#Do you love me like that?// If I keep on driving // Would you hold me when we crash or would you let me go?

[a-hermit-pining]

LADS Men If You Turn Evil

AN: istg I keep getting all these ideas while working out 💗

Pairing: Lads boys x gn reader

Genre: DRAMA

Summary: after eons of nurturing the world with fragments of your heart, you learn the truth. Every death, every rebirth, burns in your heart. And now you want to burn the world.

(I do not own these characters)

Rafayel:

He looks at the destruction around him, the fragments of a broken city, the wrath in your eyes.

You pace the room, your steps unyielding to the passage of time.

He has been awake with you for countless nights, his ears filled with the cries of his kin, burning, drowning in the boiling seas.

He tugs at your arm, pulling you into his embrace, his fingers threading through your hair.

"Why can I not be at peace?" you whisper, cupping his cheek. "All our enemies have fallen, but why is there no relief? Who else must I seek to bring us justice?"

"It is my fault... I should have prevented this," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "I should have never allowed it to come to be."

To watch you fall was his fall. To witness beauty drain from you was his failure. He has you back, but at what cost?

"But I will make things right," he whispers, pulling you closer.

"No more pain."

A gasp tears from your lips as his dagger pierces your back.

Your fingers clutch at his shirt, your blood soaking into his hand. "How dare you…" you seethe, your rage flickering even as your strength wanes. "I should have—"

Blood gurgles in your throat as he pulls your head against his chest, his shoulders trembling.

He would rather bear your hatred than lose your soul.

The cries of the world fade as a new one begins to take shape.

But all he can hear now are his own ragged sobs as he holds your cooling body.

Xavier:

"You have lost your mind!" Xavier’s voice is sharp, his fury barely masking the horror in his eyes.

He looks down from the castle walls, your castle now. Below, corpses rot on pikes, writhing with maggots.

Philos will never come to be. The world has already shifted on its axis.

You pin him to the wall, leaning him over the edge. "You will not talk to me like that, Xavier." Your voice is quiet, but the weight behind it is absolute. "This is my world. I may do as I please. It would do you good to listen, to stay as my consort, not the crown prince of Philos."

His breath hitches as he stares at you, searching for something, hesitation, remorse, restraint.

But you are resolute.

Your eyes soften at his distraught expression. Gently, you pull him back from the edge and release your grip. "Do not let this drive a wedge between us. I do not wish to lose you...I’ve only just remembered you." You press a kiss to his lips, warm, fleeting, achingly tender.

"This is merely a necessary cleansing," you murmur, as if explaining the weather. "A precaution, so the world understands the new order. So all who bled me for ages finally know what it means to bleed."

And so, bound by love, Xavier became a puppet to your wishes.

He waited for the new world you promised, sought desperately for the salve to soothe the wounds your changing forms left in him.

With time, he learned to ignore the mangled bodies outside the capital. The sunken faces beyond the castle walls.

He learned to be happy.

Zayne:

He never stands idle.

Not even at the first signs of your fall. Not even when the shadows lengthen, and the world begins to crumble at your feet.

He does everything he can to undo the damage.

He is a doctor, ridding people of pain is his purpose.

He funds revolutions, smuggles food and medicine, seeks to turn your heart away from vengeance.

But he does not leave you.

Not when you’re hurting. Not when the weight of the world fractures your soul. He stays, doing all he can to hold the world together before it collapses entirely.

For the first time in years, he prays to Astra.

He begs his god to aid the world.

Until you find his secrets. Until you strip him of the power you once gave him.

You lock him away in a tower, bound to you. And then...then, true helplessness sets in.

He watches his betrayal fuel your madness. Watches as your fury, once directed at tyrants, turns upon the innocent.

In the frozen chamber, you loom over him, his knees pinned to the ground by the weight of your power.

"Do you wish to leave me, Zayne?" Your fingers tilt his chin upward, forcing him to meet your crazed gaze. "Tell me, do you wish to escape?"

He does not flinch. His neck is littered with the climbing scars of his evol, of his futile resistance. It is all a proof of the turmoil within you, that settles upon his skin. He knows it better than any.

"No." His voice is steady. Resolute. "I wish to stay next to you."

He means it. Earnestly.

Even if your presence comes at this cost, he is willing to pay.

He has never wished to abandon you.

Not even at the cost of himself.

Sylus:

You are his moral compass.

So when you fall, he falls with you.

There is nothing to stop you both.

His days are spent treasuring the reality of having you back, of having your love.

And if the cost is the world, then let it burn.

The core in his eye revels in the doom. It rejoices in the love that blooms within you, in the hunger that consumes you both.

It is fulfilled.

He is fulfilled.

He does not make you ruler of just the Earth, he crowns you sovereign of the universe.

After all, he has always been willing to kill and die for you.

Devoured by your bloodlust, he kneels.

Your consort. Your ruin.

He is content in this fall.

Caleb:

He is your sword.

The day you pledge destruction, he is the hand that pulls the trigger. No questions asked.

He is content, more than content, being the only one to receive your love.

The world had it coming. To condemn you to such pain was their undoing.

He bleeds millions to warm the world that once sought to devour you. He has no mercy for those who cower beneath your gaze.

He has your love.

But why, then, does his heart fall at the sound of your hollow laughter?

Why can he not bring himself to burn the memories of the past?

Why has he kept your hunter’s gear, carefully stored away in his rooms?

He so dearly wishes to keep you pleased. But he knows, this destruction is not born of greed. It is the consequence of centuries of pain.

And no matter how much blood he spills, it will never ease that pain.

No matter how many bodies pile beneath your feet, he cannot bring back your joy.

That was stolen, broken, snatched by those who now rot in unmarked graves.

[wbbpls]

Platonic Plus One

Chapter 4: Paige's POV

Pacing back and forth in their room, Paige is trying to wrap her head around how they ended up here. Azzi is taking a shower, so she texted KK, explaining the recent events. 

KK: man...are you even gonna survive this week 

P boogers: IM FREAKIN TF OUT MAN

KK: nah bro you got this just act like y’all normally do

y’all already seem like you’re dating anyway

P boogers: why did i even text you

KK: bc you a simp in love

Paige throws her phone and flops onto the bed. She must have done something wrong in a past life to deserve this punishment. Maybe it's because she argued with that ref too much last week. 

Azzi walks out in just a towel and water dripping off her skin and holy shit. It was definitely the ref coming back to torture her. 

“Hey P, what drawer did you put my PJs in?”

“Top right.” Paige sighs and covers her eyes with her arm. 

“You sure you’re okay with this, Paige? I really don’t want you to be uncomfortable or anything.” Azzi fidgets with the end of her towel. Why does everything she does need to be so cute?

“No, Az, it’s fine, really. I just don’t wanna mess nothing up. Like maybe we need a timeline? Your parents on gonna be on my ass on why we didn’t tell them.”

“Easy, you asked me out like 2 months ago, and we were just say we figured they knew,” Azzi says so nonchalantly as if she’s had this ready her whole life. 

“Woah, pause. Maybe you asked me out!���

“Who would actually believe that, Paige?” 

“Okay, first, rude. Secondly, this was your whole idea to fake date, so you shoulda been the one to ask me out.”

“Okay, fine, I asked you out. No one would believe you made the first move anyway.”

“Bro relaaaaaax. I can make a move!” Says the girl who has never tried to make a move on her best friend she’s been in love with for years. 

“Sure you can, P. Rizz em up.” 

“Whatever, dude.”

“Also, stop calling me dude. It’s weird to call your girlfriend dude or bro.”

“But I call like everyone that it’s not weird!” 

Azzi glared at Paige hard. “If I was your girlfriend and you kept calling me dude, you’d be sleeping on the couch.” 

Paige put her hands up in defense, “Damn okay. What you wanna be called then?”

“Just like the normal gooey in love stuff like baby. Keep it normal.”

“Aight, Princess, as you wish.”

“See, you’re already being such a good girlfriend! My lil simp.” Paige throws a pillow at Azzi as they laugh. They both get ready for bed before Paige finally finds the courage to ask a question she’s been dying to know. 

“So, uh, like what did you do for our first date?”

Azzi didn’t seem caught off guard, just thoughtful. “Hmm, I’d probably bring you to a drive-in theater because you’re weirdly in love with your car and talk too much during movies. Plus you love anything that isn't healthy, so endless popcorn and candy for my girl, of course.”

Paige’s heart just stopped. My girl. They haven’t even had to really pretend they’re dating yet, and her heart is already stopping. “Insults aside, that actually sounds pretty fun. We should do that when we get back.”

“You asking me on a date already, Bueckers?” Azzi smirks as she slips into bed. 

Paige follows after her, rolling her eyes. “You wish.” They sit in a comfortable silence after turning off the lights. “Uh, you know people might think it's weird if we’re weird about PDA. Like, as friends, we are pretty touchy, so I feel like some of your family might expect us to be a little more affectionate.” 

“Hmm, good point. What are you comfortable with?”

Nothing and everything. “Down for whatever, Az. Like I said, we touch all the time already.”

“Hm, okay. So you’re fine holding my hand all the time?” Azzi slips her fingers into Paige’s hands. 

“Already do.” 

“Okay,” Azzi smirks in a way Paige knows means trouble. She has to be scheming. Azzi will take any opportunity to mess with Paige. Everyone else sees a confident and put together basketball player, but Azzi sees every side of Paige. Azzi moves her hands around Paige’s waist, looking down at her. “How about all the hugging and holding each other?”

Did this room suddenly get really warm? Thankfully, the lights are off, maybe hiding Paige’s red cheeks. 

“I uh m-mean we, yeah we hug a lot.” They’re so close at this point that Azzi can probably feel Paige’s rapid heartbeat. 

“How about kissing?” Azzi says softly as she leaned in towards Paige, moving her hands to grasp the hair on the back of her neck. Paige is paralyzed, staring up at Azzi’s eyes. Paige tightens her grip on Azzi’s waist under her sleep shirt. No sounds can be heard but their soft breathing.

Azzi’s smirk grows, knowing she has all the power over Paige. “Careful, Bueckers, you might fall in love with me.” Too late. 

Paige’s eyes flicker down to Azzi’s lips, and now Azzi was the one to freeze. They’re so close, and all Paige needs to do is inch forward the slightest bit. She’s imagined kissing Azzi a million times. Imagined what it would feel like and what she would taste like. 

Azzi audibly gulps when Paige looks back into her eyes. Paige has never seen Azzi like this before, but she likes it. 

Before either of them thinks it through, they close the gap. They were already so close, it's hard to tell who made the final move. It was soft and hesitant at first. They began to relax into each other, and their lips move fluidly against each other. Azzi sighs into the kiss and moves her hand to Paige’s cheek. 

Something about the movement brought Paige back to reality, reminding her that this was her best friend. That she can’t fall deeper in love with her. That this is all fake. Paige gently removes her lips, but Azzi looks down at her with hooded eyes. It feels too real. Paige hears Kk in her mind telling her to protect herself. Paige could feel the walls building around her, needing to remove the moment's intensity. Needing to bring them back to their usual teasing. 

“Seems like you might be the one who falls in love with me, Fudd.” Paige smirks as best as she can to lighten the moment. 

Azzi still tries to catch her breath as she removes herself slightly from Paige. “Oh yeah? Sounds like yet another challenge you’ll lose to.”

Paige could finally release a full breath without Azzi on top of her. “That tends to be what you say right before you lose to me.”

“Alright, Madison, simmer the confidence now. We need to be up early tomorrow, so save some of that for tomorrow.” 

Right, tomorrow. A day filled with lingering touches, kisses, and affection. A day that Paige can totally handle. Well, maybe.

Beep. Beep. Beep. 

Azzi’s alarm goes off, signaling them to start their day. Azzi shoves herself into Paige, trying to hide from the intrusive noise. Paige only knows this because she hasn’t slept. How was she supposed to casually fall asleep after kissing the love of her life?

How the fuck did she get herself in this mess? Oh right, she never learned how to say no to Azzi. The girl who smiles at her, and the world slows down. The problem with this whole plan won’t be needing to fake it. The issue will be needing to fake being just friends afterward.

“Mhmm, Paigey, turn it off.” 

“Sorry, Az, but we gotta make it in time for breakfast. Mrs. Miller is kinda intense with this whole schedule.”

“You’re telling me.” Azzi smiles up at Paige and then shifts to slide off the bed and get ready for the day as if nothing out of the ordinary ever happened.

“Is the breakfast casual?” 

“Yeah, wear a bathing suit underneath it because it looks like we are spending the morning at the pool.”

“Sweet, we can play mermaids!” And avoid thinking about Azzi in a bathing suit. 

Azzi looks pointedly at Paige and laughs, “Just get ready, you guppy.”

“Here’s some orange juice and Fruit Loops as requested,” Azzi says lightheartedly with an eye roll. 

“Fuck yeah, thanks Az.” Paige immediately attacks her cereal as if she’s never eaten before. In her defense, all the food last night was stupidly fancy, so can you blame a girl for being desperate?

“Baby, slow down. You’re going to aspirate on a Fruit Loop, and that's not a cute look.” Baby. Now, that might be what kills her.

Paige smiles up at her with a colorful mouth full of cereal. “Sorry, I’m just really hungry.”

Tim jumps in, “Bueckers, you always eat like that when sugar is involved.”

“Don’t cap! I just really like my cereal, damn...”

Azzi seems to be looking at Paige, processing something until it clicks and rubs Paige’s back affectionately. “Shit, Paige, I’m sorry I didn’t even think about the food last night not being your vibe.” 

“Nah, I’m good forreal. These Fruit Loops are bomb.” As Paige finishes her sentence, Azzi’s aunt and grandmother walk up to say good morning. Azzi never moves her hand, but she does seem to have the slightest shift in her demeanor as her shoulders stiffen. 

“Morning, Grandma! How’d you sleep?”

“Oh, just fine! Thank you for asking, sweetheart. How about you, ladies?”

Before Azzi could answer, Jon scoffed, “I’m sure no sleep was had in that room if you know what I mean.”

Paige chokes on a Fruit Loop in shock. Azzi glares at her brother and rubs Paige’s back as she coughs it out. “You okay, baby?” Jon and Jose snicker in their corner, enjoying how red they made Paige. Grandma Fudd’s face flickers in confusion at the term of endearment for a moment. 

“Can’t believe I almost died because of a Fruit Loop.” 

Azzi’s aunt smiles lovingly at them. “You two are just so cute together! I ship it.” 

Jose is the one to step in this time. “Aunt Chrissy, where did you even learn to say that?”

“Oh, to ship them? I am cool and hip, you know.”

“Well, your old grandma isn’t, so someone fill me in.” 

“When you ship two people, it means you love them as a couple.” Paige could see the wheels turning in the older woman’s head. She’s bracing herself for the awkwardness that might come next. 

“Oh dear, I think I missed something. Are you two in a relationship?”

Azzi grabs Paige’s hand and smiles, “Yeah, grandma Paige is my girlfriend.” God, she wished that she could hear that on repeat. 

Jose mumbles, “Took them long enough.”

Azzi whips her head towards her brothers, “Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Dude, you guys have been in love for like ever.” Azzi’s face is one of pure shock, and Paige is pretty sure even a sunburn couldn't make her this red. 

To make matters worse, Grandma Fudd steps back in, “I must say I have to agree with your brother. I thought maybe there was something there, but Katie just kept telling me you girls are just close.” 

Azzi sighs and puts her face in her hands. “Okay, can we stop analyzing our relationship and just eat breakfast, please?” 

“Yes, yes, sorry, sweetie. It just all makes so much more sense why you never dated any boys. Oh, and poor Jonathan!”

“Oh, who cares! We want to hear all about how this all finally came to fruition!” Wow, Aunt Chrissy really does ship us.

“Azzi Fudd over here asked me on a date!” Paige smiles triumphantly, enjoying the side eye from Azzi. ”She made me a Tru Fru bouquet and brought me to a drive-in movie where she asked me to be her girlfriend.” 

Azzi laughs at the mention of a Tru Fru bouquet. “Yeah, well someone had to have the balls to make the move.” Okay, ouch.

“Aight, chill, dude. I was nervous.” Azzi glares at Paige and shoves her knee when she calls her dude.

“Sorry, baby, you right.” 

“Simp,” Jose mumbled under his breath while Azzi looked way too proud at the power she held in this moment. 

“Bro, why does everyone keep callin me a simp today?” 

Katie chimed in with a shrug, “You’ve been a simp since day one, Paige. It’s just more fun to say it now that it's official.” Azzi snickers and high-fived her brothers. 

The rest of the breakfast continued easily. Paige always felt the most at home with Azzi and her family. They had been done eating for a while, and Paige put her arm around Azzi’s chair. Honestly, Paige does that all the time, so it’s nothing new. What’s new is how much Azzi leaned into Paige and her hand placement on Paige’s upper thigh. 

People keep talking, and Paige genuinely tries to listen, but she can’t focus on anything but Azzi’s hand. Paige shifts uncomfortably, trying to deal with her inappropriate thoughts, which leads Azzi to move her hand up slightly higher when she turns just enough to look up at Paige. When Paige looks down, her breath hitches at how close their faces are, and she sees Azzi’s eyes flicker down to her lips before coughing and returning to the normal conversation. How can she be so nonchalant? Since when has Azzi been a world-renowned fake girlfriend actor?

Mrs. Miller enters the breakfast room with a mimosa on her way outside. Now Paige’s brain has shifted to finding where she got that mimosa. She’ll need some liquid courage to deal with the touching for an entire day. “Good morning, Fudd family! Please take your time and join us out by the pool.”

Paige stands up rather abruptly at the invitation. If she doesn’t have some space soon, she might pass out. “Uh, sorry, I love swimming.”

Everyone laughs at Paige endearingly, and Azzi moves to stand, catching Paige’s hand like it’s second nature and making their way outside. 

Once they settle, Azzi removes her sundress, exposing her pink bikini, abs, and that damn belly button piercing. That piercing might be semi-responsible for Paige’s sexual awakening. In high school, it was easier to push feelings off and make excuses for their touchiness. But when Azzi showed her the new piercing, the way Paige’s body reacted was definitely not one for a best friend. Now, all these years later, it’s still that damn piercing catching her off guard like she got it yesterday. 

Azzi grabs sunscreen, successfully removing Paige from her daydream. “Alright Bueckers, get over here so that pretty face of yours doesn’t burn.” Azzi straddles the tanning chair in front of Paige, without a care in the world that it’s just a tiny bikini bottom covering her. “Hmm, looks like you’re already getting red, Paigey. Let’s get this on fast.” 

Well fuck.

[lowytavis]

But you're not Xaden - Bodhi Durran x Reader

Warning - love confessions

____

"But you’re not Xaden, and I don’t want you to be fucking Xaden, Bodhi! Why don’t you get that?" she screamed, her voice raw with frustration.

Then, before I could even open my mouth to respond, she slammed the door in my face.

The sharp bang echoed down the empty hallway, leaving me standing there, fists clenched, jaw tight.

My arms were trembling—with anger, frustration, and grief.

“Please, open the door, Y/N,” I pleaded, my voice raw with emotion. But nothing.

No response.

I waited another ten minutes in front of her door, clinging to the desperate hope that she would change her mind.

But nothing happened. No footsteps, no muffled sobs—just silence.

“What are you doing here?” Xaden’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

He was walking down the hallway, Violet tucked securely in his arms.

The sight of them made my anger flare up instantly.

“Why the fuck do you care Xaden? Not everyone can be as fucking perfect as you are.” I snapped, my voice harsher than I intended.

Without wasting another second, I turned on my heel and stormed into my own room, slamming the door shut behind me.

____

(YN POV)

I muffled my own silent cries. Bodhi didn’t need to hear them, and I was certain—100% sure—that he was still outside my room.

A few minutes ago, I heard his desperate pleas, begging me to open the door.

But now? Silence.

Until suddenly, his voice erupted again—but not directed at me.

He was yelling at someone else. Xaden. Great.

Exactly the person who started this whole mess. Well, not on purpose, but still.

Bodhi just didn’t get it. He didn’t need to be like Xaden. Hell, I didn’t want him to be like Xaden.

But that didn’t stop him from trying.

Not once, since we started dating a few weeks ago, had he just been himself.

Before all of this, before us, he was Bodhi.

But now? Now, he wasn’t Bodhi Durran anymore. He was acting like a fucking Riorson.

And it was driving me insane.

From the other side of the door, I heard Bodhi’s voice, sharp with frustration. “Why the fuck do you care, Xaden? Not everyone can be as fucking perfect as you are!”

Then—frantic footsteps. Fading. Leaving.

I let out a sob, loud and unrestrained, no longer caring if anyone heard.

A soft knock followed.

I hesitated, then pulled the door open—only to be met with a confused-looking Xaden and a frowning Violet.

"Hi," I choked out, stepping aside to let both of them in.

Violet gave me a concerned look as she walked in, her voice soft.

"What’s going on, Y/N? I thought you and Bodhi were almost... boyfriend-girlfriend official?"

She muttered the last part hesitantly, like she wasn’t sure if she should say it out loud.

Xaden, on the other hand, just frowned in confusion, dropping into my armchair without a word.

"I thought so too," I sobbed, wiping at my face. My gaze flickered to Xaden. "But your cousin—he’s trying too hard to be a Riorson. To be you. When all I want is Bodhi."

Xaden let out a short, amused chuckle. "He what?"

I exhaled shakily, frustrated beyond words. "He tries to act like you. It’s our fifth date, and things were getting pretty serious, Xaden. But he keeps ruining it by doing shit you would do. Not what he would do. You and Bodhi are polar opposites, but he just—" My voice cracked, and I shook my head. "He doesn’t seem to understand that he is enough."

Another sob escaped my lips before I could stop it.

Violet wrapped her arms around me, holding me in a gentle embrace.

Her voice was soft, almost hesitant. "Is there anything we can do? Anything I can do?"

I shook my head, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"No... but thank you for stopping by."

I hesitated, my fingers gripping the hem of my sleeve.

"Also—please don’t tell Bodhi anything. I... we’ll see how—if—this turns out."

Violet exchanged a glance with Xaden, but she just nodded, squeezing my hand reassuringly.

____

Breakfast was awkward.

Uncomfortably so.

Usually, we all sat together—Xaden and Violet, Dain and Sloane, Ridoc with one of his flings, Sawyer third-wheeling him, Rhiannon and Tara.

And then there was always Bodhi and me. Snuggled up together, even before we were dating. Because we were best friends.

But now? The dynamic had shifted. Bodhi sat at another table with Garrick and Imogen, his back turned to me.

It felt wrong.

Like something had cracked in a place I didn’t know could break.

I must’ve looked lost because Sawyer tapped my side, snapping me out of it.

"Hey, Y/N, scoot down here," he said, smiling knowingly.

I swallowed hard and slid down next to him, murmuring a quiet "Thanks."

Tears pricked at my eyes, threatening to spill.

"Try to hold them in, love," Sawyer muttered, nudging me gently.

His voice was warm, kind. One of the kindest souls I knew—along with Bodhi. And that thought alone nearly broke me.

I stabbed my fork into my food, but I hadn’t taken a single bite. Hadn’t even tried. My stomach was in knots, and I knew—if I did eat—I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

Bodhis POV

I felt her before I even saw her. The air shifted, thick with the weight of her presence, and it took me a long while to muster the courage to actually look at her.

She slumped in her seat. Not in her usual spot. But then again, neither was I. She sat next to Sawyer, who nudged her lightly. J

ealousy pricked at me, but I quickly reminded myself that she wasn’t mine. Sadly.

She slammed her fork into her food with a sharp *clink*, but didn’t take a single bite.

*Cuir,* I called through our bond, my voice low. *Tell Clover to tell Y/N she must eat.*

*Very well,* Cuir responded. His tone made my skin crawl with a mix of annoyance and something deeper I couldn’t place.

But I didn’t have time to argue with him as the rest of my table began standing up, preparing to leave.

I glanced at Y/N one last time, unable to stop myself.

Our eyes locked for a brief moment.

She held the fork in her hand, but then slowly, painfully, placed it in her mouth. She forced a smile, but the tears welling in her eyes—those were impossible to hide.

And it broke me. 

"Can we talk?" Y/N mumbled from behind me, her voice barely audible.

I was already preparing for the sparring match with Xaden, mentally focusing, tightening my grip on the moment.

''No,'' I said sternly, pulling my shirt off and stepping onto the mat. I didn't look back. I couldn't.

Xaden and I squared off, the fight beginning with each of us pushing and pulling, testing each other's limits.

My movements were sharp, but my mind kept drifting. Every punch, every block, felt empty—like I was trying to fight off something that wasn’t even in the ring with me. 

I could feel the adrenaline coursing through me as I squared off with Xaden.

The mat beneath my feet was slick with sweat, and my muscles were already burning from the intensity of the fight, but I refused to back down.

This wasn’t about winning; it was about control—something I had to find, especially with everything else falling apart.

Xaden moved first, a blur of motion. He swung high, testing my defense. I blocked, stepping back, trying to predict his next move. He was faster than I expected, more fluid than anyone I’d ever sparred with. But I wasn’t going to let him get the better of me.

I jabbed toward his ribs, but he anticipated it, dodging to the side with a grin that was almost too knowing. Damn him, I thought. He was always so composed, like he knew exactly how to push me without breaking a sweat.

I lunged again, this time more aggressively, swinging for his head. He blocked easily, the force of his arm knocking me off balance. My heart hammered in my chest as I stumbled back, trying to regain my footing.

"You need to focus, Bodhi," Xaden's voice came low, taunting. I gritted my teeth, anger flaring inside me.

He was right. My mind wasn’t on the fight. It was on everything else—the mess with Y/N, the tension building between us, the way I couldn’t seem to do anything right lately.

Xaden’s next strike came without warning—a quick jab to my stomach, knocking the air out of me.

I wheezed, vision blurring for a second as I gasped for breath. He pressed the advantage, stepping closer, pushing me into a corner. I tried to push back, but it felt like my body was betraying me. He was everywhere, his fists like lightning, his movements a step ahead of mine every time.

I barely saw it coming. A punch straight to my jaw, hard enough to snap my head back.

Everything around me spun, and before I could even react, I felt the world tilt. The impact from the punch rattled my skull, and in that split second, I was completely out of control. My knees buckled, and I felt the floor rush up to meet me. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

The last thing I saw was Xaden's face, a flicker of concern mixed with something else—something I couldn’t place—before everything went black.

(YN POV)

I saw Xaden’s punch coming before Bodhi even had time to react, and I swear, I could feel it in my own chest when it landed. Bodhi stumbled, took a step back, then another. And then, he fell.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

I jumped up from where I had been sitting on the nearby mat and rushed over to him, my heart pounding in my throat.

Dropping to my knees beside him, I gently lifted his face, my hands trembling.

“Bodhi... Bodhi, Bodhi...” I muttered, my voice breaking with every word.

His eyes were unfocused, and his breathing was shallow. Panic surged through me, my fingers brushing against his skin, searching for any sign of life.

Xaden's hands were suddenly on me, pulling me away. His grip was firm, but careful, as he lifted me up by my arm.

“He’ll be alright, Y/N,” Xaden said, his voice oddly calm in the chaos of the moment. “A concussion, maybe. Let’s get him to his room.”

But even as he said the words, I could feel the weight of the situation pressing down on me, the uncertainty clouding my mind.

____

I had been sitting beside Bodhi’s bed for what felt like hours. Two hours, to be exact.

The rain outside had started pouring, the sound of it slapping against the window oddly soothing, calming me down.

Sitting here, next to him, felt like the only thing that could ground me right now. No matter the circumstances, he always felt like home.

I gently swiped a damp cloth over his forehead, carefully wiping away the last traces of blood, my hand trembling slightly.

He stirred then, a soft groan escaping his lips.

“Bodhi, carefully,” I mumbled softly, pressing him back down into the pillow.

“Y/N…” His voice was low, raspy, like he was waking from a dream, eyes wide and unfocused.

“Careful, Bod. You’ve got a concussion. Xaden got you pretty good.” I chuckled lightly, wiping his cheeks gently with the cloth.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” he murmured, his voice still thick with exhaustion.

“Always will,” I whispered back, my fingers lingering on his skin.

“I’m sorry I’m not perfect—” I didn’t let him finish.

I leaned closer, cutting him off before the words could leave his mouth.

“Stop, Bodhi. Please.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, my voice shaking.

“You are perfect. You are all I want. And yes, you’re not like Xaden. You’ll never be Xaden, Bodhi. But you are Bodhi Durran. My best friend. The kind one. You’re one of the kindest souls I know, and—”

I took a shaky breath. “God, I love you so fucking much, Bodhi. It hurts me.” 

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

I had confessed my love.

We had never said those words before, never crossed that line, but in that moment, it felt right. It felt fitting.

Bodhi’s eyes widened in shock.

“Say that again.”

I hesitated, feeling the weight of my own confession settling in my chest. But there was no taking it back now.

“I love you, Bodhi Durran,” I choked out, my voice trembling.

Tears didn’t fall, but I could feel them swelling behind my eyes.

“I’ve loved you for years. I think I always will, Bodhi.”

His expression softened, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

“I love you too, Y/N. So much. So, so fucking much.”

My heart swelled at his words, a mixture of relief and joy flooding me.

Then, without warning, he pulled me in, his lips capturing mine in a soft, lingering kiss. The world seemed to fade around us, everything that had been heavy and painful just disappearing.

But then he pulled away, a low growl of pain escaping him.

I chuckled softly, pulling back just enough to smile at him.

“We better wait until you’re better to make out.”

“No fucking way.” Bodhi muttered, his eyes filled with mischief.

Before I could react, he pulled me back in, deepening the kiss immediately, ignoring the pain in favor of this moment we’d both been holding back for too long.

[keenvictory]

Synopsis: Sometimes the best way to distract a villain is with a little more than a witty chat.

: ̗̀➛ Featured Characters: Chronos x Gn!Reader

̗̀➛ Content Warnings: NSFW, (bottom, but not necessarily sub, reader)

̗̀➛  Additional notes: Me? Obsessed with a beautiful, evil blonde man? Yeah.

Ten minutes. All you had to do was keep him distracted for ten minutes.

You'd seen it clear as day this morning, if he managed to escape this room, a shitty warehouse somewhere in the city center, the hostages would die.

Nevermind that the 'hostages' were all low-level villains that had been bothering you for weeks, they weren't in their costumes, neither the public, nor the media, would know it as anything other then civilian deaths.

You'd already sent the brunt of the force towards the second location, if you could hold his attention for just ten minutes, everything would be okay.

Nobody would die. And more importantly, your reputation would be saved.

Chronos stood in the rooms center, illuminated by a single, shitty bulb.

"Come now, Oracle." He purred through the mask, the metallic tinge making your body tense. "Don't get distracted."

Right. Focus. Nine more minutes.

"I am focused. You're not getting away this time."

He'd grin if he could. You can tell in the way he sets his shoulders, the slight chuckle the mask can't quite filter out.

He takes a step back, shaking his head.

"I hate to disappoint you. But I most certainly am."

Shit. Wrong approach. He can't back away. He can't get away.

You need to lure him in closer.

He turns, angling his body away from you, looking for an escape?

"Wait!"

He stops. Despite it all, he stops to hear you out. Why does he do that?

"What? Hate to see me leave but love to watch me walk away, hm?"

Again with the flirting! Always flirting. It drives you up the wall.

But... maybe... There's nobody around but the two of you...

"You're wearing a coat. What is there for me to see when you leave?"

He tilts his head. You can feel his eyes boring into you.

"I can take it off."

"You wouldn't. Your suit is ridiculously tight. You wouldn't..."

You trail off, floundering, why is this working?!

"I wouldn't show it off for you? Hah! Why do you suppose I designed my suit like this in the first place?"

He drags a hand down his chest, gloved fingers trailing over defined abs. "I don't dress like this for the public, you know."

Eight minutes. Time feels like it's dragging on.

"You dress like that just for me, then? Prove it."

Chronos' hand stops. Shocked? Repulsed?

Then he grabs the jackets lapel, slowly pulling it off his tall frame.

He drops it to the ground next to him unceremoniously.

You swallow.

"How's that for proof?"

He strikes a pose. Lifting his arms to show off his waist. It's a little dorky. A smile creeps up on your face before you have the chance to fight it.

It's a little... something else, too. But you won't think like that. You can't.

"I don't know. Just taking off a jacket doesn't feel very personal. You could do that for anyone."

He takes a step towards you and you have to fight to calm your racing heart. This is good. Just seven more minutes.

"Now, now Oracle. That feels like you're baiting me to take off my mask. And we can't be having that, can we?"

You roll your eyes, he was the one who said it, not you.

"Scared I won't like what I find?"

For once, he doesn't seem to have a witty retort. But he takes another step forward, coming ever closer.

This is good. Great, even! You just need to keep him entertained.

"You know, Chronos. There's a lot more to your suit then just your mask."

That gets his attention. He pauses, motionless.

What catches your eye isn't your fault. It's his fault, really, with his stupid skin-tight suit. And the tent in his pants is so obnoxiously obvious.

You do the polite thing, averting your eyes, not that he can really tell through your mask. Not that he even particularly seems to care.

You'd meant, like, gloves or something! Maybe some of those stupid belts he wraps around his torso.

You didn't mean... well... did you mean... that? It would be... a distraction.

How many minutes do you have left? You've lost count.

After an excruciatingly long pause, he seems to find his tongue again.

"You should watch your words, Oracle. There's... interesting implications there."

You can't help but laugh. What use is there in beating around the bush like that when he's hard as a rock and basically vibrating where he stands.

"Implications? You're one to talk. Your... reaction, down-there, speaks louder than words."

He glances downward, as if he hadn't noticed. Then clenches, and unclenches his fist. An exercise in self-restraint, maybe?

"Ah." Is all he mumbles, before glancing back up at you. He clenches and unclenches his fists again, and then shrugs. "At least we chose a place without any cameras around. If this made a front page story I doubt either of us would live it down."

He leans down to scoop up his coat. How much time has passed? Not enough, surely.

"Leaving so soon?"

He hesitates, one hand nested in the material of his coat.

"You want me to stay?"

For the good of the people, if nothing else.

"Just seems like a... waste."

He straightens up, tilting his head curiously. It's so hard to read him, his expressionless mask not letting anything slip.

Then he places a hand, tentatively, on his belt buckle.

"A waste... of this?"

Are you doing this? To save a handful of hostages who you don't especially care about the safety of at the best of times?

"It's like you said. No cameras."

You're doing this. You hope those fuckers appreciate it.

"You're... serious? If this is your attempts at unmasking me, it's an underhanded tactic."

You shrug, trying to keep it casual despite your racing heart. Your mother can NOT find out about this.

"We can leave the masks on. This is between us, as hero and villain. Not whoever our real selves are."

He stills seems unsure, so you suck in a breath and step towards him, poking a finger against his chest.

In the past, he's dodged so many of your attacks so effortlessly. You almost expect him to breezily step out of your touch, but your finger simply bounces against the muscle.

"You've made plenty of advance at me in the past. I hope they weren't just for show."

He swallows. You're close enough that you can see his adam's apple bobbing in his throat. It makes you feel...

Nothing. It makes you feel nothing. There is no slight shiver that passes through you. No warmth between your thighs. This is work. Not pleasure.

He laughs, warm and metallic, and places a large hand against your waist. It isn't unpleasant. His thumb gliding across the material of your suit.

"There are much better suited places for this then a dingy warehouse, Oracle."

While the idea of fucking against a dirty warehouse floor like a bunch of animals is not exactly appealing, letting him leave the building at all is out of the cards.

"What, you're going to take me back to your place? Yeah right."

"The least I could do is a nice hotel."

Ugh, a hotel would be nice. A comfy bed, room service after, somewhere to sleep off the weirdness of it all and freshen up before the walk of shame home.

The warehouse will have to do. Fucking hostages.

You wrap your fingers around his belt loops, teasingly.

"And if I told you I didn't want to wait?"

He groans, it's a sound you're about to get incredibly familiar with. Future fights with this fucker are definitely going to get interesting.

"Fuck."

He uses his grasp on your waist to tug you closer, pinning your bodies together. Then he pushes his crotch against your side, rolling his hips to grind into you. It can't feel all that good behind several layers of fabric, but you suppose it is pretty skin-tight.

He groans again, right in your ear, loud and unrestrained. It's nicer sounding then the sirens outside, at least.

"You're so needy. All that talk about taking me a hotel when you're the one who couldn't wait."

Chronos whines, masked face buried into your shoulder as he rolls his hips more desperately. If you stood here, sweet-talking him, you're pretty sure you could get him to cum where he stands, right in his suit.

But where's the fun in that? If you're sinking this low, you're at least getting off too.

"If you're just going to stand there and get yourself off, Chronos, I might as well go home."

His needy whines turn into a throaty growl, his gentle grip on your waist becoming delightfully dangerous as you feel his nails catch in the suit's material.

If he rips a hole in your suit he is a dead man.

Thankfully, his grip relaxes. But only for a moment, as slides his other hand around your waist, and lifts you up, carrying you across the room with ease, and urgency.

A shock of cold goes through you as he drops you on a metal container, perched right on the edge so your legs dangle down.

You can hear his heavy breathing through the mask, as he glances down at you, like he's deciding what he wants to do first.

Then, without a word, he sinks to his knees, pushing your legs apart and laughing breathily.

He taps his metal mask, twice.

"No peaking."

You tilt your head up, half out of politeness, half necessity. If you break the rules, nothings stopping him from ripping your mask off at this distance.

"At least when you take off your mask I won't have to listen to your prattling on."

"Still swapping insults at a time like this, Oracle? No matter. I have much better things to do with my mouth."

At the thought of ripping, you hear the distinct sound of fabric tearing, then a cool breeze caressing the inner-most curves of your thigh.

This motherfucker.

You don't even have time to gasp, nor raise a very reasonable complaint, before you hear him happily hum.

"I'll pay for it."

Then the click of metal, as you can only assume he pushes his mask up his face, freeing his mouth for... other activities.

You sneak a glance downwards as he buries his head between your thighs, but all you can see is a mop of blonde hair pushed messily back by his shifted mask. Worth a shot.

After that, you don't have the time, nor the mental fortitude to scheme, his tongue working hard to distract you from thoughts of hero's and villains.

It's a fight not to clamp your thighs around his head, an excellent position to squeeze the life out of him, but you're a little distracted. And it's not a great story to sell to the media.

Moans, both yours and his own, bounce off the run-down walls. If anything, his moans are almost louder than yours, moaning passionately against you with every spare breath he manages to take.

Air seems like the last thing on his mind. He'll choke himself out, at this rate. Desperately hungry for you. You decide not to think about it.

Instead you tilt your head back, basking in the rolling, sweeping pleasure of his tongue in all the right spots.

And it builds, and builds, and builds, and sudden the sweet waves you've been leisurely riding feel too close to breaking. You don't gently climb to orgasm as much as you hurtle towards it.

"Chronos, wait I-"

But it's like uttering his name flips an evil switch in his mind, and he burrows closer, hands gripping at your thighs for purchase so desperately his nails drag open little holes in your suit.

The waves break, and all you have the strength to do is slump forward, hands nesting in his hair, grabbing on for dear life, as you ride out your high on his face.

Not that he seems to mind, the way his hips are bucking into thin air, just as desperately.

When he finally pulls away, he manages to keep his face pointed downwards, identity secure, as he wipes his mouth with the back of his gloved hand. Before adjusting the mask back over his face.

Then he stands, looming above you as you sit, still slightly quivering, upon the metal box he set you on.

"I hope you don't think we're done here." He purrs, clicking open his belt with practiced ease.

Thank god for superhero stamina.

He slinks out of his pants, leaving them abandoned in a heap much like his jacket.

He rubs the head of his cock against your bare thigh, trailing pre-cum across your skin. He hisses with pure pleasure, both at the sight and the sensation.

"Hope you don't mind that I'm a little... unprepared. A little lube, a condom or two, could have gone a long way. I'll be more prepared next time."

"You think there's going to be a next time?"

He scoops up the cum on your thighs and slicks his fingers with it, pushing them against your entrance with far too much eagerness.

"Oh Oracle, you'll be weak in the knees at the sight of me after I'm done with you. I can guarantee a next time."

"Mmm... you're so cocky."

He chuckles, nudging the tip of his hard cock against your groin, sliding it against the slick opening as he retracts his fingers.

"I have good reason to be, clearly."

You go to refute, but your mind blanks as he pushes into you. Two inches, then four, then six, then further still, until his hips brush against yours. The moan that escapes him is unholy.

"Fuck. I'm going to be weak in the knees after this." He groans, right into your ear. The metal of his mask is cold as it brushes against your neck.

Absently, you wish his mouth was free to kiss it. From the way he's eyeing it and breathing heavily, you think he does too.

"Are you... in any pain?" He asks, a rare moment of pure consideration.

You adjust yourself, flex your insides to test the depth, the pressure. It's... a lot. Filling, certainly. And you have to bite back a small moan as you really relax against him.

But it doesn't hurt. And after a pause to catch your breath, you nod.

"I'm... good. It's good. Thanks."

"Just good? I'll have to do a better job then that."

He punctuates his sentence with a smooth roll of his hips, the length of his cock gliding out, then filling you up all over again. It's unbearably slow, the temptation to shuffle closer, to wrap your legs around his hips and trap him there, taunts you.

"You'll have... to do a little more... then that." You pant, gripping the sides of the metal container you're perched on for support.

"Oh? You want more?" He purrs, sliding out of you so slowly. And then he pauses, the two of you connected only by the very tip, a twitch away from sliding out entirely.

He's going to say something terrible, isn't he?

"Say please."

You called it.

Your eye twitches. You don't know what's bigger, his ego or his dick.

Definitely his ego.

He's lucky you can't say the same for yourself. You're not above basic manners. But you're not above a little bullying, either.

You lean as close as you can despite the distance, wrapping your arms around his neck, and whisper into his ear.

"Chronos... please just fuck me already."

You can almost hear the thread of tension in his body, snap. The eradication of his self-restraint.

He doesn't have anything witty to say, after that.

His hips snap forward with such strength that you tumble back, losing your grip on him as you lay down flat on the container. The new angle let's him push into you even further, and you both moan in delight.

He looms over you, every thrust punctuated with soft, needy moans.

You reach up, running your hands through his blonde hair. It would easy, to simple pull off his mask, see his real face looking down at you.

Would he be blushing? Smiling? Or would he have a more focused look... Your mind wanders. But it's almost more fun if you don't know.

Instead your fingers grip the strands, pulling slightly as he hits a particularly delicious angle. You both moan in equal surprise and debased pleasure.

There's a moment of pause, as you consider these new found techniques. And then you resume, with twice as much passion as before.

Him chasing that angle over and over, crashing into the spot that makes you shiver and buck your hips up to meet his thrusts. You pulling at his hair, and running your nails down his back, enjoying the throaty groans it elicits each and every time.

It isn't long before the feeling returns, waves of pleasure building and building and building inside you.

"Ah, fuck, I'm gonna cum Chronos-"

You don't even finish the final syllable of his name, before he's crashing his hips into you, warmth flooding you as he cums with a long, growl-like moan.

Your own orgasm follows but a second later, his orgasm hasn't slowed him down, if anything he seems to be chasing the afterglow. The uptick in speed pushing you tumbling over the metaphorical edge.

You both lay there for a moment, breathing heavily. Those ten minutes have to be up by now, right? Time to make a strategic exit to check on the hostages. Well, maybe after you've gotten your breath back.

You shift up, propping yourself up on your elbows. His head is bowed, his cock still buried inside you. But he'll pull out any second now, right?

Then he looks up. Slowly. Despite the mask, you can feel his shit-eating grin.

"I'm not done with you yet, Oracle."

When you stumble out the warehouse, only one lone officer remains on the scene. He gives you a questioning look, and you feel yourself flush, thankful for the mask all over again.

"The hostages are safe, Oracle, thanks for your help. But, uh, you know only had to keep him in there for ten minutes right? It's been..." The officer checks his watch, and then frowns. "Hours. Are you alright?"

You adjust Chronos' cloak, which is wrapped around your middle for privacy.

"It was a tough... fight. But I dealt some serious blows. Managed to snag his coat before he escaped."

"Great work! We could take it in for testing if you'd like."

"Ah, uh, no need! I'll do my own... uh... super testing! See if it triggers a vision.”

It's a terrible excuse. But thankfully, the officer seems stupid. Or maybe tired, it is late. But either way, he nods. And waves you goodbye as he packs himself away into his car.

Now to figure out how to get home without any camera's catching you... indisposed.

The next morning, there's a generous donation to your bank account, from a suspiciously anonymous donor. Enough to cover the expenses of your torn suit, and then some.

It's signed only with a C. Cocky bastard.

[taylorsfolkmoredress]

Here’s my second Derek Morgan request! Reader is also a BAU agent whose hotel room is right next to Derek’s during a case. She’s the newest addition to the team, so she’s still getting used to the intensity of their cases. Derek can tell she’s been struggling a bit lately, but he doesn’t pry until she comes knocking on his door at the ass crack of dawn cuz she can’t sleep and doesn’t wanna be alone.

Oh this is so cute I hope tumblr lets me write this one lmao!

wc: 956

tags: hurt/comfort, could be read as platonic or developing romance. not dialogue heavy but still sweet, also not as long as i wanted but its 7am and i havent slept yet :)

not edited!

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

A soft knock at his hotel door pulled Derek from his dreams of soft hair and gentle words. It took him a second to understand that he had to get up to answer the door, but when he did, he made his way to the door in nothing but a pair of loose sleep pants and a well worn muscle tee that had thinned with time.

When he pulled the door open he was met with your teary face, quivering lips tugging at his heartstrings like nothing else ever had. You looked like the utter definition of the phrase “I need a hug”, and he could do nothing else but pull your soft body into his wrapping his strong arms around you in a tight, but not constricting, hug. He felt you tense for a second, but almost immediately after, you completely relax in his arms, going near boneless as the tension from the day leaves your body.

Derek hadn’t yet had the pleasure of holding you like this, the way friends do, the way people who know each other better than anyone do. He’s glad he’s one of those people, glad he’s already learned so many little tells of yours.

It started on the third day of the case. The unsub had already killed again, and they had had good reason to suspect he’d taken his newest victim already as well. The case had been particularly close to your home town, only an hours drive away, and it was clear it was freaking you out.

It would’ve freaked Derek out as well, he didn’t blame you, but he knew the feeling must be much more intense due to your inexperience in the field. You’d only joined the BAU two months prior, and every case you’d worked since seemed to weigh down your spirit more and more. He hated seeing it. You somehow retained your beautiful smile every day, but this case was too much, and he saw the mask crack from a mile away.

Which lead to now. The case wrapped up mere hours ago, two more victims dead, one injured but looking towards recovery. It wasn’t the result anyone hoped for, but it was the one you would all have to live with.

He made sure to keep his arms secure around you while he pulled you into his room, knowing you didn’t want anyone else seeing this side of you. Your shoulder trembled against his chest and it made his heart ache. He hated seeing you cry, you were so damn sweet, he couldn’t handle your tears.

His own words hit his ears before he even realized he was speaking. “Sweetheart, it’s ok, I’m here, I’ve got you.” His words were soft, murmured against your hair, but still audible. They caused a heaving gasp against his chest, and a whole new wave of tears to fall. He made no move to stop them, knowing that what you needed in that moment was to release those emotions you’d tried to keep locked away all week. It was a feeling he knew all too well.

The couch was soft when he set you down on it, moving to kneel in front of you so he can continue holding you. He presses his cheek to your temple, letting out soft reassurances and gently humming occasionally. He held you like that for a while, but he didn’t watch the time. It wasn’t important to him, all he cared about was knowing you were okay.

You were a brilliant agent, a fresh set of eyes that never failed to offer insight far above your supposed experience level. It made him feel a strange sense of pride when your observations lead to a breakthrough in cases. Beyond that, you were someone he already loved spending time with. The two of you had clicked immediately, much to everyone’s surprise. You were quite shy, timid even, and Derek was the exact opposite. Maybe thats what made you gravitate towards each other so easily. He didn’t know. What he did know was that He’d heard you crying through the thin hotel walls every night for 3 days straight, and he finally had a chance to help without feeling like he was backing you into a corner.

He gently ran his hands up and down your back and arms, doing his best to ground you and help you to calm down. Each sob became slower and slower, before turning into soft hiccups. He feels you tense for a moment as you come back to yourself, but he feels you relax from exhaustion just as quickly. He takes that as his cue to speak, not letting you overthink anything.

“Hey, pretty girl, listen to me. Okay?” He waits for your small nod before continuing. “You did amazing out there this week, and we couldn’t have found this creep without you. You protected the people in the community. I know it’s hard, but each and every one of us on this team has been in your shoes. We’ve all felt that same dread, that same fear. That same abhorrence for opening our eyes in the morning or closing them at night. But you’re meant for this job the way you handle the victims families, and you always treat the victims with such grace and dignity? It’s beautiful. I can’t see you lose that.” His words seemed to settle something inside you. You pulled away from him, but not out of sadness, you pulled away with a look of determination, albeit a tired one.

He knew you weren’t okay yet, but as he lead you to his bed and got you comfortable before moving to the couch himself, he knew that you would be, one day.

[littlespoonevan]

rewatching s1 this time around has actually left me sooooo fascinated by buck and abby's relationship??????? bc what we know of it in its aftermath is actually completely visible on screen during the season???

in episode 6 when abby is talking to carla about a potential valentines day date with buck she outright says she's fine with him being a boytoy and it just being something casual so she can feel good in herself again and is almost complaining that buck is taking it so seriously by trying to go slow. and the thing is, i don't think her stance on that ever changes???????

she absolutely cares about him and appreciates him for everything he does for her (both in helping support her with her mom and what he does in helping her find her way back to herself) but i don't think she ever really wanted or needed him to be more than that????

on the flipside, you have buck who's experiencing feelings he's never felt before and is so totally overwhelmed by this woman who's making him realise real connection is possible and it feels a million times better than the way he's vied for people's attention before. and there's something a little heartbreaking in the way he questions if he's ready for it to be something real. because bobby encourages him to step into the relationship fully and in the end he does do that

but abby doesn't really want him to???

so you have buck, fully committed and ready to be the partner he thinks abby needs, and abby, who is so completely unable to be that partner in return because she wants to navigate the next stage of her life alone

and aksdjfh it's just!!!! so!!!!! interesting!!!!!!!!! and i am once again BEGGING someone to make a gifset/video/edit/anything for them with reckless driving by lizzy mcalpine

[blueberrisdove-sideblog]

. 🌷 FAVE S★X POSITION ?!

── ❀˖° SYLUS’S favorite sex position is—cowgirl.

There’s nothing he loves more than having you riding him, your plush thighs spread over his lap, your pussy gripping his cock as you move at your own pace. He’d rest his hands on your hips, fingers sinking into the soft flesh there, guiding you just enough to make sure you feel every inch of him stretching you open.

His red eyes would stay locked on you, half-lidded and burning with need. He’d watch the way your tits bounce with each movement, how they sway in time with the rhythm of your grinding against him. His hands would roam, one sliding up to cup your breast, rolling a nipple between his fingers, the other trailing down to where your bodies meet, his thumb rubbing slow circles over your clit.

“Fuck—just like that, sweetheart,” he’d murmur, voice thick with praise. “You take me so damn well.”

When you start to get tired, thighs trembling, he’d take over—gripping your ass, thrusting up into you, fucking you deep, making sure you feel every desperate ounce of his love. He’d pull you close, chest to chest, kissing your lips, your jaw, whispering against your ear, “Let go for me. Wanna feel you come all over my cock.”

And when you finally do—pussy tightening, moaning his name—he’d follow soon after, holding you close as pleasure crashes over him. But he wouldn’t let you move just yet. No, he’d keep you there, still stuffed full, pressing sweet kisses against your damp skin, whispering how perfect you are, how much he loves you.

Because cowgirl isn’t just his favorite position—it’s his favorite way to worship you.

── ❀˖° RAFAYEL’S favorite sex position is—doggy style.

Thick fingers grip your hips, holding you steady as he drives his cock deep. Your ass bounces against his thighs, the sharp slap of skin against skin filling the air. His pace is relentless, each thrust forcing you down, making your pussy tighten around him.

“Look at you,” he mutters, voice rough. “Fucking perfect like this.”

A firm hand slides up your spine, pressing between your shoulder blades, keeping you exactly where he wants you. The other grips your ass, spreading you wider, watching himself disappear inside you over and over. The stretch, the heat, the way your body molds to his cock—it's enough to make his head spin.

“Feel that?” His fingers drag over your clit, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. “Taking me so well—like you were made for this.”

Your walls flutter, body shaking, gasping for breath as pleasure builds sharp and fast. His grip tightens, hips snapping against yours, fucking you harder. The deep, guttural sound he makes when he feels you clench around him, chasing his own release, driving into you mercilessly.

“Gonna fill you up,” he growls, voice dark with possession. “Make sure you remember who you belong to.”

A final snap of his hips, the grip on your waist bruising as he buries himself deep. Heat spills inside you, his body shuddering against yours, breath ragged. His hands smooth over your skin, possessive, unwilling to let go.

Because doggy style isn’t just his favorite position—it’s how he claims you.

── ❀˖° XAVIER’S favorite sex position is—standing.

His hands grip your waist, pulling you close, pressing your back against the wall as he thrusts deep, the sound of his body meeting yours echoing in the room. His blue eyes pierce into you, sharp and full of hunger, as he fucks you hard, controlling every inch of the movement. His body is solid against yours, holding you up, his hands clutching your ass, spreading you wider as he drills into you.

“Fucking perfect,” he growls, lips curling into a smirk as he watches your tits bounce with each thrust. “You love it when I fuck you like this, don’t you?”

His grip tightens on your hips, his cock sinking deeper with each thrust. The pressure on your clit builds as he drags his thumb across it, just enough to push you to the edge. His pace doesn’t falter, relentless, unyielding.

“Look at you—so fucking wrecked already,” he taunts, voice rough and mocking, his cock filling you completely with every sharp thrust. “Can’t take much more, can you?”

You’re close, your body trembling, your pussy tightening around him as he fucks you harder, faster. His face inches from yours, breath hot against your ear as he growls, “Come for me, now.”

The way he drives into you with such precision, the way his body demands you to fall apart under him—it’s not just sex, it’s domination. You come hard, and Xavier doesn’t stop until he spills inside you, his grip on your waist bruising as he holds you against him, claiming you.

Standing isn’t just his favorite position—it’s where he asserts his control, taking you as his completely.

── ❀˖° CALEB’S favorite sex position is—reverse cowgirl.

He watches as you ride him, your back to him, your ass just within reach of his hands. His fingers dig into your hips, guiding you to move the way he wants, but he lets you take control, watching every move, every roll of your hips as you grind down onto him. He’s hooked on the way your body moves, the way your ass sways with each thrust, the sight of your pussy swallowing him whole.

“Fuck,” he mutters, voice rough, hands roaming to your ass, squeezing and pulling you down harder, needing to feel you all over him. “You look so fucking hot like this, pipsqueak.”

He doesn’t need to say much—he’s focused on you, eyes fixed on the way your tits bounce with each movement, how your skin glistens with sweat, the soft moans escaping your lips as you get lost in the rhythm.

One hand slips up your back, cupping the curve of your spine, pushing you down onto him just a little deeper, making you gasp. His other hand trails down to where your bodies meet, his thumb brushing over your clit, adding pressure, pushing you closer to the edge.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he urges, his voice a low growl. “I want to see you fall apart on my cock.”

His thrusts grow deeper, harder, matching the way you move. He feels you tense, your walls tightening around him, and he knows you’re close. He keeps pushing, his hands guiding you, making sure you feel every inch of him as your orgasm crashes over you, your body jerking as you come undone.

And when you’re still, breathless, he holds you there, his grip firm on your hips as he spills inside you, the sensation of you moving on top of him driving him wild.

Because reverse cowgirl isn’t just his favorite position—it’s where he gets to watch you take everything he’s giving, all while making sure you never forget how badly he wants you.

── ❀˖° ZAYNE’S favorite sex position is—spooning.

He pulls you close, his strong arms wrapping around your waist, keeping you pressed flush against him as he positions his cock at your entrance. His body is firm against yours, and he starts to move slowly, rocking his hips in a steady rhythm, burying himself deep as you both settle into the comfort of the position. The feeling of his chest against your back, his breath warm against your neck, adds a layer of intimacy to the heat building between you.

His hands slide down your body, one cupping your breast, squeezing gently, the other slipping between your legs to rub your clit in slow, deliberate circles, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. Each movement is measured, designed to make you feel every inch of him inside you, his cock stretching your pussy out with every deep push.

“God, you feel so good,” he whispers in your ear, voice low and needy. “I can’t get enough of you.”

You’re so close, your body trembling in anticipation, but Zayne doesn’t rush—he keeps his pace steady, making sure you feel the burn, the tension building slowly between your legs. His lips press against your neck, teeth grazing your skin as his movements get a little harder, a little faster. His hand on your clit increases in pressure, and your walls tighten around him as the pleasure mounts.

“I want you to come for me,” he murmurs, thrusting deeper. “Now.”

With one final thrust, his cock hits all the right spots, and you come hard, your cunt tightening around him as he follows right after, spilling inside you, staying deep and pressed close, savoring the moment.

Because spooning isn’t just his favorite position—it’s where he finds the perfect mix of passion and closeness, where he can make you feel safe and completely owned at the same time.

© 2024-2025 blueberrisdove-sideblog all rights reserved. pretty please, do not steal my dividers, translate and plagiarize any of my works, or either repost my works in any other platform without asking, thank you!

[rosegolden13]

Princess Treatment w/ John Price

His workaholic habits do not stop after he leaves base to come home to you...

We already know he's opening up every damn door for you. He has the magical skill of knowing when doors need a push or a pull so he never fails to laugh when you pull a push door. "Tha's why you shoulda left it to me, love. Stubborn thing, you are." He'll reach over your head to push the door open for you, plopping a kiss to your hair while he does.

His masculinity does not get in the way of holding your purse for you whenever you're out together, his big bear hands wrapped around the handle of your little black purse.

He refuses to let you carry your own luggage, doesn't care if it takes him multiple trips to get both of your bags into the hotel or rental house. He'll get all exasperated if you insist on helping. "You had a long drive. Lemme handle it, pet." (even though he's the one that drove...)

There's nothing he loves more than ordering for you at a restaurant. His voice is filled with an unreasonable amount of pride when he says "And for the missus..." before telling the waiter your order.

Speaking of food, if you ever eat anything that needs cutting or even doctoring up, expect him to jump in. "Now, now, doll, you know tha's my job." He'll tsk and gently take the knife from you to cut your steak into bitesize pieces or to butter your roll. Yes, he will go as far as to bring the fork up to your lips and feed you if you don't put up a fuss.

He will absolutely pay for your manicure and then coo when you offer him your hand to show off your new nails. "Real pretty, love... Don't go chippin' 'em now. Come sit."

Price always sets up a nice place for you on the couch or bed, blanket at the ready and pillows right where you like them. "Come on now, Mrs. Price." He'll pat the spot next to him like one would for a dog. Of course, he likes it best when he can be your pillow and personal heater (that man is always warm, always) but sometimes he's got to find a way to coax his little love into his arms and away from chores.

Naturally, he will swat your hands away when you bend down to tug on your heels or tie your sneakers. He'll crouch down to place your foot on his bent knee, patting your calf firmly and leaning in to press a kiss to your ankle once he's done.

If you nick yourself while shaving, he'll level you with a disapproving stare and then insist that he do it for you next time. After all, he has plenty of experience with keeping his facial hair so tidy. "Can't have my woman hurtin' herself, now can I?" You bet your bottom dollar he's using his fancy razors and shaving creams on you, extra delicate to make sure he doesn't mar your skin.

He's terrified to smoke around you after you coughed one (1) time and now he only will take his cigars out on the back porch or in his office with the window open. If you come in, he'll snuff it out asap and usher you out of the room, shushing your protests.

I'll probably eventually add a part two cuz soft Price is everything to me hehe... Can you tell my standards are ridiculously high?? Also, does anyone have an accent writing guide for TF-141?? I am painfully American.

[sttoru]

⠀ 𝝑𝑒 ⠀⠀ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. your older boyfriend, satoru, shows you just how much he adores you in his private office <3

tags. older bf!gojo satoru x virgin!female reader. age gap (reader early 20’s, satoru early 30’s). smut, pwp. fīngering. multiple ōrgàsms; overstimulation. mention of corruption kink. dry hūmping. nicknames ‘princess, baby, beautiful’. pls ignore any grammar errors xx

“heh, don’t look at me. look at yourself, princess,” satoru chuckles, easily noticing how your head is tilted in attempt to watch him as he gets you off. you’re sitting on his thighs with your legs spread, shamelessly allowing him to finger you in his office.

your shaky eyes dart down to your dripping cunt—clearly seeing how it’s got a mind of its own. it’s squeezing satoru’s long fingers as he moves them in the speed of light. your limbs are shaking by the amount of pleasure you’re receiving.

“the-the door,” you hiccup. you hadn’t locked the door behind you when you walked into satoru’s office. you definitely wouldn’t want any of his colleagues to walk in on you. though, that didn’t seem to worry your boyfriend. all he’s focusing on at the moment is your perfect pussy taking in his middle and ring finger.

satoru’s glossy lips are parted and covered in spit. he has to lick up the drool from the corner of his mouth so it wouldn’t dirty your opened blouse. he’s quite literally salivating at the sight and feeling of your warm cunt. . .

“the others ‘re busy, they won’t come in as long as you keep your pretty voice down,” satoru promises you in a smooth tone, blue eyes wide with fascination as he stares down at your pussy.

he’s always imagined what it’d be like to be inside of you. what it would feel like to hold you in his arms and make love to you without holding himself back— to show you a world you have yet to discover.

satoru wants to be the first one to do that, though he’ll wait until you’re ready. for now, he’s completely satisfied with just a taste of heaven.

“fuck, baby, she’s beautiful,” satoru praises your delicate pussy. your wet folds continue to make way for more of his fingers, spreading as he tries to enter a third digit into your poor, clingy hole. you whine as you feel satoru prepare you by rubbing your clit repeatedly with his thumb—trying to make you as wet for him as you possibly could be.

you shake your head, “can’t take more, ‘toru.” it genuinely feels like you’re being stretched out. three fingers are going to take you out. “nuh-uh,” satoru mocks you before telling you to look at him. the moment you do, his lips envelop yours in a lustful yet comforting kiss. you moan into his mouth and he does the same back, eyebrows furrowing because of how good it feels to suck on your tongue.

his fingers don’t stop. the third slides in and you jolt back against satoru’s chest. “shh, shh, i got you,” the older man attempts to calm you down. he stops fingering you for a second so you could adjust to the stretch. you’re tight—he can feel his erect cock twitching in his pants, begging to replace his fingers. he can’t, not yet.

satoru cusses under his breath once he feels your ass rub against the bulge in his uniform’s pants. you’re killing him and you don’t even realise it because you’re too focused on his fingers fucking your cunt. shlick shlick shlick — you’re dripping wet.

“i’m gonna cum,” you whisper through a soft gasp. it would be your third orgasm. you’re sensitive and your pussy feels like it’s on fire. your lower abdomen is tingling and aching. you’re going to inevitably squirt all over his chair, again.

satoru bites his lip as he hears you announce how close you are. his long fingers are already soaked with your juices, coating them with a sticky layer that he cannot wait to taste. “do it, baby. wanna see you cum,” your boyfriend coos.

satoru loves the way your hips circle back to him, rubbing against his groin. you’re driving him insane without even knowing it. he curls his fingers inside you, thumb still circling your clit for extra stimulation. you’re being driven to the edge of insanity.

he bucks his hips a little each time you involuntarily move in his lap. “toruuu, fnnh, so close,” you’re not only moaning because of the fingers inside of you, but also because of the hard bulge rubbing against and between your ass cheeks.

satoru knows your voice can easily carry over to the next room. you’re usually loud when you finish on his fingers. he takes his free hand and pushes your head back against his shoulder, his index and middle finger sliding into your mouth to silence you.

your whimpers are muffled as you automatically start sucking on his digits. satoru kisses your ear and jawline, whispering small words of praise against your skin because of your obedience. “keep it down for me, beautiful. y’re already doing so well.”

your eyes roll back as your saliva dribbles down his left hand. the wet trail runs down his veiny arm that’s exposed to your view. you love it when satoru pushes the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows—it reminds you of why everyone fawns over him. it’s hot.

you’re trying to hold out, not wanting to cum. you wish to stay like this, with satoru’s fingers deep in your cunt and mouth, his bulge grinding against the fat of your ass.

the white-haired man instantly notices this and chuckles to himself; you’re fighting a losing battle. he increases the pace, his wrist working over time so his fingers could reach those sweet spots in your velvety walls. he decides to rile you up some more;

“shiit, just imagine that ‘ts my cock stretching your pretty cunt out,” satoru grins against your ear. he knows you’re weak for dirty talk. you have never felt what it’s like to be stuffed full of a dick, and thus the imagination adds to the raunchiness of it all.

you shiver and let out a small moan escape your mouth before you continue to suck on satoru’s fingers. all this time you’ve settled for make out sessions, grinding and oral pleasure. you’re needy for more than that.

satoru knows what buttons to push. he knows how to make you melt and give in to him and his words. he bites your earlobe after letting his tongue lick the skin, “all filled up to the brim. you’d like that, huh?”

you barely managed to stifle a loud whine at that. your eyes widen and your pussy spasms around his fingers. you know it’s not long before you’re going to cream all over satoru’s hand.

sweat trickles down your forehead.

“yes, yes, yes!” you moan repeatedly, voice muffled by the fingers in your mouth. you can hear your boyfriend grunt into your ear after seeing how enthusiastically you’re responding. he’s totally getting off to you’re desperation.

satoru wants to cum so bad. he wants to shoot ropes of his cum in the pussy he’s prepping to one day take his dick.

you see black spots in your vision because of how hard the climax hits you. your breath hitches and you grip onto the armrests of the chair for support. a spray of clear and watery juices covers satoru’s entire hand and bits of his arm—evidence of just how much you enjoyed your little session with him.

the older man pats your tummy and rubs it, comforting you as the aftershocks of your climax hit. he pulls his fingers out of your messy cunt and brings them up to his glossy lips, thoroughly licking every drop off. his dick pulses in his pants at the delicious taste.

you’re panting as you try to get your thighs to stop shaking. you’re out of energy, drained. all that you hear replaying in your mind is satoru’s dirty talk. you don’t know if you can handle his dick if you’re already overwhelmed by the way he skilfully uses his fingers.

as if sensing your thoughts, your boyfriend smirks and hugs your body tightly to his chest.

“can’t give it t’ ya now,” satoru whispers and pouts, teasing you as if to turn you on again. he takes his wet fingers out of your mouth and presses his lips against yours as a promise, “but one day i will, yeah? one day i’ll fuck ya so good you’ll only know my name.”

[whirlybirbs]

— CAN'T WE BE SEVENTEEN? ; shoto todoroki ; 焦凍

summary: he's loved you since he was seventeen. pairing: f!reader x pro hero!shoto ; reader was a 1-A student tags: mutual pining, heavy make-out, thinly veiled sugar daddy shoto, reader does not go pro, touya might be a dick but he's a hero now, shoto is bad at feelings wordcount: 5.6k a/n: i do not fucking know what came over me, enjoy your food my little todorokinas. yes the title is what you think it is. no i will not elaborate.

You never did go pro.

Truthfully, you thought there would be more pushback when, in your senior year, you announced your plan to pursue a degree in early childhood education with a focus on non-conforming quirk development. 

The War changed a lot. It changed you, your classmates, and the world. But, through it all one thing stuck with you:

What if someone helped Tenko Shimura?

How different would his life have been? How different would history have spun? 

You graduated at the top of your class and joined the faculty at Chiba Prefectural Preparatory School for Quirk Specialties two years ago. 

Chiba Prep was opened eight years ago in response to a societal cry for more infrastructure around what was dubbed "non-conforming quirks": a nice way to say quirks that can injure, maim, or kill. Maybe even all three on a bad day. Some parents still see their child being labeled as a non-conforming quirk user in the national database as akin to social suicide. 

You see it differently.

Your quirk allows you to manipulate emotions — anger, sadness, betrayal, love, hatred. If you can feel it, you can sink it into another's psyche deep enough to drive them to act. You can even imbue things with feelings. For example, a cup of warm milk can transform into more than just a simple comfort, now it can hold the feeling of home and safety, or even exhaustion strong enough to put even the biggest foe to rest. 

You could easily use your quirk with nefarious intent. 

You could steep hatred in someone's bone so deep it drives them to harm themselves. You could sew fury so solid into someone's mind it drives them to violence. 

Just a touch and you can control others with something so intrinsically personal it only exists within themselves: their feelings.

What makes you any different from little Asuke, a shy little girl with a quirk that allows her to see people's greatest fears, and then manifest and control them? You're convinced she can use this for good, if only with practice. In your mind, her future is bright and glimmering. Perhaps she will become a therapist, focusing on exposure therapy? Or, maybe the most prolific horror novelist in their time? 

Or, bright and sunny Tao — a transplant whose parents sought out Chiba Prep's specialized education — whose heteromorphic quirk makes his bodily fluids, namely saliva, eat through nearly anything but his own biologics. A sneeze is quickly the most dangerous thing in the world for the cheery, lizard-bodied class clown. 

He's just a boy given a quirk that needs more care. 

He isn't a villain-in-training. 

None of them are.

It's important to teach them that young — and as their teacher for Year 3 of their elementary schooling, you aim to hammer that in as much as possible. They deserve to feel normal. To feel loved and supported. They aren't scary, they're children. 

So, you take it upon yourself to insist on pushing for privileges like field trips. There aren't many public spaces that welcome the classes of Chiba Prep with open arms. Over the years, there have been plenty of incidents. But, a day trip into the city to visit Tokyo's Hall of Heroes is green-lit with bubbling excitement from both faculty, the children, and their parents. 

You usually keep your history as a graduated member of Class 1-A quiet. 

After all, you never did go pro.

And even still, Shoto Todoroki never stopped thinking about you.

He remembers that weekend everyone moved back in for their last year before graduation. He remembers you smiling at him, and helping him drag up a duffel of luggage from the common room to his dorm. You made a joke about how you're sure he got taller over the summer, and how his hair is longer now. You said you liked it. 

It was the beginning of the end, then.

His crush was a silent, smothering thing. It made it hard to think. Shoto had enough on his plate thanks to Touya's acceptance into the Villain Rehabilitation Program and his father's insistence on staving off retirement. Not to mention his parent's divorce — no matter how amicable, it was still a separation. Add on training, tests, studying, finals, and j-term classes... And a desperate, writhing, burning crush on the nicest girl in class? 

Touya's elbow digs into Shoto's side.

It drags him back to reality — to the stifled quiet of the historical Hall of Heroes. 

Suddenly, the doors to the wing squeak open, and a tour guide ushers in the elementary school class. The buzzing excitement and wonder are visible on each of their faces as the attendant — one of the HoH's lead tour guides — excitedly explains the newest, in-progress addition to the Hall:

Endeavor's wing. 

There's a whisper of awe that ripples through the children as their teacher and co-teacher follow, and as the class moves through the large, open space. They're staring up eagerly at the gilded statue in the center of the room. It's larger than life and intimidating. Years ago, Shoto might have had to fight the odd tremble in his knees at the reminder it brings: to be small in his father's shadow again. But, things are different now. 

Very different.

Touya scoffs. "I thought this wing wasn't open to the public yet."

"They're just children," Shoto hums, turning his back on the gaggle across the way to inspect the large mural winding along the back end of the installation, "I'm sure it's—"

"Oh, ho, no way!"

Shoto quirks his brow at his brother's outburst. His elbow digs into Shoto's ribs again. 

"Ain't that the pretty girl you never got the balls to ask out your senior year?" comes the rasped drawl of his older brother's voice. Touya is clearly amused, his white hair hanging in his eyes as he leans forward to squint, "She is cute, Sho'—"

"Shut up," Shoto grits, turning his head over his shoulder; he tries to bite back the flurry of nerves that ignite in his gut, "Stop talking."

It is you.

You look... good. 

Happy. 

You're crouched by a small, timid girl in the back of the crowd. Your hand is in hers, and you're pointing upwards at the large paneled screens replaying Endeavor's most historic fights. You're explaining something to her, your knees bent as you squat. You look... the same. As if in the six years since they graduated, you sat still in time. 

For a second, it's like he's seventeen again.

It's his senior year, and he's stuck at the corner of the gym's edge with a half-empty glass of punch in his hand. The lights are low, and there's slow music playing. His tie feels too tight. Bakugo keeps telling him to 'ask her to dance already', and Kirishima is considering bashing his head through the wall. Even Midorya is trying to persuade Shoto. 

"It's prom, man! C'mon, this could be your last chance—"

Touya is about to be a real pain in the ass — his favorite pastime — and make some comment about your ass, but when he turns to lob the one-liner at his baby brother, Shoto's gone.

Shoto is on the move.

The crescendo of gasps draws your attention first.

Then, the cry of "WOAH, IT'S SHOTO!" leaves you dumbfounded. The rippling murmur of excitement bleeds into the children as their eyes — and the eyes of the tour guide — widen at the sight of the approaching Pro Hero. 

Shoto Todoroki.

He looks... good. 

Really good.

He's a bit older, and a bit more filled out than when you were both teenagers. You can see the strength in his arms and shoulders — it's a distant echo of his father's physique, though Shoto is so much more elegant and much... prettier. He's always been.

For a second, you're seventeen again.

It's your senior year, and you're sprawled across Momo Yaoyorozu's bed.

They had finally wrangled out of you who your crush was: something they hadn't been able to do in all their years as classmates.

There's a sticky, Miss Midnight-themed face mask clinging to your expression as you try to flip through the large magazine in your hands as nonchalantly as possible. Mina's voice, as she paints Ochaco's nails a bright pink on the floor, is sweet and saccharine as she looks up at you.

"I think you and Shoto would be, like, the cutest couple ever." 

You're still crouched when the tour guide nervously — like she was caught doing something naughty — introduces The Pro Hero Shoto to the already-aware crowd of elementary school students and their teachers. It's like igniting a match; the uproar of excitement leaves you laughing as three of your boys push forward to bombard him with questions about his quirk. 

Asuke is smiling shyly, now. That's a small win. She's intrigued by the appearance of a real hero, not the "scary statues" — and her big, fat tears stopped rolling the moment you laid a gentle hand on her to quell her anxiety over the new environment with a push of comfort through your quirk. She unhooks her pinkie finger from yours as you guide her towards your co-teacher. 

"Boys," you call with a crisp air of authority as you stand and lead Asuke toward the bulk of the field trip group, "What have we learned about personal space?"

"It's fine, really, Insight," comes Shoto's voice; as warm and placid as you remember. 

"Insight?" mutters your co-teacher at the presumed hero-name; a look of confusion plasters itself on her face, and her big, feline ears perk up. She leans in to whisper in a way that borders on conspiratory, "Do you two know one another?"

"Old classmates," you confirm, not daring to get into the finer details.

Shoto's attention is entirely rooted in the way you manage the kids. There's something beautiful about the ease with which you handle the bouquet of students; you quell the excitement into a manageable decibel like it's as easy as breathing. 

"Shoto," you start as you gesture to him, "Has a very special quirk — Toyamai, he has ice like you. And, fire like Tojiro. He can regulate his temperature. Can anyone tell me what that means?"

There's a wave of hands shooting up, a few me, me, me's rise from the gaggle. 

You're using him as a teaching moment.

Shoto's smile is soft.

You nod at Ogomi, excitedly nodding as the reserved child speaks up. Normally, he hates public speaking. But, recently, he's started working with the speech pathologist during lunch. The boy bounces a little as he answers. "He doesn't g-get too hot, or too c-cold."

"Exactly! Isn't that cool?" you grin at the lazy attempt at a pun, "This is why it's important to learn about our quirks as much as we can!"

Touya thinks this whole thing is just too cute. 

You're different than he remembers — but, granted, things were sorta different last time he saw you. He was a little too busy tryna kill his old man and lil' Shoto. He's different now, too. A changed man! A real licensed hero. Support items and all. 

He hangs back. 

He... I mean, he is a jack-ass but he isn't gonna ruin this for Shoto. 

...It's kinda cute.

Just about as cute as Fuyumi said it was. 

Apparently, Shoto had opened up to her and Natsuo about his feelings after graduation — about how he regretted not doing anything about it. Fuyumi then told their mum, who then off-handedly mentioned it to Touya... and well Touya dug in because, duh, he is a whore for good gossip. He might be the family's black sheep, but Shoto is the glue that binds. 

And he deserves to be happy.

Your co-teacher is ushering the kids to the next installation — a viewing of All Might's Legacy, a new documentary following the retired pro's teaching career. It will be a good wind down for them, in comfy seats and the dark. It's hardly the sort of content an elementary school student would find riveting, but it is All Might. And they love him.

You hang back. 

Shoto's heart is hammering in his chest.

"Hey."

"Hi," you greet back, closing the door to the theater and stepping forward as you weave your arms around you, "Long time no see."

"Yea," Shoto breathes, his hands in his pockets as he meets you halfway across the museum's marble floors, "I... I see you're teaching."

His eyes are as pretty as they were back then. Slate grey and piercing turquoise. "I'm in my second year," you confirm softly, fiddling with the material of your sweater, "Congrats to your old man."

You gesture up at the statue, then wave around to the rest of the installation.

Shoto inhales, then nods; he's staring at your face, blissfully realizing you're just the way you were all those years ago. Kind. "I'll pass it along."

"How's he handling it?" you ask, your eyes raking across his expression and trying not to stick to the sharp slope of his jaw, or the bob of his Adam's apple, "Retirement, I mean."

"He's happy, I think. Touya and I are working together and... things are...  good."

Last month, Endeavor finally retired. He cited his age, and his dedication to passing his legacy to his two sons: Shoto and Touya. Shoto has planted himself firmly within the Top Ten in the last year or so, and shockingly, Touya isn't far behind. People love an underdog's redemption story, you suppose. 

And the underdog in question can read a room. 

This is getting a little too sexually tense for even him.

"Heeeeey, girl," he rasps out, staggering backward with a thumb over his shoulder, "Nice t' see ya. I'll let you two catch up, yea? I'm gonna go pop my head into the theater, see how the kids are handling the snooze fest on screen—"

You jump.

How long has he even been there?

"Hi, D— Touya," you strain, wincing a little; the rehab'd villain doesn't seem to mind.

"Hi, teach'. That cool with you?" he asks, wobbling his thumb and quirking a pierced eyebrow; it's comical, like he's trying to disarm you with humor, "Don't want you thinkin' I'm corrupting your youths—"

"It's fine," you breathe, ignoring the sting of age-old mistrust. You know better. Shoto wouldn't be here, with him, if Touya Todoroki hadn't changed. Endeavor wouldn't be entrusting his legacy to the ex-League of Villain member if he didn't believe in his capacity for good, "Just don't be disruptive."

Casting judgment on someone whose life was nearly destroyed by his own non-conforming quirk would go against everything you taught the kids anyway.

"Touya's whole thing is being disruptive," Shoto grits as his oldest brother slips silently through the doors, "I apologize for him—"

"No," you wave him off, laughing a little, "Don't. It's... nice to see you two together."

Shoto's expression is soft as he wanders a little closer. "It took time — and a lot of therapy — but we've all managed to come out the other side."

"That's great to hear, Shoto," you breathe, your eyes flitting across his face, "I'm really happy for you."

There's a long silence, then — and you can't help but ignore the roil of butterflies in your stomach. The eye contact is heavy with some unspoken thing, and both of your tongues are weighted by secrets-never-turned-confessions. 

It's like finally this dance you've been doing around one another for years breaks — and the two of you throw caution to the wind at the exact same moment. 

"Would you like to—"

"Are you free—"

Hesitant, slow grins bloom on both your faces.

"Dinner?" is all he manages after a sweet moment of soaking up your soft smile, "If you're available...?"

You make yourself available.

Yaoyorozu almost dies when you call her that night — winded from tearing through your entire wardrobe. You explained you had nothing to wear a-and you needed something nice, and you only have an hour to get ready, because Todoroki — yes, stop screaming, Todoroki — is picking you up at 8pm.

Little bro is nervous. Touya can tell. 

From his spot on the sofa, the white-haired ex-degenerate scoffs. Natsuo is digging around for some cufflinks in Shoto's dresser.

"Seriously, Sho'? A suit?" 

"It's a nice restaurant," his brother says tightly, adjusting the collar of the black button-down, "I booked the upstairs dining room for privacy." 

"Who the hell told you t' do that?" Touya quirks a skeptical brow.

"Father was the one who suggested it."

"...That old dog." 

Natsuo rolls his eyes at the exchange before throwing his hands as he emerges from the closet. "Do you have any links that aren't emblazoned with U.A. High School's crest?"

The ones in Natsuo's hands have his graduation year on them.

Shoto winces.

"Want me to ask dear ol' dog of a dad?" Touya snarks from the corner, his posture becoming less and less upright as he scrolls on his phone.

"Already did," comes the soft voice of Fuyumi; she's smiling, padding into Shoto's room with a velvet box, "He offered up his nicest pair. He also says not to screw it up with Insight. He likes her."

Of course, he likes her. You worked under Endeavor for a brief work-study period during your third year. Shoto remembers hearing grumbled praise over dinner one night about your talent for de-escalation.

"You told him who I was seeing?" Shoto asks incredulously, taking the box and working the cufflinks on. He's starting to feel exasperated.

Fuyumi nods, popping down beside Touya. 

"He asked. I'm not gonna lie to him."

"Did y' tell ma?" Touya rasps, peeking up over his phone to inspect Shoto's outfit. Not half bad, honestly. He looks good in all black. A man after his own heart, "M'sure she's gonna be real excited—"

"Yes," Shoto grumbles, "I called her earlier—"

"Chiba Prep is a really good school, y'know," Natsuo buts in as he tries to find a tie that matches Shoto's outfit. Ultimately, though, the middle brother decides against it and tosses the options over his shoulder, "They're, like, on the leading edge for quirk therapies."

"Hey, nerd? Quiet down. The big kids are gossiping," Touya shirks, turning back to Shoto, "What did mum say?" 

"She wants me to call her after—"

"One, you're gonna call mum the morning after," Touya raises a finger, "Because if you don't get laid, I'll be so fuckin' disap—"

Fuyumi slaps Touya's chest. He lets out a pained yelp at the solid smack.

"Uh, ow," he rubs his sternum. "An' two, take a deep breath. You look like you're gonna shit yourself. Those are my pants and they're expensive."

Shoto lets out a long breath. 

Fuyumi's smile is sweet like honey. "Aw, Sho'! It's gonna go great. You two have known each other for such a long time, and catching up is going to be amazing. Just be yourself! Confident and kind—"

"—Hold the door open for her, and pull her chair out," Natsuo adds as he adjusts Shoto's collar for him, "Car door, too—"

It's Touya's turn. He's dead serious. "—And do not chicken out on kissing her at the end of the night. I swear to god."

Easier said than done.

You never did go pro.

Those years of hardened battle instincts have lost their edge. You try to remind yourself this is just Shoto, not The Shoto — but you're a little lost in the whole celebrity of it all when he picks you up in a very nice, sporty little car with ENDVRplates. 

You answer the door and he forgets how to breathe.

He has flowers for you. They're blue and blooming and beautiful. 

Fuyumi's contribution. 

You settled then you were going to kiss him at the end of the night.

The restaurant is... nice. Really nice. The sort of nice you could never aspire to experience on your teacher's salary. Even the valet is a concept that has your head spinning. But, Shoto handles it all with cool ease. The entire time, his hand is settled on your lower back. 

It feels like you've been lit on fire.

You're glad Momo was able to create a dress fitting for the occasion. It's sleek and black. Comfortable, too. Not much can be said for your heels on that front, but it's fine. 

Somehow, Shoto managed to book the entire upper floor of this place in all its glimmering glory — it's just the two of you alone in a sea of tables. 

The waiter is pouring you a glass of the chef's suggested pairing of sake.

You thank him, smile, and take a sip as Shoto unbuttons his suit jacket and watches you. 

For a second, you're seventeen again.

Sero and Kirishima were always in cahoots when it came to parties back then — somehow, between the two of them, they always managed to smuggle enough booze onto campus to obliterate any semblance of promised sobriety from even the most stoic members of 1-A. 

You remember one night, after a lot of hounding, you finally gave in and joined a few of your classmates on the back lawn for a few drinks. 

A few beers turned into a cup or two of wine, and then another big gulp of whatever deranged jungle juice concoction Kaminiari managed to cook up. It tasted terrible, but you were too drunk to really care. Shoto was no better. He was nursing his fourth drink of the night — a rarity he was even drinking at all — and seemed completely fine with the way your arms brushed as the two of you sat close in the grass. 

He was always so nervous around you. Now, he just seemed... happy. 

"I can't believe there is only one week left until graduation."

Graduation day was the last time you saw him. 

Until this morning, that is. 

You smile into your drink. 

"What?" you ask when his eyes never leave your face.

His fingers twitch towards his own glass. Shoto blinks, then rolls his jaw. He was caught staring. He clears his throat, looking a bit shy. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" you press playfully, cocking your head to the side.

"You..." he starts, then bawks. You're stunning, and it's making it hard to even think straight. He thought these feelings might have mellowed out over the years but seeing you again has just reignited everything. He feels like a hormonal teenager again, "You look beautiful."

Your expression falters into something lovesick. You chew your lip. "You're not so bad yourself, Todoroki."

He manages a half-smile. "Touya had me worried the suit was a bit much."

The idea of Touya offering him advice on his outfit strikes a chord in your heart. It makes you smile even bigger than before. "Well, you can tell Touya that I like it. A lot."

You rake your eyes up and down him. On purpose.

He notices.

Shoto's face feels hot. 

He tries to shake the bone-deep want that has swept his entire body up in its grip, but it's difficult when every single word out of your mouth reminds him just how in love he was with you back in school. You explain, excitedly, why you chose to teach at Chiba Prefectural Prep and catch him up on where you've been living since graduating. He's pleased to learn you're still in the area, living in the city, and decidedly in love with the commute to the school. 

Shoto's always been a good listener — but you can see how much he's changed when he begins to speak about his career. He seems so much more sure of himself than he was all those years ago. It wasn't that he was... unsure... but, no. He was shy. Quiet.

Now, less so. 

It's adorable. 

Dinner comes and goes with conversation over sushi that is far too good for you to even process. It's easy talking to him. It was easy talking to Shoto back, then, too but... Things are different. You're both different. Not in a bad way, but in a way that feels like coming home. 

While you both wait outside for the valet, Shoto shrugs his jacket off and puts it over your shoulders without a single word. Suddenly, you're cradled in a warmth that's very Shoto — his cologne clings to the collar and you bury yourself a little deeper into it. 

Shyly, you step closer and steal his hand. It's calloused and warm. He laced his fingers with yours as if practiced. You bite back a grin. You give his hand a little squeeze when you spot the car coming around the corner.

His silence is calming — and he squeezes your hand back. When you look up at him, you realize he's already looking at you. 

His face is close. It's so... intimate. Very. Nearly better than a kiss. 

But, you've wanted to kiss Shoto Todoroki since you were seventeen. 

The valet driver interrupts the moment with a respectful call of Shoto's name and offers the keys with a shake of the hand. With a little bit of hesitancy, Shoto remembers the thing Natsuo said — the car door, too — and moves around the passenger side to open the door for you. 

It's sweet.

Really sweet. 

The car ride back to your apartment is punctuated with easy conversation — you ask him about Bakugo and Midorya, and you're pleased to hear they're both doing well. He asks about Momo, and if you still keep in touch with Mina and Ochaco. He smiles to himself when you admit you did call Momo for help with an outfit. 

"She did a beautiful job," Shoto breathes, a palm moving from the gear shift to brush over the dress' fabric on your thigh.

His hand settles there. 

Your stomach does a flip. 

You chew your lip, swallow down a sudden burst of nerves, and let your hand rest over his. You squeeze it. Shoto tries to focus on the road. His gaze drifts for a moment at a red light, his heterochromatic eyes dancing across your figure. 

Keep it together. 

He isn't seventeen.

He's twenty-five. He's a Professional Hero. One of the Top Ten in all of Japan. He's more than capable of keeping it together in the face of physical touch from the woman he's dreamed about for years. 

...Right?

Green light.

His hand is still on your thigh when he pulls up to your apartment. 

The touch is relinquished in favor of putting the sports car in park. 

It makes your chest ache.

Shoto swallows thickly.

Do not chicken out on kissing her at the end of the night.

He'll never forgive himself. But, admittedly, he's bad at this. He's not good at reading body language, or even knowing himself enough to realize he looks mildly terrified as you blink up at him in the passenger's seat. His heart is hammering a mile a minute.

What if you don't want to kiss him?

When would he even kiss you? Now? Or at the door?

Why does he feel like he's going to die?

"This was really... Shoto, are you okay?" you ask as you unbuckle your seatbelt; you pause, your brows knitting tightly. 

"What?" he asks, blinking back to the present moment. The look of fear disappears, "Sorry. Yes. I'm fine."

You're working his jacket off your shoulders, gently leaning to fold it neatly in your lap. Your voice dips low, into something playful. "You didn't look fine..."

"I—" Shoto clamps his mouth shut as he leans an elbow on the center console, "Sorry. I suppose I'm just nervous."

"Nervous?" you grin, a little giggle punctuating your words as you wriggle in the red, leather seat, "Why?"

Your expression makes his expression crack. He ducks his head as he huffs out a laugh. You continue to egg him on via expression alone. "I... Stop it."

"Stop what?" you push some more, your back pressed to the door as you face him in the car, "You're the one being weird—"

"I'm not being weird—"

"Then what's wrong, Shoto?" you tease in a sing-song voice.

"I'm nervous because I want to kiss you."

His words are punctuated by a slow look that takes in every inch of your face. Butterfly wings kiss your stomach walls. And your knees. You feel a little tremble in your chest. 

It feels like someone has sucker punched you square in the sternum. Shoto's no better. He isn't entirely sure what the expression on your face means. Is that... good? Are you happy?

Your voice is a little quieter now. You duck your head and fiddle with his suit jacket as you lean back against the seat, a little closer now. 

"You don't need to be."

Shoto's breath catches at that.

So, he makes his move.

His hand comes first — his calloused palm settles nicely against your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone as his pointer finger brushes the underside of your jaw. Shoto is slow. Methodical. It's like he's trying to ground himself in the moment. 

Truth be told, he thinks he might be blacking out.

Your eyes flit up his wrist — a dark leather band around his wrist with an expensive watch face, a dark dress shirt with glimmering cufflinks, strong arms and a broad chest, and you can see the dip of his collarbone where the top two buttons of his shirt remain undone. 

He looks so damn handsome with his sharp jaw, pretty eyes, and his trademark white and crimson hair. Even his scar is beautiful. 

The touch pulls you in like he's got his own personal orbit.  

Your elbows are braced along the center console, your eyes flicking across his face as his fingers continue to brush along the soft expanse of your cheek. You wring your fingers together. 

Then, his eyes stick to your lips.

"Can I kiss you?" he whispers, his breath fanning across your face. 

You never did go pro.

But, Shoto did. 

It shows. 

Because, at this moment, all you can do is nod feebly before you're swept into the sort of kiss people go to war for. It's the sort of kiss that sticks to your ribs, that feels like warm, fresh food. It's the sort of kiss that would drive you to the brink, that would make you nod and agree sure, let's get married and have three kids, let's name one after your father, and paint the house blue like your mother's favorite flower—

His mouth is eager, but not in an overbearing way. It's gentle. Slow. As if he needs to remind himself this is real and not some midnight fiction that leaves him aching and alone. Shoto reminds himself to be tepid, pliable, and easy, which is easier said than done when somewhere deep inside of him there's a seventeen-year-old screaming in victory. 

It's better than anything he could have ever imagined. 

And then you whimper. 

It's a sound tied between bliss and relief and it's muttered against his mouth as you lean in and let your fingers brush the fabric of his dress shirt. The tips of your fingers brush his abdomen and he flexes, the feeling foreign and warm. It warrants his other hand to drift to your face and you break for a breath; he doesn't care that there's lipstick smeared across his mouth. He's kissing you again — this time a little bit more feverish, a little bit more aching. 

You melt against him, this time your hands trembling to grip his wrists.

He needs to slow down.

He is not having sex with you in his father's car.

That's shameless.

He needs to slow down.

He has to, or he'll lose himself in this and he refuses to fuck this up. 

Shoto's breath is ragged when he finally peels himself away, his lip parted and eyes half-lidded. His grip on your face is still so soft, so gentle. It's very him. 

You're glad you didn't do this when you were seventeen.

It would have permanently altered your brain chemistry, you're sure of it. How could you ever kiss someone else again after that? 

He's rubbing your cheek with his thumb. You swallow, and try to level out your breathing. It's hard when he's still so close, when he's so... perfect. 

"I've wanted to do that," he murmurs against your cheek, "Since our last year at Yuei."

A well-kissed smile breaks across your face. You reel back, your nose wrinkling as you shake your head in disbelief. Shoto is smiling. A real smile. The sort that's so rare you can count on one hand the amount of times you've ever seen it in person. 

"Are you serious?"

"Very," he says, chastely pressing another to your other cheek as he leans back.

"Me too," you admit shyly, "Can we... do it again sometime?"

Shoto's eyes widen incrementally. Then, his smile eases back onto his face. 

"Are you free this weekend?"

"I can be," you reply easily with a honeyed look, "And I will be. For you."

"I get off patrol on Saturday around seven," he explains before asking timidly, "We could... do dinner again?"

"Works for me," you breathe as you move for the handle of the car door, "After all, I never went Pro. Weekends are free."

Shoto scoffs. 

Then, as you open the door and swing a leg out:

"Oh, and tell Touya I thought the suit sexy."

Shoto's laugh is dry. You leave his jacket on the seat and scurry into your apartment with a lovesick wave. He swears he sees the silhouette of a familiar ponytail greet you at the door, but he doesn't dwell on it. He waits until you're inside and the lights to the front door are shut off.

Then it hits him. He has another date with you this weekend. 

Not so seventeen anymore, Shoto Todoroki. 

[isamoa]

“ WHAT GETS THEM HARD! ”

jjk men x f!reader ࿐ MDNI.

ᰔ、summary. jjk scenarios on how their dicks get hard ofc

ᰔ、tags. (ft. gojo, geto, toji, choso), nsfw, female anatomy, cunnilingus, exhibitionism, sexting, masturbation, etc.

ᰔ、a/n. these are just my silly depictions. if u dont agree idgaf lol

SATORU GOJO has the dirtiest mind and the highest sex drive. his pants definitely start feeling a little tighter at the sight of you eating a popsicle or something. specifically in public. he would have no shame in it either—casually forming a smirk on his face and dropping a snarky innuendo about the way you’re eating. “can you suck me off like that when we get home?” he’d mumble from across the table, his eyes peeking out from the top of his glasses, a smirk plastered on his lips; wet from the constant licking of his tongue. your eyes widen, a small ‘pop’ sounding from your mouth when you took the frozen sweet out to gasp at the man in front of you. “gojo! are you serious?” you’d yell in a whisper, looking around to see if anyone had heard him. “you’re right,” he’d sigh, standing up from his chair to reveal the very prominent and very obvious bulge in his pants. “we should just do it now.”

SUGURU GETO on the other hand is a polite man. like satoru, he’s a real freak in the sheets—but not as shamelessly. the littlest things can get him hard for sure, but unintentionally seeing your undergarments would really get him going. like an accidental peek at your panties from under your skirt, or a shirt thats a little too see-through showing off the print on your bra. he wouldn’t say anything of course, not right away. you would just be minding your own business one minute and then he’s dragging you towards the bedroom the next. “sugu- what are you-?” you would ask in a confusing tone, craning your head to look at the said man who was now behind you—pushing your stomach up against the countertop; a single hand brought up to grope your breast while the other laid flat against your hip. “your bra is showing.” he’d let you know blankly; an attempt to distract you while his hand slid it’s way into your pants. you would look down in response to his comment, noticing that your bra was in-fact showing like he said. unfortunately for him, you also already noticed the hardon pressed against your back.

TOJI FUSHIGURO gets hard from eating pussy. simple as that. he will get embarrassingly sloppy—juices coating his face and dripping down his chin, loving every second of it while his cock slowly grows harder. emphasis on grows. and if you think for a second that he does it for your pleasure, think again. this man will eat you out purely for his enjoyment only. his eyes are closed and his hands are squeezing at your thighs—legs thrashing uncontrollably from the uncomfortable pressure in his pants that’s about to come undone. “toji- let me help you.” you’d beg with a whimper, dragging your hand from the top of his head down to his cheek when you noticed the constant shuffling of his legs and the crease in his eyebrow. he’d laugh darkly, the breathy snicker creating a hum between your core that made a whine escape from your lips. “im fine mama,” he’ll say cockily, pulling a hand away from your leg to undo his zipper. “ill cum soon, you don’t gotta do ‘nun.”

CHOSO is a needy guy. his face will turn red at a simple flirty text—but send him a slutty pic and he might just cream his pants. fully naked or dressed in lingerie, his favorite or not, he will definitely feel some pressure down below. he might ignore you for a while, uncertain on how he should reply; if he’s even able to. “fuck- couldn’t wait till i got home, could you?” he’d whine quietly, trying his best to keep his voice down from the bathroom of his office job; one hand holding the phone up to his ear while the other rushed to unbuckle his belt. “sorry cho,” you’d apologize from the other line, voice rather faint as you posed for another picture to send him. “when are you coming?” you ask doubtfully just as his phone vibrates with another notification from your contact. “now- im comin’ now baby.” he replies with a huff, phone almost slipping from his ear. “really!?” you try to clarify—much more excited than the first time. “no, i mean im cumming. right now.”

[hoshifighting]

hi can i request svt's reaction to their s/o being cockdrunk and using their cock as a toy bc she's ovulating 👹👹

warnings: smut, overstimulation, ovulation, teasing, dirty talk, clit stimulations, hair pulling, ass spanking.

seungcheol: dying inside, but god, he loves it. he’s gritting his teeth, trying to hold on as you ride him like it’s the only thing you need. “shit, baby, you really gonna use me like this?” he’d growl, hands gripping your hips to guide you. he’s sensitive as hell, but he’ll take it, no matter how much it wrecks him, whispering in your ear about how he’ll fuck you until you can’t walk. (also would love how fast you get wet)

jeonghan: whining at this point, but still so into it. he’s teasing you the whole time, even though he’s losing his mind. “so desperate, huh?” he’d smirk, cock twitching with every thrust. he’d make you grind on him slow, pulling you down by the neck to whisper filthy shit in your ear, making you need him even more.

joshua: fucked out and blushing, but he’s doing everything to make sure you’re satisfied. “you’re ovulating, huh? can’t get enough of me?” he’d pant, voice shaky as you bounce on him. even though he’s close to overstimulation, he’d still talk sweetly, whispering how he’ll give you everything you need, no matter how sensitive he gets. (best bf ever award)

junhui: loves how wild you get when you’re ovulating. “damn, is it day one?” he’d grin, even though he’s groaning from the sensitivity. he’d slap your ass, leaning in to bite at your neck, knowing it drives you crazy, making sure you’re completely ruined.

hoshi: he’s whining from how hard you’re going, but he’s not stopping you. “fuck, babe, I’m so—ahh, fuck, I’m so sensitive.” he’d gasp, hips bucking into you. he’d grab your thighs, spreading them wider, and mutter, “holy shit, you’re gonna milk me dry…” he pushes deeper.

wonwoo: would be groaning under his breath, but still letting you use him however you want, because he's thebest boyfriend ever :( <33. “shit, babe, I can’t—fuck.” he’s biting his lip, trying to hold it together as you grind down on him, overstimulating him to the max, hands on your waist to pull you closer. he’d stroke your clit softly, just to see you completely lose control.

woozi: he’d try to keep it together, but his voice is cracking with every moan. “you’re fucking crazy when you’re ovulating,” he’d mutter, barely able to keep up with how desperate you are. he’s thrusting up into you harder, just to make sure you get exactly what you want, because oyu're his princess and his body is completely yours—yeah, the muscles, everything, all for you.

minghao: he’s into how wild you get during ovulation. moaning louder than usual, but still somehow keeping it together. “you’re really not gonna stop, huh?” he’d pant, smirking even though his cock is twitching from overstimulation. he’d press his thumb into your clit, watching you go absolutely feral, all while whispering about how you can take as much of him as you want. all of this with his head’s thrown back 😩.

mingyu: he’s destroyed at some point, but the second he understands why you're that horny, he’s doing everything to keep you going. “you’re using me like a fucking toy,” he’d gasp, voice shaking from how sensitive he is, but he’s still guiding your hips, making sure you get every inch. he’d talk filthy in your ear, knowing it makes you even hornier.

seokmin: overstimulated as fuck, but he’s still moaning your name, hips bucking into you. “you need me that bad, baby? oh fuck— then use me, use me all you want..” he’d whimper, fingers digging into your hips as you ride him like you’re in heat. he’d rub your clit, even though his hands are shaking, just to make you cum again and again.

seungkwan: he’d be a whimpering mess, but he’s loving how wild you get. “you’re gonna fuckin’ kill me,” he’d groan. seungkwan as an ass lover, he’d grab your ass, slapping it lightly, moaning when you grind harder, telling you he’ll let you use him however you want.

vernon: almost dehydrated, and fucked, but he’s letting you take control. “you really can’t get enough, huh?” he’d murmur, voice shaky as you ride him like you’re desperate. he’d bite his lip, but he’s still grabbing your thighs, pulling you closer, muttering how he’ll give you everything. because you're his everything.

chan: thinks that his cock will fall at some point, but he’s letting you fuck him senseless. “y-you are so wet that it keeps slipping out babe.” he’d pant, his hands gripping your waist as you ride him. he’d rub your clit, pull your hair, kiss you sloppier & slowly, whispering how fucking hot you are when you’re this needy.

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz @jakeflvrz @enhastolemyheart (ask to be removed/added!)

[samantitaswrld]

Hi! I like your Deadpool as your boyfriend post, can you please do Logan as your boyfriend next? 😄

logan howlett

…as your boyfriend!

description: wolverine, logan howlett as your boyfriend!

pairing: wolverine x you!

|an: my man my man he love me!

- he’s so big and so tall and scruffy and so mmm. that’s your man! and u want everyone to know it

- like i keep mentioning, he is manhandling tf out of you no matter ur size, all the time!

- he thinks it’s soo cute that he can pick you up in his arms with ease and he loves to hear squeal out a “logaaan!” as he throws you on to the bed

- he’s so standoffish and kinda shy when you’re first around each other bc he’s sooo into you and he thinks you’re so cute

- but once he founds out you dig him too ooo girl

- he grows such a big soft spot for you, you’re the only person that ever sees him vulnerable. and he’s such a silly goose.

- he becomes so much more himself, he’s messing with you all the time throwing teasing insults with a smirk on his face just to watch you get all riled up from him.

- he’s also flirting with you 24/7 girl he’s hot and he knows it. sometimes he’s rather crude but you like it. so it’s okay!

“nice shorts you got there little lady” he said with a teasing tone as you walked past him into the kitchen to grab a quick snack.

“god they’re not even that short!” you’d said, pulling them down a bit. they were that short. but hey, they did the job.

and by job, you mean drive logan crazy.

- but once you become his omg…

- you’re his. nobody is touching you and he’ll make sure of that. and it’s pretty hot.

- if anybody even has body language that even slightly seems like they’re into you oh girl….

- they’re becoming a new scratching post!

- not only are you his, but he’s yours. super loyal! and if he can’t get someone off his back, you bet your ass you will!

- you always feel so protected and he always makes you feel so protected because you are! he would do anything for you and to make sure his lover is safe and sound.

- he’s so obsessed with you and he’s not afraid to hide it, he’s not overly affectionate but he is in fact a cuddle monster.

- he’ll hold your hand, or shove a hand in your back pocket, or lend you his jacket to let people know your his, but he saves the good stuff for back at home.

- you’re also his drinking buddy, he isn’t a fan of the tequila like you are, he’ll stick to his whiskey. but he always takes care of you after a night out and makes sure you’re snug as a bug!

- he is the biggest dom ever omg it’s so hard to get him to sub out for you but when he finally does it’s the best night of your life.

- all the noises he makes that you’ve never heard from him are music to your ears.

- a MUNCH. need i say more? thats why he got that damn beard!

- oh and we know those abs are like a pack of buttered up hawaiian rolls and you wanna go for a ride!

- of course he’ll let you! anything for his babygirl, lick em, touch em, fuck em, anything his baby wants. as long as he gets to watch and as long as you feel good.

- he also loves the praise as you ride yourself out on his abs.

- he loves attention and praise, especially when it’s about his figure.

you and logan lie in bed, his figure cradling yours as he slowly felt you slot your head between his craned arm.

“your muscles are so big babe. give me a lil flex.” you stated, holding on to outside of his forearm with your neck between the underside his forearm and bicep.

“you’re crazy bub.” he states, chuckling and lightly flexing his arm, not enough to hurt you but enough to satisfy you and make you giggle as his big muscles squished your cheeks together.

- you’re always touching his muscles, they’re so hot. and hey, he doesn’t work out like that for nothing! he loves it when you cling to his biceps, or run your fingers down his chiseled back.

[inkskinned]

i have a fever. let's imagine pokemon world dash discourse together. (sorry i do not have darkmode.)

🤳🏻 pokestopit reblogged team-sprocket

👻 gengaydar Follow

For the last fucking time owning a gengar is NOT graverobbing. what is actually wrong with you people

#gengar #why am i even still on this site #i don't have a gengar but like. what's even going on over there #is marowak graverobbing now too??

💅 deerlinguist reblogged givemeyourstrongestpotion

👩‍❤️‍👩 lightscreend Follow

farfetch'd is like the most edible pokemon just because he comes with his own aromatics. pop that bad boy in the oven with some oran berries.... don't mind if i do

⚧ feministforcepalm Follow

@dyketraining tags pass peer review

🚣🏼‍♂️ magicarpaltunnel reblogged haxorsus

🐦‍⬛ corvikite Follow

I love to hate things and people. And when I turn out to be RIGHT and that person is a DICK? All parasocial relationships are bad and evil unless I am right about hating someone and then parasocial relationships are good actually

🪐waterbubbil Follow

We all thought about the same person let's just be honest here....

🎀 contest-winrar Follow

For me it's always going to be people who keep Pokémon without any thought as to their enrichment and needs. You do not need a fucking Arcanine, you live in a studio apartment and don't walk more than a block a day. You think you want a Gardevoir but are you okay with having an unknowable creature reading your thoughts every waking moment of the day? Even while you do... the nasty?

It drives me crazy because people see a Champion and think they have the time, energy, money, and space necessary to raise a Dragon type. Unless you have generational wealth, let me spell it out for you: you do not have the funds for a Dragon type. And yes! Charizard is on that list, guys! You can't even afford to feed yourself!

📯 jessiejustlickme Follow

local tumblr user declares the poors only get rat pokemon. maybe a bug pokémon if we are very good. we must grovel in the streets amen

🎀 contest-winrar Follow

Laugh all you want but I'm serious. I have heard of someone who is living with a MR. MIME like it's her HUSBAND!!!! That's fucking GROSS. These are creatures that TRUST us and NEED us.

Did you know that most Ponyta prefer to be in a herd? Are you going to have the space for that? Did you know that if you don't properly care for certain fire species their flame goes out? Sure, they're cute when they're small: but unless you're a rancher or a Gym Leader... I'm sorry. You're gross to me if you think otherwise. I hate people like that.

And for the record, rat and bug Pokémon are very valuable from an ecological standpoint. They hold an extremely important niche. People like you would rather they be hunted to extinction because they're pests, not pretty. It's disgusting.

🐦‍⬛ corvikite Follow

anybody in this thread smoke weed

#NOT THE RATS FOR THE POOR PEOPLE... GIRLLLLLL #the thing is they're not like... wrong.... #like i agree with the sentiment #my friend tried to get a slyveon just by like. playing catch a few times #.... like you do need to try.... #also fyi i have a large species so i'm biased #grovyle my baby . my man. u are costing me like so much in pokepuffs per month

👁‍🗨 badsol

why are we all talking about what pokemon to eat tonight lmafo

#.... obviously jigglypuff. homegirl is 90% cotton candy

🪅 feebassguitar reblogged metrognome

🫖 sinisteacher Follow

Like okay I got into science because I love to learn but the more I find out about how we've classified Pokémon types the more insane I feel. What do you mean there's no singular true indicator? What do you mean that there are several conditions which completely alter their base type?

Literally today my lab partner and I got into a very serious discussion about Luxray. That thing is a fuckking dark type!!!!! I'm sorry!!! I don't care what Bulbapedia says!!!! anyway i threw a pokeball at him and it swallowed him whole and now i'm going to jail for unlawful imprisonment of a TA

🍙 thesandwichking Follow

there's something, like, very dystopian about the idea that if u put an ugly hat on ur favorite little creature it changes like. the DNA. like. do other pokemon look at what you've done and cower? that's their friend... similar but changed... forever having known a life that is entirely alien to them...

🐳 wailordsupreme Follow

.... Are we going to ignore that OP swallowed a human into a ball???

#yes we are. #my friend loves those hats but I think they're so ugly #and stupid #if i wanted a specific type imma get that type..... #typesetting #show james

🧗‍♀️ backpacksandcavesnacks reblogged eevee-lotion

👑 lemmegrabmyballs Follow

ROUND 5 of 6 (see blog for more)

PLEASE REBLOG FOR VISIBILITY:

✍️ dreepydrabbles reblogged ash-hole

☠️ marrowhackoff Follow

just saw someone say writing omegaverse fanfic of your pokemon is bestiality. ma'am this is the monster fucking site. you should be grateful that it's only omegaverse.

#the things i've seen would melt your eyebrows clean off your face #..... typhlosion they could never make me hate you baby #i know that's not what's in your heart

🪽 honey-tree-skies reblogged gymcrawler

🐛 youngstirjoey Follow

Okay say what you will. But shorts really are comfy and easy to wear

🛀🏽 intimidatecutsyourattack Follow

Sorry bud. But. Investing at 3 notes

🐛 youngstirjoey Follow

don't do this to me. i h avue a wife . and chi ld

[ofbatsandballads]

a love like religion

jason todd x fem!reader

word count: 1.4k

warnings: smut MDNI, unprotected sex, gentle dom!jason, size difference, creampie, biting and scratching hard enough to draw blood, all the pet names from Jason (baby, sweetheart, ma, mama, darlin’, honey), lots of aftercare, hints of codependency from jay and reader.

a/n: was daydreaming about jason (as per usual) and got to thinking about how if he were real I would be so down bad for this man it would be borderline unhealthy. something something about your lover becoming your god or whatnot. ngl wrote this with a bit of a “bones and all” vibe in mind of just needing jay in every conceivable way and it uhhhh…spiraled. so here, have some fucking with copious amounts of aftercare and maybe codependency if you squint?

divider credit: cafekitsune

There aren’t many things in life you can be certain of. The ever changing tides of fate have washed you ashore and swept you back into drowning more times than you can count. You’d grown used to it, the ephemeral nature of being alive. You relied on the two things you knew to be unwaveringly true: you are currently living and breathing; and one day you will die, and the living and breathing will be over. You did not anticipate adding any other unchangeable qualities to this list. You now have one that supersedes every other: you love Jason Todd.

You love him more than anything in this universe or the next. You love him like you love air to breathe. He’s your entire world. The sun holds itself in the smiles he reserves only for you, the stars in the gleaming of his seafoam eyes when the moonlight hits them just right, gravity residing in the weight of his hands on your waist.

You love Jason so much you wish you could crawl into his chest, nestle yourself between his ribs and feel the beat of his heart from within. You can’t, of course. But right now, with his broad frame between your thighs and his hips rocking relentlessly into yours? It’s as close as you can get.

It’s intoxicating, the combination of physicality and emotion. Jason feels so good. His cock pushes against every sweet spot you have, delicious toe-curling drags that have you whimpering his name. And he’s so big. It feels like he’s splitting you in half even though he’d spent a good half hour prepping you on his fingers and his tongue. You wouldn’t have it any other way. Feeling your body give way to him, conforming to the shape and weight of him—it’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced. Nothing compares to Jason.

That’s part of it too. Sure, the feeling of him driving his thick cock into you would be amazing no matter what. But doing this with him while knowing how much he loves you, how much you love him? It’s divine. No heaven could come close to this. You’d take an eternity with him over anything else.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty, ma. Feel so fuckin’ good around me,” Jason moans as he trails kisses down your neck.

“Jay–Jason, please,” you whine.

You’re not even sure what you’re begging for. He’s giving you everything you need. His hips rock back and forth at the perfect pace, deep thrusts that you swear you can feel all the way in your throat. Your legs wrap around his waist, ankles crossing over his lower back in an effort to keep him close. He’s buried to the hilt inside you and yet you still want more.

“What is it, baby? Tell me what ya need,” he pants. “I’ll give you anythin’, sweetheart. Anythin’ you want.”

“You.”

The word tumbles from your mouth over and over and over again. He’s reduced you to a crying, needy mess, incapable of thinking about anything other than him. But he knows you all too well and indulges you in your request. He leans in closer, using all his weight to pin you between his warm body and your disheveled blankets.

All you know is Jason. His large frame above you, so big that he blocks the candlelit bedroom from your sight. His voice cooing praises in your ear—you’re so beautiful, takin’ me so well darlin’, I’m all yours sweetheart. His lips kissing and biting adoring bruises into your neck, your collarbone. How heavenly the wet strokes of his cock feel inside your over sensitive cunt. He moves his hand down to rub your clit at the same time that he licks his way into your mouth and you’re done for.

Burning, bright—a white hot supernova that explodes across every nerve ending from your head to your toes. Your legs lock around him as your whole body shudders. Your nails rake across his back and biceps, pretty red lines blooming over his scars. Your teeth sink into his shoulder and you recognize the coppery taste of his blood. The pleasure-pain of your bite draws forth Jason’s orgasm and the warmth that floods you makes you dig your claws in deeper. You mark him as he marks you. A permanent claim, tangible evidence of the love that hums between you. You have one semi-coherent thought before your mind becomes static: you’re as full of him as you can be; mouth, nails, pussy—you’ve got him in every part of you now.

You don’t realize you’re sobbing until you feel his gentle hands wipe the tears from your face.

“You with me, mama?” he whispers, forehead resting against yours.

You hiccup. It takes all your energy to nod weakly in confirmation. You cling to him, not letting him move an inch away from you. His strong arms wrap around your waist, pulling you as close to him as physically possible. The movement causes his half hard cock to grind deliciously inside you and you’re gasping into the crook of his neck.

“Stay. Please,” you beg through tears.

Jason just holds you tighter to his chest, and you find safety in the strength of his embrace.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby. I’m stayin’ right here with you,” he assures you.

After a few moments, your head clears ever so slightly. You become conscious of touch. Your hands twitch back to life and you discover that Jason has placed them around his neck. Your fingers rest against his pulse, the steady badum badum badum lulling you back to lucidity. You blink open your teary eyes and see concern swirling in the deep sea green of your lover’s.

“Was it too much? I didn’t mean to overwhelm you, baby. I’m sorry,” he whispers, gentle as the winter rain that’s beginning to fall outside.

“Not overwhelmed,” you mumble into his neck. “I just love you.”

Your voice cracks on those four words. You break under the bruising weight of your love for him. You think it could kill you, could bury you six feet under, and you would happily die for it. You would happily die for him. You don’t think you’d want to go out any other way. His hand in yours; it’s the only way you can exist now.

Jason feels it too. He knows you almost as well as you know yourself. He knows how complete your devotion is to him, how he could ask for anything and you would offer it up without hesitation. He knows his is the same. You could demand his heart on a silver platter and he’d go grab his daggers that are displayed neatly on the wall and the fine china back at Wayne Manor. And maybe it’s a lot, maybe you’re both a little too attached. But how could either of you possibly care when loving each other felt this good?

So he handles you delicately. He soothes you when your sobbing returns as he goes to grab a warm washcloth. He wipes your tears as he cleans your combined spend off your thighs. He gently pulls a pair of his boxers over your hips, one of his hoodies over your head. He cradles you in his arms as he carries you to the living room to eat some snacks and continue binging The Great British Baking Show. You’ve come back to reality now. A soft peace settles across your overworked body and mind as you lie intertwined with Jason on the sofa.

“I’m sorry I lost it a little there,” you mumble into his chest, cheeks flushed and more than a tad embarrassed.

“You got nothin’ to apologize for, honey. How many times have I done the same?”

It’s true. Most times it’s Jason that’s the sobbing, fucked out mess in the afterglow. It’s part of why the come down hit you so hard this time. You feel almost guilty, like you should’ve been able to hold yourself together better for him. You swear he can read your mind when he gently grabs your chin and turns your head to face him.

“Hey, none of that feelin’ bad bullshit. We take care of each other. It’s what we do. You’re the one always sayin’ that, right?” he asks, softly nudging his hooked nose against yours.

“Yeah, we take care of each other,” you whisper. “Forever and always?”

Jason absolutely beams at you, and suddenly nothing matters but him and the love you share in this little bit of time and space that’s all yours.

“Forever and always.”