not just any old racist, he's a racist spreading his ideology to other people, convincing them that people like Ed are inferior, that people like him should be subjugated by white people. He is clocking in for his shift at the racism factory creating more racists.

So basically what I'm saying is Ed should skin him, no quarter for genocidal maniacs. Basically I can tell you're either racist sympathetic or talking out of your ass if you think French captain was fucked up. It was antifascist direct action and I don't want to hear another word about it. I personally believe the only thing you can't come back from is death in terms of being a better person. I also believe that there are situations in which killing someone is more or less fine and you're never gonna catch me feeling bad for a fucking phrenologist when he compares an indigenous pirate to an animal and the pirate responds by doing what pirates do.

Killing Godfrey was based.

#ofmd #our flag means death #edward teach #blackbeard #edward teach ofmd #blackbeard ofmd #sir godfrey thornrose #cw racism #cw scientific racism #cw phrenology #Episode 5: the best revenge is dressing well #ofmd meta #ed teach #Ed “babygirl” Teach punches nazis

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meropegaaunt · 2 years ago

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WEST COAST

Billy Dunne x reader

Implied eventual Graham Dunne x reader

Summary: The love between two best friends toes the line between platonic and romantic.

Warnings: Kid on kid violence, fighting, angst, alcohol, and attempted kissing

Word Count: 2,359 words

GRAHAM DUNNE (lead guitar, The Six): Growing up, Y/N and Billy were, like, best friends. I mean, God, they were close, so close you never saw one without the other.

ੈ✩‧₊˚

You, Y/N L/N, grew up in a small suburb outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Said suburb was small, quaint, filled with red-brick houses and white picket fences. The kind of place where everyone knew everyone. The rich thrived, having two or three properties in their name and far too many zeros in their checking accounts, but the majority struggled to make ends meet, to even keep a roof over their heads. You were part of the majority, but your father, F/N L/N, did everything in his power to ensure that you lived in blissful ignorance, unaware of the struggles that weighed so heavily upon his shoulders. He had two jobs, one as a music teacher and one as a bar manager. Endless hours had been spent slaving away at those jobs in an attempt to ensure you were given every opportunity to succeed, and luckily, you were.

Truth be told, you had not the faintest idea of your dire living circumstances, because your father showered you in love and affection, making everything, even the most mundane tasks, seem like an adventure. He had a way with people, a way that he passed on to you, which was why at school, you got on well with your classmates. You got on best with Billy and Graham Dunne, though, two brothers that shared your true love: music.

(Your friendship did not have an easy beginning, though. Not by a long shot, because even at a young age, Billy had trouble letting people close. Your first encounter with him was in passing. Names had been exchanged, but there was no inkling of what would bloom between the two of you. That inkling did not come until a boy two years older than you and Billy and four years older than Graham came around looking to give Billy a hard time. He found Graham instead, who became his victim of circumstance. You happened upon the scene just in time to see the boy deliver a harsh kick to Graham’s ribs, and that sight alone was enough for you to see red and abandon all common sense. It mattered not that he was your superior in both age and size. All that mattered was that Graham, who had only ever shown you kindness and civility, was frightened and bleeding and needed help, which was why you threw caution to the wind, ran forward, and thundered, “Hey, that’s my friend you’re kicking!” In an instant, you two were on the ground, grappling violently atop the dirt path. The boy pawed at your face, pulling at your locks while you pressed on his throat. His efforts broke your skin and knocked your nose askew, yet your hold stayed firm, just as F/N had shown you. You hunched forward, pale with rage as he writhed about, trying futilely to get free. Each action made his throat tighter, though, so his attempts hastily slowed down. He gasped, his eyes growing hazy from the wild thrumming of the blood in his head. It was only after oxygen escaped him for a beat that you lessened your grip and retreated with Graham, though, your feet flying over the earth until you found Billy. That day, covered in blood and dirt, he deemed you all right.)

Seeing your love for music, your father found and salvaged an old guitar for you, a Gibson Les Paul that had seen far better days. It had suffered much hurt and misuse, but he searched out alternatives for each decaying piece, eventually returning it to its former glory. You basked in its glory, showing it off to the Dunne brothers with stars in your eyes and a smile that rivaled the sun in intensity. They had an old Silvertone guitar, so the three of you began learning how to play, going through much trial and error before discovering what worked and what did not.

Your musical range evolved as you entered your teenage years, especially when Billy and Graham’s mother, Marlene, bought them an old Strat. Armed with three guitars, you delved into songwriting, thus laying the foundation for what eventually became one of the world’s most beloved rock bands.

You were there at the nanscene of the Dunne Brothers band, long before its first additions — drummer Warren Rhodes, bassist Chuck Williams, and rhythm guitarist Eddie Roundtree — were brought on. You did not have a designated title, though. Instead, you played whatever part was needed, whether that be a singer, guitarist, or keyboardist. The band worked whatever gig it could, whether that be at house parties, seedy bars, or dance clubs.

Around that time, you had noticed that you had physically changed, had grown into your own. Your friends had, too, but you did not realize until one of the nights when the band had played at a seedy bar. There had been various acts of violence committed at said bar, but this particular night, a man who was out of his mind on drugs had started swinging. Hands had been thrown, landing hits upon bar attendants, but then, he had come for you . . . You had not seen it coming, too engrossed in your music, which was why there was no time for you to react, to defend yourself. Your eyes snapped up, catching sight of the fist flying your way, but it never made contact with your face. Before it could, Billy collided with the man, hitting him with enough force that he was sent crashing to the ground.

You blinked once, twice, thrice, pure, unfettered shock keeping you rooted in place. It was only when a warm, familiar hand landed upon your shoulder that you snapped out of it, the shock wearing off. “Thanks, Billy,” you breathed, your eyes rising to meet his emerald ones. “I owe you one.”

“It’s nothing,” he shrugged, a mischievous look flitting across his face. “Couldn’t let him take you out before I do.”

“Ah, that’s not happening,” you remarked, unable to conceal your amusement. He had tried to sweet talk you before, had even gone as far to use his go-to pick-up line: If you let me take you out I’ll write a song about you. The pick-up line had not worked, though, for you had shot back: No, thanks, Dunne. If I want there to be a song about me, I’ll write it myself. “The day we start dating bandmates is the day the Dunne Brothers is over.”

Perhaps if he was being serious, you would consider going on a date with him, but you truly believed that he was not, that he was simply being his typical coquettish self. Despite this, in the future, you will think that this perhaps was the moment when you first realized that you loved him, that you were in love with him . . .

─── ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ───

BILLY DUNNE (lead singer, The Six): We got hired for this wedding. It was a big deal. A wedding meant we were gonna be heard by, you know, a hundred people. I think I was nineteen.

We had auditioned for this couple with our best song. It was this slower, folkier song Y/N and I had written called “Nevermore.” Just thinking about it makes me cringe. Truly. I was writing about the Catonsville Nine and things like that. I thought I was Dylan. But we got this gig.

And about halfway through our show at this wedding, this fifty-something guy catches Y/N on a water break and pulls them onto the dance floor. I see and think, Does this guy know what a creep he looks like? And then I realize it’s my dad.

GRAHAM: Our father was there, all over Y/N, completely unaware he was making them uncomfortable. I realized it before Billy, I think. Recognized him from the pictures our mom kept in the shoe box under her bed.

Y/N L/N (singer, The Six): I didn’t originally know it was Mr. Dunne that had pulled me onto the dance floor that night. I mean, plenty of older men go after younger people. It’s not great, it’s just how it is. Not wanting to start a scene, I danced with him until Billy came down off the stage and pulled me away. Afterward, he told me who he was, and it just . . . made me sick. Mr. Dunne looked right at Billy, his son, and didn’t recognize him. How is that possible? How is that fair?

BILLY: I couldn’t believe it. He’d been gone ten years by that point. And he was supposed to be in Georgia. The asshole was just standing in the middle of the dance floor, no idea his sons were up onstage or that he was dancing with their best friend. I put an end to that. I got off stage and pulled them apart. Y/N was confused as hell, but I explained who he was.

GRAHAM: Billy asked a few people at the wedding about him. Turns out our father had been living a few towns over. Friends with the bride or something. Y/N was furious, saying, “You know what, fuck him. You guys are the best. If he can’t see that, that’s his problem, not yours.” They were right. He was a drunk asshole anyway. So good riddance to him.

ੈ✩‧₊˚

Seeing the response — or lack thereof — from Mr. Dunne infuriated you. He had laid eyes upon his sons for the first time in a decade, and there had been no recognition, no remorse. He had helped bring them into the world, had raised them for five and seven years respectively, but then, when given the opportunity to reconnect, he treated them like strangers, like they meant nothing.

Your father had loved you dearly, had done everything in his power to protect you, which was why such a poor excuse of a man was hard to wrap your head around. You tried, though, even going as far as to snag a bottle of whiskey in an attempt to lessen your inhibitions, to think outside of the box. Unfortunately, the whiskey did not offer any answers about Mr. Dunne, but it did cause your budding feelings for Billy to spill out, to make themselves known.

He too had taken in alcohol, had consumed beer after beer, but Billy, for a reason you did not know, held his alcohol better. That was why when you took a seat next to him with a half-empty bottle of whiskey in hand, he looked relatively put together. You, on the other hand, looked simultaneously attractive and disheveled. It was paradoxical, but the sight of you, with your warm cheeks and wild hair, lit a fire within him, a fire whose flames threatened to consume him, to devour him whole.

“Billy,” you breathed his name, leaning through the dark so that your faces were mere millimeters apart, causing your breaths to mingle. “Your dad is a real prick, but I’m — I’m glad you’re not like him. You’re a real great guy. The best.”

“I’m not,” he refuted, knowing that your tongue had been loosened by the alcohol. When sober, you were generous with your words, but not like this. Not to this degree. “I’ve made some dumbass decisions. You know that better than anyone—“

“And yet, I still love you,” you cut him off, leaning impossibly closer. You had contemplated kissing him a handful of times since that night in the bar, but had yet to work up enough nerve to do so. Now, when you were feeling brazen, it would be so quick, so easy. All you had to do was bridge the gap between your faces . . . You made to do so, to press your lips to his, but he pulled away, moving out of your range. A mixture of hurt and confusion crossed your features then, followed by uncertainty. “Do you not want to—“

“Not like this,” he shook his head, because even though the flirtatious comments sent your way held truth, he would not allow you to make such a drastic move when drunk. Not with him. “If you remember this tomorrow, we can figure things out, Y/N.”

In a perfect world, you would remember this conversation the next day. You and Billy would communicate and sort out your feelings together, but this world was not perfect. In this world, you did not remember your advances on Billy, which was why when he met the foxy, dark-haired Camila Martinez, he pursued her . . .

─── ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ───

WARREN RHODES (drummer, The Six): In the summer and fall of ‘69, we were all really starting to get laid, man. And Billy was taking himself off the market. We’d all be with chicks and he’d be sitting there, smoking a joint, having a beer to keep himself busy. I came out of a girl��s room one time, zipping my pants up, and Billy was sitting on the sofa, watching Dick Cavett. I knew Y/N loved Billy. Hell, by that point, I think everyone except Billy knew. So I said, “Man, you gotta ditch that girlfriend.” Don’t get me wrong; we all liked Camila, she was foxy and she’d tell you your business right to your face, which I liked. But c’mon. Y/N isn’t the sort of person you want to miss out on an opportunity with.

Y/N: I wanted to hate Camila. It would have been easier that way, if she was terrible to Billy, if she made him unhappy, but she didn’t. She grounded him, made him a better version of himself, so there really was no choice but for me to take a step back, to put some distance between Billy and I.

GRAHAM: It killed Y/N to give Billy and Camila space, but they did. Because they loved him, and that . . . that took a lot of selflessness. I think, maybe, that might have been when I started falling in love with them.

#daisy jones and the six #djats #djats spoilers #billy dunne #graham dunne #warren rhodes #daisy jones headers #x reader #sam claflin #writing #writing requests #open requests #angst #rockband #camila dunne

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mymultiverse00 · 1 year ago

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Detention

It was a quiet Friday afternoon in Volterra Castle, and as Marcus signed his name on the day’s last edict, he couldn’t help but smile. Friday meant the end of the work week under the new Volturi work/life balance guidelines, instituted five years ago by his beautiful mate, Y/N, thank you very much, and it also meant the end of the school week. Marcus always looked forward to Friday, now that he was a father, as he could not wait to spend the weekend doing normal human activities with his wonderful wife and darling daughter. They had been with him for just under a decade now, and every second spent with them filled in the cracks from a millennium of hurts, and he cherished every single one.

He looked down at his watch with a small frown, noticing the hour was later than normal, but it was quickly erased as the air around him shifted, and the light, airy scent of oranges and vanilla filled his senses. His daughter had just arrived home from school, and as was her custom, she was making her way to the King’s study to greet her father and uncles. She was moving quickly - too quickly - he thought, and suddenly he had a feeling that something wasn’t right. The intensity of the feeling actually scared him a little, and he had just risen from his chair to go meet her when he heard his daughter arrive.

Wham!! The door to the study was flung open heavily, causing it to bounce off the wall behind it. He could see his daughter was extremely angry, and her eyes blazed with rage.

“Uncle Aro!” She shouted, her eyes scanning the room in fury. “Where are you?”

Marcus looked to his right, noticing that his brother had indeed abandoned his desk, and was forced to hold back a smile as the man in question casually reentered the room from the adjoining balcony. Aro was doing his best to appear surprised to see the girl, but Marcus knew better than to believe the act.

“Ah, principessa! You are home!” Aro enthused, greeting the girl with a wide, happy smile. “How was your day?”

“You know how it was, Uncle,” she hissed. “You promised you would stop doing that!”

“Doing what, my heart?” Marcus asked, coming to stand next to his daughter, offering her a careful hug. “What has Aro done?”

The girl sighed, leaning heavily into her father’s embrace. “He helped me with my homework again!”

“Aro!” Marcus chided. “We’ve discussed this, brother.”

Aro said nothing for a moment, looking down to brush an imaginary piece of lint away from his jacket. “I had to do it darling, your essay was incomplete. I was only thinking of your grades,” he explained.

“Incomplete!!” The girl screeched. “It was fine before you tampered with it!”

“There, there, little mouse.” Marcus patted his daughter’s back in a comforting gesture. “Do you have the essay with you? May I see it?”

She nodded, untangling herself from their hug, and reached down into her discarded backpack. “Here. Read it, and you’ll see, Daddy.”

He took the papers from her hand and moved back over to his desk, turning on his reading lamp as he took a seat. He read aloud to the room.

Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war.

“A fine start, darling, well done.” Marcus praised her.

“Skip down to the last paragraph, Daddy. That’s where you see a last minute edit someone added.” She glared at Aro as she spoke.

Marcus looked down again and flipped to the last page of the report, focusing on the final lines, mysteriously written in flourishing red ink. The penmanship was familiar to Marcus. After having to read it for the last several thousand years, he would recognize it anywhere. He grimaced and read aloud again.

In conclusion, Julius Caesar was a pompous bastard who got what he deserved. He was an uncultured swine and a blight on society. Shakespeare’s play is nothing but gross exaggeration and, frankly, not worth the paper it’s printed on. The Italian school system needs to do better.

“Aro!” Marcus scolded, setting down the paper and giving the dark-haired man a disapproving look. “Shame on you, brother.”

“What?” Aro questioned. “Tell me which part of my statement is untrue, Marcus. You hated that asshole as much as I did!”

“Maybe so, but you cannot put those things in her homework. What will the teacher think?”

“She’ll think I’m being insolent and give me detention, that’s what!” The girl cried. “I had to write lines about not using inappropriate language in my reports and I have to read Romeo and Juliet as extra homework now!”

“Ah! How delightful!” Aro rejoiced, clapping his hands in excitement. “Now the Montague family, there was a family that understood diplomacy!”

“Daddy! Please make him stop!” The girl begged her father. “Tell him he can’t help me with my homework anymore, please?”

“Aro, brother, I have to agree. As much as you want to share your first-hand knowledge of historical events with our princess, you cannot do so by changing her homework. I want you to give your word; you won’t tamper with her work again.”

Aro considered Marcus’s words for a moment, looking into his niece’s pleading eyes before silently acquiescing. “I am sorry, little dove. I should not have changed your paper and I will not do it again. I was only trying to help, but I can see my help was not needed. Forgive me?”

The girl smiled at Aro, moving to his side to embrace him in a hug. “I forgive you, Uncle. And I’m sorry I shouted at you. I was just upset about getting detention.”

“Well, I’ll find a way to make it up to you eventually, love. “Do you want me to have your teacher killed?” He asked innocently.

“Aro!” Marcus scolded. “You will do no such thing!”

“We can discuss it later,” Aro whispered to the girl, smiling at the giggles spilling from her lips.

“Ok, Uncle Aro.” She kissed his cheek and then crossed back to her father to do the same for him. “I’ve got to go talk to Mama about our plans for the weekend, so I’ll see you two later. Love you!” She called as she darted out of the room, backpack in hand.

Marcus shook his head as he returned to his desk, packing away his books and ledgers, chuckling all the while. He looked over at his brother and gave him a wry smile. “He was a pompous bastard, Aro. You were right about that.”

“Of course I was, Marcus. Wait until she sees what I wrote in her report about Henry VIII.”

The End

#reader insert #marcus volturi #twilight renaissance #marcus twilight #aro volturi #aro twilight #the twilight saga #twilight #marcus volturi x reader #volturi kings

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ardbar · 14 days ago

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Idk how to feel about it but Minecraft has been one of the most consistent through lines of my life.

Like I remember playing Minecraft pocket edition lite on my iPod in like first and second grade. I remember watching Aphmou, Samgladiator, Lizzie, the Atlanticcraft, Ssundee, and so many others through the entirely of elementary school.

And when I moved in middle school I started to watch hermitcraft and all of those lovely people. It then followed me to high school where the dream smp took up an embarrassing amount of my life but I still have a lot of pleasant memory’s and I wouldn’t be close with my best friend if it wasn’t for that.

Hell even now in college with parkour civilization and the Life series (I liked it back in high school too but I still watch it). Like at every single stage of my life the silly little block people have been telling stories all through this versatile sandbox

Like I don’t want to be dramatic but Minecraft has really shaped the person I am. I mean like being so heavily online as a child definitely did but Minecraft holds a special place.

#ardbar rambles #Minecraft

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starlightkun · 2 years ago

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❧ word count: 11.9k

❧ warnings: cursing, mentions of death/dead people in the context of him being hades, probably more legal jargon than there should be but i tried to make it as easy to understand as possible i promise, it gets pretty existential at some points but never overtly angsty

❧ genre: fluff, getting together, greek gods/goddesses au, hades jaemin, human reader, nades au, paralegal reader, bit of a ham-fisted persephone allegory, inspired by the gods/goddesses assigned to the work it unit in 2020 for this video, appearances by bestie jeno and coworker yangyang

❧ author’s note: ahhh my first fic back after over a year hiatus!! not super accurate to the original greek myths, i was just havin fun with hades as a concept rather than a strict characterization. i also watched mike flanagan’s ‘midnight mass’ and read john milton’s ‘paradise lost’ during the time i was writing this so get ready for some slight spiritual/religious iconography and overtones. hope y’all enjoy, i had so much fun playing around with my writing in this one!!

❧ spotify playlist

⤷ sequel

The god’s—Jaemin’s—eyes continued to stare you down. It felt like he was looking into your soul. And you wanted him to.

“I didn’t summon you,” you told him cautiously. “Or at least I didn’t try to.”

“Okay, so I’m thinking she could accidentally be pushed into oncoming traffic—”

“And who exactly would be doing this accidental pushing?” You cut Jeno off with a scoff.

Currently, you were laying on your back on your bed, head hanging off the end of it and phone in hand. Your best friend, Lee Jeno, was on the other end of the line, jokingly scheming to get you a job at his workplace. Jeno somehow worked as a legal assistant at the best civil law practice in your city, and you, on the other hand, were unemployed. This was what you got for taking an extra year to get your master’s degree to become a paralegal instead of immediately jumping into the workforce after undergrad.

That was where you and Jeno had met: Intro to Philosophy on your very first day of college as two bright-eyed freshmen with surprisingly similar career goals and the same taste in 00s pop punk bands. Now you were a year and a half past graduating with your bachelor’s, and six months past your master’s. And what had that extra effort gotten you? Many, many interviews that all ended the same way: You’re “an incredible applicant,” but “too educated” for the pay of the position and/or “too inexperienced.”

Jeno, on the other hand, had declined your suggestion to further your education together and instead landed himself a legal assistant job right out of college. So now here you were, living off the remnants of your student loans and savings as you desperately hunted for a paralegal job.

Your best friend’s elaborate plans to get you a job at his firm would typically make you laugh, but this time you couldn’t even muster up a chuckle. Earlier today when you checked your bank accounts during a break from emailing out your résumé, you were confronted with the fact that your savings were running out; you didn’t have enough to even get you to the end of your lease in six months.

“God will, duh,” Jeno said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. His current plan was centered around a junior partner’s paralegal dying of a myriad of mysterious causes, and apparently this time involved divine intervention too.

“Oh, right, of course,” you rolled your eyes.

“I’m serious about the fact that Yejin needs to go, though. I have no clue how she’s still employed. And you would be the perfect fit for Ms. Haseul, she kind of does a little bit of everything, but her main focus is general corporate representation. Wasn’t that what you specialized in for grad school?”

“It is, yes.”

“Then there we go!”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Jeno.”

You sighed. All this talk about a job that you’ll never have was bringing down your spirits. “Anyway, I have half a leftover pizza in the fridge calling my name right now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Alright, bye, Y/N! I’ll keep my ears peeled for any sign of dissent in the ranks so you can slip your way in!”

“Right, bye.”

Hanging up, another sigh tumbled out of your mouth as you tossed your phone somewhere further up your bed. Truthfully, you weren’t hungry in the slightest, you just wanted to get out of that conversation. You brought your hands to your face to rub circles against your temples and closed your eyes; you were getting a headache. Hanging upside down off the foot of your bed certainly wasn’t helping, but you couldn’t be fucked to move at this point.

A moment of self-pity later and you opened your eyes with all intentions to get up and take your migraine medication, but you froze when you were met by a dark shape. Squinting, it took you a second to process that the shape was someone’s legs and shoes, and you let out a yelp. Startled, you went to twist yourself around to face whoever was in your room, but just managed to fall off your bed instead. You very narrowly avoided snapping your neck, landing on your shoulder instead, eliciting yet another yelp, but this time one of pain.

Scrambling to your feet, you were now face to face with the intruder. It was a man, younger, maybe around your age, donned in all black. Black shoes, black slacks, black suit jacket, and black vest underneath that was buttoned but with a neckline cut plenty low enough to show a good expanse of his chest. He had an eerie beauty to him: his face just bordering on gaunt with pronounced cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and a hint of bags under his eyes as if he had just woken up from a night of restless sleep. But he didn’t seem to have recently awoken, very much alert and well put-together in every other aspect. His black hair was perfectly styled back from his face save for one stray lock towards the middle, and his eyes were so dark they reminded you of black holes, threatening to sweep you away forever into a cold unknown. He had more piercings than you could count in the moment, silver and the odd jewel adorning his ears. The vest showed off four or five separate silver chains around his neck.

“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?” You breathed out, desperately trying to blink away the vertigo from your sudden change in orientation.

The man was between you and the doorway, his body language not indicating that he was blocking your way out intentionally. His hands were tucked in the pockets of his pants as he cocked an eyebrow up at your question. He seemed entirely relaxed and yet the air around you still felt as if it were growing colder by the second.

“I should be asking you that. What the hell am I doing in your apartment?” He repeated your question back to you, amusement in his tone as he studied you from head to toe, then back up.

“What?”

“I was summoned by someone. I’m not summoned often, usually Eros or Aphrodite are at the beck and call of humans.”

The names made your head spin, “Eros? Aphrodite? Like, the Greek gods?”

“Yes, of course.” One of his hands left his pocket, the many rings along his fingers glistening in your ceiling fan lights as he went to push the stray lock of hair back from his face. “Humans are always wishing for love or beauty or fame. Not as often are they wishing for my gifts, or at least not with such an intensity that I’m inclined to entertain those wishes.”

Something about his candor inclined you to ask, “Who are you?”

“I’ve had a couple names. Pluto, and you probably recognize me as Hades. But you can call me Jaemin.”

His words made your heart thunder in your chest once again. You wanted to tell yourself that this guy was crazy, but he sounded so assured and calm that it gave you pause. Not mention that he had just appeared in your home out of nowhere.

“Hades? God of the Underworld? In my apartment?”

“The very same. Please, call me Jaemin. As long as I can call you Y/N.”

“Oh, you know my name already,” you stated weakly.

The god’s—Jaemin’s—eyes continued to stare you down. It felt like he was looking into your soul. And you wanted him to.

“I didn’t summon you,” you told him cautiously. “Or at least I didn’t try to.”

He took a step towards you. “And yet here I am.”

Another step. “I was brought here by a desire, your desire. So, what do you really, really want, Y/N?”

His words dripped off his tongue and wound their way through your mind. “A loved one back from the dead? The death of an enemy? To die yourself? So much money you could never spend it all in one lifetime?”

Another step.

“No, none of those,” you shook your head vigorously, feeling like every sense of yours was alight with his proximity to you. Every sound was deafening, your skin tingled, and the scent of cinnamon and citrus danced around you. One more step and he’d practically be on top of you. “I don’t want any of that.”

Another step. He was right in front of you now, his startlingly cool breath washing over your face as he asked, “Then what do you want?”

“I just—” your hands were clenched into fists at your sides, fingernails digging into your palms as you struggled to find the words. “Want to work at Kim & Moon.”

Jaemin’s head cocked to the side as he studied your face, “Why?”

“It’s the best civil law firm in the city. I know it’s where I belong, if I could just get a job there, I know I’d do well.”

“This job? Does it pay well?”

“I-I don’t know,” you confessed. “Jeno hasn’t ever told me how much he makes, but that’s only part of why I want to work there. If all I cared about was paying my bills, I would’ve taken the first job at any sleazy ambulance chaser’s office I could find. But I’d be wasted on something like that. I’m smart, well-studied, and I’ll be good at what I do. I just know it.”

He chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down your spine.

“Yeah, I like that.”

Then all at once, Jaemin was no longer in front of you, and you felt like you could breathe properly again. He dropped himself onto your bed, settling in to recline leisurely against your headboard, legs crossed at the ankle.

“Alright, I’ll grant your wish,” he declared, slipping one of his rings off to roll it along his knuckles. The silver band caught the light and nearly distracted you from his words.

Pulling yourself out of your momentary trance, you immediately said, “But I didn’t ask you to—”

“Of course you did, or I wouldn’t be here. Do we really have to go through this again?” His eyes were fixed on the ring. “Now do you want that job or not?”

“If I say yes, what do you want in return? I doubt Hades himself is in the business of charity.”

“Smart. There will be an exchange, obviously.”

“Then my answer is no, I don’t want to be selling my soul or something.”

Jaemin suddenly flicked the ring up, watching as it did one, two, three flips in the air before landing in the palm of his hand, “As lovely as I’m sure your soul is, I’m not particularly interested in taking it.”

“Well then what would you want from me?”

“A third of your life.” He said it simply, as if you two were talking about him borrowing a cup of sugar, not your life.

“Wh—”

“Let me finish,” he instructed sternly, firm gaze once again on you. “Spend two-thirds of your year here, then spend the remaining third of it with me.”

“If I take four months off work I won't be able to keep the job you get me.”

“It doesn’t have to be consecutive. Give me your nights and I’ll call it even.”

“Why? Why me? Why would you give me so much for just… hanging out with you?”

He shrugged, “I’m tired of spending all my time with dead people.”

Despite his casual tone, you swore you saw something much sadder flash across his face for a moment. It was gone as soon as you had registered it, making you wonder if you just imagined it. When you remained quiet, chewing on the inside of your cheek in thought, he stood up and crossed the room to once again stop just a mere inch or two in front of you, “Do we have a deal, Y/N?”

A chance to use your degree and skills like you’d always dreamed, just for hanging out with a god every night? It sounded... not quite too good to be true, but definitely too easy. You couldn’t remember Hades being portrayed as a tricksy sort in the myths, and everything Jaemin had done tonight—aside from appearing in your room out of the blue—made you think that you could probably trust him.

“Yeah, sure,” you agreed, looking up from where you had been twiddling your thumbs anxiously to his hauntingly beautiful face. “Do we have to do anything to make the deal official or whatever?”

“What, like a kiss?” He grinned at you mischievously. “Since you asked…”

“Jaemin!” You scoffed, feeling like he was teasing you now.

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“No I didn’t!”

“Anyway, a handshake will do just fine,” Jaemin held his right hand out in the small space between your bodies.

You took it, feeling the cold from his fingers seep into your own, and gave it one firm shake. Before you could take your hand back, he’d tightened his grip and turned it over. His other hand came up to slip a ring onto your ring finger. It was the same silver band he had been playing with before, and it magically changed size to fit your finger perfectly. Jaemin bowed slightly, bringing your hand up to press a feather-light kiss to the knuckle of the very finger he’d just put the ring on. His lips were cool like the rest of him, but you still felt warm at his actions.

“There,” he straightened back up and let go of your hand finally. “That should do it.”

You looked down at the ring he’d just put on your finger. It was a simple silver band of medium width that reminded you of your father’s wedding band.

“Goodbye for now, Y/N.”

“Yeah—” you cut yourself off when you brought your eyes up to see that Jaemin was gone. Staring at the empty space where he just was, you murmured, “Bye, Jaemin.”

That night you dreamt of a man cloaked in shadows guiding you to a tree, instructing you to pick the golden fruit that was growing on it. You gazed at the fruit, in a daze, mesmerized by their beauty. They were so inviting, the man’s voice soothing, and you lifted a hand up towards one.

You groaned against the bright sunlight streaming in through a crack between your curtains. Directly on your face. You threw your left arm over your eyes to block it out as you continued lying in bed, letting your mind and body wake up gradually.

Memories of last night’s visitor came back to you, and you sighed. Surely it was a dream. A weird, weird dream that your mind conjured up in an attempt to fulfill your wish for a job.

But when you squinted your eyes open and brought your right hand up enough to look at your fingers, the silver band that sat there let you know that it was real. You’d been visited last night, by Hades, who said he’d grant your wish for a job in exchange for a third of your life. And you said yes.

The loud sound of your phone buzzing on your nightstand prompted you to roll over and grab it to look at the caller ID. Lee Jeno.

“Yeah?” You couldn’t even muster up a proper greeting as you picked up, still bogged down by sleep.

“Y/N, great news!”

You glanced at the time on your phone before bringing it back up to your ear, “Jeno, it’s not even 9:30 a.m., why are you calling me? You can’t be on lunch.”

“I know, but as soon as I heard, I had to tell you!”

“Tell me what, exactly?”

“There’s a job opening at the firm! You have to apply!”

That woke you up.

“An opening?” You asked, shooting up into a sitting position.

“Jo Haseul, the junior partner at the firm I’ve been telling you about, her paralegal won the lottery and quit on the spot. No two weeks’ notice, they’re urgently hiring her replacement. I’ll text you the firm administrator’s email for you to send your résumé to!”

“That would be great, thank you, Jeno.”

“Of course!” He said brightly as another phone began ringing in the background. “I’ve got to go now, Ms. Kang is buzzing me.”

“Right, thank you again.”

“Bye!”

“Bye,” you brought your phone down to see he had already ended the call.

As you went to grab your laptop from the foot of your bed to begin drafting that email, your eyes got caught by the silver ring on your hand.

A week later and you were walking into your first day of work at Kim & Moon. The firm administrator, Jeong Jaehyun, was showing you around, and finally stopped his tour in an open-floor plan portion of the office where a grouping of eight desks were. A couple of them were empty, the others filled by various men and women hard at work, and also Lee Jeno.

“Y/N!” Jeno waved at you enthusiastically from where he was on the other side of all the desks, and you lifted your hand to give a small wave back.

“Oh, you know Lee Jeno?” Mr. Jeong asked as he guided you over towards your friend.

“Yes, we were in the same undergrad program.”

“Good, it should be easier to settle in with a familiar face nearby.” The administrator smiled as he gestured to the empty desk behind your friend. The one beside it was occupied by another young man incredibly focused on his screen, headphones in as his fingers flitted over his keyboard and he fervently typed out a court document.

“This is your desk, Ms. Y/L/N. Ms. Jo, your attorney, is on a call right now but she has been informed of your arrival. I’m sure she’ll meet with you when she can. In the meantime, please acquaint yourself with your workspace. Your computer is already logged in, and all of your passwords are on the paper right there. Is there anything you need at the moment?”

“No, no. Thank you so much, Mr. Jeong,” you bowed your head politely to him.

“Of course. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” He pointed to the landline sitting on your desk next to the computer monitors, “I have a quick-dial button right next to Reception’s. Buzz me if you need something.”

“I will, thank you.”

And with that, Jeong Jaehyun took his leave of the pod that you were in. You sat in your chair, taking in the sparse supplies on your desk: two computer monitors, keyboard, mouse, a landline phone, a couple pens, and one sheet of paper laid across your keyboard. It was a list of your login credentials for your computer, work email, and the firm’s file management software, along with Mr. Jeong’s extension and quick-dial button name.

You turned back around to where you knew Jeno was already waiting for you. Your friend was practically vibrating with excitement in his own desk chair.

“This is so exciting!” Jeno exclaimed, momentarily drawing the attention of all the other employees in your vicinity before they went back to whatever they were doing. He continued on much quieter, “I told you you’d kill it at your interview.”

“Right,” you nodded, trying not to think about the silver ring on your right hand. “Thanks, Jeno, I’m excited to start.”

“I’ll give you the rundown of everyone at the firm, come here,” he scooted his chair over to make room for you to roll yours up to his desk.

His fingers quickly flitted across his keyboard and mouse to pull up the firm website. Hovering over the tab labeled ‘Our Attorneys,’ you saw a list of names drop down. He clicked on the first one, Kim Chaeyoung. It pulled up a profile, the picture showing a very determined older woman, her arms crossed over her chest as she very resolutely stared down the camera.

“This is Kim Chaeyoung, the ‘Kim’ in Kim & Moon. She’s the most senior attorney at the firm, and mostly does corporate compliance and medical malpractice law. She just stepped down from being managing partner at the end of last year.”

He clicked the next name on the list, Moon Taeil. This time a man was on your screen, a bit older than you, but not by too much. No more than ten or fifteen years for sure, quite young to be a managing partner at such a large firm. His gaze wasn’t quite as intense as Kim Chaeyoung’s, but it held an intelligence and wisdom clearly beyond his years.

“Mrs. Kim stepped down to let this man, Moon Taeil, take over as managing partner. Something about wanting younger blood in charge but…” Jeno looked around the pod before he dropped his voice to a whisper so soft you had to lean in to hear him, “The rumor is that Mrs. Kim is going to announce her retirement at the holiday party at the end of this year.”

“And what sort of law does Mr. Moon do?” You questioned.

“Mostly insurance litigation. He tends to get the nastier incidents though: shootings, stabbings, fires, the odd dog bite.”

You then went through the senior partners before getting to the first of the junior partners on the list.

“And here is Jo Haseul, your attorney. She’s the most senior of the junior partners, and rumors also say that she’s going to be made a senior partner by the end of this year.”

“You love your office gossip, don’t you?”

You studied the woman on screen. She was younger than you had expected, a fierceness in her eyes that both intimidated you and inspired you to follow her wherever she led.

“This isn’t even the juicy stuff, wait until you hear about the affair Mr. Noh supposedly had with his assistant in the 80s,” Jeno scoffed, then turned his attention back to the woman on screen. “Anyway, Ms. Haseul is Mrs. Kim’s protégé. She mostly does general corporate matters, medical malpractice, and the occasional pro bono representation for women in need. Restraining orders, child custody, divorce, whatever comes in the door. If you really want to get to know her, ask about those cases.”

“She sounds incredible.”

“I told you you’d be perfect for each other.” Your friend then pulled up the next junior partner, “This is Kim Doyoung, he’s Mrs. Kim’s son but you’d never be able to tell by how they act around each other. All business. I think he doesn’t want people to assume he only got his position because of his mother, but nobody who has actually spoken to Mrs. Kim would ever think she’d do something like that. She’s got some serious integrity.”

Jeno was about to move on to the next attorney profile, a ‘Qian Kun,’ when you heard a ringing from behind you.

“Oh, that’s you, Y/N!”

You quickly wheeled yourself back over to your desk, picking up your desk phone after the third ring, “Y/L/N Y/N speaking.”

“Ms. Y/L/N,” a woman’s voice was on the other end, and when you glanced at the caller ID, you saw ‘Jo Haseul’ across the screen. “This is Jo Haseul. Please come to my office now.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I’m down the hall. Ask another assistant if you need help finding it.”

“Will do, thank you.”

She hung up, and you rushed to stand up. Grabbing one of the pens you saw earlier, you frantically scanned for a notepad to write with, but there wasn’t one on hand at your desk. You whipped around to face your friend, “Jeno, do you have a notepad I can use? Ms. Haseul wants to see me.”

“Here,” he handed you a notepad slightly bigger than your hand, spiral-bound at the top.

“Thank you!”

“The attorney offices are down that hall,” he pointed. “And Ms. Haseul’s will be on your left.”

“Got it, thanks!” You hurried in the direction he gestured.

Thankfully, everyone’s names were engraved on metal nameplates on the doors, making it easy to know when you had stopped in front of your attorney’s. Rapping your knuckles against the wood, you waited for a response.

“Come in.”

You entered already bowing, “Y/L/N Y/N, ma’am. It’s an honor to be here and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work with you.”

Jo Haseul appraised you for a moment from where she was sat behind her desk. She then nodded, “It’s nice to meet you. Now please sit, Y/L/N.”

“Yes ma’am,” you quickly sat in the armchair she had gestured to.

After brief introductions, Ms. Haseul gave you the rundown of the kinds of cases she tended to deal with—which generally lined up with what Jeno had told you earlier, her management style, workflow, and an overview of the duties you’ll be expected to fulfill as her paralegal. At the end of it, you left with pages of notes, a stack of papers in your arms, and your first tasks to do for her.

Stopping at your desk, you didn’t even sit as you organized the papers into three stacks: to correct, to file, and to copy. You picked up the last stack of things that Ms. Haseul wanted copies of, then turned to your friend, “Hey, Jeno, where’s the copier?”

The assistant sat at the desk beside yours was the one who spoke up in response, his headphones set aside now, “Oh, I’m going there right now, I’ll show you!”

“Thanks, Yangyang,” Jeno said, then nodded for you to go along with the other man.

Yangyang grabbed his own paper before leading the way out from the desks. He took off in the opposite direction from the offices down a different hallway, “It’s down this hall, first door on the right.” He then opened said door to reveal a room with four large copy machines in it.

“I’m Liu Yangyang, by the way,” your coworker introduced himself, stopping in front of one machine. “I’m Qian Kun and Dong Sicheng’s legal assistant. They’re Ms. Haseul’s associate attorneys that work under her so you and I will overlap quite a bit. Sicheng usually handles corporate matters with Ms. Haseul while Kun does the med mal portion.”

“I’m Y/L/N Y/N. It’s nice to meet you, Yangyang.”

“You too, Y/N. And I’m sure you’ll meet my attorneys at some point today. I apologize in advance, and yes, they are always like that. Kun’s a workaholic who would be here until two in the morning if somebody didn’t send him home, and Sicheng… you are allowed to say no to him, and I encourage it, actually. Booksmart but doesn’t quite get social cues. I’ve seen him accidentally sweet talk his way into having an assistant pick up his dry cleaning before.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, I had to intervene to ensure feminism wasn’t set back fifty years,” Yangyang scoffed.

“Women everywhere commend you for your service to the cause, Yangyang,” you nodded solemnly, to which your coworker snickered.

“The dude’s wicked smart but dumber than a box of rocks. Associates, you know?” He shook his head then returned to instructing you about the machine.

After Yangyang had shown you how to use the multipurpose machine—scanning and uploading, printing, copying, faxing—he took the copies that he had made and left you there. Nobody was at the other copiers, making you the only one in the room. You took a deep breath to compose yourself after having so much information thrown at you from all sides. Right now, at this moment, all you needed to do was make a copy.

Putting the first document in where Yangyang had shown you, you’d just started tapping the touchscreen through to the copying option when a dark figure appeared at the edge of your vision. Your head snapped up to look at the man leaning against the wall beside the copy machine you were at.

You hadn’t seen Jaemin since the night you’d made your deal. You’d spent the entire next night anxiously waiting for him to appear, but he never did, and you eventually gave up and fell asleep. He didn’t come any night after that, and you kind of thought he might’ve forgotten about you, or maybe didn’t really want you to hold up your end of the deal. Realized that he could find better company than you.

But here he was, in your workplace, smirk on his face and delight in his tone, “Surprise! I came to visit you on your first day of work. I’m so proud!”

First rolling your eyes at the sarcasm in his words and the fake tear he wiped away, you then fervently glanced towards the door to the copy room, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m checking on my investment,” he answered coolly.

“What, me? You can check on me at my home tonight, not at my job on my first day of work! Somebody could walk in, how would I explain you?”

“Nobody’s coming.”

“The deal was that I would give you my nights. Sun’s still up.”

“Yes, you’re doing just fine,” he nodded as he adjusted his black tie, seeming satisfied with his ‘check in.’ “I’ll see you tonight, Y/N.”

And he was gone in the blink of an eye.

You immediately flopped down onto your couch when you got home that night. That was the most work you’d done in a while; you were tired both physically and mentally. But it was a good sort of tired. You finally had a job.

“Hi, honey, how was work?”

You shot up at the voice, knowing exactly who it was. Jaemin was poised in your armchair, half a smirk already on his lips. He was in all-black again, though a slightly different suit from last time, his slacks and suit jacket had thin dark grey pinstripes, over a black silk dress shirt with the top three buttons open.

“Oh, uh, it was good,” you said.

Silence fell over you two, and you started fidgeting uncomfortably as it dragged on. Finally, you said, “So... what do you want to do?”

“Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“I feel like you already know the answer to that, but no. I just got home.”

“Let’s get dinner then. Where would you like to go?”

“Uhm...” you wracked your brain for some places nearby. “There’s a ramen place down the street. Let me change out of my work clothes first, hold on.”

Re-emerging from your bedroom in more casual clothes, you saw that Jaemin had moved from his spot on your armchair and was instead standing, gazing out the window. And again, for a brief moment, you could’ve sworn he looked... lonely.

“I’m ready,” you announced yourself. It felt wrong to keep looking at him like that.

Jaemin turned around, focusing a dazzling smile on you, “Lead the way, Y/N.”

The place you were thinking of really was just a couple blocks down the street. Mumbling a thanks to Jaemin as he held the door open for you, you were immediately met with a packed restaurant. It was seat-yourself, and you managed to spot a small table for two in the very back corner, right beside the entrance to the kitchen. Guiding Jaemin over to it, you felt your face turn warm as he pulled your chair out for you.

The menu was a singular piece of laminated paper taped to the tabletop, and your eyes skimmed it. You ordered the same thing every time at this point, but it was something to look at other than the god in front of you. Speaking of, he was a god. Did he even need to eat?

“Jaemin.” You said his name as you looked up from the menu.

His eyes flicked up from where they’d also been reading the options, “Hm?”

“Do you even eat, like, normal food?”

“I can if I want to, I just don’t need it to survive like you do.”

“Oh, I see. And do you... like it?”

“Quite.”

It was then that a familiar waiter came up to your table, “Hi, Y/N! It’s been a while. Almost didn’t recognize you at a table instead of the bar.”

Typically, you would come by yourself and sit at the bartop to eat alone alongside all the other solo patrons. You rolled your eyes at the slight jab, “Thank you, Chenle, I feel so welcome.”

“Aw, you know you’re one of my favorite regulars,” the young man snickered.

“Yeah, whatever. Sorry I haven’t been by lately, I didn’t exactly have the funds to eat out.”

“That’s okay. But you’re back, does that mean that you found a job?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Congrats!” He then focused his attention on the man across from you, “Hi, I’m Zhong Chenle.”

You moved to introduce the two before Jaemin could open his mouth, afraid of what he would’ve said. “Chenle, this is Jaemin, a... friend of mine. Jaemin, this is Chenle, he’s a server here.”

“And I’ll be serving you two tonight. So, what can I get you?”

After taking your orders, Chenle took off to put them in. You shifted in your seat awkwardly. What were you and Jaemin even supposed to talk about?

“You usually sit at the bar?” Jaemin questioned.

“I’m not an alcoholic, despite how Chenle made it sound,” you scoffed. “I usually come by myself, and the bar is the quickest place to get your food and get out. And that way I don’t take up any tables that groups can use.”

“I feel honored that you brought me here, then.”

You searched his face for any hint that he was teasing you, but all you found was sincere curiosity. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, you changed the topic, “So why did you show up tonight? You didn’t come all last week.”

“Well, I had to hold up my end of the deal first.”

“Right, that... makes sense.” Realizing that you hadn’t even thanked him for whatever he’d done for you, you added, “Thank you, Jaemin. For you know, the job.”

“You’re welcome.”

Chenle returned then with a small bottle of soju for each of you, informing you that your food would be ready soon.

“So is it everything you’d dreamed of? Working at Kim & Moon?” Jaemin asked before lifting his bottle to his lips.

“Today was only my first day but... yes. I’ve already learned a lot, was listened to when I spoke, and the partner I work for seems like an incredible woman so far. It’s wonderful.”

“I hope it stays that wonderful for you, Y/N. I’d like to see your eyes light up like this often.”

Looking down at the green bottle in front of you, you twisted your ring around your finger nervously. You didn’t know what to say back, your heart fluttering around in your chest. Jaemin was charming, too charming for your own good, and you sort of felt like you really shouldn’t have expected any less from a god.

“Are you curious?”

You snapped your head up to look at your companion, not even attempting to hide your confusion at his words, “About what?”

“What I did, to get you the job.”

“I mean, I am. I assume you had something to do with Yejin winning the lottery? You’re the god of everything below the Earth, including precious gems, gold, silver. The god of riches, wealth. In the modern day that would translate to how we view wealth and riches now, since I’m not really out here buying my groceries with rubies and gold coins. Right?”

Jaemin’s obsidian eyes practically glittered as he listened to you speak, his lips curling up at one corner before he took another swig of his soju. When you were finished, he set the bottle back onto the table to answer your question, “Hit the nail on the head.”

“Honestly, I’m just glad you did that instead of killing her or something horrible.”

His head jerked back as he looked at you with bewilderment, “Now why would I do that? I’m the god of the dead, not death. If you wanted her dead you’re talking to the wrong deity.”

“I don’t want her dead, that’s my point. That’s what Jeno was joking about on the phone before you showed up; I didn’t want you to get any ideas.”

“I don’t really find it fun to just push people into traffic.”

“So you were listening to—” You cut yourself off as you saw Chenle approaching with your food. Not a conversation to be having in front of your normal human waiter.

After he had left your table again, you returned to what you were saying before, “So you were listening to our conversation.”

“Can’t help myself, I’m nosy when it comes to the humans who summon me,” Jaemin admitted.

“So what does Hades do for fun then?” You asked lightheartedly, slurping at some of your broth.

“While I don’t necessarily enjoy pushing people into traffic, I do find it much more fun to let a human become suddenly awash with money and watch what happens when they eventually lose it all. See what they spend it on, who they spend it on. Themselves mostly, sometimes others, trying to get people to be their friends or lovers simply because of what they’ll buy them. I’ll watch them do what humans do best, use and abuse the gifts that were given to them. And then once they’ve been sucked dry both in their finances and their souls, find out how they try to move on.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?” You set your spoon down, voice wavering. “Watching and waiting for me to end up like that?”

Jaemin took a pause, shifting forward in his seat before responding, “One of my favorite things about humans is how resilient you are. Always trying to bounce back. It’s fascinating to find out your breaking point, when you have no more bounce left.”

An absolutely devilish smile played across his features as he seemed to take delight in the notion. He didn’t exactly answer your question, but the lack thereof felt like enough.

“Why?”

“Because it’s different for every person, and always further than I think it’ll be. Even after so long, knowing that humans can still surprise me, it’s refreshing. Makes me think that…”

You blinked at him, waiting for him to finish. He was definitely well aware that he had your rapt attention, basking in the drama he had created by pausing. His eyes settled on you firmly, holding eye contact as something softer entered them.

“Maybe you’ll surprise me, too.”

Jaemin came back to your apartment with you after you’d decided you were full. You hadn’t had much of an appetite after that harrowing conversation over dinner, and he’d left you with a lot of thinking to do. It wasn’t every day that you heard a god’s perspective on human lives—on toying with human lives, watching for their eventual breakdown in the aftermath of the ‘gifts’ he gave them. If that’s what it did to them all, it seemed much more like a curse to you.

And you were of course thinking about whether it would happen to you too. You hadn’t wished for riches or wealth directly, definitely not so much that it would have the same effect on your life as winning the lottery. But that didn’t mean that you weren’t worried. And the idea of Jaemin watching you every step of the way, waiting to see when you’d slip up, when you’d meet your breaking point, made you shiver instinctually.

“Are you cold?” Jaemin’s question broke the silence that had been hovering over you two since you started the walk from the restaurant back to your apartment.

“Oh, no, I—”

But he had already shrugged his suit jacket off and laid it over your shoulders. There was no residual body heat in it, but it did help block out some of the breeze blowing past you. You hadn’t noticed the temperature at all, too wrapped up in your own thoughts.

“Thanks,” you muttered, wrapping the jacket tighter around your shoulders. It smelled faintly of spiced citrus.

“No worries.”

Back in your apartment, you wanted nothing more than to lay in bed staring up at your ceiling as you gave yourself over fully to the existential crisis you were descending into. But you still had a god to entertain.

A glance at the change in time on your stovetop clock let you know that you were only a couple hours into your commitment. You hoped he didn’t expect you to stay up all night with him. Leaving Jaemin in your living room once again, you changed into pajamas in your bedroom. If he was going to be with you every night from here on out, you were at least going to be comfy for some of it.

Jaemin was back in the armchair he had appeared in at the beginning of the night, one knee crossed over the other and a book in hand. You paused behind him on your way back into the living room to peer over his shoulder, trying to read the title at the top of the page he was on.

“The Turn of the Screw?” You questioned, walking around him to plop down onto your couch.

“I found it on your shelf,” he gestured to the built-in shelves in the walls around the recess that held your TV. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Knock yourself out, I haven’t touched it since I had to read it for a ghost literature class like… four years ago.”

“Ghost literature class?” Jaemin lowered the book to rest on his leg while he regarded you with an eyebrow raised. “Did you go to school in the Underworld or something?”

“It was actually called like ‘Ghost Stories and Haunted Fiction of the 19th Century’ or something. The students just called it ghost lit. We read all these spooky stories, including The Turn of the Screw,” you explained, then looked around your living room. “I have a few more of them around here somewhere. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein— I can’t remember the full reading list, but they’re scattered around.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He raised the book back up to continue reading intently.

Since he seemed occupied for the moment, you pulled out your phone to distract yourself.

A couple hours later and you let out your first yawn of the night. You’d thought that Jaemin was so enraptured by the book that he wasn’t paying any attention to you. The chuckle he gave from across the room proved you wrong, however. There was definitely nothing funny in that story. You threw him a scowl, but he neither looked up from the book nor said anything.

Shifting in your spot to get comfy again, you returned to the article that you’d been reading on your phone and your guest was quiet once again. Another yawn split your mouth, and the words on your screen swam in your vision as your eyes teared up.

“Tired, Y/N?” Jaemin’s eyes still hadn’t left the book as he continued, “You should go to sleep, early day at work tomorrow, right?”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I thought I’d finish this book, if that’s alright with you. I’ve got about… thirty, forty pages left.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” you were surprised both that he was encouraging you to go to sleep during the time you’d agreed to forfeit to him, and that he wanted to finish the book.

Standing up from the couch, you shuffled into your kitchen to fill up a glass of water. After knocking back your nightly medication, you placed the water on your nightstand and went into your bathroom to do your nighttime routine. You found yourself hovering at the threshold between the hallway that contained your bedroom and bathroom, and the living room. It felt weird to just go to bed with someone else in your home, at least not without saying goodnight to them.

“Uhm,” you cleared your throat.

Jaemin turned to look at you from over the back of the armchair, “Yes, Y/N?”

“I just wanted to…” you felt the words catch in your throat. Pushing through your awkwardness, you twisted the ring around your finger as you forced the words out, “Goodnight, Jaemin.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He smiled at you before turning back around to face his book, “See you tomorrow.”

And with that, you retreated into your bedroom for the night, falling asleep almost as soon as your head hit the pillow.

The man of shadows was in your dreams again that night, drawing you to the tree with the golden fruit. His voice once more invited you to partake in picking the fruit, and your hand inched up, up, up, towards one. Your fingers had just wrapped around the fruit, ready to pluck it off the branch, when you woke up.

When you awoke the next morning, you went through the motions of your morning routine, strolling from your bathroom out to your kitchen, toothbrush sticking out of your mouth. You continued brushing your teeth with one hand as you grabbed the freshly popped toast from the toaster to put on a plate. As you went to lean over the kitchen sink to spit the toothpaste foam out of your mouth, your eyes got caught on something in the living room, which the sink overlooked. There was a small black pouch sitting on the coffee table, on the corner closest to the armchair.

After wiping your mouth off, you walked over to your coffee table, intrigue building as you picked up the velvet drawstring pouch. Looking around, you were only greeted by your empty apartment. This wasn’t here last night. Or at least, not before you went to sleep.

Pulling it open, you gently shook the contents out onto your palm. It was a silver bracelet, intricate filigree running along the band that was inlaid with gorgeous green and blue gems.

Jaemin’s words from dinner last night echoed in your head.

‘I do find it much more fun to let a human become suddenly awash with money and watch what happens when they eventually lose it all… It’s fascinating to find out your breaking point…’

A foreboding feeling colored your vision, and you rushed to tuck the bracelet back into the bag and throw it onto the table.

When Jaemin came that night, you were cooking dinner in your kitchen. He appeared there with you, leaning against the counter next to your sink as you were standing over the stovetop.

“Good evening, Y/N,” he greeted you.

“Hello, Jaemin.” You steeled your nerves, giving as nonchalant of a nod as you could towards the living room, “You left something here last night. It’s on the coffee table.”

The god regarded you with a tilted head, and you felt his eyes on your empty wrists, “That was for you.”

“I didn’t ask you for anything like that.”

“I know. It was a gift.”

“The job was plenty, Jaemin.”

He was silent as he continued to watch you cook. After a grueling couple of minutes of absolute silence, his eyes burning into you the whole time, you finally turned to properly look him in the face. Throwing on a smile, you informed him, “Dinner’s ready. Ravioli, would you like some?”

“Yes, please.”

You set two places at your dinner table before plating two portions of the pasta. Jaemin was still in his place next to the sink, observing your movements.

“Go ahead and sit, I’m just going to grab a couple glasses,” you gestured towards the kitchen table.

Without even waiting to see if he’d obey, you bustled over to a cabinet and took out two wine glasses, then grabbed a bottle of white wine you’d been meaning to finish off. When you turned back to the kitchen table, you were pleasantly surprised to see Jaemin waiting there patiently, fidgeting with his silverware. Setting the two glasses down, you noticed that Jaemin’s silverware was in different places than you had put them in when you hastily set the table. The fork was on the left of the plate, the knife and spoon on the right with the knife directly beside the plate and the spoon on the other side of the knife. Yours on the other hand were in the haphazard places atop the napkin that you had put them earlier.

“Apologies for the subpar fork placement,” you said, uncorking the wine to begin pouring it out first for Jaemin.

“Oh, it’s just a habit,” he explained. His tone then turned as teasing as yours had been, “My apologies for making you think your fork placement was anything other than above par.”

You then poured for yourself as you continued the banter, “Yeah, you know, I really pride myself on my utensil arranging skills. My feelings have been gravely wounded. I’ll never recover from this.”

“Then would you consider taking this,” he procured a small black pouch from his pocket, and you had a suspicion as to exactly what was in it, “as repentance, with my sincerest apologies?”

A bitter sigh came out of your mouth at him ruining the perfectly normal moment you were enjoying, “Jaemin, I told you I don’t want any more gifts from you.”

The way you spat out the word ‘gifts’ was apparently a lightbulb moment for him as he set the pouch down on the table and all playfulness dropped from his face. Disinterested in whatever he was going to say to try to convince you to take it, you picked up your fork, using the side of the tongs to cut one of your raviolis in half.

“Y/N…” he said your name almost wistfully, leaning forward towards you earnestly. “I really do just want you to have it. It’s not a test or a ruse, just… a token.”

“A token of what?” You snorted, spearing half of the ravioli that you’d just cut and bringing it up to your mouth.

“My affection?”

You choked momentarily on the pasta in your mouth, chewing and swallowing it as quickly as possible and taking a sip of your wine to wash it down. Jaemin still hadn’t touched his food, utensils undisturbed as he waited for you to collect yourself. When you searched his face for a smirk, a mischievous glint in his eyes, anything to indicate that he was being less than truthful, you found none. You were just met with deep open pools of black in his eyes, his mouth set in seriousness, and his hand once again holding the pouch back out to you.

“Your what?”

“I know you heard me.”

“Yes, and now I’m asking for clarification.”

“I find you fascinating, and not in the morbid kind of way like I described to you last night. I’ve found myself starting to become fond of you, and I wanted to show that to you with a… present.”

“What, like getting your puppy a new chew toy because they’re so darn cute?”

Jaemin chuckled, “Not quite. But still, will you please accept it, Y/N?”

You thought it over for another moment, chewing on the inside of your cheek. He was being sincere, you were sure of it. You’d caught brief glimpses of the kinder side to Jaemin just in the few times you’d met him: when he’d leant you his suit jacket walking home last night, telling you he was hoping you’d continue being in love with your job, the gentlemanly peck he’d left on your fingers the night you’d made your deal. And now, as he patiently awaited your answer.

“Alright,” you agreed, taking the small bag from him. “Thank you, Jaemin.”

“Thank you for letting me give it to you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Pulling the bracelet back out of the pouch, you saw that it had a hinge mechanism on it that you couldn’t manage one-handed, and held it out to the god sitting in front of you, “Will you help me put it on?”

“Of course,” he took it, opening the band up with ease.

You held your right hand out towards him, and he brought the open bracelet up around your wrist. But you weren’t watching the way his deft fingers put it on around your wrist, the tips of them brushing over the sensitive skin at your pulse point, leaving coolness behind. You were watching his face as he focused on the task intently, his brows furrowing in concentration then relaxing after the bracelet had clicked shut. A small but tender smile took over his face, his eyes softening as he turned your hand over palm down, thumb running up your ring finger until it reached the silver band that resided there.

Your skin buzzed in the wake of his touch, an electric cold. You could hear your heart thudding in your ears and hoped that he didn’t have supernatural god hearing or something and could hear it too. If he did, he gave no indication of such. He withdrew his hands, leaving you more dazed than you should’ve been at the minimal contact you had. Jerking your hand back to your side of the table, you turned your gaze down at your food, trying to ignore how hot your cheeks were.

A light laugh came from Jaemin, but you couldn’t force your eyes back up to him, knowing that his were already on you.

That night you dreamt once more of the man cast in darkness, leading you to the tree of golden fruit. This time when he encouraged you to pick one, you grasped at the fruit with two hands, pulling it right off the branch with a firm tug.

Just about one month into your… arrangement with Jaemin, you were rooting through your fridge for something to make for dinner when there was suddenly a cool breeze on the back of your neck. Except you were indoors.

Spinning around, you were immediately met with the god extremely close to you, and let out an exasperated sigh, “God damn, Jaemin, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“I can’t help it if I make your heart race,” he grinned, the mischievous glint in his eye making your heart pound in a different way that it had been.

“Yeah, because you jumpscared me,” you rolled your eyes, shutting the fridge doors to then lean back against the appliance. “Anyway, it’s not looking like I have anything to make for dinner. You okay with eating out tonight?”

“More than, I was actually hoping you’d let me take you somewhere tonight.”

“Where?”

“My place. You’ve been such a gracious host this whole time, it’s time I repay the favor.”

“Your place, as in... the Underworld?”

“Yeah, why not?” He shrugged nonchalantly, an enticing grin on his features. A grin that invited you to follow its owner to places you’d never been before. “I promise you’ll come back.”

“In one piece?”

“Of course.”

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t intrigued, that you hadn’t tried to picture what the Underworld looked like. All you could come up with was the standard image of hell: flames, pitchforks, eternal torture. But now you were getting an invitation to go there with Hades and come back alive.

“And I’ll be back in time to go to work in the morning?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Alright, sure,” you finally acquiesced. “I’d love to, thank you for inviting me.”

Jaemin offered his hand out to you then, and you placed your atop. He gave yours a light squeeze, “Just focus on me, Y/N. Just look in my eyes.”

“Okay?” You agreed despite your tone pitching it up into a question, unsure of why exactly he was asking you to do that.

Nevertheless, you settled your gaze on his eyes, even as he drew you in closer by the light grip on your hand. You gave him an awkward half-smile, unsure of what exactly to do as you just stared him directly in the eye. His dark eyes had a calming effect, however, as you felt your breathing even out and your heartbeat slow. This close to him, and being able to unabashedly look at him, you were entranced by the unearthly quality to his beauty. It should have been disquieting, this spectral vision in front of you, but you just found yourself drawn even closer in body and mind.

Then suddenly everything around you was darker, as if someone had dimmed your kitchen lights. The air was cooler too, and you had the suspicion that you were no longer in your kitchen. But you were still looking at Jaemin, just like you said you would.

He was looking right back at you, unflinchingly, and a fond smile crossed his lips before he announced quietly, “We’re here. You can look.”

And you finally tore your eyes from him to take in your new surroundings. It was dark, just like you’d noted before, as if it were nighttime. The room you were in had black floors, black walls, and at the very tippy top of the black vaulted ceiling, a black wrought iron chandelier with flames glowing... blue? But you couldn’t focus on the flickering up above you as Jaemin’s fingers entwined with yours and he gently tugged you towards the other side of the room.

“Come on, this way.”

It looked like you were maybe in an entrance hall of some sort. It was then that you spotted a large black throne adorned with silver detailing and embellishments at the front of the room. Jaemin kept walking right past it, though, down an adjoining hallway.

Your wide eyes that had been taking everything in turned downwards to your hand that was holding Jaemin’s. His skin was the usual coolness you had come to expect, and your fingertips brushed against the multitudes of rings on his fingers. Seeing the lone silver band on your hand, the one that he was holding, made your face hot for some reason.

You passed through another doorway into a dining room. It contained a large dining table crafted from dark walnut wood, the twelve high-back chairs around it made of the same. A deep red table runner went across the length of the tabletop, matching the upholstery of the chairs. A feast was already laid out, and place settings for two of the seats were prepared.

Jaemin let go of your hand to pull out a chair for you. You thanked him quietly as you sat down, eyes still scanning over the food options. He sat in the chair caddy-corner to yours, at the head of the table.

“Go ahead, Y/N,” Jaemin encouraged you as he reached forward to grab the bottle of wine that had been on the table as well.

“Everything looks... so good,” you said, not sure what to try first.

He uncorked the bottle, pouring the red wine into your glass first, then his. When he put the bottle down, you still hadn’t moved, too overwhelmed with all the delicious-looking choices.

“Do I need to make your plate for you?” He teased, already standing and grabbing your plate.

“This is good, you’ll probably like this one, oh you’re going to love this one, everyone likes that, mmm definitely not that,” he mumbled to himself as he loaded up your plate with food after food.

Your heart did flips as you looked up at him, the simple kindness of his actions making you feel warm despite the coolness of the Underworld.

Jaemin set your plate back down in front of you between your utensils, spoon on the far right, then the knife beside the plate, and the fork on the left. You waited for him to prepare his own plate of food, then finally be seated. When he’d finished scooting his chair up to table, he looked up from what he’d been doing, eyes catching yours, and a small, affectionate smile crossed his lips before he grabbed his wine glass. Then a wide, charismatic grin overtook his features as he held his glass out towards you, and you followed his lead, picking yours up to clink them together.

“To one month of… you and I. Thank you for agreeing to come here tonight, Y/N.”

‘You and I.’ His words both squeezed your chest and made it feel airy, like someone was inflating a balloon inside of it.

“Thank you for hosting tonight, Jaemin. And here’s to one month of…” you took a sharp inhale as you stumbled through your mind for any other word but couldn’t find one in that moment. “Us.”

You saw Jaemin’s pale lips softly, silently repeat the word before pulling into an alluring smirk.

And you each took a sip of the wine before digging into your food and kicking off the discussion. Over your month of dinners and nighttime socializing with Jaemin, you were used to your conversations meandering between the casual catching up of your workday to the serious contemplations of life and the universe. After all, if you were dining with a god, you were going to pick his brain for some philosophical inquiry. But on the days where some of the medical malpractice or domestic pro bono cases had hit you exceptionally hard and you wanted to leave well enough alone, Jaemin let you keep the topics light and surface level, keeping it at office gossip and the like.

Tonight though, with the special venue on your mind, you immediately delved into the existential, “So what are humans to you?”

“How do you mean?” Jaemin arched an eyebrow at your question.

“You’re a god. You’ve lived for thousands of years. You’ve seen millions of humans live and die. Surely, we all just kind of… blur together for you. Seem the same. Inconsequential.”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re just saying that because I’m here,” you teased before returning to your debate. “Most of us live and die without ever leaving a lasting impact on the world. Not that I think that’s necessary for having lived a meaningful or good life, I think that making even one person smile means that someone lived a good life. But in relation to you, a god, surely that makes us all indistinguishable from one another.”

“Is a play bad because it ends? Is a flower no longer beautiful because it will wilt? I think that humans and your lives are so intriguing because they’re finite.” He was as impassioned as ever when getting into your metaphysical dialogues— voice strong with resolve, leaning forward towards you earnestly, brow set just the slightest not with anger but determination, and hair falling into his onyx eyes that looked into yours without hesitation. “An incalculable but unquestionably limited amount of time, one chance, and each of you choose to live differently.”

“You still think that every human life is different from all the others?”

“Of course.” Apparently sensing that he hadn’t convinced you yet, Jaemin continued with an example, “Just look at you and your friend Jeno. Sure, the two of you converged pretty closely in college, but he made the choice to begin his career while you made the choice pursue higher education. Your two lives aren’t the same.”

“There’s also another major difference between the two of us.”

At the imploring tilt of his head, you deadpanned, “Only one of us made a deal with Hades for a third of our life.”

“An astute observation, Y/N,” Jaemin chuckled, relaxing back in his chair now that you’d changed up the tone of the conversation.

When both of your plates and glasses were empty, Jaemin took you by the hand once again to guide you from the dining room, as he apparently wanted to show you something. You emerged onto a patio of some sort, but that wasn’t what you were focused on. In front of you was a tree maybe ten or fifteen feet tall, an elegantly thin and sloping trunk, and along its many branches were round golden fruit the size of your palm. You couldn’t help the soft gasp that came from you as you took in the dazzling sight. Everything about the tree was normal from the texture of the brown bark to the dark green leaves, and even the dappling of the outer shell of the pomegranates that grew on it looked real, aside from the gilded color. It was magical, and you were happy just to know that something so beautiful existed.

“Thank you for showing me this, Jaemin,” you said, turning to look at the god who had stopped beside you.

You thought that he’d be looking at the scenery too, but his eyes were on you. He had a familiar look on his face, a small, tender smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, dark eyes holding a latent warmth like coals after a fire, and you felt tempted to get even closer to indulge in it.

But instead, you steeled your nerves to ask, “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Your tone wasn’t as accusatory as your words were, it was a sincerely curious question.

“Like what?” Jaemin was quick to reply with a question of his own, keeping his attitude light but genuine.

“You keep smiling at me with this soft little smile.”

“I keep doing it? When was I doing it before?”

“When we first got here, when you sat down at dinner tonight, and just now, when you brought me out here.” It had made your heart go haywire every time you noticed it, so you were able to list the instances from tonight off the top of your head. But that wasn’t all, there was a reason why it was imprinted into the back of your eyelids like a burned-out LCD screen, “It’s like… like… you want to kiss me.”

“I do,” Jaemin declared, eyes never leaving yours, voice never wavering, so damn sure of himself. Even as you were here in front of him feeling like you were nearly ready to rip your hair out from just a few little smiles from him.

He was always like this. So charming, so smooth, playfully talking around your questions. Pulling you along with him, dancing with you through your conversation. You had to meet him head on, even if it felt like you were going crazy doing so. You did it during your dinners, you could do it now too.

“Is that why you’re smiling at me like that?”

“Do you want me to? Kiss you?” He took a step towards you. For a brief moment he was all you could see, all dark hair, dark eyes, and silver earrings.

“I want to know why you look at me like that.” You stepped back from him, wrapped in the heady smell of his cologne. Cinnamon, bergamot, an earthy scent too maybe? Your head was swimming with it, but you needed to focus on the conversation at hand.

“And I want to know if you want me to kiss you or not.” Another step, once again narrowing the distance between you.

“I asked first, Jaemin,” you poked your pointer finger against his chest as a warning. “An answer for an answer.”

He stayed put, seeming to be fighting a delighted smirk from his face as he looked between your face and the finger you held up defensively between the two of you. Jaemin’s features relaxed as he clasped his hands together behind his back, looking into your eyes earnestly, “All of those times that I’ve been looking at you tonight, I was thinking to myself, ‘It feels like she’s come home.’ You just looked like you belonged here, in my home, with me. It felt like I belonged with you. And that made me want to kiss you. That’s why.”

Of all the answers you had been expecting, that hadn’t quite been one of them. Grand declarations of love were a faraway possibility, sure, you’d seen movies before. That’s not what this was, though. This was both more and less. You hadn’t anticipated for Hades’ answer to be so simple yet all-soul-encompassing as the idea of coming home. While everything tonight had definitely been new and unfamiliar to you, you hadn’t been intimidated or uncomfortable in any way. With Jaemin at your side, you’d been able to take it all in with wonder and an open mind, knowing that you had him right there watching over you.

“I believe you owe me an answer now too, Y/N.” Jaemin’s voice was quiet, low, meant only for you. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Your gaze fell to the finger you had to his chest, your right hand. It had lost all the force you started with, limp and simply resting against him. You could see the silver ring there, and lower on your arm was the bracelet he’d given you, both pieces of jewelry glinting in the hazy light afforded in the Underworld. You briefly wondered if they had come from here, from deep under the Earth; if they’d come home tonight, too. The god in front of you remained silent, waiting for your response. If there was one thing Jaemin was good at, it was waiting— after he’d given you his final push.

Then you finally looked back up at his face, into the sunken obsidian black that greeted you there. That ever-stubborn lock of raven hair was hanging between his brows, and you had a sudden and smitten urge to fix it. But you had something more important to do in that moment. After all, he’d given you his answer, now you owed him yours. And you’d made up your mind.

Your mouth had barely started forming around your answer before it was captured by Jaemin’s in a kiss that was equal parts tender and ravishing. It felt like he was trying to devour your ‘yes’ right off your tongue and keep it all to himself. Admittedly, your head had started nodding before your vocal cords could work.

If you thought you were swimming in spices and citrus before, you were drowning in them now. Cinnamon, oranges, and… cedar. Your hand that had previously been poking at his chest was now crumpling the collar of his dress shirt, the other hooking a finger in one of the belt loops at the front of his slacks to yank him closer. His own hands were doing their part, too. One cupped your cheek while the other held you by your waist. The sweetest nectar was being dripped into your veins, and you hungrily took more and more with each wanton kiss from Jaemin.

When his lips finally parted from yours, you couldn’t help but steal just one more kiss. He let out a breathy chuckle as he clasped a hand over the one you were grasping at his shirt with to gently pull it off, his thumb then rubbing slow circles into your palm. His hand that had been on your cheek dipped to gently grip your chin, and as he looked at you, you knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I’m home,” you promised.

The shadowy man was back in your dreams that night, and this time the golden fruit was already in your two hands. He was encouraging you to break it open, feed on its juicy flesh that he promises will taste so good.

You woke up before you could follow through on the decision you’d already made.

⤷ series masterlist ⤷ blog masterlist

#i: jaemin #jaemin #na jaemin #nct #nct dream #nct imagine #jaemin imagine #nct dream imagine #nct imagines #nct dream imagines #jaemin imagines #f: obsidian black #s: golden fruit #g: fluff #writing #text #mine #*100

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hazelsmirrorball · 2 years ago

Text

The Exit | Dick Grayson x Fem! Reader, Jason Todd x Fem! Reader

pairings: Vigilante! FemReader x Dick Grayson, Jason Todd x Vigilante! FemReader summary: Y/n comes back to life waiting for her life to be as it was when she died, sadly Dick Grayson didn’t have the same idea as her. warnings: mentions of death, jealousy, angst and just sad moments. authors note: Hi! I'm back and better than ever. I decided to mix Conan Gray’s The exit with Dick Grayson so this is what we have. This story will have a second part so hope you enjoy! I’m sorry I haven’t been uploading a lot, I’ve been working on midterms but here’s a little something. Also, I wanted to add that I wanted to keep Dick’s significant other nameless since I love Kory and Barbara and I didn’t want to involve them in this angsty love story.

[MASTERLIST]

Y/n L/n and Dick Grayson were two peas in a pot, they did everything together. Before they revealed their secret identity to each other, they were the best of friends in school. So when Robin invited V/n to join Young Justice she quickly agreed, trusting the boy immediately, there was something about that radiated comfort and familiarity. It wasn’t like Robin was a complete stranger to her, yes at the time she didn’t know Dick and Robin were the same person but they had known each other by their alias because both of them were sidekicks to the biggest vigilantes in Gotham City. So either way It was like in every world, every scenario, every life, Y/n L/n and Dick Grayson were destined for each other.

Everyone knew it, the team knew it, their families knew it, hell even the justice league knew that they were made for each other. So not only were they as close as ever in their “normal” life but they were being the perfect duo in their vigilante life too. As time passed by and Dick started trusting V/n more and more he decided to tell her the truth.

Y/n sat on the comfy couch in Mount Justice waiting for Wally to come back with the buttery popcorn. Her eyes were placed on the tv in front of her that was playing a rerun of one of her and Wally’s favorite reality shows. Dick had decided half way through that he was going to join his friends. Because one, he really wanted to talk to Y/n and two, he had nothing better to do.

This surprised Y/n, because she knew Dick despised watching reality tv, especially that show, he had told her a million times that he preferred stabbing his eyes than watching that show for a minute. He even added dramatically that the Joker should buy a big ass tv and play reruns of the show and it would be a better success that whatever he was doing now. So having Dick next to her with cross arms glaring at the tv was something new to her, that’s when she started to suspect that he wanted something.

Y/n’s eyes trailed towards Dick’s leg watching as he anxiously jump his feet up and down made her go insane.

“What do you want, Robin? You’re Literally driving me insane with your legs' ' Y/n exclaimed turning down the volume of the tv placing her full attention on Dick, which quickly stopped moving his leg paying his attention towards her a goofy grin placed on his lips in an attempt to ease the mood.

“Hey! I thought we said coworkers shouldn’t be flirting with each other, we need to be civil. But if it bothers you that much I let it slide since you decided to compliment my legs”

“The line between love and hate is really thin when it comes to you. You know that, right?” Y/n responded rolling her eyes behind her mask.Dick holds onto his laugh making Y/n even more annoyed and anxious.

“You’ve always asked me if I was hiding something ugly behind these glasses” Dick said looking at his friend from his side of the couch.

“I still believe you're hiding something pal and also I wasn’t asking, I was telling you. If I don’t have evidence to prove my theory wrong, you’ll still be ugly face” She responded while taking a sip of her drink.

“Well, let’s prove your theory then” Dick said, pulling down the glasses placed on his nose. Y/n felt her drink slip out of her hand which Dick reacted quickly by grabbing it. “Well I guess I wasn’t that ugly, I told you I tend to have that reaction on people”

After that day Y/n and Dick found themselves closer than ever, not only as friends in real life but also in their nightlife. It was like that little detail pushed their relationship to another level. But as time passed by Y/n felt herself noticing a new feeling towards his friend, a different kind of love. Everytime she would train with Dick she would find herself blushing and giggling. On the other hand, Dick started noticing Y/n’s different approach in their relationship making him content with her feelings. He had caught on to his crush on Y/n about two years ago but now his feelings were stronger than ever.

“You know I was trained by one of the greatest detectives in Gotham” Dick responded when Y/n slammed him against the foam mat while they were training for combat alone.

“Yet I have you pinned down. It’s quite sad that after all that knowledge I’m still beating your ass” She said looking down at him, their faces a few inches away from each other.

“Have you ever thought I let you win?” He said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Let's imagine that you do let me win everytime we fight. Why do you do it then?” She said doing his actions.

“Because you look beautiful in this angle” Dick said, resting his hand on her cheek and leaning in for a kiss. Y/n followed his actions making their lips one and the rest was history.

February, the flowers weren’t even wilted but Dick and Y/n laid on the grass talking about their future and what direction their relationship was going.

“I could see myself living a life with you. You and me, possibly two little is ruining around while we grow old together” Dick said while playing softly with Y/n’s hair, now and then picking out a flower of her hair.

“Don’t you think that’s a little corny?” Y/n said, huffing a giggle. Which made Dick roll his eyes.

“Maybe my girlfriend makes me corny,” Dick said, pulling her closer to him. Y/n took in his earned nuzzling into him as much as he could. Both of them melted into each other and touched all the stress, all the pain, all the evil surrounding them melted just by sensing each other's presence. The comfortable silence surrounded them, no one’s dated to interrupt the little moment they were having. The team stared in awe watching as the two laid together as a puzzle piece.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind spending my forever with you, Dick” Y/n responded looking at Dick, breaking the silence between them.

“I wouldn’t mind spending my forever with you, Y/n”

Y/n let out a nervous sigh while resting her body over the edge of one of the tallest buildings in Gotham. She looked down below waiting for something to happen so she could get the bad anxious feeling surrounding her body. Part of her sensed that something was going to happen but she didn’t know what and the fear of not knowing was eating her alive. But there she was, like every other day, fighting crime like her life depended on it. Never did it cross her mind that her death was going to be caused by one of the people she loved most.

Y/n looked around her breathing levels going insane watching as Dick pointed a gun in front of her. It was her personal hell, something she never thought she was going to experience. The love of her life holding a gun at her. She didn’t blame Dick, he was confused and under pressure. Y/n looked around looking at all the copies of herself that surrounded her. After giving Dick five minutes to decide which one was the real Y/n, he had to pull the trigger and the trigger was going to land on the wrong one.

Y/n knew it was the end for her. All the memories and things she planned for the future in a few seconds were going to disappear, with a blink of an eye, the life that she planned with Dick was going to end, and he was going to be the cause of all of it. She felt her eyes start to water and when her eyes turned to Dicks for a second and that’s when he noticed he had made a mistake. The eyes he once fell in love with were full of fear and sadness, a new thing he had never seen before.

Death wasn’t a new thing in Dick Grayson’s life, his mom and his dad, Jason, but Y/n was something different. There was a new energy inside of him when he saw the love of his life being buried eight feet underground. He would blame himself on the daily, if it weren’t for me Y/n would still be alive. He had to live with the guilt that he picked her instead of all the fake copies, all those years of training, all those years of saying he knew Y/n like no one else was for nothing.

Y/n L/n was dead, and it was all Dick Grayson’s fault.

But what no one expected was to see Y/n L/n outside of Dick’s house, on a mid November five years later. A loud knock on his safe house door made Dick jump off his bed and run towards the door. He held onto a knife and opened the door slowly and with the view in front of him made him lose his grip on the knife. Dick looked at her in disbelief, after years of blaming himself for Y/n death, there she was all grown up. Y/n looked up at Dick with the same eyes he had fallen in love with. It was like meeting love again, but this time it felt different. Like she had a familiarity but still was a stranger at the same time.

After experiencing a year ago the resuscitation of Jason Todd, nothing for Dick was impossible in his head. His dead ex girlfriend was the least of his problems, because for all he knew Y/n L/n died loving him so she might still think they’re in a relationship together.

Dick let Y/n wrap her body with a warm blanket. Y/n for a moment calmed herself feeling the familiarity coming from Dick. All the things that surrounded her changed and change was scary but Dick Grayson was still the same person she fell in love with.

Dick led her to the kitchen counter resting a cup of coffee in front of her. Y/n slowly reached for it and took a huge sip quickly regretting it noticing the cold drink. Her eyes trailed towards a half naked girl, wearing what she assumed was one of Dick’s shirts. She felt her heart drop and all she could do was stare at the girl.

“Dick? Who 's this?” The mysterious girl asked, looking at Y/n and and down. Noticing the dirt she had all over her body, she quickly pitied the poor girl.

“She’s an old friend of Jason that decided to come around. Don’t worry about her.” Dick responded leaving the girl agape

An old friend of Jason’s? Was that the only thing she was to him? After all they went through. Hell, After all he put her through he's calling her, her brother’s Best Friend. Y/n had yet to say a word to Dick and with the expression on her face Dick didn’t need her to talk to know what was happening.

“Go to bed don’t worry about it” DIck said pulling her into a hug and for instance Y/n had a moment. Like her eyes were open and she saw the truth behind everything that was happening. The girl in Dick’s arms was a carbon copy of her.

Dick Grayson had moved on, all Y/n could do was sit back and look at the love of her life, fall in love and do the things they used to dream of doing with another girl. Seeing them together was a constant reminder that Y/n had died and she could never heal from that. Everyone had moved on, but she stayed there. Dick Grayson loved his girlfriend and it hurt Y/n to hear those words come out from his lips.

“So, there’s no chance for us?” Y/n said looking up from the table in front of her. She didn’t dare to look at Dick in the eyes. She didn’t want to see the truth behind his voice, she couldn’t handle it, not right now.

“They will never be an us. There’s no us in this life, Y/n. We grew up, the day you died, I continued living. I really can’t do anything about it” Dick said without a doubt, which made Y/n’s world crumble if it was even possible to do more damage to a person that was already broken.

It pained her to hear those words come out of Dicks mouth. It drove her on the verge of insanity, but if Dick could move on and live a life without her so could she. She had another chance at living and she couldn’t waste it thinking about what could’ve happened with Dick if she never died.

“So D/G/N, where are you from?” Y/n said, trying to break the awkward silence between them. They team had left for a mission leaving the two behind, much to Dick liking.

“I’m from Blüdhaven. Born and raised here. That’s why Dick and decided to settle down here” She responded with a small smile.

Was it really necessary to point out that she was living with Dick? But Blüdhaven? Dick hated Blüdhaven, he had told her so many times how much he hated it there. That he would much rather spend his time at Gotham with her, She was the light Gotham needed. If he was with her, he wouldn’t leave Gotham, It was Y/n and Dick against the world. But now it was D/G/N and Dick against Blüdhaven.

Y/n felt herself being consumed on a loop of sadness. She desperately tried to cry for help to get out, but no one would hear her. Part of her wanted for Dick to come out and pull her to reality but she knew it was impossible. There was one person that could understand everything that Y/n was going through. Someone that was constantly leaving that dark whole Y/n was suffocating in. That’s when Y/n found her solution, the answer to all her problems.

Jason Todd.

Jason had literally gone to hell and back. He came back to a world that moved on without him, just like Y/n. It was like they could bond over the fact that they spent five years of their life eight feet underground like it was a conversation about which coffee was the best.

Jason Todd was something Y/n needed, human. He had a humanity and sensibility she desperately needed a hold of. When she came back to life all she could see was change after change but with Jason she felt calm, she felt patience radiating off him. Both of them had a connection, they knew it, but someone else was also aware of that and he hated it.

Dick Grayson.

He noticed the exchange of giggles, the book recommendation shared at the dinner table or the constant exchange of eye glances when something happened around them. Their inside jokes, Everything drove him insane. He couldn’t see her fall for someone else, let alone his brother. He kept pushing his feelings and his rage aside but what pushed him on the edge was when Y/n decided to move in with her “best friend” Jason Todd.

“Bruce, how the hell would you let those two live together, in that house specifically. You’re a billionaire for fucks sakes. Why couldn’t you buy them a new place or something” Dick exclaimed loudy following Bruce around the Wayne Manor. The older man rolled his eyes at Dick antics and turned around to face him.

“Y/n needed a place to stay, Dick. I suggested several places and she picked that one. Do you really think Jason would ask me for a favor? Now please let me do my work in peace” Bruce responded, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You knew how special that apartment was for us, all the memories we made and you gave it to them like nothing? please Bruce” Dick cried angrily looking at Bruce.

“Maybe it’s time for something new to create new memories”

Living in that house was something they had always dreamed of doing. Dick could remember all the times they would steal Bruce’s keys and spend the night at the apartament. He hated it, Dick hated it so much. But Dick couldn’t hate you for that, you were getting everything you wanted, everything he thought he was going to live with you, you were living it with his brother.

“You know J, I truly believe we are soulmates. It feels like we had matching wounds”

“Please, If we have matching bruises mine are still black and bruised and yours are perfectly fine” Jason knew, he knew he could never be Dick. As much as he tried Dick would always be number one in her heart.

Jason and Y/n weren’t really anything. Y/n did love him but never the way he loved Dick. Dick Grayson literally killed the girl and she still loved him. It pained her to admit it but Dick Grayson still drove her insane, like the first day they met at school. Her heart would still turn into pouty while Dick smiled her way. But Dick already found someone to miss and that person wasn’t her. Y/n’s thoughts were broken by a cough breaking the silence.

“I like what you did with the place” Dick responded smiling at her leaning against the door frame.

“Who let you do it?” She asked, confused looking around knowing well that Jason was patrolling that night.

“I found the key under the mat. You should find a new hiding spot, a psychopath could easily enter your apartment without you even knowing” Dick said, coming more into view. The faint background noise coming from the tv echoing in his ears.

“If a psychopath was going to enter, I can assure you he wouldn’t look for my key under the mat” She said, rolling her eyes at him while attempting to hide the smile on her lips. But Dick quickly caught it making him smile proudly to himself,

God she looked beautiful, he thought. But he couldn’t think that. She already found someone to miss and that person wasn’t him.

“After five years, I can't believe this show is still on the air” Dick said, taking a spot next to her on the couch watching the reality show rerun playing on the tv. It felt like old times in Mount Justice.

“Yeah, it’s still quite entertaining if I’m being honest. But really, what are you doing here, Dick?” Y/n said, shrugging her shoulders trying to ignore how close Dick actually was.

“You remember what I told you about the reality show a few years ago” Dick said, his eyes not leaving the screen.

“You said that you preferred stabbing your eyes than watching that show for a minute. That the Joker should buy a big ass tv and play reruns of the show and it would be a better success than every other of his plans. But that still doesn’t answer my question” Y/n asked searching for Dick’s gaze.

“When you died, I felt this constant guilt eating me alive and all I could do was try to find things to heal what was going inside of me. When you died it was like part of me was buried with you” Dick said, getting a hold of her hand and holding eye contact with her. Y/n could feel the tears starting to form in her eyes, the conversation she desperately craved was finally coming, and she couldn’t even hear it.

“Dick, what are you saying? You have a girlfriend. Something that never died. Do you know how bad it hurt when I found out that you loved her? Don’t you remember when you told me that they will never be an us. There’s no us in this life, Y/n. We grew up, the day you died, I continued living. I really can’t do anything about it. Where’s all this crap coming from now?” Y/n said letting go of his hand in anger. All the words Y/n wanted Dick to say were coming out of Dick’s lips and all she could do was feel the rage radiate from her body.

“Please let me finish. I found comfort in something as dumb as it may sound. I found myself reaching for the controller everyday to put that dumb show on. It was like you were still here with me. The biggest torture that could happen to me wasn’t to watch that show, it was to not watch the show with the person I love the most. Losing you made me do crazy things and I know I said things that I really regret so I’m begging you Y/n. Please give me a chance to start over again” Dick looked at Y/n tears forming in his eyes and all she could imagine was his eyes the last time she saw him before her death. The pain and guilt in his eyes. The way he ran towards her trying to stop the blood or how he would yell for someone to help him. There he was, Dick Grayson, in all his glory opening up to her once again. So she did the only thing that made her feel safe, she pulled him into a hug.

It was something familiar for the both of them and no one wanted to let go. It was something the pair desperately needed. It was the connection they were missing for the past years and as dumb as it sounded they knew after this that Y/n and Dick’s relationship wasn’t going to be the same.

Jason Todd also knew that, there he stood at the end of the exit with only one thought crossing his head constantly.

It's over

...

[MASTERLIST]

request are open, xoxo.

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